Wednesday Evening Service - Jul 1, 2026

You wash the dishes before they go in the dishwasher. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about just incredible things like that that I didn't know to do and didn't necessarily care to do. So I told him one day, you know, I realize you're probably disillusioned. Talk about that here in a minute. That's true. Yes. Yeah, I did a terrible thing one day. I wrote a date in the dust on the coffee table to see how long it was going to be there. That's how terrible I was. I'm going to tell you all as we go through this is terrible and how God healed us. So there's nobody in this room that was probably more selfish than I was when I got married.

So if you think marriage is supposed to be easy, everybody say it. Marriage is hard. Say it. Marriage is hard. It is. It's rewarding, but it's hard. So let me ask you, what stage are you in? I think you relate to this stage here. We're going to talk about a couple of others because I do think sometimes people think marriage is easy or it's supposed to be easy, and they think, okay, if it's hard, then something must be wrong. So if anybody could stand up and say marriage has not been hard, then maybe you could go talk to them. But I don't know if anybody in this room could stand up and say it's not been hard. You have wonderful times, good times. But it is still hard. And of course, we know hard's not bad, but still, it is hard. And because you're in covenant together, that aspect of that, so if you're thinking I must have married the wrong one because it shouldn't be this hard, I'm telling you, that's not a biblical approach.

And that really needs to be understood. So if Jeff and Lede were here, they would give you four stages, and I'm going to address those, and then we're going to build out of that, okay? One they would use is something that's called attraction. That would be kind of the early stages where you're attracted to one another. You really don't focus much on the other one as much as what you get out of this marriage. In other words, I'm happy that I'm with you, you're with me, and it's really more of what? You really more or less call it you're just accepting the experience. You're attracted to one another, something about them you're attracted about. So I want to stop here for just a minute. And have you? Think back. Now, Amy and I have been married 52 and a half years. Anybody here married longer than we are married? Are we the seniors in this group? That's why we're teaching. Right there. That's why we're teaching tonight.

52. I want to ask you a question. Take just 30 seconds with each other, and what attracted, ask each other. I'm going to ask Amy. Yeah. Why were you attracted to me? I want her to be reminded, and I want to remind her, okay, we're going to put the mics down, though. So y'all ask each.

We're going to ask each other that, okay? Really seriously. Ask, what was it? What was attractive? Well, ours is a terrible answer. Should we tell them? Yeah, you can tell them. She told me it was my body. And I said, I think that's the same thing with me. Because honestly, come on, you start somewhere there, don't you? Because you're not mature enough. Now, we're going to talk how to go beyond that.

But there's attractions, though, that you're attracted to. Something to attract. Maybe their personality. Maybe they were having fun. They made you laugh. They were smart. They were good leaders. There's something that you were attracted to. They had their stuff together, you thought. Maybe they could help you go somewhere. All of those things are part of it. It's attraction. And then there's the build. Like, okay, what's this going to look like? How are we going to get to know each other? You know, it begins with kind of.

Understanding that you're not going to change each other. And you're going to have to give in and really start focusing on some maturity. And so there has to be a desire. Something has to happen to cause there to be a desire, doesn't there? Because otherwise, unfortunately, sometimes it's a problem. Something comes up and through that you realize, wait a minute, there's some things out out here. So there's got to be a desire. Then the third stage would be once you get through that. Your eyes. Begin open that you really open on third stage, because that's where you have to decide, am I going to commit? Am I going to get some healing and we pray over these two weeks is just a beginning and this is a house for healing, isn't it? And I promise you marriage is nothing more than getting healed and being a Christian. You say, well, you don't know what I'm going through it. Well, the scripture said, love your enemies anyway, so you're covered, you're covered every way you go, you know, but honestly, isn't it? I mean, if I believe this, here's what I believe, maybe you and I have talked about this. I believe that God ordained because we believe in sovereignty, put us together. Okay, so what I'm about to say, two people that were believers that would grow and get healed. Any two people of a husband and wife could have a healthy, godly marriage by the biblical principles of the scriptures by laying down your life and loving one another. So if you've been attacked by this idea, I've married the wrong one. If you've been attacked with that idea, that is not. That's not true. Okay, because otherwise that's going to always be there. If there's a back door there, it's going to always be there. So that's got to be dealt with. But it's in this third stage where you're going to have a doorway for Christ-likeness. Or you're going to have to decide, am I going to stay stuck? Because rose-colored glasses start coming off, don't they? Triggers start coming up. And where you thought you married Jesus, can I tell you, you married a sinner and so did your spouse.

It is, it's true. It's true. And here's what we need to talk about. There'll be some times in your marriage, and Amy, I asked her if I could share this today because there's so many things that we could share. But in every one of us, when I talked about how your family affects you, I don't think we realize how much. I mean, we've been married 52 years, and what I'm about to share with you is 13 years ago. So we've been married for quite a while. I can take you through our marriage, and there's been seasons and stages. Of this third stage where you decide, wait, my eyes are open, we've got to get healed somewhere. And I was working in the yard, and I took my wedding ring off, and I laid it on the table in the bedroom.

And she made a comment about me not having my wedding ring on that I felt that it was a judgment against my character. And I responded to her with some comment. And before I knew it, she was in the closet crying. Let me know what can happen real quick. Now, whatever she was struggling with, which we can talk about, that goes way back to her dad not being there. And her mom going down to the bar to find her dad and leaving her at home as a latchkey kid. And her calling, mama, would you come home? And mom stays at the bar because dad may get a girlfriend down there. We children absorb up to about six years old everything emotionally. It's not cognitively. So even when you get older, you know things better. But your emotions still have to be healed. That's right. And even when you've been married years, things will come up. And there's inordinate responses. I'm going to ask you while I'm talking to mark an inordinate response. They get less and less. They do get less and less. But in everyone in this room, every man is a little boy. It's hard to see, isn't it? And in every woman, there's a little girl. And you bring these into marriage even after years. Every time there's an inordinate response. I promise you there's an emotional deal connected to it. My response was inordinate. Her response to me had my wedding ring off because I work in the yard. And by the way, I haven't pulled it off in 13 years either. I need to get me one of those rubber ones where you can work in the yard, I think. But my point is whatever it was was inordinate. My response was inordinate. Are you with me? So I want you to ask yourself in your marriage because you can learn all the communication skills. We can teach you how to resolve an issue. But how many of you know that goes out the window? The moment you get sparked and triggered. The moment. And the emotion is so real. And she's over here in the closet crying. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Well, we're going to learn tonight that God made Adam primarily responsible for leading. Adam and Eve are equal. But it's in Adam we sin. Not in Eve we sin. He wasn't deceived. She was. But the responsibility was on him. So I'm thinking what do I do? And here's what helped me. That's a little girl in the closet crying. And I did not want to go hug her. It was the hardest thing I could do.

My emotions were upset. I made myself go in that closet. It was a walk-in closet. And take her and pull her in my arm. She said she doesn't even remember this. We talked about it today, right? And she cried on my shoulder. And I knew it was like a little girl crying. And I say that because if you look at your situations, they're now adult matters. But they're emotional wounds and emotional hurts. And if you don't see that, you're never going to get out of your cycle. Because you're never going to. And here's what I'd encourage us to do. I'd encourage us to flag that. Don't beat yourself up. Don't tell yourself that you're worse than anybody else. Just say, okay, that's my next area of healing. I flag that. If I had time tonight, I could tell you many times. I've gotten healed. Flag that, okay? Because it is the time of healing. Love is important, but what about love? Well, it's really not the basis of long-lasting marriage. Covenant is. And covenant is what we stand on and adhere to, not depending on how we feel. If we feel like we have to be having feelings of love, then that's very transitory. And it's not solid. But covenant is.

And it's the only thing that really is lasting. So love is a choice. Love is a choice. Absolutely. It's not a feeling. And there are many times over the course of 52 years that I have still made that choice to love. Maybe, you know, when I have been triggered or maybe when I've gotten hurt or whatever it might be, it's still a choice. It's still I choose to do what is right, which is stay in covenant, not based on how I feel, not based on what it might look like, but because covenant is the only thing that's lasting. And when we set our vows, we made that covenant with a third party, which is, of course, the Lord. And so he doesn't ever break covenant with us. Amen. And it's in that area of commitment, as listed here, really becoming one in that whole process. Here's another four ways you could say it in a different way. You could say there's a delight. You delighted in each other. Then there was probably disappointment and disillusionment because you realize, wait a minute, disappointment doesn't have to mean it's the end of the world. But I promise you, you are disappointed about something about your spouse right now. If you're mature, you're okay. If you're not, you're not okay. Does that make sense?

And if you look around the room and go, well, they're not ever disappointed with each other. There's something you're disappointed about. Why? Because we're human. Maybe not disillusioned, but disappointed. That does not have to be the end of it. That's where the development comes from, the grace for growth.

So when you have those areas, here's what I'm wanting you to tell. Mark those and flag those. I have flagged so many of my next area of growth.

That's my next area of growth. Rather than go, oh, we're never going to get there. No, just because it came up is proof you're going to get there. Flag it, okay? That's God helping you see your next area of growth.

That's going to take you to what we would call determined in mission. So let's talk about a model for marriage. Let's go to Genesis 2 and talk about it. I want you to see this from the Scriptures because I think it will help. And Amy, you jump in here on a couple of these things as I go through this.

I want to read most of this, I think. It says, And the Lord said, It is not good that man should be alone, and I will make him a helper. Comparable to him. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam. While I read through this, I want you to see the analogy of Christ and the church because Paul brings this out of Ephesians chapter 5 about Christ and the church. Adam was put to sleep. What happened to Christ on the cross? He's going to speak to sleep. Out of his side came the church, the bride. Adam and Eve is a picture of the redemption. The redemptive work of God in the earth. If you don't believe your marriage is a holy matrimony, the very origin of it itself, the model, the very origin of it is that God was demonstrating Christ in the church. Isn't that powerful? And so in the same way, he says, And Adam went into sleep and took out of his ribs and closed up the flesh in his place. And then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into woman and brought her to him. Or to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. And she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. I wish we had time to teach on that.

That's so deep and so important. It's opposite of our present culture. It's opposite of our present culture. My wife wants to speak to us on that in just a minute. Therefore a man shall leave. Remember this. Shall leave and cleave. He shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife. And they become one flesh. And they both were naked, the man his wife, and not ashamed.

That's the picture right there. Transparent, without shame. And wherever there is shame, there is hidden sin, isn't there? Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. Wherever there's shame, there's hidden sin. For there to be wholeness, you have to decide tonight and next week, you're going to get there. That's the way we have to get there. I think it's in.

Go ahead, babe. Well, it's interesting to me that helper means not just one who helps, but it means one that protects and guards. And that one thing that has been really on my heart for some time, which some of you will be, this will be news to you, and some of you are old enough to remember, but I cut my teeth on the feminist movement, which hit the world in the late 60s, early 70s, and even though I was just in junior high and high school in the early 70s, I read voraciously. And I was already shaped and formed by the feminist movement by the time I was 14, 15 years old. Added to that was, of course, this wildly dysfunctional relationship that I saw between my parents, where literally on two occasions my father hit my mother in my presence. One time she was holding me when he hit her and knocked her into the refrigerator. And so my opinion of marriage was basically that it was a losing proposition for women. And that was what was really in my heart when I came to know the Lord. And interestingly, when I first met Glenn, I knew him from high school, but I had been coming to the youth group and he had been selling Bible books that summer. That's how he worked his way through college. And so I had come to the youth group.

It was my first time to come on a Wednesday night. I didn't know that there was church on Wednesday night. I just knew that you go on Sunday mornings. That's all I knew. And so he was there, and when the service was over, standing at the back of the church with his dad, shaking hands, you know, talking to people as they were leaving, when I shook his hand, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart. I was 15 years old, and he said to me, this man is your husband, which, you know, sounds kind of grand and glorious and all of that, but the weight of that for me at that time was that I had already decided I would never marry. I would never marry. I would not allow myself to be treated like I saw my mother. And so when the Holy Spirit, it took the Holy Spirit speaking to me, it was kind of like a Saul on the road to Damascus experience. I mean, everything from that point on just flew out the window of what I thought was what. I mean, my whole world was turned upside down.

But what I see now, after all these years, is I see the fruit of the feminist movement and the fruit of what I was reading and cutting my teeth on when I was just a kid and still so very impressionable. I see now what has happened in our culture and what has happened. And it has really happened between the husband and the wife and the fact that what God speaks to us here is a plan and an order that a man is to cleave to his wife. They are to cleave to one another. But a wife is never in Scripture is a wife told to love her husband. There's not any place in the Bible in Scripture where we are told to love our husbands. Husbands are told to love their wives. But wives are told to respect their husbands. It's the lifeblood of a male. And when I see what has happened in our culture, whether it's television shows that mock and make fun of every male figure that there is, I mean, and that's just a drop in the bucket compared to it. But I see a whole mindset that has been created that is so anti-biblical that it's bound to affect marriages because men and women are not necessarily living out in the order of God, but they're competing with one another. And a competitive marriage will die pretty quickly. If you were to go in the average congregation or any congregation of America, and if I were to say to them, wives, obey your husbands, what would I hear? What? You'd be exiting out the door, right? Now, the word obey there that's used is translated subject, okay, as Christ subjected all things to himself. That's the word. So if I use that word, how do you think that's going to go over?

I mean, in our church, I'm not talking about dastardly life. Y'all are all different. But in the body of Christ, in the body of Christ, it is not heard. The spirit of the age is so much in the house.

It is so much in the church. The spirit of Corinth is in the church. Now, if I were to walk in the same congregation and say, husbands, lay down your wife or your, your life or your wife, no pushback. Will I get any pushback? Not a man in the room pushed me back. Why? It goes back to the garden. So there's an order of God in our homes that you might not even realize gets out of order.

And there's legitimate reasons for people to justify it, but it doesn't make the order right. Go ahead, babe. Well, and here's the point. Whether I do that has nothing to do with my husband. It has everything to do with my heart toward the Lord. Either I'm obeying what the scripture tells me or I'm not. And, and I, I am blessed. I can say that I have never known as an adult wife. I have never been abused. I have never been mistreated. You know, we've had our moments where we just don't, didn't see eye to eye on something or, you know. More than one. More than one. You know, and we, where we've just come to an impasse even. So it's, it's not all. I don't want to, I don't want to construct this false image or this false picture. But what I know, what I can't get away from is this is my response really unto the Lord. It's not really my response unto my husband. It's whether I am willing to obey, obey God, and trust God to bring about whatever changes or whatever outcome I think needs to come to pass if we're in disagreement on something. It's up to the Lord to either help one of us give, both of us give, and you know it's usually both of you have to give a little bit and you get it all worked out because that's what maturity is.

But whether I do this or not is pure and simple. Just a question of whether I obey God. So good. And there's a reason for that because the role of marriages, if we had time to talk about headship and we may later, but it's an order of God because when the husband, what did he say about Adam? That he needed a what? A helper. A helper or help meet. You probably know that, but that word ezer there is 21 times in the Bible and 19 times it's about God. That means he came and delivered. He came and protected. He came to help. David said, my help comes from the Lord. My helper, same word, ezer, my helper. If I see her as a protector in the spirit, man, I can tell you, I can tell you, she can spot things I can't spot. I mean, one of the reasons that she probably spoke out of why you have your wedding ring on, because we'd had a conflict or two before that. One was, I got an email from, and can't figure out who it is. They're no longer here, but I got an email from a lady in the church bragging on my Christian, on my discipleship 201 saying that she couldn't wait. I said, you should tell this because they would love, they would love to hear your side of it and that it was next to the Bible and and that it was, and that was, and at the end, she said, I can't wait to see you at church or something like that. Well, everybody in the office knows if you send me a long email, I won't, I don't read it.

I just don't read long emails. It's not in the first sentence. Forget it. I'm sorry, I'm a fifth in you. And so I didn't read that.

I'll see you at church. And she did. And she came to me. Why had you not show this to me? And I'm going, maybe I didn't see it. What do you mean you didn't see it?

I mean, it's like, I didn't see it. She said that your works next to the Bible. But baby, I didn't. Now, honestly, I got, I don't know my heart. Only God knows my heart.

What was I getting out of those compliments? And she was so much on it that she actually talked to the gal. And sure enough, six months later, that gal was in an affair. She knew it. She was a protector.

Everybody say, helper. There was another gal before, after that, that private messaged me and said, we're going to go running. Would you like to go running? Something like that. And I said, I was sick. I'm not going to be running. Well, she saw that. That wasn't good enough. I should have told her that I don't run with anybody else. So in so many words, right, baby.

And so it brought a great wound. So what was it? I wasn't seeing. Okay.

Again, six months later, that gal had affair with a doctor in Tulsa. I need to help her. I could take you back over the years. She would spot something and see something. And I just have to trust it. I just have to trust it. So I tell her now, baby, I trust your insight. Would you trust my oversight? Because sometimes she'll see something in the church that needs to be dealt with. And she won't take dealing with it right now today. And I said, let me have some wisdom. We can walk this thing out and we can save a few people. In the process, it's worth anyway.

I really didn't need her inside. I really need her inside. And again, ladies, even in that situation, it comes down to my trust and my faith in God, because even if I bring it to my husband and he doesn't see it right away, it's not up to me to try to be the one that absolutely convinces him. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. And my trust in the Holy Spirit to do that means that I take my hand in the hands off of it. I don't have to be a battering ram, you know, of trying to make him see something. And I have tried to do that before. I have tried.

On that point, let me make a illustration on repentance. It's not in the part of the... Here's how I can tell if she's repentant. Here's how she can tell if I'm repentant. Okay. If I see something from God's perspective, I'm repenting. Does that make sense? So if I'm blame shifting or finding anything else, you know, what happened when Adam and Eve, they were... Yeah, okay. When I see it from God's perspective, godly sorrow sets in. It works the same way with a spouse. The way you know you're repentant is are you seeing it from your spouse's perspective? Do you take the case as severe as they do? And listen, it goes for men and women too. If your wife has to set the boundaries, she's your mom and not your wife. You better set the boundaries before her to make her stronger than her. Did I make sense in that?

Don't let her set the boundaries. You say, baby, these are boundaries. I'm increasing them.

Right? Because then you're seeing it from their perspective. All right. We've got to move on.

Yeah. All right.

Ephesians chapter five. Now this is the heart. I don't know how far we're going to get. We're going to honor your time tonight. But this is the heart of what we want to say. Ephesians five is about Christ and the church, but he gives us what we need to know about marriage. He starts off by saying, be subject to one another. Everybody say one another. That's the key.

But there's the order too. Wives be subject to your husbands as are unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church. If we were going to teach on headship, you'd know that it's got to be something other than what we understand. Because if God is the head of Christ, it can't be as what we understand headship to be. It's got to be in a way of understanding, not less than, but headship has an order. Does that make sense?

It has an order. There is headship, but there's an order. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be to everything to their husbands.

And husbands, love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of the water of the word, as to present the church to himself in splendor. That's why the wife is the glory of the husband, without a spot or wrinkle. You want your wife looking glorious, by the way, in attitude, in spirit, in every way, because they reflect you. If the wife is sitting over there despondent and beaten up, it reflects your glory. I got some amens from some men. I should have gotten something from the women. Should have gotten some help on that, okay?

I was going to have the men read the blue. I got reading here, I don't have mine in color. So I should have had the men read the blue and the women read the pink.

That's what that was all in that way. But in the same way husbands love their wives and do their own bodies, I'm going down here to verse 31. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and join to his wife, and the two become one flesh. Here's what I want you to see. For this reason, what is the purpose of marriage?

Let's talk about that, okay? What is the purpose? So four keys, I think, is very important. Number one, what is the purpose for marriage? I want you to take that sheet of paper and write down, what do you think is the purpose of marriage? Just give me just 30 seconds, alright? Just write down, what do you think the purpose is of marriage? What is the purpose of marriage? He said, for this cause, for this reason. What is the reason? What is the purpose of marriage? What is the reason? Well, what is that person? Somebody might say, it's to have children. No, that's not the purpose of marriage.

Children are the fruit of the marriage and the purpose of God, but not for the marriage because children weren't there at the time. He said, for this reason. So what's the reason? Legitimizes sex. Well, it does that, but that's not the reason. It's not the reason that vanishes. To evangelize somebody or rescue somebody or to change behavior. I mean, those are, we know those are not the reasons. What's the reason? Are you ready?

The purpose is companionship. That's the purpose. The purpose. It is not good that man would be what? Alone. And Proverbs says, 2, 17, that she left the companion of her youth. Talking about the covenant marriage. Malachi 2, 14 says, she is your companion and your wife by covenant. So let's talk about covenant. That would be a key.

That would be a second key to understand the purpose of marriage. Why are we even married? We're married first for what? Companionship. All the other things are blessings. They're good, but the first is, so what separates your companionship? That's what we're after.

That's why we're here, right? I mean, we have some strong marriages here, but can I tell you, over the years, every time I've counseled someone, Bob, in marriage, I go home a better husband. Why? Because I'm not telling you things you don't know. I'm telling you things we need to be reminded of. And Amy and I will have a better marriage because of tonight. And you will be too if you take it to heart. Why? Because you're reminded, right? You're reminded of what you really already know, but I want to deal with some foundational stuff. The purpose of it is companionship. So you want to ask yourself a question. You might want to write this down for homework this week.

What is interrupting our companionship? There are some wounds. There are some fusses. There are some disagreements. There are some things that's hindering. That is the hindrance, the companionship. Okay?

It's the companionship. And then the key for that is, are we stuck together in covenant? Covenant, he says, for this call shall a man leave his father and mother and do what?

Be joined or cleave. Leave and cleave. To join. God made marriage a big deal. He made it expensive and costly. I'm not talking about the wedding. Spend little on your wedding and a lot on your marriage. Okay? I'm not talking about dollars either. I'm not talking about dollars.

Yeah. I'm talking about the cost. Here's what God set up. He said, if you want to be married, you got to pay a bride price. Told the man, you got to pay a bride price. It was 50 shickles. Some Bible scholars say that was years of wages.

Some say at least three years of wages. So any wife that was married without a bride price was a concubine because that father was okay for his daughter to marry a king and have those concubines, didn't request a dowry or a bride price. So when we were teaching this one day, Amy said, am I a wife or a concubine?

We were joking, of course. I said, well, when we got married, you were a concubine, but as soon as I got a good life insurance policy, you became a wife. Life insurance policy saved me. It was the idea that they would be cared for. It would be the idea that if they were divorced, they would have provision. And they could be remarried because they would have provision. And that culture would be worth.

And it was a protection. And the dad demanded it to protect for the generations. And so in other words, it's costly.

And I know it works. We got great examples here. Someone meet and they get married real quickly. Biblically, that didn't happen. So we do have a requirement, as you probably know, that you walk through a preparation period.

It usually takes at least three months. We signed that in agreement with 21 pastors here in this city over 30 years ago. Seeing a need in our state, which was high in divorce, number two in the nation. We came together with pastors across the state with our governor, encouraging it as well, and signed petitions. And we wrote up one and signed it here in Claremore.

So we have a commitment to that. I don't know how it always works, but it's a commitment to say, wait a minute, it's serious when you go in to getting married. Now, if you've already married, obviously you are, and you didn't go through that, start where you are. Hear what I'm saying. There should not be anything we're saying that would cause you to regret as much as where am I right now.

Do I value the costliness of my marriage? Is that okay? Do I value it? That's the purpose of it, because it's what? It's called the law of marriage.

I know sometimes people don't like that. They say, that's my daughter in love. I said it's my daughter in law because I see marriage as covenant. Did you hear what I just said? Law is not a dirty word.

It is a covenant. It is our daughter in the covenant of marriage. So she's my daughter in law. Do I love her? Yes.

But love has not the basis for it. Love is the choice, and love is the requirement. But the foundation is covenant. That's what you're saying for it. Way to go, baby.

And if I could just say one thing about companionship. You know, that might mean, ladies, you know, just, I realize that we're all busy and we all have to fight for time sometimes, but just go to Sam's together, or go to Walmart together, or go to Rose, or when Glenn was first learning how to play golf, I rode around in the golf cart, I don't know how many times, just watching him play golf. I actually do my best. I did a 95-foot putt with her watching me on vacation. And I have been displaced at this point from a bunch of guys. Cliff is over there. He's one of them. But look for ways to be a companion to your husband. I just wanted to throw that in there before I forgot.

So we're talking about purpose, covenant, and love is part of it. I don't want you to misunderstand it because here's what it says. In fact, it's one of the keys, one of the four keys.

Husbands, what? Love your wife. That word there is agape. That's a Christ kind of love. It's a sacrificial love. What my wife said a while ago is true, that the Bible does not command the wife to love. I find it really interesting, though, that the Bible says the older women are to... Teach the younger women how to love their husbands and how to love their children, and then it goes on. And that word there is not agape. It's affection. Older women... Which is what a companion is. Companion is affection.

Teach the young women to be affectionate toward their husbands. Isn't that interesting? Why do women need to be taught to be affectionate toward their children? You'd think that's natural. They need to be taught to be affectionate towards their husband.

Why? Because husbands' needs are different than their needs. And this is so important because in a situation that I grew up in, you know, I never... I would not have known what affection was like between a husband and wife. And because my parents...

My dad was a functional alcoholic. He was at work every day. But then every evening when he got home, by 7 o'clock, he was drunk, and so then he was usually in bed. So I really never saw him, except when there were, you know, these family fights, I guess you could call them. But my mom was so involved in trying to save her marriage and chasing after my dad wherever he might be in the bars, I never knew what it... what motherly affection was.

And so when you grow up then and you become a mother, it's not necessarily that you know exactly how to be affectionate as a mother any more than you know how to be affectionate as a wife. And the reason that's so important is because the biblical love... Here's what... The husbands are to agape, sacrificial love, lay your life down. That means lay your self-life down, okay?

Lay your life, but your self-life. And the wife is to be taught that word is philos, which is like Philadelphia, your brotherly love. It's a brotherly love. It's affectionate. So wives to be taught how to be affectionate.

And why that is important is because it's a model that's different. A worldly model understands... How does a worldly model understand love? It says, well, it just happens. They're my soul mate. It's sleepless in Seattle syndrome. Anybody old enough to remember that movie? Oh, I was gonna get married to this one, but now I got married to this one. I got swept off my feet. And there are people who have that mindset of love.

That's not what love is. Love is a choice. Love is a choice.

And so that's why Scripture says, and we won't take the time to read it all, but in 1 Corinthians 13, it goes through and describes what love is, but also a lot of what love is not. And one of the things that says love is not, it does not keep a record of wrongs. And to be able... And this is what happens. When there's a record of wrongs, there's an inability or unwillingness to forgive. And in this room right now, before this evening is over, we're gonna pray. And I know that it takes the Holy Spirit to bring somebody to really forgive.

Sometimes it takes a process of the Holy Spirit to really work. But I know we have enough marriages in here, enough length of time in here, that there are transgressions, that God's blessings, you would sense them with the forgiveness of what's been transgressed in your marriage itself. Because when a husband, does not love his wife, if a husband does not lay down his self-life, if he does not do that, there are consequences that it produces. And some of the consequences is that he will be self-centered. Here's what I believe.

I believe marriage is the antidote to selfishness, particularly for me. You know, my wife didn't grow up with responsibilities. She never had a job. She never written a check. In fact, Beverly Jones taught her how to write checks. In Bible college. And I became very good at it. And one day Beverly told her you could write the check over the amount and get cash. She didn't know that. That was a new day.

And because she had never written a check or bounced a checkbook, I didn't trust her. I mean, this is the early days of marriage. And so I wouldn't tell her how much money was in the bank account. Because I thought, sure as I do. In fact, one day I came home and I said, baby, where's those bank statement?

And she said, what's a bank statement? And he said, well, it's this package. It's an envelope that comes in the mail and it has canceled checks in it. And I said, well, what are canceled checks? And he described it to me and I said, oh, yeah, yeah.

I saw those. I threw those away because we've already written those checks. So the trust factor and my selfishness really was an early day marriage. We had to grow. Does that make sense?

We had to grow. And remember, I was 17 when we got married. So, I was 19. Yeah. So, but the reason I bring those things up is because this is that really marriage is the antidote to that.

I remember thinking it costs twice as much now to go out to eat. I mean, I wasn't used to that. So it is. Then if the husband doesn't love his wife, he's going to look for fulfillment somewhere else. There is a fulfillment when you lay down your life for your wife.

Come on, husbands. There is something in you that God's ordained. It's like Christ, isn't it? When you lay down your life, and I'm going to tell the wives in this room, your husband would do anything for you whether you believe it or not. That's the way men are wired.

And that's why it can be taken advantage of by the wife. It can. Because the men will give in, will go over and do whatever they can. They want their wife to be pleased. And if they could climb that wall to satisfy her, they would do it.

I'm talking about good, godly Christian men in this room would do anything for their wife. They'd lay their life down. They'd jump in front of a bullet. They wouldn't even hesitate about it. They're there to protect you.

Maybe they've not communicated that, but they would. They would do that. And the reason that's important is for you to know that is because whether he's expressing it or not, and it comes out then in actions. If he doesn't do that, if he's not laying his life down, self-life down, he's going to be harsh. And men, that harshness is going to drive her away.

And I believe love is that end-all. And here's what I want you to write down for just a second. Take 30 seconds. If you would. And I want you to turn to your wife and ask her.

She can say this out loud or out. I feel loved when... Gals, give that 30 to 60-second thought and turn to him and say, I feel loved when... What comes to your mind when he says to you, when do you feel loved? I feel loved when...

You can whisper to each other, I don't need to know. You can find out a lot about her. My wife is... Her love language is qualitative. It's qualitative time.

So you probably just learned something about your wife, what she told you, what she feels loved when that happens. The first time I asked her that was in 1990. I said, baby, fill in the blank. I feel loved when... And she said, when you got me the AAA card, I was blown away.

But that reminded her of her dad that would take care of her and provide for her and make sure her card was taken care of. That meant what? Protection and care. It wasn't the AAA card. It was a protection.

So ask her, next week, I feel loved when... Because it does change from time to time. All right, let's talk about respect, baby. Wives are commanded to respect their husband and that submission is a product of that respect. Like I was saying earlier, respecting my husband is really something that I'm doing as unto the Lord.

Because if we look at and if we tell ourselves, well, I'll respect him when he does things that are worthy of being respected, that's not it. That's not it. Respecting my husband is something that the Lord is speaking to my heart about that he's telling me to do and it isn't based on what I'm necessarily seeing. It's a heart response to the Lord. And you can find things.

You may have to search. You may be wounded in your marriage at this point. Some of you may be really hurting and I don't want to make light of that. But one way that I learned about this was through my dad. The Holy Spirit dealt with me about honoring my father when our boys were quite small.

And I didn't want to and I told the Lord I don't want to. And I would be glad, thank you very much, to honor my father if there was anything to honor. And so my heart was very hardened and very wounded but very hardened. But you know how the Holy Spirit is. He just is relentless and he just dogged my every footstep and he kept after me and after me and after me.

And he would deal with me. He would speak to my heart. I want you to honor your father. I want you to honor your father. And I really honestly didn't see that there was anything to honor.

By this point, my parents had divorced and my dad lived alone in Altus. My mother was in Fort Worth. And to call my father on the phone and have a conversation with my father was very stilted. We didn't talk about things. I called him out of guilt to check on him but that was about it.

And so the Holy Spirit took me through a process of time and I won't go into all of it. He just kept after me. I want you to honor your father. I want you to honor your father. And finally, I just said, okay, I will do this if you'll tell me what to do because I don't know what to do.

And the first thing that came to me, which is going to sound kind of crazy, is that my father fought in World War II and the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart about calling him and thanking him for fighting in the war. And I just felt like such a goofball. You know, I thought, we're going from a conversation, a relationship where we don't talk about anything to me saying, Daddy, I want you to know. And as I began to speak, more came to me about the sacrifice of his youth that he gave so that I could live in a country that I live in. And it just flowed from me.

And he didn't respond in any great way. There wasn't any lightning or thunder or anything like I thought there would be. And we got off the phone. And then after a couple of weeks, the Holy Spirit dealt with me again about call your father. It's time to call your father.

Honor your father. And so I saw that he had taught me some biblical principles without even being a godly man. And so the Holy Spirit said, we'll call him and thank him for that. And so the point of it being that I didn't think there was anything to respect or anything to honor. But when my heart was obedient, the Lord gave me everything I needed.

And over a process of time, the Lord healed my relationship with my daddy. He was baptized at the age of 71. Gave his heart to the Lord and was baptized at 71. And so I know that I get to make up in eternity the relationship with my daddy that I never got to have in this life. And all of that was from respect.

Honor and respect. And so ladies, there is something that you can honor and respect in your husband. Start there. And trust the Holy Spirit more and he will. All right, wives, ask him to fill in the blank.

I feel respected when. Take the next minute. I want you to do something and we're going to pray. We've got so many things in our heart to share on the need for emotional health and maturity in the marriage because honestly, that's where it really comes down to. Amy and I went through probably 12 years of being a part inside over the subject of women in ministry.

Probably from about, oh, end of 80s to 98. So however many years that is. We were always together in one. You never saw one without the other. The Lord had told me when I was 25 years old, I was on my face praying, saying, Lord, what do you want to do for my ministry?

What do you want to do through my ministry? And I guess that's the immature thing that a 25 year old pastor would pray. What do you want to do through my ministry? And I was on the floor in a Sunday school room over there. On Blue Star in the little church building.

And I heard the Holy Spirit say, you'll never be more than what your wife is. And I know that was the Holy Spirit because I would have never thought about that. That's not the way my dad operated. And I knew it wasn't the devil. So I knew it wasn't me and we knew it wasn't the devil.

It had to be God. I had not prayed for her to grow in the things of the Lord. She was just there. Not that we wouldn't pray together, but I never took the load to pray. And I started praying, Lord, for the gifts to come forth from you.

For the grace to come forth, the calling to come forth. Before I knew it, she started teaching. She's a teacher. She started prophesying. She's got a prophetic voice.

There was things started coming out of her. And today, our book publishing is called Two Words from that concept. That's part of the concept. And I know the thing that has, because the reason I know companionship is so much a part of it is if we've had any attack against us or conflict, it was to separate that. That we weren't one.

Not that we were one, not that you have to agree on everything, but be one. And I think that's my prayer for us tonight. Because I know life itself can separate us. And because we were so much together, we never were separate. All the meetings, I'd go to pastor's meetings and she's the only woman there.

She was there with me. And then when we started understanding the order of the church, all the apostolic prophetic leaders I knew saw it differently. And we never was hindered for women to preach, teach, prophesy. But we got influenced by, I won't go into the whole story, by a guy that really had an issue against his mom. I went to talk to him about the issue he had against his mom.

But it came out in all of his ministry and it was harsh against women. And it hurt people in our church. It hurt my wife. And I'm such a stickler for the scriptures. Scriptures are everything to me.

I mean, I'll die on that hill. And I'm not trying to teach on that tonight, but I really wrestled with that. And I won't go through the whole story of how I kind of came back around to say, God, I've repented over this so much. I mean, I don't want this separate to me. I'll never forget.

I came back. She said she doesn't remember 94, but in 98, I got on my knees. I'd come back from a conference. I got on my knees and I said, baby, lay hands on me and pray. If there's any residue of anything left that's not honoring you, that was in 98.

Cesar Castellanos came in 99 or 2000. And he pastored a congregation of 250,000 people in Bogota, Colombia with 50,000 members. And we invited him to our June conference. And then his wife came and he never spoke. He had his wife speak.

And I'm sitting on the front row and God had a bright light. Have you ever seen those bright lights of the car lots that shine up in the air like airplane lights? We had one and it was shining on Glenn Schaefer. And the more he honored his wife, the brighter that light got. I knew it was the Holy Spirit.

And after the third night or so, we were going to pray together and go out. And he said, I want to talk to you about vision. I said, yeah, vision. Let's talk about vision. I didn't know he had a vision.

So after dinner, I said, tell me about the vision. He said, here's the vision. He said, I saw the church with the foundation and a dead body underneath the foundation. And I see vultures coming and pulling that body and picking it apart. Until that body is healed, this church will not double.

But once that body is healed, you will have double. And I got on my knees and I told him, I'm that dead body. We're that dead body. He said, no, no. Because we had this, it really hurt her during that time, that separation.

I mean, we could talk about anything but ministry. You know, that'd be like Carvel marrying the poster child Republican. I don't know if y'all know who the mad dog Carvel is. James Carvel. James Carvel that married Madeline.

Can you imagine their marriage? That would have been hours in the area of ministry. We were good in everywhere else. You'd never know that. But just that area, we couldn't talk about it.

And I told him, I said, I'm that dead body. He said, no, this happened about, this was a pastor before you came and yada, yada, yada. And I said, no, I'm the, well, out of respect for him, the next night I had him share the elders. I brought him over to the house. I said, share the elders.

And he shared with the elders. And I got on my knees again. And I said, I'm the dead body. My wife and I are the dead body. And he said, no.

So out of respect for him, we called the only guy that I knew of that had helped launch the old Evangelical assembly. And the church had heard him. And we brought his family in. We washed their feet. We prayed over them.

And they thought it was great. And they were healed. But I knew it wasn't the dead body. I knew we were the dead body. And the Lord began a process of healing.

And I think when you ran for state senate, I don't even know why she ran for state senate. You know, I'm out mowing my lawn one day. And I said, God, do you want my wife to run for state senate? And I don't always hear questions from the Lord. I mean, it came that quick.

Does she want to run for state senate? I thought, yeah. She hadn't said so. But because she had told him, until my husband says, I can't run. Until he says, I said, do you want my wife to run?

And he goes, does she want to? And I go, yeah. I said, is that what you have for my wife? And he said, it's not my ultimate. That sounds like God.

And I said, do you want me to support her in running for state senate? And he goes, yes. So I probably knocked 10,000 doors for her. And it healed her heart. Because everything else, she had always been there for me.

And I had never been in a situation to really serve her. And I think God healed her heart. That was in 2006. In 2007, that's when the Holy Spirit said to her, it's time for that work in Owasso. Today, we have double.

Anybody here from the Owasso campus, raise your hand. Man, there's more around us, surrounded, than there are with us. It's not the scripture all the way around. Those of you from Claremore, raise your hand. OK.

About half and half. So you're a part of the fruit, I believe, of the healed marriage. The companionship, wouldn't you say, baby? Today? Today, it's better than it's ever been.

We're in that aging process. But there's something different. There's different challenges. There's health challenges. She can't get around to do things as I want her to do or she'd like to do and all that.

But it's better than it's ever been. There's different challenges. And I want the Holy Spirit to take a few moments here. Would you just bow your head where you are? And I want to ask the Holy Spirit to just minister that this whole next week, that there would be something that the Holy Spirit would do in you, that you would not let anything separate the companionship.

And what I just shared with you took a process. It was time. It took time. It's not a quick process. I'm not going to say to you, we're going to lay hands on you and it's going to be over.

What I'm going to tell you is that God wants to completely restore any loss in companionship. That's the purpose of marriage. And I want you to be able to go home and say, honey, can we really share our hearts? Can we really talk? Can I tell you where I'm hurting?

Are you able to really open up? And would you be willing to say, I don't care how long it takes. We're going to pursue healing. We're going to pursue healing. You've got time.

God's not in a hurry. He's working his character in you during this whole process. And though it's hard, it's not bad. It really is hard. I get that.

So, Amy, I want you to join me. I'm going to ask every couple to stand, if you would, right there where you are. Join hands together with your spouse or one you're engaged with. And I want to pray. When I'm through praying, we have family life ministry teams that have been making themselves available for talking, for walking it out.

And we're an open, transparent, vulnerable congregation that says we all need to grow. Can I hear an amen? So, you're not here tonight because you got a bad marriage. You're not here tonight because you don't need anything. We all benefit from it.

Making better marriage is strong. Good marriage is strong. But at the same time, with your marriage, there's challenges. And if the Holy Spirit is healing and starting to put his hand upon something, please pursue it. Pursue it in the prayer I'm about to pray.

Pursue it in the weeks to come. Just mark it. That's all you get to do is mark it. Just mark it. Father, we present these two nights of marriage classes to you.

And as we've prayed that you would go beyond what we have shared in this limited time. You would say what we didn't say. You would touch what we cannot even think about needs to be healed. You do it, Lord. The one that thinks there's too much emotional water under the bridge to ever get there.

Would you help them to release that? To say, your will be done. Your will be done. Not my will, but your will. Nevertheless, your will be done.

Lord, that's hard. They may feel trapped. No way out. Lord, I pray for understanding of maturity of even opportunities for classes and emotional maturity and help and healing. And being able to walk it out with both the men finding men and women finding women.

And couples in the marriage family life ministry teams being available. Lord, we thank you for it. And we bless you in Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. I want to say to the prayer teams or the family life ministry teams.

We're going to close and let people go with their children here because we recognize it's 830. But if you want to stay for prayer, we have time for that. We also have marriage maintenance going on regularly here. Cliff and Lisa have a monthly. And I ask him for some.

There's resources. Would you put that. There's no resource. Okay. We want to make resources available.

I know our family life ministry team has some. But they've got one sheet, which I thought was a good worksheet. Cliff, would you come and maybe just say just a brief word about this. And we're going to make these available for you to take home. Particularly on these five questions.

Things to discuss together. I think would be very, very helpful. Maybe how you all feel. Yeah. We meet.

We took the summer off. But we'll start up again in September. But we usually meet once a month. And we basically have a different worksheet every week. And we usually just will share part of our testimony based on whatever topic we're covering.

And we actually got six lessons. And this is the first one. And if you want all of them, you can just feel free to text me or let me know. And I'll send you. I've got them all in PDF. But, yeah. You're welcome. And then we'll leave these up here so anybody can get them. Okay. So I think we should get them out now. Once a month or every week? Once a month. Okay. We want to make sure the resource is the family life teams. If you all make yourself available for anyone, we're just, we will dismiss in that. And we'll let you, as we did last week, go out and get your children fellowship out in the foyer. And then anyone wants to stay for prayer, you're welcome to stay for prayer or just to talk, or just to be together with one of these family life ministry teams. Thank you guys for being available. We have such a tremendous group. The Lord bless you. Thank you for being here. We'll pick up next week. week. We've got a lot to cover. God bless you.