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The speaker is preparing to teach a Sunday school lesson on the topic of marriage. They emphasize the importance of studying what God says about marriage and not relying on personal opinions or sympathetic feelings. The speaker mentions that the Corinthian church faced challenges related to sexual immorality and the love of money, similar to challenges faced by the church today. They stress the need to understand God's perspective on marriage and to approach the topic with balance and truth. The speaker plans to teach from 1 Corinthians 7 and emphasizes the importance of scripture in providing guidance on marriage. They caution against accepting societal definitions of "woke" and stress the importance of being informed by God's word. Good morning, everybody, once again. It's a good Sunday morning. Palm Sunday. Getting ready to leave this world. That's what Sunday school is all about. I'd hate to one day we're all going to make it to judgment. I'd hate to stand there not having a clue about these 66 books. And I appreciate everybody coming. I know, especially this week, I know my limitations, Brother Quentin. I know you could have a better Sunday school teacher. But I appreciate y'all showing up, and I appreciate y'all's support and appreciate your willingness to learn about God's word and hanging in there with me. This is not, I've probably struggled more than any week on this subject matter than any other week. It affects all of us, and I really, really want to get it right. That's the case for every Sunday. It's the case for every scripture, but I feel the weight of this one, and I do want to get it right. So we'll be in the Holiness Heritage Lesson 4 this morning, titled, To Death Do Us Part. If you haven't cracked it open this week, of course it'll be on marriage and the institution of marriage and who instituted that marriage, and we'll do our best to rightly divide this out. The theme this morning says, The Bible is not silent about the subject of marriage. Society does not follow God's principles, but they are still true and are to be obeyed. The golden text comes from Genesis 2 and 24. We may have read it last week. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. We'll read the introduction this morning. The subject of this lesson is a vital one for us today. It is in some respects a controversial subject, not only in this world, but also in the church. What we must do is this. We must study what God says about marriage and not be ruled by our own opinion or our sympathetic feelings. If God's word is absolute truth in regard to salvation, sin, holiness, healing, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, et cetera, it is also truth about marriage. This becomes such a personal subject that people are sometimes offended by the plain presentation of what the Bible says about it. This lesson is primarily presented to prevent divorce among those who have not yet married or those who are currently married. We will not try to solve every possible problem in regard to divorce. We will present the biblical principles involved. I felt like our introduction hit it right on the head as it normally does, but when it said we must study what God says about marriage and not be ruled by our own opinion or our sympathetic feelings. Brother Tim, it's a very dark hour that we live in today. That's no surprise to anyone. It's not a profound statement, but as we said a couple weeks ago, the city of Corinth had a lot of similarities to America. Remember, this letter is written from Paul to the Corinthian church. I haven't brought out a map in a little while, but as I said before, I'm a visual learner. Corinth was a city that was about three and a half to four miles wide. You can pass this around if you want to. Corinth would be right there. It's kind of like it's Greece. It's in between Athens and Sparta, and it's kind of almost like an hourglass. Right there in the middle, like a waistband, it's about three and a half miles wide, and it divides Greece there in the bottom half. Almost the bottom half of Greece is an island, and it kind of is now because there's a canal there. So it's a narrow piece of land with a sea on both sides, which is called an isthmus. That's a hard word for me to say. You may have learned about that in grade school, but it's called an isthmus, a narrow piece of land with sea on both sides connecting two larger pieces of land. It had a port on either side, Sister Allie. So there was an Aegean Sea and then the Adriatic Sea on the other side, and it was about 200 miles around the bottom half of Greece if you sailed around there. Instead of sailing 200 miles, and it's often harsh 200 miles, they would take a boat at one end of the port and put it up on rollers, and they would take slaves or whoever else. Sometimes slaves would even carry the boat from what I understand, but they would take this boat and this cargo and they'd put it up on rollers, and they would just push it from one end of Corinth to the other instead of sailing that 200 miles. So, you know, three and a half to four miles on land pushing it or sailing all the way around 200 miles, most of the time they would do that. So there is a canal now there, and I think it was attempted before, but there's a canal that's been cut out where Corinth was, and they'll still use that to pass through their boats. But this made Corinth, if you can imagine, a hotspot for commerce and even prostitution, which posed a lot of challenges for the church, as you might imagine. We even read of Priscilla and Aquila, I believe in Acts 18. They was tent makers, and they was expelled. The Jews were expelled out of Rome in 49, I believe, and they came there, and we read about how Paul ran into them as a tent maker himself. And there was just a lot of opportunity to make money, as a lot of tourists and visitors and sailors and stuff just passing through, but it also posed a whole lot of problems for that area and for the church. The love of money, the desire of the things of this world, and sexual immorality are two of the biggest challenges for our church today as well. If you feel like I'm talking about fornication an awful lot, sexual immorality, I am. Me and Brother Tim had a conversation out there last Sunday that the holiness heritage, and he made a good point that the holiness heritage forces us to talk about subjects that as a Sunday school teacher or whatever might avoid. There might be funner things to talk about, easier things to discuss, but this letter was largely about that, and that's why I've been on the subject so much, but this is what the Corinthian church largely faced. So we must study what God says about marriage and not be ruled by our own opinion or our sympathetic feelings. That is with every subject matter. All of us are affected by the topic of marriage. All of us are either married, plan on being married someday more than likely. Our parents hopefully are married. So we are affected in some way about marriage. Marriage is a big part of life, and it's a great part of life, but it's instituted by the Lord, and we need to go by what he instituted. We must know how God feels on the matter of marriage. For years I pointed to this very scripture that we're discussing today, and Brother Quentin and I would say, well, thankfully I'm not a pastor or a teacher. I don't even have to talk about this. If somebody asked me about it, I could just be like, well, you need to talk to your pastor about that. I stand as a Sunday school teacher today, and it is part of the Bible. It's very important to God, and it's important to us, and here I am doing my best to teach on it and doing my best to get it right. I want to get it right this morning. I'm going to attempt to leave my opinion out of it and investigate what the scriptures say. There's too many opinions. There might be harsh opinions, judgmental opinions, and there's also sympathetic opinions on the other end of the spectrum that allows just about everything, and we can't do either one. Brother Gallaher, I think about it so often when he was preaching on keep your balance, and that's what today I thought about a lot today or this week. No matter what this world says today, acceptance is not love. Acceptance does not mean love. Love is letting people know the truth because, as Jesus says in John 8 and 31, to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. When we have to face hard truths in this life for ourselves or give someone else hard truth, we just have to lean on Paul's words to the Romans when he says, Romans 8 and 18, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. God's word is the same even when it's your family that is a homosexual. God's word is the same whether or not it's your sister that has a husband that's left her as a young mom with a whole life to live. God's word is still the same, and we do face these challenges. I face them in my family, and when they make it to heaven and the glory is revealed, they will thank you for your honesty. Let's get into the word and take a look at these topics that Paul wrote to the Corinthians about. So it's going to be in 1 Corinthians 7 is where we're going to be this morning. Let's remember while we're reading this in 2 Timothy 3 and 16, it says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. I thought, let's not be this world's definition of woke. Have you all heard that word thrown around a lot anymore, the word woke? I looked it up. They say the word, the definition of woke is, this world does, is to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and the denial of LGBT rights. That's the world's definition of woke. If you are this world's definition of woke, you are ironically asleep. The word is a lamp under our feet and a light under our paths. Paul said many times that he did not want his audience that was reading this to be ignorant. In Ephesians 4 and 17 it says, This I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. And that is the true definition to me of woke. So let's get started in 1 Corinthians 7 and 1. The text says, Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Paul has touched on many things up to this point. I didn't mean that as a pun. They had heard from a person named Chloe the church was dealing with. We're now getting to the part of the letter where Paul addresses things that the church themselves have wrote to him about. There's concerns that they had apparently had written to him about that he's addressing now. And he's gotten to that point. It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 1 Corinthians 17, Nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Now for a long time I thought that Paul was simply saying here that it is best for a man to never touch a woman. It would be best if a man just lived by himself and never got married and never touched a woman and just lived to God. We've seen failures in other denominations of Catholicism. I know I've brought that up a few times and how they've failed in this. But that's really what I thought it meant. On the surface it kind of looks like, well, a man should never touch a woman. That's why we have to rightly divide the word and study it, not just read it. He could have possibly meant that to some degree. He kind of gets down to that point. He will allude to that in a few verses. But it seems that he is talking about something else because of the wordage that he's using. Notice that he says fornication. Fornication is not a problem between spouses. So he's definitely not saying that you should not touch your wife. He also says it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Paul would not be telling a husband not to touch his wife. He could have just said that. He uses husband and wife in the next verse. So now we're talking about a man and a woman, and then he'll talk about a husband and a wife. He was referring to a single man and a single woman. Brother Donnie King taught on this verse and brings out something that I'd like to share with you all. He tells that the Greek word, and I looked this up. I don't just hear Donnie King and just use it, but I look it up, of course. But the Greek word for touch is haptomahi. The root hapto means to kindle a fire. You might remember a few weeks ago we talked in Acts where the barbarous people of Melita had kindled a fire for Paul and the people that were shipwrecked, and they showed him much kindness. When they kindled the fire, the word hapto was the Greek word used. And I do think that's very interesting. This is most likely what Paul was referring to. There was a temple to the god of Aphrodite, the goddess of love in Corinth. It is said to have been right beside the Corinthian church. Sexual immorality was rampant in the church. That's why Paul warned them in 1 Corinthians 6 and 18, flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that commiteth fornication sinneth against his own body. There's no doubt the unmarried was committing fornication and had become a problem. We can gather that easily. He would write the same to the churches today. That's why this letter was preserved. When I got into the 1 Corinthians, I mentioned that he had mentioned a letter beforehand that we're not privy to that wasn't preserved. But this letter was preserved because I don't know what that letter was about, but this is definitely something that the churches deal with today. That's a clue that we should heed to his advice in today's hour. We're to teach our young men and women, you are not to kindle a fire in another unless you are married. You don't just go around kindling fires and touching and kissing or hugging or rubbing up against or all these things. It's not right. Brother Austin, you're the only one. I'm not trying to point you out, but the rest of us are married, so we need to teach our children these things. And I'm sure Brother Austin agrees with these things as well. We are not to go around kindling fires in each other's hearts. That could hinder a service years down the road. Nothing will hinder a service more than having ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends all over the church house that has old fires burning inside of them from another person in the church. In my mind, I won't share who it is, but I know several people in churches that have dated and very seriously dated. Dated in a way that I don't agree with, that they probably don't agree with now, but this was years ago. And very heavily dating, touching, and all those things. And now they're in churches, in the same churches together. She's got her husband and he's got his wife over here. And I've heard conversations that it still, you know, it gets brought up still yet, and it's been 20, 30 years down the road. And that can hinder a church service. That can hinder a person. Those feelings don't always just go away. That fire still might be burning there. That's something that the devil could use down the road to tear a church totally apart. So we don't go around kindling fires in each other. We have to, that's why we set boundaries. Kelsen is, I'm trying to use the right word. I don't know what word you would use, but talking to someone, Robbie, we met him the other day on the phone. There's boundaries that has to be set. And there shouldn't be kindling a fire with one another. That's if the people remain as Christians that it could hinder a church service. A lot of times somebody gets hurt in a way that they don't go back to church. A lot of young people will avoid services because somebody that they used to date is there. And then they might run out of options. Touching is for after the marriage ceremony. You can walk into a store and see, do not touch this merchandise sign. How much more is it important that you don't touch the merchandise of God, that you don't touch a young lady or touch a young man until the marriage has been put together? There's nothing that bothers me more than to see a young man going around dating young girls all across the churches. I can't stand that. It's probably just because I'm a father of a couple of young girls. But as soon as you say he's not dating my daughter, you'll get a phone call. I've got phone calls because I said, no, I've seen that person out with too many young ladies in town and you're not dating him. You're not going to, you know, and you can get a grandma upset. You can get a mom upset. You can get a dad upset over stuff like that. Once you have daughters, you realize it's not just the girls that deserve that bad reputation. A lot of times the men, the young men get a pass. It's just kind of a, that's the way young men are. And the woman is just kind of looked as a certain way. And that's not right. The boy is just as wrong as the boy, as the girl. Sometimes the boys get a pass. But it won't happen in my house. If you've seen your boy run around with a different girl at Walmart five different times, he won't be seen running around with Casey or Kelston. I can guarantee it. Let's move along. First Corinthians 7 and 2, nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. So to cure the problem of fornication, there is marriage. God has instituted marriage. He has gave us an attraction to the opposite sex. If you have an attraction to the same sex, that wasn't from God. But God has given us attraction to the opposite sex. And there is marriage that is instituted for that very thing. God defines this fairly early in the Bible. You can turn with me to Genesis 2 and 20. Some of this isn't profound, and some of it, maybe none of it will be profound, but some of it will be harder than others. Genesis 2 and 20 says, And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found and help meet for him. 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. 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. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Anything outside of this definition is an abomination to God and is fornication. I heard one man, one preacher say one time that God kept man asleep the entire time so he couldn't mess it up. I thought that was funny, but cleave unto his wife means to adhere or stick together. If you take two boards, Brother Joseph, and you adhere them together with gorilla glue and you pull them apart, there will be some splintering involved. There will be some damage. You won't be able to pull them apart without some damage being done to both sides. And the same thing with divorce. They have become one flesh, a covenant between man and woman and them with God. Turn to Malachi 2 and 14. That might be a little bit harder for some people. Turn to Malachi 2 and 14. We'll start reading the examples here given. Malachi 2 and 14 says, Yet you say, Wherefore, because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously. Yet is she thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit, and wherefore want that he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away. For one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit that ye deal not treacherously. God established the institution of marriage. It is not up for interpretation. And when we sin against our marriage vow, we have sinned against God, sinned against the institution of marriage and the God that has set it in place. God is not pleased with divorce, and it should not be taken lightly. He did not institute it. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away. Marriage is for life, and we need to teach our young people that. One man and one woman. You've got one chance to get it right. No matter what this woke generation says on the subject, one man, one woman. And I say that with love, not callousness. I have a brother-in-law that claims to be an atheist. He was once married and claimed to be a preacher. And I have much love for him. I have a whole lot of love for his wife that is divorced from him. I don't care what the problem was. I did not take a side. I'm on the Lord's side. I count her as a friend. I count him as my brother. But their marriage fell apart for whatever reason and fairly quickly. I hate it, but God's word still stands. He is very bitter. He claims to be an atheist, like I said. And I think a lot of it comes from that whatever happened there. It's hard on him. I mean, he's looking at a whole life of being single if he goes by God's word, unless he was able to put things back together. That's a hard pill to swallow. That's very hard. But it's God's word. It is a hard, hard truth that he must face, but it's not worthy to be compared to the glory that should be revealed in him. One day, if he'd just come back to the truth, we are getting ready to leave this world. We have to keep that in mind. We're just passing through. Some of us, maybe it seems like we have it better than others. There's some problems. By the grace of God, I know that I married the right one. I know that she's not going to leave me. But there's some that possibly and probably got married to someone that felt like, you know, this is going to be forever, and then they leave them. And here they are. And they're like, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? And that's very, very hard. I know it is. And I'm not trying to be callous, but God's word still stands. No matter what you're facing, if you're facing divorce, if you're facing cancer, if you're facing some type of disaster, if your child dies, God is still God, and this is a temporary place that we're just passing through. And we have to remind ourselves of that when we face these things or when our family faces these things. Turn to Deuteronomy 24 and 1. Deuteronomy 24 and 1 says, When a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her and write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house, or if the latter husband died, which took her to be his wife, her former husband which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife. After that she is defiled, for that is abomination before the Lord. And thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for inheritance. If we read this passage alone, it may cause some confusion that God is okay with divorce. But the Pharisees questioned Jesus on this matter in Mark, and if we turn to Mark, we find out where he stands on the matter. Turn to Mark 10 and 1 with me. The Pharisees was always trying to trip Jesus up, and they never could. Sometimes it can get comical. So I know that it isn't as fun as talking about the Asians and the Agros. We're not having a whole lot of fun here this morning, but it's very important. I've actually been rather confused on a lot of these matters most of my life, but it's worth rightly dividing. It's very important. If we don't face these matters ourselves, sometimes somebody from our family might say, is it okay to get married again? Is it okay to get a divorce? We need to know what God says on the matter. Mark 10 and 1 says, and this is a little bit of reading, and he arose from thence and cometh into the coast of Judea by the farther side of Jordan, and the people resorted unto him again, and as he taught them again. And the Pharisees came to him and asked him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife, tempting him? And he answered and said unto them, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorce and put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, for the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. So then they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together let no man put asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. And he saith unto them, whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery. That's God's final word on the matter. Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery. How many exceptions did you read in that? I'm not adding or taking away anything. That's not my opinion. We just read it right there, okay? I'm also reading that to me with a broken heart because this affects me. I've got family. I've got a mom that goes against this, okay? And I take no pride in that. I don't know how to fix that. I don't know what to do with that. But God does, and God can fix it. And I've got to face this in black and white. This is what God says on the matter. No matter how I feel, no matter what my sympathetic feelings are, I can't just change the word of God. I can't just go to a church that accepts something different because this is the word of God, and I believe that. No matter how hard it is, no matter how it affects my life, this is the truth on the matter. So I don't read that with any pride or any boastfulness. This is God's word. So can the institution of marriage be broken? And that's a yes, but by death, okay? Turn to Romans 7 and 1. Romans 7 and 1 says, Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Paul is using this as an illustration of a man being released from the law and married to Christ, but it doesn't make the example untrue. If a woman is married a man while her first husband is still alive, she is an adulteress. But if he is dead, she is freed from him and able to remarry. That's the point here. I think these examples point to the fact that God did not institute divorce. Let's turn back to 1 Corinthians 7 and 3, back to our text. 1 Corinthians 7 and 3 says, Let the husband render unto the wife benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. Benevolence means conjugal duty. That probably means what you think it means, okay? We are not just providers. As a husband, I'm not just a provider for my wife. I don't just go to work, come home, and mow the grass. There is due benevolence. Now, this is where it might get a little uncomfortable, and I'll be as general as possible, but we should want to be affectionate to our spouses. It is our duty, obligation, and we should have a natural attraction to our spouses. Within reason, our children should see an affection between husband and wife. Marriage is an example of how Christ loves the church. If we are a provider only, Brother Quentin, we are being a poor example to our children. If we're treating our wives wrong, we are being a poor example. Wives should do the same for her husbands. Turn to Ephesians 5 and 22. Ephesians 5 and 22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Wives, submit unto your husbands. This passage seems very outdated. If you said that in this world, you wouldn't get a whole lot of amens. Today's Christians, and I'll use that loosely, have picked and chosen what they want out of the Bible, leaving the rest, and this seems like such a foreign concept for a wife to be under subjection or to submit to her husband. But God has a plan and a system that works. He knows what's best, and he has placed the man in authority over the woman. It doesn't mean that the man is better than the woman, but that's his system. I've been pulled over by, unfortunately, several police officers, and they had, I respected their authority. There's one right there. I respected their authority over me, but I never thought any of them was better than me. But, you know, I was under subjection to their authority. It doesn't mean that they're better than me. I don't know what their lives are like. Ephesians 5 and 24 says, Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That, I don't, I fail at that. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Men, we are to love and cherish our wives. The example here is how Christ loved the church. Does this describe your relationship with your wife? Does this describe your relationship of you to your husband? I'll be honest and say that I know I have room for improvement. I'll say it in front of my wife. I know that I do. Think of how you treated your wife today. Think of how you treated her yesterday, this past month. Would you want your kid to think, oh, I hope Christ treats me like that? Christ gave himself for the church. Sure, we would all die for our wives. I think any of us would say we would die for our wives. But day in and day out, do you prefer her over yourself? Do you give yourself for your wife on a daily basis? Are you constantly looking for that next gun or knife or tool while your wife does without? Is it all about you? I'll be honest. I fail at that sometimes. I remember a while back praying, Brother Austin, for my Sunday school class. And I was saying, God, please help me make a difference. I don't want to just get up and say words. I want to be effective. I want to help each and every one in my class. And I prayed for each and every one. And then no sooner I got up, Sister Shelly, something happened in my house. And I can't even remember what it is now. But I got pretty short with my wife right after I prayed that. And I was aggravated. Now, I don't know if she said something or done something or something was wrong or something was out of whack, but I got aggravated with it. And I walked out of the room, and I felt the Holy Ghost check me and said, That's one of your students right there. That's not just your wife. That's one of your students. And I went back in there, and I hugged her, and I said, Christi, I'm sorry for acting like that, and I'm sorry for being short with you. No, I said, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. And then I walked away, and I felt the Holy Ghost check me again and said, That still ain't right. So I went back, and I hugged her again, and I said, I'm sorry for the way I acted. I don't want to fail my family. I've done that enough. I did it for a long time, and I never want to do it again. I want to love my family as Christ loved me. Ephesians 5 and 26 says that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Let me make sure. You know, it's haunting me, Ephesians. Brother Tim, can you read Ephesians 5 and 26? That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Okay. The other day I was using the e-sword, and it clicked over onto, like, some easy read version, and it haunts me sometimes when I read something that looks like it might not be King James Version. Ephesians 5 and 26, yes. And then that he might present himself to a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but it should be holy and without blemish. Sought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. You and your spouse are one flesh. As Christ gave himself for the church, we should give ourselves to our spouses, putting their needs before our own, forsaking all others. If I'm putting my needs before my wife's, she's putting my needs before hers. We'll have a great marriage, I promise you that. If she's looking after me and I'm looking after her, that's the way God wants it. You may say, well, I can't help it. That's the way my dad treated my mom. It's just in my genes. We are products of our upbringing. I'll give you that. But God's grace is sufficient to break that generational temper that we might have. My dad was a great man. If you know anything about me, you probably know that I love my dad and I love my mom. But they were not always the picture of Christ's love for the church. Yes, you might naturally be a lot like your dad, and some of us didn't always have the best example. But we can do better. 2 Corinthians 5 and 17 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. That's stronger than any genetic makeup that we might have. That goes beyond any bad habits that runs through our family. That goes further than any generational curse, alcohol, addiction, drugs. It is stronger than anything that we might face, Brother Quentin. We can break that. We are a new creature. If you had a poor example of a godly relationship from your parents, break that example for your kids. One man said, What we do in moderation, our kids will do in excess. I remember that talked about down there on the highway. How you treat your wife will often be how your daughter is treated or how your sons will treat their wives. So aught men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. To treat your wife with honor and respect is to treat yourself with honor and respect. Before time gets away from us, I'm going to move on to Matthew 5 and 27. I really want to get this point out. I don't know. Matthew was written for a Jewish audience. So let's read this. Matthew 5 and 27. I think this is important, so I want to get it out. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that the whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery. The source of debate usually comes from that one phrase, Brother Quentin, in Matthew 5 and 32, saving for the cause of fornication. A lot of people will read that and come to a conclusion that if your spouse has left you for another man and woman and had relations with someone else and committed adultery, then you're free to go marry someone else. I've thought that myself in the past, mainly because of the word fornication. We can take a closer look at that scripture and see what it actually means. Again, Brother Donnie King points out in his podcast on this subject, as well as our Holiness Heritage, that if he was talking about a full-on marriage, Matthew would have used the Greek word for adultery. But he didn't. He used fornication. Sexual relations with someone outside of a marriage committed by one of the two with someone else is not fornication, it's adultery. Just a couple of verses before in this, in 27 and 28, Matthew used the word adultery. So if that was what he was referring to, then he would have said that. So then what was Matthew talking about? We have to remember that he was speaking to a Jewish audience. It was Jewish tradition for a couple that intend on getting married to go through something called a betrothal period. It's something like what we call an engagement. But we've modernized it to a point that it usually involves fornication or a man touching a woman or living with a woman, which is not right. We can hearken back to 1 Corinthians 7. Now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. A betrothal period was not a time where a boyfriend gets to touch, kiss, date, try out, live with a woman for a time to see if they're compatible. That is not appropriate today either. During a betrothal period, a groom and a wife, along with their parents, have made an agreement that a marriage ceremony will take place. Most agree that it was probably about a year. A boy has picked a woman out, got her father's blessing, and he would then go home and prepare a home for that future marriage. Some say it was about a year, but that's not biblical. Remember Christ's first miracle of turning the water into the wine. The wedding party was upset, and Jesus turns the water into wine and saves the ceremony. That's why it was such a social faux pas, Sister Shelly, to run out of wine. It looked like the groom wasn't prepared for this marriage, that he wasn't capable of taking care of his bride, that he didn't make the proper preparations. The difference between this betrothal period and a modern-day engagement is that this was a legal contract. There would be a marriage taking place, and you couldn't break it under most circumstances. If either the man or woman had relations with someone else, it could be broken. And that's what he's talking about here. The most obvious example that points to this scenario is Matthew 1 in 18 through 20. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When his mother Mary was espoused, engaged to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he saw on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. Joseph and Mary was in this betrothal period during this time. Mary turns up pregnant. Can you imagine the heartbreak that Joseph must have felt when she turns up pregnant? It looks like she had laid with a man. I want to say, please do yourself a favor and listen to Brother Brent Gabbard's message on this. It's Bible Holiness Church, December 10th, 2023, and I can send it to you if you're interested. Joseph's journey belongs in some hall of fame somewhere, in my opinion. It looks as if Mary has been with another man. Joseph would have a legal right to break this marriage contract with Mary and marry someone else. I honestly believe that is what Jesus is referring to in Matthew 5 and 32. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery. It's really the only thing that makes sense and doesn't contradict other scriptures. And we know that the Bible does not contradict itself. Is it contradictory to the lifestyle that some of our loved ones might be in? Probably so. Like I said, it is in mind. But the Bible is right, and we have to stand for it. And like the introduction says, not be ruled by our own opinion or sympathetic feelings. Please understand when I say looking at these things with my eyes, my heart, my brain, I wish some things in the Bible were different. Looking from my eyes. But I trust God, and I lean on his understanding. He knows just where to put the sun. He placed the stars in the sky. Even the winds in the sea obey him, for he created the wind. He created the sea. How could I not trust him with the institution of marriage? And how could I not trust that even when things in life is hard to deal with and I can't see how God can work it out, that in Romans 8 and 28 all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. We can trust him. If you disagree with anything that I've said this morning, don't fall out with me, and study these things for yourself. I am not infallible. The Word of God is. I try to leave my opinion out, and I've done a whole lot of research, a lot of praying, and these are not just ideas that I've come up with. I've leaned on a lot of great men to rightly divide these scriptures. But make sure whatever you do that you're not coming to a different conclusion just because of your situation or your family situation, or you have your own feelings involved. It's very important to get these things right. I do want to close with a verse. I'm sorry. I think I went over just a little bit. I'm sorry about that. Psalm 147 and 5 says, Great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. Thank you. Amen.
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