Marriage Conference 2016 - 02 - Husbands Love Your Wives — 2 Corinthians 6

0:00 You may have heard this story, but at this past Super Bowl, a man was sitting right nine rows up on the 50 yard line, and he was sitting next to an empty seat where he put his coat. And there's no such thing as a Super Bowl with an empty seat. So the guy that was sitting across from that empty seat said, This seat, is it yours? He said, Yeah. He said, I bought two tickets.

0:34 And he said, Oh, really? He said, Yeah. He said, Well, where's the other person sitting here? He said, Well, that's my wife. But she passed away.

0:42 He said, Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. He said, And you couldn't get any friends to come? He said, No. He said, I asked everybody, my best friends, my cousins, my relatives, even the guys at work, and none of them wanted to come. And he said, Well, why not?

0:53 He said, They decided to attend the funeral. So, what a way to start talking about love. Like I said, marriage is a bridge that's supported by two beams, two support beams. One is submission, other one is love. And I told you what I felt was a good description of love, not a definition of love.

1:24 I can't define love, but I think what is a good definition, a benchmark. But for as we look at love, I want to make two very demonstrative statements. The man in a godly relationship is to be the wife's point of reference. Now I say that as I juxtapose the position that God gives that the relationship of marriage is like Christ in the church. The church is what it is because it has Christ as its point of reference.

2:08 So for a woman, her husband is her point of reference. He is her authority. I do this because this relationship exists, this person is in my life. But for a man, the woman is supposed to be his point of regard. He he sets her as we sojourn on Earth as the object that he is successful.

2:38 Not how much money he has, not big his house, not what kind of job he has, but his wife. His wife. That that that that consumes him like a burning passion. And then that's what gives him steel in his back, his wife. His wife looks at him as a point of reference, but she's his point of regard.

3:06 His imagination forms itself around the idea of his wife. And that that grows him up out of boyhood into manhood. What we have now is a lot of males who are growing old but never growing up. And see, the the whole idea of the wife is to say, I'm a man now. I found the best woman in the world and made her fall in love with me, and she loves me every single day.

3:35 That's the point of regard. I had to do a marriage counseling last year. I did not do their marriage. I did not do their counseling because I was stunted by the fact that he was a Christian and she wasn't. And I said, Here's my advice to you.

3:57 Don't marry her. Don't marry her. Don't marry her. And he said, Well, she's Catholic and she feels secure in that. I said, well, don't marry her.

4:07 Don't. You you got all of second Corinthians chapter six tells you that. The Holy Spirit uses six different illustrations, uses six different verbs to explain that you don't marry an unbeliever. You have a relationship of any type of importance or intimacy with an unbeliever. And he said, Yeah, Dwight, will you just come and talk to her?

4:28 And basically what he was saying is, Dwight, you lead her to the Lord. So I come up to visit them. They lived in Toronto. I went up there and I talked and I told her plainly, I don't think you should get married. I think it's biblical.

4:45 It's not my opinion. You seem like a nice person, you know, you're an attractive woman, that's great. You have a good job, you have high regard by the people that you work with, but you shouldn't get married. And she said, Well, what's wrong with me? I said, well, you have a fatal flaw.

5:08 And it's one of those perfectly set situations. And she said, what's my fatal flaw? Tears in her eyes. I said, don't know Christ as your savior, you're not saved. You're heading in two different directions.

5:18 You both go into eternity but one is the blessing of God and the other one is the judgment of God. She said, well, how do I get out of this? She's asking all the right questions. And my brain is spinning because I want to say, ding dong, why didn't you tell her? She says, nobody ever told me this before.

5:36 And I'm looking at him, you want to marry this woman? You never talked to her about the hope of your life, the crisis you're saving? You didn't talk about that? And right there in front of probably 150 people at a Chinese restaurant, she beautifully gave her life to the Lord Jesus Christ. She accepted Christ with all her heart and and has been living a growing Christian life since then.

6:00 Okay. Well, I get start getting phone calls, you know, from the family, the brother and sister of the guy that married this woman and and they're all negative. She's a witch and she's destroying our family and he's moving out. And you know, for any of you guys who do ladies who do counseling, just remember one small fact, it's a mighty thin pancake that only has one side. Okay?

6:43 I asked him directly. I said, what do you want out of this relationship? Well, I wanna have a nice home. I want us to walk through a park together. I want us to...

6:57 They work in the same hospital together. I want people to know that we're a couple. I want I want us to to read books together and go to movies together and and and I I want us to make decisions together. I said, mhmm. And what do you want?

7:12 Well, I want him to make me laugh, and I want us to have holidays together and start traditions. And I want us to do things like, you know, listen to music and try to interpret them what they mean. And I want us to have a nice home, and I want us to have, you know, enough money to do the things we want and go on vacations together. I looked at both of them. I said, look at me.

7:41 Look at me. I said, at me hard. I'm the best looking thing in the room. Look at me. I said, no.

7:49 No. You don't want the vacations. You don't want the walk in the park, you don't want the cute little dog, you don't want the nice house, you don't want the vacation. I said, all you want is him. All you want is her.

8:00 Period. Nothing comes after it. The reason why you got married is because you wanted her, because you wanted him. And anything else that floods itself that that gets involved and that stuffs into that is nothing but a distraction and will cause your marriage to fall apart. You got married because you wanted her.

8:19 You got married because you wanted him. The agenda does not change. I'm with you because I want you. He says, but you don't know what... That doesn't matter.

8:34 You wanted her. No matter what I said to you, no matter what your elder said to you, you had to have her. You got her now, buddy. Nothing's gonna change that. Now where is the person that you longed for?

8:53 I looked at her and tears just running down her face, and she said, yeah. All I really want is him. I said, well, honey, you know what? Even if he's not listening to me, you fight for what you want. You want him.

9:05 I said, you're a spin thrift. You want those people to say, girls, always got to buy something new. Stop that. You want him. I said, you're a guy who loves toys.

9:12 You buy cars you don't need with money you don't got to impress people you don't even like. You want her. Right? And he said, well, yeah. I said, it's a well, yeah, then you're not right.

9:25 You're not being true. You're not honest. And you're supposed to be the mature Christian in this. Love is extremely selfish. I want you.

9:40 I don't want anybody else to want you. I don't want to want anybody else. I want you. Now here's the problem. In the dichotomy of the male female relationship, when it comes to love, men have to be told to love.

9:59 Look at what it says, back in Ephesians chapter five. It says, Husbands, love your wives. You'd think that dummy doesn't need to be told that. You think that it'd be clear. Here's someone you don't deserve, someone that you shouldn't have, but God has blessed you with them anyway.

10:24 It seems like you shouldn't have to be told that, but men have to be told to love. And not only to be told to love, they have to be told how to love. Notice what the scripture says. First of all, he is to love by sacrificing. Verse number 25, it says this.

10:41 It says, husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. You don't love your wife if you don't give yourself for her. If you don't stand in the way of the bullet, if you don't brace the situation so she doesn't feel the cold, if you don't shore up the house so there's no way she can be jeopardized, If you don't make demands of your children so that they respect their mother. You love her and give yourself for her. You sacrifice.

11:20 You say, I'll I'll die so that you can live. Sacrifice. Not only sacrifice, it says in verse number 26, he sanctifies it. Now, sanctify means to set apart. It's a Greek word means to to set apart as as as as as precious, as genuine, as valuable.

11:43 You can't talk to my wife the way you talk to your wife. You can't talk to my wife the way you talk to someone else. You don't talk around my wife like a dirty rotten muleskinner. You don't use vulgarities in my home. Who do you think you are?

12:09 You set her apart. I heard somebody say as a friend of mine was walking by, a very godly friend of mine said, man, he worships his wife. That's right. I'm not being irreverent when I talk about worship that way. I'm saying as much as a human person, I'm allowed to give that kind of honor to, I give it to my wife.

12:33 My wife. My wife. My wife. It god made it important for us to sleep together so she'd be the first person I'd see every day and the last person I see every day. That's imperative.

13:18 My mother said that a woman can always tell what kind of a quality of a man has in his character if he brushes his hair and polishes his shoes. I said, what? That's all it takes? And she said, yeah. He's concerned about how he looks.

13:35 He doesn't worship himself, but he doesn't wanna look like something less than what he is. And she said, so, you know, a woman is the other way, how she treats her hair. If she does not take care of her hair, she won't take care of you because her hair is her glory. Brother Dwight, I can't find a husband. I can't find anybody that likes me.

13:56 I can't find... When is God gonna give me someone who'll care for me? Well, the Bible says we are workers together, honey. Now God has done his part. You have to do yours.

14:05 What's my part? Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Take a bath. He's selfish about his wife.

14:18 He's selfish about... I have a rule in my house that my wife does not cook on Sundays. She does not cook on Mondays. I only want her to do that kind of thing three days a week. I don't like my wife to slave over anything.

14:33 She has to take care of three boys, and one of them is her husband. I don't want my wife to be dragging in and doing all that. My wife is a cleaner hearted anyway, but our house is immaculate. People come to our house and, you know, they're afraid to walk on the ground. The floor is so clean.

14:51 And I don't want my wife to have to worry about that. So whenever I'm out, I'll call on the phone and say, Honey, do you want this? Do you want that? Do you want to do this? Want to do that?

15:02 She's my first thought. She's my first thought. I don't want her to ever feel like she's chained to an obligation that wearies her. And like I said, we have two boys that live with us, the two boys are a challenge, even for me, the way they live because they're boys. That's part of the franchise.

15:24 And Stephanie is a professional black woman. Let me tell you that. I mean that with all my heart. She clearly enunciate what she's thinking. And she says, I told our other boy, Pepe, da da da da And I kind of cringed and said, okay, honey, let me do that.

15:47 There's a certain way you need to talk to a man. Not that it's not a matter of respect or not. There's a certain way you need to talk to a man so it doesn't destroy his manhood. Because Steph, you you got it, honey. You you you got a two edged sword.

16:05 Okay? You can use one word in a way that would just slice a guy open, he'll bleed to death. And she got it honest. Her mother's the same way. Her mother do it in French, and if you don't speak French, you still know what she's talking about.

16:23 So I had to find a way to soften that. She's not gonna disrespect my wife. She's separate. She's mine. That means there's a certain thing that I I desire.

16:41 And lastly guys, there's a there's an aspect of us that god put us to deliberately The Bible says that he is... Jesus is the savior of the church and that word could be said, he's the shepherd of the church. Your wife is supposed to follow you. She's to follow you. Where are you leading her?

17:08 Where are you leading your family? What what... Clear goal. Here's my definition of a leader. A leader is someone whom god has given the clearest vision of the goal and has empowered him or her to convince others to accomplish the goal with them.

17:30 Someone that god has given the clearest vision of the goal and god has empowered, supernaturally empowered that person to influence others to complete the goal with them. Now that's that's your role in the house. You're just a shepherd. A friend of mine in New Hampshire lives across the street from a guy who has a bunch of sheep. And I saw the craziest thing, and I'd always knew that...

17:55 Heard the statement, sheep will follow anything. I was looking across the stone wall that he has, and I saw a leaf fall from the tree in front of the sheep, and then the wind took it, and the sheep went right after it, following the leaf. You ever notice how many women have a rotten, poor excuse of a male as a husband and he's influenced that woman so much that she'll follow him into perversion, Follow him into something wicked. Follow him into something that's degrading and defend him in it. Because naturally, god has made it such that the man is to be shepherding the wife and the wife wants someone she can follow.

18:42 Well, if that responsibility has been given to us and that particular need has been given to the woman that she needs to follow a man, so much more we need to be careful as we shepherd our homes. A man needs to be told and taught how to love his wife. It's right there in scripture. It doesn't say anywhere in there, wives love your husbands. The Bible does not say that anywhere because women do it naturally.

19:14 Women have this innate ability to love. That's why they had the kids and we didn't. If it was our responsibility to have children, one birth pain, and we would have quit. As a young lady I know, she said that she wants to have 11 children. I said, Of your own?

19:34 And she said, Yeah. It says something about carrying a child inside of me. I said, what about, you know, labor and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, but right after the baby comes out, it's so beautiful. I said, but it's that fifteen hour period of excruciating pain that says this is the last one.

19:52 I said, I know. I've I've had two. She said, you're crazy. I said, honey, I've had two kidney stones and let me tell you something. Who has had a kidney stone?

20:06 Do I know what I'm talking about? I had a kidney stone, and this was the first one, which was the minor one, not the major one I had two years later. I had a kidney stone, and I went into the doctor, and I don't know what your theology is, but my theology says whoever the guy is that created morphine is going to heaven. I don't care what his faith is, his philosophy, he's going to heaven. The doctor said, You passed the kidney stone in.

20:30 He said, It's so miniscule. You really can't even see it. I said, That thing caused me excruciating pain. He said, You've just had the male version of having a baby. I said, No, didn't.

20:41 He said, There's a woman out there you need to talk to. I went outside and I said, Miss, the doctor told me to talk to you. He said, About what? I said, I passed the kidney stone. She said, Sir, I've had five children.

20:49 She said, I'd rather have all five of them run back to back sideways than have another kidney stone. Am I right? Amen. See, that's a woman that said that. Well, I had two.

21:03 And the second one was worse. Okay? Aren't there women talking about, you don't need to have a child? Yes, I do. Anyway, back on topic.

21:46 Your hips make you look fat. He didn't see that woman for five days. And then the swelling went down in his right eye and he could finally see her. Here's another one. Foolish love.

22:15 Love is better the second time around. What makes you think you got it right the first time that you can do it right the second time? Here's another one. Fall in love. You fall in love.

22:27 Love is not a fall. Love is a climb. It takes work to love. It takes work to love. Love is an investment.

22:37 Love is something you watch over. Love is not a fall. You you you have to decide. Love is a decision. I teach guys this.

22:48 As with love, manhood. Manhood is a day by day, moment by moment, situation by situation decision to do what's right according to god's word. It's the same way with love. Love is a decision because the the person that you were standing at the altar with in your finery is not the same person as you get home. When you unwrap the package, you're going to realize, this is not what I thought I was going to get.

23:10 If you define your love twenty five years later after your marriage, you'll find out it's a different definition than what you started with. No such thing as falling love. Here's another one that's a lie. Fake love. Sex.

23:28 Sex isn't making love. No. It isn't. No. It isn't.

23:34 No. It isn't. One of my dearest examples in my life growing up was a man by the name of Herb Rylander. Herb Rylander was an alcoholic for the first forty two years of his marriage. On New Year's Eve nineteen fifty nine, he accepted Christ as his savior, walked away from alcohol absolutely completely.

24:00 His wife had accepted Christ some years earlier and she was given permission by her church. Just leave that bum. He's stealing everything. He's selling everything. He cheats people.

24:10 He steals cars from the church parking lot. Just leave him. I mean, when your church elders tell you, leave a man. That's... He's pretty bad.

24:19 But every time they would give her that suggestion, when all the women said, you can do better, your kids could have better, she would answer back, but I love him. But I love him. When Herb Rylander finally accepted Christ as his savior, he transformed and he became one of the greatest soul winners and mission men I have ever known. He opened door... The Open Door Rescue Mission where on an average, every single day, they fed four, 500 men and they sat there and heard the gospel as Herb Ryland had preached from the passion of a person who had wasted their life in sin and men will never smell.

24:55 So many men will never smell the stinking stench of perdition's flame because of Herb Rylander. That's not altogether true but because of Ruth Rylander who prayed for that man she loved. There's no such thing as making love. It's not sex. Love sees in a person what the person can't see in themselves.

25:21 Men have to be taught and told to love. But the other side of it is women. Women have to be taught to love by someone else and guess who it is? Other women. Turn to Titus chapter two.

25:38 Titus chapter two. The great thing about the Bible is all the Ts of the Bible are together. Titus chapter two. Look what it says in verse four. It says this, I'm sorry, verse three, The age of women likewise that they be of a behavior becoming holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things that they may teach the younger women to first be sober, to love their husbands.

26:40 Learn how to keep your mouth shut. Every instance that the Bible uses as a reference for gossip, it uses women. I know men gossip. Men gossip as much as women. But for you guys, it's a recreational sport.

26:57 You found a way to do it in such an innocent way. I don't wanna hurt anybody's feelings, bud. Don't tell him when I said this, however, and men lap it up just like women do. But women, you have to learn how to be discreet. Next thing, says that you gotta learn how to be decent.

27:13 Notice he says, be discreet, chase. Chase. I was visiting at my mother's church a couple years ago and the daughter of one of the elders came up to me and she said, hello, uncle Dwight and I looked at her I said, that's a nice little nothing you're almost wearing, Timothy. She said, you don't think I'm dressed right? I just wish you'd dress.

27:42 She said, this is not appropriate for church. I said, honey, I know people who are ashamed to wear that to bed. And she had that disgruntled, befuddled look on her face. I said, I said, let me put it like this, Tiffany. I said, you got a cat.

28:00 Right? Yeah. I got a cat at home. What's your cat's name? Mister Fluffy.

28:04 Okay. Mister Fluffy. I said, you don't feed Mr. Fluffy Alpo, do you? Of course not.

28:11 Why not? Alpo is dog food. Right. It's dog food. And your cat is a cat.

28:16 He eats cat food. Right? Yeah. I said, you look like Alpo. And that's the only thing you're gonna attract.

28:24 You look like food for dogs, and dogs are gonna be attracted to you. She went away crying, told her mother. They didn't speak to me for weeks. However, they didn't want me to counsel her after she got pregnant out of wedlock. She's had three kids, different fathers, has no relationship with any of them.

28:45 But what do you expect when you are dog food? Dogs like you. We gotta teach our women to be decent. Decent. I was in a fast food restaurant, and I heard girls swearing and using statements that I I I wanna wash my ears out, and they weren't even 18 yet.

29:14 It's amazing to me what social media allows our kids to get exposed to and also what to practice. Ladies, you've got to teach women to be decent. And not only decent and discreet, the Bible says also dutiful. It says, discreet chase keepers at home. Now, I'd to pull over and park and end this session with will be the start of the next session.

29:40 It is imperative. It is imperative that you distinguish the difference between the house and the home. You know who's the master of my house? Anybody know? Who's the master of my house?

30:03 Who? No? The master of my house is Stephanie. And I got scripture to prove it. And you guys want to know Greek, turn to first Timothy.

30:19 Let me prove it to you. Some of you all give me that look. Some of you men about to rebel and leave stomping out in frustration and anger. First Timothy chapter five verse 14. I will therefore that young men, young women, marry, bear children, and guide the house.

30:36 The word there is ocus despades, masters of the house. The master of my house is Stephanie. But guess who's the master of my home? Me. Big deal, Dwight.

30:49 What are you talking about? Home is principle. House is practice. My wife is taking what I want my home to be and putting it in practical application. So when something tries to violate my house, it is saying to her, it's violating the principle of what my husband wants in a home.

31:08 So therefore, I have set certain things in place. You will not do this in the house because it violates my husband's aspect of what he wants in his home. If you have not set an establishment a principle for your home, don't wonder when your house is in a mess. So when I do my mayor's counseling, I sit down and I ask the guy, what do you want your home to look like? What do you want...

31:32 What principles do you want in place? He tells me, we work it out, we tweak it. I go to the young lady. I said, this is what he wants out of his home. Can you make a house out of it?

31:41 No. I can't do such and such. I can't do it on that. I can't do it on that budget. I won't live in that neighborhood.

31:47 Okay. We take it back. We tweak it again. She says that she can't have a house of five bedrooms with six bathrooms on $10,000 a year budget. Why not?

32:02 Okay. You gotta quit your job as assistant manager in the french fry department at McDonald's and get a better job. You're trying to get her to have a house that you're proud of, but it's gotta be based on what you can do in making the home. And that's where a lot of us fail. We're asking our wives to make this house function when we have no principles.

32:54 I said, You don't do nothing. Open the door when I get there. I'll help him out. Yeah, he's afraid of you. Well, he should be afraid of you.

33:04 My mother had to raise three boys who are all taller than her, at least by a foot. At least by a foot, she had to raise every one of us, three boys. And let me tell you something. My mother is the meanest woman of African descent I have ever known in my life. My mother ruled that house.

33:31 When my mother said she would knock my teeth down my throat, I believed her. You know why? I have empirical knowledge. My mother has the meanest right hook since Muhammad Ali. I actually saw my tooth tooth leave my mouth.

33:52 My brother Ricky is six foot six. I saw my mother, who's five foot three and a half, kick him down a flight of stairs and locked the door in the basement and made him stay down there three days. There's no bathroom. There's no kitchen. And he begged and pleaded, mama, can I please come?

34:10 And he was 22. Mama, can I please come upstairs? Not in my house. You're not gonna have this in my house. This this...

34:22 You want it to work. There's gotta be principle and practice. Principles and practice. It sometimes looks like to the world that men, we are hen packed. We're not hen packed.

34:34 We have empowered somebody to bring about what we wanted in our house and in our home. So often, people hear me say, let me ask Stephanie. Let me ask Stephanie. A young lady at our church came to me and she said, everybody envies you. Why?

34:53 Because you got Stephanie. And the young man who's the leading out at our church came and said, everybody envy Stephanie. The women in Stephanie because she got you as a husband. Her husband is known in the gates. There's a reason that they're admired.

35:14 Their home is an open place of blessing and bounty. We are... This is not brag. This is blessing. We are the poorest members in our church.

35:25 We are full time missionaries. We have the finest house and the home of most respect. And when people ask why, Stephanie was able to take my aspect of a home and make a house out of it. And our house is a place of hospitality. We don't put people up in hotels when they come to visit.

35:50 They stay at our house, and they'd rather stay there. That's that's what our whole point is, is that we'd be an example to a lost world. We're not trying to brag or prove anything. We're trying to witness. We're trying to show people who Christ is and Christ's love.

36:09 Listen, excellence is not having the best. Excellence is doing the best you can with what you have. And excellence is noted not by how much money you have or how many possessions you have, but how you've watched and been a good steward of what you have. So guys, we've got to evoke our dream and give our wives the empowerment to cause it to happen. So there's got to be a desperate difference between the home and the house, principle and practice, and empowering each to do that.

36:46 And watch what happens. First of all, there won't be any more arguments. There won't be any more confusion. Your boys will be men, and your women will be ladies. And that's what we want.

36:58 Right? Okay. I'm I'm gonna quit. We got six minutes before dinner. I'm I'm afraid to say this, but are there any questions or want clarification on anything?

37:13 You can't have a room with this many people talking about this stuff without any questions. Yes? Yes. Did anybody hear a question? Okay.

37:48 Two, that we have a biblical mindset that everything we do is as unto the lord and from the lord. Okay? That's very important to me. I I have I was raised that way and I I maintain that. This...

38:06 The the principle is home. When church is open, we go to church. I don't care if church is open 11 times a week. We're going to church. Period.

38:16 Nothing is is gained on Sunday that sacrifices worship. I'm not going to allow that. I remember one time, my oldest boy, Andre, before I was married, I I had adopted a young man named Andre And Andre was in school at Wayne State University. And my mother said, come on Andre, it's time to go to church. And Andre said, I got to finish this paper.

38:42 I got it. I got it. It's got to be turned in tomorrow. And my mother said, you got to finish your paper. I said, yep.

38:48 I said, okay, finish your paper. We go off to church. My mother and I, we come back home. And it was about four in the afternoon. And Andre was put on his coat.

38:56 My mother said, where are you going? He said, well, I'm going out to the movies with my friends. She said, what about that paper? He said, I finished it. You finished it?

39:05 Yeah. You finished it? Yes. Well, if you didn't have time to go to church you could finish a paper, you don't have time to go to movies. You're going sit right down facing me and watch me until it's time to go to bed.

39:19 Now Andre was 21 years old at the time. And my mother made him look at her, not be distracted, look at her for the next four and a half hours. You think Andre learned the lesson? Nothing. If church is open, we go.

39:41 Period. If they're if they're just mopping the floors and and stripping the wax off the tile, we're going to church. I will never make Christ number one. I make Christ only. There are no rivals for his affection.

39:55 There's no number two. There's no number three. That's the principle. Christ and Christ alone. Period.

40:04 That's just some of the principles I have. I have principles that I don't pay somebody to do the work that two boys that live under my roof can do. If somebody comes to Calriculese, I got two leaf rakers right in my house. My wife is different. She was raised in New England where it's a lot of snow and her mother and her father and her would get out and start shoveling the snow.

40:25 I'm not going to have my wife shovel snow. If she shovels snow, it's because she's been disobedient and she did it behind my back. And she likes shoveling snow. She does it for entertainment. I hate it.

40:37 We've got two grown boys living with us. Let them we got a snowblower. My wife is out there, and she knows I hate that. But those are the principles of my home. Just a few, but some.

40:51 Any other questions? Are there any single people in the room? How many? Raise your hand high. One, two, three.

41:06 Yes, that's going kill you to be single. Okay. I want to hear questions from single people about questions you always wanted to ask married people but you never felt comfortable doing it. Come on. You gotta have something.

41:32 There's gotta be some mystery in your mind that you wanna answer. Don't be embarrassed. We won't laugh at you long. What what what are you dying to know? Nothing?

41:47 You're not getting married? That's a shame. I begged all my life that there would be some kind of marriage conference for single people because I had all these questions and all these issues I wanted to address, and we never had anything like that. Now we got a situation where we got somebody wants to talk about marriage and there's no questions. Right.

42:20 Okay, anybody else? Are. Or that there even was a question. Yeah, that's true. Okay, anybody else?

42:30 A question? We've a couple of minutes. Yes, ma'am. We don't have that much time. Really don't.

43:34 I love her father as as a best friend. I tell people I don't have in laws. I have in loves. And that was very intimidating. So, I I kept tweaking just trying to adjust, know, what would my grandfather do?

43:51 What would her father do? And so on and so forth. When it was time to buy our house, I took all the paperwork before we got married. I didn't even show her what the house looked like. I went to her father and said, is this a good investment?

44:02 Should I do this? What should I... And just got his wisdom. I was scared to death of failing. That's...

44:10 That was big. Anyone else? Yes, sir. I think part of this different from Christ and the and the church is that he's perfect and all powerful, okay? And I'm human and flawed but I think that's that's the rigorous expectation god puts on me.

44:52 Do better. Be better. Okay, I'm not mad at you. I'm not I'm not angry at you. I'm not condemning you.

45:01 Do better. Do better. These these things I did when we first got married that I just didn't know any better and hopefully, I've gotten better at. My mother used to say to me and I couldn't understand it when she said it, if you see that the trash needs taking out, take it out. And I would say, but there's two other people besides me in the house.

45:20 Why can't they take it out? But now, you know, it's amazing to me how many obligations around the house that I see so that it doesn't have to be a concern for her. I check our trash can three times a day because Stephanie has a very strong sense of smell and she's on it and she'll start lighting candles and turning on fans and all that. I don't want her to have that issue. I don't.

45:53 She's very gracious in allowing me to have backyard barbecues where I invite 30, 40, 50 people. And she's willing to wash all those dishes and clean up all that stuff. I try to beat her to it sometimes, but she's done by the time I've just cleaned off the grill. So it's... They're...

46:15 I'm trying to be better. I'm trying... I'm not trying to be a great husband for her or even a good husband for her. I'm just trying to be a husband, period. Now let me explain what I mean by that.

46:31 The word husband is an Anglo word that comes from house band. And the illustration is given that the early homes in Brittany because of the the strange weather and the way the temperatures were, mowed and decayed, the walls would start to crumble. And what they would do is they'd take these huge cords and wrap them around the houses so the houses would have integrity. And they were house bands. And that's where the term came, a man who was able to surround the house with himself so it stays together.

47:10 The best illustration of that is a barrel. You think that the points of the barrel is the lid, the bottom, and the planks but no, it needs a band to hold everything together and has to be banned with a certain amount of tension. Otherwise, it becomes porous and it doesn't hold anything. Well, that's true of a husband. A husband has to have the kind of hold on the house so it's never compromised.

47:31 The home is not compromised. The family is not compromised. So that's an I'm just trying to be the house band. And I don't know how you can say you're a great house band or a good house band. You're just a house band.

47:45 Simple as that. Yes, sir.

47:47 So you talked about this idea that men have distractions and that women

48:01 should seek to

48:02 be their, I think, to be their husband's distraction rather than other things.

48:07 Other, anything. Yeah.

48:08 You know. But also there's there's kinda like a balance like you had this... You were talking about how God is everything. Mhmm. And only him, not one two, three, four, or anything like that.

48:20 Mhmm. How does that balance out in reality for me as a husband?

48:24 Okay. Your responsibility and I'm not trying to anyway delimit the illustration. There is room only in your spirit for god. The Bible says in first Corinthians chapter six verse 17, he that is joined to the lord is one spirit. God is the only one you worship.

48:41 He's the only one that you have as the supreme ruler, commander of your life but he gave you a soul. Now your spirit is your being, but your soul is your personhood. Personhood is how you identify yourself. It makes you unique from everybody else in the room. Everybody in the room is human, a human being, but not everybody is the same person.

49:00 So you have personhood that which identifies you, your particular taste, your imagination, your memories, your past, your environment. Your wife is supposed to be the center place of your soul. That's where you place all of your emotion. That's where you place all of your your drive, your desire on a soulish level as a person. God gave us a spirit to be god aware, a soul to be self aware, and a body to be world aware.

49:29 Spirit to be god conscious, soul self conscious, body world conscious. The influences and the impacts of the world are not supposed to, in any way, compromise your soul. And the aspect of your soul is not to in any way compromise your spirit. So the whole point of this being, your soul is supposed to have one object of affection, true affection, having no no other rivals, and that's your spouse. Your spirit is supposed to have no other rivals, nothing else that you worship and adore, that you live for.

50:05 It's god alone. Okay? That's that's basically what we're in a very minute and and inadequate way. What I'm saying when your wife is your... Is the distraction for your personhood.

50:18 You don't get your self worth, on this earth by anything else but your spouse. Now, your being, what you need to survive and exist, that's god and god alone. So, there is it is there is a great need of explanation of people understanding that you have a spirit responsibility. The Bible says, god is spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. That's it.

50:50 Alright. Now, when it comes to my personhood, there's one person who's the object of my of my affection, and that's my wife. I'm not saying you can't love every every... Anybody else. I'm not saying that you can't have affection with someone else, but the object that you point your love and your interest in primal or everybody else is your spouse.