Men and women have particular weaknesses that trouble them. Drawing from Psalm 139:23-24, Carlton McLeod will encourage His hearers to examine themselves, to discern those besetting transgressions, and to receive biblical direction for confession, repentance, and victory through Christ.

Well good evening. I am not Vodi Bakum. He's in heaven, but I am glad to be with you tonight. Our text will come from Psalm 139 verses 23 through 24 And so you can find that. We'll read that here momentarily.

It's always an honor to be here at church and family life. And I consider Scott Brown to be one of my mentors. Love him with all my heart. And I love you as well. So we have a bit of a journey tonight.

I need to dive right in before the red screen of death comes on in the back back there. And again, my assignment tonight is to talk a little bit about the weaknesses and the particular sins of men and women. And my goal tonight is to share some biblical insights on this particular topic. These would be areas of weakness and areas of sometimes outright transgression and iniquity to which the two genders, the two sexes, are particularly prone. Let me say at the outset that this is a humbling task.

I am one sinner attempting to describe prominent sins to a room full of sinners saved by grace. The Bible says who can say I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin. Such is the nature of considering one's own sin before a holy God. This is also a very heavy task. The nature of sin, beloved, is that it destroys.

It destroys communion. It destroys fellowship. It destroys lives. It damages souls. It causes ungodly decisions to seem profitable and it of course opens up doors for the devil.

So this message is actually pretty serious and the assignment is to lay out the sin sickness to which everyone in the room is in one way or another infected. So I have three goals. The first, to see the continual need for self-examination. The second, to discuss with you and put forward perhaps a proposition that scripture is discerning. We read it but it's reading us.

And then third to end hopefully concerning the grace and love of God who forgives us of all of our sins and purifies us from all of our iniquities through the blood of Christ. So I'd like to read just those two verses tonight and we'll talk a little bit through some of the other verses in that psalm just very briefly. But Psalms 139, verses 23 through 24, David writes, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the reading of Holy Scripture. Thank you for the power of the Bible to change our lives in the hand of thy Spirit. We pray over these next few moments that you would anoint the speaker who's just a sinful man attempting to describe something miraculous and incredible to your people. And Father, I pray also that you would open up the ears and the hearts and the eyes of your people and give understanding that we might end this message tonight understanding your grace, praising you for it, perhaps even a time of repentance. We give you all the honor, we give you all the glory, and we give you all the praise in Jesus' name.

Amen. Now David begins this song like this. He says, Oh Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off.

Thou compassed my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all of my ways. The sobering thought that God knows all of your ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me. Beloved, it is both comforting and sobering to know that God deeply knows us.

He has searched us and knows us intimately. He knows and sees all of our actions. He even knows the motivations behind those actions. He sees our thoughts and knows the state of our hearts. He knows where we are going and he knows how we're going to get there.

David says in verse 7, whether shall I go from thy spirit or whether shall I flee from thy presence? Oh, the Lord knows all of our ways. Jeremiah said it like this in Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse 24. Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord.

Indeed, Proverbs chapter 15 and verse 3 declares, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. There is not a word that comes from our mouths that he does not know all together. So after extolling the Lord for his omniscience and omnipresence throughout this holy psalm, and even our Lord's creation and divine design of humanity, David concludes by singing of the precious thoughts of God toward him and his own desire to see the enemies of God defeated. He asks the Lord to search him out for his hatred of those who besmirch God and to try his thoughts for his own loyalty to Jehovah. David's words, search me oh God and know my heart in verse 23 are instructive for us.

Have we acknowledged that God knows us better than we know ourselves? Do we hate the enemies of God even those things that war against him in our own souls? Do we hate our sins with a perfect hatred and count them our enemies? Are we willing to figuratively say to our sinful predilections, depart from me therefore, ye bloody men? From verse 19 of that same song.

And although we praise him because we are fearfully and wonderfully made, do we have the courage to face our weaknesses and for our purposes tonight our specific sex specific weaknesses and say to them, lead me in the way that is everlasting. Oh Lord, as we begin to look at the sin to which we are prone, please have mercy upon us. Again from King David, have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. This is so key.

For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightst be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judges. Behold, I was shaping in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. God knows who you are. And so the point of that first goal was for us to drop all of our pretenses and say, okay, I can't hide anyway.

The Lord knows my frame, he knows that I am dust, he knows my thoughts, he knows my heart, There's no place I can hide from him anyway. So I might as well come clean and say, Lord, forgive me, a sinner. See, beloved, the second part of my talk tonight is about the discerning nature of Scripture. Scripture is many things. It is, as we know, inspired, it is infallible, it is inerrant, it is sufficient.

Say amen, church and family life, right? And we praise God for those things. It is redemptive. That is it speaks to us of the unfolding redemptive plan of God in Christ. The Father's redeeming of sinners by the blood of his own dear Son.

But I'd like to make a point tonight that most of you have probably considered, perhaps a few of you haven't. Scripture is discerning. God in His mercy not only reveals Christ that we might be saved through Scripture, but he also teaches and corrects us with Scripture. The writer of Hebrews said it this way, Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12 says, for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow and is a discerner. It is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked, and that would include our own sins, our own predilections. All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Beloved, scripture is discerning. The word of God, of course, is alive. The word of God, of course, is powerfully effectual.

The Word of God cuts away our pain and sorrow via its promises and slices away our sin via warning and correction. Indeed, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's profitable for doctrine and for reproof and for correction and for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The Bible does this work in us when we read it with meekness and receive with that same meekness the ingrafted word that saves our very souls. The Bible pierces deep into the inner man even into the mysterious distinctions between the immaterial parts of man. It discerns.

It judges both the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And as I said before, when we read it prayerfully, it reads us. Carlton, what's your point here? My point is this. I submit tonight that specific scriptures for men and women, and not just men and women, but for men and women, not only encourage us, and they don't only exhort us, but they also, and very intentionally, correct us.

That is, the verses that target men and the verses that speak directly to the daughters of Zion, they are more than general exhortations, but they are, exhortations, but they are specialized and divinely inspired admonishments in areas in which men and women struggle and are tempted. God commands certain things for men as an example. For a couple of reasons, in his wisdom those things are obviously best for men because God commands them, but number two those things are commanded because they are uniquely challenging for men. In other words, God speaks to us right where we are. He already knows your thoughts.

He already knows your inclinations. He knows where you struggle and He loves us enough to send word directly to be a bomb in Gilead in the areas where we sin, in the areas of where we're tempted. And the interesting part about that is you may have heard out in the broader kind of evangelical world, how preachers kind of shy away from the so-called clobber passages. But beloved, they're not clobber passages, they're designed for consecration. They're designed to actually help us.

They are targeted. The board of God discerns us. Men are commanded this way, and women are commanded this way, for the glory of God, certainly, but because these are the areas in which men and women will likely struggle. And they need, we need, correction. In other words, those verses on submission, ladies, are for you.

And those verses for loving your wife as Christ loves the church men, they are for you precisely because men sometimes struggle with love and are commanded not to be bitter against wives and women, maybe sometimes struggle with submission. What do you think ladies? Okay. And so those...and this is a shift in attitude, maybe not in this body, but for a lot of people where they tend to shy away from the verses that make them feel bad or don't accord with the cultural paradigms or maybe perhaps they were abused in certain settings. This is a kind of a shift in attitude.

This proposition that scripture is discerning says, no, God actually put that there because I need it. God actually is teaching me this and commands this of me because if left to my own flesh, and if my ear tunes into the tune of the world, and certainly the enemy doesn't want me to do these things, the world, the flesh, and the devil. If I'm left to those things, then I won't do them. If left to yourself, you won't submit. If left to yourself, you won't be modest.

If left to yourself, you won't love like Christ, So much so that you're willing to lay your very life down for your wife and your children. And so those passages that are often maligned even in the church are given for godly and divine and loving purpose. That they are Precisely because you need them. They are hard because your soul is They're hated because men hate God and love darkness more than light But they are beneficial. They are profitable and they are sanctifying If we embrace tonight that scripture is discerning along with a fervent and disciplined desire to self-examine, brief exposition there in Psalm 139, Then we give honor to God.

Then we increase our reverence for the Word of God. And then we, by God's grace, will strengthen our homes and our churches because we will be less inclined to allow unchecked besetting sin. And so ladies, we'll start with you. Pastor Clary said that he didn't have much for the women. I was thinking, I was sitting up there, I was thinking, don't worry, bro, I got you.

We start with the ladies. So Why are you starting with the ladies first? Because that's the apostolic pattern. That's what happened at Ephesus in the writings of Paul. That's what he wrote to Colossae.

That's even Peter's order. So we start, I figure I'm on safe territory if I go along with what the Apostles did. We'll start with the ladies with a brief kind of understanding of the hostile environment which limits women's growth. I believe the church is very hostile towards women, kind of the broader evangelical church. And what I mean by that is not that they are taught down to it, things like that, it's simply that they're not taught.

Everybody's afraid to teach women. There's so much, and I believe that's a hostile attitude. There are reasons for this. Number one, because there's a fear of offending women. Nobody wants to offend women.

I don't know what it is sisters and we've talked a lot about you being the weaker vessel but I don't know in this area. Nobody wants to offend women number one. Number two because there is a fear to be even called an offender of women. That is anathema to the soul of a good man. He does not want to be associated with those who hurt women.

Number three, because of feminism. And of course, you've heard that several times tonight, so no reason to really go back into that but number four because of satanic attack which if we have time we'll talk about a little bit more and number five because often in the past there's been an abuse narrative and sadly there have been too many instances of such And so there is this kind of tiptoeing around the tulips when it comes to teaching women. And as a result, many women have not been properly exhorted to fight against the sins that does so easily, but set them. It's easy to look at a man and say, hey man, tighten up, do better, work harder, be in church on time. Did you hear me?

I heard you. You gonna do it? I'm gonna do it. Who talks like that to women? Hey sis, why is your family late?

What are you doing? Your children look a little unkept today. What's going on? You're crazy? No one does that.

But our unwillingness to speak directly to the particular sins and weaknesses of women, I believe I've hurt you guys, I've hurt you ladies, and has stunted your spiritual growth and the spiritual growth of God's daughters So we'll start quickly with with and these are just my takes It's not meant to be an all-inclusive exhaustive list of particular weaknesses and sins, but I have five for the ladies and five for the men and 20 minutes left. Lord have mercy. Number one, discontentment with her assigned role and duties. It was the serpent who instigated such discontentment when he said, Yea, hath God said, and then ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's, knowing good and evil.

Beloved, Eve had everything. A loving husband, future children, a beautiful garden in which to live close fellowship with God. Satan was able to use subtlety to deceive Eve into wanting more discontentment. The devil inspired in her an ungodly discontentment with who God made her to be and help me and what God had given her to do. Instead she liked the fact that she could quote be as God's unquote and feminism is actually marked by such paganism whether you know this desire for Godhood whether it is an independent judgment of what is right and wrong, or good and evil, whether it is a total independence as opposed to an interdependence, or whether it is quite frankly the desire to be worshiped, which is pretty popular in certain music genres, people bowing down, and Beyonce was big on that one.

And you guys aren't the Beyonce crowd, but you know, it's okay. It's good. So Satan, he used his cunning and craftiness to produce this discontentment in Eve. And again, as you've already heard, if you want to be called everything but a child of God in twenty twenty six, lovingly called women to their biblical roles and immediately you'll be drowned out by shouts of down with the patriarchy and misogyny. But God's word, that God's word is seen to be limiting to women is one of the saddest things in the church of today.

The key to contentment, my sisters, is to realize and embrace the wisdom of God in the Bible, that His ways are good, that all His paths are peace, and that there's nothing wrong with your design. It is good. Number two, a desire to dominate or lead men. And of course, we could talk all a long time for about all of these and really develop them. But I'm just giving you the broad brush.

Hopefully, it'll be enough for today. Number two, a desire to dominate or lead men. And of course, we could talk a long time about all of these and really develop them, but I'm just giving you the broad brush. Hopefully it'll be enough for today. Number two, a desire to dominate and lead men.

I heard a Brother in the back right now say, say it louder pastor. I'm trying brother. Genesis 316 unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow. Thou shall bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee." The word desire in Hebrew means a stretching after, a longing. And at first that sounds pretty good.

Physical desire for one's husband is a good and godly thing. God commanded them in fact to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth. But this verse is describing a curse. Increased pain and childbearing was the first part of the curse and the second, the sort of the desire that will cause a husband to have to exercise rule or rule over thee. Just as sin desired to rule Cain, and Cain is commanded to rule over it, likewise part of the curse is a woman's desire to lead and rule over her husband, but he must exercise a loving and biblical rule instead.

The easy and tender headship and submission relationship that we see implied in Genesis chapter 2 where Eve was created for the man and from the man and brought to the man and named by the man, thanks vodi, was destroyed because of sin. Now there would be difficulty. We see God's love in exhorting his daughters in this particular area as a matter of biblical discernment, knowing that his daughters would struggle with it, and we see it again and again and again. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22, Titus 2, 5, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blasphemed.

1 Peter chapter 3, likewise ye wives. There's kind of a pattern here. It's repeated. Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. And amazingly, so many people look at this and think it's a bad thing, but it's a mighty tool in a woman's toolkit.

I know just by my wife is, we've been married coming up on 34 years praise the Lord and And she is the embodiment of this But in those early days, you know anybody remember the early days Where you're still trying to figure it out just me is it just me? All right You know when she returned, you know a comment from me that in a way that sounds kind of like me, my brain switched and I went, oh, okay, I'm talking to masculine here. And that didn't work out very well Because we both left that conversation very unsatisfied, but she has learned how powerful femininity is. So when I say well sweetie we want to do such and such well, baby I'd like to do such and such and I was like no, I think this is the best way and she goes, okay You're the husband You're the leader of our family And I love you and I trust you to hear from God and lead our family forward. I'm going to go pray for you and make your favorite dinner.

I'm like okay whatever you want, it's whatever you want now. You know you could just lay out the laundry list and to Sam's Club we go. You know? Husbands are won by the life of their wives. But do you think God knew that his daughters would struggle with submission, would struggle with this desire to lead and dominate?

I think maybe he did. And I think the scripture is discerning in that way. Those verses are their sisters to help you in an area of sin and weakness. Number three, immodesty which is normally but not always paired with loudness, brashness, and contentiousness and quarreling. Goodness, Scott.

Thanks for this message topic, my friend. There's some bad examples in the Bible, right? Whether it's Jezebel painting her face in 2 Kings 9, either out of pride or in an attempt to persuade or perhaps even in just outright defiance of Jehu. All the way to the Proverbs 7 woman who the Bible tells us in chapter 7 in verse 9 has the attire of a harlot with subtle of heart and she is loud and stubborn and her feet abide not in her house. In fact, Proverbs is a case study here, Proverbs 9, 13, a foolish woman is clamorous, that is she is loud, she is noisy, she is boisterous.

In Proverbs 21 and 9 we read that it is better to, I can't always laugh at this, it is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop. You can see the sky in the corner like Lord, okay, but it's better to dwell in the corner of a housetop than with a brawling or a contentious woman in a wide house. She is quarrelsome. She's, she doesn't mind fighting. She doesn't give way.

She doesn't yield. Proverbs 19 and 13, a foolish son is the calamity of his father and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. It's like water torture. Amen. Okay, those are bad examples but the good examples, the good, the passages that discern and help us self-examine, they're there for us.

In 1st Timothy chapter 2, in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves. I love the King James here. It's an adornment, it's a decoration, it's beautiful that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shame, facetness. Love that word again in the King James. Cares the idea of downcast eyes.

God even knows sisters that you that you can catch the men with your eyes. So he protects your modesty via this command and also protects the weakness of men at the same time. Sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becomeeth women professing godliness with good works. Peter says, whose adorning, let it be not that outward adorning of plating of the hair and the wearing of gold and the putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament, even the decoration, some verses there, even the imperishable qualities of a meek and quiet spirit. How different is this from the modern woman who is supposed to be loud, supposed to be a modest, struts around, does her thing, and you are commanded to be the exact opposite.

For most sisters, soberly examining God's Word on how our Lord wants His daughters to adorn themselves would be helpful here. Scott just finished a very helpful book in this area. Indeed, the discipline of viewing a meek and quiet spirit and modest apparel as adornment is a beautiful thing to teach your daughters. This is how you beautify yourself according to the word of your Lord. You can be Jezebel and spend all your money on makeup.

Any other father in here fought the makeup fight? Okay, y'all, I've lost you already. Now onto him who's able to keep us from falling too. Number four, use of manipulation. Use of manipulation.

This is a weakness, this is a sin, this is a predilection. It is important to note that this is not unique to women. Men do some of these things too. However, men have other options, particularly in this area of manipulation or using cunning and subtlety. They're typically stronger and can use their strength and authority in ungodly ways to get what they want.

But lacking such, women can sometimes be tempted to use the same trick used on them in the garden. Subtlety, cunning, and manipulation. Well, That's a pretty difficult assertion there. Carlton, are you sure? Well, I mean, we can look at Lot's daughters who got their dad drunk, or Rebecca helping Jacob usurp Esau's birthright, or Potiphar's wife who was the aggressor and then played the victim or Jezebel manipulating Naboth's death for his field for her husband or Herodias getting John the Baptist killed using the wiles of her own daughter.

It's in there. And if you ask women about women, in honest moments women will tell you, yeah, I don't trust a lot of women. Women know women. Amen. You don't have to say amen, but that's right.

I'm not the only man in the room. I'm not the only man in the room who's been saved from calamity and foolishness by a wife, my wife observing a woman from afar and going, stay away from her. I don't know what it is but I don't like it. I just tell men, just listen, just listen. It'll save you money, it'll save you time, it'll save you frustration because women know women.

Right? Sisters, your influence is powerful. Made all the more because good men want to please you. They want to please the women in their lives. So you must be aware of using your God-given influence in ungodly ways.

Ask the Lord to show you your own heart, to show you what your motives are behind some of the things that you do. And then finally a weakness, I classify this one as a weakness, an increased susceptibility to being deceived. It's a tough one, I know. Just bear with me. God's daughters by holy design, and we've heard some of this by the way by other speakers, but are built to nourish and cherish and to desire such.

She's designed to be more trusting and more empathetic. And these are very good things. We need these traits in our wives and mothers. They make the household go. But Satan knows this too.

Whether it's the evil men who crept into houses to lead silly women captive who were laden with sins, led away by divers lust in 2nd Timothy 3, or whether it is this statement concerning Eve by the apostle Paul to the church at Corinth, but I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety so your minds would be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Beloved, it was no accident that the devil went to Eve first. It's no accident that the woman, the women in 2nd Timothy 3 were crept on by evil men. It is no accident that some of the most ungodly and woman slash family destroying movements of today are being led by or and or cheered on by women. Whether it's abortion or feminism or Marxism or witchcraft or drag queens reading library books or LGBTQIA plus plus I don't know acceptance open borders all of it cheered on mostly by women women have destroyed Europe I asked just the truth of it So this particular weakness is actually hard to spot in yourself Here's the truth.

No one deceived thinks they're deceived One benefit of courageous husbands fathers brothers and strong local church elders and deacons is guarding against this propensity. And so when they attempt to do that, give them a little grace. They're trying to help you. All right, let's turn to the men in the time that we have left. Won't be able to do much, but just give you the topics.

Sorry. But passivity, the first one for men, and or not paying attention. Passivity or not paying attention. This is probably classified as a sin. Certainly a weakness because of the damage that it does.

Returning to the garden, there are two schools of thought on where Adam was while Eve was conversing with the serpent. Some say he was with her, others say he was not. Eileen in the with her school of thought because the Bible literally says with her and he did eat. However, I mean I don't know, not much for theologian here but however there are good lessons for men in this passage regardless of which way one views it. If Adam was there when Eve was being tempted, all godly men as sons of Adam should be aware of our tendency to be passive.

I mean, think about it like this. How passive would you have to be to one, no God commanded that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be eaten. Two, See your woman talking to a snake. Three, allow her to and then allow her to eat the fruit that he gave her. And then four, eat the fruit yourself.

That is some doctoral level passivity right there. What stopped Adam from obeying God, rebuking the serpent, and checking his wife? Why are you talking to a snake? It's not like he didn't know better. Recall, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Brethren, you will be tempted to be sinfully passive like Adam. If you yield, much evil can happen to you, to your family, and to your church. The path of least resistance isn't a metric by which godly men make decisions. Rather, we must hold to what is right. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is said.

Now, if Adam was not there when he was being tempted, All godly men as his sons should be aware of our tendency to, and the wives will love this one, not pay attention. Oh, that's funny. Because I know there are wives that are you listening? Did you pay attention? You know, it's like that thing of husbands trying to find something in the pantry and it's right there.

And we truly ladies, we can't see it. It's at eye level. I'm sorry, it's simply not there. And you come in and go, right here. And you go, oh, well, that's why I have you.

Adam was given dominion. This included stewardship over the garden wherein he was placed by God. But in this case if he wasn't there somehow he missed the nature and character of the serpent. He didn't see the weakness of Eve in this area and apparently missed the whole conversation. This is akin to husbands and fathers missing the entrance and presence of unbiblical ideas and mindsets creeping into their homes and infecting their wives and children and looking up in a year and go what happened to my daughter what happened to my son.

Bro you missed it. You missed it and we need God's help. Pay attention to what's happening in your garden. Number two men is pride. A lot we can say there we simply don't have the time.

I will say this, just so you hear all the points, like the weakness of our dear sisters who sometimes use subtlety to get what they want, This one's hard to see for men. Most likely you don't know you're prideful and you probably will need an elder, a pastor, perhaps even a family member, spouse to help you see that. It's just so many verses, but I'm out of time. Number three is lust. That's an obvious one for men.

Men are attracted to physical beauty. God made men to greatly respond to visual stimuli. Men's bodies produce greater testosterone and all these things in a godly context are wonderful. You know, the visual nature and testosterone are wonderful, but outside of God's purposes, they are extremely dangerous and sinful. Our Lord said very clearly that we must guard our eyes, and indeed if one offends us, pluck it out and cast it from us.

Job went as far as to make a covenant with his eyes. And of course, we are commanded to mortify the deeds of the members which are upon the earth, including fornication, uncleanness, inordinate, affection, evil concupiscence, and others. Men, you have to fight this one every day. Number four is fear, fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of embarrassment. Fear ultimately is a loss of confidence in God, So we are praying tonight for men to have the courage that they need.

Biblical courage might be defined as the ability to hold fast to God's word, repent in the event of failure, and continue on in obedience, regardless of the circumstances. As leaders, men, if we cower or wilt under the pressure, what happens to the stewardship of our household? And then finally, brethren, lack of discipline, lack of self-control. Paul wrote to Titus to command the men to be sober and the young men to be sober-minded. He himself disciplined his body and brought it under subjection.

And if men can walk in a level of soberness and self control, there is little he cannot accomplish by the grace of God. If he strives for the mastery and runs with purpose in every step as the apostle intimated then much good can happen. As I close I'd like to simply say this we must continually self-examine we must see scripture as discerning correcting us in those places of weakness, but we're still going to blow it. We're still going to fail. So I offer these final thoughts to you in closing.

First, remember the gospel. The love of God in Christ, that He died for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. Oh, the love of Jesus Christ, the wondrous love that will not let us go. Number two, make sure you pray. Repent and call on God.

If you found yourself in any of these areas tonight, Repent and call on the Lord for help because there is a throne of grace. Amen. Number three, study the scripture and be determined to obey it. See these these passages that are troublesome not as troublesome but as not burdensome as the scripture actually says because they are not Study to show yourself approved unto God workmen who need not be ashamed but rightly divide the word of truth Listen to godly people Get anointed counsel not just agreeable counsel Make sure that you attend a strong church with strong elders who will love you and correct you when the situation calls for it. And then finally, and maybe even the most difficult, Sometimes these things are hard to see.

It's the people closest to you that can see it. Sometimes a spouse, perhaps if you're a child, your parent can see some things that you can't. Trust them and listen to them. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and the hearing of His holy word. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the Word of God. Thank you for how you call us to examine ourselves continually. If there be any wicked thing in us that you would cast it far from us and lead us in paths of righteousness. We pray, Lord, that we would see even the discerning nature of scripture, how you use your own word to bring correction to us and speak to us in areas of weakness as well as encourage us with specific promises and with joy. And we also ask God that if there are any here tonight that are struggling in these areas, Lord, if there's an unsubmissive wife or an unloving or husband who's bitter against his own or any of these things, Lord, that there would be repentance that would ring out in their hearts tonight.

They'd talk to you and they'd also repent to the one that they've sinned against. We thank you and we bless you. In Jesus' name, amen.