One Flesh

And I would like to begin with a scripture. Let's turn to John 10, verse 30. This is a quizzical, kind of a cryptic scripture. Jesus Christ was talking about taking care of his sheep. And we're going to go over this scripture in the Bible study today. But I was just struck how important it is and how full of meaning. In John 10, verse 30, Jesus Christ said, I and my father are one.

This led the Jews to want to kill him right then and there when he said that, because he was claiming to be equal to God the Father.

And what did he mean? He said, the Father and I are one. Did it mean that they were just one person?

A lot of confusion has been caused by people just not going in and carefully looking at this. It is important to first focus on the word one when he said, I and the Father are one.

In the Greek, there are two terms for the word one. The first word is heis, heis, and it means the number one. It means one thing.

The other word, hen, means one in type, but not in number. Such as when Jesus Christ said, quoted, they shall be one flesh. The man and the woman will be married and they shall be one flesh. Well, that doesn't mean numerically they become one person, but it means they become one in like-mindedness. That they form one unit, a team. The Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible explains the masculine heis must be distinguished from the neuter hen, distinguishing between the two terms. Heis means numerically one, while hen means one in essence, as in John 10.30, I and my father are one.

Hen, in essence, although they are two different personalities, if the Greek word in this verse were heis, it would have denoted one person. The Bibles will not teach that God the Father and Jesus Christ are one person. And so we have the scripture carefully mentioning there were one in the way they thought, in their actions. Notice what the new international commentary of the New Testament by Leon Morris. He says, who else could be linked with God the Father in this fashion? One is neuter. It means in the neuter term. It's neither masculine or feminine. It means one thing and not one person. Identity is not asserted, but essential unity is. These two belong together. The statement does not go beyond the opening words of the Gospel of John, but it can stand with them, where it said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So it's talking about two beings have been enjoying that fellowship for eternity, and they are one in the way they share things. Another commentary, again, I use commentaries for the technical information, because doctrinally they're usually off, but at least for getting the technical information, what the words are meaning in the text. It is very valuable. Barkley, in his daily study Bible, says, if we go to the Bible itself for the interpretation of this saying, I and the Father are one, we find that it is in fact so simple that the simplest mind can grasp it. Let us turn to John 17, which tells of the prayer of Jesus for his followers before he went to his death. He said, Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou has given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. John 17, verse 11. Jesus conceived of the unity of Christian with Christian as the same as his unity with God. Well, when one Christian is with another Christian and of the faith, doesn't mean they're one being, but they are one in the way they think.

In the same way, and in the same passage he goes on, I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word. That's talking about us, the future generations that would believe through their word, that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou has sent me, the glory which thou has given me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. Of course, this term is continually the word hen, which means one in type. I wanted to clear up that the term is hen, not heiss. Heiss is number. It means one in number, but hen means one in type, in essence. So this is showing that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate beings. They love each other. They work together just like a couple worked together.

Continuing on, he says, abruptly here, Jesus is saying with simplicity and a clarity, none can mistake that the end of the Christian life is that Christians should be one as he and his Father are one. When Jesus said, I and the Father are one, he was not moving in the world of philosophy and metaphysics and abstractions. He was moving in the world of personal relationships. He was one with God because he loved and obeyed him perfectly. And he came to this world to make us what he is. This is, in essence, what was being brought out in the sermonette as well.

Finally, another scholar, F.F. Bruce, in the Gospel of John, adds an important point. He says, the sense of our present passage, that John 10.30, is quite similar. God and Christ are together engaged to protect believers. Whom Christ protects, God protects. Whom Christ keeps in his hand, God keeps in his. Here we have a particular application of the statements in John 5, 19 through 23.

So responsive is the Son to the Father, that he is one in mind, one in purpose, one in action with him. So we'll cover that in the Bible study a bit more. But I thought this is very important, dealing with the subject today, about what does it mean to be one flesh in our godly relationships that we should have, that we were created for that purpose. Our whole life can be measured according to the relationships that we build or that we destroy.

We are hardwired for relationships, good or bad ones. The more we stray from biblical principles, the more we will pay for it later. In Galatians chapter 6 verses 8 through 9, Galatians chapter 6 verses 8 through 9. It says, for he...well, let's go to verse 7. Verse 7, it says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. So according to the seed that you plant on the ground is what kind of fruit will be produced later.

For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. So he's still talking about you. You will be blessed in the long run. Maybe the fruits are not going to be seen right away, but you will eventually reap what you sow. You will eat the fruits of the decisions that you have made. I just got back from Mexico and dealing with the brethren, the difficulties that go, they go through there. And believe me, in a city of over 20 million people and just never designed to have been built in that valley and see how difficult life is. And mothers with small children just eking out a living and still being faithful and really appreciate the brethren are able to have some funds that we can take and just help these young mothers with three or four children. And husband ran out on them and they're trying to make ends meet and still be faithful to God. And maybe the children that need a little help to be able to go to a camp and instead of messing their lives because they live in very dangerous neighborhoods. So we're slowly spreading that to the pockets of the poverty and churches in Latin America. In Matthew 12 and verse 36, let's read Matthew 12 verse 36 in this regard. It says, but I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. You think just loose talking, gossiping, slandering, speaking before people's back. You think God doesn't see that and one day a person's going to have to answer to that? Notice what it says in the more modern version. It says, but I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

The international standard version says, I tell you on the day of judgment people will give account for every thoughtless word they have uttered. Not only thoughtless word, too. Thoughtless deed.

Things like this. Idle words, idle companions, idle deeds. It's going to be paid for in this life and the next. That's why a well-constituted home is the greatest blessing a child can have.

As someone once wrote, what's the greatest gift you can give to your children?

Loving your spouse. That's the greatest gift. If kids see that you love each other and respect each other, that's worth so much more than all the money and all the praise you want to give them at all. Child rearing is an area that we should ask those that have children, are we working on being one with our children? Jesus Christ and God the Father said they work together. If not, why then have children if we weren't working on being one with them?

I'd like to introduce what I call the 50% plus one rule, which is sort of a general principle that I have seen throughout the years, pastoring, inside and outside of the church.

If you marry for selfish reasons, in other words, 50% plus one, did you marry because you were thinking 50% plus one about the other person, making them happy, focusing on them more than on yourself, or focusing more on yourself and what you could get out of the relationship? Now that either brings blessings or cursings.

Did you marry because that other person was pretty or wealthy or intelligent or athletic or because that's the trophy wife or trophy husband?

Did you marry to escape a bad situation in the home or because you were lonely or desperate?

These are all the wrong reasons, and it will have repercussions. Being one flesh is the right reason because you really want to make that person happy, and you want to make that person's life better than the 50 plus 1%.

I put that because, of course, you can't just be absolutely selfless, but it's one thing whether it's selfish or unselfish. If you were thinking more about what that person was going to be given instead of what you were going to take from that person, you know, it just sets a whole chain of events that's going to be kind of like a stone in the lake. Kind of like a stone in the lake, you know, it's going to have repercussions, it's going to have ripple effects.

And so the one flesh applies in marriage as it does in child rearing.

You marry because you are thinking more of that person than you are of yourself. You want to make it work to be more than a partnership. It's giving, not so much taking.

You know, I fear for frivolous people. When I see frivolous people, what they will be reaping now and later, you sow frivolity, you will reap frivolity. In James chapter 4 verse 6, we can read, and I have it here in a couple of different versions as well.

Let's read in New King James, it says, In the New Life version, it says, So people that just are frivolous in their way of thinking, what happens? Well, they're going to reap the consequences as well.

This also can be focused on the decisions of your career.

What is the rule here? 50% plus one? Is it selfish or unselfish? What we choose to do.

It just is a whole attitude. Mr. Armstrong used to mention this about the way of giving or the way of getting. I'd like to dispel an idea that I sometimes hear that after baptism, Satan is really going to go after you. I have not found that out to be the case.

It's not what Christ said in John chapter 10, that he's our shepherd, he will protect us, he is more powerful than Satan. But it is true, we are going to be persecuted.

Many times, we're going to suffer for the decisions that we make.

And I find that basically is what happens. A person, the decisions that they have made, certainly many times you're blessed with opportunities that others are not. Sometimes people take advantage of those opportunities and do something to improve. Sometimes they never had that opportunity. Or sometimes they refused when they could have. But all of those things are what later on will shape a person's life.

And we can apply that rule in many different cases. Again, I just see that people live lives according to decisions that have been made. And here in the church, we are here to improve that, to make the best of the decisions that we make. It's no good to cry over spilled milk, but we can certainly not be spilling the milk all the time. We learn from it. We improve. And through God's Spirit, it's amazing, as we see in the Bible, how people were transformed and changed from a failed life to a successful life. That's what God is looking for. Another area about, again, the decisions we make. Let's take wine for a moment. God gave it for our pleasure and health. Yet, if we allow it to become an addiction, there are going to be repercussions. Notice in 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. And verse 1. This is talking about the leadership in the church.

From 1 to verse 13. It says, this is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, the word is pastor. He desires a good work. So it's not anything wrong. Sometimes people think that it's not good to want to serve God in this position. I wish everybody had the desire to be a pastor and to serve in this way. And that even if you don't have the title, that you try to live your life with the same principles.

The word bishop, again, just means the shepherd who supervises other shepherds in a flock. Usually when you had over 50 sheep, you needed to hire more people, at least one person, to help you. If you had 200 sheep, you had to have others. You couldn't handle that by yourself. So this is talking about the person who is in charge of the flock.

He must then be blameless, the husband of one wife. So you can't have multiple wives like you could in the Old Testament. God limited to this one wife.

Temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine.

Now that word means not using wine more than a moderate way. It mentions in the Good News Bible, and I'll go on because it's in a verse that's used again. But again, it's talking about a person who abuses wine and the effects it can have. It says, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. So again, the person has to give an example. It says, for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the Church of God? And actually, a person's family. It's like a small church that you're taking care of. That you have your wife as an assistant there, and your children are actually sort of your followers. And how do you run that household? It says, not a novice, not somebody relatively new in the Church, lest being puffed up with pride in that position, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. The devil got a swelled head. A person can too. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside. There can't be somebody who's out there, the neighbor says, oh this guy, man, he just look at this rotten example he's giving in the neighborhood. He can't be that way.

If you ask your neighbors about the example, what would they say?

And then it goes on here. Likewise.

Let me finish verse 7. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. So the devil can then start using his ruined reputation against the church itself. And then it goes on. Likewise, deacons must be reverent, not double tongued, not saying one thing, doing the other, not giving too much wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. But let these also first be tested and let them serve as deacons. Sometimes deacons quit serving after they get the position. No, it says let them serve as deacons, being found blameless.

Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers. So the wives should be able to control their tongue, not be out there shooting arrows and darts. I've been in the church. Boy, I can tell you some things. What kind of example is that? So it says you're likewise. Their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. For those who have served well as deacons, obtained for themselves a good standing, talking about before God, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. So we see here again this principle, the 50% plus one. If we have responsibilities, is it for selfish reasons or unselfish? Do we really want to serve the congregation more than they serve us? Here in the Good News Bible, talking about deacons. It says deacons must also be of good character. They must not be too faced or addicted to alcohol. They must not use shameful ways to make money, because all of that impinges on their reputation. So again, it just depends on what we decide. Don't blame anybody if the consequences come back to haunt you. They come back later on. You know, God's laws are the way God set ourselves. We're hardwired to function through God's laws. That's the way He created us. That this is the way that all the channels would work properly. All the circuits would produce light, produce good fruit. And yet, how often we short circuit the system. Notice in Deuteronomy chapter 4.

In verse 6, God was inspiring Moses, using him as his spokesman. Verse 6 says, Therefore be careful to observe them, talking about God's laws. For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which is set before you this day? Is anybody keeping the laws in Babylon today? Not that I know of. Is anybody keeping the code that the Romans used? Nope. But still, biblical principles are still a foundation in a lot of the world, in their constitutions, in a lot of their civil laws, is still based in the majority of the cases on biblical principles. And those nations that have other systems are the ones that have the worst systems of government, and they're still continually having all kinds of problems. But as you adopt biblical principles, life gets better for the nations. We've seen that time and time again.

In the Good, in God's word version, it says, faithfully obey these laws.

This will show the people of the world your wisdom and insight. When they hear about all these laws, they will say what wise and insightful people there are in this great nation.

What great nation ever had their gods as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us, whenever we pray to him? Or what other great nation has such fair laws and rules as all these teachings I am giving you today? So it's a blessing. We were created hardwired for these principles. And I dare say the consequences that we pay, the negative ones, are for having broken that system, broken those pathways that God had created in our minds and our hearts to flow according to God's laws and his spirit. All the consequences that people suffer in the world, as it was mentioned here by Bill Wozner, that you can go back and you can see that every broken law has to do with going back to having broken the Ten Commandments and its extensions. And every blessing that we have had has to do with keeping those Ten Commandments and its ramification. Because, of course, the Ten Commandments are just the great Ten Principles, but then you have all the details on how to apply them throughout the rest of the Bible.

Notice in Duraami 5, verse 29, God, again, is expressing this thought. Verse 29, it says, Oh, that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever. God, desiring so much so people will not mess their lives up, as countless generations have done. And as you go through many of these nations, you see just the curse from one generation to another, just extending the chain of events that leads one generation to be enslaved because of what happened to the other. The other day, one of my daughters sent us a story of a young lady that, at the age of 12 or 13, they lived in a trailer park, and she came home one day to find that her parents had abandoned her. She had no money. She was going to school at the time, and she didn't know what to do. They just got up and left. She went back to the school. She said, well, you know, I want to continue in high school, but I'm going to have to find a place to live, and I'm going to have to make some money, so I'd like to work as a custodian here at the high school. And they hired that young girl, so she would study, and then afterwards she would be working in the school. Well, you can imagine, you know, her classmates, how much they admired her for that. And that young girl continued, finished high school, went on and got very good grades, and she's at Harvard now studying with a full scholarship because she would not let what her parents did affect the rest of her life. She broke the chain of curses from one generation to the other. So there's no excuse. Just because your parents did, it doesn't mean you have an excuse to do it, too. Or blame society, or blame bad luck, or whatever. A person has to know that it's their decisions. Nobody else's. Nobody can decide for you. And just because somebody else is putting pressure doesn't mean you have to smoke that marijuana. Doesn't mean you have to go along with that crowd. You don't have to follow along. Because all of that, eventually you're going to have to eat the same fruits that you planted one day. Continuing on in chapter 6 of Deuteronomy, verse 23. It says, then he brought us out from there, talking about Egypt, that he might bring us in to give us the land of which he swore to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God, for our good always. See, we're hardwired to be blessed by God, but we continually bring curses upon us because we're not doing it his way. We're doing it our way. And then we're blaming God for the consequences. That's not fair to him. It says that he might preserve us alive as it is this day. Then it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, and he has commanded us. So what does it create? You know what it creates when a person's trying to follow God's way and following his pathway? It creates envy, because other people say, boy, I wish I had these blessings. I wish all these things would have worked out. Well, guess what? People are eating the grapes of wrath from past situations, and we should encourage each other and encourage good examples and not bring about envy and backbiting and all kinds of things, because it seems like people just want others to fall so they can be consoled. Then, you know, misery loves company. And that's just part of that human nature. It says here, again, God's word version.

It says, the Lord our God commanded us to observe all these laws and to fear him. These laws are for our own good as long as we live so he will preserve our lives. It's still true today. This is how we'll have the Lord's approval if we faithfully obey all these laws in the presence of our Lord our God, and he has commanded us. What are we doing here on the Sabbath? That's what we're learning. That's what we're teaching. It's what we're trying to get through to people. And yet, there's a lot of rebelliousness and just a lot of resistance. And we still have that carnal human nature to contend with. But again, God wants us to be one as he and the Father are one. That's all about these relationships. We are hardwired for it. That's why I'm not interested in any other type of system. I'm not interested in other type of religion or lifestyle because we are hardwired for this. This is the way God blesses. This is the only way it's going to be really beneficial. But we can short-circuit those pathways, but we cannot reproduce right results.

We cannot reproduce the right results if we have not followed those pathways.

And so we need that unity in the church as well. We are hardwired for it spiritually after baptism. But many times we avoid those pathways. In Colossians chapter 3, Colossians chapter 3, and verse 12, Paul, who was such a great example of working for that unity, Colossians chapter 3, verse 12, It is therefore as the elect of God, those that have been chosen out of the world by him, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. In other words, don't have grievances, don't have resentments that are long-lasting, but above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord, and whatever you do in word or deed, do all the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. So that sums up what we're to do, how we are to act. Mr. Armstrong wrote a famous article many years ago. I always remember it, and my mind made a big impact when I read it. It was in the Plain Truth many years ago, in the early 1980s, as I recall, it's called, There's a Hidden Enemy in Your Home. How many have read that? Oh, I'd say maybe 15 or 20 of them. It's one of those where he just hit the nail right on the head. He really hit a home run with this article. I just was going over it. All you have to do in the Internet is put Herbert Armstrong, there's an enemy in your home, and that article is right there. It took me three seconds to get it. Didn't you have to go look for it? That's one blessing. Of course, the Internet has so much slander and things like that. Don't pay attention to other things, but here's an article. It's well worth everybody reading, and I'm just going to read an excerpt from it. It says, There's a Hidden Enemy in Your Home, and that hidden enemy, he calls emotional immaturity. Emotional immaturity. And he uses an example, which brings it home in a very colorful way. He says, I once knew a tragic example, a man highly educated, whose life had been devoted to the field of education. Assuming readily the responsibility of teaching others, when he himself had not learned the central truth of life, he had not matured emotionally, in other words. His mind was stored with knowledge of science, history, mathematics, literature. He had knowledge of facts about the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars. He had acquired knowledge about many other things, but not about himself. His moods, his feelings, his drives, impulses, and desires. He had not stopped to study and analyze them, let alone learn to control them. As a child, he had been pampered, petted, spoiled, permitted to have his way, never taught self-restraint, self-control, or how to understand his moods, feelings, and desires, and to control and guide them according to the sound reasoning of the mind, instead of impulsively following them without mental direction. He was married, had a fine family, and honored position with rare opportunities, but letting feelings, moods, impulses dominate his mind instead of making his mind rationally and wisely direct them.

His marriage crashed. His home was broken up, and he fled in fear from his high position and brilliant future. He not only wrecked his own life, he forced great sorrow, unhappiness, and suffering on many others. His emotions had so dominated his mind that he came to see circumstances through the eyes of his feelings, and his understanding became warped and distorted. Physically, he grew to normal maturity and was reasonably proficient in athletics. He possessed a number of university degrees. He was mentally mature, so far as this world's faulty education instructs. But emotionally, he was still somewhere between ages 8 and 12.

And sadly, his spiritual age was no older. The great tragedy of our generation is that nearly all people mature physically, perhaps half to two-thirds mature mentally. But very few ever grow up emotionally or spiritually. One is not a fully mature man or woman, as God intended, until emotional and spiritual maturity has been reached. And it says here, the next subheading should start in child training.

The time to start this emotional growing up is the same time mental training has begun. It should be started in the home within the first months of a child's life. Parents, study your own children. Remember that training of the emotions involves control and right direction of feelings, tempers, impulses. It means control over anger, jealousy, hatred, fear, grief, resentment, selfishness, vanity. And since the right direction is the way of God's laws, and since that is the way of love, and love is the principle of giving instead of taking, it means the teaching of your children to use their own minds to understand their moods, and guiding them in the direction of giving, of love toward others, equal with love toward self. So you can see that's just an excerpt from that article, but you can read it online, the entire thing. It's as fresh reading it today as when it was written over 30 years ago. And he balanced the point about maturity and having the development of the mental, the development of the mental, but also the emotional and the spiritual, the right balance in things.

So let's go now to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians chapter 5. Again, Paul was a master at building relationships, teaching how they should be.

Notice, let's go here in chapter 5, beginning in verse 22.

It says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. We want to be one. You can't have two heads in the family. You can't have both wearing the pants in the household. The wives should voluntarily submit that role to their husband. It shouldn't be a power struggle in the home. I remember that Bill Cosby tape where he talks about himself and he says, well, I'm not the head of the home. I don't know how I lost it. I don't know when I lost it, but I'm not the head. My wife is the head. I obey.

And then he kids around. How is that word? Obey sounds to him. But the thing is, he led his wife to it. And of course, that had repercussions. That did not produce the happiness that should have been there. So that's what we have as hardwired. The women learn more from submitting in the proper way to their husbands, as the husbands have to learn to love their wives. The wives naturally love. They do not naturally submit. Men can submit more naturally than women. Notice when you're working for a boss. Yes, sir. Yes, chief. What do you want, chief? Yes, sir. Orders. That's why in the Army everybody works together. And they can do that. But it's very different in the feminine areas. So this is the principle of learning to be one. It says, for the husband is the head of the wife, is also Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. So the wife should look at the husband as her Savior. He's there to protect me. He's there to help me, to provide for me.

That's why I'm submitting to him, because he's there to protect my interests. He's not there to protect his own interests first. This is one of the chief reasons so many marriages fail. They're focusing more on me than he or her. And so it doesn't work that way. It says, therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands, and everything. So it just means that the wife is not going to be playing the blackmail. Well, I'll submit here if you give me this, and we're all playing games. No, it says this is genuine. This is not a game that you're playing tit for tat, and trying to figure out, well, I submitted today, so I deserve this and that. It's not some type of blackmail you have with your husband.

And then it says, husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. It takes a lot for a husband to learn how to love your wife properly. Sure, he can be romantic, he can be tall, dark, and handsome, and everything else, but you know what? You find out what the husband is like 24-7 afterwards. After he gets off that horse that night in shining armor, and you find out whether he's willing to put his wife first or not. And that's why loving a wife means more than just going steady with her or have a romantic feeling. It's cherishing her.

It's respecting her so much. You really want to make her the happiest person on earth, and you will work your life toward that end. It's more cherished than loving, because loving can just be something momentary. But you have her on a pedestal. She's your queen. You really want to make her feel that way. Continuing on, he says that he might sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of water by the word.

So again, there's a sanctity there. The way you deal with your wife, she feels sanctified in the marriage. That he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having a spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So the purpose again is so he can show her off and be able to be proud of the wife that he helped create. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself. Very important principle. The better you take care of her, the better you're going to be. The worse you take care of her, the worse you're going to be. Just like I don't go around beating myself when I take a nice shower. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking care of my body because I have to live in it.

So if I don't take good care of it, I'm going to pay the consequences. And with your wife, it behooves you to make her feel at home and comfortable because if not, you're going to live to regret it. Continuing on, it says, so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.

In verse 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. How much does he sacrifice for the church? All the time.

He gave his life for it. And what a terrible beating and suffering he went through. So it does involve self-sacrifice. Denial of the self. Doesn't man put down what he's doing when his wife needs him? Or does he just relegate her to the back room? For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become, what?

One flesh. The Greek, hen. Doesn't mean they become one in number. You know, we don't get fused into Siamese twins. No, but it talks about one in the way they are, the way they deal with things. And this is a great mystery. In the word mystery, remember, in the Bible means revelation, something that was not known previously. But I speak concerning Christ and the church. The whole purpose is to build relationships of one flesh, that we can then have it with Christ and God the Father forever.

That's what it's all about. You know, our lives are going to be judged by how good our relationships were with God, in the church, in our marriages, with our friends and family. Nevertheless, he goes back then to the physical plane. Let each one of you, in particular, so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Both of those elements are so vital to our lives. So, you know, being one flesh is a great goal in our personal life to be at one with others. That others feel that way. You empathize with them, with their needs, their feelings. Do we ask how their brethren are doing here, or are we more concerned about ourselves? You know, it's just little gestures will tell you a lot about the person.

Are they interested in just talking about me, and me, and me, and my accomplishments, and what I'm doing, and how pretty, or how nice, or maybe how the other person isn't quite up to my standards? We have to be so careful with what we say about others. People are very conscious. You know, we shouldn't, if we're learning to be one, we're putting ourselves in place of the other person, and avoiding, oh boy, you're so skinny now, or oh, you gain so much weight, or oh, this, or that.

You know, those are words that just should not be in our vocabulary. We should be conscious that people are very aware of their own image and identity, and never make them feel embarrassed, or ashamed. Try to encourage them. And again, those little words can hurt so badly, because people are conscious of themselves. Nobody has the perfect body, or perfect mind, or perfect emotions. And so, anything that person says to cut the person down, to try to whittle them down, is not proper.

Especially relationships between parents and children. Not whittling your children down, embarrassing them, humiliating them. You know, you're going to go through different phases. Kids are going to be tall, they're going to be short, they're going to get heavy, they're going to get light, whatever. You know, you can always tell a person, boy, you're looking nice, or you're doing this proper.

Those things are positive. But don't focus on the negative aspects of a person's appearance. Yeah, it's just human nature. Are we learning? Are we growing spiritually or not? You know, if you have a mole here, and, oh, I never noticed your mole. When did you get that mole? How's that person going to feel? Terrible. They can't take it out, or whatever. Or, again, I even am reluctant to mention things.

I just said, the particulars. But again, it's God's people learning how to apply godly principles. That's part of God's law. You know what commandment is broken when we're doing that? It's the sixth commandment, which is, you know, thou shall not murder. Which means you shall not murder the person in what you say, in what you think, in what you project to them. Because after all, you're hurting that person. You're causing them to die a little bit, to be hurt. And God says we are not to hurt anyone. We're not to do that. We should edify.

So, again, this is all what it's about. We are going to reap what we sow in life.

And the great goal in our personal life is to be at one with others, in courtship, be at one with that other person. Think more about what you can give them, than what they can give you. The 50 plus 1 percent, at least 51 percent, should be outward. Because if it's inward, then it's selfishness. Then all these chain of events, negative consequences, are going to be brought. Mr. Armstrong used to talk about that, about the economy. And, you know, people are 51 percent dishonest. Usually we'll have a great depression. Something will happen. But, you know, it not only applies in the economic world. It applies in families, in relationships, in everything we do. When it's more bad than good, something will happen. We will cross that frontier, that boundary, and then it'll trigger all kinds of effects.

Also, to be at one in marriage, child rearing, in our careers, and in the church.

This is a great principle of God's way of life, giving instead of getting more. And you will see these relationships are going to improve. We're going to be more careful what we say, how we act toward others. And we're going to be reaping great blessings instead of cursings in our lives.