Interview with Sylvester Eschols

Here is the interview of Sylvester Eschols, minister from First Church of God in Christ, Crestview, FL.  My wife, Wynetta, and I went on vacation in Destin, FL and we visited this church.  For more information, check out our website: www.williams2.org.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:10

This is the Train Man ATL Chronicles with Hono Wheels. I thank you for listening to these episodes. This is season one, episode four. I'd have a conversation with the elder of the Church of God in Christ in Frenchview, Florida. We went on vacation at Distant, Florida, and we just so happened to stumble up to a Church of God in Christ in Freshview, Florida. We saw a man that was uh ministering there. His name is Savannah Edgar. And he was ministering the word of God real good. And so we kind of sat in and recorded him. And after the recording, we had uh good conversation with him about marriage and a lot of stuff in terms of being married and how marriage works. And I want you to hear what he had to say. My wife, Winetta Williams, was doing most of the interviewing this day. But if you enjoyed this podcast, please uh give us uh comment, email us, Lord. All the information will be at the end of the conversation. And now here is Sylvester Eckhard.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So if God called him, that's between him and God. My thing is like you said, you have to have a discernment spirit going on with you. And if you're not getting fed, they're spiritually. I'm not gonna tell you believe it. Yeah, so I would tell you if I search for another. I would definitely tell you here. Come say us.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Oh, every time we come here, we'll be coming back here. You know, I don't want to be like you know, I don't want to be critical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Oh, you don't have to do that. God gives us a discernment script, and we can discern based on the scriptures and what the things are doing, what they should be and what they shouldn't be. And it don't take it's not being judgmental or anything, it's just taking the word of God and saying this is what the word of God says. You know, are we doing what the word of God says? You know, and sometimes we just have to get out of the tradition of things and do what the word of God says, and sometimes it goes against the grain of what people are used to.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Because when we got married, our friends is telling us, Oh, you know, because I was single for a long time. You know, I had been married earlier and then raised to do to finish college and doing well, and uh they was telling me, it doesn't matter if you marry, you can live with a man. And then when I got married, they started arguing about it with me. So I had to display myself. You know, they just all together try to well, I guess God was doing it, cutting them away.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Praise God. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

But we're gonna visit my niece and her husband. Amen. When is y'all's wedding anniversary? How much is it?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

February one. That's February 16th. And I put it on the 16th because I knew that Valentine's Day was the 14th. I wouldn't forget that it was a 16th. You see how quick I called it back. We're going on 47 years.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Oh, what should I say? Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

A three-core string is hard to break. As long as you remember that being married is a covenant agreement. It's an agreement between you and God. God is the third card of that string. And so when you get in disagreements and you get in just don't when you uh have an argument and stuff, go to God. Don't go to your mom and dad, don't go to your parents, don't go to your friends, don't go to Facebook, go to God and let God solve them. And if you go to God, God is faithful because he's in that relationship. He's the one that is a three-card. There's three people that's binding a marriage together. The husband, the wife, and God. Jesus Christ is right there. And he said, Don't let no man put as something what he has put together. And he's willing to make sure that he keeps it until the end. And so what we have to do is them nights, I ain't nobody sleeping on no sofa or nothing. Now I done lean out to bed like I was suspended in the air. But I ain't left the bed.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

But I ain't left the bed.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

But one day at a time. And don't take your marriage for granted. Don't take it for granted. Uh matter of fact, me and my wife has got a date next Saturday night. Uh we're going on a date, we're gonna go to uh fishbone grill or something other. Have them. The same thing that got you there will keep you there. The same thing that got you there will keep you there. And the other thing remember, uh you lose trust in buckets, you gain it back in time. So maintain that trust that you have with each other. Keep God in your life. Communicate about everything. But give yourself, don't communicate when you're angry. Okay, don't communicate when you're angry. Wait till you come and go and talk with each other. You can do that and hold hands and get you a good prayer every morning. You if you can pray together in the morning, my goodness, them little scrimmages and things that you deal with, they'll just fall by the wayside. And what it'll do is it'll unify you together. So if you can hold the hands and pray for each other, pray for the day before you get started. If you can do those things, look here, you can overcome a whole lot. But but being married means that uh half of each person has to die because uh you coming together be one person. And that's challenging because you've been been you've been a you've been a certain way for a long time. Right. And you used to do it. You've been doing it. But now you coming together with what you're rear, I don't know what you're there. But when you come together and God has put you together with your mate, you've got to understand that I got to compromise, I got to give up some things. I had a guy one time tell me that uh two-man pool saw, that's a saw that you got two people, one get on one side, and other get on one side, and they use the saw. Well, if you're both pulling that saw, the saw won't work. If you're both pulling pushing that saw, the saw won't work. But if you give a little and take a little, soon that saw gonna cut down a whole tree. The next thing you know, a forest will be down. But you gotta give and take. And it's not about the right, who's right, it's about the marriage. So it's not it don't it don't draw the land and sign I'm right. It ain't about who's right, it's what's best for the marriage.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Yeah, that's another thing too. Family that we just had a family union and I had cousins asking me why I don't do this, you know, and why don't you still hang out? They want to when we go out, they want to stay late. And so I gotta get home early. And they on this, oh, you gotta be an independent woman and you gotta have your own car, you gotta be, you know, on the road and go get him from work, you know, hanging out and that's no no no no see, all that's out the wonder.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

See when you get married, it's about the marriage. And it's about and it's not about everybody else. And what I've learned is only take it record only take advice from people that are married. Okay, if you got a lot of single people that you're trying to take it uh advice from, it ain't gonna work.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So take somebody, listen to somebody being there and doing what you're doing. My mom is uh 98, I think she was about 86, and she was saying my sisters was dead. Oh mama, you can do this, you can do that. You don't have to do it and I told mom I said still living?

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Oh yes, when they was telling her that still still uh my dad was still there.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I mean whatever you want to. And uh I told mom, I said, Mom, you know what? I said, listen to people that's 87 and above. I said, don't listen to people that's 84 and below. I said they have not been married for almost 79 years. 79? Yeah, my oldest brother's like 76, 77. See, so uh it's five of us, see. Um so uh and I told her that. I said, you can't get advice from someone that have not been married and trying to be married. Right. Marriage at work with work at people.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Can you listen to divorced people?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Only if they are repentant and realize that it was partly their fault. Okay, you know, some people never realize that it takes two in a relationship. Divorce is not caused by just one person, right? It's caused by two people. Uh something happens that caused somebody to not communicate. Communication is big and clarity. You know, just knowing and understanding uh not what you think the other one's talking about, but making sure you get good clarification of what they're talking about. And when you get that good clarification about what's going on, then you're all on the same course together.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

You have to keep talking and you know, asking questions of each other.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

That's right. So even now, my my wife asks questions, and and what I've learned is I can go look at somebody and I just look at them over the dare. My wife knows what kind of shoes to wear, she knows the colors, whether they match. So they're very wives are very detailed. They want to know, they want to know all the stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

You're right.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, they want to know. Every little small detail. Every little detail. Well, guess what? That ain't bad. See, that's a good thing. Right. So just uh work together, know what's work, you gotta work at it. Don't let it one day is one day, but the next day you still gotta work with that man. Oh, yeah. And if you do that, I tell you what. Like I tell everybody, we've been married 47 years, one day at a time.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Let me ask you this question.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

People have come to ask me for you know what he called it, courting advice.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

And uh they're getting seem like they're compatible, but they were asking about their astrology. I know God is important, first of all. If their astrology, astrological compatibility, did that help a marriage? I don't know. You understand?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, you know, I I've heard people say that you I think it is a matter of what you believe. Uh people are led by the things they believe. I believe I believe that uh there is some things about astrology because the three wise men's fall of the star, the way Jesus Christ was.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

That's what my husband was saying.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Okay, that there was astrological You can't take that too far. But but the star didn't tell me how I need to relate to my wife, to Jesus Christ to do that. Right. He said you treat your wife the way I treated the church. Okay. Therefore, if you treat your wife the way Jesus treated the church, you give your life for your wife. And what woman wouldn't want a man to give his life for her? You know. That's big, see? And what woman wouldn't want somebody that's gonna take care to make sure that she's secure the things that she didn't buy. But a man needs somebody that's gonna respect you. And so when you know that the man is looking for the woman is looking for security, that relationship would be good. It doesn't mean that you be a tyrant over each other. Right, it doesn't mean that it means that you are supporting each other, right? And so that's the key to marriage is learning to support each other, and knowing that sometimes you got to say, I'm wrong. Right, right. I'm wrong. I didn't mean I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

The reason why I was asking that question too, because there's so many young people ask about marriage. You ask me about marriage, but for one reason or another, they seem like they're thinking there is a method, you know what I mean? Well, and they don't really want to go to God about it, they want to do that and a lot of younger people have been conditioned.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

They're conditioned by Facebook, and they think the only way when somebody gets them upset, they just defriend them. And so they think they can carry that same thing into a marriage relationship. And it don't work that way, right? Marriage is more than just defriending somebody, marriage is a commitment and a covenant for a life. Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Y'all got me right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Okay, and so and so sometimes you have to go through that process to really understand from that process, this is what I want. Right. And you define that that you want, then you can be consistent about it because it's worth it. Now, if if you're coming in and you have some things, then you have to talk about past relationships and things that have happened so that both of you will understand then okay, this is from the past, this is not from the present. But if you hold hands and you pray and you get that prayer life, a lot of that stuff will not come back from the past, and you can start from where you are and then keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

So you're saying to also make these young people, make the young people aware that they gotta look at their past mistakes so they can learn what God wants to guide them.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

They first gotta know what they want. Do you want someone that's gonna that you're gonna be able to allow in your life to help you with your life? Because that's what Jesus Christ is asking. Jesus is Christ's instance to invite me into your life so that I can not only be a savior for you, but I can be Lord over heaven. See, it's two ways. So when I'm Lord of your life, that means I'm gonna be involved in your life and be telling you what you need to do and what you don't need to do. Now that you're saved, you're not you're a round peg trying to go in the square hole. You ain't gonna fit back to where you used to be. Because now the things of this world is not gonna be compatible with the things of the spirit.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

See, so now I can't do those things because I'm not a part of that no more. I'm just a dope and passing through. Right. I'm not I'm not this is not my home.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

So that's not nagging, you know, how some of the husbands say, Well, that's nagging.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

It's just a matter of talking and communicating with each other and growing together. Now then you change actually. You're changing that relationship. Over time, you'll know you'll learn that as we grow and we change. Uh the woman changes, her body goes through the changes, chemical changes and changes, and the man changes, the heat goes through the changes. Uh but you just gotta know that it is growing together. So you gotta, like I said, a little thing together.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

That's why we're nice. Your wife's name.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Oh Judy. Judy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Yeah. Oh yeah, you said you are from Georgia. Yeah. Well, you have the contact. You have the contact information. You give me your contact information.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Sylvester. Yes. Okay, all right. I hope you enjoy Elder Sylvester Akar from First Church of God in Christ in Pressview, Florida. We enjoyed the conversation concerning marriage, concerning how to keep a man, how to keep a woman, and we will discuss that in a later date. Well, for right now, we're gonna close this episode out. For more information, you can contact us at Williams2.net. We'll have all the information concerning what we discussed, how we can do better in our marriages, and also things that God wants us to have. God bless you, and you have a blessed day.