Shifting Times | Marriage and Family

In episode 1 of "Shifting Times,"  Bishop Lambert hosts a discussion with Pastor Brian Weatherspoon and Pastor Timothy Baldwin on God's design for marriage and how to overcome the challenges of blending two families. 

"Shifting Times" is the podcast of Bethel Deliverance International Church hosted by Bishop Eric A. Lambert, Jr. Tune in bi-weekly for new episodes where we explore how the Body of Christ must consider shifting its doctrinal expression and the way it reveals the light of Christ in their life. These candid conversations with pastors, professionals and community leaders will confront the current issues of our society, give biblical solutions to life's challenges and provoke action in areas of complacency.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I'm currently leaving with like two guys that are single that are successful. And then like I don't think I ever want anybody.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Today we want to talk about something that is very dear to the heart of God, and that's marriage and family. Now, I like to bring that to this particular discussion because as again, our theme is shifting times. And the concept of family has really strayed away from what God wanted. So for those of us who are uh born again, for those of us who believe the Bible, what do you think God's purpose, his eternal purpose was when he designed family? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Yeah, that's good, Bishop. Uh he designed family uh, you know, a after himself, you know, we are, you know, the Imago Dei, the image of God. And when we talk about family, the the traditional biblical concept of family is mother, male, father, I mean male, yes, mother, uh female, father, male, and children. Yes. And and we know that the culture has tried to redefine that. Now we know from a Christian perspective, family for us is a body of believers. Right. But but in terms of the family that God has created, God has created a man and a woman who reproduce children in his likeness. And that's how I would define family.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I think God likes family. I mean, you think about everything in heaven he created. He created everything he loves, he loves to have I'll say beings, and now us humans, he loves to have them around him. I mean, he's got angels around him all the time. He's got uh, you know, beings we don't even know anything about. But he creates, he enjoys his creation, he loves his creation around him, and then he makes a planet, he makes a creation, he comes down in and deals with that creation and then gives that creation, that image, that man, the power to kind of be like him to reproduce and continue to make others like him.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

But isn't that reproduction gifting for humanity in general, as opposed to locking it into marriage? I mean, every man and every woman have the capability of reproducing sure. Why marriage? Why the singleness of marriage? Why not just let a man father as many kids as he can? And why not just I mean, I I'm I'm trying to understand as the world shifts away from God's plan, yeah, is it because we really don't know God's plan? Absolutely. So what what what's the purpose of the singleness of it?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Yeah, when you talk about the singleness of of family or marriage, um, the monogamous piece, um, I think it creates um it creates oneness. That's what the scripture says, that uh therefore shall a man leave his mother and father cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. You it it's it's hard from from that perspective to become one with multiples. You know. We we look at because in our culture now, there's this movement of poly uh relationships. Yeah, polyamous relationships. Um and you you even hear people talking about it and trying to uh validate it biblically.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

True.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Uh Solomon and and all of the other you know, progenitors of the faith had multiple wives and and and all of those instances we see ruin when there was more than one wife. And so so God's heart was th their their their argument is well God allowed it. Yeah, maybe God allowed it, but God didn't sanction it. God didn't authorize it, right? Because his heart was for a man and a woman to come together to procreate and that they would live life together, um, as husband and wife until until death, until until one of them died. And so I think that that oneness piece creates harmony, unity. Um but because if you if you're talking about being in a relationship with more than one person, it's hard to be in harmony, it's hard to to have unity, you know. And when I look at that polyamorous thing, I look at it more so from a a perspective of individuals who it's kinda like I want my cake and eat it too. You know, I I I I can have more than one wife because most of it when we see it, the polyamorous relationships is is mostly men with multiple wives and not women. Absolutely. You're starting to see that a bit. It's crazy. Uh women who are doing that, but it's more men who do it. And so it's funny we talk about God gives everybody the ability to procreate. It's like God says, I'm gonna give you this desire for procreation, but you can't use it until you get married.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

That's tr that's the thing. But in Bible times, it wasn't like that.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

It wasn't that way.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

And even the ritual of Western marriage, it's not the same throughout the world. No. I mean, they don't there's some places, if you're living on the island of Fiji, you don't have a preacher standing there with the Bible preaching to you, but you take a wife. Yeah, and so we see different dynamics. Yeah, so we can't focus on the world's expression of it. No. What I'm trying to get at is why is Satan so determined to destroy the concept of marriage and faculty?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

I'm telling you because God loves it. Anything that God loves and is for, Satan wants to try to destroy and pervert. And so there's something about the nature of God when making man and woman in marriage, it's an idea of man and woman will travel through this life together and they will reproduce. And a sense of family brings a level of joy, brings a level of harmony, even balance. That balances things out since because of sin we've got to die. So it brings some level of balance to things continuing to move on. When you're older, you still have strength to your children. I think God had a plan for family. I think even when we get to heaven, we'll still experience a level of family there. And so Satan seeks to try to destroy what God makes as his original intent. Now, can I can I mention that Elaine here? Image and likeness are two different things. God says, make image. The image we have because we're made like him, the likeness is where man is strayed from. So we don't act like him. We don't we don't follow him because most are not close to God. So we've lost some likeness as far as how God would like to foster relationships with a woman and the man and kind of doing that. So we've lost the likeness of it. But the truth is God loves family, and he's in on man and woman and family.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah, I you know, I look at it to add to that you're right that Satan hates anything that God creates, he always perverts what God creates. But when you look at marriage, one of the purposes of marriage is procreation, to to to uh multiply, be fruitful. Sure. But that multiplication and being fruitful is more than just having kids, it's really producing other uh um producing um godly people, godly children to re write to to replenish the earth, to replenish the earth. And so when you see like the times that we live in now, like there's this heavy um indoctrination for the LGBTQ community, right? And almost to the point where it's not almost, it is, being legislated. You know, like like this is the only sin that we see being legislated, right? Yeah, and so so it's really an agenda, and I look at it as a as a direct attack on kingdom principles in terms of procreation, yes, because you cannot procreate in same-sex relationships, there's no procreation that that happens there. That's right, and so which is why they have to recruit right someone else to come right to indoctrinate, right, and so when you look at look at it from that perspective and Satan hating it, his agenda is to destroy it.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah, and how can he destroy us from procreating and and bringing godly seed into the earth because procreation reminds him that God did this.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

Absolutely. Right?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

And so he has to try to recruit it because he can't he has to recruit because they can't reproduce.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

You don't make LGBTQ children, you don't just reproduce them. Right. Right? Children come out in the likeness of God, likeness of man. But you can make them into something different. And so they have to recruit a policy, they have to indoctrinate because it's not natural. It's something that you have to be kind of indoctrinated, brought into, but they can't reproduce. Right. The only ones that can reproduce are male and female, right, made in the image of God. And but that's the strategy.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

That is that's the strategy that if we bring male, if we create this environment where we just bring same sex together all the time, that there is no procreation gap.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

And it smacks against God.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I think a lot of people really don't have a clear understanding of the functions and purpose of marriage. Right. And that's why we're so susceptible to its annihilation. Yeah. Because we really don't see sometimes translations of the Bible are injurious because it doesn't convey the true heart of God. It's it's like the passage over in Genesis where the Lord says, um, it's not good that man should be alone. The King James says, I'll make a help meet. And that's not a word. Right. Meet, help me is not a word. In the Hebrew, the word was I'm going to make someone to keep the man from destroying himself. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm literally, he says, I'm gonna make someone so he doesn't burn up. Yeah. You know, because man has this drive to just keep going. And the wife is the temperer. You know, she's like, Oh, calm down, go get some rest, do so and so. And so it's almost as if God is saying that the man needs someone in his life to help him balance. Yeah. Now, the culture has taken marriage to a level that wasn't given by God. We put a lot of other things in it that frustrate it. So Paul comes back later, and uh, I like what he he teaches both the Colossian church and the the uh church at Ephesus, and he goes over roles, not responsibilities. Right. Responsibilities come from the culture, but roles come from God. So he says, wife, you submit to your husband, and then he says, Husband, you love your wife, and parents don't beat up on your children, and children honor your parents. And that simple prescription will bring harmony to our culture and to the world. Yeah, but we don't have it anymore because we're confronted by a number of challenges. Cultural challenges. The first challenge that we're confronted by is that of blended families. People don't know how to react to that. They don't know how to deal with I'm raising someone else's biological child.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

You know, and it can cause friction in the home. It can. And I'm sure there's there are people looking at this podcast now and saying, wow, you know, I'm in that position right now. I'm at odds with my live-in spouse because the child's parent wants access, which means access to me. Yeah. So how would God want them to deal with something that is so volatile?

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Yeah, you know, Bishop, I I have a blended family, and everything you say is 100% true there times 10, right? Um and you know, I think God wants us to to handle it as believers that w with humility, with strategy. You know, there were things that my wife and I had to do strategy-wise and legal-wise to make sure that we had order in our home. Okay. Right? And that that was just to have order, but we we did not we did not allow any outside influences to impact what happened inside our home. And so there's many people who are watching and they're and they're probably seeing this, and that's one of the things that you have to be uh very truthful about because when you're raising children that that are not yours biologically, that's the link that is missing in the equation. Right. The biological link which which does not allow you to initially love them like yours. Right, right. We we have to be honest about that. Sure. And you have to right, you have to work towards it. You can eventually, you know, uh again, because we have a blended family. We have um uh two boys. We when we got married, we both had boys, and then we had a daughter together. Um and we thought it would be it would be her son who would give us a problem, but it wasn't. It was my son. It was man, it was he lost his mom at six years old, so that was a whole dynamic. Um, and we had to learn how to be a family, and we had to learn how to do it from a godly perspective, and we had to learn how to come to the table together. We're looking at our last child leaving our home in in September, August, going off to college. The other two boys are out, married, children, all that good stuff. Um, and initially, because we did not know how to operate, it caused so much friction in our home. It was like it was like the ball winds against the Jeffersons. It was like it was like the Hetfill and the cords. In our one roof, her and I come together from a godly perspective, really seek the heart of the Lord uh for for direction for her and I first so that we can learn how to navigate the home with our books.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

But don't a person has to really ask themselves before marrying a person.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Am I the person that can handle hearing that?

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Yeah, but you really don't know until you got in it. Yeah, because you can lie to yourself. Yeah, because I thought I could handle it.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

And like love, love may make you say, I love this person, so I'm I'm in.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

I'm willing. And I get that. But once you get in it, man, it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Some people they have to really soul search and ask themselves, Am I really willing to take on someone else's child? Yeah, that's a big thing. And that's a that's a question you've got to ask yourself. And here's how I looked at it.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

It ain't easy. Here's how, here's the conclusion that I came to where I looked at it, and Bishop says this all the time, I'm the I'm the eternal optimist. I looked at it from the perspective of that the Lord allowed me to have influence on my son's life, you know, uh maybe influence that he wasn't getting in other places. And so the Lord entrusted him into my care, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

But let me say this, Tim, you probably were more apt to do it because you had children.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

I'm currently meeting with like two guys that are single, they're successful, and they're like, I don't think I ever want anybody that already has children. Yeah. And that's okay. Well, that's what I'm saying. They have to ask themselves, yeah, can they? But I said my question to them though, so you mean to tell me if there's someone you met that you really gel with, you really feel like it's a good connection, you're highly attracted to them, it reciprocates to you. You don't think you can bypass or open your heart to actually say, I'll take on that responsibility as well. And they can never answer the question as to whether they're just saying, preference-wise, yeah, I prefer from this standpoint not to have to deal with that, and I just want to start fresh.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

I I had that same perspective.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

And see, that's that's what I'm getting at when I talk about God's mindset about marriage. Yeah, yeah. God's mindset about parenting is different than marriage. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there aren't many scriptures. Solomon wrote most of the instructions for mar for parenting in Proverbs, but he does so because he was such a failure with his two boys. Yeah, Paul says was don't provoke your children and children honor your parents. Yeah, yeah. That's all he basically says. Yeah. But he tells husbands to love their wives as Christ does the church. He tells the wife to submit and surrender to the leadership of the wife, to the husband. But it's so culturally challenging because that's not Western concept. No.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

You know what's funny about that chapter? Ephesians 5, husband, love your wife, Christ loves the church, wife submit to your husband. When you look at the beginning of that chapter, he's talking about submission to one another first. That is first. And says, before you can even do it in a marriage, you have to be able to do it within the context of the Christian community. And if you can't do it there, it's gonna be you're gonna be it's gonna be have a hard time doing it when you when you get into marriage. When you get into marriage, but you're right that it is different parenting in marriage. And I think that again, that God's heart for marriage, man, is when we look at it, one man, one woman, children, husband again, love your wife as Christ loves the church. We'll be doing it until we leave here. That's true. We'll be trying to figure that out. That's true, you know, that sacrificial kind of love until we leave.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

But it but you have to know what God's plan was for it. Yeah. And I think this is why we fall into such a deficit. I mean, gentlemen, we have to admit that uh the divorce rate in the church is just as bad as the world's. And I think it's we w when we were in school, we were taught that the number one cause of divorce is unrealistic expectation that leads to disillusionment. Yeah. Personally, I like the term disillusionment because it means it removes the illusion. Right. And too many people, you know, they have illusions. I'm gonna have this Christian marriage, we're gonna get up, we're gonna pray together every morning, we're gonna pray at night, you know, we're gonna announce scripture over the later. And we're gonna sit together. Yes, yes, and and and the reality is the you know, the struggles and the battles and the responsibilities of life don't always give you that time.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

No, they don't.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And so Satan gets in.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

And if we aren't sure of God's purpose, then we become susceptible to the devil's schemes.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

When you become a Christian, if you're genuinely born again, you can't backslide.

unknown 19:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

If you're just born again. If you're genuinely born again.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

God said nobody can take you out of my hands. I agree. Uh but those who come in and have an experience, not conversion, but an experience, they slip away because they don't know God's plan for their lives as a Christian. Yeah. Most people get saved and right away they think of ministry. Yeah. What can I do for you? It is so difficult for people to understand God didn't save you from ministry. I tell people all the time, Jesus didn't die on a cross to make me a pastor. He died to get me out of spiritual foster care so I can be adopted into the family of God. Now, what comes after that? That's between my submission and his will.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Because if you remember over in Matthew's gospel, Jesus said people are going to come to him and they're going to say, We did all this work, and he said, I don't know you. Get away from me. That's right. So once again, we're seeing that God is showing us how much He He wants a relationship. Now, in my world, as conservative as it is, my world says God uses things in our realm as examples of His will. Absolutely. So He wants this oneness, this perpetual oneness with us. He doesn't have any other illustration but marriage.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah, and you know, Bishop, the very first miracle that Jesus does is at a wedding. That's true. And like and here is God saying, here's how important marriage is to me, that when I reveal my son to the world and his the the miraculous nature of my son, I do it with the with the marriage as the backdrop. You know, and so when you look at scripture and we talk about purpose of marriage, God's heart for marriage, it's really an illustration of the church uh in in Christ, the bride and the bridegroom. It's it's it's Christ as the the the bridegroom. It's it's him caring for the bride. Yeah, it's the wife submitting to the husband, right? Or as the church, it's a picture of the church submitting to the uh to the bride, you know, uh to the to the bridegroom, you know. So that whole that whole marriage thing, when we see it play out in scripture, is really a picture of the relationship between Christ and his church. Right. So when we look At it from that perspective, it absolutely is. Obviously, yes, procreation, yes, uh companionship, yes, all of those things that can be.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Those are the extras.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

But when you look at marriage, marriage is a picture of Christ and his bride, and how we are to relate to Christ, which is why we're gonna be talking seriously.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah, absolutely. It has to be taken seriously, even though the culture doesn't take it seriously, right? The church has to begin to take it seriously again because we understand the mandate.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

The mandate is it's an eternal thing more than it's just a very just natural fill out the paper, get a certificate, and you put it on the wall. No, it's eternal. It it will follow you into a spiritual place and uh you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

How active, how active should a young man be in his uh search for a wife? How much dating should he do?

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Bishop is starting trouble on this.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

How much dating? I got another adults asking.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

In his search. Yeah. At what point does it become oversaturation that develops a hardness of heart? How many relationships?

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Yeah, you know, Bishop, I think I think we should be careful and you know, obviously prayerful about who it is that we engage in in relationships with. You know, one of the things that that I try to stay away from in terms of relationships is the dating, because dating has no goal. That's true. You know, it it really has no end goal. You know, a lot of times you see, because you if you look at dating versus courtship, right? Right. Courtship is like, okay, you know, we have a goal in mind. The goal is marriage, right? But it doesn't mean that you're everyone that you that you enter into a relationship with, you're gonna marry, obviously. True. And so I I encourage men and women of my congregation to have friends, hang out in groups.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

You know, if there is something there that develops, the Lord will will show you that. The Lord will you'll begin to get peace about it. I and I'm not the spooky pastor that says God's gonna pick your spouse and place him right in front of you. And you know, I I think the Lord will give you peace about it, you know, and direction about it.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

I think you should be praying about it.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

And you should be praying about it, absolutely 100%. But but I think we should we should be careful with just saying, okay, I'm just dating a bunch of people to see who I like, because because what that ends up in, we know that it ends up in the bedroom a lot of times. We gotta be careful with that. Yeah, so so I say have friends, hang out in community, you know, hang out in safe spaces in the body. And if you identify someone that you are feeling an attraction towards and saying, you know, this could be serious, then you could become more exclusive and then have accountability in your in your your process of courting.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

And I think you'll narrow a young man will narrow it down if he's actively looking for someone who believes as he does.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Because there the the playing field on believing women and those that are non-believers is a huge contrast now.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

So there if you if you if you keep your list at is she born again, does she love Christ? Is there an actual visual sign that she's loving Christ, then your your dating's gonna be slim anyway, because it's not that many out there that are really doing it to that degree. So you already lessen it by that. So that kills a lot of excessive it's still like six women and one men. I got I got two young adult sons who are having this issue. Yeah. The women they meeting, they look good, but they're not saved.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

Yeah, but the standard for them has been set in a way that causes them to see that. And that that that's that's how it should be set, though. That's how it should be set. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

And and and when they come to our churches, we can try to help reset.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Right? Uh, and it's only because our sons, they have, they have us there. They have a dad there that's kind of seen it, been there, done that. So they kind of get that other filter, but on their own selves, they're like, well, if, you know, where's the ones that are really, you know, on fire loving Christ like we want to, but yet we walk in the same place. They've been having a hard time finding that to that degree. So a lot of what they're finding are the are the complete opposite. You know, they look nice to this, but they're not Christians, and try to have a Christian conversation isn't working for that situation. So I told them, well, you know, this is where you do have to pray. This is where you do have to continue to search. God obviously has somebody, but obviously you can't date everybody that's not of the same because they're gonna take you down a different path.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Are we putting too much spiritual emphasis on the selection process? I don't think so. Yeah. Do you believe? Do you think? Do you go along with the concept that someone is born just for you?

SPEAKER_03 26:56

You know, I have I have my thoughts and doubts about that.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

I I I kind of do.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Do you I I believe that I can just use my my own light. I I believe that my wife is telling me for me. But I can't say that there's one that nobody else can live with you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

No, not that they can't live with you, but that they are the purest connection for you that could bring you to your God-given end.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

I you know what?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

I I think so. I'm I'm gonna agree with that. I think so. I mean, because I I was of the mind that there wasn't. I believed in that freedom of choice concept that says you can choose whoever you want. Sure. But over the past five or six years, through study, prayer, and and observation, I now believe that God can have someone born just designed for you. Yeah, I'm gonna agree with that, Bishop, because I do again when I look at my own life. And in most cases, we never find them because we choose finding them. Because we usually go out and we get um I bought a car back in 20, I don't even know what it was, maybe 2017. And um it was the top-of-the-line model for this particular car. Sure. And it I when I got it, I bought it loaded.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

It was I got every extra they had, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

And I was just so excited.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

And uh, I drove it to a funeral service on Saturday, brought it home, put it in the garage, and that Monday I get up. Matter of fact, we were supposed to be taping something at church. Yeah, and I get up and it won't start. And so they had to come and tow it to the dealership. My car, my brand new car. With all the bells and whistles, with all the bell and whistles. My car was in the shop for over four weeks while they waited for a part to come all the way from the manufacturer. Wow. I say that because I bought that car, not even thinking about the internal parts. Yes, sir. I bought it because of its aesthetic beauty, sir, because of its conveniences, because of all the external things.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Most of us, particularly men, will marry based on those things that are the external things. Sounds good, smells good, you know, but we don't take the time to find out what's on the inside. What's on the inside? You are absolutely so we wind up now becoming a victim of cultural issues. Issues. You find yourself no longer in love. Right. Uh you've lost passion. Right. Because that's not your mate. Right. Or a victim of their context.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Yes. Yeah, yeah. A victim of everything about them. Because we talk about this all the time in marriage counseling. This is like you're not just marrying a person, you're marrying an entire context.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yes, you are.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

Everything that comes along with you, get everything that comes with them. That's right. And vice versa. That's right. At most times when people get married, they're two broken people coming together, uh wanting to be one, wanting to be married and come together. And in most cases, if they don't prepare properly, it just it just it's hard to to to mesh. Yeah. You know, it's hard to to integrate two people from two different worlds if you've not been prepared to do it. You know, we talk about premarital counseling, and and one of the statistics is those who forego premarital counseling have a higher divorce rate. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh and and the divorce rate is already 50%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Give yourselves a chance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

I I I think that our culture has such a tremendous part to play because the definition of marriage is westernized.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

For Paul to write wife submit to your husband, yes, to an eastern congregation, it's fine. It's easy. But it's easy because you're raised that way. Yes. If you're raised in India, when you're 12 or 14, they they betrothed you. Yes. You don't even have a choice. You don't. And that person, you grow to love them. Yes, you do. Here in this country, you you start mentioning submission. Yeah. It's like a chance. I had a marriage. Uh I did a marriage ceremony several years ago, and in the counseling, the the um the young lady had a problem with submission. Yep. Yep, yep. Every time we talked about it, oh, she just couldn't deal with it. So I laced her wedding vows with submission. I must have put it in there for 20 different occasions. And it's like you could see that fumes she was supposed to put it in there. But then when you look at her background, yeah, you know, she comes up in a single-parent home and her mom's dominating the home. Sure, yeah. Yeah, she had no concept of submission.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

So when you look at that, I often wonder, I say, God, you made marriage beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

You gave it as a gift to us, but you don't let us take it when we get to heaven.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah. How about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

It's over when we leave.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

You know, and and it's only because it's an earthly gift. Right. We won't need it there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

You won't be messed up.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

It's it's almost like God is saying, I want you to have a certain lifestyle. We mess it up with everything else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Can we have a biblically perfect marriage?

SPEAKER_03 32:40

I don't think anything can be perfect. Perfect. I say biblically perfect. It could it could be biblically sound, biblically uh uh uh uh directed, but not perfect. But I but we can have I think we have biblical marriages. Yes, biblically perfect. I don't think anything is perfect, Bishop. When you say perfect, that that I'm out on it.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

I think the Bible brings us back into context when we fall out of it. Right. So if we if we're angry, uh we remember, oh, the Bible says be angry and don't go to bed on it, try to get it together, kind of thing. So I think the Bible brings us back when we feel like, you know, maybe we're going too far out.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

So from that standpoint, I asked this question, and I know from a legal perspective, the lawyer would say, asked and answered. And I ain't letting it off. Can we have a biblically perfect marriage? And I put that adjective in biblically perfect.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

And I'm going to say no. Okay. I'm saying here's why, because people who are married are imperfect. We're two imperfect people coming into that. That's just like You sure you want to go down that road? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yeah. You're sure now. Let's go. You heard him. Let's go. Let's go, Bishop. If a person applies every biblical teaching about marriage, then it's biblically perfect.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

I I don't think we, I don't think we have if the Bible says a husband, love your wife as Christ does the church.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

If you do that, it's biblically perfect. Yeah. That's if you do that. That's the point I'm making. Well, I mean, if you look at it from that perspective, that's the only that's why I said biblically. Is the if if the person does exactly what scripture says, it's biblically perfect.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Well, it is. I've been married for 21 years, almost 21 years. I have done my very best to love my wife as Christ loves the church. And there have been times I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

So you don't, you, you're not doing it biblically perfect.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

No, I'm not. I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

But I don't think any of us have.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Can you do? I don't think I don't no, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Then God has put instructions in the Bible that we can't.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

No, that's not true, Bishop. That's not true. Because when we look at, when we look at scripture, right, when we look at scripture in terms of our responsibility as believers, we all even the scripture says we all fall short of the glory of God, right? That's the glory of God. That's not specific instruction.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Here, but I think Tim's thinking, acting.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

But in the military, if I'm your commanding officer and I'm going to give you a direct order, right? But I know you will not obey that order. I can't give that order to you. Right. Because I know you can't do it. So if I give you that order, you can you can file charges against me because it's not fair to give you an order that I know you can't do.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Right. And so God gives us orders that we can't do without him.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

No, no. That's not that's not what I asked you.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

If God gives you an order, Bishop, you're trying you're you're trying to paint me into a corner.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

If God gives us an order, then we can do it.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

I agree with his help.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yes, I agree. Nope, there's that case. It has to be with him. You're born again. Yes. New nature. Yes. That's all the help you're getting. Yes. No, the help I'm getting is from the Holy Spirit. All the help you're getting is a new nature. Yep. The ability to carry it out. Yeah. Husband, love your wife as Christ does the church. Yes. Right? So you find out from scripture how Christ loves his church. Right. You love your your wife along those lines. Yes. Your uh responsibility as a husband is biblically perfect.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

And there have been times I've done exactly that well. And there have been times I've had to say, you know what, honey, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

And that's when you stepped out of it. I can agree with that. As long as you as long as you do what God says. I can agree with that. Then it's biblically perfect.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

I can I can I can agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

And that's all I'm doing, is what I want our listeners to understand is that the things that are in the Word of God can be done. I agree with that. You have to be taught how to do the things. I agree with that. Okay, uh wife, submit to your husband. Do you understand how long it takes to train someone to submit? I mean, we have children, and our children are grown. And they still don't submit in some areas.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

But I think I think too, Bishop, especially when it comes to that submission piece, it's it's really misunderstood. Yes. And from a Western standpoint. Yeah, from a Western standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

We make it look like slavery. Right. But it's really, it's really going along with the direction that's set by the leader.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

And again, you look at the the the correlation between Christ and his bride. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

The church and you know the the the responsibility that we have is to find out what the heart of God is about these things. But it's been a great time talking with you again, and and uh to help our people understand times are changing, things are shifting, yes, and we need to we need to do two things. Yes, number one, be honest enough to say we're not following the instruction of God, and then be humble enough to repent and say, God help me get back to you. Because I agree with Pastor Tim. We can do nothing without his help. I agree. And the Holy Spirit in there will help us to do that. So we pray that you will uh re-evaluate your marriage and and and get your life in line. Uh things happen. You may have a blended family. Don't give up, don't don't fight through it. What you can do is you can reach out to Pastor Tim Baldwin over at Bethel Deliverance Norse East and he'll be glad to help walk you through that uh to so that you can be victorious because here's a man not only talking from scripture, but he has to have to apply those scriptures to his private life. And I thank God for his testimony. And you need to understand what it means to be a child of God and take someone into your life to become one. So, what is God's plan so that he will be glorified in your relationships? So, thanks for being with us. It's always a joy to share the word of God with these men of God and uh to bring it to you so that you can live a better life and be happy. But always remember, Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there's a season for everything and a time and purpose for everything under the sun. So, right now we're in a new season. So break free from the old traditions, get a hold of the hand of God and let him bring you to a fresh walk in him. Remember, he cannot pour new wine into old wine again. So join us and be made new. God bless you.