Saturday Afternoon 3-4 – One Minute Marriage and What
Marriage Under Threat (successful-marriage.blogspot.com)
Bill Taylor The British used to say, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” They recognized that women staying home and raising sons and daughters properly gave them their empire. When women went to work, they lost that.Marriage is simpler than we think. This short paper explains marriage in 60 seconds.
https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/…/what-drove…
Chapter 9 – Saturday Afternoon 3-4 – One Minute Marriage and What My Wife Told Me about Herself
You can explain both marriage and salvation in 30 seconds. Parents spend years getting kids into good colleges but not much time, talent, toil, or treasure teaching them how to have good marriages. These soundbites deserve a lot of study. We don’t expect anyone to drive without being taught, how can we expect good marriages without teaching? This chapter is a homework exercise. Look up the verses in the “Chapter 19 – Verses and Passages Relating to Marriage” on page 135 and think on them.
Nobody deserves salvation; every person is a sinner who deserves to go to Hell (Rom. 3:23, 5:12, 6:23). If you accept salvation, God gives you the gift of eternal life (Rom. 6:23b). God doesn’t see your sins, He sees the righteousness and purity of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Ps. 103:12, I Cor. 6:11).
Accepting God’s offer of grace means that He and His Son see you as perfect (Eph. 5:25-27, Rom. 8:1, 1 Ki. 8:61, 11:4, 15:3, 15:14, 2 Ki. 20:3, 2 Chr. 15:17).
Salvation makes us servants of Jesus Christ (Ps. 100:2, Rom. 1:1, Tit. 1:1). We belong to God (Jn. 10:29, 1 Cor. 6:19), serve Him out of love (2 Cor. 5:14), and strive to walk in good works as Jesus taught (Eph. 2:10).
God expects us to serve Him by serving spouses, families, and churches (Rom. 12:10, Eph. 4:12, 5:21, 1 Pet. 5:5). Focus on God through Christ. What God does is perfect; serving Him by serving your spouse is a perfect calling (Mk. 9:35, 10:44). Focus your eyes on your perfect God, not on fallible people (Phil. 2:1-8).
That’s God’s Simple Plan of Marriage in a Half-Minute. If they’re still listening, you can go on:
Eph. 4:31-32 tells us to forgive each other as God forgives. God forgives completely; He forgets our sins (Ps. 103:10-12, Is. 43:25, Heb. 10:17, Eph. 5:25-27). When God washes away our sins (Heb. 9:14, 10:19-22), what’s left is perfect and without condemnation (Rom. 8:1, 15:13). Eph. 5:1 commands, “Be ye therefore followers of God.” God sees us as perfect, so we must follow God and see our spouses as perfect.
That’s the key to marriage. Treat your spouse as perfect, praise your spouse as perfect, say your spouse is perfect for you, and thank God for putting you in a perfect marriage (Ps. 68:6). Marriage prospers if the husband treats his wife as God’s perfect gift to him and she acts as God’s perfect gift to him (Jas. 1:17). He’s to love, nourish, cherish, honor, and sanctify her (Eph. 5:29, Song 4:7, 6:9) as perfect, she’s to obey him and submit to him in reverence (Eph. 5:22, 33, Col. 3:18) even though neither of them deserves the other!
That’s God’s Simple Plan of Marriage in One Minute. If they’re still listening, you can go on:
We must love God with perfect hearts. “Love the Lord thy God” is in the Bible 14 times (Deu. 6:5, 11:1, 11:13, 11:22, 13:3, 19:9,30:6, 30:16, 30:20, Joshua 22:5, 23:11, Mt. 22:37, Mk. 12:30, Lk. 10:27)! 1 Kings 11:4 and 15:3 speak of David having a perfect heart with the Lord his God. David sinned, but he never turned from worshiping God to worshiping anything else. Faithfulness and repentance kept his heart perfect with God.
God expects us to keep our hearts perfect with Him and with each other. We must not let our hearts stray toward anyone else or anything else (Job 31:1, Pr. 25:38, Song of Solomon).
As David was perfectly confident in God and rested in what God gave him, we must learn to rest contentedly in each other and in what God gives us (Ruth 1:9a, Mt. 11:28, Phi. 4:11, 1 Tim. 6:6, Heb. 13:5).
Love God by loving your spouse; serve God by serving your spouse, praise God by praising your spouse is simple, but “simple” isn’t “easy.” It’s simple to walk from Maine to California – put one foot in front of the other, repeat ‘til you get there – but not easy. Marriage is a lifetime journey, not a stroll across a continent.
Groups of God’s people should act with hearts as perfect as David’s:
All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart
to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart
to make David king. I Chronicles 12:38 *
The people agreed with one perfect heart that they wanted David as their king. God gave us one way to relate to Him, that is, with perfect hearts and never go after other gods. Husband and wife must both have perfect hearts with God. Both must have perfect hearts with each other and never go after anyone else.
As God graciously gives His salvation to those who earnestly seek Him (Deu. 4:29), He graciously gives the blessings of marriage to couples who seek Him and enter into Holy Matrimony with one perfect heart. “Holy” means “set apart to the Lord for His purposes.” Holy Matrimony doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to God.
We’re not talking about gluten-free, no calorie diet matrimony as lost people do, we’re taking the real deal, we’re discussing Holy Matrimony. There is no vow in salvation; your marriage vows are the most solemn, binding vows any human can ever utter.
As we work out God’s salvation in fear and trembling (Phi. 2:12), we work out God’s gift of marriage as we mature, grow, and learn. David never lost his salvation, but his sins took away his joy:
Restore unto me the joy
of thy salvation
; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Psalm 51:12
Salvation belonged to God and not to David. He knew that God would faithfully restore his joy in God’s salvation once he restored his relationship with God through repentance and confession (1 Jn. 1:9). Be prepared to confess to one another and forgive one another to restore your joy in God’s marriage (Jas. 5:16).
I don’t understand how God can chasten us as His sons (Heb. 12:5-8) without condemning us (Rom. 8:1) and ensure that we reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7) while forgetting our sins (Heb. 8:12, 10:17, 1 Jn. 1:9), but I don’t understand how Jesus can be both God and man at the same time either (Heb. 11:6). If God treated me as I deserve, I’d go to Hell, but by His grace, He treats us as perfect so that we can fellowship with Him in Heaven (He. 9:13-14). If we treat our spouses as they deserve, we can make life Hell on earth. If we treat them as perfect, we can give each other a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
How can I treat a sinful spouse as perfect and make my marriage a picture of Heaven on earth? How can God treat me as perfect and take me to Heaven? I don’t deserve it, but He poured out His grace to me when He saved me. I can treat my wife as perfect by giving her the grace God gave me even though she doesn’t deserve it. Nobody deserves salvation; nobody deserves marriage. I don’t deserve her submission or her reverence, she doesn’t deserve my sanctification or honor, these are undeserved gifts of God.
A wife is told to call her husband “lord,” (I Peter 3:6) but she knows his faults, she knows he doesn’t deserve her reverence (Eph. 5:33). The only way she can call her sinful husband “lord” from her heart is to freely pour out God’s saving grace to her husband (Heb. 4:16). A husband is commanded to love his wife as if she were perfect (Eph. 5:25-27, Pr. 31:28-29, Song 4:7, 6:9a) even though she doesn’t deserve it. The only way he can love her as perfect with all his heart is to freely pour out God’s saving grace to her.
How do we do this? We must have God’s grace in our hearts so that it can come out in our speech (Luke 6:45, Eph. 4:15). Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech be always with grace,” we’re always supposed to show God’s grace to everyone with every word we speak (Matthew 12:36).
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. I Peter 4:10
God’s grace is Jesus’ gift to us. As faithful stewards of His grace, we’re supposed to pass it on, that’s our gift back to Him (Tit 2:14).
How can we edify one another (Rom. 10:14, Eph. 4:12-16, Jas. 5:20)? Job’s wife had lost her sons and her husband had lost all his money when she told him to curse God. He said she was “like a foolish women” in a way that implied she wasn’t usually foolish (Job 2:9-10). He loved the sinner while hating the sin, he spoke the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). He criticized what she did; he didn’t criticize her. Everyone knows the difference.
Lost people say, “Cut me some slack,” treating other people as we think they deserve leads to fights. God says, “I saved you when you didn’t deserve it. I expect you to cut other people unlimited[14] slack even though they don’t deserve it (Eph. 2:10).” Having saved us by His grace, God expects us to pass it on.
Marriage and salvation are deep mysteries of God, but they’re as simple as a children’s song: “If you’re saved and you know it, then your life will surely show it, if you’re saved and you know it, pass it on.”
We are the servants of Jesus Christ. We belong to Him (1 Cor. 6:19). Jesus expects us to serve each other (Rom. 12:10, Eph. 4:12, 5:21, 1 Pet. 5:5). We serve Jesus by serving our spouses, families, and churches.
We should glorify God in all that we do (I Cor. 10:31). We do that because we love Christ and want to please Him in all we do (II Cor. 5:14-15). Jesus’ love makes us sacrifice our former goals and wants in favor of the good works He expects of us (Mt. 5:16, He. 10:24). In the same way, when we marry, our love for our spouse makes us sacrifice our former individual goals in favor of good works for the family (Rom. 12:1).
Passing on God’s grace is the foundation of marriage and spreads the gospel. When Christians divorce, lost people conclude that we can’t handle this life and won’t care what we say about the life to come. If they see us pouring out undeserved grace to each other, however, they’re more likely to believe what we say about God’s offer of grace (Mat 5:16, Heb. 10:24) and want some for themselves. That’s how we spread the gospel!
The Apostle Paul wrote that we work to spread the Gospel because our love for Christ “constraineth us,” that is, makes us do it. We serve Him because our love for Him makes us want to please Him.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; II Corinthians 5:14a
In the same way, our love for our spouses should constrain us to do whatever we can to please him or her. If lost people see married Christians working to please each other out of love, they’ll often ask how we can handle the problems the other person causes. That gives us a chance to talk about God’s love and God’s forgiveness. God forgives us, so God expects us to forgive other people in the same way He forgave us.
ANOTHER WAY TO EXPLAIN MARRIAGE
A wife is a gift from God to her husband. Adam didn’t ask for Eve, he did nothing to deserve her or to earn her. God could have let Eve name the animals with Adam, but He waited until Adam knew his loneliness.
It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:21-22 *
Did God have to tell Adam, “I’m sorry you didn’t like any of My animals. Here’s someone I whipped up out of leftovers. Why not talk to her, you might like her?” Did God have to say that? No, Adam knew right away that Eve would be good for him; he claimed her on the spot:
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Genesis 2:23
For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
Adam knew why God had given Eve to him.
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me Genesis 3:12a
Live joyfully
with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life
, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
A man’s life consists of his work and his wife, that’s his portion. A wife, like life, is a gift of God.
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing
, and obtaineth favor
of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things
? Romans 8:31-32 *
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him
? Matthew 7:8-11
Parental gifts are conditional – “You left your bike in the rain, you can’t ride for a week.” The child misused the gift you gave and lost the blessing. God intended His gift of marriage to show a taste of the joys of Heaven. If a man misuses God’s gift of a wife, he can create a taste of the punishments of Hell.Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
A wife is not only a gift from God, she’s a good and perfect gift from God. Everybody knows a wife is a gift. During weddings, some old guy brings the bride up the aisle. What’s his role? He gives her away.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Luke 17:27
Men marry, women are given in marriage. A wife is an undeserved gift from God. Marriage prospers when a man treats his wife as God’s precious, underserved gift to him and she acts like God’s precious, undeserved gift to him.
FOR OUR LEARNING (ROMANS 15:4)
We can also learn about marriage by understanding how marriages worked in the Bible.
Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples
: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. I Corinthians 10:11
Nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife. The Bible teaches that a man should praise his wife and teach his children to follow his example of praising her:
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
This is partly to encourage her and partly to teach her children to respect her. If her daughters respect her, she can teach them how to be treasures for their future husbands instead of being toys. If her sons respect her, she can teach them how to be blessed by their future wives as Mrs. Lemuel taught her son:
The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother
taught him. Proverbs 31:1
The Bible not only teaches praise, the Song of Solomon shows how the husband and wife praise each other in detail. Detailed praise requires that each party pay close enough attention to the other to notice small, subtle characteristics. They sound strange to us, but both parties are pleased with the others’ praise.
The Song starts with the woman praising the man for getting physical with her:
The song of songs, which is Solomon’s. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:1-2
She’s setting her husband an example of appreciating marriage. A man has to know a woman well to praise her in ways that encourage her. Praising her husband is a way for a wife to teach him how to praise.
Men and women are stubborn. A spouse is far more likely to stop doing something that isn’t praised than to stop doing something that’s criticized. Praise is the fuel that makes marriage go. Praise often means treating people better than they deserve. This is called “grace.” When husbands and wives praise each other, they minister the same grace God gave them in saving them to each other.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. I Peter 4:10
Salvation is based on two words, “Only believe.” Salvation based on faith takes you to Heaven; salvation based on works takes you to Hell, you can’t earn it. Similarly, marriage is “Only praise.” Marriage is a gift of God, it can’t be earned. As God’s love for us makes it possible for Him to minister His grace to us in saving us, God’s love makes it possible for husband and wife to minister God’s grace to each other in becoming one.
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:6
Becoming one requires that husband and wife die to their own wants and needs in favor of upholding their new family. This requires treating each other better than they deserve, which is another word for “grace.” As people see husband and wife ministering God’s grace to each other, they’ll want God’s grace for themselves.
“Only praise” is a good basis for a sound marriage, but there is more to marriage than praise.
WHAT MY WIFE TOLD ME BEFORE WE WERE MARRIED
My wife and I have been happily married since 1971. It’s obvious to people who know us, and to most who see us for the first time. Years ago, our granddaughter Veronica asked us why we were so happily married.
As a girl becomes a woman, the way she manages her relationships with men, or better yet, with a man, has a profound effect on how her life turns out. Kids today are subject to many wrong influences, far more than when we grew up. Veronica wanted to avoid the path of marital misery so many travel today.
The strongest influence on a marriage is how the husband treats his wife. The way he treats her is based on what happens before marriage, and most of that is determined by how the woman conducts herself.
Before we were married, my wife told me vital facts about herself which became the foundation of our marriage. We wrote them down for Veronica in the hope that she would position herself to be as valued, treasured, appreciated, and nourished as her grandmother.
HOW SHE KNEW WHAT TO SAY
About a year before I found her, my wife was planning to marry a man she’d dated in college. He looked really good – youth group leader, served in the church – so she asked God if she ought to marry him. To her shock and dismay, God plainly said, “No.”
Knowing her distress, the Holy Spirit brought a missionary who knew her friend well to her college. He confirmed that the flaw God had pointed out would make it a bad idea for her to marry him. When she asked him about it, he huffed, “That’s how I am. If you don’t like it, good bye!” and broke up with her.
A year went by and her friends were marrying. She prayed, “Oh God, please, send me a husband or make me content without one.” One day, as she opened her hymnbook, she realized she’d been seen by a man behind her. “Is this my husband?” she thought. She was thinking of marrying me before she’d even seen me. We had our first date in April and married in August.
She’d asked God to choose her husband. Knowing that I had no idea how to nourish or cherish her, the Holy Spirit led her to tell me astounding things about her. She was embarrassed by some of what she said and had had no such thoughts before saying them. This guidance to me was clearly of God.
Proverbs 31:1 says that Mrs. Lemuel taught her son how to bless his future wife; mothers are better qualified to teach sons how to nourish wives than fathers are. Working mothers don’t have time for that. It’s hard for her to get through to her son because men aren’t inclined to listen to women. The angel criticized Manoah for not accepting what the angel told his wife (Judges 13:13) and Pilate ignored his wife’s advice:
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19 *
There is a time, however, when a man may listen. When he’s attracted enough to pursue a woman, his agenda is well defined and focused. If he’s drawn strongly enough to her, he’ll listen as she explains the terms and conditions under which she would enjoy fulfilling his plans. If he won’t listen, she must walk away because he’ll never pay closer attention to what she says than when he’s pursuing her.
Every man knows that a woman can give him the joys of Heaven, but he also knows an unhappy woman can give him the torments of Hell. What she said was so reasonable and so workable that I was confident I could make her happy. Once I decided she wanted to make me happy, marrying her was a no-brainer.
Veronica couldn’t count on a man having been taught because few working mothers have time to do that. We wrote down what her grandmother told me to give her ideas to tell a prospective mate what God wanted me to know about sanctifying and nourishing my wife. It worked as well for her as for her grandmother.
DATING IS NOT A GAME, IT’S SERIOUS BEYOND MEASURE
Veronica, my best beloved, the Bible teaches that you were made for your husband; he’s not made for you (I Co. 11:8-9). That means that even though your role as wife is of critical importance to your home, your husband, as our leader, has more influence than you do after you’re married.
You’re a mirror, you’ll multiply whatever your husband gives you. Consider babies. Your husband gives you one tiny cell. You gather his life force unto yourself, nourish and multiply his seed within you, and bring forth a child with billions of cells. Each cells of your baby has the mark of your husband’s DNA (Gen. 5:3).
If your husband gives you joy, love, appreciation, praise, and sanctification (Song 6:9), you’ll multiply what he gives you and fill your home with love and light to the Glory of God. If he gives you anger, criticism, or harshness, Satan will tempt you to multiply that and your house will fill with anger and pain.
A virtuous wife “openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness (Pr. 31:26).” A man who’s emotionally involved with you can be hurt terribly by your words even if he won’t admit it.
Real Biblical love is a choice, not an emotion. Jesus loves in spite of being hurt (Mt. 23:37) and so can a man or woman whose love of Christ strengthens (Philip. 4:13), but why should your words make it hard for your husband to open his heart to you? How can he trust in you as Pr. 31:11 promises if you hurt him?
Your husband has the most impact on your life after marriage, but what you do before the wedding sets your value to him. The path God gives you may be different from ours, but as long as you let God lead, He’ll get you where you ought to be. The wisdom the Holy Spirit led your grandmother to convey to me as we courted was vital to our walk with God, so I’m sharing it with you for you to pass along to others.
The next chapter tells our granddaughter what the Holy Spirit wanted me to know before God could give her grandmother to me to be my wife.
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