In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of being a rebuilder in one's life. He uses the analogy of a child rebuilding their sandcastle after it has been destroyed to illustrate the concept. The preacher then goes on to discuss seven goals of a rebuilder, including seeking after God, finding contentment in Christ, and strengthening marriage. He also mentions the power of using one's own tragedy to build a life message and testimony for others. The sermon concludes with the preacher expressing surprise at the positive response to a series on marriage and divorce, and the intention to continue addressing these topics.

In the last few weeks on Eagle's Wings, we've been covering the subject of marriage and divorce. We're going to continue on today, but I'd like to start off by asking you a question. Why was the emphasis made on one flesh? Matter of fact, Malachi said, and did not he make one? Why was it that God declared that a man and a wife would become one? Well, Malachi answered that for us, and we'll come back to that in a few minutes. Heavenly Father, we commit this program to you. We ask that you'd open up our eyes and our ears to hear, to see, that which you want. We pray for any that do not know Jesus as their Savior, that they'd come to know this precious, precious One who died for us. In His name, the wonderful name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. By the way, before we get into the subject of marriage and divorce, which has brought quite a response, I'd like to just remind you that if you have not received the free gift that God offers to the human race, let me encourage you to do it, because without receiving this gift, you won't get into heaven. Many think that they can get into heaven by their own works, and the Scripture tells us that by our own works we won't be justified. Our own works, according to the Scriptures, are just as filthy rags. But He wants us to receive this free gift, for we've all sinned, the Scripture says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And that's why Christ came into the world, to save us of sin, wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. I heard a few weeks ago about one that was trying to argue, or just express opinion, that they were not a sinner. That's a great mistake to make. We're all sinners, and if we're not all sinners, then God's a liar. And we know that God's not a liar. But our sin is an offense to Him, and He has done something about it for us, and that is He died on the cross for our sins. But not as the offense, Romans 5.15, not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For through the offense of one, many be dead. That's through Adam's sin, brought this human race into sin. The Scripture goes on to say, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man. Who is that anyway? Jesus Christ, that's who it is, hath abounded unto many. And not as it were by one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation. See, Adam brought us into condemnation, but yet we won't be condemned because of his sin. We will be condemned for our own sin. The Scripture goes on to say, for the judgment was by one to condemnation. But the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For by one man's offense, death reigned by one. That's Adam's sin. Much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. To think that you can reign, not only get to heaven, but you can reign with Christ, if you'll receive that gift. Let me encourage you to receive the gift of life, because the Scripture goes on to say again in Romans 5, I've just been reading to you Scriptures 5.18, Therefore is by the offense of one. There's Adam's sin again. Judgment came upon all men to condemnation, and we're in Adam. You're in Adam if you're not saved. You're in Adam lost. But if you receive Christ as your Savior, you go into the second Adam, which is Christ. Even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. All you have to do is receive. What's the prerequisite of receiving? It's repenting. Repenting of your righteousness, repenting of your way of salvation, and receiving God's way, which is to die on the cross and shed His blood for our sins, and to rise again the third day. And then you enter into the life of grace. Well, we're going to continue on this subject of marriage and divorce. And again, let me just emphasize, as I was talking to you, if you haven't received Christ as your Savior, get on your knees now and call out to Him. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I can't stress this too much, how important it is to do it now. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. So even before we get into this program, please receive Christ as your Savior. Tomorrow may be too late. Many people have a sorrowful well in hell for all eternity. Tomorrow was too late. Tomorrow was too late. Today is the day of salvation. So pray and receive Christ as your Savior right now. Now, I've had a great response to this program, and there's been a sort of something that surprised me in this response, and we're going to go on because of the response to this. God's just pricked my heart. But out of the feedback I've received by word of mouth and hearing things and then with the mail, this has really surprised me. I haven't received or heard, that's not to say that it's not out there, but I haven't heard one negative response to this series on marriage and divorce. And there have been requests for the tape, so I guess we'll have to get out the tape machine and make some copies off for you. Those of you that wanted the copies, and we're going to have another one at least today, and maybe we'll continue on because, you know, one of our tendencies today, we've got a great ability to do this, is to point out all the flaws and all the problems in the church and each other's lives and all this stuff around, but who's got answers to fix these things? Well, God's got the answers to fix this area of marriage, and many of us have made great mistakes in life. And there's probably, besides making the great mistake of not receiving your Savior, Christ is your Savior, the greater mistake is to have a mess up in your life in the area of marriage. But there is hope, there is a way out, there is a way to, we could maybe put it like this, to have your life greased with grace, to live by the grace of God. And I'd like to share maybe a couple letters that I've received to just show you how God is working in lives. One of the letters is from a friend, a radio friend, and I'll just share this with you, this man's divorced. He said, I needed to drop you a note about your word on divorce last Sunday. This is a friend of mine that we've had many discussions because of the radio broadcast, but he says on Sunday the 19th, it was one of the most complete studies I believe I have heard you do. You brought a very clear message on a subject that needs more than just a passing comment. And I'll say that's probably very true. We don't really get a good study on this today. He says, I am giving a copy of the tape to a fellow believer that does not agree with me on the subject. I will tell you that I have been divorced, and I find people are generally more prone to listen because I am not coming to them in a self-righteous standpoint. God bless and guide you, your friend. And I appreciate that letter from a friend of mine, a radio friend, and I really appreciate that. I appreciate any response you give. If you don't like something, I appreciate that too. We need to communicate with one another. Now that's very important, what he said there at the last. Let me say it again. I've been divorced, and I find people are generally more prone to listen because I am not coming to them in a self-righteous standpoint. Many do not know that even though they have made a mistake and maybe had a crash in their life or did something that God has later dealt with them on, that they can do any good. But that's not true. They can do much good. There can be a great ministry in this area. If you've had a crash in your life, and God has showed you what you did wrong, and you've confessed to the sin, and you've been repentant and broken, what do you do from there? Well, God can use you to be a minister to others that are maybe heading this way, and you've already gone down that road, and in a church you can have a tremendous ministry, helping your pastor, working with the elders in the church, and being an encourager and a witness to young couples, those maybe having troubles in their marriage. You can be a great help, and we're going to get into how you can do that today. Another note I wanted to share with you. Please send me your sermons on marriage. And I don't know how many we're going to have on this yet. I heard one of them on 10-12-97. October 12th. I'm divorced against my will, and I want to know where I stand according to the Bible. Thanks. And then his name. I appreciate that note also. Where do you stand according to the Bible? And that's the purpose of this program today, to get into the area of where do you stand from there. Let me just say it in a word. You stand at that point as a rebuilder. You know, if somebody comes in, if you're a little kid and you're out there in your sandbox, and a neighbor kid comes through and stomps all over your castle, what do you do? Well, you may cry, shed some tears, you can run to mommy. But if you've got anything inside of you at all, you come back out and you rebuild your castle. Sure, it may not be exactly like it was before, but you rebuild it the best you can. And that's what we're going to say to you, is that you rebuild. And then what is rebuilt in your life by the grace of God is going to be a testimony and a witness of the grace of God in your life. And I have today seven goals of a rebuilder that I want to share with you. But first of all, I want to get some more introductory stuff in there, and we'll probably cover just the first one. And I'll name all seven to you. You know, there's helps out there. There's materials, believe it or not, that can help you. Besides just all these books, there's hundreds of books. There is a rebuilder's manual, and I have a supplement to that that I'm going to share some stuff with you that's available to help you in your life. And these things are tools. They're just tools that you use to guide you through. You know, the standard, I need to say this, the standard is one husband to one wife. That's what the Scripture says. And as we've gone through, if you haven't listened in the last few weeks, we went through to establish a very strong Bible foundation that God intended that the man and the wife, once they're married, be married until death. And a piece of paper won't just annul that marriage. That's man's ways to fix things up. But, you know, we know how man, how we fix things up. We usually do a lousy job of fixing things up unless we follow God's Word. And so that's what we did. We went through Scripture showing you that God intended that the marriage be until death. You say, do you have a Scripture right off the top of your head? I sure do. How about this one? Romans 7 and verse 1, 2, and 3. Verses 1 through 3. 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 loosed 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. And I know you have many questions and whatever, and you write me in if you have a specific thing. Write in to me and we'll try to deal with it. But we're going to cover some of those things. What if? What if you got into this situation or that? And we'll just come up with some of these things and talk to you about them. But let me say this about our position today in the church. I don't have to tell you we're in bad shape. You know that. But if we don't shape up and repent, many of our churches are going to just flat crash because you can't fly without wings. And this thing of taking the Word of God and changing it and coming up with all these different Bibles, just as God intended a man to have one wife, He intended us to have one Bible. And I believe the King James is the Bible that God wanted us to have. All these other versions are bringing confusion, and they have opened up. You may not realize it, and I haven't gone into this to give you a detailed discourse on it, but they have opened up to give allowance to a false doctrine that you can be divorced and remarried without death. And we've already covered the Scriptures to show you that scripturally it's not possible. But you can build your doctrine to believe the other way with these other versions. I'm not getting into that today, but I wanted to say this to you. In Jesus' day, they had almost made the law of no effect. And if you know the New Testament, you know what I'm saying is true. They'd almost made it of no effect. They had the Word of God all wrapped up in their own interpretation in dead traditions. And so when Jesus came along, He took them back to the beginning of Genesis. One man, one wife, until death. He took them back to the beginning. And the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, had messed things up so bad. It was just bad. And when Jesus came along, He just blew all of that stuff that they had like a puff of smoke, blew it away and exposed them for the hypocrites they were, trying to cover up their own adulterous lifestyle. From the beginning, Jesus said, it was not so. And so we go back to the beginning. And let me say this too. And I know we have lots of introductions, but I believe we need to build a foundation on this. Theodore Epp in his little book, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage. Very, very good. He said, so Christ's words concerning divorce and remarriage were intended to strip away the false teaching the Jews had woven around the Old Testament law. It is especially significant to notice the words fornication and adultery. And we've covered that in detail as recorded in Matthew 5.32. When used by itself, the Greek word translated fornication in Matthew 5.32 can refer to every kind of abnormal sexual relationship. However, when the word is used in contrast to the Greek word for adultery, a special distinction is being made. This is an exceedingly important point in the whole discussion of whether or not there are grounds for divorce and remarriage. Let me reemphasize what he said again. An exceedingly important point. Today, when people refer to a reason for divorce and remarriage, they are usually thinking of adultery. But Jesus said that during Moses' time, the ground for divorce and remarriage was fornication, not adultery. And he goes on to say, as pointed out in chapter 3, the words fornication and adultery are not identical in meaning. Both refer to sexual sin. But as used in the Scriptures, fornication refers to the sexual act before marriage and adultery to illicit sexual relations after marriage. Now, this is a very difficult area. And not many pastors will tackle it. A lot of pastors are not qualified to tackle it. And I've got stories. I've got some more stories. I can tell you if you want stories. We need the Scriptures, though. That's what we need. But it's an important area. Why is it so important? There's at least two main reasons. One, because of the type of the church, Ephesians 5. And we've already touched on that a little bit. But the second I wanted to share with you, by way of introduction, is this one. From Malachi chapter 2. And Malachi referred to one, one. And did not he make one? You see, when a man and woman come together in marriage, they are one. Jesus called it one flesh. God emphasized they are one flesh in Genesis 2. And Malachi went on to say, I'm in Malachi 2.15. By the way, this whole chapter is powerful. And maybe we'll come back a little later and cover the chapter. It's good. It's really good. It clarifies what's going on. But he says, yet had he the residue of the Spirit, wherefore one? In other words, why one? Why would God want a man and a woman to be one? This is our question. Why would he call them one flesh? One flesh. And you don't separate one flesh without pain. You tear an arm off. And it hurts. That's why when there's a divorce, there's so much pain in the heart. That's why the children are literally torn apart. And those of you that have gone through this know what I'm talking about. I've never experienced it. And because of that, that one thing alone, that's one of the requirements. We already covered that. For a man to be in an elder position, or pastor position, is not to be divorced. And if you have someone that you know that's in an elder position, or pastor position, or whatever, that is divorced and remarried, and according to Scripture you see that they're wrong, then pray for them. Unless God directs you to say something, you be very careful about that. You be very careful. But it is your duty to pray for me or anybody else when God shows you something that's not right. Our business as intercessors is a very important business. And we can't neglect it. But he said, here's why. And wherefore one, and now get this, that he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. He used that word in that chapter, treacherously, over and over and over again. Maybe we can come back to that sometime. But God wants a pure seed. Our children are our seed. And when they're messed up in this area, it is a major mess up in their life. And it affects them. That's why this area is so important for the type of the church, but also to preserve a godly seed. That was one of the things that was referred to about John the Baptist when he came back in Malachi chapter 4 and verse 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. If we get out of bounds on this area, then the whole earth is lined up for a curse. This is no light matter. It's not a matter that we should take very just flippantly. Oh well, that's your opinion. No, let's go to the scripture and see what God says. To preserve a godly seed. Now, one other thing, then we're going to get into the seven goals. Seven areas that I think that God can build into your life as a rebuilder. There's one other statement I want to make, and that's this. Compromise is the path to weakness. I don't know where I got this. I was just sitting this afternoon before I came to record and this thing popped in my mind. Compromise is the path to weakness. And I thought about that. Boy, that is true. Weakness. A weak testimony. If you compromise at work, you'll have a weak testimony. If you compromise in your personal convictions, you'll have a weak testimony. If you compromise with your children, you'll have weak children. If you compromise in your churches, you'll have a weak church. And if you compromise in your Bible, you'll have a weak Bible. Get you a King James. There's no compromise. I'm convinced it's the Word of God. I know many of you don't believe that, and that's alright. You have your right to, as J. Vernon McGee says, you have your right to be wrong. I have my right too, but I don't think I'm wrong. There's power in the pure Word of God. Now, here's the seven goals of a Rebuilder from this Rebuilder's Guide that I have, this supplement. And I'm just going to mention these, and we're going to come back in the last few minutes, go through the first one. These are very important because of this question, where do I stand? This one gentleman said, I want to know where I stand according to the Bible. Now, if you're divorced, and your first wife is still living, and you've been remarried, according to the Bible, that's an adulterous relationship. But, God forgives. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When we are forgiven of a sin, then how do you live? We live by the grace of God. Just like Paul said, when the Lord told him, my grace is sufficient for thee. No matter how deep and hard it is, no matter how much it hurts, God's grace is sufficient, and you need to learn to use it. And then what do you do then with the grace of God? You rebuild your life the best you can. And here's seven areas, seven goals of a Rebuilder, according to this Guide. And I'm going to read through the seven things, and then we'll come back and cover the first one, and then that will about be it for today. But first thing, most important thing, and we're going to cover it, is to rebuild a heart that seeks after God, and contentment in Christ. Second goal of a Rebuilder is to rebuild the true picture of marriage that was in the mind of Christ. The third goal of a Rebuilder is this, rebuild communication with your former partner. And I know there's going to be things, all kinds of complications, but rebuild communication with your former partner, because if you're divorced and you haven't been remarried yet, and your wife or your husband hasn't remarried yet, then there's hope that y'all can get your marriage back together. I heard the other day of a friend, I asked him about his mom and dad. They were divorced for many, many years. Many years. And I talked to him the other day, and I found out that they had come back together after long years. Neither one of them remarried, and so they could come back together. And I heard about, well let me just share that one later. I need to keep going on this. But anyway, rebuild communication with your former partner. And the fourth one is this, to rebuild your original marriage when scripturally possible. And the fifth one is to rebuild a teaching relationship with your children. You know, many times the children just lose complete respect for one or both of their parents, because of this devastating in their life. Many become bitter, and many have great problems in their marriages, because things have not been dealt with back in their relationships with their mom and dad. The sixth thing is to rebuild standards in your church, and that's what I said when we started off. How you can be used in your church to help be a ministry in that area. And the seventh thing is to rebuild a life message to strengthen marriage. Actually, out of your great tragedy, God can build a life message to others that will be a powerful testimony. And I have some stories, there's a powerful story in this guide here that will help you a lot. Now let's go back to this first thing on rebuilding a heart that seeks after God, and contentment in Christ. You know what our natural tendency is as human beings, is if something's taken away, is to look for a substitute. You know, if they take your butter away, well you go look for a substitute. Well that's margarine. Well let me tell you, you better go get some butter, because margarine's going to hurt you a whole lot more than butter. But the tendency for a divorced person is to seek the approval of others, and to look for a new life partner. And I'm going to write down Ron here. I don't think, this story, I've shared probably a little bit before about this one, but I don't want to forget the one that just came to my mind, because I think it was four times. And I don't know where he's at now. Four marriages. And he wouldn't listen to the counsel of Scripture. And just one after another, they just wouldn't work. Life after life was messed up. Child after child. Anyway, do this. A wise rebuilder will not do this. In other words, a wise rebuilder won't go looking for a new life partner. He or she instead will use that hurt, you use those heartaches of that broken marriage to draw you closer to God and to enjoy His fellowship. Isn't that what David did with all the pain that he went through because of Saul chasing him? He used that, and out of that we got the Psalms. Imagine what can come out of your life if you will seek God through your pain and your hurts. Just imagine. You know, Jesus said that the first and the great commandment is to love the Lord with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our mind, with all our strength. You know, Matthew 22, 37. We could even go back and read that if we can get there fast enough. I think I did. Here it is. Listen. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Have you been doing that? That's the first thing. To seek God with all your heart. And then you can cry out like David. One thing have I desired of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. You know, David said in Psalm 73, 25, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. The best thing for a marriage is for the mate, either one of them, both of them, to be seeking God first. You put God first, then things will go into place a lot easier in your marriage. There's another benefit of seeking God, and that's making our ways pleasing to Him, having harmony with those whom we have offended. I believe it would please God if you would go back and make things right, and we'll have to deal with this in some detail a little bit later on, how to do this if there's guilt and things. What the Scripture says, When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. There's something about that humble spirit. When a man, and I read somewhere today, I think it was that there are two hardest things for a man to do or these two things would bring more friction in the family, and that's the father's anger and his failing to ask for forgiveness. But when you as a father would go back and say, I messed up, I was wrong, I sinned, I was angry, I did this, I did that. That humble spirit breaks down those walls that will help to be used in rebuilding. And something else, By seeking the Lord, a divorced person is not very likely to put unwelcome pressure. The wrong things won't be said quite as much if you're seeking the Lord on a form of pardoner, and this will help to rebuild your marriage. You know, the requirement for seeking the Lord is this, really. It's having all sin confessed and cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. David said, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Psalm 66, 18. He said in Jeremiah 17, Jeremiah said, Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Have you done that? Have you really looked at your own ways, your own habits, your own attitudes? Let us search and try our ways. You know, in our own eyes, we hold ourselves up on pedestals. And somebody comes along with a chainsaw and cuts us down a few notches, and we get proud. We get offended. We're touchy or whatever. But really what they need to do is cut down the whole tree of our pride, this whole stump we're sitting on. Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Lamentations 3, 40. Jeremiah 17, 10. I was getting to that one. I, the Lord, search the heart. Has God been probing around in areas you just assumed Him not probe around? My friend, you don't need to have a garage sale. You need to get the dump truck there and just get that garbage out of your life. Don't even try making a few bucks at a garage sale on a lot of that trash. Get it out of your life. It's just holding you back, and it may be that it's keeping you from having the marriage that you want or having a marriage put back together. So God says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins. That's your deepest area of your heart. Even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. Look at your life. Has there been the sweet fruit of the Holy Spirit, or has there been the fruit of the flesh? And could it be that that is the cause of your marriage falling apart because of your own fruit? Start with yourself. Don't go try to get your marriage partner fixed up. You just let God get you fixed up first. Get that beam out of your eye before you try to go get some little speck out of your mates. Well, we're going to have to close down today. I'm not even going to get through this, and we'll pick up on this first goal next week. But let me close with this. Who in the Scripture do you know that became a widow in the New Testament? She became a widow. And she decided that she'd give all of her energy to serving God. And as a result of that, God gave her amazing spiritual alertness. He gave her acceptance by the spiritual leaders of her day. And she had great fulfillment in her life. And I've been told, I haven't checked this out, I just saw this today, that she had the longest life recorded in the New Testament. I think it's probably true, but who was that? Because she gave her life to just seeking the Lord. That was Anna. You go look in Luke chapter 2, 36 through 38, and see if that isn't true. Well, we're going to have to close down now. Until next week, we're going to continue to believe God, to work in your life, to work in your marriage, to work in your church, to work in your heart, in that He can bless you, and in being blessed, you can be a blessing. Until next time, may the Lord be able to greatly bless you.