Married Couples

...and to consider some of the truth of your word. We're glad that in this area of marriage you've not let us down a blind alley. You've not left us without knowledge, without wisdom, and without a word from yourself.

Lord, if there's any areas where Christian leaders and older Christians make the mistakes, it seems to be in the home. Oh, we think of all of our children. And all the responsibility you're putting upon us in this area.

Lord, we need your help. Desperately we need your help. Guide us now and bring good questions to our mind, and make this little meeting really count, on which hinges in many ways the evangelization of India.

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, praise the Lord.

I think maybe I'll speak at least for a while on my knees, because I need lots of prayer when I speak to the married couples. I didn't request this session. If I say something too heavy one way, then the men get in trouble.

If I say the other way, the women get in trouble. And we've actually had fights that started as a result of these married couples' meetings. Not fights, but arguments.

Because maybe when I was speaking about some of the mistakes men are making, the wife was taking notes. And when she got home, see? And then when I was saying something about some of the weak areas to women, and then when they get home, see what George Berber says. I think we should each in this session pay more attention to our own personal needs, and not feel threatened if you have some of the weak points that we mentioned, any more than you should get big-headed if you are doing well in some of the good points.

And all of us must acknowledge that we are learners. If we are really a part of this work, we are learners. I think most of us are relatively new in marriage, and certainly we have much that we can learn.

Some of that which I'm going to share with you really is what couples have shared with me, or expressed to me. And I trust it will be of some value. I'd like to read my favorite scripture for married couples, known to all of you, but it never hurts to review the Word of God.

Because within these verses, in Ephesians chapter 5, we find the secret to marital... Often when we have chapter 5, we have exposition up to verse 17, maybe even to verse 21, and then we end. Or if we're in a married couple session, we start at verse 22. But actually it all comes together, and it shouldn't be separated.

Back right to the beginning, I want to start at verse 15. See then ye walk carefully, or circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not... But understanding what the will of the Lord is.

And be not drunk with... Filled with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. And he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word. And he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

But that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.

Truly marriage is the greatest challenge in life, and it's through our relationship with God himself. Our relationship with the Lord is the great challenge, and perhaps this is the second greatest challenge. It is our most intimate relationship next to our relationship with God himself, and on a physical level it is the most intimate relationship.

And so it is an enormous challenge. And it is a way of life that I believe most of us know is filled with richness and terrific dimensions, and yet it is also a way of life filled with dangers and pitfalls. And the greatest problems in the church, I believe, in India today, are centered around the home, not the church.

If the homes got right, the churches would be able to function certainly better than they are now. And this is also true in many, many other countries. I remember speaking in Bangalore some time ago, years ago now, and at a church one of the deacons came up to me after the meeting crying under conviction of sin.

He said to me, I'm an angel here in the church. I minister the word of God, but I'm a devil in my home. I beat my children and I scream at my wife, is there any hope for me? And I said, the first hope is to resign from your leadership in this church.

The fact is that if our home is not functioning properly, we are disqualified from Christian leadership, and in O.M. it is one of the main reasons we have removed men without any questions, deteriorating, uttered, and things were going on that were sinful, we have had to ask them to leave the work. I remember one particular case when I asked a brother to leave the work because his marriage was so, so serious, not just a few problems, it was serious. And another leader opposed me on this, thought I was being unmerciful.

But unfortunately he didn't know what I knew, and it was a difficult thing because I don't want to go to that decision, of course, in unity with other leaders. And lo and behold, shortly after we made this decision, this man left his wife, he was British, he divorced his wife, remarried the girl that he met when he was on O.M. Both of them now in agony, back there in Britain. So we had a few experiences.

Fortunately, we had 21,000 people through Operation Mobile as I once said. Now in this passage we have really the key, and it's beautiful. The two key words are one, submit, and two, love, and they both must come together.

A husband loses his credentials for being submitted to when he is not demonstrating the love of Christ. That doesn't mean the woman should stop submitting when he is not loving because that will just increase the difficulty. That's like saying one mistake added to another mistake will make everything right.

It's when the husband is not loving the way he should that the wife needs more patience, more of the Lord Jesus, to sustain her in the midst of that kind of a trial, more of the word of God, more of everything. And the same is vice versa. If the husband is not loving, it's one thing.

If the wife is not submitting, that is not the time for him to turn off his love. That is the time for him to turn on his love in every possible way, even if she be stubborn and unsubmissive or whatever else. And I think the thing that will help us right from the beginning when we think about marriage is that with God, it is permanent.

It is once and for all. Now, you may think that's not necessary to say, but in this age and day, it is necessary to say. In some places, even within churches, they're changing the marriage oath so that we don't have to say in marriage, till death do us part.

We can add some other phrase. And someone said, till divorce do us part. But it's incredible.

We have two sides of this problem when it comes to divorces. I don't want to get on that too much. On one side, we have those who are going into divorce so quickly or into marriage separations.

And this is a great sin against God. But on the other hand, we have people on the other side of the pendulum who decide to stay together but who live in total hypocrisy all their life, or for many, many years, in pretension for the sake of social pressure. They live together.

A friend of mine was sharing with me that they had a house specially built where the husband and the wife could walk in the front door and all the neighbors thought they were happily married. But behind the front door, there were two doors, his and hers. She went into her apartment and lived totally private.

He went into his apartment. They telephoned each other and arranged to meet at the front door and walked out together and people thought they had a happy marriage. I don't think in India most people can afford such a range of doors.

But hypocrisy in marriage is a common thing. That is extremely sad. As we look at these verses, I think we should link them with verse 18.

That in many ways, the secret, which is no secret, to happy married life is to be filled with the Spirit. I think this means most of all, or first of all, we have to acknowledge as couples, we have to acknowledge as couples that we can't do it. It's too much for us.

It's too big a challenge. And therefore cast ourselves upon the Lord. Sometimes this is hard on our pride.

But I trust that most of you have bypassed that stage and together as a husband and wife you have acknowledged that without God's help, without the reality of the Holy Spirit, you just can't really do it. Even though you may be blossoming in love with one another. You need God's help.

You need the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I believe I need the fullness of the Spirit in my home more than I need it in the pulpit. Because to be quite honest, it's easier to preach than it is to be a father of three children.

I preach 600 times a year. I preach to crowds of 9,000 people. I preach on radio and television.

I find it rather easy, somewhat enjoyable. Though even that gets hard at times now. But sometimes just sitting down for 20 minutes listening to my little free ring circus back at Hayes Road really drains me.

I just eventually walk upstairs and cop out. I'm falling asleep. So we need the fullness of the Spirit in our home as much as we need it in the pulpit.

The wives need to be filled with the Spirit as much as the men. We tend to think the man is the key figure when it comes to the ministry. We've got more cockeyed ideas than this than anyone would ever know.

He's going to go out and preach. Let's pray that the Lord will anoint him and fill him. Let's pray the Lord will humble him and use him mightily.

What about the wife? She needs as much that kind of reality just to stay home one day. Especially when the full team is there. All the children.

And if you think leading an O.N. team is hard you wait till you get your own little personal band. You're in for surprises that are going to blow your mind. And I found that the single life was a Sunday school picnic.

If you know any American terminology next to getting married. And why is it that some people find it more difficult when they leave O.N.? Because most of them when they were in O.N. were single. When they leave O.N. they soon get married and so then they think why is it that it's so much more difficult? It isn't because they're in the States or England now instead of India.

It's because when they were with O.N. they were free, they were single, they did their own thing. Then they leave O.N. and they get married. You can't make that comparison.

Or that guy's been on O.N. as a couple without any children. And in many ways, well that also has plenty of challenge. Most couples have admitted that the deeper problems came when the children came into the picture with all the pressure that brings.

Not many, relatively speaking, have been in O.N. with children. So no matter what training program we give you in O.N., when you get married and when you have a family, especially if there are also economic problems, you are in for big, big tests. In O.N. we can only give you the foundation.

We can only set you in the right direction. The bigger tests will come. And sometimes people, after they leave O.N., they have some difficulties and they have some problems.

And they think, well why didn't... Then we hear about people that have difficulties and problems and we think, well didn't O.N.'s training prepare them for that? Listen, no training program guarantees anything for the future if you don't day by day lay hold of God. William MacDonald, I'll never forget it, speaking in London, I think back in 1964 or 65, he said that Christian life is a life of constant dependence upon God. Many of our younger brothers, do you know what they want? They want a spiritual pet pill.

I hope there's none of you selling them cheap. They want some spiritual experience that's going to really take care of all the struggles and battles they have in their life and all the surprises they get. Because none of these experiences or blessings, even the O.N. blessing, is going to make it easy in the future.

We have more people around India with spiritual experiences who are totally dead in their faith now than we can ever count. Or America. But Christian life is a life of continual dependence.

I think he may have said, or someone else said it, a life of continual crisis of dependence on God. The Lord seems to allow one crisis after another to keep us dependent upon himself. This is why God has allowed us to be on this planet in the first place.

This planet seemingly is some kind of a glorious testing ground. Have you ever realized or thought of the fact that this is the only place in the universe where you can be tested? Millions of galaxies, millions of stars, all that God has created, this is the only place where anyone gets sick, the only place where anyone can get punched in the nose, the only place where you can fall off your bicycle and cut yourself, the only place where your wife can hit you on the head with a lamppost, the only place where you can get hepatitis. It's only the earth.

So it may seem pretty big for us, all this suffering, and it is a mind, an experiment in suffering. And marriage will involve suffering. Some of you may have children who die.

Not so many die anymore with modern medicine. But up to 50 years ago, 50 years ago! Now the problem is the opposite. There are so many babies born, and most of them are years of age.

And the QE2, between 80% and... You wouldn't believe it! One lady said to me, this is an old people's home, this ship, isn't it? The days are changing. Our culture is changing, and we're going to have to face some big shocks in the process. Coming back to this passage, after it says, It gives some of the reality that this will bring.

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now isn't that a wonderful way, women, to make your house a little more pleasant? Your husband goes away, and there you are all alone. And perhaps sometimes you could scream, but this is what you're supposed to do when your husband's gone away.

If he worked in a secular job, he would also have to go away. I thank God many, many, many times for the privilege of being his servant in this kind of work. I am willing to go back to a secular job.

Some aspects of my work are very secular. But when I see these men running for the railway station in Bromley at 7 o'clock in the morning, and I see them coming back at 7 o'clock at night, it's easy for us to think that we're enduring a lot of hardship in the Lord's work. The Bible says the way of the transgressor is hard.

And the Bible also says that when we come into the yoke with Jesus Christ, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. It's true that we'll be suffering, but we've got something that the world knows nothing about. And those of us, especially, who are privileged to give our day to that which counts every minute, every minute of our work counts.

I don't have to spend part of my day earning money for Joe Blow's bowl bearing factory. Now, if the Lord wants me to do that, hallelujah, I'll do it. I met a lady sometime in America, couldn't believe it, all day, you know what she did? She was on a factory line putting the inside into golf balls.

All day. How would you like that job? Stuffing the inside into a golf ball. You know what a golf ball is? You know, you play golf, hit that little ball.

Billy Graham plays golf. That's supposed to be the evangelist sport. Can't stand it myself.

But I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life putting the inside into golf balls. What a privilege we have. Giving out tracts, preaching, distributing books.

And, you know, when I meet people who have this privilege and then don't do it wholeheartedly, it's on to God, you know. Well, there's the answer when things get dull and boring. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. The reason the ministry at home with the babies and with the kitchen and with the clothing and the washing is just as important as going out in the distribution is because God is concerned with your character first. Not your actions.

He's concerned about your heart relationship. And that's why we have this first. Being filled with the Spirit, this is what comes.

In Colossians it says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And then it gives almost an identical verse with verse 19. That's interesting, isn't it? And I would recommend to you women, to everyone, but to the women who sometimes are more often in the same location, you know, in front of your dish basin or in front of something else you're working on, I would really challenge you to memorize Scripture.

In fact, I believe if you're not memorizing Scripture, you're jeopardizing your spiritual life. I think this is so important. And it will be a great blessing to you.

I was in a man's home recently. He's a man, a businessman, who he and his wife accompanied, my wife and I, on this trip. And I went into his place where he shaved, and there on the wall, there on the wall, were all texts, whole chapters from the word of God.

Right in front of the shaving plug. So every time he shaved, every time these texts were right there, and he had it in a way you could change it. And what a terrific time.

Opportunity to redeem the time. I sometimes memorize when I'm doing those kind of things, other times I listen to cassettes, tapes. Notice the next verse.

Giving thanks always for all things unto God, and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe the spirit of thanksgiving can be one of the most revolutionary factors in the whole. How easy it is to be negative.

We don't have enough money. Our home isn't big enough. I want to tell you, you'll never get over some of these particular desires.

I meet people who live in ten room homes, each room is the size of this, they're still moaning, they're still complaining. You cannot understand how unhappy most wealthy people are. Let us not be deceived to think that happiness comes through having a bigger home or more money.

These are the women that are cracking up. There have been more nervous breakdowns than any other group. They're bored stiff.

They don't know what to do. And I think that we have to learn the truth of that verse, whatever state we're in, we must learn to be content. There will be the hard times, and there will be the good times.

Now, Paul said he was abounding when he was in prison. You know that verse where he says, we're learning how to abate and how to abound? And then he said, I'm abounding in this situation. He was in prison.

So I don't know what abating is. I guess that means being beaten. And yet, some of the things that we call hardnesses, I'm not sure Paul would put them into his particular category.

Well, giving thanks, always, for all things. My wife and I have discovered that both of us can become negative. One minute she's saying that I'm being negative.

The next minute I accuse her of being negative. The fact is we both have our negative moments. And if we both happen to hit a negative moment at the same time, you better pray we're not discussing you.

But it's amazing. It's amazing how we can become negative. Especially in life after we've had many, many, many difficulties.

Or after we've been hurt many times. If you didn't want to ever be hurt by your wife, by something she said or something she did. If you didn't want to ever get hurt, you shouldn't have got married.

You must have missed quite a good chunk out of the good book. Because any deep relationship will involve... Marriage has the greatest sliding dimension. Total ecstasy on the one hand.

And the most incredible situations in which... And want to jump out the window, I don't know... A feeling we can have within... To the other... And pray for my wife... A range... Are rather unpredictable. And I believe this is especially true when we are in the spiritual warfare. And one of the cures for this is Thanksgiving.

You see, cynicism will try to make its way into our marriage. Firstly, we may become cynical of others. As a couple, we'll turn against other people.

All of us have our... Struggles within, animosity, different feelings, different emotions. And we can... If we're not totally resting in the Lord and appropriating the victory, we can blame everything on other people. This becomes even greater within a community.

Or within an organization. Those of you who belong to OM, OM can become your escape goal. If you're careful and you're clever, you can blame OM for everything.

OM is that something out there that's causing all my problems. This is why for some people we say very clearly, some fields are stronger than others. During your first year of marriage, we don't want you on OM.

Because we know that during the first year of marriage, if the couple has trouble, you don't want to blame yourself. And so, it's good for couples. We don't have a fixed rule on this.

Let the man have one or two years out of OM. Let the man have some good roaring fights and some good bust-ups. They're their own.

Listen, no matter what environment you live in, now you're in the OM environment. Join the gospel recordings environment. Join your independent church environment.

Join the heavenly environment. Whatever environment you're in, that environment will create difficulty. So our problems aren't really OM problems, most of them.

They are environmental. We have chosen a particular environment, a particular group of people to work with. You go work for the Mercedes-Benz company.

Your husband becomes an executive. He will have pressure from every side. Going to cocktail parties.

Pleasing this person. Every environment has their set of problems. So when you're in OM, you're going to have some of OM's problems.

But it's interesting when the time comes for a 56,000 miles in most of our culture. And so, of course, in OM, we found different ways to get around that, mainly helping one another. I'm getting a little bit on a tangent.

Let me go back to the verse. Practice thanksgiving and avoid cynicism. Here's my favorite quote on cynicism.

Then after that, it sort of worked its way. So beware. The cynicism you're having towards has to be self-destructive.

So it's better to stop. No cynicism. I repent of any cynicism I have toward anybody, anywhere.

Because though I know tomorrow it's way out there, my attitude toward this, or my attitude toward that, in a few weeks, a few months, it could be in my home. Eating away at my marriage like cancer and gangrene working on the same arm. Here's my favorite quote from In this world of corruption, there is real danger that the earnest Christian may overreact in his resistance to evil and become a victim of religious... The constant need to go counter to popular trends may easily develop in him a sour habit of... and turn him into a sulky critic of other men's matters.

Without charity and without... What makes the cynical spirit particularly dangerous is that the cynic is usually right. His analyses are accurate. His judgments sound.

Yet for all that, he is wrong. Rightfully, pathetically wrong. As a cure for the sour, fault-finding attitude, I recommend cultivation of the habit of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has great curative powers. A thankful heart cannot be cynical. Beware of cynicism.

Produce and practice at all times in your home Thanksgiving. Sometimes when we thought we had a problem, in just a few minutes, thinking and praying, we realized that our problems were nothing compared to what some other people had. And I tell you, I've been involved with families because some of the problems they have... I don't know anyone here has problems like some of the people I have in terms of illnesses, in terms of outward problems, inward problems.

The devil wants to make you a mountain climber over a molehill. And you wives especially. You can specialize in getting very, very, very tense about little, little things.

I tell you, if overnight this country goes communist, then you'll have some real problems. Think of some of these people in places like Burundi. You know what happened in Burundi a couple of years ago, don't you? They took most of the pastors and they sliced them up.

They literally cut pastors in bits and stuck them into cans in front of their wives. Now any problem you have right now that can bear without women? Seeing your own husband cut up in pieces like a piece of goat meat and put into a can. They butchered a hundred thousand people.

One lakh of people were butchered up in a way that you wouldn't cut meat. And they were carried off. And there were a few little lines in our newspapers about it.

The next time we think we have problems, maybe we ought to open the pages of a history book and remember people like Hitler, Genghis Khan and other butchers who slaughtered thousands of people. One man took 24,000 Yugoslavians and burned out all their eyes. He left one man with one eye and he had the one man lead 20,000 Yugoslavians from Istanbul to Belgrade.

Next time you think you're on a difficult trek with an OM gospel pack, remember that crowd. Most of us don't know what real suffering is. But the devil is still alive and he wants to get us mountain climbing over mole hills.

He gets people to deny the basic doctrines of their faith for the sake of a few hundred rupees, for the sake of a job, for the sake of going off to a foreign country. People lie about ages. They turn against their savior.

For what? Most of them end up very sad. What will happen when the real problems come? How many of us will really stand when real persecution comes in? I tell you, it's a great challenge to me. It's a message to myself more than to you.

I don't point any fingers. But I think of some of the little things I have complained about to my wife. My wife every once in a while says I'm fussy.

That's the last thing I want to be. It's totally against my doctrinal belief. But deep down within me I think maybe partly due to my dear precious mother, I don't know.

But I am a fussy. And I tell you, if it wasn't for the message of this movement, I am indebted to those men like Alan Redpath whose ministry I sat under and who just devastated me. And then a few others.

I'm not trying to stumble by any strong ministry. These little Bible sermonettes, you know, I can sit there, shhh. But when I get somebody like Alan Redpath, Stephen Oldford, or Billy Graham when he preaches to believers, I'm finished.

Well, I know you're probably not like me and you can be thankful to God for that. But I need strong message. I need hammer.

Break. And this is why whenever I am fussy or foolish or some other thing that's not of God, thanks to messages like Calvary Road, I repent. The salvation of our marriage, 17 years of tremendous married life has been repentance.

And the cross. Repentance and the cross. I'm not saying that's the only thing.

Many other things. But that has been the center. When everything else can start to cave in, the cross will always be there.

When everything else begins to go wrong, and sickness moves in, the cross is still there. And that's where married couples should live. At the foot of the cross.

In brokenness. And then it says submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord, in the fear of God. This, of course, is referring to the whole church.

Not referring just to couples. A husband that doesn't know anything about submission to the leaders over him in the Lord, and to other brothers in the work, why does he demand so much submission from his wife? It's not just the women who have to submit. We are all called to submit.

I have to submit to the board of directors in England and in a couple of other countries. I have to give account. I give account for every penny I spend in this work.

I don't want any freedom to just do my own thing because I know the devil's first program to cut a man down is get him isolated, get him out on his own. Where he's responsible to no one. No one to check on him.

No one to see that he's doing all right. The amazing thing is sometimes the moment a man comes under God's protection the devil leaves him alone. He knows he hasn't got a chance because he knows that man is responsible to other godly people who will be concerned for his soul and who will exhort him in danger.

And so in fact in the very earliest days of this work I appointed, I asked for a board of directors and leaders all older men, all mostly married men that I could be responsible to and they, all financial issues were turned over to them. Because in Christian work one of the greatest problems centers around money. And in our own one of the greatest problems centers around money.

You may think the less money the more problems. No. The more money the more problems.

The suicide cases aren't generally from the poverty stricken villages. The suicide cases are more from people who've got money or at least they had it for a while. They got a taste of it.

Maybe wrongly or rightly so. So submission is not just a doctrine for women, huh? All of God's people have the privilege of submitting. Everybody has someone to submit to.

And when you know something about that in your own life then maybe you'll be able to encourage your wife to follow God's pattern. God's pattern is revealed in verse 22. Wife, submit yourself unto your own husband as unto the Lord.

Not because the husband is better than the wife. That is a foolish lie of the devil. And I think I think at least still in evangelical circles in some places there is this without saying it that the man is a little better than the woman.

It's acknowledged when the birth of a daughter takes place when they're all praying like mad for a son. How is there such worldly nonsense? It is worldly nonsense. I don't care whose culture it is.

Some Indian brothers think that something is just Indian culture. Some of these same things exist all over the world. You know Henry VIII he butchered one of his wives because she killed her because he wouldn't give a... But I believe that men and women are equal before God.

But I believe just as on a team if it's going to function an O.M. team somebody's got to be the leader. And in God's great family team he has said the male is going to be the leader. And he has built within the male hormones and within the male characteristic that which can respond to that challenge that is given to the man.

And one of the great mistakes we're making in our western culture is the women taking over wanting to be the leader and the amazing thing is most of them aren't happy in that. It's unnatural. And though they try to cover it up it's sad and it's not from God.

You're going to see more of that in the future. I don't know how much you're aware with the trend of modern culture. The trend of modern culture in the west now says that marriage is you know not necessary.

You can just live with a woman until you're tired of each other and then go live with someone else. This is being practiced. Of course they tried this very strongly in China separating couples and it was a total fiasco.

They changed their course on that. But now others are teaching bisexuality. And it is quite common for men and women to get together and one minute he's having sex with a woman and the next minute he's having sex with a man.

There may be ten people all in the same bed they have extra big beds and they're having sex three, four, five different people all at the time mouth and everything you can think of. And maybe you've never heard anything like that. I hope you don't have to hear it again.

You have no idea how low our society is going in this area. No idea. There are no more rules.

There are no more rules. This is of course in some ways it's coming slowly into India. In other ways things just as pernicious have existed within the temples for centuries.

Every kind of perversion has existed in the guise of religion. The greatest immorality throughout history has always gone with a religious garment. Immorality goes well with a religious garment.

Religious men who captivate women's minds engage in things that even people in the secular world can't get away with because people are carried away with a religious spirit. They think they're doing it for God. In South America we have whole cemeteries.

And I didn't get this from a Protestant book. It's from a Catholic book written by a liberated Catholic. Whole cemeteries where the babies of the unmarried nuns are.

In the villages it was a sign, a special sign for the poor little village girls to have a baby by the priest. Though it was all kept silent she was considered in a special way. And there were special cemeteries where immorality worked very well in a religious garment.

And some of you may face this in your ministry. I hope you'll never get into it. But you may face it.

You may face temptations. Because as a man you may have situations where you have to counsel women. Keith Miller who is certainly a liberated man said in one of his books very seldom when a woman and a man or a man is counseling a woman in an isolated situation over a period of time very seldom will there not be sexual involvement.

And Keith Miller a liberated man but his experiments with fellowship groups have led him to be a rather wise this is YNOM we really believe that men should mainly work with men and that women should be involved more when it comes to counseling women. And when we men do have to counsel or talk to a woman and sometimes of course we have to we must be very wise as to where and when because the devil is very clever in this area. Sometimes we think that all the immorality is among the men.

You know the women are all sitting home and this little angel and the men are out on the run. I can tell you the amount of immorality that takes place at home when the men are on the run you wouldn't want to measure. All kinds of people can arrive at the door.

Husband is away in fact we have an illustration in this right in the book of Proverbs. This woman's out in the street she says my husband's gone away he's taken lots of money he won't be back come on in. Right in the book of Proverbs.

And I believe with all my heart that a woman should not think that she cannot get into sexual difficulty. In the Vietnam War various statistics show that the women of the husbands were far more in immorality than the men. The men were out in the war and they could only get over to Bangkok for sex once every fifth month or back to Saigon and find a prostitute.

Most of their wives were carrying on extramarital relationships while they were out in the war. These things are not very pleasant to say but to be a Christian leader because this is what this is about. We're not talking about this because we think all of you are going to get into this kind of thing.

We're talking about this because if you're going to plant churches, if you're going to work with people, you've got to be realistic about the problems there are in this area. Why? Submit yourself unto your own husband. That's God's way.

It doesn't mean slavery. It doesn't mean you can never share what's on your heart. But it means ultimately you need to be in subjection and submission to him.

I believe this will work out in different marriages in different ways. I don't believe God's trying to put us all in the same closet. You have to work this out in your marriage.

I don't believe it will be the same for one couple as it is for my wife and I. She's a distinct temperament. In many ways because my wife is so different in temperament from me, our marriage has been easier. People who are very similar in temperament, though initially they may feel that they're so similar, we're going to really get on like a house afire.

There may be a fire. Because sometimes people of similar temperament, either it's too explosive or it is utterly dull. Get two long run slow phlegmatics married and unless they really take some extra pills or something, they may find a very dull life.

I think it's beautiful the way God puts such different people together and I have been stunned at the way God has put people together through O.M. these 20 years. I have been stunned when God put Miley and Hannah together. He's one of the few I don't have to worry about if he listens to this tape because they're very close to me.

Just let your mind go back of something that God has put together in O.M. It truly is amazing and one of the most recent miracles of this type because this is a whole special range of miracles that God can handle is the coming together of dear Rosalind Oliver and Rory McKenzie. I can't tell you all the details about that but it's a picture of another girl just faithfully plodding along seemingly turning her back on the marriage possibilities going back again and again on Logos and then meeting this young second mate and they'll be getting married soon and be going as missionaries to Thailand. No need to go into other names because I don't have enough time but truly we've seen the hand of God.

I believe this is just as important as the preaching. I believe this is just as important as praying in fun. I believe it's more important to see God get the right people together because this is for a lifetime.

So many other things are short. So when God puts people together it's for a lifetime and it's very very exciting. Then we go on.

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. That's pretty strong. Very strong.

We can have a whole Bible study on that because though Christ is head of the church one thing he does not do is force the church. And if you are a wife forcer then you are not asking for the submission that God wants you to have. This is why the husband must be a ruler.

He must be a winner. His method with his wife is not one of force. It is one of persuasion.

She has given him the privilege to be the head of the home but he doesn't take that as liberty for the flesh to push her around and to force her. I believe with all my heart in many cases when it comes to marriage the women get the worst end because man has a lot of freedom. We see what the Muslims have done to their women.

How can we imagine the depravity that Muslim women have to live in especially when there are only one or three or four or five or six wives to men who have one basic concept of marriage. A woman to serve, to cook and to lay in bed whether she wants to or not. Dare she refuse she will be beaten.

I tell you when I think of the liberation of the gospel message for women I just about jump out of my shoes. When I think of the slavery and the bondage that women are still in all over the world especially under Islam. You know it seems to me that alone would challenge a few more girls to become witnesses to the Muslim world.

Sometimes when you think you're having a rough time with your husband just contemplate what it would be if you were one among five all fighting with each other. Because they usually fight very ferociously and sometimes worse than that. Submission is beautiful if it's as Christ.

Christ is the head of the church. Christ woos the church. Christ gave himself for the church.

Christ loves the church. Christ keeps forgiving the church. Christ is incredibly patient with the church.

That's the challenge for us, man. And when you become more like that toward your wife then I'm sure she will begin to respond with more submission and more love and all the rest. So let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Let's read the whole verse again, 24. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. This brings us over to the wife's part.

That she wants to submit to her husband. She enjoys this. She doesn't do it with a spirit of resentment or hesitation.

She wants to know this joy of submitting. Marriage will only work with both. It will not work without both.

It will not work in a situation where the wife is expected to submit if the husband doesn't love. It will not work in a situation where the husband is expected to love if the wife won't submit. We know that the wife also is called to love and to love her husband.

I think maybe God uses the word submission in similar terms because He knows that this is one of the most beautiful ways that a wife can express her love. One of the greatest mistakes I see in marriage is people getting married on the basis of just emotional love. They're in love.

This is where the Indians, I think, are a little more sane than the West. That's that there's no problems in the Indian system. Every system has problems.

But we in the West are way, way off on getting married for the sake of emotional love. Young people at 18, they fall in love and go get married. It happens all the time.

Many at 16 fall in love. They meet in high school. They go out.

They watch a drive-in film. They exchange a few kisses. It's all very exciting.

They can't live without one another. At 17 they're married and at 20 they're divorced. It's like a plague across the Western culture.

We have quite a few people now come on our summer campaigns in their 20s already divorced. Most people don't know that. It's a major problem to know what to do with these people.

And so the in-love theory I think is proven. It doesn't work. Love is more than that.

Love is commitment. Love is a discipline. There's one phrase I wanted to make sure I didn't forget to bring into my little talk today.

For a happy marriage you've got to work at marriage. Even in the area of sex. People think a good sex life is going to fall out of a tree like a leaf.

And if it doesn't work for the first month well you know they sort of start having as little sex as possible. That's a foolish mistake. You should work at it.

Some of you didn't learn to preach in one year. It's taken six years and you're still poor preachers. I can tell you sex is harder than preaching.

To really make your sex life full and real. The greatest mistakes some of them that the church has made is having the wrong attitude towards sex. People that think it's unspiritual.

Women that think it's dirty. And I tell you the confusion that brings. And so if some of you have retired early in your sex life I'll give it to you straight.

Get back to work. I personally don't want people in O.M. I don't want any married couple in O.M. Actually there's very little I can do about it. Except saying I don't want people in O.M. who are not having a good sex life unless they have a medical or special problem.

I believe that sex life is important just like the prayer life. I don't believe people should be in the work of God who are not having a prayer life. And I don't believe people should be in the work of God who are not coming together in this most intimate in-depth form of communion and marriage.

It's one of the purposes for marriage. It's a lie of the devil. If we think that sex is just to bring children, we could have given the whole thing up.

What kind of a madman do we have upstairs? If it's just to bring more and more and more children over and over populated earth. That is one of God's plans. That is one of God's plans.

Children. But it's also a deep level of communion that is compared in the Bible. This book that has over 300 verses on sex.

It's compared with the communion Christ has with the church. Now different people have different depths of communion. And I have couples come to me, oh brother George, how many times do you think we should have sex? I say, have it as much as you can.

But you will have to find out what's good for your situation. There are some couples that have this experience once a week. I had another couple, a very open fellow.

He was telling me the daily joy. I was living with this fellow. I could never find him.

But we're all different. We're all different. On the other hand, it is something that has to be worked at.

If only the husband is getting fulfillment and for the wife it is just submission. It is just obeying him. This is wrong.

And that husband, he must read books, he must pray, he must stand on his head and figure out what can he do that his wife may get as much blessing and joy out of this as himself. In sex, each one seeks the joy of the other. In turn, he gets joy back for himself and pleasure.

I think one of the reasons people have trouble with this thing of sex is because it's pleasure and they learn somewhere that all pleasure is wrong. If you believe all pleasure is wrong, you're also in the wrong movement because there are many experiences in life that are pleasure. Eating nice food is pleasure.

You're going to turn away from that. It's a mistake in our thinking to separate these things and consider them unspiritual. We've come to the end of this little tape.

So, I may bring this to a close here and open for questions because no doubt I've promoted some thought. Study the remainder of this chapter on your own. See this beautiful comparison between Christ and the church.

Verses like so often meant to love their wives as their own body. What a depth of love this is. Let's face it.

When we think of rededicating our lives to Christ, certainly as married people one of the big things should be to rededicate our marriage. That we may work harder at our marriage. That we may be more like Christ.

How easy it is in Christian work to neglect your marriage. You think it's just going to tick off like a wind-up toy. Your wife may be very quiet.

She may be very patient. But someday if you neglect her she's going to pop and I wouldn't want that day to come. You don't want any wife neglectors.

You don't want any husband neglectors. Your family has got to be priority. Your team has got to know it.

They've got to know where you stand. They've got to know when a private sign's on your door. Whatever they come with unless the house is burning down you're not interested.

If we can't have privacy if we can't have time to be together to pray to fulfill our total life as a married couple of course there are emergencies and exceptions but basically we're in trouble. And this is why men who have started well in their Christian ministry have ended up on the rock pile divorced separated or maybe together with all their children running around as reprobates over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over