Evangelist Carolyn Malaika Foster-Brooks
THE MINISTRY OF S.A.R.A.H.
(SERENITY*ATONEMENT*RESTORATION & HEALING)
LYONS, GEORGIA
JUNE 2003
PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, I prayed years ago to You, asking You to use me according to Your will and plan for my life. Lord I know that there have been times when I have gone astray and was contrary to Your Word and I am sorry for every act of disobedience!
Time and time again, You have had patience with me and allowed me to live through trials and tribulations, heartache and shame, so that I could be broken down to a point of hopelessness within my own ability.
Lord,You have allowed me to see and believe that without You, I could do nothing. You have saved my life and have molded and shaped me into the woman you want me to be, and for all of that God, I want to thank You!
Guide my thoughts God as I prepare this sermon for the good of your lost daughters and sons. Remove me from their minds and allow them to receive You through me, your humble servant.
In the sweet and Holy Name of Jesus, I have prayed.
Amen! And So it is!!
MAIN SCRIPTURE: Psalms 64:10 kjv The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in Him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.
(new living translation) THE GODLY WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD AND FIND SHELTER IN HIM. AND THOSE WHO DO WHAT IS RIGHT WILL PRAISE HIM!
INTRODUCTION:
I have learned over the years that it is pointless to get upset and all bent out of shape with worry, plus continuous frustration when your husband sometimes is not the mate you believe they should be. Or if they are not acting the way you want them to.
Many relationships have been entered into with a misconception that once you get married, things are going to change! Well, excuse me. Allow me to correct that previous statement because it is not a misconception! Things and people do change, but we women fool ourselves often into believing that if we take on the identity of a man and assume the role of wife, then we are automatically entitled to ultimate respect and faithfulness!
I can guarantee you that there is not a married woman alive who can look you in your face and tell you in all honesty that her marriage has been all that she ever dreamed it would be since day 1! And if you should come across a Christian woman who is married to a Christian man, and she tells you that they have ALWAYS had a perfect marriage, or they have NEVER argued, then you must be talking to a woman who has memory loss or to a woman whose husband is a deaf-mute!
Amen?
Because so many of us have suffered because of our own fantasy, enhanced by television, love stories, soap operas and by people not willing to teach us the truth of what the Bible says about men and women, virginity, sex, marriage, adultery and divorce....we have been witness to broken bones and broken homes; hopeless women in prison because they have killed someone they love or women killing themselves because someone they love put them in a prison called "no hope"!
Now some of you might feel uncomfortable right now and might even be hesitant to say Amen for fear that somebody else might think you are in a bad relationship now.
And then, some of you might think that I have a lot of nerve preaching to you about marriage or counseling you on the subject of marriage. Because afterall, I have been divorced twice and married three times. And even now, my third marriage is very shaky!!!
Yes. You are right! I do have a lot of nerve because God gave it to me! And I wish that when I was in the "world" and even a young Christian, that someone spiritual had had the nerve to help me understand how to have innerpeace when you are living in hell.
Perhaps if someone in the church had the nerve to tell the gospel truth to our young women, the church of today would not have the problem of so many failed relationships. Sisters looking for love in all the wrong places, some of which have resulted in pregnancies out of wedlock, or aborted children who will never have a future.
If someone would have the nerve to tell the gospel truth, perhaps domestic violence would not be on the rampage, homicides and suicides could be avoided and many women, especially Christian women, would not lose their self-esteem to verbal and psychological abuse.
I am still talking about, Why Some Christian Women Are Living in Hell? And part of the answer to that is because of the misconceptions about how love and marriage was supposed to work.
But all thanks being to God Almighty, women such as myself can share our lives as an illustration of God’s ability through His Word to show you the steps to find inner peace.
God does not call the qualified, but God qualifies the called! For every woman whose heart needs to be touched with a ray of hope and who needs inner peace, I want you to know that inner peace is also known biblically as wisdom!!!
In the entire bible there is no other man like Soloman, a master of relationships....
TEXT: ...let us first remember that there is nothing new under the sun and that the first couple, Adam and Eve did not have a perfect marriage after satan got involved in their relationship! And every since then, married couples have had to work on their marriages!!! It is in Proverbs 2: 1-11 that we are advised, MY CHILD, LISTEN TO ME AND TREASURE MY INSTRUCTIONS. (2) TUNE YOUR EARS TO WISDOM, AND CONCENTRATE ON UNDERSTANDING. (3) CRY OUT FOR INSIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING. (4) SEARCH FOR THEM AS YOU WOULD FOR LOST MONEY OR HIDDEN TREASURE. (5) THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO FEAR THE LORD, AND YOU WILL GAIN KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING. (7) HE GRANTS A TREASURE OF GOOD SENSE TO THE GODLY. HE IS THEIR SHEILD, PROTECTING THOSE WHO WALK WITH INTEGRITY. (8) HE GUARDS THE PATHS OF JUSTICE AND PROTECTS THOSE WHO ARE FAITHFUL TO HIM.
(9)THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT IS RIGHT, JUST AND FAIR, AND YOU WILL KNOW HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT COURSES OF ACTION EVERY TIME. (10) FOR WISDOM WILL ENTER YOUR HEART, AND KNOWLEDGE WILL FILL YOU WITH JOY. (11) WISE PLANNING WILL WATCH OVER YOU. UNDERSTANDING WILL KEEP YOU SAFE.
WHY ARE SOME CHRISTIAN WIVES STILL LIVING IN HELL????
Sisters, many of us were not wise when we entered into our relationships, therefore we did not have wisdom in our hearts, and because we really had no knowledge of what a godly relationship was like, we have had some happy times, but few of us have been filled with joy!
It is sad and it is true that a lot of you, just like me, never had anybody to tell us what the bible had to say about unacceptable sexual behavior...oh sure, we heard what our momma’s said about "not messing around with boys" and how " we had better not bring any baby’s home or else we would be punished or even sent away!" But how many of us were told that God wanted us to be holy and to stay away from sexual sins? That God wanted each of us to learn to control our own body in a way that is holy and honorable. That we shouldn’t use our bodies for sexual sin like the people who did not know God? (1 Thessolians 4:1-5)
Who was it that told you and how old were you when you understood that MARRIAGE SHOULD BE HONORED BY EVERYONE, AND HUSBAND AND WIFE SHOULD KEEP THEIR MARRIAGE PURE. GOD WILL JUDGE AS GUILTY THOSE WHO TAKE PART IN SEXUAL SINS. (?) Hebrews 13:4 nlt
Let’s be real church and let us be honest...we all saw and we all heard a lot of things as we grew up. By the time some of us were 12 years old which is the age of the rite of passage, we already had misdirected notions of what family life could and should not be. And some of us already had "captured hearts", but for the wrong man!
There was nobody who had the nerve to quote Proverbs 4:20-23 and insisted, PAY ATTENTION, MY CHILD TO WHAT I SAY. LISTEN CAREFULLY. (21) DON’T LOSE SIGHT OF MY WORDS. LET THEM PENETRATE DEEP WITHIN YOUR HEART, (22) FOR THEY BRING LIFE AND RADIANT HEALTH TO ANYONE WHO DISCOVERS THEIR MEANING. (23) ABOVE ALL ELSE, GUARD YOUR HEART, FOR IT AFFECTS EVERYTHING YOU DO.
And by not guarding our heart, we have subjected ourselves to violating a commandement. We are admonished to put no other god before the Lord. We are to love Him with all of our heart, mind and soul. Yet, we have placed our trust in a man and he became the object of our faith! And due to our misdirected trust, we have created the hell we are living in and have no joy in our marriages.
As women, we enter into covenant with a man based on the knowledge we have at that time, which is what we have seen and what we have heard. We make an assessment of what could be and determine a long-lasting relationship with that man.
Of course, no God fearing Christian woman is looking for a temporary relationship or a one night stand...we look for a man that is going to stand the test of time and transition. And because that requires an element of trust on both parts, we have no idea of what experiences may alter our appearance, our dreams, or outlook on life. So it is critical that we know where our trust lies.
We as Christian women, naturally have our eyes on the Lord in the beginning and we trust God to bring along Mr. Wonderful. But once Mr.Wonderful comes along, satan tempts us to misdirect that trust we had in God to that man!
Sisters, this is how we have made our biggest mistakes because a husband should NEVER be the object of your faith. When we do this, we allow our husband’s to carry our spiritual life and we become complacent! Or sometimes, we PUSH OUR HUSBANDS to a place before he is ready and we attempt to control his destiny!! God is not the source and that is not good for us.
Understand that our primary ministry IS to our husbands, that is true, BUT OUR SERVICE IS TO THE LORD! No man should be allowed to rob God of His preeminence in our lives. It ends in tragedy and disillusionment. Very similar to what happened in the Garden of Eden...Adam’s mistake was trusting the words of Eve more than the Word of God! It caused disobedience to God and resulted in spiritual death.
Many married couples today are facing the consequences of disobedience to God’s Word. There is no spirt of oneness or harmony in their relationships. There is no joy.
I am still talking about, Why Some Christian Married Women Are Living In Hell? And the heart of the matter is, where is your heart????
We can correct a lot of our marriages by putting our focus totally on God and stop looking to our husbands as our total source for emotional, social or spiritual gratification. Our husbands are instruments of God. THEY ARE NOT GOD !!!!
We have lost our joy and are living in a hell that we unintentionally created by spending too much time judging our mates and their "short comings" and too little time judging our own motives! We have allowed ourselves to become vulnerable to satan’s tactics to destroy our oneness. Didn’t he say that he was coming to seek, kill and destroy!
CLOSING:
It is not too late to repent and to correct a wrong. There is a way we can take action right now and make every attempt to save our marriages and get out of hell!
In much the same way that God clothed Adam and Eve with animals skins, we too need to be clothed in the spirit of humility that acknowledges Christ first for who He is in your life! You can only trust your spouse after yo have trusted Christ to head your marriage!
John 14:15 says, IF YOU LOVE ME, YOU WILL OBEY MY COMMANDS. Ephesians 5:21-23 is the scripture you should keep in your heart and in your spirit that will help us all stay grounded in His Word and help us recapture the joy that many of us have once lost.
BENEDICTION:
PRAISE BE TO THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. GOD IS THE FATHER WHO IS FULL OF MERCY AND ALL COMFORT. HE COMFORTS US EVERYTIME WE HAVE TROUBLE, SO WHEN OTHERS HAVE TROUBLE WE CAN COMFORT THEM WITH THE SAME COMFORT GOD GIVES US.
2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-4
