Imparting Success To The Next Generation – Part 9 Lawson and Barbara Perdue (Updated)

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. Barbara and I are here and we’re sharing from her book “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” We’re talking specifically about establishing priorities in life, and we’re gonna be talking about the priority of family and our spouse. You don’t wanna miss this teaching today. It will empower you in your relationships. Friends, it’s great to have you today. We’ve been sharing all this week on Barbara’s book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” And we’ve specifically been talking, first of all, we talked about our relationship with God. That’s the foundation for a healthy society, for anybody, your personal relationship with God. And then secondly, we’ve been talking about our relationships in the family and specifically our relationship with our spouse. So we shared a little bit on that yesterday’s broadcast and we’re gonna continue to share. Yesterday we talked about in our relationship with our spouse, we talked about there’s three things that we need to remember before we get married. We gotta love God more than we love our spouse. Secondly, find somebody that loves God more than they love you. Secondly, we talked about a power of a good work ethic and then marry someone who’s a giver. And then we talk secondly about being complete in Christ.

 

  Yeah, we talked a lot about that, the importance of understanding whose idea was marriage? And we brought out that it was God’s idea. Adam didn’t just wake up lonely one day and start bar hopping looking for that right person. He already had a relationship with God the Father, and marriage was God’s idea. And we also brought out that God is not a God of chaos. How there was an order of events as God created. And he created man in his own image. Man had a place to live, man had a job to do. He was productive. I wanna remind everybody that work is a blessing. It is not a curse because God’s idea was for us to be productive. So for Adam to have a job, that was God’s idea. So again, to work is a blessing, not a curse. And then after Adam had a place to live, had a job, was being productive, then God brought Eve to him. And I’m gonna share something about what that means to believe God that he will bring a spouse to you. But I wanna bring out something very simple. We shared very briefly that we have three sons and it was really our middle son who was the first to get married. And we had taught our children that you will be able to provide for your spouse before you get married. And so as he was finishing college, he really thought about getting his master’s in another state. And he said, “I would really like to marry my fiancee before that would happen,” he thought, “in case I do move to another state.” And so he actually had a spreadsheet. He showed us proof how he could finish that master’s program and pay for rent and take care of his wife. And so our sons knew that we were serious about that, that it would be your responsibility to care for and provide for and take care of your wife, not our responsibility. And so he showed us on paper the plan and so, of course, they–

 

  I wanna talk about this a little bit. This is our son Andrew. One thing you should know about our son Andrew is he is a giver. And he was very generous not only after he got married and after he got his job, but he was very generous while he was in college and he was generous with his time. He would come down, him and his fiancee actually at that time, Bree, and they would serve the church and volunteer several hours every weekend for the church and do different things. And so that was phenomenal. But not only did he give of his time, he gave of his talent and treasure. I remember at one of our anniversary services, we were having like 10 people with special guests. We were having Andrew and Jamie Wommack, Bobby and Lynn Crow, and several people were coming with Bobby and Lynn. They’re missionaries, they pastor a great church in Mexico, a very large church. And they actually send support to people all around the world from their church in Mexico. But Andrew’s like, “I want us as a family and all of them to go out to this very nice restaurant .” And it’s probably not extravagant in most people’s opinions, but I’m a very conservative person. So it would’ve been extravagant for me at that time. And he’s like, “We’re gonna go there. I’m making the reservations and I’m paying for it.” This is while he’s a college student. So supernaturally, you know what? He did that but God opened up a door and he received an extra $10,000 grant, while he was in college to do this thing. And he had worked the summer before for the Shell Oil Corporation in Destrehan, Louisiana, actually where Jesse Duplantis’ headquarters are. And you know what? God just supernaturally blessed him. And even he had worked and made quite a bit of money, he worked for the National Renewable Energy Association while he was in college, went this summer, worked for Shell Oil, and then got this $10,000 grant, which he actually saved. And it became a down payment for his first house. It’s supernatural. These kids are blessed. But when you give to God and when you honor God, God will open doors and supply your needs.

 

  Amen. So again, I like what we brought out. Marry someone who loves God more than you. Marry someone with a work ethic and then you’ve added to my notes, marry a giver. And then you know you’ll be blessed. And it isn’t about… A lot of times we think someone should be a certain age or have a certain job or whatever, but no, it’s just whoever has that relationship with God, and again, knows they’re complete in him. And so those are just some examples. But I really like the next point I wanna get into in today’s is the power of agreement. A lot of times I would always share this, I taught this in Bible school for years here in Colorado, but also in different states. And a lot of times, I feel like people are trying to be an evangelist in thinking I can marry someone who’s not saved and I’m gonna change ’em. And that’s just a really bad, bad idea.

 

  Well, number one, it’s not scriptural.

 

  No, it’s not.

 

  We’re not to be unequally yoked. And that is like, just don’t do that. So if somebody’s not born again, and Kenneth E. Hagin used to say this, “If they’re not born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit, you shouldn’t marry ’em.” And our son Aaron added this, “They need to not only confess that they’re saved, and born again, secondly, be baptized in the Holy Spirit.” But he said a lot of these girls in college that claim to be Christians, they don’t go to church, they don’t serve God, they’re living a different lifestyle.

 

  So in other words, he would say, ask who you might be considering dating what church do you go to, and where do you volunteer at that church? And that kind of shows a lot of–

 

  Where their heart is.

 

  And I wanna really get into this, the power of agreement because we’ve been talking about that. Marriage shouldn’t be a big fight. And I believe it’s the enemy that comes to cause that division in our homes and in our marriage because he knows there’s so much power when we have agreement in the things of God, when we love God and we love his word, and what two people who love God can do together. He wants to destroy that power of agreement.

 

  The Devil tried to destroy the power of agreement. Absolutely. And we talked about how we’re complete in Christ. And when you marry another person that’s strong in the relationship with God, you take two positives and multiply ’em, you got multiplied strength. You take a positive and multiply it times a negative and you’ve got multiplied weakness. And you know what? We’re not trying to marry somebody to save them. We need to marry people that have a good, positive, strong relationship with God. Now, if you’re in a relationship already, the Bible says this, it says, if you’re married, don’t seek to be unmarried. But at the same point in time, you know what? You need to have good relationship, first of all with God. And then God said, “I’m gonna bring a help sufficient.” That’s not help. It says helpmeet in the Old English, in the King James Version in Genesis 2 that we read earlier this week in the broadcast. That’s not helpmate. It’s help sufficient, right? And so God created man and woman so they could come together and have multiplied strength. And when you have a husband and wife that both have a positive relationship with God and are strong in faith, they come together, you have multiplied strength in your relationship.

 

  Amen, and so I’m gonna just go ahead and read in Matthew 18:19-20. And it says, “Assuredly I say to you, whatever you both bind on Earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on Earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven.” And I like how we bring this out in the church community, in the church body, and how we have our friends and we have our different groups, but there’s something really powerful in the marriage. I know when we join hands and pray, there is just something so powerful and I love it that if there’s something wrong, maybe I feel like a virus is trying to come on me or something, at night I can say, “Honey, can you join hands and pray with me?” And I would say almost 10 out of 10 times when I’ve asked you to pray for me, whether it’s a pain in my back or pain in my neck, or like I said, some virus, it just immediately goes away. There is power in agreement and it’s huge in the marriage.

 

  Amen. And so he says, “If two or three of you agree as touching anything that you ask, it will be done by my Father, which is in heaven.” And where two or three are gathered together in my name, I’m telling you there is tremendous power when a husband and wife come together in agreement. The Bible says this. It says one can put 1,000 to flight and two can put 10,000 to flight. And we need to learn as husbands and wives the power that we have when we come together in agreement. Barbara, as a young man, I didn’t always know that. And I’d been taught the man is the head of the house. And sometimes I remember a couple of business deals that you said, “Well, I’ll let you do this,” but on paper, I would look at it and I’m like, there’s no way this can lose. And you’re like, “I’ll let you do it, but I’m gonna go on record and say that I don’t feel good about it.” And in those areas, one time we had a semi-load of cattle, like a 100 500-pound calves stolen out of a deal. And if I would’ve listened to you, you know what? It was so good we only lost $15,000. That was a miracle.

 

  Well, I know at the time that you were telling me about it and I was raised in the city, not on the farm, and so I respected your ability in that act of business. But there’s something inside of me that just said, “No, don’t do it.” And I believe God does talk to us, God does give us warnings, but we have to listen.

 

  Amen. And so we need to learn to respect one another and really value our spouse’s opinion, right? Because we all hear from God in different ways. And if you aren’t in peace about something as married believers and really have agreement at a heart level, not trying to manipulate one another, then you need to make another decision. All right, bless you. We’ll be right back with some good stuff. Hi, friends, we’ve been teaching from Barbara’s book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” These are principles that will help you establish a strong marriage, a strong home, and be a blessing to your children. We’ve also made the syllabus for this free of charge on our website at charischristiancenter.com. Blessings. You help single moms and orphan children in Congo, Africa.

 

  Right now we have 510 household, 775 are kids in school we’re sponsoring every month and 450 we’re feeding every day.

 

  We support Julie, we helped her last year to build a new feeding center. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We’re talking today about marriage and how we can have strong marriages. I believe the Devil really tries to fight marriage. And one reason is because God says, if you look at Ephesians 5, that the marriage relationship is a picture of Christ in the church. And I don’t think the Devil wants to have people in the world see a strong picture of Christ in his church on the Earth, but we can overcome the Devil because Jesus overcame the Devil for us. And through our relationship with God and faith in God, we can overcome the Devil and we can overcome the Devil in our marriages.

 

  We’ve been talking about really today’s teaching just the importance of power of agreement. We read in Matthew 18:19-20, and you brought out how even in our own marriage, there’s been times we’ve talked about things and maybe I didn’t feel really good about it, but you went ahead and did it. And it turned out to be negative. So there should be peace. You have a mentor by the name of Andrew Almack and he says, “Pursue after peace.” So we know that there should be peace in decisions that we make and it’s good in the marriage relationship that we make these decisions together. And it isn’t about arm wrestling and who can win in that arm wrestle match.

 

  I’m gonna tell you some counsel that I’ve given people like on making major decisions for your home, for your marriage, for your family, different things. But if you’re making a major decision, I believe if you’re both born again, you both have a relationship with God, especially if you’re both not only born again but baptized in the Holy Spirit and you regularly pray in the Spirit, pray in tongues, I believe that when you’re both born again, you both know God, you’re both Spirit filled, if you both have peace about a decision on the inside, not talking about in your mind, but if you both have a peace on the inside, and then if you’re both in agreement about that, I believe that over 90% of the time that that is the will of God. And I believe that’s good. I wanna also say another thing. We’ve been talking about it’s good to have a strong relationship with God when you’re married to a spouse that has a strong relationship with God. We realize that half of the body of Christ has been divorced. And so I just want to tell you that you know what? There is grace. God loves you, we love you. We’re not here to condemn anyone. I don’t believe that’s our job. And you just start where you’re at, praise God and keep moving forward in your relationship with God and don’t let the Devil condemn you. I had someone in the last year or so, and they came in, they said, “If you don’t stand on that pulpit and publicly condemn these people, we’re gonna quit your church.” I said, “Listen, I’m not standing on that pulpit and publicly condemning anybody because that’s not my job.” That’s God’s job. He is the judge and I’m not. That’s between them and God.” Amen.

 

  I have a really special friend and in her first marriage, her husband just said that everything was… You were talking about those that there is grace and restoration for those who’ve gone through divorce. Divorce is very painful. But again, I have this friend and she was just sharing with me how she did not want the divorce, but her husband just would always make her feel like everything was her problem and her fault. And so sadly they were divorced. Again, it wasn’t what she wanted. She’s a believer. She’s an amazing, powerful woman of God. And that hurt her so much to just hear over and over that something was wrong with her and that it was her fault. She actually studied psychology and went on to become a counselor because this person just put her down and put her down. And we know that is not of God and God can bring healing in all of our lives. And so…

 

  Amen. Is she married now?

 

  She’s married now to someone who loves God and loves her. So again, God can bring restoration in any area. Praise God.

 

  Amen. And you need to let God bring restoration. I realized years ago when we pastored our first church, we had a couple come and they are dear friends. They ended up both getting baptized in the Holy Spirit in our church. They ended up watching our kids when we went to different ministers’ conferences at that time that Andrew Wommack put on and we’re still very good friends, but he was a Baptist and he had been married to a Pentecostal woman and she divorced him for another man. He didn’t want to divorce. It wasn’t anything that he wanted. And this other woman, I believe was Nazarene and her husband divorced her and ran off with another woman. And they were both so hurt and so condemned, not over something they did, they were condemned over something their spouse did. And you cannot control another person. And listen, marriage is not one size fits all. I’m sorry, but it’s different in every relationship. And again, I am not the judge. I’m not even gonna try to be the judge. God is the judge. He sets one up, he puts another down. You know what? And over half of the body of Christ, just like I said before, has been divorced. And so I am not gonna be a minister of condemnation. In the Old Testament, Moses, under the law, allowed them because of hardness of heart to write a bill of divorce. So if that was allowed in the Old Testament, wouldn’t you think that in the New Testament there would be grace in that situation? And some people think that God doesn’t forgive divorce. Did you know what? The Bible says that God divorced Israel in the Old Testament. And I’m here to tell you that God didn’t sin.

 

  That’s right.

 

  So you know what? You can’t control another person’s will. And I’m not ministering condemnation. I’m not the judge.

 

  Well, we’re talking about marriage and it does take two people willing to work things out, willing to work differences out, and we can’t control another person. And I wanna go on and read something in Psalm and we’re talking about how God is the one who created marriage. And we’ve been talking about really it’s the enemy or the deceiver, the Devil who doesn’t want you to have agreement in your marriage and really wants to cause the friction. And so I love this in Psalm 133:1-3. “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” There should be unity in our marriage. And like you said, we can’t control the other person, but it goes on and says, “It is like the precious oil upon the head running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garment. It is like the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life evermore.” We talk about this in the marriage, we talk about this in the church, the body of Christ. And you see again the enemy, the deceiver, his number one game is to try and take unity away, whether it’s in the the body of Christ, he wants to take unity away in the family, unity away in our marriages because he doesn’t want us to have that power of agreement. He doesn’t want us to have that blessing. He’s the one who causes all this friction.

 

  Amen. The enemy will keep things stirred up. Some people just stay stirred up all the time. And again, you just gotta let some things go. And if you’re gonna make your marriage work, you know what? You’re gonna have to let some things go. If you’re in a church relationship, when you’re around a bunch of people, work with a bunch of people, there’s gonna be differences. There’s different personalities, there’s different ways of looking at things. And you know what? If you’re gonna have a positive ongoing, life-giving relationship in a marriage or in a church or at work, you’re gonna have to let some things go.

 

  That’s right. It’s just we’ve kind of seen this, I think a lot of people have talked about this, just how everyone just seems to be so easily offended. They just kinda wake up with this idea, “I’m gonna see what I can be offended about today or who I can be offended at.” And you have to make a choice. I’m not gonna fall for that. I’m not gonna fall for it.

 

  I’ll tell you, I’ve said this before, but offense is like a one-way street right out of what God’s called you to be and do. And if you wanna mess up, what God’s working in your life for good, you just get offense… Offense will destroy you. And the Bible actually says where there’s envy and strife, there’s confusion and every evil work. And so man, we need to let go of envy, let go of strife, let go of unforgiveness, let go of bitterness, let go of resentment. And I’ll just tell you this, a lot of times, people get offended and they don’t even know the truth about the situation. And if you really knew the truth, you probably wouldn’t be offended. But there’s things that you don’t know and you just need to get over and let God work in that situation. Some people that are watching me today, if you let offense rule you, you’re gonna make some major mistakes and it’s gonna cost you in a big way. And so I’m gonna tell you, just let it go. Get over it. Walk in love, let the love of God heal you. Let God minister his grace to you. Realize that you don’t know everything and sometimes you’re meddling in business that is not yours and I’m not gonna do that.

 

  Amen. That leads me up to the next one scripture I wanna share. And this is First Peter 3:8 and really, before this scripture, there’s a lot that has to do with talking about husbands and wives and the marriage, but I love this. Again, this is First Peter 3:8 and it says, “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, have compassion for one another, and love as brothers. Be tender hearted, be courteous.” Isn’t that something? Have compassion, be courteous to one another. We’re talking about the marriage, but even in the body of Christ, even in our communities. And then verse nine goes on and says, “Not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you are blessed, that you are called to this that you may inherit a blessing.” So this is so opposite of the world’s culture.

 

  If you wanna destroy a relationship, just start, when somebody tears into you, you tear into them back. That’s what he’s saying. When you get railed, when you get chewed out, don’t chew them back out. He says the contrary, bless them, you do the opposite. Do what God. The Bible says bless and do not curse. And this is talking about the marriage relationship in context. And he says, “You are a called to blessing.” You want to inherit a blessing? Speak a blessing. Be a blessing. Verse 10 goes on, “For he who will love life.” You wanna love life and see good days? “Let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that speak no deceit.” So guard your mouth. My mom had this saying over our kitchen sink in our trailer when I was a kid. Be careful of the words you speak. Keep them soft and sweet. You never know from day to day which ones you’ll have to eat. Barbara, before we go off the air, I would like you to pray for husbands, pray for wives, pray for families, pray for marriages. So just go ahead and pray for the people.

 

  Well, dear heavenly Father, we just do speak life into these marriages and these precious people watching, these husbands and wives. We speak strength in the marriage, wisdom, we speak peace in those homes and blessing. We just bind up that spirit of offense that’s trying to cause division and we thank you Lord for just a attitude of being courteous to one another.

 

  If you need prayer today, I wanna encourage you to call in to have our prayer ministers pray with you, to have our prayer ministers minister to you. If you wanna partner with this ministry, I believe there’s a great anointing of increase on this ministry. And I believe that if you partner with us, you’ll see that in your life. So give us a call today, we’d love to hear from you, and I’ll be back to pray at the end. Blessings.

 

  It is important to keep God first, family second, and our ministry third. In a busy world, it is essential that we understand and act upon these priorities. Raising kids to love the word, value family, and live with purpose will bring them great success. Get your copy of Barbara’s new book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation” for 15.99. Go to charischristiancenter.com and order yours today.

 

  Hi, everyone. We have a special announcement for you.

 

  We’re having a camp meeting and it’s for the whole family. We have special kids teaching, special youth teaching, special adult teaching, special guests, and special worship. It’s a great event and you don’t wanna miss it. I believe it will be a blessing to you and your family. So come see us. Friend, I invite you to pray with me now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he is the promise and he provided every promise for me. And right now, I surrender my life to the lordship and dominion of Jesus Christ. Jesus, come live in me and have your way. Amen.

 

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