The Establishment of Marriage

And to those of you listening in on our web, hook up. Hello to you wherever you may be. And in whatever situation you may find yourself listening in today, we certainly pray God's blessing upon you on his Sabbath. That was a very nice special music. Again, as Steve mentioned, we are blessed with regular special music here in the Cincinnati congregations and always very good quality and very much appreciated.

Before I get into my sermon, the message that I prepared here today, I wanted to make a comment about something that is of note in the next few days. I would not normally do this, but it is an anniversary of a sort. On July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of this coming week, which is Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, it is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which was a significant battle during the American Civil War and the largest battle that has ever taken place on the North American continent. It was a decisive battle during that time as it really essentially decided the course of the war.

A hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, both the Union and Confederate, North and South, met in a very, very small town in Pennsylvania on those three days quite by accident and engaged in a large battle that essentially determined what this nation would become. When you understand what the Civil War was, and especially that one battle, I've studied it a great deal, been to Gettysburg a couple of times, and read a great deal about it.

It's one of those turning points in American history because had the South won that battle, they could have perhaps sued for a settlement that would have essentially left the United States a divided country. Conceivably, that could have happened. They never really would have defeated the entire North or occupied the North, but they could have sued for a peace likely that would have wound up in America becoming two nations. And that was not meant to be. When you understand, as we do, the unique understanding of Bible prophecy that the scene in Genesis chapter 48 tells us about Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph being led to Jacob and Jacob crossing his hands and placing a blessing upon those two sons and upon the head of Manasseh, who was the oldest, essentially he said to him that he would become a great single nation, which happened.

And with the understanding that has come down to us of those particular promises, first from Abraham to Jacob and to Joseph's sons and now into the modern world, that particular promise and prophecy was one that was going to come to pass, that the descendants of Manasseh would indeed become a great single nation. And with that understanding and as you look at the course of that particular civil war, what it meant, and that battle within the civil war in July of 1863, the fate of America, in terms of what it would be, was essentially decided that day.

I know historians can argue that back and forth, but I happened at least as a personal belief of mine, coupled with those things. And so, I mention it not necessarily glory and war, but just because with an understanding of what certain prophetic understandings we have always had in the church, and it being the 150th anniversary, it is something to note.

It's interesting that on that particular day, there were three days of fighting, and on each day, the South had an opportunity to essentially win, and they didn't. And I think that there was, in those moments, something of the hand of God that was involved there. There are times in, especially the history of America and Britain, English-speaking peoples, where I think you can look at various battles or events and things that take place, and you realize you're looking at certain things of biblical proportion or similar to certain things.

In the Bible, there's a battle that took place during the days of Saul and Philistines and Jonathan, where it's called the Battle of Micmash, told in 1 and 2 Samuel, where Jonathan and his armor-bearer defeated and routed a Philistine force almost single-handedly. And that in itself was a unique battle that set the course for what ancient Israel would be in its own day. And on the Battle of Gettysburg, there were individual stories quite similar to what Jonathan did when he climbed up the sheer rock face of a place called Micmash in Israel and defeated the enemy.

In Gettysburg, there are individual stories of that caliber. They're not necessarily in the Bible, but they do and did determine the fate of the country. So I mentioned it just as it being the 150th anniversary for those of you that will note that. Of course, the July 4th is we know what the July 4th day is, and that's kind of a favorite time of year for me, July 4th.

And along with Thanksgiving, I kind of get jazzed about these particular holidays. And with it being the 150th anniversary, I thought I would mention that. I was thinking about it this morning, and before the weekend's out, I plan to watch. If you want to see a little bit more about that, those of you that are familiar with Ken Burns' epic on the Civil War that he did a number of years ago, there's one whole episode where he goes through Gettysburg, and if you have Netflix streaming, you can get it and watch it.

Just that one, I would highly recommend it. I plan to do that before the weekend is out myself. And just to kind of go back through that story, it's an interesting one. But that's not my sermon topic today. I'm not talking about prophecy and I'm not talking about history. I just felt I had to mention that since I had the pulpit. And I could do that. In our home, my wife Debbie has an embroidered saying hanging on one of her walls that she did a number of years ago.

It's a quote. It's a line from one of her favorite movies. It's not one of my favorite movies. But it's a good movie, but it's one of her favorite movies because it's a chick flick. It's called The Secret Garden.

I don't know if any of you ever watched The Secret Garden. It was made for TV movies a few years ago. The line that she put onto one of our walls is this, Where you tend to rose, a thistle cannot grow. Where you tend to rose, a thistle cannot grow. And as with many sayings about agriculture and horticulture and tending plants and things of nature, this has a lot to do with relationships.

It also has a lot to do with marriages. And marriage being the highest of human relationships. It's something that she wanted to be on our walls and for us to remember in our years of marriage together. That particular saying, Where you tend to rose, a thistle cannot grow, speaks a great truth about marriage. And for that matter, any human relationship. But today, what I'm going to talk about is primarily marriage. And that's what I want to look at in light of this particular statement that hangs on our wall in our life and literally in our life.

This summer Debbie and I will be celebrating 40 years of marriage. And that is a bit of a milestone. It's not 50 and it's not 60 and it's not 70. I've known people who have had all of those years of celebrations as you have as well.

I never thought we'd get to 40 for a number of reasons. Not that we wouldn't make it as a couple, but just that 40 years ago, 1973, you thought Christ might return within 40 years. Well, it hasn't happened and we've been married for 40 years and may well be married, God willing, 50 years, 60 years or 70 years before that event happens. I don't know. And so over the years, you know, I realized, well, I better get it right when it comes to marriage because Christ may not come before we wind this thing out.

But we got married 40 years ago this summer in a place up a little night. It wasn't a big building in downtown Akron, Ohio, a place called the Northern Building. I see the Pettits are here from that area. I don't know if they ever went to church in the Northern Building up there. They're shaking their heads. They did. It doesn't stand there any longer.

It's been torn down and something else is there, but that's where we got married and began our whole life together. When I look back over 40 years, just to take that as a period of time, and I know you're tempted to, you know, interject the idea, well, 40. That's a biblical number, times of testing and trial. Don't go there with me. 40 is a significant number in many ways as it is used in the Bible. Don't ask that question of my wife after the efforts today about whether it's been a test in a trial. She might be too honest with that. But at any rate, it's a chunk of time.

It's a generation. And a lot has happened in not just our lives. I mean, we've worked two sons and four grandchildren later in our marriage, and it's been a good run. I would never have dreamed it. And the blessing of raising two sons and to see them married and to see them settled into their life and to even then begin to interact with their children, our grandchildren, we consider ourselves highly, highly blessed.

We truly do. And whatever God adds to that on top of it will be gravy in that sense. A lot of people don't get to do the things that we have done in terms of what we've experienced, and just in our own family and our marriage and our relationships there.

And we do not take it for granted. We do not take it for granted, not one single day. As I thought about this, I've been thinking about this for a few weeks and knowing that I would have this assignment today. It's interesting that it comes in the same week in which the United States Supreme Court has handed down a very significant set of rulings in regard to marriage and what is being called today euphemistically same-sex marriage.

Don't get me started on that one. We put that into a Beyond Today program recently, but I won't get off on that tangent today. But it was a landmark set of decisions that the Supreme Court enacted and came down with this week in regard to that subject and what it means for the future. And I'm sure we all know about it. We think about it to one degree or the other in processing it.

What it will wind up being for this country is yet to be determined. It certainly will have an impact upon the continuing changes that are taking place when it comes to marriage and family and our entire culture in the United States, especially with those issues. We are going through some revolutionary cultural changes that are taking place. But when I look at this one and compare it to what culture in America was like 40 years ago when I got married, it has radically changed. And I recognize for many of you in this audience here who are younger and don't have that perspective, it's hard to picture that.

This week, one of our young adult staff members in the media department came to me after this decision, the day after it was made. And I think on Thursday we were talking about it. And he told me, he said, I finally get it. Why you baby boomers? I'm a baby boomer. He says, why you baby boomers are so incensed about this same-sex marriage issue? He said, I finally get it. Because he was looking at all the reports and the Twitter feeds and comments that people were making about in jubilation over the Supreme Court decision. He said, I finally get it. He said, you've lived long enough to have seen the changes take place and to make a difference. And I said, that's exactly right. You haven't? We have. This would have never even been dreamed of when we got married 40 years ago, much less at an earlier time. It would have never been imagined. And those of us with the gray hairs and the lesser hairs in this audience all can understand and realize what a ground-shaking change this represents. But there have been changes that are going along all along here. For this 40-year period, just to look at that, the changes in morality have continued to erode marriage and the family structure as well as the culture in our country.

The divorce rates have ebbed and flowed, but they are still quite high in their impact upon marriage. Depending upon what report you read, you will see that in some cases divorce rates haven't abated and are not quite as high as they may have been 20 years ago. But they are still higher than you would like to see, and within certain age brackets, they are even higher.

Many things have changed in the way people look at the relationship of a man and a woman and the marriage relationship. People are delaying marriage much, much longer today, and they are living together as a result. And delaying marriage because so many different things have made it possible for people to live together, and that has been more acceptable, not just with younger people, but also for older people.

You see that among my generation as well, people who are maybe widowed or widowers, and they get into a relationship for convenience, for social security reasons, and money matters, inheritance matters, and they will live together and have those physical benefits without the sacred commitment and covenant that comes in a marriage relationship. So that part has impacted all across. And then, of course, you get into the issue of same-sex marriage. There was an article just a few days ago that caught my attention in the Wall Street or the New York Times, and it was called the Disestablishment of Marriage.

And it was just a general article going through the idea here of how marriage has changed. The marriage rates have dropped in the last 60 years or so. The author made its one comment by saying that the rumors of the death of marriage are greatly exaggerated. People are not giving up on marriage.

They are simply waiting longer to tie the knot. And that's true. And I would agree with her that the rumors of the death of marriage are exaggerated. That's not going to happen. She does mention that today the average age of the first marriage is almost 27 for women and 29 for men. And the range of ages at first marriage is much more spread out. She also made the comment that marriage is no longer the central institution that organizes people's lives.

Marriage is no longer the only place where they make major life transitions and decisions or enter into commitments or obligations. The rising age of marriage combined with the increase in divorce and cohabitation since the 1960s means that Americans spend a longer period of their adult lives outside marriage than ever before. Americans spend a longer period of their lives outside of marriage than ever before. Before they do that, they may live together, they just may be single and delay marriage in their 20s or into their 30s.

And then when they do marry, they have different expectations and different goals. And so marriage as an institution has gone through some dramatic changes in our world today. I agree with this particular author that marriage is still a part of the structure even though it has changed.

Marriage is still a fundamental part of human life. There's no question about that. And it will continue to be a part of life even with the changes that have taken place. I thought about a scripture in Matthew 24, verse 38, where Jesus said in his Olivet prophecy, you will know this one, as in the days of Noah, he said, they will be eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage.

So also will it be at the coming of the Son of Man? And by that statement, Jesus is telling us that the state of marriage changed and completely different than his intent, but the condition of marriage will be a part of life even up until his second coming. So marriage is not going to disappear. Marriage is not going to die in our culture. It has been radically altered, redefined, and it will continue to be to change in that way, but I think it will always be here.

With what has happened this past week and will continue to be a battleground, a cultural battleground in front of us, and erode even our own thinking, I think there is a greater challenge before the Church of God today to define itself in regard to marriage, to define it from a biblical point of view, and to teach what God says about the subject no matter what the world says about it, no matter what the prevailing cultural opinions may be, and frankly, no matter what even some of our own members may come to think about marriage as a result of the subtle erosion that continues to take place in our world today.

I have no illusions that in our own midst, our concepts of what God says about marriage has become muddled and can become muddled because of what has taken place. That one comment by one of our young adults to me tells me that. I finally get it. I know now I see why you boomers are upset.

If you don't have a context for what is taking place, you're not going to understand all of the matter, especially in this matter here. And so that's why I think it may be important for us to spend just a few minutes this afternoon to go back and to look at a fundamental principle from Scripture about marriage and to be reminded of what God's intent is. Because regardless of what a Supreme Court justice rules, regardless of what a sociologist says or a pundit or a famous person or an age or a time and a culture and what is the prevailing opinion about marriage, it doesn't matter. It does matter what God says. God's definition is the only one that really matters. For a Christian, for a member of the Church of God, for one claiming to be a follower of Jesus Christ, there's only one definition for us to consider and to measure every other statement, every other opinion by. And that's what God said. There's one statement that stands out in Scripture that's mentioned three times. Three times. That can be the cornerstone, if you will, and should be the cornerstone for God's law on marriage and what we should anchor ourselves in and understand no matter what takes place in our own personal lives, no matter how we view marriage, no matter whether we decide not to marry, go through a divorce, put it off, don't fully understand or even agree necessarily at any given time with what may or may not be because of where we are spiritually or because of where the culture is and how it's impacted us. There is one anchor point for all of us to consider and to put our minds into, and that's what God says. Let's turn back and look at that biblical definition in Genesis 2, verse 24. Here at the very beginning, the story of creation and the creation of the first man and the first woman, we find what God says. After Eve has been made from the literal rib taken from the side of Adam in this story, in verse 24, it is said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, the male to the female, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. And that's it. This is the bedrock principle and teaching right here in the creation account of Adam and Eve, the first family there in the garden.

One flesh. The man leaves his father and mother, joined to his wife, and they become one flesh. It is that one flesh concept that is at the heart of the marriage relationship between a man and a woman as God intended it to be. Now, becoming one flesh means to cling to one another. You can look into what the Hebrew would mean, and that's essentially what it means. You cling to one another, and a clinging takes a very, very close relationship, physically and spiritually, and emotionally, in a bond that is unbreakable, entered into a very sacred agreement and covenant before God, and whatever witnesses are part of that begins to create that one flesh concept. The story here in Genesis is unique. Nothing like it in regard to a man and a woman, and especially a woman, is found in any other ancient myth from any other ancient culture about the creation of life. This story right here, and this particular part of it, the woman taken from the side of the man and the two coming together to make one flesh, is unique. There's no other account of creation in any other ancient culture that comes close to this.

Here, God shows that human existence is a partnership between a man and a woman, a partnership of equals. That relationship must function at the highest and best, and it will when it works along that principle. And that's at the heart of it right there. There's no other story to compare with it. Nothing else is found, and it's a partnership between a man and a woman, and equal partners. Co-equal, if you want to use that term. The one flesh is the essence of the relationship between the two, and it's a type of the relationship between God and the human creation, both male and female as well. That's what is being told here. And, of course, within this is also the command by God to the two to be fruitful and to multiply, something that only a man and a woman can do in that relationship. It cannot be done in a same-sex relationship. Same-sex couples, homosexual couples, certainly can't have a relationship. That's not the question. That's not the argument. The question goes to the heart of what God intended in the creation account here, in the nature of a man and a woman, to be fruitful and to multiply and to recreate themselves on the human level. That can't be done, except through certainly the relationship, certainly of a man and woman, and it should be done only within the marriage relationship. Now, we all know that it's always been possible and certainly always been done apart from that. We used to call that—terms for that—illegitimacy in regard to that type of relationship. That is a term that hasn't been used so much anymore. But that's God's intent. It's not that anyone is not legitimate as a human being and a potential before God and the forgiveness of the grace of sin as well. That's not the point. But it is what God's intent is. The one flesh is the essence of that relationship between God and man, because it's the means by which the human race is not only preserved by procreation, but it also, through that relationship of a man and a woman together, has a moderating impact through marriage and the family, a man and a woman living together in harmony and love. The impact upon any culture is immeasurable, and that's well understood by people who have studied the sociology of marriage throughout history and any culture. Marriage stabilizes a culture, a people, a nation, a civilization. It tames a man. It provides for a culture that is unrivaled. And it is all based on the intention of God that two people would become one flesh, which involves the challenges of two people forming a new family after they exchange their vows before God, and it says they shall leave their father and their mother. I had a member one time in a church down in Kentucky where we used to pastor. He told me a story that I remember to this day, and only in Kentucky, I guess, could a story like this take place. Maybe West Virginia, too, but I can talk about Kentucky. I used to live there. But he was telling me when his wife got married, I think she was probably 15 or 16, very young, and a favored daughter of her family and her parents, and they got married, and her father would not let her go home with her husband. The father took her back home. And I don't know why he allowed that, the new husband. He was telling me the story.

But one day went by, two days went by, and a whole week went by, and they were married. Finally, he had to go to his father-in-law's house and demand his wife. And reluctantly, the father-in-law let her go, but he just wasn't going to let go of one of his favored daughters. But this father-in-law didn't understand this idea of leaving and cleaving, that they're supposed to leave. I guess he didn't even look at his pocketbook, what that would mean on his pocketbook, with one less mouth to feed.

But I've always remembered that story. I thought it was hilarious, and they had a good marriage and a good relationship, but they started off kind of a whole dry spell there for a week until they finally got together. They had four kids, so they understood things after they got together, but it took a bit to get together. Leaving a father and a mother, that's a major concept.

Anyone who has done that, anyone who has given away a child in marriage as well, well know that we leave our family of origin. We strike out to create a new life with another person. And no matter what the emotions are, when you leave your father or mother's home and you enter into your marriage, no matter what you're feeling or what's going on, the dynamics of the family, you soon learn that you never really do leave your family of origin. We never do. We bring that along with us, because we're all products of the way we were raised, of one parent or two-parent family, or a good family, or a problematic family. We will take that with us. And when we counsel people for marriage as part of the structured counseling program that we use, that's a core element that we bring out in the Prepare and Enrich program. You've got to both understand the families that you're coming from, because you're never going to leave it behind, even as you work to create this new entity of a new home. And you do what the Bible says to cleave to one another and to leave your father and the mother. But we bring traits with us, and we have to recognize those at times to make the success of the marriage that we have. God lays out this principle here in Genesis, and it never leaves his intent. Even though human beings didn't always do it that way, as you read through even the account of the patriarchs and the stories of Abraham and Jacob and all the others, you realize they had some problems. They didn't fulfill it to the letter. There are reasons for that that you can tell. And certainly Israel, and the whole story of that nation as they developed, didn't come down to it. And even in the book of Deuteronomy, you find specific legislation and exodus for divorce, because they had problems. They had human nature, and Moses had to legislate it and make sure that it was controlled and didn't get out of hand, as it did in every other pagan culture of the day.

The laws that God did give through Moses are humane, and they are meant to preserve the structure of the society, even while there was the sin that caused people to not be able to live together. It's not until you come down to the time of Christ that you find the next statement on this, and that is in Matthew 19. As Jesus was dealing with the complications that had arisen among the Jews of his own day and are questions of divorce, because they came testing him in verse 3.

Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? Okay. We'll come back to that for just any reason in a moment. But this was a test, and it was a question put to Christ to try to trip him up. And he answered in verse 4, and he said, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? He goes back to Genesis. He skips all over Moses and all the intervening legislation and precedence and culture. He says, at the beginning they were made male and female and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.

And they said, Well, Moses allowed for divorce and gave us certificates of divorce. And he said in verse 8, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

We've always understood this principle being ironclad here. We've had our own challenges in applying it in our time in the church. But no matter what our policy of administration was, our theology at least was understanding that God's intent was that two people come together, form one flesh and not divorce. While at the same time grappling with the reality of divorce within the church, within people coming to the church.

This principle, however, in every discussion that I've been involved with in 40 years in the ministry, has always been, This is where we begin, and this is what we must teach. This is what must be understood. From the beginning it wasn't so for this cause. And then there are certain exceptions and other things that creep in that we have to apply within the certain judgments that we have. But this is where we get to it. This is what Christ said about this. This was his most expansive declaration on the subject of marriage. Now there's one other place where it's mentioned, and that's in Ephesians chapter 5 by the apostle Paul. And what is the classic passage of Scripture that talks about marriage from Paul's writings? It's not the only one where he wrote on marriage, but it is here that he encapsulates this beautiful principle of what marriage should be between two people. And he brings in this principle that we've read now from Genesis and from Christ's words as well, as he brings it in. In verse 22, he says, wives submit to your own husbands. And let's just read this as it is.

Submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and he's the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Then he shifts to the husbands. Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of water by the Word. That he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. But that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones. And this is then where he quotes from Genesis, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And then he makes a statement. This is a great mystery. A great mystery. You like mysteries? You like mystery novels? This is a great one. What is the mystery? It's the mystery of two people coming together, cleaving to each other and becoming one flesh.

It's not that it can't be understood. It's not that it's impossible. It's not that it's an unsolvable chain of events that you need a lot of clues to. It's that it is a great aspect and part of God's plan. And it is a mystery at times, only because of perhaps not seeing it in the right perspective. Or having it clouded by the way society has denigrated it. Or even how it has been abused because of family we may have come from and the life that we may have had because of sin. Our own, someone else's, society's, the mystery comes from us not being able to see it and understand it all. But he says, I speak concerning Christ and the church. Therein is the mystery. It is because he is talking about something that is much higher than the relationship between a man and a woman. It is that of Christ and the church. And then when you're just thinking and wanting him to kind of go a little bit deeper, he says, nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself. And so let the wife see that she respects her husband.

This passage gets to the heart and core of the purpose of marriage. It shows that Christ loves the church so much, so much that he gave himself for it, a sacrificial love, which tells us as men with our wives that our love for our wife has got to be sacrificial too. That there's a lot of ourselves we have to give up to truly love as Christ loves the church. It is a sacrificial love.

And none of us like to give something up that we think is very precious to us.

We men don't. We have our pride. We have our our ego. Not that women don't have corresponding matters as well. But if you look at what these verses that I just read, men tally it up.

There's twice as much said to us to love our wives than there is to a wife to submit to her husband.

Do the math. As Paul's writing, it's not mine. It's twice as much. So don't ever use this to beat your wife over the head and say, submit, submit, submit, submit. Because if she wants to, and she's bigger than you, she could say, love, love, love, love. Because there's twice as much instruction as to what we should do and what the man should do in the relationship. That doesn't mean that they both have their responsibilities and obligations. But quite frankly, if a man is loving a woman in a committed relationship of marriage like Christ loved the church and loves the church, a woman is going to want to submit to that.

And there's not going to be an issue. It's just going to naturally happen. I've dealt with enough of it. I've seen it. I've counseled it. I've seen enough relationships. I know that's true.

I don't make that one up. When a woman is secure in the love, the affection of a man who cherishes her, then she is going to submit in a right way. And it's a submission to equality. I didn't read the one verse that I should have read back in verse 21 that really does begin the whole discussion.

The ESV translation puts it submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

You submit to one another because you love Jesus Christ and you know what He is as the head of the church and how He looks at the church. And you know what He is as the head of the church.

And you know what He is as the head of the church and how He looks at the church.

This whole passage here is about the heart and soul of the New Testament teaching about the church. And Paul ties it to the human relationship to the spiritual of Christ and the church. And as I said, the mystery is in seeing that reality as much as understanding the complexity of this metaphysical relationship between Christ and the church of verse 32. What does that mean for us? We're not so much interested in that, are we? We're interested in a nice guy and a beautiful woman and a physical relationship and a nice home and a secure job and enough money to do what we need to do. And that's what we're concerned about when we study and talk about and think about our marriages and our relationships. How much time do we really stop to consider and understand the great mystery that this passage is talking about, which is the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church? That's the mystery. That's the heart of it. But when a man and a woman understand that, to the depth of their being as to what that really does mean, then they take marriage to another level. It goes to another level. It really does. And a lot of the other challenges that do and will come up can be dealt with because of that. That's where the mystery is in seeing the complexity and the reality of that and understanding the complexity of that relationship that Christ has for the church. If I could just do a half a digression for a moment here and then come back. What Paul is saying is that Jesus Christ loves the church. And men, you love your wives as He loves the church. But Christ loves the church. Let me ask you a question. Do you always love the church? Do you love your church? Be honest. There are times that I haven't loved my church. I get tired of people. I get tired of organizations. And I are one.

The problem is we see, as we often do, we only see the physical organization, United Church of God, AIA, an international association, incorporated bylaws, constitution, policies, human resource manuals. Put in whatever other church name you want within the Church of God community in our little small world. We just see the church. We see an organization sometimes, and that's what we have to deal with. And sometimes we don't like that church.

Somebody wrote us a kind of a barbed letter recently over something, one of our programs that we had done, and they turned it around to kind of criticize the church.

Okay, all right. The church can be fairly criticized. But if that's the approach that you have, I'm sorry, we eventually have to move on. But there are times when we don't like the church. We get fed up with the elements of the physical. But this passage, let me tell you this, the next time you get fed up with an organization, if it's the United Church of God or some other or whatever, or you attempted to make a decision based on that, come back to this passage and read it again with this point of mind. Because what this passage is telling us is that the church, the spiritual entity called the Body of Christ or the Church of God, is a great cosmic spiritual entity greater than anything that you and I are a part of. When you and I were baptized, we were not baptized into a denomination of men of an organization. We were baptized into the body of Jesus Christ. And it's when we forget that because of human beings, whether it's the person setting across from you or the person who's on the Council of Elders or the organization in its foibles when we forget that we are a part of a spiritual body, then we can get into a very discouraging frame of mind. And we forget that Jesus Christ loves the church. If He loves the church, what is it that He loves about it? Here's the thing for us to do next time. Go back and read this section. And on our knees, ask God, Christ, Father, God, why do You love this church if I don't?

Help me to love Your church. Because this is what Ephesians 5 tells us, that Christ gave Himself for the church, washed it with the water of the Word. And He loves it. If He loves it, I better love it. And You'd better love it. Because it's something far more than just an organization, no matter what that organization might be at any given time.

And when we understand that, then we're on to something. And we're on to something that really is important for our own marriages. Christ loves this church, this body, this spiritual body.

Why? He gave Himself for it in a sacrifice. He loves it so much. It's a sacrificial love. And then ask yourself if your marriage or the marriage that you want, or the great marriage and relationship that you desire can be based on that as well, on that sacrificial love. Because this that Paul describes here, this mystery, is the means by which the Father is bringing many sons to glory. This is it. It's the means by which God's creating a spiritual family. Back in Ephesians 3, verse 15, he says the whole family of the universe is named after this. God's whole plan is based upon a family of two people, a man and a woman, leaving their father and mother, coming together and forming one flesh. That's the plan. That's the purpose. That's what will eventually come into being and eventually be as part of the kingdom of God. This picture then, to get back to the one flesh of a man and a woman bound together in one flesh model of life, being fruitful, multiplying. It's the very high plane, God plane relationship that cannot be broken without there being consequences. When it is broken by whatever it might be, whether it's divorce and those who have divorced through the years of religious persuasion have contributed as well to the disestablishment of marriage, to the breakdown in matters just as well as anyone else with their proclivities, whatever it may be, same sex or otherwise, divorce does harm to the marriage relationship as well. When it's broken, when this God plane relationship is broken, it defies the divine order. It goes against the nature of creation. That's why God says He hates divorce in Malachi. That's why in 1 Corinthians 6, He condemns the sins and including that of homosexuality because it defies the divine order. It's not a matter of whether love can be or a relationship can be even among those of a same-sex relationship.

They cannot fulfill the fullness of God's intent for marriage. It cannot be. It goes against the divine order and it defies it. It's a big thought, but it's the one that we must begin with and never leave in our discussions and perceptions that we form, young and old, about this. And I'm not just picking on a younger generation to say that men have not had the time because, quite frankly, those of us who have been around for a while can be susceptible to the erosion that can come in our culture and not have the cutting-edge approach from the perspective of God's Word when it comes to this most important subject as marriage. If one is not submitted to Christ, then the rest of this chapter doesn't work. That's why it really all begins back in verse 21. We must submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. The rest of it doesn't work if we don't. If a man does not love his wife as Christ loves the church, it won't work.

As I said, there's twice as many scriptures dealing with the man here than otherwise.

This is a beautiful picture. For those that are not married, don't despair and don't worry if marriage has not yet become a part of your life. The apostle Paul, by all our indications, was not married when he wrote this. Whether or not he'd ever been married is a question you can't determine one way or the other. Some think he was, some say he wasn't. It seems that he wasn't at this point, and yet he had great insight into this divine relationship. Marriage of and by itself is not the gateway to the kingdom of God. It pictures that kingdom. It pictures that relationship, but it is not essential that one be married to do so. I've dealt with marriage difficulties.

I remember one in particular where one of the partners in a marriage felt that they had to be married, even though they were not fulfilling any one of the marriage requirements leading to the breakdown. But they had to remain married so that they could get into the kingdom, and that if a divorce occurred, they would not be in the kingdom. And yet they had broken every other principle of the relationship, and it had completely broken down irretrievably. But they felt that if they didn't remain married, they wouldn't be in the kingdom. That's not the case. You can be unmarried and be in the kingdom. I had a gentleman that I'd known for a number of years in the church. He died a few years ago. He'd never married. He was a longtime member, and he'd never married.

I always, you know, he was one of those that everybody tried to match him up with somebody in the congregation through the years, and it never worked, never happened. He wondered why. And he didn't ask always too much beyond why. When he was on his deathbed, I had made a visit to his hospital room as he was dealing with cancer. And I remember very well one afternoon, setting for three hours, at the foot of his bed, listening to him tell me his life story. He had to tell me that day, and I just was there at the right moment and right time. And he told me about his family, his father and mother, and the relationship that broke down there and how it impacted he and his brother. And after three hours, I understood why he never married. I understood. He died, and I looked for him in the first resurrection. He'll be in the kingdom. He was never married. So it's not a requirement that one be married. When it does come, be ready for it. That's the important thing. Be ready for it. If you're not married, and you're anticipating planning marriage, now's the time to be preparing for it in your 20s. I listened to one of these TED talks recently, somebody sent me, and the author who works with 20-something as a living counseling, working with him, made this one point, how that's the prime years to be preparing for something like this, for marriage. The time to become the person you want to be in a marriage is when you're not married. And use those years. Use that time to be the person that you want to be. Marry two, and to be giving to in that relationship. As I said at the beginning, that my wife and I have been married for 40 years is an accomplishment. Some of you have been married longer, and maybe you would say the same thing. That it's quite an accomplishment. I was recently going back into the book of Malachi to look at what Malachi said in chapter 2 about marriage. That's where God says He hates divorce and what the prophet says there. And it really struck me in verse 4, Malachi 2.

Verse 14. Malachi 2.14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20, 20, 20, 21, 22, 23, 23, 24, 25, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 42, 43, 44, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 49, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, We had the church in common, we had a common faith. I called her father and asked for permission to marry her. And I would say, if young men that are not married, when a time comes for you, call that father. And ask the man for permission. Ask somebody who's permission to marry the girl that you want to marry. I remember the phone booth there at Ambassador College Pasadena campus, where I made the phone call.

Most important phone call in my whole life. What if he'd said no? Well, he didn't. He said yes. He didn't know me from Adam. In fact, I didn't even meet her parents until I got on a plane after I graduated. She was going to stay in Pasadena and work for a few months. I was going out to my field assignment in North Carolina. And somehow we agreed to this idea that I would fly through Akron, Ohio, and spend a weekend with her. I didn't know them. They didn't know me. I was taking my whole life in my hands.

I remember when I got off the plane at the gateway, and they were right there in those days, you could go right up to the gateway and watch somebody come off. And, you know, here's my new family. Here's their son-in-law. Fortunately, it worked. Her dad was a pretty big guy, and he kind of... he trusted his daughter.

And it kind of worked out.

Our common faith is what bound us, and we built a relationship based on trust in faith and grew to know not only ourselves, but each other in that relationship.

Our greatest strength was that we had become good friends. I have had the privilege of living 40 years with my best friend. We were best friends before we got married. And then we got married.

And that worked out for us, and that's been something special. We've been also able to labor together 40 years in service to the church, as companions in a sacred covenant.

I was tempted, as I prepared this sermon, to give you seven points for having a good marriage. What? Seven or five points that I could reflect on. But then I realized, well, I don't have time for that.

And then I also kind of went back through a bunch of notes that I've had collected over the years, past sermons, and I threw most of them out.

And I said to Debbie the other day, one point, what would you give? One lesson learned. One key to success. You can take any marriage course, pick up any marriage book you want. If you want to go further, if you want seven points, go find them someplace else.

I'll give you one. Communicate. Talk. When I asked her, that was what I'd already figured out in my mind was our biggest key, and she said the same thing. Talk. Communicate. Honest talk. Communication is what builds a relationship.

Every year that we were in the ministry, 38 years that we were in the pastoral ministry, on Saturday night, we couldn't get to sleep until like 1 o'clock in the morning because we were talking. We usually would be two church services, or if it was one, there's always a social or whatever. Who'd you talk to? What's going on? How'd the day go? You hash out everything. Our Saturday night talks have become a part of our life. And that was the moment. And those talks encourage and build one another. I know that most men grunt, and most women gush. That's just part of our nature. And I do my share of grunting. Whenever I've come in from either a day at the office, or a day of golfing, or a day of fishing, or a day with the guys, she says, What'd you guys talk about? And I would say, usually still say, Not much. We just played golf. We fished. And she says, You didn't talk? I said, No, we played golf. And she could never understand that. Because women gush and men grunt. But there comes a time when you've got to stop grunting, and you've got to have the bubble and let it burst. Don't let the sun go down on your raft. And learn to listen to words, to feelings, to the heart. Because, were you tend to rose, a thistle cannot grow. Talk. Listen. Communicate. Those are the two prime elements of effective communication between a couple. To me, help two people grow together in love. And it takes a lifetime to learn to deeply love. And I feel like after 40 years, I'm just now beginning to even learn some of those elements. I'll conclude by telling you a story that I had, a conversation I had with a member just a few, a couple, three months ago. You're glad that I said, I'll conclude. That's the signal for you to begin to wind into whatever, but I'll conclude with the story. So you're still with me. One of our longtime members that I pastored for a long time, her husband was dying. They were both in a nursing facility. She didn't have to be there. He did. But she moved into it because she wanted to be close to him. Every day, she trudged down the halls to make sure he was fed right and the food went in the mouth. And that he was taken care of and he was clean. And then she'd go back to her little apartment because they couldn't stay in the same room. She did, as I said, she didn't have to be there. But she wanted to be there. And just a few days before he died, I called her and had a long conversation with her. And she's the type of person that you would have to know to understand, you know, she could be waxing eloquently about the relationship in one moment and then cracking an interesting joke the next minute, as she did. But the one statement she made to me that morning when I called her just riveted at me. She says, you know, the love that you have now, and this was after 69 years of marriage. Had he lived to this month on the 23rd of June, they would have been married to 70 years. She said, the love you have now, after all these years, she said, it's deeper. It's deeper. She said, it's different. It's deeper. And that's all she said. And I was just stunned. And by that time, you know, I was crying on the phone with her. She didn't know that. But it was just those moments when I, after all the years that I had known this lady of what she had said, it's deeper. It's more genuine, she says. And that's true. That's what happens when two people become one flesh. When a man leaves his mother and father, when a woman leaves her mother and father, and the two become one flesh. And they cling to one another in a sacred covenant of marriage that shapes their life.

I can say that marriage has made me want to be a better person for having been married. And I have no regrets and am thankful for it all. And so, husbands love your wives. And wives submit to your husbands. And all of us submit to one another and to Christ out of reverence for Him. Because where you tend to rose, a thistle cannot grow.