Man, the title of my sermon this evening
is withdrawal from the disorderly,
withdrawal from the disorderly.
But in the process of preaching on this,
I'm actually gonna go through this entire chapter.
But beginning verse number one,
the Bible reads, finally brethren,
pray for us that the word of the Lord
may have free course and be glorified
even as it is with you.
And this is what we want as pastors, preachers.
This is what we want as a church.
We just want the word of God to have free course, right?
We want the Bible, the word of God, the truth, the gospel
to just be able to go out and freely do its thing.
But what you have to understand is that the devil
and his minions and wicked people,
they're always trying to stop the Bible
from being preached and from going forth.
And think about all the obstacles that we've faced
as a church here at Faithful Word
and other people have faced just constant impediments,
just constant social media bans or shadow bans
or country bans or banking bans.
The enemy is always trying to shut us up,
censor us, quiet us down.
And we just want the word of God to have free course.
And just to be able to just,
everybody just be able to hear the truth.
And you know what?
It doesn't bother me if somebody hears the gospel
and rejects it, that doesn't bother me.
But you know what bothers me is the idea
of people not hearing a clear presentation of the gospel
and they're not even really being given a strong chance.
That's what bothers me.
I just want the word of God to have free course.
I want everybody to hear the gospel.
I want all of our soul winners and all of our preaching
to just go out there and just flow freely
and get the work done.
But unfortunately there are enemies
that try to stop that from happening.
And that's why it says in verse two
that we would be delivered from unreasonable
and wicked men for all men have not faith.
So you have people who don't believe
and they want to stop the gospel from going forth.
Instead of just saying, well, I don't believe in it,
but whatever, preach on.
No, no, no, they hate the word of God.
They hate the gospel and they want to put a stop to it.
Now it's interesting that he says unreasonable
and wicked men because a lot of unbelievers out there
will try to act like, well, it's faith versus reason.
And they try to act like faith is unreasonable
and that if we would just use reason and logic
and look at reality, we're just going to end up
being some kind of an atheist or humanist
or a naturalist or whatever you want to call it.
But nothing could be further from the truth
because truly atheism is unreasonable.
It's not reasonable to believe
that this magnificent complex creation came from nothing.
It's not reasonable to think that non-living material
can come to life on its own.
That's never been demonstrated,
that's never been observed and seen.
It goes against everything that biology teaches
to think that life could originate on its own.
It's actually much more reasonable
to believe that there's a God,
to believe that there's a creator.
And at the end of the day, obviously,
I believe that the Bible is the final authority
in all matters of faith and practice
and that is the rock upon which my life
and my worldview is build the Bible, the Word of God.
But here's the thing, when I approach the Bible though,
yes, I'm following the leading of the Holy Spirit
but I'm also approaching the Bible
in a logical, rational, reasonable way
because God is a reasonable God.
God does not expect us to put our brain aside,
to put our logic aside, to put reason and rationality aside
because honestly, the Bible makes sense.
The teachings of the Bible make sense.
The things in the Bible match reality
so I can be regional and rational and logical
and still be a Bible-believing Christian.
In fact, I should be.
You know, God says, come and let us reason together
in Isaiah chapter one.
God's not against logic, reason, intelligence.
No, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of understanding.
God commands us over and over again in Proverbs
to get more learning, to increase learning,
to gain instruction, wisdom, knowledge.
He's not just saying, hey, just blindly
and just dumbly, just follow whatever.
No, no, no, being reasonable
and having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
can go hand in glove and they should.
The Bible says that it is the unbelievers
and the wicked who are unreasonable.
Their worldview doesn't make any sense.
Their explanation for how we got here
is unscientific and wrong.
Their way of life is unreasonable and foolish
and stupid and makes no sense.
And look, I can just prove it to you right now
because these same people that are sitting there saying,
science is real are the same people
that are coming at you with love is love.
And so what are they promoting?
They're promoting a sick perverted death style.
Look at the CDC's own statistics.
This is gonna shave an average of 20 years off your life.
This is a disease-filled, gross death style
and that's what they're promoting
and pushing in the name of science.
What science is telling you
that it's healthy or normal to be a faggot?
That's not out there.
And so what we have to understand
is that the world is gonna try to gaslight us
like we're the ones who are unreasonable,
we're the ones who are illogical
and act like we're supposed to choose faith over science
or faith over whatever.
Now, of course, at the end of the day,
yeah, if that's the choice, I'll take faith.
Amen, but here's the thing,
God's not telling us ignore reality,
ignore science, ignore logic, ignore reason.
No, we can have both
because God is a God of knowledge,
science, wisdom and understanding.
That's what the Bible teaches.
It's the unreasonable wicked man who don't have faith.
Verse three, but the Lord is faithful
who shall establish you and keep you from evil.
And we have confidence in the Lord touching you
that you both do and will do the things
which we command you.
And the Lord direct your heart into the love of God
and into the patient waiting for Christ.
Now, here's where we get into the meat of this chapter
about withdrawing from the disorderly.
He says in verse six,
now we command you, brethren,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that you withdraw yourselves from every brother
that walk at disorderly
and not after the tradition which he received of us.
Now, the first thing I wanna point out
is that the Bible is saying that
just because someone is a saved Christian
does not mean that we should have fellowship
with that person
or that we should be friends with that person.
And I can't even count how many times
people over the years have said,
well, if someone's a brother in Christ,
you should be friends with that person
and have fellowship with them no matter what.
You need to be connected to them.
And this is what they said.
Well, in heaven,
we're gonna be with these people for all of eternity.
So you might as well just get used to being with them now.
But here's where that doesn't add up
is that first of all,
that's not what the Bible says.
You just made that up right now.
But number two,
once we all get to heaven,
we're not gonna have the flesh,
we're not gonna have the sinful nature.
So the bozos that are saved,
they're not gonna be bozos anymore in heaven.
You know, just like the Bible says,
no drunkards will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
No bozos are gonna inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Because when you get there,
you're no longer gonna be a liar, a bozo, a cheat, whatever.
Because of the fact that when you get there,
you will be like him.
You'll have shed that sinful nature.
You'll no longer have the flesh
dragging you into sin all the time.
And so to sit there and say,
well, hey, we just have to fellowship
with everybody who's a saved brother in Christ.
That is false because the Bible says
right here to withdraw yourselves from every what?
Withdraw yourselves from every brother
that walk at disorderly.
This is saying, I don't care if he's saved,
you need to stay away from this guy.
And withdraw yourself from every brother
that walk at disorderly,
and not according to or after the tradition
which he received of us.
For yourselves know how you ought to follow us,
for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you.
And here's what he's saying.
Look, we left you guys an example
of what Christian behavior is supposed to be like.
You got these disorderly guys
that are not following that tradition
or example that we've left.
Now what does the word tradition mean?
The word tradition is simply just anything
that has passed down.
So let's say your grandparents
have a certain way that they do things
or a certain holiday that they celebrate,
a certain thing that they do on a certain day.
And then your parents pick that up
and you pick that up.
That's a tradition because it's being handed down.
Now when it comes to church,
churches have traditions too, right?
Like for example, you know,
our church has services on Sunday morning,
Sunday night and Wednesday night.
We did not make that up.
And there's nothing in the Bible
that says thou shalt go to church,
Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night.
Some churches are on Thursday night, you know?
And some churches have less services,
some have more.
But it is just a tradition
that Baptist churches for a really long time,
my parents, my grandparents and their parents
just have gone to church three times a week
and we sort of just inherited that tradition.
It's been handed down to us.
Now here's the thing about traditions
is that if they go against the word of God,
they need to be discarded.
So traditions per se are not bad.
There's nothing wrong with having a tradition that says,
hey, every year on the third Thursday in November,
we're gonna eat turkey and we're gonna have people over
and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuff.
There's nothing wrong with that
because there's nothing contrary to the Bible about that.
There's nothing wrong with the tradition that says,
hey, we have service on Sunday morning,
Sunday night and Wednesday night.
Those are good traditions, right?
And then even the way that we dress,
the way that we act, the way that we talk.
But here's the thing.
Things that are traditions
that go against the Bible need to be discarded.
The Bible trumps tradition every single time, okay?
Also, if we have traditions that are not in the Bible,
we cannot be dogmatic about them.
We cannot say, hey, you have to have to have church
on these times that we're doing it
because the Bible doesn't spell it out.
We can't be dogmatic about that.
We can only be dogmatic about things
that are clearly stated in the Bible.
So there's nothing wrong with having tradition.
Now, we will often talk about the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
And this is basically a slogan
that came out of the Protestant Reformation
approximately 500 years ago.
And the reason for this slogan, Sola Scriptura,
is that you had the Roman Catholic Church
just having all of these traditions
that they're putting on par with the Bible.
So they're saying this tradition of the church
is just as authoritative as the word of God.
And then you have the Reformation types coming along
and saying, no, only scripture is the authority.
Sola Scriptura is our final authority, only scripture.
And they had other slogans like Sola Fide, faith alone.
Sola Gratia, grace alone, right?
To God alone, be the glory.
Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone.
These are all great slogans, all of them,
all five of them are great.
I wish sometimes that Protestants would take all five of them
a little more seriously,
especially the one Sola Fide, you know, faith alone,
but and Sola Scriptura for that matter.
So at the end of the day,
we're not saying that we don't have traditions.
We're not saying that we don't follow traditions.
We're just saying that traditions are not the authority.
Only scripture is the final authority.
And every tradition must be tested with scripture.
If it's just neutral with scripture,
then we can hang on to it if we want,
but we can't tell other people that they have to do it.
It's just something that we like to do or whatever.
But at the end of the day, scripture trumps tradition.
So in this case, the word tradition though,
is specifically referring to the fact
that Paul and Barnabas and others,
when they were around the Thessalonians,
they lived their lives a certain way.
They acted a certain way
and they followed the Bible a certain way.
And they're saying, look, you need to withdraw
from these people that are walking disorderly
and they're not walking according to the tradition
that we left behind, meaning the example
that we passed down of, hey, this is how you should be living.
And he says, for yourselves know how you ought to follow us.
Verse seven, do you see that?
For yourselves know how you ought to follow us.
And then people will sit there and say,
oh, I don't follow any man.
We should never follow man.
We should only follow God.
Well, you're not reading the Bible
because over and over again,
the Bible talks about the virtue of following leadership
and following men of God
that are actually leading the right way.
And Paul told people to follow him as he followed Christ.
And right here he's saying, look,
you know how you ought to follow us.
And in this case, he means follow our example.
He says, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you.
And he's gonna go on to explain
what that disorderly life looks like.
He says, neither did we eat any man's bread for naught.
Not means nothing.
But raw with labor and travail night and day
that we might not be chargeable to any of you.
Not because we have not power,
but to make ourselves and then sample onto you to follow us.
He's saying, look, what we did when we were among you
is we worked hard and we paid our own way
and we were not freeloaders
eating other people's bread for nothing.
We worked for everything and we did that
because we wanted to set an example
for you to follow at the end of verse nine.
It says in a sample for you to follow us.
He's saying, look, we could have the power
to have not worked at all
because we're preaching the word of God
and preaching the word of God is work.
So if we're studying the Bible, preaching the Bible,
soul winning, doing sermons and stuff, that's work.
He's saying, we could have just done that
and gotten our paycheck and called it good.
But we're working secular jobs.
So we're working day and night.
We're burning the midnight oil, making tents
and doing manual labor, blue collar jobs,
not because we don't have the power
to be in the ministry full time
like all the other apostles are,
but rather because we wanted to give you an example to follow.
And he says this, for barely when we were with you,
verse 10, for even when we were with you,
this we commanded you that if any would not work,
neither should he eat.
He's saying, you know, we obviously saw
that this is a problem when we were in Thessalonica.
We saw people that were lazy and refusing to work.
And so we worked extra hard just to show you all how it's done,
how to work hard and how to pay for your own way
and how to be a blessing to other people
and pay other people's way.
And he says, look, if a man won't work, he shouldn't eat.
It's funny, we were just visiting obviously Connecticut
and Massachusetts, a lot of history of the pilgrims
and early settlers of America, early colonies,
the first states of the United States.
It's a cool place to go just to see some of that history.
But you know, you hear about the Massachusetts Bay Colony
and you hear about Jamestown
and you hear about these settlements
and you know, they had this principle in place.
I forget the guy, they'll always like attribute this one guy,
one of the pilgrims or whatever, with this quote,
you know, if you want to work, you don't eat.
And it's always funny because that guy is kind of
getting credit for something that's just
a verbatim quote from the Bible.
Kind of reminds me when I heard a college professor
one time say, hey, in the words of John Lennon,
there's nothing new under the sun.
And I'm thinking to myself like, you know,
it didn't really start with John Lennon,
that's actually a quote from the Bible in Ecclesiastes.
But this guy, I don't know if it's William Bradford
or whoever they give this quote to, but no, no, no.
What's that?
John Smith, okay, yeah, that's a real descript name.
No, I'm just kidding.
You know, it was John Smith, darn it.
So, you know, John Smith famously, you know,
instituted this in America, hey,
if you won't work, then you don't eat.
But here's the thing, God approves.
God approves that message.
Now, let this sink in.
If any man would not work, neither should he eat.
So if anybody doesn't wanna work,
then the Bible says they shouldn't eat.
That would mean that they starve to death.
So God's just saying, hey, people who refuse to work
should starve to death, right?
That's the way the planet works.
The price of admission for being on this planet
is that you have to work.
Man work and women work.
Now, women are not necessarily gonna have an outside
the home job, a secular type job,
but they're gonna be working in the home
because they're gonna be cooking and cleaning
and being a homemaker and whatever.
So no matter what, every man and every woman
is working in some way, shape, or form.
And this is what God has commanded.
This is what he says is the right way to do your life.
And he says, if you're not doing this,
you're walking disorderly.
And he says, we need to withdraw ourselves
from these people that are walking disorderly.
They should be ostracized.
These people are not right with God.
They need to follow the example that we set
and people need to be working.
Now, why is this important?
Because people who don't work,
they end up being busy bodies, the Bible says.
Look down at your Bible there.
He says in verse 11,
for we hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly,
working not at all, but are busy bodies.
Now, what is a busy body?
Well, the Bible sometimes refers to this
as being a busy body in other men's matters.
We would call this a gossip or just somebody
who's just constantly sticking their nose
where it doesn't belong,
constantly getting involved in other people's business
and just constantly drama, constantly talking trash
and what have you.
And so God is saying that we need to be working
so that we don't get idle and then get into trouble
due to idleness and become a busy body.
Okay, now, here's the thing.
Why is this called being disorderly
when you're not working, when you don't have a job?
Because here's the thing,
having a job provides order and structure in your life.
So if you have a job that you go to
Monday through Friday,
then that organizes your whole day.
Your whole day is based on getting up at a certain time
and eating a meal and kissing someone goodbye
and getting in the car and you drive to a job
and you work that job and you have a lunch break
and then you hang out with friends on a lunch break
or read your Bible or whatever
and then you get off work and then you drive home
and you get home.
Hi, honey, I'm home.
And there's a certain structure and cadence to your life.
Now, obviously everybody's life is not necessarily that basic
or simple.
Some people might have complicated schedules.
Obviously women who don't clock in and clock out a job,
they have their own routines that they've developed.
Home schooling routines, cooking routines,
they get up at a certain time.
Hopefully your routine is not just dictated
by some show that you watch or something
and that's like what your whole day is based around,
the soap opera schedule or whatever.
But hopefully your day is based around
some kind of meaningful work,
taking care of your husband,
taking care of your children,
taking care of the house,
you've got chores, you've got a routine.
We need structure and order in our lives.
If we are just sitting around bored
with nothing going on, we're gonna get into trouble.
As human beings, I don't mind as the devil's workshop.
And so you've got to have structure
keeping you busy the right way.
So hey, let's say that you're retired
or let's say that you're on some kind of a disability income
or let's say, you know, you need to find
some meaningful work, some labor in your life
to give structure and order to your life
and be busy and work and contribute to society
and do something.
This is what the Bible say.
And this is so important.
It's a deal breaker if people refuse to do this.
He's saying, man, just withdraw yourselves
from these people that are walking disorderly.
Later, he reiterates this in verse number 14.
If any man obey not our word by this epistle
and he's not necessarily talking about the entire epistle,
he's specifically talking about this part right here
about working and not being a busy body
and not being disorderly.
He says, if any man obey not our word by this epistle,
note that man and have no company with him
that he may be ashamed.
Yet count him not as an enemy
but admonish him as a brother.
It's saying, look, it's not that we hate this person.
It's not that we consider them an enemy.
It's that we're admonishing this person.
We're ostracizing this person.
We're punishing this person to hopefully straighten them out.
That's what the Bible is saying.
We don't count them an enemy.
We're admonishing them as a brother.
But he says, don't have any fellowship with this person.
Don't have any company with that person
so that they'll be ashamed.
You see, ostracism is a punishment.
Throwing someone out of the church is a punishment.
Ostracizing family members is a punishment.
And this is a biblical punishment, by the way.
Not having company, no, here's the thing.
When you turn around and have company with that person,
you're not allowing the punishment to do its work.
You're interfering.
Like for example, if someone is ostracized
from the family for wickedness
and then you have other family members
just welcoming that wickedness with open arms,
well then the punishment's not gonna work as well.
If someone's kicked out of the church
and then people are sitting there
and still buddy up with this person,
have fellowship, talk to them, eat with them,
then how can the punishment work?
The Bible says have no company with them
so that they will be ashamed.
So that they will realize I'm wrong, I've screwed up,
I'm not right with God, I need to fix this,
I need to get back in church and get right.
That's what the Bible say.
Now here's the thing.
This could go for both male or female.
There could be all kinds of men who are not working,
lazy, getting involved in sin because they're not busy.
But it could also be women as well, okay?
Look if you would at 1 Timothy, chapter number five.
So in this example that we saw in 2 Thessalonians 3,
we're obviously using masculine pronouns,
we're talking about men.
Obviously though, some things in the Bible go both ways.
And this is one of those things.
And it's just being used as a generic
using the masculine there.
Because if we go to 1 Timothy chapter five,
we get a very specific example of this phenomenon
in 1 Timothy chapter number five.
And it says this in verse nine,
let not a widow be taken into the number
under three score years old,
having been the wife of one man,
well reported up for good works.
If she have brought up children,
if she have lodged strangers,
if she have washed the saints feet,
if she have relieved the afflicted,
if she have diligently followed every good work,
but the younger widows refuse.
Okay, so before we go any further,
we just want to say this.
Okay, the Bible constantly in the Old Testament,
New Testament, there's a lot of scripture about widows.
Hey, treat widows well,
treat the fatherless children well.
And obviously God wants us to be benevolent toward
anybody who's at any kind of a disadvantage,
the blind, the deaf, the maimed, the poor,
the fatherless, the widow, amen.
That's what the Bible teaches.
But here's the thing,
there's also a warning here for widows.
Not only are there all these scriptures saying,
hey, take good care of the widows,
there's also a warning here,
warning how widows could go down a dark path
and become evil.
And I don't use that word lightly
because look what the Bible says,
it says they're following Satan.
Sounds pretty evil to me.
And the Bible says here that the younger widows,
and in the context here,
younger is under 60 years old.
He's saying, look, if there's a widow
that is under 60 years old,
then she needs to get remarried.
That's what the Bible says.
So the Bible's saying,
you know, you're not gonna support her as a church
and put her on a financial dole of the church
because of the fact that she's under 60,
that's not gonna be the best thing for her
because she's gonna learn to be idle,
she's gonna be a busy body.
What we need her to do is to get remarried
and have more kids, you know,
marry, bear children, guide the house.
And if you think about it,
this number 60 kind of makes sense
because of the fact that if you think about it,
you know, women pretty much bear children
until they're around like 40 years old, right?
Maybe up to 45 or something would be really pushing it.
Okay?
And, you know, my wife had her last child at what,
43, and so, you know, and that seems to be pretty normal
for a lot of people that 43 is around the time
that you stop having children as a woman.
And so if you think about it, by the time you're 60,
you know, if you were living kind of the normal
biological course of life as a woman,
you know, you're gonna have your last kid
around 40, early 40s, and by the time you're 60,
your kids would be out of the house
and adults on their own anyway most likely
by the time you're 60 years old,
but the normal, you know, I keep wanting to say
Laban's Louth or something like the normal, like what?
Course of life, cycle of life would be
that basically, you know, you're taking care of kids
until you're around 60, and then when you're 60, you're done.
Okay?
And so the Bible is saying if a young woman
becomes a widow through some tragedy,
then she should just get remarried
and just still continue, you know,
living that life of a wife and mother, you know,
all the way up until she's 60 or whatever.
Because the younger widows, he says, refuse them.
Now this sounds cruel, doesn't it?
Refuse the widows.
But here's the thing, it's actually for their own good.
He's saying, refuse the younger widows for their own good.
They need to get married, bear children, guide the house.
That's gonna help them actually live a good Christian life.
But he says the younger widows refuse why?
For when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ,
they will marry having damnation
because they've cast off their first faith.
And the damnation here,
this isn't going to hell or something.
Damnation in the Bible is just a stronger word
for condemnation.
The two are just used interchangeably, really, condemnation.
And so the idea here is that, you know,
when they've begun to wax wanton against Christ,
they'll marry, he's saying, look,
they're probably gonna get married anyway eventually,
but it'll be after they've already gotten backslidden,
sinful, wicked, and then they'll get married anyway.
And then they're already screwed up at that point.
It's too late.
He's saying, you know, they should get married sooner
rather than later.
And so he says, in verse 13,
with all they learned to be idle,
idle means you're not doing anything.
You're sitting around with nothing to do,
wandering about from house to house,
and not only idle, but tatlers also,
and busybodies speaking things which they ought not.
So is this not exactly what we saw
over in 2nd Thessalonians 3,
the idea of just being idle,
and you're a busybody, you're a tattletale,
you're going around and telling stories about people,
and repeating things, and just backbiting,
and whispering, and gossiping, and whatever.
And he says they learned to be idle,
wandering about from house to house.
Now look, in the old days, in order to do this,
you kind of had to literally wander from house to house.
Nowadays, you could just get on your phone,
you could just get on social media,
and you can virtually wander from house to house
without even leaving your physical building.
But it's the same principle that applies.
And he says that they speak the things
which they ought not, they're busybodies, tatlers.
He says in verse 14,
I will therefore that the younger women,
again, younger than 60,
marry bare children, guide to house,
give none occasion to the adversary
to speak repulsively.
Verse 15, for some are already turned aside after Satan.
Now why does it say they've turned aside after Satan?
I don't believe for one second that he's saying,
hey, they're gonna get into witchcraft,
and they're gonna start saying, hail Satan,
and whatever, I don't think that for one second.
So we're talking about Christian women here.
And what we're talking about is that Satan's
key attribute is that Satan is the accuser
of the brethren.
Okay, Satan is the devil.
He is the accuser.
He is the one who accuses the brethren
before God day and night.
And here's the irony about Satan,
is that Satan is also a tempter that tempts us to sin.
He gets us to sin and then he turns around and accuses us.
Hey, look what he just did,
even though he's the one who got us to do it maybe.
And then he condemns us for doing it.
That's the irony of Satan.
And so I believe that when it says
that they've gone aside after Satan,
he's saying that they've become like Satan,
they've become a false accuser
because Satan's key attribute is that he is a false accuser.
He falsely accused Job, he's falsely accusing the brethren
before God day and night, he is the ultimate railer.
That is what he is.
And so the Bible is warning that these women
become toddlers, gossips, busybodies,
and then ultimately they move into railing,
which is just wild, false accusations,
baseless accusations that they're throwing around,
and so forth.
And obviously men could become railers,
women could become railers because we've seen it both ways.
We see it with the man in 2 Thessalonians 3.
We see it with the women in 1 Timothy chapter five.
And you know what?
This is a very serious matter.
We need to take what the Bible says seriously.
And you know what?
None of us is above sin or above going down a dark path.
If we don't follow the Bible, if we don't take heed,
if we don't stay busy doing the right things,
we can become disorderly in our lives
and go down one of these dark paths.
And look, we have seen over the last many, many years,
a lot of great Christians that we never would have thought
would go down these weird paths.
And yet they did, both in our church and in other churches.
We've seen good people go down a dark path.
And you know what?
That should show us that all of us need
to take heed unto ourselves
and all of us need to follow the Bible's plan.
And you know what?
Here's the thing.
A lot of people have this attitude
when it comes to getting married or having kids,
they don't want to do it
because they've seen how it can go so bad, right?
And let's face it.
Marriage can go horribly bad, can't it?
Child-rearing can go horribly wrong.
And you know what?
You see these things and the temptation is to say,
you know what?
I'm gonna opt out of getting married.
I'm gonna opt out of having children
because I'm seeing how horribly bad it can go, right?
And this is the generation that we're living in right now.
And look, all over, this isn't just a problem
with Baptists or Christians.
This isn't even an America problem.
The entire Western world right now is doing what?
Abandoning marriage and abandoning child-bearing.
Am I making that up right now?
Okay, and look, we can look at Europe
where the birth rates are like one, right?
Where it used to be in America 200 years ago,
the birth rate, you know, is eight.
Okay, so you have a birth rate,
a female fertility rate of eight.
And then you go back to 1900 and it's still like four.
You know, now in America, it's like two or whatever.
And then we look at Europe, it's like one.
And you look at places like Japan
where they're freaking out
because they can't get their young people to get married.
They can't get their young people to reproduce
and have children.
And so they're facing a demographic problem
where Japanese people also, they live very long.
So they must be doing something right
when it comes to health, eating, lifestyle,
because they tend to live very long.
So you have all these really elderly Japanese people, right?
And what they need is younger people
to obviously pay the bills and work hard
and provide all that.
But they're facing a problem of young people in Japan
and in Europe and now even in America
not wanting to get married, not wanting to have kids.
Why?
You know, I think part of the problem,
I don't know about Japan as much or some of these other,
but I'll tell you part of the problem in America
when I talk to people and what I've observed,
why they don't want to get married
is they feel like marriage is just not anymore.
How do I put this?
You know, it used to be a relationship
and a covenant and a contract
that's protecting both parties.
But now in a lot of ways,
it really is only protecting the woman
and the man feels like marriage
doesn't really protect him at all.
And even in Baptist churches now,
it's like men have all the responsibility of marriage
and they're looked at as,
hey, the buck stops with you, you're the leader,
you're responsible, but then they take away his authority.
So it's like, he doesn't have the authority.
He doesn't have the ability to enforce anything.
If he lays down the law,
everybody's gonna condemn him and call him a bad guy,
but then he's still expected to be responsible
and it's kind of like, what in the world?
So I'm responsible, I mean, imagine a job
where you're put in charge of everything,
but you don't really have the power to say how things go,
but you're responsible for the outcome.
It's a little frustrating, right?
Okay, and then the same thing with child rearing.
It's like, okay, yeah, yeah, have these children
and you're responsible for what they do,
but we're not gonna give you the ability
to reign the man or to rule over them.
And if you do tell them what to do,
all of society is gonna be telling them,
hey, it's okay to disobey.
It's okay to do something else.
You don't have to listen to your parents and whatever
and your parents are mean to you and blah, blah, blah.
And so these institutions are being torn apart.
They're crumbling at the base.
And then you wonder why marriage rates are plummeting
and the rates of childbirth are plummeting.
You know, I guarantee you that if we had a society
that respected marriage that allowed men
to be the heads of their homes, right,
and actually call the shots in their home
and not just be a figurehead like the King of England
or something, but to actually be a real authority
in their home and if you actually had parents
that had authority over their children
and the church and society and everyone
would back up parents and back up husbands,
you know, you'd have more men wanting to get married
and you'd have more parents wanting to have children.
You know, but when you destroy Christian marriage
and Christian childrearing, well then now all of a sudden
you wonder why nobody wants to get married.
Nobody wants to have kids
because you're destroying the institution.
Now here's the thing, we as Christians though,
we have a different way of looking at this
because the world is looking at it
from a pragmatic point of view of like,
if marriage doesn't give me any benefits as a man,
if marriage, you know, why buy the cow
if I can get the milk for free?
Right, and you have these whorish women
that are just willing to just, you know,
and I don't want to be graphic or whatever,
but it's like sometimes you have to use
some graphic language or sometimes you have to be
a little bit bloodier
because we're talking about something wicked.
You know, these women are willing to just put out
to anybody that's not their husband.
And then it's like, oh, I wonder why he won't marry me.
Well, you know what, here's an idea.
You don't put out until you get married.
How about that?
You know, you say, oh, I don't think
you should use that term.
Well, I don't know, what do you want me to say?
Don't be a whore.
Don't open your feet to everyone who passes by.
I mean, that's what the Bible says.
Does that make you feel better?
You know, the idea here is that it should be
that women are saying, hey,
we're gonna have this physical relationship
after we get married.
Women are gonna be like, nope,
I am not in service.
I am not open for business until after we're married, right?
And then women would withhold that physical relationship
until marriage.
And say, hey, this is my body
and you know, I'm gonna have dignity
and I'm gonna have self-respect
and I'm gonna not yield myself
to a man that I'm not married to, amen?
This is what the Bible teaches, right?
And then men would be ready to step in
and provide and pay the bills
and love and cherish and take care of their wives
and raise the children and do all these things
in return for, you know, being the authority figure
and getting the work done around the house
of the cooking and cleaning and housekeeping.
And you know, this was a mutually beneficial
relationship that throughout history made sense
for both people, it protects both people.
I mean, of course women wanna be protected
because they don't wanna have a bunch of little kids
and their husband just leaves
and then they're stuck with all these kids, right?
So marriage is protecting them.
Does everybody understand?
And so it's protecting both parties,
but the problem is that now
because our laws are so screwed up
and people have gotten away from Christian values,
you know, worldly unsafe people
are kinda looking at marriage like,
well, why buy the cow when I can get the milk for free?
What does this relationship even offer me?
What does it do for me?
What's the point?
Why don't we just cohabit?
Why don't we just shack up?
And why would we wanna have kids anyway?
You know, that's the mentality now,
but we as Christians, we're not gonna go down that road,
are we?
No, because we know that marriage is God's institution
and that it is God who has commanded us to get married
and it is God who has commanded us to have children.
And so we're not just gonna be like,
oh well, you know, the world has messed it up,
so we're just gonna abandon it.
No, no, no, we're gonna stay with God's program.
We're not gonna throw out the baby with the bathwater.
And if you would flip back just a couple pages
to 1st Timothy chapter two,
because what I'm preaching is from the Bible.
This is biblical stuff.
And it used to be just common sense,
but now we're living in a society
that's gotten away from these things.
And so people today are growing up
and they're like, well, what's even the point
of getting married?
Like, why would I get married?
What does marriage do for me?
And they can't even figure out what's the point anymore.
And I don't even blame them
because without God and the Bible,
I'd be like, yeah, what is the point?
But we are not as the heathen, my friend.
We are Christians.
We do have the word of God.
We are gonna get married no matter what
because the Bible said to do it.
Whether we think it's pragmatically advantageous
to us or not isn't really the point.
But let me tell you something
is that men going out and working
actually keeps us out of trouble, right?
Well, guess what?
Getting married and having kids
forces you to go out and work
because if you were tempted to just kind of
loaf around, slack off and not do much,
well, guess what?
That's not gonna work with your wife.
She's not into that.
And that's not gonna work with kids
because now all of a sudden
you have this financial black hole called your wife.
No, I'm just kidding.
That was a joke, honey.
This financial black hole called children, right?
All right, now you're on my page, okay?
This financial black hole called children
and so it makes you feel like, man,
I gotta get out there and make some bread.
I gotta make some money.
So here's the thing.
Getting married and having children
forces you to work harder.
Let me tell you about myself, okay?
I got a job at 16 working at Roundtable Pizza.
Not exactly a super serious job, okay?
It's kind of a starter job.
And I thought, well, you know,
you can't really get the good job until you're 18
because when you're 18,
now you're allowed to use all the heavy equipment
and, you know, most serious jobs
don't really hire you until you're 18.
You gotta do the starter job.
So here's the thing.
When I turned 18, now I'm eligible
to get a serious job.
I can be an electrician or whatever.
I can do something serious.
But guess what?
When I turned 18, you know what I didn't do?
I didn't get a serious job.
And you wanna know why I didn't get a serious job?
Because I was 18 and I just wanted to just play
and have fun.
And so I was like, oh, I wanna take trips to Germany.
Oh, I wanna do this and that.
So I just kept working at Roundtable,
even though I was making barely above minimum wage
because of the fact that I was just having fun.
I'm just young and just doing whatever.
But then I got married.
Guess what?
As soon as I got married, it's like,
okay, no more Roundtable.
Now I have to get it.
So do you see how getting married forced me
to get a much more demanding, serious job
instead of working 40 hours at some easy job at Roundtable
where I can take time off whenever I want.
Boom, I'm working 50 hours doing electrical work,
working hard, doing overtime, extra hours, whatever.
Serious about my career.
I'm getting books at the library after work
and trying to learn about my job
so I can make more, climb the ladder
because your wife wants you to bring home money.
Men, right?
And so that forces you to get out and work your butt off.
Now all of a sudden, you're not a kid anymore.
You grow up and you're out, it keeps you out of trouble.
You're staying busy working.
You know, and I spent my entire years of my 20s
just working mad hours, crazy hours.
And you know, a lot of my 30s
just working crazy hours too
because you just have to, just to make ends meet,
just to put food on the table.
So that's the male side of the equation, right?
Now let's go to the female side of the equation
and look at 1 Timothy chapter number two.
It says in verse number 13,
for Adam was first formed, then Eve, verse 14,
and Adam was not deceived,
but the woman being deceived was in the transgression,
notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing
if they continue in faith and charity
and holiness with sobriety.
Now what does this mean when the Bible says
the woman shall be saved in childbearing?
Obviously we're not talking about spiritual salvation
going to heaven and eternal life, obviously not.
It's saying that she is saved from heartache,
falling into the snares of Satan,
falling into the devil's trap,
turning aside of Satan.
She's saved from going down that dark path
by childbearing because if you go back
to Genesis chapter three and you remember
when God catches them having sinned
and they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
then he basically is pronouncing his judgment upon them
and he says to the man that he's gonna work
by the sweat of his face all the days of his life.
And then he tells the woman, what?
I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception
in sorrow shall thou bring forth children
and thy desire shall be to thy husband
and he shall rule over thee.
So notice God's solution, yes in a sense
these are punishments but they're also solutions
for man going forward.
How to live a life that's gonna keep him out of trouble
is that the man works by the sweat of his face
all the days of life and then the woman is over here
and she's subservient to her husband,
she's obedient to her husband
and her conception is multiplied,
which also means her sorrow is multiplied
because obviously having children is painful and difficult
in every sense of the word.
Now you could sit there and say,
well if it's painful and difficult
I'm just not gonna do it.
Okay but here's the problem with that.
That'd be like saying, well work's painful and difficult
so I'm not gonna go to work.
Now here's the thing, there are people
that make that lifestyle work, they just never work
and they just are freeloaders
and they just live off other people and whatever
and we could probably go out in the parking lot
and take a little field trip if you want
and find some of them in a matter of a couple minutes.
But here's the thing, that's not God's will for your life
and it's not gonna make you happier
because it's just you're trading one set of problems
for another and so it's easy to be tempted
to want to abandon marriage and abandon child-rearing
but here's the thing is that being married
and having children keeps you out of trouble
and keeps you on the right path serving God.
That's what the Bible is saying.
He's saying they're saved by child-bearing.
You know he's saying that they are marrying,
bearing children and guiding the house
and that doesn't give an occasion
for the adversary to speak religiously.
That prevents them from getting idle, being gossips,
wandering about from house to house, et cetera
because they're busy doing the right things
and so when it comes to withdrawing
from the disorderly, we're talking about people
who are disorderly in their lives
and this leads them into the sins of gossip,
tail-bearing, back-biting, whispering
and ultimately the final rung of this ladder is railing.
Railing, false accusations and the like.
So if you would go back to 2nd Thessalonians
chapter three with that in mind.
2nd Thessalonians chapter three,
it should be just one page away in your Bible
to 2nd Thessalonians chapter three.
And look, we've seen this in our lives.
We've seen women who basically,
and even recently, there was a widow in our church.
Everybody's been super nice to her.
Everybody has loved her and been kind to her
and tried to help her and she was just thrown
out of the church last week
for basically using 1st Timothy five as a checklist
and basically just idle, tail-bearing, gossip,
just maybe you're uncomfortable about me talking about this
but let me tell you something.
You know, when we throw somebody out of the church,
it is not something that we do lightly.
I have threatened to throw her out of the church
probably 10 times over the last year and a half.
Even before her husband died,
we were already having these problems
and we were patient and we were patient and patient
and giving her chance after chance and feeling bad for her
and trying to help her and reaching out to her
and she's just continually trash talking
other ladies in the church,
constantly fighting with other women,
just constant bickering, backbiting and here's the thing,
we tried to see things from her point of view.
She's like, oh, this person is so evil,
this person is so bad.
We'd be like, okay, tell us the evidence
and she never had any evidence.
There was never any meat on the bone.
She'd just come at us with just these microaggressions
or just feelings that she had about people
or I just know this person's bad.
Oh really, what's the evidence for that?
And you know, it's one thing,
if you have a bad feeling about somebody, great,
have a bad feeling about somebody, keep it to yourself.
If you just have some bad feeling about somebody
and you don't have any evidence
and there's no meat on the bone,
then shut up about it.
But when you're going around
and wandering from house to house
and you're talking to this person,
talking to this person, gossiping, backbiting, whispering,
you know what, you are committing grievous sin
at that point and then when it crosses over
to just false accusations and railing,
well then guess what, you're out
because the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 5
to have no fellowship with railers,
to cast out the railer with such a one know not to eat.
And you know what, people may or may not know
this about us, but you know, brother Sigura,
who's obviously my right hand man and myself,
we are very gracious and long suffering with people
and we're constantly giving people another chance,
another chance, almost to the point of ridiculousness,
how many chances we give people sometimes.
And people are usually shocked when they find out
all the things that led up to us throwing someone out
because we are not on a hair trigger
to throw people out because we want to fix people, right?
That's the whole point of the church
is to try to fix problems
and to try to help people grow in grace
and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
But you know what, when someone just has a pattern
of just refusing to listen,
refusing to get right with God and stop the railing
and stop the trash talk and stop the gossiping
and look, she was not trash talking me at all.
I've never heard of her ever saying anything bad about me
ever at any rate, guess what?
That's not what this is about.
It's about her trash talking other ladies in the church
and some men in the church too.
And I mean, I could give you a list of probably 20 people
that she has been at strike with easily, okay?
And it just seems like every time there's drama, it's her.
And that's why she's gone, okay?
And look, again, I didn't want it to be that way.
We begged her to get it right.
We've tried, we've given her chance after chance,
but at the end of the day, we have to follow the Bible.
And I feel like even if I'm honest,
I think my judgment was a little bit clouded
by just personal friendship and by just pity for the widow
that basically, I believe that we should have thrown her
out sooner and that I was wrong
for being overly ridiculously gracious
just because the Bible says not to be a respecter of persons
and we need to just be executing judgment on people
that are that brazen in their disobedience to God's word.
And you know what?
You can bring up all the other great attributes
about her that you want.
That's not the point though, is it?
Because you know what?
A lot of people are good people
that have a lot of great attributes
and one thing can destroy their life.
I mean, I'm sure that Samson was a great guy
and I'm sure Samson had a lot of great attributes.
But one thing destroyed Samson's life, didn't it?
That's the way life works, my friend.
And so it's like, hey, I have all this other stuff going
for me, yeah, but if you're a drunkard
and you're unrepentant about it, you're out.
If you're a Rainler, you're out.
If you're an extortioner, you're out.
I mean, this is what the Bible says, my friend,
and we have to follow the Bible
and not be a respecter of persons, okay?
This was grievous, it was very cut and dried.
This was not a gray area.
And it's sad, but that's the way it is.
And this is not the first time that we've seen this.
Other people have gone down the same road
and other people in the future
will go down the same road.
And so here's the thing.
Maybe you are frustrated with the way
that your marriage has turned out
and maybe you think to yourself,
hey, my marriage isn't really the marriage that I wanted.
Or you're frustrated with the way your children turned out
and you're thinking like, oh man,
I put all this work into these kids.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of energy.
I'm disappointed with the way things turned out.
But here's the thing, at the end of the day though,
you need to ask yourself this question though.
How did you turn out?
You know, I mean, the apostle Paul,
he went and evangelized all throughout Asia
and then later he's like,
all they which aren't Asia have turned away from me.
But here's the thing.
At the end of the day though,
Paul is still serving God all the way at the end.
And you know what?
I hope that you have the marriage that you want
and I hope that your marriage is super fulfilling.
I find my marriage super fulfilling.
I'm incredibly happy with the way my marriage has turned out.
I'm not happy with the way
that my child ring has turned out.
But at the end of the day though,
maybe you're happy with the way things turned out
and maybe you're not.
But at the end of the day,
if you're here, if you're serving God
in your 30s, 40s, 50s, if you're still here,
you know, stop and think about the fact
that maybe it was being married and having kids
that got you to the point where you are
and that if you could get in your little time machine
and do things differently,
you might have turned aside after Satan.
Because the Bible says that it is being married
and having children and working hard
and working your fingers to the bone
that keeps you out of trouble
and keeps you on the right path.
And, you know, we could use a totally different example.
We could say, hey, maybe you worked super hard
and you made a ton of money working super hard
and then you lost all your money.
I mean, I'm sure that's how I'm not gonna ask
for a raise of hands,
but I'm sure that there are people
who probably just put their life's work into something
and then ended up losing it all.
And it's just like, oh, everything I did
for the last 20 years is up in smoke, everything.
But is it though?
Because at the end of the day,
that life that you led was the life
that you were supposed to lead
if you were as a man working hard
and if you were as a woman busy with your husband
and your children, whatever it was, good, bad or ugly,
at the end of the day, that is the lifestyle
that is conducive for most people to serving God.
And so if at the end of it, you're still winning souls,
you're still in church, you're still serving God,
you know what, that's something to be thankful for
and something to be happy about.
I hope you understand what I'm saying tonight
and that this is making sense to you
because the people with the disorderly life,
the people who say, no, forget marriage,
forget child-rearing, you know, I don't wanna work hard,
I'm not gonna go out and work hard and make money,
I'm just gonna just goof off, sit around, do nothing,
fool around, just play video games or whatever.
You know, these are the type of people
that are gonna get into grievous sin
from not being busy.
You know, and you say, well, what's the answer?
What's the answer for this widow that is, you know,
a busy body and a railer and a constant gossip?
You know, the answer for her is right in the Bible,
is that she actually needs a husband
that's gonna put her in her place
and stop that behavior.
She needs a husband that would actually come down on her
and make her stop, you know?
But the problem is now she's ex-communicated
from the church.
So, you know, one of the best places
to meet a godly husband is in church.
Now you're thrown out of the church.
Now you're ex-communicated from the church
because of your own foolishness, you know?
And then it's just gonna be a downward spiral from there
because make no mistake about it,
you're thrown out of the church,
you're under the curse of God,
that's what the Bible teaches, you know?
And you can sit there, oh, that doesn't scare me,
I'm not afraid of that, well, then you're stupid.
It's that simple.
It should scare you because it's real, okay?
You wanna be blessed,
the blessings are found doing things God's way
in the house of God.
And look, here's the thing, the leadership of the church
isn't always gonna make decisions that you like.
Sometimes the church leadership is gonna decide
that, you know, hey, you know, this person,
we're gonna allow this person,
we're gonna let it go, whatever.
And then other times, we're gonna make a decision,
hey, you know, we're not gonna allow this or whatever.
We're not always gonna make a decision
that you agree with or that you like, you know?
But at the end of the day,
you have to respect the leadership of the church.
You don't have to agree with it,
you don't have to believe like us on everything,
of course not, but you do have to realize
that everybody's got their place,
the pastor's the pastor,
and the leadership is the leadership,
and you know, you gotta be cool
and go with the flow, and you know what?
You gotta be a team player, you know?
I don't, you know, even as the leader,
I don't necessarily always like every single thing that we do,
but some things I do because I know
that that's what other people wanna do, you know?
And sometimes I go along with my pastor friends
or go along with what the church wants
on things that are not like biblical do or die issues.
We all have to be ready to give and take a little bit
and compromise on things that don't really matter, right?
And just be cool, be a team player,
and if there's some person in the church,
you're just convinced that that person is just so rotten,
you know, I don't have any evidence,
but I just know, you know, there's no actual evidence,
but I can just articulate a reasonable suspicion.
You know, if that's you, then you know what?
Go ahead and have those thoughts, and how about this?
How about you just kind of avoid that person?
Right, if there's a person that you think is bad,
stay away from that person, but what you don't do
is go around and start trash talking other people
because of your suspicions.
That is railing, that is wicked,
you don't have any evidence,
and you're just making stuff up,
and then these people are like,
oh, well someday I'll be proved right,
and then you'll be sorry, but here's the thing.
Let's say you trash talk somebody with no evidence,
and then later we find out
that that person's a bad person
for a totally different reason in an unrelated area,
that doesn't vindicate you.
You still rail, you still were trash talking people
with no evidence.
If they turn out to be bad in another area
for another reason, that doesn't somehow vindicate you
all of a sudden, did you see what I'm saying?
Because at the end of the day,
you know, a court of law could find someone not guilty
because there's no evidence,
and that could be the right verdict,
and maybe that person is a bad person,
but that's not the point.
The point is, is there evidence?
Are we just gonna go around condemning people
without evidence?
Are we just gonna go around trashing people
and railing and falsely accusing people with nothing?
And I'm not, again and again and again and again,
you know what, it's not gonna fly around here.
And thankfully we don't have a big problem with this
now that this one person is gone,
because honestly, like I think back
to all the drama of like the last two years
and it's like 90% of it involved her, sadly.
You know, when it comes to infighting
and bickering and fussing among women in the church,
it's always like, you know, it's like insert name here
plus her, and it's just like the bat,
that's all the battles.
You know, and here's the thing,
it'd be one thing if you have like one enemy in the church,
you have one person in the church that you clash with
and kind of stay away from,
but when we start getting into the double digits
of all the people in the church that you have a problem with
and that you think are out to get you
and that you have strife with, you know,
at that point you need to start thinking about
what you can change to learn how to be a team player
on this team or else go find another team.
You know, we need team players, we need unity,
we need to love one another,
we need people who love the brotherhood, love the team
and wanna be cool, wanna compromise, wanna get along.
Okay, we don't need strife and bigger,
and it's like, here's the thing,
we have enough problems with just serious attacks
on our church, like why would we need
a bunch of micro-aggression, passive-aggressive, dumb fight,
it's like, I mean, you think about last Sunday night,
it's like last Sunday night,
we're dealing with like some really serious issues,
really serious problems, you know,
and then it's like, do we really need women
screaming at each other over something stupid?
You know, like, is it really the time and the place
when we're just like fighting for dear life over here,
like real battles, real enemies,
is it really time to pull out all the little
female junior high drama, and I'm not picking on women
because this just happened to be a female situation,
okay, and the person who's to blame is gone,
so I'm not mad at anybody in this room,
but I'm just saying, you know what,
you gotta think about other people,
you gotta think about the team,
you gotta think about the church,
you gotta think about the greater good
and not just be all about your own personal agenda
in the church, the church is a unit, it's a team,
and we don't wanna just be about our personal agenda,
we need to be wanting the unit to succeed,
the church to succeed, that's what I'm saying,
and so this is why God takes such a hard line on this,
he's like, man, these disorderly people,
you gotta straighten these people out,
you gotta admonish them, okay,
even if they're saved, they're not your enemies,
they're your brothers and sisters,
but you've got to straighten them out,
and if it gets to the point of railing, they're out,
because we've gotta endeavor to keep the unity in our church
and we want to stay cool and we wanna get all,
look, our church has great, I mean, look around,
packed house on a Sunday night, this is a great church,
the church is thriving, Sunday morning packed,
Sunday night packed, great attendance, okay,
great spirit, smiling, happy, great fellowship,
great soul winning, our church has so much going for it,
don't ruin it by being an idiot, amen?
Ah, she was mean to me, she's rude to me,
she didn't say hi to me, she wore the same dress as me,
she knew I wore that dress on the third Sunday
of every month or what, you know,
she said hi to these three people
and then she skipped me and then said hi to the fifth person,
it's like, shut up, get over it,
you gotta make an effort to be cool, get along,
and if somebody says something that offends you,
just let it be like water off a duck's back
and try to have peace, be a peacemaker, try to get along.
Let's bards and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord,
thank you so much for these chapters that warn us, Lord,
about the dangers of being idle, Lord,
help us as men not to give up on work,
help us not to give up on marriage,
help us not to give up on child-rearing,
help the ladies not to give up on marriage,
help them not to give up on having children
and being a homemaker, Lord,
help us all to stay busy
and to not become gossips, tatlers, busybodies
and ultimately worst of all, railers.
Lord, keep us on the right path,
Lord, we've seen great people go down some dark paths,
help us not to be one of them
and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.