Transforming Faith: Understanding the Bible in Our Hearts

Bible Reading:
1) Genesis 3:1-24 [10:55 ]
2) Genesis 4:1-16 [21:12 ]
3) John 3:16-21 [51:29 ]

Observation Questions:
1) What were the consequences of Adam and Eve's disobedience in Genesis 3?
2) How did the actions of Adam and Eve's children reflect the fallen nature of humanity in Genesis 4?
3) How does John 3:16-21 describe the process of salvation and the role of faith?

Interpretation Questions:
1) How does the story of Adam and Eve's fall in Genesis 3 illustrate the destructive power of sin?
2) In Genesis 4, how does the story of Cain and Abel further illustrate the consequences of sin?
3) How does John 3:16-21 contrast the consequences of sin with the promise of salvation through faith in Jesus?

Application Questions:
1) How have you seen the consequences of sin play out in your own life, similar to Adam and Eve's experience in Genesis 3?
2) Can you identify a time when you, like Cain in Genesis 4, allowed anger or jealousy to lead you into sin? How did you handle it?
3) How has your understanding and acceptance of the promise in John 3:16-21 changed your life?
4) What steps can you take this week to better resist temptation and sin, as illustrated in the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel?
5) How can you share the promise of John 3:16-21 with someone in your life who needs to hear it?

**CC:** Welcome, Joe. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Morning! Woo! There's life in Chicago! It's cold up here too. It's 84 at my house today. I live in Florida. My wife's a Floridian, and two years ago she said, "Joe, I want to go home." I said, "Okay." And she said, "Really, I want to sell the house." I said, "Okay, you don't mind, baby. I don't care what you do."

So she put the house up for sale that evening, and we sold it that night because there's a real shortage of homes in Oklahoma. So she sold it. She got up the next morning and said, "Joe, I'm going to go find my house. You want to go with me?" I said, "Nope. No, I'll just mess it up." She said, "You pick out whatever you want. Let me know."

Two days later, she called me and said, "Joe, I found this house." I never lived in the city. I grew up in the country. My dad had 12 brothers and sisters. My father-in-law had 12 brothers and sisters. We grew up in the country. I grew up in Turtletown, which is a suburb of Ducktown. We lived on a 400-acre farm. We had one country store, Nixon's Country Store. If you wanted it, Nixon had it. If he didn't have it, you don't need it.

So I never ate at a public restaurant until my senior year in high school. We grew up in the country. We milked our own cows, shot our own hogs, you know, picked the eggs up from under the chickens. My grandfather had the same thing. Every time we did something, we would go up together.

"Eggs in the morning, when you're in that hen house, son, you watch out for those snakes. Those copperheads are coming after those chickens to get warm. So when you stick your hand up in there, make sure you're not grabbing a snake."

"Oh, okay. Thank you, Grandpa."

So we would go pick blueberries down the side of the country road. They grow wild, so we would go pick them in the summer. "Grandpa, in the sun, you go pick blueberries, but watch out for the snakes. Those copperheads, they hang out in those blueberries. They bite you."

"Okay, Grandpa. Thank you."

And then we would catch spring lizards. We would go trout fishing in East Tennessee up in the mountains. So we would go catch little spring lizards. Little streams run all through the farm, so you flip a rock, and you're staring down at the water, and you see a little spring lizard. You stick your hand up under its tail, and you make it run up in your hand, and you grab it.

So I'm down there one day, and I'm focused. All of a sudden, my dad yelled at me. He said, "Jump, son! Jump!" Well, I didn't know what was going on, but I figured there was a snake somewhere. So I jumped backwards because I didn't want to get bit in my face. I jumped backwards and landed right on a flat rock in the middle of the stream.

Well, I landed right on a copperhead. He crawled up out of the water and curled up on that rock behind me. Well, I landed on his head. Thank goodness I was on his head, so he couldn't bite me. He's flopping. My dad came up, grabbed me by my arm, and threw me up on the bank.

So most of my life, I've been looking for snakes because they're everywhere. When my wife asked, I said, "Joe, I'm moving." I said, "Fine." Florida has more alligators than humans. No, really, they do. There are more gators in Florida because they have no enemies. Nothing kills a gator. Gators kill; they don't get killed. They live forever, get big and gnarly and nasty, and they cross the interstate down there.

I live in Lake Florida, so you'll see them just crossing, not in any hurry. They're not afraid of anything. So my wife said, "Joe, I found us a house." I said, "Good." It said on a dead-end road because I don't want to live in the city ever again. We lived in that gated community for about six months. I didn't know what a gated community was, and so it had rules. They didn't give us the rule book.

So I had a pretty big lot, so I built a big fence around my lot, and I painted it the same color as the entrance. It's brown. Well, it's a good color. Then I was going to put in a swimming pool because my knee was bad, and the doctor said I needed to swim. So I'm digging a big old hole in the backyard to put a pool in, and a neighbor walks by one day and said, "What are you doing?"

I said, "We're putting in a swimming pool."

She said, "No, you can't put in a swimming pool here."

I said, "Yes, ma'am. It's America. It's my house. I can put a pool in here."

She said, "No, no. We have rules about that. There are no swimming pools allowed in this community."

"What? Yeah, because teenagers, they're noisy. We don't want any teenagers swimming and making noise."

"Well, I'm not going to make a lot of noise anyhow."

I had to go to the owner of the community. He said, "Yeah, I'm sorry, but I forgot to give you a book. You can't have a swimming pool."

So I spent $9,000 to hire a guy from Brazil coming to go to Bible school. He spent a week stripping the paint off my fence because if you have a fence, it's got to stay natural. So I spent a whole week having this guy strip the paint off down to the raw wood, and I had to bring a dozer in and fill that hole in.

So I spent $9,000 just to strip paint and fill in a hole. My wife said, "I want to move." Me too! Dear God, let's get out of here. I don't want to live here anymore.

She said, "But wherever you find the house in Florida better be in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to see my neighbor. I don't want to see nothing."

Well, I do have neighbors, but they're all just really ignorant rednecks. They're really nice. They got guns in the back window of their truck.

So I'm serious. I'm making this up. "Well, Angel, where did you go?"

"Well, it was a nice house a couple built years ago, and they decided to move back to Carolina. So nice house, got a big swimming pool in the backyard. I got my own office."

So she brought it up. "Joe, you want to come see the house?"

I said, "No, I'll see it when we move in."

So I went down there, and I thought, "Yeah, this will work. This is nice."

So people ask us all the time, "What's it like?"

Well, I was married to my first wife for 47 years. I sucked the lips off that woman's face. We dropped six babies out of her. We should have dropped a dozen. I don't know why we didn't have more kids. We were both real fertile.

And so I like having a big family. I wanted a ton of kids. I want somebody to take me to dinner on Sunday. I want somebody to send me on a cruise. I want somebody to buy me a Winnebago. Do you think I'm joking? I'm not.

People think, "Well, he laughs." Like, "Yeah, but I'm very serious." I've told my kids their whole life, "You owe me good measure, pressed down, shaken together. You owe me. I birthed you, taught you how to talk and walk and wipe yourself and dress yourself, passed algebra, diagrammed a sentence. How did you get a date for the prom? I got you into college. I got you out. I paid for your wedding, your honeymoon."

Ho, ho, ho! But at every wedding of my kids, I got five girls and a boy. My boy's the youngest. At every wedding, I held up my hand and said, "Put your door key in my hand." I'm not making this up. "Put your door key in my hand."

At the day of the wedding, I said, "Don't you ever come back to my house unless I invite you."

Now, my wife did not agree with this, but that's why we're married. We're different. Opposites attract, by the way, in case you don't know that.

It's not Adam and Steve; it's Adam and Eve. [Applause]

When God was making creation, the first six days of creation, God’s in a happy mood. It's the end of day six. Day seven's not happened yet. That day of rest has not showed up. At the end of day six, God's talking to Himself. You can read it in any translation. I read the New Living Translation. I like it.

So God's talking to Himself. He says, "That's good. That's good. That's good. That's real good. That's good." Then all of a sudden, God said, "Not good." The first time God ever said the words "not good," He was looking at a man.

The first time in the Bible God said "not good," the answer is, "What's not good?" "You not good." I thought it was perfect. "No, I'll lay here, take a nap. I'm going to fix that."

So God put Adam to a deep sleep and took out a rib, and He built a woman. That's how the Bible says God made man, but He built a woman. That's why we say women are built. If women weren't built, men would not look. It's Hebrew; I'm not making this up.

So Adam woke out of that deep sleep. He saw Eve, and he went, "Whoa!" God said, "I thought you'd like that."

And they went off to fellowship that day. They didn't need any books or diagrams or photographs. They figured it out.

Well, the problem was Lucifer, the anointed cherub that covered. You have three archangels: Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Lucifer had sat over the throne of God for eons of time. He sat over the throne of God, and one day, we don't know what happened, but the Bible said there are so many angels, they're innumerable. You cannot count them.

You can count the sand on this planet. There's a certain amount of sand on planet Earth; you cannot count the number of angels. The Bible says there are innumerable. There are so many, there's not a number; you can't count them.

So Lucifer goes to the Angelic Union Hall, and he stands up and says, "Boys," now this is in your Bible, you can read it, "Boys, I can take this old man," talking about God. And the Bible says one-third of the stupid angels stood up and said, "We think you can too."

And Lucifer led a rebellion in heaven and tried to remove God from His throne. They asked Jesus when He was down here on Earth, they asked Jesus, "Have you ever seen the devil?" He said, "Yeah."

"What does he look like?" Jesus said, "He looks like a lightning bolt coming out of heaven." Boom! He got fired from his job.

Because if you read Genesis 1, God does not make anything. He never has made anything void and without form. The Bible says the Earth was void and without form. What happened? Somebody must have torn it up. A lot must have happened between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.

The devil stormed down to the Earth; he tore this place up. The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the Earth, and God said, "Look, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to make a human, a man that is lower than an angel but has authority over an angel."

So God made Adam and Eve, and Lucifer's down here, and he's curious. He's confused. He's watching this mess. "What is this? What is this?"

So he walks into the garden, gum flaps him out of everything. He challenges the word of God. He's not changed anything he's done for thousands of years. The devil's going to challenge this book. By the way, volume two is not coming out. You go ahead and read volume one; it's not going to change.

Yeah, that's deep. And so he walks in, and he gets them to sin. Now, whether it was an apple or not, I really don't care. So he bit the apple, handed it to Adam. He knew not to bite it, but he was in love, so he bit the thing anyhow.

And all of a sudden, scales fell from their eyes. They realized, "Oh man, we're naked! We got to go to JC Penney and get some clothes!" So they went off and made some clothes.

Well, God comes down every day walking in the garden. He's walking through the garden. He knows what they've done. He's trying to get them to repent. So God comes walking through the garden. "Adam! Adam! Where are you?"

Adam won't answer. He knows he's there. He's trying to get him to answer, trying to get him to repent. "Adam! Adam! Where are you?"

Finally, Adam said, "I'm over here."

God said, "What are you doing?"

"Well, I was hiding."

God asked, "Why are you hiding?"

Adam answered, "Did you eat that fruit I told you not to eat?"

Adam's thinking, "It was the woman you gave me, God! When it was me and you, it was paradise, and everything was perfect. Ever since you've brought that one into my life, it's been going downhill."

Message translation, you ought to read it.

So God turns to Eve. He said, "What's your story?"

She's saying, "Man's dumped on me again! He's dumped on me again!"

She's saying, "Well, it's the snake's fault! The snake's fault!"

From the very beginning of time, no human will take responsibility for themselves. "What's your problem? It's my daddy's fault, my mama's fault, my brother's fault, my sister's fault, coach's fault, teacher's fault, president's fault, congress's fault, senate's fault, Republican's fault, Democrat's fault."

As long as I can blame somebody else, I don't have to do anything. But until the day comes that I'm willing to take responsibility for me, nothing's going to change.

That's what happens the day you get born again, get filled with the Holy Ghost. You realize it's all me now.

I grew up in a little community. We didn't have nothing. We had a guy that had a really nice house on the hill in Ducktown, the big inner city of Ducktown, about 750 people, a beautiful home. He had a three-car garage, and we would drive by there every day.

We're out in the country, about a 400-acre farm, and I said, "Who has a three-car garage? What kind of heathen has a three-car garage? We don't have a one-car garage! What kind of heathen has a three-car garage? What kind of show-off does that?"

So I grew up hating rich people. Stinking rich people! Stinking no-good rich people! Stinking rich people! They got everything!

Well, at age 17, I realized something: a poor person had never hired me. Only rich people had hired me. And I got myself a revelation that God ain't poor no more.

So I started chasing God. And so I hated school. I didn't like school. All I wanted to do in school was go on a date Friday night, suck lips off somebody's face, play football, play baseball, go fishing on the weekend. That was my life. That was my 5, 10, 20-year plan.

But I fell in love, you know, like most crazy people do, and got out of the army. So I married my wife. She just turned 18; I just turned 20. We didn't know nothing. We're dumber than dirt, but we're in love.

So people tried to give us books to read. I don't read no stupid book; I'm in love.

So about five years into the marriage, I started looking at those books as if we were in a mess because the first three years of our marriage was hell on Earth. We yelled and screamed and hollered and threw cans of green beans at each other. We said four-letter words; we made up new four-letter words.

And she grew up Pentecostal; I grew up Southern Baptist. I'm not going to that stinking church where they cluck like a chicken and bark like a dog. What are they doing in there?

So she would go to my church; I wouldn't go to hers. So we didn't go to church for three years.

So I had this crazy spiritual Methodist lead me back to Jesus at age 23, and I got back in church. I went to her Pentecostal church, and so it was a life-changing deal.

And so, because I don't want to make fun of you, but my Pentecostal church I went to, the Church of God, they believe you have to tarry for the Holy Ghost. Every Sunday night was tarrying night, and there were some people who had been tarrying for years.

"What are you waiting on, Holy Spirit?" So they go down front, and the sisters lay hands on them. "Let go! Turn loose! Grab hold!" Like, it got confusing.

Well, I was driving home from work after second shift, and I realized somebody gave me a Bible. So I started in Matthew and went to Revelation in six weeks. I'm trying to find out where the devil died. Jesus killed the devil!

I saw these two movies: Jesus killed the devil; there's no devil! And so I got to Revelation about 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm a newlywed; I don't have any kids. And I realized about 2 o'clock in the morning, six weeks into this thing, he's still here! He's still here!

So I thought, "Well, I guess I need this Holy Ghost thing." Jesus told His own mother, "Mom, you need to wait for the Holy Ghost. I got to go home; I'll send the Holy Spirit back."

So if it's good enough for Mary, I guess it's good enough for me. So I got down on my knees and said, "God, I'll take this Holy Ghost thing. If the tongue thing goes with it, whatever, I'll take that too. In Jesus' name, amen."

I got up, and the punch down. I'm driving home. Now, I grew up hillbilly. We didn't listen to rock and roll; we didn't believe in it. We listened to nothing but bluegrass country, just skanky country music.

And so I'm riding, and I'm listening to Loretta Lynn, and I'm just singing along with her. So I would sing on the radio, so little pickup truck, AM radio. So it's about 30 minutes to get to the house. I'm leaving the plant down on the Tennessee River. I'm driving along, so I'm singing along with Loretta Lynn.

All of a sudden, I look over my shoulder. I pull out on the interstate. I thought, "What am I saying?" I'm babbling like a two-year-old. I don't know what I'm saying. And I thought, "Oh man, I think I got that tongue thing! I think I got that tongue thing!"

Well, I don't know how I started, so I don't know how to stop. Because I don't know how to start again, so I kept singing along with Loretta Lynn. Then I sang with Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty.

And so I sang in tongues with everybody that came on the radio. And so I got home, and I thought, "I got to stop because my wife's going to come out of the house wondering where I've been."

Because I've been driving in the country. I don't know how to stop. I'm thinking, "Lord, I don't know how to stop! How do I start again?"

So I pulled up the driveway, and my uncle was the county sheriff. My wife was going to call the sheriff. "Oh me, I got to go home!" We had a little nasty rent house. I pulled in the driveway about 1:00 in the morning. She comes outside; she's waving like, "Where have you been?"

And she can't see me because the porch light's reflecting on the window of my truck. And I'm thinking, "God, she's coming! She's coming! Come on, you got to be! I got to help me start again! I'm going to stop! I'm counting to three! Please let me start again!"

So I stopped. I counted to three. When she hit that door, I came out there like I'd been in a 10-day camp meeting. I shouted, "Hallelujah!" I came all over that front yard.

And she got excited because she'd been tearing with the other saints at the Church of God. So she told my pastor, "Joe got filled with the Holy Spirit."

And he said, "I didn't see him down front on Sunday."

"No, he got filled with the Holy Spirit listening to Loretta Lynn!"

Well, he confronted me after church. "I understand you got filled with the Holy Spirit."

"Yes, sir, I did!"

"You want to hear me?"

"No, no, I can do it right now."

"Really? It's no effort whatsoever."

And he said, "No."

And so he made me doubt that it was real. So I got water baptized three times that summer.

He made me doubt. "Did I get the real thing? Maybe I didn't get the real thing. I need to go under again."

So the third time he baptized me that summer, I came out of the water and said, "I'm not baptized anymore! That's it! You're done!"

And so that's how I got started. And so I thought it's just natural. If Mary did it, Paul did it, Peter did it, I just let it rip all the time.

So when I started teaching on family, I had a lot of kids that thought I knew something about parenting. I don't know about parenting; I just know how to have them. I just wanted a lot of them. I did. I just wanted a ton of kids, and I didn't want to go by myself.

But they thought I knew something, so they asked, "Can you teach a parenting class?" I said, "Sure."

So my wife said, "I got home. She said, 'You can't believe this! They asked me to teach on parenting.'"

She said, "You don't know anything about parenting!"

I said, "I told them that! They think I do because I got all these kids!"

So I taught that for a year on a Sunday evening. Then they came and said, "Joe, can you teach on marriage?"

I said, "Sure."

So while I'm telling my wife, "Hey, I got to teach on marriage," she said, "You don't know anything about marriage!"

I told them that!

And so what I learned about marriage and parenting, I taught every Sunday evening at 5:00, an hour before church started, and I taught myself.

So people ask, "Where'd you learn the Bible?"

Well, I learned it a lot of ways. I mostly learned about what I didn't know.

And so I got filled with the Spirit, became I quit my job as an engineer, went back to Bible school, got on staff, was a Christian school administrator. So I did that for 10 years, and I'm teaching these kids.

And so about halfway through the first year, I'm running out of sermons. And I've been to three years of Bible school. I know the Bible; I'm running out of sermons. I'm like, "Man, I got to find me some book on sermons."

So I go to this bookstore. "Hey, you got anything on sermons?"

"What, you don't like Bible stories?"

"Well, we have a children's Bible storybook."

"I'll take it."

Well, it's a hardback book. It's still in print today. An Oklahoma lady wrote it. She never had any kids. She wrote it when she was 82.

EDG Bible storybook, Warner Press, still in print today. You can find it at Barnes & Noble.

So I bought this book, and she had taken about a page and a half of modern English on every story in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

Well, I taught chapel 171 days a year, so I go from Genesis to Revelation. I did that 10 times. I went to that book 10 times in 10 years. I went from Genesis to Revelation 10 times in 10 years.

What did you learn? I learned that God's good, the devil's bad, and people are stupid. Theology 101, 102, and 103.

The people, "What'd you learn in the Bible?"

Well, from me.

So with that, it was a long introduction, short sermon. I'm teaching these kids, and I realized something. I'm teaching the parenting class, the marriage class. I thought, "We're in a group of people. We know about the Holy Spirit. We know about praying in the Spirit. We don't read the book. We came with a book."

By the way, it's not in chronological order. It's the longest book to the shortest book. Genesis covers about 2,500 years; Jude doesn't cover one chapter.

So God went from the longest book to the shortest book. So I've got a Bible that's a chronological Bible. It went in order as it happened. Makes a lot more sense when you read it like that, you know?

And I still believe Job's the oldest book, so I start with Job because it was a great story.

So I'm teaching this class, and I realized, "Okay, we got to start all over."

And so, "Well, let's go back. I'm going to teach you on marriage."

"Well, how do you start marriage?"

"Well, let's start in Genesis."

It went south. Adam and Eve got fired from their job, evicted from the house. Kids start killing one another. That's the first marriage, and it went downhill from there until you get to the middle of the book.

Sil, not holding night, we threw King S.W.A.R. and it changed. So Abraham looked forward to it by faith; we look back on it by faith.

What happened? Well, we've been born again. We've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and placed in the kingdom of God's dear Son. But if you don't read the book, you don't know that.

That's why most of my family—I love my family, and most of them go to church, but most of them aren't saved. They all go to church, but they're not saved. They can't quote two scriptures. They carry it like a magic wand, like they're Tinker Bell, and they'll wave it and shake it and slap it.

You got to read it! It comes with words! You got to read the thing! The devil's not afraid of the book; he's afraid of that book in your heart coming out of your mouth.

And so this is how it started. Pastor, you got to tell me when I'm through because I'll go too long.

Yeah, and so I'm teaching this class. I thought, "You don't know." So I went back to Genesis.

"Okay, let's start."

And we got fired, evicted. Kids start killing each other. We go down to Noah and the flood. God got mad, so I'm going to drown every stinking one of them. Build me a boat! I'm going to drown every one of them!

So He drowns everybody; He starts all over. The boat lands; they get out; they repopulate.

Well, they get down to the Tower of Babel. They're going to build a tower. Nimrod is going to build a tower to heaven. He thinks he's God. God looks down and says, "That's a mess! I'm going to confuse your languages!"

Because at that time, everybody spoke the same language.

"Where'd the language come from?"

Nimrod messed it up.

So building this tower, all of a sudden, God said, "I'm going to have to stop that. I'm going to mess them up."

So one day, guys, they're building the Tower of Babel. It's a real deal. And somebody said, "Hand me another brick."

He said, "But he didn't say hand me another brick."

He said, "And his buddy said, 'What did you say?'"

Spit that out of your mouth! Tell me what you want!

They started throwing bricks at each other. It's in the history books. They stopped building the Tower of Babel. It's in your Bible.

And so the Tower of Babel never finished. Why? God confused the language, and they had to go, "Where'd you go?"

"I went with people I could understand."

You know, you French, the Polish, the Germans. It's not nations; it was languages that scattered the people all over the four corners of the Earth.

And so we're coming back together. We're coming back to the Antichrist coming, and we're living in the greatest time of human history.

Except, I tell my people, people ask, "Then when the phone lights up, when you know COVID hit?"

I'm the only preacher in the family. I'm Pentecostal.

The phone rings. "Brother Joe! I'm Brother Joe! I'm just Joe!"

"Most of Brother Joe, what do you think's going on?"

"Well, somebody let something out of a jar in Wuhan, China. They've shut down Disney. They never close Disney to Wuhan! They let something out of a jar! But they'll open it back up! Trust me, they'll open it back up because they think it's the end!"

All my whole family is, "Is it the end?"

"No, you don't know it! You don't know when I—"

We're out here, and so call the house. If I answer, you're good. If I don't answer, whoo, not good!

So we went to—so I said, "Well, let's go back to the marriage."

Okay, I love being married. Marriage was a gift. "Not good for man to be alone." Genesis 2:18. God's not changed His mind. It's not good for man to be alone. God invented marriage; it was His idea.

Now, I had one great aunt. She lived to be 97. She was dating when she was 95. Very attractive, educated lady, but she never got married. My grandmother died, and she finished raising the other 11 kids, put them all through school.

But she was the exception, not the norm. The norm is most everybody's going to get married.

Well, people get married; they don't even have an idea what it is. Well, a marriage is a funeral. Hallmark's got the cards all wrong. It should say, "I'm so sorry I heard you got married."

Because a marriage is a covenant. You can't have a covenant unless somebody dies. Come on!

So at a marriage, you're standing before, hopefully, a minister and witnesses, and you're swearing before God Almighty, "From this day forward, I'm living for this person. I'm not living for me anymore. I die at the marriage ceremony."

So I tell people all the time, now my second marriage with Angel, I love Angel. She's the love of my life. We're totally different. There's a 12-year age difference. She's blonde-haired, blue-eyed, left-handed, and I don't have a clue what she's thinking half the time.

We never watch the same movies because I watch old stuff, old black-and-white stuff where the good guy wins. She likes to watch confusing stuff. I don't want confusing stuff.

So we've been married like two months. We're sitting down. We're going to watch a movie. I said, "Want to watch a movie?"

"Sure."

So we're new to being married. So I said, "Well, what's the name of it?"

She said, "I didn't recognize."

I said, "Well, how does it end?"

She said, "Well, I'm not going to tell you."

"Well, I'm not going to watch it!"

I don't watch a movie unless I know how it ends.

"Well, that's stupid!"

"No, that's me! I don't want to sit there for two and a half hours watching the good guy die and they all go broke, get killed, and carried off to prison. I'm not going to spend the time watching something stupid!"

It says, "Guard your heart with all diligence, for the issues of life."

So don't listen to stupid! Don't watch stupid! Don't sing stupid! Stupid is as stupid does! That's in a famous movie!

So she realized early I won't watch it unless it ends good. So she still can't get it right. So I usually watch the movie in my office on my own screen because I don't watch what she watches.

And she said, "You watch a movie?"

I said, "Baby, you know how I am. You got to get an old one."

And it comes on. "It's in color, baby!"

They said, "Old enough!"

"This movie's not old enough! I'm not going to watch it!"

And I don't know how many—we just did it just the other day. We're watching. She said, "I think you'll like this."

Five minutes in, I said, "Baby, I've heard three cuss words, and they're half-naked. I don't know where this movie is going, but I'm not watching!"

"Well, I didn't know it was this bad!"

"They're all bad! They're all bad! There's nothing good! Nothing good comes out of Hollywood! It's all bad!"

And so you got to guard your heart.

So when I started teaching the marriage, I realized, "Well, let's just find out how it went wrong."

So, man, we all have three job descriptions. All men are lovers. Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives like Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it."

My job is to love my wife whether she's nice, mean, ugly, got makeup, no makeup, burnt the biscuits. I'm to love her. It's my job!

I'm going to love that woman! My goal in life is to make that woman want to suck the lips off my face! I'm very serious!

I've been married before, but I'm different this time. In the five years we've been married, I've never picked a restaurant. Never!

"Well, where do you want to eat?"

"Well, wherever you're going to eat."

"What are you in the mood for?"

"Food! I like food!"

"What kind of food?"

"Whatever you're going to eat!"

I've never picked a vacation. "Joe, what would you like to go on vacation?"

"Wherever you're going!"

"Or you want to go to the mountains or the ocean?"

"May as long as I'm with you, I don't care where we go!"

I've never bought a car. We've owned three cars in five years, two houses. I've never picked a car. I've never picked a house. I don't pick nothing!

Who picks it? She does everything! Everything! I died when we got married!

Now you're laughing, but I'm very serious! And I'll promise you that woman sucks the lips off my face! I'm a very happy man!

That woman loves me because she knows what I'm going to do: whatever Angel wants to do!

What kind of crazy deal is that? It's a God deal! You didn't read the Bible! It's a covenant! You have a covenant! Somebody died!

So I died at that ceremony, and I've told her her whole life, "When we get to heaven, you're going to stand before God, and you're going to hear, 'Well done, the good and faithful servant.' And you're going to stand before your Father. I want to thank you for your son Jesus, for the Holy Spirit. What a blessing it was. And second of all, I want to thank you for Joe. That was the second greatest thing that ever happened to me.'"

I don't care how fat and bald I get; that woman's going to want to suck the lips off my face because I'm good to that woman! I am real good!

And it's my goal every day. "What are you going to do today?"

"Be real good to Angel!"

Is there everybody's problems? Oh yeah! Four times in five years, we've had a knock-down, blowout fight. Every time I said, "Babe, I'm going to the office. I'll see you when you calm down."

Because I won't fight with her. I won't yell; I won't holler. So every time, within an hour, within an hour, Angel loses her temper. She comes and says, "I'm sorry!"

"No, baby, it's fine!"

"No, really, I apologize, babe. Come here, sit in my lap, give me a kiss. You're fine!"

I'm not making this up! I've been married before; I'm married again, and this is going to be a real good one!

Her kids love me! My God, thank you, Jesus! Some married some men finally married Mama because she'd been divorced for 12 years, been a horrible first marriage, and gone south.

So I'm like Santa Claus! Ho!

Now, somebody's getting this right now! Somebody out there is getting it! You got one choice! You go home today; you can make your mind, "I'm going to love them!"

And they're probably going to yell in the parking lot on the way home. "Yeah, that's the dumbest thing!"

What? Just keep your mouth shut! Be slow to speak, quick to hear, and slow to wrath! Keep your mouth shut and smile a lot!

"You're right, sugar! I'm a complete idiot! I just really appreciate you pouring that out!"

So nobody ever loved me enough to tell me that before, but I really appreciate you loving me enough to tell me!

So I'm a lover. I'm going to love Angel regardless of what happens. I'm a leader.

1 Corinthians 11:3: "God is the head of Christ; Christ is over the man; man's over the woman; woman's over the kid; kid's over the dog; cat's over the mouse; mouse over cheese; cheese over the pecking order in the kingdom of God."

But the word is not dictator; it's source. Jesus said, "If you see me, you see my Father. If you heard me, you've heard my Father. My Father and I, we're one."

Jesus turns around to man and says, "Man, without me, you can't do a thing. But with me, all things are possible."

Man turns around to his wife, "Sugar, what do you need? I'm either going to write a check for it or start believing God for it. I'm not your dictator; I'm not your boss. I'm the number one servant in our family."

I learned years ago, I bought me a male apron, had it custom made out of canvas, and it had big red lips on the front of it, and it says, "Kiss me."

Because I realized my house stole my wife. I don't know where's my wife. "Well, the house stole her!"

She's got my wife! I got to get my wife back!

So it took me a year and a half to get my wife back. I gave my house to my children. They became house children.

"You're going to do the dishes! You're going to do the laundry! You're going to vacuum the floor! You're going to stack the towels! You're going to clean off the kitchen sink!"

I gave my house—it took a year and a half. This wasn't simple, but eventually, I got my wife back!

So we come home. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to the living room. Tell us when dinner's ready."

And now we get up from the table, clean this up, wash those dishes, get them put away. "Away with the food! We'll eat that tomorrow!"

And so I train people. Don't believe me, but I train my kids to serve.

She said, "You want to be great in My Kingdom?"

"Yeah, to become the servant of everybody else!"

It's an upside-down pyramid. You go somewhere by serving other people.

So then the third thing is men. Men are lovers, and it's tied to—we're supposed to teach. We have to teach about love.

We are not born knowing; we're born thumb-sucking, self-centered, "I, me, me, I."

No! Shut your face up! I'm going to teach you how to serve! Then you're going to go somewhere!

I told my kids when they were in school, in high school, "You're going to get somewhere in school by serving other people. So play a sport, volunteer, sing in the choir, do something, help them do something! Don't be a show-off!"

And so it turned out to be really good.

So I'm a lover; I'm a leader; I'm a provider. Ladies, you have a different job description. Genesis 2:18: "You're a helper."

God made woman a helper. Now, the first half of that word, "help," is "per." So you're to help him.

Don't call him an idiot because women are smarter than men. It's a medical fact. The average woman has a 3% higher IQ than the average man.

The average man speaks 12,000 words a day; the average woman speaks 40,000 words a day. That's why domestic violence, 87% of the time, it's a man hitting a woman, not a woman hitting a man.

It's not because he's stronger; it's because he ran out of words.

So late at night is not the time to solve a problem. Get his belly full and get him to sleep. Talk to him when he gets up in the morning. Have a fresh supply of words in the morning.

And then when you talk to him, smile. "Hey, sugar, we need to visit."

"You're an idiot!"

So there are four reasons given for divorce. I got to jump to the end. Four reasons for divorce.

Now, you can Google the top 10 reasons for divorce. Four of the same. I don't care what website you go to.

Number one reason for divorce is communication or lack thereof. God gave us two ears and one mouth, not two mouths and one ear. You listen more than you talk.

Listen more than you talk. And when you talk, speak softly, speak slowly. Don't yell because that'll get you in a mess.

So all wars start with words. All peace agreements start with words. All marriages start with words. All divorces start with words.

Life and death are in the power of the tongue. How do you get so much hell in your life? Shut your mouth! You brought it on yourself!

You've opened the door to the devil with your mouth. "Well, I'm an idiot! Am I married to an idiot?"

Well, there you go, big boy! Good measure, pressed down!

"Hey, I have a lot of idiots! I keep marrying the wrong person!"

No, you keep marrying you!

I had an aunt that was married seven times. I did her first wedding. It was great!

No, Des of Texas, I went down, I married them. We ate cake, threw rice. Two years later, she got divorced.

She called. She said, "Joe Allan, I'm in love again! I want to get married! Will you come do the wedding?"

She said, "No, ma'am! I'll come to the wedding! I'll eat cake and I'll throw rice, but I'm not going to marry you!"

"Why not?"

"'Cause you don't need to get married! You're not ready! You've not grown up! You're going to marry you again!"

Like kind draws like kind! I don't care what people think! You'll marry you!

What needs to happen? You need to grow up! Until you grow up, you'll keep marrying you over and over and over and over!

You're looking for something you can't find because it's in the mirror!

They start growing up! When you start growing up, you'll attract something better!

Well, that's so deep!

Anyhow, watch your mouth! When you're married, it's a marriage license!

"I'm married! I can say anything I want!"

No! That's not in the Bible! That won't work! That won't work!

You're married now, so that's a legal document! You can't say anything you want because that's your sister, your brother in the Lord!

That's your yes, BS! You know, be no! All else proceeds from the evil one! You got to guard your tongue!

Number two reason for divorce is money. Men see money as freedom; women see money as security.

I remember we were in Bible school. I had a good job as an engineer, had a new house. So I sold everything. We had three minimum wage jobs between the two of us to get through a three-year Bible school, and we're broke as dirt.

I sold a piece of land back in Tennessee for $10,000. I got the check in the mail. I had two kids at the time. We're living in a nasty rent house. The foundation's busted; ants are crawling up the wall. We killed a snake in the kitchen one day. Like, it's a mess!

So I get this check in the mail. I got this just—we're jumping up and down! We thank Jesus! We said, "God!"

In a circle, we prayed, me and my wife and two kids. I said, "Okay, load up! Load up! Get in the truck!"

And said, "Where are we going?"

"Going to get that bass boat we've been looking at every Sunday after church!"

I'm going, "Look, this boat for eight months! Been believing God for a bass boat!"

And so we're going to the lake. So the kids got excited, and everybody's running out the door. My wife stood still in the living room.

I said, "Well, come on, babe!"

She said, "We're not wasting $10,000 on a bass boat!"

"No, we're not! I've been believing God for a bass boat! My bass boat's coming in!"

"We're not going to waste $10,000 on a bass boat! What do you think we're going to put it on? We're going to put braces on two kids' teeth!"

"I'm not wasting money on somebody's mouth! Go up and get a job! Fix your own teeth! I don't fix your teeth!"

So my second daughter, Jessica, had real buck teeth like a beaver. "Come here! Come here! Smile for your daddy! If you don't want this kid living with us, she's four! You better fix that mouth because nobody's going to marry that mouth!"

I never did get a bass boat. All my kids have beautiful teeth, though!

Is that reaching anybody?

So money's a different deal because we see it different. Women want to keep the kids around for the 40; men want them out when they're 18.

Dear God, it's time to go!

I remember two months before my 18th birthday, it's my senior year in high school. Summer's coming, and I'm going to graduate here in about two months.

So Dad came home from work. He worked swing shifts. He's eating real calm. "Eating well, son! What are you going to do when you get out of high school?"

Well, my buddies were going to the lake. We lived right next to Lake Choga. We're going to the lake and spend all summer at the lake swimming and hanging out with the girls.

"No, no! Where are you going to live?"

I'm not making this up. He was real calm. "Where are you going to live?"

I said, "I thought I was going to be living here in the bedroom."

"No, we're going to turn that into something else! Where are you going to live?"

I have to think about it. "Well, why are you thinking? Figure out what you're going to drive!"

"CU, only the two cars in the driveway! You don't have anything to drive! I guess you can take your bicycle!"

He was real calm. I thought, "Lord, he's serious!"

So when I was 18, I got promoted to adulthood! Amen!

Hood was wired down, living in a skanky apartment. But I realized something: it's time to grow up!

So most kids in America have not grown up. We've not let them. They're still kids.

You know, in Jewish culture, you're an adult when you turn 13. Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, celebrate it! People come over, the rabbi comes over, going to put you in a chair, dance you around the room, put that yarmulke on your head, celebrate the fact you're an adult now!

You're not a mature adult until you're 30, but you're an adult!

Well, in our country, you're not an adult until you get out of the house. And all of a sudden, somebody tells you, "You got to grow up!"

What happened? Well, somebody should have trained you to be an adult! Think like an adult! Get a job as an adult! Have a budget like an adult! Got some money saved like an adult!

You got to start thinking like an adult! We've not done that in our country!

That's why we're facing—we're the most prosperous nation per capita on the planet. We're also the most indebted nation in the world. We owe more money than anybody, and it's getting deeper by the minute!

So, "Well, we just print more money!"

No, it's not going to work! Eventually, it's going to hit the fan!

So the third thing is parenting. I wanted kids. I wanted a ton of kids. I did! I got nine grandkids! Nine! Just dropped my ninth one!

So I finally had a grandson! My son finally had a male! Now, my other daughters had males, but they're not a McGee!

I thought, "Well, I guess we're just going to die off! I guess that's it!"

CU, my son wasn't interested in having kids. He'd married this nice girl. She's real smart; they make good money. So they finally had a baby girl.

I said, "Well, we got a girl!"

Well, then two months ago, his wife was pregnant with twins. I said, "Lord, have mercy! Twins!"

Well, one of them was a male! A male child named after me! Joe McGee!

And so the family line will continue! He won't worry about getting anything! I'm going to load him up!

And so you're thinking about we're trying to pass on our faith to the next generation.

So parenting is about launching your kids into adulthood. It's not about, "Well, were you happy? Did you have a good party?"

We went to the big birthday party the other night. Twenty adults and a bunch of kids. That kid got more stuff than I ever got in my whole life!

I mean, it was nice, but that's just—that's not right! I told Angel, "I never got nothing for my birthday! You lucky you got a piece of cake because all the fam going to eat a piece of you! Better get a piece quick; they won't be any left!"

And so I never got any birthday gift! I never got no birthday present! What kind of idiot gets a birthday present?

You know?

And so this kid's loaded! This kid's going to be spoiled! He's going to think this is normal! It's not normal!

It's not normal! You have to learn how to go get your own stuff!

So parenting, I wanted my kids to go and learn how to be adults.

So like I said, I did everything I could, trained them as best I could, and they're all doing very well! They're all very successful adults! They go to church; they pay their tithe; they volunteer in church!

And so to me, I hit a home run! Amen!

Are they perfect? There are no perfect kids! They didn't have perfect parents!

And then the last thing you have to cover, which is really touchy, you have to teach on sex because nobody talks about it!

We just don't do it!

We were rotating tires on the truck one Christmas week, and it's cold. We're out in the barn, so I'm on the fourth tire. My dad's been very quiet tonight. He's holding the lanterns.

We're rotating the tires so the tires don't go bald. So I'm tightening up the lug nuts on the fourth tire. Dad's been real quiet. All of a sudden, Dad leaned in. He said, "Son, you know what to do?"

Well, I'm on the fourth tire. It's not about lugs; he's talking about all that!

"Oh dear God! He wants to talk about sex! Oh, he don't want to talk about it, and I don't want to listen!"

So I'm tightening the lug nuts. I said, "Yes, sir!"

I'm tightening. I'm not looking at him.

Well, he leaned in. He said, "Well, you better not ever do it!"

Then that was sex 101, 102, and 103! That was all I ever learned! Everything I learned else, I learned on the bathroom wall!

So you need to teach your kids about sex! And don't hyperventilate when they ask you a question because they don't know what they're asking!

A five-year-old is going to ask you a five-year-old question. A ten-year-old is going to ask you a ten-year-old question.

Don't unload the kitchen sink when they ask you! Just don't hop!

"Where did you hear that?"

"Where?"

Don't stay calm! Just stay real calm and just give a short answer because they don't know what they're asking anyhow!

So I can't do it here, but I'll just give you the essence of it. Proverbs 5:6 and 7: the best three versions on sex in the Bible.

And so the Bible said that the male sex organ is like a fountain. It's under pressure all the time! It's under pressure!

All you know, it doesn't need help; it's under pressure all the time!

The female sex organ is like a well. We had a well when I grew up in the country. It was on a hill.

And so you hated to be in the well room when we were out of water because they were going to pick you to go get the water.

So one day, I got picked. "Joe Allan, go up there and get water out of the well!"

"Oh God!"

Because it's up a hill behind the house.

And so I grabbed the two buckets. I'm walking up the hill, and I'm walking and sweating and sweating and walking and walking and sweating.

I finally get to the well. The well's 103 feet deep. We had to go deep to get good water.

So I hook up the bucket, and I'm cranking down, and I'm cranking down, and I'm cranking down, cranking. I'm sweating and cranking and cranking and sweating.

So if I finally hit the water, thank God!

Well, now I'm cranking it up, and I'm sweating and cranking and cranking and sweating.

Now, if I need to explain that to you, you see me in the lobby after the service!

It takes time to get water out of a well! [Applause]

So let's stand up! Everybody stand up!

I will say this as best I can: you do not find a great marriage; you build one! Amen!

Nobody got lucky and married anybody nice! There are no nice people! You're not your mother; you're not your father! You're somebody completely different!

Every human has a different thumbprint, has a different voice print! God's a creative God!

You didn't marry anybody like your mom; they don't exist! You didn't marry anybody like your dad; they don't exist!

God's a creative God! God made the bomber beetle! You ever seen the bomber beetle?

It's on National Geographic! Little beetle lives down here in Brazil, and it looks real strange! It's about three inches long, got two eyeballs set on turrets, little sticks!

He can look forward with one eyeball and behind him with the other at the same time!

And the bomber beetle loves wheat grass! So he'll find wheat grass! He's swinging!

They got a film! I bought the film! A 30-minute film on National Geographic!

He swings, eating the wheat grass, looking for the one on ball, looking behind the other big praying mantis!

The bomber beetle, man, that'll be some good lunch!

The praying mantis comes up behind the beetle, going to bite him some big lunch!

And right before he bites down, the beetle has two cylinders in his rear!

When he eats the wheat grass, he produces two kinds of gas! Two different kinds!

When he releases it, it produces a three-inch flame!

Now, you can't make this up! God giggled when He made this thing!

"Hey guys, come watch this!"

Right before the praying mantis bites down, the bomber beetle went, "Boom!"

And the praying mantis's head just disappeared, and he fell off!

God did that on purpose! If God did that, what do you think He did with humans?

There are no two humans the same! We get to start all over again every day, every year, every week!

The Bible says the righteous fall seven times a day, but we get back up!

We're not the perfect people; we're the getting back up people!

We've all made mistakes, made dumb decisions! Quit living in your past!

The devil lives in your past; God lives in your future! God's mercy is brand new in the morning!

Main points of the sermon:
1. The importance of service and humility in leadership.
2. The need for teaching about love and respect in relationships.
3. The role of communication in preventing conflicts and misunderstandings.
4. The responsibility of parents to guide their children towards adulthood.
5. The necessity of open discussions about sex in families and relationships.

Quotes:
1. "You want to be great in My Kingdom? You have to become the servant of everybody else. It's an upside-down pyramid. You go somewhere by serving other people." - 32:58
2. "We are not born knowing, we're born self-centered. I'm going to teach you how to serve, then you're going to go somewhere." - 32:58
3. "All wars start with words, all peace agreements start with words, all marriages start with words, all divorces start with words. Life and death are in the power of the tongue." - 32:58
4. "Parenting is about launching your kids into adulthood. It's not about whether you were happy or had a good party. You have to learn how to go get your own stuff." - 40:47
5. "You have to teach on sex because nobody talks about it. We just don't do it. You need to teach your kids about sex and don't hyperventilate when they ask you a question because they don't know what they're asking." - 43:30