God Plane Marriage

I thought today an appropriate topic might be marriage to cover. When you begin to look at marriage, and what God has to say about marriage, and you look at the marriages in the Church, marriages in the Church should be a God-playing level or relationship. What do I mean when I say God-playing relationship? It means that we are to treat each other like Jesus Christ and God the Father. How they react to each other. How they interact with each other.

That should be how our relationships are. Is your marriage on a carnal level or on a spiritual level? What level would you evaluate your marriage? If our marriages are to be different from just those in the world, if our marriages fail, it's because we're not using God's Spirit to the degree and the way that we should. You might remember back in John chapter 4 and verse 24, John 4.24, that Jesus Christ said, God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth. When it says we're to worship God in truth, that means according to His Word, the Scriptures.

John 17.17 says, Thy Word is truth. If we're going to worship God, it can't be any old way we want to come up with. Our own ideas, our own thoughts, our own philosophies. We've got to go to the Scriptures. How does God say to worship Him?

That's how we ought to worship Him. But it says in Spirit. Normally, when we read that, we think strictly, there's the letter of the law and there's the Spirit of the law. So we've got to worship according to the Spirit of the law. All of that's true. But how do you worship according to the Spirit of the law? It takes the Spirit of God.

That's why it says here, we're to worship God in Spirit and in truth, according to the Greek, which would apply to both of them. So we worship God in Spirit. That means we have the Spirit of God. It takes the Spirit of God to be able to keep the spiritual application of the law. How do I know that? Well, the Pharisees, Sadducees, really got raked over the coals by Jesus Christ. He called them whitewash enseplikars, vipers, snakes. He used every type of adjective you could think of them.

They kept the law. They kept the letter. They tithed. They kept the Holy Day, Sabbath. But they did not keep the intent of the law. They did not have the Spirit of God. I've been working on a sermon. In fact, I was hoping to give it today, but decided to switch on God's way. Many times in the Bible it talks about the way of God. When you begin to evaluate the way of God, the Bible says there is a way that we worship God.

The way of God that we obey. Well, you find that way covers just about every facet of life. It covers the way we conduct our marriages, how we rear our children, how we relate to one another, how we work. Everything that we do should be according to that way that God has ordained. Marriages in the Church should have a third party in them.

That's called God. It should have a husband, wife, and God should be intricately involved. You know, family relationships, marriage relationships, are unique to the family of God and to the human family, not to the animal kingdom. Animals don't have marriages. Two cows don't become or come before a bull and ask to be married. That's not the way they operate. That's not the way birds operate, fish operate, whatever. They don't have a family relationship. We're to live in our families and our marriages as God lives in the kingdom, predominated by love, by unity, by harmony, and by cooperation. That's how Christ and the Father get along.

Christ is submissive to his Father, and so he will follow him. Years ago, look this up, Mr. Herbert Armstrong, in the book, The Missing Dimension in Sex. I don't know how many of you have a copy of that. It's a good book to read. If you don't have a copy, go on the Internet. Every one of those are listed there. But he wrote that the basis of family relationship is love. The foundation that a marriage must be built upon is the foundation of love. Now, divine love that God has is the basis of that. Let's notice in 1 John 4.7. Go back to 1 John 4.7.

Notice what John writes here, beginning in verse 7. It says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So it says, love is of God. Now, the Greek here in this verse talks about a progressive or continuous action. It could be translated when it says, let us love one another. It says, let us be habitually loving one another. So it's not just something you do and say, okay, I love that person.

No, if you've got God's Spirit in you, you are to habitually, continually, constantly be loving people. As verse 11 goes on to say, Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. So we are to love each other. Verse 16, We have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. So we find that it's the very nature of God to love. We ought to love one another, and we certainly ought to love our mates. As verse 20 says, if someone says, I love God hates his brother, he's a liar.

For he does not love his brother, whom he has seen. How can you love God, whom he's not seen? Why don't you just substitute the word husband or wife for brother? If someone says, I love God and hates his wife, or hates her husband, he or she is a liar. For he who does not love his husband or wife, whom he has seen. How can you love God, whom he has not seen? God has given us marriage and the marriage institution so that we can learn how to relate to one another in the kingdom of God.

Marriage, in a sense, is our little kingdom. We have a set-up very similar to the kingdom of God. Father in charge, Christ submissive to the father. Husband is in charge, wife is submissive. Then you have children. God is in the process of bringing children into his family. So there is a correlation. The leading attribute of God is love. It is his nature. The love spoken up here is agape love, which means divine love. Agape love could be summarized simply as self-sacrificing love.

You are willing to give of yourself. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So he gave his son. Christ was willing to give his life for us. He was willing to die for us. So it shows God's love in action. In Galatians 5, verse 22, we read of the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5, verse 22. The first attribute of God's Spirit that is mentioned there is love. It is love, love, joy, peace. The divine love of God to us as human beings is imparted through his Holy Spirit. God gives us his love. Without the Spirit of God, man will rule, but normally, generally, from the wrong approach.

It will be a selfish approach. It will be a self-centered approach. Let me quote from an article I found. In fact, I've got a file. I don't know how big Bill's is, but I've got five big drawers full of sermon notes and a stack of notebooks plus hundreds on my computer.

So over the years, you begin to accumulate these. But I've got a folder on marriage about that thick. I found this quote dealing with this particular topic from one of our old publications. 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. My car, my house, my shoes, my mate, my children, my country, that type of thing. As long as it's yours, if it's your school against another school, yay! But if it's our state against another state, well, we're against them. If it's our country against another country, that gets down. If it's our planet against another planet, we have the empirical self. It says, One human spirit can be compatible with another human spirit, especially when it is the one's selfish or pleasure advantage, plus an unconverted husband, or so long as 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. It loves another person when it gains, receives pleasure or satisfaction from that person, and or fills the other as part of his or her empirical self. This explains why some marriages succeed even when they are unconverted, because people are fulfilling those needs, and to a certain degree, whether they understand them or not, obeying certain laws to a physical degree. But the mind led by the Holy Spirit will have a love of attitude towards another so long as he is truly being led by that spirit. Now, with God's spirit, love doesn't end just because somebody doesn't treat you properly. You love no matter what they do. Love isn't predicated on what somebody else does. The love of God flows from God into us, out of us, to others. And so we are to have the love of God. So we need to realize that human beings, all of us, of course, I know that doesn't apply to you. It certainly doesn't apply to me, does it? Well, it applies to all of us, doesn't it? We're all that way. That's the way our human nature tends to operate. The natural man can only or generally express love on a limited basis. A truly converted Christian husband is to love his wife with a special spiritual love.

We're not born with spiritual love. It is a gift from God. Where do our ideas about marriage, family, concepts about love, romance, where do all these come from? They come from the example we grew up with in our own family. Other examples that we've seen come from movies, come from romance novels. Have you ever read a romance novel? You'll hear Prince Charming comes along and sweeps the gal away. They live happily ever after.

There are no problems, no troubles. This just isn't the way most marriages function. You and I can even read the Bible. See the standards it sets. But you know, that doesn't mean that it's so in our marriage, does it? That doesn't mean that because we know up here that it's actually being applied in our marriage. It doesn't automatically translate into the marriage. We have to translate it. We have to, in other words, do it. Our actions have to be taken. In Ephesians 5.22, and we'll spend most of today in Ephesians 5, let's notice beginning in verse 22.

Ephesians 5.22, wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord. That is one scripture that today many would expunge from the Bible. If there were scriptures, they could wipe out of the Bible. They would do that. And many actually do. It says, 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.

Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Now, the man is the head of his wife. Notice. Even as Jesus Christ is the head of the church, he is the Savior of the body. Jesus Christ was willing to die for his wife. He was willing to die for all humanity. If your wife knows that you are willing to die for her, what kind of love is that going to generate within her and within your marriage?

As verse 25 goes on to say, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. Love is the foundation for service and leadership in marriage. If the man is going to be the head, the leader, the guide, then the foundation that all of that must be or should be built upon is love. It should be a sacrificial love, an agape love, or agape, however you want to pronounce that. A sacrificial love where the man is willing to give for his wife, for his family. A woman will want to submit to you if she knows that you are willing to die for her.

Love is the fruit of God's spirit again, and marriage has failed because God is not in them. God is not a part of them. God is not motivating what is going on. There are three types of love mentioned in the Greek. As we'll see, actually, there are four, but there are three that we normally think of.

One is Eros, E-R-O-S, Eros. It means sexual desire, passion, aspiration, physical attraction, romance. Many marriages in the world are built upon this. In other words, that's the only thing that's holding them together. You see this a lot of times in Hollywood. A handsome lead man meets handsome lead lady.

She's attractive. She's beautiful. They get married. He goes on to another movie. He meets another lead lady who's a little more attractive. All in all, he's attracted to her. She's more beautiful, or more voluptuous, or whatever it might be. Therefore, he's attracted to her. He divorces his wife, and he moves on. There's nothing wrong with romance, physical attraction, and passion. Quite frankly, that's what should be in a marriage.

I'm just as attracted to my wife today as I was, as you'll see in those pictures, out in the lobby when we first got married. She was a radiantly beautiful young lady walking down the aisle. She still is a radiantly beautiful lady, in my mind. I have the same desires as I did back at that time. There's nothing wrong with that in marriage. It's only when it goes outside of marriage that it's wrong. In Proverbs 5, we'll come back here, but let's go over to Proverbs 5, verse 15. Notice the wisdom, the wise instructions that are given here concerning marriage.

Verse 15, drink water from your own sister and running water from your own well, or in your own marriage, not from others. Should your fountain be dispersed abroad in streams of water in the streets, let them be only for your own and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Rejoice with the wife of your middle age. Rejoice with the wife of your old age. It doesn't say those last two, but they would be implied. As a loving dear and a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy you at all times, and always be enraptured with her love. Why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? Notice chapter 7, verse 6. Since forth the window of my house, I look through my lattice. As all among the simple, I perceived among the youth a young man devoid of understanding. Passing along the street near her corner, he took the path to her house. In the twilight, in the evening, in the dark, her black and dark night. There was a woman who met him with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious. Her feet would not stay at home. At times, she was outside. At times, in the open square. Today, we would say, on a street corner somewhere, trying to seduce somebody. She called him and kissed him with an impudent face and said to him, I have peace offerings with me. Today, I have paid my vows. So I came out to meet you diligently to seek your face. I found you. I have spread my bed with tapestry, colored coverings of Egyptian linen. It's funny, Egyptian linen is still some of the best linen you can buy. But he goes on to say, I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning. Now, love here is what we would call lust. She's married, as we'll see. Let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband is not at home. She's married. He's gone on a long journey. He's taken a bag of money with him. He'll come home at the appointed time. And then it says, with her enticing speech, she causes him to yield. With her flattering lips, she seduces him. Immediately he went after her as an ox, going to the slaughter, being led along like he's got a ring in his nose, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks. And so you can read the rest of that. Eris is talking about physical desire, passion, aspiration, and attraction. Within marriage, it's fine. Outside of marriage, it's not. The second word we normally talk about, love, is filio. Filio means to like. To love have affection for friendship. We have friendship for others. We call this brotherly love. Philadelphia. That agape is godly love. It is a lasting love. It is a moral or spiritual love. This is the love of God expressed towards humanity. Now, the Greek didn't always mean that, but it was adopted in the New Testament and is used of God in the type of love that he has towards human beings.

So, as I said, it's a self-sacrificing love. How many times, as a person said, that they just feel love starved, or starved for love? They want affection, attention. There should be no starvation for love in a Christian marriage. It should be there. For the husband and wife should so love each other that their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs are truly met. Let's back up to Ephesians 5 again. We'll look at verse 24. Ephesians 5, 24. It says, Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wise be to their own husband in everything. Now, as Westward's study brings out, the word everything here refers to everything in the marriage relation. That you're subjected to them in the marriage relation. Only as long as what they are asking you to do is not immoral or illegal. If they are asking you to break God's law, not to keep the Sabbath, not to obey God, you can't do that. So everything that's legitimate, proper in the marriage relation. If the husband makes Christ love for the church, the pattern for loving his wife, then the love he will have for her truly will be sacrificial. Love is the foundation for rulership in marriage. It is the foundation. It is the sacrificial love for the wife. A wife will want to submit to her husband if she knows you're willing to die for her and if she knows you're willing to look after her. Her heart thrives on knowing one thing, that you alone love her more than any other person on earth.

The Bible says you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. God comes first. Luke 14, verse 26. We have a commitment toward God. But when it comes on the human level, should not our mate be the one that we love, respect, and respond to? If you want to make her day, and we're all familiar, make my day, or make my year, or make my life, show her how much she means to you. Let her know that she's number one in your life, and she will respond to you. I want you to notice how Westward Study of the Bible explains this about the husband having three other kinds of love for his wife. It says, a love of passion, quoting West, or Eros, a love of complacency and satisfaction, stergo, S-T-E-R-G-O, that's one that you don't normally find referred to, but it is in the New Testament, which is a complacency or satisfaction, and then filial, which is a fondness or affection. Here's the key. All these are saturated with agape, love of the spirit that fills the husband, purified and made heavenly in character. In other words, it doesn't matter what kind of love you're showing toward your wife, it should have, as its basis, the love of God. Whatever you're doing for your wife, whether it's physical relationships, or working, or whatever, the motivation, the foundation, the thing that saturates that, like pouring liquid over something, that just saturates whatever it might be, that that agape, love, should saturate everything that we do. Now going on to verse 26 here, it says that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word. It's talking about Christ dealing with the Church, but 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. Again, the husband's love should be a sanctifying love, as it says here in verse 26, that he might sanctify her. What do I mean as sanctifying love? Well, when you got married, you were standing there before the minister. He says, do you, therefore, take Roy on holiday to be your lawful wedded husband. When she said yes, and I said yes, guess what? The minister got down and prayed and laid hands on us, and we do. We lay hands on the couple. We kneel and pray, and we're asking God to do what? To set this woman and this man apart as one, as a marital unit, one flesh, and to cleave to one another. Therefore, they are set apart. What did Jesus Christ do when he was willing to sacrifice himself for us?

He did that. He died to make it possible for us to become one with him in mind and approach and attitude. So, in the marriage ceremony, the husband is set apart to belong to the wife. The wife is set apart to belong to the husband. So, there is a setting apart that takes place. It says here to be holding without blemish. Since whoever you're pulling together, working together, you're in the church, you have God's Spirit, you're striving to obey God, then you're striving to help each other, to be holy, to be without blemish, to grow, to overcome, to be in God's kingdom. You're not struggling against each other. You're not holding each other back. You're not dragging feet. You're working together as a team to be in God's kingdom.

So, that's the way it should be. Now, verse 28. 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 he nourishes it and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For where members of his body, or as of Christ, of his flesh, of his bone. Why did Adam say, She's now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. And so, the same is true of us. Christ loves the church because we are his own body. Now, in marriage, we become one flesh. And how can you hate your flesh? What happens when your flesh gets hungry? Well, you generally feed it. What happens when your flesh gets thirsty? Well, you drink something. So, we all understand that. When my flesh, I'm walking through the house at night in the dark, and I happen to catch my little toe on a chair. It hurts. My flesh hurts. I immediately pay attention. That little toe is sticking out. It bothers you. When you hurt the flesh, then you're concerned about it. So, we don't hate our flesh. To show your wife love, she needs to feel esteemed by you. Does your wife, men, feel that you esteem her, that you love her?

Men are to love their wives as they love themselves. So, we are to love our wives. Men are to love their wives as much as they love to feed and take care of their own bodies, and to look after ourselves. Now, the husband, as he goes on to say here in verse 29, is to take care of his wife like Christ takes care of the Church. First of all, it mentions nourish, and then it says cherish. To nourish means to feed, provide for her. Feed the family, provide for the family. You take care of their physical needs. You make sure they have food, clothing, and shelter. You're looking after them. Many feel that they've done their duties, many men. My wife knows I love her. I bring home the bacon every week. I bring home the chick. I take care. I provide her a house. She gets a new dress every once in a while. She knows I love her. I don't have to say it, but every ten years or so. You should be telling your wife multiple times every day how much you love her. Christ feeds the church, does he not? Every Sabbath you come and you're fed. Every day you crack the Bible, open it up, and God feeds you through his word, spiritual understanding, spiritual truth. If you don't understand it, you go to him and you ask. So we are fed. We're nourished by Christ. We're also cherished. We're cherished means to keep warm, comfortable, to cherish with tender love, to love, to foster with tender care. It has to do with the mental, emotional, and psychological approach in marriage. You feel psychologically and emotionally that you're cared for, that you're not discarded. Does not Christ encourage us all the time? We go through trials, we go through tests, and yet we're encouraged. We know, as we saw in the P.T. Daily, that he's there to encourage us. I will not, I will not, I will not leave you or forsake you. So we know that God is there to look after us, to strengthen us. One of the things we men have trouble with is looking at somebody squarely in the eye when we're talking to them. You ever notice men when they're talking to you a lot of times? They're looking up, they're looking down, they're looking off to the side, they're looking this way or that way. That doesn't normally cut it with your wife. You know why? Women want to be connected. Connection is this. You know, looking at each other, looking at the eyeball.

They say the eyes are the windows of the soul. So when you look at somebody in the eye, then you know what's going on in here. But if you feel like you're talking to somebody, are you listening? TV's on, ballgame's on, and you're trying to get something across. That doesn't normally work.

So, eye to eye generally with a woman means heart to heart. She can have that type of relationship. Remember, God made her, and he made the men also, to have an intimate relationship. So when you married that wonderful creature, you're supposed to have an intimate relationship with her. There is to be an intimacy that the two of you have.

Her world, sitting face to face, means that you love her and appreciate her. There are times when you're watching the ballgame. Ladies, that's not the time to bring up a real deep personal discussion. When the score is tied 90-90, 10 seconds left, don't turn the TV off. That's not the time to do it. But there comes a time when you need to talk. She needs to feel that you love her more than you love the TV or something else.

Turn it off, sit down, look at each other, and say, okay. You start talking. One of the problems we men have also is brought out in 1 Peter 3.7. 1 Peter 3.7 It says, husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife. Many times a wife, all she wants from her husband is for him to listen. She wants him to understand her. She doesn't want him to fix it.

Men are good at fixing things. She may talk to you for a minute or so, and you think you get the gist of what she's talking about. So you say, well, let me tell you how to handle this. And she gets upset. No, listen. Well, don't you want a solution? No, I don't want a solution. I want you to listen. And so many times it's not a matter of us fixing it. That's what we want to do. We want to solve the problem, move on. What else do you want to talk about?

We fix that one. And so she wants you to listen and understand. Have you ever wondered why women can go out to eat with one another and seem to talk all day? They listen to each other. They share ideas. And they understand what the other person is going through because it's a woman-to-woman relationship. But we men tend to have a problem with that. Notice another translation that says, You husbands in the same way live with your wives in an understanding way. Understand them and respond in the proper way. Closeness is simple and an easy way to help her feel love. How can your wife know that you are close to her?

How about getting close to her? Hold her hand. A sincere hug. Be affectionate without sexual intention. Go for a walk. Set up a date night. We're going to have a big date tonight. You go do something. They get a priority to spend time with her. There are many more ways. A lot of times when I've been out visiting, I've brown-bagged it. My wife has fixed me a lunch. I open the bag. And in the bag is a note. I love you. Hope your day goes well. I've mentioned to you before, I've written notes all over eggs in the refrigerator.

I know eventually she's going to get an egg out. Whether it's a bad egg or a good egg, she's going to get it out and look at it. And if it says, I love you, it just shows her that I'm thinking of her.

The thing is, we need to make one another realize that we are thinking of each other. She needs to be close in order to love. Sharing is another way. We need to share our lives with one another. You see, men tend to be like a safe. Have you ever seen a safe combination on it? Every once in a while the door opens, then it closes. And instead of it opening up, and here I am, let's talk, and she sees what's in the safe. We give her a glimpse, and she's about to look in there. We close it again. And we're not revealing who we are, how we feel, how we think. When it comes to emotions, we have problems.

Generally, when it comes to men. If you don't have that, if you're the one man who left brain and right brain both work together, great. Most men are not that way. Notice in 2 Timothy 3, 2 Timothy 3, verse 1. This was in the P.T. Daily we saw. But know this, then the last days, perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient, parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, headstrong, holy, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

It says, unloving, or I think as the King James version says, without natural affection. The word here, without natural affection or unloving, is estargos. Remember I mentioned to you, estargos was a Greek word for love. This Greek word denotes natural affection. But it's combined with alpha. It starts with alpha. Which, when prefixed to a word, negates its meaning. The word stargos means natural affection. It's a type of love for a child, for your wife, for family, country, this type of thing.

But a stargos means no love for. It's talking about selfishness or self-centeredness. Benjamin Warfield, in an article that appeared in the Princeton Theological Review, titled, The Terminology of Love in the New Testament, defines it in this way.

It designates that quiet and abiding feeling within us, which rests 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 gravitational or some other force. It is love for a parent, for a child, for a child, for a husband, for wife, wife or husband. It's a love of obligation. This is the binding factor by which any natural or social unit is held together.

Why do you find today so many marriages dissolving, so many families disintegrating, and whole communities coming apart and unraveling? Well, it's because there is not this affection. People are self-centered, independent, wanting their own way, and selfish. They don't have a self-sacrificing love. It seems like in the past, many people did have this type of an approach. It may have been on a physical level, but still they were willing to sacrifice and give themselves for their families. People have become lovers of their own self, or selfish. The word actually, lovers of self, refers to two Greek words, phyl and atos. The word phylio comes from phylio, to be fond of an atos self, thus to be fond of the self. That's what selfishness is. We find that this is the way society is going, especially the Western world and society. It's very difficult for us to maintain the proper love and marriages because of all the wrong influences.

Now in Ephesians 5, verse 30, it says, We are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So, sort of a summary statement here. So when you go through this section and you study how Christ treats the Church, and how we are to emulate his example and treat our wives, he gave himself for her, he nourishes her, he cherishes her, he loves her as himself, he is the head, or he rules her out of love, and he is sacrificing for her. How is godly love expressed? We are talking about that we are supposed to have godly love for one another. How is that expressed? We'll go back here to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. It talks about how we can speak, have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and knowledge. Verse 2, Have all faith, but not have love, that were nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing. So love is the main ingredient here. Now beginning in verse 4, we find out what love truly is like. Love suffers long. People today are not willing to put up, it seems, with anything. Short-tempered, and they don't suffer long. It's kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. Love is not puffed up. It does not behave itself rudely. It does not seek its own. It does not provoke. It thinks no evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity. It rejoices in the truth. Now again, you can go back. A husband can do this. A wife can do this. Verse 4, put your name in there. Tom, Dick, Harry, Joe, Susie, Petunia, whoever you might be. He says, Love, or Joe, suffers long and is kind. Susie suffers long and is kind. So substitute your own name as you go through here.

I bear all things. I believe all things. I hope all things. I endure all things. As you go through this, you're going to hit a few that you're going to say, Uh-oh, that's not describing me. So it shows you where you could work. Love never fails, but whether there are prophecies, they'll fail. Or there are tongues, they'll cease. Or there's knowledge, it will vanish away. And so, it's just as hard for a man to love his wife on occasion as it is for a wife to submit to her husband on occasion. Both are not always the easiest thing to do. As Genesis 2 tells us, when God created Adam and Eve, he says that a man is to leave his father and mother, and the two of them are to cleave together. In the Hebrew, the word to cleave means to be glued together, to be welded together, and you become one. Now, when you cleave to something and you're glued, it's like a poxy glue. You've got this glue, you've got that. When you mix it together, guess what? It becomes much stronger, and anything glued with that is going to stick together. And that's the way that we are to be. So many marriages today, people are not committed to each other. They're committed until something goes wrong. They've got their parachute, kick open the door, out the door. They parachute out of the marriage. That's not the way we're to be. A woman 99% of the time will respond to the cleaving process. She feels that her husband is cleaving to her, and a husband needs to be tuned in to the needs of his wife. Do you know what your wife's needs are? Her needs may be a little different than what somebody else. But they're a major thing. She needs to be loved, appreciated, cherished, have a guide, have a leader, somebody who's in charge who can lead in the right way. We've often heard that the opposite of love is hate. Well, it's not hate. It is... I forgot to write the word down. I had the word apathy written down, but Norm and I were talking about that coming down the road. It's not strictly apathy.

Indifference. Right. I should have written that in my notes. It is indifference. That's Norm's contribution to the sermon today. In fact, she's contributed most of it when you look back over the years that we've been married. A lot of times people say, well, I don't hate my wife, but they're indifferent.

And when you're indifferent, there's nothing that turns a woman off more than to think that her husband doesn't care about her. And there is apathy connected with that, a lack of concern. There are physical needs, emotional needs, mental, spiritual needs. She needs to know that you are loyal, that you are committed, that you will go to the Mth degree to make this marriage work. It's not just a matter of, well, we're married, I've got to stick it out. No, it's not a matter of sticking it out. It's a matter of making it work. You want to make it work. You're going to have a beautiful car sitting outside. And it looks like a beautiful car, but if the engine isn't operating, guess what? You want it to work so that when you get in, you push on the gas, or push the starter, it's going to start. And it's going to go. And that's the way our marriage should be. Brethren, we need to build a God-playing relationship in our marriages as much as possible. And realize that there are living laws that govern marriage. And as we apply those laws, as we're willing to do our part, our marriage is even in a marriage where it might be split. It can be, to that degree, something that is happy. We need to desire it. We need to want it. We need to pray for it. And we need to ask God to give us the right desire to have a right marriage and attitude. Ask God to bless your marriage. We need God's blessing on that marriage. Ask for a miracle. It may take a miracle, in some cases, for us to change our marriages around and to respond. Ask God to change you. We can always ask God to change our mate. But what about changing us? If we change us, that's the only one we can do anything with, is us. Love is man's responsibility. Ask God to help you grow in love. You can bring romance back into a marriage and inspire it, but it's going to take effort. Submitting and respecting is a woman's responsibility. So the next time I speak, I will address, how can a woman fulfill her responsibilities in a marriage?