Thank you for coming, my brothers and sisters in Christ! We have gathered to look in the Word of God to learn about one of God’s most important works, His Simple Plan of Marriage. God made both salvation and marriage. If you try to get to Heaven your own way, you go to Hell when you die. If you try to do marriage your own way, you can make life Hell on earth. Salvation is God’s most important gift to us, of course. Jesus told us that very few would find their way to salvation through Him:
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Matthew 7:11
Very few people find their way to Heaven via salvation, and only if we tell them how to be saved:
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! Romans 10:14-15
In the same way, very few find their way to the joyful marriages God wants for us.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. John 15:11 you should read that entire chapter because “these things” are good for you.
We must teach “these things” that Jesus gave us in the Bible so that others can have Jesus’ joy in their lives. We start by teaching our own children as they grow up so they can live Christian lives when they leave home.
Let us pray. Our father, we thank you for loving us enough to give us the gift of salvation so that our sins can be washed away by the blood of Jesus. We thank you for loving us enough to give us the gift of marriage. We thank you for helping husbands and wives who belong to you pass your love and your grace back and forth between them so that lost people will see us do it and want your love and your grace for themselves. Lord, help us to faithfully show Your love and Your grace to lost people all around us so that we can help them ask You for Your salvation when You draw them to You (Jn. 6:44). We ask this in Jesus Name, Amen.
It’s no surprise that people have trouble getting the joyful blessings God planned for marriage even though marriage is as simple as salvation. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, was greatly frustrated in marriage:
Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28 Solomon counted carefully and couldn’t find a good wife!
This was Solomon’s fault. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Ki. 11:3). The Bible tells us four times that opening herself to a man humbles a woman (De. 21:14, 22:29, Eze. 22:10-11). A woman will be OK with being humbled and enjoy belonging to a man if she’s convinced that he belongs to her and appreciates her, but belonging to a man who won’t belong to her is very hard on a woman. It makes her very unhappy.
When my wife is unhappy, the entire house is unhappy no matter how she tries to keep her unhappiness inside her. The Bible warns 5 times that an unhappy woman is a hardship: (Proverbs 19:13, 21:9, 19, 25:24, 27:15). This is not criticism of women; it's a warning to men to nourish, appreciate, love, sanctify, and honor their wives as taught in the Song of Solomon.
What is the opposite of an unhappy woman making her house unhappy? A happy woman fills the entire house and everything in it with love and light. A man should be willing to work pretty hard to make his wife happy; giving his wife something to be happy about is the only way he can live joyfully with her.
In the Book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon listed many things that didn’t make him happy, but he gave one way to find joy, and that’s with your wife:
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
Men, the Bible teaches that besides your life in Christ, your work and your wife are all that there is in this life. There is no joy this side of Heaven for a man that compares with having a woman like belonging to him, but she can’t make him any happier than he makes her.
A man can have many wives, but belonging to a woman requires that he open his heart to her. This takes so many hours of conversation that no man can belong to more than one. We know that Solomon didn’t belong to any of his wives - having a man choose to belong to her makes a woman happy. Solomon couldn’t find even one happy woman. He had 1,000 unhappy women running around the palace. Wow! Talk about an unhappy home! Everything he did was vanity and chasing after wind because he did it for himself:
I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: Ecclesiastes 2:4
Men, what you and I do is not vanity because we work to support our wives, our children, and our churches. Our families give meaning to our work; if we were alone, life would be vanity and chasing after wind. When my wife chose to belong to me after we were married, I found that making her happy made me happier than anything I could do for myself. Nothing straightens a man up like having a woman lean on him.
I feel sorry for Solomon. We can do better because we have a lot more of God's Word than he did. We have the Song of Solomon to show us how married people should talk to each other - there is no criticism at all in the Song, only lavish, detailed praise. How many marriages would fail if husband and wife never, not ever, criticized each other and were always looking for little things to praise? That’s the essence of the Song.
Why We Studied Marriage
By the time my wife and I were married in 1971, most of our friends were already divorced. We found that God had given us something precious in our marriage but we couldn’t explain it. We spent the next 40 years trying to write down what God had in mind for marriage so others could enjoy the blessing God intended for every married couple. God has called us to be marriage evangelists.
It took 20 years of hearing husbands criticize the way God had made their wives and hearing wives complain about the way God made their husbands to see that our marriage was founded on what we believe about God. We both believe strongly that God is good. Our marriage works because my wife believes that God made me to be good for her and I believe that God made her to be good for me. We don’t always appreciate everything about each other, of course, we’re sinful human beings who mess up, but our basic attitude is gratitude to God for leading us to marriage and to each other for finding contentment and joy in marriage.
Years before we met, we both believed that God loved us and that God wanted us to find contentment and joy in this life. John 10:10 quotes Jesus: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." God wants us to have abundant lives, but we must follow His program for our lives to bear the fruit He wants from each of His people (Titus 2:7,14).
My future wife read that she’d have to obey, honor, respect, and submit to her husband. She knew that God is good, so she believed that this would be good for her even if she didn't see how obeying a man would bless her. She saw that she’d have to wait for a husband whom she could respect and honor and who was going where God wanted her to go. She would have to keep her heart with all diligence, that is, very carefully, so she wouldn’t fall in love with the wrong guy while she waited for the man God chose for her.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
I knew that God is good and that God made women as His good and perfect gifts for men:
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9 women need to think on this passage!
Jesus said in Luke 17:27 and 20:34 that men marry and women are given in marriage. The Bible teaches that a wife is a gift to her husband. Who made women for men? God did. A wife is a gift from God!
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
Men, our wives are good and perfect gifts from God Himself! At the time we met, many of my friends were frustrated by their girlfriends; it was clear to me that although they wanted women badly, they didn't believe that women were "good things" or favors from God. I realized that since God loved me and didn't want me to be alone, He made women to bless men in general and that He had made my wife to bless me in particular. If I didn't understand how she blessed me that was my problem, and not God's!
God warns that a man’s prayers are blocked unless he knows his wife and acts on knowledge of her:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
“according to knowledge” doesn’t mean “obey,” it means think about her when deciding what to do. That’s another way to describe good management – it’s based on knowing what your people can do, understanding how your decisions affect them, and getting them involved in working out plans for the future. If a man doesn’t do that, God won’t hear his prayers very well!
Not even God expects me to understand my wife, but that works both ways. My wife knows that I have strong physical desires for her, but she doesn’t understand that any more than I understand the way she feels about babies. I knew that she was a good gift from God, however, so I realized that if I didn’t see how something about her blessed me, I had to wait and figure it out. It took years to see how some of her ways blessed our family because they didn’t show any benefit until our kids were teenagers.
The God we serve ordained both salvation and marriage. If you try to get to Heaven your own way, you go to Hell when you die. If you try to do marriage your own way, you can make life Hell on earth, but if you do it God’s way, husband and wife can give each other a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
In the same way that we study the Bible to learn God's Simple Plan of Salvation so that we can go to Heaven when we die and take others with us, let’s study the Bible to explore God's Simple Plan of Marriage so that we can find the abundant lives Jesus wants for us and show others how to find the same blessing.
The Testimony of Marriage
Christian marriages are the most powerful testimony we can offer. Christian couples have problems just like lost couples. If lost people see that we can't handle the trials of marriage any better than they can, why would they care what we say about the life to come? Divorce wrecks our testimony. When lost people see that Christians don’t keep the most solemn vows there are - the wedding vows between husband and wife – how can they believe that God will keep His promises to them?
If lost people see us sharing the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: (Galatians 5:22-23), they'll want God's grace for themselves. We can tell them God’s Simple Plan how to get God’s grace and forgiveness, but they must want it and ask God for it. You can’t want it for them any more than they want it for themselves.
God gave us His Simple Plan of Salvation. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.” The Bible often compares salvation, that is, our relationship to God, to marriage.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
To belong to Christ, we must die to our former lives to be reborn into a new life of belonging to Him. That’s an incredibly simple plan, but people have trouble with it. What about His plan for marriage?
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:31-33
The only way two separate people can become one as God expects is for each of them to die to their former selves in favor of this new family they have vowed to create for the Glory of God. God knew that we would have so much trouble with His Plan of Salvation that there was no way we could handle two different plans. He made one plan work for both! To be saved, we die to our former lives, belong to God, and serve Him gladly because we love Jesus (2 Co. 5:14). To marry, we die to our former individual lives, belong to each other, and serve each other gladly because we love each other (Jn. 13:34, 15:12, 15:17, Ro. 13:8, 1 Thes. 4:9, 1 Jn. 3:11, 3:23, 4:7, 4:11-12, 2 Jn. 1:5). God gave us that command 12 times! Could showing God’s love to each other be that important? It is that important, it’s how we show everyone that we belong to Him:
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:35
You’ve told people about Jesus. What stops them from being saved? Pride. Remember how you came to Christ. You had to humble yourself enough to admit that you could never be good enough to go to Heaven. You had to admit that you were going to die in your sins and go to Hell. You had to humble yourself to ask Christ to save you and ask Him to help you repent of your sins, which means you quit doing them.
What stops people from creating joyful marriages? Pride. Most people choose to preserve their own individual independent selves instead of giving up their plans and wants in favor of building the family by serving each other. There’s only one plan, and pride keeps people from following it.
Suppose a man claims to be saved because he asked Jesus into his heart long ago. What is his marriage like? Does he nourish his family with the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance (Gal. 5:22-23)? God expects His people to lead by serving (Mk. 9:35, 10:44). If he hasn’t become a servant leader to his family, if he isn’t sharing the fruits of the spirit, if he can’t share grace and forgiveness with other people, he probably doesn’t have them to share. He’s acting like he’s still on the throne of his life instead of yielding control to Jesus Christ.
True salvation means turning all of your life over to God and letting the Holy Spirit direct your paths (Pr. 3:6). If you hear, “I have the right to decide…” it’s a good sign we won’t see that person in Heaven.
We’ve seen men and women who claim to be Christians refuse to turn their lives over to their new family and insist on staying in control instead of serving the family. Will we see those men and women in Heaven?
We'll show how you can use God's Word to transform marriages by showing others how to base marriages on God's Word. In changing lives, it's always a good idea to get back to basics. Salvation and marriage use the same plan, so we'll review God's love and God's holiness which give power to salvation. Salvation is of God; He gives us the power to become one with Him and to join His family but we must choose to use the power:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: John 1:12
Salvation is of God; He gives us the power to join His family and become His sons! Marriage is of God; He gives husbands and wives the power to become one with each other but we have to choose to use His power in our marriages and in the rest of our lives. Reviewing God’s Simple Plan of Salvation will prepare us to understand God’s Simple Plan of Marriage. There really is only one plan.
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