0:20 Even non-Christians would like to have a happy mar- marriage. It's not only Christians. So, we were married 51 years ago on the 19th of June, 1968. And uh 0:41 all I can say is God's been very good to us. When we got married, we did not have an understanding of victory over sin. So, we don't want to pretend that we had a marriage without 1:00 getting angry or any such thing. That would be a lie. A lot of people tell such lies. I wouldn't tell such lies. We started out defeated. But, God brought us to a wonderful life over a period of time as we understood the new covenant 1:18 and the life of victory. And uh thus brought us to a very glorious life. And we read that the path of the righteous is like the shining light that shines brighter and 1:36 brighter until the perfect day. We start at zero, and I think many of us, almost all of us, start not at zero, but at minus something because we are so defeated. When we are born again, we are not victorious. We're defeated Christians, 1:52 and any any honest believer will say, "We are defeated." But, we don't stay there. That's the point. And uh one of the things that God did for Annie and for me was he filled us with the Holy Spirit. Separately, filled her with the Holy 2:11 Spirit and filled me the Holy Spirit. And the Bible says when it speaks about husbands and wives the first thing it says is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:18. A lot of people begin the section for 2:29 husbands and wives with verse 22. But that's not where it begins. Uh a good marriage, a good Christian marriage, begins in Ephesians 5:18. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then 2:49 it brings into our life a spirit of thanksgiving, verse 19, 20. And then verse 21 is a very important verse in marriage. Be subject to one another. So it's not just the wife being subject 3:08 to the husband. It's be subject to one another. So husband and wife have to both be subject to one another because each has got a boundary that God has drawn around them. There are responsibilities 3:27 and privileges that the wife has and that the husband has and so we have to be subject to one another. We must not God has drawn a boundary around a husband and a wife. God's even drawn a boundary around children. We must not go into the other person's 3:46 boundary. That's what it means to be subject to one another. Otherwise, the The will be a dictator and the wife will be like a slave, and that's not God's will. So, it begins in verse 21, both be subject to one another. 4:01 And then it says, wives be subject to your own husbands in the husband of the Lord. And the in a in a worldly marriage, they may want to be happy. But in a Christian marriage, our main goal is not to be happy. I don't want to say at the end of 51 4:19 years, we are very happy even though we are. We should be able to say, we've glorified God in our marriage. Because the purpose of Christian marriage is not to make people happy. Jesus did not come to make people happy. 4:36 He came to make people holy. And when we are holy, we'll have genuine happiness that follows holiness. So, people who are pursuing happiness in their marriage are not going to be happy. It'll be a superficial thing that'll come and disappear and come and 4:52 disappear. But if you are pursuing holiness, you'll be genuinely happy. Both are concerned for the glory of God. Because in marriage, it says here, we are to reflect the relationship 5:10 between Christ and the church. Because that's the picture here and it says in verse 31, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. And I'm referring to Christ and the church. 5:25 So, this relationship between man and woman is to reflect Christ and the church and now that's not in a worldly marriage. In a worldly marriage, they're only concerned about happiness and um learn to say thank you and learn to say 5:38 sorry when you hurt each other and go out once in a while for a meal and and so many things like that. But in a Christian marriage we're thinking of glorifying God. Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. So, if we don't glorify God 5:56 and we just make each other happy, I'd say it's a useless marriage as far as Christ is concerned. If the marriage has glorified God, then it's fulfilled God's purpose. So, our aim must be Jesus The Bible says 1 6:15 Corinthians 10:31, "Whatever you do, do for the glory of God." You get married, it must be for the glory of God, not for selfish satisfaction. And if I marry for the sake of selfish satisfaction or to show other people that I've got a 6:31 good marriage, you'll be a failure as far as God is concerned, even if you get honor from people. Cuz there are a lot of people like that. I've seen a lot of Christian marriage testimonies where they talk wonderful things about each 6:44 other and how they're having a very happy time, but I don't see their lives glorifying God. I don't see their children growing up for the glory of God. So, I say that's a useless marriage as far as God is concerned, whatever they may say. 6:57 Cuz they haven't glorified God in their marriage. They haven't glorified God in their home. So, you young people, when you think of marriage, it's very important that you think of glorifying God. That's the primary aim of marriage. 7:09 And if that is the purpose of marriage, then you must yourself be one who's devoted where Christ is first in your life. So, this is the thing when I was considering marriage, I said, "Lord, I don't want to marry someone 7:23 for whom Christ is not first." So, right from before when we even considered each other and our names were suggested to each other by a godly elder brother whom both of us respected and in whose church we both belonged. 7:40 And he spoke to her and he spoke spoke to me and he said he'd been praying for us and he was 30 years older than us, a very godly man, the most godly man I met in India. And he uh we prayed about it and I I said, "Lord, 7:52 I don't know her at all in Indian culture we can't go out with anybody, we can't um you know, even court. We had to trust the Lord and God is not a a prisoner of any culture. But I was one concerned about one thing. That's Lord, I want to know whether 8:11 Jesus Christ is everything to her. That's all I want to know. And I want you to assure me of that that she's a person for for whom Christ is supreme, who can say to Jesus in the words of Psalm 73:25, "Lord, there's no one on earth I desire 8:29 but you." And when I get to heaven, I only want you. That was my position. I had said that to the Lord very clearly, "There's no one on earth I desire desire beside you. I'm not even interested in marriage. Christ is everything to me. And if 8:45 Christ wants me to get married, I'll get married. I believe that's the happiest foundation for marriage. Not well, I'm 28 years old, so I should get married. No. If Jesus Christ wants me to get married, I'll get married. But otherwise, I'm 9:00 quite happy to be single. Because the will of God is more important to me than my own pleasure, my own satisfaction. A lot of people get married for their own lust and their own satisfaction and because it's suggested by parents and so many things. I'm not 9:16 saying such marriages will be unhappy, but it will never be the best. The best marriage is where a person says, "Lord Jesus, I want to fulfill your will for my life, whatever it is. I want you to be first in my life. I want you to be Lord of my life. I desire 9:29 nothing on earth but you. And I don't even want anything in heaven but you." And if you get two people like that married, it'll be a very happy marriage. I mean happy in the sense happy in Christ. And then they'll be able to reflect the 9:44 relationship between Christ and the church. So and the purpose of two being put together, you know, I like to read a verse in Luke chapter 10. Luke's gospel chapter 10. After this the Lord appointed 10:07 70 others of his disciples. And he sent them in pairs. Now think of this as a picture of marriage. There of course he was talking about two men, disciples going out to share the word. But think of this verse in relation to a 10:22 married couple. The Lord sent them as a pair ahead of him to every city and place where he himself was going to come. See, the Lord is going to come to this earth. 10:41 To your city, to my city. And to every place where he is going to come he sends a married couple. You go there and reflect my life to the people in that town and city. Let them see something of Christ and his church, the 11:00 relationship between Christ and the church in your relationship as husband and wife. And as I said, none of us start perfectly. We all start with a selfish nature that when we come together we discover how selfish we are and that selfishness 11:19 can lead to misunderstandings, it can lead to strong words where we hurt one another, etc. But if we say Lord, we want to glorify you we'll repent of it and apologize and set things right and gradually 11:37 come to a life of blessedness and peace where such things don't exist, where Christ is really Lord in the midst of that marriage. That should be our goal. Every married person should have that as a goal. Lord, we want to live with each 11:53 other in our house exactly as if Jesus Christ were physically living in the house. And how would we talk to each other if Jesus was sitting there in front of us? That's the way we want to talk to each other all the time. 12:10 And you would never be rude to your marriage partner if Christ was sitting right there with you. Impossible. You would never get angry with him or her if Christ is there. You wouldn't behave selfishly. So, the most important thing is for us 12:29 to recognize the presence of Jesus Christ in our home as a married couple. Very, very important. And that doesn't come easily because we are so much more conscious of the world and so many other things. But it can come more easily if you 12:47 determine, as I said that Christ is the one whom you want more than anything else. So, when I was considering marriage, I said, "Lord, I want to marry someone who for whom Christ is first. I never want to be first in her life." I told her 13:01 that. "In my entire life, I never want to be first in your life. I want to be second. I want Christ to be first in your life and then me second." And I told her, "You will never be first in my life. You'll be second. Christ 13:15 will be first." In worldly marriages, they say we must keep each other first. Okay, that's okay for the worldly marriages, let them do that. But in a Christian marriage, Christ is first. Your partner is second. And I'm very happy that after 51 years 13:30 we still have sought to maintain that same attitude we had 51 years ago that Jesus Christ would be first. I can't think of any time where I decided my wife is going to be first. Christ is going to be first and I I want to say that particularly to you 13:49 cuz that's the only way to a marriage that glorifies God. See, we are not Jesus didn't come to make us happy. He came to make us people who will glorify God. And our marriage must glorify God. And when we have that type of home 14:04 see, with Christ is always there uh in our home it brings What is Christ bringing? Christ will bring the atmosphere of heaven there. And when children grow up in that atmosphere of respect for God and respect for one another 14:23 they will absorb that over a period of time. And even though all children are naughty in the beginning they'll absorb that and they will gradually open up themselves to receive Christ as Lord of their own lives. So, this is our goal. 14:41 God unites us we read in Malachi and chapter two in verse 15. In the margin of my Bible and it's trans This verse is translated in different ways in different translations. 14:59 But here, the latter part of that verse, Malachi 2:15 uh in the middle of that verse is "And what did that one do?" In the margin of my Bible it says, "And why did he make you one?" Why did the Lord make you and your 15:18 husband or you and your wife one? Because he wanted a godly offspring. That's the reason why he made husband and wife one. One of the reasons anyway. To reflect Christ in the church, which is of course not in the days of Malachi. 15:37 That was only after the Holy Spirit came. But otherwise even in the Old Testament, God says the reason he makes a husband and wife one is so that they can have godly offspring. That means godly children. To have children, that's easy. Anybody 15:52 can have children. A foolish sinner godless person can have children. But to have godly children for that you need a godly husband and wife. And I tell you it's That's why it's very important for those who are single here to be very careful 16:09 that you marry people that you get married to someone for whom Christ is first in their life so that you will always be second. You pray like that if you're not yet married. Lord, give me a person who will only put me second and 16:20 who will put you first in his life or her life. That'll be the most blessed marriage where Christ is glorified and you'll have godly offspring. Which is God's word. Why did he make you one? Why did God make husband and wife 16:35 one? That he can have godly offspring. This is very important for us and I'll tell you why we felt like that that because when we look around we were married 51 years ago and we looked around at Christendom. We saw so many many pastors and 16:52 preachers and Christians who claimed to be born again but their children were wayward and uh unconverted. I said, "Lord, I don't want a home like that. It dishonors you. The devil's being glorified in that home. I don't want a home that glorifies the 17:08 devil." And so I I remember when we were married the Lord gave us a verse for our children as soon as our first son was born. And that was in Isaiah chapter 54. And it's interesting that the Lord 17:27 gave her and me the same verse separately. So then we knew it was from the Lord. Isaiah 54 and verse 13. All your sons, in the margin of my 17:45 Bibles, it says will be discipled by the Lord. All your sons, the Lord will make them his disciples. And the well their well-being, that means their spiritual well-being, not that they will be financially rich, but their spiritual well-being of your sons 18:04 will be great. Well, that's exactly what I wanted. That's exactly and she got the same verse and we said, "Lord, that's what we want in our marriage. We want you to disciple our children and we want their spiritual well-being 18:19 to be great." So, the the primary purpose of marriage is not children, because if that were the primary purpose of marriage, then every godly couple in the world will have children. But the fact of the matter is that many 18:38 born again married couples do not have children. So that's not the primary purpose of It's a secondary purpose of marriage to have godly offspring, but the primary purpose is that we must reflect the relationship between Christ and the church. That was 18:52 not there in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, it was only godly offspring because the relationship between husband and wife was not important. But in the New Testament, it says in Ephesians 5, you have to reflect the 19:04 relationship between Christ and the church. So it's very important that that unity of the like the head for the body is manifested in a relationship between husband and wife. And so from the beginning we sort of 19:23 concentrated on that and as I said whenever we slipped up we would repent and come to the Lord and be honest. We didn't want to pretend before others that oh we are perfect when we are not perfect. That would be hypocrisy and we realize that hypocrisy 19:40 is the number one sin that Jesus condemned. So we never wanted to be hypocrites. We didn't want to be a hypocritical husband and wife like a lot of we found a lot of Christian husbands and wives they would come to the church and 19:54 pretend to be very happy and holy but they were not in private life and they were absolute hypocrites and they didn't realize that they were sinning more than anybody else in the church by being hypocrites. So we said we don't want to be 20:08 hypocrites. We don't want to pretend that everything is okay when it's not okay. I'm not saying we confess our sin in public but we can say we are struggling. And but we want to be honest but we believe that we will come to the place 20:20 where we have victory and have a life which where we reflect the relationship of Christ and the church and like the you know like the Bible says the path of the righteous Proverbs 4:18 has been one of my favorite verses. If you don't know it 20:36 you must know it because it applies to the single person and the married couple. Proverbs 4:18 please remember this verse all your life. But uh it applies to individual Christians and it applies to family life as well. The path of the righteous the righteous 20:51 individual and the righteous married couple is to be like the light of the sun from dawn till noon day position. It gets brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter. So, you know, early morning it's not so 21:10 bright in the uh around us. It's a dawn is a dull type of light. That's how we begin our marriage and everyone who's honest will acknowledge that. But as the time goes on and we walk with the Lord, it should get brighter and 21:28 brighter and brighter pressing on to perfection. And that can only come if you say to each other inwardly, "Christ is going to be first in our life and you're going to be second." 21:46 That'll be the most blessed marriage you can ever think of. So, that I is one of the main things that we have stressed in our life and to keep a good to ask forgiveness immediately 22:03 from the Lord and from one another. Because in every marriage there will be a need to ask forgiveness from one another. And you know, even a small little slip-up, we must immediately set it right. It's like whether it's a big thorn or a small 22:18 thorn that got into your foot, you pull it out immediately. So, whether it's a big misunderstanding or a small little slip-up with one unkind word, we ask forgiveness immediately and set it right. So, that the relationship is always kept 22:33 straight and clear. Very, very important. And the two words which I want to show you in Ephesians 5 which should be true in a Christian home. It's the last verse of Ephesians 5. In a Christian marriage 22:58 the husband verse 30 Ephesians must love his wife. Seek to love her like Christ loved the church. And the wife it says must respect her husband. The two very important words. Verse 33, the wife must respect her 23:19 husband. And the husband must love his wife. And remember this is in the context verse 32 of Christ and the church. It's not like it's not what the world considers respect or the what the world considers love. It's Christian love, which is different 23:36 from worldly love. It's a self-denying type of love and respect is to respect the husband as the one whom God has appointed to be my head. Because it says Adam was created first and the woman was created to be her helper. 23:54 And where we try to maintain that relationship, I believe God can fulfill his purpose. The other thing that we sought for in our marriage in all these years was from Matthew chapter 18. In Matthew 18, Jesus said 24:13 and I believe this we would use this for our own married life. Verse 20. If two are gathered together Now, there's a difference between gathered together and gathered together. 24:32 Gathered together means two people just come together. Gathered together means somebody else brought them together. That's the Holy Spirit. And that's how it should be in a Christian marriage. The Holy Spirit brings two people 24:47 together. They are gathered, not that they themselves decided to gather together. They are brought together by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. There Jesus is in the midst. So, I see that as a picture of a true Christian marriage 25:02 where the Holy Spirit brings a man and a woman together and Christ is in their midst. And when Christ is in their midst, it becomes three. The husband, wife, and Christ. And then, verse 19, we go backwards from there because I say I'll tell you why I say 25:20 backwards. Because whenever you find the word for, verse 20 begins with the word for. For means it's connected to the previous verse. So, you got to go backwards from verse 20 up to verse 18. So, we begin at verse 20. And then, we go to verse 19. If these 25:40 two with Christ in their midst agree about anything they ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. Where Christ is in the midst, and I'll tell you something. Once again, let me repeat. 25:56 Christ cannot be in the midst if you love each other more than you love Jesus Christ. Christ will never take second place in anybody's life. You either give him first place or no place. He's going to be Lord of everything or 26:16 not Lord at all. So, if in your marriage, you want to give Christ second place, maybe your job first place or your whole house first place or your home first place or your wife first place or your children first place, I 26:33 can tell you Christ will not be in that marriage. I'll tell you that straight. Because Christ will not take second place in anybody's life or any marriage. That's why from the beginning I stressed the most important thing is Christ must 26:47 be first. So, when he's in the midst, then he unites the two. And when two agree together, and the word in the Greek word for agree is symphony. It's a picture of two musical instruments playing on the same scale and sounding 27:06 so beautiful because they're playing together. It's a picture of two two If two are in symphony, that's the meaning of that word. Two musical instruments A husband and wife must be like two musical instruments playing together, no 27:19 discord. You listen to some music and people are not playing the notes correctly and there's a a jarring sound that shouldn't be there in a marriage. If two are in symphony, then there's a tremendous power in prayer. And we have used those two verses 27:37 almost all our life. We say, "Lord, we were brought together by you, and you are first in our life, and you'll always be first. And now we want to ask you something." For example, if our children had a problem in school with the teacher or 27:54 something like that or with some other troublemakers in the school, here's the prayer. We'd say, "Lord, we want you to answer us and solve this problem and bind these satanic activities that are affecting our children in some way or if 28:07 they get sick or anything." To pray together, if they two agree on earth and ask for anything, it'll be granted. I cannot think of the number of times we have used that promise as we prayed together for our home and for our children and to preserve 28:25 ourselves and of course for the ministry that we had in the church. And the one, you know, that the first marriage was attacked by Satan. As soon as they got married, the devil came and tried to break them up, and he did 28:40 succeed it in breaking them up. And here also we read that the purpose of our agreeing together is not just to ask something selfishly for ourselves, but also so that we can bind verse 18. We go backwards now to verse 18. 28:56 Where we bind on earth these satanic forces that are trying to bring confusion in a home. Do you know that it is satanic forces that bring all the confusion in every Christian home. I've sometimes told believers, I say 29:13 listen, if you find your wife is very upset one day about something and she won't talk to you. You know what you should do, brother? Go to some corner and bind the demonic forces that are trying to bring that confusion in your home. That's what you 29:32 need to do first. It's the demons who always try to bring confusion between a husband and wife, nobody else. And here it says if you verse 18, if you bind what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And but as I said, it begins at verse 29:48 18. You can't jump It begins at verse 20. You can't jump to where verse 18. Verse 18 is dependent on verse 20 and 19. That's the foundation. So if we are united in the name of Jesus Christ is in our midst, he's first in our life 30:05 and we pray together and he answers, then we can bind the satanic influences that come into the home, the satanic influences that seek to affect your children. Satan What do you read in the Bible? As soon as Adam and First of all, 30:23 he tried to separate Adam and Eve. And he came between them. And they they started accusing one another, you know. Adam was accusing Eve. That's Satan is the accuser. So you can see when the Adam accused Eve, that's the devil 30:39 that got in there already. And whenever you point a finger at each other, you can see the devil is already come there. When you say to your wife or your husband, "You did that." or "It's because of you." These words that so 30:52 many husbands and wives say, that's the devil. The spirit of accusation. And that must not be found in our home because then you're inviting the devil to come right in. And it affects the children. Because the devil's aim is to separate. 31:12 The If the husband and wife are one, uh he can't come through. So, he tries to separate them. There's a gap between them. And then the devil comes in. And who who is he aiming to attack? The children. And because he could separate Adam and 31:24 Eve, the very first son was born to Adam became a murderer. Who made him a murderer? The Jesus said in John 8:44, "The devil was a murderer from the beginning." Yeah. He's the one who instigated. He didn't murder anybody in heaven. 31:41 What did he mean by that? We read it Turn to that verse if you don't know it. It's in John chapter 8. And verse 44. John 8:44, "You are of your father the devil." And you He was told the Pharisees who were reading the Bible and were quite 31:58 religious, "You want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning." Who did he murder? He didn't murder any angel. He couldn't murder anybody in heaven. But the very first couple that God united in marriage, 32:17 the devil came into that and made that first son a murderer. And that's because I believe that Adam and Eve didn't put God in the middle of their marriage. So, the devil is seeking to do that even today. I tell you he's seeking to attack 32:32 every single Christian home. Any home that seeks to be a witness for Christ, you can be pretty sure the devil has got that as a target. So, I'm going to hit that home. And we must be alert that we don't allow the devil. That's 32:48 why husband and wife must be united so that we don't bring a gap so that the devil can come through and attack our children. Cuz his aim is murder. Anger is a is a root cause of murder. You remember Jesus said, "The old covenant said, you 33:06 shall not murder, but I say to you, don't get angry. Anger is the root from which murder comes." So, it's the devil who makes people angry. And that's one of the main things we have to conquer in marriage. We will not get angry. We'll overcome that. 33:23 And if we do slip up sometimes, we ask forgiveness and seek to come to the place where we'll never get angry. I want to encourage all of you who are married, husband and wife, to pray that you will come to the place where 33:38 I prayed this prayer myself and God did it in my life, that I will never get angry with my wife for one single moment for 365 days of the year and 366 days in a leap year. That means never. Is it possible? 33:58 I know what the devil says, "No, it's not possible." What does God say? "It's possible." Now, I don't know. It's only a question of whether you believe God or the devil. But don't let the devil come in. When it says the devil is a murderer 34:13 from the beginning, and that's the first thing he did And now turn and I'll show you this in Matthew chapter 5. What is murder in the new covenant? It's what I just mentioned. Verse 20, Matthew 5:20, your 34:36 righteousness must exceed more than the righteousness of the Pharisees. What he meant is the Pharisees have an old covenant righteousness. You must have a new covenant righteousness. And then he said, "I'll explain what I 34:49 mean." Verse 21, the righteousness of the Pharisees is don't commit murder. But yours must be more than that new covenant which is in verse 22 that you don't get angry. You see that? It's right there. Just like God told the 35:07 Old Testament people, the commandment is don't commit murder. He said, "I say to you." Verse 22, in the new covenant the equivalent of that is you don't get angry. That's why it's so important. What would you think of an Old Testament family 35:24 where husband and wife went around murdering people or sought to murder each other? You say, "What kind of marriage is that?" Murder? We are horrified. But do you know that the new covenant equivalent of murder is anger? 35:43 That's what Jesus said here. And that's why we must hate it. And that's why we must seek to put it away with all of our heart. And I believe it's one thing which I found you know, I remember preaching in a place in India. It was a 36:00 gathering of different denomination churches. And I spoke on this and one man got up and gave a testimony. He says, "I'm 70 years old and I never heard till now that I shouldn't get angry." Or that I shouldn't get angry with my 36:14 wife. Imagine, he was a Christian all so many years and he never heard in his life. There are numerous people who come to our church in Bangalore who said, "Brother Zach, we never heard in our life that we shouldn't get angry." 36:26 Oh. And did you read this Bible or some other Bible? See Ephesians in chapter 4. Why do I say this? Because I believe this is the one thing which a lot of so-called Christians and spirit-filled Christians do not take seriously. 36:45 Ephesians 4 verse 31. Look at all the different words he uses for anger here. It's very interesting. Different different words. Verse 31. Put away all these things. What all should you put away? 37:04 Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice. So many words the Holy Spirit uses to say whatever color you give it, whatever label you give it, put it away. I don't care if all the rest of 37:22 Christendom doesn't take it seriously. Brothers and sisters, we are a new covenant church. We must take it seriously. I decided to take it seriously and you'll you'll never overcome it if you don't take it seriously. You'll never overcome it if you don't 37:40 put Christ as first in your life. You will never overcome it if you follow the world's attitude of I love you and you love me. Let's love one another more. No, it's not that way. I love Jesus Christ supremely. And then I love you. 37:57 Then we shall come to this place. So, to those who are not married also I want to say I want to repeat, look for someone who is put Christ first in his life and her life. I remember when before we got married I said, "Lord, you got to show me this in 38:14 some way." I wanted to know the type of books he read. And I found it was the same type of books I was interested in reading about the way of the cross and self-denial and putting Christ first. And the other thing is, you know, 38:32 when we saw that God's purpose was to have godly offspring. We looked around and we saw so many Christian homes where the wife would go to work and 38:52 the children grew up wayward. And we said, "We're not going to do that." And we didn't have much. I didn't have any income. I was not in any Christian organization. I was trusting the Lord for my needs. We lived extremely simply. 39:09 We had to because we earned so little. Extremely little. And my wife is a medical doctor. She could have earned millions of rupees. But the day our first son was born, she resigned her job. And she's never worked after that except 39:27 helping poor people medically. And today we don't regret it. Because if I weigh in a balance the millions of rupees she could have earned as a doctor on the other side of the balance, four sons who are following the Lord and living for him, 39:47 I know which is heavier. I've no doubt about it at all. And if I were to live my life again, it would be exactly the same. Money is not the most important thing. I have to keep telling that to married people. So many married couples I see, already 40:02 the man is earning enough. But still the wife wants to go to work to make more money and more money. And what is What is the end result? The children are gone astray. And I say that shows God saw from the beginning that you were more interested 40:17 in money than your children and God says, "Okay, you will reap what you sow." And I've seen that in so many cases. And I'm thankful I saw that both of us saw that before we got married. And we are very thankful. That's one 40:29 thing which is very important. It says in Titus, we try to follow scripture in all these things, you know, not our human understanding. Titus, it says about women, young women, 40:46 Titus 2:4. See, everything we understood, we get from scripture. We believe God's word is accurate. Encourage Titus 2:4, encourage young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be sensible and pure, 41:06 and to be workers where? To be workers at home. We took that seriously. Kind, being subject to their husband. Why should they be workers at home? So that the word of God is not dishonored. Verse 5, so the word of God is not 41:24 dishonored by your children. So that's very important that we put God first and not money first. Jesus said that you cannot serve God and money. And you have to make a choice sometime in your life if you really want to follow the Lord and especially in 41:42 marriage. I know I know numerous Christian marriages that are completely ruined because money was a very important thing in their life. Money must be our servant. We decided that right from the beginning of our married life. 41:57 We will make money our servant, not our master. Money is not going to dictate how we run our married life. And if you have little, we live simply. You don't need to go to restaurants to go and eat meals every time. We have 42:14 hardly ever in our life gone into a restaurant in India. We just cook at home and eat simple food. Because we want to be careful with our money. We don't have much and we going to be careful with what we have. And of course the greatest joy we had in 42:31 our life was to start a church meeting in our home. And that involved a lot of sacrifice because we used to have four meetings a week. And we had small children. Our oldest son was when we started CFC in our home, our oldest son was 6 years old. 42:51 And Santosh was about 2 years old and we had another baby about 6 months old and our fourth son was not even born. So we had all these little children but the Lord decided to have a church in our home and we said, "Fine." 43:06 We just let we had gradually 40, 50, 60 people would come and we had meetings on Wednesday, Friday, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and then we had on uh holidays we would have all day fasting and prayer. 43:26 That's how we started our church. That's how we built the church with fasting and prayer and and we'd have times of prayer together like that and seeking the Lord for say from 9:00 to 3:00 in the afternoon. And there were people baptized in the 43:40 Holy Spirit as we were waiting on the Lord. I find so many Christians today have lost all that. They don't They think God's going to do everything for them. They sit back lazily and wait for God to do things and God doesn't do 43:54 and nothing does and they don't seek God. The Bible says you will seek him and find him when you seek him with all your heart. And we decided we're going to seek him with all our heart and we're going to teach our children to seek him with all our all 44:04 their heart. And if you seek God's kingdom first, the other things will be added to us. And we found all through our 51 years that whenever there's a need, God provided it. We never lacked anything at any time. We didn't have much, but we 44:23 never lacked anything. And we were not dependent on anybody. We decided from the beginning that we will support ourselves and we will not be dependent on any church supporting us or any such thing. We're very thankful for that. And 44:35 that was an example to our children. We uh sought to honor our parents. That's one thing we did. And uh I believe we honor our parents, we it goes well with us. 44:52 We didn't obey our parents because we were not living under them under them. We God we together would seek God's will. There are many I found many married couples in India. When they have a problem, they run back to their parents. 45:10 And the parents' advice is what they follow. We decided we'll definitely listen to anybody, not only to our parents. We listen to godly people, but the decision will always be taken by both of us together. We never allowed either of our parents 45:25 to decide anything in our life. Because it says here, "A man must leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife." It's the first commandment in Genesis 2:24. So, we obeyed that. I said, "Lord, I'm I'll I'll not let my dad and mom 45:41 tell me where I should go or what I should do. Not at all." I'll seek their advice, but my wife and I are going to decide where we're going to go. And many times my dad would suggest something else, and her dad would suggest something else. We 45:54 respected them. We loved them. But I said, "Thank you, Dad, but we're not going to do that." Cuz the Bible says you must leave your father and mother and cleave to your husband to your wife. That's what I did. And so, if Christ was first, my wife was second, 46:08 my parents and all were third. When we had children, the children were third, parents were fourth or fifth. That is the scriptural pattern, but we found in India, I don't know how it is in the US, but in India we found so many 46:20 marriages unhappy because parents were there as important factors in the marriage and never love them, care for them, but never let them run your life. And you know, India is a culture where the even the Hindu culture has got 46:36 tremendous respect for parents. We grew up in that culture. And it Jesus was in a Israeli culture where also they were taught to honor their respect their parents, but in such a situation the word of God says the man must leave his father and mother 46:53 and cleave to his wife. So, the if the leaving the parents is not perfect, the cleaving to the wife will not be perfect. So, we decided never I can say before God that I never allowed my parents to interfere in our married life. We love them, we cared for 47:11 them, but they would not tell us what to do. If they told us, we would listen to them graciously, but we would do what we both felt we should do. Otherwise, we would not be where we are today. We would not have accomplished 47:23 uh what we did because my dad didn't feel I should quit my job in the Navy first of all, and he didn't think once we quit that we should start a house church. But I believe my dad's born again, he's in heaven today. And if he looks down on us, I'm sure 47:38 he'll say, "Son, you were right." So, many times that stand we take will be appreciated by people only years later. While you're taking a stand, they may think "Oh, these guys are crazy." But years later they'll approve and see God was 47:55 backing them up. So, it's very very important to ensure that Christ is in the center of your home and Christ in the center of your marriage and that you seek to bring up your children. We were very strict with our children. 48:11 We did not allow them to be disrespectful or disobedient. We taught them to be respectful to God, respectful to parents, respectful in the church when they came to the meetings. And we are very thankful for what the Lord has done. 48:31 I would say one thing finally, ultimately, it's not what we do that accomplishes. God is the one who does the work. But I ask myself, why is it that so many Christian homes, it's very rare to find a Christian home in the world 48:49 where husband and wife are really seeking to glorify God, they live peacefully with each other, and where all the children are following the Lord. It's very very difficult. And I traveled to many countries in the world. 49:04 And the reason is very simple. God says, "If you honor me, I'll honor you. If you don't honor me, I will not honor you." And that's the reason. So, I want to encourage all of you, seek to honor God. We make mistakes, but we repent, 49:18 and God will be honored. Okay, now Now, listen to my my better half. This meeting is a bit of a surprise for me. And I'm going to say something very personal, 49:36 like a testimony. Zac's name was suggested, you know, in India, we don't meet and date and go out together. So, a pastor or parents or some relatives suggest um us to each other. So, Zach was suggested to me by our 49:55 godly uh elder brother. Um, you might say like a pastor. He was the elder of our church. And the my first uh response in my mind when Zach was suggested to me was he's one person I will look up to always 50:13 and respect. And though there were others who were suggested, I felt like all my life I look up to him I'll be able to look up to him and respect. Because I had heard him speak. And also because I admired the fact that he gave 50:28 up a good job to follow the Lord. And I then I knew that uh a person who made such a decision to follow the Lord and obey the Lord, I can safely trust and follow his decisions. So, in one sense, he's my earthly hero. 50:47 And he continues to be my earthly hero. Every now and then, you know, as we grow older, we become weaker. And we are not like as we used to look when we were young. But every now and then I look back to the day when I first saw him and I admired him. And 51:06 that picture is in my mind. So, that respect is has been with me all these years. So, when Zach's name was suggested to me, um, I was happy. Of course, we had little obstacles. My parents were not very happy about it because 51:23 he they didn't know him and they because he had given up his job. But God sorted it all out. My parents were happy and they arranged the marriage. But deep inside in my heart, there was one fear. And that was Zach was such a good 51:40 speaker. And everywhere you when Zach speaks, they They expect me to speak. And I didn't want to speak. Like I'm not the uh type of person who like to stand up in front and speak. I'm so uh conscious of myself and my everything. 51:58 So I That was a big fear in my heart. And then I prayed and I said, "Lord, um I don't want to speak. If Zach can speak, that's okay. I'm happy with everything, but don't let me speak in public because it will be like a competition of husband and wife. They 52:18 are speakers. And you know, in all the worldly things, you see a team. Husband and wife are the speakers. I didn't want that type of thing. Then the Lord spoke to me so clearly in my heart. I can't say in some word. He said, "You don't have to speak. Zach 52:34 is speaking. He'll do the speak. You There's only one uh mouth. He'll do the speaking. All you have to do is to support him. You be behind him and take care of him. He's my servant. And he's doing my work. All you have to do is just be there, 52:51 take care of him, take care of his needs, and support him, and do all the other things in the home." And I was so happy. I said, "Lord, I'll do that to the best of my ability. I'll take care of all the home things concerning the home and the children 53:08 and everything, whatever you ask me to do. And hospitality, people come home to see him or talk to him or want to stay with us, I'm ready to do everything." And I uh surrendered to the Lord. So then uh another thing uh 53:27 which um I came across was after we were married, uh we uh I worked for 1 year as an anesthesiologist. And my entire saving of that year, my uh Zach sent to my dad because we are nine in our family and I was the only 53:46 one who had finished my studies. So, he said, uh let your dad have this. So, like we had so little and this money would have been so helpful to us, but he said, no, we'll send it to your dad. That was good. Then our son came uh 54:02 our older son was born and I was at home taking care of him. And then reality hit me like uh we couldn't afford to rent our own home. We had to stay with Zach's parents in a room of our own. They were so kind enough They were retired people, but 54:20 they were kind enough to give us a home a room in their home and we lived with them. And you know, it's not so easy when you share a house with somebody else, even if it's your own home. And Zach used to travel a lot, be out of 54:35 town. So, most of the time I was with them. And uh not only I was getting to know Zach, but I was getting to know his family and how they run the home and so many practical things. And then the baby was born and so sleepless nights 54:52 and taking care of and you know, you try to be careful about the food, not to waste and not to uh make other make demands on other people. You try to be as careful as possible. So, all those were precious in my life. Like I was happy, but when Zach was 55:12 was out of town, it was like it was so empty and lonely for me. And I didn't take my spiritual life seriously at that time. I I used to read the Bible, but it was like a for namesake I read my Bible. And 55:29 all the temptations like self-pity, discouragement and then on top of that my dad uh got upset with us for small small things and he didn't want to have anything to do with that. So, that added to the problems I was 55:46 facing. And I I didn't uh share this with anyone, but that hollowness and emptiness was coming in my life. And if the baby cried at night, Zach's dad or mom will knock at the door and say, "Why is the baby crying? Don't 56:01 you Can't you give him some milk or something like that?" Like I was so scared even if the baby cries, they shouldn't hear. You know, you live like that, it becomes a stres- becomes stressful. And I was not careful about my spiritual 56:16 life. It was like the marriage in Ca- Cana where the wine got dry. There was no wine left. My life was like that. No uh spiritual life was rock bottom. But, God didn't leave me like that. Some uh lady who was passing by, whom 56:35 I've never met before, she used to go house to house praying with people. So, she must have heard that who was living in that house, so she knocked at the door. And she smiled and she said, "I just want to pray with you." So, I said, "Sure." I mean, we sat 56:50 at the sit in the sitting room and prayed, but something in her prayer was so fresh and so um real which I had lost in my spiritual life. And after she left, I said, "Lord, I've gone so far away from you. Let me have a little bit of what that 57:10 lady has." So, she said, "We'll meet again." She gave came one more time. That time also we were with uh my relatives, so we didn't pray much. Then she said, "Next week you come to my home." So, we went I went with the and Zach had come back. 57:25 So, my I took the baby, my older son, and went to her home and we sat down and we started praying. We didn't waste much time. No talking and they didn't share anything with her about my personal uh what I was going through, the 57:39 emptiness or anything. So, I said, "Let's pray." Because I had already knew her pattern of praying. She didn't talk much. So, first she prayed and then I prayed. And then when I I said, "This is my chance." I thought in my mind, "This is 57:53 my chance, my only chance to come back to the Lord." Because at home if I go there are people. Here I am away from everybody. I want to come back to the Lord. So, I said, "Lord, I don't know what has happened. Some big distance has come between you 58:09 and me. At one time you were so close to me. You were I could tell you everything. Now, what has happened between you and me? Please help me to come back to you." And that was a short prayer, but I felt like at that time God bent down and 58:24 reached out to me like I was like a little baby on the floor crying and a parent picks it up. I felt like God had lifted me up and comforted me. And I felt like such a peace and joy which I had never which I had felt when 58:42 I was born again. And brief times in between, but this time it was so real and refreshing. I felt like God had met with me and I thought um at last I'm back to in presence of the Lord and I started praising God. I said, "Lord, thank you that you had 59:01 mercy on me and you didn't let me fall in my you didn't let me die in my wretched state, but you lifted me up." I was just praising God. And God gave me the gift of tongues in praising God. Now, my background is brethren Plymouth 59:17 brethren. They're against speaking in tongues and they think all that is from the devil. So, I when I started speaking in this language, made me so happy, but I thought something's happening to me. I don't want that I don't want that to 59:31 speak like that. So I tried to come back to English and pray in English but that was like a struggle to pray in English. This other language was so it was like bubbling out of my heart and coming out in torrents of praise and 59:46 worship. I said Lord if you take me now to heaven I'll be the happiest person. I'm ready to be with you. It was such an experience. But I have a family I have a child and God touched me and uh gave me freshness in my life. 1:00:04 And that's what I want to share with uh all of uh dear young sisters wives who may be going through some dryness in my in our life. Jesus said in the last days the love of many will grow cold. Love of many 1:00:22 towards the Lord the love will grow cold. The love for each other husband and wife will grow cold. Love for our brothers and sisters in the church might grow cold. Love for our children we may be partial to one a difficult child we 1:00:37 don't want to love that child as much as we love the other. And Jesus said in the last days love of many will grow cold and we have to be watchful and vigilant that our love towards him doesn't grow cold. That was one experience like the 1:00:55 beginning of my um marriage life. I'm so thankful the Lord met with me and from that time there's been a steady freshness. You know like a lawn where the water just sprinkles and sprinkles and sprinkles. I can't say like a big experience like 1:01:14 boom God land met with me or shook me. No it's like the slow watering of the lawn. Always that freshness. And I can tell the Lord anything. There are so many things which married people face which we think like, "Oh, I must go and tell somebody this. 1:01:31 I'm facing this." But I I never feel like that because I say, "God is my father. Why should I go and tell this to somebody who who may not be able to understand." But God can understand me and I can tell him. And that's what I've 1:01:45 been doing. And sometimes the things which I tell the Lord are so silly. Like I think, "Why did I feel hurt about this? It's not worth worrying about." And the Lord helps me to sort it out. And um as we heard uh uh 1:02:05 my husband speak, it's we have to work hard to keep um the freshness in in our married life. It's like we've heard him say that marriage is like a garden which has to be watered and planted. A few weeks ago, Megan, the children, 1:02:22 and I, we went to buy some plants. And what fun we had. I was doing the grandma duty of taking care of the younger two. And Megan was selecting some plants. The older children brought some uh plants and said, "Grandma, do you 1:02:36 like this one? Do you like this one?" And we finally made a selection of some plants and we planted the soil was already prepared and she planted. And we had such fun planting. But you know that particular day, after we planted, 1:02:53 there was that hail storm. Such a big uh like rocks, the hail fell on the plant. And then I thought, "Our marriage is like that. We try our best to plant it to beautiful things, words of kindness and love, and forbearance, and unselfishness, and 1:03:12 forgiving each other, and not thinking of bad things in what somebody did to us or said to us or not uh forgetting all those things we take care to plant all those things and the devil is there to destroy it, but we have to be vigilant. 1:03:28 We have to do our part not let those hailstones destroy our plant and thank God not even one plant in Megan's garden died because of the hails hail storm. And we have to pull out the weeds weeds of suspicion. You know, most of 1:03:43 married women can testify sometime in their life there would be some suspicion or some other person is coming and taking my husband's love. Those are all empty. Those are all weeds which the devil brings and sows in our heart. There's no place for that. 1:04:02 Pull out all those weeds of suspicion and doubt and expecting something to be done for us and self-pity. All those are weeds we have to pull out and then it will be a beautiful garden. So I praise God. Thank you all for this 1:04:20 little celebration. It means so much to us. And I'm thankful for my my children, Megan and my grandchildren. Uh They have brought so much joy in our lives. When we see them grow. Now you all are raising a garden with these little 1:04:40 plants and I know just as God did for us and now we can see our children grown up and leading and sharing God's word. I have faith that all the children here will grow up like that and be witnesses. May God protect all of you dear children 1:04:57 from all the evil things in the world, all the hailstorms and the weeds and all and help you all to grow up so you'll be pillars in the church. Amen. Just one thing briefly. Matthew chapter 9 it says here the Pharisees verse 11, the Pharisees saw Jesus 1:05:17 sitting with the sinners at a meal and said to his disciples, "Why?" Matthew 9:11, "Why does your teacher sit with these sinners?" And look at Jesus' reply. "Why do I sit with sinners? Because it is not those who are healthy 1:05:37 who need a physician or a doctor, but those who are sick. Those who have a sense of need in their life. Lord, I'm sick. I need healing in this area. He's ready to 1:05:59 help them. But those who are self-satisfied and I'm okay, he ignores them. That's why the Pharisees never got the blessing that the sinners got. 1:06:20 So, we must be poor in spirit at all times if we want to possess the kingdom of heaven. And that means to have a constant sense of our own spiritual need. It's like a poor man in the world, the homeless man. Every day he's standing 1:06:39 there saying, "Will somebody help me?" Poor in spirit is like that. Lord, spiritually I'm needy. I'm coming to you for help. I seek to live like that every day. We seek to live like that, you know, every day and then I find that God 1:06:53 meets us. And why should we be poor in spirit? For one reason. We have not yet become like Jesus. I've not become like Jesus. My wife has not become like Jesus. So, then we must acknowledge there's an area in our life which we have to become 1:07:08 more like Christ, and that will never stop until he comes again. So, if you have a passion of your life is I want to be totally like Jesus Christ in my behavior, in my attitude, in my thoughts, in the words I speak, the way I speak my words, and my 1:07:26 motives, and everything, we will always be poor in spirit because we'll find some area Oh, I can be a little more like Jesus here. I see a need in my life, and then also another byproduct of that is we won't have time to judge others. 1:07:45 The people who judge others are the ones who are not judging themselves. Uh they're occupied with the faults of other people. So, the sick, Jesus told the Pharisees, you guys think you're healthy. That's why I don't come to you. 1:08:02 These guys know they're sick. Therefore, I go to them. So, I see the same principle today. Lord, I want to be a little more like Jesus, and I see some area in my life I want to be like that. He'll come to you. So, I pray that all of you will 1:08:22 those of you who are single will get really godly partners, and have wonderful homes, and those of you who are married already, whatever your past failure may have been, God overlooks the times of ignorance. And say, "Lord, from today, 1:08:41 we want to have a godly Christian home, and we want to bring up our children in the fear of God that they will be a testimony in their generation for Christ." That should be our desire for every one of the children in RLCF. And I tell you, you have to 1:08:58 pray, pray for it, pray for it together, husband and wife, for your children. We pray for our children and now for our grandchildren regularly. Prayer does wonders. See, one of the things we faced in our marriage was sickness 1:09:15 with our children. With each of them we had something. One of them had a major operation where we thought his leg may have to be amputated. And a couple of them had problems with their eyes. 1:09:32 They needed to be operated and there was uh no one in In- in India had done that operation before. And there were things like this we faced with our children and accidents and sickness. Sometimes we wonder why God allows all 1:09:51 this. But I see that God strengthens the strength God gives us in these situations helps us to comfort and strengthen others because we live in a world where there's a lot of sickness. 1:10:08 And if we escaped it all, we would not have sympathy and care for others who are going through that. So, we've had our share of all types of things, allergies and arthritis and many, many things. I don't want to make 1:10:28 a list of it all. But I want to say today that God has seen us through all of it. He's been a faithful friend. We only asked that God would give us grace 1:10:45 and very often healing as well. So, we always would take our you know, like we sing in that song, uh Oh, what pain we bear all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. What a 1:11:03 friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. He's there to bear our sorrows and when we go through these things So, we don't want to I've never preached what all other people preach that Jesus will heal 1:11:20 every sickness because it is not true. Uh and it's a lie which they preach. I believe I believe Jesus heals and I've experienced that myself and my wife, too. But it's not that he heals everybody. And I know the times when 1:11:36 we've gone through difficult things. I remember when the first son was our first son he had a problem with his vision. When he was 2 years old and he uh we had to take him to a doctor and the doctor kept on putting thicker and 1:11:55 thicker and thicker and thicker lenses. And it's only he had to wear a very thick lens for a long time. Uh and he was the only boy in the class that was wearing and people would make fun of him and pull out his glasses and 1:12:10 all these type of things. We face numerous things. Children in school. But it was necessary for us. I mean, thank God that God didn't sort of insulate us from all these problems and say, "No, no, no, you'll have a very peaceful life." 1:12:25 We've gone through so many things and God allowed us to be taken to court because we stood up by religious people for 10 years all the way to the Supreme Court. So, many, many things we've gone through and in all those things we can say like 1:12:39 Paul we are more than conquerors through him who has loved us and who has carried us through everything. We have s- uh we found the help of God. And I say that for your encouragement. There's not a single problem that God 1:12:56 cannot solve. How he solves it is up to him. How soon he will solve it or how late he will solve it, that's up to him. But God has a purpose in every single thing, every single trial we've gone through. And I don't want to 1:13:13 talk about all of them. We've had financial struggles, sickness struggles, opposition, tremendous amount of opposition from relatives, unbelievers, Christians, and um articles published against us in so many Christian magazines. 1:13:32 Uh We've come through it all and all I say is God is good all the time. He's always with us. And he'll be with all of you. Remember that. Whatever you may be going through, ultimately, you'll find that he brings you through it in triumph. And 1:13:50 he'll make you a blessing. And what you've gone through will be the means by which you can help others. When when we faced poverty, what used to come to my mind was, "Yeah, this is what I promised before the Lord when I gave my vow that I'll share his 1:14:07 life. If it's a life of poverty, that's what I promised years ago. When opposition came, yes, I gave my vow that I'll share in that time of opposition. When plenty came, oh, it was good. That is what I promised that I'll share. So, 1:14:22 whatever we went through, I thought I reminded myself of the vow I had made before the Lord that I would share those days with him. And we have the Lord with us. So, what more do we need?
