Love Busters

After over four hundred years in Egypt, a time in which the status of the children of Israel went from guests to slaves, the Israelites left Egypt under the leadership of Moses and then wandered in the wilderness for forty years. This was a time of great trial and training for the Israelites. God fed them all those years with daily manna and by so doing He reestablished the weekly Sabbath cycle firmly in their minds. And you know, over the years the people of Israel murmured. They complained and they sought other gods. This story of the tribes of Israel was recorded in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses that we refer to as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The story continues in the book of Joshua and beyond as the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, the land originally given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Today, we are here who have recently returned home from the Feast of Tabernacles. The six-month cycle of Holy Days for 2014 is complete. We've participated in Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day (also known as the Eighth Day). We now enter the sixth month period without annual Holy Days and it's during this time that strange things have historically happened. I've observed from many past years that some people drift away from God when they're not tied closely to the annual Holy Days.

Today I want to draw the parallels between the children of Israel's wandering in the wilderness, our marital lives, and our spiritual lives. I want to focus on keeping spiritually strong during this six month period by looking at the Kingdom of God as a future marriage and helping us to avoid those things that cause us to fall out of love with God. The title of this message is "Love Busters".

Seventeen years ago, my wife and I were at the Feast of Tabernacles in San Diego, California. We stopped to shop at a 'Crown Super Bookstore' and while at the store, I noticed a book on the display rack entitled "His Needs/Her Needs". I opened the book and inside the flap of the dust jacket was a picture of the author… a man who looked vaguely familiar. As I read and saw that he was from the same area where I went to college, I finally recognized the man. His hair had turned white the many years since I had seen him. Dr. Willard Harley was my psychology professor in college shortly after he had gotten his PhD and was a young professor. He had gone on to establish marriage counseling clinics around the region and has now gone national and indeed international and has a website "marriagebuilders.com". The concept of 'love busters' comes from his website "marriagebuilders.com" and I believe his book "His Needs/ Her Needs" are on the Church's recommended reading list. I know that over the years if I've had anyone come to me in regard to marital issues, I've referred them to this book or to the website because they have an excellent values oriented way for people to build and rebuild relationships.

Jesus Christ is likened to a bridegroom and we the bride. We read that in Matthew 9:15 "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast." In other words, they will do without… they won't have the spiritual food. He was referring to Himself and his apostles only having a short time on this earth together… referring to Himself as a bridegroom. Of course, if we turn to Matthew 22, there's the discussion about a wedding feast and those who did not show up for the wedding feast… what did God do? He called others to take their place. Our calling is much like being invited to a wedding feast. In Matthew 5, we have the parable of the wise and foolish virgins and once again we have this analogy of joining the Kingdom of God as being like a wedding invitation to a marriage. Matt. 5:1 "Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom." We often spend a lot of time on the details of how to get married, but not what to do when married. If people spent as much time, as Dr. Harley and others have explained, planning their marriage and how to be married as they do planning their family vacation, their marriages would be a lot happier.

We have this explanation that Dr. Harley gives about 'love busters", which explains a list of things that individuals do in a relationship to lose their love for each other. I'm going to use this as an organizational outline as we look at the children of Israel and our marital lives and our spiritual lives. The six "Love Busters" are:

         1) Selfish Demands
         2) Disrespectful Judgments
         3) Angry Outbursts
         4) Annoying Habits
         5) Independent Behavior
         6) Dishonesty

I've rushed through those, we'll do them one at a time so we can see how the Bible asks us to comport ourselves according to God's will and what the ancient Israelites did. The first one on the list is SELFISH DEMANDS. Those of you that had the opportunity to be at the Feast in Branson heard a message there about the story of Naaman, the head of the army in ancient Syria, who had leprosy. We can read about this story in 2 Kings. Naaman had to go to Israel to ask a prophet of God, Elisha, to ask God to cure his leprosy. Naaman was a very important man. He was close to the king of Syria. The king of Syria sent a letter to the king of Israel saying, "Please allow the head of my army to come over to your country, an enemy country, so he can be healed." When Naaman asked Elisha what he could do for him after he had been cured of the leprosy because he had gold and clothing and he wanted to know what he could do to repay him for this wondrous miracle. Elisha turned the gifts down because the healing was from God, not Elisha. But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha had other ideas and chased down Naaman so he could collect some money. If Elisha wasn't going to take the money, he figured he could get a few 'dollars' for himself. 2 Kings 5:20 "But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, "Look, my master has spared Naaman this Syrian, while not receiving from his hands what he brought; but as the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him." We see later what happened to Gehazi. He thought he was going to get something out of this… his own selfish demands, but unfortunately what he earned for himself was leprosy, the curse he brought on himself. Who brought the leprosy on Naaman? He brought it on himself. So the first item we have SELFISH DEMANDS is demonstrated by the example of Gehazi who thought that he would take advantage of a situation and serve himself rather than honoring God. Does that happen in our relationships? In our marriages? Do people somehow think that rather than serving God, they can serve themselves and overlook the important things in a relationship? We can examine that, but more important than that: Does the marital relationship that we have mirror the relationship that we have with God? How are we looking at our potential marriage with Jesus Christ? Are we going to be a good wife, not just a good bride, but a good wife? Would we be wanted by the bridegroom? Would we be selected or would our selfish demands get in the way? It certainly got in the way for Gehazi and that example is recorded for all of us because he thought he would heap to himself something rather than honoring and respecting God.

The second 'Love Buster' is DISRESPECTFUL JUDGMENTS.

In Exodus 14, we have the example of the children of Israel in the wilderness. They've been in Egypt for over four hundred years and are now wandering in the wilderness. They've had lots of challenges and they are very frustrated. Ex. 14:12 "Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, 'Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.'" They weren't happy with following Moses. They said they'd rather be slaves than be in a predicament. They weren't ready to follow God or God's servant. Then a couple of chapters later: Ex. 16:3 "And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." This is a clue that they were hungry, but they had just escaped slavery in Egypt through a series of miracles. They weren't understanding that the same God could certainly protect them in the wilderness. Num. 14:2 "And the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!" OUCH!! That's a terrible situation; you see they were not respectful of the relief that they had gotten from the slavery in Egypt and they were complaining about their woeful, woeful condition. Num. 20:4 "Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our animals should die here?" Num. 21:5 "And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread." They were being fed manna; they were being sustained in the wilderness. Because at this point they were continually complaining to Moses and to God and disrespecting the decisions God had made through Moses, there was a consequence for their behavior. Num. 26:65 "For the Lord had said of them, "They shall surely die in the wilderness." So there was not left a man of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun." All of them died in the wilderness. There is more to the story, of course… the spies were sent out and they rejected Joshua and Caleb's report and the children of Israel refused to go into the Promised Land. There was a consequence for their behavior for their failure to trust in God. They were disrespecting the judgments of God and so earned themselves a very difficult future. They themselves chose that they would not follow God's way into the promised land… they rejected that and so they wandered in the wilderness until they died except for Joshua and Caleb and their families who later went into the promised land. What about OUR relationships? Do we have disrespectful judgments in our relationships? Do we think our mates are doing something that's not in our best interest? Is that our automatic response? Are we like Israel and think we are getting dragged into a terrible predicament? God had their best interest at heart, but they didn't see it. Do we give our mate that same credibility… that our mate has our best interest at heart? Do we disrespect their judgment when they are trying to help us? Similarly, what about our spiritual lives and disrespectful judgments? Do we do like the Israelites? Do we disrespect what God has in mind for us? Are we following his plan and his expectation for us? When it says, 'many are called but few are chosen', who does the choosing? It's us who must choose to follow God.

The third type of love buster is ANGRY OUTBURSTS.

We have this occasion in which Moses is in the wilderness with the children of Israel. It was a very difficult time and there was upwards to two million people. (A lot of mathematicians have tried to figure out how the family expanded over those 430 years and they calculate that there could have been up to two million people that were thrust out of Egypt.) That takes a lot of food and a lot of water and they were thirsty and they were crying and their livestock were crying. In exasperation, Moses had an angry outburst. Num. 20:11 "Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank." On the surface, that doesn't seem like it would be a problem. Psalm 78:20 "Behold, he struck the rock, so that the waters gushed out, And the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Can he provide meat for his people?" The problem was that Moses took it upon himself as if he had done it and not as the servant of God. Moses was frustrated and had an angry outburst and although God still affected the outcome and provided water, it was Moses that called attention to himself as if he were the one, the power that had done so. That's why the psalmist writes "can he give bread also"… is he the one providing the manna? Of course he isn't. "Can he provide meat for his people?" The flocks of quail that came in the wilderness to feed the children of Israel, Moses didn't do that either! This is calling attention to the fact that God is the one that does the provision. We'll see what the consequence was for angry outbursts. It's hard to imagine that there was only one occasion that this happened, it could have been, but it's hard to imagine that it happened only once. (By this time Moses is an old man.) Deut. 32:48-52 "Then the Lord spoke to Moses that very same day, saying:" Verse 49 "Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession;" (The land had been given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob many generations before.) Verse 50 "and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people;" Verse 51 "because you trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin," (and then it says why) "because you did not hallow Me in the midst of the children of Israel." Verse 52 "Yet you shall see the land before you, though you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel." So, this sudden outburst in which Moses had directed the attention to himself as if he were doing it had a consequence for him. As a result Moses would not go into the Promised Land and would not lead Israel into the Promised Land.

Look at our marital lives. Do we have angry outbursts there? How good of a bride would we be? If Jesus Christ said do something and we weren't fully happy with it, would we strike the rock as Moses did? Would we do this in any other situation? Our marital lives are a model of how we'll be in the kingdom of God. How about our spiritual lives? Are we frustrated because God doesn't deliver everything we want when we want it and how we want it and the manner in which we want it and to the fullness to which we want it?

The fourth 'Love Buster' is ANNOYING HABITS.

We all know people who have annoying habits. Unfortunately the children of Israel had many annoying habits and they're recorded for our benefit. I mentioned earlier about the spies that were sent to spy out the land of Canaan. Num. 14:36 "Now the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him (Moses) by bringing a bad report of the land," This seems to be standard operating procedure for these Israelites… to find something to complain about even when there was something good in their immediate future. If you go to "Strong's Concordance" and look up 'complain' or you type it in on any online Bible, you'll see how many times the children of Israel were complaining during their wandering in the wilderness. That really had to be annoying when it happened over and over and over again. (Joshua was the one to follow Moses. He was the one who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land.) Joshua 18:3 "Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: "How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you?"" Here we are; forty years have passed, they're ready to go into the Promised Land but they're still reticent and Joshua still has to say, "How long will it be?" It seems like sometimes we annoy our mates for a long time. I'm uncomfortable with that thought myself… at how long I've annoyed my wife. We'll just let those examples pass for now and hope that she forgets soon. But, I can hear the words, "How long will you… blank, blank, blank?" Whatever it happens to be. We'll try to mend our ways and move on and not be like the children of Israel.

What about our spiritual lives? Can we say as we read in Joshua, "How long will you neglect to… fill in the blank; to do something that is spiritually beneficial for you?" Even if you can't see it for yourself now, but it's laid out before you and it's given as a choice for you. So, the fourth 'love buster' is annoying habits.

The fifth 'love buster' is INDEPENDENT BEHAVIOR.

This one is a sermon of its own. I'll briefly go over it; I'm not going to refer to all the examples. There's one verse in the Bible that summarizes it up quite nicely. Jude 1:11 "Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah." Here it is talking about false ministers, but it could apply to all of us. If we go through and do a case study of Cain, we find out that he wanted to worship God his way; he wanted to do his own thing… he would honor God, if it could be in the way he wanted to do it. There was Balaam who wanted to prophesy his way (as difficult as it was to do and God corrected him in that). The rebellion of Korah with the children of Israel in the wilderness is an example of wanting to do things our own way. They didn't want to listen to the prophets of God. Each one of those is a story in itself worth doing the research on.

What about in our marriages? Do we have situations where each mate wants to do their own thing… go their own way independently? 1 Peter 3:1-2 "Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives," Verse 2 "when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear." (This fear is the fear of God.) Amos 3:3 "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" It's a partnership where they must work together if there is to be a successful relationship. Isn't it that way with our spiritual lives? Can we walk together with Jesus Christ as our future bridegroom? Not unless we agree with what He says. As the bride of Jesus Christ, are we willing to follow his way and submit to Him? We can follow the good conduct of Jesus Christ so that then our mates will follow our good example. There's an interesting song, it's an old song. A number of you will probably recognize this. I never thought I'd be quoting Frank Sinatra during a sermon. Surely you've heard of the song "My Way", a very popular very old song.

 "For what is a man what has he got
If not himself then he has not
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way."

Are we going to do like Frank Sinatra and do it 'my way' and not like 'the words of one who kneels'? It's blatantly written into words there. Who do you think that is? It's someone who honors God. It's the same way in our own marital lives, are we willing to walk with our mate as a partner? And are we willing to look at them as being a potential partner in a marriage with Jesus Christ? Or, do we want to do it like Frank Sinatra and Cain and Balaam and Korah, who each did it 'my way'?

The sixth 'Love Buster' is DISHONESTY.

Dishonesty takes many forms. Perhaps we heard this earlier (I know we heard it at the Feast) in Mal. 3:8-9 "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings." Verse 9 "You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation." OUCH! It's not just one person doing it; it's many people that are not respecting the expectations of God. 1 John 2:4 "He who says, 'I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." If we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, but we don't keep what Jesus Christ says, then we're called liars. John 8:42-47 "Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me." Verse 43 "Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word." Verse 44 "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." Verse 45 "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me." Verse 46 "Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?" Verse 47 "He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God."

In Revelation 21:8 we read the consequence of not telling the truth, of being dishonest. Rev. 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." So, there's a consequence for the dishonesty. You can't be dishonest with yourself. You can't be dishonest with God. You can't be dishonest with your mate. The expectation is that we'll be truthful and honest with our mates in order to practice being truthful and honest with God. You see, all the 'love busters' have a consequence. We can read about the consequences in a couple of places that I want to go over in the Bible when God was very frustrated with the children of Israel when they were practicing those 'love busters' and frustrating God a great deal. Deut. 1:34-45 "And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying," Verse 35 "Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land of which I swore to give to your fathers," This is when the spies were sent to the land of Canaan and those spies came back with a bad report when they should have been giving a good report like Joshua and Caleb did. So, he said none of the men of that evil generation would see the good land that he swore to give to their fathers. Verse 36 "except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the Lord." Verse 37 "The Lord was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, 'Even you shall not go in there.'" Verse 38 "Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it." Verse 39 "Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it." Verse 40 "But as for you, turn and take your journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea." Verse 41 "Then you answered and said to me, 'We have sinned against the Lord; we will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.' And when everyone of you had girded on his weapons for war, you were ready to go up into the mountain." NOW they were ready, they didn't know the consequences were going to be that bad! They were ready to go up into the Promised Land then; they were ready to follow Moses then, since they'd gotten the death penalty and were going to die in the wilderness. They suddenly decided it was a pretty good idea. They were ready to forget what the ten spies said and ready to strap the weapons on and go. Verse 42 "And the Lord said to me, 'Tell them, "Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies."" Verse 43 "So I spoke to you, yet you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the Lord, and presumptuously went up into the mountain." Verse 44 "And the Amorites who dwelt in that mountain came out against you and chased you as bees do," I don't know if you've had a bee sting. On the farm, I had a post that was a marker and on that steel post I had put a two and a half gallon bright yellow jug that would really show up, really be obvious. A piece of machinery had hit this marker post that was marking a drainage tile intake and I was going to go fix it, take the crooked post out and put in a nice straight one. I walked up to the crooked post, took the jug off and threw it on the ground and started to pull this steel post out of the soft ground not knowing that the two and a half gallon jug was full of wild bees. It was a warm day and I was wearing a loose shirt, shirttails were out… six bees got under my shirt. I'm here to tell you that you cannot run fast enough to run away from six bees under your shirt, particularly when you can see them. If anyone had made a movie that day, I'm sure it would have been a good seller because I'm out there dancing a jig out in the field for no apparent reason, running “lickity split” far, far away beating myself. Surely not something to forget, especially when I read this that says 'they chased you as bees do' since the whole swarm was after me. I wasn't going to stick around for them. Verse 44… "and drove you back from Seir to Hormah." Verse 45 "Then you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not listen to your voice nor give ear to you." It was a little late; it was too late.

 We continue to see in generations after this that Israel continued to practice the 'love busters'. Instead of drawing close to God, they drew away from God and it came to a point where there was a consequence. Jer. 3:8 "Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also." They were chasing after false gods, doing things they shouldn't do and God finally said, 'This is it! This is enough!' Just like the Israelites had learned earlier, 'Time is up! It's over! There's a consequence.' If we really want to read the uncomfortable consequences that are listed in the Pentateuch we can read Deuteronomy chapters 27 through 30. I'm not going to go through all of them because we would all be shaking and crying by the end of those things. But in these chapters, there's a list of the curses that mankind brings upon themselves for failure to listen to God. People think they have a better way. They want to do it 'Frank Sinatra's way'.

What about in our marital lives? Do we do it this way? We can expect the same consequences with the same curses and the same difficulty. I talked to a fellow this morning who is dealing with some of the curses in his own marital situation… very awkward, very difficult. You can go down the list of curses and he is partaking of them now. He said, "You know, I've figured out why this is happening to me. I have to learn these lessons because I have to make better choices." He's right. He's turning the corner, learning the lessons and moving along.

Our destiny, we can read about in Rev. 19:9 "Then he said to me, 'Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!'" And he said to me, 'These are the true sayings of God.'" What a delight to be called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, the wedding with Jesus Christ. If we back up a couple of verses, this is the question for us today: Rev. 19:7 "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." The question is: Have we made ourselves ready for the destiny that Jesus Christ has placed before us? Have we made ourselves ready by practicing what we must practice in our marital lives, in our spiritual lives and by learning the lessons of ancient Israel…  by avoiding the 'love busters'? Do we avoid SELFISH DEMANDS, DISRESPECTFUL JUDGMENTS, ANGRY OUTBURSTS, ANNOYING HABITS, INDEPENDENT BEHAVIOR, AND DISHONESTY? As we progress through this six month period of wandering in the 'wilderness of life', let's focus on keeping spiritually strong by looking at the Kingdom of God as a future marriage and let it help us to avoid the things that cause us to 'fall out of love' with God. Let's draw close to God by avoiding the 'Love Busters'.