In this sermon, the speaker discusses the breakdown of marriage and the consequences of violating God's word. They emphasize that God is not a respecter of persons and that everyone will suffer the consequences if they disregard His commands. The speaker also highlights the confusion and warped view of marriage in society, particularly in the media. They stress the importance of focusing on the spiritual aspect of marriage and the original plan of humble submission and sacrificial love. Additionally, the speaker explains how marriage is a picture of the gospel and the unbreakable bond between Christ and the church.

Continuing on with our 15th message on Moses the Servant of God in our Desert Survival Series. Chapter 4, and let's read verses 18 through 26. Moses has finished up at the bush now, and now he's moving out on his trip to get ready to go and serve the Lord. Verse 18, And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace. And the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, Go return unto Egypt, for all the men that are dead are dead which sought thy life. And Moses took his wife and his sons and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return unto Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand, but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go. And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. And it came to pass by the way in the inn that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he let him go. Then she said, A bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would give strength now, this morning, to minister your word, and that your Spirit would give us insight into this passage. Lord, as we've gone along through this study, you have drawn out to us such key principles for living, key principles that we need to know to survive in the desert. And this morning, Father, will probably be as important or more important than any of them that we've ever covered. And so I pray that the Spirit of God would make us sensitive to that which you have. In Jesus' name, amen. Probably today and next week, we're going to cover something here that you may not realize is here. And the subject that we're going to pick out of this is marriage. You see, Moses had marriage problems. Do you know that? He had marriage problems. He was just not exempt. None of the men of God in the Bible were exempt from lives like we live, from having some problems. And the subject is submission in marriage. Submission in marriage. And I've got quite a few notes, so I'm going to probably try to stick right with my notes, so I can get out to you the primary things that we need to know. Some of the most important things that you can ever hear in marriage will probably be told you this morning. And next week, we're going to continue on and look at it from a different aspect. This morning, we're going to look at it from the aspect of the man. The man. And next week, we're going to look at it from the aspect of the mother, the wife, and the children. Now, verses 24 through 26 shows us two things. Number one, it shows us that Moses failed in his marriage. Moses had a flaw. Now, whether his wife was saved or not, I don't know. He picked her up out in the desert. We don't even know if she was Jewish or not. But we do know that she was rebellious against the ordinance of God, and she was rebellious against her husband. Moses' failure was with God. And if you'll notice, God seeks to slay Moses. Now, that's an interesting thing. He went to all that trouble to get old Moses cranked up, and Moses finally cranked up and on his way, and then God meets him, and he's going to take care of him. He's going to knock him off. Now, there's a very important principle that is revealed in that, and that's this, that God is a covenant-keeping God. And God had made a covenant back in Genesis chapter 17 with Abraham. And Abraham, he said, Thou shalt keep my covenant. And this will be the sign that we have a covenant. All the male children are to be circumcised. Now, the problem is that Moses is going back to release the covenant people out of Egypt, and he has not even kept the covenant himself. He has not even kept the sign of the covenant, which is circumcision of the male child. And so God is seeking to slay him because he has broken the covenant. Now, there's a lesson there. God has no respect for persons. If you and I violate the word of God, the principles that have been given to us, then we will have to face the consequences. Just because we're a Christian doesn't mean that God gives us special privileges. The laws of nature still apply to us. You get up on the roof and jump off, the law of gravity is still going to work. You're not exempt. And the marriage laws still work. The marriage laws are marriage laws for mankind. Not just Christians, but for mankind. A lot of people maybe don't realize that. Now, the second failure, the second thing revealed here, first was Moses' failure with God and with his family. He failed to enforce that covenant. The second thing was Zipporah's failure. She failed to submit to God and to Moses. And I guess she probably kicked and rebelled against that one. Now, the proposition on this message is this. If a man will have things right at home, then he must have things right with God. It just doesn't work. The family marriage doesn't work if things are not right with God. And you can turn it around. If you want to have things right in your home, then you're going to have things right with God. And it applies to you and I and Moses as well. Now, what we want to see is just what does God have to say on this subject of submission. You see, Moses failed to submit to the covenant. His wife failed to submit to him. I think he probably tried to get her to do it, but she kicked up so much sand that he just said, well, forget it. And also, Moses was out in the desert at this time. He got away from his people and the customs and the traditions. And it's easy to backslide when you're out of fellowship and away from other Christians. This is why Satan tries to keep us out of church and out of prayer meetings. He doesn't want us to fellowship. He can pick on us a lot better. Now, I want to share with you four things today. First of all is marriage and the curse of God. I want to take you back to the beginning. And we're going to go through and cover quite a few things. But back in the beginning, in the garden, there was a beautiful relationship between Adam and Eve. And Roy Hudson described that so good, I wanted to read it to you. I was going to tell you, but I like the way he did it. I don't want to mess it up. He said, thousands of years ago, in the most beautiful garden the world has ever known, lived a man and a woman, formed in the likeness of their Creator. They lived solely to reveal Him to His creation and to each other, and thus to glorify Him every moment of the day. Humbly they accepted the position of the creature with the Creator, that of complete submission and yieldedness to His will, because they always submitted their wills to His, because they lived for Him and not for themselves. They were also completely submitted to each other. Thus, in that first home, in that beautiful garden, there was absolute harmony, peace, love, and oneness, not only with God, but with each other. That's a beautiful description of marriage. And that's the way God intended it. Now, in Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 and 21 through 23, we have the record that God made man. And the Lord said, it's not good that man should be alone. He said, it's not good that the man should be alone. I will make and help me for him. And then in verse 21, 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 in my bones and flesh in my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Now, there are six things I want to say about this very quickly. Number one, God made someone to be in charge. Who's that? The man. And God made someone to help him. Who's that? The woman. Right. Okay. He made someone to be in authority, and he made someone to submit. He made someone to provide, and then he made someone to be provided for. Now, you get over to chapter 3, we see that Satan enters into the picture. The serpent bypassed the headship of man. And Satan always will. If he can get around the man and get to the woman, he will. This is why the woman is to stay in submission to her husband. If she doesn't, then Satan will get to you. If you're not in complete submission. So he bypassed the headship of man. There is the reversal of roles. When Eve took of the fruit, she was now in the position of providing for the man. And so woman besirched the leadership she took, the scripture says. And man became the follower, and he did eat. Now, from there we find that the results come along. The three results that directly affect mankind are this. One, pain and chalice. Two, God said to the woman, he said to the woman, the man will rule over you. And three, he said to the man, in labor and in sweat, you'll earn your living. It's going to be tough. Now that's the result. Now God's original plan was not that. God's original plan was that the woman would be in humble submission to her husband. And that the man would be committed to sacrificial love to his wife. Now the results, as we read in this book, were to be harmony, peace, oneness with God and with each other. And that's the description of how a marriage is supposed to be. We don't see a lot of that around, do we? Now let's keep on going. The second thing I want to share with you. First was marriage and the curse of God. Second is marriage and the corruption by Satan. Do you realize that by the time we get to Exodus, we go through Genesis. By the time we get to Exodus, here's the sins that have been committed in the book of Genesis. In chapter 4 there is polygamy. In chapter 6 there is perversion. In chapter 9 there is sex thoughts. In chapter 16 there is adultery. In chapter 19 there is homosexuality. In chapter 34 there is fornication. In chapter 38 there is incest. And also prostitution. In chapter 39 there is evil seduction. And it just goes all the way to today. It just started off. That's what happened in that garden. Now, the third thing I want to share with you is marriage and the confusion of society. This world is confused on what God intends marriage to be. Who is confused? It seems like everybody is confused. The TV has a warped view of marriage. Jokes are made. The immorality that's portrayed. The movies that are out are just plain blasphemy against what God said that marriage was supposed to be. Now, the funny thing about it is, the human mind is designed in such a way that when facts are fed to it, the human mind accepts as true the facts. Unless something else is put into the mind, the word of God to tell them that the facts are wrong. And this is why our marriage situation is so bad in our country and even in our churches. We have not yet the facts of the word of God into our minds. And that's what this message about today is, just to get some facts out. All of the focus, if you'll notice, all of the focus in the world is on the physical. It's on the physical in the marriage. All that's portrayed is on the physical. God says the focus is on the spiritual. Physical is just part of it. The main thing of a marriage is the spiritual. If a marriage is not spiritual, then it's going to be in for trouble. Because it's going to be of Satan and fleshly, and it's going to produce that. This is why when the youth of our society, when they go out on a date, it's all on what? The physical. And actually, when they get out and they go on their date and they go and get in their parked car and they go somewhere, it's all on the physical. And the results are physical. Virginity is lost. Lives are ruined. Moms and dads' lives are ruined. Children born out of wedlock. All because we have not taught children that they have no right to do that. What is happening on the physical is designed only to end up in the marriage bed. And they can't control it. This is why as parents, we have to train our children when they're little, that they don't have that right. And nobody's telling them. And there's going to be some things thrown out today. So when the boy and the girl go out, the boy says, if you love me, you'll go all the way. But if the girl has been taught the word of God and the principles, she would recognize right away that this guy is just a user. And she would say, if you love me, you wouldn't even ask. So what happens if you're a Christian and you defile your body? And nobody has the right to touch your body except your mate. At all. And what happens, your body has been bought. The scripture says as a Christian, our body has been bought by the blood of Christ. We don't have the right to give our bodies to somebody else. Only to our mate. And so you youth, listen to this. You will defile yourself. And if you pet and make out and all that stuff before you get married, it will affect your marriage later on. It will affect your marriage. It will be in your mind the things that you've done. There will be guilt. There will be those things that will affect your marriage. It will affect the happiness and the peace and the joy of your marriage. Now, this is why we get into all the divorces and the aids and the abortions and stuff, because we've just plain sinned. We've gone over the boundaries. Now, that brings us to the fourth thing. And that is marriage and God's cure for the curse, the corruption, and the confusion. God has a cure. We don't have to go along with the way the world's been telling us we've got to go along. He's got a cure. And the cure is simply, number one, is be saved. And two, be Spirit-filled. Know that Christ is your Savior and then live in the Spirit. And we teach the Spirit so much. This is why we've got our Sunday School classes and our prayer meetings and these things, where we learn these things. Now, marriage and God's cure. Turn to Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21 through 33. I'm going to take you through a very simple layout of what God said marriage is to be. If you or I or anybody else goes anywhere different than this, it's spelled nothing but trouble. And we say, there's a lot of that around. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. Hardly a week goes by that I don't have to minister to somebody because of the results of violating one of the things that I'm going to share with you this morning. Now, do you have Ephesians? Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to focus on the husband this morning. Look at verse 21. In verse 21, God says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. The man and the wife, first of all, are to submit themselves to God in the fear of God. And what that is saying is, if you don't, then you better recognize that God is not a God to be mocked. If we sow to the flesh, we'll reap of the flesh. Now, the man is to submit. Now, look over at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. That's the husband's job. Now, flip back over to verse 22. Let's get the wives. Next week we'll pick up on the wives and the mothers. 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. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, they'll let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. We'll cover that next week. Most people don't have the faintest idea what that means. And the thing that they usually say, it's not that at all. We'll get into it next week. Now, husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Two areas we're going to look at. God's plan for the man and God's plan for the woman. Now, God's plan for the man is, in verse 21, to submit to God. And then, get this, you are to submit to your wife. Submission in sacrificial love is what God is saying. It's there. It's a submission to God and then a submission to his wife in love. And if I can throw this out to what this would look like in a practical standpoint, it would look like this. When the man is submitted to God and he is submitted to his wife in the fact that he will live with sacrificial love, and I'll describe that to you in a minute, he will have consideration for his wife. So many men today think that God has given them the right to rule over their wife with a rod and that they're just a slave. That's not what Scripture says at all. They are to live in consideration. 1 Peter chapter 1, chapter 3, verse 7 says, Likewise, you husbands, dwell with your wife according to knowledge. Understand, he says, what's going on? Giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. If the husband doesn't do what he's supposed to do, it will affect his prayer life. Another thing in that consideration is just to be sensitive to what she feels. Most men are insensitive to women and their feelings. Totally insensitive. And another thing is not only just consideration, courtesy. These are practical things. We're going to get into the principles in a minute. Courtesy. How about communion? One of the things that God has designed a woman to do, and that's to talk. And I remember when Dr. Dirks was giving Vicki and I marriage counseling, he got me in there and he said, when you get ready to go to bed at night, let her talk. Oh, that's hard, because when I get to bed, I want to go to sleep. But I don't know what it is, but they've got to talk to the husband. One of the breakdowns in marriage is communication. The woman has to talk. She's just got to get it out. She's got to talk, and the woman has to do that. But the man has to listen, too. Don't toot her out. Just, okay, you talk, and I'm going to read the paper. That doesn't work. A lot of the problems come from just simple in-consideration things. This thing of communion. Just talk and listen. And then another thing is compliment her. They can work, and they can work hard, and they can serve, but they need some appreciation. We all need that. Compliment. Just these little four things would save a lot of marriages. Just simple, practical little things. Now, let's get into something. Let's get into the manner of love. God says to the man, Now, wait a minute. I want to stop here. Don't take advantage of this, ladies. Don't take advantage of this. Don't burn his ear off. Remember, he's got to go to bed sometime. So, you know, when his eyes get swollen, you know, then cut it off. But he's got to have some consideration. Don't abuse it. Now, the manner of love. What type of love is God talking about here for the man? Where he says, Husbands, love your wives. How is the husband to love his wife? Now, here's where I'm going to share some things with you that a lot of people have no idea what love is. You're going to learn some things about love this morning, probably. How did Christ love us? Huh? Sacrificial love, wasn't it? When he died on the cross, how did he die? He gave his life as a sacrifice. Do you realize that that's the exact same thing that God is saying to the husband? Give your life as a sacrifice to your wife. We say, I never heard that before. That's because you never stopped to look at it. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. He gave his life. That was his love. A sacrificial giving. And gave himself for it. The husband is to do the very same thing. Now, that's John 3.16. God gave himself as a sacrifice. There are six principles I want to share with you on this. Number one. Sacrificial love is unmerited. Sacrificial love is unmerited. Did we deserve for Christ to die for us on the cross? No. Will the wife always deserve to be loved? No, because they can sometimes be a mess. They can be cranky, just like the husband. But that doesn't mean that we don't love them at that point in time. This is what God is saying. Sacrificial love will love no matter what the circumstances are. But the world says, we love as long as they love us. That's the world's type of love. And if it doesn't work, we'll cut it off and we'll go our ways. You see? We don't even know what God has said about love. God doesn't say people who deserve it. That's sacrificial love. He says people, whether they deserve it or not, none of us deserve it. And so, the principle is, sacrificial love is unmerited. The wife doesn't have to earn it. The husband is supposed to give it, though. Whether she deserves it or not. Most of the time she'll deserve it. But sometimes she may not. Now next week we're going to switch this over. I hope you remember this. We've got to come back. We're going to pick on the women next week. But now, there's another principle. Get this. Love is a decision of the will. Love is a decision of the will. Love is not goose bumps riding up and down your spine on your arms, you know. Oh, isn't he wonderful? Isn't she just beautiful? You know? Puppy love, that type of stuff. No, that's physical stuff. That's physical attraction. Getting carried away. You know, the puppy's all good with that stuff. But love is a decision of the will. Now, how do you know that? Because the Bible says, For God so loved. And what that means is, God chose to love the unlovely, the undeserving. And so God says to the man, You love the way I love. Love you choose to love. Do we always just, you know, we don't. God chose to love us. We don't know why. Because we don't deserve it. But many times in the marriage, the time the wife needs love the most is maybe when she's the most unlovely. You know? Maybe she's going through some cycles or whatever and having a hard time. That's not when she needs her husband to turn away. Well, boy, you're a real grouch today or whatever. That's when the sacrificial love needs to be there. And this is what Christ says to the man. You love. You choose to love. It's a decision of the will. It's not an emotional thing. It's a decision of the will. Did you know that? Now, here's something else. Another principle, a third principle. What you choose to love becomes more attractive to you. As you love it, as you choose to love it, you become more attractive to it. I got to thinking about this, and this is a funny trend. I'm not going to get off into it. But the Jewish lifestyle, they arranged the weddings when the kids were little. They chose who they were going to love. You know? I've been thinking about that. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. Because most youths don't have the brains to go along with choosing the right person anymore. Everything is all on the goose bumps. The will is thrown out with the wind. And then she marries this Romeo that turns out to be a real rascal. Because the love is not there. It's just all emotion. Now, so, what you choose to love becomes more attractive to you. Love overlooks the flaws and sees the beauty. This goes along with what you choose. If you choose, God chose to love us. There's nothing in us to love, really nothing lovely. But He chose to love us. He chose to overlook the flaws, that we're crabby, we complain, we're selfish, egotistical, full of pride. Why would He want to love us? But He chose to love us because He saw that He could implant Himself within us and make us a new person. Someone that would be lovely in Christ. So, love overlooks the flaws and sees the beauty. It's something else. Love is an act of selfless sacrifice. Now, this isn't the love we see in Hollywood. This is the love that this passage is talking about. It's an act of selfless sacrifice. Now, get this. Love is action and not words. Charlie, do you love me? Oh, yes, I love you. How do you love me? Well, I bought you an ice cream cone the other day, you know. No. Love is action. Now, how do you know that? You remember when Jesus in John 14, in John 14 and He was leaving, He said, If you love me, if you love me, what did He say? You will keep my words. That's action. So many people say, Well, I'm a Christian, I love Jesus. But their actions do not match their words. And the end result is they don't love Jesus. They love themselves. They do not obey Him. And this is what Jesus said in John 14. He said, In verse 23, If a man love me, he will keep my words. Love is action. Real love is going to have some action. Not just words. Verse 21, He said, He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. Do you claim to be a Christian? But you haven't read your Bible for weeks, or months, or got down and prayed. Other than, Oh God, help me out of this jam. But got down where you spent 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 hours with Him. Out of love for Him. You know who you love, you're going to want to be with. Isn't that a principle? That's very real. And Jesus, He says, You love me, but you don't care to be with me. You spend time with me. What do you think? If someone said to you, I love you, but they never wanted to come by and spend any time with you. What would you think? Why? Because your husband said, I love you, but he didn't want to spend any time with you. The action speaks louder than words, right? So love is action. Now, Here, Jesus illustrated this. Remember John 13? When He washed their feet? Do you know what He was teaching them? To love one another. In John 13, 34 and 35, He says, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Well, How do we do that? He says, I just washed your feet. You do that for each other. You die to self and serve each other in sacrificial service and love. Now there's a fourth principle. Get this one. Love does not do what it feels. It does what is needed. If God felt like saving me, I'd never got saved. Because He's looking at me, Well, I don't feel like saving him. Yes. He's not in shape yet. But God chose to love me. God didn't do what He just felt like. He did what needed to be done. I needed to be saved. You need to be loved. I need to be loved. And because we don't always deserve it. This is the type of love. Husbands, Love your wives with sacrificial love. That's what is needed. Love. Whether you feel like giving it or not, Give it. Your wife needs a sacrificial love. And this is what the boy-girl relationship is. We all remember our dating years and the flaws and the mistakes that we made. But so much of it was, Let's do what we feel like doing. Let's do what we feel like doing. But that's not what is needed. The need is restraint. Restraint. Let's restrain from doing what we feel like doing and save ourselves for our mates. Save ourselves for each other. If you're engaged and you're going to get married, you saved yourself. This is what God has said through the scriptures. The scripture says, 1 Corinthians 13, 5, Love seeketh not her own. The flesh is seeking the flesh to satisfy the gratification of the fleshly desires. That's not love. That's lust. So much of what we call love is lust. Love is not selfish. It's self-sacrificing. It's not self-centered. That's 1 Corinthians 13, 5. You go through that 13th passage. Chapter 13. That's really good. People say, I'm not getting much out of my marriage. You ever heard that? I've heard that. I'm just not getting anything out of my marriage. You know why people don't get much out of their marriage? You know what's coming? They haven't put much in it. If I went down to the bank tomorrow, a thousand out. And this is what we try to do in our marriages. We say, well, I'm not getting much out. That's because we haven't put much in. The more you put in, the more you get out. Because in a bank account, in a marriage, it's the same way. So it's not what you get out of marriage. It's what you put into it. And then this last principle. Man is to submit to his wife in sacrificial love. And get this. She will want to submit to a man that's loving her like that. And when we get into submission, you'll see how it works. The man is not loving the way he's supposed to love. The woman's not going to want to submit the way she's supposed to submit. And this is the way it was in the garden. They just couldn't do enough to one another. They loved each other so much. Now, I want to close up with these comments. The next thing, that was the manner of love. There's that sacrificial love. If you go through the passage in Ephesians 5. I just want to touch on some things. We'll go through this in Ephesians 5. In verse 27, he talks about purifying love. If a husband really loves his wife, he's going to want to see that she is kept pure. The husband will keep himself pure. He will want to keep his wife pure. He'll want to keep his children pure. Look at verse 26. That he might sanctify in verse 25. Husbands, husbands love your wives, even as Christ gave himself for it. Verse 26. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. What's that mean? The husband is to use the word of God to keep his family pure. He teaches the word of God. He has devotions with him. He shares with him. If his wife has a question, she's supposed to come to him. He teaches her the word. The husband is to sanctify. He sets his family apart. His wife and his family apart by the word. He keeps the world from polluting his family, his wife, his marriage. By keeping the word central in the marriage. That's what God says. This isn't our idea. This is God's idea. So the word will keep us pure. The word will keep us separate from that which defiles. I don't think a husband would ever allow or lead his wife into immoral situations if he really loved her. I would never think about taking my wife to a dance or to a bar or to a filthy movie or any kind of movie as far as that goes because that will defile. And maybe if you even go to the movie it may be okay but the commercials are going to defile you. This is why we quit a long time ago. It's not worth it. It's nothing but defilement. The whole system is set up to defile you. So the dances and all that stuff will defile. It doesn't help. It pollutes. And the word of God will teach you that. Then something else. Verse 27. That he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish. This is talking about Christ. He's trying to purify the church. You and I. Believers, if you're saved. So he can present us to himself. There's going to be a wedding. We're the bride. The church is the bride. He is the husband. This is why he says the word of God will purify us. It will draw out these impurities and make us more like Christ. The husband will want to present himself. He's going to present himself to the Lord. But you know that the husband is also going to say and now here is my wife and here is my family. And is he going to do it with pride? I have done my best, Lord. I have given them the word of God. I've tried to keep them pure. Or is there going to be shame? See, this judgment seat of Christ is not going to be all fun. There's going to be some shame because husbands have not done what they're supposed to do. Now, another thing is caring love. Verse 28 and 29. If he really loves, he's going to care. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth even as the Lord the church. Here's something else he says. Husbands, you care for your wives. Nourish means to feed to maturity. You know what this is? It's provision. You provide for your wife everything she needs, you provide it. That's nourishment. And cherish is like a mother bird. It speaks of tender security. The husband is to be tender with his wife. He's not to beat her and hit her and push her around and verbally abuse her either. Tenderly. This is what it's talking about. Cherish, tenderness. And then in verse 31, there's unbreakable love. Verse 31. For this call shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. Unbreakable love. You know what this is? It goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 2. It is the exact quote of Genesis chapter 2 where God says when a man and woman get together it's a marriage bond like plywood. It's bonded together with glue. And that marriage will not be broke. If you separate the marriage you will tear it apart but it will not be broke. It will be ripped apart. And this is why divorces rip you up inside because God never intended it. That's man. That's Satan. He does that. And that's what happens when our lives are not directed by the word. Praise the Lord for forgiveness and for God's grace we can come back together and try to put our life back together but it's like the guy that broke his leg. He may get it minted but he's still going to have a limp. He's still got the limp. That's because we violated God's word. You know God has set down this principle and time has not changed it from Genesis 2 all the way to Ephesians 5 which means to today. It's not changed. We've tried to change it and man's tried to change it with his laws but it still hasn't changed. And there's a lesson here that Christ is saying. As the marriage bond is unbreakable except by death Romans 7 As the marriage bond is unbreakable by death so the church is unbreakable from being broke off from Christ. That's the lesson. This is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Verse 32 And God is trying to say Husbands and wives your marriage will be a picture of the gospel of Christ saving you drawing you out of the world and giving you a new life together in unity and purpose and peace and joy and the marriage bond then is a type of the church. And God says it's unbreakable when you get saved you cannot be broke off from me. Jesus says my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and no man shall break them away. No one will break them away. And so he says the marriage is a type or a picture of the church. And that brings us down to the last thing and that's the motive of love. The motive of love. Why would we want to love our wives with sacrificial love? Because of what Christ says here the marriage relationship is a type or a picture of the church. That should motivate us more to guard our marriage as men. To cherish it, to keep it pure because it is a type of the church. The Lord said it in verse 32 and 33. So my marriage will either be a mar or a message of the beauty of Christ and his church. This is why marriage is one of the two ordinances that God has instituted to man. The very first one that was instituted was marriage. And God, get this, I thought about this this morning, God didn't give Adam a chance to choose who he wanted either. You ever thought about that? He said this is it. I think I'll take her Lord. The only one he got. And I say that because of this. I believe that God intends for each of us to have one mate. I believe it's our name that he said that we would have one. I believe that he chose my wife for me. And then when he brought us together in Omaha, that God put that together. Christ is the bridegroom and he's looking for his bride though. And I just wonder, maybe before we close, if you are in the bride of Christ, if you are part of the bride of Christ, you know Jesus says come. He calls out who you want to be in my family and he says come, come. And those of us that have trusted him, we said Lord we come. And maybe that's a type of the engagement. The guy comes up and says will you marry me? Would you like to come with me? Christ gives the invitation. She's got the choice. She says well let me think about it five or six years. Otherwise the guy's smart, he'll feel off. But he says sure. That's what Christ wants you to do if you haven't trusted him to come to him. Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for these things. We've gone through the passage very simply and drawn out what's there. And I admit that so much of what's there I haven't seen. This world is so damaged, this Lord. Hardly any of us has not been touched by Satan's curse on man. Lord, I thank you that we have a cure and that it's Christ. And that we can come to Christ and maybe if we've made some mistakes, serious mistakes even, we can be forgiven and we can go on from there. Thank you for your grace. Lord, thank you for the forgiveness that you've offered me. And I pray that each of us here would understand that you do forgive us. But this is your plan. And as Moses fell, in his plan, his marriage is busted up and we see from Scriptures that he sent her back home to his dad. There was a separation there. You hadn't planned it like that. But because of Moses' failure and his wife's failure, there was a breakdown there. And again, it just points out that you're no respecter of persons. If we violate your word, then we will suffer the consequences. Thank you, Lord, for the lessons you've given us today. And I pray if there's one here that needs Christ, that they would trust Christ. Lord Jesus, you're so beautiful. You died for us on the cross and you can set us free from whatever binds us. I just pray that you'd use this message now to encourage us to do what is right. And maybe if it's nothing but that we just use this to share with younger folks as we see them. Maybe grandma, grandpas, or down the road will have opportunities to share these things with young people. But they will not make some of the mistakes that we've made. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.