(1Peter 4:8)—By Father DavidMadrid, 19/9/77DFO1247

1. THERE'S SOMEONE IN OUR MIDST EVEN NOW WHO HAS BEEN AMONG US QUITE A BIT LATELY, & the one who is closest to him criticises him often right in public which is the worst thing she could possibly do! So I go to the opposite extreme, as you've heard me time & time again lately‚ buttering him up, complimenting him on his good points.—Not criticising him for his failures, or his weaknesses but trying to encourage him & over look his faults. She's going at him entirely the wrong way. She makes fun of him even in public & that is a terrible thing for any woman to do to her man, it almost proves to the man that she hates him. (Rachel with Emanuelle before the RNR!)

2. WHEN MAMA EVE BEGAN TO BELITTLE ME & CRITICISE ME not only before my children but even before some of our converts & some of our new disciples‚ she was finished! It showed that she no longer loved me by the fact she no longer respected me. She no longer cared if she hurt me right in front of others & undermined my influence on them by undermining their confidence in me. That's one of the worst things in the World you can do, especially to a public leader or to a teacher or pastor or a father or a husband!—To undermine faith & confidence in their leadership!

3. IT'S TERRIBLE BECAUSE IT SHOWS THE MAN THAT YOU DON'T LOVE HIM IF YOU CRITICISE HIM. It's bad enough to criticise him in private to his face & constantly belittling him & picking on him like Eve did to me for 25 years. Constantly! I mean, I never preached a sermon but what afterwards she'd tell me, "You said all the wrong things, you did this & you did that! You should have said this, you shouldn't have said that!"

4. WELL, PRETTY SOON IT BEGINS UNDERMINING YOUR OWN CONFIDENCE IN YOURSELF until you feel like‚ "Well, I can't seem to do anything right. I do everything wrong so I might as well quit!" In fact, I did quit—I quit the ministry & went back to College & went to school—teaching instead. I figured I was a failure as a preacher, my own wife said so! She convinced me that I was a failure & she spent most of her life constantly trying to convince me that I was a failure!

5. BY THE TIME WE GOT TO GRANDMOTHER'S, believe it or not, just before my greatest ministry was to begin, she had me just virtually fully convinced that I was a flat-out full failure! I couldn't do anything right—I couldn't teach right, preach right, I was a total failure spiritually. I was carnal, I didn't pray or read my Bible enough, blah, blah‚ everything else!—She totally discouraged me!

6. SHE WAS WANTING ME TO BE SOMEBODY GREAT FOR THE LORD BUT SHE WENT ABOUT IT THE WRONG WAY, JUST CRITICALLY ALL THE TIME. Well, I took it & I agreed with her & I was pretty much convinced that she was right. But when she started doing this in front of others, that was the end as it showed she not only had no hope for me personally, but she didn't mind telling the World, she didn't mind telling everybody I was a flat-out total failure! She was criticising me before others & even telling me off & getting mad right before our very first disciples!

7. WELL, IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END! She did it in public one night‚ but when she got home & began to sock it to me at the end, I slapped her face! I never laid a hand on her before in my life‚ but I slapped her & I knew it was the absolute hand of God! I said, "I don't care what you think I am or I am not, God's Word says that you are to respect & obey your husband!"—& I quoted a string of Scriptures on how a wife should behave & how she should obey me etc., the things that she had to obey me on.

8. I THINK IT BEGAN TO WAKE HER UP A LITTLE BIT BECAUSE SHE NEVER TRIED THAT AGAIN. (Maria: But it was just about the end?) Well, she did almost one more time when the Cruiser was behind Grandmother's cottage just before you came. That's when I prayed so desperately that God would send me another woman who would help me, because this woman was now nothing but a hindrance! That was just before she went on a trip to Arizona & probably one reason that she went—& brought back you!—Ha!—A joke on her!

9. IN BED WITH HER ONE NIGHT I WANTED TO MAKE LOVE—she'd been away, off & on, always running around—& she almost cursed me! She never cursed because that was not the church thing‚ she was a churchy little girl. But she began to berate me, "Oh, you're so carnal, why do you always have to have so much sex & be so fleshly? You're never walking in the Spirit, you're not in the Spirit, you're just always nothing but in the flesh," etc., etc.

10. I BELIEVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD ROSE UP & I SLAPPED HER FACE AGAIN! I said‚ "I don't care what you say, the Bible says `Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord' (Eph.5:22.), & if I want sex you're not supposed to deny it or refuse it or argue about it or condemn me for it & call me all kinds of names & carnal & fleshly & everything else, but you're supposed to submit!"—Amen?—That's Bible!

11. SHE WENT THROUGH ALL THOSE YEARS WITH ALL THE SUFFERING & all the privation & paid all the price & another woman got the prize! Why? All because of her lack of faith & her lack of love. She had no love for me, she had no faith in me; therefore she had to take the loss.

12. JUST AS I WAS ABOUT TO LAUNCH INTO THE GREATEST PART OF OUR MINISTRY SHE LOST ME! God had to send me somebody who had faith in me, who trusted me & really loved me no matter what I was—& even helped me to believe both in God & His will for me, & that He could do something with me. She restored my faith in myself that God could still use me & that God wasn't finished with me.

13. BECAUSE ACCORDING TO WHAT EVE SAID, I THOUGHT GOD WAS ABOUT FINISHED WITH ME, THAT I WAS A FLAT FAILURE. We were getting nowhere, stranded in California & living with my Mother—I was a total failure. I couldn't even support my own wife & children. We couldn't get meetings, we couldn't get bookings—& that was one way we helped support ourselves, we went out witnessing all the time. We'd get invitations to go to churches and talk about it and take an offering to help us. We were a flop in California, they didn't want to hear about witnessing—they'd heard it. Even my Mother with all her pull & everything couldn't get us meetings in churches.—They weren't interested!

14. BUT ALONG CAME MARIA WITH HER LOVE FOR ME! God gave her the faith for me that I could still be used of the Lord & still do something for God. And she made me, in a way, like a little child forcing me to exercise that faith & my gifts from the Lord, because I just didn't dare disappoint her. Like a little child, how could you disappoint little David by not being or doing what he expects?—Or your little one?

15. HE WAS HURT EARLIER because his little mind told him that we shouldn't run off like that for someplace else without telling him goodbye or explaining it to him, he was offended. To his way of thinking that wasn't love—why would we do that to him if we loved him?—Same as it was with Maria‚ how could I disappoint her? She loved me so much & had so much faith in me.

16. I HAD TO DO IT, I HAD TO! I HAD TO MEET THE LEVEL OF HER FAITH! She was a babe & I couldn't disappoint her, I had to deliver, so I got desperate with God & asked God to help me deliver‚ & I delivered! (Maria: Babes are good for some of our leaders, to get them on the ball!) Amen! PTL! GBY & give you someone with faith in you!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family