on now. I'm ready to go. Well, it's good. I enjoyed being here today, and I enjoyed going out to eat today, and I enjoyed taking a nap this afternoon. Amen? But I just want to ask you, I won't talk about the materials. Most of you have seen or heard us talk about the materials that are out there, and if you would like to forward yourself to them, and maybe some of them will be a blessing to you. But what I really like for you to do, if you stop by the table somewhere tonight, we've got, they're kind of a prayer card slash track that we carry with us. There's a bunch of them on the table. If you take those, put it on your refrigerator someplace, something, pray for us. Our ministry, again, it's called Faith and Family. And we just pretty much just kind of stay on the road. We call North Carolina home right now, but we left there about three months ago. And about another week and a half, I think, something like that, we'll get to go back there to what we call home for about two days. And then we'll continue on from there. But so we're just on the road traveling, and we need your prayers. We need travel mercies and safety as we travel. And just need you to pray that God will continue to do what he has been doing. And that's just take care of us along the way and help us to hopefully be a blessing to families all over the nation as we're traveling. And so I want you tonight, if you go to Proverbs chapter 22, you can go there and just right there, you can turn there, mark that, and then go to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, we're gonna look. If I get this right. Alright, so mark your place in Proverbs chapter 22 and then Romans chapter 10. And let me get to it myself. There we go. I have a word of prayer, and I'll get started. Father, I pray that you bless tonight. Lord Jesus, thank you for your love. Thank you for your goodness, and thank you for your mercy and grace to us. Now, Lord, I pray that again, as I always ask, that you give me strength of body and clarity of mind, as I need it desperately. And Lord, I need your strength and your power and your wisdom to be able to help somebody tonight, please. In Jesus' name, amen. The message I'm going to preach tonight is, I call it Seven Secrets to a Solid Family. And I know we have all kind of levels here and some of you, you know, some have never had children, some are not married in here, some are, you know, maybe going to get married eventually down the road, hopefully. And some, you've been married quite a while and your kids are grown and some of you have grandchildren. And just as a little bit of disclaimer, what I'm going to say, the principle I'm going to say, it applies to just the marriage itself, it applies to the family, the children, the things that I'm going to talk about tonight. But also, we've got to understand that we, in the grandparent stage, we still have a great influence. We have a great opportunity of influence. Don't just look at it and say, well, you know, that's not me. I don't have, or maybe you don't have grandchildren. You say, well, I have no children at home. I have no grandchildren. But I've seen a few children around this place. And so you still have an opportunity to influence and to help young people and to help in their lives. Also say this I may end up saying something tonight that you may look and you think Well, we didn't know that and we didn't do that and that makes me feel bad or that's not the purpose what I'm gonna say tonight at all There'll be one point where I'll get to it and I'm gonna I'll be honest with you I've had to face the reality as I've traveled and preached that some people feel like well, you know you I feel like you're kind of I beating me up now because my kids are grown and maybe you may have somebody that's estranged and away from God and this may be hard for you. And you look at it and you think, well, I didn't know or maybe you may feel like, well, is that my fault? That's not the purpose of what I'm gonna say. The fact is, is that I had to look at it and we had to realize if we have a place that's an error, so to speak, or where we struggle as families, We got a couple of choices. We either just say, well, I don't want to deal with it, which means our children will continue to do the same thing. Or we just face it and say, okay, this is something we failed in or this is something we struggled in, but we've got to look and tell the next generation so they don't make that same mistake. And so that's all I'm going to try to do tonight and try to be a blessing to you to help you. We are not, I'm not claiming to be experts. I'm not claiming to be perfect. We're so far from it is ridiculous. Everything that I'm going to talk about tonight. are the things that people began to ask me probably about 15 years ago. Our girls were starting to, you know, get in their older teen years and come into college and things like that. And people started asking us. They saw that they seemed to love us and seemed to love the Lord and seemed to love each other and And people started looking and saying, just explain to us, what's going on? What's going on with you and your family? You and your wife seem to be getting along. You and your children seem to be happy. Not perfect, but you seem to be doing okay. So tell us what you've done. What we did was we started giving answers to that 15 years ago and started saying, well, we look back at our life and here's some things that we did. Now, what we look back at, we can't say that 35 years ago, we said, Beth and I said, this is what we're going to do and our kids will turn out. This is what we're going to do and our marriage will be good. No, we look back on it now and through the grace of God, he allowed some things to happen in our lives. He allowed us at some crucial points to make some decisions that when I look back at my daughter about two weeks ago, one of them called me and she said, dad, a certain thing that you and mom did when we were teenagers, she said, I honestly felt like it made a huge difference in us turning out for God. And we didn't come to that point and just say, well, we're gonna do this and it's gonna make our kids turn out. It just, praise God, he allowed us to make that decision at the time. And I don't know, honestly, I couldn't put my finger on everything. So I'm gonna just jump right in. Romans chapter 10, there's a couple of words in verse two. We'll look at verses one and two. It says, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. And look at verse two, it says, for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Now look at that passage, and it's not the direct application here, but those two words just are resting my attention. excuse me, some time ago, and let me get to my water here, amen. And I saw those two words and I began to think, those two words really describe the Christian life, the progression or maybe even a digression of the Christian life. You see, when I first got saved, I was at Memphis State University and I told the preacher today, it was in the 70s and if you can imagine, when I met my wife, I had an Afro, Amen. I had a big beard. It wasn't a little tight afro, it was a big afro. If you shake your head, it goes katush, katush, katush. I had a black pick in my back pocket with a fist on it, amen. If somebody didn't like my afro, I took out the black pick, stuck it in there and go. All you can see is some teeth barely out between my mustache. It was a thick beard, so I'd lift my mustache and eat. And if I dropped it too quick, I eat that later. And y'all don't understand that, do you? I was getting a drink of water one time, and the water fountain, and I turned around, and a guy started talking to me. And about 10, 15 seconds later, all of a sudden, the water finally made its way through my beard and started dripping out. And he looked at me and goes, hey, man, you sprung a leak. You know what I mean? And so, you know, that's kind of where we came from. But when I got saved and then eventually got in church and started to grow and even got called to go to Bible college, I knew nothing. I knew nothing about how to dress. I knew nothing about, I didn't really ever wear a suit and tie. You know, I went to Northwest Indiana and I went to college. They had to, you had to have a suit and tie on and I had a leisure suit and tie. Anybody know what a leisure suit is? Y'all don't know, poor things, you don't understand real class. But leisure suits from the 70s, got lapels come out to here, and it's an open collar shirt with its, you know, collar comes out to here, and you wear flared pants and stacked shoes with it, you know? And so I didn't want to wear the stacked shoes because, you know, I've got to be appropriate, so I wore my cowboy boots. And so I'm in there with a towel and a big enough to choke a mule. And, you know, because I didn't know how to tie it either. And I got, you know, this leisure suit. So I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything about the Bible, knew nothing about anything. But I can tell you what I didn't know is a bunch of old boys who were going to college back then like me. And they're like me. I was in my mid 20s there in the mid 20s, 30 years old. We knew nothing. I mean, guys come in in their suit and work boots and they're coming, you know, just any way they they can. And they're getting whatever, you know, suit and tie, shirt and tie, you know, one little guy came up to me one day and I had my white shirt on, I was so proud of it. He walked up to me, he said, you know, if you wear a t-shirt, your shirt'll look whiter. And I said, my shirt's white. He said, man, he said, I didn't want to tell you, he said, but he said, man, without a t-shirt, you look like you got a mohair sweater on under there. So I said really, you know, he said it looks like it's crawling, you know So I I I didn't know any of that stuff, but you know what we do at night. We would go out street preacher We'd go out to a place called state and state line where the the state line of Illinois in Indiana And it was just bars and joints and everything and we'd go out and win people to Christ all through the night We didn't know we were doing really but we had a zeal and so what what happens is you have a zeal of but no knowledge. And really, it's not a horrible place to be. Everybody that first gets saved, first gets in church, that's kind of where you are. You're in, you got saved, you're excited about it, and people say, man, what happened to you? I don't know, but it's good. That's about how you know. And so you got a zeal, but you don't have knowledge. And now as you continue to grow, though, in church, you listen, you grow, you take notes, you study your Bible more. Then you go to that next stage of zeal and knowledge. Now, the truth is what we ought to do is stay there, just increasing zeal, increasing knowledge. But what happens is we go past that and go from zeal and knowledge. We go to no zeal, but knowledge. We go to, hey, we've been in church for 10 years now, or five years, or whatever, and, you know, we've kind of, that excitement and that, all that kind of stuff is kind of weighing, and we come, hey, we're gonna be good Christians, so we sit in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, but we never do anything with it. Number one, what I believe helped in my family, and I look back, and I look back to 1985, actually 1986, when I was offered the military ministry of our church, the director of that ministry. Because number one, here's how you have a solid family. Get involved and stay involved in a life-changing ministry. If you're in this church, let me help you. Just bring in your family for the next however many years and letting them sit in church and letting them hear and hear and hear and hear will not make your family turn out for God. What makes them turn out for God is when they know this whole thing is real. And you know how they know it's real? It's when they see lives change. And that ministry, you see, we would go and I would go all day on Saturday, go pick up the boys from the base and then I'd bring them down. My wife would, with my daughters, would be cooking up a meal and we'd feed them that meal and then we'd go play football and basketball and softball with them. And after three or four hours of that, we'd sit them down. a football field or a basketball court or some place and preach to them. Many nights when my girls were little bitty things, they started singing to those sailors. Now, they weren't real good, but it didn't matter. Those sailors would cheer for them and they thought they were incredible. Then a little bit later, those boys, they would raise their hand for salvation and hundreds and even thousands of them. Over 20 years, nearly 40,000 of those boys trusted Christ. And my girls saw that, but it didn't stop there. Then we would take them in the early years, first eight or nine years, we took them to our house. We would take eight or 10 or 12, or the most we ever had was 16 at our house one night. Our girls would all come down in our downstairs basement, in our bedroom, and we'd give the whole upstairs to the boys. And they would see these old rough boys that came in Saturday with that hard look on their face. But now something's different because so many of them are saved. and they're there, and they're having fun, and they get up breakfast Sunday morning. Sunday at church, many, many of them walked out to get baptized. They saw them come out of getting baptized and hug their daddy, and with tears in their eyes said, thank you, Brother Hooker, for what you've done for me, and thank you for this. And then they go home and eat lunch, and then they leave out on Sunday night. And the most common statement we would hear Sunday after Sunday, as those boys get ready to leave Sunday evening and they go to church and they go back to the base, how so many times they would look with tears in their eyes and say, I never knew there was families like this. My girls saw all of that. We were in it so long that we saw him go to the fleet and come back and go to Bible college. We were in it so long that we saw him graduate Bible college and go out into the ministry. We were in it so long that we went to visit their churches and their daddy preached for those boys that got saved in his ministry. You know what they saw? They saw this thing was real. Can I beg you? I know it takes time. You don't have to put the time in. We went all weekend long. I don't think you have to do that. But you need to be involved someplace where your children see that this thing really changes lives. And watch this. Not only do they see it's real, but they see it's real to you. Too much, we sit in here and we sit and we sermon after sermon after sermon and we walk out and nothing changes. Well, you know what that's screaming to your children? Let me, what is screaming to your children, this might as well be coming in and listening to how to dissect a frog. And they don't plan on dissecting a frog. They're never going to dissect a frog. They don't want to dissect a frog. And you're making them one more time, one more Sunday, come in here, sit for an hour and a half or whatever, and listen to some old guy talk about dissecting a frog. And they're never going to do it. And they know you're not going to do it. So why are we doing this? Everybody happy right now? Don't be upset at me now, all right? You need to get involved somewhere, somehow, so that your children see it's real. Number two, never stop believing in each other. Never stop believing in your kids, especially in the struggles. Every young person will struggle. You know why they struggle? Because they're human. You know why they're human? Because they have human parents. They're gonna struggle. Listen to me, I beg you, when they do, they got to know. My girls have struggled, they've hit their hard times, they've hit their hard spots, some of them have been pretty tough. I never was taught this, I don't even know where it came from, but my wife and I looked at them and said, this is hard, we're gonna deal with it, but listen to me, we're gonna get through it. We're gonna, this is what I tell everybody. You say, how'd they turn out, serve God? I said, listen, we just believed in them and we believed that somehow, some way, they were gonna be like a cat thrown off a roof. It may look bad on the way down, but they'll land on their feet. Amen? I'm not saying throw a cat off a roof, but it ain't a bad idea. Anyway, now, number three, kind of connects in there. I just, just this, you put this down. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, love covers. Love covers. Here's what I mean by that. When they fail, yes, they had their hard times. We need to forgive them and let love for them cover and forget it and go on with life. And I don't mean cover up their sin. I'm saying that we've got that love. All through their life, we've got to exhibit that love. We've got to demonstrate that love. We need to be speaking that love. to them so that when they do have that hard time, when they do have those struggles, that they understand, even through it all, it's not just, I believe in you, but I love you. And listen, my heart pours out to you, and we're gonna make it through this thing, and our love is gonna cover it in a sense that I will not let this come between us. Too many people let their pride, even with families and children and in-laws and different things, we allow things to come between us when love needs to say no. Love beareth all things. And listen, they're going to fail you. They're going to mess up. They're going to have their tough times. We need to have love that demonstrated to them that says, I love you so much, we're gonna make it. And listen to this, it's not just love from the parent to the child. If we will teach this, live this, and demonstrate this, it comes the other way. And here's what I mean by that. Have any of you ever messed up in child rearing? Okay, if you did not raise your hand, you're either a liar or have no kids. All right, now. But now, One day I was down in our basement a little house But we had a basement and my wife has sent me a little place to study and I'm down there studying and I heard World War three taking place upstairs And I got six daughters Did you know that girls will fight? They will it's amazing those sweet little things that They'll fight. It's kind of like that little ploy they play when you first go out with them and go buy them something to eat and they can't finish it. Do you want mine? Wait till you marry them. Hey, give me that. I'm just kidding, baby. All right, now. But I came running upstairs, man, chaos going on, World War III, and I have like a 13, oldest is 13, the next one is 12, and the next one is 10. And when I get up there, those three oldest ones, they were tangled up like a spider web. Man, hair and nails and screaming and hollering. And listen, forgive me, I'm a calm, cool, collected kind of guy. Yeah, he's laughing because he knows me. No, I'm not. And I just, I didn't handle it right. You know, you're really supposed to, you know, stop, be calm, speak to them. I just started grabbing, peeling one off, whip my belt off and flap, put her down. Peel the next one off, flap, put her down. Peel the next one off, flap, put her down. Now I'm going to ask what happened. And I went down, you don't look anything like Brooke. I went down and I said, Brooke, what are you doing? No, I said, no, it was Ashley. I said, Ashley, what are you doing? And she said, Heather, hit me. I said, Heather, what are you doing? She said, Ashley, hit me. I said, Brooke, what are you doing? She said, I got here just before you did, Dad. I was trying to break them up. Do you know how you feel right now? They're sitting on that couch. I fell down on my knees in front of her. I just started crying because I'd been a total fool. I'd just been an idiot. I looked at her and I said, I'm so sorry, baby. Your daddy's wrong. I'm sorry. I handed her the belt. I said, you whipped me. Thank God she didn't. But I just said, baby, I'm so sorry. And she taught me one of the greatest truths I've ever learned. That little 13-year-old girl slid out of her chair. She wrapped her arms around my neck. And she said, Daddy, I love you. It's OK. Her love covered my sin. Her love covered my blunder, my mistake. Number four. Number four, purpose to find every way that you can enjoy the Christian life with your children. The years are few and fast. Purpose to find every way that you can enjoy the Christian life with your children. Listen, when you believe strongly what you believe, sometimes we can start saying, no, we can't do that. No, we can't do that. No, we can't do that. Can I tell you, there's a whole lot of things we can do if we're willing to pay the price, if we're willing to do the work. I mean, if we want to do it right, if we want to go the extra mile, we can do a lot of things. Now, I'm not here to preach on standards or do anything like that, but just for illustration, I personally was not going to take my girls to a water park. I just came out of all that mess and I wouldn't go there. I wasn't going to take them there. But now I could either just look at them as they drive past those water parks, look so much fun, I could just look and say, no, we're not going there, bless God, we don't do that. Or I could create my own. We were coming through Northeast Alabama. And you know, why anybody goes to Alabama, I don't know. But we were coming through Northeast Alabama and we came around a curve. I'm telling you, it just, it'll blow you away. We came around a curve and all of a sudden it just opened up like a canyon down through there and a river running down through the middle of that canyon and a bridge was going across that river. It was gorgeous. It was beautiful. I pulled up there close to that bridge and this rapids, it was shallow water, but rapids water was running down. It goes about 200 yards from the bridge on down, and then it goes off about a 40 or 50 foot waterfall. They had a statue of an Indian maiden up there standing there. You read about it. She jumped off that waterfall and killed herself. Now, I don't know why you put a statue up to that, but they did. They had a statue up there. So, we got unloaded, all the girls, we came around. And it came around to the side of the bridge there, and there was a sign that said, do not pass here. So I didn't. I went right here. I never pass where those signs are. I refuse. You can't get through them. And so I went down there. It was a path going down to the river. I went down the river. And Jo Beth took the girls up the river, up there about 100 yards. She put them in that shallow water and turned them aloose. They come flying down to me. I'd catch them, set them up. They go running back up and come again. We made our own water slide. We used to have seven girls. I missed one of them. You know, I just, you got to, we one time, we made nothing all those years working in the ministry. I mean, as far as six kids and our income, but one year we decided, Jo Beth and I, when we were first married and dating and first married, we loved going snow skiing. It's just something we just loved to do. And we always wanted our girls to learn to do it. And so Jo Beth, if you go out onto the table, there's a culotte pattern. Well, she designed that herself. She designed it. If you look at the pictures, it's a picture of snow ski outfits. Why we wanted our girls to go snow skiing, but we wanted them to look sharp while they do it. We wanted them to look feminine while they do it. We wanted them to look appropriate while they did it. So she designed those, and then we went and bought matching jackets for their outfits, the different Kool-Aids that she made for those winter outfits. All the material, everything, matching hats, scarves, everything, and for Christmas, gave it all to them, and we took them snow skiing for Christmas. You know what it take a lot of extra money to do it right but bless God I could just say no we can't do that or let's find a way. And you know your kids need to know that look we work hard but we want to enjoy the Christian life. Number five, know what you believe and why you believe it. Please get this one. Know what you believe and why you believe it. Stick with those beliefs for life and teach your children what you believe and why you believe it. They've done statistics where they say 60 to 80% of the children that grow up in good churches leave church when they become adults, never to return. So many will say they were such a good Christian school kid and then they hit 18 and bam, they're gone. Can I tell you what happened there? So many times this is what happened. They were conforming, they weren't believing. They were conforming, they were not believing. Those two big books that you'll see out there, Your Body's Not Your Own, The Battle for the Body, The Battle for the Mind. Those are written by my wife, but 35 years of what she searched the scripture. And you ladies were with her. I think you may have noticed that she studies. And she searched the scripture and we talked for hours about what we wanted the girls to know and how we wanted them to believe because we knew when they left us to go out into the world, if they didn't believe it, they would not survive. You've got to know what you believe. Got to know what you believe. And notice what else I say there, though. Know what you believe and why you believe it. It's not just, well, that's what I believe. Why do you believe it? Scripturally, why do you believe it? But then listen to this, stick with those beliefs for life. Let me warn you, you got young children in here, you got them in church, you want to do right, you want to be pure, you want them to get to the altar, you want everything for them. Can I beg you now, be very, very careful of this. So many young couples, young children They're doing it right, doing it right, doing it right. They hit 12 or 13, 14 years of age, the children do. And that's when you run to a little bit more issues. A little bit, why can't I do this? Why can't I do that? Everybody else is doing it. And can I tell you, so many times we start to back away and drop our standard there. Once you drop it, there's no going back, folks. And what you told them is, is that you were enforcing just a bunch of meaningless rules, not something that was truly a biblical principle. And let me challenge you, they're not rules and regulations, they're principles of life that will give you a better life. Number six, never give up the fight. I'm not talking about marriage now. You didn't get that, did you? All right. Never give up the fight. Fight for the spiritual life of your family. Fight for your children, your marriage, the sanctity of your home. Listen to this. Too many become weary in well-doing, in child-rearing, in marriage-building. Here's what happens. Again, the kids start to get a little older. Things get a little bit more complicated. I had six daughters. Five of them were teenagers at one time, and one thought she was. And here they are, they're coming to the door. They're going to go to school or going to go to an activity, going to go to church, going to go whatever. There's always that possibility somebody's coming to the door with something too tight, too short, too low, too something. Yep. Okay. Now, it's not always intentional. But I had to let the girls know, and their mama knows this, that I let them know, if I have to turn you around every day the rest of your life here at home, I'll do that. Because I love you too much to let you get hurt. But what happens so often is that we don't want conflict, so we just say, I'll go ahead and do whatever you want to do. When you say, go ahead and do whatever you want to do, What you're saying is I don't love you enough to try to protect you. I told my girls, I'll fight all of hell for you. I will stand. Look, listen, I've been there. They come to the door. One of them's got something that she's, I just, and look, forgive me, I'm gonna say this. I think I didn't do it appropriately, but Jo Beth, I'd have to get Jo Beth. She would tell the girls and explain to the girls, because I didn't want to say it, but what looks okay to a woman is inappropriate for a man to see. And men look differently than women look. You go to a woman, hey, how's, she asks her sister, how's this look? Oh, it looks so cute. She's looking at the colors. She's looking at the style. Men's looking at how it conforms. And I look at my daughter and I say, we can't go. You know what they're gonna do? But daddy, I don't care how many times you stop her, but daddy, we're gonna be late. And I'd say, but girls, there's seven women here, we ain't never been on time. But daddy, just this one time. No baby, if I let you go one time, it's meaningless. And it'd be, but daddy, but daddy, but daddy, it was fine last week, you didn't say anything, but honey, you ate a little too much this week. It don't, all right. Too many times dad's just sitting there behind the paper, you know, and just, ah, go ahead. Because I don't want to fight with it. We got a military in here. Is the country worth fighting for? Hmm. Is it worth fighting for to your last breath? Is it worth fighting for every day that you're out there in battle? Well, I'm in a battle for my family. And they're worth fighting for. Number seven, Proverbs 22.6 is where we're heading. And if you go through the first five verses, they're all about family. We don't have time. I've already, this is hard for me to do all this anyway, but number seven, Proverbs 22.6 says this, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. This verse, when I first got saved and then got in church and we started, you know, we were five months along in our marriage and found out our first little one's coming along 14 months into marriage. We have a little girl. 14 months later, we got another little girl. 20 months later, we got another little girl. And, you know, I could lose track after that. But they just kept coming. Now, I'll be honest with you. From my background, from where I came from, I knew God wanted to use me, but I'll be honest with you, I couldn't see myself doing anything. I couldn't see myself pastoring. I couldn't see myself having a great ministry. I just felt like I would be limited. But one thing that I felt challenged me that I said, like, God, you could do is he could give me a family that could serve God and children that were not limited. They would not have to carry with them what I carry. And that was my dream that my children would live for God and serve God. I looked at that verse and I wanted it to be true. It said train up a child in the way it should go, but I'm sort of an absolutist. I kept saying, Lord, Lord, what if there's a thousand different training principles in the Bible and I do 999 of them and miss one? Am I out now? Do I lose it? And I really struggled, you know, how can I know? I want to know my children are gonna not turn from you, Lord, that they're gonna stay on the path for God. And I'd struggle with it. One man, even a preacher got up and he preached one time. He said, you know, that train up a child means to allow them to go the way they want to go. And if you allow them to go the way they want to go, they won't depart from that. And I thought, man, that don't help me at all. That's just not very encouraging, but I thought, you know, if you can allow them to go the way they want to go and they won't depart from it, how about teaching them how to go and maybe they won't depart from that. But I kept searching. I said, Lord, I got to know, I got to know what this means. I got to know what you're trying to tell me. And so I began to study the word, just word by word of this verse and started defining every word and looking up every word. And he said, Lord, show me. And I, every time when I'm struggling with a passage, I said, Lord, I'll pray. And I said, Lord, show me. And I looked up the word train up and I, and it had several definitions, but one of the definitions said to narrow. Now, I'll be honest with you, when I read that to narrow, that didn't make much sense to me. I thought, Lord, what in the world, you know, to train up mean to narrow. What does it mean? And as I was walking and I was praying, the Lord led me to a verse and just came into my mind, Matthew 7, 14, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life. Narrow is the way you know as I was walking praying one night. I said Lord. How do you narrow away? What do you what does that mean narrow is the way? And it was just so clear the Lord said you narrow it by a hedge or by fence or by barrier And forgive me. That's what the Lord showed me last at that night. It was not perfection and child-rearing Jo Beth come here for a second And listen here, ladies. Every time we go speak someplace, people say, Brother Hooker, you were good, but your wife is incredible. Do me a favor, shut up. All right. Now look, here's what the Lord showed me. He had a plan, husband and wife. And you know what we become? When we have a child, and I need to, where was I and I had about, right over here? How old are you, can you come help me? Maybe? It's all right, I don't wanna see. Thank you. Hey, if I give you a free gift for my table, will you help me? Yeah, yeah, I thought so. I know the way to a woman's heart. All right, what's your name? Perry. Perry. Perry? Perry, okay. All right, how old are you Perry? Eight. Eight years old, okay. Now, the Lord brings a child into our home. He had this divine plan. He had hedges on either side of her. And you know what we do? It's not perfection and child rearing, but we together walk through her life, through her eight years of life. Stay right here with me, honey. And we narrow her path. Now at eight years old, she's not going to try to deviate. You know, she might watch the wrong cartoon and we got to pull her back in a little bit. But we're there when something comes to hurt her or influence her, we're there to protect her. And you know what we're doing? We're narrowing her path. And every day of her life that we narrow her path, we have her feet are learning that path. Isn't that good? That's all you had to do. All right, now I was looking for one about 13, 12, close enough. All right, come here. Tell me your name. Elena. Elena. Now, as we walk through life, and you're how old? Fourteen. Fourteen. Are you one of those fourteen going on eighteen girls? Ask my mom. I don't even have to ask her. Okay. Now, when they're that way, when they hit this age, I don't know if you realize this, but you got to be on guard a little bit more. I'm not talking about that you're, you do what I, I'm saying we're there to teach her to walk life because life's got some trials. At 14, they have some issues. 14, they have some difficulties. 14, they have some temptations. You know what they need desperately? They need a mom at one o'clock in the morning that sits in the room and says, keep talking, girl. It's okay, just go ahead. They need a dad that'll take a drive with, says, let's go get a milkshake. And I know what you're dealing with right now. Let's help you through it. Worst of all, you know, she comes along and, how old are you? Are you married? Worst of all, she comes along and all of a sudden she starts looking at something really ugly. And you know what you have to do? You kind of say, time up, baby. Just trust me, they're all stupid. At this age. Now, it becomes a little bit more difficult, but it becomes all the more important. And every day we succeed through that day with her, we have trained her feet to the path. But here about this age is where we start really messing up. At this age, really, my oldest daughter was probably about a year and a half older than she is right now. The next one was 14 months younger and they're in high school. And one of the things that happened in our marriage and in our family took place about then. I had started to observe what was happening to high school kids that dated. My wife says my greatest gift is discernment. I observe a lot and I watched and I went preach to the high schools, a lot of youth groups all over the nation. And I saw, I saw the attitude of kids. I saw that they were missing out. I'd go to a, I can tell you right now, I went to a youth rally and they were going to have skating, you know, after the meeting. And we went out skating. All the kids are out there in the skating rink. They're all having a great time hooping and hollering and playing. There was two kids over here at a table. This girl and guy over at the table, and I could see them, and they were just, I mean, I stood over just listening to them, and she's saying, I don't want you to go out there. I don't think, you just want to go by her. I saw you skate by her. You tried to bump into her. I don't want to go out there. And he's going, come on, man. I just want to go skating. Everybody's skating. He's going, no, I don't want to. I just want to sit here. He goes, come on. She's going, no, no, no, no. I walked over to him. I said, y'all like each other? She goes, oh. I said, if that's love, shoot me in the head. And I saw where that's the way it was. We'd go to a camp, we'd unload all our girls at a camp, and it'd be 300 or 400 kids at that camp, my girls unloading there at the camp. We knew within five minutes whether that camp was a bunch of kids that dated or not. Because if they dated, when my girls unloaded, the boys were over here, the girls were over here, the boys are looking at my girls like, They're looking, every one of them is like, you know, I felt like I had a pack of dogs looking at the pieces of meat out here. And I heard the girls over here, they're looking at their girls all naked. They wouldn't be friendly to them. They wouldn't talk to them. The guys are just trying to build up the nerve to ask them out. And the girls are going, I don't like them. I don't want them around us. We went to Thursday night before our girls. I had six daughters Thursday night one camp before anybody spoke to my kids. Now, if you go to a camp where they're not dating, we unload the girls, and the girls all coming up there, hey, come to my cabin. Come to my cabin. Oh, no, she's coming to my cabin. The guys are all going, where do you want me to take your stuff? I mean, they're just all just part of a big group. They're all having fun. I saw where they're missing out this high school day. They're missing out so much. But more than that, they were losing so much. Morally, they were so many of them were getting devastated for life. So I gathered all my whole crew, Jo Beth, all six girls around the table one afternoon. I should have told my wife about this in advance, but I didn't. I gathered them all around and I just said, okay, y'all, I got an announcement to make. One daughter's going into her junior year, one's going into her sophomore year. I said, here's the deal, doesn't matter what anybody else does, doesn't matter if everybody else in the school does it, doesn't matter if everybody promotes it, we are no longer dating in high school. Oh, you'd think I'd announce a tribulation period. Man, crocodile tears and quivering lips and everything, and they're all, you know, they're not going to say anything to daddy, but it's like, who stole my daddy? What happened to him? Is he going crazy? Man, I went through and explained everything to them. I explained why. I said everything. And I got completely done. Nobody said a word. They're all staring at me. And I finally said, OK, that's it. And I know what they're about to do. All six of them are going to go back to one bedroom. There are going to be a couple of them on the bed, a couple of them leaning against the wall. Some of you know, just they're all going, ah, what's happening to daddy? What's he doing? What's happening to daddy? What's happening? Ah! My little six-year-old's over there going, ah, now I can't date. Now, I knew that was happening, but I didn't know what was about to happen. I found it out later from my oldest daughter. Jo Beth goes back to the room. When she went back to that room, she held my girl's life in their hands. Can I tell you what happened to so many moms and dads? When that took place, what normally is happening is she walks in and the girls say, Mommy, what's Daddy doing? What's he doing? She goes, I don't know what your daddy's thinking. I don't know. I'll talk to him, girls. It'll be all right. He's not around that much anyway. But my daughter Brooke, and I don't remember when it was after that, she said, you know, Dad, Mom came into the room. And she said, we all just, mama, mama, what? And she said, she put her hand up. She said, girls, your daddy loves you more than life. And your daddy's the wisest man that I know. And we're going to trust your daddy. You know what she did? She had the opportunity to do this. Y'all take a step up. This is what's happening to our families. God said that if we're gonna, our children are gonna learn the path, their path has to be narrowed. But what has happened is, is that I've seen this everywhere we go. Good families, forgive me. But mom and daddy want the same thing for her. They wanted to get to the altar pure. They wanted to have a good life. They wanted to be happy. They wanted to be blessed. But they cannot agree on how to get there. They can't agree on why she dresses. They can't agree on what she listens to. They can't agree on where she goes. They can't agree on who her friends are. They can't agree on what she watches. They can't agree on anything. And can I tell you what has happened? God says we're too narrow their path. But what we've done is we've torn the fence down. We're all heading the same way, but the problem is, she can deviate off that path at any time now. And what happens is, is that they are deviating off the path because we're in conflict. And can I tell you, what we have done, we've caused our children to commit our greatest fear. And here's what it is. Our greatest fear of any of us that ever have children is they'll come a day that they rebel against us and they rebel against God. Now watch this. Ephesians says, children, obey your parents in the Lord. But Colossians says, children, obey your parents, plural, in all things. Now watch this now. Children, obey your parents in all things. Are you getting it with me now? Children, obey your parents in all things. When we cannot agree in all things, you know what we forced her to do? I forced my daughter to rebel against one of us. I forced her into rebellion. The very thing that I fear the most, I forced her to do. I have made her rebellious because she has no other choice because we can't agree. So she must rebel against one and choose the other. But can I tell you what's going to happen? She, once that starts, she not only will rebel against one, she will rebel against both and eventually she will rebel against God. What we have to do, if y'all could step back here, somehow we've got Now watch this. My daughter said, mama came in, that's what she said. And you think, wow, that's amazing. Y'all agree on everything? Are you smoking dope? Let me tell you the rest of the story. Jo Beth comes out of that room. I don't know what's happened. She walks back down to me because I'm in the basement, the place that men need to go. It's either there or the garage, but I got to get away. She comes down there, and she says, Rob, can I talk to you? Sure, babe. We walk into the bedroom, and she says, what are you thinking? You know, she didn't understand it, because to her, it's romantic. It's innocent. Let me tell you, nothing's innocent about them. I don't care how they put on the fake, it ain't innocent. I'll slap you, boy. But she's just innocent, it's romantic, it's sweet, and she didn't understand it. She didn't see the same things that I saw. But thank God, and that's why I give the credit for Act Girls to my wife. Of course, to God. But so much this woman, because she said, explain it to me. And I explained to her what I saw, what I was sensing, what I was fearing. You know what she said? Okay. This is a pretty extreme step, because everybody where we were dated. Junior high, high school, everything. I was taking an incredible step. Even some leadership said, you're going to lose every one of your kids if you do this. And I said, well, it seems to me like we're losing them anyway. So I'd rather lose them because they're frustrated with me than to lose them to immorality. But see, I say, going back to number four, I think it is, love covers. Even if they don't understand, they know daddy loves them so much, he's not doing it to hurt them. Now, the reason this is so important, thank you, you can get a free gift, too, because I know how women are. Now, you had me somebody about 20. Here? Okay, come on up. We have a unique family. Now, tell me your name. Janessa. Janessa. And you're how old? 21. Amen. Perfect. Perfect. Now, here's the reason why this is so important. For 21 years, and I'm one of those that come extreme, I kind of think, so long as she's there with me, it's still my job to train until I turn her over to another man. As we walk through this life, and we're there for her, then there comes a day, and I hope you don't mind this, but what did you do? And I did this right here, stand right there. We can't hedge her in anymore. We can't narrow her path anymore. Either her feet know the path or they don't. Let me tell you why this is so important. My fifth daughter, this is what I did at 20 years of age. I walked her down and I turned her over to a young preacher. He was also, he was 21. We walk away and hope and pray that through whatever they face in life, that their feet will know the path. That was in October, in January, early January, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She just walked into the darkness. Anybody here grew up on a farm? Okay, where I grew up on the farm, when we came in, no matter what ball practice, ball games, whatever, we usually had 40, 50 head of cattle, not a whole lot, but we just, you know, we had about 100, 150 acres. Somewhere those cows were out there somewhere, and my daddy wanted to know where they were. I don't know if you had a dad like mine, but he just, he didn't care about us, but he wanted to know where the cows were. And me and my brothers would have to take off and go run those pastures. I don't know if you understand this, but out in Tennessee, where you get away into the country, dark is dark. Do you understand? I mean, I know my hand's there, but I can't see it. You know, I have never had a flashlight in my life growing up. Pitch black dark, we would get out, or my dad would come in, or we'd come in, and he'd say, boys, go find the cows. My brother would take off for the pastures, and you know what we'd follow? We'd follow those cow paths. I would take off through the woods. He ran further, and he became all state and cross country, never practiced in his life, just chasing cows. I was a football player, so I'm dodging. I'm cutting and weaving. But let me, you could only understand this if you grew up this way. I could run that path in the dark. My feet knew the path. My feet somehow knew. We ran them barefooted a lot. And that old soft, dusty dirt in your toes and your feet, you just kind of puff every time you hit it. I knew where the roots were. I knew where the grapevine hung down. I knew where the ditch was so you had to plant your foot and jump. Just somehow my feet knew the path and I couldn't see anything. That's what we wanted for our girl. That when the darkness comes, she'll just know the path almost by instinct. And they don't know the path by instinct when they spent their life deviating from it and back. They lost everything, and I don't have time, but they lost everything. The very first week, they thought he was gonna die the first week. Surgery took place. When he was diagnosed, they didn't think he'd live through the week. God worked a miracle. We moved him in with us into a spare bedroom. They lost everything else that they had. For the next nine months, they lived with us, and it was chemo, and it was hospitals, and it was surgeries, and it was everything you imagine. But the days that I would come in from work, and they would be in town, and they would be there, and she wouldn't be at a hospital someplace, I would hear her at the piano. Over and over, I'd hear her playing the same song, but I didn't know what the song was, and I should have gone and talked to her. And so many days, I would walk by and I would cry. And I would cry and I'd say, Lord, is she going to make it? Because this is more than a little girl like this ought to face. Is she going to turn against you or is she going to stay with you? After nine months of that, I came in one day and Jo Beth said, Rob, you've got to hear this. The girls had gone to make the CD called Through the Storm. And she said, you've got to hear this song. And I said, what song are you talking about, baby? She said, Amber's song. She said, that's what she's been doing at the piano. She plays every day. She's written a song. And she just plays it over and over and sings it over and over. She said, they recorded the song. She said, you've got to hear it. She started playing it for me, that demo CD, and it got about halfway through it. I fell out of my chair at the kitchen table onto my knees, began to weep uncontrollably, and Jo Beth put her hand on my shoulder. She said, Rob, it's gonna be okay. And I looked at her and I said, no, baby, you don't understand. My little girl's gonna make it. See, that song revealed to me that her feet were still on the path. Would you play that song for me? The song you're hearing. They said when she was in the studio that she faced the wall, couldn't look at anybody, tears flowing down her cheeks. This is what she wrote and sang as her husband was dying. When the trials you face turn into your darkest night and you're hoping in some The darkness will turn to light And you feel all alone And no one is there with you Never fear, my God is holding you When you feel your world is shifting He is there to hold you When everything is changing My Lord's still there Some days I was so lost I just couldn't see him There were moments I felt My heart would just give in But when you're through trying And there's nothing left to do My God is calling you He is there to comfort you When you feel your world is shifting He is there to hold you When everything is changing My Lord's still there To hold you when everything is changing My Lord still there It's crucial that we fight that battle all of their life, to stay together, to discuss all we have to discuss, to come out in agreement, because one day she's got to walk alone. But if she's known the path, she's not alone. And her feet will know the path in the dark. If you could come back here just for a second. I'm almost done. I apologize for going long, but the... I know that some of you, you either, you are single spouse or in this case, you know, deployed. But I want to tell you this, two things. If you say, well, how's this gonna, what do I do? Well, there's two things that I want to tell you. One, if your husband is deployed, let me, let me beg you. Your children, all of their life, you need to, if you have to make a list, you have to do everything, but you need to discuss with your husband, with your wife, however that situation is, you need to discuss. And when you present to the children, it needs to be from both of you. They don't have to be present. So many things, Jo Beth, when I'd be traveling or going or whatever, she said, this is what your daddy wants. Your daddy and I have discussed this, this is what he wants. This is what we're gonna do. The other thing is, preacher, could you come here? The church is a wonderful place, and when somebody's gone from the relationship, you can come and ask. And the church can be an incredible hedge. Now, you can't fight the church, you gotta agree. But it can be a great hedge. So God doesn't leave you alone. God is there to help us to build the kind of families we have. He wants us to have children that when they're old, they'll not depart from it. This message is really, if husband and wife are here tonight, this is a challenge to you, to your children, If you're here alone, your husband or your wife is not here tonight, still a challenge to you and to your children. Challenge for you to come and say together, you know, none of us are perfect in this, but we're going to work real hard to agree. To agree. Can two walk together except they be agreed? And that's why a lot of our marriages, we're not walking together. And our children see this chaos and confusion. We need to decide we're gonna walk together. If you never had children, we're gonna decide, we're gonna make that decision now so when they come, that we're gonna be together. If you have children, we need to decide. And can I tell you, children, especially as you're hitting those teenage years, I'm gonna beg you now, don't use one parent against the other. Because you're hurting yourself. Because you're the one that's going to face the dark times. You need to look at your parents and say, I need you to agree. I need you to agree. Thank you. It was a lot in this message. I'm not here that often or long, and so I tend to want to unload the truck. Are you willing to bow the knee? It really comes to humbling ourselves to each other and saying, let's just figure this out and agree on it for the sake of our children. I still say she made the difference in our kids that day because she said, I don't fully understand it, but I'll agree. I'd like for us all to stand And if your spouse is here with you, husband or wife, if you take their hand, you may think, man, I don't know we can do this. Seems like we don't agree on anything. Or you may say, well, you know, we really agree on most everything. But are you willing to just take each other's hand and say, for the sake of our children, we're going to recommit to this thing. We will do what it takes. And children? Please, gather your children to you and look at them. You may have to look at them and say, you know what? You know that we haven't been real good at this. But we're also going to try to make it different now. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody because you know I don't know you. But I know what made a difference in our home and I know what's made a difference as I've seen so much. Father, I pray that you bless here tonight. Dear God, please help families. Lord, we need the next generation to be strong, to believe something. We need to teach them. We need to stick together and stick with our beliefs. We need to be there in love. But Lord, this number one thing I believe, we need to agree, it's not perfection. Nobody's perfect in child rearing. But oh God, if we would agree, it shows consistency. And Lord, we can help our children to be stable as they walk through the dark times of life. I just ask you, if tonight you would Come to an altar as a family. Come to an altar as a husband and wife. Come to an altar and say, we're going to pray together. And this may not be easy, but we're going to do better at this. We're going to agree. She plays.