Bibleline Radio Show – 2013-10-28 – Marriage – A Divine Institution Pt.1


Transcription:

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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Once you take your Bible and turn to the book of Genesis, the book of Genesis in chapter two, Genesis chapter two, we’ve been studying in the book of Romans about the spiritual mind versus the carnal mind. A person who thinks about the things of God to be spiritually minded means to mind the spirit, but a spiritual mind leads to construction. A carnal mind leads to destruction. And the Lord tells us, unless the Lord built the house, we labor in vain that built it.

We know that we’re supposed to build upon a solid rock. And Christ says, if you build upon sin, it means you built upon man. You build upon the rock, it’s because you built upon his sayings, what God’s word says. We need to understand who in the world designed the home. Who designed it? You have to understand the purpose of the home in order to be the right kind of a father or right kind of a husband, the right kind of a mother, the right kind of a wife.

You understand it from God’s point of view. So the best way to do that, of course, to get back to basis, you got to go back to the beginning. So here in the book of Genesis in chapter 2. I want you to look in verse 8. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. Before God made a man, He made a perfect environment and put him in it.

Wasn’t that sweet of God? I like that. I like that. Now look there in verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, dalme is freely eat. Isn’t that wonderful of God? Isn’t that great? But he says in verse 17, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest there, thou shalt surely die. So there’s one that you’re not supposed to do.

Now look there in verse 18. Verse 18 says, and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. Now who said that? God said that. God said it is not good that man should be alone. So he made him a golf club. That’s not in your Bible? It didn’t say that. God gave him a football. I gave him a job. He did do that anyway, but he said, I will make him and help me for him.

In other words, like God made a man, but was he finished? I mean, he was finished. Or was he complete? Some people have problem with the word complete and finished. It’s like, is it the same thing to be complete? Is it to be finished? If it’s finished, it’s complete. If it’s complete, it’s finished. Well, there is a slight difference. For example, if a man marries the right woman, he is complete. She is called a Completer. She completes the man.

But if he marries the wrong woman, he’s finished. If she catches the right man with the wrong woman, he’s completely finished. Now, some of y’all are not going to go any further today. you’re going to stay right there and think about what I’ve just said. But now, look down in verse 20, and Adam gave names to all cattle, to all the file of the ear, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found on help meet for him.

Now, I want you to understand, this is somebody to help to meet the needs of the man. God made the man first. Now, I know I’ve had women tell me, he said, yeah, but he had some He was the only one that could be, I guess you could call like an angel up in the air, nothing to wear and harp on something. So there was no help meet for him, someone to help meet his need. So God made a woman.

And the angel that came down and talked to Adam and says, God wants to make you a perfect help meet exactly like you, but it’ll cost you a leg. He said, cost me a leg. He said, what can I get for a rib? So the Lord caused them to go to sleep anesthesia. And God performed surgery and He took a rib and God made a woman. And look what happened. In In verse 21, and the Lord God calls a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.

This is what usually happens to a man. He goes into a deep sleep. Like this guy named Jesse, he said to Kyla, he said, I have a half of mine to get married. She says, that’s all it takes. And the Lord God calls a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead. the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man.

God brought the woman to the man. Now, who made the man? God? Who made the woman? God. Who brought them together? God. Now, that’s the way that God did it in the very beginning. This is all God’s plan. Man did not design this. Woman, you did not design this. God did that. And God brought them together. Now, if there had not been any sin, there would have been no death. No death, Adam and Eve would still be alive today and still married.

Don’t ever love your mind. Come on, you’ve been married 6,000 years. Maybe 10. Been married a long time. And so he says in verse 23, and Adam says, this is not bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, in verse 24, very important, shall a man leave his father and his mother, cleave unto his wife, and they too become one flesh. And man, woman, get married, become one, and there’s a child.

Two became one. Now we’re one in marriage, but we’re also to be one in purpose. And the purpose is to find out what does God say and what does God want. So marriage is a divine institution. And I believe that the best thing that children can ever see about their mother is that their mother is loved and treated right by daddy. is the stability of a home. The home should be a place of peace and joy and happiness, believe it or not.

Now we know that it’s not always the case, but it should be. The harmony of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit should be the same harmony that’s there with the mom, the dad, and the kids. It should be a little bit of heaven on earth, You and I, a lot of times home is a little hell on earth. That’s not the way God planted it. That’s not the way God designed it. It’s because sin has entered in.

And that’s not the way God wants it to be. So the divine institution of the home, of marriage itself, it provides a basis and order For the human race. And it’s important because you see there are things that God has given to us that He wants us to do to fulfill. We can either be constructive or destructive. Without God, everything falls apart. Without the Lord, you as an individual are very corrupt. You will go your own way. Marriage is go their own way.

Nations go their own way. But if we did, what God says to, Everything is constructive. Everything builds. Everything works. God’s way. But you see, we don’t want to do things God’s way. I had people that told me that we want to get married and it came down to just about, I think, a month before they were to get married. The girl she leans over the desk and she says, pastor, when you do the vows, would you leave the word obey out?

I says, what? She says, would you leave the word obey out? I says, no ma’am, I will not. And if you won’t obey him, I won’t marry y’all. That’d get somebody of. If a woman isn’t willing to do her role that God gave to her, don’t marry the man. Let him find someone who will. Don’t ruin your life and his. It won’t work. So what equal partners? It will not work that way. It’s not the way God designed it.

God set up things that will work God’s way. And sometimes I think that children are ruined because they don’t see the peace, the joy, the harmony between the mom and the dad. And it should be there. This is how they learn. And you’d be surprised that, like I talked in a little Johnny, he said, I came from a broken home. I found out he broke it. But the Word of God has laid down a way that will work. and we need to understand it.

It provides the boundaries for intimacy between a man and there’s boundaries, a boundary. And those boundaries are very important. There are boundaries that God has set and he wants everyone to listen to what he has to say. Not to do so, there’s no guidelines and everything falls apart. It provides a stable environment for the children, a man, a woman that loved the Lord. It provides a stable environment for those kids. Now, we don’t always have parents that do what they’re supposed to do.

I wish that I could go back and redo some of the things that that I’ve done when I was young in the Lord. But I didn’t see how it’s supposed to be and I didn’t always make the right decisions. I think I could do a better job the second time around, but we don’t get that second choice. It’s one trip through and we do the best we can. Let me give you this. Love is the foundation for marriage and must be the basic concept for marriage.

The mental love attitude in marriage finds many areas of expressions such as our conversation, our graciousness, our companionship, and our physical intimacy. It’s because of love. For example, a man and a woman, they can be married in the physical relationship, but not be happy because the love’s not there. Sin abounds when love waxes cold. There’s two kinds of wars that we are accustomed to. It’s called the hot war and the cold war. The hot war is when things are not exactly right and so we just verbally, we holler, yell, and shout and threatening all of us, that’s a hot war.

You see what they don’t last very long, and I get it off my chest, and I feel so much better. Oh yeah, shotgun blasts don’t last long either, but it sure does a lot of damage. Now there’s the other kind, it’s the silent treatment, the Cold War. We often talk about the Cold War we had with Russia, but there’s a lot of Cold War going in on a lot of homes. The cold war is where they just don’t speak to each other.

Or one don’t speak to the other. Just give the cold treatment. Like I didn’t hear you. I didn’t even see you. Nothing goes right. And you become bitter and critical on everything that said and done. And then they look for every flaw. The Bible says, love covers a multitude of sins. I’ve told people to leave. You don’t look and see with both eyes. Just see with one eye. Here with one ear. Don’t always be looking for everything that can go wrong.

Don’t look for all the faults and the flaws. A man marries a woman because of the way she is. And he wants her just like that to stay. Don’t change. And she marries him, but I’ll change him the way I want him. And it doesn’t work. You accept each other the way they are. Remember the vow when you took those vows for better or for, and a lot of time it gets worse. But what was the vow? What did you promise?

I loved you and I’ll honor you until death do us part for better or for worse. Richard or four, so how many wives can you have? 16, four rich, four poor, four six, just one. One will do. But it’s for better or for worse, richer or for poor. Sickness and in health. You see, those are things that we say and we promise. God is the one who is watching over every marriage.

He knows everyone who’s vowed and promised. This is what the children need. And the husband needs to treat the wife the way he’s supposed to treat the wife. Because the kids need to see how they’re supposed to treat their wife when they get married. By watching how daddy treats his wife. And that little girl, she needs to know how mama obeys her husband so that when she gets married, she’ll know how she’s pulled the tree to her husband. But see, if all they see is hollering, yelling, fighting, and fusing, and all the rest of them, you’re training them.

That’s how you solve your problems. They’re learning from you. Now, I believe that God has placed and is the Word of God. The man is to be the head of the body. See, I’ve only got one body up here. I only got one head. Now, if I had two heads, I’d be a freak. Marriage only has one head. God holds the head, the man, as the head of the home, responsible for the home. Your wife is a mirror or a reflection of how you’re doing.

If she’s not happy, the man needs to look in the mirror. He got to figure out how to meet not only the physical needs, material need, financial needs, but the spiritual needs of the wife. Cause if she’s not happy, he won’t be happy. Nobody’s gonna be happy. Because she is the mirror, the reflection of the harmony, the peace, the joy, the love of the home. She is what reflects to others. his leadership and her submissive. So it goes both ways.

So the man has got to try to make sure that when you choose to marry somebody, you choose somebody that knows the Lord and wants to serve the Lord. Because if she doesn’t want to serve the Lord, she’s not going to make a good wife in yielding and understand that. If for example, you want to honor the Lord, Then the woman must honor her head. She must honor her husband. She must be obedient to her husband. Now I’m not talking about where the man gets out the bull whip and he whips.

I’m the boss. I’m the dictator. Everybody else, what I say, if you have to do that, you’re not fit to lead. If you can’t lead by loving them, you’re not fit to lead. And I can see why a lot of women rebel against their husbands because their husbands aren’t fit to obey. They’re not obeying the head over them, which is Christ, because they’re supposed to set the right example in forgiveness and compassion and mercy and understanding. Majority of men do not understand their wives.

They don’t know why they do what they do. I like to admit there’s a lot of there and it’s hard, I know. But it takes the grace of God not to see everything, not to hear everything. And there’s times when a woman’s moods can change like that. No cause for it whatsoever. Or no man has ever found the cause. But you got to understand, you’re supposed to be rock solid. You don’t get over excited and you don’t go around greatly depressed.

A man who’s always depressed. Always complaining, always down in the dumps. It’s not going to be a good example to anybody. You’re supposed to have your confidence in the Lord and you know God is going to walk you through whatever it might be. Whatever the cares may be. And you trust the Lord for that. Think of Bible looking in the book of Romans in chapter 12. Romans in chapter 12, we often use this verse for, you know, trying to challenge motivate somebody to serve the Lord.

serve the Lord. But I want you to look at it from a little different point of view. Romans chapter 12 and look there in verse 1. Romans chapter 12 verse 1, where it says, I beseech you, therefore brethren by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. Now look in verse 2. Now, if you are a woman, I want you to read this verse. And if you’re a man.

I want you to read this verse because there’s something in here for both. Where he says, be not conformed to this world. That means man or the wife to be conformed to this world. God wants the man and God wants the wife to be conformed to the word. So women, when you conform yourself to the word of God, you will learn to be obedient to God. And if you’re obedient to God, you have to submit yourself to the husband that you married.

You say, well, you ought to see what I married. Yeah, I know. I’ve seen a lot of that. Well, I just don’t trust his judgment. Well, I can say who we married. It’s hard to trust somebody that you don’t love. And so, a man and a woman needs to understand. Look, can God change both of you? It’s not the job of the man or the woman that change each other, but both should be conformed or changed as you grow in the Lord.

And if you grow in the Lord, you’ll grow closer to each other. My wife and I will be celebrating our 51st anniversary in another month. 51 year, that’s not forever I know, but it’s still a long time. It’s been a long time. You know what, there was this man was sitting there in his chair and his wife walked up to him and says, honey, this is our 50th anniversary. He said, I know, I know, I know. And she looked close and realized he had tears in his eyes.

And She thought, this is so touching. She says, well, you got tears in your eyes, huh? You say, well, you remember that day 50 years ago when your dad stuck that shotgun in my ribs? He told me, either I marry you or 50 years behind bars. She says, yeah, I remember that. She says, today I’ll be a free man. You have a wife. You have a husband. love each other, forgive each other. Neither one of your perfect, are you?

It’s so easy to see the wrong and everybody else and not in ourselves. And the man doesn’t change the wife, he changes himself. If he will change himself, God can change that woman. All you do is just do right and trust the Lord and make sure you don’t try to give the other person reasons not. to bend or to yield to the Lord. And you pray, pray all the time, pray. Now look what he says here, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of the husband is, the will of God.

But it’s for the husband and it’s for the wife. Did you know that there is a perfect will of God for the husband and for the wife? God has laid down the roles and we’re like playing a part. God says, now, man, this is what you’re to do and why? That this is what you’re supposed to do. And if both will do what God says to do, then you will be happier and you can learn to love each other and things can grow.

Things can be changed. Do things God’s way. husband, he’s not God, he’s just a man. And he makes mistakes. You knew that before you married him. Didn’t you? You didn’t. You were naive. You know he does things wrong, but you loved him so much, and they say love is blind, yet but marriage is an eye-opener. So your eyes have now been opened, and now you see better. If I don’t know this, okay, you didn’t. But if you knew what God’s word says, Can God heal and forgive?

Marriage is a commitment to each other. It’s not based upon feelings. Feelings come and go. You know, the day I feel like I’m married. Well, tomorrow morning I go, you know, I don’t feel like I’m married today. Well I am. My wife will let me know that I am. you know that you can sit in a restaurant and my wife can have her back to the windows. And I can sit there and we’re looking at the menu and get ready to order and I can look at people all day long.

But as soon as they go, my wife will turn completely around and she’ll look out there and she knew I just saw somebody I shouldn’t have saw. She can tell when I’m looking at somebody. Now I don’t never look at anybody for the land. But she can read you like a book. That woman knows you buddy. In the long she lives with you. She just don’t trust me. No, no why? Because there’s so, see, the intuition of a woman is the transparency of man.

It means that a woman can see through us and they are very sensitive. A woman likes security. She likes security. A man sometimes doesn’t think the same way that a woman does. A woman wants to hear the words, I love you. She wants to be touched. She wants to be praised. Big, you know, appreciate it. A man can go, I can go, I can go six months and not have to worry about you. He don’t say anything. I told you I love you when I married you.

If I change my mind, I’ll let you know. But a woman wants to hear You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by Call free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.