A Friend of Medjugorje tells the principles of marriage and relationships, and shares a eye-opening testimony that proves the point.

WARNING---Parts of this broadcast contain adult content. Therefore, this broadcast is only for adults.

The subject matter contained in this presentation is based on Biblical principles and designed to give you accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that neither the presenter nor the broadcaster is engaged to render legal, accounting, or other professional advice. Since your situation is fact-dependent, you may wish to additionally seek the services of an appropriately-licensed legal, accounting, real estate, or investment professional.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

"No one can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you shall eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

"Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap. They gather nothing into barns. Yet, your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your lifespan?

"Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you, that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.

"If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you? Oh, you of little faith. So do not worry and say, what are we to eat, or what shall we drink, or what are we to wear? All these things the pagans seek.

"Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God in his righteousness and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This is Radio WAVE Mejanomics with your host, a Friend of Medjugorje.

Every now and then, you run across something that has some value to it as far as us in Catholicism from Protestants. And of course, marriage affects everybody. And your world news, as we've talked about before, it's always about what happens, your goings and comings? At your supper table in your home, most of the news you need to hear about is not in Washington, or halfway around the world. That really don't affect you immediately. It's an indirect effect. But what does affect you is your family, your marriage, your children, your husband, your wife.

And so I heard a show that I think is very important to listen to, which is done by a lady named Patricia. Patricia Ashley and her husband, Vernon. And she had lost her love for him, all her feelings for him. She kind of goes through this program that you're about to hear about her feelings and where she was with it, what turned around.

I'm convinced Our Lady's coming because of the fall of the woman. You've heard me say before, when I was in New York, and I got in a taxi cab, I asked the cabbie, how's it going for New York? He said, depends on how short the girls' skirts are. That's all he said. But I immediately understood the profound wisdom of what he said.

If the women are moral, if they're chaste, if they're upright, then society is going to go right. If it's the other way, it's going to go down. And it's God who has sent the Virgin Mary for us to lift up all women. And through that, she will be raising up gentleman. Gentle boys are raised first and primarily by the mother. They're nursed. And also, girls.

And where the turnaround is, is this through the woman. And that's why God sends to the world today, the woman, the mother, the one that's the center of creation. And all around is in all of Her. She's above all the angels and all the saints. And we have Her every day.

I think you'll enjoy this. And at same time, it will cause you pain to listen to it, because it will show you the false. Mainly, the woman. Because even a pagan man can be changed by a gentle woman. So sit down for a ride. You're about to listen to Patricia Ashley.

"My testimony is that when I got saved, I didn't know that God was going to save my marriage. I thought he was just going to save me. And God just-- it was like my marriage being saved was a byproduct of me being saved. It wasn't as a result of anything that I did to develop my marriage or to work on my marriage.

"At the point where I was saved, I was sick of my relationship. And my husband was equally as sick of his relationship with me. Do you understand me? We mutually say that to people. We were literally at the end. Our marriage was dead, waiting to be buried. Do y'all hear me?

"I mean, when I say it was dead-- and some of y'all are going to relate to what I'm saying if you'll be honest. When I say it was dead, I mean that I didn't love my husband. I didn't hate him. I wasn't glad to see him come. I wasn't glad to see him go. It didn't make a difference what time he came in, or if he came in at all. That's dead. No feeling.

He didn't make me happy. He didn't make me sad. He didn't even make me mad anymore. How many of you can relate to what I'm saying? Be honest. Come on. Hallelujah. I know I'm telling the truth. That's where our relationship was. It was dead.

"And I knew that I needed something. And I had grown up in a Christian environment, where my mother and my father, they had taken us to Church. And I think, too, as a result of watching my mother be committed to my father, there were times where I felt like I just wouldn't let him talk to me like that. And I grew up with that in me. You understand me? And so it created in me a real hardness and a defiance. And I would cross my husband on every turn and just would not cooperate. And so you know what that does to a marriage.

"And of course, he brought in his excess baggage as well. And along with about five years of being unsaved in the military with no one to be accountable to, we were literally at the end. Burnout. And we just had one thing in common. We both dearly loved our two children. And that was what God used to hold us together because he loved them as much as I did. And he was as committed to them as much as I was. And that kept us together.

"How many of you know what I'm talking about?

[CHATTER]

"All right. That was our only reason. But after a while, that wasn't reason enough. OK. And so I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. And as a result, I began to read my word, not knowing what God was going to do with that. And my husband, he accepted Jesus in our dining room and he began to read His word. And our lives were so isolated. We were so divorced emotionally, spiritually, and physically that he would read his Bible in one room and I would read my Bible in another room. And as far I was concerned, he had his Jesus and I had mine.

"You understand what I'm saying? We're at the end. Even after getting saved. After so much hurt, after so much disappointment, after so much disillusionment, you understand? Just dead. I don't even want to feel good about you no more. You understand what I'm saying?

"Follow me now because we going to be real in here. I don't even want you to make me feel good anymore. Because see? To feel good, then I got to feel bad again. My emotions must surface. And let's just leave them alone. And that's where my marriage was.

"And as we grew in the Lord. And as we began to read the Word, not even trying to be friends with each other again. Not even trying to develop a relationship. We just started reading the Word and loving the Lord. And allowing ourselves to learn who Jesus was.

"God allowed a situation to happen in one of our friend's lives. And we had to pray together. And when I found myself with my husband at the foot of our bed on our knees praying, we prayed. And as we began to cry out and pray together to the same God, little did we know that when we raised up our heads and we looked at each other, God had quickened our dead marriage. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? He had quickened it. And he had made it alive.

"The God that we serve, He specializes in resurrecting that which is dead. Come on now. Some of us, rigor mortis has set up in our marriages. And I mean, when we look at our marriage from the perspective of what God has designed for marriage. We've gone so far from what God intend for the marriage to be. And we need God to resurrect it. We need God to make it alive again.

"And with that will come healing, but it's only at the feet of Jesus. That's the safest place to get it at the feet of Jesus in his presence. Because as I grew in the Lord and began to read the word and just focus on the Lord, I had no expectations of my husband, only of the Lord. And God began to fill me with his love. And with that love, God started healing me. Do you understand me, what I'm saying? Fifteen years ago, God resurrected my dead marriage. And He started healing me.

"And it didn't happen because I wanted it to happen or because I knew it could happen. My marriage is right now a bonus of my relationship with my God. Come on now, praise Him! I'm telling the truth. It is. It is not because I had the sense or the wisdom enough to do the thing that God required of me as a godly wife.

"Ladies, let me take y'all. My husband got saved just because God wanted him saved. I didn't have sense enough to pray for him to get saved. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? God just saved him. Saved him.

"And as a result of that, because we just both started growing in our relationship, God knitted our hearts back together. And now the love that we experience, it's different. Do you all hear what I'm saying? The commitment is different.

"And what we begin to do is we begin to go to the Word. After we realized we liked each other again, that's where we started at. I just like you. Let's not deal with all this other stuff. And let's not try to get romantic. I just like you again. I respect you again. Come on now. You know how you can do that.

"You lose respect for them. They lose respect for you. They become bitter and indifferent and cold. And you become angry and hard and cold yourself. You know what I'm saying? Hallelujah. So God began to work.

"And what we began to do was we began to invest time. When we saw that God had invested in our marriage, we made a commitment to invest into it. Do you understand what I'm saying? And then we went to the Word.

"We began to look at what the Word of God had to say about marriage. Because you see? What we found out is all the way back over in Genesis, that marriage itself originated in the heart of God. It was in the wisdom of God. It wasn't because somewhere in time man found woman, woman found man. Man liked woman, woman liked man. Man had idea, let's be together. It wasn't in the heart or the mind of man. God didn't just create man and woman and let them discover each other. He made them for each other. In the beginning, man-- God said it's not good for man to be alone or woman to be alone. It's not good. So in the mind of God, He-- and what we must know as women of God is that everything that God has created and said was good.

"Those are you that are Bible students, think with me. Everything that God has created and said that was good, man, by the workings of hell has perverted. Everything. It's not good for man to be alone. God gave him a wife.

"And how many women are being abused by the very men that are supposed to be nurturing and protecting them? How many men are rejecting the women? He said it's good that we bear children. How many abortions are being performed every day in this country alone? Everything that God said was good and that was a gift-- not just good, but was a gift.

"God gave us physical intimacy. He said, it's a gift. And look how perverted it is. It's so perverted that it's a bad word to say publicly. Everything that's good. And our marriages in the heart of God was good in His sight.

"So what we must do is we're going to live like Christ. And if we're going to have the mind of God as it relates to what God has ordained, then we must not be influenced by the world. Do you hear what I'm saying?

"We need to be transformed and reprogrammed in our minds to think what the will of God is. And that's what my husband and I began to do, because we had no idea of what God expected of us.

"The Word says in Proverbs 18:22, it says that 'whosoever--' and this is what God says. 'Whosoever--' meaning your husband-- 'findeth a wife--' meaning you-- 'he has found a good thing.' Hey. 'And have obtained favor of the Lord.'

"So now, ladies. I want you to go back home and tell your husbands, precious-- call him 'precious.' Speak faith. Sweetheart, you have found a good thing in me. And because you have me, I don't care what you act like. But just because you have me, you have favor in God's sight. Hallelujah. Now, that's what the Word say. You must say what the Word say.

"How many of you believe in saying what the Word say? That's what you've got to say.

"Now, you might not think he's worth it. Come on, now. Sometimes, we don't. We don't think they deserve us as being good things. And some of us have been so beaten down, and so criticized, and so unappreciated-- I know what I'm talking about-- that we don't feel like that's the heart of God. But God says, be healed today. And get the mind of God, think the thoughts of God. Know that regardless to-- your husband just don't know. And you have to tell him.

"I don't care what he's acting like, tell him, you found favor with God because you found me. Now, what does that do to you? It puts you in the position where you've got to be a good thing. Meaning that his heart must be able to safely trust in you. That you will do him no harm. Meaning that you are going to be sensitive to him. And that you're going to adapt your lifestyle to what his needs are. Say what? That's what the Bible says.

"If we just get the mind of God. Now, I know we got to get healed and we got to get a new attitude. But if we just say what the Bible says, the Bible says that when God looked at man, He saw that he needed a helper. And so we, as females, were created to be helpers.

"Come on, now. Now, I know in this new age movement, where the god is within us. If we can believe it, we can achieve it. And you have to make sacrifices. So honey, sacrifice your marriage. Sacrifice your children. And you have to achieve some of your goals in life, honey. Because when you sacrifice yourself and give your whole life to this man and to your children, they will all up and leave you one day. That's the kind of foolish counsel that we get from the world. And sometimes, from sisters in the Church.

"And so it's necessary for us, when we've been hurt, when we've been mistreated, when we've been misunderstood, unappreciated-- all of that is real. We must take that to the very feet of Jesus and let him heal us. And we must allow God to strengthen us and to give us his attitude. And to give us his wisdom as to how we are to handle the different situations in our lives.

"But we have a responsibility as Marie shared this morning, because we will stand before God to give an account-- for those of you that are married, you're going to give an account for how you were a wife to your husband. It doesn't matter how he acts. Do you understand what I'm saying?

"And the one thing I learned early when I started asking God to show me, He showed me. He said number 1, this man. You are not going to stand as a couple in my face to be judged for your works. You are not going to stand as a couple. You're going to stand as an individual and give an account. So now, you can make a decision to unconditionally obey me as it relates to your responsibilities as a woman and as a wife.

"How's that? That's real tight, but it's right. Listen, I remember one day reading a book by this woman, and I believe the title was Me Obey Him. And it was a little book. I mean, it was 99 pages. Penny a page, $0.99.

"God couldn't send anyone to me to tell me or teach me the principles of submission. I was that strong-willed and that self-willed and that determined. So God allowed me to pick up this little book and. This book little book is a hammer, OK?

"When I read the book, I fell on my face when I got through with the last page. And I cried out. I said, oh, God. You don't know him. Come on, now. I said, listen. If I do what this woman said, he going to have me doing all kind of crazy things. But God took me back. And He said, listen. I wrote this Book. And what she's sharing from her book is as a result of what she got from this Book. And Heaven and earth will pass away, but I will not change my mind.

"And I said, OK. I said, but God, you don't know him. He said, I made him! I know him. I'm trying to share with you my struggle. And God really brought me to a point. He said, it's not an issue of your submitting to him. It's an issue of your submitting to Me.

"He said, because when you can submit to Me, you won't fear submitting to him. Do you all hear me?

[APPLAUSE]

"And He said, when you submit to Me, I can change his heart. Come on, now. He said, now, certainly if I could clamp the mouths of the lions. He said, if I could do that. And He said, if I could open up the Red Sea and let the children of Israel cross on dry land, who is this little man? Who is he? Come on, now.

"Now, ladies, look. I don't want to paint an ugly picture of my husband because he is so precious. But he's a man man. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? And being in the military, he's a military man. And they believe in order and structure. And I told him, God gave me to him to balance his life out.

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

"Hallelujah. But listen, when God dealt with me, I watched God change his heart. And God began to soften him up. And do you know, when God began to show me, me-- and that's what we need to do. We need to talk to ourselves. We need to say, self, shut up. Self, sit down. Listen.

"When God began to open up the word and He began to show me me, because I started trusting him. Sarah trusted God and she obeyed Abraham.

"How many of you all know the story? That woman ended up in a heathen king's bedroom. Do you all know what I'm talking about? Father Abraham. But God spared her. Do you understand what I said? That's an extreme situation.

"And see? When we hear the word 'submission' we go way over to the extreme. But I'm dealing with this because it's an issue that killed God's design for our marriages.

"And I don't care how many books you read. You can watch Oprah every day of the week. You can go to secular counselors. But I promise you, because God designed marriage. It was in His heart that the institution of marriage was ordained and created. And because He did it, it's not until we find out what was in His mind as it relates to marriage that we're going to experience fulfillment. So we will never have a fulfilled marriage. You will have temporary satisfaction doing it the world's way. Temporary satisfaction.

"But God said, 'hosoever finds a wife. He finds a good thing, and he obtains favor of the Lord'

"And Hebrews 13:4 says that 'The view that God has on marriage is that it is honorable.' Now, you get you some friends that sees marriage that way. That it's honorable. It's honorable. You get you a friend. Get you a sister to be accountable to. A prayer partner that it would like to invest in your marriage.

"I believe that we should choose people that's committed to our husbands. If your girlfriend will sit and help you criticize your husband, get rid of her. Or stop her. Stop her. I'm serious, stop her. And I think we should understand each other. We should let each other bleed. You know what I'm saying? In a safe environment. But don't bleed on a woman if she is not committed to the success of your marriage.

"Come on, now. Don't bleed on her because she going to do one or the other. She's going to put your marriage asunder or take your husband. She'll do one or the other. I know I'm telling the truth. If she lets you continue to criticize your husband.

"And I would sit and listen to women. And I do it now. Because you know what? We need to do that. I think that's why so many marriages are falling apart now, is because women don't have those circles that they can move in, that they can-- we're so busy with our job. We go from work to home. We have to cook. We have to take care of kids, get ready for the next day. Some of you all commute 20 and 30 miles. And some, probably more. And you don't really have the energy and the kind of time that God requires of you to invest into your marriage.

"And so the first pressure or the first trauma that your marriage experience, it starts to fall apart. Because you don't have that network. You don't have that support group. But God would help us to network in a safe, godly environment, where you can leave here feeling, I'm committed to the success of my own marriage first. And then, begin to ask God to give you someone that's committed to the success of your marriage.

"Because you know what? They'll pray for you. And they'll encourage you when you're in those hard spots. And they'll respect your husband. And even when you don't feel like respecting, even when you don't feel like enduring, even when you don't feel like pressing, they will encourage you. And you will know that they'll be disappointed if you don't stand firm and do all to stand. That's having someone in your life that's committed to the success of your marriage.

"Praise God. You can't be married by yourself. You need someone to help encourage you. And that's what the older ladies used to do.

"I remember my mother telling me when my husband first left to go in the military, I didn't want to leave Alabama and follow him. And my mother said to me, honey. You better go with your husband. You better go with your husband. As much as she didn't want to see us leave.

"And then my father, he would say, let me tell you something. You may not have been in the state that he's in, but I want you to know, there are women there.

[LAUGHTER]

"He said, every state and country has its own women there.

[LAUGHTER]

"Hey. I started following him everywhere he went. And I told him. I said, look, baby. In the military, they cut orders. For those of you that know, they'll cut orders for you to move in. They said, these are the number of people that are moving and these are the people that are authorized to fly on this flight from point A to point B. My name was always on there with his. Do you understand what I'm saying?

"But my parents, they made me sincere and serious about that thing. They said, look. Go with him. Stay there. Work it out.

"Now, listen. My mother gave me this counsel. I didn't think it s so wise, but I didn't understand what it meant at the time. I later learned.

"She said, now, listen. She said, when your bed get hard, just roll over. I said, what?

[LAUGHTER]

"Come on. I said, she need to break this down and interrupt this. I don't understand what that meant. But what she meant was, look. When it get tight and when things don't go right, you be committed. You stay in there. And you work it out.

"And for those of us that are born again, pray through. Pray through, but be committed to it.

"Listen, it says that we are to leave and cleave. The Word says that in Genesis 2:24, that for this reason you will never be fulfilled in your marriage if you don't leave and cleave. Some of us still have emotional ties. We still have soul ties with mom and dad. Come on, now. We do.

"Now, my husband was the youngest child that his mother had. She called him her million-dollar gold piece. Now, can you imagine what position that put me in? I couldn't top that if I wanted to. And that was the way she treated him, like he was her million-- and she let me knew when we were dating, that's what she called him. And a large amount of our struggle in our relationship was because there was a soul tie between he and his mother. And that thing had to be broken, but it wasn't until we got in the Word that we realized that I was now his wife and his mother was his daddy's wife. Hallelujah. Come on, now.

[CHATTER]

"Come on, now. And so what we had to do-- now, we had been married and saved a long time before we realized this. What we had to do is on one of our trips back home, he had to go to his mother and he had to say-- he had to go to his father first and ask his father to forgive him for having a place in his mother's heart that only he should have had.

"I'm not talking about sensuous or anything like that. I ain't talking about being perverted. You all understand what I'm talking about. OK.

"But he had to go to his mother and say, I want to ask you to forgive me for taking that place and requiring that. He said, and I want to release you now back to your husband. And I want to be your son, one that would honor you. Come on, now. And take care of you in your old age, if you need me to. But I want to honor you, and I want to receive Godly counsel from you. And I want to support you. But you, I release you back to your husband. And he had to do this in front of me and his daddy. And his daddy was a glad brother. Give me my wife.

[LAUGHTER]

"Come on, now. But do you know what healing took place between he and his father? And that was how that was broken. And God began to use my husband to minister to his mother and use his mother to minister to him. It got Godly.

"I like my daddy. When my daddy calls me, we, literally, on the phone laugh for about two minutes. I just be so glad to hear his voice. And he be so glad to hear mine. We just laugh. Do you hear what I'm saying?

"And my mother, if she calls me. And if my father's at home, she will say everything she's got to say to me before she give him the phone. Because she knows that once he and I start talking, it's all over. But do you know what? I know, and God brought me to a place. As much as I love my father and enjoy him. And I think my father's a great man. Even when my mother used to get on his nerve and he used to get on her nerve. Even when I used to get upset with him about some of the things he did. To me, he was always a big man in my sight. There was nothing he couldn't do.

"And you know what? I had to take all of that admiration and I had to connect that to my husband. God had to begin to show me areas. Not focus on his negatives, but focus on his positives while he's still performing the negatives. Come on, now. You saw something in him. Start focusing on his positives and start letting him know.

"And let me tell you something. When you compliment a man-- and all of them are like this, even if they crazy.

[LAUGHTER]

"All of them are like this. Giving them truth, not flattery. But when you give your husband true compliments, and when you say true, positive things to him about him, it is like putting water on a plant. Do you all hear me?

"Even if they reject it. Even if they act like it didn't move them. Believe me, if you walk out the room and peak back at him.

[LAUGHTER]

"They like it. That's why our daughters are able to steal our husband's heart. Because they get up under the car while he's changing it. And they lay there and watch him work on the car. Come on, now.

"My daughter is 20 years old, and there's nothing my husband won't do for her. And they had that kind of relationship. And I wonder, how did she have his heart? She would sit up at the dinner table at five years old. I learned from my five-year-old daughter how to deal with my husband.

"She would sit up at the dinner table and she wouldn't even have to talk. She'd just point for what she wanted. He'd get it.

[LAUGHTER]

"I said, what is this? I don't have that kind of control. And I said, I'm going to watch her. And whatever she does, I'm going to do. Do you understand what I'm saying? Are you all listening, ladies? I'm telling you how to experience fulfillment.

"When he'd be working on the car, she would go out there and lay up under the car or sit out on the side of the car and talk to him. So I started going out there, sitting at the side of the car talking.

[APPLAUSE]

"And when he'd be out in the back yard cutting the grass, she'd be walking up and down the grass with him and talking to him. And guess what? I started walking up and down the grass. And I started talking to him. Come on, now.

"And when he came home from work-- I'm telling you how to do it, ladies. When he'd come home from work, she'd run to the door. Now, she did this until she left home. She'd run to the door and be so glad to see him. How you doing, Daddy? Give him a big hug. And just act like her day had just begun. And guess what, ladies? Hey. Do you hear me? Come on, now.

[CHATTER]

"I felt like this girl's got his heart. I want it. And I'm not going to compete for it because I want him to have a good relationship with her. But I believe his heart is big enough for me and her. And so I just started doing it. She would sit down and pull his shoes off.

"Now, this is real deep now.

[LAUGHTER]

'She would pull his shoes off when he came from work. Daddy, you want me to take your shoes off? And he'd kick back in the easy chair and say, yes.

"And guess what?

[LAUGHTER]

"And it works. He thought I was crazy at first. But I'd take his shoes off. She'd massage his feet and I'd massage his feet. Come on, now.

"And little by little-- now, at first, he was suspicious and he thought I was crazy, but I was a woman on a mission. Do you hear me? Yes, that's why marriages are falling apart today. But I'm telling you, listen. Love reciprocates. After a matter of time, guess what started happening? Girl. Or as they say, girlfriend.

[APPLAUSE]

"He started rubbing my feet and taking my shoes off. Yes. I started telling him all of the good things about him. Guess what? He started telling me good things about me.

"Now, it took a while. I got to be honest with you, it took a while. But God had to test me. God said, are you doing this to please Me, or are you just doing it to reap the benefits?

"I said, God. If I got to stand before You to give an account, to give an account-- and we going to do that, ladies. If you're married, you're going to stand before God to give an account.

"If you're going to stand before God to give an account for the kind of wife that you are, get your feelings healed. They are hurt, some of them. Set your affections on things above.

"You know what happens when you do that? You stop having expectations out of your mate. And you take the stress off of your marriage. And you free him up.

"Because you know what? If there's something wrong with you, there's probably something wrong with him. Or if there's something wrong with him, there's probably something wrong with you. Because you chose each other.

"And for the most part, we, as women, can see good from our perspective. And we can just see what we're enduring and what we're going through. But if we were to look at some of our relationships from our husband's perspective, and see the world through their eyes, and feel the world through their emotions, then we would see that they have as many needs as we do.

"And it's a mutual thing, but we must come to a place, if we're going to experience fulfillment, is to release our expectations and say, God, I don't expect him to be sensitive to me, but I expect You to be sensitive through him to me. I don't expect him to love me unconditionally, but I expect You to love me unconditionally through him. I don't expect him to be sensitive to me and to dwell with me according to knowledge. Come on, now. I don't expect it to come from him. But God, all of my expectations is in You.

I expect you to teach him how to be sensitive to me as the weaker vessel. I expect you to do it through him to me.

"Now, come on. What have you done? You've placed that weight on God. You've cast those cares on God.

"And guess what you do? You get out of your husband's face and you get in the face of God. You stop talking and pulling on your husband and you begin to talk and pull on God. Come on, now.

"So the thing is, what you must do is make a decision whether or not God is able. And you can know that He's able because of Who He is. And then you must know that God is for your marriage. He's for the success of your marriage. Whether or not you chose him or not. God would desire to choose them for us, but most of us get ahead of God. And God has to make the wrong one the right one.

"Come on, now. But he's able. He can do anything. And we must release it and say, God, I want to please You. And then, listen. When we have pleased the Lord, what does the Bible say? He'll make you enemies at peace with you. And I'm being extreme this morning, OK? Because I want to cover all of the spectrum. He said, if your ways please Me, I'll make your enemy at peace with you. He said, I'll shut the lion's mouth. You may be in a fiery situation, He said. But I'll clamp the mouth of the lion. And even as you go through the fire, you will not be burned.

[CHATTER]

"And I believe that if God makes him at peace, then you can live in harmony. Whether or not he change or not. We want fulfillment in our marriages.

"We got to look at it God's way. We've got to leave and cleave. We can't put our marriages asunder. And then, we've got to know what God's purpose is for marriages.

"God's purpose for marriage is that we have companionship. But now, we must have companionship with God first. Because the word in Amos 3:3 says, 'Can two walk together except they agree.'

"We should be able to agree spiritually first. We should be able to agree emotionally. And we should be able to agree physically.

"And see? For the most part, we want to go into it agreeing physically. We are attracted physically. Like I hear my daughter said, I like men with pretty teeth. I said, baby. You better like more than that. You better look for more than just pretty teeth. Come on, now. And I know that she is, but that's just one of her things. We have those kinds of things.

"We had better know that God would have us to connect in the spirit realm first, that we would agree spiritually. And if there is not spiritual agreement in your house, begin to ask God to give it to you. Because you know what? God loves your husband more than you do. Yes, He does. And He is more concerned with him than you are.

"Ask God for spiritual agreement. God knows what it takes to bring it about. And then, if we're going to experience the fulfilled marriage as it relates to companionship, our husbands must dwell with us according to knowledge in 1 Peter 3:7. And then, God intended for marriage in order that it would be fulfilled to accomplish enjoyment.

We should be able to experience gratification, delight, and pleasure in our mates. But one of the reasons we don't always experience that is because of perversion. Remember, we said that everything that God said was good, man perverted it?

"Now, from my understanding of what I've read in the Bible, God gave us physical intimacy as a wedding gift. Do you all hear what I'm saying?

[CHATTER]

"Now, I don't know about some of you, but you try to give the best gifts that you can find. How many of you following me? In the mind of God, the best gift that he could give to a couple was physical intimacy.

"And you get the gift of children. It's a gift that keep on giving. You get the gift of children as a result of physical intimacy.

"Now, it's been so perverted. First of all, we pervert it by opening the gift before time.

[CHATTER]

"Yes, we do. You know you've done that. Slipped and opened a Christmas present before Christmas. And when it becomes Christmas, there's no fun opening that thing up. You've taken all of the joy. There's no rapture. An explosion of ecstasy. And so sometimes, we can't enjoy the gift because we've opened it before time.

"So what we have to do is we have to go back and say, God, make this right in me. Purify me. First, forgive me for defiling my relationship. Ask God to take you back and to sanctify that which you have defiled by lowering your moral standards and being promiscuous and fornicating before you got married. Just ask God to go back. Cleanse me. Forgive me. Sanctify me. Make me whole. And then, God began a work. Some of us have been molested and that's why we don't enjoy the gift.

"Come on, now. satan get footholds in our relationships because we won't respond sometimes intimately to our husbands. We tempt them to lust. We incite lust in them because we won't respond to their needs.

"Sometimes, we struggle. We're trying to change these men, and create them, and mold them, and make them, and manipulate them. And you just end up frustrated. But God made him. And God is for your marriage. And He's for your mate. He wants your husband to enjoy the marriage as much as he wants you to. Some of you just need to be more sensitive and ask God to open up the understanding of your eyes.

"But the key is, place all your expectations in the Lord, and know that He's for the success of your marriage. Know that. Know that God wants us to be fruitful.

"Now, God would have us to multiply. To have children. And ladies, if you don't do anything else, ask God to give you his heart about having children. There is a spirit of murder in this country that hates babies.

"Now, if you've had an abortion, God is for you. He will heal you of the emotional, the spiritual, psychological trauma. He will forgive you. He will take away the guilt and the shame and all that needs to be done, but we need to be committed to life. We need to start honoring women that are pregnant. Do you understand me?

"I made it a commitment, especially with the abortion issue now. And I say it's the murder issue. I have made it an issue that whenever there's a woman that's pregnant-- how many pregnant women in here now? Stand up if you're pregnant.

"Come on. Let's applaud this woman. Stand up, baby. Hallelujah. Glory.

[APPLAUSE]

"Hallelujah. Hallelujah. God says you need to go over into Luke. I can't think of the passage, but where Elizabeth gave Mary a salutation and the baby leaped in Elizabeth's womb. And Elizabeth began to build Mary up and tell her how She was blessed among women. And how blessed was the Fruit of Her womb. And as Elizabeth worshipped God and blessed Mary and honored Her, Elizabeth said, You are honored among women. And then Mary turned around, and Mary began to praise God for this great thing that He had done in her, because Her seed was going to be blessed. And we must take a responsibility.

"We, as women of God, especially some of you older women. The Bible, God's going to get y'all. He said that the older women are supposed to teach the younger women. And they're not doing it. The older women ought to teach the younger women.

"You have a responsibility. You're going to stand before God for not teaching younger women. You must go to younger women when you know they're pregnant and you must say blessed is the fruit of your womb. God has done a good thing in you, that He would trust you to nurture a life.

"We got to do that. You got to go out of your way. I don't care if she's a stranger. Go edify that woman. And those babies in their wombs. Listen, when I get a chance, I bend over and talk to the baby in the womb. I said, baby, you are blessed. God has purpose and plan for your life. We are eagerly waiting for your birth with great expectation. You're going to be a great woman or man of God. Then I say, my name is Pat.

[LAUGHTER]

"Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Then I tell them, the mother, when this baby born, it's going to recognize my voice. Do you hear what I'm saying? It's real. It's that real to me. It's that real. We must make a commitment to encourage women to be fruitful.

"And then, become extended families. Stop buying some of the stockings or some of the earrings. Stop investing in so much jewelry. The moth is going to get it. It's going to turn back to dust. And start investing.

"Some women don't have babies because it's so hard. And that's a lie. The Word says I've never see the righteous forsaken or as seen begging for bread. Women are not having babies because we live in a selfish and an egocentric society. We don't want to make the necessary sacrifices.

"My mother had five of us and we were considered a small family. Do you understand me?

"Yes."

"We must get the heart of God since that's who we're going to stand in front of one day anyhow. Get his heart now. And ask God to forgive us for not encouraging women when they're pregnant and overlooking them. We should celebrate those women.

"And when you get a chance, bless these women then encourage them. God would have that our marriage would accomplish-- the marriage would be protected.

"Let me tell you something whether your husband is saved or unsaved. Do you know whether he's saved or unsaved, God can use him to protect you? Because if the truth were told by each one of you, if you could think of something, things that your husband warned you of, relationships that your husband disapproved of in some of your other girlfriends as that relationship developed, you found that there were things in it that was just a dead-end. You ended up hurt or betrayed. Or you ended up being used.

"And he tried to rise up to protect you by saying, you know what? There's something wrong with her. I don't know what it is, but I don't feel good.

"Unless he's a schizophrenic, most of them will rise up and say things to you. Even if they're drunkards. Even if they're alcoholics. Do you all hear what I'm saying? And I'm not putting down the alcoholic because God is for the alcoholic. But I have seen men that were alcoholics still in their drunken state say things to their wives that was wise counsel.