35 Years in the Same Foxhole

Music, I hope all of you did. I look up at my clock and I see I have 30 minutes, so I'll just jump right into here so I don't have to speak as fast as Ben Shapiro or someone. Still give my sermon. The title of my sermon today is 35 years in the same foxhole. 35 years in the same foxhole. It means I've been married to the same woman for 35 years, learned a lot of lessons, and I can speak from experience. As a matter of fact, I went to a couple of people this week and asked for their experience in marriage.

One was married for 56 years before her husband passed away. And I said, I know this is hard, but I'd like you to describe your 56 years of marriage with one man and one word. And she said, good. I said, good? She said, it was good. Life was good. Had its ups, had its downs, but she now is living life without him. And she realized just how good life was with him. I asked someone else, almost married 60 years, 59 and a half years.

She just lost her husband this year. I said, can you do the very same thing? Just one word that describes your life with your husband. And she said, happy. She said he wanted to always make me happy. And in return, she always tried to make his life happy, brought joy to the life. As my wife was looking at me, as I was, as I'd just been talking to them on the phone, and she said something about, well, what was the word you would use? And I had to think how I would describe him one word.

And I would have to say, would be the word adventure. It's been an adventure for 35 years. It's been an adventure. Never boring. For me, it was fulfilling. And troubles come along the way, but our relationship also has come a long way. We've both changed. Mary was quite different. A young girl from Alabama. You have to realize that she has made a lot of changes. In fact, I'll give you an example. Here's a before picture. Would you believe this is Mary? Would you believe this is a before and after picture?

You can see now how good, how really good marriage has been for her. And the only thing I can say is, is better for me. It's been a lot better for me. But isn't that the purpose of marriage?

Is that it should make each other better. You should help each other along the way. I would say marriage from this picture has been pretty good for Mary. But I joke. I make light of this. But it is reminiscent of how all of us think about marriage before we get married and then life after. And this is a dream we all want to have, right? Well, there's a saying, time flies when you're having fun. Life happens very quickly. So you'd better pick someone that is fun, that enjoys life, that sees the positive in every day instead of the negative, that sees the donut and not the whole.

That looks at life that way. Some say marriage is a walk in the park. For too many, marriage turns out to be a Jurassic Park. A scary time in people's lives where there's arguments, there's fights, or you didn't realize, wait a minute, I didn't realize it was like this. Of course, that's why we as ministers are there to assist people and counsel people.

Counsel young people so we can kind of open their eyes. We counsel people not only to have a happy marriage, but also so that you may realize that this is not the path you want to go down. And that's not bad. That's not bad. It's better to make changes before you make such drastic steps in your life. Marriage is a long and winding road with a few hills, quite a few ups and downs. There's some rain, there's even a few storms. But with the right person, with the right person, it's all worth it.

A foxhole. I said 35 years in the same foxhole. Foxhole is a military term for a hole that's dug out, usually six foot long, three foot wide, and about five foot deep. And in so many foxholes back in the Second World War and First World War, these foxholes were dug so that it gave the people there some protection.

It helped to shelter them against problems. And a lot of times it was built for two men. Two men that could protect the perimeter of their foxhole, who could work together, who even went back to back, put their backs to each other so that they could not only protect each other, or protect themselves, and secure their little peace on the earth.

Isn't that a lot what marriage is? I know it has been for me. And so you want the right person in that foxhole. In fact, there's a saying, who would you want in a foxhole with you? Because it's that important.

And this marriage, it's similar because with a husband and wife, you need to have each other's back. You need to make sure that you can protect, that you can secure, that you can work together on these things. And it isn't just two separate people that live in one house. It doesn't work very well with two soldiers not working together, deciding, well, I'll cover this, you cover that, and don't bother me. 35 years in the same foxhole.

That's what God designed and planned for us. To be together, husband and wife, to be back to back, to have each other's back. Isn't that what everybody looks for in marriage? You know, in Scripture, you read the first chapter of Genesis and you find one thing. God made a lot of stuff. He made a lot of great stuff and we can see it. But God gave Adam the best gift he ever made when he gave Adam his wife.

Except there's an issue here. And I think we realize it because we know the story. I won't go back and rehash that part today. But Adam goofed up. Adam goofed up and didn't have Eve's back. Didn't have her back. It's said that she was deceived by Satan, the adversary, and that Adam wasn't deceived.

He knew what he was doing. But you go back and read the account and you find one thing that is simply amazing is that the Scripture tells us that as she took of the fruit, the forbidden fruit, she ate of it and gave to Adam who was with her. He was right there. That's what the Scriptures tell us. I love how it's laid out so it doesn't leave us, well, you know, he was way over here.

No, it says it with her. This was his chance. He didn't step up. He didn't say, no, don't eat that. He let her eat it. She didn't die. So what did he do? He ate it. He ate it. Let's go back. Let's go back and look at the world's first married couple. First married couple. Let's think about it. First married couple. And they've been married and all of a sudden things happen. But you have to understand how long were they married?

Because it didn't start very well, did it? Well, we really don't know. We just know that Adam lived 930 years according to Scripture. So we don't know how long he lived. Obviously, she must have prepared some pretty good food for him to live 930 years. I think I'll ever make that and marry his pretty good cook.

930 years! So even if she lived three quarters of the time, he lived still 700 years. Can you imagine anybody else being married for 700 years or more? Amazing! Of course, it also can create a problem. You can imagine them sitting around talking towards the end. And she said, do you remember where we were on our 400th anniversary? Unlike Jeff, I don't know whether he could have remembered all that. As we were sitting down below listening to Jeff's message, Mary turned to me and she goes, do you remember the date we got engaged? Do you remember the date? She looked at me.

I got up and got my jacket because I knew it was coming to an end. I said, yes, September 29th, 705 p.m. She said, really? She looked at me and she goes, you're lying. I said, yes. I don't remember. But for a minute, she bought it. She bought it. I was touching her love language, I guess. That's what I was doing. Can you imagine living for that long as he lived and being married? I mean, you talk about being in it.

He was in it. Adam was. According to the historian Josephus, Adam and Eve during their time, the Hebrew historian, I think it's in Antiquity of the Jews, said that Adam and Eve had 33 sons and 23 daughters. It's quite a long time. It's quite a few kids to look after, but we do know that there was two sons born, and then later 120 years, a time after they were, that Seth was born.

So quite a long gap in there. So they had to have some incredible challenges when they got married. Let's look at that account as we go back to Genesis 2.

Let's go to Genesis 2 and verse 23. And this is the New King James version. And it says, Adam said, God had made this, gave him this incredible gift. I mean, you have to imagine, here he was naming all the animals, and you would see them go by two by two. It becomes obvious because that's how they were going to reproduce. That's how Noah brought them on the ark.

But they came by two by two, and he named each one of them, and then he looked around and goes, where's mine? Where's mine? He didn't have one, and he wanted one. So God said, whoa, I'll make you one. I'll take it from you. So I look at this, and I believe that Adam said, wow, look at this. It's mine.

I get one, like all the other animals. I won't be alone anymore. But the Scripture says, now this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called wow-man, a woman, because she was taken out of the man. It's interesting here because in the Hebrew, the man is called Ish. And so when she is made for him, or made from him, and by God, he then names her Isha, Ishha, because she came from, taken out of him. Now he was pretty good at naming, so you can imagine why God had a name.

And he actually named her again after the fall out of the garden when he called her Eve. So he had a knack for naming, and so this was something that he had been looking forward to. And now it was time for him to be able to enjoy life. Move on with his life.

Let's go to the next verse, Genesis 2 and verse 24. Genesis 2 and verse 24. These, the next words, they are God's first instructions on earth about marriage. The very first instructions. Never there before. Because there hadn't been a man and a woman. There had not been a family. Because they formed a family. Husband, wife, two separate beings coming together. Now they are one. A family. A husband and a wife. He said, therefore, God's instructions, so if you're single, these are instructions to form from God. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

That doesn't always happen today. But it's interesting, because it does tell us, of course, that they should have had a leg up in their marriage. Because by God creating him and creating her, he never had to hear from Eve all the guys she could have married and found rich guys. And she never had to hear from him how good his mother was. So they had a leg up.

But yet, what happened? Things began to happen. Yet God was giving this instruction to everyone here, and he gives it to us. He says what? Leave and cleave, as the old King James says. You're to leave your family, leave and cleave, and become one flesh, physically, mentally, and, most important to us, spiritually. Become one. We leave our families and create a new one. That's what he wants us to do. That's his instruction to single people now.

Leave and cleave. Leave your family and cleave to your new one. But he not only says we're to leave and cleave, create a new family. We should, if we listen, if we watch, if we use that experience and we use this gray matter God has given us between our ears, we should make a better one. We should make a better family than the one we came from because we can see the mistakes they may have made because we all make them.

And so all this looking at mistakes and learning from someone else's mistakes and trying to do better, as Jeff was giving us instructions on how to relate to each other as husband and wife, as male and female, we should have learned a lot. But what? Six thousand years later, we should have all kinds of great marriages. But it's the opposite. It's the opposite. Why? Well, I think we'll find out in the millennium.

It's because mankind left God out of the picture. And God had the instruction manual for us. So that's something that we have to... God does not want us to have dysfunctional families. That's why it's so important that made you pick. That's why it's so important that married couples like myself, as I was putting this together this week, I spent more time than I've spent on a sermon in a long time because I didn't want to pull from any old books I had, did one pull from any sermons.

So I went on the internet. I watched not only TikToks. I read articles. I read magazines. I read books. I read everything I could. Spent over 25 hours putting this together to see... get an update on what the family situation is in 2020 and why there's so many issues and what we need to do. And I told Mary as we were driving over here, I'm sure glad I put this message together because, hey, it reminded me of a lot of stuff I need to be doing and how I need to be working on myself in our marriage to make it a better one.

Make it a better marriage. Make it something that God can be proud of. It's called work. A good marriage is called work. If you talk to any people who have been married, I know Gus is out there and he's been married quite a few decades. A decade or two longer than I have. He will tell you it's work. And sometimes it's hard work, but isn't our jobs? We first go to a new job. It takes a little bit of time to get it down to where it's not so much work.

Well, marriage is that way, too. If you really work on it at the first and really try to work with the one that God has given you, you'll find it becomes less work. And it becomes natural to get up every day and enjoy life instead of getting up and dreading what's ahead for the next 24 hours. The great part about one flesh is that in marriage you get to have sex. You get to have sex. A lot of it. All you want. It's a benefit of marriage, and you can have it without regret and without guilt. That's what God wanted to give us. And it's something that bonds the people together.

Let's go to verse 25. Genesis 2 and verse 25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

That word naked means to show all, to make known, to be bare. Not just physically, but to be able to bear yourself. Bear yourself mentally and emotionally to each other. Nothing to hide. That's the beauty of a true marriage. Yes, it's always a little different or difficult when you're sitting there the first time and you're getting used to getting undressed with each other. And that's one thing. But it also takes it to another level when you're able to lay out your issues, your problems, the things that bother you. Because guys, typically, we're always told to suck it up, hold it in. Don't cry. Be a man. Man up. And so this is especially important for men. Because it's so good because, yes, we have feelings. We have learned to hold those in. And at times, it's very good. We don't need to fall apart at every little thing. But it's so good to be able to relate to our husbands and our wives, especially wives that we can tell you what's on our minds. And we're not going to be like, oh, yeah, what a wimp. You know, God has given us that. Women naturally flow into conversation. They can talk, and they enjoy that, but men are a little more reserved. And we can grow up the way. But with our wives, we can say anything. And that's the way it should be. We should be able to lay ourselves out, be able to admit failures and mistakes, only enhances that bond between a husband and a wife. I know Mary's faults and problems, and she knows mine, and some of you may not know, but she knows because we've spent that time. And that's what God wants us to do, to where we know each other so intimately that isn't it amazing? As you spend a decade or two with each other, you can even say what they're thinking, or you're about to say something, and your mate says it before you do. This is what God planned. This is what he wanted. I want to go to a very important scripture, very important scripture as we begin. So I began to wrap this up today. It's in 1 Peter. 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3 and verse 7. I like this because, unlike Paul, Peter was married and he knew what a foxhole was. Been there. As a matter of fact, even historians, and I like that so many people were able to help me. On my Sabbath greeting last night, they sent me examples as I was even surprised and went back and checked some of them. It's not that I didn't know, but it's just so good to have people that sharpen your iron. That's why I like to send that out on Friday nights and gets me ready for the Sabbath and gets you ready and enjoy your feedback on that. But Peter, according to history, according to Eusebius, he was killed right after he was martyred, right after his wife was martyred in front of him. They were in it for the long haul. They're in it for eternity. But Peter says husbands, as he addresses the wives earlier in the chapter, and I'll cover that at another time. I'm more hitting it from the male perspective today and touching on it. I'd like to do a little more later on in the year and do it from more of the female perspective. But it says husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding.

That can be difficult. That means they don't have to understand us. We're to understand them, as Jeff was trying to point out. We have something we need to be doing. We have to dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered.

Look at that! Dwell with them with understanding. Honor, which also means what? To show that you care. To hold them up. That's what it means. It means to open the door. It means to go around to the car door. It means to grab the groceries.

It means to do these things that you show. She is weaker, oddly, in the respect of physically. God made most women physically smaller than men. But there's no weakness when it comes to mentally. I don't want to go to a mental battle with my wife. And spiritually, they're not the weaker vessel.

Sometimes I look and go, I wish I was more that way. But it said, being heirs together of the grace. What does grace mean? Favor. Favor of life. Don't you want life to favor you? And that your prayers may not be hindered? So when you lay this out, I'm right with Mary. Because a lot of times, if I'm not right with Mary, it's because I'm not right with God.

And when I'm not right with God, a lot of times I'm not right with Mary. It has to be something that is there with us. Every young lady, every girl dreams of having a life where it's when they're married, they live happily ever after. Happily ever after. You guys realize those who are married, whatever, we hold that in our hands. Have we ever looked at it and said, I want my wife to live happily ever after? That's what they would love.

What they would love. You want to have respect? You'll have it. You'll have it without a doubt. And it's something we need to work on. See, God is not a trinity, but a great marriage is a great marriage is a trinity. It is a husband, it is a wife, but it is God in the middle. It is God that is there. It is God that you both look to for guidance, not only in His word, but in prayer and by the Holy Spirit.

And it builds us together. It bonds us together. Does this picture exemplify your life if you're married? Is God right there with you? Is it part of the trinity? I looked up, and I want you to give you five minutes to cover these points very quickly. Because I want you to see how important it is to make marriage work. Anthropology experts, marriage counselors, clergy, they all brought into the understanding for 2020 that there are issues in marriage. I want to give you their top three issues that is listed, and I compiled these from all the study, the 25 hours that I spent this week. So you don't have to go and do that.

Number one, lack of commitment. Lack of commitment. There isn't commitment. The commitment that there needs to be in marriage. Doesn't that also tell us what happens in our spiritual life when we're not as committed to God as we need to be while all of a sudden problems pop up? Yes. The second is divorce because of infidelity. Divorce because of infidelity. There's a lot of divorces in America today.

A lot. And so much is caused because they're not committed and they forget their vows. It's interesting in Jamaica that Jamaica's divorce rate is one half of what America's is. And the Bahamas, if the Mackeys are out there, are even less than Jamaica's. So there is a way to work it. And the third issue confronting marriages today by all the experts. I'm just bringing these and making these known to you is money. Money. The fact that there's no budget. When people get married, they don't think about budgeting money.

They just spend money and then they think they can get out of debt by borrowing themselves out of debt. I'll just borrow money. So they were bringing this is one of the issues that comes up. There's no budget. There's no savings, which also goes with budgeting because you can save money. And then there's no goals. There's no goals which leads you down that path to having arguments. Because a lot of times you marry someone, someone's a spender, one's a saver, and then you, okay, boom! You have conflict over money.

People don't want to budget. Okay, I'm not going to budget because all it does is cause a fight. It shouldn't as you work together as one. You're in that foxhole. You have each other's back. So as I end today, I want to give you three ways to avoid divorce. And they happen to be, they are also the three best qualities for a future mate. Okay? This is all the statistics, everything that's brought together in the year 2020. The first one, get older, be older. Get older and be older. Neuroscientists even tell you that your brain is still developing up until the age of 25.

Which means what? You're not using the prefrontal cortex, which is part of reasoning. It's all coming out of emotion when you make decisions. That causes why the divorces are so rampant in the first five years of marriage, as Jeff brings out. Getting older before you're married, but also be older. Be more mature. Don't be so emotionally driven through your decisions in life. It's interesting that in America today, the divorce rate is 39.25%. 15-20 years ago, it was 49.75%. And the reason the experts give for that is people are waiting to get married until they're older.

And it has shown. So that's something that we really need to consider. The second one, mutual respect. There must be mutual respect. As I gave a sermon not long ago about dialogue and monologue. A marriage is not about a monologue. It's about dialogue and being able to talk and have enough respect that we can respect somebody the way they make the bed. We can respect their decisions on these things. We're going, boy, somebody has to be stupid to do that.

That is not a good way. That is not mutual respect. Making sure we watch our words. Making sure that we respect that person on both sides of it. And finally, the third is reliability. Are they reliable? Because guess what? If they're not reliable before you're married, they're not going to be reliable after. If they're late before you marry them to pick you up or to go anywhere, they're always late to this, guess what?

They're going to be late after you get married. Is something to work on? Yes. But reliability, can you rely on them? Can you count on them? That is so very important. And finally, in the church. In the church, I just gave you three that the experts said, but in the church, which we hopefully all are, but there may be some people who aren't in church that listen.

Have a spiritual life. Brethren, have a spiritual life. Have that prayer and study because you have this book, this book that's going to guide you into the way God wanted or designed the family relationship, the husband and wife, to be.

So you have the opportunity that you're married, whether you're not married yet or you're already married, to have a fairy tale or a nightmare.

Because it's up to you. As long as you put God in the middle, it's going to be hard to have a nightmare. Those are lessons from 35 years in the foxhole with the same woman. And I hope we have 35 more.