The Foundation of a Godly Marriage Is Love

A couple weeks ago, I gave a sermon on a God-playing relationship and marriage. I'd like to review a little bit of that because I want to continue on with that theme here today. I covered the fact that our marriages ought to be elevated to the level of a God-playing relationship. That all of our relationships should actually be on that level. Is your marriage a carnal marriage, or is it a spiritual-level marriage? Our marriages are supposed to be different from those in the world. Ours fail normally because we don't use the Spirit of God to the degree that we should. God has given us His Spirit. The one thing that is missing from the majority of marriages in this world is the fact that God is not a part of it. His Spirit is not there leading and guiding. Marriages in the church, as I brought out, should have a third party. You have the husband, you have the wife, and God should be a third party in that marriage. We have to ask God to bless our marriages, to sanctify them, and to make sure that those marriages meet up to His standard.

I brought out how family relationships and marriage relationships are unique to God and to the human family. Angels don't have families. They're not little angels. There's not mother angels, marrying daddy angels, and having baby angels. It doesn't happen that way. Angels are separate creations by God. Animals don't get married either. You don't have Mrs. Horse and Mr. Horse and a minister horse. You're saying, okay, will you take this horse to be your lovely bride? Anything of that. There just isn't that type of relationship in the animal family. But yet God has extended to mankind, to the human race, family relationships. God has given us the opportunity to experience that. We are to live in our marriages and families as God lives in the kingdom of God. That's the bottom line. We are to have love, unity, harmony, cooperation, and all of the ingredients that God has when you find Christ and the Father in their relationship.

Mr. Herbert Armstrong, years ago, in fact, I went back looking through the book, Missing Dimension in Sex, because it has quite a bit about marriage. It stated that the basis of family relationship can be summarized in one word. That word is love. The divine family relationship is a love relationship. The human family is supposed to be based upon that. I'd like to ask the gentleman here today, how do you love your wife? What does the Bible say about how we are supposed to show love to our wife, and to have that type of a relationship? With that in mind, let's go back to 1 John 4, 1 John 4, and verse 7. We read here, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. In the Greek, this is a progressive participle, and it actually means, let us be habitually loving one another. It's not just good enough to say, I love somebody, and I've shown love to them. No, it is a habitual thing. It's a habit. It's what we do on a regular basis. It is a practice of ours. So we find, Beloved, let us be habitually loving one another, for God is love, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So if you and I say we know God, we understand who God is, and we don't have love, we miss the boat somewhere.

Verse 11, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So the command is, if God was willing to send His Son to die for us, God was willing to give up His Son, Christ was willing to die, then we ought to love one another.

Verse 16, So again, the reason I read these Scriptures is to simply show that the basis of God's motivation, what He does, is motivated from love. It's motivated because He loves us. Now let's notice in verse 20, Now I've just substituted a word for brother here. I'll take that license. She hates her husband. Hopefully, both of you are in the church. You have a dual relationship here, your brother and sister, husband and wife, in that sense. So if anyone says, I love God, and let's substitute wife for brother here, and hates his wife, he's a liar.

So I think that's very clear.

See, we don't see God. We know He's there. But God says, how can you love me if you can't love those that I've created, been created in my image, and that you're supposed to love? And this commandment we have from Him, that He who loves God, must love His wife also, or His brother also. So what you find, the leading attribute of God, is love. It is His nature to love. The word love here is the Greek word we're all familiar with, agape, and it means a divine love, a self-sacrificial love in its very essence, that you are willing to give of yourself for the other party. Christ gave His life and died for us. The Father gave His Son, and both of those are two of the highest expressions that we could think of, agape, of giving and divine love. Now backing up to Galatians 5 again, Galatians 5, put this in context for us, verse 22, Galatians 5.22.

We read here, the fruit of the Spirit is, and the very first fruit that is mentioned of God's Spirit, is love.

So you'll find the first attribute of God mentioned here in the list is love, that you and I are to have the love of God. When God gives us His Spirit, that Spirit imparts to us the very fruit of God, of His nature. The divine love of God is imparted to us through the Holy Spirit. So when you had hands laid on you, you received God's Spirit, and then God began to impart His love to you. Now what that means is that those who do not have God's Spirit, guess what? Do not have the love of God. Because if it comes through the Holy Spirit, and you don't have that Spirit, then you don't have the love of God. Without the Spirit of God, what you find is that man, husbands, will rule, but generally from the wrong approach, from a selfish, self-centered approach. And basically, that's what you find happening in society. The last 6,000 years, women have been basically considered chattel, property. They've been second-class citizens. They have been abused, looked down upon, and they've not really been held in the esteem and the respect and the love that God intended in a marriage. Now I read this before, but I'd like to just read two or three paragraphs again to you. This was an article Mr. Herbert Armstrong had written concerning the selfishness and why marriages sometimes succeed and what the basis that drives human nature is. It says, The human mind is essentially self-centered, but the human mind is an empirical mind. Self includes whatever one thinks is his or hers, his clothes, his home, his property, his children, his parents, his team, his country. I've noticed this. You can take football, basketball, any type of sport. And when it's my school versus your school, my school is the best. But if you're going to put together an all-star team from this district to pay that district, all at once the person you like over here is on your team in your district, now they're against so-and-so. Then you can do that for a country. It's my country, the Olympics. Well, this person may have attended over here, but they're on our team now. Therefore, I like them. Now, if it were the world versus Mars, guess what? We'd like anybody on our team. It doesn't matter where they're from. Well, that's what he's talking about, the empirical self. One human spirit can be compatible with another human spirit, especially when it is to one's selfish or pleasing advantage. Thus, an unconverted husband can get along with an unconverted wife. So long is there is no attitude of hostility, competition, displeasure, incompatibility, annoyance, or dislike. But the carnal self, actuated by the human spirit, is essentially self-centered and loves primarily itself. That's true of all human beings. It loves another when it gains, receives pleasure or satisfaction. This explains why some marriages succeed even when both are unconverted.

So what you find is, over the years, most human beings are driven by selfishness, by vanity, by pride, by ego, by lust, all of these wrong drives. Therefore, these are translated into marriage, and they come to play within marriage.

The natural man, the carnal man, can only express love on a limited basis. Not to the full capacity, not to the full depth that God would like for every human being to experience marriage. The true Christian husband is to love his wife with a special spiritual love that God adds.

It's an added ingredient. How often have we heard in the past the booklet, The Missing Dimension in, whatever, The Missing Dimension? Well, there used to be the missing dimension in sex. And there is a missing element. And that is God, God's spirit, God's love, God's way that should be there. We are not born, when you're born as a human being, as a little baby, you don't grow up with spiritual love. That's not something that you automatically have. We have natural feelings and emotions that are shaped by society around us, by our family, and you all do that. Where do our ideas, our thoughts, our concepts about love, marriage, romance come from? Well, they come from the around, you know, in the past. And it's not until God opens our minds and begins to reveal to us His way of life that we can understand, and begin to understand the true depth that God wants us to have. So what we find today, people grow up, and they see TV programs, they see movies, they read romance novels, and hear all of these ideas about what romance is all about. Two people look at each other, and all of them, and they're stark, raving, mad in love with one another. And they have this passionate, romantic type of love. And when you find in real life, it generally doesn't happen that way. You know, love is something that grows and develops. Now, you and I have the privilege, we can look in the Bible. You remember recently I gave a sermon dealing with what is wisdom, and wisdom is knowing the beginning from the end. The Bible gives us understanding, because before you get from here to here, you have to understand how to get there. And understanding comes in, so the Bible explains principles on how to treat one another. So we know that the Bible sets the standards for us on how to live, how to treat one another. But it doesn't make a married soul, does it? I can read all day long. I can think about it, I can know it, I can memorize it, unless I'm doing it. Unless I'm applying it, it doesn't make any difference. It has to be translated into action. The Old Axiom, love unexpressed is no love at all. We may think love, we may talk about love, but it has to be translated into something that is true action. Let's go forward here, a couple pages of my Bible, Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, and we will begin to read here in verse 22. Now, there's a section of the Bible that explains clearly what marriage is all about, the standards of God set. It's Ephesians 5. It's one section that today people hate and despise, loathe, because nobody wants to do this in society, especially the submit bit. We'll come to that a little later on, like next week. Let's notice here in verse 22. It says, wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord. Now, I want you to notice here, it doesn't say that a wife has to submit to every man. It says, submit to your own husband, not to everybody else's husband, but to your own husband, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body.

So, man was created to be the head of the family, even as Christ is the head of the church. Now, also, as it says here, Christ is the Savior of the body. Now, a wife will normally respond to her husband if she knows that he's willing to die for her, that he's willing to exert himself for her. Now, you and I know we love Christ because he died for us, made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit, have our sins forgiven. He comes and lives within us. But let's go on in verse 25. We're going to skip over 22, 24 here. We're going to go on to 25 because it says, husbands, that's what we're concentrating on right now, loved your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. So, I want you to notice what is the foundation of leadership in a family? It is love. If a man is going to lead the family, guide the family, direct the family, it has to be based upon love. It is a foundation of service and of leadership and marriage. The foundation is a sacrificial love for the wife. That means that there are many times that a man may have to sacrifice. There are times that you don't get your own way. I remember when we had our five boys at home. I remember one of the biggest shocks we ever got. Now, you will laugh at this, but this was several years ago. We went down to buy tennis shoes for our boys. We had to spend $200 to buy five pairs of tennis shoes. You will laugh at that today because you may spend $125 on a good pair of tennis shoes or more. But at that time, to be able to spend almost $40-50 on a pair of tennis shoes, we didn't have $200 to spend on tennis shoes. But while OU was coming up, they had to have tennis shoes. There were ballgames and activities at school. They just needed them. Well, there could have been things that we wanted. I always wanted to buy a rifle. I've never bought a rifle in my life. There were tennis shoes, there were shirts, there were jeans. There were things that my wife wanted to buy. Things that she would have liked to have had for the home.

They went on their feet instead of in the closet or somewhere else. Well, those are the type of things that the Bible is talking about. There are times when you're married that you have to sacrifice. There's not a family here. There's not a couple here who have not gone through that from time to time. Or maybe a lot as far as being willing.

A woman will submit to you if she knows that you're willing to die for her, that you're willing to sacrifice for her and for the family. Again, love is a fruit of God's Spirit. Marriage is failed because love is not put into action within those. Now, there are three types of love mentioned in the Greek. Actually, there are four, but there are only three that most of us concentrate on. Number one is Eros, which is a sexual desire, passionate aspirations, physical attraction, romance. This is what many marriages in the world are built on, physical attraction. You find Hollywood stars hopping into bed and out of bed, marrying this one, marrying this lead lady, or whatever it might be. What is all that based upon? Well, they're attractive. Therefore, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be attracted to your mate. You should. But if that's the basis of your marriage, guess what? There's always somebody a little more attractive somewhere. If you happen to find that person, then get rid of this one and go try to get the other one. That's what happens so often. Eros love, a physical attraction, a romantic love, is not wrong in a marriage. In chapter 5 of the book of Proverbs, let's go over to the book of Proverbs, chapter 5 and verse 15.

Proverbs 5 verse 15, we're told, drink water from your own sister. That's a euphemism. Stay home with your wife. And running water from your own well. Should your fountain be dispersed abroad streams of water in the street? Let them be only your own, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth.

As a loving dear and a graceful dole, let her breath satisfy you at all times, and always be enraptured with her love. For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? In the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord. Now, you could go on over to chapter 7. We won't read it. Verse 6, where it talks about the simple man. And the book of Proverbs was written for those who are simple-minded, or those who aren't very smart, or aren't really as wise as they should be. And it shows why one should not go down that avenue, the wrong avenue, we'll put it. So, Eris, love is not wrong. The Bible talks about it. There's a book in the Bible, the Song of Songs, it's written about that. The second type of love, generally referred to, we read about in the New Testament, is filio. It's where you like somebody, you love somebody. It's an affection for them. It's a word that is translated friendship. It's a word from which we get Philadelphia, you know, the Church of Love, or brotherly love. So we have filio, and then there is agape, or agape, godly love. This is a lasting love. It is a moral or spiritual love. This is the love God expresses towards humanity. And it says, God so loved the world. Well, God, you know, it's a godly love.

Let me quote from, I have page 81 here, but again, it's the Missing Dimension in Sex book. It says, there is more than one kind of love. The Greek had three words for it. Each one had a different shade of meaning. In today's modern world, the meaning of love has been all but lost. It has become so romanticized, so confused with lust, that people carefully call any sexual desire, or sex, the use of love. Usually, it's lust. If a man were to whisper into a woman's ear, you know, he's just met her, it's the first day, he whispers in her ear, I lust you. What would that do? Instead of, I love you? Well, it might turn her off, I don't know. It might turn her on, as far as the world society today is.

But most people do not go around using the term lust for love. Today, nearly all popular songs are falsely supposed to sing about love. Motion pictures, television, novels, all confuse the heiress of love and induce society to accept lust in the name of love. The Greeks are more definitely expressive. They use three words to more accurately define love. First is agape, which is moral or spiritual love. This is the love of God that God has towards humanity. It is a divine spiritual love supplied by the Holy Spirit. The natural and unconverted man does not have this love, but God longs to fill him with it. So, if you have God's Spirit, then God says, look, I'll give you this love. Second is philia, or philadelphia, two related forms. Love of friendship, brotherly love, love of parent, love of child. Third is heiress, which refers to sexual love between husband and wife. It means love, not lust. It is love. Heiress, however, is love expressed physically and not spiritually.

So, you'll find these three words are very clearly brought out. All you have to do is look up in any Greek lexicon, and you'll find them mentioned. How many times have you ever heard a person say, and I've heard women say this especially, I'm starved for love, or I'm love starved, however you want to express that. There should be no starvation for love in a Christian home. For the husband and wife should love each other so much that their physical needs, their emotional needs, their spiritual needs are being met. That's what we're striving for, but those are the needs that should be met. Now, let's go back to Ephesians again, Ephesians 5. Let's notice again in verse 25 that husbands love your wife. It says, again, love is a foundation for rule and marriage. If God has given man the responsibility, delete the family, to head it. That doesn't mean I'm in charge, I'm the head, you've got a knuckle unto me. Anything I say, if I say jump over this rope, jump this high, you've got to do. That's not what God is talking about. God is talking about headship means that you are to provide the leadership for the family, you're to guide the family, you're to direct the family, and it's to be done out of love. It's not where you're trying to exalt yourself and prove that you're a macho. That's not the foundation of what a true marriage should be based upon. Foundation is a sacrificial love for the wife. Love, again, is a fruit of God's Spirit.

Now, a woman's heart thrives on this, on knowing that you love her more than you love any other person on earth. I didn't say love her more than God. We know that you're to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your might.

Luke 14, 26 tells us that when we kind of be baptized, that God has to come first and everything else second. But when it comes to another human being, she must know in her heart of hearts that you love her above all others, that there's not somebody else that you love more. If you want to make her day, her week, her month, her year, show her how much she means to you, and tell her that she's number one in your life. Why should she guess that she's number one? You should tell her. You should express it. You should be able to tell her many times during the day how much you truly do love her. It's interesting how West's Word Study of the Bible explains this. West says that there are three other kinds of love for a wife. Actually, he mentions four here. He mentions, first of all, there's a love of passion, eros. There is a love of complacency and satisfaction, and that's stargo, stargo, as T-E-R-G-O. And there is a fondness or affection, filio. Then he says, and this is the point I want to come to, all of these should be saturated. Do you know what saturate means? Fill it full. It's saturated. You have a sponge. It's saturated with water. It's filled with water. All of these should be saturated with agape. With that type of love, the spirit-filled husband, there purifies and makes them heavenly in character. So what West is saying is not that the love of God is something that's separate, but the love of God should be actually involved in eros love. It should be involved in filio love. It should be involved in the stargo. There's another word here, and we'll come back to that a little later. Love. So it should actually encompass and saturate all of these elements, so that it's the main driving force behind them. Okay, let's go to verse 26 here. Verse 26 says that he might, in other words, we're to love our wives as Christ loved the church, gave himself for it, that he might sanctify, meaning set it apart, and cleanse her with the washing of the 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 it should be holy and without blemish. Now, a husband is to love his wife with a sanctifying love. The word sanctified means set apart. In the marriage ceremony, husband, wife, I do, I do, what are you agreeing to? You are agreeing that you have been set apart for this woman, and that she has been set apart for you. No one else. The two of you are set apart for each other. You are now joined, and you have God to become a part of that marriage. So, a husband in marriage is set apart, belongs to his wife, she's set apart, and belongs to her husband. And so we are sanctified. Now, what does God do when God calls us? God calls us out of this world, and he sets us apart. He gives us his spirit. We are set apart from this world. We're no longer a part of Satan's kingdom. We've been transformed from Satan's kingdom into God's kingdom. We're part of God's family now. We have God's spirit. And so we are separated.

Now, in verse 28, we read here, 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. So Christ loves the church, and guess what? We are his body, right? The church is his body. So as it says here, husbands ought to love their wives as their own body. Does Christ love his body? And the answer is yes. He certainly loves the church. He loves all of us.

So the church becomes his body. When you're placed in the church, you receive the spirit. It is the spirit of God that places or puts you within that body. And that's a type of what marriage is all about. When you get married, then you become one. In marriage, we become one flesh, the Bible talks about. How can you hate your own flesh? I mean, I can look at my hand and say, I hate you. I beat on my hand all day long. I don't do that because it hurts.

I don't hate my flesh. I may not like part of it. I may say, I've got too much fat here, or I've got too much of this or that. But we don't go around hating our flesh. God cries to not go around hating the church, which is His body. They love us, and it is their avowed purpose to help us into the kingdom. You know, to show your wife you love her, she needs to feel that she is esteemed by you, that you esteem her. When you esteem something, that means it's important. It's valuable to you. So men are to love their wives as they love themselves.

Men are to love their wives as much as they love to feed themselves and take care of their own body. We all love to feed ourselves, don't we? You walk into the kitchen. We'll play off with Steve after having fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. You smell your wife cooking up one of your special dishes, something you haven't eaten maybe in a day or two because you've been fasting. You are ready to eat. Every fiber within you is ready to take care of that body. Well, that's the way that we are to love, feed, and take care of our wife, our mate.

The husband is to take care of his wife as Christ does the church. Now, that's a high standard, right? That's something to shoot for. None of us measure up to it. Now, you'll notice here it says, verse 29, He doesn't hate his own flesh. He nourishes and cherishes it. The word nourish in the Greek means to feed or provide for. So that means that a husband should provide for his family their physical needs, to feed them, food, clothing, and shelter. And how often over the years have I seen men who say, Well, my wife should appreciate me because I feed her, food, clothing, and shelter.

And they fulfill that obligation. They work hard, they provide for their families, and they've got food to eat, clothes on their back, and that's it. And they said, why is she so upset? Well, there is a little word called cherishing. See, nourish is half of the equation. Cherishing is the other half. You'll find that Christ feeds the church, does He not? He looks after the church. We're fed through the Word of God as we study it. We're fed, as we hear sermons on the Sabbath, we're fed God's Word constantly as we hear it. But we also want to be cherished. The word cherish means to keep warm or comfort. Keep warm or to comfort.

As one commentary brings out, one of the best examples of cherishing is a bird sitting on its nest. It can be raining, it can be cold, birds sitting on the nest, it's going to take care of those young ones under it. It cherishes them. It's going to keep them warm. The word means to keep warm, to cherish with tender love, to foster with tender care. This word has to do with the emotional, psychological well-being of an individual. There's more to marriage than, okay, I go out and work, here's the food, you cook it, leave me alone, I'm going to watch TV, I've done my part.

A woman wants to be cherished. She wants to know that she's special, to have tender love expressed to her, and that her emotional needs, her psychological needs, her spiritual needs are met. Christ does that for us, does He not? He encourages us, He strengthens us, and He knows that it's important we have food, clothing, and shelter. He's promised to do that. But He's also forgiven us of our sins. He takes away guilt. He's there to strengthen us and help us.

One of the things over the years, and this isn't just an observation, in looking at other men, because I have to look at myself, if you ever wonder why sometimes it's difficult for a man to look others right in the eye, there have been studies done. Women will talk to one another, sit across the table, they're riveted on each other, they're looking at each other. Men will sit side by side, occasionally they'll look over, they look up, they look down, they look everywhere, but at the person. Now, some do that very well, others do it not very well.

However, if you want to make contact with your wife, you've got to look her eyeball to eyeball. You've got to have eye contact, because eye to eye contact with the wife means heart to heart, feeling to feeling, emotion to emotion. Whereas for a man, well, okay, I love you. You're looking up, you're looking down. But if you look at her and look in her eyes, and you're able to express, yes, I love you, then that carries much more weight with her. Remember, God made her to have the capacity of being very intimate, and you married that intimate creature when you got married.

You said that you would fulfill your part of the bargain by nourishing and cherishing her, and her world to the world she functions in, because truly we do almost live in two different worlds. Men are over here, and you might remember the book, Men Are From Mars, and Women Are From Venus, or from different worlds. Well, what you find is that she's that way, but sitting and talking face-to-face with your wife means that you love her, you appreciate her. That's the message that it's sending.

You don't, and guess what? Why don't you care? Why aren't you looking at me? I've had my wife tell me that, and I know, okay, okay. You realize I'm not doing what I should be doing. Your wife understands the principle of talking things out. We men understand the principle of avoidance, not talking things out.

If you do that, in other words, if you don't sit down and talk things out when they come up, you've got a problem. So she'll feel that you love her, respect her. If you'll sit down, turn the entertainment off. They're about to throw the touch down. You turn the entertainment off, look her in the face, and say, talk to me, let's talk.

Now, I think sometimes wives learn. When the game's over, we'll talk. That's a wise wife, also. This goes both ways. When you're trying to understand your wife, it doesn't help to say, let me fix it. Husbands try to fix everything. A lot of times, wives don't want to be fixed. They want you to listen. They're not seeking. Your wife talks to you, and she's saying, well, this is going on, that's going on. Husband's sitting there, the wheels are going. I think I can handle that, we can do this.

He comes out with all the solutions. She gets upset, and he goes, why are you upset? You're not listening. She doesn't want things always fixed. She just wants you to listen. Remember 1 Peter 3.7? It says, you husbands, in the same way, live with your wife in an understanding way. Understand your wife. Understand the female psyche. So you can respond in a proper way. Closeness is a simple and easy way for us to help our wives know that they're loved. An example of closeness is maybe holding hands, a sincere hug, a thank you, being affectionate without sexual intentions, going for a walk, planning a date night, doing something special, bringing her a gift, flowers.

You know, you're the old saying, you bring your wife flowers, what are you up to? What did you do? Well, you shouldn't really be that way. For her to realize that it is a priority for you to spend time with her. She needs to feel close to the one that she loves. If she loves you, she needs to feel that there is a closeness. When it comes to sharing, our wives want us to share our lives with them.

It's not always easy for men to share their lives with their wives. She wants to obtain a glimpse of our heart. Occasionally a man will go, and that's it. Did you show me your heart? Yes, here it is. It's very seldom that a man will just expose himself and show his heart to his wife. Whereas she's laying it out there all the time. The man sometimes gets tired. Why is she so emotional? We have to realize that God made women different from men. Remember, God said that when he created Adam, that he created a help meet for him. What that means is we need help.

So God created the woman to be there to help us. Now, she needs help too, as we'll see later on. But we need help. So God created someone to be there to help us. In 1 Timothy 3, beginning in verse 1, that's not right. It's 2 Timothy 3, verse 1. But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.

These are the last days. Difficult times. Actually, one translation translates this, stressful times will come. So we're living in a time of stress. For men will be lovers of themselves. And then notice verse 3, Unloving, unforgiving, slanderers without self-control, brutal despisers of good. Well, what you find here, King James says, unloving or without natural affection. In verse 3, where New King James version says unloving, King James says without natural affection.

The word for without natural affection is the word estargos. It's the word we came across earlier, stargos, which has an A in front of it, or alpha, which makes it a negative. So instead of having affection, it's without affection or without the natural affection. And actually, natural affection is a good translation of this word. Because it's talking about the natural love that a man would have for a woman, have for his family, have for his children, have for his parents, his neighbors. And yet we see a society today where people do not have natural affection.

And the word stargos, Benjamin B. Warfield, in his article from the Princeton Theological Review, talking about the terminology of love in the New Testament, defines it as follows. Talking about stargos, it designates that quiet and abiding feeling within us, which, resting on an object that is near to us, recognizes that we are closely bound up with it and take satisfaction in its recognition. It is a love that is a natural movement of the soul, something almost like gravitation or some other blind force.

It is a love for parent, for child, children for parents, of husband for wife, of wife for husband. It is a love of obligation, the term being used here not in the moral sense, but in a natural sense. It is necessary under the circumstances. This is a binding factor by which any natural or society unit is held together. That in most societies, you would think that people would have this type of natural love. And yet, we find society becoming more and more where people don't consider life. It will go kill somebody.

It doesn't mean anything. And so, you'll find this. Now, in verse 1 here, it talks about, or verse 2, men will be lovers of their own self. The Greek word here is made up of two, filio, which means to be fond of, and autos, meaning self.

So, you're fond of yourself. You love yourself. A shortened form of that is selfishness. So, you'll find, basically, that in the end time, one of the things that the Bible says that we would see is that people would be selfish. Now, let's back up again to Ephesians 5 and verses 30-33.

So, what we find is simply this. Jesus Christ's example shows us, his example, and how he treats the church, is an example for husbands on how we should treat our wives. He gave himself for her. He nourishes her. He cherishes her. He loves her as himself. He is the head. There is a sacrificial love.

So, how is Godly love expressed? If you and I, men, are supposed to have Godly love for our wives, how is that expressed?

Let's turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. 1 Corinthians 13, beginning in verse 1.

In verse 1, we find that it talks about all kinds of gifts, speaking in tongues or whatever, understanding prophecy, and yet if you don't have love, you're nothing.

Now, in verse 4, it begins to show how love is expressed. Love suffers long.

So, there are times in expressing love that we may suffer. It suffers long. Now, I'm not talking about the other person making you suffer.

We're not talking about there are times that we have to be patient. It is kind. So, love is expressed as kindness. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. It is not puffed up.

It does not behave itself rudely. There are certain elements of this that you can pick out that certainly apply in our relationship with our wife. Not being rude does not seek its own. So, we're not always after our own what we want and neglect the family or neglect our wives.

It is not provoked. It is not easily provoked. So, we're not easily angered.

It thinks no evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things. So, we're willing to bear and to put up with things. It believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

We have this type of love. It will never fail, but it will endure.

We have to realize it's just as hard for a man to love his wife on occasions as it is for her to submit to him on occasions.

And men, you have to realize it's not...women just aren't born necessarily being submissive.

It's not something that is going to come easy to any human being.

And so, we all have lessons that we have to learn.

If a husband and wife really love each other, then they will begin to cleave to each other.

Now, we find, back in Genesis 2, 23 through 24, that God said when a husband and wife get married, they're to be joined together.

You can say they should be glued together, welded together. They begin to become one.

A woman will 99% of the time respond to the cleaving process. She knows that her husband is cleaving to her.

A husband will be tuned in to the needs of his wife if he cleaves.

If you're cleaving to your wife and you're concerned about her, you will begin to see what her needs are.

And a husband will be tuned in to those.

Now, let me tell you what her needs are.

A woman needs to be loved. She needs to be appreciated. She needs to be cherished.

She needs a man who will lead, who will guide her, who will direct her.

And often, I've heard people say, well, the opposite of love is hate, and that's not true.

The opposite of love is apathy.

And if we have apathy in our marriage, then it's a lack of concern, genuine concern, for our mate.

So we find that there are physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs.

And God has given us marriage to help us fulfill those, going both directions, for the husband to be filled, for the wife to be filled.

Your wife must know, man, that you are loyal to her.

Now, Titus chapter 1 and verse 6, Titus 1.6 talks about a man to be ordained, that he should be the husband of one wife.

See, he's married to her. He's loyal to her.

So, we have to realize that building a God-playing relationship, as we're supposed to have in our marriage, is initially an act of will.

We start out by, first of all, admitting that we're human, and that we're not perfect, and that we want God to be a part of our marriage.

We ask God to be in that marriage. We ask God to fill us with His love, with His outlook.

And we desire it. We want it. We pray for it. It becomes something that we think about.

We ask God to bless our marriage. We ask God for a miracle to take place. That miracle is that we can change.

Ask God to help us to change. Too often in marriage, we're asking God to get your mate to change.

Guess what? If we change, normally they're going to respond. Women are responders. They respond to a leader. And if you lead and guide in the right way, they will respond to it.

Love, the Bible says, is man's responsibility. We're to love our wives.

We need to ask God to help us to grow in love. We can have His love.

Actually, if you find you've lost romance in the marriage, that can even be rekindled within a marriage. That's possible.

Submit respect, the Bible says, are a woman's responsibility.

Let's go back here to the book of Malachi 2, verse 14 and 15. Malachi 2, verses 14 and 15.

Now, talking here about some of the problems that they were having, it says, Yet you say for what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

We have entered into an agreement, a covenant, to be faithful. She's our companion.

But did He not make them one? We get married. God says, we become one. We become one flesh.

And having a remnant of the Spirit, so we become one. We have God's Spirit in that marriage.

Why do we become one? He seeks godly offspring.

So God wants to see children who come from that relationship, who are going to be godly, who are going to be taught the right way, who are going to have the right way and example set before them.

Therefore, take heed of your Spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

So we're not to deal treacherously with our wives as they get older, but we're to love them, and that love should grow and deepen every day.

See, the Spirit of God brings oneness between a man and a woman.

And simply stated, one man, one woman, was how God created mankind from the very beginning. That's what he said. He made us male and female.

In order to have oneness and cleaving in marriage, the man must love his wife, and the wife must be willing to submit to her husband.

But what does that mean, to submit to your husband? How do you submit?

Well, next Sabbath we'll find out.