There are many of us in here who still contend with the fear of our managers, our bosses, the president.  “What will happen if I don’t fall in line here and walk according to all the standards this company demands?”  We’re living in a sick world.  How about that guy who just went and did the commencement speech?  He was a professional football player.  He went and was doing a commencement at a Catholic college, and he made one statement in there that just started like a prairie fire of hatred and conflict.  The statement went something like this, “I just want to leave you with some of these thoughts and to let some of you young ladies know what you have waiting for you.  And in a godly marriage, a union where there’s love and where you can be at peace.”  I can’t quote the thing right now, but it was just talking about how good marriage is and how holy it is and how pure it is and the responsibilities to love one another, etc.  If what he said was directed to the homosexuals or directed to the transsexuals, he probably would have gotten standing ovations.  But he was talking about God’s intent for marriage and what it should be.

I don’t want to deviate too much, but we’ve spoken to it before.  You and I are going to be faced with this right now, in this generation at this particular time.  Laws are being passed to protect all of these perverted relationships, this satanic thought process; there's the attack on the biblical family and the proper, divine order of man and wife.  I’ll just remind you that what we’ve heard in secret we shout from the housetops.  The problem is it’s just that the church today chooses to flee every time.  A time is coming when we’re going to have to fear and honor God and be ready to give our lives for His kingdom and for His Word, that it would pass on into a godly seed that Malachi speaks of here.

As the Holy Spirit speaks, He said, “where is my honour? where is my fear?  Why is it that you priests despise my name?  And you say to me, Wherein have we despised thy name?”  He said, “Because you offer to me polluted bread.  You’re placing polluted bread on a holy altar; and you say, Where is it that we have polluted thee?”  And He said, “You say that the table of the Lord is contemptible.”  What’s that saying?  “You don’t really believe that I’ll meet your needs.  What are you saying to Me?”  “We really can’t trust God.  I will not put my life wholly in the hands of God.  I’m going to protect myself.”

It’s interesting when, in some of these areas of life, the simple provisions, the responsibilities that we have as overseers of our households—let me remind you (hear me clearly): you are only undershepherds.  Amen?  As it pertains to your house, your children, your wife do not belong to you.  They belong to God.  You are the undershepherd and you’re going to answer to God.  No one else will be around.  God’s going to grab you personally and, with those eyes of fire, look into your soul and say, “Give an accounting with what you’ve done with what I’ve given you.”  And we can say, “You’re an austere Man and so, therefore, I hid it.”  Or we can invest it and do it the way God said to do it and trust in Him for the provision.  Trusting God wholly is not an easy thing, in the practical.  The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.