Father, thank you for your word. Your word that instructs us, a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. Such a dark world. This topic, there's so much darkness, but Lord, you direct us through your word. So help us, Father, to have our minds renewed, to be faithful, to love our wives, to be an example and a model and how we handle these very intimate and delicate issues. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, brothers. Physical intimacy, sex. I don't even know if I said that word last time. I think I was maybe timid to say it. That's what we're discussing. So last time what we did, just to recap, we looked at the sad fact that we have been taught by the world, primarily. Our education, when it comes to sex, when it comes to the marriage bed, did not come from the Bible, did not come from our fathers sitting down with us, with a Bible open, taking us through, educating us, God's plan, God's design, the reason for this, the big picture. At least at the last time, everyone was here, nobody had that testimony. Either of y'all have that testimony? No. So we had a very sinful education, right? And then our experiences, aside from one of us, my brother Greg, none of us were virgins when we got married. Again, has that changed with the new people we have? Any virgins? You were all, praise God, you too. Wow, amen, so we got four. Does that mean, does that mean, Don't wanna put y'all on the spot. Sometimes we don't go all the way, but that doesn't mean we don't have experiences when it comes to these things before marriage, if you understand what I'm saying. We had a sinful education. We had experiences that were wicked as well. The first time you kiss someone, Was it your wife? The things that you learn, these experiences, and then the exposure, we talked about pornography, we talked about this evil exposure to distorted, depraved, just the mindset. And bringing all that in and then entering into marriage, undoubtedly our wives suffered because of all of this baggage that we brought in. and how that is absolutely going to affect this area. To acknowledge we were taught wrong, we experienced things that we never should have, and we were exposed to things that should never be witnessed. take that alone and then add whatever our wives went through from abuse to heartbreak and all the rest, and then you bring that together, there's going to be problems. And the guide, what the Lord intended, is for us to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds through the Word of God on this issue. And the question was asked, you know, how many of you, since you've been married, have sat down with a Bible, with your wife, and have sought to, okay, let's get our minds where it should be. Let's get our minds aligned to the mind of the Lord regarding this issue. I was talking to a brother last night and he said on their drive to their honeymoon the brother printed out the chapter from this book and had his wife read it while they were driving to their honeymoon so that the very things I'm talking about could, in a sense, be undone and redeemed. And you think, wow, what a wonderful idea, right? And he said that it was so helpful and instructive So, that was one of the challenges last time. If you haven't done this, do it. Go do that. We've had some time, and Lord willing, that has been done. The fact that Christ is our example in all things, and the strange notion that when it comes to the issue of sex, it's as though we turn off our Christianity. And what I mean by that is there's no time in the Christian life where we're able to just be driven by our body. There's no other area where we say, I'm just gonna let my body take over. We always say, no, I will be driven by the Lord through his word as I'm thinking of Christ in all that I do, from my speech to my conduct in every area of life. But it's as though when the marriage bed comes in, the idea of Christ and the selflessness of the one who came to not be served, but to serve, how it is often not even brought in to the area. And the challenge was to not do that, to repent of that mindset, not let your body take over. And what was the purpose? The purpose of sex first was to be made one flesh, this joining together of the two main one. And we looked at the First Corinthians passage about the one who joins himself to a harlot, becomes one flesh with her. This act of sex brings two to one, and how that is what we're supposed to be doing in this illustration, this joining, this covenant of one flesh. And then, 1 Corinthians 7, the purpose of sex is to serve our spouse, not to serve ourselves. Our wives have conjugal rights, and we are to see to those rights, see to those needs, see to those desires. We're to be driven by a desire to fulfill her needs, not to get our needs met. That's her focus, and whether she's doing it or not, doesn't change the fact that we have a responsibility, right? You look at 1 Corinthians 7, the very first person who's spoken to is the husband. Husbands, see to it that you give your wife what she's owed. Because your body's not yours, it's hers. So serve her. Serve her. What if I don't get served? Love her, whether she respects you or not. Love her, whether she submits to you or not. Love her, whether she serves you or not, because this is about Christ and not about the get back. And if you serve faithfully, the Lord promises you will be rewarded. He's not slow to forget your labor of love. He is faithful. He will make sure that you are rewarded eternally, greater than anything this world can offer. And Lord willing, your wife is a willing participant to serve you as well. But whether she is or not, Again, following the model and example of Christ, he did not come to be served, but to serve. But you can see how our education, our exposure, our experiences have distorted that, where we're thinking like, hey, I'm out for me. And that does not fly in Christian marriage. So, that's where we stopped last time. So this time, the rest of the chapter really emphasizes the point of knowing your wife. Investigating her is one of the terms that was used. When we were going through Colossians 3, I made a point to To single out the language there, husbands love your wives. Do not be harsh with her. Love your wives. There's a way that your wife likes to be loved. There's a way that your wife understands love. What you do communicates love to her. And do you, I mean, how well do you really know her? You could be, married a hundred years and not know her, right? People live together all the time for years. They pass each other like ships in the night. They're roommates. They don't know one another. Why? Because they haven't done the work of investigation. I want to know you. So brothers, how well do you know your wives, their backgrounds, what they've gone through? this issue of sex and how everything that, look, if everything that we've gone through, our experiences, our education, our exposure, you name it, if that has impacted how we look at and handle and deal with sex, then why would we think anything different when it comes to our wives, right? This is also going to touch them. And knowing what they've gone through as the example of Christ, you can help to wash her with the water of the word, help to bring her out of darkness, how to think of it this way. When it comes to the amount of desire, typically men said in the book, even if it wasn't in the book, we know it. Typically men have a stronger desire for sex than women do. Not all the time, not in every case, obviously, but that's typically the situation. If your wife does not have strong desires, is it a medical reason? Is that something that's even been explored? There are things that can go on inside of a woman's body that can make her not be as desirous. Is it something that she's gone through, some trauma, an area of abuse or some wicked boyfriend from the past who messed her up bad? Or was it a philosophy of this area of sex? Did she grow up in a very super conservative household where they were taught sex is bad, bad, bad? Or did she grow up in a world where dad was looking at Playboy and this, that, and the other, and so it was just nasty, it was distorted, and she wants to know part of that? I mean, what is the philosophy that she grew up with? How has that impacted her? How educated is she on the word of God when it comes to this topic? Does she know all the passages about sexual immorality and the temptation and Proverbs, you know, all the adulterous woman and being careful and flee you for lust and she knows all of that. I need to dress modest. She knows all of that. But does she know anything of the goodness of Does she know anything of the beauty of sex? Does she know anything of the glory of it all? And have you, as her head, done the work of leading her, and shepherding her, and educating her, and teaching her? Again, not so that you can get the goods, but because you love her, and you want to serve her, and you want her to enjoy the fullness of what God has given. You see, that's That's extremely important. What is she like? What is she dislike? What kind of things? Of course, these are not things that we're going to talk about amongst each other because we're going to protect our wives and not expose to each other or the world the particular nuances and flavors that are enjoyed in the bedroom, but this is homework, right? Think of the beauty of this, to sit down with your wife and say, I want to know you deeper than I do. I want to know what you enjoy. I want to know how I can serve you. I want to know what disgusts you or what you don't like, or how can I make this more enjoyable? How can I make this more pleasurable? What can I do? What should I know? so that you can get all the benefits of God's beautiful creation. I'm in this for you. I'm in this to serve you. This is about you. And is there a worksheet? I mean, they have them, right? I remember early in our marriage, I did not take it seriously. So bad, Tawfiq. Previous church, we went to, it was like a marriage conference thing, and they gave us these worksheets, and it had like the human body, right? I had a female one, she had a male one. or actually opposite, and we were supposed to put on there, these are the parts of the body that we like, and this, and if you, this, that, and you know, it was supposed to be a connecting thing. I really didn't take it seriously. Young, being silly, and, um... I miss that opportunity. Since then, thankfully, that's been redeemed, but there are these tools out there, worksheets and things that you can find that are appropriate where you can do this work and sit with her and really get to know her on a deeper level. Investigation. How well do you know your wife? Any thoughts, comments, or questions thus far? When you find those appropriate resources, can you share them with the rest of your group? That way people aren't searching. Sure. Yeah. Typically in marriage books that are written by Christians, they'll have an appendices or things like that where you can do that. In this book itself, they have these questions. But yeah, I'll seek to share that. Yeah. Don't want y'all searching through the sludge on the internet. Any other thoughts or questions or comments thus far? Okay. It's a good reminder of the role of a husband is a very work-related role. There's almost no relaxing in the biblical mandate that being a husband is given. It's do this, do this, do this first. Like in scripture, we see how it's done wrong. In Adam, we see how it's done right. In Christ, Christ was very proactive. And Adam was there. He just stood there. So there's that example in the Bible of if you don't do the things you're supposed to do and you just stand there, then it's not going to work out. But Christ seeks to redeem His bride and make her beautiful and do all of that. And that's an example. It seems like a daunting task, but Christ gave us the perfect example for it and gives us the help to do it. Right. It is a daunting task. It is impossible to be selfless. Brothers, you know, when you are engaged in this beautiful activity, it's extremely hard to deny yourself. It's very easy to just give in and not think about your wife. But there is where we see our limitation and the Lord's infinite resources and almighty power to help us. If you're just relying on your own ability to be self-controlled or to be kind or compassionate, you're going to fail every time. But if you, again, maybe I asked this last time, but how much does prayer come into this discussion at all. I mean, how many of you pray before you go into the bed? How many of you are even praying while you're engaged, silently, inwardly? Lord, please help me to love her. Thank you for her. Thank you for giving me her. Thank you for this enjoyment. Lord, please, you know, help me. You know the thoughts I'm thinking, whatever it is. Prayer, the reliance on the Lord. What verses are in your mind when you are about to engage in this beautiful, glorious creation that God made? Are there any verses at all? Are you thinking biblically? Are you thinking eternally? Are you thinking about Christ? Are you thinking about her soul? You see, so much of our education damages this. Because she's a soul. The world would have you think, no, she's just an object of your pleasure. You may not treat her that way during the rest of the 24 hours of the day. But this hour, she's just an object of pleasure. And once I get my pleasure, once I get my fulfillment, then hey, I'll do what I can. That's not Christ-like. We go in, whether I get anything out of this or not, I'm here to serve you. Because that's Christianity. All that we do, you give, not to get back. You serve, not so that somebody's gonna applaud you and congratulate you. I mean, all that we do, we go evangelize. We pour out our lives for the sake of other people's souls, not expecting any of them to say thank you afterward. And we go away rejoicing, right? Lord, we were able to serve others in your name, and we're grateful for it. And here you have, The daughter of the king, your wife, your sister, your friend, your companion, your helper. I know there's no perfect marriage, and some marriages have more strife and struggles than others. But here she is. She's yours. And you're given the role and responsibility to shepherd her. And in this area, it's no different. In fact, what we were talking about is how much more This area creates so many problems. And when this is wrong, it seems like everything is wrong. But what he was saying is the marriage bed is actually a good indicator of how the marriage is. Would you all agree with that? Of course, you'll find exceptions, right, to the rule. There can be all kind of things that might, exceptions and all, but by and large, if you are loving your wife, and none of us loves perfectly, we're all failing at loving perfectly, but we, our aim, I love that language, right, the aim, Aim of our charge is love. We are aiming for love. We're aiming for the love that is Christ-like. We fall short, but that's what we're aiming. If you are aiming at loving your wife and serving her and listening to her throughout the day. He was talking about preparing your wife. He used the illustration of the preheating the oven. You'll get that, right? Those of you who bake, you know that you don't just turn on the oven and throw the food in there. You have to let the oven warm up so that the atmosphere is ready to receive what you put in. And likewise, our brother was counseling us that that's many, a lot like how our wives work. Does anybody have that quotation there? Might be helpful. Sorry, I usually have the page number written down, but... Well, if somebody finds it, please read it for us. OK, good. 152. Want to read it? Okay, on the other hand, women are typically aroused by touch rather than by sight. More time is typically needed as well. To use a helpful analogy, their passion works more like an oven that must be preheated. It has been documented that many women have to think about the prospect of sex for a while before they have any physical reaction. Now, brothers, this is foreign to you, right? This is like, what is that you've been talking about? This is strange. This is probably your wife. Put yourself in her shoes. Think of it. Think of all that it takes to get to the place where you would like her to be at. Maybe she would like to be more like you, just able. A woman may have difficulty being aroused if she is tired, slightly ill, troubled by something, or even just distracted by noise. You have children in the house, there's noise. You've got thin walls, there's noise. It would be interesting if we could get inside the head of a man and woman and see the difference in their thoughts about their times of intimacy together. A woman would most likely be thinking in terms of romance and touch, while a man might be thinking in terms of passion and sight. So you take Us, we are very much so sight, right? We're pretty much ready to go pretty quickly. And then we have our wives. It's not like that for the most part. God could have made it easier. He could have made it where we're both the way she is, and we understand the building up and the preheating, or could have been very much, she could have been like us, like a lighter, ready to go. But he didn't. He intentionally made us different and put us in the place of head, leader, so that we could serve and love and push and do all of this for her. Why? So that she could see Christ. So that she could see love. So that she could see selflessness and thereby give glory to the Father in heaven. But let me give a caution here, brother. It's good to preheat the oven, but we need to ask, why am I doing this? Right? So throughout the day, I'm telling you I love you. I'm giving, because he talks about there should be non-sexual touches. Every touch does not need to be leading to the bedroom. Non-sexual touches. Just touching of affection, touching of comfort. Okay, amen. But why are you doing all of that? Is it, I'm doing this so that you will give me what I want at the end of the day, and I know the only way to get what I want at the end of the day is if I do all this preheating stuff, so I'm gonna do all this preheating stuff so I can get what I want at the end of the day. Well, that's just as selfish as not doing it. Versus the mindset of, I am doing all this preheating because I know this is what it takes for you to get to the place where you can enjoy this, and I want you to enjoy this. All of my behavior is for the sake of you being comfortable and at peace so you can enjoy, because I want to serve you. Same actions, different motives. And you can see where your heart is at the end of the night when she's not interested. I'm willing, but I'm not really interested. And you're like, after all that I did? I've been, and I've been, and I, and I, and I. And now we see who was the focus, I. Again. Does your wife have responsibility to see to your needs? Absolutely. Does the Bible command her to submit? Absolutely. She's commanded to not deprive. She has commands, and before the Lord, she stands or falls. But there's no women here. This isn't the excellent wife. This is the exemplary husband, and we're the head, and we're in charge, and we're the lead, and so we set the tone. whether they respond or not. And that's hard, right? I mean, is that hard for anybody else when what you feel should be the response is not the response? But there's where our heart is exposed. Questions, pushback, comments, other verses, anything at all? We both have to kind of work through that and get beyond it, but we probably interpret that stuff as being like negatively. That's right. And exactly what you just said, brother, is one of the causes for marital strife is we think the worst of each other. We can all be tempted or maybe we've all fallen into it where you do take she's not interested as there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not as good at this as I thought I was. Maybe she doesn't enjoy this as much. Maybe she doesn't like me. Maybe she's thinking of someone. I mean, you can go a bunch of different places and it has nothing to do with that. Her heart is so far from that that it's heartbreaking for her to even hear you think that way. and vice versa, you know, if she's looking at you like, oh, that's all you want, that's all you think about, you're just, well, no, this is how God made us. So if we come here and even read this chapter with your wife, as the brother I was referencing earlier did, I mean, how helpful can that be that we say, oh, because they don't know what it's like to be a man, right? They have no experience. But we can be the ones who open up the Word and instruct them on this area, and that would allow for so much freedom if we both know this is the situation. The enemy would seek to keep us from doing that and knowing that. Yeah, I agree. That was extremely, extremely helpful. Turn to Proverbs 5. And after this, I was hoping that we could do some questions, maybe we'll have some, because pretty much we've covered the big picture of the chapter. And I don't want to spend a year looking at leaves if we get the whole forest. And a lot of this is going to be you talking to your own wife about these things in the details, which I don't feel would be appropriate for me to do here, unnecessary. But if there's questions, certain things, certain questions, I would love to put our minds together and open up the word Proverbs 5, 18. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely dear, a graceful doe, let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her breasts fill you with delight. What I'd like to push you towards is rejoicing and delighting in your wife. Something that can happen after the honeymoon, kids come, job, routine, life gets boring. And the idea of romance, if you will, or pursuing her, or the whole thing that y'all were enjoying in the early years, or even when you were courting or dating or whatever y'all did, you can look around and say, well, what happened to that? We're so busy, everything is going, we got this, I got that, we're doing what we gotta do, and by the end of the day, y'all are both exhausted, but the Lord would have us delight and rejoice in our wives. And if you find, as you search your own heart, examine your own heart, you have respect for her, you have love for her, you appreciate her, you can find all these different adjectives, but delight? You may say, do I delight in her? Am I excited to see her? When I'm driving home, am I thinking, I can't wait to see her. I've been thinking about her all day. I'm rejoicing because I'm going to be able to see her. Not because she's all dolled up, but because I love this woman that God has given to me. And if you examine your heart and you find, I don't really feel that, then I would bring you here and say, brothers, pray for this. Pray that God would do this for you. Pray that he would stir up your heart with more delight and more love and examine your life and see, is there anything that I'm doing that may be actually dulling my senses to her? sexual immorality in any way, second looks, pornography, doesn't even have to be pornography, just inappropriate things that you're putting before your eyes will absolutely cause you to lose delight in her. That'll do it. Conflicts that are not resolved quickly. hearts get hard, bitter, you begin to see possible to even despise one another. Do not let the sun go down upon your anger. Give no place to the devil. You want to keep short accounts. You don't want to let things linger. You don't want to let things go. You don't know necessarily what's going on in her heart, but if there's something in yours, deal with it. If you can't let it go, deal with it. If you can't just forgive it, just deal with it, go to her, talk about it. But this delighting, rejoice in the wife of your youth. When was the last time you rejoiced in the wife of your youth? The Lord is able to give you this. He can give you this. He wants you to have this. You have not because you ask not, perhaps. So enjoy her. Delight in her. Investigate her. Talk to her. Sit down with her. Repent, if need be. And this is not going to be a CLEP class, right, where you can just kind of take a quick test. No, this is going to be a doctorate degree of you learning her. getting to know her. And you know what? You may sit down with her, and she may say, I don't know. I really don't know. But how enjoyable will it be to find out together as you explore and investigate? Ultimately, brothers, it's about being like Christ. It's about following his example. It's about looking to him. And when he was in the most intense physical suffering, I know so much gets put upon the spiritual suffering that he went through, absolutely, but he also suffered physically. God didn't just pour the wrath upon Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was crucified. He went through the physical suffering of crucifixion. It was real. He was a real man. In the midst of His most intense physical suffering, He was thinking of others. He was thinking of you. So as you are dealing with the physical difficulty of self-denial in the area of sexual enjoyment, think of Christ, look to Him. Same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in your mortal bodies, gives you power to say, I can put myself on the back burner and serve her. This is so intense. I mean, the physical thing I'm feeling is so intense. There's no way that, yes, there is a way. The Spirit of God is able to give you power to put yourself last and put her first. Everything we do, brothers, is supposed to be different than the world. And this is no different. This is no exception, rather. OK, what questions, if any, do you all have? One thing you mentioned, it's about having kids. And let's say you want to get away with your wife, take her out for dinner. And I feel like they have, like, The idea of having a babysitter babysit my children is, I don't know, I don't see it in the Bible. You don't see babysitters in the Bible? I don't see babysitters in the Bible. OK. How, um, how does, like, um, do that in the family? Like, first of all, we don't have family here. When we were in Florida with families, we can say, hey, auntie, the kids are with you for a couple of hours. Yeah, that's where I was going, but one of the things you want to do is investigate your wife, right? there's a level of discomfort that she's gonna have with leaving her children with anybody, even in the church. Everybody in the church necessarily doesn't bring your wife to the level of comfort as some others. So, okay, what is the hesitancy? Let me understand. Let me know what it is that you're battling with. What are your fears? What are your concerns? Are there any names that you feel comfortable with? Because brothers, we gotta help each other. As we wanna delight in our wives, serve them, we're gonna need each other. If we don't have children old enough to watch siblings, then there's us. We can look out for each other. Hey brother, gladly, and you know what? I wanna take mine out next week. You think we might be able to? Yeah, and we do this as we seek to help one another and to have this community of of this very thing can be extremely encouraging. I know one brother, he didn't even like the language of date, because he felt like that was worldly. And his wife didn't want to go out. But just to put the kids to bed, and they have their own time in the house, hey, you got to investigate your wife, right? But you can have a picnic in the backyard, You can take a walk around the neighborhood. There's a lot of things that you can do if you're creative. And if you're not creative, you can ask different brothers in the church who may be more. But it's this investigation to find out. You absolutely do have family here. Yeah, I think that the only thing is that I feel like This is me, I actually surely would love to like, hey, call Wendy or someone she's not comfortable with, or Miss Maria, or like, let them have the kids. I'm like, we're putting our responsibility on them, let's not do that. I'm always the one trying to like, hey, we need to be loving towards them too, but at the same time. But the loving thing to do is to allow people to by being obedient. So question, is it better to give or to receive? Who said that? So it's better to give. So if there are people in the church who want to follow Christ and give and you say, no, I don't want to let you give, but I'll watch your kids so you can receive. And this is my problem, too, so I can relate. I have a difficulty letting people serve me. We are depriving. We're robbing people of the opportunity to do what's better. It's great to receive, but it's better to give. So your wife is right. No, of course, you don't, you take the advice from the proverb, don't let your house be, don't let your foot be constantly in your neighbor's house, right? You can wear out your welcome so you don't want to exhaust that every weekend. Hey, you're going to watch my kids again? Okay. But with balance and diversity, right? Sharing the load. Many hands make light that load, so. That's good That's hilarious, yeah Luke 2, 44, but supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey, but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. So there you go. Acquaintances. Any other questions? What's the youngest legal age that you can leave your kids at the house? Texas has different laws than most places, so you can leave your kids actually pretty young in Texas. Physical intimacy. Any other thoughts or questions? Man, I thought y'all would have had more. I remember we kind of touched on this once in the early stage of looking through this book. And there was so many questions about, what about this? What about that? So I was certain y'all were going to have some. That's good. I guess you all just investigate with your wife, and you already have your answers. I have some questions outside of the topic. Oh. It's related, like how to educate your kids, like the aging. Very good question. Yeah, that's definitely on topic. Because we don't want to repeat what we did, right? So, hmm. My recommendation is to begin talking with your children as early as possible about sex according to their age. using, so here's something that we had happen. We encouraged our children, read the Bible, cover to cover. So, Bible starts in the Old Testament, does not take very long before they're saying, what does it mean he knew her? I mean, he knew her, he lay with her, he took her. I mean, they're reading the Bible, right? This is not, they're looking at some craziness. The Bible, it prompts questions. If you just send your children to read the Bible, they're gonna come with questions. And so if you think ahead and say, okay, I know they're gonna read this, so I'm going to set them up for success rather than failure. We want our children to know. Now, Adonai and Isaiah, I waited until probably about a month ago, to talk with them both because there was concern and will it be too much and we don't want to put thoughts in their heads and don't want to wake in love before time and all that. I would not recommend waiting until your son is 14 to talk to him about these things. But yeah, there's ways to talk to a two-year-old That's going to look different from a 12 and a 16 and so forth. But what we want to do is we want to get ahead of the world because they're coming and they're not even, there was a time when it was more subtle. And now it's not even, they're gonna just talk to our children about sex. They're gonna talk to our children about homosexuality and all other kinds of depravity, and it's gonna be thrown at them, like, just walking down the street. You're at H-E-B, you're not even there. Your wife is with your kids, they're at H-E-B, and here are two men in front of them, one's dressed like a woman, they're kissing each other, and your children are like, what is this? What? They look to the left and here's a magazine cover. What is that? I mean, you can't get away from it. So we have to get ahead of the world to set our children up in the context of the Word of God so that they are prepared and equipped and aware of what God says. Now, I don't believe in putting graphic images in the minds of little children. I don't think that's necessary. I don't think that's helpful. But I do think that there are things that can be shared. For example, I'm trying to think of some examples. Okay, brother. Grace to you. One thing I was going to say is that inventing story. Like, I remember very young, I'm like, hey, how did you get pregnant? How did you have it? And that's, she told me, like, a main village story that stays with me until this day. She's like, I put some white beans in the fridge, I ate it after three days, and then I got pregnant. White beans. They have to be white beans. How'd you come out brown then? She was like, hey, I'm going to marry daddy. Jojo, you're going to marry mommy. And then she realized, oh, we are your children. We cannot marry our parents. So I'm going to marry you, Jojo. No, I cannot marry you. You're my brother. And I'm like, yeah, there is a time in life, the Lord, first of all, One of the things we taught our children very young is the purpose for their private parts, I was trying to think of another word. It's for using the restroom, cleaning yourself, and it's for your husband or your wife. That's what God gave it to you. And you don't know what that means, but I'm just giving you the big picture of this is what it's for. And what are we trying to do? Keep them away from the thought of, this is to play with. This is to conduct scientific experiments, which is what some parents tell their children. Nope. This is for restroom, cleaning, marriage. Do you have a wife? Do you have a husband? Nope. So if you're not doing these two things, there's no other purpose. So just giving them, because they have bodies, they're looking at them and they want to know, what is this for? Why do I have what I have? And so we build upon that as they get older and by the time we sit down and have the talk, they're already somewhat aware, right? I think it was a couple of years ago, trying to sit down and kind of go through some of the detailed mechanics and how all this stuff works. Brooklyn especially, I don't know how old she was, but she already knew. She's like, I already know all that. We're like, how do you know all that? She's like, because she was getting into, she wanted to be a vet. So she's watching all these documentaries on animals and her dogs being weirdos. And she already knew what the mechanics of it was. We have surprises that she can do, like some of the, I guess you'd say some of the basics is how this stuff works, but they're not dumb, you know, like they figure it out pretty quick. So yeah, better to preemptively strike, you know, and I'm assuming like the earlier the better. because I think a lot of the problem comes from just like curiosity, you know, like, you know, especially as a kid, you're just like wondering stuff. So, you know, we had internet already, which was bad. So we were like trying to learn, figure stuff out and just, but if you take the curiosity out early, you know what I mean? They already know what it's for. It's not so much like they're wondering, they already know. Hopefully that might, you know. Yeah. And monitor what goes in. All things are not good to show your children, and they can stir up thoughts, they can stir up emotions, feelings. I'm not going to tell you what to have in your DVD library or stream service, but consider what goes in, affects you. You know that very well yourself, because you've been affected by what's gone in. So just be mindful of that as well, because those things are teaching. They are preaching. They're instructing. And so, just be aware of that as well. Little House on the Prairie. I guess just another level of life. Maybe kids being raped and things like that happens in the later seasons. It wasn't like it was getting so much more liberal. I think it was just getting a little more mature in the content. But like you said, the Bible talks about that. It's not like it's something kids don't need to be aware of. I think they do need to be aware of that for their own safety. So they kind of are careful sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, children, you know, saying things like, I'm thinking of your children, brother, as they're memorizing or have memorized some of them, the Sermon on the Mount. And here's Jesus talking about adultery, looking with lust. You know, okay, well what's adultery? And what do they know about mommy and daddy? They know mommy and daddy sleep in the same bed. They know mommy and daddy kiss one another. They know mommy and daddy are able to see one another without clothes. They know that already. So adultery is doing those things with somebody else who's not your man. You don't even have to go and open up their minds to these graphic things. Just take what they already see, already know, and use that. Again, we're just trying to build off of that. Yeah, when you're dealing with these mature issues, like Dinah is raped very early in the Bible, and it's an outrageous thing to defile. What does that mean? So you can build off of those things using what they already know. Rape is where you force somebody to act like they're your spouse. You're forcing them. They're not your spouse. They didn't sign up for this. And you're making them. And now you can use that to teach them. So should you ever put your hands on someone else? Should you ever? This is that. These are some things that we've done that have been helpful. Alright. Anything else, brothers? Alright, let's pray. Father, You know us. You know our marriages. You know what they're really like. You know our wives, even Brother Carlos here, desire to be married. You know his journey as a single man seeking to glorify You and all that he does in this time that he has as you're trying to prepare to be a husband. Lord, You know it all. You know what we're all going through. You know what we deal with. You know our struggles. You know the battles. And Lord, You, more than anyone else, know the commands. You know what Your Word says about sex. Father, we want our minds to be aligned to Yours. We want our hearts to beat like Yours does. We want to serve and love our wives in this area like Christ. So we ask you to help us, give us humility, give us more grace, give us more of your Spirit, give us eyes that see Christ in all things, that we wouldn't tell Him to wait outside the bedroom until we are finished, but that He would be glorified in the way that we surrender our own desires for the sake of our wives. Lord, may the marriage beds in our church be as You intended. In Jesus' name, Amen.