Marriage Conference 2016 - 01 - Love and Submission — Ephesians 5

0:00 I want to let you know that my wife and my son are here with me. My wife Stephanie is my wife now for almost eleven and a half years. I'll quote my friend Kenny Grant, Eleven and half years ago I said I do and she said you better. So she is my rib, she is my favor from God, she is my best friend and I say this all the time, if my wife decides to leave, I'm going with her. And I'm sick of this.

0:34 I'm going. Yeah, let's go. That's my pride. I often have those thoughts, those bad thoughts of what would happen to me if my wife were to precede me in death. I really must tell you I get terrified by that thought.

0:52 I have anxiety attacks. This is a true story. I want... I I give my wife a week off where I tell her, look, you need to get away from me because I know I'm a a lot to handle. Go visit your parents.

1:06 Go anywhere. But you need some rest away from me. And, you know, that sounds really wonderful, right? So I dropped her off at the airport and as I was coming back to the car, I stood there for a moment and realized I was gonna be without her for about a week to ten days. I instantly went to the rental car company, rented a car, drove twelve and a half hours to stay with some friends because I knew I couldn't handle being alone without my wife.

1:37 And I wanted her to have her time because I almost got on the plane with her. But I knew that that's how much I need my wife. I don't think she needs me at all, but I need my wife desperately. I say this kind of tongue in cheek. There have been times when I have looked at her in the bed and just turned to her and said, Stephanie, I love you so much and I need you.

2:03 And I can't imagine a world without you. And I thank god so much that you have been given to me and god kept his word. He kept his promise. When I was single, god promised me that he was going to give me someone and you've exceeded all of my expectations. And she always responds the same way.

2:27 So I don't know if you guys know the topics we'll be covering. Was that passed out explained or It was passed out. Okay. All right. And I'm just going to go in the order of how they were given to me.

2:45 We're going to get to the dangerous stuff first, talking about love and submission. You know, the reputation we get especially among assemblies, brethren assemblies, is that men serve in silence and women suffer in silence. Men get all the power, women do all the suffering. And men get all the accolades and women sit there and be quiet. Well, that's not how it works in my home.

3:27 We're going to look at what it really means to love and to submit. How to love as Christ loves and how to submit. So if you need to get comfortable, get comfortable. We're going to be looking at a lot of scriptures, so lick your thumbs. If you need paper and pen, raise your hand.

3:48 Okay, I don't know where you're going get it. I don't have any. But if you want to take notes and follow me, a lot of the things I do are alliterated to make it easier for me to so I don't chew my cud twice. One time I was speaking at a Baptist church in Florida and a young man I'd spoken at several times. He came up to me and he's about nine or 10 years old.

4:17 He said, brother Dwight, I love your illiterate messages. I went, Okay. Bless God for that. We I do this not as a gimmick, it's just really just to make thoughts easier. So, if you would, I would ask you to turn in your Bible to the book of Ephesians.

4:57 It always gives birth to new facets of revelation. The Bible is pregnant. It's always giving birth to new facets of revelation. Now, god has not changed his word but the human heart changes and we are are changed from glory to glory. That's what the Bible says in second Corinthians chapter three verse 18, but we all with open face beholding as a mirror, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory.

5:24 The laws of light and refraction demand that when I stand before a mirror, it must conform to the image of whatever standing in front of it. It must tell me how my hair looks. It must tell me how my eyes look. It must tell me if my tie is on straight. That's the laws of light and refraction when it comes to a mirror.

5:41 But the laws of life in Christ Jesus is that when I stand before God's word, there is a metamorphosis, there is a change, a form, but it does not conform to what I look like, I conform to what it looks like. And we are changed from glory to glory even by the spirit of the Lord. So if you say, okay, Dwight, we're look at Ephesians chapter five, I don't need to read that anymore. I know everything it says. You can't say anything new, you're not saved.

6:05 The word of God is ever pregnant, always giving birth to new facets of revelation. It never changes, we change. And that's the whole idea of it. We are changed from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. So we take appreciation that the word of God is a constant that never changes.

6:27 It is a constant that never changes but it changes whoever's affected by it and your witnessing techniques, you don't have to tell people this is chapter nine of John verse 43. You can just say god's word and in in God's word is God's will and intrinsic in God's will is motivated by God's spirit and intrinsic by God's spirit is going to do the work that cannot be changed. My word will not be returned to me void, but it will go forth and accomplish for the purpose for which I've sent it. So when you preach God's word, when you talk about God's word, don't let someone's wall get up because you say out of Genesis chapter three, just say God's word and God will honor his word even while the person doesn't know the source of what he's saying, what's being said. So we have to respect God's word.

7:11 So let's look at Ephesians chapter five. We're going to start at verse number 22, and we're going to read the rest of the chapter. Ephesians chapter five verses 22 down to verse 33. Well, I'm sorry. So start 21.

7:28 Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God's wives, submit yourselves into your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ, the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. For as much as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself forth, that he may sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he may present it to himself glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.

8:02 He that loves his wife loves himself. No man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bone. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined into his wife and they too shall one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

8:22 Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself and the wife so that she reverence her husband. Let's pray. Thank you, great king, for an opportunity to look in your word. It is our privilege, father, to be in your presence. We'd ask now, lord, that you would empower us so that we might communicate effectively.

8:40 Let everything we say honor you as our prayer. In Jesus name, amen. I tell college students when I speak to young people, tell me, why are you marrying Raz Mutant? And the young lady will say, oh, he makes me smile. And when he's near me, I just get all goose pimply.

9:13 And I love the way he touches me. And when he's gone, I miss him. And my answer is always the same. I have a dog at home, and he does the same thing for me. You don't need a husband, you need a dog.

9:28 And you might just be getting one. So then the kids retort back, well, what is love? What is love? And I could ask everyone in this room, let's say there's 100 people in this room, I'm asking, you give me a different definition. So I can't define love for you.

9:50 If I could define love for you, I'd be able to define God. And if I could define God, I'd be God. The Bible says God is love. I cannot define love, but I can describe love. Love is two high school subjects, math and history.

10:31 About it. Kind of all the number of times in the past, this person has done something for you without asking anything, absolutely nothing in return. And if the number is greater than both of your ages put together, that person loves you. And invariably, this always happens. The girl sits there and she goes, And then she goes, you don't love me.

11:11 I cannot define love, but I can describe it. When someone has invested in me and then gives me the dividends of the investment. God so loved the world. Before we know anything else about him, we know he gave. He gave.

11:39 God commended his love toward us. In that yard, we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. I see giving. So love has an aspect to it where it may not be definable, but it is describable.

11:54 I think of the fact that in Detroit, you all may have known that I'm from Detroit, and I love my city. And despite what everybody else says, it's not as bad as you think. Detroit is not a place for the weak at heart or the weak in soul. We it takes the strong to survive in Detroit. Some of our women are some of the best crack shots in the world.

12:20 When you come to Detroit, the police pull you over and they frisk you to see if you have a weapon. If you don't, they issue you one. Detroit is a tough place to live. But Detroit is one of the international points in the world. From my doorstep to Canada is an eight minute drive.

12:40 I can be in Canada eight minutes once I leave my house. And there's a bridge that spans the Detroit River, which really isn't a river, it's a straight between two lakes, that's called the Ambassador Bridge. At one time, the Ambassador Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world. And you could talk about some other great suspension bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge or the George Washington Bridge in New York, the Mighty Mack. The Mighty Mack is the bridge that separates that bridges the Lower Peninsula with the Upper Peninsula.

13:11 It's five and a half miles long across it. I've gone across it several times. But every suspension bridge has something in common. It has a point of origin and a point of completion. It has authenticity in that its structure is saying to you that if you start on this journey, I promise you, you'll finish it.

13:35 Why? Because there are two great pillars that stand in the middle of the water. And they say, because I am standing, because we are standing, you can trust us that the cables that are connected to us will not break. It's this called... They're called support beams.

13:56 And in marriage, marriage is made up of a lot of integral things, a lot of little things, but the two things that give a godly marriage any kind of integrity are the support beams of love and submission. I don't care, you know, how beautiful she is, how handsome he is, how much money they make, how philanthropic they are. If they don't have those two things working together in the community of their relationship, their marriage will not survive. What does a couple that's been married twenty five years have in common with a couple that's only married five years? They both got married the same day, one couple survived twenty five years and one of them lasted five years.

14:39 What do they have in common? Both of them said the same thing at the beginning. I love you. I need you. I can't live without you.

14:47 So what happened to the couple that lasted only five years? Somewhere along the way, these two things were violated or never established. Love and submission. I guarantee you. This is not just because this is the topic of this this this session.

15:23 But God taking two individuals who different in their construct, different in their makeup, different in the way they think, different in the way they imagine, different in the way they remember, He has to give them different perspectives to arrive at both points. That's the point of the bridge. You are going the same direction. Now before I got married, they told me, Dwight, marriage is about the four rings, the engagement ring, the wedding ring, the boxing ring, and the suffer ring. And only godly men told me this.

16:00 But then they told me the rest. It's good to have a boxing ring. It's good that there are fights in marriage as long as you're on each other's side. Your wife's not your enemy, and you're not her enemy. It's you two together, and you're fighting a fight against someone who doesn't want you to glorify God in your life.

16:18 So yeah, you should have the four rings. That's part of the franchise. If they didn't tell you that, kill them. You have to realize that this is the very pillar, it's the foundation of what we're about. So let's look at both of them.

16:35 First of all, when we talk about submission, about submission as much as a man's duty as it is a woman's duty, you say, Dwight, what scriptural reference do you have? Verse 21. What does it say? Submitting one to another. Say that again?

16:49 Submitting yourselves one to another. Submit yourselves one to another. That's an absolute. That's not something that you say, well, I'll just skip to verse 22. Usually when people read this passage about marriage, start at verse 22, let's get to the wife.

17:03 That's right. If she submits, I'll love her. That's not what it means. You submit yourselves one to another. Now the way that God has so ordained, that this works out, submission for a man is different than submission for a woman.

17:17 In submission for a man, he submits by serving. He submits by serving. You know the basic breakdown of gospelology, how the gospels are broken down in the old... In the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in in Matthew.

17:32 Jesus is seen as as as Christ, the son of David. In in Luke, he's Christ the son of man. In John, he's Christ the son of god but in Mark, he's Christ the servant. Christ here is the image that we're supposed to model ourselves after. He's the point of reference and notice what he does.

17:49 He comes to save mankind by serving mankind. Likewise, the submission that men are allowed or asked to undertake when it comes to a woman is to serve her. Let me give you some proof of that. First of all, he is demanded by the Holy Spirit to create a world of ecstasy for his wife. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 24.

18:09 Women write this down because you ain't gonna get it again. Deuteronomy chapter 24 and somebody read verse five. Deuteronomy twenty four five. You see that? King James Version says, to cheer up his wife.

18:39 And you look at that word in the Hebrew, it means to bring her to a point of ecstasy. Bring her to a point of ecstasy. I promised myself on the night before I got married that I would never give my wife a legitimate reason to worry. I would never have her in a world context or in a in a in a situation where she feels she's in jeopardy. I'm...

19:08 My job is to cheer up my wife. So I serve her by anticipating what would cause her to be fretful or fearful or to be able to look in her eyes and see that she's not confident, she's not secure, and I have to meet that need. It is the job of a man, guys, to make his wife have... Live in a bubble of ecstasy. You know what God says?

19:29 And here's the the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word in the Old Testament for glory is the word kebab, kebab. It means weight. It means load of responsibility. So God says in Isaiah, I will not share my glory, my responsibility, my burden with another because you can't handle it.

19:54 Likewise, guys, the burden, the responsibility of this house and home is on your shoulders, and you're supposed to serve. And it's so serving take away any anxiety or aspiration that would cause your your home to be in jeopardy. So the first thing is to bring your wife to a place of ecstasy, a place of happiness where she's content. Let me show you something. Turn to Psalm.

20:22 Like I said, we're gonna see a lot of verses. Turn to Psalm 128. Psalm 128. I said this once to a group of people and a guy stood up in the back and he said, Dwight, legitimize that. I said, Legitimize it?

20:40 He said, Yeah, legitimize it. That's really heavy what you just said. Legitimize it. I said, Do you have a Bible? He said, Yeah.

20:46 I said, Well, read it. It says in Psalm one twenty eight this, Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord that walketh in his ways. He shall eat the labor of of of thine... Thou shall eat the labor of thine hands. Happy shall thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

21:03 Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house. That's imperative. And it's not just talking about having children. It's talking about everything she touches bears fruit. That means that she has enough sunshine, that she has enough moisture, she has everything she needs so she's fruitful.

21:25 They never it's it's it's something to see a woman who's becoming emaciated by despair and worry and anxiety. You can see it on her face. But you all can see a woman who enjoys every single day, who gets up bouncing. I can't tell you how many young women have told me that they either start their day or end their day crying on the side of the bed. Their soul has become dried up and parched.

21:53 It is imperative that a man first cheer his wife. The next thing, not only does he serve her by cheering up his wife, he goes back to Ephesians chapter five. It is his job, according to scriptures, Ephesians five twenty six, it is his job to cleanse his wife. Notice what it says, Verse 25, Husbands love your wives even though Christ also loved the church, gave himself for it, that he may sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Cleansing the wife.

22:20 Now, talking about wife is dirty. No, the word there is the the Greek word katharcio, which we get the word catharsis. And what is the catharsis? What does the catheter do? It it what?

22:36 It it drains. It cleanses. It flushes. It allows free passage. Okay?

22:42 It's talking about freedom there, relieving pressure oftentimes. And not just, you know, you gotta give your wife a bath every five weeks. No. That's that's not the the the point here. The point here is never having a restriction, never being encumbered.

22:58 He sanctifies her. He cleanses her. He allows her to have free flow and the pressures are reduced. You've seen homes where the woman does everything and a man sits in an easy chair and props up his legs so it can support his beer belly, The wife is doing everything. That's that's that's not the role that the woman is supposed to have.

23:29 He cleanses. He makes sure there's no pressure. The next thing is the next verse. You know, I'm sorry. Verse 29.

23:56 What do mean I don't know it? Men love toys, and those toys come in different forms. Some guys, it's cars. Some guys, it's a boat. Sometimes, it's their tools.

24:08 I have every tool in the world. Trust me. I have several of every tool in the world. Some guys, it's it's it's model things. My grandfather loved model trains.

24:20 We we have our toys. We know... You know why? Because men need to be distracted. Men need to be distracted.

24:30 And if a man is not distracted from the world around him, from the job, from the pressures of of having dreams with no money to fulfill it, If you are not his distraction, he'll look somewhere else. You've got to be his escape. You... You've got to be his trophy. Dwight, I don't like that term.

25:00 Well, I got scripture for you. Turn to Jude. And we're come back to Ephesians and and justify it. But look at look at Jude. Jude only has one chapter.

25:12 So, if you pass the first one, you gotta go back. Okay? Look what it says in Jude 24 Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the world? No. Before other men?

25:34 No. Before Satan? No. To present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. God wants to show us off to him.

25:48 Well, go back to Ephesians five. Notice what it says here. It says this, it says that he, verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word that he might present it to himself, a glorious church. He wants to be proud of you for himself. He doesn't care about the neighbor next door or the or the guy down the street or or the woman that...

26:15 He wants to be proud of himself because he's got you. A man needs to cherish his wife. He has to have a point in you that gives him pride. And and please don't don't say, well, he loves my cooking. Okay.

26:38 That's great. But what about you? See, guys, we miss it when you don't see the value in your wife. I was speaking at a church several years ago, and the elders of the church were going take us out to dinner, so another brother was there and I said, Are you coming out to dinner with us? And his wife was standing there.

26:56 He said, No, I'm going home with that. And I wanted to beat the snot out of him, but he was six nine and about three hundred pounds. Holy spirit said love. I'm going home with that. Really?

27:23 Really? You have nothing to cherish? A man needs to have a point of reference in his wife that every other woman pales by comparison. Any other thing pales by comparison. On Earth, the greatest thing a man has is his wife.

27:50 And then it's his family and his kids, but it's his wife. I'll never forget when I asked my mother. We were raised... I raised was by my father. My father left us when I was six months old.

28:00 I have two older brothers. I think that when he saw me, he said, I quit. And he just left. But I asked my mother once. I said, ma, what's your what's your most prized possessions?

28:11 Without skipping a beat? She said, you boys. You all are. Men... Ladies, a man has to have a distraction, and that distraction he'll cherish.

28:28 When the world has beat him up, when things aren't going right, he can say in the back of his mind in the midst of three hours of traffic, I can't wait to get to my wife. At least I have my wife. At least she's sitting there. At least when I see her, everything will feel better. We need to have someone to cherish.

29:27 Why? It's just simple Genesis. The Bible says when god created the universe, the known universe, he says it is good but when he looked at man, he said he's not good. It's not good for a man to be alone. I will make the right person for him.

29:48 So ladies, you got this. You can put it over the door of doorpost of your house. The Bible says, you need me. It doesn't say that I need you. A man needs a wife.

30:03 He clings... That's why the Bible doesn't say a woman leaves father and mother and clings to her husband. No. A man leaves father and mother and clings to his wife. The biblical order and any other order is is is unholy and is twisted and perverted.

30:15 The Bible says, first, you leave father and mother you weave with your wife and you conceive with children That's it. You leave father and mother and you cling to your wife. The Bible says it three times. Jesus says it. Bible says it in one of the few things that Adam said right in Genesis chapter two and here in this passage in Ephesians chapter five that we cling to our wife and I'm not just talking about holding her and romancing her and sexual intercourse.

30:58 I'm talking about your thoughts. I'm talking about your dreams. If you have any dreams or desires, guys, that does not clean here... That does not include your wife, then I can tell you now you're in a perverted situation. Clinging to your wife.

31:13 That's how a man submits by serving her. At the end of the day, what is my wife feeling? At the end of the day, how does my wife reflect and respond to me? The end of the day, can I say I finished this day with integrity? It's more important than anything else.

31:34 I'm disgusted by the relationship that Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, the actors, have with each other. They have an open marriage. They can bring anyone else into their bedroom. They can have any kind of re... Kind of sexual relationship or date or whatever, and they're teaching it to their children.

31:53 For his sixteenth birthday, Will Smith gave his son an orgy. That's not marriage. And and let me tell you something. That's not love. If you cannot rightfully and righteously include your wife in every aspect of your being, your dreams, your hopes, your future, then whatever you're thinking is perverted.

32:18 This is how men submit to their wives. They serve them. But when it comes to wives submitting to their husband, it's different. It's it's a whole different ballgame. It's a whole another animal.

32:29 Notice what the scripture says, ladies. I want you to take note of this. That in this passage, there's only three requirements that god gives a woman. Three, there are 17 that god gives to a man. It's easy to find your three.

32:45 You make your husband find the 17 and say, this is the constitution of our house. Let your first three let your three be the first one and then give the other 17. And you teach that to your sons and you teach that to your daughters. And your son will have backbone and your wife... Your daughter won't bring home a bum.

33:09 Guys, you don't have to choose your daughter's husband. Just show him two things, those 17 requirements and a fully loaded shotgun. Everything will work after that. So let's look at what the Bible talks about a woman submitting. First of all, the woman submits by surrendering.

33:37 But how does she surrender? First, she surrenders according to chapter five verse 33 by reverencing her husband, Referencing the husband. Now you look at that word in the Greek. Ain't that that word means? It's the word we use to treat as a holy thing.

34:01 To treat as a holy thing. Reverence. Respect. That's why Sarah called Abraham lord. She she reverence.

34:11 She said, wow. This is whom god has given to me as a covering. And I know in the world of feminism, both male and female feminism, that's not a very pretty thing to talk about. But God is saying there's immense and enormous and eternal blessing when you could surrender to the point where you treat your husband as the church treats treats Christ. You know what that means?

34:39 You never speak ill of him to anyone else. You never disrespect him behind his back. We're going to get to a little again a little later but turn to Proverbs 31. Just want to pick out one little thing in verse numbers eleven and twelve. It says this, and everybody knows this, who can find a virtuous woman at her prices far above rubies?

35:09 But notice what the next, the very next thing is said about her, how the scripture defines and describes her. Verse number 11, the heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he should have no need of spoil. Notice, usually the idea is how a woman can trust her husband. No. This one is this, how a husband can trust his wife.

35:29 His heart feels absolutely secure in her. Notice the next thing, verse 12. It says this, she will do him good and not evil all the days of not his life, but her life. If she outlives him, she still holds him in a place of reverence. She'll do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

35:57 That's how she holds him in reference. She not only defines and describes her husband, she defends her husband. And let me tell you why. Men, you turn your ears off and talk to the women. Why?

36:20 Because manhood is fragile. Manhood is fragile in the Italian fragility. Ladies, we are... We got some real issues. Every single man, I don't care how godly, how great he is, manhood is fragile.

36:45 We break easily. I say this, and I don't mean to be off color with it. There's only two people in the world that can really hurt a man, his wife and his mother. You know why? Because they both seen him naked and neither was impressed.

37:03 Manhood is fragile. Okay. Go to the nursery and come back after that one. Okay. And like I said, we need you.

37:14 You don't need us. The strongest man in the world is broken by a woman. The heavyweight champion of the Old Testament, Samson, was a he man with a she weakness. He was broken by a woman. Spirits couldn't kill him.

37:28 Swords couldn't kill him. Stones couldn't kill him. But a woman could. She got him at his weakness. And every woman every woman knows what a man's weaknesses are.

37:47 So it's it's imperative, ladies, that you take your husband and you make him your lifelong project, and you secure him. You secure him both inside and outside. You deal with his ego, and we all have egos. There's not a man in the world who doesn't have an ego, but some of those egos are broken. Some men weren't raised right.

38:10 Some men are suffering from the the the problems of a bad childhood or no father figure or overly dominant mother. The eagles are damaged, and we we need you. So we need women to reverence us, to build us up, to edify us. When was the last time you told your husband, okay. It's been a year, and let me give you your report card.

38:37 Responsibility, a plus. A plus. Integrity, a plus. Lover, a plus plus plus plus plus. Father, off the charts.

38:56 Friend, a plus, a plus. When's the last time you gave your husband evaluation? And he says to you, what are the areas that I can improve on? And she says, I have them. They're my responsibility.

39:14 Where you need to improve, that's my responsibility. You see, because the whole idea in marriage is that... And the bible tells us this. This is no longer my body. It's owned by Stephanie.

39:26 When I give my body away to another woman, I have stolen. I've taken something that was not mine and given it to someone else. Her life, her body is not hers. It's mine. And how I treat that very precious possession reflects on what I am as a man.

39:47 So there's something wrong with me. It's her job to pray for me. It's her job to fast. Sometimes she has to pray in preparatory prayers. God, don't let him be successful.

39:56 Don't let him do anything right. Don't let him have rest. Don't let him have health and body until he comes back into right relationship with you, his family, and with me. Sometimes that's gotta be your prayer, ladies. That's how you take care of your responsibility.

40:24 God has given to every single man and women, but by topic right now is the issue of the man. To every single man, a universe of influence. There are people who depend on what your husband says, thinks and does. And you have got to respect him and let that have the kind of motion and motive and breath it needs to have and never undermine it, never destroy it, never cut his legs off. You got to respect your husband and the way you look at him.

40:54 I know there are times when men dressed like they were dressing in the dark. You just gotta pull him inside and say, you know what? This might look better here. Or, you know, yellow doesn't go with orange like that, honey. He's he's got...

41:08 You gotta help him because after all, he really thinks he doesn't need you. There's a story told about Winston Churchill when he was prime minister of England and Lady Astabula, who was wife of one of the British lords, she really hated Winston Churchill. And she said to him, Churchill, if you were my husband, I'd put arsenic in your tea. And Churchill, whose wit was legendary, snapped back instantly. Lady Astabula, I was your husband, I'd drink it.

41:45 That's that's not the kind of relationship you have with your husband. You're looking out for him. You're wondering where he is. You're praying about him. You're praying for him.

41:57 And when he needs that spanking from the Lord, you don't beat him with your tongue. You get on your knees and pray and fast for him. You love him through that. And when god is giving him the the chastening that he deserves, you love him through it. And you help him and you build him up in the positive areas.

42:19 And and and find a way to talk to him about those areas where he's weak. You respect him. And here's the last one. You romance him. You romance him.

42:34 Turn to Proverbs chapter five. We'll start at verse 15. Now, you know the truth of men, godly or otherwise. You know, it's really funny to me that the last people who talk about sex are the ones who know the most about it, and that's Christians. And that's why pornography pervades among our young people.

42:56 Ninety five percent of all our young men in the assemblies and the churches that are godly are addicted to pornography. They're addicted to pornography. You know why? Because in their home, nobody ever talks about it, never talks about sex. Nobody ever explains the reason why we don't go to that movie, the reason we want to watch that program, because it gives you the wrong perspective of a woman.

43:19 Pornography's whole intent is to demean and degrade women. So no wonder kids don't understand what relationships are in family. Look what it says. Proverbs chapter five and look at verse 15. It says this, it says, drink waters of thine own cistern and running waters of thy own well.

43:41 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the street. Let them be thine own and not strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with with the wife of thy youth. Now, those next four words in the King James were inserted. Let them be as it's really it's supposed to go into the next phrase.

43:59 Let that fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. The loving hind and pleasant roe. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love. Now the operative word there is not love or ravish. It's the word let.

44:17 That means that the the the implicit is true. The explicit is that that you have relationship with your wife that's intimate, but the implicit is that she is running, she's driving the passion. Let your heart, let your soul be satisfied by the ravishing of her love. If you are doing what you're supposed to be doing, guys, rightly, there should be an aspect of your romance that you have to say, hey, honey, can I have a break tonight? If there's a dispassionate break in the intimacy, gentlemen, it ain't her fault.

45:01 Because a woman rightly loved and a woman rightly related will ravish you with her love. So, woman, it's imperative that you know that you're rightly related in the place you should be and surrender when you can make your husband feel, pardon the word, sexy. When a husband feels like he's desired, when a man feels that he he... To at least one person in the world is that stunned he really thinks he is. It doesn't build up his ego.

45:39 It builds up his soul. It builds up his soul. I was speaking at a conference, youth conference several years ago, and one brother came up to me and and he was a... He's old, dried up prune. And he says, I hear you're speaking today.

46:00 Yes, I am. You're speaking next session. Yes. And you're talking to the young people. Yes.

46:05 Listen, I want you to talk to them, especially the married couples, and tell them that they need to start having children. You just don't get married to have sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. I said, You don't? They need to start having children. Marriage is not all about sex, sex, sex, sex, sex.

46:26 I said, well, sir, I said, why are you here? He said, what? I said, why are you here? I said, this is a young people's conference. Why are you here?

46:44 I said, you're here as an adult to be an authority and an example. And you've been just that. You've an authority. You've been a hammer. You've beaten kids up, and you got that frown and twisted look on your face to say that when you become an adult, life is supposed to stop having.

47:01 You're supposed to stop having fun. There's not supposed to be any passion. And I said, and I bet every single young man that would say anything about you in commentary in private would say he has a rotten marriage, and I don't wanna end up like him. And I said, and that's why young people are leaving our assemblies because we live... Give the impression that married life is a prune.

47:22 There's nothing but restrictions. But the Bible says, enjoy the wife of your youth. What are supposed to get? A thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and sit across the table and put it together and that's fun? When when did we forget that god created sex?

47:43 Sex has two motives. One is primary, the other is secondary, but they're still there. Primary is procreation. But the second one, thank god, is recreation. Some guy ought to say amen.

47:54 I can't speak for the women, but I know I can speak for me. But what we've done is we've let the world define that sex is all about recreation. It's not recreation, it's reproduction and responsibility. But when we prior to our prioritizing, we show the importance of it, the value of it. We take heart in what God created it for.

48:20 If we don't, Satan will get involved and the next thing you know, it'll be sex without guilt, it'll be sex without responsibility, it'll be sex without accountability, and a man who won't be accountable can never expect it to be be expected to be responsible. That's why you got guys who have kids and walk away from them, not married to a girl. That's why guys could... Are the... Were the driving force of abortion because we want sex without responsibility.

48:42 That's because nobody stood up with a godly intent and the word of God and taught that sex is about responsibility. Yes. There's recreation. But God gave us this to replenish the earth. Ladies, you have to learn that keeping that man's heart and keeping his mind, like I said, you have to be a distraction.

49:06 You have to ravish him. You have to romance him. You have to look him in the eyes and say, love everything about you. I don't wanna be with anybody else. And remember this.

49:47 Be maintained in marriage a sexual tension. Trust me. You'll get him to do a lot more if there's sexual tension in your marriage. That's how a woman submits to her husband, through surrender. There's got to be a lifestyle of surrender for a woman in marriage.

50:12 And I know, like I said, that's that's a tough that's a tough road to hold, but the benefits are overwhelming.