I heard on the radio the other day that 41% of all children are now born out of wedlock, where just 20 years ago only 8% were born outside of marriage.

Also, 80% of those children will be on some state assistance of some kind, and that many of these children will be abused, neglected and many of them will become involved with criminal activity, and repeat the lifestyle of their mother and be dependant upon taxpayers for their care.

The breakdown and rejection of marriage has spiritual, social, and economic repercussions that brings devastation upon a country.

In just 20 years, this country has developed an entire generation of a dependant underclass people all because they sought after pleasure instead of what is good.

Sooner or later, the me first, give me pleasure mentality has serious consequences and thats why the Bible warns us not to engage in physical activity until your married and responsible to care for each other, physically, economically and spiritually.

God doesn’t warn us about things just because he likes to keep us from having any fun, he warns us so that we don’t get hurt.

Thats what sin does, it hurts us, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and so if you want maximum pleasure, spiritual blessings, and emotional stability, remain obedient and faithful to the Lord Jesus

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The Book of Song of Solomon is a wonderful guide about marriage.

I know, I know, I’m an old fuddy duddy, who isn’t hip, and I don’t understand that theres nothing wrong with enjoying pleasure and worry about getting married later.

No,  I do understand that sin brings pain, and marriage brings true joy, and Gods blessings.

I understand what a joy it is after 34 years of marriage, I can look into my wifes eyes and know that our fidelity, and faithfully taking care of each other has brought us into a much deeper love.

Believe it or not God had originally designed this world so that everyone would have a mate that wanted one. But once again, man in his stupidity has undermined Gods plan through abortion.

I listened to a fellow who does statistics on birth rates and there are always more males born than females, but men have a tendency to die at a younger age through war, or accidents but by the time both men and women are at the marrying age its back to about one man for one woman. It shows that God designed man and woman to be married to each other.

But now because of abortion, theres an imbalance of more males than females, this is especially seen in China and other Asian countries where they practice sex selection. Now these countries are in trouble and looking in other countries to get women.

But it is Gods design for every man to have his own wife, but the  reason why so many are single is because many of them are looking in all the wrong places.

If you go to a bar, what ya gonna get?  Some loud mouthed drunk who’s there to get laid, but thats the most popular place but thats a road for disappointment.

You can go to the internet and hope the liar you get isn’t as bad as the liar the other person got.

Or you can go on a TV show and be one of a dozen contestants (whores and pimps on display) and you can compete in a bedroom to see if your good enough to win the pleasure of marrying the immoral dufus.

Why not just go and stand on a corner and try out each person and get paid to be laid? same thing!

Or you could do it Gods way, first be in a right relationship with him, pray and ask him for the right mate, then allow him to bring that person to you.

Thats what happened in the book of Ruth, and thats how God means for it to take place and when it does, watch out!

My wife walked into our church one Sunday, as soon as I saw her for some reason, I said Thats my wife, I was only 15 but I knew it and we’ve been together ever since.

God has a plan and the right person for you, but you have to seek Gods will.

The other day I was telling my wife that I love where we are in our relationship, after 34 years we are comfortable with each other.

That’s a good thing, when your young, your always trying to impress each other, how good looking you think you are, or muscular, smart or daring and all of those other dumb things.

And as the years go by, you change from trying to impress each other to trying to change each other. You should act or look a certain way and it almost comes to the point of nagging each other and its tiresome.

But then years later, you realize something, your not trying to impress or to change each other, your at the point where you are who you are and you accept each other for who they are.  Your happy just being with them, loving each other and enjoying each others company.

That’s the way its suppose to be with our relationship with Christ, when your first saved you try so hard to get Gods approval by trying to be some sort of super saint or spiritual giant.

Then when you fail at impressing him you try bargaining and getting things the way you want them and so you nag Jesus.

But no matter how much you try to impress or nag your still you and Jesus is still himself, the bible says he never changes.

And then one day hopefully you realize, that you don’t have to impress Jesus, he loves you just the way you are, you don’t have to nag him, he knows what you need and whats best for you.

You become comfortable with the Savior,  and you become friends and his child.

And when you reach that point, is when the real love relationship begins, because as his friend and child, you do things that please him.

Instead of working against him and doing things that are selfish and for my own pleasure, you begin to work with him, and do things that brings him pleasure.

Marriage is the same way, its suppose to be two people working together for maximum pleasure to the other person, you become comfortable.

Are you comfortable with Christ?  Are you comfortable with the one you’ve married?

Its a good place to be.

I’ve been putting together a message for church in a couple of weeks on Valentines Day, which of course made me think about marriage

Adam and Eve are our perfect example of how marriage began and how God had intended it to be for every couple.

First of all In Genesis 2 it says that Adam was alone, although he had the Lord to keep him company, he didn’t have anyone like himself to share his life with and God said that it wasn’t good that he was alone.

And God caused Adam to fall asleep and then he did surgery on him, and from his side he took out a piece of flesh and created woman (Eve)

Notice, God took her from his side, not his head which would have made Eve superior to man and probably would have left Adam brain dead (no jokes ladies)

God didn’t take Eve from Adams foot, this would make Eve a servant (no jokes ladies)

God took her from his side which represents equality,  She’s not above man or below man, but equal with man.

Man is incomplete without a woman,  she completes him, together they are a whole, a man with a man or a woman with a woman are still two halves, only a man with a woman can complete a person.

Thats the way God designed it,  after he created Eve, he brought her to Adam and they had a marriage ceremony. This was the first thing that God instituted for the man and woman, marriage is the gluing of the two halves together making a completed person.

Its this completed person through marriage that glorifies God.

But In Ephesians it says that  a woman is to submit to her husband,  these verses have been so misunderstood it isn’t funny.

The word submit means to respond, the woman is to respond to her husband.  Ever talk to yourself? Not much of a conversation is it?

When a husband speaks to his wife, she is suppose to respond or answer him,  when he touches her, she is suppose to touch back, she responds to him.

Its commanded for a husband to love his wife, but it is not commanded for the wife to love her husband, but she is to respond to him.

If a husband loves his wife as God loves the church (willing to die for her) she will respond to him.

If a man says his wife is a cold fish, this tells us theres something wrong with the husband and his love for his wife because shes not responding.

The man is to take the lead and be the leader, he was created first, thats the role God gave him and his wife is to follow and respond to him.

But today, man is trying to destroy marriage, in Psalm 2:3 it says that they will break the bands asunder and cast away the cords

Man is trying to break the bands and cast off the cords

The band is the vows of marriage and the cords are the institution of marriage that God ordained,  mans removal of marriage is their attempt to remove God.

Couples that shack up together outside of marriage is their attempt to rid the world of God, no one will ever convince me that a true believer in Jesus Christ can live in sin outside of marriage.

Homosexual marriage is just another attempt to rid the world of Gods institution of marriage and rid the world of God.

Marriage is also for a lifetime,  Adam lived for over 900 yrs.  can you imagine being married to the same woman for 900 yrs?  Some can’t imagine being married for 9 days!!

But when your in a right relationship with God,  and loving your wife as God loves you, its not impossible but normal.

Adam was faithful to his wife, she was faithful to him for 900 yrs, and that Glorified God.

Marriage is what makes the world work right, a man and a woman married makes a completed person.

By now everyone in the world has heard about how the tiger transformed into a cheetah, of course I’m speaking about Tiger Woods.

But I don’t get it,  why is everyone yelling and upset? Why are people demanding an apology for what he’s done to his wife? Why are companies that endorsed him, now dropping him?

Isn’t he a product of the American left?

Isn’t he a product of public schools?

Hasn’t this country for years shouted to our young people that marriage is a product of Christian beliefs that has enslaved man?

Hasn’t he fulfilled exactly what many in this country have preached for years, that you can practice safe sex, that multiple partners makes you a more rounded person?

When Clinton did the same thing, he was praised so why aren’t they praising the Cheetah?  Could it be Bills wife Hillary wasn’t good looking,  and Tigers is, so therefore you can only cheat if you have an ugly wife?

Or could it be that this shows us plainly, out in the open how hypocritical the ungodly really are.

You can’t preach and push immorality on our society and then get upset when someone fulfills what you taught them, it doesn’t work.

What does the ungodly want?  Apparently they want immorality with a dash of morality when someone does something they don’t like.

I can now understand what Jesus was saying to the Pharisees who stood on the corner preaching good things but inside they were ravenous wolves.

Thats the world,  they want to appear like they are good by appearing that their upset about Tiger but the fact is they actually envy him and wish they could be like him. Their hypocrites plain and simple.

Jesus says that you either have to be righteous or unrighteous you can’t be both.

The world ought to be giving Tiger a metal of honor and more money and endorsements for being the poster boy of what they preach and believe. He’s the perfect example of what they want to achieve.

You can’t mix the worlds system with a godly system, they don’t mix, its just like mixing new age and political correctness with Christianity, they don’t mix.

Christianity is coming apart in America because 26% of Christians find ” Spiritual energy in material things”

25% believe in astrology

24% believe in re-incarnation

23 % say yoga is a “Spiritual practice”  (Fox news source poll)

Sorry, but these new age beliefs are contrary to the Word of God, you can’t mix the ungodly with the godly.

Karma is new age not Christianity, meditation on yourself and your needs is not biblical meditation where we focus on the Word of God and our relationship to him.

The world says you can be immoral and moral at the same time, Christians think you can be a Christian with new age beliefs, it DON”T  WORK, you can’t mix them.

Either your righteous or your not,  either you walk by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ or you don’t.

Stop trying to mix the the things of God with the things of this world, they don’t mix.

I had to fill the pulpit once again this week and since it was fathers day, I of course spoke about fathers! But most of the men in our church are older and we have been through the raising of our children. We’ve been through the changing of diapers and adolescence, the teen years and having to buy pets for our kids.
Those were great years, but that was a season in our lives, but for most of our men in our church, we need to hear from our Father in Heaven about things that pertain to us fathers who are older and pass the age of rearing children. And so we went to Joshua.
Joshua was a great man of God, who was also one tough soldier, he made John Wayne look like a girl scout!
But at the end of the Book of Joshua, he is old and he gathers his people together for some words of encouragement. Us men who are growing older need encouragement, and he tells the men to remain courageous, it takes courage to get older, especially when we see the younger generation taking control over our nation and taking it in a direction that is completely wrong.
We know that certain directions will bring hardships, loss of blessings from God, and immorality. And because we’re older, theres not allot we can do to stop things, But thats where we need courage. Knowing that our God fights for us, and that he’ll never leave us nor forsake us.
Secondly we need to love God supremely, it won’t be long before we see him face to face. Its our love for God that sustains us through our older years.
And then Joshua tells us to remain faithful, its not easy staying faithful when there is so much temptation thrown in our faces everyday. Its tempting to rely on a doctor and pills instead of relying on God, We may need the pills, but we need to trust Christ and remain faithful to him. Its tempting to stay home on Sundays because theres something in our body that hurts. But our God wants us to be in fellowship with our church.
Its tempting to throw up our hands in despair when watching our government continually working overtime to bring division between the citizens of this country, so that their party can stay in power! Or we can stay faithful in prayer and doing whatever we can to heal our nation.
As older fathers, we have an obligation to live a faithful life to Christ before our children, remain courageous, tell them about what Christ has done for us, pass along our faith and our wisdom.
Men, God will bless you if you continue to bless him!!!
Stay on your knees, stay in the Word, be a father until the day you die then meet your heavenly Father.