 Good afternoon, Pastor David. Hey, John. Welcome everybody to Unfiltered. You see we're doing something a little different here. It's funny, for some reason I can't see myself on the screen. Is that intentional? It's not a wide screen. The picture. We're doing something a little new. As you guys can see, on Tuesdays we teased out a little bit about the series that Pastor will be doing eventually, probably around the end of May, beginning of June. Right in that area. That he'll start doing a series on Marriage and the Family on Wednesday evenings. Wednesday nights. And for 7pm services. And so with that, Pastor, I wanted to start drawing things out with Marriage and the Family. And I think last night's message that you gave, which was in Ephesians, Chapter 5, Walk in Love, was the premise of the whole rest of the chapter in terms of Marriage and the Family and Children, Husbands and Wives. And so I wanted to tease that out a little bit today, Pastors. I wanted to speak about the Institution of Marriage. And the threat that has come against it, like gender identity, you know, the gender identity Question in terms of male, I'm a male, I'm a female, I'm this and that. How has that specifically attacked the Institution of Marriage? And that's one of those things, those new, an attempt to a new definition of what it means to be male, female and all of that. That's really something that the United States is quote unquote leading the world in. Other nations are not that caught up or concerned with this issue. They're just not. You don't read about these kinds of things taking place in some of the more liberal nations, Spain or England or Italy for that matter. You know, especially as it pertains to things related to abortion and all. The United States is much freer in the allowance of such things and all than you would think in the European, many European nations. And so marriage and the family here in the United States is actually going through a more severe, at least it appears, a more severe redefinition at the moment. And that's because there are political organizations that are attempting to redefine and have done so for many years. In my lifetime, we saw the redefinition of what it means to be a couple and actually a family. We saw that begin with the movement that I was part of the hippie movement where free love and free sex and things of that nature were actually part of the pillars of the reconstruction of the United States and the family as such. And so what we have here in the United States is a tremendous amount of confusion as to what a person's identity or gender may be. It's not as if this confusion has originated from within the conscience of 99.9% of Americans. It's because it's coming from the philosophy of the liberal, especially as is being presented by many of those in the higher institutions of learning who have a tendency of making excuses for sin and attempting to make it seem normal. And so that's what we're looking at right now. And much of what we're seeing take place in this kind of confusion is all going to find its origin in confusion of what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a couple. And so because God ordained marriage, He established it, He instituted it. It's one of the things that we specifically as Christians look back and say was God's design and not just us. And there are other religious faith systems. For example, Judaism also carries with it. In its more stricter form we'll say the same kinds of concepts and understandings because we have received those concepts from the Old Testament. There are still many religious faiths that say, no, marriage is between a man and a woman with the design to produce what is called a family. And because a family has been under attack for so many years and because so many homes have been destroyed by divorce and so many children have been born out of wedlock without the benefit of having a committed father and committed mother to a relationship that is ordained by God, we've seen so much confusion and a good amount of confusion comes from the young ones who are being raised in the sad situation of a single family home, a single parent home. And so I was reading a study a while back that pointed out that young ladies have less difficulty adjusting, though they do have great difficulty, their adjustment isn't as severe as young boys because young ladies at least have a woman as a role model whereas that poor mama who's trying to raise a son is trying to be both father and mother to this little boy is quite a bit of confusion that takes place because of that. And so God's design for marriage was one man, one woman, one covenant for one lifetime. And so we work our lives together in such a way that we're united through him and then we want to produce children who also have faith in God. So we'll be looking at that when we get together in the near future. I like what Paul, even last night as it's building up to this and as Paul was illustrating that there's no covetousness, no fornicator and he was laying those things out which is walking in love as you pointed out last night. But you think about those are the things that are directly attacking the institution of the marriage today. Well, when he was speaking concerning those things he had begun the chapter by saying that we're children of God and therefore we should imitate our father. And then he gives to us as the classic example the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who offered himself as an offering and a sweet smelling sacrifice and a Roman to God. And so he wanted to point out that the Christian out of chapter four in terms of the walk of the believer the Christian lived in a certain way but the core of all of that was to be walking in love. And so when you walk in love it has a variety of obvious expressions of it and part of it is just endurance and the patience and the things of that nature that go into being able to have your life joined with a different life and still exist as a united life. One in Christ, the two shall become one flesh. And it takes a commitment to God's word. It takes the enabling of his Holy Spirit. It takes direction from his word to teach us what love is and how love acts and all of that. So yeah, when Paul was speaking about sexual sins and as I was reading through scripture last night he gives a whole list of sins that are actually sexual in nature. And he said these are things that shouldn't be named amongst you as children of God. And these are things that you should not have associated with you. And I was sharing how flippant Christians can sometimes be in such matters thinking that it's no big deal for me to yield myself to multiple partners because ultimately this is recreational and sex is any other appetite. There's a need, you fulfill it and there's no repercussions. And yet the destruction of the American family the desolation of children, so many who have been left behind and the incredible press to kill children in the womb or even outside of the womb. All of that falls right at the feet of those who believe that marriage and family don't matter. Well, Pastor, thank you so much for sharing with us. And again as we're building up to the series of marriage and the family drawn these things out, the importance of the institution of marriage. Some of the other things I want to cover down the road is the Christ-centered marriage submitting wives and husbands are the heads of the family. Church and wives are church and wives subject to husband's love and importance of the husband washing children. These are things I want to draw out as we start getting into the series of marriage and the family that it may be a blessing into our church family and a blessing to them. That's all. I don't want to go too long about that, but this is the intent of these videos. That's why we do it, yeah. And so family, thank you so much for tuning in. Reminder that we do have services this Sunday at 8.30 and 10.45. And Pastor David, you're taking us through Mark. And it's going to be a good story. So invite your friends and family and Pastor, thank you so much for your time. Of course. God bless you guys. Thank you for tuning in.