Lover or Prostitute

Well, this past week, another one of those celebrity messes kind of hit the headlines again if you keep up with popular culture. You don't even have to try to keep up with popular culture to find out the latest marital infidelity or marriage break-up or sex scandal of someone who's rich and famous. But those of you that most probably are aware that John Edwards, former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate in 2004, finally admitted up to some of his indiscretions in the fatherhood of a child and that he had fathered with one of his campaign workers after denying the situation. And that led to, it appears, the break-up of his marriage to his wife, Elizabeth, who is dealing with cancer and a very difficult situation there. And you turn on Fox News and you get the latest scandal that people have. A couple of months ago, it was golf great Tiger Wood and his particular situation just about the period of Thanksgiving. A few months before that, it was another politician, South Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, who flew off to Argentina one week to be with his mistress and left his children and his wife and actually just left the entire state of South Carolina up in arms for that period of time. About two years ago, it was the governor of New York who got caught in indiscretions and had to resign his office as the governor. Terry Sanford, he hasn't resigned as governor of South Carolina, but he's broken up his family. Another case of infidelity and you wonder who will be next. As things go, there will be another one of these. You don't really like to wade through the details of these situations, but if you try to watch the news and keep up with current events to any degree, you have to kind of take that along with whatever's happening with healthcare, Congress, the presidency, Iran, or anything else. You have to get all the other scoop on a person's life. It's not my purpose today to talk so much about the indiscretions of famous people, except just to use it as an introduction. I had to think as I was watching some of the clips of the Edwardses, and particularly in this case a woman. I was kind of embarrassed in public with her husband bothering a child by another woman and having to deal with that and then, I guess, deciding that it was just too much and demanding a separation, if not a divorce, if that's what it leads to, and made all the more poignant because of her struggle with cancer. And you wonder, not just with people in politics, but wherever that may happen, at whatever level, whether it's just people down the street, a co-worker, somebody that we know, and problems like that develop one mate, cheats on the other. What happens? How far does the offended mate go in forgiving, taking back, reconciling? We all know those needs, those situations, and until you go through it, nobody really knows probably what they would do. You can say to your mate, don't you, you know, wag your finger and say, don't you ever, and then it might happen. And you get to that situation, and who of us knows what we will do? And we, obviously, it can shatter trust, it will shatter faith, it will and can shatter a marriage.

But at what point does anyone in that type of situation say, well, I have to forgive, or how many times would they forgive? Would it be the proverbial 70 times 7 that Christ spoke up in terms of forgiving, to forgive someone of an infidelity of breaking the sacred marriage covenant?

Interesting questions as we look at it from afar with someone who's got celebrity status and that we don't even know, we kind of clinically analyze that situation. And if we've not been there, we've not gone through it. Again, we just necessarily don't know what we would do. We may think we know what we would do, but I've been through enough of those situations and dealing with them over the years and observing them and hearing about situations that I recognize that until anyone goes through it, nobody really knows necessarily what they would do because there are all kinds of circumstances, all kinds of emotions and feelings as those things take place. Marriage is the most basic institution of human life. It is the bedrock of society. Despite all the efforts that have transpired in more recent years to destroy the marriage institution and to attack it, marriage endures. We've given Beyond Today programs on this subject and covered them in many different ways. We write articles in our publications about it, but we know the pressures that are upon marriage, and yet it endures. And people who may at one point in their life attack it sociologically, it seems sometimes often come around to supporting it in their own life, and they make their peace with it. Maybe it's not perfectly aligned with the biblical standards of marriage, but they come back around to certain acceptance of it. My point is that it endures. And I've even made the point, even in gay marriage, as anti-bible as that is, at the heart of it is still this desire for two people to be together in a committed relationship. I'm not, you know, if I'm going further than that, and I'm not going to, but it's ironic at least that there is still this struggle over, in that case, the legality, in many cases, and the social acceptance of a relationship that is somewhat like marriage, but it's this desire, this human need, this human desire to be together. So it is a basic institution. Really, the knowledge God reveals to us in the Bible about marriage, and that has been a bedrock part of even our teaching in the Church of God over the years about the sanctity of marriage, the holiness of marriage, the value of marriage, the importance of marriage. Through it, we understand that we have an opportunity, really at the heart of it, to learn something really about God. That is really one of the most important things about marriage that we are taught. Through it, through all of the biblical laws that govern marriage, that teach us how to have good relationships with our husbands and wives, it is at the heart of it a really a lesson on having a marriage with God and a relationship with God. This is not a marriage sermon today. This is a sermon really about God.

But all of our own personal relationships in marriage and what we view in public with other people offer us some lessons, really deeper lessons, that every one of us can experience, even those of us that are not married at this point in time, in terms of how we experience God, how we relate to God, as to whether we really didn't truly have a fellowship with God, or do we just have a business relationship with God? Do we have an approach toward God that is more of a kind of an enterprise, kind of a business? God, you give me something and I will obey you and you give me something, and if you don't give me what I need or want, then my obedience is questionable. My commitment to this contract, to this covenant, to this relationship may need to be reevaluated. That's a business relationship, but it's not what should really govern how we approach God. The bottom line question is, do we approach God based on a relationship of love for what He is or for what we can get from God?

And really, when you stop and think about that and then even begin to gingerly apply that even maybe to our own marital problems that we may or may not have had in our years in our marriages, or we look at somebody else far or close to us and begin to say, what should they do? What would they do? What would I do? Our answers should be based upon the love that we have in a relationship with God, and that's what's most important. Are we merely a satisfied spiritual customer or are we bonded by a relationship that brings us something and enriches our life merely because we have, in a sense, an acquaintance with God? We have a relationship with Him. In other words, how do we experience God? In Philippians chapter 3, I'd like for you to turn over there, the Apostle Paul, in talking about his relationship with God, can help us to understand this. Philippians chapter 3, beginning in verse 7.

Really, Paul here in this passage that we're going to read says that he gave up everything that he might know God. Verse 7, he says, But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. All that he had had in his past life, all that he had counted dear in his own religious beliefs as a Pharisee and a Jew, all that he had felt that he was, he counted as loss for Christ. Indeed, in verse 8, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ, Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ, and be found in him not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. He gave up everything that he might have a knowledge and a relationship with God, and found in him, and to gain, what he says at the end of verse 8, gaining Christ. That's what he wanted.

And he was willing to give up what he'd been taught, his position as a leading Pharisee, if you will, whatever prestige that had garnered him, the years he had put into it, standing in his particular circle with his family to pursue Jesus Christ, that he had once persecuted, but now he came to understand he was willing to count it all loss.

That I may know him in verse 10, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship, the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead, a fellowship of his sufferings. I want you to remember that word fellowship. If we kind of hang one word out today that we will come in and around and back to, it is fellowship in terms of our relationship with God.

As a church, as an individual, having a fellowship with God, that is really what Paul was striving for through all that happened in his life, and it is what you and I strive for and should strive for in our relationship with God, that really defines, if you will, a marriage and a relationship that is at the heart of all that we teach about marriage, all that we endeavor to symbolize in physical relationships we enter into when we say, I do, in that one ceremony of our life, we hope, where we commit ourselves to a man or to a woman in the sacred marriage relationship.

We endeavor through all the years of that relationship, to love, to sacrifice for the other, to respect, to honor, to obey, in all the words that we know, but it is all really a physical effort to teach us something about God. We have embedded that into our marriage ceremony, which nobody really listens to when they're getting married. That's why when I go through marriage counseling with people, I always, one of the last things I do is I sit down and I read through the marriage ceremony, because the day that the couple are getting married, that is the last thing they're listening to.

They're more interested, they've got their mind on, well, you know what they've got their mind on, but they're not listening to the marriage ceremony. So we always go through that, at least in the marriage premarital counseling that I conduct with individuals. So at least we cover the details, and within it, as I said, we've embedded the the scriptural teaching that it is a type of a relationship with God.

And sometimes people, we know we come back to it, sometimes we don't in our lives. As I said, this is not a marriage sermon. This is a marriage about a relationship with God, told in a sense through this understanding of marriage, because we want to, our lives are wanting to be moved to relating to God in a fellowship, not as an enterprise, a rich fellowship, a rich fellowship, because He is intended from the beginning that we might truly know Him, and as Paul says here, gain Christ.

I announced in the announcement session that the ladies in the Ladies Book Club next week will be going through in your discussion the book Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, which is a story based on a biblical book, one of the minor prophets, the book of Hosea. Those of you ladies that have read that book, you know, as you've gone through it, I haven't read it.

Debbie read it, and when she reads these books, she's always telling me bits and pieces, so I feel like I've read it. Those books, even though I don't always read all of the books that you're going through, she does teach me about them in that way and bring them out so that I know the bits and pieces.

In this one, she spent a lot of time telling me the story of how Francine Rivers had taken the story of Hosea and put it into a modern setting, but through a story of a husband and wife told really the essence of the story of Hosea, which is quite interesting. If you will, turn back for a few minutes to the book of Hosea, and let me just quickly review the first three chapters in an overview. Because in this, we learn something then about this relationship with God through marriage, because really, Hosea is a book that tells the story in the first few chapters, and you have to understand it as you read it to really catch it.

God tells the prophet Hosea to go and marry a woman who's a prostitute.

And through this relationship, he is teaching Hosea something about the relationship that he, God, has had with Israel at this point, the nation. You see that when God brought Israel out of Egypt and brought the nation to the foot of Mount Sinai, gave them the law, entered into a covenant with Israel. You read about it in chapters 19 through about 24 in the book of Exodus. And when you get down to chapter 24 and you recognize the wording there, you really see that God is entering a marriage covenant with the entire nation. He says, you know, if you will worship me and serve me, I will do this. And they say, all that you say we will do. And they say, in essence, I do.

And so that whole relationship that God built with Israel when he brought them out of Egypt was he married Israel. This is one of the deep mysteries of really the Bible and really the plan of God. Israel did not stay faithful to the covenant. They, you know, you know the story of the golden calf right away. And then after they got established in the land, they took off after idolatry, other gods, various times, broke the covenant, broke the relationship. Through it all, God was the offended mate. And he continued to forgive and to take her back. And he worked with Israel through any number of different means. And ultimately, by the time you get down to the prophets, especially here at Hosea, he has sent a number of prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and others, to Israel to plead with Israel to the people, to stop their wickedness, turn back to the faith of the fathers, worship God, and in a sense honor that relationship. With Hosea, God took an interesting approach. He said to Hosea, as you read it here, in chapter 1, verse 2, when the Lord began to speak to Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go take yourself a wife of harlotry, a prostitute, and children of harlotry. So, she was embedded in her lifestyle. For the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. So, verse 3, he went, Hosea did, he took Gomer, he took Gomer, who is described here as a harlot, and he married her. Now, that's unusual. I mean, you just, normally that's not done, because one who is given to prostitution is in a business relationship.

They give what they give in return for something. They're operating in an enterprise.

And commitment in the marriage relationship is not necessarily what is on their mind. Well, he took Gomer, and she bore him a son. And even in the naming of the children, as you go through chapter 1, she buries him two daughters and a son. And through the names that are even given to the children, God is teaching not only Hosea, but through that, his message to Israel, he's teaching them something about faithfulness and what has happened in their national history and the need for them to return to God. It's a highly unusual story that God required of his one prophet Hosea to do. And you might think, you know, why would a man do that? Why would God require a holy man like a prophet to do that? Well, God did a lot of interesting different things with some of his prophets as he tried to get the message across to Israel or to Judah to repent, to be faithful. And in this case, he actually required the sacrifice of one of his men, Hosea, to, in essence, sacrifice maybe good sense, even his own life, to this relationship for the sake of the lesson. And Hosea was willing to do it and, in a sense, stand in for God in the story. And through it, he learned. He did. And it no doubt gave him a greater passion for his words that he spoke. But this was the house that God said to Hosea, set up this type of house. On chapter 2, he goes on and says, Say to your brethren, my people, verse 1, until your sisters' mercy is shown. Bring charges against your mother. Bring charges, for she is not my wife, nor my her husband. Let her put away her harlotries from her sight and her adulteries between her breasts. The West High Strip are naked and exposed her, as in the day she was born. Make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. And he goes through some very poetic language here to describe not only the depth of Israel's sin and harlotry, through even this woman Gomer, but also his love. What is interesting about Hosea, that stands out even above all the other prophets, God is not presented here as a judge so much as he is a compassionate husband.

That is what comes through in the message of Hosea, as how God is presented. He is a compassionate, forgiving, loving mate. This is how God is presented here.

And he pleads through Hosea, the message is one of pleading.

And certainly warning that goes through here as well, where 6 talks about, I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in so that she cannot find her paths. In other words, just basically taking this woman and pinning her up so she can't go out and practice her prostitution. Verse 9, I will return and take away my grain in its time and my new wine in its season and I will take back my wool and my linen given to cover her nakedness. God gave Israel so much in terms of blessing. In Ezekiel, there was another whole chapter in Ezekiel that kind of carries on this theme, but God says, I found you as a people and you had nothing. You were dirty. I washed you. I put swaddling clothes around you and I entered into a relationship with you. I covered you, God says. He uses that many, many times. But they didn't respond. At the end of verse 13, but me she forgot, says the Lord. And Gomer forgot Hosea too, is what is really woven into the story. Therefore, verse 14, I will allure her.

We'll bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. This is the language of a lover, alluring. I will try to win her. I will show myself to be compassionate. I will show myself to be loving. I will try to win her. I will give her her vineyards. Verse 16, it will be in that day that you will call me my husband and no longer call me my master. I will take from her mouth the names of the bales and they shall be remembered by their name no more. That day, I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the air, and with the creeping things of the ground. Verse 19, three times in verse 19, he says, I will betrothed you to me forever. He uses the word betrothed three times. I will betrothed you to me in righteousness and justice. I will betrothed you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord.

Righteousness, faithfulness, and injustice. Did he say that he would bind her to him? It will come to pass in that day that I will answer. I will answer the heavens and they will answer the earth. The earth will answer with grain, new wine, oil. I will sow her for myself in the earth. They shall say, you are my God. This really encapsulates the message that God had for Israel. You have to understand that it was also the message that Hosea had for Gomer, as he pled with her to not continue in the enterprise that she had been used to. In chapter 3, verse 1, it says, the Lord said to me, this is a very short chapter, go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery. Perfect description of a prostitute. Just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans. So through Hosea, he is saying that you will love her even though she is not faithful to you, because this is how I treat my people, Israel.

And so I bought her for myself, he says, for 15 shekels of silver. He actually paid her price.

And one and a half omers of barley. And I said to her, you will stay with me many days, you'll not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man, so too will I be toward you. So he says, I bought you, paid the price, you will be faithful, and I will be faithful to you.

Can you imagine a husband treating his wife on those terms? And yet, that's what Hosea had to do with Gomer. For the children of Israel, says in verse 4, shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or terra-fim, and afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days. Those last two verses really encapsulate the final message of God to Israel that you come back to at the end of the book of Hosea. It's one of the longer, minor prophets, but as I said, Hosea defines God not as a stern God, but as a compassionate God, long-suffering husband, and faithful in that way. God married Israel and intended that relationship to endure. And that is what must be understood about God's relationship with Israel in the Old Testament because that forms the basis for the relationship with individuals when you come into the story of the New Testament. There is a continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament that is not broken. This is one of the problems people have when they try to divide the old from the new and try to keep them separate. There is continuity. There's a seamless flow, and it's a matter of God's Spirit helping us to understand what that continuity is. And in this particular case, it is for the relationship with individuals because under the New Covenant, we all enter into the same type of relationship that Israel did as a nation. Now we do it individually, and we have a relationship with God. There is one that is based on love and on faithfulness. It is established along the loving and intimate relationship of the people that we had here in the story of Hosea showing the same relationship with God. And that's where you and I come into this. And that's why the message of Hosea is so important. That's why this message of coming to have a fellowship with God is so important and understanding that because that is at the heart of how we relate to God and how we think about God today in our lives.

There's a story I ran across sometime back when another minister sent to me. I don't know where he got it. It was taken from another teacher, another pastor who was writing on this particular subject. The man's name was David Reiser. And he was an author and a minister. But he tells the story as this episode was passed along of teaching a group of students, young students in class one day, about helping them to be aware of the rich, deep relationship possible with God if we are challenged to really spend a lifetime developing that. And he was quoting some other minister regarding the progression of Christianity down through 2,000 years from the time of the apostles down to the present day. And it's a very short version. It's one of the most interesting descriptions of the development of Christianity that I've heard about. It goes like this. It goes like this. Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship. What you read about in the Bible, it started as a fellowship. It moved to Greece and became a philosophy.

It moved to Italy and became an institution. It moved to Europe and became a culture.

It moved to America and Christianity became an enterprise, from a fellowship to an enterprise.

Now, as the story goes, this David Reiser was describing this. He says, some of his students were only 18 or 19 years old and they had not lived a long or spiritually experienced life. And he wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of that last line, that it moved to America and became an enterprise. So he clarified it by adding, he said, an enterprise. That's a business. That's a business. But you all knew that because you're smart. You're not 18 or 19. Reiser went on to comment after a few moments, a young girl named Martha in his class, raised her hand. He had no idea what her question might be. But he acknowledged her and Martha asked the question, a business. Isn't it the church supposed to be a body? A body as opposed to a business. Well, the teacher, David Reiser, admitted that he didn't know where the line of questioning was going, but he could only say, well, that's true. The church is supposed to be a body. And Martha came back and she continued and said, but when a body becomes a business, isn't that prostitution? When a body becomes a business, isn't that prostitution? He says the room went silent.

And the teacher said, I wish I'd thought of that. But this young girl had.

He went on to say that her question changed my life. For six months, I thought about her question at least once every day. When a body becomes a business, isn't that a prostitute? Well, there's only one answer to that question. And the answer is, yes.

When a body becomes a business or an enterprise, it becomes a prostitute. Less than faithful. In other words, entering into a relationship where one thing is delivered in return for something else. Money, favor, whatever it might be. Love is sold for money in return. That's at the heart of what prostitution is really about. And his teacher went on to really conclude that the enterprising nature, the professing Christian church as he defined it, the large American version of Christianity and the Christian church, is heavily populated by people who experience God in an enterprise fashion of what I term as get and gain. Get and gain.

I've seen that from numerous other observers of American religion who see that it has become an enterprise. Mega churches, mega religion, mega business. And we don't have to go into all of that today, but in many ways and in many forms it is. And I've read enough of the way people grow churches in the evangelical world, for instance. It's almost formulaic. And whole ministries are set up to teach other ministers how to grow a church. And they do work in terms of growing numbers and developing, if you will, a church and numbers and people in the doors in many cases.

You know, I'm not going to try to judge the quality or whatever else. And in some ways, you know, obviously there's always sincere people who are looking and seeking and searching. But that also, even in their own circles, has been criticized in many different ways.

To bring this back down to you and I and where we are here today and what we're thinking about, the question is, did we marry God for His money? That's the real question. When we entered our relationship with God, in our baptism, we said, I will accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, my high priest and soon-coming King. And we go under the waters of baptism. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We enter into a relationship, spiritual, that's lifelong. It's a deeply dedicated and committed relationship. Did we marry God for His money? For what He gives to us?

You know, it's a question that we should always be ready to examine. It's rather blunt, but it is important because if we think that we, through service, through obedience, are going to always have a rose-colored approach and path in life, God's blessings will always come as a result of what we do, how we conduct ourselves, that it will be a problem-free life, that God's favor and light will always shine upon us. We will never be sick. We will never suffer loss. We will never have any conflicts. Then we miss the point. That doesn't mean we don't obey and we do not worship God and love God through what we do, but what we get in return and what we expect in return must be deeply understood. To want the goodies, but not walk in holiness is an admission that our eyes are set only on the destination, but our hearts are not in the journey. If that's all we are looking for, there's a profound difference in the outcomes. That's why, back in, again, to Philippians chapter 3, what Paul wrote, it might be good just to go back again and look at it, he counted it all as loss, he said, that he might gain Christ. Philippians 3, 7 again.

He said, I counted it all as rubbish, verse 8, verse 7. Whatever things were gained to me, I counted those lost for Christ. In other words, he came to experience Christ, God. And in that, that led to his transformation. God was more than just information.

God was more than just a booklet, an article, a program, a set piece of study that we might go through, reading this or that. God is more than just knowledge. God has to be experienced. That's what leads to the transformation. That's what leads to the deep commitment.

Not knowing God, not walking with God by having God's Spirit within us will keep us from doing it, coming to that. Experience trumps information when it comes to knowledge.

You know, you look at the story of Job, 42 chapters in a story to tell a story of a man's life from boom to bust to boom. From abundance to losing it all, suffering, and having it restored at the end. But at the end of the book, in the story of Job, he comes down to the moment where he says, I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. He'd heard about God, but by what he went through, what he experienced in that story, he eventually came to really know God.

In other words, he experienced God through the experiences of his own life.

And that's what you and I do. We experience God by our obedience, by keeping the Sabbath, the Holy Days, all of the laws, all of the laws, by being faithful, committed, in good times and in bad times, in sickness and in health, always at all times, remaining faithful, loyal, experiencing God in that way. That's how we come to know God. You don't just study the Sabbath academically. I think you know all there is to know about holy time. You have to begin to observe it, keep it, walk in it, worship within it, go out to meet God on the Sabbath, on his days, over a period of time to understand it. When it comes to tithing, God says, prove me now herewith in the book of Malachi. It's something that you have to do. It doesn't make sense otherwise, as with a number of other points of God's law in a modern world, modern society. It may not be convenient, but it has to be experienced for us to really know that it works and then to be able to be committed to it and say without doubt and hesitancy, and then as living examples to other people, be able to recommend it. How many of us would take a telephone call from our financial advisor, our stockbroker, somebody at Merrill Lynch, not Merrill Lynch, is even around anymore, is it? Edward Jones, or some other financial house that is your financial advisor, and they say, I've got a hot tip. You put $10,000 into this stock and you're going to see a three-fold increase, guaranteed. Oh, it sounds good as you talk to your broker, and after a few minutes, you finally get to the point, well, how much have you put of your own money into this? And if they answer none, you might want to rethink their advice. If they haven't put their own money and experienced the same return they say that you will get by putting your money on the line.

Knowledge is one thing. Well, you know, the charts say this. The indicators show this. But if you haven't really dipped your toe in the waters, your recommendation is not going to carry a great deal of weight. How can we be so discerning in the things of this world, especially when they might involve money? And many of us, I think we would have enough common sense to not jump into something like that. Yet how much common sense do we have when it comes to spiritual matters as well on this end? The fact is we don't know or believe apart from experience. We experience God. We experience His truth. The Bible was written to people who would not only understand the concepts of knowledge, belief, and faith apart from experience. God thinks that way as well. He expects us to approach Him in that way.

And that's how Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of this. Christ Himself was willing to invest in the program in chapter 2 of Philippians, where we're right there, verse 5. Philippians 2 and verse 5, Paul writes, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. God invested in human life. He experienced it and came to know all the fullness of human life. The frailty, the weaknesses, and the temptations. Hebrews tells us He was tempted in all things, like as we are. He invested in the program, gave Himself without any holding back, without any reservation. That's the God we serve. That's the God we desire to come to know. That's the God with whom we desire to have fellowship. In 1 John 1, Gospel of John, 1 John 1, beginning in verse 1, this is where John's focus was. It was the focus of the early church, in having this fellowship with God. Remember, the church began, or Christianity began in Palestine, and it was a fellowship. It later migrated to the point through being a philosophy, an institution, and a culture to becoming an enterprise, but it began as a fellowship.

Here's what he says in verse 1 of 1 John 1, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you may also have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. This is where our fellowship is, with God, with Jesus Christ. That's what the Scripture plainly tells us. This is where John was. This is where we should be. The book of Revelation describes the Church as being a bride in several different places. Revelation 19.7 says, The bride will have made herself ready and been prepared by the time of the Second Coming. Revelation 21, the Church is pictured as a bride of Christ standing there with Jesus Christ.

Again, when you bring it all into the full understanding, which those of us that have experienced marriage realize, it is pretty intimate. I mean, when you commit yourself to another person for life, and you share your deepest thoughts, feelings, dreams, hopes, yes, your body with another person, that intimacy grows and develops spiritually, physically. You're knit together. That's why divorce rips flesh, literally. Rips feelings, rips emotions, rips families. Sometimes irreparably so. It is very intimate stuff, this becoming married to God, if you will, this becoming a lover of God, if we can use that term, and a fellowship, where we obey God because we love Him, and what we get in return is not so much contingent upon our obedience that if we are blessed because we obey His laws, and natural blessings come from that obedience, that's going to happen. If God, as He works in our lives, opens other opportunities and doors, and works with us, that is God's working with us as well. We continue to love Him.

If bad things happen to good people, genetics catch up with us, time and chance happens, then we still must love God through it all, as a lover will, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad. We still continue to love God. So we have to understand that and be blunt. Do many of the same things continue to love God? A lover has that approach. A prostitute pretends to love, but only as long as you pay.

Then comes the big question. What would happen if God stopped paying me? If we approach God on the basis of an enterprise, and we don't get a return, God stops paying. What would we do?

Those are sometimes questions that come up, but we don't even know that that's the question in front of us. As we struggle with doubt, lack of faith, indecision, or any other type of crisis of faith. That's when we have to examine ourselves and understand, have we really approached God as a lover? In a true marriage relationship, committed as a fellowship.

And that's where we have to peel away the feelings or some of the teachings that we will absorb from our culture and our world, even the religious culture around us.

We've said, as you ladies especially, have gone through your book club over the last few years and read a number of these books written by religious authors. I will say the same to the men as we start off in our use of a particular religious author to study into the subject of masculinity and masculine fellowship. As we've said, you've got to have the discernment, and most do, to separate the wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad, and to recognize what value is there as people write on a particularly spiritual subject, then take the good without getting caught up in an enterprise or a culture that can begin to certainly push ideas and even sometimes doctrine and teaching. You start reading some religious writings and you pretty well, you know, they start talking about the trinity. I don't worry about any of our people start getting off into the trinity or adopting that so much. You discern that. Sometimes the other, some of the other teachings, you have to have a little bit more discernment, a little clearer design and discernment to keep from drinking in or taking in certain ideas that can begin to cause you to veer off from truth. But that's where God's spirit, that's where discernment comes in and it's always needed, it's always necessary.

Discernment is a key issue, but applying it to ourselves in examination on a question such as this is very, very important.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul answered the question, what would we do if God stopped paying me?

He answered that question by what he writes here in 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 9.

He writes this in the midst of describing a particular affliction that he had, a thorn in the flesh, verse 7 describes, a messenger of Satan that buffeted him.

And he'd asked God three times for it to depart and it never did.

And the indication is that it was some physical problem.

And he came to the point where he realized that he had to live with it.

And he said to me, meaning God, the Lord said to him, That's the answer to the question of what would happen if God stopped paying me, if we took that approach toward God. Paul's answer here is, by grace is sufficient. He dealt with here, in this case, a physical problem that God did not heal him of, did not disappear. And the answer he came to understand, as he discerned it, is God's grace is sufficient for me. My strength is made perfect in weakness.

That God's strength is manifested sometimes in the weakness that we might have to deal with. A weakness in the flesh is not talking here about sin.

He's talking here about the weakness that we have as human beings, where we're subject to certain difficulties and we have to learn to live with that. So he answered that. So why are we Christians? Why are we part of the Church of God?

Why do we keep the Sabbath and obey the law? It should always be to experience God, to know Him, to obey Him, and to love Him. Not always expecting a return.

Why do we even fellowship with each other at church?

We talk here about fellowship. It's not just for what we get.

The fellowship that we have, even as we come amongst our fellow believers on a Sabbath, or any other time, there's a physical fellowship. But more importantly, there's something with the fellowship with Christ and the Father, as we read there in 1 John, that is also essential. And that's why we come through the doors of church. That's why we make the effort to come to church on a regular basis, because we know we need that.

With you on another, yes. But also as God's grace, and God is expressed through the lives of other people. You know, probably at a time of discouragement or difficulty, you do learn to appreciate the coming together of the people of God. There is something that is there. God's Spirit creates an atmosphere that we, in a sense, tap into, and it helps. To have experienced that is to have experienced God in that sense, and a blessing from God.

We have to understand that. What we do in reality is learn to love God without any conditions, and to take that approach. And in doing so, that's how we come to know God.

In Matthew 7, Christ made a statement that maybe with this as a background, we can understand a little bit better. The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7. I have to admit that I understand it a little bit better than I did before, after looking through this subject. Matthew 7, verse 21, Christ said, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?

Cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name.

People who are religious have a form of religion, a sincerity, and will have done works in the name of the Lord.

And yet, they have not known God.

Because he says, then I will declare to them in verse 23, I never knew you. Depart from me you who practice lawlessness.

The law has a very important role to play in knowing God.

But he says, I will declare to them, I never knew you.

I never knew you.

It's almost like saying, we never fellowship together. We never really had that intimacy, that connection.

You ever known someone for years, had conversations with someone, meals with someone, maybe even read their writings or read from them?

And one day you recognize, you realize, I don't really know that person.

You ever had that experience with somebody? I have.

Because they don't open up, or they will only be able to go so far in sharing who they are with you.

And maybe they're just guarded, maybe they've been burned, any number of reasons.

You can spend a lot of time around somebody and not know them.

We can spend a lot of time around God. Around His church.

Around His people.

And not knowing.

This is what He says here.

This is an interesting category that He describes.

We don't want it to ever be said about us.

We want to know Him.

We want to fellowship with Him. We want to have that intimacy with God. Through our prayers.

Through our study. Through our fellowship with others. Through our obedience.

But also through the rocky times and the difficult times, as long as they might happen. Where we can come to the point where Paul said what he did, as he recognized that the message came from God, My grace is sufficient to you.

And we accept that.

And we still love God, even though it hasn't come out perhaps the way we thought it should. Or He didn't pay us back the way we thought we should be repaid.

Because we move to the point where we don't look at God as an enterprise.

As a business.

We look to God as a body.

Excuse me. As a fellowship.

So really, what we spend our lives doing, moving ourselves from any concept of God and religion in the church as an enterprise, back through culture, back through philosophy, all the way back to the idea that we experience God in the intimacy of a fellowship and of a relationship.

That truly is pictured as a God who loves us, is willing to forgive us, is willing to work with us and come to know us. And all the ways that we find described, whether it's through the story of Hosea, the story of Israel with God, an individual like Paul, or an individual like you and me.

And we truly have that fellowship with God. That's where we go. It took 42 chapters with Job.

What chapter are we in?

What chapter are we in?

That's how we come to know God. And in doing so, we have a relationship that pictures the best type of marriage. A spiritual marriage with our Father for all eternity.