Corinthians 16, 13 and 14, where Paul said,
watch you, stand fast in the faith, quit
you like men, be strong, let all your
things be done with love.
First Corinthians 16, 13 and 14.
You notice the phrase there, he says we
are to quit ourselves like men, which means
act quit, not quit as we would understand
the word today, but act quit yourself like
a man.
And in the Old Testament we have a
number of references to this kind of idea.
The Philistines were warring with the Israelites and
the Israelites brought the ark of God down
into the army and when the soldiers saw
the ark of God they shouted, and the
Philistines heard this great shout and they wondered
what was happening and they heard that the
ark of God was coming to the camp
and they were afraid.
And then somebody, we don't know who because
it doesn't say in the account, 1 Samuel
chapter 4, somebody exhorted the Philistines and said,
be strong, be men, be men and fight.
And so they did and they beat the
Israelites.
The Israelites suffered a tragic defeat, the ark
of God was taken and the two sons
of Eli, the priests, they were both killed.
It was a sad day for Israel.
When David was old and saw that death
was approaching, he had a personal talk with
his son Solomon and he said, be a
man, be strong, be a man now.
On another occasion when the Ammonites hired the
Syrians to fight on their side against the
Israelites and David sent Joab and Abishai's brother
with the army of the Israelites to battle,
Joab talked with his brother Abishai and said,
now if the Ammonites are too strong for
you, I'll come and help you.
If the Syrians are too strong for me,
then you come and help me.
Now let's play the men, he said, let's
play the men, let's be men now and
fight for the cities of our God and
for our God and the Lord will do
what seems best to Him.
So in these few instances, the appeal was,
now be a man, act like a man.
Now I don't think there's any women's livers
around.
You know, sometimes in an emergency, a woman
is liable to jump up and down and
scream.
Now that's not always true, of course, but
in some cases that's likely to happen.
A man is not to do that, and
normally a man would not.
He'd try to figure out how to handle
a problem and what to do with it
and so on.
So I don't think that the writers here
are casting any aspersions on the ladies.
They're just saying that a man should be
a man.
And if there's anything that's needed in the
church of God today, it's just that we
have men that are men, that act like
men, that take the leadership in their home,
in their family, and not as in so
many cases where the woman has to take
the leadership because the man doesn't really care.
And the woman sort of has to be
father and mother to the children.
And as far as the spiritual side of
things is concerned, she has to do everything.
And the man just kind of coasts along.
And that's so wrong.
Stand fast in the faith, quit you like
men, be strong, let all your things be
done with love.
God is looking for men, first of all,
that are right with Him.
In Psalm 78 it says about the Israelites
that their heart was not right with God,
and they were not steadfast in God's covenant.
God could not depend on them.
They were not right in their hearts.
Their heart did not beat with the heart
of God.
They didn't love the things God loved.
They didn't hate the things God hated.
And their heart wasn't right.
Psalm 78, verse 8 talks about this, and
a later verse, I think 37 or so.
Then in Acts chapter 8, you remember the
story about Simon the sorcerer who had been
the big wheel in Samaria until Philip came
and preached the gospel?
And then the people turned away from Simon
and followed Philip.
And then it says that Simon himself believed
and was baptized.
And it continued with Philip.
It says, wondering and beholding the miracles, the
signs.
He practiced witchcraft, and he'd seen that kind
of stuff, you know, the supernatural.
But this was totally different, far surpassing anything
he'd ever seen.
And he couldn't put it all together in
his mind.
Well, here were all these new converts to
Samaria, but they had not received the Holy
Spirit.
So Peter and John, they came down from
Jerusalem, and they prayed for these converts that
they might receive the Holy Spirit.
And Simon saw all of this.
And he saw a way of recouping what
he'd lost.
You see, nobody was paying any attention to
him anymore.
And so he offered money to Peter and
said, give me also this power that on
whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the
Holy Spirit.
And Peter said, well, one translation says that
Peter said, to destruction you and your money.
Your money perish with you, because you thought
that the gift of God might be purchased
with money.
You have neither part nor lot in this
matter.
He said, your heart is not right in
the sight of God.
Oh, but he believed, and he had been
baptized, but his heart was not right with
God.
Peter said, I perceive, I see that you're
in the gall of bitterness and in the
bond of sin.
Repent and pray to God.
That seems like hard language for a preacher
to say to a Christian, you know, but
it had to be said.
You see, Simon was bitter over the fact
that Philip was now the big wheel.
Now, Philip didn't consider himself that, was not
seeking for that, but that's the way it
looked to Simon.
And he was bitter over this, and wanted
to get back in the limelight again.
And Peter, of course, dealt with this very
forthrightly.
You're in the gall of bitterness, in the
bond of iniquity.
His own iniquity shall take the wicked himself,
and he shall be held with a cord
out his own sin.
And sometimes, even although we may be a
genuine, a baptized believer, our heart may not
be right with God.
There may be bitterness there.
There may be unconfessed sin.
And these are things, if we're going to
be a man in the sense in which
the Bible talks about it, and be strong,
be filled with love, these are things we
have to deal with, to be right with
our God.
And you know that verse, we all know
it, I guess, Let us search me, O
God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts.
Now, you can search your heart to a
point, the Bible says you can, in Lamentations
3.
It says, Let us search and try our
ways.
Let's turn again to the Lord.
Let's lift up our heart with our hands
unto God in the heavens.
But I'll never know the whole story, so
I have to ask for God's assistance.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts.
And see if there be any wicked way
in me.
Have you ever prayed that prayer and really
meant it?
It's not easy to pray that kind of
prayer because we're afraid that God might respond.
Well, He will.
If I'm honest, God will be honest.
Draw near to God, and He will draw
near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your
hearts, you double-minded.
James 4, verse 8.
Alright, God is looking for men that are
right with Him.
Then He wants men that are right with
themselves.
Beloved, the Bible says, if our heart condemn
us, then I'm not right with myself, you
see.
If our heart condemn us, God is greater
than our heart and knows all things.
If our heart condemn us not, then we
have confidence toward God.
We sing in the line of one of
our songs, Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before thy law I stand.
Is your heart condemning you?
If it is, then you're not right with
yourself.
Happy is he, the Bible says in Romans
14, happy is he that does not condemn
himself in that thing which he allows.
But he that doubts is self-condemned.
Whatever is not of faith is sin.
Right with God, right with myself.
Brethren, we need to have the kind of
conscience Paul spoke about in Romans 9.
He said, my conscience also bearing me witness
in the Holy Spirit.
A clear conscience with God.
Acts chapter 24, Paul said, herein do I
exercise myself to have always a conscience void
of offense toward God and toward men.
That delicate mechanism called a conscience.
The Bible talks about a conscience being evil
and weak and seared and defiled or dead.
It also talks about a good conscience and
it talks about a pure conscience.
If the blood of bulls and of goats
and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the
unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh,
how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God?
Right with God, right with myself.
Right with my wife.
We're not all married.
Some I'm sure aspire to be.
No doubt will be someday.
So listen.
Right with my wife.
Husbands, why did the Holy Spirit say this
in Colossians chapter 3?
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter
against them.
Why did the Spirit say that?
Well, brethren, He said it because He knows
there will be times when Christian husbands will
feel bitter against their wives.
And there's a word of caution and warning
here.
I think as Christian husbands we need to
read Ephesians 5, 18 to the end, maybe
once a week.
We're to love our wives as Christ loved
the church.
We're to honor them.
We are to cherish them as Christ did
the church, as Christ does the church.
And it ends by saying we're to love
our wives.
You know, even in Christian homes, many times
there are problems and men are not right
with their wife.
Petro LaLussa, the opera singer who met God
in the Moody Church a year more ago.
We spent some time together.
He went to the Philippines with me.
We've had a couple of crusades together and
I like to hear him talking about his
wife.
I've met her.
She's a very beautiful person, very well-educated
person, very gracious Christian woman.
But he said, you know, she's the best
friend I've got.
She's my companion and my best friend.
He said, there's nothing that comes into my
mind.
And he said, Bill, I mean nothing that
I don't share with my wife.
And she shares everything with me.
We just have the greatest time talking.
I don't have a better friend than my
wife.
I'm sure there are some of us here
today that couldn't say that.
Maybe we wish we could.
I know Sherwood Wirth was saying that he
was the editor of Billy Graham's decision paper
for 25 years.
But he wasn't right with his wife.
As a matter of fact, he once told
me, he said, I didn't want to hurt
Billy Graham or I would have divorced my
wife years ago.
He said, we live in the same house.
That's all you can say for.
And he blamed her.
Until God heard Harry and Evelyn Thiessen's testimony
in the Winnipeg meetings in 71.
And God touched his life.
And through that he met God.
Then he tells how he tried to establish
a relationship with his wife again.
It was pretty hard.
One day he said, I think I'll help
you with the dishes.
And she said, what's the matter?
Are you feeling sick?
I mean, he'd never done this before.
Then one day he said, I think I'll
take the garbage out.
And she said, are you still feeling sick?
He said, I've been filled with the Holy
Spirit.
And she said, prove it.
She didn't believe it was real.
And it took some months before he broke
down the barriers and she met God.
Matter of fact, it was in an afterglow.
She said to him one day, when's your
next afterglow?
Well, he said, I'm having one tonight.
And she said, I think I'll come along.
And he said, she kept up this running
conversation.
Why is that fellow praying so long?
Why is that lady crying so loud?
Why is all this happening?
She went on and on and on.
Then suddenly she said, Woody.
You're not sure what they call him, Woody.
She said, Woody, I think I'll hit the
chair.
You know, they had a chair in the
center and people were kneeling at the chair.
He followed me long distance.
I was in the Alliance Church, View Alliance
in Edmonton.
And he followed me long distance that night.
He was just talking so fast it was
hardly coherent.
He said, my wife met God and our
home is a heaven on earth.
Husbands, love your wives.
You can't be right with God and wrong
with your wife.
Many times we try to be, but it
doesn't work.
Do you know what a danger signal is?
When you don't pray with your wife on
a regular basis, there's something wrong with your
relationship.
And, you know, many women are starving for
this kind of fellowship with their own husbands.
I know one Christian came home one day
and found a dear John note on the
table.
His wife had found a man that would
listen to her, that would talk to her.
And she was gone and never came back.
He was in Christian work full time.
He's selling life insurance today.
He blames himself now.
He sees it so clearly.
He had no time for his wife.
He was pouring himself into the work of
God and thought he had to do it
day and night.
No time for his wife.
And she had remonstrated with him, but he
had not listened.
And the fault was his own.
Are you right with your wife?
Maybe some of us need to go home
even this morning and make things right.
And our home, start there.
One man once told me, he said, I'm
married to a witch.
Now, he didn't mean she was practicing witchcraft.
He meant she had that kind of a
nature, see.
And he really told me how awful she
was.
And I stopped him.
I said, I don't want to hear this.
I said, why don't you and I get
down on our knees and you ask God
to show you what you look like to
Him, never mind your wife.
I mean, he knew what his wife was
like.
Well, he got down on his knees and
he prayed the prayer, Search me, O God.
And then he got honest and he broke.
And when he started confessing, it was terrible.
He hated his wife so much that there
were times when she got in the car
to drive somewhere, he used to pray and
say, God, get her in an accident.
Kill her.
I can't stand that scrawling voice anymore.
He was a murderer because the Bible said,
if you hate your brother in your heart,
you're a murderer.
He was committing adultery on a regular basis.
Now, he was deeply involved in an evangelical
church and the boys club work, but these
things were in his heart.
He got rid of the whole thing.
We went home together.
He walked in the house like this, grabbed
his wife, made everything right with her, got
his two daughters, set them down in two
chairs.
They were eight years of age.
Adopted children, beautiful children.
And his wife and I sat around the
corner watching and listening.
And he made things right with the kids.
Asked their forgiveness that he'd been such a
poor father and Christian, growling around the house
all the time.
Then his wife turned to me and she
said, I don't know what's happened to him,
but I want it to happen to me.
I said, okay, get on your knees.
So we got on our knees in the
kitchen there.
You know, the first thing she said when
she prayed?
Oh God, she said, you know what a
witch I've been.
So he wasn't so wrong, you see.
But it was not for him to say
it.
That was for her to say.
And they got everything straightened out.
That was in Saginaw, Michigan.
They were leaving on holidays that Saturday, but
they never made it.
They stayed till Tuesday the following week because
God was working in the church and they
didn't want to miss it.
And they finally left.
As a matter of fact, that Sunday morning,
the meeting was on Saturday.
It was a men's meeting like this.
And that Saturday they were supposed to leave,
but Sunday morning they stayed.
The preacher had them share.
He never got to preach at all.
The church I was holding meetings in that
Sunday morning, I was in a neighboring church.
And God just broke in when they gave
their testimony.
Told the whole story.
How life had been.
How God had changed in the day before.
Then they took off on Tuesday.
They phoned the church Thursday.
I was the only one there when the
phone rang.
I picked up the telephone.
They told us what happened.
On Wednesday night, they had gone to a
prayer meeting in a totally strange church.
The preacher met them at the door.
They said, hey, we just experienced revival.
He said, what's that?
So they told him.
He said, will you tell our people tonight?
They said, sure.
And a revival broke in the church that
night as they were sharing what God had
done in their lives.
Men right with God, right with themselves, right
with their wife.
She ought to be the most important person
next to God in your life.
If she's not, there's something wrong.
Take care of it, brethren.
We're to love our wives as Christ loved
the church.
Then, right with my children, am I.
The fathers to the children shall make known
thy truth.
Have you ever done that?
Ever sat down with your kids and tried
to teach them something about the Word of
God?
We do it by remote control.
We do it by proxy.
It's sort of armchair stuff, you know.
I sit here, and either my wife does
it, or the Sunday school does it, or
the young people of the church does it.
I don't feel I have to do a
thing.
But the Bible says, the father to the
children shall make known thy truth.
Read Deuteronomy chapter 4.
Read Deuteronomy chapter 9.
Read Deuteronomy chapter 11.
And there you'll see what God is expecting
of the fathers to the children in the
area of teaching the Word of God.
Read Psalm 44.
Read Psalm 78, the opening verses.
And there again you'll discover what God expects
of Christian men concerning the matter of teaching
the Word of God to the children.
We're supposed to talk about the Word of
God in the home, it says.
When we're sitting down, when we're rising up,
when we're walking around, when we're lying on
our bed, we're to write the Word of
God on our hands between our eyes.
We're to have it on the doorpost of
our house, on the gates.
Harry Ironside was converted at the age of
about 15.
He became instantly, overnight, a renowned boy preacher.
Why?
Well, he explains it.
His parents talked about the Bible so much
in the home, and had so many Christian
workers into the house.
He said, I used to sit on the
floor by the hour as a boy and
listen to all these people talk about God
and the Bible.
He said, the day I was converted, all
my doctrine was already formed.
I'd heard so much in my home.
And he eventually became pastor of the famous
Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, where Harold's brother
Irvin is now the pastor.
The fathers to the children shall make known
thy truth.
That's another text in Isaiah chapter 38.
Do you do that?
Have you done that?
Maybe for some it might be a little
late to start, but I don't suppose it's
ever too late.
But I might have to start by making
things right with my kids first of all,
and then trying from that point on to
give them something of the Word of God.
God expects it of us.
Who can do it better than the dad?
And you know, sometimes...
Well, I was talking once with a Christian
man.
He was quite well off.
And his son had borrowed, I'm not sure,
was it $30,000 or $40,000 to
buy a boat.
After the son got the money, he told
his dad, you know, I'm not planning on
paying this back.
He said, you aren't?
I'll take you to court.
And he did.
And he was telling me about it.
He hadn't taken him to court yet, but
he'd hired a lawyer.
And he said, that wimping son of mine,
I'm going to teach him who's boss in
the house.
He's going to pay me back every dollar.
I said, is your son a Christian?
Oh, yeah, the miserable wretch claims he is.
Well, I said, don't you know the Bible
says that you're not to go to law
with another Christian?
Where does it say that?
And I showed him.
He said, I'm in trouble.
I said, yes you are.
He said, how do I handle it?
I said, okay.
I said, write your son a letter and
ask his forgiveness.
He was an American, but we met in
South America.
I said, ask his forgiveness.
Tell him to forget about the $30,000.
Because the Bible says, why don't you allow
yourselves to be defrauded?
If he wants to defraud you, let him
do it.
It'll be his problem.
Your heart will be right.
And we knelt together.
And that man, he cried before God and
made the whole thing right.
Wrote his son.
And you know, something happened in his life.
The next day, he was walking past me.
He hit me with his elbow and said,
Bill, it's fantastic what's going on in my
heart.
A couple of days later, he came up
and said, Bill, it's getting better every day.
Walking with God.
It's getting better every day.
All the bitterness was gone.
Right with his son.
Man, that's important.
Very, very important.
To be right with my wife.
Right with my children.
Right with my parents.
Honor your father and your mother, which is
the first commandment with promise that it may
be well with you.
That you may live long on the earth.
Are you right with your parents?
Maybe your parents are dead.
Well, we can't do anything about that now,
of course.
I don't know whether a person should do
this or not, but sometimes I say to
the Lord, Lord, would you mind telling my
dad and mom that I really love them
and I miss them?
Ever done that?
I think maybe the Lord would convey the
message.
I wouldn't try and do it directly because
we're not supposed to try and talk to
the dead.
I don't think the Lord would mind telling
my parents over there in heaven that I
miss them.
Anyway, honor your father and your mother, which
is the first commandment with promise that it
may be well with you.
My dear brethren, if I'm not right with
my parents, it can't be well with me
spiritually speaking.
The Bible says in Proverbs, listen to your
father, hearken to your father, and don't despise
your mother when she's old.
We have a tendency to do that because
they do some strange things.
Like my mother, you know, she had this
cane, you know, and she'd hobble around with
the cane.
And, you know, we felt sorry for her
because obviously she was crippled.
And then one day she was sitting on
the Chesterfield and the cane was beside her.
And little Jamie, one of my grandchildren, grabbed
the cane and ran.
My mother leaped to her feet and she
chased him all around the house like a
teenager.
And she got the cane and she was
walking back with this look of triumph.
And I said, Mother, I thought you were
crippled.
Oh, and she took the cane and started
walking like this, you know.
But you're not to despise your mother when
she's old or your father either.
Honor them, honor them.
Right with my parents.
If I'm an employer, am I right with
my employees?
Well, the Bible talks about that.
Give unto your employees that which is just
and equal.
And don't threaten them.
Don't threaten your employees.
And give them a proper wage.
I know of a certain city, small city
in Canada.
They say it's the most probably, there's a
higher percentage of Christians in that city than
any city in Canada.
And at the same time, they have the
lowest wage scale of any city almost in
Canada.
And that's not right.
See, that's not right.
As an employee, I should give good service
to my employer.
The Bible even talks about that, you know.
Not purloining, not stealing, don't steal.
You know, my father was a soul of
honor.
He was a school caretaker in Winnipeg for
many, many years.
He'd rather die than steal anything, you know.
And he taught us kids.
He wasn't a Christian, but he never swore,
didn't smoke, didn't tell dirty stories, paid his
bills, taught us all these things, you know.
And I really respect that.
He became a Christian later on in life
when he was 72 years old.
But he never thought anything of taking light
bulbs and toilet paper and soap and stuff
home from the school to our house.
That wasn't stealing, he figured.
That was subsidizing his income.
And sometimes as Christians, we do that very
thing.
We take things home from the job because
we call it subsidizing the income, not stealing.
It is stealing.
And it greens the spirit of God.
And sometimes we have to make things right.
In a very recent crusade, just a week
or so ago, this girl came to me
about 16, 17.
She'd been stealing from different places.
And so her pastor told me about it
later on.
He said, you know, I had to go
with this girl.
He said, we went to seven different business
establishments where she'd been stealing.
And she made everything right.
Well, maybe it's something that happened 40 years
ago, and we think, well, time has eroded
it away, and it's no longer there.
But time doesn't erode it away.
The Bible says God requires that which is
past.
And there may be something like this in
our lives.
Things that have to be made right.
God is looking for men that will be
men.
Strong men.
Christian men.
Filled with the Spirit.
Filled with the Word of God.
Right in all these departments and areas.
There's one other thing we might mention briefly
before we conclude.
Right with the authorities.
You know, some Christians, when they're driving, they
always have their eye on the rear vision
mirror.
That's a bad sign.
You know.
We should stay within the speed limit.
At one time, I didn't.
And I drove a truck.
I was starting a church in Transcona.
I drove a truck.
And it said, dodge on the tailgate.
You know, big letters.
So I got some Scotch Light.
And I made it say, don't dodge, Jesus
saves.
And I thought that was pretty neat, see.
Then one night, I was visiting a sinner,
trying to win him to the Lord.
And he says to me, what do you
drive?
And all of a sudden, I had this
terrible, sinking feeling.
I said, I drive a maroon colored Dodge
truck.
Oh, yes, he said.
I followed you on the highway.
And you don't believe in obeying the laws,
do you?
I couldn't talk to him about the Lord
anymore.
I got out of there.
I got home.
And I wept before God.
And I asked God to forgive me.
And I said, Lord, I'll never again, knowingly,
break the speed laws.
Some Christians are doing it all the time.
I knew a Christian worker.
He had to leave the ministry.
Matter of fact, he had to leave the
ministry.
He got so deeply in debt.
And he thought he'd get a job and
get enough money to pay off his debts.
He never, ever got out of debt.
He contracted cancer and died in his 40s.
He was gone.
But you know, he broke laws again and
again and again.
Even as a Christian worker.
I drive with him.
And he'd be muttering stupid laws.
Stupid like, why did it turn red?
If there's nobody around, he'd slip through it,
you know.
He never stopped at stop signs.
He hesitated.
And parking regulations, he totally ignored them.
He had to pay fine after fine after
fine after fine.
He thought it was a big joke.
The Bible says, put them in mind to
be subject to principalities and powers, to obey
magistrates, to be ready to every good work.
And so, that's in Titus chapter 3, verse
1.
So people, men, are you right as far
as the laws of the land are concerned?
Do you take more fish than the law
allows if nobody's around?
Do you shoot a deer before the sun
comes up or after the sun goes down?
You know.
These are questions because many times Christians are
not honest here.
And consequently, we're not right with God.
Because we're not right with these matters.
We have to break it down, dear brethren,
into the specific.
Am I right in these areas?
As a pastor, am I right with my
congregation?
Am I cheating them in any way?
Congregation, are you right towards your pastor?
Do you love him?
Really love him?
Do you pray daily for him?
Do you support him and encourage him?
Or do you criticize?
See, we can extend this thought in many
different directions.
We don't have time, really, to do that.
I want to close.
1 Timothy 2.8 says, I will therefore
that men, and literally it means the men.
And it doesn't mean men in the general,
but in the specific sense.
I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting
up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
And we know he means men in the
specific sense because the next verse says, in
like manner that the women adorn themselves in
modest clothing.
So he's speaking to men and he says,
Men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without
wrath and doubting.
Are you that kind of a man?
When you meet other Christians, do you pray
with them?
There's an old saying, it's not based in
the Bible maybe, but it's something we could
kick around.
If two Christians talk for an hour and
don't pray, they sin.
I don't have chapter and verse for that,
but you know, sometimes we can talk for
four hours about a thousand different things, God
never gets in the conversation, and we don't
end in prayer.
I once led an Anglican woman to Christ
back in Berto Manitoba.
I served four churches in that area many
years ago, and I first went out preaching,
Shoal Lake, Berto, Burdette, and Strathclyre.
I preached four times every Sunday, I had
three prayer meetings every week, and I had
a young people's meeting besides, I was busy.
But anyway, filled with God's Word.
Am I really?
Men pray everywhere.
In Berto there was this woman from Wales,
an Anglican woman, unconverted.
She came to my church, I called on
her, she got saved.
Do you know what she told me?
She was in Wales as a young girl
at the time of the Welsh revival, 1904
-1905.
She said, all these years I can't get
out of my mind the picture of Christian
men meeting and getting on their knees on
the sidewalks and praying.
She said, I saw it many times.
Sometimes large groups of Christian men and women
kneeling on the sidewalks praying.
She said, I know they have something I
don't have.
And she wanted to have it.
And she found it, the reality of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
I will therefore let men pray everywhere, lifting
up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
And then, Colossians 3.16 says, Let the
word of Christ dwell in you richly in
all wisdom.
Fill yourselves full, men, of the word of
God.
Then Ephesians 5.18, what a combination.
Be filled with the Spirit.
What a combination.
Filled with the word of God, filled with
the Spirit.
The consequence is praying always.
Lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
Men, it matters so much how you live
as a Christian believer.
Not long ago in British Columbia, you know
what a Christian employer told me?
His business was going belly up.
He could see it coming.
He couldn't prevent it.
And he said, you know what the reason
for it is?
And I said, no.
He said, because of Christian employees I have
who have borrowed money from me and will
not pay it back.
And he was kind of a quiet person,
not outspoken.
And he didn't want to go after them.
And so he was sort of suffering in
silence.
But the whole business was going belly up.
Because his employees, some of them, would not
pay back money they borrowed.
And he said, it's not as if they
don't have it and can't do it.
They made promises which they do not fulfill.
Now I wonder, those men are going to
be in trouble with God.
Probably by now the business is finished.
They'll be in trouble with God all their
days until they make this thing right.
Try to pray for your kids, see your
kids going astray.
And the real problem is that Dad's gone
astray.
And you see it sometimes reflected in the
children.
It doesn't mean if somebody has children that
are straying from God, that you should sit
in judgment on them and say, well now,
there must be something wrong with him.
There may be, there may not be.
That's not your business to even think about.
That's between that person and God.
But there's no doubt that sometimes this is
how it is.
Watch you, stand fast in the faith, quit
you like men, be strong, let all your
things be done with love.
Boy, I'll tell you something, that's going to
keep me busy the rest of my life.