This session speaks on how to take a marriage that either started wrong or somewhere along the lines has become wrong and get it back on the right path. 

Love in the Making

<p>This session speaks on how to take a marriage that either started wrong or somewhere along the lines has become wrong and get it back on the right path. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Walk by Faith Ministries

Breakout Session B

Dwayne Lemon

Alexandra Lemon

When You Mess Up, How do you Fix Up

Heavenly Father, I thank you again for this second opportunity, Lord, to expound more on your Word as we seek to find a way to a happier marriage, a marriage, Lord, that you sanction and use us, Lord, as we impart the things that you've taught us to Lord.

All right, you know it was May 25th, 1997, that this wonderful event took place.

And in many respects, My bride, Alexandra, and I, we definitely loved each other.

There wasn't a question about that, but it was very much an imperfect love.

We were not necessarily counseled in the instruction of the teachings from Adventist home, child guidance, these type of books.

And I don't fault even our counselor for that.

Sometimes you just counsel what you know and what you believe in, but those books were not highlighted.

And you have to understand that for Alexandra and I, I was working at a place called Young Adults Institute.

I knew that that was next to nothing, but we were like, all right, no problem.

I did not even have a degree of any kind.

I was a high school dropout because when I was in high school in the world, I got in trouble.

And, you know, there were gangs threatening my life and all of that.

My mother took care of me and my mother was like, look, I don't want my son to get hurt, so she stopped me from going to school.

So I just started going into the entertainment industry, became a dancer in hip hop and R&B culture, and that was kind of like my life.

So when we get married, I told my wife, I said, honey, How long did we agree we were gonna wait before we had a child?

2 years My wife did not listen to me and Instead of 2 years.

How long was it before You dropped that incredible news on me that you were pregnant.

So, somehow months and years got confused in our conversation.

And 2 months after we were married, she already said I'm pregnant.

So after we had our first son, our oldest son, Jared, the pianist who you met, then how long did it take before you disobeyed and had another child?

And 6 months later, she said, I'm pregnant again.

And then how many months after Kayla was born?

But nevertheless, 6 months later or 5, I'll tell you why I say 6 and what, But 6 months later, my bride was pregnant again.

And that's how we had the guitar guy, Caleb.

So 5, 5, and then 6 months later, we have our daughter, Jada.

So I am launched very quickly into parenthood.

1 of the first lessons we learned is that sometimes the plans don't always work out the way you plan it.

And that's why, again, when you go back to the Eden model, before Adam had a wife, he had a job.

Adam had an occupation, and that occupation was working that soil.

Before a man gets married, he should be in a position to have what is needed to take care of that young lady once he brings her into holy matrimony.

Now family, trying to have a family live off of that was thoroughly impractical.

I started getting involved in network marketing.

Well, we moved into my mother's house first.

You know, it's like, you know, the whole leaving father and mother and mansion at Cleve, etc.

So we're living with mom and we're living in her basement apartment in Queens, New York, and here it is that we're going through these motions and, you know, we got to a place where, you know, I had to figure out something because I knew there's no way at this job am I going to be able to help take care of my family.

And 1 thing I did learn from my dad that was very well instilled is you take care of your family.

So now I'm getting involved in network marketing and I'm driving out at night.

So I told my wife, girl, I got to build the dream.

And so can you imagine my wife is trying to manage all these babies.

And here I am telling her, honey, I got to get us financially secure.

So I'm already working a job in the day, but then network marketing is the kind of business that you build at night.

So now I'm doing this thing where I'm trying real hard to make money and do all these things to take care of our home But it had an impact Because I wasn't there.

I was not present for those crucial moments that a wife needs her husband to help bring up her children, you know?

So it paved the way for certain things to happen.

Well, you know, sometimes in addition to that, on Sabbath, he was so busy, As you know, you see this young man, so talented, and everybody wanted to use him for different things.

So not only during the week, but on Sabbath, it was just none, it wasn't existent.

And I think, you know, I have my friend here, when she was young, a lot of the girls her age took my children when I walked into the church, they would just grab each 1.

And, you know, it was so sweet, then, you know, it was my only time I had a reprieve.

But when you think about how the children should sit with the parents on Sabbath, or when you think about the lessons of reverence in the church, these things weren't taught, you know, as it should be by the mother.

So it just opened the doors to a lot of issues.

And so we're trying to manage this thing.

So that means that I got to go by what I was seeing in church and whatever I learned from home.

Now from home, we were straight up worldly.

So I knew like, okay, there's a lot of stuff I'm sure I can't bring from my home into our new home.

But when I watched the people in the church, there was 1 thing I remember seeing very clearly in the church.

The elders were often very busy preaching and teaching and doing revelation seminars and all these things.

And there were times I used to drive by my church As late as 10 o'clock at night, after finishing a meeting in somebody's house to try to get them to buy some soap and dishwashing liquid, my network marketing business, when I'm leaving those houses at 10, 11 o'clock at night, I would see the elders still at the church.

Sometimes I would drive into church and say, hey, what are you guys doing?

They're like, oh yeah, we're studying, we're doing these things.

Michael Carducci

Sharing the Cross, Shedding the Bias

Father, thank you for this opportunity to talk about how it is as a church that we can love somebody and show compassion that doesn't compromise the Word of God.

And so Lord, it's very difficult to address this issue, and I pray Father that you will guide us through this discussion.

So 1 of the things that I realized coming into the church culture, what, 17 years ago, is now we have these 2 different opposed kind of positions in the church.

And we either have the 1 like, you know, the Baptist church that says that fags die, God laughs, God hates fags, or we have the complete opposite now.

It says Jesus had 2 dads and he turned out okay, thinking that, you know, homosexuality is okay.

So I thought that coming into the church I definitely experienced this side of it.

I don't recall that 1 but now I start to realize that wow you know what if I bought into this understanding then I would ultimately be lost if I accept the Word of God as what my truth is.

So here we have 2 positions that are both wrong and how is it that we can find that in the middle?

Because this side definitely needs some compassion, right?

And so how is it that we can get those together and get rid of the things that aren't according to God's Word?

And so I think that's what the challenge is.

So growing up myself I had gender dysphoria.

I thought that I was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

I remember going to school and what happened is that I had defensively detached from my father.

He was angry and raging, as you saw in the film.

And so for me, I thought that I was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

So the 1 thing that I needed is I needed male affirmation.

I needed to know that I was accepted by other males.

And so then when I went to school, the 1 thing that I needed became more elusive because they started calling me little girl, sissy, fag.

And so what that did is that pushed away the 1 thing that I needed most, and that was male affirmation.

So what that did is it pushed me further back into thinking that I was a girl, that I was like my sisters.

And you can imagine this confusion, depression that I had because I certainly wasn't a boy, but I wasn't a girl either.

And so I was like stuck in the middle somewhere.

So imagine my disappointment at Christmas and birthdays when I got boy toys when I really wanted to girl toys, Barbie's Dreamhouse.

And so as I was growing up, I remember my sisters getting these really beautiful dresses.

I had 3 sisters and no brothers, so I was surrounded by girls.

So again, it was really difficult for me, you know, to adjust to that and to think how can I fit in?

And so I spent most of my time just trying to go through the motions and to be chameleon.

I was stuffing all of these feelings inside, not knowing where to let them out, where to express them in a way where I could at least get understanding, so I didn't even think that help was available.

It wasn't until I was 20 years old when I came out into the gay culture that I realized that I was okay being a male.

They actually have laws now that will help children like me, that if I feel that I'm a girl trapped in a boy's body, the law will go against my parents and allow me to take these hormones and to eventually retire the puberty process so that about 13 or 14, I can finally have the sex change that I desire.

And so if that was available when I was a child, I would have been standing first in line.

And so what happened is I'm grateful because at 20 years old when I came out, I realized that masculinity was more valuable than femininity.

And so what I wanted was male affirmation.

So if I just butchered up a little bit and worked out in the gym, I found that I got all the attention from men that I wanted.

You imagine the private purgatory I would have been in had I had a sex change at 15 or 16 years old and then all of a sudden at 20 realized that I should have been a male.

You know, these surgeries, they mutilate and they massacre our bodies to make them appear like the opposite sex, but the bottom line is, is the DNA is still whatever your birth gender is.

And so people are realizing, even John Hopkins University has done extensive studies, and the LGBT community is extremely upset with them because, John Hopkins even said, it does not give them what they're looking for.

It does not give a male the biological difference of being a female.

And again, what it does is it may give you the appearance, but the bottom line is these men still cannot have children, they cannot have successful relationships with other men or whatever, and the same for women that want to become men.

So they found that the suicide rates are still just as high, that the depression is probably in some respects even higher.

There's a woman named Nancy that was in Belgium and she became Nathan.

And so Nathan was so distraught when he saw his appearance in the mirror with the scarring and everything else that he was so depressed he didn't want to live anymore.

And he petitioned the government to have an assisted suicide because he just could not bear the fact of living the way he was, and therefore the government granted Nancy that suicide.

So Again, we found that the rates of suicide attempt are 41% in the transgender culture and that's the, I'm sorry, 41% will attempt suicide but 30% actually commit suicide.

Those are the highest statistics among any group of people.

I didn't realize this until I came into a relationship with Jesus Christ that there was something else going on.

Exodus 20 verse 5 talks about the sins of the generation to the third and fourth generation.

And so basically what that means is that when the sperm and the egg come together, they bring with it the history of 3 to 4 generations before that.

So using my family, my mother was molested by her father, my grandmother was raped by her stepfather, and my great-grandmother was a prostitute.

So just on my mother's side alone you can see the hereditary cycle of sexual sin.

And while I wasn't born gay, I was born with the hereditary tendencies for sexual sin.

And then on my father's side, my dad was a sexual addict.

He was also addicted to pornography, 2 of the things that I also struggled with as an adult.

My father's mother was raised by a single mother because her father shot and killed a man that he thought was sleeping with his wife.

And so here you can see not only sexual sin on both sides of my family, but anger management, alcoholism, drug addiction, all of these things that have followed through as well.

So even my same-sex attraction wasn't necessarily something that I chose, but there were hereditary tendencies that the Bible confirms has already been set in motion, as well as epigenetics, which is science.

As a matter of fact, I had 3 sisters that were praying for me.

2 of my sisters, My sister Kathy worked with me in my salon.

I was what I called a poster child for the gay life.

I was a hairdresser and an aerobics instructor, and I don't know that you can get any more gay than that.

I had a gay dog, and it's a six-pound joe about that big.

I had 9 hairdressers working for me in my shop.

I was making great money, drove a convertible Mercedes, had a house with a pool, had a condo on a lake with a boat, so I had the world by the tail and a rich boyfriend with big blue eyes and big arms.

It was like the devil was just giving me everything that I could possibly have and yet I was still struggling with a sexual addiction.

And there were times when I would think to myself, wow, is this the best life is going to be?

Thinking about how great life was, and just thinking to myself, something still seems to be missing.

I can look back now and realize that that was the Holy Spirit drawing me because I had 2 sisters that were praying for me.

My sexual addiction was so strong I was acting out as often as 3 times in a day with different men and as often as 3 or 4 times a week.

You do the math for 20 years of that kind of life.

Unfaithful in the 5 significant relationships that I had, I knew that I was out of control and I had sex, unprotected sex with men that would be dead 3 months later.

There was just no way I could stop this addictive drive.

And yet because of their prayers, I believe that God held his hand over me and that's why I stand before you today.

And so 1 of the things that I think is so paramount to tell people is that prayer works.

And the sad reality is if we buy into the lie that God's okay with your homosexuality, I wouldn't be standing in front of you.

That they wouldn't have prayed and they would instead they would have prayed for God's blessing and instead what happened is God was able to use those consistent prayers to help pull me out because I wasn't praying for myself.

Karol Prado

The Last Attack

Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for the opportunity that you've given me once again to share another presentation.

And I pray, oh Lord, that your Holy Spirit may be with us as we begin, that you may guide us and that you may give us the wisdom to understand.

And I pray, Lord, that you please put your words in my mouth, that whatever words I speak may not be mine but yours.

So I thank you in advance Lord for the things that you will do during this hour.

Okay, so as I said, the title is called The Last Attack.

And how many of you guys believe that we are living in the very last moments of Earth's history?

I mean we can see just from everything that's going on in the world, everything that literally everything that's going on is giving us signs that God is coming soon and we have to be prepared for his coming.

And I believe that God has given us tools in the world that we are simply not using to our advantage, but the devil is using them to his advantage.

And so today we're gonna talk a little bit about that, and I'm just gonna share with you guys some things that I don't normally share in my testimony, but I wanted to bring them out in here just because I feel like it fits perfect in here.

And so if we go to the Book of Revelation, we go to the Book of Revelation chapter 12 and verse 17.

And it says here, and the dragon or Satan was wroth with a woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which kept the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So it says here that the devil was very angry And he went to make war with the remnant of our seed.

And the devil is very angry with us because we have the testimony of Jesus Christ, right?

And we have the faith of Jesus Christ, or at least we're supposed to have the faith of Jesus Christ.

And so he's coming after us, especially us, that as young people, right?

We are the ones that are ordained to finish the work.

We are the ones that God wants to send out to finish the work of this last days.

Because of that, the devil is coming very strong against us.

Great Controversy says that it is a law of both the intellectual and the spiritual nature that by beholding we become changed.

The mind gradually adapts itself to the subjects upon which it is allowed to dwell, it becomes assimilated to that which it is accustomed to love and reverence.

1 of the questions that I often ask myself is, how can I maintain myself pure in the midst of everything that's going on?

How can I remain pure as a Christian when this world is not only attracted to sin, but it's constantly drawn to every single thing that is evil?

I mean, when we look, when we turn on the news, the first thing that we see is somebody got murdered, you know, somebody got robbed, somebody this, somebody that.

And I come from Connecticut and the city that I live in or that I lived in is Bridgeport and Bridgeport is known to be 1 of the most dangerous cities in the United States.

I think it was ranked in the top 10 I think if I'm not mistaken.

Like Connecticut, yeah you were thinking Connecticut, like really?

But yeah, Bridgeport, Connecticut is known to be 1 of the most dangerous cities in the United States.

And so everything that I see happening in Bridgeport is normal to me.

Because it's like, yeah, I know, like, you know, it's Bridgeport.

But the reality is that everything just keeps getting worse and worse.

But that's just, it's meant to happen that way because God is really saying, listen, this has to happen.

I wanna come back, I wanna grab my people, but in order for me to come and take my people home, my people have to be prepared to come home.

I can't bring somebody home if they're not ready to come home.

He's wanting to prepare us for what is going on around us.

As Christians, we have to educate others.

And so I don't know how many of you have siblings or nieces or nephews, but I'm the oldest sister, and I also have a niece and a nephew.

And I feel that it is my duty to educate these little ones to understand what it is to love and to reverence God, right?

Because this text says here that by beholding we become changed.

So the more that we behold something, whether it's good or bad, our characters sooner or later are going to be transformed into the same thing that we are beholding.

And so if we are beholding something that is completely against God's word, sooner or later we're going to become that something.

But if we are beholding Jesus Christ, then sooner or later, hopefully sooner than later, we will become just like Jesus Christ.

So how can we teach these little ones who are growing up in this sin sick world what it is to be pure?

How is it that we can maintain ourselves for our husband to come and take us home.

By the age of 9, I had already decided that I wanted to be a boy.

I was transgender before I even knew that that word existed.

I began to struggle with same-sex attraction when I got to high school, and I became addicted to pornography and masturbation.

All by the age of 14, all of this was going on.

And a lot of people say, wow, you were pornography at the age of 14?

But the reality is that that's kind of old.

When you look at the statistics of right now.

People by the age, little boys and little girls by the age of 7 have already seen pornography on their home computers.

And so 14 is really kind of old to be struggling with pornography.

But that's the age that I became introduced to it.

Series

Breakout Session B

When You Mess Up, How do you Fix Up

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Bible As the Center of Academic Curricula

1. The Bible: The Basis for True Education

1h

When Righteousness Becomes Sin

35m

Seminars

The Second Coming: Preparing our Hearts and Communities

50m

Revelation Today Crusade

11. Antichrist Exposed- Part 2

59m

Faithfulness with Joy

1h

Plenary

You Don’t Know what You’re Asking

51m

The School with No Graduation

39m

ECYC 2011 Seminar: Seekers

All These Things

48m

The Big Questions (Evening Meetings)

4. Eternity Past and the Risk of God

1h 25m

The Unveiling

Vision of Christ & the Seven Churches

47m

Youth in Business

Christian Entrepreneurship

1h

Love Is...

44m

Sound Doctrine