Transcript: Christian Conference - Finding God's Purpose Through Failure

First of all, I just want to give you a little background as to how the seminar actually began. I grew up in a Bible-believing, fundamental church, and my parents were very, very active in that church and i guess i would call that church as you might know a legalistic church we had a bunch of do's and don'ts that we weren't allowed to do this big long list of things and as a teenager we used to mock that and make fun of that we we had this little saying don't dance smoke drink or chew or go with the girls to do and if you didn't do those things then And you actually believed that you were being spiritual. Now, we did all the other things, but my parents sort of had this list, you know, and then if you didn't do it, well, you could con them into anything. And you got the idea that the whole Christian life was a bunch of don'ts, just don't do anything. In fact, you could talk yourself into non-existence almost. And I was very, very frustrated and became very rebellious toward all of this because the questions that they were answering and the little rules that they were making had nothing whatsoever to do with the biggest problems that I had as a teenager. My number one problem as a teenage fella was sex. and it became such a factor with me that was all that was on my mind i would listen to see well what do you do about this problem on the one hand and it's frustrating to christians why this is normal this is the way god made you and on the other hand you can't do anything and it's all bad which by the way creates a lot of problems in christian marriages how do you look at this thing as evil and bad and then all of a sudden you turn around and after the wedding it's all okay and you don't just quite make that adaptation just like that. And I kept listening to see if there wasn't some answer, some way to solve this problem. And no one ever gave an answer. But somewhere in my upbringing, I had this one verse sticking in the back of my mind and it was what the Apostle Paul said to the church of Thessalonica when he said, you remember that we taught each one of you how to possess his vessel unto sanctification and honor. And he was talking about moral impurity. So don't be given to fornication. And so I kept listening. All right, the Apostle Paul knows how to help a person, but I've never yet heard a preacher tell us what it is we're supposed to do to handle that area of our life. And quite frankly, the problem goes on and on and on today. and the problems of even immorality among the ministry today is rampant, which simply reflects what? In spite of all the preaching, in spite of all the things we told everybody not to do and how sinful it was, some men never got a handle on how God wants us to handle that area of our life. So I was getting desperate. And finally, I got up enough courage to go to my pastor. and I went to him in confidence, and I said, you know, what do you do with all these problems of lust and sex that's in your mind all the time? And he said, well, you see, Larry, if you're really a Christian, you just don't do those things. Well, here, I was a professing Christian. I was doing some of those things, and I was thinking about the rest, and a year later, he runs off with a church secretary. And so that just kind of killed it. you know, another phony. So then I got up enough courage to go to another person, and he was embarrassed by my question, and he lowered his voice, and he said, you don't have that problem, do you? He said, no, no, no, not me. A friend of mine's asking for some help, and I'm just trying to give him some... And so I quit talking to him. And then I was at a missions conference in our church, and they're telling this story, this missionary's telling this story, how she was in Bangkok in a real desperate situation. She didn't know what she would do. And she went up to her hotel room and she got on her knees and she began to pray to God. And while she was praying, she opened her Bible. And with her eyes still closed, she put her finger down on the Bible. And when she opened her eyes, there was God's answer. Well, I go forward at the invitation and I talked to this older missionary and he asks me, you know, son, what seems to be the problem? And I told him what it was. And he puts his arm around me and he says, well, you see, son, when you have a problem like that, what you need to do is read your Bible and pray. Well, that's the best spiritual advice that I'd had so far, right? Searching for two years now. But my problem was I never knew where to read the Bible. And furthermore, when I was struggling with temptation, I never felt like reading the Bible. Now, there's a reason for that, and that's because when you and I are tempted, temptation involves our mind and our emotions. And there's a whole series of problems that involve the mind and the emotions, and this is why knowing the right answer doesn't motivate a person to change. depression anger worry fear discouragement all of those types of problems involve the mind and the emotions so we can say in our mind I know God doesn't want me doing this or being this way but I can't help it because I feel but I thought boy if God helped this lady in her situation and her situation wasn't nearly as desperate as mine then god will do this for me so i went to my room and i got my knees and i started to pray and i opened my bible and i couldn't wait to open my eyes and you know you're while you're praying you're just kind of where where right here i stopped right over there on the left side of the page open my eyes i looked down i couldn't pronounce the word i'm in the genealogy of the kings and there's nothing there on your thought life. I thought maybe at first I thought I missed it by a verse and I went down and there were some more names there and so I said, see, so that doesn't work. I have one last chance. Reading my Bible doesn't work. Now, why didn't it work? Reading your Bible involves which of those two faculties, your mind or your emotions? Just your mind. And all these feelings are running rampant. so i decided i've got one last chance and that last chance is to pray and i start praying to god about my rotten thoughts and as soon as i start praying all of the rotten thoughts that i ever thought came back to my mind have you ever noticed that you end up with some of the vilest thoughts when you're praying or when your eyes are closed you would never even think the thoughts if your eyes are open so there i tried the two things i tried reading my bible that doesn't work I tried praying. That doesn't work. And that experience was what caused me to conclude Christianity is really phony. I mean, you've got all these great ideas, and you're going to have joy and peace and all this stuff. But if it can't handle the biggest problems in my life, then it really can't handle your problems. And I went off to college very skeptical about Christianity. I really came to a saving knowledge of Christ when I was a freshman in college and developed a real burden for young people. And at first I started working with large groups of young people, and I found after a year of this that not one young person, to my knowledge, had gone on and was growing in the Lord. So I overreacted, and I finally said, you know, if I would just spend in one year time with five people and just help them find out what it is God wants them to do in their life, that would be more permanent results than all of this effort that I've been giving over the years. And I really began to ask the question, you know, isn't it possible to go up to the top of a cliff and build the fence? I mean, it seems like the whole ministry is a ministry of picking up injured sheep at the bottom of the cliff. Isn't there any way you can go up to the top and build the fence so they all don't have to fall over? I wanted that for my life, but I already went over. And the Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 3, You remember that we dealt with each one of you personally as a father does his children? So I began to work with young people on a personal basis and began to ask young people these two questions. First question was, if you could have an audience with God and ask Him any three serious questions and be sure of getting an answer, what three questions would you ask the Lord? Now, over a six-year period, we surveyed about 30,000 teenagers. and all of their serious questions could be reduced to six areas of their life one area was they had real serious doubts about god which i had i used to doubt my salvation i used to doubt my relationship with the lord i met a christian girl once that i knew and i said by the way do you ever doubt whether or not you're a christian she said no i said you never doubt whether you're a christian no i mean well i mean not a lot even a month no how about a week no i mean you never doubts don't ever cross your mind i mean how about a you know an hour no i mean is the idea well the idea might fly through my mind but it's you know 30 seconds and it's gone i said man mine lasts six months and I just couldn't even get close to the Lord. Now, there's a lot of reasons why I couldn't get close to the Lord because I had a lot of underlying distrust going on in me, which leads us to the second area. Young people have a lot of questions about themselves. You ask a young person if they were to look into a mirror and had the power to change anything about themselves, is there anything they'd change? most people would change something and most of them would like to change something that unchangeable now if I can change it and I discovered that it God that made me what my automatic disposition to God You want me to give him my whole heart and life No way As far as I'm concerned, he's already messed up part of it. And if I gave him my whole life, why, he would mess the rest of it up in proportion to what he already has. So I always had this underlying distrust of God, which I never thought of distrust of God. another area of problem was problems with their families with their parents and young people including myself could explain to you what was wrong with my parents and everywhere i go i've asked at least 30,000 brazilians this question how many of you had at least one parent with some hard to get along with idiosyncrasies how many of you have ever had parents that never had any hard to get along with idiosyncrasies i've never gotten a hand but god is very clear to say that if you and i grow up and we end up reacting to our parents even if they were bums but our reaction is one of mockery or i despise them or i can't stand them or you have no idea what they have done to me god says that children obey your parents as those whom god has set over you and so when that rebellion comes out of that life from god's perspective it is not rebellion to the parent but to whom but to him so there's another subtlety another area they had serious questions was about their friends and we talked about that last night didn't we we're always afraid that if we do what's right we'll lose our friends and the key to having the right friends is to have is to be willing to have the right enemies and there was something that jesus always did that always guaranteed for him the right friends and the right enemies and he had friends all his life and he had enemies all his life and many of us because acceptance is so important to us we get to a point where we honestly believe that maybe if we did everything right there is some way that everybody would like me and then another area of problems was their dating life their thought life another area was their purpose in life what am i supposed to do with my life and so i began to go back into god's word to see if god's word had anything to say about these areas i had always studied god's word from a theological point of view or to prove to everybody else that i'm right about what i believe and you're wrong and i was amazed that god's word had something important to say about those areas, those six areas of our lives. So that was the one question. What serious questions would you ask God? The second question that we surveyed and began to accumulate this information, to young people who were Christians, what would you say is hindering you from being totally dedicated to the Lord. And we began to log all of those answers. You know what we discovered over a long period of time? That every single thing that they blamed as the reason they were not dedicated to God was never the real problem. Never. Ever. they were simply talking about superficial symptoms to a deeper problem in that person's life when you talk to somebody and ask them to explain their problem and they begin to tell you what happened and who mistreated them is that the real problem what are they telling you they're telling you what they're bitter about right they're saying this person did this to me and they caused it and i'm bitter and you know what that isn't their problem the problem isn't what that person did to them if you and i come to the lord and tell him how this individual has wronged me so badly what would jesus tell me to do about it forgive him you know what my problem is my refusal to cooperate with God in responding to what he already knew was going to happen to me. Didn't Jesus say offenses must come? Anybody here never been offended? Good, that means you're all normal. Now, by the way, I believed in forgiveness. I was six years into the ministry when I began to start putting some of these principles to work in my own marriage. I believed in forgiveness, except for two people. And they had really wronged me, and there's no way I'm going to forgive them, because I just knew what would happen. If I went soft and forgave them, then God would weaken and let them off the hook. So just in case he has a fit of weakness, I'm going to hang around and see that they get what's coming to them. So what am I carrying around in my life? I'm carrying this resentment around in my Christian life. Now in your booklet here, and we're going to follow down through this as we go through the seminar, just so you understand the steps that were followed in developing these insights, 2 Timothy 3.16 says, All Scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for four things. The first thing is doctrine. Now, the word doctrine here means teaching. It's what does Scripture say about my relationship with God, about myself, about my family. As I began to help young people, this is page 5 in your booklet here, okay? First page here. As I began to start looking into my marriage, because after five years of marriage, my marriage was falling apart. All the while, I'm trying to figure out these answers for teenagers. and i'm going into scripture and i'm saying okay what does scripture teach about this area of the family the second thing scripture tells us is scripture gives us reproofs now reproofs are the way disobedience to god affects my life or to put it in simple terms, it's the kind of problems that I have because I'm disobeying Scripture. Not only does Scripture tell you what some of those consequences are, but then we all will experience it. They tell us that 80% of all problems in a marriage are over one subject. What is it? Money. Now, if we had the time to ask you to explain to me what kind of messes, what kind of pressure, what kind of dumb things that you have done because of money problems. And by the way, it only took Carol me four and a half years to go $12,000 in debt, and we weren't even buying our home. I had 11 credit cards. I just kept revolving them. I'd pay off a couple and make that guy feel good for a while, and then I'd use the other ones, and then, you know, you get your late notice, and then you get your late, late notice, and, you know, and then you've got to, well, we've got to take care of this, and I'd just be riding this thing around the circle all the time. Probably none of you have ever been there. But it gets pretty familiar what the computer is going to say next, right? Pretty predictable. It's also predictable when the first phone calls come. Now, those are reproofs. It's God letting you and me know that we have a problem and we're not following His Word and therefore God isn't going to let the pressure up. I kept praying for a miracle, a $12,000 miracle. God, you own the cattle in the thousand hills. All I'm asking for is one lousy cow, and I just heard about this missionary. He just got a $25,000 check, and the Lord just sent me $12,000. You know, he never did. He never will. You know why? You know what would happen if he'd send me a $12,000 check? I'd trust him for $25,000 next time. I'd go on a real spending spree. When I started going to God's Word and finding out what God's Word says about money, I was amazed. First of all, there's 105 verses in Proverbs on money, and there's over 1,000 verses in all of Scripture. And if you want to know God's mind on money, you go to God's Word and you pull it all together. That's the teaching, the doctrine. now i've got all of god's information now i've got to lay it out in a way in that i know what god says about money and i know i have these problems over here so what's my next question what do i do about it right third step down here correction there isn't any problem that you and i have been into in our lives but what god cannot solve it and work ourselves out of the most complicated messes you've ever seen. There just isn't one. You're not going to be doing it. You haven't done anything, and no one is going to do anything that's going to surprise God. He's seen it all. Now, it isn't enough that you and I just correct what we're doing. There's a fourth step, and when I first got into the ministry and started working with people, the first person that came into my life... It's okay, you can just sit it there. I'll get it at the break. The first person that came into my life was a girl who came to me, and her concern was that she had a terrible habit of smoking. And I was so relieved because, you know, I didn't know very many answers in those days, and I didn't even know very many Scripture verses, and I thought if I just whip out the right verse, I'd solve it. But here she's having this problem with smoking, and I just studied up on the AMA facts on cancer. So I scared her to death about cancer. And I told her body was the temple of the Holy Ghost and you ought to give up that bad habit. And I mean, she just says, that's what I want to do. And she handed me that pack of cigarettes. And we had a word of prayer and she walked out of there and I was so excited, except I was worried, what if somebody catches me with these cigarettes now? She goes out of there and she's so happy. and I'm saying, whew, Lord, I mean, if this is all there is, just bring them on. Just bring them on. Five days later she back in my office right With what Same problem I didn even come close to dealing with the real issues or the real problems in our life A habit you can break is just symptomatic of something deeper in our lives we don want to deal with or we don't know how to deal with. And I used to attack all the symptoms. Drugs is symptomatic of something, isn't it? Drugs aren't the problem. It's what's happened in that person's life that drove them to drugs. It's what's happened in that person's life that's driven them to drink. There's a real underlying root problem to these things, and so there has to be the instruction in righteousness. In other words, I've got to know, once I correct the problem, how God wants me to handle this the next time I face it. What he wants to replace in my life from my old habits and the new way that he wants me to walk. So that was the outline. It has been the outline for years. Now, we have three goals in this seminar. The first one, we want to talk about our personal life. What are the factors upon which a successful life is to be built? And Paul, in Colossians 1.9, says this, We're asking God that you would see things, as it were, from his point of view by being given spiritual insight and understanding. We also pray that your outward lives, which men see, may bring credit to your master's name and that you may bring joy to his heart by bearing genuine Christian fruit. I personally was in the ministry, and I couldn't make it work on the inside. I would listen to other preachers talk about the joy of the Lord and the peace that God gives. And I couldn't make any of that last for any period of time. And while I'm trying to help these young people, my marriage is falling apart. Now, our second goal here is to be a successful partner. If you're not married, don't say, what am I here for? Every one of us who are married would say, why in the world didn't I know this before I got married? And now I can say to you, I know young people who have gotten their act together before they got married and have not gone through the unnecessary problems that I had to go through because I didn't know these things. And as I said last night, almost all of these insights should be in place and a part of our life by the time we're 15. By the time we're 15. then we're getting ready to look into that vocation and what have you but that's not the case in our society it is the case among a couple of other groups in the world but unfortunately it's not the christian you know there is absolutely no juvenile delinquency among jewish orthodox the orthodox jews none anywhere in the world they actually follow the prescribed plan in the old testament as to what you teach your child and when you teach your child and there are nine hebrew words in the old testament that depict the growing developmental stages of a child and there is specific content that they taught the child at each stage so when that child moved from the one stage to the next by the time that child's 15 That child knows what his vocation is. He can handle his vocation. He can handle his life. He knows the religious laws. He knows the civil laws. And he's ready to be responsible. And they wouldn't let a child go past age 18 and not be married. They were only allowed to be single for two more years, and that's if they wanted to give themselves to the study of the law. And by that time, they were ready to face life. What happens in most of our homes if our kid is 18 years old and says, I want to get married? Ah, you've got to be kidding. You're too young. You don't know how to brush your teeth yet. You still don't know how to clean up your room, etc., etc. And we panic. And you know why? Because we sense certain attitudes in them that should be a part of their life if they're ready to go out and face life and they're not ready at all. Somebody tells them what to do and they rebel. They don't know how to treat people. They don't know how to assume responsibilities. They don't know how to make themselves do what they know they ought to do, even if they don't feel like it. That's what a responsible person is. By the time we're responsible, we'll still say what our teenage kids say. I don't want to. I don't like it. I don't feel like it. I think those are the three major sentences that I heard all through my kids' teenage years. And then when I would look at what it is they didn't feel like doing, like clean the barn, clean the horse manure, was there anything wrong with him not feeling like it? And I would say, Dave, you don't have to feel like it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to want to. I don't feel like it or want to either, and that's why you're doing it. But you have to cooperate, right? You have to cooperate. You mothers, when flu has hit the family at 2 in the morning, and they choose not to throw up on the bed or on the tile and they hit the carpet, you do not feel like getting up and cleaning up that mess, right? there's lots of things in life we don't feel like doing, but a responsible person has learned how to assume those responsibilities and overlook how we feel and what we like and what we don't want to do. So our second goal, when we get these basic principles into our lives so we know how to handle our attitudes, then we want to talk about being a successful partner. Now, a successful partner is one who looks at life from his partner's point of view while deepening the oneness of the marriage from God's point of view. Now, I did not know how to look at life from my wife's point of view. One thing that was a surprise to me, and we're talking five years into our marriage, this was a total surprise to me, was to find out that one of the basic needs of a woman is communication. That was a total shock to me. I accidentally communicated with Carol before we got married. I mean, I gave her my undivided attention. I looked deep into her eyes. I kept my eyes closed when I kissed her because I knew that she was going to peek to see if I opened my eyes. See, if you're peaking, then they feel you're insincere. But we guys know they're going to peak, so we keep them shut even though we're dying to look. Okay? And I held her hand just right. I didn't rough it up and break her little fingers, and I didn't hold it so light that it was a fish. Just right, because the woman measures all those little wee tiny things so she knows she's not getting into a trap. This guy really is different than all the rest. I have finally found the one. It isn't going to happen to me like everybody else. I mean, we sat right beside each other in the car. We even made a pact before we got married. See that couple up there ahead of us in the car? I mean, honey, look at her. She is sitting clear over by the door. Let's never let that happen to us. I didn't see the kids in between them. But I'm married three months, and my wife is over by the door. Now, you see, I gave my wife my undivided attention because I wanted a wife. After I got her, I thought, praise God, now I want her to be proud of me, and I'm not going to be a lazy guy, and I've got to get out there and work. And I love to work. So in no time, I'm working 100 hours a week and loving it. my bride is home waiting to talk right i mean this is what she's living for she can't wait till i get home because he's going to talk to me i am tired i mean i have been talking to human beings all day and i had this little idea now that i am the head of the house first thing you got to do i don't know where we read this in what book but the first thing you have to do is take a nap when you get home. I mean, after all, you need your nap. We've had a rough day. The wife needs to keep right on working through the nap time, supper time. And so, and no, my mother taught me not to eat with food in my mouth, so I didn't talk at the table. Now, a wife who is trying to figure out when do I get to talk to him does a very interesting thing. They bring up some unimportant subject to see if this is the time to talk to them. And of course, they bring up this, I mean, what does this have to do with anything subject? And we kind of ignore it and she takes that as a signal, well, now is not a good time to talk. I'll wait until a little later. So they wait a little later. Of course, after supper, you're drowsy from the meal and that's not a good time to talk. And you're tired and next thing you know, you go to bed. And another day goes by, and another day goes by, and sometimes women wait months. But there is one time where she has a chance that she might get them to talk. When's that? Right before you go to bed or go to sleep. And my wife would say, honey, I need to talk to you. And my head's already on the pillow. And I said, honey, what do you need to talk about? That usually destroyed her. see my wife is the quiet type if you haven't picked that up i'm kind of the outgoing loud mouth type and nothing wrong with either of those types god made us that way and usually we loud mouths marry somebody that's quiet and wonderful and now some of you women have no problem whatsoever expressing yourselves and you probably married a quiet guy right there's nothing wrong with that either. It's just that if you're the guy that married the quiet gal, she cries a lot when things don't go right. My wife cried. And so I say, you know, now if you've got the talkative wife, she does not cry, but guys, she kicks you out of bed. Okay. And so I'd say, okay, well, honey, go ahead and talk. And of course she'd start talking and I would fall asleep. now after you've fallen asleep about five or six times in you know a week your wife gets the distinct feeling you don care and you know when we weren getting along too well there always one position that the wife sleeps You get to study her back Except when my wife was upset and crying and knew I was asleep, she would turn over and her face would be right there in my ear and I would hear this whimper, which would wake me up. And, of course, I always had a beautiful disposition when this would happen. So I finally decided, you know, I've got to listen to her. I mean, this goes on all night. So I would get up on my elbow. Okay, honey, go ahead and tell me what you want to tell me. And then my shoulder would fall asleep. And then finally, as soon as she started doing this, I would just sit up in bed, turn on the light, give her my undivided attention, let her talk, surrender, agree with her, and that worked for a while. But then as she found out I really was listening to her, then she'd go one step further. She'd say, honey, now do you understand why I was so upset? I'd say, honey, I sure do. And she'd say, well, explain to me. So I'd try to pick up a couple of key phrases that I heard in this long dialogue and try to put this story together, and it was so far off base that my wife would start crying again, You really don't understand. Do you want to really understand? Honey, I really do. So I would start memorizing what she said. So then when she'd say, Now do you understand? Honey, I sure do. What did I say? And I didn't understand a word she said, but I could memorize it and go back to her word perfect. And she felt good then. And oh, okay, well then you do. And then click, turn out the light and die. Now eventually we get so irked that we quit talking. We figure we've been married long enough that he knows what I like and don't like. And I know what she likes. She knows what I like and don't like. And if we don't do it, then we just start giving people, you know, the silent treatment. We get upset about what? My wife would go around the house quiet. She's quiet anyway. And she'd say, you know, it's been three days. Haven't you been able to see that I've been upset? And I didn't. I didn't know she was upset. She was quiet. Now, it gets real absurd when we start getting into where we don't even communicate. We just expect the other person to read our brains. I'm going to tell you a little story to show you the absurdity of nonverbal communication. The story goes like this. There was a big fight over in Rome between the Catholics and the Jews. And the Catholics wanted the Jews out of Rome, and I mean, it was near bloodshed. And finally they decided, let's have the Pope and the head rabbi debate this thing. And then whoever wins the debate will live with that decision. Well, one of the Jews said, you know, the rabbi really is a hothead sometimes. I mean, one sentence, and he can have our whole race annihilated. let's not have them say anything to each other let's have them use sign language so they lock themselves in the room they sit across from each other the pope he goes like this the rabbi he comes back and he goes like this the rabbi or the pope thinks and without breaking the silence he nods to the rabbi he won the first argument then the pope he goes like this and the rabbi he comes back and goes like this the pope thinks again nods to the rabbi he won the second argument so then the pope he takes the sacraments the rabbi reaches into his satchel and pulls out an apple and holds up the apple and eats it and the pope thinks again nods to the rabbi he won the third argument he breaks breaks the silence he said you want all three arguments fair and square the jews stay well back at the uh... vatican the cardinals were shocked i mean how could the papa lose the argument he says well it was fair and square he says i sat right across from him and i went like this and i said god is an all-encompassing god and he said yes but he's right here he said that's true then i said there's only one god and he came back and said yes but he's for me too and he said that's true he said then i took the sacraments and he held up an apple and he said yes but if it wasn't for the sin of adam and eve the sacraments would be no good he said that's true he said so the jews stay well back in the synagogue the rabbi is trying to humbly tell him what happened he says well we sat down across from each other and first thing the The Pope says, all you Jews, get out of Rome. And I said, we're staying right here. Then he said, I'll give you one week. I said, we're taking two. He says, so then we broke for lunch. Now, you see, that's how absurd nonverbal communication really gets. we start trying to think what the other person is saying, and so we're going to talk about those principles of what God wants. All the other trash in our minds, from the locker room jokes, from the paperbacks or whatever sources, the pornography the videos some of those things just were not as prevalent in my day and age I don't think I saw a pornographic picture until I was a senior in high school now they confiscate them in grammar school drugs were non-existent at that point in time the greatest scourge which is going to come in and so impact the family that I believe it will be unrecoverable are the videos. The R-rated stuff, we just keep pulling the pollution in, and those mines are being filled in a separate part of our brain, which is a resource for trash. And Christians are trying to get married, saying, hey, we have a right to a normal sexual relationship, and they both brought this garbage also into the marriage. And I remember dealing with one marriage couple. They were in full-time Christian work and I began to find out what the situation was and the wife says, well, at least I know his problem isn't sex because I see to it that that's not a problem every day. This guy also was having an affair with another gal and sometimes sleeping with two prostitutes a day. you know why because lust is a totally different factor totally different factor but very very difficult to separate and distinguish when we first get married until all of a sudden the sexual relationship is not fulfilling and doesn't meet one another's needs because the more garbage we fill our minds with the more we imagine and the more we imagine the more we're tempted to experiment and it's absolutely necessary when jesus says how happy you'll be if you have a pure heart and i didn't think there was any way in this world that we could actually develop a pure heart when i had put so much garbage into my heart but praise god there's a way and we'll talk about it this week how to deal with that not only that but i was a judgmental person by the way moral problems create an argumentative spirit in us and then i was a condemning judgmental person i was always out to nail somebody doing something wrong and i was so full of guilt i didn't know what to do with all the guilt in my life i kept trying to pray it out of my life claim first john 1 9 if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and i'd try to pray that out and some things i felt forgiven about and other things i didn't feel forgiven about in the next session we'll identify what these principles are and i'll illustrate how unbelievable it is that regardless of what we've done how as jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free and you shall be free indeed and then our third objective here is to be a successful parent that's one who looks at life from his child's point of view while deepening or training the child to look at life from God's point of view. It has amazed me all through my children's upbringing that what I think I said and what I said are two different things. I'd say to my son, hey Dave, would you mind giving me a hand Saturday? He'd say, yeah dad, I would. I've got plans. Well, didn't I ask him if he would mind? I also taught my kids to be honest. What did I mean? I need your body Saturday. So I had to say it differently. Dave, don't plan anything Saturday morning because we've got a lot of work to do. Or I'd say, now don't let me catch you doing that one more time. And what did I mean? Stop it. What did I say? Don't get caught. They know they're smarter than us anyway, and they, okay, Dad, if it bothers you to know about it, I think I can hide it from you. so we're going to talk about these three factors through the course of this week when we come back we're going to talk about the basic principles upon which we god wants us to build our life and as we end each session this week we're going to give you an opportunity as we go through different areas to pray and if there's some area of your life that needs improvement or you know you need to work on then between you and the lord we just want you to make use of the time while you're coming aside it's going to be a long week and i know you'll be weary at the end of the day but look to god for that extra strength and grace and i i guarantee it'll be worth your time and god will meet with us let's pray father in heaven thank you so much for each one here tonight help us lord to be sensitive to your word to your holy spirit as you teach us may this be a week in which our hearts will truly be a workshop for your holy spirit for this we pray in jesus name amen okay we're going to take about a 10 minute break here and come back at 8 30 i'll give you about 12 minutes okay we're just going to do two sessions tonight we'll go for about another hour the second session and we'll let you get home a little early tonight