Sermon On Marriage

I'm going to just read what you all know, so you don't need to look up in your Bibles, because I would be stunned if most of you, even the children, can't quote these words, if you've loved God and loved his word. But the Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi, and there are these staggering words about marriage in the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, where God says concerning marriage that he was a witness, he was a witness. The Lord hath been witness, verse 14 of chapter 2, between thee and the wife of thy youth. The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth against whom thou hast dealt treacherously. That's a staggering word. Yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. Did not he make one a covenant? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit when he made this covenant before God that God witnessed, he had a right heart, a correct spirit that was in line with God. His heart had fear for God. And wherefore, one, why did God make the covenant of marriage? Why did God bring about this covenant? And then God staggers us that he might seek from this marriage, this union, godly seed, godly children. Therefore take heed to your spirit, God challenges a man. Take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously. It doesn't say wrongly, treacherously against the wife of his youth. That's the word God would use if you're not what you should be to that woman. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says that he hateth putting away. He hateth divorce. He hateth divorce. Now, that was the last book of the Old Testament. The first book of the New is Matthew. And in Matthew chapter 5, we read this is Jesus, our Lord, says in verse 5, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and they, and shall cleave to his wife. I love this word cleave. It doesn't mean stay with his wife. There's something there, hold on to her for the rest of your life in a way you won't lose her. Now you might say that's a bit of a chance. Go into the Greek, go into the context, and go into the light of every scripture that touches the scripture, hold on to her. You can lose her. There's something here in this word cleave that you need to take note of when you take a woman's life into your hands. When you leave your father and mother for this cause, he shall cleave to his wife, and they twain, too, shall be one flesh. That's beyond my comprehension and yours. Why would God say what's beyond our comprehension? Well, God is beyond our comprehension. You've just got to obey him and believe him. He says, they twain, they too, shall be one flesh, one person, literally. Suddenly, God doesn't see you as two people. He looks upon you at marriage as one person. It is so sacred. It is so sanctified. Wherefore, they are no more twain, they no more two, but one flesh, one person. Beyond our comprehension, but that's how God sees you. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. What God consecrates, don't desecrate. Don't do that. It's staggering. I know a Zulu man, a black Zulu man in our country, a native of Africa, one of the largest tribes. He's godly, very godly, and a great preacher. And he told me how his son came to him and said he desires to marry. And then he looked at this son. I hope you know that marriage is until death. It is till death, son. Don't ever come to me for the rest of your life and mine and tell me any different, no matter what happens. I hope this lady and you realize this is till death, this covenant. Otherwise, I'm begging you now before God, don't marry, if you haven't made up your mind about this, my boy. I thought that was staggering words to come from a godly father, and I thank God for that. But, now I want to come back into what the world has become where marriage is looked upon not as a joke because of liberal casting away of all the values of life, the moral decadence that Christ warned us would come like a tidal wave when iniquity abounds. It's a tidal wave. It gathers, and the love of the most in the Greek will become cold, will wax cold. We won't go into that, but in this day and age we live, marriage has become looked upon as not only a joke, but something that just doesn't work because the United Nations says that most Western countries in the last twenty years, up to eighty percent of those who enter into marriage are divorced. In the last twenty years, within ten years, the statistics are staggering. And so, we have a generation that's risen up fearful of marriage, jokes about marriage, the moral decadence that's attached. Everything in the media, virtually ninety percent of our media undermining marriage is something that's not sacred. And so, the fruit, what you sow you reap. You want to sow moral decadence in all the media, you reap decadence, moral decadence. And when moral decadence is written across marriage across the world, this world is in a tragic state because all you did was bring children into this world, and they'll not stay long enough to show them the stability every child needs of a mother and father together. But marriage has become something the world looks upon as a certificate to unhappiness, a certificate to disaster, a certificate to divorce, and have that written across. So, masses live together rather than enter into a covenant before God and in their own minds and consciences, just in case it doesn't work. Now, tragically, Christians across the world, beginning in the pulpits of evangelical churches, there's this divorce, divorce, divorce, divorce. The light of the world is no longer able to be the light. The example concerning marriage throughout the world, the megachurches, what percentage of their ministers are divorced and married and divorced and married, and they just go on like there's nothing in this book, nothing in this book to tell them they lose the right to preach. We don't have this book anymore. What's the good of this? It's worthless. This is different. And you've got to live it if you preach it, don't just carry it. I was once preaching at a hospital, probably the largest hospital in Africa, and the staff, many of whom are Christians, doctors, nurses, the general staff were in that meeting. And then they asked if they could have a time of questions and answers because of all the difficulties and the compromises and the differences changing on every standard from church to church. So, some rather good questions came, but then this thing of marriage came up. And these mostly Christians, doctors, nurses, and the staff who'd gathered for this time, just somehow stopped the hospital generally to try and gather for this hour they gave me. They started asking about marriage and this difficulty of how many are divorced in the church across the world, beginning in the pulpits, and how it's not preached anymore because so few have the right to preach that it's through death. So, they don't preach what God says anymore. And so, this question of it's almost a death certificate to happiness. You sign off yourself to disaster when you marry because it doesn't work generally even in the church. The age we live in is so morally decadent. So, there were some good questions and good answers. One young fellow, a doctor, a young doctor still training, and his wife was a doctor too sitting beside him. He said, can I speak? Yes. He said, I believe marriage is difficult, adapting with all the stress of life. He said, I believe the first two years of marriage are terrible, actually dreadful. He said, it is terrible. And he went on. So, I was looking at this fellow, where's he heading? He says, but you mustn't give up. Don't as Christians give up. We have no right to. Just hold on. He says, I believe from after two years, if you just hold on, it gets better. You've learned to adapt. I thought that's something. So, I said, how many years, how long have you been married? Six months. Now, his little wife sat there, and everyone knew they were going through war, and something terrible is going on there. Now, tragic, isn't it? But he had the point. Don't give up. You have no right to. And if you married a psychopath, then I'd say, come, I'll run with you before he comes home. But 99.99999% are not there, so don't hide behind that. I once witnessed this man who shared this rather staggering story, how he, as a young Christian, young married couple, loved the Lord. Everything's perfect, you know, the day you marry, this must be the most perfect human that ever lived, vice versa. But the stress of life, and the weariness that comes in this life, and the devil wears out the saints, you know, in every aspect. You walk out there, it's just one weariness to even stay pure. But, this fellow found out that under the stress, there was fighting beginning, arguing, differences, and he wasn't reacting. In the end, there was fighting all the time, there's arguing. Everything was just a clash. Now, this was bad. One day, this young Christian man said to this woman, I've had enough. That's it. No more. I'm leaving you. I cannot survive, and I cannot live like this for the rest of my life. I'm leaving you. I'm sorry. No negotiations. Just stand there. I'm getting out of your life, forever. I cannot face this any longer. So, he's out, grabs a few things that men think they need in a hurry to survive, you see. So, within moments, it was so amazing how fast he got out of that door. Now, he's getting in the car, angrily, outside of the, getting into the vehicle. And suddenly, the door opens of the house, and his wife puts her head out the door. Wait. Wait for me. I'm coming too. So, she locks the door, and she's got a few things. What do you mean you're coming too? With you leaving, I'm leaving. You're not going without me, but it defeats the purpose of me leaving if you come with me. No, I'm sorry. You can't do that, she says. You can't leave me. You're stuck with me forever. I'm sorry. You see, when I stood before God and said, till death us depart, I meant it. I thought you did too, for better or worse, sickness and health, rich or poor. I admit that I have to change, and I'm willing to seek God with all my heart for grace to change, and to adapt it. It isn't going to be so hard for you. I'm willing on my side to honestly seek God for change, and I will, but you cannot leave me. I will find you wherever you go. You're stuck with me, I'm sorry, till death. Now, he looked at her a bit shocked, a bit unnerved, and then he suddenly began to laugh. He saw the funny side of this whole thing. Now, he really laughed. Now, she began to laugh a bit nervously, but he was laughing at least. He says, listen, let's go inside. He put his arm around her, and they walk inside, you see, and then as he's walking inside with her, he says the most staggering words. For a moment there, you had me worried that you wouldn't come out quick enough to stop me from leaving you. Now, there's a thing, but it's staggering, and I want to say this, and I want to say this carefully. Don't ever forget this till the day you die, young people who have not even married. How many people divorce who shouldn't have? If it hadn't been a heated moment, how many are in a heated moment of a nothing? They separate, and they cannot undo the separation. You don't leave. You do not leave. That's non-negotiable. Full stop. Once you've stood before God as something so sacred there, don't undo it. You will feel unsacred till the day you die. Now, not every preacher in the world is going to be willing to say that, but I'm saying it because it's true, and because I care for you. Others might care for your attendance and your tithing, so they won't say it. I care for your well-being. We have this problem of how to overcome fighting, how to overcome differences. In our country, we have a godly community, German communities. They came over as missionaries, and they are now large communities. You get Berlin, Statterheim, all these places that are just German communities, you see. Across Natal, you get an amazing part of our state where one of the states is just German, all towns and villages built up from the German missionaries. I preach on tours. Just about every year, I go on these tours, one town after the other, and even across these German communities. It was one of these men, a German farmer, Stegen, Manfred Stegen, a very godly man, a very wealthy man with a very large plantation of trees and different types of farming, but a very wealthy man. He has inherited this farm from his father, who inherited it from his father, nearly 400 years of calm coming down, developed into one of the... Now, he knows the workers like his brothers and sisters, like his closest friends. All the laborers, they all grew up together. Their parents were in the farm, and their parents were not at all new laborers. One of the laborers, a lady, a Zulu lady, a black Zulu lady, native of the country, she knew him very well. She said to him one day, I have been to a witch doctor. Sir, a witch doctor? But you know that's terrible, they're evil. Why would you do that? I had to. I became so desperate, I went to the witch doctor. But you can't, not as a Christian, you can't do anything as a Christian. Oh, I had to go to the witch doctor. Why? Because my husband and I fight so much that our lives are being destroyed, our children are being destroyed. They're weeping, they're running out into the fields. We fight and we can't constrain ourselves, we're just fighting. She says in the Zulu language, of course, she doesn't speak English like this, but he knows Zulu. So, I went to this witch doctor and I said to him, the problem in our home and how terrible it is, and I'm going to lose our children, and we're going to lose each other. Help me. How do I stop fighting? Is there anything the witch doctor can tell me? I have a medicine that will totally solve the problem. You will never have a problem of fighting again. I must have this medicine. Give it to me now, please. Doesn't matter what it costs. I want to save my marriage. I want to stop the children weeping and running away in fear where it heads because we can't. Now, he says, here, take this bottle, and here's the little jug, and here I write on there the directions, the prescription, basically. Now, he says, whenever a fight, an argument, is about to start, you take this medicine, no fighting, guaranteed. Oh, give it to me. Just remember, it has to be this much. Don't do too much, don't do too little. Just do exactly the amount into this little cup. Now, you put it in your mouth, this liquid, but you don't swallow it until the fight is gone. Do you understand? You must follow the direction. I will do it, anything. So, of course, she said to Manfred Stegen, sir, there has not been one fight. It works. I just swallow it. It's amazing. Now, he looked at her. He said, what am I going to say now? This witch doctor has a sense of humor, but a real sense of humor. But this dear lady, somehow I didn't grasp it. But I don't suppose we can all go around with water in our mouths until every fight is over, you see. Every argument's gone. I don't know if that's really victory in Christianity. Well, there you are. But one has to be careful. God says in 1 Peter, and this is a staggering chapter, because the only time God speaks to a wife to be in subjection to a godless man. The other occasions in the New Testament, it is to a godly man. He's so godly that he will give his life to love his wife even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. So God expects of a man the highest standard ever required of anybody on earth is a husband, not a wife. You think a wife is in for something, having to look for grace for subjection. If you're a Christian, sir, you need ten times more to love her with a godly love, with God's love. You can't do it in your own love to the degree a man is consecrated and yielded to God's control, to that degree he can live the standard. Christianity is not a set of rules. It's not reading and trying in your own strength. That is agony. That is suffering. That is cruelty to a human. It's impossible. Christianity, full stop, is to the degree you yield to God, and he controls you by the spirit that the fruit, the spontaneous reaction in your life is seen, no matter how trying the circumstances. You fulfill the law. I've not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. How? Not by doing what they try to do, have it in front of you, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. No! To the degree you're yielded to God, to that degree you live this book. The Holy Spirit's fruit is Christ. Holiness is Christ. Full stop, anything added to that is heresy. Don't put the cart before the horse. It doesn't work. Don't put anything before vital reality with God, to the degree you're yielded with God, to God and controlled by the Holy Spirit. That is how God reacts through you, and lives out his life, and the fruit, the evidence, the Christ-likeness that is the fruit of the Spirit is Christ. Full stop, not love, joy, etc. It's Christ. The whole work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Christ in you, to bring you back, conform you back to the image that was lost. Of who? Christ. His whole work, and that is only to the degree you're yielded to God and soaked in the scriptures, so the Holy Spirit can take these and then give you the grace. Now, he says in 1 Peter, not to a godly husband, but first of all, to a woman who is married to a godless husband. Don't leave him. Win him. I love this. Likewise, 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 1, Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be one to God. By the conversation of the wife, by the life of the wife, while they behold your chaste conversation, coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plating the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, and that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. But after this manner in the old time, the holy woman also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and not afraid with any amazement. Now, here God is speaking to a wife to be in subjection. Why? It's never just to prove the point that you have grace and you're obeying God. Never! God has a higher rule, always, a broader picture. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection. Why? To your own husbands, unsaved, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word. Be wild! You don't have to wait for a great preacher to come to win him. Win him for your life! Don't you leave him, though! But you have to do one thing, seek God for the grace, and he'll give it to you. He cannot mock you. All the grace you need, he will give you, or he can't ask anything of you, from the pages of this book. But you have to want that grace. Now, this is staggering. When he says, likewise, ye wives, you must say, like whom? Like what? You'll find always like Jesus. What doesn't point to Jesus? You've missed the context. You've become like Jehovah's Witnesses. You can't quote the second half of the verse because it cancels out your interpretation. So, likewise, like Jesus. In 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 19, for this is thankworthy. If a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully, for what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults, you take it patiently? But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even here unto where ye call, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that he should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. And when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he treated not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously. Now, likewise, like Jesus. If it isn't like Jesus, run. You're in a heretical movement. If there's anything like this, like this, like this, like this, no! You can dress like a nun and put your husband and your children through hell if you're not like Jesus. Christ likeness is holiness, sir. The other things have vital, vital aspects, modesty, et cetera, hallelujah, but you put that first. You put everybody through hell, including yourself. It's like Christ. Christ likeness is the one thing. Like Christ, you wise, suffered when it was wrong. He'll give you the grace to the degree he lives his life and his control in your life. That's Christianity. First stop, the control of God, the Holy Ghost in your life, sir, is not tongues, is not gifts. It is the fruit, which is just Christ being conformed back into the image that was lost at the fall as a result of your salvation, but yieldedness to his control. Now, I was stunned how in one of the towns I was in years ago, this little lady shook me at the door of the church when I preached, and I had preached about my mother and father. My father was an alcoholic. My mother just aged through the torment of a marriage that didn't work. But how, when daddy was saved, my mother looked at him, and there never was another argument in the house till the day they died. When mother was saved, my brother stood and held my arm, and I saw tears in his face. Look at them. They loved each other. And my brother said, Keith, look at what we could have known all our lives if only they had known Christ from the beginning. Look at what we could have known. We both wept, as they didn't realize we were watching the love, forgiveness of everything in their path. I said in this church of this incident, my brother said, and I said, I don't believe you can know true happiness and love in marriage unless you are saved, born of God, and seeking God with all your heart. Now, a little lady stood at the door. She was a well-dressed, wealthy woman, an English lady in our country, but probably the wealthiest person in the whole town. She was, actually. But she said to me at the door, young man, listen carefully. You will be at my home – here's the address – at 1 p.m. exactly tomorrow for lunch. Do you understand? You don't argue with such a lady. Yes? So I was at her house at 1 p.m. for lunch. We sat, and we had a lovely meal. She said, listen, brother, I appreciate what you said about your father and mother. I appreciate that God did that. I believe God did that at salvation. But you were wrong, and I need to tell you, someone needs to stop you, or you're going to do great damage, Keith, on the pulpit. Listen carefully, boy. You never preach what you preached last night again. You said, you believe a person cannot know happiness or true love unless they're saved. I know many saved people, beginning with most of the preachers in this town, whose marriage has put them through hell on earth, putting it mildly. It's not being saved, Keith. When I was married, my husband was the Hollywood film star of the whole town. He should have gone to Hollywood, he was so good-looking. That pathetic type of good looks, you know. When all the girls in the whole town swooned when he walked past, it was tragic. But, she said, one day he turned and looked at me, and everyone said, it's you he wants. I was swooning. This man, this beautiful, perfect human, the most perfect human in the town, probably in the world, wants me. We got married. And I was swooning, the envy of all the girls, through the years, watching him, hoping it might be them, as he grew up into this magnificent creature. She said, our honeymoon started. We go on honeymoon, Keith, within two or three nights. We were uncomfortable with each other. Suddenly, there was fighting. On our honeymoon, there was such fighting, because I looked at him and I thought, this perfect human is not perfect, he's a monster. I've married a total monster. Unreasonable, uncaring, self-centred, has to have his way, and look at how he explodes. And we're fighting. And she said, I sat there and looked at him one night, and I thought, we have to divorce. I have to face a divorce. I can't live like this. There's no such a thing as we're going to survive. I'm going to have to have the star scar of divorce across me for my honeymoon, for the rest of my life. Unless one of us doesn't answer back. Unless one of us doesn't fight back. Now that won't be him. But unless one of us keeps quiet and yields totally, this marriage is divorced before the end of the honeymoon. We both wouldn't be able to survive past honeymoon. So I'm going to try. She said I was unsafe, Keith, and in my own strength, not God's, I kept quiet. I didn't answer back, no matter how unreasonable he was. And Keith, within a few days, not weeks, he sat there one night looking at me, and I saw tears coming down his face. This hard, cruel monster was crying. And I looked at him with different eyes. I said, why are you crying? You, I have treated you so wrong. I asked for forgiveness. But from today, till I die, I will endeavor not to treat you wrong again. She said, Keith, we never had another argument again. Even our differences, we didn't endeavor. He spoke to me with love, with respect. I was treated as a queen, as royalty by this man. In his unsafe state, he treated me better than most Christians I know on earth treat their wives. With such love, such tenderness, such respect, such accommodating our differences, always accommodating me. But what did that, Keith? You see, Keith, without God, and without my knowledge of knowing what God says, I did what the Bible says. Without knowledge of it, I submitted. I became in subjection. I found grace to do that, and I won him. His love, his respect, his care, that I was like a treasure to him from the time I did. Now, Keith, in this town and in your life, you will find many Christians, beginning with those in the pulpits who even preach, their wives cannot be in subjection. And therefore, he cannot be the man of the house, the head of the house. And therefore, the house goes to hell, a taste of hell on earth. It's not being saved, Keith, that saves your marriage. It's being obedient to the Bible. Likewise, doesn't end there. The next verse, after God says this to the woman, is likewise he husbands. You mean there's something I've got to do? Not just trample on her and expect her to do what I say? Oh, brother, you have more grace to seek than that woman, because that's an unsaved man, but now he comes to save men. He husbands, likewise, like who? Like Jesus. Apart from Christlikeness, Christianity is obnoxious. It is preposterous. It is agony. It is cruel, what you can do with these scriptures, even to a woman, sir. Apart from Christlikeness, you are totally bankrupt of Christianity. To what degree God makes you Christlike? That's to the degree you yielded to God, soaked in the scriptures and pray daily for the grace to live this. Christlikeness, likewise he husbands dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weak vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered. In its context, your prayers for your children. How can you expect your children to be saved if you put them through hell? What do they want Christianity for if it's hell on earth? Sir, you can't even pray for their salvation if you can't live this, husbands and wives. It won't be the world that sends them to hell. It's the mother and father who just couldn't come to the place of seeking God for grace by total yielding. And by the by, total yielding is not enough. That's just putting yourself in a position where you can grow. It's soaking yourself in the scriptures and in prayer daily. Apart from that, there's no hope of living, no matter how many times you consecrate, dedicate your life. Likewise, he husbands, like Jesus now, always remember it has to be like Jesus, no matter how she fails. Don't become bitter against her. Husbands, love your wives, agape love. I don't want you to love her in your own strength to the degree you yielded to me, agape, God's Holy Spirit loving his love through. Love that love suffers long in his kind, beginning in the home. How can you expect it to happen to your worst enemy if it can't work in the home? You're as real as you are in the home, you know. So, dwell with them. Remain, don't leave. Remain with them. Don't give up because she's weaker. Don't become bitter and angry and start hating her. Honor her. How? Giving honor, oh, likewise he husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge. Now this is staggering that God says, use your common sense. That's literally what it means, by the way. It's a bit humbling, how to survive in a godly way and keep the testimony of the home. Use your common sense that God's given you to stay with her, to not part with her, not become bitter and angry, to honor her. How? Use your common sense. Don't wait for her to change, brother. You keep the testimony of that home. You keep the children loving Christ and Christianity and pursuing God by this, quickened by the Holy Spirit in its context of the life of Jesus Christ. You have a hundred-mile start. You have a billion-mile start to an unsaved person. If you use your common sense to the degree you yield it to God, it's soaked in the Scriptures daily, to undo all the situations that could lose the testimony. I was in a home where this godly man was sitting and this godly woman. They loved the Lord for years. They were revered, loved, respected as godly of our country. Around the table at lunch were guests, most of them preachers, missionaries, preachers, and a few other Christians. Now, for some reason, this lady in a weariness of life, they say all women reach a stage where this happens. You've got to really, you can't understand them. You just ask for grace. Well, they say all ladies. I don't really know medically what that means or psychology, but anyway, every woman, it seems, reaches a point where the weariness of 15 children, brother, and raising them, washing them, and you, maybe she does get weary at some age. You know that you are asked by God to give her grace. She's a weaker vessel. Don't hate her now. Don't get angry with her. So, this lady must have been reaching those stages. I said, well, Jenny hasn't reached it yet. Actually, she hasn't reached it yet. I don't know. Jenny's different. Anyway, my darling Jenny is definitely not going to reach that stage, I don't think. I think I've reached it before her, whatever it's talking about. But anyway, you need extra grace. But at this table, this woman suddenly declared war. Have you ever been in a home where a husband and wife declare war publicly? Now, for some reason, he didn't deserve it. She put a cannon, you know, on the table, aimed at him and put a bomb and let the, she just set the most horrific, challenging bomb. He didn't deserve it, whipping him. Now, of course, everybody's head was in their food. No one's speaking now. Everybody's, what's going to happen, you know? Ooh, war. What's he going to do? Like she just put this big cannon, you know, the old cannon. War, in spite of them. She started war. So, we're all sitting there trembling. Suddenly, this man says these words as he touches her hand. My darling, when did I last tell you how beautiful you are? She looks at him. When did I last tell you how I love you? We went on, you know. We all looked up. Of course, she just disarmed, you know. She just crumpled. We all crumbled. I mean, you can defuse the bomb by one word. It's not necessary. It's your common sense. You don't have to fight about everything, every failure, every word she failed. You don't have to. You're the stronger vessel, and God means that to be spiritually, too. Believe me, you might say that's wrong, but let me tell you, you lead even there in the example, and by steering the ship through the storms with wisdom, using your common sense, you don't have to declare war. Now, Richard Werenbrand tortured for Christ from the communist prisons, took his shirt off when he was just saved. You put your whole arm, you put your whole hand through his body, burned to try and make him deny Christ. Oh, the evils of communism mostly didn't come down through Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It was this man when he got out, and the Christians realized the filth and evil of a godless anti-Christ society, and we got on our knees across the world and began to pray. That's why communism collapsed to the degree it has. Be careful, it might rise. Let's not go that way, but still. Werenbrand tortured. He says he didn't know whether his wife was dead for over 20 years. No word had reached him in that prison as they tortured him and tortured him for one reason, to make him deny Jesus because he was too much of a voice outside of the prison. Tortured for Christ. He didn't know whether this little boy was dead. He hadn't heard for over 20 years. Suddenly he's out. The communists to this day don't know how that happened. They're still trying to work out how that happened. He's with his wife. He's with his son, now a man. His wife, bent, wrinkled, gray, rings under her eyes. The beauty's gone. Robbed of a son. Robbed of a wife. Because he loved Christ, no other sin. Jailed and tortured. Oh, the evils of communism. Now, he said that night when we all went to hear him, you have to work at marriage, you know, and I had to start trying to find out how it is to work on marriage. It's not easy just to walk into another person's life. And he said, you know, we have differences and you've got to use your common sense, he said, husbands, about these differences when she makes a mistake. He said, I had dreamed about my wife's soup. No one on earth has ever made more wonderful soup than my wife. And I had dreamed and I said, soup, the soup I had dreamed of. Oh, the soup was coming. Oh, the smell. Oh, and I'm sitting and suddenly she puts the soup from the bowl there in the stove and she puts it in. Oh, my heart. So I start eating my soup. But to my horror, there is a long hair, grey and black. Oh, in my soup is hair. Now I could say what many husbands would say. What's wrong with you, woman? Can't you keep your hair out of the soup? He says, but no. He says, what did I do? I prayed in my heart. And he says, my darling. Yes, my darling. You know how I love your soup. Yes, I know how you love my soup. And you know that I love your hair. Yes. Every hair on your head I love. You know that. Yes. She looks at him. But it's not necessary to put your hair in my soup because I love it so much. Now, of course, she looked and they both screamed with laughter. But I want to ask you something. I want you to really answer your heart in front of your wife and children and your husband and your children. Ninety-nine percent of what you thought about putting those children through hell, you could have laughed at, both of you. Just using common sense to undo the time bomb. In her weakness, her weariness, yeah, you want to give all those children have mercy on her when she gets tired, okay, isn't perfect. Vice versa. Why did he make the covenant for you not to be lonely ever? What fruit is usually expected from marriage? What fruit is usually expected from a marriage? I can say stable, happy children. What fruit is usually expected from an unhappy marriage? Usually unstable, unhappy, complex, hurt, scarred children. Sadly. They put this in one of the London newspapers the other day. I don't mind. Worth it. The greatest gift you can give your child is not a good education. It's not a beautiful home. It's not a wonderful inheritance. These things will make your child curse you one day. One thing left that you can give them. The greatest gift you could ever give your child is a happy marriage. A child's stability is gained more from seeing his parents love each other, truly love each other than anything else he has seen in his life. Someone once said to me, and he's a world-famous preacher that you all know, and now suddenly he's come up. Suddenly a God-destructed man, many world-famous preachers have come up. With books I've read, and through me, and prose one, didn't realize one day they'd be meeting me in the right place, and I'm grateful for that. But I still have this very word for this man. And of course he's an authority in our world on marriage and all that. And he said these words. He said that child stability comes, and security, comes more from being disciplined than any other single thing. Discipline, a lack of discipline has created a generation. Now, I said to him, and it shocked everybody, I disagree with everybody, you are totally wrong. Oh, why do you care that much? He said, I believe that child's greatest source of security is from seeing and witnessing true love between his parents. Most problems in the character and life of a person stem from an unhappy home. The greatest miracle you will ever witness in your life is not to see someone raised from the dead. Sometimes they say she was a remorseful church that claims night and night was their rubbish. It didn't happen. The greatest miracle you will ever witness in your life is not to see someone raised from the dead. That's not a myth worth worrying about, what you've been That's really what I would make, sorry, to those of you who really want to do that and try to do it, but you have to lie on most occasions. The greatest miracle, brother, you will ever witness in your life is if your child seeks God in truth, in a way that they stay true before the Lord. If your child gets saved in truth, if you fought and argued with your mother and your wife, to the relief of Samuel that day, John, and his child, he shouldn't have won it. When we thanked him for being so happy as a child, in our home with all our restrictions, we made many mistakes, trust me, but we tried. And what other Christians done is quite different, quite different. We wanted the right to preach. We didn't have the right to preach many things, beginning with the television. And his happiness was something extraordinary. One night I sat at his table, I want to thank him for being happy and content with a home like ours, with all our restrictions, all our limitations, because we came with these new mollies, and because the most conservative people on earth think of us, and I want the right to preach, so we have nothing in this home to question about, even if perhaps we've gone too far to do so. I want to thank you for the inspiration of all these restrictions and the compulsion in your life to tell me that you're probably the happiest child I've ever seen in my life. Thank you. I want to thank you. He looked at me rather strangely. Daddy, the only reason I'm happy, short of it, is because you're probably the happiest child I've ever seen in my life. No other reason. You've been with me for 20 years, and that shook me. And even if you think I've been shaken in my life by this democracy, I'd have to leave a message, but that's OK, since when did life begin through a message? I preached a sermon two or three years ago where I quoted every single person in the entire Bible before Christ. There's over 400 to 500 verses from Matthew. Every single aspect and verse in the entire Bible are various. It was like devastation, because the Word of God is not preached in its entirety anymore. If you say I'm wrong, I dare you to do it. Just get that message and let them see it. It doesn't have to be a congregation. But I want you to be faithful to God, because it is just what God says. We've all lived up to the same ideas. Perhaps we should get back to it. On the night of our marriage, Timmy and I had stayed in a beautiful hotel, and the first thing we did, before anything else, in our married lives, I said, Jim, I want to read just a chapter. The next chapter following, where I left off as an unmarried person this morning, I want to start tonight the next chapter. So I opened up to Jeremiah, chapter 32, which wasn't this Bible, but it was the same chapter at the top of the page, verse 39. And I read these words, the first moment we were together, alone, in marriage. We opened the Bible, we had a prayer, and I read these words. I want to give them one hope, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children, after them. As a reamer, in spite of context, I look to Jesus, Lord God, please do that. I tell you frankly, I have faith. There have been times, honestly, when all hell became against me, and no one on earth knew that I knew my wife, just how much of hell rose against me. And my willingness, I have faith. But I have no love. And I have held on to her. I have pursued God with my soul for forgiveness. And I have pursued God with my soul daily, for grace, to be Christ. For the good of my wife and me, and my children, after us. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, the moment you cut off your marriage, the moment you cut off your life, don't lose it. Don't lose it. Grab it, and let the Word of God save us, by the grace of God. Because His grace is there, if you seek it with all your heart. The world has no right to ask you to live such a moment. What will happen when your children are so sick? Seek God for the moment you lift your glasses and you damage, more damage, like Samson, when he did more damage against his enemy, and he cried out for the last moments, and he did more destruction, but he can do so much more damage against Satan for the last it, no matter what the devil's done. Stagger this world again. There's no one on earth that won't forgive you if you failed. But you get up, and you stagger this world, for God's sake, with the few moments you've got left. And you die climbing.