2024 Conference Ep. 004 Mark Aulson

Hello and welcome back to the PHSA podcast.

My name is David Bigford.

I'm the pastor here at SalmonArm.

This is a very special podcast series where I'm going to be sharing with you messages

from our most recent conference in Prescott, Arizona, the Beyond Limits Conference with

a theme of to preach the gospel in the regions beyond from 2 Corinthians 10-16.

I'm going to share all of the sermons from this conference series to include Greg Mitchell,

our head pastor, Joe Campbell, Richard Ruby, Tom Payne, and many, many others during this

series.

So I'll be sharing these with you over the next couple of weeks.

And I hope you really enjoy these messages.

If you'd like to see these messages in a video format, you can go to PrescottPottersHouse.com

where all of these will be available for you to view in a video format.

So without further ado, I'm going to pass.

I'm going to go ahead and move on to the messages and I hope you enjoy them.

God bless.

Only your mama could love you.

Don't worry.

God says He makes all things beautiful in their time.

So I want to appreciate every single one of you.

I just reflecting about conference.

I don't ever take conference for granted, but coming to conference for a long, long

time and I just marvel at the tapestry of personalities that we have.

And I thank God for every single one of you and the contribution you make.

Really do appreciate all of our brothers and sisters from across the world and anybody

that's overseas looking on live stream.

We thank God for you and your fellowship.

I'm ministering out of John chapter two.

My title is purposefully selected and you've probably heard this text preached on numbers

of times.

My title of my sermon is saving the best wine to last.

And I want to introduce my sermon by sharing with you that my wife and I just celebrated

our 50th anniversary.

So Mark Olson did what any sensible man married to Michelle Olson would do.

I took her to France and yeah, yep, I did.

Took her to France and I wind her grape juice and dined her and I assiduously worked on

getting her to commit to another 50 years.

The good news is she not only agreed to 50 more but she gave me a renewed assurance that

it was a lifetime guarantee.

Now I rejoice in that assurance but I'm not taking it for granted.

The actual genesis for this sermon was a seed planted probably six, seven years ago during

a Christmas banquet.

We every year meet in Chandler and the Chandler Church hosts all the pastors in the valley

and a Christmas appreciation banquet.

Pastor Campbell oftentimes will exhort a little bit.

And I'll never forget the subject matter.

He mentioned, I just want to say a word concerning the crisis that's looming that we're facing

or going to be facing in our fellowship and that is our older pastors and our older couples'

marriages.

He said we have six couples.

He was talking from his experience at the time.

He said we have six couples that I can think of immediately.

Three of them are in the ministry.

Three of them have been in various fellowship churches for decades.

And he said all of these marriages have a similar symptom and that is that they've all

reached a new stage of empty nesters.

And the common denominator is that either one or the other or both looked around when

the kids moved out and now they've had they've attained that status of being empty nesters.

And as they look at the person that they have been yoked with, supposedly yoked with for

30, 40 years, either the wife or the husband said, I don't like you.

I'm not spending the rest of my life with you.

Or I don't know you.

Who are you?

I don't even want to comment that I see some heads bobbing.

I don't want to narc you out, but I really do feel, folks, that God put this on my heart

to minister.

So I know that I'm going to be hitting some tender nerves and the thought of coming into

a new chapter of your life and new season and saying, no, I'm not digging this.

I'm not wanting to spend the rest of my life with this person.

And I have options.

I'm out of here.

So as I've kept that warning, I have some observations and some suggestions to make

that hopefully will head off some people that are kind of barreling down that pathway to

that cliff that you're possibly going to go off sometime in the near future.

My aim is to prevent you from becoming another tragic statistic.

And so I heartily want to ask everybody, let's go to God and let's ask the author and the

helper of our marriages.

Let's ask him for insight.

Let's ask him for help.

God, even before I read this text, we pause and we are definitely humbling ourselves under

the mighty hand of God.

We're asking you to intervene and possibly God stage some spiritual interventions.

God help us.

God, we want to serve.

We want to please you.

We want to go to heaven.

God, we want the best that's possible.

We want to sell for the mediocre.

We don't want to just do enough to get by.

But God, we know we need your help, especially in the perilous times that we live in.

We know that if we're in the ministry, that we have a target writ large over our lives,

over our ministry.

We ask for supernatural help in Jesus' precious name.

God's people say.

John chapter two, verse one, in the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.

The mother of Jesus was there and both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage.

And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, they have no wine.

And Jesus saith unto her, woman, what have I to do with thee, mine hour?

Let me just stop.

My appointed time is not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

Now notice something that immediately changed the equation, that immediately triggered Jesus'

time.

And there were set there six waterpots of stone after the manner of the purifying of

the Jews containing two or three firkins.

One firkin is about nine gallons, two or three firkins apiece.

There were six of them.

Jesus said to them, fill the waterpots with water and they filled them up to the brim

and he saith unto them, draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast.

And they bear it.

And when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and knew not

whence it was, but the servants which drew the water they knew, the governor of the feast

called the bridegroom and he saith unto them, every man at the beginning does set forth

good wine.

And when men have well drunk, then that which is worse.

But you, you have kept the good wine until now.

This beginning of miracles did Jesus and King of Galilee and manifested forth his glory

and his disciples believed on them, saving the best wine to last.

Let's look at bright beginnings.

Being officiated at marriages in five or six different churches over the last 47 years.

And I've had the privilege of helping people, you know, to officially get married.

I have an observation to share.

I've never married anyone, not one single couple that's had a gun to their head.

I know you've seen it in the movies, the shotgun wedding, but my experience in the church have

been that people as a result of choices that they have made willingly.

Now there, I, I, I, I grant you, there may be some extenuating circumstances for some

people's coming to the altar.

Usually those don't come out until like six months, a year after.

But anyway, I'm an innocent.

I naively, if you tell me you live clean and you're, you know, that everything is copresthetic

about it, I, I'll, I'll officiate.

But anyway, the point is they've done this by their own free will.

And I sense that they have at least some kind of hope that I'm entering into something that

genuinely has the potential of being something real, something that's going to enhance and

bless my life in improvement as opposed to, Oh boy, I'm headed for endless curses, stress,

sleepless nights, thrown furniture, holes in the wall and heartaches, heartbreaks.

Oh goody.

At least on some level there is a sense that this is going to be an adventure.

There's some hope and dreams that are wound up and the possibility of that, you know what?

This is going to be a good thing.

And it's almost, it's almost a primal instinct or dream.

And after all, by the way, nobody made them do this.

So my point is, is that there's an initial atmosphere when a marriage first begins, there's

some hope, there's some kind of goodwill, there's some dreams, et cetera, et cetera,

et cetera.

But then comes a transition and probably pretty rapidly we go from planet fantasy to planet

reality.

I always think about Jacob.

He thought he was marrying Rachel.

Man, it only took one night and the next morning, you know, they didn't have lights in those.

I still can't figure.

I can't see.

Anyway, you got to, there's a lot of questions we'll ask in heaven.

So the point that I want to make and disabuse anybody of planet fantasy, you know, whimsy,

no, there's no free ride.

If you're going to have a successful marriage, it will require all kinds of adjustments,

certainly compromises and most of all, a lot of work.

You're not going to be on fantasy island, fun and games.

Your marriage is not going to be the fulfillment, you know, where, you know, Hollywood has made

up, you know, all these dreamy fantasies that you have held in your heart ever since you're

a little girl.

But at some point, relatively soon in the marriage experience, there smacks into a couple,

a startling revelation.

We don't have what it takes to pull this off.

Pastor Mitchell used to say something and that, you know, that in imitable chuckle.

Marriage is two selfish people moving in under the same roof.

So wow, the party has run out of wine.

And I'd like to take a few liberties with the text because in my mind's eye, it's full

of all kinds of metaphors.

Just let the wine represent the good vibes, the, you know, that fantasy stage, that celebratory

atmosphere.

But it can change just as fast.

We had a wedding party, I'm sorry, a birthday party the other day.

And so I was taking a bunch of balloons into the back of my SUV and very hot in Phoenix.

And so these balloons are filled with helium.

And so literally they're straining to go up towards the heavens, you know.

They're full of just dream of just, you know, flying into the heavens and then pop!

It exploded and it just like blew my other eardrum out.

And then, you know, this balloon and now I have this little like, you know, rubber rag

that's quivering on the end of a string.

And so this can happen.

I used to pastor many years ago in Syravista.

We married this couple in the morning service, Tim and Ruth.

And so probably we got out of there.

I got to my house probably about two o'clock after the marriage and there was a reception

in the church and to my amazement, this is before caller ID, my phone rings.

It's Tim, pastor, this is Tim.

You know, I detect this note in his voice of terror.

I mean, you know, it's palpable across the, pastor, we need to talk to you.

And we have a counseling and I'm thinking about two weeks after the honeymoon or now.

I mean, that one is that that is in my record book for the fastest smack with reality.

But it kind of highlights and in our text, again, we have a liberty because the silences

of scripture, they allow us to, you know, take some liberties.

And so, you know, in the days that Jesus walked the earth and the Jewish customs, when they

had a wedding celebration, that was seven days.

And so the party would begin, there would be feasting, there would be, you know, supposed

to be as much food as you want and need in the seven days, as much drink and wedding

beverage as you need or can drink in seven days.

And so, you know what?

Bam, they have run out and now somebody is coming to Jesus and asking for some intervention.

You know, it highlights though that we humans can run out of our earthly resources slash

abilities, strategies, hopes, whatever you want to put in that, in that line of reasoning.

We can run out of resources really, really quick.

And so my point is not so much for newlyweds as it is advice for all of us.

And that is that you have made a covenant before God Almighty.

I know, you know what?

This is a generation, we can hear things and just water off a duck's back.

But I'm exhorting you, maybe I could say as someone of an elder, you need to work out

your own marriage with genuine fear and trembling.

And let me encourage you, there's nothing really that if there's some goodwill that

you can't work out and can't work through and come to some solutions.

But I really do want to have as a target those that have been around for a long time.

You've taken some hits.

You know, Paul mentions, you know, he said, I bear in my body the marks.

I've got some scars, I've got some receipts to prove.

And you've taken some hits, communitively.

And quite possibly you haven't processed this correctly.

There's things that instead of being dealt with, processed properly and then flushed,

dismissed, the blood washes and cleanses and deliverance.

And instead, these things are starting to be like a magnet, it's drawing.

And more and more things are being added and building up.

And I want to tell you, eventually it will hit the tipping point, especially in mind

ministers and their marriages.

I remember Pastor Mitchell teaching a men's discipleship and he said, and it was on, you

know, the qualifications of a bishop or a pastor.

And he said, pastor must be the husband of one woman.

And I think his theme was a one woman man.

And he basically emphasized, he said, look, if you don't keep your marriage, if you lose

your marriage, you disqualify yourself in our fellowship to be a pastor.

Now I understand there's people that are here, some have been through a divorce, you've gone

through some things.

And so, but I want you to give me a full hearing now.

I'm talking about those that are in the ministry and there's a man, and I knew this man casually.

I liked him, he's a good guy.

He's a very, very gifted man.

I admired his ministry ability and he was out, he was an evangelist in our fellowship.

And this was years ago and he was out preaching.

Time came for him to fly back home.

His wife picked him up.

Evidently she was driving and she drove them to the house.

And so he, you know, long trip, weary, lots of stuff on his mind.

Well, he gets out of the truck they were in and he goes to grab his suitcase and he notices

his wife is still sitting in the car and still has a seatbelt on.

He says, honey, aren't you getting out?

And she says to him, world changing, ministry changing words.

No, I don't live here anymore.

You feel it?

That changes the complete landscape.

The man ended up losing his ministry, divorcing, backsliding.

And right here is a good place to insert something very intensely if I can.

Here, no one lives to themselves and no one dies to themselves.

There are all kinds of ramifications in that story.

And usually in our fellowship we have laughed a little bit, smirked about this.

We joke our fellowship is not a vine.

We're not just a vine that's spreading out over the earth.

We are a wreath.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that we're all, dang it, we're all related.

My last name is spelled A-U-L, S-O-N if you're wanting to adjust your will accordingly.

What is it?

Six degrees, seven degrees.

In our fellowship, it's not just you and that person that's going to be affected.

I'm talking about something that takes on a whole new terrifying meaning.

When you add up how many lives, how many families, how many churches are interconnected, and

believe me when I say I have seen, I have seen the modern version of the Hatfields and

the McCoys.

It's a feud, American feud, supposedly the longest lasting feud.

And it has to do with family blood and so on and so forth.

And believe me when I say brother, sister, no matter how you slice or dice it, it ain't

pretty when somebody's marriage is destroyed.

Let's go back to this text.

So they're in a seven day feast, the guests are expecting to be feeded to nonstop eating,

drinking, and if they ran out of wine, this really has bad connotations for your future.

If I take a license to spiritualize, seven is the number of perfection and completion.

I do believe, it's not an exaggeration to say that is God's goal, that is God's wish,

that is God's intent for every single marriage, that God wants to place his benediction, he

wants to bless, he wants to pronounce on every single couple that choose to honor him in

holy matrimony, holy wedlock.

He wants to be able to pronounce, it is very good.

But in this situation, suddenly everything has gone south and so we are not sure what

day that was and so let me apply that.

So seven, seven is the number of perfection, let's just say seven decades, I don't know,

they got married very young let's say.

So I don't know if it was day one, immediately this blew up, day two, day five, we are not

sure but suddenly bam, there is a pall that descends down upon this wedding party and

thankfully somebody had enough good sense to get Jesus involved and so that's my next

point is triggering Jesus time.

Or in other words, getting God involved in our marriage equation.

So that is absolutely, totally the thing to do but not so fast and not under any circumstances.

You know what, there are conditions for God to come to our aid in our marriage, for God

to take the field as it were and to show forth his power or his grace and it is not just

you know, oh, you know what, we had poor planning, oh, we didn't have enough money, oh, you know

what, you know, uncle Eddie forgot to, you know, he didn't get the cask of wine, you

know what, and oh, but you know what, no problem, we have Jesus automatic, you know what, everything

is cool man, snap your fingers and Jesus will come to the rescue and so, but that's not

taught in the scripture.

So the silences of scripture again, they allow us to impose some liberties here.

What we do know for certain, we do know this, we don't know what day or what stage of the

marriage celebration that this came down but we do know this is that Jesus didn't just

immediately jump in and take over and no one can snap their fingers, hear Jesus, hear Jesus,

come and just work this out including Mary.

I'm not going to take the time to develop that but the point that we shouldn't miss

is of the closest human relationship that could possibly be in Jesus' life, his own

mother.

And so check this out, I mean, look at this again with some fresh eyes.

They have no wine and Jesus is retort back very tersely, woman, what have I to do with

you?

Dude, if I said that to my mother, my mom would have cracked me one.

Not my time, it's not my appointed call.

So she was very agile in that she caught his drift.

She immediately shifted from a demanding attitude of Jesus fix it, come on Jesus, I know you

could, I know you, I know that you could fix it if you wanted to Jesus.

I want you to remember Mary had some experience of having a cloud over her marriage.

It's very poignant, no doubt, very commonly held belief by many commentators.

Jesus and his mother and his disciples were called, so this is probably someone relatively

close to Jesus in the sense of a blood relative, Mary's blood relative.

So having her past experience informing her of what it means to have a trauma attached

to the early stages of your marriage, oh no, oh no, I know what that feels like, I know

what that involves, no, I don't want this.

Probably if as some commentators believe that Jesus with the extra group of hungry men and

thirsty men, the whole Mary band came along with him, so it's quite possible the reason

why they ran out of wine in the first place is because of the extra burden that Jesus

brought to this whole equation.

And so, yet what we find is that not even the most intimate earthly bonds automatically

bring Jesus into the case or get him to take the case up and become involved.

So when she shifted and her attitude changed from they have no wine, in other words, fix

this to, oh, excuse me Jesus, I approached this completely wrong, now she takes the pose

of whatever he says, do it, in other words, I got my mistake, I tried to impose to get

him to do my will, no one's going to domineer Jesus Christ, no one is going to dominate

or manipulate or use tears or whatever might be the earthly way that we might try, she

now takes the pose of a supplicant, you know what, whatever he says, in other words, I

am going to put him in his proper place where he deserves and needs to be, if he's going

to move on my behalf or your behalf, he has to be Lord.

I think it was Pastor Paul Campbell many, many years ago said something that always

resonated with me and that is that God only works for what he's put in charge of.

He has to be made Lord.

And by the way, this would be a good place to invoke the law of first mention in Bible

interpretation, the law was something first appears, that is its primary meaning.

And then all subsequent mentions or statements later on, but it all goes back to the first

mention that is the first priority.

For example, God in the beginning created Adam and Eve, he married them later on, Moses

has to issue some reasons why people can get divorced and they're hassling and haggling

with Jesus about that and Jesus said, yeah, Moses granted you that concession because

of the reality of the hardness of men's hearts.

But in the beginning, law first mentioned, it was not always so what God has joined together,

let no man, no circumstance, no devil put, you know, divide.

And so this is there's something in this miracle that is applicable to all other miracles.

In other words, the factor that moved this situation from being an insolvable problem,

a disaster, looming disaster to God taking the field and God working a miracle and smoothing

this out was that Mary put Jesus Christ in his proper place.

So it's really basic scripture math.

What does Jesus say to all of us to do?

So we could have an endless list, there's this possibility and there's that possibility,

this unique situation and my problem has a bit of a different flavor or you know what

and I'm this age and going through these kinds of things and now I'm older and going through

this.

No, every, the generalization is that you know what, Jesus Christ needs to be, he needs

to be exalted as the Lord and then when he gives us his direction, this isn't just an

option of, you know, oh yeah, maybe I'll, I possibly, oh, I need to forgive that person.

Oh, I need to love my wife as Christ loved the church.

Oh, I need to submit to my husband as unto the, you know what, whatever Jesus says to

you, brother, sister, in your marriage situation, if you'll hear that and do that, then you

can have a confidence that God will undertake.

Glory to God.

And I am tired, I'm tired of people trying to manipulate the preacher.

Okay, I'm on my side, thank God there's a moat.

I'm on my side and you always know it's gonna be, it's gonna be a long one if you put the

chairs and then they come in and they move the chairs and now he's there and basically,

machine guns, AR-15, and so basically, a lot of times anyway, it's whose side are you on,

preacher?

Are you on my team?

You know what, and maybe, you know what, all kinds of different little tricks of the trade,

so to speak, and or are you on the husband's team?

Yeah, you're a man, so you're gonna be biased to the man.

Oh, you're a softy, you know what, you know what, she turns on a few alligator tears and

you just, you know, and so yeah, I knew this was gonna happen, I knew you were gonna side

with her.

So I just, I like to kind of get them both mad at me.

I kind of, you know, like I take, I adopt a pose, I said listen to me, listen to me,

I am not for team her and I'm not for team him, I am for team Jesus.

And I learned a long time ago, it's not who is right, yeah, yeah, possibly the woman's

76% right and the guy is the rest, you know, he's the rest, I was at 26 if I can still

remember then.

And so, you know what, oh, 50-50, you know what, no, that's not what we need, that's

not what we need.

Well, you know, affirm me that I'm, you know, I'm more right than him.

Listen, even if you quote, are more right with him, you both are gonna lose if you have

the wrong attitude and you come out of this with the wrong attitude and so I learned it's

not who is right, it is what is right.

Remember Joshua is at the walls, he's reconitering there in Jericho and he encounters a foreboding

figure and he says, are you for our adversaries or are you for us, are you for team, you know,

Hebrews or are you for team Jerichoites, whose team, declare your loyalties, whose team are

you on?

It's a marvelous insight into the mind of God and he says, neither.

Now I know that if you're a Yankee fan, you think the Lord is a Yankee fan.

If you are from Boston, you absolutely know the truth.

But I learned something long time ago, he's not going for it.

Why?

Why pastor?

Why don't you, no, don't tip your cards.

Why?

Why?

Because if you side with her, even if she's right, then he hates you.

If you side with him, then she hates you.

You can't win.

And you know what?

My job is to be the mailman.

I just simply can take the word of God, the teaching of God, seek to get the mind of God,

the heart of God and with compassion, Pastor Lamb preached the masterpiece with compassion.

Here's two people.

He held a gun to your head, bro.

Sis, nobody made you do this.

And I want to remind you, you said a vow to God Almighty.

No, you're not getting away from it so easy.

No, no, no.

I'm not going to be the easy touch, you know, pastor said.

And no, no, no.

You know what I'm going to tell you?

Is that you need to hear from God.

And Jesus had a very similar situation as he's in his earthly ministry.

And here comes this guy and he mouths off right in the middle of Jesus's powerful kingdom

teaching.

Hey, Jesus, would you speak to my no good brother that he would split the inheritance

with me?

And Jesus rebuked the dude.

He said, hey, dude, who made me judge over you?

Point of fact, Jesus is the judge over us.

Point of fact, Jesus absolutely knows the truth.

He could have called.

He could have made a judgment that is totally spot on.

He refused to go for the bait.

What did he do?

Instead, he used that very rude interruption as an occasion to teach principles of the

kingdom of God that if they would be listened to and they would be taken hold of the spirit

of the matter, that would have solved the issue.

So some steps that will assist Jesus being willing to come into your equation.

First, first, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

Now you heard that ad nauseam perhaps, but you know what?

The issue is that if that is the central truth, the bedrock truth, let not man, that includes

me.

I don't have the right to blow up my marriage.

I don't have the right to sabotage my marriage.

I don't have enough good reasons.

You know what?

I need to lay hold of God.

And again, I need to say this.

I know there's some people and I'm not ministering and saying that there's no biblical reasons

ever for a legitimate divorce.

If somebody is married to a habitual adulterer, if somebody is married to somebody that abandoned

them, if somebody is married to a habitual addict, which in my book is kind of a little

is under the same clause as abandonment.

Yes, there are biblical reasons.

Again, though, again, we should note because of the hardness of men's hearts, God gave

that concession because of his mercy.

But you know, the truth of the matter is, is that if we have a commitment that I made

a vow and I need to seriously, I need to look at marriage like I think Pastor Mitchell or

I read in a book, marriage is like going into a room and there are no exits.

Now if you really, if you really believe that, I am on an island marooned with this person

and I ain't getting off.

I mean, I'm not getting off this island.

So I'm not going to spend the next 50 years squabbling over, you know, you, you know,

you didn't share the, you didn't share the coconut.

You know what?

I'm, I'm, no, no, no, I'm going to figure out some things.

And so I want to quickly give you a few things, some steps that will assist Jesus to be willing

to come into the equation.

And that is, is that if you really look at it this way, you're going to have an attitude

adjustment and that means that you fight fair and you fight fast.

Ephesians 4 26, be you angry and send not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

Neither give place to the devil.

So it acknowledges that there's going to be, you know, issues to face as problems and reality

of people, you know, we're in a fallen world.

We're too selfish.

People having to come on the same roof and you know what?

So there's going to be some times when, when temper flares up, but you know what?

God commands us, not an option.

He commands you.

If you get ticked off, you have to be ticked off cleanly.

What does that mean?

You don't get a license and a, and a, and a, and a, a plenary indulgence to start using

vulgar words.

No, you're going to have an angel punch your teeth out.

If you talk like that, I know I want to, I want to weigh in on this a little bit.

I don't care if Fox news is publishing F asterisk asterisk and, and, and you know what?

We live in a filthy generation.

We live in a filthy day.

And you know what?

You can really tell a lot about a spiritual condition of a society by the language and

profanity that's a, that's not only in, you know, like wink, wink, but no Christian, we

are totally, totally called to fight fair.

That means that, you know what?

Even if I'm upset, I don't have the liberty to go off.

Well, I just, you know, I'm, I'm Irish and I have a liberty, you know, pastor, don't

expect me to be like, you know what?

I'm not, you know, I'm, I'm from a hot blooded family.

I'm from a family expresses their emotions.

Stop that.

Stop expressing those emotions.

And you might, you might have some apple pie tonight.

I don't know.

But you're supposed to work it out.

And I'm not telling you I'm perfect on this, but you know what?

My Mrs. Is here and so I'm very mindful.

She's watching me now.

And so what I say, you know what?

She can throw away.

And so I can tell on you, Mark Olson.

So anyway, I have to, you know what?

You're supposed to work it out fast and you're supposed to come to grips.

Let me just tell you something is that when I went into the Philippines and this is for

missionaries, I had a situation.

We didn't have long distance phone calls that were, you know, affordable.

We didn't have cell phones, email, texting, FaceTime, all that kind of stuff.

And so we had to pretty much Michelle and I had to really work on our marriage.

I had this understanding if I lose my marriage, I get I'm going to be taken out of the ministry

and I feel like I'm called to the Philippines.

This is like this is a God thing and I have to I have to make my marriage work.

And so there were real situations as loneliness as problems and so forth.

So I had to be my my wife's husband, the father of her children, which that has whole response,

a bunch of responsibility, and you can laugh if you want.

But I had to be her girlfriend.

You know what?

I don't care if you laugh.

We made it nine years, pal.

And Jesus understands that all marriages are the result of right words.

There's two sentences that have eight letters.

I am sorry that comes out to eight letters.

Another eight letter sentence.

I love you.

I heard about this guy that had a ginormous fight with his wife and he stormed out of

the house only later to text her and said, I need to come back.

She texts back.

I need three words, eight letters.

He texts back.

I got food.

She said, get over here now.

How about one, fifteen letters, fifteen letters.

Please forgive me.

I know.

I know.

But listen, the best wine is safe to last if you really have it in your heart.

I want to make memories.

You want good memories when you're so many 85 years old.

I know one of the brothers talked about he's up in his 80s.

He said, yep, my wife and I, we have two rocking chairs and we really get our, you know, a

lot of excitement watching the hummingbirds.

Made me laugh, but you know what?

It's like you want to be able to like, like Pastor Sergey said this in Tempe church Sunday

night.

We are going to grow old together.

Michelle Olson, we are going to grow old together.

We're just, we're just, we're just kids right now.

So I mean, think about this, think about this husband.

If you love your wife, the Bible said you love yourself.

Now that's kind of kind of weird paradox, isn't it?

But you know what?

It means something.

And if you say, you know what?

I'm going to try to outdo my wife by blessing her more.

I'm not going to keep score of her.

I'm not going to try to keep score of how many things she's done that's made me upset

or mad.

I'm going to try to keep score.

How can I bless her?

Because I have in my mind, God's watching, God is looking, God is pleased.

You know, it should not be said.

Shulamith said this in Song of Solomon.

By the way, you need a little pep in your step.

Read the book of Song of Solomon's in a modern translation.

Song of Solomon's one six.

I can't resist.

I'm sorry.

I get some song in chapter one, verse six.

They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept.

No, you can't save someone else from drowning if you can't swim first.

I forgot first.

You have to have your marriage.

And there's so many blessings and I don't want to keep going on.

But this is what I want to tell you.

One time I'm on staff, I'm closing with this.

I'm on staff and I messed up.

There was a band.

Jews for Jesus were coming in.

I was supposed to find them and bring them to the church and wires got crossed.

And so anyway, suffice to say, Pastor Mitchell was not happy with me, the door director.

So I remember going to him and everything worked out.

I remember going to him and said, Pastor Mitchell, I hope you don't think I'm a buffoon.

Those are the wrong words to say.

He got up in my grill.

Alson, if you don't find God, you're not going to make it.

And then he took off.

Pastor Lamb talked about Lamb, the kicks and the scars.

Where are you, brother?

Whoever?

I got yours.

I got him.

He didn't have that kind of mercy with me, Lamb.

Anyway, I'm just telling you, I'm just going to tell you this.

Alson, if you don't find God, you're not going to make it.

My initial reaction, just like probably many men's, you know what?

He doesn't know and he didn't hear my story.

He didn't even let me talk and tell him why I'm not a buffoon.

No, he had a very finely tuned sense of discernment.

And so everybody else is gone.

I'm the last person in the Ruth Street Church.

And so I had a choice, crossroads in your heart, crossroads.

He doesn't understand me.

He just jumped in my butt.

I don't know, maybe something's going on in his house.

I don't know.

Or yikes.

My pastor, who I deeply respect and I concur with Pastor Lamb's message, he just warned

me, God, I'm going to heed what he told me.

And I went up in the prayer room and I had a good 15 minute prayer meeting.

God, don't let it happen to me.

Please, Jesus, I repent.

I repent of being born.

Please.

You know what?

Beyond just the surface externals of that, there was a spiritual thing happen.

And I believe that God, you may not be like, oh, it's on the brink of things crashing,

but you would be wise to heed.

Any man think he stand, take heed lest he fall.

Let's bow our heads.

Father, we thank you for your goodness, your mercy.

Without you, we can do nothing that's really real and really going to last.

Accept the Lord, build the house, we labor but in vain.

Accept the Lord, keep the city, keep the marriage, we wake but in vain.

Help us.

First thing, you're not going to really be able to pull this off unless you really get

your heart right with Jesus Christ.

If you're not a Christian, you've never been born again or you're backslid, I'm not going

to take time to go on and on.

But I just want to give you an opportunity to respond and say, God, I'm going to humble

my heart.

I'm going to ask Jesus Christ to be merciful.

Maybe there's some guys and some women, you'd say, you know, I haven't been wise.

I haven't been right.

No, I haven't been right.

You can backslide.

People point to the outward collapse.

Let me tell you, long before the outward collapse, there's an inward dry rot.

No man or woman suddenly went base.

You say, Pastor, I need to get my heart right.

I need to be saved or come back from backsliding.

Here's my hand.

Quickly raise your hand.

All of this place.

Quick.

Anybody that God's dealing with, OK.

You know what?

There's a really large crowd.

If you raise your hand, I want you to come quickly.

You come, be honest, come.

God will help an honest man or woman.

Quickly come.

If you raise your hand, I want you to come and respond.

This altar, someone will help you.

He will help you pray.

But other than that, wonderful preaching this morning.

Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A.

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