 We have an awesome week ahead of us and we're gonna go ahead and go straight into the message I think it was Socrates that said by all means marry If you get a good wife, you will be happy if you'll give a bad wife you'll be a philosopher You know marriage is the Earth's oldest institution A statistic says that the world's record for the longest marriage goes to Herbert and Zimnia Fisher Who has been married for 86 years nine months and 16 days as of February 27 2011 and this gentleman he was a hundred six years of age and That's actually at a hundred six years of age. He died married for 86 years. Not bad But a lady named Linda Wolf holds the record for being most married woman in the world Take a guess of how many times she was married 23 times Not bad Talk about generational curse Unbroken her first marriage was at 16 and it was out of love her last marriage was in 1996 it was for publicity The interesting part is this the last marriage that she had she also married a man who's been married the most and Who holds the record of having the most marriages as a man some 20 21 or 26 marriages? So that was her last marriage very interesting 300 couples get married every single day in Las Vegas in United States a hundred couples divorce every single day Actually, I'm sorry Every single hour Men who kissed their wives in the morning are said to live five years longer than those who don't When I read that statistic I kissed my wife one more time Afternoon, I said, maybe this is just because I want to live longer Approximately six billion dollars in the revenue is lost by American businesses as a result of men or women facing hardships In the relationships which reflects in their productivity at work six billion dollars Is lost in revenue? Did you know that in the United States interracial marriages were actually banned from much of United States history? from 1776 till 167 if you were to marry someone who was not of your race, it was illegal Did you know that in French you can marry dead people? mm-hmm a lot of weird things that happen with marriages nowadays marriage The Bible says supposed to be honored and it's supposed to be respected. We live in the generation today were marriage Not that it's suffering, but the worst part is people's view of it is extremely low People don't honor it. Some people ridicule others redefine and some just simple and market and Many people just don't know what is the reason and the purpose of marriage in the first place Some people think I mean why do I need to buy a cow if I can drink milk for free? Their definition is why do I need to commit to someone if I can have a girlfriend asleep with and and then move on to someone else And that is typical I mean if you live on the stream you if you live outside of Christian Judeo-Christian Values, but for us who follow Jesus we need to know what is the real reason and purpose of marriage and if you take notes I want you to begin to write few things down one of the first reasons God created marriage is for the union between men and a woman a Union between men and a woman this union involves intimacy emotionally intimacy mentally and intimacy physically Now I understand we live in a generation today where people say I don't need a marriage license to sleep with someone And yes, you don't just like you also don't need a license to start a fire in your kitchen You don't need to have a license to start a fire in your kitchen But if you start fire in your kitchen something is going to happen. We are going to need a fire truck People say well I can have sex whenever I can have sex and I don't need to be married to have sex You you actually are a hundred percent right, but we as Christians believers of Jesus We believe that sex in marriage it belongs from marriage that union belongs in marriage just like fire belongs in the fireplace When you put fire in a fireplace it keeps the house warm without burning it and When you put sex what it belongs in the marriage it brings unity and blessing instead of bringing heart heartbreak and Consequences and unwanted things that usually accompany it the second reason why marriage is given to us as people on earth is for multiplication of human race One of the reasons I am going to heaven is because my parents were together Imagine you have a chance to populate heaven The people you make will go to heaven the people you make will have a new life Did you know that 95 85 percent of women who commit abortions are unmarried? married women Rarely commit abortions because when people are married first of all one of the three reasons people commit abortions is for this One of them is they say this baby is interfering with my work. The second reason common reason for abortions is I Can't support this baby and the third reason is I'm afraid to raise this baby by myself 85 percent of babies that are being murdered today are being murdered because there is no marriage There will be no abortions if we would have stronger marriages Since 1970 the 72 or 73 since the abortion law became a law in the United States 55 million babies were murdered That's a lot and There's cost our economy 16 trillion dollars. That's actually about the same amount. We are in debt right now if we would have not of Kill them they would have also brought contribution to the society contribution financially But they've been eliminated and one of the reasons they've been eliminated is because marriage has been disrespected When marriage is this the suspected a human life will lose its value We protect dolphins protect trees and kill babies and that's the height of our enlightenment Why because when marriage is not honored Babies won't be either the third reason why marriage is given is for the protection of kids When kids grow up, and there is father and mother it protects them it establishes them and raises them up as statistics says that in 1950 for every 100 kids for every 100 kids 12 would come out of a broken family 4 would come out of a wedlock and 8 would have come from a family that suffered divorce so a hundred kids in 1950 12 comes from broken family Eight out of wedlock And eight that suffered the worst for out of wedlock in the year 2000 out of a hundred kids 60 kids would come out of a broken family 33 would come out of a wedlock and 27 out of divorced parents So we see kids that are growing up today without a family and when they grow up without a family those of you who did you know how challenging life becomes our Prisons become populated people drop things in school and things become very difficult and very challenging Our prisons would have been the empty if our families would have been strong You know that in the state of California since 19 1980 California has built 22 prisons and only one university We remove Bible from the schools and shove them in jails We tell them you can't read them when you're in school, but you have to read them when you're in jail If Bible is banned from the society, why is it not banned from jails? What would have happened if those Bibles would have been kept in schools encouraged and people would have risen up and have a Wonderful marriage and kids that are obeying the laws and following the common sense and and the good things Maybe we wouldn't have to put Bibles in jails. Maybe those jails would be a lot smaller than they are today Marriage is the best thing to raise kids It's not schools. It's not streets. It's happy father and mother who love one another. Amen Let's go to another point where marriage is given. It's to build our character Marriage is given to build our character The real reason of marriage is that God wants us to build our character God wants us to get rid of our ego and get rid of our pride Because if you ever been married or if you ever been in a new relationship, you will know one thing about happy marriages You can never be happy and proud at the same time You can't be happy and selfish at the same time And if you want to have a great marriage, you're gonna have to lose your pride. I Know it all. I'm not gonna listen to nobody's advice. I'm nobody's gonna tell me. We're not gonna invite a mentor We're not gonna go to church. We're not gonna do this and that all of that stuff is gonna destroy a marriage And that's why many marriages die is because people's ego refuses to When your ego dies marriage lives when your ego lives marriage has to die one of them has to die And so what marriage allows us it allows for our character to develop by our ego being crushed our selfishness being defeated And all of the things that are not good in us to be destroyed so we can become better people And when the time comes for you to become a better person in marriage many times people quit and say This is too hard and they go look for another marriage and Some people think well I the more married more times I get married the better experience I get but well if that would have been true Statistically your second marriage would have had better chances of ending up better But usually statistically second marriage has a divorce rate of 65 percent third marriage 75 and as you go further It keeps going so the more times person gets married. They don't learn better They just perfect a horrible character Because the common denominator in all of those relationships is a bad character not a bad person But character cannot be developed if you quit character cannot be developed if you give up when things are hard character Must be developed and relationships are given for that reason. Let's give us another reason why marriage is given It's for the construction of a society when we have When we have good marriages it builds good Families when we have good families it builds good kids when we have good kids It builds good schools. It builds good communities. It builds good societies good builds good countries We don't realize sometimes but these young kids who are running around today tomorrow will be senators I remember sitting in Larissa's house once and she was saying we need to really step it up And how we treat young teenagers in our church. That's like of course of course of course Until she told me she's a Vlad one day these young children Will disciple your kids. I said you said what I? Said they're in discipling nobody Like I'm a disciple my kids nobody's gonna and she said they will disciple your kids And I was like, oh my goodness, how they're gonna disciple them and Larissa replied back the way you're discipling them And I said I'm gonna change today You must understand your family is what affects and changes a society before there was a country or a church There was a family There was a marriage and the last thing where marriage matters marriage is important It's because it models to us Crisis love for us it models to us Crisis love for us so you can write this down number six is it's a reflection of our union with Jesus Christ Marriage is our reflection over union with Jesus Christ Jesus says that the way husband should love his wife and the wife should honor her husband is the way Jesus loved the Church and the church should in return honor Jesus Christ being committed be loyal to him loving him and Being with him and that's exactly what marriage is given for The enemy attacks Relationships the enemy has a full throttle attack on marriages and then he wants to destroy Families because he knows if he can destroy relationships and he can destroy marriages and if he destroys Families he doesn't have to destroy a society We're a bunch of people running with poison inflicting society with every evil thing and Satan can take his hands off knowing we will do the damage job He can focus on other objects The best way to destroy our community our society Is to destroy our relationships destroy our marriages and destroy our families But my Bible makes me to understand no weapon formed against us Will prosper and in Satan will plan those weapons, but they will fail With God with his principles with the word of God with the home groups with going to church What we will do is we will cause these weapons that the enemy plans against us to malfunction and to fail And at the end Satan is going to be the biggest loser the earth has ever seen and when Satan will lose That means the you and I will win our families will win and maybe there has been already some losses in your Relationships before maybe there's some been unwanted things that has happened in your life I want to tell you something that don't look at what has happened look forward to what God is capable of still doing in your life But to do that you must embrace yourself understand Relationships is not just lovey-dovey relationships is not just smooshy stuff. It's not just emotions. It's war Because the enemy knows that if he destroys Relationships if he destroys marriages if he destroys families, he doesn't have to destroy our society We will do that for him and therefore we have to stop him in his tracks and establish Relationships and fight for our families fight for our relationships and fight for our marriages and not to just simply treat This well, I fell out of love. Well, it just I feel like doing that. This is not just your feelings This is a scheme This is a scandal of the enemy to pervert our society stands your ground and fight him back And he will lose his ground because somebody say man Three most important decisions in your life that you will make one is your relationship with God two It's your vocation means what you will do with your life your purpose and the third one will be your marriage these three important decisions will bring the most happiness to your life or Failing in these decisions could bring the most Misery into your life Some people have relationship with God, but they hate their job and Their job the one that they spend eight hours a day sucks life out of them Some people have a wonderful relationship with their job and when they come home to their family I think they would have preferred going to Benton County Jail Because it's just it's hell on earth. It's very hard. It's very difficult constant fighting constant disagreements No harmony and no love if you want to know where happiness comes from It comes from three things or three main Sectors of your life God your job or your family and These three you can't avoid you can't spend too much time on welfare. They're gonna push you to work So you're gonna have to get a job Sooner or later, you're gonna have to find somebody bigger than you because you will find out no matter how intelligent how smart you are you're still not God and Sooner or later, you will find yourself in some kind of a relationship with someone the significant other and you will find that Relationship either being a blessing to you or being a burden to you and your happiness will leak And God wants us to have all of these three to be sources of great blessing and joy not pain and Torment can somebody say amen one of the Biggest problems that we have as a young generation and one of the reasons why marriages many times fail is because they start wrong in the first place When relationships are done wrong and they lead into marriage that marriage many times will suffer a lot of headaches and a lot of trouble And for us it's important to learn how to do relationships in the first place I know we have a lot of singles here We have a lot of people who are single ready to mingle and we have some who already mingling and today We want to just kind of bring few things into your perspective of how to do relationships that could bring you blessing God's way and you may say well, I want to do my way. Well your way is not gonna necessarily give you the greatest joy and blessing And you must understand when you break God's commandments, you don't necessarily break the commandments You actually break yourself If you go on the red light and 395 you're not gonna break red light red light is not gonna fall off You're gonna break your car and you can actually injure your body Anytime you break God's commandments if you think that somehow God falls so mistrown and his commandments shatter out of his hands It doesn't guess whose heart is gonna be broken yours Your life is the one that's gonna suffer God's commandments are not to control you It's to bless you and protect you God is broken hard it when we break his commandments But not because God feels Disrespected and he has this big self-ego God has big love and he sees your life going in shambles And he he feels bad about it and he wants your relationships to be good So you can have great marriage and so eventually you can have a great family Let me just give you a few simple factors on how to find the perfect person for your life Someone's like that's it now I wake up All this marriage stuff That's for my parents man. I want to know how to find my rib You want the prime rib and the perfect rib? Write this down a few factors. You must consider the first factor is the clock factor The clock factor is this is you always have to find out is this your time for relationship? Now you may say well, I'm 26 it is my time. I'm not talking about your biological clock I'm not talking about the number that's on your license ID what it says how old you are But what I mean by a clock is the season you are in your life. Are you ready for a relationship full-time school full-time college? You're not ready You don't have time for coffee. You don't have time for your devotions. You're not ready for relationship Maybe you just broke up or maybe you've you've been in a relationship and it ended and you finally coming out of it You cannot go into another relationship right away because you will struggle When violin stops making music the strings are still attached when the relationship ends Music stops, but the strings are still there and people need to take at least from six to twelve months to untouch the strings Especially if the relationship went deep of the relationship went into ungodly paths Otherwise next relationship is going to be stained by the previous relationship Watch the clock factor Are you single or are you lonely? I? Have this quote that you're not ready to mingle if you're not single If you're not single you are not ready to mingle You must say I'm single Single is not being unmarried single is being whole unique and one The factor of unmarriage in singleness is a small freak a small fraction All what singleness is about is actually being whole and a lot of people are not a hundred percent of them They're walking around on two percent of who they really are You're not single It's like I've not been dating for the past three years Yeah, but you're still running on two percent of who you really are today now I'm not saying your fool is potential you your potential will grow, but you must develop your wholeness. You must become whole You can't go into a relationship because you're lonely. You must go into a relationship because you're single Means you're whole You fool. He's like well if I'm gonna be so full. I wouldn't want to go into a relationship. You're ready for it When you don't need to But you want to if you need to because you're lonely You need to have other friends need to join a home group need to fix that other ways If you're not single, you're not ready to mingle Factor number two community factor community factor means If it's your time for relationships, the best way to do that is not going and starting your online dating profile It's to become a person who is socially accessible and the person who pays attention to other people For example in church in some social gatherings And my my main point about this is this is the best way to get to know a person is through relating with them not Dating them the biggest fallacy about dating is this is that if I date them, I will know them better It's true You will get to know certain facts you won't know otherwise The problem with dating is that when you go into dating mode to get to know someone They usually put on the best facade and don't judge them because you do exactly the same I mean what kind of an idiot amongst of us will go into a date to reveal the skeletons Even if you will reveal your skeletons is to prove to them how honest you are and to impress them with the fact How bold you are and it's only because you know they have more than you do But no person in their wise thinking will ever reveal their true colors and if you do you're too cheap Because none of us should reveal everything right the way the best way to get to know someone Become their friend and watch them from a distance. How do they treat minors? How do they treat their parents? How do they treat their little sister? How do they treat the waiter who didn't bring them the proper food? Well, how do they treat the old lady who is driving really slow? And that's and that's how you will know their true character Somebody say man Now I'm not saying dating is it's not bad dating will help you to get to know the person But don't be fooled thinking that in dating you will get to know the person completed the best way It's so much distance be a friend of them and you will get to know so much more about them factor number three It's the Christ factor When it's your time to have a relationship with someone and this is the one they usually people stumble over The Bible says not to be unequally yoked with the unbelievers. What this means is that if you are a follower of Christ? You cannot be Choosing someone to be in relationship with who is not a follower of Christ The God is not being racist. God is not being a hater. God is not being rude God is not putting limits on anybody. God is just wants to make it plain and fair God does not want another person to suffer because you're dragging them to church on Sunday And they want to stay home and sleep It's unfair for the person who doesn't follow Jesus to date you who follows Jesus and it's also unfair for you Because most of the time if your faith is really important to you You will be at odds with them instead of working with them and this is the excuse. I've heard young people say Well, he believes in God Did you ask which God? Because Mormons believe in God, Jehovah's Witnesses believe in God, Muslims believe in God, Catholics believe in God, Baptists believe in God, Pentecostals believe in God We all believe in God The problem happens is when we start talking about what kind of God we believe in and that's where all the confusion begins The Bible says demons believe in God. You sure don't want to date a demon Believing in God is too broad. Do they follow Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ their God or just a wonderful teacher? If you are a follower of Jesus You cannot settle for a relationship with someone who just believes in God or maybe someone who believes in all religions Or someone who believes in spirituality, which is very common today in our culture And if somebody believes in spirituality meaning all paths really mean the same thing It's all paths to the same God. Well, the problem you're going to have is this one is the follower of Christ Jesus said I am the only way to God So imagine the conflict you're having with someone you're dating who believes in all things who is very spiritual Very disciplined person who believes there are many paths to God and here you are being so intolerant Saying only Jesus is the way to God You have nothing in common a statistic says your divorce rate Get sliced in the half by three simple factors if both of you attend the same church have the same view about God and Practice your faith at home three factors It's not just enough to say well, we're both Christians. You have to share same idea about God If you speak in tongues and he's saying that's gibberish You're gonna have problems If you believe that demons casting out of demons healings are for today and he says that stuff is gone with you Must say well, he'll change not really You don't want him to change or hurt to change because of you. You got to be on the same page when it comes to Christ Maybe you're sitting here today, and you're not a follower of Jesus Please do yourself a big favor. Don't ever date someone who's a follower of Jesus. They will be praying secretly for your salvation They will be bribing you to come to church They will be on Friday night Fasting and praying for your salvation and you'll be thinking they love you They're gonna be dragging you to church all the time. Listen, you don't need that Find someone who's just like you don't fall for that trap. I know they're godly you say what I want to be like that If you're not like that Become like that because of you and because of Jesus not because of them Why do you need somebody that you love drag you always somewhere save yourself a headache find somebody like you and you'll be happier without them number four that Comparability factor Comparability factor is well the other parentheses were supposed to be deleted. I Think I just made a mistake by sending compatibility factor simply means you can put it back on. It's fine You're just we're gonna read my notes. It's culture and age The oldest bridegroom recorded is a hundred fifteen years of age from Puerto Rico married a 16 years old girl who is 99 his junior pretty radical So the only here where I'm saying is comparability factor is you have to have this similar age Actually statistics says if your age is very different your probability of divorce is very high And so you have to have a similar age and also you have to keep in mind that our cultures have a huge effect on us Now I know that we live in a nation where there is a melting pot of all cultures and people love to bring women Especially men they love to bring women from other countries, you know, and there's completely fine It's completely awesome. There's nothing wrong with that But we must understand is the culture and the age has a huge effect on relationship Culture is so much more than is eating spicy food Culture is the way you think culture is the way you perceive the world Culture is the way you're gonna raise your kids culture is the way you're gonna manage your money culture is the way where you're gonna buy your cars Culture is where you're gonna buy your shoes Culture is where you're gonna buy your clothes cultures where you're gonna go on your vacation and culture is the way you're gonna perceive everything in your world and so even people who live in United States for a long time you must understand your culture has an effect on you. I'm not saying if somebody is from a different culture stay away from no no no but when you are mingling with somebody from another culture don't be blinded by your infatuation thinking culture does not matter because if you're going to have to use a translator to communicate with them it will matter. If you have to have a google translator installed on your phone so you can have a casual conversation let me tell you something it will matter. Let's go to factor number five the chemistry plus character factor. Chemistry plus character factor what this means is that you have to have somebody that you like somebody that you are in relationship you have to have feelings for them. Now I understand for most of us duh really Vlad did you have to mention that but sometimes in the religion or in church people become very funny when a guy especially finds a girl that they become good friends with and they become texting buddies and they start winning things on their apps you know words with friends and so they become champions there and they feel this deep connection and he begins to feel like man she's an awesome girl and so I would meet with the guy and say do you like her he said she's fine okay she has a good heart I'm like well your mom has a good heart but you're not going to date your mom and when I would ask is she attractive to you she's fine she's okay and that's not good if if you're a guy you have to understand it's good when the girl has a very good heart and first of all you don't even know what kind of heart she has until you get married to her trust me son trust me just because she responds to your text messages with emoji that does not mean she has a good heart there's a lot more to her heart than the way she talks to you and all the married men said some of you are afraid for your wives after service like I gotta go home with my wife I gotta be careful what I say in this church good heart is very important character is very important the way they treat other people is very important but if you're physically if you're a guy and you're physically not attracted I'm not talking to the married people I'm talking to the single people if you're physically not attracted as a guy you gotta deal with the problems now but if you're a guy and you're single and you're physically not attracted to this person that you like but you only like her because she's good and because she can cook or because she's just nice she's just godly she's just I would just want to see everything all of these qualities in the woman she's confident she's fine I mean she's okay if you have the kind of attitude two things will happen one she will always be insecure two you will always be vulnerable you'll be vulnerable for other women who are not just fine but who are really fine in your mind and she will always feel extremely insecure in your presence knowing you like her hard and that's all but you do not like her physically and girl's security is many times tied to the way man looks views and appreciates her as a husband that your wife has to be the standard of beauty she's no longer may look like the one she looked when you were dating her but in your mind she has to be the most beautiful person in the world and when you treat her like that you will soon find out that she will be even more beautiful than the way you see her but for those of you who are single you must understand is the chemistry is very important don't skip that stage let's go to factor number six conscious factor conscious factor is when you begin a relationship with someone you have to follow your gut if in your heart you don't have peace that means God is not leading you into that relationship and you have to stay away from it you say but he's so perfect he's too good to be true if your conscience is not giving you rest you're walking into trouble God's way of protecting you is troubling your conscience if you and this is what usually people do is they go into a relationship and they're like man i've been praying so much for this i've been praying so much for this i've been praying for her i've been praying for him i've been just praying i've been fasting especially when people go into i've been fasting three days and i usually tell people this when you're in a relationship pray about it less fast about it less listen more because when you're praying remember what you're praying about you're filled with infatuation you can't hear it well you have to calm down your infatuation and listen to your conscience because your conscience will warn you about things your your feelings and your eyes don't see right now there was a guy named in the bible named joseph something happened to joseph joseph was a good-looking man and the bible says that the woman that he was serving their house the the wife of the the husband that he was serving started to like him so joseph was in the dilemma she was married and he was single and one day joseph walks into the house and this woman begins to flirt with him and says hey come and lie with me means let's have sex joseph says hey come on we can't do this you know your husband and stuff i mean this is wrong you're married woman she's like you don't understand my marriage is struggling i have never been with a man for a long time plus you're so perfect i mean you're gonna be better than my husband nobody understands like you understand and she begins to just flatter him with these words i'm coming up with these things because i probably probably that's what she did and the bible says joseph obeys his conscience and he says i can't do this because this is against my conscience he's like well what do you mean this is against your conscience but this is against me if you're not gonna do it with me he's like you know what i'm rather upset you temporarily but not upset god and my conscience because i'm gonna have to live with my conscience for the rest of my life she pushes him and this is what happens this beautiful charming woman who says i want you you're so sexy you're so handsome you're the one for me flips into a witch when she fabricates a story and says curate me what you're capable of doing that how was he protected from a woman who has such a capacities to destroy a man like this he spent few years in hardship because he obeyed his conscience but he protected himself from a lifetime of living with that witch how did he protect himself was there red signs it was inside there's something fishy here stay away joseph i know she's i know she's hot and i know you have your sexual needs but joseph this is fishy stay away from it joseph stayed away from it yes it was a little bit hard for a moment but at least he didn't live all his life with that jerk when you follow your conscience god will protect you from living with someone who will destroy you yes you might suffer for a little bit yes you will have lonely nights yes you'll have to eat the chocolate by yourself yes you will have to watch all those movies by yourself you'll have to come to valentine's and bring your sister that's going to be fine but joseph cannot tell you something you're gonna be a prime minister and you're gonna find joe ribb and you're gonna be with somebody who would bless you for the rest of your life somebody say yes amen next factor is the factor the coach factor the coach factor is is this one is that when you find someone that you like you find someone that you have peace about someone who has your same beliefs someone you got to know a little bit at a distance seeing who this person really is someone you have feelings for don't just go in and start dating them and come to your home group or come to your pastor says hey pastor here's my girlfriend just letting you know so that you won't be wondering why we're sitting together and holding our hands together pastor just before you find out on facebook that we are in relationship that my status went from it's complicated to dating i just want to carry you along let you know this is my girl and guess what happens when you do like that people then use this phrase and say oh i have mentors yeah the only difference is that your mentors are only told what you're doing you never come to them for advice when you have feelings for someone you don't come to them say hey i know i prayed about it i have peace about it this is a godly person seems like things just i just just really think things will work out and i really have chemistry flowing toward this person but i just want to get an outside opinion what do you think about it what would you say you don't have to take their word a hundred percent for it but it will be good to have a feedback so that you'll be protected many people will never have that coach factor instead of having a coach they just simply go in with their feelings and then they come back to their coach to cry about their feelings when they could have been protected now i understand why you would avoid a coach especially if you keep attracting something that is not good for you and you keep going to someone who's like you know what maybe your mom or your dad or somebody you trust you say you know what i don't think this is a best decision for you you just broke up last night and you're already trying to get married tomorrow too early honey you gotta hold off you said man i hate going to them they keep they always tell me no they're married they're having fun i'm not married and they don't want me to get married they just want me to suffer if you have that kind of a mindset you will never have a coach because you're not coachable you gotta remove that mindset there was a king in israel his name was ahab and what happened with ahab is that ahab was a really bad king and god wanted to actually punish him for that because he was now repented king was really bad one and one of the way one of the ways god wanted to punish him was actually to lead him into a battle where ahab will be defeated so ahab links up with this another good king uh uh jahasaphat and before they go to battle jahasaphat he was a good king and he's like hey ahab before we go let's find a coach let's find a prophet let's find somebody who can give us some some insight i mean we're gonna still go to battle but let's just at least know whether we're going with god's blessing or not ahab's like dude no i don't do i don't like those people ahab is like they always speak bad about me he's like if i ever bring a prophet he always has something negative to say and he said i decided to get rid of them he said i don't have those in my life i only have people who tell me good things my homies and my cronies that's what's up but the coach the people who will tell me the right things no no man they're so far away and jahasaphat he's like don't say like that he's a successful people don't think like that ahab successful people allow people who are coaches they even allow critics in their life ahab you can't do it like that so they bring this prophet named Micah Micah comes in and and they told Micah say hey ahab you and ahab have beef can you for once fake a prophecy tell him something good let him like you Micah's like okay he comes into ahab's presence he's like ahab go to war god is on your side oh glory i see victory amen and he left ahab was like come back here he said now tell me the truth micah's like you want to hear the truth yeah and ahab's face changes because he knows what's coming he's like well i saw a council of god god was saying how should we get rid of ahab and he says this idea came up let's send him to battle ahab you're going to battle you're gonna die ahab's like see i told you always negative always negative never says anything positive about me and guess what ahab does to this coach he locks him in prison he says because you never say positive things about me get away from me and that's what many people do with coaches they like coaches as long as they rub your back you're awesome you're great and we need those people but the moment the coach says you know what this is not healthy this is not good for you this could harm you what we do we lock them up let me tell you how we lock them up oh i know i haven't responded your text messages i just didn't see them i know i've posted 25 pictures on face on instagram ever since then snapchat it 45 times i just didn't see your text message i promise i swear i didn't see your text message i know you've been calling me but i just my phone is broken and that's how we lock our coaches in prison we said just get away from me i know it better and micah said if you come back in peace god didn't speak but if god spoke the truth you won't come back guess what happened the bible says ahab he knew this must be god so he decided to trick god he went to battle and removed his kingly garments and acted like a normal soldier because they always attacked the king he dresses royalty so here's ahab running like a normal soldier and the bible says it so happened one archer pulled a bow and an accident killed ahab and the coach was right most of the time you will find out the coaches are right you will say well there was a time they were wrong there was many times you were wrong but coaches are usually right and you have to have someone in your life who will guide you who will help you and pray for you not control you and tell you what to do but to be there not just when your heart is broken but to help you so it avoids being broken can someone say amen so i did the introduction to my message and i think we'll do the conclusion some other time and stuff so the actual message is um it's going to be for later but i think that that's enough what we've learned today what we heard i hope you took some notes and i hope that you're gonna apply some things this week we're gonna have home groups i know you have a lot of questions what i do next that's what we're gonna have home groups let me tell you how we do it in our church usually the things that i just mentioned to you that's kind of how we encourage people to have relationships we encourage people to take some time to wait just because you got your license doesn't mean you're ready for marriage we encourage people to develop friendships we encourage people to involve god we encourage people to involve their pastors involve their leaders their parents somebody who they look up to as a mentor we encourage people to check their feelings make sure they have comparability and then we encourage people to take that relationship and don't drag it well we're gonna date for six years and we're gonna be sexually pure i promise you there is no way in this god's earth you will be sexually pure if you're gonna date for six years i promise you you i was dating my wife for five four months and i'm a youth pastor i was a virgin until the day i got married i lost my virginity never regretted it on my wedding what are you looking at me funny it was on my wedding some people are embarrassed here something like man anyway the point is this being a youth pastor you know i've had certain disciplines people look up to me so i knew that i had to live pure not just for god but also for people for my conscious sake and i've dated only for five for four i think four or five months before i proposed and three or four months we've had more and i'm telling you to live pure was very hard and i know it was because my wife was very attractive but it was very hard if i would have lasted for four years i wouldn't last for four years it was only the grace of god that helped me and the only regret i have is i didn't marry her next month if i would have the chance because i was ready i mean there was nothing to get to know you will never get to know a woman you will only get to know her in heaven she's a mystery you keep getting to know her every single day and so these people who like we want to just take seven years ten years why don't you just plan to get married in heaven if you're gonna take that long we don't we discourage people who are ready for marriage to take it on for years and years there's a reason why people do that and you shouldn't do that one of the consolings that we do in our church is we actually don't have official counseling people that we marry in our church will give them a book that they follow we let them subscribe to one podcast and then we have about three couples in the church that the couple who wants us to marry them has to meet with that those couples a few times with those couples that they meet they discuss about marriage they learn tips about marriage from couples and at the same time they're bonding with that couple in case they ever have trouble they have someone to go to because the biggest problems with young couples is usually they still have single friends and they do not know any other couples and their single friends will always say huh she's mistreating your man i told you she's not a good woman drop her but when you have couples and you come today saying you know what she's been mistreating me they're like you know what jerk suck it up go buy flowers and they will be strong with you you're like man because married couples will always encourage you toward marriage not away from marriage and that's why we want to encourage people to meet with other couples before we marry them we don't do this thing where you call the office say hey i found this y'all i want to marry you we send you to another church because i don't do that i always say this excuse i don't have the permission to do that but if you know me and i know you we have a process you don't just simply find somebody come pastor i want you to marry me because i've came to this church twice we have a process because we want you can get married any day but we want you to stay happy not just to stay married and like both like prisoners of war fighting but we want you to stay happy married and for that that's exactly what we encourage amen