A Godly Marriage

What the world decides is good is on display outside this room. Whenever we step outside of church services, we enter into what society thinks is the right way to live, the good way to live.

It's what's wise and what's smart. You and I grew up in that, and we agreed with that. We accepted its values. We see over in Ephesians chapter 2 in the first three verses a description by the Apostle Paul that all of us, all of us, whether we were born in the church and raised, still had that mindset that was not from God. It says in verse 2 of Ephesians chapter 2, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh of the mind. You know, that was normal to you and me, and we would look at human life through the perspective of our culture, whatever country you were in or whatever part or cultural setting you were in. That was kind of normal. But we drop down to verse 10. We find out that we now are something different.

We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So here we are today, and we are now the people of God at this point in time, and we are striving to have different ideas and different concepts and different values. So let's go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14.

As children of God now, and we take our directives from His Word and from the Holy Spirit, we now find ourselves in a different category, being God's children, with a different set of inputs than we used to get from society around us. And we are told here, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? So we now see a distinct, distinct contrast between what exists outside the door that we walk through every day during the week, and we are conveyed and maybe work and go to school in. And we're given this contrast that we're told, look, you're believers, and right now they're unbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness doing right according to God's Word with lawlessness? Those who would not look at this as the law that they would follow.

And what communion has light with darkness? So we begin to say, hmm, all right. We understand then that we have a different not only set of values and laws, but mentally we're to come out of this society. What agreement, verse 16, has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God has said, I will dwell in them, I will walk among them, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

And I will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and my daughters, says the Lord Almighty. So what we need to do today is put aside what we've learned to this point out there. And we've picked up a lot as we've walked through life. We pick up a lot in entertainment, in books, in examples, peer pressure, all the ideas, and what society is now pushing more and more. We, being in society, are affected by it. We're not to be of it, but we are affected by it. And so let's talk today about one of those topics that society has sort of trained us to think in a certain way. And let's recognize that we need to clear the boards on that one and look in here. And the topic that we'd like to look at today is marriage.

So forget for a minute what we see outside this room in marriages, or outside this Bible in marriages. Or even forget what you think about marriage, or I think about marriage. Let's stop and look at what the Bible says about marriage. Ignore what you and I have come to put together, maybe, with part world, part TV, part examples, part family, part feelings, and part Bible.

And let's just take a clean sheet of paper and begin to come to see what the Bible says regarding marriage. What does God teach us about marriage? The title of the sermon today is a godly marriage. Like, let's get rid of everything else, including our own ideas, no matter how good they might be. And let's look in here and see what a godly marriage is.

One of the first things we see in the Bible is that Adam was made by God. Now, if you read the account carefully, you'll find that Adam was created, and he was created outside the Garden of Eden. We don't know how long he lived out there, but he was alive outside the Garden of Eden.

And then at some point in time, Genesis' account moves along very rapidly, at some point in time, God created a Garden of Eden, and he put Adam in that Garden. So he moved him over, and he put him in the Garden of Eden. There God established him as a leader. A leader, he gave him responsibilities, he created a covenant with Adam, in fact, and that covenant had certain restrictions.

That covenant had certain laws. He gave him responsibilities. He gave him jobs to do, goals, in fact. He gave him all of these things. Let's go to Genesis chapter 2. We'll pick it up in verse 15. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 15.

Then the Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and to keep it.

So now he's given him the responsibilities, the job. He is the leader of this, of tending and keeping this garden that he has made. And now the Lord engages in a covenant with him, some laws, some rules. They're not well defined, but we know this much at least. The Lord God commanded the man, he was the only one there, saying this, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. So there's his covenant, and it's based on obedience to God with certain rewards and certain penalties. So this is pretty good. You see this individual, you see his important role, you see his duties a little bit larger than he can do by himself.

And then he says in verse 18, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. So after all this is established, and Adam is, you know, online, he has his responsibilities laid out, he has his covenant going, he needs a helper comparable to him. So verse 19, out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would name them, what he would call them. Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So this goes on, and Adam now is naming all of the animals, and you can surmise from that. God has put them all under his authority, he's given them names.

He sees that obviously he is the top of the chain, as it were, of all these created animals.

But at the same time something profound happens, and that is Adam gave these names, but in verse 20, but for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

So it's as if someone was searching, like Adam, as these animals all came. He thought the giraffe looked pretty nice, a little tall for him, not real smart. You know, next comes the zebra, you know, etc., etc., and after a while Adam says there was no helper found, found, that was comparable to him. So that became obvious, and perhaps one of the main reasons why God brought all those animals to him, to give him certainly the understanding that he was a unique kind, it was created in the image of God, but also for him to be able to appreciate what God was about to do. And so in verse 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and God took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place, and then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman. Now that word woman, if you look it up in the Hebrew and you look it up in the Greek, it means wife and female. Okay, so if you look it up in the Hebrew and the Old Testament, you'll see definition woman, wife, female. You look it up in the Greek, you'll find wife, female. If you look up the definition of female, it means the gender that can produce offspring or eggs. So it is that gender that is capable of producing offspring.

So here we then see that verse 22, the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So when we look at this, we see in a relationship of marriage, in the very first marriage, you have a man who has a covenant, has responsibilities, has goals, has tasks, has laws, has rules, and God sees the need for a comparable helper to him. She wasn't there when the covenant was made. She wasn't there when the garden was formed. She wasn't there when the animals were named, etc., etc., but now she's given to him as one who is comparable. There's some similarities between this Adam and the second Adam. You know, we read over in Paul's writings, for instance, that there is a type. The first Adam was a type of the second Adam, and vice versa. The second Adam was a type of the first Adam. There are several similarities there. Excuse me a second. If we go over to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 27, let's look at this and change the word man to capitalize.

Let's just look at this as if it were Jesus Christ being spoken of later in time. So God created man, capital M. He resurrected Jesus Christ, did he not? He gave him life.

He created him in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Jesus Christ now comes to the throne of the Father in heaven. It's like the Garden of Eden where God was, only in the spiritual sense, in the image of God. And he created him. Male and female, he created them. What is happening right now? Jesus Christ is a husband of a bride, and he is creating a bride for his son, just like Adam, who had a responsible relationship with God, needs a bride. So Jesus Christ, at his resurrection, went and sat at the right hand of God and is in a wonderful garden, as it were. He's given the authority and the responsibility, all authority and responsibility, but what is he waiting for? He's waiting for a bride. He needs a helper. And so you and I, at this point in time, are being developed into a bride for Christ. And then verse 28, God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.

That's what God said to Adam and Eve, and they did that effectively. Jesus Christ and his bride are going to take a very diminished human population, and through the millennial period and the second resurrection, great white throne judgment period, they're going to fill the earth with godly individuals who are candidates for the eternal kingdom of God. So there is a first Adam and there's a second Adam. But notice in both of those instances, the relationship within the marriage. You have the man, small m, and then second Adam, you have the man, capitalized m, and he is the one who has given certain responsibilities and goals and tasks and covenants.

And then he needs a helper to come along and help him totally fulfill that, to open that up, to make it all take place. It's important for us to understand as the model type of a godly marriage, how God puts these things together. When we look at marriage back in Jesus's day, we can look at Jewish tradition, Jewish history, about what marriages were like back in that day. Many of the stories about marriage that you and I read of in the Bible can be understood through some of these historical type of references and understandings. For instance, the father, a father of the husband and of the bride, the fathers were the ones that would arrange the marriages. Just like we've just read there before, God and Adam, God arranged the marriage of Eve, right? The father arranged the marriage of the bride. None can come to Jesus Christ except the father draws them. The father is bringing this bride to the husband. And so when we find some of these marriage examples in the New Testament, we could understand them a little bit better if we understood how the fathers planned for the children's marriages. One thing that Jewish history will bring out is that the goal of marriage from the father, both on the the young man's side and the woman's side, but especially the young man's side, in choosing a potential bride or choosing a woman for his son to marry, the goal, the goal was to strengthen related families. The relationships between relatives were to be strengthened. That was the goal, not some kind of, oh, who will he love the most and who, you know, blah, blah, blah.

No, it was we need to have a strong family and inter-family relationship that continues.

Think for a moment back to Abraham and his descendants. Remember how Isaac, he wanted a wife for Isaac. She had to go back to Familyville somewhere and go back to, he had to go find a wife at a relative. It's very important that a wife was provided for him from somebody that would empower or certainly strengthen family relationships.

In the next generation, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, what about Jacob? Jacob sent back up there. Go back and find a wife up in there. Go find Laban and see if there is a woman who will strengthen that family relationship. As we've read before, we're not to go out into society and be joined together with somebody who would not strengthen the family relationship, who is without ties, who is without harmony, but rather to do that within the family.

If you look also in Jewish history, you'll find that the goal of a father getting a wife for his son was also to provide the sons with a family support system that would help the father and mother in their old age have someone care for them, to be able to provide for them, who were able to see them through their golden years. So there was some strategy to all of this.

The fathers actually quite often would hire experts who would go out and do some of the searching and some of the legwork, and they were able to know and understand family relationships, strengths, and make certain recommendations for the fathers then to go in and look at.

You can imagine that because of this strategy, you didn't as a father, you didn't want to be late in the game. I mean, there's only so many young women out there available for all the sons, so you wanted to be on top of this. And so you and your strategist might be watching girls from, you know, childhood up and saying, okay, we've got some potentials here with this family, and watching them see how they grow, see how they come up. And then usually at age 13, or at the latest 14, typically, a father would go to the father of a young girl and make a commitment.

They would say, all right, we're choosing, I'd like to choose your daughter for my son. And that commitment came with a bride price. The bride price was important because it showed the value that that girl would bring to the family. The sons would live in what you might call the family ranch, a compound. It was a larger family environment in which new houses would be built there.

People would age, people would come up, etc., etc. But you would have buildings and things, but this woman would bring value to your family compound. She would be certainly another laborer, but also she would be bringing in children, grandchildren. She would be doing a whole lot of care, etc., etc.

So she was worth a good bride price, and that was quite important. When a father contracted with another father for a bride, for his son, that contract was written, and both of the young people had to agree to it. So the girl would have to agree to that marriage contract as well, and that was called a betrothal. And now that was a legal, binding marriage at that point in time. And then the girl would stay with her family until such time as the father deemed it a good time for them to marry.

Obviously, 13, 14, she probably wouldn't be ready as a wife, fully matured, fully trained, etc., etc. But they would observe her for six months, a year, two years. Typically within the range of six months to two years, the father would determine that this girl, through the help of what you might call a best man who would go visit her quite often, he kept track of her, maybe sent some information over there, some things to work on, some goals, for that young lady.

But when she was finally ready and ready to be a wife, then the father would hold a wedding for them. They would have the wedding feast. The contract stipulated, typically, the bride price of around 200 denarii, 200 silver denarii, and that's the approximate amount needed to feed 5,000 people. If you look in Mark 6, verse 37, I won't turn there, but you'll see the disciples are asking Jesus, how are we going to feed all these people?

There's 5,000 people here. That would cost us about 200 denarii, and that just happened to be what the bride price would be. Can you imagine feeding 5,000 people a banquet? That would cost a lot of money. That might just cost you two-thirds of a year's salary, which is what 200 denarii was back then.

It was two-thirds of a year of a salary, and if somebody backed out, then that money had to be repaid. If anybody ever got divorced, that money had to be paid. By the time of Jesus, people could scarcely come up with 200 denarii. So there was an agreement made about 700 years before that, that in Jewish weddings, you would pay the 200 denarii if a divorce ever took place. And that was very helpful. It made people work real hard to stay together. So that's pretty good. Now, once the couple were betrothed at that contract, they didn't see each other again.

Like I said, they didn't see each other until the wedding supper, typically. And so it wasn't something that was just all romantic, and somebody had chosen somebody. This was the responsible expectation that people had. Now, during this period of time, the girl had some things that she had to do. She had to mature. She had to learn about being a wife, and she had to learn about homemaking and really come up to speed on those things. She also had to make her wedding dress. Nobody knew, including the son, when this wedding would occur. Nobody knew but the father, because he was the only one that could make it.

But eventually he would make a wedding feast. Now, here's the interesting thing.

The wedding feast had to have food. It had to have drink. They had no refrigeration. It wasn't like you could say, oh, let's plan this, you know, or let's do that, or no. It's kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. Let's go over to Matthew 22 and verse 2 and see Jesus Christ describe this. Matthew 22 verses 2 through 4.

The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son.

So he had the arranged marriage, and then at some point in time, he sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding, and they were not willing to come. Now, Jesus says that nobody knows the day or the hour when our marriage supper will take place. Only the father knows. And the reason for that is because it's the same type of marriage, and only the father determines that. And when he gets an inkling that today's the day, well, guess what? He sends out his servants to call everybody invited to the wedding, but some were not willing to come. Verse 4, again, he sent out other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited. Now, here's what goes into throwing a wedding supper.

See, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready, come to the wedding. You kill the oxen, and you cook the meat, and there's no refrigeration.

Tonight's the wedding, no matter what. You remember Jesus Christ talking about 10 virgins, and them getting the call at midnight. The father decided the wedding's going to be tonight, and I think typically they were done in the evening. Everybody would be off work, and you send everybody out, and here you have the 10 bridesmaids, and they're all called, you know, Come, let's go, and five were ready, and five weren't. So the groom's one would go around and invite the guests, the bridesmaids, to come now. The best man would go and collect the bride, and she needed to be ready in short order. She had to have that dress ready for sure.

She had to have been, you know, developing her skills and talents and ready to come.

Today's the day. Here we go. Now, the best man brought her to the groom's father's house, into the compound, and there would be a temporary house set up there, a tent, for the new couple.

So they would then have a seven-day feast, typically, and the bride and groom then would live in the section of the father's compound. You remember Jesus Christ saying, In my father's house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you.

So he was preparing a place for his bride in his father's house.

Like I said now, this new wife is coming with respect, with appreciation, admiration, good bride price for her. She's bringing more family in the end, a very, very worthy individual.

Now, all of us who are baptized have agreed to a betrothal covenant. We are married.

So when we talk about a godly marriage today, this isn't just about human marriages.

We have all entered into this relationship, and we are waiting. We're supposed to be making ourselves ready, as it says. The bride is making herself ready. And we're supposed to be having that dress made white and clean with the righteous acts of the saints.

And we're waiting and hoping that someday the call is going to come, and then we will join Christ in the air and move forward to the wedding supper. So this is all very exciting.

We are bought with a bride price. If you look there in 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 20, we weren't just bought by a price as a slave. Some commentaries will want to say, well, oh, that's talking about buying a slave like we're slaves of God. No. Look at the context. It's all about Jesus Christ and the marriage of the bride. So we are bought with a high bride price. He gave his life, his blood for us. We are very, very important to God the Father and Jesus Christ. And we are then maturing and preparing our wedding dress, as it were. Now, we are then like a bride to the second Adam, as Eve was a bride to the first Adam that is being provided to a husband. We go back to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 15.

With the first Adam, we go back and look at him a little bit more.

The Lord took the man out of the garden of Eden to tend, or in the garden of Eden, to tend and to keep it.

So we see tending and keeping it. And he is given a covenant with life and death consequences, just like you and me. You know, our covenant is all about life, but it also has death consequences.

There is no helper. And right now, Jesus Christ has all these responsibilities.

Now, in verse 28 of chapter 1, God blessed them, and God says, Be fruitful and multiply.

So within a marriage, the expectation and the hope is that there will be children.

Not everyone is able to have children, and that can be a sad thing if one is barren.

But at the same time, that is what God wants. But now, here are some things.

If we look at this first Adam, we see Eve is created from him to assist him, part of him, in achieving God's goals. What those were essentially were dressing and keeping the garden and replenishing and having children, being fruitful and multiply.

Adam taught Eve the covenant. Let's go over to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 2.

Genesis 3 and verse 2, you know, remember that Eve wasn't there when God gave these rules, the laws, the two trees, etc. Eve was not there. But she was taught by Adam, as we see in chapter 3, in verse 2. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. Oh, how does she know this? Well, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. So there is one aspect here of the man being able to understand and convey, just as in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says, you know, a woman should not speak during the formal part of church service, but rather if she has questions, let her ask her husband. God does work through that. And here we see Adam has taught Eve.

As we go on in verse 3, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. She understands fully the consequences here. However, this world's view, society's view of marriage now ruins their lives, just totally ruins it by both people.

Let's see how this works. In Genesis chapter 3 and verse 6, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. So we see here that the husband stopped obeying God. We also see that the husband stopped being the leader. She is now the leader. She is the one making the decisions, and he is following her. The husband has stopped using God's law to set his goals.

His goal is now to please his wife. The wife stopped submitting to her husband's leadership. She now is taking matters into her own hands, and the wife here, the Bible would say, dealt treacherously or covertly. She chose another relationship. She went outside the relationship of her and her husband and her and God, and she now has a relationship with a serpent. So she covertly goes out away from God and away from her husband. Notice the husband isn't there, and she now has this relationship with a third party covertly. And then to please his wife, the husband follows her. Now let's see this over in 1 Kings chapter 2 and verse 1.

1 Kings chapter 2 and verse 1. Solomon. Solomon, son of David, was made king by God. He was given the wisdom of God. He was able to build the temple for God. 1 Kings chapter 2 and verse 1, Now the days of David drew near that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth. Be strong therefore, and prove yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies, that is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do, wherever you turn. Wow, that is good stuff.

So we see here he is the leader, and he is given these responsibilities. But how's he going to do that without a wife, without a helper? He needs to fulfill these responsibilities. He has a goal, but how is he going to pass along his kingship to an heir if he doesn't have a son, if he doesn't have children? So he needs a wife, a helper, a child bearer for the family. Now let's skip ahead to 1 Kings chapter 11 and verse 2. 1 Kings chapter 11 and verse 2. Well, let's start in verse 1.

1 Kings 11 verse 1, But King Solomon loved many foreign women outside the family realm, outside the godly line, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Sidonians, the Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn your hearts after their gods. And Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.

For so it was when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God.

So here we find that the husband stopped obeying God.

Verse 6, Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not fully follow the Lord, as his father David did. He also stopped being the leader. He let his wives lead. He stopped using God's law to set his goals. Instead, he acquired horses, and he acquired chariots, and he acquired all kinds of gold. The wives did not submit to their husband's leadership.

The wives dealt treacherously or covertly. They chose other religious relationships.

And to please their wives, the husband followed his helpers.

Now let's go look at a third example. This is found in Proverbs 31.

Proverbs 31 is a great opportunity here for all of us because you can put your name in Proverbs 31.

This is going to be King Lemuel and Queen Diemond. Okay? King Lemuel and Queen Diemond. In Proverbs 31, we have King Lemuel. We don't know who he was, but King Lemuel's father had died, and the father would choose a wife for him. But unfortunately, the father died and didn't choose a wife, and so his mother, the queen, is needing to find an appropriate wife, a helper for her son. So the words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him, verse 2, What my son, and what son of my womb, and what son of my vows.

So here she's very concerned here, and she wants to have a good helper.

Now, King Lemuel could be a type of you, you guys, in a marriage.

And his mother's trying to find a virtuous woman, a good wife with virtue, that would be great for the king. That could be any of you ladies, right? You could put your name there.

You could be Queen Diemond. She's going to be far above Ruby, so I've named her Diemond.

So you have King Lemuel, you can identify with these guys, and you have Queen Diemond to be, as it were.

And so we look at this, and we also might say here, okay, King Lemuel, we don't know anything about.

And so how did this turn out? Well, you can write it yourself. You can write their marriage.

You can write their success, whether it was successful or not successful, because it didn't happen yet. This is still in the desirable phase. It's almost like you as the bride of Christ, and King Lemuel is Jesus Christ. And God is saying, or maybe even the church, the woman is saying, who can find, you know, a wife suitable for this king? There's all kinds of things you can look at here. But notice in verse 10, Mrs. Queen, the Queen Mother, let's say, the Queen Mother says, who can find a virtuous wife for my son? For her worth is far above rubies.

Far above rubies. So this virtuous woman, this bride for him, I would just call her future queen or princess, I guess future queen, diamond. But we begin to see then the relationship here of a king. The king had to write a copy of God's law, as we've read. He had to read it daily. That was part of his responsibility, to read it daily and be guided by God's law. He was to be the leader. He was given goals. He was given responsibility, territory, to lead this group of God's people. And he needed a helper. So who can find a virtuous helper? For her worth would be far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her. So this woman here is going to not be involved in anything clandestine, secretive, that would be in any way, shape, or form. Not building up the family relationship, strengthening family relations, bringing children in. She would be very, very trustworthy so that he will have no lack of gain. That's the focus. Not about her, it's about him. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. And she seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands. You know, you right now are a bride. Whether you're male, female, as long as you're baptized, you're a bride. You're the bride of Christ. You are already bought with the price. You are committed to marriage. You agreed to that and waiting for the marriage supper announcement to come along and to be raised. So there we are. And what are we to be like for him? We are to be doing him good all the days of our life, really supporting.

Now that would be the same with a wife to a husband. He has responsibilities. He has goals. He has the need for a helper. And here she is doing him good. So she seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands in the kingdom of God. We're not going to be some sort of, you know, bride of Christ that's all dressed up and looks nice and put on a pedestal over here with light shining on it. And that's what we'll do for all eternity. You know, we're told about being over 10 cities or five cities, about going out and teaching, about helping, about actually warring with Christ at one point, about being there for him and helping him. And so in verse 15, she rises while as she at night she provides food for her household. In a marriage, this is an important role for a woman and also for the bride of Christ, to provide that spiritual food, to go out and teach and to work with individuals, help them grow spiritually. In verse 16, she considers a field and buys it.

I've always looked at this as not the ground but what's in the field, a regular duty that she would do. She would go out and say, look, we've got this compound here or we have, as a king's wife, we have this city and I'm going to go out and I'm going to look at the crops this year, look at this field of crops. Maybe it's wheat or maybe it's some types of vegetables or things. These aren't very good quality but I'll consider this. Oh, look, this is good over here. I'll buy the whole field. I'll just buy the whole field of this crop and maybe that one and that one and do it, you know, all year long, every year. And then, verse, in the second half of verse 16, from her prophets she plants a vineyard.

So she would be able to use this but also sell some of that and from the prophets she'd be able to plant a vineyard. She girds herself with strength.

You know, you can just go down here and see so many things. In verse 20, she extends her hands to the poor. She reaches out her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of snow. She makes tapestry for herself. Verse 23, now her husband has other responsibilities. He doesn't do the dishes and, you know, make sure that she has the latest fashions and make sure that, you know, she's, you know, kind of the one that's, that's, her husband is known in the gates. You see, the king would sit in the gate as the counselor or men of renown would sit in the gates and they would be sort of judges. They might be like attorneys. They might be people who provide wisdom or assistance. He, he as an individual has a different responsibility. Notice, when he sits among the elders of the land.

So these, these elders, the wise ones, the ones who are leaders, he is among them. And she makes linen garments and sells them. Verse 25, strength and honor are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness. And she watches over the ways of her household. And it's important for a woman who has children to watch over that, to help to rear those children, really the hands-on watching over what they're doing.

The husband will have other responsibilities within this type of a structure and she does not eat the bread of idleness. And her children rise up and call her blessed because she does a lot of the interaction with them. Her husband also calls her blessed and he praises her.

Many daughters have done well but you exceed them all.

Verse 31, give her the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates.

So she should be a person who is noted in the gates and being talked about among the gates is a person of considerable honor because of the great assistance, the help, the mother that she is, the provider, the one who is assisting poor, and even helping the community with some of their needs. So when we look at godly marriage in the church then, we keep seeing this recurring theme that God appoints husbands to achieve some goals, to obey, to work, to be fruitful, to multiply, to love, to teach the family. And the modern example of that is Jesus Christ and the bride where you have the father and you have the son and he calls the church the bride of Christ and there is growth taking place. There is there is a marriage that is being patterned in a way that you and I can follow ourselves.

In Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 31 then, we see this pattern once again in the church of God. Again, forget what's in society, but we see this pattern in the church of God. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 31, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. In verse 23, in this relationship, the husband is appointed as the leader, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. Now, we would never say that Jesus Christ isn't the head of the church, and here we find in the biblical godly marriage the husband is the head of the wife. But notice, the husband isn't a carnal head of the wife. He is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, and a godly man, a loving man, a caring man, a supporting man, and his Savior of the body.

Therefore, we see in verse 24, as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. So, the husband is to love his wife. We see in verse 25, husbands love your wives. How? Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for. It wasn't a passive thing. It wasn't some sort of a dictatorial thing. No, Jesus Christ got down and washed his wife's feet, and then he died for her as well as serving her and humbling himself even to come down from heaven to be a human being. And in that sense, husbands are to love their wives. It's a very humble love. It's a very selfless type of love. So, we're to love the wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the Word. So, there are definite correlations there, but one thing that is important is that the husband is to love his wife only, only, not to have wandering eyes or thoughts of anybody else, but a woman really, really wants a husband who is devoted to her, who is faithful to her. I've heard so many women, in fact, a lady in her 90s recently told me multiple times recently, you know, I'm so thankful that my husband was faithful to me. That's really what a woman wants in life. Well, I'm not a woman, I don't know, but that to her was a big, big, big deal, and he was always faithful to me, and I could always trust him to be faithful to me. And this woman and her husband were just like two lovebirds. They really were. They were just nuts for each other, and it made a really good life for them. But in Matthew 5 and verse 28, we find here Jesus Christ, who is our husband, is telling us, I say to you that whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now, there's... you need to focus on the wife that God gave you as your helper only, and therein comes one of the greatest gains that a man and a woman will ever have. It's such a beautiful, beautiful thing when a man always focuses his eyes on his wife.

There's a couple of little miraculous things that take place that most men don't know because they don't do that. They wouldn't know. Well, the first thing is, God created man with a real appreciation for his wife, and when he focuses on that, she brings to him the joy of beauty, the joy of warmth, the joy of something so different than we are. I still just marvel at my wife every morning when she comes out. I'm like, wow, I can't believe you're female. You're so different than me. You're just...

your face is so pretty, and your hair and your eyes, and it... you know, when you have that focus, it is something you appreciate all the time. And if somebody doesn't have that focus, it's sad. It was... it would really be sad. And the second gift is, by doing that... I know you women are always worried about aging and wrinkles and everything. Well, let me tell you the little miracle that takes place is your husband can't remember what you used to look like, and that's God's gift to you. Nor can he remember where he put his car keys.

And don't complain about that because you either get one or the other. Either he can remember everything like you can, or he can remember nothing, and that's good because every day is a new day.

And that's a beautiful gift that God gave. We have this... I call it kind of a memory that it cycles out really fast. It's a short-term memory that just... you know, it's like what hotel...

what was your hotel room number last year at the feast? You don't really know. Because, well, you were there all the time, and you knew it while you were there, but then you didn't need that anymore. Well, our memory is kind of like that on certain things, certain things, and you're one of them as a wife. And ask your husband what you're wearing right now without him looking at you, and I bet he can't tell you. He knew what you were wearing when you got in the car, but for some reason, now it's just... it evaporates, and that's a wonderful gift.

It really is, because every day is the day you've looked the best to us.

Now, husbands and wives who follow society's ideas run aground. Let's go over to Malachi 2 in verse 13, and this is talking about the church. Malachi 2 in verse 13. You know, Job was commended to Satan by God as being the most righteous person on earth. Daniel was said that he was loved up in heaven at the throne because he was such a great guy. Well, guys, if you want to really spoil that, notice what else goes on at the throne of God.

Malachi 2 in verse 13. God says, and this is the second thing you do, you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying. How would you like to be known in heaven at God's throne for the one that's bringing all of this noise and crying and tears to the throne? Why?

You say, for what reason? Because Lord has been witnessed, verse 14, between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously. Oh, you're not focused on loving her and loving her only. You're not focused on being the right leader and husband and one who cares and humbles yourself and makes sure that she has everything she needs like the Proverbs 31 wife did. She had to have that all set up where she could do the weaving and do the sewing and do the purchasing and have a home and everything else. She was provided with these things on his part of the responsibility.

But here we see, oh, yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit, and why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your Spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. There's deal treacherously.

Don't circumvent. Don't go outside. Don't do something. You look up those words. You'll find that it means doing something kind of on the sly, peeking where you shouldn't peek, thinking what you should think. For the Lord God of Israel said, he hates divorce. So therefore, take heed to your Spirit that you do not deal treacherously. So society's ideas are all about treachery in a relationship, all about this other thing, wandering eyes and wandering everything to the point where they want to break apart marriage and personal sensuality, where they even want to take away male, female, or anything else, and reformat it into something that just trashes relationships. That's why we don't want to think about what's outside in the world.

Those things create arguments and division and competition and divorce.

Marriage is a covenant. You made a covenant when you got married.

Do you remember what you covenanted to?

Sometimes it's hard to remember. I know when Mary and I got married, we had a wedding, and it was actually right after, in 1974, right after a decision had been made, a slight change in, we might call it doctrine, about divorce and remarriage. And I won't go into what that was, but what it ended up being is some people thought that they had some freedom to drop a mate. And so Mr. Armstrong, in 1974, once that decision was made, he rewrote the marriage ceremony that we have, and it was called the new marriage ceremony. And the ones he used it on first were John and Mary. And so he wanted to make sure that we understood. So we were at the wedding there in Pasadena, and he had on stage some people singing and all. And Mr. Armstrong and I were over in a little side room where the folding chairs, extra folding chairs, were kept in this room, a little room. And it was full of folding chairs. There wasn't much room, but we each got a folding chair, and we were cramped in this little room waiting to come up on stage. For about 30 minutes, Mr. Armstrong had me as an audience in there to explain about this marriage covenant. And as he got wound up more and more, I heard the singing going on outside, and Mr. Armstrong was telling me, he finally said, John, you can never divorce Mary! I don't know if they could hear it out there, but I sure did. And I told him, I said, well, Mr. Armstrong, I hope not. And he said, what? Oh, yeah, okay. And then we got called out. So we got called out on the stage. It was our time to go out and stand there. Now, here I am. I'm 22 years old, and I'm nervous, and you got this big room full of people. Everybody you ever knew is in the room, and the bridesmaids are coming down, and the groomsmen, and here comes this beautiful bride, and I'm stunned. Here's Mary. I'd never seen her in a wedding dress before.

Quite stunning. So I had tears running down my eyes, actually. Mr. Armstrong wanted to know if I was happy here. He didn't have my kind of emotions. So anyway, we go through the ceremony, and then it comes to the point where he's asking the questions and all. And I'm like, and do you, John? You know, I do. And do you marry? I do. And then afterward, you know, you're supposed to stand in your place, supposed to walk out, and you do all that. And then down the road, you kind of forget, what was it we said we would do? You know, and now here we are almost 50 years later. What is it we said we would do? Well, let me read it to you. Here are the marriage vows that the United Church of God still uses today. Do you then, husband, faithfully promise and covenant with God in the presence of these witnesses to take her to be your lawful wedded wife in sickness and in health, in good times and in difficult times, for as long as you both shall live, to love her, to cherish her, to honor her, and to be faithful to her? And you say, I do.

And do you wife, faithfully promise, and covenant with God in the presence of these witnesses to take him to be your lawful wedded husband in sickness and in health, in good times and in difficult times, for as long as you both shall live, to love him, to cherish him, to honor him, to be faithful to him, and as God has ordained, to submit yourself to him?

So in saying yes, we have made a covenant before God with each other. These are called vows, and we need to fulfill those vows. And one thing about those vows is the care that is involved.

There is care. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, which gives several details concerning some of the, what'd you say, technical issues of marriage, it also contains this in chapter 7 and verse 33, 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul, at this point in time, probably wasn't married, but notice what he says here about the responsibilities of a man to a woman and a woman to a man in marriage.

1 Corinthians 7 verse 33, But he that is married cares for the things that are of the world.

So let's stop here a minute. He that is married cares for the things of, let's say, life, daily life, or the physical world. He's talking about our physical life versus, you know, focusing on the kingdom. Cares, cares for in the Greek, means anxious about. So he that is married has some anxious, in other words, devoted thought and thinking. Okay? It's active. It's active, devoted thought and thinking about the things that are of this life so that he may please his wife.

It's important for a man to take the time to care for, or have that Greek word anxious. It doesn't mean anxiety. It just means a busyness about the things that are of this life, how he may please his wife. He says there's difference also between a wife and a virgin. The young woman cares for, she is anxious, or she is busy about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy, both in body and spirit. But notice, now here comes the woman. She that is married cares for, she is deeply involved in, caring for, how she may please her husband. These aren't said in a negative sense.

He's just stating there how a marriage works and what you will be involved in.

So we've seen that God gave the husband laws, goals, made him a leader, given him a helper, and he has children. God gave the wife his law, she gave him a leader, she is there to help with her husband's goals, she's there to provide children and help raise the children, and all those other things mentioned in Proverbs 31. So we begin to see here, then, a godly marriage and how it is set up and some of the roles and responsibilities that we see in Scripture.

I'd like to conclude by reading in Ephesians chapter 5. We'll begin in verse 22 and read through chapter 6 and verse 4. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 22.

From Scripture, we now have this pattern of an arrangement of a godly marriage.

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, who is loving, who is involved in our welfare, who gives us everything we need through God's Spirit and through miracles and help, and he equips us with all the tools we need in order to function as his bride, so let the wives be to their husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church, fully providing for her everything that she needed and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify 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 she should be holy and without blemish. That is our responsibility. That was the responsibility of the bride while she was waiting to be called to the wedding supper, as we read in Revelation 19, verses 7-9, that she has made herself ready.

So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your wife as your own body. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh and his blood. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and 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. That role, pattern, that relationship of a godly marriage is established in heaven, and it is linked to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, verse 33, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let his wife see that she respects her husband. And there's a downfall in a human relationship we tend to want to reciprocate in kind. If a man does not love his wife, she will not respect him. And if a wife does not respect her husband, he will not love her. And so you can get into a cycle of, eh, because he doesn't love me, well, she doesn't respect me, see? And so these things can break down. Neither here is reliant upon the other. Jesus Christ's love for you is not based on what he gets back in return as far as respect, but it's up to us to repent and grow and respect and submit, and in that sense, develop ourself as a bride and put on white linen garments for the wedding, you know, and be ready for that wedding supper. So we, he is not sort of responding in kind to our shortcomings. So don't let that, if you're a husband or a wife, don't let that impede you doing what you should do, which is either respect your husband, find things to respect, and ignore those things that you might not like so much. Same with the wife. Find ways to respect things about him, and your husbands find ways to love and respect and honor her far above rubies. And if there are things about her that you don't necessarily think are the greatest, just don't think about them. You know, think about the great things in life. Think about the good things. You'll find lots to love and lots to respect and lots to honor, and that's a wonderful blessing. And then in chapter 6 we find, continuing on in this relationship, as children come, children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. We're children of God. We're children of our father, and we're to obey him. In our children, God wants godly offspring, we already read in Malachi, the second chapter. Our children are to be brought up in the admonition and the training of the Lord, mostly by the mother if she's there with them, especially when they're young.

But children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and that you may live on the earth, long on the earth. In verse 4, and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. The father's responsibility is to do that, but he needs a helper in doing that, just as we see Timothy and his mother and grandmother helped him with a lot of the understanding of God's law.

So in conclusion, we see in the Bible a husband with God's law. He is given godly goals.

He has the leadership of a family assisted by a loving wife and children. And we see a wife who has God's law. She is a godly helper. She has a growing family, and she serves that family in her husband, and she respects her husband. Now, no matter how society around you structures romance or marriages, this is how the kingdom of God in heaven structures its marriages.

And anything other than that, which is in Scripture, we should come out of and ignore.

Let's all strive to be in a godly marriage with Jesus Christ and as his bride, doing our responsibility to prepare for that wedding supper. And at the same time, when we have opportunity to be in a physical marriage, let's make sure that we fall into the roles and responsibilities and are faithful in those that God has given us.