Marriage and Baptism

In the first message we received today, Mike referred to Valentine's Day. And as you know, that's one of the holidays that is celebrated in the Western world. We don't celebrate it. And again, if you look at the Bible and what it talks about, the love of the truth, it just takes a couple of falsehoods to contaminate things, spiritually speaking. If you add something that is not true, you begin to go down the path of error. And God tells us that we should love the truth, we should maintain that purity of truth, and that's why we don't celebrate, because Valentine's Day is not something that is biblical.

And in addition, it was a pagan Roman holiday. Notice this quote from the Encyclopædia Britannica, the most prestigious encyclopedia we have in the world. It says, Valentine's Day, also called St. Valentine's Day, is a holiday February 14th, which was yesterday, when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts. The holiday has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. The festival, which celebrated the coming of spring, included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery. At the end of the fifth century, Pope Gelasius I replaced Lupercalia with St. Valentine's Day. So here we have another pagan Roman holiday that was included in the Catholic holidays, and that's what is being kept today.

From another website, the History Channel, it says this, Unlike Valentine's Day, however, Lupercalia was a bloody, violent, and sexually charged celebration awash with animal sacrifice, random matchmaking, and coupling in the hopes of warding off evil spirits and infertility. So that is something that Jesus Christ would not observe. The early church never observed it, but we know it's a false church that teaches it, and that now people change much of the meaning. But as I always say, if you call a horse a cow and you paint it like a cow, it's still a horse. You're not going to change it. That's the nature of the beast. And so, of course, this is something that has been Christianized, but that's a painting over of something that was an abomination before God. And, of course, Valentine's Day focuses on romance, and we should be romantic during the whole year. That's not something that should become a commercial importance that is created a lot. And just because people kind of remind us, oh, by the way, something that we should bring flowers to our wives or or presents during the whole year.

And we know that this type of just romantic momentary flush of attraction, that that is very far from the biblical standard of what a good marriage should be. It should be more than just having romantic feelings. So it's a good time to see the contrast of what this world's romantic attitude is with God's romantic attitude in the Bible, how He wants us to follow Him, not only as far as our mates and choosing the right person, but also in our commitment spiritually to God. When we were baptized, we started a relationship with God that is based on love, dedication, and commitment. So you see there's a parallel with the way we should look at our God and our commitment to God and how we have committed ourselves to our mates, or are going to do so in the future, or if we are widowed, how we can teach our children or our grandkids about the proper way of love. I also have this article. It's called Who We Honor, a blog on relationships and marriage by a Jewish lady. She goes by the name Tekoa, and I think it does reflect a lot about what is wrong in today's many relationships with couples and what God's standard is. It says, it used to be when a couple met and they began to desire one another, they came to a conclusion that it was going to be a good union and they married. Nowadays, that is not so much. Most people just live together or have bedroom mates. They miss the whole opportunity of standing before family and friends and saying, quote, this is my bride or this is my husband.

This is the one I am going to become one with and die with and make a covenant vow with. They miss being set apart from the world. And so when a wedding takes place in the church and we have here church members involved and we do the laying on of hands, that is a setting apart for a holy purpose. That they have a vow that they are going to consider that marriage holy and that it's a commitment to keeping it that way. Nowadays, many go to the great elaborate expensive wedding plans, but we often are met with the ending as divorce and unhappy finishes. The person we thought we would grow old with raised children and grandchildren with now is a shattered broken family. Children from previous unions that failed now thrown into a hodgepodge of trying to mix and blend. This was never God the Father's plan. One of my favorite authors about child rearing and marriage is Dr. James Dobson.

He wrote books like Dare to Discipline, Love Must Be Tough, and many others. He is a child psychologist, also an expert in marriage. He wrote back a couple years ago an article which is called What Remains After Valentine's Day.

There are some good principles about keeping the marriage alive, and it also applies to keeping our faith alive. There are very similar principles involved. Both, of course, can get into doldrums.

We can have a declining interest. Let's go through some of the principles he mentions and apply them to both areas of our lives. And again, if a person isn't involved right now, as far as with a marriage, he can apply this as principles to teach their children, their grandkids, friends, because this all comes from God's Word. So, the first point that James Dobson makes, he says, if you identify genuine love with that momentary romantic feeling, you are going to be very confused when it passes. This is the tender trap that leads many young people to make a disastrous mistake. The romantic excitement between them feels like something they can live on forever.

Then it fades away. Sometimes, even in the honeymoon or maybe later, the romantic feeling they shared is not true love. It sometimes precedes the real thing. It can become a true love, just like there's a difference between a match and having a fireplace with a fire going. You know, the match isn't going to warm you up very quickly, is it? But you need a match to light up that fire in the fireplace. It says, genuine love is much deeper and more stable. It is based on a commitment of the will, a determination to make it work. God also tells us our conversion is a commitment of the will, a keeping of the flames of that first love going. Notice in Revelation 2.

Revelation 2, verse 2, speaking here to the church in Ephesus, he says, and this can be applied again to our spiritual life, but also to our married life. It says, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. We know in the first century that happened. A lot of people came in, deceived many, crept in unawares, as Jude says, and got to high positions and took a lot of brethren with them out of the church. And he goes on, verse 3, and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for my namesake, and have not become weary.

That apostolic church was known to have gone almost to the ends of the earth with the gospel. They did a tremendous job with very few resources. And then in verse 4 comes a bit of the correction. He says, nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

In another, the good news Bible puts it, you do not love me now as you did at first. And so God wants still that enthusiasm, that appreciation. He doesn't want our church meetings to come, and people feel dreary, and taciturn, and sad, or no, we should be so thankful and still have that excitement when we come, when we meet, when we have fellowship. We're still excited about God's truth. It has not become humdrum at all. And so the same thing can happen in marriage as well.

We need to have that enthusiasm. We're committed. This is something that's going to last a lifetime. We have to take good care of it, just like a brand new car. At first, it's all shiny and beautiful, and hardly has any problems at all. But as it goes later, well, you got to do the maintenance work. You have to do the repair work. You got to take it a little more carefully, but it's still ours. We still love our vehicles, and yet with time, it's going to take more investment, more maintenance to keep it up. The second point he covers here, he says, but you should know, talking here, Dr. Dobson, that I don't always feel intensely romantic and loving toward his wife. Surely, he says, there are times when we are close and times when we are distant. We sometimes get tired and harassed by the cares of life, and that affects our emotions. However, even when the feeling of closeness disappears, the love remains. Why? Because our relationship is not dependent on a temporary feeling. It's based on an unshakable commitment of the will. My love for Shirley is not blown back and forth by the winds of change, by circumstances and environmental influences. Even though my fickle emotions jump from one extreme to another, my commitment remains solidly anchored in place. I have chosen to love my wife, and that choice is sustained by an uncompromising will. As the vow says, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, from this day forward. This essential commitment of the will is sorely missing in so many modern marriages. I love you, they seem to say, as long as I feel attracted to you, or as long as someone else doesn't look better, or as long as it is to my advantage to continue the relationship. Sooner or later, this uncommitted love will certainly vaporize, will disappear. And Paul said the same thing, but in a spiritual sense. He made a lifelong commitment and knew whom he had made that commitment with. Notice in 2 Timothy chapter 1. In verse 12, he says, For this reason I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day. And so he says, I know I made that commitment with God, and that I'm going to be faithful to that commitment, no matter what my feelings are, no matter the ups and downs emotionally that we get in. Our commitment should be much more steadfast, much more constant than just, oh, I feel good. Oh, I don't feel good. Oh, maybe the church is not what I used to believe that the church should be. Or maybe my relationship with God has become cold and distant. So I better walk away from it. That's not what God says he wants from us. He talks about overcoming. That's part of overcoming feelings that come and go and go to our commitment that it was solid, that it was steady. Notice, let's go to Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14.

Talk about commitment. Jesus Christ made it very clear here in verse 25 of Luke 14 verse 25. Now great multitudes went with him and he turned around and said to them, because they all said, oh, this is our champion. Oh, we're going to follow him forever. Look what he's doing. Look at all the healings. Look at all the truth he's given us. He turned around and he said, if anyone comes to me, and the word here is actually loveless, and does not love less his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters. Yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple, my true follower. So he says we have to put him first. And whoever does not bear his cross, which symbolizes the sufferings of following this Christian life and come after me cannot be my disciple. In other words, not a fair-weather Christian. Just when the weather is nice and good, when life is good, it's also when life isn't very good. And it is tough. And we're going through difficult trials. The commitment still has to be there. That's what God is testing us about. Then he uses the example, for which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it. Lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not able to finish. In biblical times, when you built a vineyard, you had to set it up in a field where there would be watering, where you could have drainage for it, where you had to plant all the different vines, and then you had to put a type of protective fence around it so animals wouldn't come in and eat everything. And then you had to put a watchtower on the top so that you always had someone during the day out watching to make sure somebody wasn't going to go and steal things. But what good is it if you only have half of a watchtower? That's not going to help you, and you can easily be overtaken. Thieves can come in and they'll grab you, but if you're in a tower that's finished, it's much harder to do so. And it's the same way in life, same way. We always use this scripture. This is the first scripture when a person desires to be baptized that I go over. It's called counting the cost. Are you sure this is something, a commitment, that you can do for a lifetime? Because this isn't a five-year commitment. This doesn't have an expiration date. It's going to go on the rest of our lives. And so that's part of what we ask the person. Are you sure? Because once you're committed, then you should continue on, as it tells us also in Luke chapter 9 verse 61. This is the second scripture we use. Luke chapter 9 verse 61. And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house. And many times this means that it was going to take a long time. It wasn't something just by. Usually it meant a lot of time, and Jesus was going to continue moving on. He wasn't going to wait for that person. Then he said in verse 62, but he said, No one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Person who then wavers and then goes back into his old lifestyle. Going back, looking back. No, we have to focus. We've already committed to that kingdom of God, being part of it. And so we see that commitment, which is part of our baptism. And also it is part of marriage. And it is the second most important commitment we will do after baptism, our marriage commitment. It's another scripture I want to go to in 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy chapter 3. Starting in verse 1, talking about a commitment that a person that is baptized, here are the ideals for a person's life, not only as a minister and seeking someone who can become a minister, because these principles can be applied whether you're single, whether you're married, whether you're widowed, any of those young or old. Here are the ideals of our lives. It says in verse 1, this is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, the word means shepherd, pastor, he desires a good work. And we know in God's kingdom, we are all going to be shepherding God's flock. So you're going to be kings and priests in God's kingdom. You're going to be shepherding God's flocks. You are going to have positions of taking care of God's flock. And he says a bishop or, again, a pastor then must be blameless. It means he must have good credentials with those outside. The husband of one wife, here we see the problems of the Catholic Church. Apparently they don't read this scripture because priests are supposed to not be married. And it says here, these men should be the husband of one wife because we know in the Old Testament you could have more than one wife. But here in the New Testament it is limited. This is where God limits. And we know God originally didn't give Adam several Eves, right? No, he gave him one. That was the intent. And then it goes on to say temperate, which means a person that is able to have self-discipline, sober-minded. That person isn't frivolous and just emotionally unstable. He says of good behavior, hospitable. That word hospitable actually comes from the Latin. It went into the French and it comes from the word hospice, which means a host. And that's where this word means a host to and here's the dictionary definition, friendly and welcoming to strangers or guests. That's what a host does.

Also, the word hospice is where we get the word hospitole, which originally meant a guest house before they built these large buildings. It used to be people that would have an area in their homes for those that were sick. So it was a guest house, able to teach. So this person is instructed, is prepared, not given to wine, which means not given to too much wine. It's able to have a good balance about this. So it doesn't say doesn't drink wine, but not given to wine. The term means sitting at the table too long, drinking. That's when you get into trouble.

Not violent, not a person with short temper that immediately gets upset or outraged. No, person needs to be long-tempered, which is one of God's fruits of the Spirit, which is long suffering. It actually means being long-tempered doesn't fly off or have a short fuse. Continuing, it says not greedy for money. So this is important. Person's not there to take care and abuse funds. Has to be a person that is very careful with God's money and also he doesn't make merchandise of the people because that's very common and popular. Well, if I say these things, I'm going to have all these people come and it's going to bring in a lot more. No, you don't say that. You're not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well. Doesn't matter if you're single or widowed or married with children or not, you have to govern or rule your own house well.

Having his children in submission with all reverence, so as long as they're in the house and they're growing up and they are part of the church family, they should give a good example.

For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? And so there should be respect in the house, and that way there's going to be respect in the church.

If you're not respected in the house, you usually will not be respected anywhere else. You can become a good actor, but it's not going to reflect the reality of things. I remember in our home we had four girls grow up, and my first rule is we're going to respect you girls.

You are persons with dignity and respect, but we're going to require you to respect us. And when you disrespect us, there are going to be consequences. But guess what? It worked out pretty good because they didn't want to disappoint, and they didn't want to do the wrong things because they felt respected and listened to. And that's so important. In other words, we have to set the example. We can't expect our children to set the example for us. Of course, we're not perfect. We never do everything perfectly, but these are the principles that we try to live by up to today about respect. And I hope in the church you feel that we respect every one of you, and we care for you, and you have dignity that should be respected as well.

It goes on to say, not a novice or someone that is very recent in the church. Lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. The implication is here that the devil was doing a good job as Lucifer, and then he got this big job on earth. And he had a third of the angels, and he got puffed up with pride. And so this is what happens when you give a position of authority to someone who cannot handle it with humility, and he gets a swelled head. Then you have a real serious problem.

Verse 7, Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, usually neighbors and others, at the job, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Because the devil loves to accuse God's people. We shouldn't give him a place. So again, this applies in the marriage. These are ideals that we should apply as much as we can in our own lives. Let's go now to the third point that James Dobson brings up. He says, Real love is caring for another person almost as much as you do for yourself. That is exactly how the Bible describes marital love. It is becoming, quote, one flesh with another individual. The two of you actually become one person. Not, of course, literally, but yes, you should be a very close-knit team.

It's much more than marrying an individual who will do something good for me. Rather, it is learning to love someone as much as I do my own flesh. And by marrying, we become united. That is the real meaning of love. If you have that kind of appreciation for another person, you are on your way to a happy home. Marriages that were once exciting and loving can also get caught in the romantic doldrums, causing a slow and painful death to the relationship. Author Doug Fields in his book Creative Romance writes, Dating and romancing your spouse can change those patterns, and it can be a lot of fun. There is no quick fix to a stagnant marriage, of course, but you can lay aside the excuses and begin to date your sweetheart. This can also happen in our spiritual life. We can get the doldrums. We need to study a little more, get closer to God, build up, as it tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 6. He says, Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. The Amplified version says this, For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, of cowardice, of a craven, cringing, and fawning fear, but He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of a calm and well-balanced mind, and discipline and self-control. So that sums it up pretty well. But it's something that has to be created by our closeness to God. That's something we can just cook up on ourselves or will ourselves to have. Notice in James chapter 4.

James chapter 4 and verse 3.

James chapter 4 and verse 3.

This is God inspiring James to write the following. It says, You ask and you do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures, adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? In other words, is this why we should want God to prosper us, to go out cavorting and having a good time in the world? That's not the purpose. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Spirit says in vain, the Spirit should say, that dwells in us, yearns jealously. God's Spirit can be quenched by things that we do, or it can be stirred up. But he gives more grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. That's the key. We have to draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. I compare it to being next to this huge electric dynamo, big generator of electricity. And if we draw closer, and we get that energy, we have to connect, first of all, that cable so that we are recharged. But if we're far away, the energy gets less and less. We're going to have less spiritual power in us. He goes on to say, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-mind. In other words, repent and purify ourselves. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom about our sins. It shouldn't be something we should celebrate. It says, Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. He will give us that strength that we need. Just like in marriage, too. We have to draw closer to the person. We have to do things that are enjoyable. There are so many things that can distract us, but we need to feed those flames, keep them alive, as much as it depends on us. We know the other person has a responsibility as well. We can't do both things, but God wants us to do our part. Notice in Ephesians chapter 6, talking about becoming one flesh and about the marriage. It's not only physical, it's also spiritual. Notice in verse 20, it says, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. So that's the principle we all have to do, submitting. We all have somebody to submit to.

A man has to submit to Christ. It says, verse 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And just as you know, Jesus wants us to follow His will. We're not just doing it for our husbands, we're also doing it for Jesus Christ, to please Him. For the husband is the head of the wife, it's also Christ is the head of the church, and He is the Savior of the body. And again, here we have equating that the husband should be a Savior to his wife. Because we all love what Jesus Christ does for us. We're submitted to Him. He's a wonderful husband. Well, husbands should also reflect that same spirit of Jesus Christ toward the wife. Is He the wife's Savior? Is He the one that's helping her along the way, protecting her, loving her?

Goes on to say, verse 24, therefore, just that the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. And so you can't have two heads in a body. The same way, you need to have that headship, that leadership from the husband.

And that's part of God's lesson for us. If I would have been born a woman, one of the first things, learning the truth of God and submitting myself to God, I'm going to be the best wife to my husband that I can be, because that's something God wants. And I'll do the best job within the role that He has given me to fill it to the maximum, and that'll be my role. And you know what? Any of us could have been born either a man or woman, according to the genetic situation. So both roles are equally as important before God, but the man has more accountability than a woman, and so it's even more responsibility, because he's supposed to be guiding and leading the family. It goes on to say, in verse 26, he says about husbands love your wives, Jesus Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word. So Jesus Christ is constantly working on the bride, perfecting her, forgiving, helping her in every way possible.

And so we also should do that in our marriages. He says 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. So that's part of the husband's responsibility to have a good marriage, a marriage where the wife feels that she's honored, that she is loved, that she is cherished.

Reminded me of a marriage counselor mentioning that the word cherish for a man is very different than for a woman. For a woman, cherish is very simple and very clear. She wants the husband to cherish her, to love her, honor her. And you know, he said he went to a convention of men, and I think they were all basically of automobile clubs and others, and he said, men, what does cherish mean to you? And the general consensus was to have a 1957 Ford, what was that? Yeah, or Mustang, or another one, what was the bigger one that was convertible? That, oh, it's not a firebird, but what was that? Thunderbird. Yeah, yeah, 1957, and to cherish it, you know, have its own garage, you know, have air conditioning and humidity controls and do all right oil. And of course, then he said, hey, men, cherish is something you should do with your wife or your bride-to-be, or that's what it's talking about. But it just shows how the same word can mean different things.

And so it goes on to say, verse 28, so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. He says it's a best investment because just like we take care of ourselves, now we like to bathe, we like to remove any of the bacteria that's in our bodies. We always take care of ourselves and looking after because we have to live with our flesh, you know, even a thorn in your finger. It's going to bother you until you're you remove that. And your body is saying this splinter is causing pain and you can't be 100% well. What do you do? Well, you do all you can until you get the splinter out. Then everything goes back to normal. So we love our bodies. But how do we treat our wives? Do we treat them like, well, that's up to her. I don't care how she's going to feel. I don't care how she's going to act and behave. No, it's something that it behooves us to invest because if she's happy, we're going to be happy and we're going to have a good home.

Going on, it says, For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. Here's the word cherish used about relationships. For, as we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones through God's Holy Spirit, it says, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Then he says, This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. It's the same relationship. Just like it says here that we are to become one flesh, a team as a marriage. It's the same way. We should become a team in the church to have the same attitudes, love, and respect toward each other. And it is one flesh also. Remember how Christ said that that was his prayer, that as God and Father and him are one, that they may all be one. But he's not talking about physically being one. He's talking about in mind, in attitude, and spirit.

If I had someone here that I said, no, guess what? I can't take care of the feast of tabernacles over there in Portova Yorda. I've got this sickness. So and so. Can you go over there and take care of the feast? And it's going to be the same spirit, the same mind, the same attitude, that you're going to serve people the same way?

That would be my hope. That's my goal, is to capacitate and help all of you. That if if I sent that person, he would have attitude of Jesus Christ and service and do what he could over there. And I know in the future, God's going to tell women, look, here are your talents, and you're going to be over these cities, and you're going to be in charge of these things. So you see, women now are restricted by the way God created men and women, but in the future, you're going to be spirit. And guess what? Spirit is a masculine or feminine.

And so everybody's going to have a chance to serve and have the mind of Christ. And you know, there's a whole universe out there that God wants to populate and to beautify, and that includes all his children.

Then let's go to the final point that Dobson makes. He says, one of the evidences of emotional and spiritual maturity is the ability and the willingness to overrule ephemeral feelings, which means temporary feelings, and govern our behavior with reason, using your mind. Our behavior shouldn't be ruled by emotions that can be so unstable, but by the mind. Should I act this way? Should I respond this way? What is the way that my reasoning with God's Spirit guiding me?

How should I behave or react? He goes on to say, this might lead you to tough it out when you feel like escaping, and guard your tongue when you feel like shouting, and to save your money when you feel like spending it, and to remain faithful when you feel like flirting, and to put the welfare of your mate above your own. These are mature acts that can't occur when biased, whimsical, and unreliable feelings are in charge.

Emotions are important in a relationship, to be sure, but they must be supported by the will and a lifetime commitment. Let's go to the last scripture in 2 Timothy 2. I always like that people really appreciate when I say the last scripture, because they know it's going to be ending soon, and you're going to be able to get up and do other things. 2 Timothy 2, verse 3, it says here, You, therefore, talking to Timothy, must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

He says we enlisted ourselves as soldiers when we were baptized. We are committed, and we're bond slaves of Jesus Christ, and God the Father. We willingly submit it, and we are soldiers of Christ. And so it says here, this is what we dedicate ourselves to.

To no one else is that headship which we submit and bow to. He goes on to say, And also, if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. We're not going to win our reward if we don't follow God's rules. In other words, God's laws and his commands. Just like an athlete, if he does everything right, but he violates if a runner is leading the pack, and he's coming to the finish line, and all of a sudden, he deviates and goes out of his lane.

He gets disqualified. All of that work didn't mean anything. And so he's saying that we, as soldiers of Christ, have his commands, his laws, that we should follow if we want to be rewarded in the future. Goes on to say in verse 6, The hard-working farmer must be first to partake of the crops. And we heard the bio by Corwin, and he was he grew up in a farm. He knows you have to work very hard before you participate in the crops.

They're not going to come up by themselves. So you have to put in the time, the effort, the spiritual disciplining of prayer, Bible study, meditation, occasional fasting, to draw close to God. Verse 7, it says, Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things. So sometimes Paul was that way. He didn't spell everything out. He said, Timothy, study this.

It makes a lot more enjoyment when the person says, Oh, I get it now. I know what he wanted to say to me. And of course, it was how he could apply these principles in his own life. Because Timothy had struggles as a young man.

And he says, Remember your commitment, just like that soldier. You're not out there to go gallabantering around and doing things that are in the wrong areas and with the wrong people. You're a soldier. You've committed.

And if you're an athlete, you're running a race. You know that you have to respect the way God's rules go. And a farmer, he has to work first. He has to invest. And that's what we have to do. Invest in our spiritual life to be able to then harvest spiritual fruit from it. The biggest trials in my life didn't come because I was stronger.

The way to overcome came because I was closer to God. It was the energy and power from him that made things work out. And I give God the full credit. But if I hadn't been close to him, I would act very differently. And that has happened time and time again. So brethren, it's time to apply these principles in our marriages before marriage, in baptism, or if you're contemplating it. Let's keep the flame of marital love going, as well as the flame of God's Spirit.