The Bible study tonight will be, Should We Forsake Family? Two Extremes. Probably a part one. I cut this thing in half to save our time this evening. Coming out of our divorce series, We were taking a look at husbands providing for their families. And we saw how important that responsibility is in the Bible. And I think it's important since we saw divorce, God hates when it's for sinful reasons. Now we need to take a look at some scriptures in regard to where that balance is in regard to family. This time of year, many people get together with extended family. There's a lot of good in that. There's also dangers in regard to family that the Bible presents. So maybe we'll just dig right into this and show the two extremes. And so you can make sure that you are being responsible and godly toward your family members, as well as careful in regard to your children and your own spiritual life. The text I chose is Luke chapter 18. Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all and followed thee. And he said unto them, Our Lord, verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, or the kingdom of God's sake. who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come life everlasting. Now I don't want to get sidetracked, but really we could spend weeks talking about the misunderstanding of what the kingdom of God is. There's an eternal kingdom of God, then there's the millennial kingdom of God. The world to come is talking about the millennial kingdom, the thousand years. The world after the world to come would be eternity, the eternal kingdom. So the Bible is not talking about how to obtain eternal life in an absolute sense, meaning after the kingdom, the eternal age. The Lord's showing here that the sacrifices you make are what you're rewarded for. And that your reward, both now in this life and in the coming millennial kingdom, if you're worthy of entering that time of reward. It's going to be based upon your holy sacrifices. Now, that leads all kinds of questions in our mind here. He's rewarding people for leaving house and parents and brethren and wife and children? And I believe that, for the most part, you know the answer to how to clear this up. It'd be very interesting if we had time to really hear what you thought, the answer is here. See, on one side there is a dangerous temptation to use the family as an excuse to sin. Remember, they didn't want to go up to the promised land and their excuse was, but my children, my family. A lot of people use their children or their family as an excuse to be passive, sinful, and compromised in regard to the things of God. You got Bible-believing Christians who often compromise their own standards of holiness, their service to the Lord, because somebody in their family is either upset about it There is a type of family idolatry. You don't hear much about that. I don't know why that's such a problem. Well, I believe I do. I believe that because family is attacked so much, that what that causes conservatives and Christians to do is run the other way to an extreme sometimes. Or they might just be involved in worldliness where they're still neglecting their family. Maybe inside their own homes a man or a woman because of children or because of their spouse. Maybe they are not what they should be and could be in the Lord because they have chosen to compromise. You've seen children as they grow entirely shipwrecked. Would have turned out good. Had not there been this yoking with extended family without any type of reason or common sense, so you end up with cousins, relatives, uncles, aunts, whatever it might be, poisoning the children, poisoning gullible teenagers that say, hey, you look like you're having a more funner life than me, a better life than me. I can't wait to have your life. Yeah, we're gonna run down the road, Mom. It's fun to be here with cousin or uncle. Boy, I'm learning all kinds of things about the world. Evil communications corrupt good manners. You think somehow another family is immune to that? Avoid the fella down the road that'll corrupt your kids, but hey, family, do whatever you want. I could preach on this for a while. I don't know how you'd miss this when your Bible begins with Adam turning away from God in rebellion because of family. You see the opposite. You see Moses, by the way, not circumcising his son because of family. God says, I'm going to kill you. But then you see our Lord Jesus Christ, our sinless Lord, showing the example, walking that balance, taking care of His mother Mary while He's bleeding to death on the cross, providing for her, honoring His earthly family. but never to the extent of dishonoring God the Father. You saw the time with Mary and all of his relatives, and they said, you know, you're beside yourself, what are you doing? We want to speak with you. And he says, who is my mother? Who are my relatives? You understand the text. Even his own beloved church, his beloved disciples, Peter himself said, don't go to the cross, which was to say, disobey the Father. And he said, get behind me, Satan. You see that balance in our Lord Jesus Christ. So on one side, some people take family to such an extreme, they neglect other important responsibilities. obedience and worship to God end up compromised. On the other side is a neglect of the family that's not of God. It's often used by various cults. It's based on a misreading and a misapplication of some of the Lord's words in the Gospels. And we need to talk about this side. Everything's so confused that We really need to make sure that you're getting both sides, both erroneous extremes exposed and rebuked. As I was preparing some of this, I did a book called The History and Defense of Literal Interpretation. And really, it's just an expose of many of the cults. a lot of research into these various cults from Jim Jones to UFO cults to just going down through history. And my point was to show that all of these loony, crazy cults were not based on literal interpretation of the Bible. It was based on figurative interpretation. You don't hear that often. You also don't hear that When people say you've got to beware of Bible-believing churches because you'll end up in some cult, well, you've got to be a Berean and understand that your responsibility is to God and God alone, but don't blame Christians for Jim Jones in the 70s that made people drink Kool-Aid cyanide and died. That man was an atheist. He was a Democrat atheist that looked up to Hitler and all of these dictators. He hated the Bible, threw the Bible across the church and says, we're not going to obey this anymore. When they finally rescued the girls out of that cult, Many of the children, or many of the young people, young adults, when they rescued them out, some of them were just so brainwashed and messed up. And they said, Daddy, we don't even believe in God. Jim Jones says, I hate the God of King James. I defy Him. And he commanded everybody in the cult to use the King James Bible as toilet paper. Wicked stuff. What are you doing? Jim Jones belongs to you. I'm talking about this leftist, Marxist, anti-God culture that's in America today. The things Jim Jones believed are becoming front and center in regard to much of the mainstream left right now. You got a whole nation drinking the Kool-Aid. So I began to study some of these modern extensions of these various cults. There was this NXIVM, you might not have heard of NXIVM. Dave Hunt for years was rebuking and exposing the New Age business self-improvement type of cults that were invading much of America. And you have these Hollywood parents and many of them that said, let's go to this business seminar. And there was one woman who was one of these celebrities and she had a daughter and says, hey, I want to bond with my daughter. Let's go to this business thing. And next thing you know, they're there. And all of a sudden they separate the daughter from the mother. That was the standard practice. And she was an adult daughter, but nevertheless, they're separating, see? And they were trying to bond, and all of a sudden, they're separated. I could go into a lot of the things that they did to brainwash, but what they ended up doing was, don't you want to tell me your secrets? Okay, you're required to tell me your secret. Give me any type of secret that you possibly can. Make up something against your father. I don't care. Go get it notarized and put it in an envelope and we're just going to keep it. And after collecting all of these things, all of these things, now you're like, I don't want any of my secrets revealed. They could get you to do just about anything they wanted you to do, see. That's how that cult operated. And the point is, one of the first things they did was isolate and turn them away from their parents. Sounds like the modern college, doesn't it? It sounds like, in other words, there's this cultic mentality that's happening all over the nation. That's why I get a little upset at the hypocrisy of not realizing that what's happening, that this wasn't some fundamental Christian thing, this NXIVM, Epstein and all of that, that wasn't some fundamental Christian thing going on. These are business cults. They go after these fundamental Christians in a very unbalanced manner. A priest close to the Pope just got exposed for all of his wickedness and preying on women, and you understand just the thousands and thousands of children molested by these priests that's been going on for many years, but you just don't hear a lot about that. What about these Hollywood execs and all of the things they've been doing and exposed for? Headline today, Nike Court Records Detail Sexual Harassment in Boys Club Claims. The high-ups in Nike were doing some horrible things. Without getting too far into all of that, I just want to point out that there's this unholy division and separation from family, this isolation, which is, like I said, happening in the modern colleges. You might not be joining a cult where they're saying, drink Kool-Aid or whatever it might be, tattoo yourself. But what they are saying is, you're going to come here every single day and you're going to listen to this brainwashing. And basically, they're turned away from their parents. They're turned away from the local church. They're turned away from the God of the Bible. I got a call. A couple of days ago, from a Christian that's been listening to our messages for quite a while, I believe. Sounded like a really sweet sister. And as I was talking, I asked her if she would share some of her testimony. And she shared some testimony of being involved for a long time with the Jim Roberts group. and they were called brethren. And I said, I'd never heard of them. But as she described them, I began to wonder if I don't see them in a lot of places, or different types of groups of these people. She got out of that, praise God, and I found some videos online. Here's ABC's Prime Time from a few years ago, just to give you an idea what's going on here. Let me tell you a little bit about it before we start, okay? From what I saw watching the videos and looking at some documentaries and things, they have some things very, very right, and you'll often see that in dangerous cults. But the girls, the women, had very, very long hair. And even watching, the parents said, oh, you'll know them, they have these beautiful long hair. And they said, there's one of them, there's one of them, because we can tell by the beautiful long hair. Well, isn't that a shame? Isn't that a shame that the people trying to get their kids and college kids out of this cult are all sitting there with short hair and just everything that is so unfeminine in their life. So they're trying to say, come back to us. Come join us in what we're doing. You've got to get out of this. And these young people are looking very confused, like, I'm happy. What are you talking about? They end up. really getting into the Jewish thing that is just prevalent everywhere. I mean, you're just starting to see groups everywhere. They speak in half Hebrew, half English. You don't know what they're saying half the time, and it makes you feel somewhat... And I know there's some good folks that get involved in this type of thing, and I appreciate all that listen to us, whatever we disagree about here, but I just want to present some dangers I see in these things. So, according to Primetime ABC, it said, experts say that over the years, They have targeted religious college kids and convinced hundreds of them to reject their parents and disappear into the shadows. I mean, you're talking, watch some of this documentary and some of these exposés that are online. I mean, you've got kids that had all kinds of awards and, you know, I call them kids or young adults. All of these awards that they've had, Some of them, some very expensive businesses that were well-known in regard to clothing and fashion. Some of these go to some of the most expensive colleges and they just see somebody and somebody starts talking to them and the next thing you know, a couple hours later, they're giving up everything and their parents never see them again. And they're like, what could have happened here? We were afraid of gangs, we were afraid of our Our son getting involved in drunkenness and all kinds of horrible things, drugs, but we never expected that he'd just disappear. But they convince hundreds of them to reject their parents and disappear into the shadows. It goes back to the 70s, I believe. You may have walked by them in a crowd. Bearded men in tunics. In days, sometimes hours, students drop out and disappear. They are nomads. They move secretly from state to state. They live off food from garbage dumpsters. For example, Jim Foster has been looking for his son Craig for 14 years. And they go through the life of these families, and some of them, they'll finally hear of their son or daughter being in some other state, and there they are, they're in a house, or they see them on the bicycle, and they will go, and the parents are so nervous, and they try to make contact. They say, come, you gotta come with me. Some fathers have even tried to wrestle their sons back into the car for the policeman to come and say, hey, you gotta let that son alone. You gotta let him do whatever he wants. And they have to sit there and cry as they watch their son go back into this, And then you see godly sisters, you know, at least in appearance, saying, mom, you know, and they give their mom a hug and they say, mom, I'm happy. And then the mother says, but don't you remember this picture? And they tear the picture up and say, you know, I cannot believe I was dressed like a harlot like that mother, you know, quit showing these pictures around. And they hug each other and then they just go back into their group. A former member says, there is a place in the Bible where Jesus said that a man's enemies will arise out of his own family. But Jim Roberts turned that around and presented a case that everyone in your family is your enemy. It's just automatic. Now, the sister says that since the leader has died over the years that some of this has lightened up to some degree. They shunned marriage at one time, because how can you go around place to place and give up all your possessions and give up everything? Because when you start having children, you say, hey, I got to provide for them. I need stability, you know, and that type of thing. So they just kind of shunned marriage, which broke a lot of hearts and hurt a lot of people. So there is the thing here. They're not the only group like that, that will use the words of the Lord Jesus Christ to say, your family is the enemy, stay away from everybody. You have to cross a line and say, I need to honor my family. I need to let them know I love them to whatever extent we can be together. But over the years, I've had to draw some lines. I said, listen, we'll come over and eat, but I'm not going to sit around with my children where there's alcohol. So if y'all want to drink, we're not showing up. If you're gonna have wicked stuff all over the television and everything, I'm just not gonna show it, but I'd love, so a lot of times it's like, hey, we're gonna turn off the TV, we're not gonna drink, we're gonna have family fellowship, and everybody's like, I sure hope y'all leave pretty soon so we can get out the liquor and everything else, and things like that have happened. And you need to lay down standards and lay down some of these things and how to interact, live a Christian life, not compromise your family, not compromise your children. But at the same time, I believe it was C.S. Lewis that said, some Christians find it too easy to reject family. They're glad for a reason from the Lord Jesus Christ to just reject any responsibility that you might have to family. I believe the Lord would have us witness to them. I believe the Lord, if you're right and they're wrong, try to make them better. And I understand that they might reject you. If you're shining your light, they might reject you. And then you just got to feed them to whatever degree they will drink. But that's a whole nother subject. But let's deal with, I told the sister it was a very timely call because of the message I'm working on. And this just kind of gave me another illustration. But let's deal with the verse, okay? It says, Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all and followed thee. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, some of the new virgins take out wife, wonder why, and her children for the kingdom of God's sake. In this first part, I want to deal with historical context. There are sometimes specific things that pertain only to the historical context and situation when you read the Bible. Now we're going to go on in the second part, God willing, and show a way to take this text and interpret it for all ages. But I don't want to get into that point until we first deal with the fact that when you read the Bible you must look at what the historical context is and then you have to discern, rightly divide, what specifics are meant only for that historical time and what is to be adapted for all ages, including the age I now live in. It takes time, it takes work, it takes study. So if you find that there's a part of a text where a specific historical part of it has to be changed or not applied to today, That doesn't mean that there is not moral teaching. It doesn't mean that the rest of it does not apply to today. Now, if you're confused, we'll come back to this. Let me give you an example, okay? Look at this. This is the Sermon on the Mount. Leave there thy gift before the altar. You know your brother has aught with you. And go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. How many of you young people have ever offered a gift upon the altar? Raise your hand if you have. Why haven't you offered anything on the altar? Because you don't have an altar. Because we don't have a what, brethren? A temple. We don't have a temple. Does that mean that, ha ha, we can get out, just forget the whole Sermon on the Mount. We don't have to make anything on the Sermon on the Mount because we don't have a temple, and he said something about the temple, so this has no application to us whatsoever. That's how much of modern Christianity interprets it. I'm talking Baptist, King James Bible people. So these temple specifics Do not mean that the whole sermon can be deleted as far as doctrinal application to modern Christians. So you have people that say, Gospels are gone. Read them, you can get a little bit out of them, but they're not doctrinally written for you as a modern Christian. What would make you say something so horrible? That you cut off the head of the church and say his words don't matter. They say, well, you don't have a temple today. What about the Book of Acts, then? You've already cut off the Gospels. Let's go to the Book of Acts. "...and they continued daily with one accord in the temple." Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. In the temple? This is the so-called empowerment of the church. Praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. You had the church spending a lot of time in the temple. That's the Book of Acts. Book of Acts. Should we dismiss the book of Acts? Let's keep on going. 1 Corinthians 13, whether there be tongues they shall cease. But then you get to chapter 14 and it says, wherefore brethren, we're brethren, covet to prophesy and forbid not to speak with tongues. At that time, Lots of people had the power to speak in a foreign language and having never learned it. I've never seen that done. Maybe the Lord would decide to give somebody that power today in some type of situation. I've never seen it. But I will tell you this, even though I have a Bible verse that says, If somebody came into this church and started doing gibberish that had nothing to do with the language, or even if they spoke in a language and wouldn't stop with nobody knows even what they're saying, and there's no interpreter, I'm going to forbid people to speak with tongues. You understand? Am I in disobedience to God? No! I'm understanding we're not living at a time period where this gift is seen in the way it was in that day. So every single Baptist is going to make a historical adjustment when he gets doctrine from 1 Corinthians. They're gonna say, well, no, we just make an adjustment today. Well, why don't you do that with the Gospels? Why don't you do that with the book of Acts? So I say, what applies to us doctrinally? They say only the prison epistles. This is called hyper-dispensationalism. The prison epistles, those written, some of the last epistles written by Paul. Well, let's turn to these prison epistles. Timothy 5.10, it says if you take a widow under church support, there are some qualifications. Paul says, let the children take care of her. Let her nephews or grandchildren take care of her. Let not the church be charred. However, those that you do take care of, there are some qualifications. She must be well-reported of for good works, if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet. Now, according to the way some people interpret the Bible, Every widow that they ever tried to help, they'd have to say, we can't help her because we can't find a widow that's ever washed anybody's feet. Somebody might say, hey, let's have a little foot washing ceremony and some of them like to do that or whatever. This was a real thing. This was an important thing. It was a necessary thing. Because you're walking around in a dusty, dirty place and it was Something very, very needed with the shoes and the sand and everything they had there to wash the feet. So, I believe common sense reason, the rest of the Bible would show us that we are to make an amendment based on our time. In other words, it's not necessary that somebody had washed somebody's feet, but what is the point there? What is the application? What is the moral teaching that she needs to be a servant? She needs to be a helper. She needs to do whatever is necessary and helpful for people. I could go on and on, but all I want to show is that when you interpret the Bible, any book of the Bible, you've got to rightly divide between the commands that are meant to be abiding and those specifics that are not meant to be abiding. The Bible says, first of all, you need to pray for kings. I've never in all these years of being a pastor have we ever prayed for a king. We prayed every time we opened the door for elected political leaders because we make an adjustment, right? We make an adjustment where we are at. Now, making these adjustments is a far different thing than the wicked heresy and foolishness where people use this basic principle and they say, ah, it's okay to be a homosexual today because we're gonna make an adjustment to our day and age. No, no, no, that's insanity. Feminists, witches, sodomites, they all line up ready to use this accommodation, this application, so they dismiss things that should not be dismissed. That's why the Bible said rightly divide, not just divide and cut it all up. Find the things that God meant to be historical for the context and things that He meant to be abiding. So let's make that application, okay? Thank you for enduring that. Now we can just make a few applications, show you a few Bible verses, and we'll be done with part one. Let's go back to the verse. Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all and followed thee. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house or parents or brethren or wife or children for the kingdom of God's sake. He's going to be rewarded a hundredfold, says the Lord. So we got to ask, is there anything historical going on here that would in any way, not neutralize totally, not delete everything here, but in some way mean that it needs to be amended in our day because we are not in that historical context. What is something that was happening there that is not happening now? There's one thing very important and that is the Lord Jesus Christ had a public ministry for three years and He was walking around God in the flesh. And that's a very, very important historical point that you have to factor in here, okay? Some Jim Bob or whatever his name is, that's not the historical Jesus you understand. Some cult leader is not the Lord Jesus. Now, if you say, well, I don't know about this. Some things are for when Jesus was walking the earth. Well, hold on a second. I didn't say the whole thing was. I said there's an adjustment here that you have to make, just like we did in the Gospels in Matthew 5 with the altar. Notice this, Matthew 9. And Jesus said unto them, can the children of the bride chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom, who's the bridegroom? The Lord, the bridegroom shall be taken from them and then shall they fast." The Lord said His disciples did not fast while the Lord Jesus was walking around with them. But He said, the time will come when there's going to be some changes. When I leave, then they're going to be fasting. Well, I've already proven here then that there's some differences. Let me show you something else. Mark 6, and he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two, and gave them power over unclean spirits. Well, even putting that aside for a second, and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only. No script, that's no luggage, no backpack, no bread, no money in their purse. So there might be somebody that says, hey, I'm going to be the leader of a new organization here. You want to come join my organization? And I don't want you taking any script. I don't want you taking anything. And the Lord said do that. You see that? He said to do it. I don't want you to have a job. You're going to eat out of a garbage can. Matthew, these twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles. Now the Lord did not mean for them to eat in a garbage can. He said, You'll be provided for by God. I'll provide for you. People you preach to and receive you, they'll help you. But I'm just showing you something here. These twelve Jesus sent forth commanded them, saying, Go not in the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans, in or not. Is that for all times? You're only to speak? to a Jew and not to Gentiles? But rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils freely. You have received freely give. Are you telling me there's not some things that were meant for that age? Not everything, but were there some things? Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor script for your journey, neither two coats nor shoes. nor yet stabs, for the workman is worthy of his meat." Wow. The Lord said it. The shoes they were wearing at that time were not fancy shoes. They were very simple shoes. Very simple. Zero-drop shoes. Moccasins. That's what they were wearing. That abides to today, but anyway. We'll get into that later. Whoo! Amen. Okay, now listen. Luke 10. Carry neither purse, nor script, nor shoe, and salute no man by the way. Are you getting the point here? So many things here. Raise the dead. No money with you. No fancy shoes. Don't salute anybody. Don't even carry luggage. Don't carry any weapon. Now listen to this. And he said unto them, when I sent you without purse and script and shoes, lacked you anything? And they said, nothing. Then said he unto them, but now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his script. And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. So our Lord said, I showed you now that you can depend on God to take care of you. But now I'm going to tell you, after I've demonstrated that, now be responsible. Don't presume on God. But you already know that you can trust God to take care of you. Okay? So, there are some things that you see the gospel's command that even the Lord Jesus Himself showed us was not meant in the exact way to take everything. Now there's some things we can learn from this. There's some principles we can glean. Now let's really nail it down. Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee and two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishers. He saw two brethren, I'm sorry. He saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And straightway they left their nets and followed him." He called them to discipleship. The disciples left their fathers there, they left their fishing business, they left the nets right there, and they took off and followed the Lord Jesus. You can make moral applications from this. You might say that a specific application is somebody going into full-time ministry might leave their former career, no matter how many prospects, no matter how much money they could have made, no matter how much time they've spent doing that. And that may be a great burden to parents, friends. I mean, I had folks just in the little bit that I had gained on a local level that just hated me. They said, I cannot believe you would just give that up. In other words, they were hurt. They were let down. As far as a music career, You can make a general application that we should all be ready to forsake anything or anyone that puts you in a position to choose between it and obedience to the Lord. But the Lord is not walking around on this earth at this point. He does not command every individual Christian to walk away from your job, to walk away from your business, to walk away from these things. There might come a time when He does call you to walk away from it, when you can no longer keep it and be obedient to the Lord. But these 12 disciples had a specific ministry to travel around Israel as His disciples, His apostles and evangelists. Were every one of these specifics, these historical specifics, are they all? 100% in full applicable to us today? No. No. He says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Okay, follow Jesus. Be obedient to the Lord Jesus. He'll make you fishers of men. Go soul winning. Use your job to go soul winning. When you get off from your work, go soul winning. But that's not exactly what it said. It's talking about people that were coming and following the Lord around Israel. They weren't going to Tokyo or anything at that point. At that point they were following the Lord around Israel and they left their nets to do so. But now just turn a few pages over. Actually, before we do that, look at Mark 5. What's different between that and what he told Simon and Andrew? Simon and Andrew says, no, you're coming with me. We're going to walk around Israel together. You're going to follow me. Leave your nets." This man, he said, go back home. He even said, I want to follow you. He says, no, no, you're not going to do that. Obviously, there's a way he should follow him. But he says, no, I want you to go back home to your family, to your friends. Go witness to them. That's your job. When you read about Lazarus and Martha and Mary, oh, the Lord loved them. They were his friends. He would eat in their house all the time. But were they disciples in the same way that John and Peter were? No, never says that. Never says that. They were followers of the Lord. In one sense they were disciples, but they weren't like the twelve apostles. Were they ever told to leave their houses? Never. Never. Herod had an officer, a steward, and he had a wife, and she was rich. And she came and gave a lot of money to the Lord. He never told her, hey, leave what you're doing. She was married. Was everybody that believed on the Lord required to leave their jobs? No. Peter was called to leave his nets and follow the Lord as a special disciple, as you see in Matthew 4. But he always ends up back fishing again. Whether right or wrong, he ends up a lot of times back fishing. Now one thing you need to know about Peter, he was married. How did he manage the situation of being married but yet being a special disciple? We're not told. You're not given any specifics of how he managed that. To some degree it was a sacrifice for that time when he was walking when the Lord was on the earth. But notice, that's Matthew 4, I call Peter, the Lord calls Peter, and you see Peter being called. Then a few chapters later, in Matthew 8, Jesus said unto the centurion, that's a Roman centurion, go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. Why didn't he call the centurion to forsake everything? to leave his job, to leave his family. He didn't. He didn't do that. There's many people the Lord didn't call to do that, but they were believers, they were followers in one sense. But notice next verse, and when Jesus was come into Peter's house, Peter's house, By four chapters ago, He called Peter to leave everything. But now Jesus is going into Peter's house and He saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever. And He touched her hand and the fever left her and she arose and ministered unto them. We learn from Mark that Peter and his brother own this house. His family is in this house. His wife is in this house. His mother-in-law is in this house sick. Jesus comes into the house. He heals the mother-in-law. We do not know to what degree or in what way or how often Peter dealt with his wife during his special ministry of three years. But I'll tell you one thing. He was never called a divorcer. I'll tell you one thing. To some degree, he took care of his family. And I'll tell you another thing. Catholics call Peter the first pope. But they say every priest and every... Nobody's supposed to get married, see, according to... If you're a priest, you're not to be married. Their popes aren't to be married. Well, here's Peter. Peter was married. That's some confused mess that Catholics do. He was never called to leave his wife in an absolute sense. Never. So whatever you make of the Lord's words, there is a balance, there is a tension here that we have to see. There might come a time when there will be a separation and as a Christian you do have to give up a husband or a wife for the kingdom of God's sake, for obedience to the Lord. But what is that situation? Chapter 7, Paul explains it for us. Isn't the Bible beautiful? How it just comes through and says, okay, we're going to clarify this for you and help you see. If you don't already see the tension here, we're going to straighten it out for you here. If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And a woman which hath a husband that believeth not, if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. See, sometimes you only get the idea that somebody really wants to get rid of this unbeliever, but a lot of times you might have a Christian that says, no, I love my wife, I love my husband, and they might be willing to change their Christianity. They might be willing to hide their light and compromise to keep their husband or keep their wife. No, no, they're not to do that. They're to stay obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. They're to stay obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then if the other spouse says, I'm not going to stay here like that, you choose between me or your Christian life. That's horrible. Now you're in a position. Hey, it might not be your wife. It might be your job that puts you in the same situation. You like your job? You like the money you got? Guess what? You're gonna choose between your religion and God. I mean, and the job. The job wants to be your God. Let her not leave him. So whatever the Lord meant, you are not directly to say, as some people have told me, When I was a young pastor, God's called me to leave my wife to go serve Him. Somebody's reading something wrong in the Bible, friend. God didn't tell you that. You're reading something wrong. Paul never got the message because he wrote a whole lot of Christians and said, husbands love your wives. He didn't say leave them, did he? No. And somebody else got the wrong message. There's a lot of cults that got the wrong message, because Ephesians 6 says, Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. And Paul, by the way, makes an accommodation here to apply it to everybody in all places, not just the land of Israel. That your life may be long on the earth, says Paul. The original promise said the land, talking about the land of Israel. Honor thy father and mother. Now hold on a second. There's biblical teaching that honor your father and mother doesn't mean deny God to make them happy. It doesn't mean be lukewarm, be a compromised Christian so you can stay in fellowship with them. No, doesn't mean any of that. Doesn't mean compromise your Christianity. It means in every way you possibly can, adorn the doctrine of God and His gospel by saying, mom, father, family member, in any way possible, I'm gonna love you, but I'm not gonna compromise Jesus for you. Paul says, in Timothy, if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. The faith, the faith that came from the Lord Jesus Christ. So did God, did the Lord want you to not take care of your family members? No. When your parents get elderly, bring them to where you're at. It didn't say you're to leave your life and go to where they are. No, go get them and bring them to where you're at and take care of them. That's what I've done. And he said, I've got to leave the ministry so I can go to South Carolina and take care of my father. Oh, I might take a trip down there, but I'm not going to just go there and leave what I'm called to do. I'm not going to leave my church. No, Papa, you're coming with me. Notice some verses from Matthew 19 as we close. Now remember, it was in Matthew 19 that Peter said, Lord, we left off. Well, let's go back and read the top of the chapter. I say unto you, says the Lord Jesus, whoever shall put away his wife, except to be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery. Isn't that a strange place to see that preaching? And then a few verses later, you're going to interpret that to mean you're to divorce your wife for the Lord Jesus? You're to divorce your husband? You're to deny your parents? That's a strange thing. He's telling you, don't divorce, don't divorce, stay married. And there was this rich young ruler and he said unto him, the Lord said, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God. But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments. He's talking about after you're a believer. Talking about the everlasting life of the kingdom, the fullness of life. He said unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and mother. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Isn't it strange? The Lord said, Honor your parents. But then he comes down and tells you nobody's forsaken parents. Nobody's left parents for the gospel's sake. I think we're misunderstanding what the gospel's saying. It means don't compromise, doesn't it? It means don't compromise. Don't compromise to keep your wife. Don't compromise to stay in relations with your family. Don't compromise. But when it doesn't entail compromise, love them! Honor them! Right here in the same chapter! Just so you can't get confused. But then you come down a few verses later, Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast. Did he tell that to everybody? No, he didn't. Is there in some sense that you ought to give to the poor all the time and do what you can? Of course. But are you to sell everything? Did he tell everybody? Did he tell the centurion? Did he tell the woman that was taking care of him and giving him offering? Did he tell? No. Everybody was not told this. There's a moral way that we all have been told this, but there's not an ultimate, absolute historical way. He was calling that man to sell everything, give to the poor, thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. He didn't tell everybody to do that, but he told this man, knowing that the man wouldn't though. And when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possession. Wow. This man was called into personal discipleship with the Lord's ministry as he walked throughout Israel. Then answered Peter and said unto him, after you're told not to divorce, after you're told to honor your parents, behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee, what shall we have therefore? Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me. In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, that's the second coming, the millennial kingdom, you shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Wow! That's amazing! Just for being His personal disciple and walking around suffering some sacrifices, doing some things, He's going to receive this. And everyone that had forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life." Let me close with one last verse for you, okay? Paul, in the first epistle to the Corinthians, let's know what he says. Have we not power, the right, to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles? That means just like the other apostles do? And as the brethren of the Lord? And as Cephas? Cephas is Simon Peter. Paul's saying that Barnabas and I, do we not have the right to not only receive support from you, but enough support to take care of our family if we had it. Do I not have the right to go get married and be supported? So according to Paul, not only Peter, But the brethren of the Lord that had been made disciples, as well as all the other apostles, or most of them, were married men. And all the work they did, they did while they're married, never leaving their spouses. They might leave for a trip or something, but they lead them about, meaning for most of the time these wives came with them in their gospel work, in their ministry. Peter never left his wife. So I'm trying to show you there is this tension between the two extremes. Never let any family member compromise your Christianity. Don't compromise your Christianity for any family member, for any money, for any business, for any job. But once you get that straight, Love your family in every way you can. Have relationship with them in every way you can. Shine your light to them. Do good unto them. Love them. Honor them. Let them know they're loved. Amen.