Mariages Made in Heaven

off ring who will answer gladly sayinghere and my oh Lord send[Music]me if you can across the ocean and thehe landsexplore you can find the Heen n you youcan help them atyour if you canot speak likeAngels If You canot Preach like PA youcan tell the love of Jesus you can sayhe diedfor if you canot be The Watchmenstanding high on Zion wall pointing ofthe path to Heaven offering life andpeace to all with your prayers and withyour bounties you can do what heav M youcan be like faithful a holding of theProphethand while The Souls of men aredying and the master calls foryou let none hearyou widelysaying there isnothing Ican let me take the task he G you lethis wor yourpleasureme answerquickly when he call it here am Ihere amI here amI ohLordsme can you say praise the Lordhallelujah you may be seatedhave you been richlyblessed amen how many of you are sayingLord sendme you know I like what the promise ofGod says if there be one right amen onewilling Soul amen there there's nothingof No Limit of what God can do in andthrough one Soul fully surrendered tohim and that's do you want to be thatone soul I want everyone to be that oneSoul well you can only choose for yousir it's a personal choice and we canpray for the rest and Lead Out byexample by God'sgracewonderful I'd like to share a fewannouncements as we begin number one howmany of you have been blessed by thefood this week thusfar well that was like a mixed multitudeof aresponse and I don't think is becausethe half of you hadn't beenhereso what'sthat can you hear menow can you hear me nowso the audio is requesting excuse me thecongregation is requesting a little morevolume to theaudio all righttesting all right Saints is thatbetter Saints is thatbetter okayit's better for my voicetoo very good so how many of you beenblessed by the meals thisweek all right now I believe you hearme so how many of you would be willingto lay Express and give your helpinghand to the kitchencrew all right all the hands the Lordhaswitnessed and takenrecord and therefore you must fill yourvow before theLord and therefore the kitchen crew iswarmly welc welcoming you to see you uhtomorrow what time uh I believe you canreport to duty about uh right after hereand help them with anything that needsto be done in setting things up whichwould be just for a recount at 6:30 wemeet here tomorrow morning and what arewe doing at 6:30here United prayer if you haven't beencome andparticipate at 7:00 after United prayerwe have morning Mana which will beshared and Pastor Burke will be comingand sharing the word of God withus and then we have at 7:30 breakfastand that's when the Christian crew wouldlove to see yourfaces and all of you any time you canput your hand to the plow to be able tohelp many hands make the work light andthey may turn some of you away becauseyou know like in the days there was toomany that's a good problem to havethat's a good problem to have so we'relooking forward to having things of manyhands to make it worth of light so thateverybody can be efficiently fed andeverything can be put in order quicklythank you for your support and willingservice also would like to share anotherPoint trash make sure you understandwhere the trash cans are and when yousee children I want to remind you yourprogram will be tomorrow from 10:30 to1:15 so 10:30 to 1:15 will be theChildren's Program tomorrow and it'll beon the porch of the large WellnessCenter so one thing I would like toshare God is a god of what order lookbrethen you knowalready so because he's a god of orderlet's try to do our part to make surethat everything's kept in order amenamen amen so if you see something that'sout of place what should you do put itin place if you see something that'strash that needs to be thrown away whatshould you do throw it in the and ifit's not yours what should you do stillthrow it in the TR throw it away anywaysall right Lead Out by example you guysare doinggreatso by the way I'm sure our neighbors youknow have you ever heard ofju what does the Bible say about Juhe was a fastdriver yeah we don't need any Jus onthisroad so just for a friendly reminder uhthere are neighbors along this road thathave children and though they themselvesmay drive fast which I don't know ifthey do that is not an example for us tofollow so please be careful around theturns you don't know we might find eachother in our own Vehicles happened to metoday coming and going so it is a narrowroad you don't know who you're going toconfront so make sure you try to get onthe shoulder and those of you who haveuh SUVs and you can go off the road alittle take advantage so you give theothers that may not have that privilegein their vehicles to do so to make sureyou can passsafely some of the shoulders that looksafe are not safe yeah look twice beforep uh going off theshoulder thank you all right anotherpoint of reference I just want to sharewith youso location for the meals I know that'sa priority for everybody when it comesto meal time to know where to go thoseof you just joining us at thebackside of the large building overthere the wellness center will be wheremeals are served andum oh yes we have a specialannouncement we have baptismstomorrow ah I like that response too allHeaven rejoices when one surrenderstheir heart to Lord and Savior JesusChrist and say not I Lord but you're incharge so we have some precious Soulsthat have made that commitment and theywant to make it public tomorrow inbaptism so we're looking forward to thatbeautiful experience you said whattime in theafternoon is that good where where to beannouncedso tomorrow you need to make sure thatyou say for the whole service to get theinstructions that you know where to goafter lunch all right it'll be just downthe road they have prepared the wayalong the creek bed there is a placewhere baptism will beh held okay but itis just a little further down theroadyes there yougo man I'm I'm sorryyou know only in the country you havemarkers likethat I just saying in Venezuela it wasby the Big Mango Tree you know take aright so yeah absolutely by the bigpropane tank it's across the the way onthe otherside only in thecountry allright couple other points uh restroomsjust want to make sure there areport-a-potties two down with the campingsite two right here over here by thehouse and two over there by the largerbuilding for those of you who are justjoining us tonight locations for showersfor those of you who are camping um orthere are light green tents over hereand those are the showers areasdesignated showerspotsum if there is anybody that you knowthat has having a hard time traveling asfar as walking all the distance from theparking lot over there pleasecommunicate to us so we can make specialArrangements if you have not already tomake sure we can those that are disabledor need a little support and help thatwe can help to transfer over here I doask that you guys do not block theentrance and exit on the grass to theroad please because if there's ever anemergency we want to make sure thatthat's already cleared and if there isany need to bring a vehicle in thankyou um just a loving reminder the lodgethe wellness center uh it is for thosethat are staying there um and so if youare not staying at the wellness centeruh for the exception of when the choiris going and practicing please um we askthat you would Reserve entering in thankyou for yourcooperation uh last point and thatis I just want to share with you youguys have beenlovely lovely participants it's been arich blessing having your presence and Ipersonally on behalf of Red RiverOutpost would like to thank you you formaking this a priority in your life atthis time at this time of Earth'shistory to see that this is a priorityfor you to want to be here to receivethe blessing that God has for you so wewant to personally thank you for yourwarm presence your prayers and yoursupportso without further Ado I believe thereis one more announcementso there is a Time correction thank youvery much for bringing thatout uh that would have been a gravemistake Children's Program tomorrow isonly from 8:30 to 10: 8:45 8:45 to 10I'm going to get it right one of thesemoments 8:45 to 10 will be theChildren's Program only at that timeframe tomorrow all right so parents andchildren you got that you registeredokaygood I'm glad the correction is therewithout further Ado let us have ourspecial music to come and share withus the Jamesfamily thankyou thank you ELD the Fifer are youexcited to behere if there's a day that you don'twant to miss is tomorrowa year ago we we were planning for theuh the worship service and a special Mayeveningconcert for the Red Riverchoir and we're going to also featureRed River Mass Choir tomorrow so youreally don't want to miss that at 5:00the Red River Mass Choir and also theRed River concert choir will be inconcert among other folks uh tomorrow at5:00 so you don't want to miss it and ofcourse the worship service so the choirhas been working hard for about a yearto present our worship service so pleasetell your friends and pack this churchout now I wanted to uh dedicate the songto a special family in the audienceI I was in Gallatin we were in gallonTennessee two weeksago and um we sang this song anddedicated to a friend that we've knownfor about 50 years so we uh funeralizedher at Oakwood on um we on last Sunday Ibelieve and it was so beautiful thatthey recorded the song and played it forher uh that afternoon or later on thatweek and 4 dayslater she died in the arms of her sistersinging praises to God and this is oneof the songs that she heard before shedied number298 I lay my sins on Jesus we want todedicate this to the Britain and MillsFamily[Music]I lay mysins on[Laughter]Jesus the SpotlessLamb ofGod he Bears themall andfreeus from theURLord from the acur saidLord I bring mygift to[Music]Jesus to wash mycramon staywhite in hisblood most[Music]preious till not astainremain till not a[Music]St remainsI Lay Mywants onJesus all fullnessdwells inhim he healmy diseashe do mysoul[Music]redeem heed of mysoulredeemed I long tobe like JesusMeek lovelylonelym i long tobe likeJesus the father'sholyy childthe father'sholyychild I want tobe with[Applause]Jesus come in the headto singwithhis theangel and lovethe Angels[Music][Music]SEL forwow does that sound better yes all rightso uh that was justmagnificent and um just thank you somuch for blessing us with the gifts thatGod has richly blessed you both with andto God be the glory and the honor andwhen everybody in the body of Christuses the gifts that God has given themthe whole body is lifted whatever thosegifts are so we like to say thank youfor that andum tonight uh we're continuing ourjourney as we follow Jesus through oneof uh a series of his teachings to uh westarted out on uh when was it Wednesdaynight yes that was a long time agoalready we started out on Wednesdaynight looking in Mark 1 at the story ofJesus who has authority to calldisciples uh to make them fissures ofmen to give their life a new purpose anda new vision he has the authority overthe Demonic realm uh to set us free fromthe attacks of Satan today and he hasauthority to heal diseases and cleanseus of death dealing diseases such as umleprosy and uh we saw that in our firstnight last night we looked at a questionof cleanliness and the Pharisees werefocused on in Mark 7 on washing yourhands before you eat and Jesus turns theconversation around so and reveals to usthat what God is really concerned aboutis not whether you wash your handsbefore you eat is the state of yourheart and whether you have the new heartexperience or not and uh tomorrowmorning we're going to look at what itmeans to live in the time at the end wewon't be in the gospel of Mark tomorrowuh but tonight we're going to continuethis journey with Jesus um through histeachings and we're going to look at thetopic of marriage and I talk about thisbecause in these last days families areunderattack and if you hadn't noticed itthere's a full press attack on ourchildren and on our marriages like neverbefore and so it's important for us aswe sail through Stormy Waters just topause for a moment and to ask ourselveswhat was God's original plan formarriage what did Jesus teach aboutmarriage how can we experience the kindof marriage that God wants us to havetoday now when I was um 18 I decided youknow God was calling me into pastoralMinistry but I didn't feel ready I Iprojected forward to the age of 22 whenwhen I would hypothetically finish atnew ball College in England and I'd bethrust into the Pastoral Ministrysomewhere and I knew that CU I saw mydad was a pastor that it was only amatter of time before I'd be asked to goand chat with a couple having somemartal problems and Luther spoke aboutthis he said when you approach a CLEhaving marital problems is like a manwho walks into a hay barn full of haywith a might with a lighted match likesomething's going to go wrong at the ageof 18 I realized I wasn't going to beready at the age of 22 to talk aboutthis most intimate and personal part oflife so I waited a few years before Ientered the Pastoral Ministry but Iwanted to just uh uh affirm today thatuh the gift of marriage is one of thegreatest blessings you can have when itgoesright and a sense of man realizes that aGodly wife is as the presence of theholy spirit in hislife and a Godly wife is to be cherishedabove all other things and as we spokeabout the other day um I reiteratedagain as we are coming as we are livingin the time of the end if you are goingto have a spouse you want a spouse whois an Adventist by conviction not byconvenience so they're going to standwith you no matter what happens becausewe share the same outlook on onspiritual matters so um there's apicture of my parents there if you'veseen some of my sermons online Isometimes show this picture my parentsbeen married now for 53 years um theywere working together in pastoralMinistry for all that time it was a itwas a as as far as I can tell it's beena happy marriage and it's lasted 53years and so I just thank the Lord forthat and I recognize that every each oneof us comes from a different backgroundbut one of the biggest blessing in mylife is having a mom and a dad who stuckit through thick and thin and who haveraised us in the fear of the Lord andthey were a spiritually United householdand that is one of the greatest legaciesand blessings you can pass on to thenext Generation it's the example of aUnited Christian home where Mom and Dadlabor together for the lord they're notafraid to use discipline I mean I wasyou know I'm not sure what the phrase inAmerica is spanked no that that doesn'tdo justicesister stropped is the word you knowwhat a leather stro is when you you saidtight and um sharpen up your leatherrazor your razors you have a longleather strip tied to the door and myfather would take that strop down and Ibend over the bed and I would have sixof the best and I wouldn't sit down fora week later but I learned those lessonseven the memory of it is somewhatpainful so I'm grateful for the blessingin life of God-fearing parents who who52 years later are still in a happymarriage and I want to encourage you toyou know when you have children is notjust the excitement of having the babyyou haveresponsibility and for men we are notjust called to father a child we arecalled to be fathers two children andthat means not just fathering it butwalking with that child throughout theirlife so you can be a Godly influencethere's my wife just before I met herback in I don't know200 when was that I should know thisshouldn't I as this is going out onlineI'll pay the penalty for this later uh2016 just before met her she's Russianand there she was on our uh second datewe went to a place called Pizza hat andthere she is uh uh there were tworestaurants in that City there theydidn't have Pizza Hut they had pizza hatuh that was the day I asked her to marryme we used to work at refugee camps onthe uh aerian and Armenian Iranianborders and um that's the day I askedher to marry me and as as you can see umshe hasn't changed at all but I'm aphysical wreck after 23 years ofmarriage so I hope that doesn't uh comedoesn't say anything about marriage toyou and uh there we are when we gotlegally registered um by the president'sniece in the country of aaban there'sthe marriage uh there's we have justbeen married there there's us a fewyears ago when we became US citizens myface looks really distorted from heremaybe it's the maybe it's the angle ofthe screen here I don't know but it'sone of those distorting mirrors thatwe're looking at right hereso um why why do I share this um I sharethis because in creation God gave us twoinstitutions the Sabbath and marriageand both of those are under attack nowand they are under the attack in thefinal crisis of faith and Satan is doinghis best to destroy marriage and he'sdoing his best to destroy the sacrednessof the seventh day Sabbath and so we arecalled as Christians as faithfulfollowers of Jesus to uphold what thescripture teaches about both of theseinstitutionsthey were both given us to provide atime for rest and renewal the Sabbath inparticular a place for fellowship withGod and in marriage God providers themeans for intimacy for fellowship andwith love with fellow human beings but Iwant to ask tonight what did Jesusactually teach about marriage um becauseyou hear a lot of things these days as Iwas driving up from Nashville the otherday um I listened to a sermon by um a afemale Bishop from the United MethodistChurch in favor of um of certain thingsall right and it was instructive to methat they turned the comments off on theYouTube uh Channel okay there were nocomments and you couldn't like ordislike it and that's an indicator thatwhat someone is saying isn't being wellreceived so uh we're in an era whenthere is so much confusion aboutmarriage and marriages are failing allaround us uh maybe your marriage is introuble tonight maybe you uh maybe yourmarriage is recovering from a time oftrouble maybe you are thinking ofentering into marriageuh but whatever way we we look at thisquestion of marriage all of our livesare affected by this institution whetherwe like it or not whether we want it ornot marriage touches all of our livesand so it's important that we spend sometime just reflecting on what Jesushimself had to say about marriage so wecome to the loaded question of Markchapter 10 and just to remind you wetalked about this in the last two nightsin the first eight chapters of MarkJesus in Jerusalem in Galilee in thenorth he has a bunch of teachings andmiraclesand then he heals the man who's gotblind he he spits on his eyes twice heasks Peter who do men say that I am andPeter confesses he is the Messiah andfrom the moment that that Peterconfesses the messiahship of JesusChrist Jesus is walking South throughchapters 8 9 and 10 where he meets blindbartus in chapter 11 there's triumphalentry into Jerusalem then chapter 12onwards is his last week here on Earthbefore his resurrection and in chapter10 uh Jesus talks about very veryspecific things that all of us have todeal with he talks about marriagechildren andmoney those are important things yesmarriage children M Jesus didn't beatabout the bush because time was shortand he told his disciples you know whatwe need to know today and what they needto know back then what is the will ofGod in the area of marriage children andpossessions and as he's walkingSouth uh this is what it says he leftthat place and went to the region ofJudea and Beyond the Jordan and crowdsagain gathered around him and as was hiscustom he again taught them so Jesus isteaching the disciples and the crowdsand it says some Pharisees came and totest him they asked is it lawful for aman to divorce his wife now the detailmay be lost on you but this is whereit's taking place it's in the region ofJudea beyond the Jordan This is theterritory ruled by HerodAntipas now Jesus had a cousin calledJohn the Baptist who while he was inherod's territory criticized herod'smarriage to his her brother's wife hisbrother he his brother's wife divorcedher her brother his brother and then shemarried him and John had the tarity tocriticize Herod Antipas for um anunbiblical marriage and so Jesus is nowin Herod antipas's territory that'swhere this story is taking place so whenthe Pharisees come up to Jesus and theysay is it lawful for a man to divorcehis wife this is a loaded questionbecause John the Baptist three Baptistearlier has just been beheaded forcriticizing Herod Antipas and hismarriage tosalomi so now the Pharisees are askingJesus a loaded question and Jesus if yousay it's not lawful for man to divorcehis wife and remarry then maybe you maybe beheaded like John the Baptist was sothis is a loaded question and Jesusknows the danger of asking this ofanswering this particular question andso they're not just asking because theywant to know they're asking because theywant to get him into troubleokay and so the Pharisees they're alsotesting Jesus on the question ofmarriage and in Judaism theresponsibility of an observant Jew wasto be was the have knowledge and Masteryof the Torah that is the Old Testamentand he was expected to know what theTorah said in all matters of life nowdivorce was permitted in Judaism inprinciple will come to the real the specthe specifics that in a minute and thereremained a lot of debate as to whendivorce was permissible now the keyphrase that the Pharisees discussed wasthis bit in red here this is fromMatthew 19:3 it's the parallel passageit says some some Pharisees came to himthat is Jesus and to test him they askedis it lawful for a man to divorce hiswife for anycause and that was the key phrase forany cause is it lawful for divorce for aman to divorce his wife for any causeand uh so where does this phrase for anycause from it it isn't just a randomphrase the Pharisees have come up withthis was the subject of much rabbinicdebate and it's interesting to note thatwhen Jesus discusses marriage in thegospels he's more often than notresponding to this phase specific debatehe's not discussing whether for instancea man if a woman is repeatedly beaten byher husband whether she has the right toleave him or not so Jesus is respondingto very specific rinic debates here andthe are the Pharisees want to know can aman divorce his wife for any cause nowthat phrase for any cause or the newRevis says something objectionable theKing James says something unclean in herit comes from this passage inDeuteronomy 24 verses 1 and two whereMoses writes this he says suppose a manenters into marriage with a woman butshe does not please him because he findssomething objectional about her and sohe writes her a certificate of divorceputs it in her hand and sends her out ofhis house she then leaves his house andgoes off to become another man's wife sothe Pharisees debated what does thephrase something objectionable actuallymean that's the key question here a mancan divorce his wife according to Mosesif he finds something objectionableabout his wife and so um you know therabbis used to debate for instance is awoman beautiful on her wedding day andsome realistic rabbis said uh sometimesand the more generous Rabbi said everywoman is beautiful on her wedding dayokay there was a lot of debate aboutwoman was beautiful on her wedding daymarriage was was and remains a big issuewithin Judaism and Christianity todaythere's a well-known passage from themissioner the oral Torah that wementioned yesterday and this is what itsays it says the school of shami says aman may not divorce his wife unless heis found unchastity in her for it isWren written because he has found in herindecency in anything and the school ofhelel say he may divorce her even if shespoiled a diss for him she burned theproverbial toast for it is writtenbecause she he hath found in herindecency in anything and Rabbi Akibasays even if you found another fairerthan she for it is written and it shallbe and it shall be as she find no favorin his eyes and so the the Jewish rabbishad these discussions going back andforth on how to interpret the writtenTorah and out of the missioner which arethe the traditions of the Jews we talkedabout last night and we are to thetradition that we are to follow is thehanding over of Jesus for us not thetraditions of of the elders and so seeamong these three different schools ofthought here you have the conservativeSchool of shamay uh one Rabbi and he wasliving just before Jesus lived and hesaid a man may divorce his wife only incases of sexual immorality that isadultery that was the conservativeschool and the liberal School of H saidthat you could divorce your wife for anymatter like she burnt thetoast and you could divorce a wife andthis other Rabbi Rabbi AKA saysif you find a woman more beautiful thanyour wife you may divorce your wife andgo and marry the more beautifulwoman which doesn't give a lot ofsecurity for marriage does it they saythat every man when he marries um he hemarries a woman hoping she will neverchange and then she always does andevery woman marries a man hoping that hewill change and he never does and so umwe all have different expectations ofmarriage and it might be said that umfor a marriage to be happyum the husband's eyesight has todeteriorate at the same rate as his wifeuh I mean that might be said of somemarriages but you have the this theseJewish schools of thoughts you have theconservative Wing that is the school ofshamay saying you can only divorce incase of adultery and you have theliberal Wing that says you can basicallydivorce for any reason these days wewould call that a no faultdivorce now we may think that it'sbetter to be on the conservativeside but actually look at the example ofJoseph who was a righteous man says herhusband Joseph Matthew 1:19 being arighteous man and unwilling to exposeher to Public Disgrace planned todismiss herquietly so Joseph discovers that hisbetrothed ispregnant and he can say I am not thefather this girl is pregnant I'm goingto cancel this betrothal basicallycancel the marriage and I'm going totake the conservative position which isshe's guilty of sexual immoralitytherefore she can bear shame for therest of her life I'm the innocent partyshe must be guilty of somethingtherefore I'm going to come out for thissmelling of roses and she will foreverbear that shame but Moses being arighteous man did not take theconservative position he took theliberalposition which was we're all going topretend we don't know why this divorceis takingplace it could be for any reason I maynot have liked her hair in the morning Imay have thought that you know shedoesn't walk properly um um I don't likethe way she prepares lenal broth I meanwho knows and we're all going to pretendthat she's not pregnant even though withthe passing months it's obvious toeverybody and Moses uh Joseph because hedidn't want to expose her to disgracethat is have a divorce because you'vecommitted adultery in everybody's eyeshe's going to go for the no fault optionbecause he wants to preserve herreputation and so you have thesedifferent options in the time of Jesuseven jesus' father was considering adivorce and uh from Mary but he wasgoing to take the no fault the liberaloption because he wanted to protect thewoman that is Mary in that particularsituation but by the time of Jesushimself no fault divorces were the normwithin Judaism with neither side blamingthe other therefore neither side facingthe penalties for adultery specifiedunder the Mosaic law so the Phariseeshere are testing Jesus and Jesus knowsthat they know the writings of Mosesvery well so Jesus answered them and hesaid so what did Moses command you andthey saidMoses allowed a man to write hiscertificates of of dismissal and to andto divorce her so Jesus knows what Mosessays and the Pharisees know what Mosessaid so we all know what he actuallysaid so Jesus goes on to make a commentabout this and he says this but Jesussaid to them because of your Hardness ofHeart he wrote this commandment foryou which is the Mosaic provision that aman may divorce his wife if he findssomething objectionable about her wasnever the divine intent for marriage itwas a concession to the hardness ofmen'shearts and God Moses in the Mosaic lawwas recognizing that divorce is going tohappen whether we like it or not ithappens in the best of families andworst of families do think the divorcedoes take place you never enter marriagelooking for a divorce but it does happenand so Moses is seeking to regulatemarriage in order to protect the womenin the court when they do go through adivorce so Moses recognizes this is notthe Divine intent but it is going tohappen so let's protect the women whenthis tragedy takes place within amarriage and so it's it's a text ofdivine concession not of divine intentMoses was not instituting divorce he memerely sought to regulate it to preventthe abuse and and to and to promote theprotection of women now the Phariseesattitude towards marriage was uh one oflooking for the morally justifiable getoutClauses they wanted to enter marriageknowing in advance when they could leavethemarriage now does that strike you as agood basis for yourmarriage a prenup yes they're they'rewanting to know okay I'm think ofmarrying this young lady but can youtell me when I've got when when I canmorally leave thismarriage and um you know if you ask ayoung lady to marry you and you youinclude all the opt out Clauses you'renot likely to get a positive answer areyou I'm happy to marry you and to commitmyself to the rest of you for the restof of your life but if you do a b CDE eFG we're over we'redone and so the Pharisees uh theattitude reminds us of a person who justbeen given a bank loan then immediatelyask the bank manager of how he can beforgiven that loan see Pilots don'tlearn to fly planes by followinginstructions for making crash Landingsgenerals are not successful in in war bylearning how to beat a retreat and thesame is true for marriage and divorcenow Jesus in his response does not focuson the get out Clauses that thePharisees are looking forbut he draws the Pharisees attentionback to God's original intent formarriage it's a helpful way you knowwhen Jesus has dialogue with people heoften comes into contact with people whoare working with the imperfect and timeand again Jesus draws our attention backto God's original revealed will formarriage and so this is what he says hedraws them back in Mark 10: 6 and9 hesays to the Pharisees but from thebeginning of creation God made them maleand female for this reason a man shallleave his father and mother and bejoined to his wife and the two shallbecome one flesh so they are no longertwo but one flesh therefore what God hasjoined together let no man separate nowthere's a few things we might say uh in2023 Jesus does not use the phrase manor woman he uses the the biologicalterms male andfemale the marriage is between abiological male and a biological femaleso all the questions about gender allthat kind of garbage that's out there itdoesn't come into the mind of Jesus thetext is very clear Jesus is quoting maleas in biological male and female as inbiological female he's not talking aboutman or woman as as the social theoristtoday would say it's a social constructthat is infinitely fluid he brings usall the way back to to the groundreality which is God's setup marriagebetween a biological male and abiological female and in so doing Jesusum affirms the reality that maleness andfemaleness are rooted in the creationthe creative will of God both are goodin both in God's eyes and both male andfemale are foundational for marriage anda marriage that includes something otherthan male and female is not a marriagein God's eyes and as Christians weshould not recognize any other marriagethat a marriage that is between a malebiological male and a biological femalehe affirms here that as a sovereigncreation of God woman is not man's moralsubject but she is his moral equalstanding beside him in the presence ofGod yet while male and female aremorally equal before God they alsocomplimentary in roles andresponsibilities withinmarriage Jesus uh refers also to Genesis2 Genesis uh 2:24 therefore a man shallleave his father and his mother andshall cleave unto his wife and theyshall be one flesh we'll come back tothis in a minute here but marriageinvolves leaving cleaving and becomingone flesh and the essence is unless youleave your family of origin for yourfamily of choice your family of originwill always haunt your family ofchoice so for marriage to be successfulyour primary loyalty is to your spousenot to your mom or your or your dad andif you bring your parents into themarriage with you it will be a bad odorthat will destroy yourmarriage okay my mother-in-law lives inMoscow in Russia okay and she's awonderful woman but she keepsthreatening tovisit uh and then the covid pandemicstruck and you all travel ground to ahalt and I thought oh thank you Lord andthen the co pandemic faded and there wasa war in Ukraine and it's almostimpossible for Russians come to AmericaI'm thinking oh thank you Lord and so uhit's important that that Jesus uhreferring back to Genesis 2 here that aman must leave his father and his motherbecause you have a family of origin nomatter how good or bad that is you'renow making a family of choice and forthat family of choice to have the bestpossible chance of succeeding you've gotto make that your number one priorityyou cannot have other family memberstelling you how to operate or tellingyour spouse how to operate because itwill drive them crazy and it'll drivethem out of themarriage in this passage here uh Genesis2:24 Jesus affirms that a husband'sobligation to his wife exceeds hisobligation to his own parents makingyour marriage relationship second onlyin obedience to your relationship to Godin sacredness now the greatestdifference that Jesus is saying herebetween his view on marriage and that ofthe Pharisees is that Jewish divorpolicy divorce policy made the men theLords of their marriages but for Jesusit is God who is the lord of themarriage he says what God has joinedtogether let not man separate or let noman separate therefore a marriage is notbetween two people a marriage is betweena biological male a biological femalewho are united by a loving heavenlyfather and both of them are accountableto their loving Heavenly Father for howthey treat each other within themarriage there are three people within amarriage never forget that and in caseyou wondering Daniel chapter 5 talksabout the Heavenly Watchers everythingthat is said or done within a marriageis known to our Heavenly Father there isno privacy within your marriage as faras God is concerned everything you do isknown before your heavenly father Jesusgoes on to say then all the disciplescome to Jesus they kind of bit bitperplexed and Mark 10: 10-12 it saysthen in the house the disciples askedhim again about this matter they'reperplexed so they come to Jesus forfurther instructions because thePharisees taught that if the originaldivorce was legal then remarriage wasmorally permissible logically thereforeif the original divorce was morallyinvalid then any subsequent marriagewould also be invalid and so Jesus saysto them whoever divorces his wife andmarries another commits adultery againsther that against his first wife and ifshe divorces her husband and marriesanother she commits adultery so Jesus isnot talking about marriage in allsituations here but he's denying thePharisees fundamental Concept in theiroriginal question of a valid divorce forany reason he is teaching here thatmarriage that your marriage is divinelyordained and when properly enter intowho receives God blessing and Jesus doesnot allow for the Jewish view of thetime of women as being the mere propertyto be M of owned by their fathers to bemarried off at the whim of their fathersor divorced at the whim of theirhusbands nor does he allow for modernconcepts of diminished moralresponsibility Jesus affirms In thispassage here that both men and women aremoral beings both men and women havefree will and both men and women areaccountable to God what happens withintheir marriages we all have to answer toour loving Heavenly Father we are allmorally accountable nobody hasdiminished moral responsibility humanfailure does not change God's Divineintent for our marriage so let's go backto Genesis 1 again just drilled a bitdeeper into this God's original intentfor marriage and as we've seen in thistext before gen 1: 127 so God createdman and the word man is uh Adam and Adamuh means the dust the soil of the groundis Adama so when when we're called Adamit means we're just taken from theground so when it says God created manin his own image the word there is Adamhe's not saying he created biologicalmales's he's creating mankind so we areall created in the image of God youmight say that a society that is onlymale or a society that is only femalecan never fully reflect the image of GodSociety needs men and women together tofully reflect what it means to tounderstand who the heavenly father whoare who the godhead really are so Godcreated Humanity as male and female andin creation was everything good or weresome parts of creation bad it was allgood so if everything in creation wasgood that means both male and female aregood in the eyes of God neither M maleis not better than female and female isnot better than male it is is God'sjudgment that both male and female aregood in his eyes they are equal in beingthey're morally accountable before Godthey are physically compliment and theyare functionallyCooperative let me just say that againmen and women before God are equal inbeing we're morally accountable beforeGod we are physically complimentary andwe are functionally Cooperative that'show God creates us to be and the Humanfamily is built on sexualdifferentiation God did not need tocreate us as male or female he couldhave created us as asexual beings thatjust automatically reproduce without theneed for a partner God did not need aspecies where the male donates thegenetic material and the female gestatesthe genetic material and out comes ababy after a certain period of time hedid not need to do that with the humanrace but he created us in that waybecause that way we need one anotherneither male nor female who Superior umone to the other in the eyes of GodGenesis 2:24 again we covered thispassage a few seconds ago therefore aman shall leave his father and hismother for a marriage to succeed it isnecessary to move beyond all previousrelationships even that between a childand their parents when you leave thatmakes it possible for you to cleaveunless you leave you cannot cleavewithout the leaving of your parents youwill never be able to cleave to yourspouse it is almost impossible to cleavetogether when there's some grit in therelationship ship known as afather-in-law or mother-in-law there hasto be a leaving in order for there to bea cleaving and so you there is a leavingthen there's a cleaving the cleavinghere means like to stick to and to totie two sticks together to fasten themor to hold on to them you can use thisverb of soldering um metal together andthe closeness and the strength of thatBond demonstrates the nature of marriagethat is both sides become strongerthrough the cleaving process and bothsides are harmed should the cleaving bewrenched apartall right so in marriage when you cleavetogether you become stronger as a couplein the in your early years you may pushon eachother but as you get older you learn tolean on eachother and as you get older I may forgetsomething but my wife remembers it andshe may forget something and well shedoesn't but where you to forgetsomething where they say that um when aman gets married he should forget allhis mistakes because there's no pointtwo people remembering everything soum uh a couple of years ago um my I gothome from work and my wife said um Iwant you to take this back to the storeuh so uh it was Friday afternoon mybrain was mush and you know Fridayafternoon you know that's kind of deadtime for a guy so I okay I'll drive intotown so I drove into town and when I gotinto town um I couldn't remember why Iwas intown and I'm sure there's some guys herewhove had a very similarexperience and so I couldn't I couldn'tfigure out why am I in town here so Idrove around town even though theclothes were next to me in the bag onthe front seat and I was driving aroundthinking that why am I in town here andso I I drove by Lowe's I thought Ialways come to Lowe's on him in town soI I go into Lowe's maybe that'll jug mymemory and I drive into I go into Lowe'sI'm walking up and down Lowe's thinkingnow what was I doing at home thatnecessitated a trip to Lowe's andgetting kind of frustrated cuz Icouldn't remember what I was doing athome of course I've been doing nothingso I walked around I thought I walk pastthe lighting section okay I always getLED lighting it must have been lightingso I got some light bulbs andum my wife likes like the soft yellowwarm light I like the bright white lightso in our bathroom we have like these1600 Lumen bright white like spotlightswhen you turn it on the morning it'slike it's amazing like looking into theSun and um so anyway so I I bought I gotthe LED lights and I drove home forfeeling very happy about things I'd hada successful trip to town and and Iwalked in and and my wife says well didyou do it I said well yes here here thebulbs and and um you know my my my wifeis Russian and Russians are very kind ofstoical about they don't get tooemotional about things so she says didyou take the clothes back I said whatclothes and so she kind of took me bythe ear and she pointed me to the carand I said oh the clothes yes yes yeahthe clothes and she says well how is itthat you that you just forget thesethings and I said you know after 22years of marriage this is what theforensic psychologist calledinstitutionalization like when I comehome I'm just like a robot I do as I'mtold I'm not capable of rationalindependent thought anymore I can leadAFM by day but when I come home I'm justlike zombified you know so um she wasn'tbest pleased with that answer either umbut the the point is that we do tend toforget things and as you get older asyou get older you tend to have sh sharedmemories you have shared experiences andyou lean on eachother and you know as a description ofwhat marriage is about you know I had acolonoscopy lastyear um I'll talk about thattomorrow but um at the end of that Cothe last thing I remember is I was beingknocked out by the doctor and theanesthesiologist and I woke up athome and Ithought um i' I've learned cuz I sleepin about three different beds a weekweek so I've learned when I wake up inthe morning whenever I wake up I alwaysopen my eyes and think now where amI and like I was staying someplace lastweekend and it was a bed in a box in thewall so when you're in a bed like thatyou stick your foot out quickly you stubyour toe okay so you wake up and likewhere am I you open your eyes okaythat's the side of the bed on that sideso I put my feet out there and I woke upat home and I thought how did I get hereI thought I thought I was having acolonoscopy but how come I'm in bed so II said toor I how come I'm in bed shesaid oh well let me tell you astory she said you came out of surgeryand you were really talkative in therecovery room but the doctor said somethat you have some kind of byproduct ofanesthesia so you're it looks likeyou're awake but you're really not awakeand so she said we put you in awheelchair and we wielded you to thefront of the hospital and I put you inthe car and you were chatting happilybut I could see that something wasn'tquite all there so I went shopping inWalmart and left you in the car uhhoping you'd recover and when I get backto the car you're still kind of like notquite something's not quite right so wecame home when you unloaded the car thenI put you to bed now a few hours laterhere you are and look you now have alevel of self-awareness andConsciousness and praise the Lord you'vecome back tome and that's what marriage isabout no no don't laugh about this thisisserious um what marriage is about is issomebody looking after you when you'renot even aware that they're lookingafter you and making sure that nothingbad happens to you when you you have noidea what's happening to you that youcan trust implicitly and explicitly thatthey'll never do you harm and they willbe your champion and walk with you andsometimes carry you when you can't do itfor yourself that's what marriage isabout having that someone who will dothat for you and for nobody else andthat's what the process of cleavinginvolves it means we become closer oneto another um and then you become oneflesh it says now the leaving and thecleaving was in the becoming of oneflesh and this is kind of a mystery thattwo persons become one marriage wherethe two walk together they talk togetherthey think together and they share adeep physical and emotional intimacy Iwant to say here today that you knowparticularly for young people here whenyou get married you ultimately marry amind not abody because bodies get bigger andbodies get smaller and bodies have bitschopped off and bodies have bitssurgically attached to them and bodiesDecay from the inside take a look atsome people's teeth bodies smell uhbodies don't look too good in themorning all right and so forth so um ifyou think you're going to marry likethis beautiful woman or this handsomeman they're always going to be like thatyou need to think again what youultimately marry is amind you're marrying a mind where thereis intellectual spiritual and emotionalcompatibility because your bodies aregoing to go up and down through lifethey're going to look good they're goingto look pretty grim and for those of youin the medical field you know that onceyou get above like 65 years of age bodyare kind ofdisgusting let's be honest aboutit maybe you're the exception but theyare prettydisgusting and so what you marry is amind and you're looking for emotionalspiritual and psychologicalcompatibility that's what you're lookingfor in marriage and that's what it meansto become one flesh where if somebodyasked my wife a question what would youwhat you guys think about doing this mywife doesn't need to ask me because shealready knows what I think and viceversa that we know what each other thinkwe have the sh same values we praytogether we have the same goals in lifeas we go through life we're buildingblocks of a of a marriage we're buildinga home we don't live in a house we livein a home we're building a Christianhome and we raise our children then wehave to you know ReDiscover ourselvesagain when the kids leave home and youhave emptiness syndrome but we'rebuilding a life together with shareddreams shared hopes shared pains sharedexpenses and that's something you doside by side with one another and itdoesn't matter how beautiful or handomehe or she is that takes place when youhave a sharing ofMinds so when you're looking for aspouse look for someone where there ismental SP spiritual and emotionalcompatibility in becoming one flesh theuh couples reenact the First Love Storyfrom Eden between Adam and Eve marriagesays the Apostle Paul is Honorable amongall and the marriage bed is to be keptundefiled for God will judge fornicatorsand adulterers so the sexual expressionof love in marriage is part of God'sgift to marriage and it is Honorable itis not to be considered shameful ordirty it is the holy of holies in themarriage a private Garden of Eden intowhich nobody else may enter in thoughtor bydeed that's the holy of holies withinyour marriage now initially intimacywithin marriage is expressed physicallybut over time it's expressed through thejoining together of two minds in anintimate Bond where your silence becomesdeeplymeaningful and I I go for a walk with mywife almost every day we do four milesmost mornings or five miles together andwe talk about life and we pray togetherand we talk about our children we talkabout all kinds of things and we oftenwalk in silence and the silence isMeaningful the silence is deeplymeaningful you we may joke about it likethe man who said to his wife I want towatch a ball game could you give me 3hours of the silent treatment that's notthe kind of Silence we're talking abouthere the silence we're talking about iswhere you both know what each other arethinking and I know what she's thinkingshe knows what I'm thinking we just kindof slowly turning it over in our mindsbecause words are precious and wordsonce expressed cannot be taken back soyou need to make sure that the nextthing you say is positive andconstructive and reflects a Christlikecharacter and so silence is is can bedeeply meaningful withinmarriage so the Apostle Paul describesthis further he says do not bemismatched with unbelievers for whatpartnership is there betweenrighteousness and lawlessness whatFellowship is there between light anddarkness that is we are to only seek aspouse with whom we share spiritualagreement and essential Harmony can twowalk together unless they be agreed askthe prophet Amos and 33 no h no spousehas ever shared with me as a pastortheir joy and relief at finding amarriage partner who disagrees with themover the fundamental issues of Faithnobody has ever said I'm so glad Imarried somebody who didn't share myfaith nobody says that time and againyou hear stories of marital struggles offamily divisions of a husband and wifesaying yeah we'll both respect eachother's faith and then when the kids areborn the kids become the Battleground inthat marriage are they going to go tochurch on Sabbath or watch the ball gamewith Dad that's the struggle that goeson and so when we form a marriage we'reasking God not just for someone we thinkis physically attractive but someonewhere there is an a spiritualcompatibility that we're in thistogether we understand the values weshare as a family if you don't have thatkind of marriage you're going to timeand again to experience regret and painand division within your marriage I'mspeaking as a pastor here I have seenmany many times ladies coming to churchand their deepest desire is for theirhusband to sit next to them in the pewstheir deepest desire is for theirhusband to pray with them their deepestdesires for their husband to take thelead in Family Worship that's whatthey'rewanting and for whatever ever whateverreason it was they have got they're in amarriage and they come every week tochurch and you see the longing in theireyes for a spiritual compatibility withtheirspouse so follow the example of thePatriarchs and ask God to bring you tothe rightperson Isaac waited till he was 40 yearsold then God miraculously brought him20y old or so Rebecca and that wasthrough a miracle that God brought thatabout we can wait on God to bring thatspecial person into our life and whilewe wait rather than saying woe is me weconcentrate on becoming the best personthat God wants us to be we concentratedon growing spiritually andintellectually and morally andfinancially and in our capacity to serveour fellow Humanity in need because wewant to attract the person who's goingto be most suitable for us and we wantto attract the person who's going to beequivalent to us as a general rule Imean people say this in the secularWorld um ladies tend to marry toequivalent social class and up and mentend to marry they don't care who theymarry as long as she's beautiful allright but men women women are verycareful about marriage because they knowthat when they're pregnant they'reextremely vulnerable so women tend tothink about marriage much more carefullythan men men say you'll get married yeahone day we'll have some kids that's likewe'll have some toast in the morning mengive that give as much thought to thatwhen they're getting married I canassure you one day we'll have kids yeahand it's like one day you wake up yougot gray hair these things happen to youbut women don't think about it in thoseterms they know that as they go throughthose childbearing years they arevulnerable physically emotionallyfinancially and so for a woman thedecision to marry has much greatersignificance than it does for theaverageman so marriage is essentially acovenant and God describes as a covenantthrough the prophet Malachi chapter 2:13-16 and this is what it says and thisyou do as well this is god um giving hislist of accusations against the peopleof Israel he says you cover the Lord'saltar with tears with weeping andgroaning because he no longer regardsthe offering or accepts it with favor atyour hand you ask why does he notbecause the Lord was a witness betweenyou and the wife of your youth to whomyou have been faithless though she isyour companion and your wife by Covenantso when we enter into a maritalrelationship it's a covenant made beforeGod and God sees the details the textgoes on did not God make her both fleshand spirit are his and what does the oneGod desire Godly Offspring so look toyourselves this is God talking to themen of Israel here and do not let anyonebe faithless to the wife of his youthfor God says I hate divorce sayith theLord the god of Israel and coveringone's garment with violence says theLord of hosts so take heed to yourselfand do not be faithless marriage can uhdivorce can be described as an act ofviolence in many manyways it's one of the most destructivethings anybody can go through it's aterrible experience nobody comes out ofdivorce smelling of roses even if you'reentirely innocent everybody comes outwith scars because as you pull apart thecleaving it leaves scars emotionallypsychologically and spiritually and Godis concerned that men are faithful tothe wives of theiryouth not so much concerned about womendrifting off after other guys but he'smostly concerned about men in thispassage chasing otherladies and so God is concerned aboutthis and God hates it when men gothrough that process of initiating adivorce when they're being faithless tothe wife of their youth and so when theApostle Paul gives instructions for menand women in marriage it's notsurprising that he has a whole lot moreto say to men than he has to women hegoes here in Ephesians 5:23 through 28 Ihope you can say that see that sayshusbands love your wives just as Christloved the church and gave himself up forher in order to make her Holy bycleansing her with the washing of Waterby the word that's a beautiful phrasethere so as to present the church tohimself in splendor without a spot orwrinkle of anything of the kind yes sothat you may be holy and without blemishin the same way husbands should alsolove their wives as they do their ownbodies he who loves his wife loveshimself for no one ever hates his ownbody but he nourishes and tally caresfor it just as Christ does for thechurch you know so just as Christ isseeking to beautify his church so mentheir attitude in marriage is I want mywife to be the best she can possibly beand I want to do the best for my wife tothrive and when your wife walks down theaisle in the church if you have a churchwedding and you see her walking to youin that Fab abulous dress men we need torealize that she is placing all herhopes and dreams for life in your handand she only has onelife and she's trusting you to be thefather of her children to be a father tothem not just a father her childrenshe's trusting you with all her hopesand dreams she knows the risk ofviolence and abuse and abortion anddivorce and all the rest of it she knowsthat but she's hoping for the best andshe's hoping you're going todeliver and Men you have aresponsibility I have responsibility wehave responsibilities to honor the trustthat's placed into us when the womanwalks to the Altar and says I will beyour wife we have a responsibility menand husbands are to love their wives asChrist loved the church which meanssacrificially so it means that you knowlet's put it bluntly we heard like abanging at our downstairs door about 6months ago and my wife said go and seewhat thatis and the husband it's my job to go andsee what that is it's not my wife'sjob when the snow falls in Michigan andI have to go you know we have 170 yarddriveway and it's my job to shovel thatdriveway when she kind of gives me agentle tap on the legs at 4:30 I knowit's time to get up and spend 2 hoursshoveling snow that's my job to makesure she can get out safely with thekids that's my job as her husband so menare to love their wives not forself-gratification or sensual pleasurebut we are to love our wives in a waythat enables them as Christ wants thechurch to be without blemish and perfectso we are to do everything so that ourwives can be as perfect and withoutblemish as possible and you might saythat a man's character is stamped in theface of hiswife and you can tell a man's characterby the peace or the pain you see in theeyes of hiswife so if you want to know what a man'scharacter is take a look at his wife'sface and you'll see something profoundabout what he's really like behindclosed doors as Jesus willingly died forhis churchso the wife needs to feel and know thathusband would do anything includingmaking the ultimate sacrifice for herbenefit and loving your wife also meansfollowing the example of Abraham thefather of the faithful which means inGenesis 12 and Genesis 13 whereverAbraham went he built an altar and hegathered his family for worship so to bethe the head of the households doesn'tmean you have the right to dominate itmeans that you lead the family closer toGod and I hear this from many women thatthey want their nothing more they wantfrom their husbands than for theirhusbands to call the children togetherfor Family Worship in the evening ratherthan the women women want their guys tocall them the children together and saywe're going to gather around to ourfamily Altar and we're going to connectwith the Living Godabove so men if you're not doing thisyour wife may or may not havearticulated this to you but be thepriest of the family represent God toyour children so they see God in you andthey're drawn to him in their lives andlead your family in in prayer before ourheavenly father as the priest of thefamily so that your children learn havea how to have a living connection to bea father is a spiritual responsibilityand God has entrusted our children to usas fathers so we may lead them asAbraham did into the kingdom of God sothat is our responsibility as men uhPeter describes it thus he says husbandsin the same way show consideration foryour wives and your life together payinghonor to the woman as the weaker sexsince they two are also Heirs of thegracious gift of life that was all goingin the same direction to Heaven aboveand then he says this so that nothingMay hinder your prayers and that phraseum nothing May hinder Eau it meansnothing it means it be cut off or cutdown so what Peter is saying here isthat God sees how husbands treat theirwives and if a husband does not treathis wife as God intends him to treat hiswife as an object of his love and andand the recipient of the Eternal gift ofSalvation then uh God is not going tohear his prayersnow if God doesn't hear your prayers ishe going to forgive you when you ask forforgiveness no that means you're in astate of beinglost because you have Unforgiven sinsthat you cannot be cannot be forgivenuntil you treat your wife as Godintended her to be treated so theApostle Paul pet doesn't say this womenyou know treat your wives treat yourhusbands gently I recognize that thedomestic violence it goes both ways andwomen beating men is a social taboo wedon't talk about it but it does happenso you know if that's your situationthese principles apply to you as wellhow you treat your spouse if you treatthem in a way other than God intendsyour spouse is a child of God created inHis image a moral being equal to youbefore God if you do not treat yourspouse as God intended God is not goingto hear your prayers for forgiveness ifhe doesn't hear your prayers forforgiveness you are essentially in alost State until you treat your spouseproperly then God will hear your prayerswhen you say father forgive me for mysins there is a moral there is aneternal consequence for how we treat ourspouse which should give us reason to becareful for how we treat our husband andour wife and the Apostle Paul talks towomen in Colossians 3:18 in Ephesians 53I've put those two texts there wives besubject to your husbands as is fittingin the Lord and um each of you talkingto men this is a summary of Ephesians 5each man should love his wife as himselfand a wife should respect her husbandand it's interesting that um the the theNew Testament says that men should lovetheir wives but women should respecttheirhusbands and women want men listen tothis women men want respect more thanlove men assume if there's a physicalact in marriage that everything's okayon the love side but men wantrespect now that means when you'rehaving a pot luck on Sabbath don't sayto another man at the table oh uh myhusband's not so good with home repairscould you come by on Sunday and fix thatthat light bulb in thebathroom you say that and you just likeyour husband is like dying of Shame andhe loathes you in thatmoment so don't do things in public thatyou know going to humiliate your husbandif you have words to say say them inprivate you know if something needs tobe fixed it's in the brain you've toldhim he knows and 6 months later he stillknows it's got to be fixed if it'surgent he'll fix it all right butsometimes you know sometimes my wifesays this needs to be fixed and in myown mind that has to come before thatand that has to come before that andthat has to come before that I'll do itin next September because I've got allthese other jobs to do before that andthey all have to be done before that andso my wife just has to trust it will getdone but wives the Apostle Paul saysrespect your husbands that is do not putthem down do not make them less thandon't not negatively compare them toother men particularly in public theywill hate you for it men want respectand women want to be loved and to feelsafe that they can make a nest and theycan build life together why because thefirst woman was called Eve which meansthe mother of the living and shereceives her name after thefall after the fall Eve receives hername God has uniquely created women withthe ability to carry the child to sucklethe child and to nurture and to lovethat child and God's purpose for everymother like Eve is to be mother of theliving not the mother of the dead soregard regardless of the career you maychoose whether a man or a woman there isno greater Legacy you can live tohumanity than a child who has grown tolove God who is fully committed to Godand who in their generation is a pillarof Faith a hero of God and is has becomethe Sal of the earth and a light on ahill your legacy you know when you dieI've never heard anybody say on theirdeathbed as a pastor I wish I'd spent afew hours of EX every Sunday at theoffice nobody ever says that everybodysays I want reconciliation with thosenearest and dearest to me that's thebasic desire everybody has and men inparticular regret the sacrifices theymade for an ultimately pointless careerover the well-being of their childrenthe time they spent with theirkids so it's up to us as Christian mento set boundaries between work andfamily and to honor those boundaries sothat our children have legitimate timewith us so we can mentor them and we cannurture themmany years ago I gave my kids forChristmas a little checkbook and on itit had 20 minutes with Dad or half thelittle checks like this is signaturefrom Dad this is 20 minutes undividedattention and my kids can cash that outat any time okay so when you wantdedicated time with Dad You' got yourcheckbook you write your check give itto me and you get you you get your timeand so they could choose that time andit's important particularly for girls toknow that they have a father who willspend time with them and as a practicalpiece of advice when girls hit about 12they start their emotions start to goaway from their father and they start tolook for some other object of theiremotion and a really good thing to avoidthem planting their emotions on sometotally unsuitable teenage boy is to getthem ahorse because girls will transfer theiremotions from their father to a horseand that's a healthy emotionalrelationship and you get them throughthe teenage turbulence so a bit ofadvice allright there'll be a of advent is buyinghorses now for their for their daughtersbut seriously because teenage girls theystart their emotions start going intoplaces you'd rather not them they rathernot go when you're their father and youneed to make sure those emotions arehealthy so getting them a horse is areally good way of channeling thoseemotions in a positive way which bringsus to the question ofdivorce and divorce is a painful subjectis it not there's been divorce in my ownfamily I see the consequences of divorcenobody wants it everybody carries manyeverybody who's gone through it carriesthe scars from it so what do we sayabout divorce here tonight well Matthew19 we go back to that original verseJesus says to the Pharisees they ask himis it lawful for a man to divorce hiswife for any reason so they're asking avery particular Rabin question thatrelates to that passage in Deuteronomythat we read earlier and half of theconservatives said you can only divorceon account of adultery and the Liberalssaid you can divorce for any reasonand Jesus on that particular questioncomes down on the conservative side hesays I say to you whoever divorces hiswife except for unchastity the word ispora in the Greek and marries anothercommits adultery so what Jesus is sayingis that um a divorce is permissible whenthere is any misuse of the sexual powersfor by which we might say um premaritalsex that is fornication extramarital sexthat is adultery and then vile andabusive practices within marriagebecause the marriage B is to be pure sobestiality necromancy same-sex gentleactivity child abuse um personal abuseand pornography all constitute sexualimmorality and represent biblicalgrounds fordivorce and if this is an averageaudience at least 50% of the people hereare watchingporn and that's a lowestimate and it's men andwomen and when a man says to his wifeI'm watching porn she goes through thesame emotional response as a woman doeswho discovers her husband's having aliteral Affair it's the same emotionalresponse and because it's happeningrepeatedly she goes through thatemotional response repeatedly so sheeventually becomes like traumatized bythe ongoing poror use of herhusband this is a serious issue and wemust talk about it and say that ifyou're engaging in that kind of stuffyou're destroying your marriage andyou're outside the very Kingdom youprofess to serveit's deadly serious now it's anaddiction I've spoken other times abouthow poor and that literally it's it'slike it's it's it's a moral sin and it'sa neurochemical addiction and you haveto address the addiction and the sinfulthe moral side when you want to gainvictory over it however I want to dwellfor a few minutes tonight not on thepornography but on the marriagevows so back back in the time of theBritish Empire there were two sisterscalled Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibsonand the 8 19 1890s they were both widowsthey set off on a middle eastern tourand when because they could read HebrewGreek Arabic and Syriac they werewelcomed at monasteries and centers ofresearch all over the Middle East and intheir travels they came to Cairo and inCairo they found a ganza now a ganza inJudaism was when when when a JewishCommunity um had documents have the nameof God written on them rather than justputting in the trash as we do they wouldstore all those documents in in in aseparate room called a Ganer and thenevery couple of years they would bringit all out and they would ceremony burnthose documents like we burn the um thethe the bread at at Lord's Supper okaybut they found a ganza in gy that hadn'tbeen opened in a thousand years andthere was a thousand years of documentsin that do in that safe in Cairo andthey hauled them all back to the Londonthe British museum in London and they'veonly just finished archiving them just acouple of years ago thousands ofdocuments for for the LA thousands ofdocuments from the last thousand yearsof the Jewish community of Cairo andwhat theydiscovered was that um when we promisetoday to love honor and cherish inmarriage where where do those promisescome from well it goes back to thispassage here in Exodus 21 10-11 it saysif he that is another man takes anotherwife to himself that is a man takes asecond wife says he shall not diminishthe food clothing or marital rights ofthe first wife and if he does not dothese three these three things for hershe shall go out without debt withoutpayment of money and so they discoveredthat when when in ancient Judaism when aman got married he promised four threethings he would provide the food and shepromised to make the food he promised toprovide the clothing and she promised tomake the clothes and he promisedconjugal love and she promised conjugallove and they promised to honor eachother in public and to be faithful toeach other so that's those Jewishmarriage vows come from this passagehere the Apostle Paul picked up on theseJewish vows in Ephesians 5:28-29 wherehe said in the same way husband shouldlove their wives as they do their ownbodies he who loves his wife loveshimself and no one ever hates own bodybut he nourishes and tally cares for itjust as Christ does for the church andthis gets captured in the common book ofprayer you'll familiar with the commonbook of prayer when the pastor saysdearly beloved we are gathered here inthe sight of God to witness the joiningtogether in holy maton of this man andthis woman which is a holy estateinstituted by God in the state of man'sinoc in and the Garden of Eden that'show the common book of prayer starts themarriage service and so this comesthrough into our marriage vows now Ihope you can see that so the Jewishmarriage vows here were to provideconjugal love to be faithful to yourspouse and the woman promised to provideor cook the food and to and the men andto make the clothing and the men Propromise provide the food stuffs and theclothing for the to be the cloth to bemade into clothing the Apostle Paulsummarized it as to love honor andcherish and that's how it comes throughinto our Modern English wedding vowsthat the the traditional vows are fromthe common book of Prayer of 600 yearsago from the Anglican church so that'swhere we get our vowsfrom nowwe look at these vows and tolove what does that mean it means thatyou're Covenant to love the other partyin a sacrificial manner seeking firstand foremost the good of your spouse notyour own good and that love is modeledon the love that God has for this worldin which he sent his innocent son intothis rebellious world to die for a worldin rebellion and Express within marriagethe principle of Love involves youseeking only that which is going to be ablessing for your spouse it's a guidingprinciple a husband will only seek to door be that which will benefit his wifeand a wife will only seek to do or bethat which will benefit her husband thephrase to honor or to be faithful to onespouse it means that both parties areCovenant to provide covenanting for Godto provide conjugal love and to befaithful to one another they're going toestablish some boundaries in theirmarriage a personal Garden of Eden intowhich which nobody else may enter eitherin thought or in deed and honoring inhonoring one another in priv privatealso means honoring one another inpublic that means we are to dealrespectfully with our spouses and lovingloving with them in public to have eyesand thoughts for nobody else and we areto so arrange our lives that neither ofus will find ourselves in a situationwhere our marriage or our spouse may becompromised orDishonored so I speak a lot in differentchurches and when I go and speak in achurch they say where would you like tostay and I always have one request I sayi' like to stay with an old retiredcoupleI don't want to stay in a hotel I wantto stay in some old retired couple'sbasement because that's the safest foreverybody it protects my marriage itprotects my wife it protects myreputation and it protects the churchthat's invited me to go and speak thereand so in order to have a healthymarriage I need to be consciouslythinking about avoiding compromisingsituations and only ordering my life insuch a way that my marriage my wife hername my name are not compromised in someway and then to cherish what does thatmean well the best analogy for this isif you have um a plant at home and ithas to have sunlight every day that youput it on on on let's say a kitchentable where the sun shines in and everyday you water that plant and you justturn it a little bit so that the suncatches it at a different angle so itgrows up straight so to tocherish it means that you are going tonurture that that that spouse inmarriage what does that mean in practiceit means that you do everything you cancan for your spouse to flourish in lifewhich means to yell at your spouse tohit your spouse to bitterly criticizeyour spouse is a Breaking of themarriagevow it's a Breaking of the marriage vowwe may not think of it as serious asadultery but when you hit your spousethat is not nurturing her that is notcherishing her you are breaking themarital vow and a divorce is only asubsequent legal recognition that atsome time prior to the divorce somebodybroke the marriage vows So within theChristian marriage RS that we have todaywhere you promise to love honor andcherish there is no place whatsoever forverbal abuse physical abuse emotionalabuse or any other form of abuse thoserepresenting the represent the breakingof your vow made before God to lovehonor and cherish to hit your spouse tohumiliate your spouse to swear at yourspouse to harm your spouse in any wayphysically or emotionally all of theseare a Breaking of the marriage vows thatyou made before God and we are called torepent and seekforgiveness these marriage vows we makeare really important before God I hateit when people walk down the aisle andsay these are the vows I've written foryou and it's generally like this slushynonsense and it's not based on thescriptures and we lose a sense of thesolemnity of the Covenant that we'reabout to enter into so Jesus teaching ondivorce we tend to forget this inMatthew 19 immediately follows on histeaching in Matthew 18 which we talkabout as church discipline but that'sthe context for his discussion ofdivorce and so if you read Matthew 19 inthe context of Matthew 18 we realizethat Jesus says that in marriage thereneeds to be an extended need forforgiveness among husbands and wivesChristian marriages are characterized byHonest confession by sincere repentanceby remorse for wrongs done and by theasking and receiving of forgiveness anddrawing of boundaries to make sure thatthe the the problem that start in thefirst place those things don't take aplace again to the extent thatconfession repentance remor forgivenessare not practiced marriages will notsurvive and for those who do divorce andthere are divorces here today I knowthat well everybody who goes through adivorce Bears scars I see that in my ownfamily and it's a tragedy but I want tosay tonight something aboutdivorce is that for those who can nolonger forgive when the marriage vowsare broken for the spouse who painfullyunderstands that their spouse has nointention of honoring their marriagevows made before God and to go throughdivorce often reluctantly such peopleneed to hear that a God still loves youyou're still his child number twodivorce is not the unforgivable sin itis not the unforgivable sin becauseJesus says all the sins and blasphemiesof men will be forgiven Mark 3:28 exceptthe sin against the holy spirit sodivorce is not the unforgivable sin andthat when my part in my marriages breakdown and subsequent divorce is confessedand repented of God will provideforgiveness full and free and just tomake sure that nobody who's marriedlooks down on those who are are divorcedlet's not for forget this G God is alsoadivorce he had he was married to thetribes of Israel who in a covenantrelationship the northern 10 tribescommitted spiritual adultery what doesGod do he says in Jeremiah chapter 3it's on the screen um the Lord said tome in the days of King Josiah let me getinto my Bible okay I read it on thescreen here have you this is God'sspeaking to the king of Judah have younot seen what she did that faithless oneIsrael that is at the northern kingdomof the 10 tribes how she went up onevery Hill and under every greena treeand played the there and I thoughtafter she had done all this she'llreturn to me but she did not return andher false sister Judah saw it she sawthat for all the adulteries of thatfaithless one Israel I had sent her awaywith what a decree of divorce yet yourfalse sister Judah did not fear for shetoo went and played the now thattext tells us that God has gone throughdivorcehimself God knows what the pain of adivorce really is he sent away thenorthern 10 tribes with a decree ofdivorce he knows the pain of seeing aspouse you love and do have doneeverything for turn their back on youand wander after somebody else and it'san existential pain when your spouseleaves you for somebody else becausethey know you at your most intimate andwhen your spouse leaves you it's it's amuch deeper level of rejection than if awork colleague turns their back on youbecause the level of into me so muchgreat intimacy before the breakup theyknow everything about you when they turntheir back on you it's devastating foryou but this text here tells us that Godis also a divorce so in Luke chapter 19and Matthew chapter 23 when Jesus weepsoverJerusalem how often would I havegathered you under my wings as a motherhen gathers her chicks oh JerusalemJerusalem thou that Stones the prophetsthat are sent after you and know yourhouse is left deaf desolate unto you andhe knows that Within 40 years that Citywill be destroyed and a couple ofmillion Jews will either be dead or soldinto slavery and his people will betotally destroyed you see the you seethe pain of God as adivorce lamenting for his faithlessspouse God knows what it is to gothrough divorce so those who are marriedshould not be looking down on those whoaredivorced God saw his son buried in themission field so God knows the pain oflosing a child God went through adivorce he knows the pain of beingrejected by someone from that Covenantrelationship known as marriage he knowsthat pain and because he knows that painhe knows the pain that you have gonethrough all the pain you are goingthrough today therefore he's able tosympathize with you for he knows that weare frail he knows that we are dust heknows the pain and you can tell him thepain because he knows exactly what itfeels like himself God has gone throughthe pain of divorce and in the Christianchurch when people go throughdivorce um that's between them and GodGod there are some obvious exampleswhere somebody runs off with somebodyelse but as a general rule from theoutside you don't know what happenedbehind those fourwalls so look out for those who've gonethrough a divorce it's hard to be singleit's hard to be single it's hard to beexcluded from the Social Circles it'shard to be a social leper nobody knowshow to deal with you look out for thosepeople and befriend them and love themput your arms around them becausethey're just looking for someone whowill give them a hug and show to cry onwhen they've got moments of pain andstress the church is to be a place ofhealing for all people not just forthose who appear to have everything uhwell and put together in life so we cometo our conclusion here tonight it's beena kind of a sobering talk tonight yes Ispeak about this because we're in livingin the time of the end and Satan's goingto attack your marriage whether you havea marriage today if you have a marriagetomorrow he's going to attack thatmarriage and if you had a marriageyesterday but not in a marri today he'sgoing to be still be attacking you todayand and and stirring up the pain of thepast so you can never move Beyond it andbecome the person that God wants you tobe Satan is doing his best to destroyour marriages today and to a greatextent he's succeeding and the epidemicof fatherlessness among boys in ournation of all ethnic backgrounds isleading to Decay on the streets boysneed fathers and when marriages fallapart and the boys are often raised bythe mothers mothers do they have anincredible job but boys need need thetough love and the boundaries that afather canprovide and so it used to be mostlyAfrican-American boys who born intofatherlessness now those statistics arekind of evening out across society andwe are seeing social breakdown anddysfunction and fatherless boys theygravitate towards gangs or uh unhealthyfather figures in their lives becausethey don't have a God-fearing father whowill love them and discipline them andlead them to the throne of God everyday so God's perfect gift of marriage inthe Garden of Edenit contains simultaneously the greatestpossible opportunity for love andfulfillment and happiness known to manand it also contains the greatestopportunity for pain and bitternessknown to man it can go bothways the question for us tonight and welive in a world of temporary commitmentand Casual marriages is whether we'regoing to approach marriage as did thePharisees with our eyes on the exit allall the time and what's the when can Ilegally divorce my wife or are we goingto seek the Divine intent for ourmarriageare we going to come with saying I'mgoing to marry you but these are the getout Clauses or are we going to say I'mgoing to fully commit to you and we'regoing to work through those challengestogether no matter what they may be willwe seek relief in what is permitted andenter our marital lives with a getawaycar running outside the front door if wedo that we're already well on our way tothe first divorce or will we commitourselves to be Disciples of Jesus andallow being a disciple to impact how wetreat our spouse discipleship doesaffect our marriagewill we seek for God's perfect will forour spouse and for our marriage or willwe allow the world and our hurt feelingsof today to dictate what happens to ourhomes and our marriages it's my prayerthat each one of us if we are in amarriage that we will experience the joythat only can come through a divinelyblessedmarriage it's my prayer that if you'vegone through adivorce that when you see Jesus weepingover his divorced bride Jerusalem thatyou will find in Jesus a friend whoknows what you've gone through and whostill loves you and if you are divorcedin Earthly terms let us not forget thatyou are still the bride of Christ andthere is a Heavenly bridegroom comingback for you and his job before now andthe when he comes again is an internalprocess of sanctifying he wants to makeyou pure and without blemish and holy sothat you can be a Triumph of Gracethroughout all eternity to the rest ofthe universes aroundus may our homes be lights on a hill mayGod protect our marriages so that nomatter what Satan does to them uh we cansay yes that that you may think there'sonly two of us in this marriage but weserve a living God and our marriage islived before him and we're going towe're going to ask our heavenly fatherto fight those battles that we cannotfight um so that whatever Satan does tous our heavenly father will push backand he will save our marriages I'm kindof waffling at the end here I get thatI'm tired but I kind of said all I wantto say here for tonight and you're notsupposed to end a sermon like this I getthat but fight for yourmarriages men remember what it was liketo watch your wife walked down the aislewhen she put her dreams for life in yourhands and if you need to repent ofsomething tonight you need to repenttonight need to ask forgiveness need toconfess where you've fallen short youneed to ask your wife for forgivenessand agree on how you're going to avoidthose things in the future fight foryour marriages tonight as you fight foryour marriage you're rebuking Satan andhisattacks fight for your marriage let yourmarriage be an example of all that Godwants it to be and uh may we allexperience the joy and the happiness andthe peace that comes from followingJesus as our Lord and Master let's bowour heads and we'll close with a word ofprayer heavenlyfather I want to thank you for the giftofmarriage and father we're angry at whatSatan has done to this incredible giftand father this institution that yougave us it affects each one of us heretonight in so many ways we can't avoiditfather and so I'm asking you father thattonight if a wall needs to berebuilt and if fresh water needs to flowinstead of saltywater and if kind words need to be heardinstead of bitterwords and if faithfulness and respectneed to be restored rather thandisrespect and humiliationI'm asking father that you work amiracle in every marriage is representedheretonight as we saw last night father it'snot so much a matter ofexternals but we're asking you tonightfor the change in ourhearts hearts that are soft and nothearts that are Stony hearts that are nolonger calloused but hearts that aretender and compassionate so when we seeour spouse in pain we feel pain when ourspouse feels joy we feel Joy father giveus the new heart experience tonight notjust in our walk after you but in ourwalk with ourspouse father for those who are thinkingof entering into marriage tonight I askthat you will lead them to a spirituallyand emotionally and intellectuallycompatible lifecompanion with whom they will shareeternity whom they can grow togetherwith who will be there for them and withthem through the thick and thin of Lifefather bring them that Godlyperson and father for those who aresitting here tonightand they're nursing a secretpain there's been a divorce there's beenabuse you know what it's been father youknow what we've gonethrough and father I ask that tonightyou bind up theBrokenhearted you set the captivesfree that good news is reach reachesinto our hearts and our minds tonightand part of that good news is that youare come you have come to heal ourbroken relationships father May thathealing begin tonight tonight with ourpast with our present and for our futurethank you for hearing and for answeringthis prayer in the name of Jesus we prayamen