One of the primary causes of sedition in the home is a proud heart, a boastful heart, a self-indulgent heart.  But if we have an attitude of submitting, a heart of obedience to the Lord Jesus, Who declared the greatest among us is the servant of all; amen?  And when we can approach our relationships—somehow, when we get married, and we get that marriage certificate or whatever, we think that the rules change, and they don’t.  Before you are husband and wife, you are brother and sister in the Lord.  Because marriage will be dissolved when this is over, but His body, His wife, remains forever; amen?  I was talking with someone who was saying their mother was dying, could die at any moment.  My wife is so sick and whatever, and the church, we’re trying to deal with that, and I’d like to be able to get my wife away, but there’s so many needs.  And I told him, I said—a lot of times when I’m sharing with the guys, I try to be as succinct as I can, because you can lose the message in too many words.  I said, “Jesus is the Husband of the church, and you’re the husband of your wife, He’ll take care of His wife, you take care of yours.”  Amen?

You see, the problem with preachers, and it’s been this way for years, I’ve watched it for 50 years, and it’s tragic, and especially, we go overseas, and it seems worse, but it may not be.  But we’ve got so many preachers taken up with the fact that they think the church is more important than their families, that they’re losing their families.  They’re going out and being destroyed in the world, and it’s very tragic.  In fact, Timothy speaks toward this, and over in Chapter 3 in 1 Timothy, where it’s talking about the requirements to be in the ministry, and it says, the men that are rulers, that are bishops, that are overseers, should be, “One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity” (1 Timothy 3:4).  If you’re not taking care of your wife properly, you don’t belong in the ministry.  In fact, we had to deal with one of our pastors just recently, and I told one of the men, I said, “Sit down with him and tell him this.”  Now, he’s dedicated, hours being given into the ministry, hours of going to pray for other people, hours of study, hours of prayer, and their marriage is on the rocks.  I said, “Just go tell him very quickly, ‘If you don’t get this thing together in your house and get this thing fixed with your wife, you’re not going to be pastoring this church anymore.’”

So, we see these things—Jesus, as it pertains to the church, gives us the revelation of, “Here’s how I want the order of your home and the church.” Amen?  Bone of bone, flesh of flesh.  We’re one.  How do we remain in harmony and unity and always be running off to do something else?  If that requirement is for the ministry, it sure is a requirement for the secular world.  Your job is not more important than your wife; amen?  And neither is, men, you going and working extra hours and being gone so that you can come in and buy your kid a new car for graduation.  And the boy being able to just look up at you after all of those years and say, “Daddy, why were you never at my basketball games?” He wants you in his life more than he wants that car.  He needs you more in his life than he needs that car; amen?  Is that how you want your son treating his wife?  What are we reproducing in the body of Christ?  Our kids are watching us.  They know whether you love one another or not.  They know what’s important.