Preservation of the Traditional American Family — Part 2

Well, praise the Lord. I'm certainly glad to be in church this morning. I'm glad to see each of you. Last Sunday we started, I guess you could call it a series, because we certainly didn't get finished with it, on the preservation of the traditional American family. And I did make mention that "traditional" has to do with something that has lasted down through the times, down through the ages. And if you get on the internet and look for the traditional American family, you'll find out pretty quickly nobody wants to talk about it — they'll even tell you that there is no such thing as a traditional American family. And when one of the writers on there said that what we referred to, when we referred to the traditional American family, was a family of the 1950s — well, that was the years that I was being brought up. I was a child in the fifties; I was born in 1947, so those were my formative years, and I remember very well the families of the fifties.

I made mention last Sunday, I remember the very first couple that I heard of that got divorced. It was such a rare thing then. You know, now there is one out of two — in fact, it's gone just a little above that: over 50 percent of the couples that marry this year will eventually get divorced. And then if you are the product of a broken home, your chances are doubled that you will have a broken home. So you can see it's a process that's getting worse and worse and worse, and it is to the detriment of our generations to come. Our children need that traditional American family. You know, you've heard folks say, "Well, I just held on until the children got a little bit older" — and then they've come along and said that's not good for the children; don't just hold on till they get a little bit older. But 80 percent of the women that are in a divorce — five years after they have gotten a divorce, 80 percent of them say, "I wish I hadn't have done it. I wish I'd have held on. I wished I'd have done whatever was necessary." Eighty percent of the fathers, after five years, if they did not get custody of the children, 80 percent of them quit visiting the children. Now, if they got custody, that's another story, but if they didn't get custody, if it's just visitation rights, they quit visiting.

I still remember a little ad that was on the radio several years ago that went something like this: it's a little boy, by his voice I'm going to guess him to be around ten years old, and he's crying while he's talking. He's saying, "Why won't he talk to me? Why won't he talk to me? Why does he not ever call me?" I don't know all of the words that he said. And then they tell you that this is a little boy that's being raised without his father. And we don't know the impact yet — we don't know fully what the impact is of a child being raised in a single-parent home — but we do know that over 50 percent of our children right now are in single-parent homes. That's in America. And when you stop to consider certain parts of America, certain cultures in America, over 70 percent of their children are born to unwed parents. That's — you know, when you stop and think, the outlook for America is not really good when you consider this.

And you know how God put us — and I read to you last week in the book of Malachi, and I want to read that again; that is the key to our traditional family. Malachi chapter 2, verse 13 through 17: "And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand." In other words, you're weeping and crying and praying at the altar, and God is not receiving it from your hand. "Yet ye say, Wherefore?" What's the cause of this? He said, "Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth" — I guess — "whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant." Did you not vow before God that you're going to love, honor, and cherish her, protect her, and separate yourself from all others and keep yourself only unto her all the days of your life? Those things were in your marriage vows. He said, but you have dealt treacherously with the wife of thy youth, and so God's not listening to your prayers because of this — you haven't kept your vow unto Him.

"And did not he make one?" Now this is important; I want us to catch this. "Did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth." Now, I mentioned last Sunday that when God made Adam, and then He saw that it was not good for a man to be alone, He put a deep sleep upon Adam and took one of the ribs out of his side, and with that rib He made a woman. He didn't make but one — He made one. Why did He just make one? So that He could have a godly seed. He wanted it to be one man and one woman.

Our nation was built upon family enterprises. If the woman worked, it was within the home and in the family business. The children were brought up in the family business. Now, I know it's not possible in every situation — it wasn't possible even under those situations in earlier America — but oftentimes, if the family didn't have a way to keep the children productive, they would loan those children to a family that did have, and they would learn a trade. If the blacksmith needed help, he got your child, and sometimes there was pay involved going to the blacksmith; sometimes there was pay involved to the child. But you either loaned or rented your child — and that sounds cruel, but actually you were teaching that child, just like sending him to school: you sent him to learn a trade in another family business, and they were brought up with family values.

Later on in life — now, this is my surmisings, but I want you to weigh them out — when we began to move far away from home for a job, when it got to where the family business or the neighbor's business was not sufficient and we began to move far away — industrialization, I guess you call it — we're not going to stop progress; I'm not even intending for you to think that I thought we ought to stop progress. But as our nation progressed and the Industrial Revolution, people would, you know, get grown, get out of high school, and they would move to Chicago, Gary, Indiana, or somewhere where the industrialization was. They moved off the family farm and into a job away, sometimes hundreds of miles away from their family. Now, with families that had deep roots and foundational principles, this was okay — that was fine. But for a young man that was not tied to anything that was religious, that was not deep-set in his foundation and the family values, when he got there, Mother wasn't around to say no — no, Mother wasn't around to guide him — and he did things that he would have been ashamed for a mother to know. And girls, the same way. Although the women hardly worked outside of the home until World War II, and in World War II they drafted most of the eligible men in the working age, so women went to work in factories to help provide for the family and for America's economy, as well as providing for the war. My aunt that didn't marry until she was, I suppose, in her sixties — I don't remember just how old — my Aunt Ethel, she moved to Memphis and began to work in a factory there that built parts for airplanes. And many, many families did this, and many of the married women did this; they went to work in factories to provide for the war. And I mean, you know, there's really nothing the matter with that. But what I'm showing you is a breakdown of our American tradition of family: divorce rates began to shoot sky-high after the women began to work out of the home. Now, you look back and you say, "Well, I worked all these years and I didn't have any inclination at all to destroy my family, and there was nothing at all that caused me." But where you were deep-rooted and you had a stability in you, there was a dozen others that didn't. And so America began to go downhill, family-wise, and it became so common until we hardly talked about divorce and remarriage now. I mean, you know, it is so common: as I mentioned, one out of two that are married this year will be divorced if the tradition goes on as it is. And what did God say? "I hate putting away." So when you look at it and see, there's a reason God did not just put these rules in our lives just to be making us toe the line, but everything that's written in God's word for us is for our benefit; it's for our betterment. And God knew that our homes were going to be much happier and better off if we abide by the rules that God laid and set forth.

So I read you the rules that Jesus said in the New Testament last Sunday, but I wanted to read this again to you here, and I didn't finish it right then: "For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. Ye have wearied the Lord with your words: yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" In other words, you started calling evil good and good evil, and that's spoken of in other places as well. But you have took the law of God and you've made it to no avail, but you go ahead — and everyone does what he wants to in his own life and in his own way — and he said, this is a wearying unto God.

You remember the judgment of God in the very beginning — well, I say the very beginning, it's in the book of Genesis, which means "the beginning," but it was almost 2,000 years after the creation — 1,656 years, the best you can count through the Bible — there God brought a flood in upon the world, and that flood destroyed every living creature that had breath in his nostrils, with the exception of what was on the ark. And Noah listened to God, moved with fear, and prepared an ark to the saving of his household. So this is a good example for us: let's listen to God, and let's do what God says, and we'll save our household. And if we save our household — I mean, you know, Jesus said, if a man gain the whole world and lose his own soul, what's it profited him? Jerry Falwell said it this way — and I always admired Jerry Falwell's stance on the family; of course he's dead now, but he was a Baptist preacher and president of a college up in Virginia — he said, if a man gain the whole world and lose his family, what does it profit him? I mean, I'd rather be lost than my family be lost. Paul said it this way: "I would count myself accursed from God for my brethren after the flesh." I want my family saved. I've heard my wife say over and over, "I didn't bear these children and raise them to populate hell." I want my children saved. I want to live for God. And you know, their best chances of living for God — it's not a guarantee that they always will, but their best chances — is to be brought up in a stable family, in a family that fears God, that walks with Him, that honors Him, and that is in church. Did not Jacob say, "This is the house of God, and the gate of heaven"? I believe those words are still ringing true today: this is the house of God, and it's the gateway to heaven. Now, I can think of a number of places out there in the world that might be the gates of hell, but the Bible said the gates of hell will not prevail against the gateway of heaven. So, folks, church — supposedly — and when I say that, I'm saying that because I'm being careful: I know all churches are not created equal. But a church that fears God and walks with God in a humble manner is the greatest thing that you could involve your family in — a church that will teach them the right ways of God, that will promote godly living and heavenly things. That's the best way to raise your family.

I also got down to First Corinthians and the attacks on the traditional family that God detests. The family is under attack in a great way, and one of the reasons is this: a few years ago — it wasn't maybe just at the time we were doing family teachings; I am not even sure which church, or maybe it was a church organization that put this out, because you saw them in yards everywhere, and I admired that — there would be signs all over Corinth in certain yards, and I assumed that it was a church organization that had sponsored this. It said, "Family — isn't it about time?" Now, that's a two-edged sword. Is not your family about time? I mean, if you don't spend time with your family, you lose your connection with your family. Then what about if you look at it the other way, when it says, "Family — isn't it about time?" Isn't it about time that we put family first in our life? Isn't it about time that we did more for our family than anything else we've ever done? Isn't it about time to give honor to the things that God has honored us with? So if we have neglected family in the time past, we have opened the door to allow Satan to destroy and wreck the family. But why don't we put up a guard? Why don't we do what is necessary to bring our family into the traditional American family relationship, and why don't we do everything we can to seal them in the church and do what is necessary?

I can remember some of the things that Mother told us, her children, and sometimes we didn't even look at it as teaching. But we weren't allowed to say — and I'm not going to say them, because I was never allowed to say them — but little bitty bywords that you hear commonly — they're not curse words, not even probably — nothing wrong with them — but we were never allowed to say them at home, and so it kept me from saying them. And she would say, "Well, now, the Bible said that they would increase to more ungodliness, so just don't start it." I mean, we couldn't say little words of exclamation like you hear so commonly — I even hear my grandkids say it sometimes — just little bitty words. Mother said, "Just don't say them. If you don't start them, you won't ever have to stop them." And it was just a rule of our house: you just don't talk that way. And the Bible put it this way: "Let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay," and whatever else comes is of evil. So I realized later on that Mother had more scripture for it than I really thought at the time. But it wasn't a grievous thing, because I wanted to please Mother. Mother had the type of personality that was not to provoke us to anger or wrath or anything; she simply had our betterment in thought, and we realized that she wanted us to be good, she wanted us to go to heaven, she wanted us to do what was right. And she shamed us if we didn't — and if that didn't work, she beat the tar out of us with a switch, and that worked. I mean, that just simply worked; when all else fails, that worked. And so it still works. You know, those old paths are still good to walk in. The Bible said, "Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls."

But a neglected family, or a family that has moved away from their tradition, opens themselves to so many vile and ungodly things until it becomes so — you know, we have seemingly no shame. And I'm referring back now to the time of us moving out of the family's circle of influence: we get away from Mama, we get away from Daddy, we get away from the rules of the home. And when we do that, we need to have already been rooted and grounded and settled in the things of God and in the things that are right and true. I like the idea — this is again my personal convictions and opinions — but I really like the idea of the child, in his first two years of college, going to the community college, so you stay at home and go there. I mean, most children that are right out of high school are not settled enough to be taken away from Mom and Daddy. You can't put them all in the same barrel — I'm aware of that — but I like the idea of a little more influence into that child's life before they're pitched out there on their own. And that's a cruel word, just "pitched out there." But when Moses' mother put him in that crate and left him in the river, I daresay she had tested it for its waterproofness — she had pitched it without and within, and she got that thing — she probably had pushed it down in the water to the very brim to see if there was a leak anywhere. She was putting her child in that; that was his lifesaver, and she was not going to leave him out there when he was about to drown. And of course, then on top of that, she'd let Miriam stay down there to watch him. Let's do everything we can for our family, because here's some of the influences that they're going to come against.

First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9: "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" I'm going to talk to you about some of the things that God detests, that God hates, that are great influences against our family. "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Paul goes on and says, "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." He said, now, you got out in that world — some of you did just exactly what I'm telling you not to do. Some of you wandered away from the roots of the family; some of you got out of the sheltering graces of God and you went out there and committed fornication, idolatry, adultery, and some even turned to being effeminate.

You know, when you look at that, you first think of a system — you know, when you think of "effeminate" — but that word is far deeper than that. And the next part then said, "nor abusers of themselves with mankind." Listen, let's be very plain this morning. I'm going to have to explain this, and yet I also would like to be a little tactful, if there's any tact left by the time I get into this. But the "effeminate" and the "abusers of themselves with mankind" seem to have run together — I mean, if you just look at it, it looks as if we're talking about homosexuality in both cases. Well, we are, really. But then on the other hand, there is a difference: one of them is a subtitle of the other. When the word "effeminate" was taken — of course, from the Greek language, as all of the words in the New Testament were; occasionally you're going to find a word that originated in Hebrew or some other, but it was written in Greek in the New Testament — but that word actually had the old pronunciation of "catamite." And when I looked that up several years ago, I thought, what in the world is a catamite? I've never heard of a catamite. But I was grown before I ever heard of the homosexual also — I mean, there was nothing in our language back when I was a boy; I mean, I've never heard of it. I remember we had one that worked, so they said, and that's the first I heard of it; I was grown and working on a job. And I just — I don't really know; I was sheltered, I'm aware of that. But things were not as open as they are now, and if they were, they were not talked about, at least — and it was not as rampant as it is now, and I think everybody would have to admit to that.

But a catamite is a lover of little boys — it's a pedophile. And the "abuser of themselves with mankind" is just the normal homosexual. Now, we take a lot of stress sometimes over preaching or talking or teaching against this in our modern world, but, you know, it's still in the Bible. And there was a problem with this in Bible days: you'll find a king that came up in Israel, and one of the things that we'll say about him — "and he took the sodomites" — that's another word for it — "he took the sodomites away from the door of the house of God." And then another — "and he did that which was right, but he did not take the sodomites away from the house of God." Don't you stop and think about this: there was trouble with these things all the way down. You remember Sodom and Gomorrah — you can find what God feels about it and how He thinks about it when you study the life of Lot. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and by the time Lot got there — he didn't get there overnight; he didn't get there in a day; he didn't get there in two days — but as the fields were grazed down he kept going in that direction. You know, that's the danger sometimes: when we start to drifting, we drift in the wrong direction, and it's so gradual until we hardly notice the change in our own life, and then eventually we wind up in a place where we would have never thought about going.

Had the prodigal son seen the end of his journey when he started out, he would have turned and fled to his father's house again. If he had known that "I'm going to wind up in the pigpen" — if he didn't know that "I'm going to wind up starving half to death" — if he'd have known that "I'm going to be happy just to eat the husks that the swine eat while in the mud with the pigs," he would have never went in that direction. But at first he had plenty of money and things were going well and he had plenty of friends, and then eventually he spent all of his living and he began to be in want. Lot, if he had known the outcome of dwelling in Sodom, he would have never pitched his tent in that direction. But he lifted up his eyes on the well-watered plains of Jordan, and that led him right down into that city — and that city was fixing to be destroyed by the Almighty God.

Abraham was sitting in his tent one day and had a visitation: three men appeared to him. He recognized the deity of God among these three, and he rose up and pleaded with them, and he said, "I want you to abide in the shade, and let me fetch a calf and dress it and make ready for you to eat." And he treated them very well, and washed their feet and so forth, and so he did — and he fed them. And the two angels got ready to leave, and God said to Abraham, "If Sodom is as bad as I think it is, I'm fixing to destroy it. I'm here to check on it, and if it's that bad I'm going to destroy it." And Abraham started intercessory prayer. It's probably one of the most noted intercessory prayers anywhere; now, it'll be studied by every one of us. We don't have time to do a lot of studying on it this morning, but I want to remind you of it. Abraham said, "Now, You're the judge of the whole earth, God, and it's not like You to destroy the righteous with the wicked. Say there's fifty righteous people down there — would You destroy it?" And God just simply said, "For fifty righteous, I'll spare it." And Abraham talked Him down until he got all the way down to ten. He finally said, "Let me speak to You just once more, and don't be angry with me: if there's ten righteous then, would You destroy it?" Abraham knew that Lot was there; Abraham knew his beloved nephew was living, and his children were living, in that town. And God said, "I'll spare it if there's ten." Abraham quit right there, because anybody would have thought you could have found ten righteous people in a whole big city like that.

But that night — that evening — there were two men that appeared at the gate of Sodom, and Lot rose up. He was sitting in the gate; he rose up — that indicated he had a place of prominence in the town. He rose up and entreated those two men, that were the angels that had been there at his door; he entreated them to come to his house for the night. And they said, "No, we're going to sleep in the streets." And he begged them until they said, "Okay, we'll come to your house." That night, this city was so wicked and so foul until they came to Lot's door and said, "You send them two men out here, that we may know them" — in other words, we want to have those men, strange flesh. Lot said, "Don't do so wickedly; they've come to dwell under my roof." So now then, we're seeing this same attitude in our world today. They said, "Who does this man think he is, this stranger that came to live among us, and he's made himself a judge over us?" You know, one of the worst things that we have gotten now is an attitude of "the Bible says we're not to judge no man." The Bible didn't say it in those terms; there are strict guidelines for judging. And if we don't have some judgment in the church — Paul even rebuked the church, said, "Do you not have somebody there that's worthy to judge?" Somebody's got to decide what's right and wrong — somebody. And every one of you ought to be able — he said — well, the least esteemed in the church ought to be able to know right from wrong. Amen. And it's not that you're setting yourself up as a judge, but you've got One to judge you — that's the words that Jesus spoke; they'll judge you. If you know the word, you've got the judgment in your mouth. Amen. "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." Folks, we need the word of God indwelled in our heart so that we know what's right and what's wrong, and we need to cleave to that which is right and shun the very appearance of evil.

Lot said, "No, don't do such a wicked thing here." And they accused him of judging them, and they then began to reach for the angels of God — not knowing they were angels; they appeared as men. And the men stretched forth their hands and smote them with blindness and dragged Lot back inside to save his life. And then they wandered all night about the door, trying to find the door, and they could not. This was a town — and when you read that, it indicates that a great number of that town was there; it wasn't just a few, but it was a great number of that town — like all the men of that city. Don't you think the scripture said this? Let me turn a page. All right, I'm glad to get on another page; I thought I was going to get caught and not get over there.

"'As it was in the days of Lot' — Luke chapter 17, verse 20 through 32. When he was demanded of the Pharisees — this is Jesus — when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, 'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.'" A lot of questions answered right there, folks, if you understand about the kingdom of God. "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all nations for a witness, and then shall the end come" — not just the good news, but the good news of the kingdom of God. What about the kingdom of God — when is it going to appear? they said. And Jesus explained that. So I want us to hear it: they shall not say, "Lo here! or, lo there!" — behold, the kingdom of God is within you. "And he said unto his disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day."

I have heard this and read this all of my life, and I was a little puzzled at this, to think that anybody would think that you could tell them that the Lord has come and you didn't know it. But I was teaching a class at [Cumberland] Steam Plant — and this will mark my days: it was during the late sixties, and it was the time of the great hippie movement. And they were having trouble getting people that could pass and get into that steam-generators operators program, so they lowered the standards down, and either just before or just after they lowered them, we got a class that had several people in it that were hippies. Now, believe it or not, I talked nearly every one of them into going to church with me. And they were amazed when we got to church: we went to a revival service where they were speaking in tongues, shouting, and running the aisles, and everybody except the drummer ran the aisles or shouted and talked in tongues that night. I mean, it was a whole-house involvement. The next day at work, I had a lot of questions to answer. They said, "Why didn't the drummer get the Holy Ghost?" I said — wait a minute, nobody got the Holy Ghost last night. They didn't? I said, no, I said, they just exercised the Holy Ghost last night. You really ought to see somebody get the Holy Ghost. So they were all ears.

But one Monday morning, one of those men — he was a very smart young man — he did not show up. I mean, he wasn't there. Tuesday, he was not there. Wednesday, no. Thursday — Friday, he came back to work. And of course, three days was all he missed — he's on trial while he's in the student program anyway — and he had to go see the plant manager before he could stay in class. So I am the advocate for all of the students, since I was the assistant instructor and I was responsible for them, so I had to go and plead his cause with the plant manager. And before I left the classroom, I said — I got him in my office, I said, "Sit down here and tell me what you've been doing for all this week that you hadn't showed up at work." He said, "Well," he said, "it's kind of hard to explain, but," he said, "when I was coming back from Sunday evening, to get here and spent — you know, get back here for Sunday night and then be ready for church — I mean, for work on Monday — I saw an old bus on the side of the road in Huntsville, and it said 'Jesus has come' on the side of the bus. So I pulled off and got to talking to them." They were what we would have called Jesus freaks. And he said, "They convinced me that Jesus had come back and he was in Florida." And I'm sitting there thinking, how — as smart as you are — how could you swallow that? But he was telling me the truth, and he went into detail of what they had told him. And they all piled on a little bus, everybody they could get on there, and they headed to Florida to see Jesus. And their bus broke down; they didn't find Jesus. So he finally came back to work and was now, you know, without some real good explanation; he was fixing to be without a job. And he had a good-paying job and had nothing to do but study his books, so, I mean, he had jeopardized his future and his present to go see Jesus in Florida.

And after listening to him and his reasoning, I understood better these scriptures right here. I knew they were there, but I couldn't understand how anybody would be naive enough to believe that Jesus would come somewhere and the rest of the world not be able to see him — because it said, as the lightning shineth out of the one part under heaven, even unto the other part under heaven, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. And of course I reasoned with him with these scriptures. "Yeah, but I didn't know them scriptures at the time; I didn't know that," he said. "And if Jesus was here, I wanted to go see him." Somehow Mr. Adkins, the plant superintendent, had mercy on him and let him stay in the class — and I was surprised, because I wasn't a very good lawyer for him; I didn't plead his case very well. I was disgusted with him, to tell you the truth. But anyway, he had mercy on him, and he got to remain in the class.

But folks, when the Lord comes, you're going to know it. Every eye is going to see Him; every knee is going to bow; every tongue is going to confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of the Father. Amen. There will be no unbelievers; there'll be nobody that'll be an atheist in that day. Everybody is going to know that Jesus is Lord. Amen.

But now let's read on: verse 26. "And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all." Verse 28: "Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." So, as it was in the days of Lot — He didn't mention marrying and giving in marriage, because that was not one of the strong points of Sodom. They did in the days of Noah, but in the days of Lot He didn't mention that.

Folks, we're living in some of the most wicked times that this world has ever known. When I started preaching, if someone had told me that I would have had to preach or teach against homosexuality, I said, not me. I mean, like I said, I was grown before I'd even heard the word; I was grown before I knew what it meant. But it's rampant around our land today; it's one of the things that has attacked the traditional American home. When the little book came out — "the little girl has two mommies" — that made controversial rings all over America. And we had a lot of thought going into teaching of little children; it was a school book they were teaching, that, you know, you might have two mommies in your house instead of a mama and a daddy. Our home was under attack right then. They want out — there is a bill before the House of Representatives right now being pushed; I don't think it'll ever make it through the Senate, but it will make it through the House of Representatives, I'm quite sure, guaranteeing more gay rights than they have ever had. Now, when you think about it, I know of nothing that denies them rights right now, but they're wanting privileges, not rights. They want privileges above your privileges, above my privileges. Amen. There's — you know what, sodomy used to be against the law in all fifty states; there are one or two states now that still have it in their laws, but of course it can't be enforced, but it's still there in the laws. Folks, our world is in a state of wickedness; our homes are in jeopardy. Amen.

And as it was in the days of Lot, Jesus finished this saying here in verse 32 by saying, "Remember Lot's wife." All the time that woman is ever mentioned in the New Testament — He didn't say what you remember her for: her heart was still in Sodom, and she looked back, where her heart was. And that was — you know, she had children back there, and you might say, well — but I mean, what are we going to do? "Except you hate your father and your mother, you cannot be My disciple." Now, this word "hate" there is very strong in the original language; it meant, unless you love them less — you've got to love God first of all, above everything. And that means you don't justify sin and ungodliness, even if it's your own children doing the sinning. You're going to have to love God, stand on this word, build your life on the word of God, build your home on the word of God, that the word of God be the guide for your entire life — and then I can tell you God's going to honor you, and you'll be able to build an ark to the saving of your house. But if you waver, if you don't put God first, you probably will never have the privilege of building the ark, the safety of your family.

I want my family saved. Amen. My family hasn't always — and don't always — do what I think is best for them. I'm — you know, somebody asked me the other day, said, "How's everything at Corinth?" I said, "I'd still change a few things if I could." I would, in my own family — I'd change some things if I could. I mean, I'd give some of my family a little more common sense if I could; I'd give some of them a little more fear of God if I could; I'd instill in some of them a great quaking and a shaking at the word of God if I could. But I can't do that. But if I can live before them — one of the greatest testimonies one of my children ever gave me, he said, "Daddy never did teach me to fish." And I don't think there's nothing wrong with fishing; I wish I could enjoy fishing. I just can't sit there and hold a fishing pole while I'm thinking of a hundred things I ought to be doing — now I'm sitting in my recliner and think of all them things. He said, "My dad never taught me to fish; he never taught me to hunt, but he did teach me to pray." And if I can teach my children the right ways of God, and not ever provoke them to anger and discouragement and wrath, and I can show them that it's best to live for God over any other form of life you could choose, I'm going to count myself as an ark builder. I thank you for being in Sunday school this morning.