 Tonight, we are talking about marriage, family, and relationships, and so I know that there's gonna be some interesting questions that are asked. If those videos of the kids were any indicator of what's coming, we're in for a lot of fun. So we're gonna start off tonight. So if you don't already know, you can go ahead and text in, have we put the number up? There it is. Text your name, the location, so you would say Richland Campus, and your question to 269-203-6634. And you can ask a question, and hopefully, we'll get to your question. We're gonna get to as many tonight as we can get. So let's just go ahead and get the ball rolling. They can put the first question up. Is it true that Joshua was the only kid without parents because he was the son of none? How many know John Zonervin is here, even though he's on vacation this week? He's here. He is here. He's here with us in spirit. Leave it up to him to ask great questions. Thanks, John, we love you. Okay, let's get to a real question. What does the Bible say about LGBTQ relationships? Wow, let's just start right off the bat. Let's just, no warm-up, no like, what's the appropriate age for your children to date? Nothing like that. Let's just go for it. Okay, so let me just say this. You may not be familiar with what all those letters stand for. So LGBT is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. And so actually you could extend that whole phrase out quite a bit because there's several other people that kind of classify them and their lifestyles into that particular acronym or that abbreviation for that group of folks. So what does the Bible say about LGBTQ relationships? I'm gonna zero in on one portion of that question because to take each of them separate and to give each of them the appropriate explanation would take some time. So for example, lesbian relationship, Bible has certain things say about that, bisexuality, the Bible has certain things say about that. It also has a lot to say about what is classified as queer, transgender. I'm gonna zero in just on kind of in generalities. And right from the beginning, the Bible is very clear. Sex shows up in the very first chapter of the Bible. In the very first chapter of the Bible. Genesis chapter one, God creates mankind. He actually creates everything, creates the heavens and the earth, creates the stars, the moon, he creates the mountains, the oceans, he creates fish, the birds, he creates everything. And then it says in Genesis one, 26 through 28, it says God said, let us make man in our image according to our lightness, let us create him. Let's give him dominion over the birds of the air, fish of the sea, dominion basically over everything. And right from the beginning, Genesis chapter two, God creates woman from the side of man. And he does it in response to the fact that man is alone. God creates everything and he says it's good. He creates the stars, they're good. He creates the grass, they're good. He creates the fish, they're good. When he gets to man, he's the only thing that after he creates him and take in mind that man was created in or according to the image and the lightness of God, man is the only thing that when he creates him, he says it's not good. In fact, the Hebrew word for man is Adam, that's where we get the name Adam from. And so because Adam was alone, God said it was not good. God has hardwired into human beings the need and the desire for relationships. Sparky's really nice and he's man's best friend. I get that, we've all got dogs and we love dogs, but there was nothing else that God created. It definitely wasn't cats. It was, there's all kinds of other different animals, but none of them were the right fit to meet Adam's companionship needs, his relational needs. God said it is not good that man is alone. And so it says in Genesis that God then made Adam go and do a deep sleep, he took part of his side. Some translations say the rib, it really in the Hebrew is just the side, from his side. And he fashioned woman from him. And when Adam awoke, God performed the first wedding ceremony, he brought Adam and Eve together. And Eve was the perfect compliment to what Adam was. And that's where we get the wedding vows, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. This is where that comes from. And God performed the first wedding ceremony, brought them together and then gave them the mandate. He says now be fruitful and multiply. So right from the beginning of Genesis, God sets the order of everything. What we see throughout the rest of the pages of scripture, all 66 books of the Bible is that in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two, we see God's perfect model of the way he created things to flourish and to be healthy. Genesis three happens, which is the fall of mankind where we sin and rebelled against God and we see all of creation, including human beings, physically, emotionally and relationally and spiritually get thrown into turmoil and we see relationships begin to go south. Marriage relationships, man's relationship with God, the rest of the Bible is filled with all kinds of accounts of things that are the ramifications of man's rebellion and man's sinfulness against God's created order. And so the Bible has a lot to say in particular about what we, let's just call it homosexual or gay relationships. Number one, here's the first thing I wanna say about it. God loves people, period. Do we got that? So God loves straight people, God loves people that have same-sex attraction, God loves transgender people, God loves people that identify as queer, God loves confused people, God loves very wise people, God loves very simple people. John 3 16 is the most basic description of the gospel. It says that God so loved the world is all-encompassing but the second part is equally important. He loved it so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. What does that tell us? It means that even though God loves the world, things aren't all perfect in the world. There's a need for there to be redemption. So with that said, God loves all people and in knowing that God loves all people, we realize God loves people who are sinners. We're all sinners. We all miss the mark. We all have a bent in us and there are a lot of reasons for our different predilections and our different sins and our different preferences but nonetheless, the Bible calls them sin. And so the Bible speaks in very specific terms about homosexuality which we can encompass a lot of this in. Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, both of those that says a man shall not lie with a man as he would with a woman. And that's a anthropomorphism to describe homosexual relationships. So it says that it's an abomination. And so in the New Testament, some people would say in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that Jesus never addressed the issue of homosexuality because if you read them, you don't see that word show up. And so they say because Jesus didn't mention it, we shouldn't. But the reality is Jesus was Jewish. He was a Torah observing Jew. And so when he spoke, for example, in Mark chapter seven and in Matthew chapter 19 and he said sexual immorality that it comes out of a broken human inner being is sexual immorality. Sexual immorality was a headliner from which everything in the Old Testament that God describes as sexual immoral which is all sex outside of one man and one woman in the bonds of covenant of marriage. Anything outside of that is covered under sexual immorality. So Jesus mentioned sexual immorality in general. Paul writes about it in Romans chapter one. Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians. He also writes about it in 1 Timothy and it's referenced in Jude and kind of insinuated in other places. There is no place in the Bible where God validates homosexual relationships or practice. There's no place where it's said that this is okay. And in fact, everywhere that it's mentioned in a negative light. Now here's what we need to do as Jesus loving Christians, okay? We need to distinguish between and I'm gonna classify all kind of all of these things into one big category. We need to distinguish between homosexual acts or behavior and people who have temptations and struggles. So having same sex attraction, being attracted to people of the same sex in and of itself is not necessarily sinful. It's just, there are a lot of different reasons for it. Sometimes it's something that people have struggled with their whole lives. Sometimes it's something that came on later in life. Sometimes it's the result of first experiences. Sociologists, sex scientists tell us that there's a huge increase, especially among males that if their first sexual experience before puberty was with an older male, that they will have a very high percentage of the time tilting in the direction of same sex attraction. There's a lot of emotional, psychological, spiritual, physiological stuff that goes into that. People who struggle with same sex attraction are not more sinful in the sight of God. They are just as sinful as a person who is married and attracted and struggles with attraction to other women. What happens is when our attraction and our temptations become actions and when we allow our actions to shape our identities. Here's what I know, as Paul says this, let me just turn over there and I'm going a little bit longer on this question because I know that it's a big issue in our day, but listen to what Paul says because nothing that you and I are struggling with in 21st century North America is new. This has gone on as long as time. But here's what Paul says. He says in 1 Corinthians 6, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Who are the unrighteous? Listen, he says, do not be deceived. Neither sexually immoral people, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor vileers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And verse 11 is where we find the hope. It says this, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by the spirit of our God. So we oftentimes read these verses and we zero in on homosexuality. That's in there, but listen to what else is in there. Adultery is in there, sexual immorality in general is in there, stealing is in there, being greedy is in there, and being drunk is in there. So all of these as lifestyles, if we embrace these as all right and we habitually practice them, first John says, if we habitually practice sin after we're saved, then we need to examine ourselves because the truth is not in us. Paul's hope though is this, doesn't matter what you've struggled, what your sexual sin is, what your sin, what your pride, what your relationships has been, Jesus, the power of the gospel is more powerful than sin's effect on our life. So whatever you've struggled with, you have hope because Jesus can transform your heart, He can save you, He can give you a new self, He can wash you, He can cleanse you, and you can look at your sin as something that you used to be that's under the blood of Jesus and be completely and radically transformed by the power of the gospel. So, okay, next question. Woo, how do you still honor your parents when they are wrong and too stubborn to recognize, well, and too stubborn to recognize and admit that they are? Well, I'm assuming this isn't a 12-year-old writing this here, or maybe it is. It's amazing how smart your parents get the older you get. Has anybody figured that out? The older you get, it's like, oh, mom and dad really kind of did know what they were talking about. When you're 12, 13, 15, 18, 22, you're just like, mom and dad are just, oh, they're just so stubborn. I wish they would just get over it. Well, let me just tell you, age has a way of bringing you around. What you struggled with with your parents will come around full circle to where you are a parent and your kids will say to you what you are right now saying to your parents, I promise you it will happen. But how do you still honor your parents when they are wrong? The Bible says one of the 10 commandments is honor your mother and your father. And when that's quoted in the New Testament, it says so that it may go well with you and your days on the earth will be long. Now, I did not write the Bible. The Bible was written by God and here's what God said, honor of your parents actually extend your life. I mean, Mike Drap right there. And when it says honor your mother and your father, it does not say honor them when they are honorable. Sometimes you will, it doesn't matter how old you are, sometimes you will be confronted with the fact that parents aren't always honorable. If we only show honor to people when they are honorable, then that will be a very limited time and it will be arbitrary. So the Bible says to honor, honor doesn't always mean agree. You can disagree with your parents, but you can disagree with them in a very honorable way. When you are under the authority of your parents household and you're living in our household, you can disagree with them, but you are under the canopy of their authority and you can speak respectfully, hopefully in your household you're able to just express your opinion, ask questions, if you do it in an honorable and respectable way, but at the end of the day, when you're living in somebody's household, it's their rules that apply. Now when you move out and you get your own household and you go in your own direction and you build your own family, that doesn't mean that you get to dishonor mom and dad, it just means that honor looks different. So you can honor your mother and dad from a distance. If you have an unhealthy relationship with your mother and dad, you can still honor them. If they're not Christians and they disagree with your faith and the way that you're living out your faith and you're raising your kids, you can still have an honorable relationship even though you have boundaries. And sometimes there does need to be boundaries. Boundaries does not mean dishonor. Boundaries is actually a way of saying I want to honor you and so in order for me to continue to honor you, I'm gonna create boundaries so that there's a safe distance in our relationship. When you live in a household, when you're a kid or you're a young person or maybe you're 40 and you're living in your mom's dad basement and you've got pajamas on all day long and you're playing video games, you are living under their rules. And so honor means don't be snarky, don't be sarcastic, don't take advantage of them, take out the garbage when you're asked, go to bed, say your prayers, brush your teeth, get good grades and always do what your dad say. Moms are shaky, I don't know, but I think always do what dads say. Okay, that's not famous. Okay, so here we go. This is an online question. I have four grown children, one of them is faithfully serving the Lord and the others are not. We raise them the same. I don't know what I did wrong. What should I do? Well, that's a great question from whoever sent it online. Thank you for that question because I think there's probably a lot of parents in this room and who are watching that can feel the pain of that. Here's what I just say in general. There is no formula for raising kids. There isn't. I mean, I have seen parents who basically have their children, stick them in the middle of their living room, give them a bag of Doritos and say, I'll see you in 18 years. And then those kids grow up to be like rocket scientists. It's like, oh, how did that happen? And then I've seen parents that, you know, give their kids nothing but organic food that they blend in the Vitamix and make sure that they never have gluten. They've never had any screen time. They've homeschooled them. They've done everything right. And that kid grows up to like star in the next Antichrist movie or something. And it's like, what went wrong? You know, what went wrong? Can I tell you what went wrong? Sin goes wrong because every one of us are born unique. Yes, we get a lot of genetic and spiritual makeup from our parents, but at the same token, we're all individuals and we all have a spirit on the inside of us. And we're all contaminated with the sin nature. We all have sin. Nobody, I mean, it's amazing. You can hold a baby and be like, oh, aren't they so cute? They're so innocent. They just will never ever do anything wrong. How many know it's just a matter of time before that little one looks at you and says, no. Or they bite somebody or, you know, they steal a toy back or, you know, whatever. It's like, where did that come from? We didn't raise you that way. You know where it came from? It came from sin and sin doesn't come from outside. Sin comes from the inside. And it's exactly why we need Jesus. Jesus came to save us. And I know that we all like to think that our kids are growing up in that they're perfect. You know, as long as they're not around sin, then they're gonna be all right. And as long as they don't get contaminated by the wrong kids, it does not matter. So every kid has a different struggle. And the kids that you think are perfect will have different struggles than the kids who are more overt with their rebellion. So let me just encourage you parents. Here's what you need to know. Number one is children are much more durable and versatile and stronger than you give them credit for, okay? You're not gonna ruin them. If you've got a right heart and you're even asking that question, it means that you're leaning into being a parent. And so you're not gonna ruin your kids. Number two, God loves your children as a father far more than you love your kids as parents. And so they might be able to sneak some things on you, but they can't sneak past the hound of heaven. They can't move beyond the eyes of a heavenly father who is always looking at them, who's amazingly able to weave every facet of their life together in a way that brings them to a point where they have to make a decision about Jesus. Listen, if somebody rejects Jesus, that's a free will choice that they've made. But let me tell you that they're gonna have to hurdle God the Father multiple times like an Olympic steeple-chase event in order to get ultimately to where their heart is hardened. And number three, parents, I wanna just say this. Do not discount the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous parent, for it avails much. Pray, pray, pray. We used to pray, and Jane specifically would pray as a mom, and I would pray, we'd pray together. We would pray, God, don't let our kids do anything, get away with anything without it being exposed. So our kids couldn't get away with anything. I mean, they would probably say, no, oh, well, actually we did this. And it's like, yeah, but you got away with that, but we found out about this, which was twice as bad later, which exed that one out. So I mean, we partner with the Holy Spirit in parenting our kids. What do you do if you get to the point where you raise them, and they're full grown, and one does not serve the Lord and the other's due? Number one is don't beat yourself up. Number two, realize you're partnering with God in this. Don't stop praying. Let me tell you something. My dad went home to be with the Lord about four or five years ago. But my dad ran away from home at 15 years old. He was a drug addict by 18. He was divorced by 19. He was a washed out minor league or, you know, A-ball baseball player and went off into heroin. And then when he came out of heroin and was married and divorced three times, was into the new age movement. When I was 18 and became a Christian, my dad wouldn't let me bring my Bible into his house. He hated Christianity. I would tell him I was praying for him. He would say, do yourself and me a favor, don't waste your breath. And I got a phone call in 1996 when my dad was in his forties and he said, Lee, guess what? I said, what? And he said, I went to church today. I said, really? You went to church? What kind of church? And he said, I went to church today and I got Christianed. He gave his heart to the Lord. And I'll tell you, he had a great grandmother. He had a mother. He had a father. And he had a son and a daughter-in-law who were praying every single day. And in his forties, he came to the Lord. So never, ever give up hope. Never give up hope. Okay, as wives, we are called to submit to our husbands. What if they are lacking humility and making choices of the flesh, anger, self-entitlement, et cetera, at work and other areas of life? Are we still to submit to that authority or do we say something? Well, let me just say a few words about submission, okay? Because this is really important. First Peter chapter three, it's one of many verses in the Bible where it talks about husbands and wives. It says, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word simply by the conduct of their wives. When they see your respectful, impure conduct, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, putting on of gold jewelry or clothing that you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women of who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. And then verse seven talks to husbands and it says, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as to the weaker vessel. Let's talk about physical weakness, not anything else. Since they, and here's the key, since they are heirs, co-heirs with you of the grace of life. And then it says, do this so that your prayers be not hindered. Now, let me explain a few things. The relationship between a Christian couple, husband and wife that are married together is vastly different than a couple where it's one is saved and the other is not. That's important for you to understand. If you're in a situation where, and I'm assuming in this case, this might be the case here, you're married to a man who's not really walking as a follower of Jesus and you find yourself unequally yoked. The Bible encourages you not to seek to get out of the marriage, stay in that marriage. And as we just read, it says that when you are living out your faith and you are kind and respectful and honoring, those types of things make a huge difference in the relationship with your husband. But when you're overbearing, if you tell your husband, you're a jerk and you need to get God in your life and you don't even go to church with me and you're a failure as a husband, number one need of a man in a marriage relationship. And I know these are stereotypical, but they're on average. Number one emotional need of a man in marriage is respect. It's the number one thing that he needs. And so if you are a wife and you're disrespecting your husband, whether he's a Christian or not, you are destroying the foundations of love and trust that it has for you. Now let me say something else about the word submission. I know that it gets a bum wrap in our culture. It's like, oh, submission, don't tell me to submit. Submission is not something that anyone can demand of anybody else. If you do, it's actually control and manipulation. Submission is actually the greatest gift that any human being can give to another human being. Recognizing the responsibility and authority and honoring that and willfully submitting to that. Submission is not, when we say submission, wife submit to your husbands, we're simply recognizing that in the household, the way that God designed family, is man is the head, which means he carries the responsibility and wives are supposed to come up as partners alongside the husband, but at the end of the day, the one who stands before God for the spiritual condition of the family is the husband because he's the head. Now some people have said, well, that's old fashioned. Nobody needs to submit to anybody else. Let me just say this. In Ephesians chapter five, Paul actually admonishes husbands and wives to submit to one another. So there are some things in a healthy marriage family where husbands need to submit to their wives that and say, you know what, you've got the lead on this and I'm gonna trust you. The best case scenario is when a husband and a wife partner together and the wife shows respect and honor to the husband for who he is and the husband protects and provides and actually loves and cherishes his wife as he does his own body. That's Ephesians chapter five. When that's not there, it becomes very difficult to, again, here we come back to that word honor and respect becomes very difficult. I think that it is totally, totally appropriate when these type of things come up in marriage for a wife to have the freedom to communicate those things. This is a partnership. This isn't your piece of property. This is a partnership. You should be able to communicate these things that you feel. If you don't feel like things are going well in the marriage if there's anger and outbursts and self entitlement and different things like that, you should have absolute freedom just say, you know what, I'm concerned. It all is the tone. And by the way, this isn't just a wife talking to a husband. This is a husband talking to a wife. Husbands don't have the right to come in and say, you should submit to me. And you know what? You get in there and cook my chicken pot pie. Get out here and you're gonna, you know, this is my house submit to me. That is demonic. But when marriage partners represent that both of us, husband and wife bring something different. That's what complementarian is. We're not the same. We bring what the other person is lacking. When we come together like that, there can be a free expression of communication. If you're in a spot where you can't communicate, then you need to prayerfully prepare to have a very face-to-face conversation. And if that conversation doesn't go well, look for outside help. Find somebody that you respect. Maybe appeal to a counselor. Say, can we go and get some marriage counseling? There's some things we need to communicate, express that we can't seem to do in a living room right here. It's never an appropriate answer for somebody to say, I don't wanna talk about it. You should just submit to me. That is unacceptable. There should always be the right of appeal to an outside moderator to help because God's ultimate goal is peace in our families. Does that make sense? Okay. We'll take another one. This is from Richland. Can you have biblical discipline without spanking? And the answer is yes. There's a lot of biblical discipline that does not include spanking. So, grounding, taking away privileges, having very focused FaceTime, praying with your kids, limiting different things. All of those are different forms of parenting. Can you successfully, healthily, raise children without spanking being in your arsenal? Probably. Are there some, but every child is different. Are there some situations where it is appropriate to spank? And I would say absolutely yes. Jane and I spanked our children at certain times. We never did it in anger. We didn't do it out of frustration with our voices elevated and raised. Well, let me back up. Sometimes we probably did that. I probably did that. So I'm just confessing, there's times when I did it. And you know what though? Now I look back on it and I regret that. And I've actually, now what's interesting is all of our kids are different. Jared, who's our one son, probably got more spankings than the other two combined in their whole life. But Jared was a very, very, very, very strong-willed child. That's why someday he's gonna take over the world because he doesn't take no for an answer. He was like that at four and five years old. And you could ground him and he'd walk right back out of his room. You'd tell him no, he'd say yes. And we would do this for like 20 minutes. Well, ultimately I'd meet him down in his room with a wooden spoon, Meyers, aisle five. And we would sit him down and say this is why you're getting a spanking. You're getting a spanking because you're rebelling. Now there are some things that are totally inappropriate to spank for. You don't spank for everything. It's not just a one-size-fits-all, but there needs to be degrees of severity so that they know. It's like, you know, there is something the way that God has physiologically built us that pain helps create memory. It's actually, it's a scientific fact that when you experience pain, it's like fluid that you develop a negative of a photograph in your mind for. You remember things when pain is connected to it. And I'm not saying beating, that's inappropriate. I'm not saying humiliate your children, but to say to them, this has come to this point and you put them over your knee and you give them a couple of swats on their hindie, not leaving a mark, and then you sit there and you tell them that you love them and they're gonna sit and they're gonna think about it, sometimes that is appropriate. Now you might say, well, I don't wanna spank my kids. Well, you know what? That's between you and God. But the Bible talks about spanking. And it mentions in Proverbs, and I think Proverbs has some pretty good wisdom in it. It says that if you spank your child, you're not gonna ruin them. It says, but you might deliver their soul from hell. And there's some hells that we might need to deliver our kids from. And a wooden spoon will help with that. Okay, so there you go. Let's take another question. Can I divorce my spouse for reasons besides sexual immorality? What about in cases of physical or emotional abuse? So that's a great question. And they list Matthew 5, 32. And I'm gonna turn there, Matthew 5, verse 32. And I'll read it. So we're all on the same page. Verse 32 says, but I say to you, everyone who divorces his wife except on the grounds of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Okay, I'm gonna actually play off of that. And I'm gonna go to Matthew chapter 19 because this is where Jesus probably talked the most about divorce. And he was doing it in response to a question. The Pharisees came up to him in verse three and wanted to test him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Same question, can you divorce for any reason? And he said to them, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one. And what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce to send her away? He's talking about the law, the law made a concession for divorce. And then he said to them, because of the hardness of heart. That's why Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. And then there's a whole lot more in chapter 19 that's interesting. So here's what Jesus said. Jesus gave a very clear understanding of why marriage. It says that God designed marriage so that a man and a woman would come together in holy matrimony in covenant and that the two would become one flesh. That's not metaphorical. That's not poetic in God's eyes to literally become one. So God's intention from the beginning was never divorce. Divorce is not a stipulation that God created from the very beginning. It's actually a response to the sinful condition of human hearts. Jesus said the only reason that God even allowed divorce or Moses to allow divorce was because of your hardness of heart. God knows this that in our sinful condition we are self-deceived and we have a tendency for our heart to get hardened, calloused over and over and over again. And that ought to scare us actually more than the question of divorce. Let me tell you why. Because it's impossible for a human heart to get hardened in one area and stay soft in another area. It's impossible. So divorce very often, except for a few exceptions, divorce most often according to Jesus is because we've allowed our heart to get so hard that it's even difficult for God to grant us repentance. Here's what's interesting. He ties divorce to sexual immorality. There's another story in Hebrews. I think it's chapter 12 where it talks about falling away from the grace of God and it gives an illustration about Esau. And it says that Esau sought repentance to get his birth right back. Even he sold it. Remember he sold it out to his brother for a bowl of lentils? It says that Esau sought repentance even with tears but he could not. And it says it was because his heart had become hardened by bitterness and it defiled many. And immediately on the other side of describing Esau it says therefore, it says do not let any of you become like Esau who are I think hardened by sexual immorality or become a sexual immoral person. There is a connection between hardness of heart and sexual immorality. When our heart gets so hard we can't feel the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. We lose hope that God can change anything. We believe lies over and over and it's like rubbing your hand on a rake over and over. It cuts and it wounds but eventually you do it long enough. It will become a callus and then you don't even feel it anymore. That should be the number one thing that scares us. Not, hey, can I get a divorce for any reason? The Bible gives a few exceptions. And let me just say this. Even though these are exceptions, things that God says are permissible for divorce. It doesn't say that they're obvious and it doesn't say that you should and it doesn't say that there's not going to be ramifications on the other side if you choose to. Number one is adultery or sexual immorality. That's number one. And why is it that you can divorce for that? It's because covenant is cut by intimacy. When you have sex as a married couple, the reason why God does not want us to have sex with anybody but size the person that we're married to is because sex is not recreational sports. Sex is body, soul, and spirit coming together. It's God's way of taking two and making them one. How do you unscramble eggs? And so when divorce happens or when one of the partners goes and has sex with somebody else, what they have done is they have rendered the covenant that was sealed in sex. They've considered, they have violated that covenant. And so the innocent party in that covenant is free if they so choose to walk away from it because this individual has chosen to create an offense and a transgression against that covenant. Now it doesn't mean that you should. Very often there can be healing in that relationship. And most often when there is sexual immorality that takes place in a marriage, when there's an affair, it's not coming out of a healthy marriage. It's not like, hey, everything was great. We had great communication. Everything was perfect. And I just, oh, I fell into sexual sin. No, there's other issues that are underlying. Very often it's possible to go back and to rebuild when there's been sexual immorality. Let me tell you what's very difficult to rebuild. The breaking of trust. Because when adultery takes place and there's been a long-term affair, the sex is easy to forgive. For some, trust is very difficult to forgive. So I know that people that have gone through multiple affairs or have experienced affairs in their marriage and they've stayed together and it made them lean in to get healing in their marriage. And that's awesome. What a powerful testimony that is. And I know some people who said, you know what? There was such a violation, I just can't ever trust them again. And as sad as it is, there's an appropriate place for divorce. Another exception that the Bible gives for divorce is Paul, it's called the Pauline exception, 1 Corinthians chapter seven. He says, if you're a Christian and you're married to a non-Christian, and that non-Christian decides to abandon the marriage and they say to you, I don't wanna be married to you anymore. I don't, you're following Jesus. I don't wanna live like that. I wanna live like I wanna live. I'm walking out on you. The Bible says that the believer who is abandoned is not bound under such situations that they are free to ultimately remarry, but remarry in the Lord. So in other words, marry a Christian. Come on, if you wanna enjoy the good life, don't put yourself in an unequally-yoke situation where you're gonna be frustrated. Marry a believer, I know that some of us come to Christ after we're married. If you can, stay married. Don't, sometimes people have said, I wanna serve the Lord, so I'm gonna divorce my spouse. They don't wanna know anything about the Lord. But you can't do that. Bible says whatever state you were saved in remained in such state. And then it goes on in 1 Corinthians seven. If your spouse wants to stay with you, let them. Stay married, but if they leave, you're under no obligation. One other thing, and this is, I'll finish with this, because they asked about physical and emotional abuse. Emotional abuse, number one, emotional abuse is very difficult to define. I'm not saying that it does not exist, it's just very difficult to define. Because you can have somebody who's getting verbally yelled at, screamed at, names calling, and that's like legitimate verbal abuse. And then you got some people, your husband gets mad at you because you spent $10,000 on your credit card on QVC, and he raises his voice at you and you feel emotionally abused. That's not emotional abuse. Physical abuse, however, is very obvious. It's very obvious. I believe there are some situations where there is unrepentant physical abuse. And you've gone through getting, reaching out to somebody, in some cases calling the police, you've gotten safe, you've tried to go through counseling and programs and things like this. And this person is unrepentant about it. In that situation, I believe that the innocent party, most often the wife needs to stay safe and it's appropriate because that person, that husband, and it's most often times husbands, even though it's flipped sometimes, has rejected his covenant responsibilities. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter five, he says no husband ever harms his own flesh, but he nourishes it and he cherishes it as his own body. You begin to lay hands and harm a woman and you violate the trust that God has given to you to love and to protect and to cherish, which is your marriage vows. You violated those vows. And I know that that has happened and I know people that have been able to work through it. God bless them. First responsibility is I wanna just speak to anybody who would be here or listening, who you're in harm's way. Before you even have to have the discussion about divorce, first discussion you have to have is getting someplace safe. You get safe. Anybody ever uses this book to tell you that you have to stay in a house or in a relationship in which abuse and physical harm is being inflicted upon you, then you need to reject those people and you need to go find some help. You need to come right in church, we will help you. The second thing I would say about this is if you suspect you're a victim of emotional abuse, to whatever degree that you suspect that you too need to get safe and you need to get some people who can walk with you and ultimately you need to have a professional who can help you work out what is really going on in that relationship. If you are a Christian, you attend Radiant Church and you're in that situation, we are, you don't have to be afraid of us. We have a great pastoral staff. We have great counselors that we refer to people. You can call us, we wanna help you. Here's our goal. Our goal is that every individual is able to be safe, is able to walk in a clear conscience before God and ultimately though, we want everyone who is married, we want them to thrive and succeed in their marriage and we believe that Jesus Christ being at the center of that is the key and we wanna help with that and so we want you to be healthy, we want you to be safe. You know what the world needs to see? It needs to be Christian, it needs to see Christian marriages thriving. We can't say a whole lot to the world about family and marriage if ours is just as messed up as theirs is. We need to be distinct. We need to be different. We need to not be perfect, but we need to lean in to doing it God's way. Amen. I want everybody to stand up with me if you would all over this room. I'm gonna close in prayer and I wanna invite our ministry team, care ministers, prayer team if they would make their way up along the front and everybody else, if you would just bow your heads and join me in prayer. Lord, what can we say? We just, number one, start by acknowledging that we are so weak without you, but Lord, we are so grateful for your spirit, your Holy spirit at work in each and every one of us. We're so grateful for grace that empowers us to live beyond ourselves and to follow you Jesus. We're so grateful for the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe. And Lord, tonight we pray by the power of your Holy spirit. More than just information, more than just answers to questions, our hearts would be directed to you, the one who is the answer, the one who is the lover of our souls. You're not just some inanimate energy flowing through the universe. You are a real God, a real father. Jesus, you're a real savior. And there's nothing that any of us have ever faced. Rejection, abandonment, pain, loss, fear, watching prodigals walk away. Anxiety about our relationships and our family. There's nothing that we've experienced that Jesus in your humanity, you did not experience. You know what we're all feeling right now. And my prayer is that Jesus, you would intervene and you would move in our lives. That you would make a way where there is no way. Lord, I pray for wisdom over parents, over every mother, over every father in this room, over every grandparent that's raising their kids, over every single mother, over every single father, over every nuclear family. I pray God that a spirit of wisdom and revelation and grace would be given to every mom and dad to train up our children in the way that they should go so that when they're old, they will not depart from it. And Lord, I pray for a spirit of grace and mercy in this room, to meet each and every one of us who are camping in a place called pain. Maybe pain in our marriage. Maybe pain because of our children. Maybe some of us have experienced loss through divorce. We don't feel like our heart has ever been mended. Maybe some of us in this room would recognize that we've gone through marriages, sinned in those marriages and have carried around guilt and shame because of the part that we played in it. Lord, today, I pray that there would not be a spirit of heaviness or burden or condemnation, but tonight, Lord, that you would free us from those shackles. Shame would be lifted off. Burdens would be lifted off. Lord, hope would be restored. Faith would rise in our hearts. And tonight, how we're gonna close. So everybody's heads bowed and everybody's closed. Simply wanna ask you today, if you're here and in any one of your relationships, kids, marriage, maybe a previous marriage, there's something that tonight, you're feeling pain and you need freedom in. I just want you to right now, just raise your hand all over the room. Jesus is here to heal, not to condemn. Thank you, thank you for your honesty. Thank you. You can put your hands down. And here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna pray in a moment. And my prayer doesn't matter. My words only matter to the degree that when I say them, I believe that the God of heaven, who's your father, he moves. I believe that there's authority in the name of Jesus. So I'm gonna pray in a moment and then we're gonna dismiss. And what I'm gonna ask is if tonight, you brought pain with you. We believe in the power of prayer when we pray for one another. Sometimes we just need to let somebody else know that we're in a place of trauma. We're in a place of pain. And we need them to pray over us and there's healing that takes place. There's hope that's restored. After I pray and dismiss, I'm gonna invite those of you who raised your hand. Many of you did. If you would like, we're just gonna invite you to come and receive prayer from our prayer team. You might think, well, what difference is that gonna make? What it is is it opens a window for heaven to step into our reality and for God to begin to make a way. There's faith that meets us at the point of prayer and agreement together and God moves on our behalf. So you just linger, you just come down. Maybe couples need to come down. Maybe you're by yourself, you just come. I believe God's gonna move as we pray. Lord, tonight, by your power, I pray chains would be broken. Shame like a heavy garment would be lifted off of people. Lord, I pray that hard hearts would be peeled back, layer by layer. Lord, give us tender hearts of flesh, not hearts of stone. Give us hearts of repentance. Give us hearts of sensitivity. Lord, give us hope tonight. We just pray over our family's God. Pray over every mother. Pray over every father. Pray over every household. Lord, do we pray your grace, grace, grace to meet us there. And we give you praise for it tonight in Jesus' name. Amen.