in the Bible. The Bible says of each of them, it makes this statement, it says in Genesis chapter 3, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast in the field which the Lord God had made. What does it mean to be subtle? There's a deceit to it. But to be subtle, we'll see that especially in the next two examples we look at. To be subtle is scheme is. We've got three people tonight. One, of course, is the serpent, which we know is the devil. And secondly, we're going to look at a man who had a friend who was a subtle man, and he really thought he was his friend. And there are especially adults here, older folks, they could tell you probably a hundred stories of people they thought were their friend, but ultimately it was their destruction. Because a friend And then there's a subtle moment. Your young man especially, you'll be in trouble. And young ladies, you'll be in trouble with a subtle man because everybody has a motive, but they don't announce their intentions, their motives right up front. They don't say, hey, I'm going to destroy you, or I'm going to steal your money, or I'm going to abuse you, or I'm going to take you and take things from you, and I'm going to destroy your life. They don't announce that up front. You know, they say something like this, hey, try this. It feels really good. And you're just dumb enough to try it. But then they sell you the next bit. Some of you are very familiar with what I'm speaking of. They sell you the next piece, they sell you the next part, or they say, next time you buy it, unless you know you're hooked, you're destroyed, but you thought you had a friend. Here's what the serpent did that made him subtle. He said to the woman in verse one, yea, hath God said you should not eat of every tree of the garden. Now, listen, this is an open forum slightly, but did God say that? God did not. The servant said this, he said, God said you shall eat of every tree of the garden. But what did God say? He said every tree of the garden I may as freely eat except what? The tree of? And so, the devil lied. He just tells you this is what God said. That's the thing the devil always does. He always tells you this is what God said, but it's always just a slight twist on what God actually said. God said they make eat of every tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He said you should not eat of the tree of the garden. The woman said, But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die. Then the serpent again says, you shall not surely die. So again, he's taking what God says, he's twisting why he's subtle. He's not telling Eve, he's trying to destroy her. He's not telling Adam that sin lies in the door. He's trying to get them to follow. He's trying to get them to follow him. He said, I'll be like the most high God. And so he's trying to seduce them to follow him and follow his ways. So he's not announcing to them, what he's doing is contending with God. He's contending using words. Every person that we see in this passage is subtle. What is subtle of heart is more subtle than the beast of the field. Why is that? Because they're gonna use words, they're gonna use actions, they're gonna use different seductions to deceive and not just young people, but any one of us. When you have somebody that cannot be honest, you need to flee. If you have a friend that's not honest, you need to flee. If you have a preacher that's not honest, you need to flee. You have a coworker that's not honest, you stay away from them. Again, you see generations come along behind me. They bought everything that their teachers told them. They're teachers that have motives to try to teach young people the ways of wickedness, the ways of addiction, the way of foolishness. And I have heard, personally, people that have told me of people in church. I know a preacher's daughter who went to one of these big camps, and finally after seven years of being a rebel and just actually her life falling apart, falling to pieces, she finally told her dad, she said the woman who was the head of the counselors at the camp, She said, we'll undermine you. And she got me to start talking about you. And she just said, I'd tell her all your faults and complaints. And she'd start with, well, he ought not do that in a sympathetic ear. Well, your dad shouldn't talk to you that way. And finally, towards the end of the week, he says, well, your dad, I can't believe he's a pastor. And she lures in this young lady, doesn't know any better, and gets her to start speaking evil of her own father. Says for those next three, four years she had, at least about three years, she sat under her dad's ministry, bitter with him. Questioned whether or not he should be a pastor. Questioned whether or not that he should even be in the ministry. Questioned whether or not he's a good father. Why? Because somebody was settle apart. You don't have to raise your hand. How many of you have been there? How many of you got caught up in that? Somebody's speaking evil of your church, your pastor, your parents. Down at the workplace, they mock, they scoff, they know everything. Because you're a gutless coward, you don't have the strength to stand up to them. So you just go along with it, because you're just a little sissy boy with limp wrists that don't have any guts to stand up. And that was me, by the way. I was almost Dustin's size, 8, which is Dustin's 10 now. I was just a little sissy boy. I didn't have the strength to stand up to people. I didn't have the strength to tell them that they were wrong. I had the strength to stand in the face of adversity. I'd tell people I'm a man, but you're a man. Wages fall for everything. Hey, watch this, buddy. Look at this. Well, my parents wouldn't want me to watch that. It's okay. Let's just watch this. And the little sissy boy thinks he's a man. He's just a little effeminate little girl. He goes and he watches, he gets himself hooked on filth and godlessness and wickedness. He doesn't have the character, the courage, the strength to stand. And by the way, without God, it's very difficult to stand, but you can stand. Why is that? Because subtlety is everywhere. We laugh, my wife and I have. I don't know how many of you, I know some of these boys watch Paw Patrol. John, watch Paw Patrol. Nick. And, you know, we've watched it. There's really, to us, there's nothing wrong with Paw Patrol. The problem with Paw Patrol is I think they created a marketing scheme, then created a cartoon after the marketing scheme. And now my children walk through the store, and there's Paw Patrol launchers, Paw Patrol life vests, Paw Patrol shovels, Paw Patrol, you know, it's a day at the sale where they threw in a helmet with a visor, it's a Paw Patrol helmet. And my son's all excited, Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol, Paw, you know? And they're marketing this, I mean, massively. You go into Walmart, so we don't do a Paw Patrol, just go to Walmart, open your eyes, and you're going, dear goodness, it's everywhere. IHOP has Paw Patrol pancakes. I mean, you can't win. And they market this. When they came off the show, they didn't tell people, hey, listen, we're going to suck you in, and they're going to suck you dry, because your children in the store are kicking their feet on the ground screaming because they want the latest gadget and gizmo. They didn't tell parents that. But they market this. Why? They're sucking. They come at you in a way, they don't know why they're coming that way. part of our lives, when it was really intended to be a treat for someone, then it just became part of our lives. And now, you know, they market constantly. And people say, you know, well, you know, their marketing doesn't affect me. That's funny. But it does. But they don't tell you, hey, we're trying to get all your money. Listen, we're a $14 billion corporation. We need more money. They're not going to tell you that. And so they're going to market these, and they're going to tell you these things. And you know, religion does that. These churches, and I've met, I've heard young people tell me stories. They'll meet, you know, the local pop-up clergyman, you know, with his little bump and sway, and feel good religion. He'll meet a teenager and go, I go to such and such, and I go to Grace, and oh yeah, that's a good church. But have you ever considered our youth program? Something. Have you ever considered, you know, I've actually, with my own ears, heard a woman say, we got all the pretty girls at our church. The boy's like, really? You know, and I'm like, no, not really, but whatever gets you there, sucker. You're dumb enough to believe it and dumb enough to show up. Right. Why? Because there's something of heart. Yeah. Well, they don't have that kind of music, our kind of music at your church, do they? No. Well, you know, you ought to listen to the lyrics sometime. And young people go, oh, man, these lyrics are so good. Right. You know, it's Just being honest with you. Yeah. You know, it's funny, I listened to country music before I got saved for about a year, and I got so depressed, I laid in bed and cried myself to sleep at night, so I quit listening to it. But, you know, I listen to country music, I listen to the old whiny country western music, and to be honest, it almost sounds like gospel music. You know, you'd be better off listening to Conway Twitty than you would be this contemporary artist. They're so deceitful and such a lie and such a myth. They're openly gay, many of them. Open lesbians, many of them. But they're subtle. They come, they tell you what you want to hear. They present to you an idea and they say, hey, this is better over here. You go, we don't have that in our church. And then the next thing you're roped into it. And here's the sad thing, young people, I want you to listen to me real clear about this. I've seen a whole lot of them destroy their lives. I've met two that have taken their lives in it. But I've never seen them return to the key to this Bible, return to the way they were raised once they go out of this modern religion. Now you say, what's wrong with that? You'll go ask your pastor, but you won't ask me. Everything's wrong with it. It's not just the music. They correct the Bible. They deny the Bible. They deny the deity of Christ. worship ball. You may have heard that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, you close your eyes and you feel good. Eat your worship ball and you go, you know, you go to the bar and watch football, drink beer, you know, it's a great religion. But I've watched young people seduce by time and time again. Yeah. Over and over again. I remember one time he was so proud to show me the wrestling mats because they had a wrestling ministry. Young people come there on Friday nights and they have wrestling. And it finally dawned on me, all these guys talking to me, I said, the reason he's so involved in the wrestling is he probably likes seeing the boys in their singlets. And I'm not being funny. When he shook my hand, I was shaking his hand. I didn't even wash my hands when he got done. going on about this wrestling, and I thought, you know, they got a predator in the wrestling. They got a predator in their church, and they've introduced it because wrestling is the key to get people to come to church. It's subtle. Ballet classes, Zumba, all at church. This is wonderful. I do a prayer on the church softball. You know, brother Harry Daly, a man of the church who was my first guy, say he used to umpire. He said the Customs League's out there, the church leagues. He said he broke up more fights and had more cuss outs by people in the church leagues than he ever had out in the beer drinking leagues. He said at least those guys were respectful. He said all the church people would cuss out the umpires. But, you know, we've got to hear our softball. We've got to have our sports. Anyway, I'll just make a couple of announcements about that. This is really where the message is. Let's go over there to the second stand. In 2 Jephthah 13, again, we see subtlety, and this is really mostly where we're gonna stay here tonight. It came to pass after this that Absalom, the son of David, had a fair sister. His name was Tamar. And Ammon, the son of David, loved her. And Ammon was so vexed that he fell sick for his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and Ammon thought it hard for him to do anything to her. But notice this, but Ammon had a friend. His name was Jonadab. He was the son of Shimea, David's brother, and Jomadab was a very subtle man. Jomadab had a problem. He didn't like authority. He didn't like the law of God. And he was subtle in the fact that he couldn't announce his intentions. Don't let anybody know. What's wrong with that statement? It's a secret, is it not? It's secret. Don't tell anybody. Don't let your parents know. That's probably said a year, a couple of years ago, I was at the port-a-potty there at the church. I heard some of the young boys outside, and I heard one of them go, don't let the parents know. And they didn't know I was in there for one thing, but they also didn't realize I was preaching that night. I just got down in front of those boys. I told their parents. I said, what kind of children are you raising? They say, hey, don't let your parents know. Of course, the parents, they're all mad at me. And I said, what kind of children would say, don't let your parents know? And all the boys, like playing with this boy, like, hey, thanks for getting us in trouble. And I just told him, I said, you know what you do? You mark somebody like that. You mark him and you avoid him. Right. Why? He's a subtle man. He's a very subtle man, the Word of God says that to him. What is he gonna, he's not gonna announce his intentions. He's David's cousin. And yet he's not, excuse me, Amnon's cousin. No, I'm wrong with that. He's just gonna say David's brother, yeah, that's right, okay, yeah, cousin. I knew that, but I was just tired. And so, he's gonna come in and as a cousin, a family member, He's gonna wreak havoc, not only in his life, but David's life and the house of David. It's gonna cost Amnon his life. That little statement is gonna cost Amnon his life. Here's what he said. Why don't thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? Sympathy, empathy. He feels sorry for him. Let's him know he's really feeling his hurt. You're leaning from day to day And he says to him, I love Tamar, my brother, absolute sister, and Jonah, the absolute name, lay thee down on thy bed, make thyself sick, and when thy father cometh to see thee, send him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come and give me meat and dress the meat in my sight, that I may see it and eat it at her hand. So that's exactly what he did. He did exactly what his cousin told him to do. But he was a subtle man. He knew he's so vexed for his sister that if he's lying in bed and she comes into him, only a fool would think nothing's gonna happen. Only a fool would think there's something good gonna come out of this. I've watched young people get out of church, usually sitting on the pew, but their hearts aren't there to begin with. But I've watched them start to get out of church, start missing services. I know with God I don't. And I've almost never seen one of them destroyed. I've never seen one that hasn't been destroyed. Not one. And I've watched over the years, we talk about the first youth week, 14 young people, I know about two or three, myself included, I wasn't young, 13 young people, myself. I know Zach Vernon's still in church, a couple others still in church, not many. One of the young ladies came up, I just recently found out, I ran into her brother-in-law, and asked how the family was doing, he said, well, he said, they have four children, but she's living with my brother, and he said, she's tending bar, playing the harp on my brother. Preacher's daughter was here the first two youth weeks, matter of fact. Another young lady came the first two youth weeks, This other young lady came to use me, she was the belle of the ball. Everybody just loved her. She was a tramp then, acting like a tramp, still acts like a tramp, been divorced, remarried, children out of wedlock, has played the harlot, out of church, gone, completely out of church, all of these, completely out of church, no contact with God. But do you ever think they planned that? Do you ever think they said, you know what, I'll just get out of church? No, it's subtle. It was subtle. They rejected God and got out of church. They said, you know what, I'll just go do what I want to do. There's nothing good comes out of that. Amen. My wife and I know several situations, some of you very close to home, where a preacher's daughter just decides she's just gonna do what she wants to do, marry who she wants to marry, lies on people, deceives, tells everybody all these terrible things so that she has a justification to leave, and undisgruntled church members, wicked people, Take them in, support their rebellion. Now you watch their lives destroy. One lady, young lady, my wife and I know, this is just facts. She was raised in a preacher's home. She slandered her father to us. I reviewed her on an email, called her dad, said, this is what your daughter's saying about you. Her dad was very upfront with me. He said, I haven't always been fair. I haven't always been just. But he said, I've never hit her in her face. I've never struck her like that. She's lying. I said, okay, brother. I said, I'll just take your word for it. She finally apologized to her parents. Her and her insane nutcase husband were pretending to be Amish at the time. He tried to dress Amish and live Amish and she dressed Amish and live Amish. And he drove a 60, I believe it was a 69 Chevelle because it was an old fashioned car and he didn't want to be ostentatious. That's a true story, by the way. That's my wife. And he just wanted just a very simple car, just a very simple man. And he's driving down the road, everybody's turning their head and looking at this mint condition of a 69 Chevelle. Foolishness. That was the last time my wife and I saw her. She has a hair bonnet. She's playing the piano. He's playing the dobro. They're singing in church. Next time we saw her, she's got a bone in her nose and eyelid piercings. Her hair's dyed red, tattoos all over her forearms, hooked on drugs, a drunkard. She's got a church. Yeah. It won't happen to me. That's what the devil tells you. Yes. Right. He's a liar. He is a liar, the father of all lies. That's right. He's a murderer. He's been a murderer from the beginning. Do you think anybody that's ever been an addict started being an addict? Do you think he just said, you know what, I'm going to be an addict? No. No. Here's what he said. I got this under control. I've drunkards saying, I can stop any time. You know, an age old question, why don't you? Because they can't. I can stop pills any day. No, you can't. You got a hook in you. They got a hole in you. I can stop smoking any day. Listen, I stopped smoking probably 90 different times. I can quit. Till the next time. Right. I want you young men to listen to me. You say, oh, I can get off pornography. Not when you're lying about it, you can't. That's right. I'm with your parents, put a phone in your hand, put you to bed. Well, that's just silly. It's just silly. A young man asked me a while ago, he said, brother, how do I stop? How do I stop? I said, put in your phone to bed. Leave it downstairs. Lock it up. Give somebody else the key. Amen. Subtlety. You say, well, I got this job. You know, you'll sell out God for a job. You'd sell enough for a whole lot less than that. Right. You say, well, I got to work on something. Don't lie about everything just be honest When they say They said, well, you'll have to work some Sundays. I said, no, I won't be going on a Sunday. And they said, well, there may be some Sundays you're required to work. And I said, well, you know. So they tested me the first couple of months. They found out, oh, I'm not coming on a Sunday. It was pretty simple. I said, well, don't you get fired? No, they just quit asking. And I traveled on time on a Sunday, because I chose to. Went to the woodshed on that one. Showed up at the place where we're staying and had to travel all day. I could have gone in at one in the morning, could have gone in at like four in the evening. That was my choices. So instead of choosing one in the morning like a man, I did a coward's way out. Decided to get in at four in the evening. Got to Sunday school, took off down to the airport, missed church. So they said, hey, let's go out and get a bite to eat. I said, I can't go in this place with you all. They were tempted. I said, I can't go in this place. They're like, ah, you're just a stick in the mud. Ah, a preacher can't go in. I said, no, I'm not gonna eat here. So I walked across the parking lot, got me a burger, went and sat in the car for three hours. And the whole time I'm sitting in the car for three hours going, I could have been in church. I could have been in church. I could have been in church. Facility. Those friends that would pull you away. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, it's done. Yeah. I've seen it. Young ladies, do you know this? Do you know that young men will lie? Oh, yes. Did you know that? Yeah. They'll tell you exactly what you want to hear. Yes. Young men, do you know young ladies will lie? They'll tell you exactly what you want to hear. Yes. You know how I knew something changed in my life? Because when I met my wife, I just walked right up to her father like a man and just said, I believe the Lord will have me begin to talk to your daughter. Would you consider praying about that? Am I telling the truth? Man. You want to be a man? Hey man. You want to be a man? No, we got to be able to sly. Right. We got to sneak around, don't we? So you have no wickedness in the heart. Yeah. You know, it's one thing to say, you know, mom and dad, I met a girl, you know, any, any parent would say, well, let's meet her. Mom's radar is going to be up buddy. I said, Mom's done. Mom, what did you think about her? Ah, she's a tramp. Come on now. Mom, Dad, I met a guy. Well, let's meet him. Well, he doesn't want to come around. Then get rid of him. Why's he got so many secrets? Why's he got to contact you in secrets? He's a scumbag. He's a loser. That's right. Why's he got to contact you? And if you don't think he has the guts to face your father, it's because you don't have the guts to face your father. Oh, wait, this is the young people. I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to make you feel good. Um, let me find a purse here somewhere. Come on. If we had a show of hands, there's not many that wouldn't raise their hand in here and say, Brother McVay, that's exactly right. Amen. That secret phone call, that secret text, that little flirtation. Just tell you how dumb people are. I know a boy, he used to be a good looking fella. He was a handsome fella. Now he's just all fat and ugly. Good place to always meet women. Right. Men. So he sent her money. This is back in the 90s. He sent her money and bought a plane ticket to fly her so that they could meet. He showed up at the airport and there was no such flight. And he emailed her and there was no such person. So he called the police department in Eugene, Oregon or whatever it was and they said, oh well. Turns out she's probably from Kansas City and wasn't even a woman. That's how stupid people are. I don't lust to get you, buddy. I don't know, maybe he gave money to the African prince back in the 90s. His money was bound up in a Swiss bank account. He just needs a thousand dollars to go free up that money. He's going to share it with you, but he needs some legal fees right now. I know people personally that sent money to that African prince to help him out. I know a man squandered over $750,000 chasing a pipe dream of one day getting rich, was scammed out of $750,000. The district attorney, the sheriff's department said, there's nothing we can do about it. He squandered his entire savings, lost his equipment, lost his business, lost everything he had. Just died about too long ago. I'm blessed to get you, buddy. He wasn't in his right mind when we were clear about that. They got him good. We call him Biggs. We call him Biggs for a reason. He's the guy, you know, when I was in the wrestling, and if he put you in a headlock, you would die. That's how big he was, because he stunk like a septic tank. If he put you in a headlock, you'd just start punching him as hard as you could in the kidney, trying to get him to break a headlock. Because he'd do it on purpose. I remember one time just punching him in the back of the head as hard as I could, saying, if you don't put me in a headlock, I'll beat your head in. Never did it again. That was after I was called to preach, by the way. No, it was not. It's a true story. I messaged him. He went too far with that. By the way, I did have to mute you. You put me in the headlock of your stinky armpit in my face. I'll punch you in the kidney. He's still just letting me know. Go to old Big's house one day. This is a true story. He's sitting there. You've heard me tell it some of you. He's got a big old slab of seroin raw. I mean, he put on the grill, turned it over. He's got it on his belly on a plate. He's so fat. He's sitting there in his shorts, eating this steak with his bare hands, gripping chunks out of it, laying the steak back on the plate. Just nasty, greasy. She tells my buddy Dave and I said, yeah, I guess I usually named some of the guys we wrestled with their own steroids, no bodybuilders. He used that picture says the girl on AOL and meets women on AOL. And I'm gonna just die and laugh. I said, he's part of the girl, some little teenage girl. So I was like, oh, this boy loves me. He's a 400. Sneaking around, message to some man she doesn't know she deserves. It still happens. I was talking about a fake book one time down in Georgia. I was just talking about the dangers of fake book when it first came out. I think it was on her honeymoon. And the man comes up and he said, Brother McVeigh, I appreciate you preaching that message on fake book. He said, you know, I'm with the local sheriff's department. He goes, and my name's Sheila. I'm like, hmm. He said, I'm a predator trapper. I said, good for you. And what he does, he sits out there all day, puts little females out on the internet. Gets these old men to sneak in with this teenage girl. Puts them in cuffs, throws them in jail. You know why? Because there's been hundreds of thousands of teenage girls got duped by some jerk on the internet. Do you think he announced his intentions? No. And she's a fool. Because of her loss, she's a fool to chase that dream. Young men snare on the internet, and they're fools. Talk with them just a minute. What kind of friends do you got? Just because they're in church doesn't mean they're good friends. I've seen more wickedness in church than I've seen out of church. I've seen more indecency in church than I've seen in church. I've seen more adulterous affairs in church than I ever saw out in the world. More lives destroyed by sin. I got into a youth camp. People sneaking out of the doors. Preachers getting phone calls. Their daughters were caught out of the door with some boy. his daughter's wicked. It's camp's fault. Some boy's wicked. My little sister got kicked out of the Nazarene teen camp, 16 years old, for the exact same reason. I told my mom, I said, you know, you just need to beat her. I was a wicked myself. My mom said, well, Tim, this, this, this, this, that mom, she just needs to beat. I was lost and wicked. Everybody doing okay? You okay, young people? You got to listen to some sage advice from an old man that knows a whole lot. Amen. Why would you want to leave home? It's one of the safest places you can be. If your parents lived for God and loved God, it's one of the safest places you can be. You know, as God gave you parents to oversee your life. Boy, it's tough, isn't it? As if God gave you parents to oversee your life. He said, but I love this boy. Dad goes, he's an idiot. He said, well, you don't know my dad. He said about every guy. I'm not the right one, he probably wouldn't. Then I go to the handkerchief shop and testify. The guy's convinced of the other daughters. He still wants to kill them. Amen. He told me that at conferences the other day. You can't warn. Pigs. There's a right word. there's a protection there because you don't listen. Somebody's subtle. They're not telling you. They're not telling you what you need to hear. They're telling what you want to hear. That's right. They'll promise you the world. You know, when I met my wife, it's kind of funny. I had to just tell her, yeah, I'm flat broke. I was actually worse than her. I'm dead. The IRS, my tax person messed up on my, I cashed out my 401k in the ministry and got penalized and I had to owe a lot of money. I had to go tell my wife that. You know, most of them are looking for somebody that's rich, somebody that's financially take care of them. I had to go tell my wife, no, I'm in the ministry, I'm broke. I told her to be prepared to live broke. I don't know if she believed me or not, but she was kind of skeptical. Her dad said to me, the first time I talked with her parents, her dad said to me, what do you do for a budget? I started laughing. I said, I don't even know what that is. He was like, you don't have a budget? I said, how can I? by faith. God either takes care of us or he doesn't, that's certain. By the way, God's taken care of us now 17 years. He's taken care of us. There's no budget. There's no plan. There's no retirement. Just being honest with you. That's not desirable. No, it's the will of God. The greatest joy you'll find in life is marrying the will of God. Boys, you don't need a girlfriend. If the world doesn't need you, you don't need a girlfriend. That's right. That's just silly. You don't need a girlfriend. That's just silly. You know what that is? That's just your pride. Parents get all proud about that. Oh, my son. Oh, she's such a precious young lady. Next thing you know, they're fighting like cats and dogs. They break up. He's boohooing in a room and they hate her. Right. That's right. There's very few people I know who care to be married at 18 years old. My wife and I know a couple. We know a couple of young ladies we think probably mature enough, they could be married at 18 years old today. Not very many, but a couple. We know a couple of young men, probably 40, 50, they'll probably be mature enough to get married. Just a couple. I'm not just talking about terror. I'm talking about the subtlety of all this. You have a guy that's not interested in meeting your parents. You're a fool. Right. Amen. You know why? Because you're following your own heart. That's what the Bible says. A fool follows his own heart. You say, you don't know me. You know what? You're a fool. Because you're following your heart, not God. Amen. A little secret relationship. I know where I'm plotting. Yeah. Yep. Amen. Come on. secret relationships. Anything good ever come out of a secret relationship? No. Anything good ever come out of secrets? Nothing. Hey, listen, my wife and I did it right. I'm serious, we did it right. We always had people around us. We weren't alone. If you listen, we weren't alone. We met some folks from church one time at this Chinese restaurant. And I told Maylynn, I got there early, the practice was meeting us with Rebecca. I was the first one there. I told Maylynn, I said, hey, I said, my fiance's coming. I want you to meet her. I talked about her one time before. She's coming here. She said, oh, I cannot wait to meet her. I cannot wait to meet her. I'm so excited. True story. Somebody about like, built like Samantha asked with, Wilcox asked with, comes walking in the door. I saw her belly first. She comes in. No, she didn't want my wife. Would she, madam? They didn't get to the joke the other day about the MRS degree. My wife had a student at Peter's. OK. Yep. Finally gets the MRS degree. Got to go to college so I can get married. Right. Old secret relationships. We had enough trouble with people around. Her mom and dad were right in the room with us. I could just see it in her eyes. I'm telling the story. You said, well you're a Christian, you're a preacher. Yeah, her parents were there too. Right. I didn't get her number. I talked to her dad about it 40 times. He finally conceded, you know why I said it's a little girl. Right. I didn't fight that. I didn't walk against that. I didn't try to contact her secretly. Once I contacted her secretly, I drove through sheets out to church. They're in the parking lot getting gas. Her parents were in the store. She was walking away from the car. I just pulled up and said, hey, is that your CD player? And she was like, super spiritual. She goes, oh, I guess you get it. I just drove off. It started then. She should have run. What are your friends like? They point you to Christ? I told them, ask the boys years ago, I said, why don't you all I told Timothy and Sam, I don't know if Steve, I think Steve was there at the conference, Timothy and Sam, I said, why don't y'all just quit being stupid and get over all your little childish, little petty games. Why don't y'all just get together and be like men and pray? A couple months later, they still weren't doing it. I think you and Timothy were the first to meet, is that correct? Yeah. One day, Steve and Timothy just said, you know what, let's just do this. Let's get together and pray. Over time, that became LBC. I mean, if you've been part of LBC, Lost Boys, Jumped all that childishness, all that foolishness. Said, you know, let's be men about this. Peter got saved. Nicholas, out of LBC, Stephen, Timothy, Samuel, John Mark, Kyle B. Like, we're missing one or two. I think Ronnie was in there some. They still meet. They still support each other in friendship. You know why? They don't want sin creeping in. Amen. We don't want sin sliding in there and somebody coming in, taking one of these young boys and going haywire with him, trying to get him out of the house of God. Young ladies try it, and it's just a debacle. They don't even be spiritual long enough to let him handle it. When one person tries to be spiritual, they just fight tooth and nail. I'm talking about our church, not your church. I'm talking about our church. So we got now, we got an Amish lady. One young lady every Monday night. Just meet you up. Right as you read the Bible. It's not a show. There's all these folks out there that want to lead you astray. All these folks that are creeping unawares and trying to pull you out of church and trying to pull you every which way. And you have others around you to help you, to strengthen you. It's awful hard for them to do it. pretty rough on it. Yeah. One of those young men said, Hey, this young lady at this church over here, she keeps sending me text messages. I don't know what to do about that. I know right now it's about five minutes to pick up the phone, call her parents. Why? Because they care. They care. But when you can't be honest, you got all these little secrets. In verse six of Proverbs 7, I'll just talk a couple minutes about this. But at the window of my house, I looked through my casement and beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths. And notice this, all he did was look through his casement and he saw a young man who was void of understanding. How did he know that? Because he was passing through the street near her corner and went the way to her house. That's how he knew. He saw a young man head to her house. He said, he has no understanding. She's a harlot. Her house is on the way to hell, Proverbs said. But you know what he did? Went down to her house. All he did was look and see. And when he saw where that young man went, he knew he had no understanding. It's always wonderful. nicest, but it's always because she's the easiest. And I want this young man to know that everyone on this board understands you. They know. They know. Why? By her attire, her actions, the fact that she receives those boys. start jostling for position. I've made fun of them so long, it's almost wearisome. See the girls walk through, watch all the boys try to act cool. I just make fun of them. Suck your guts in, boy, you're still a fan. Watch grown men in their 20s all of a sudden start throwing balls at each other because a girl walks by, you know, just absolutely phony. I don't even try to impress my wife anymore. Are you kidding me? I can't anyway. Amen. Amen. You know how to get young men to work? Call young ladies to the room. They'll work three times as hard. Amen. Say, young ladies, could you all come in here a minute? Boys, carry that over there. He has no doubt the truth, right? That's right. Oh, yeah. That's just great. That's natural by the way. I'm not, I'm not, I'm mocking them. It's natural. The problem is we decided to get out of her house. Yeah. Yeah. You make that decision. You go the wrong way. I said, they don't have to take it. Hey, you know.