Creflo Dollar - Mutual Submission - Part 2
Biblical submission is a response to Biblical headship. Let me say that again, then I'll explain it. Biblical submission is a response to Biblical headship. In other words, when the head is loving like that, when he is nourishing like that, the response that you will get from loving and nourishing and cherishing that woman, the response you will get is biblical submission. Want to submit, biblical submission in every way because it's only responding to what's coming out of the faucet. It's only responding to what's coming out of the faucet. If the water is coming out of the faucet and it is clean, and it is pure, that response is gonna be, I can drink it. But if the stuff coming out the faucet is nasty and muddy and gritty and black, you drink the water, but you gonna spit it out. I'm not going to submit to swallow something like that.
Biblical submission is a response to Biblical headship and love and cherish. So, you can't come to my office and complain about how bad your wife is 'cause the first thing I'm gonna think about is, she's just responding to whatever's not coming from you. She responding to you, Herbert. I don't know where that name came from. And forgive me if anybody on stream or anybody here named Herbert, you know, my name Creflo, so I mean, come on, man, you know. Think about that. So, the next time you look at your woman and you think, what is going on with her? Check your pipes. See what you've been connected to lately. You should be connecting to the Father. That's where this stuff flows from. People are coming up with all kinds of, they want to hear some, and I've seen it. I've gotten a little bit more straight in my answers over the years. And I realize people are not really interested in the answer.
You ask me a question, I give you an answer, session's over with, five minutes. Uh-uh, they want me to stroke 'em and ease into it. "Well, what do you feel? Well, what are you feeling now when she says that"? "Well, I don't know what she said". "She just said she hates you. How does that make you feel"? I already know the answer. The answer is you have no relationship with God. You have no relationship with the Word. So, whatever's coming through your pipes and at your faucet is responsible for that response. This is headship. It's like, dude, God puts you in a position to receive from him so the woman can be a recipient from him through you. So, then she may now respond to you like she responds to God 'cause God's not hurting her. And God's not ignoring her. And God talks to her. And God values her. And so, she responds to God. And you tell her, "You're supposed to respond to me like you do God". And she says, "Well, won't you start acting like God"?
What I've realized is whether you're male or a female, we are drawn towards people who meet our needs. Whether you're a male or female, we are drawn towards people who meet our needs. Let's go to this Scripture. Let's go to 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 3. Let's look at that. Let's look at verse 10 first and then verse 9 in the NLT. Let's try that out. Well, let's stay there. Stay there in King James, and then I'll go to NLT. So here's the deal. Here's what I really believe this, and this is why I'm so glad I have an opportunity to teach on everything I've ever messed up on. And here's one of the big areas here, this area of doing things without Jesus. It doesn't work, man. You know, without Jesus, nothing can be held together. Jesus is the glue for this institution that he created, okay, versus everything being held together through human effort. So, either human effort, you're depending on human effort and performance to hold it together, versus depending on Jesus to hold it together.
I guess one of the most surprising things, it's not surprising anymore, is that, how is it that people call themselves Christians lead society in the divorce rate? It's simple. You're calling yourself Christian, but you're not acting like one. There's no real relationship there. There's no relationship with his Word, which means there's no relationship with him. You don't have relationship with God if you don't have relationship with his Word, okay? So, what happens is you move from Jesus being the glue to cause this thing to work, to I'm gonna go ahead and try human efforts. And you start looking at talk shows. You start going to, you know, worldly advice. And all worldly advice requires human effort.
Now, I'm not saying that there is not a time where you have to put forth effort in doing stuff. I mean, we call it acting out on the Word. That's what we should be calling it. But you know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the human effort without Christ. I'm talking about human effort without his Word and with his wisdom. In other words, we kind of dismiss Christ out of the relationship and tried to create a whole new set of rules based in performance and self-effort, and it didn't work. Have you not noticed by now when you do that, you find yourself back at the same place, and in some cases, it's a worse condition than it was before? Jesus has got to be a part of anything that's gonna work in our lives. This may not, you know, cause people to jump up in their chair and holler and scream, but because we live in a society where people don't believe in Jesus. And they have all, a lot of different reasons why they don't believe in Jesus.
"Well, I don't believe in Jesus because in the slavery days, the master used to use the Word to keep people in slavery". That wasn't Jesus's fault. That was bad teaching. So likewise, some of the stuff we've learned about being married today, it's not Jesus's fault. It's bad teaching. And so, now you gotta decide, "Am I gonna allow Jesus to be the third party in my marriage"? Every successful marriage in the kingdom of God always has a third party, and that third party is Jesus. "Will I"... Those of you who are here, those of you at home, will you allow Jesus to be the third party in your relationship? If he's not allowed to be the third party in your relationship, oh well. Oh, well. And people hear this, especially men. "Yeah, I don't believe it take all that". Dude, if I could be a fly on the wall in a relationship where Jesus is not the third party.
So, it's easy to be fake and phony in public and on Instagram. Y'all look like y'all in love. "I'm getting ready to take", you walking like this, "I'm getting ready to take the picture". If Jesus is not the third party, you'll cuss each other out regularly. If Jesus is not the third party, you'll tiptoe around regularly if Jesus is not the third party. But when you make him the third party to that relationship, there's some amazing things that happen that some of you don't even know about, because you hadn't taken it seriously that Jesus is the third party of the relationship. You only see Jesus as, "You know, when I do church, it's all right to have Jesus, but not when I do life". And that's a problem. We learn how to do church, and we doing that incorrectly. But we learn how to do church, but we don't know how to do life.
And it's about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not knowing how to do church. "Oh, they clappin', I know how to clap. Oh, they dancing, I know how to dance. Oh, they jerking, ooh, I know that. Oh, let me go put on my war clothes. I know what that mean. Thank you, Lord". No, no, no, it's not knowing how to do church. It's knowing how to do life. Why do I want to know how to do church and then when church is over with, I come home and I'm messed up, I'm stressed out, I'm depressed, I got all kinds of issues going on? And here's the sad part about it, a professed Christian saying, "I don't want to live". I've been there. And that's when somehow you dismiss Jesus, 'cause you don't think he applies to this situation. "Only when I go to the building, only when I do church do I need Jesus". No, you need Jesus now, every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every month, every year, every Christmas, you need Jesus.
If you didn't need Jesus, he would have never been offered. He is our Savior. Praise God. He is our way in. He is our way out. He is our joy. He is our peace. He is our strength. I need Jesus! There's never gonna be a time that I don't need Jesus. I need him. You need him. Some of you don't know it, but you need him. "I don't want to hear that". You don't want to hear that. You want to hear the five reasons why the trigger causes you to act the way you act where your wife is concerned. I don't need to give you no five reasons. I can tell you why. No Jesus, he's not the third party, that leaves you by yourself trying to figure out something as you listen to fools instruct you along the way.
Here's the deal. So, you marry a man that's a billionaire and here's the deal. Listen to me. You married a man, he's a billionaire. And you know, you stand, y'all got five houses, two islands, and all that stuff. I mean new things are exciting in the beginning, new things. You ever bought a brand-new car? It's exciting in the beginning. A year later and that note come in you're like, "Man, I should have got something else". You ever bought a house that caused you to hurt? Somebody know what I'm talking about, a house that causes you to hurt is every month when it's time to write that check out. Maybe I ought to not say that. Let me see. How do you say this? Y'all ain't ready for that one. I gotta keep it to myself. I've grown up. There's certain things I know not to say right now 'cause I know you ain't ready yet. You sitting, up there, "Oh, come on, say it. Come on, say it". I say it and no preacher ought not be talking like that. You know, just I'll figure out how to say it as I go on.
And this is messed up, man. It's messed up how we've been tricked and somehow we think we got it together. It's so messed up. Even as you listen to me now talk about this Jesus and talk about this Word, it's so messed up the lies that you bought. You know what when Taffi was talking about a lying spirit, she was talking about deception. And the church is divided and deceived, and they have resigned themselves to worldly counsel which is only gonna lead to destruction. And you sit up and you enjoy all the new stuff, and it's new and it's good and it's great and it's awesome. And "Oh, look at me". And "Oh, I got pearls, and I got big rings. And I'm just, look at me. I'm the socialite, socialite. Check me out". And one day, here's the sad thing about it because you think money can buy you everything.
One day you wake up, I mean everything's good. The sex is good. The money is good. The houses are good. The islands are good. The notoriety is good, all of that's good. But it has an expiration. Deep love, it just keep going. Deep love is lovely no matter where you at 'cause when I fell in, grew in love whatever, I don't, you know, I remember we went to the country to preach, and they put us in this motel. And it was one of them roachy motels. And it had two beds. It didn't make me no difference. Me and Taffi got on that one bed, it was like a presidential suite before it was over. You understand what I'm saying? It has a expiration date. If you don't believe me, look at Hollywood. They can't figure out how to stay married for nothing. It has a expiration date because you're trying to make something happen without the key component: Jesus.
So, it's only for a time. Smile, take Instagram pictures, do all of that stuff. But if he's not your third party, one day you'll be introducing us to the new Mrs. Somebody. And women, the way you can tell when a man decides, "I don't want to be with you". And he says, "I love you, but I'm not in love". And then she says, "Okay, I apologize. I'll do it". "Nope, nope, we can't be together no more". Quit asking him why and ask him this question, "What's her name, or what's his name"? That's what happens. See, they ain't saying that, but it's got to be a drawing something somewhere else. He ain't looking at nothing else but where he going. That's caused a problem where he done been, amen. "What's her name? She go to our same church? You in the tennis section, where she at? in the tennis section too? I'll be looking. What's her name? What's his name"?
And somebody fooled you into thinking that the grass is greener on the other side, and they forgot to tell you it was AstroTurf. I just want to walk 'cause I feel, I'm looking at your faces and I just, I'm like, I'm honestly not trying to be this idiot. I'm just trying to say here are the things I've heard in counseling sessions for almost 40 years. And I am so tired of tolerating these excuses for not having the key component into your marriages. It's not supposed to work without him. "Well, I know these people, and they've been together for 50 years now". Sit down and talk to them about them 50 years. Sometimes they're so in bondage to people, they would rather live in misery with one another, than to give the satisfaction of their failure to certain people, so they just tolerate it.
Think about living with somebody you tolerate. How happy you think that is? Getting up every morning, if y'all sleep together still, looking over there like, "I can't stand him". And every time he touch you 'cause you like nothing about his, all of the stuff he's done to you and has devalued you has put you in a place where you like nothing about his spirit, soul, or body. And when he touches you, it just makes you just, ugh. And then he climb on top of you, and you just, "I gotta fake something so he can get off of me. I can't stand, this joker done got on my". But he got a lot of money, and you're on one of the islands. And a man looking at the woman who used to be so awesome, she was beautiful.
Now, she hasn't changed a bit, but she was beautiful through your eyes. She was like the dream until she opened her mouth and showed you her attitude. And you thought you could deal with it, "'cause I got me a trophy wife, man. I got a trophy wife I can parade around and let you see my trophy wife. Looky here, looky here, look here". And then when you get home, you know, the attitude, that nasty attitude that she got that every time she say something, you want to cut her, but you can't 'cause you don't want to go to jail. But on pictures and in person, you think it's all good. It's not like that. Some people can look good in public, and it's like going home to hell, and Beelzebub and she's Satan, and then y'all swap roles every now and then.
See, nothing's gonna change until you learn how to be honest with yourself. You remember when Taffi said the problem is when a liar starts believing his own lies. You still in deception 'cause you won't let the necessary component be the third party. So, 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 10, let me see verse 10 in the Amplified. Let's look at the whole thing, let's look at verse 10 in the Amplified. I want you to see this promise that God makes to married people. He says, "For let him who wants to enjoy life". How many of you want to enjoy life? "And see good days". How many of you want to see good days? He said, "Good whether apparent or not," he says here's what you do, "keep his tongue free from evil and keep his lips from guile or treachery, deceit".
Guile is something that is cleverly, a clever use of deception. It's one of synonyms for the word guile is duplicity. And duplicity is something like it's deceitfulness in speech or deceitfulness in conduct as by speaking or by acting in different ways to different people concerning the same matter. In other words, it's double dealings, double dealings. It's an act of deceitfulness. He is saying that duplicity, guile, robs you of seeing good days. Who wants to do that? Who wants to get involved in the craziness and the guile of social media and allow it to rob them of seeing good days?
Look at verse 9. Back up to verse 9. He says, "Never returned evil for evil. Don't return insults for insults, scolding, tongue-lashing, berating. But on the contrary blessing, [praying for their welfare, happiness, and their protection, and truly pitying and loving them]. For know that to this you have been called, that you may yourselves inherit a blessing".
And so, I was like, oh wow, so as married people and as a husband as a wife, I'm called to live like this that I can inherit a blessing from God that you may obtain a blessing as heirs bringing welfare and happiness and protection. Go on to verse 10. And so verse 10 tells us what that blessing is by submitting to God and how we speak to people. And he says, "For let him who wants to enjoy life and see good days," that's the blessings, the blessings of enjoying life and seeing good days. He says if you want to enjoy life and see good days, don't let your mouth speak evil, and don't let it speak guile. Don't let it speak deception or lies, one verse says, one translation says. I thought, wow. Boy, your mouth can really cause you to miss out on some stuff.