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Marriages That Make It |
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A Pocket Paper Robert J. Morgan If I were a crooner, there’s one song more than any other I’d like to sing to my wife. It’s by George and Ira Gershwin, written in 1938 for the movie “Goldwyn Follies,” and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful words that express my own personal philosophy about marriage: It's very clear,
our love is here to stay. Isn’t that a wonderful sentiment? And furthermore, isn’t that a biblical view of marriage? Well, that’s what I’d like to speak about this morning. How can we have that kind of lasting love in our marriages. “The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble; They’re only made of clay—but our love is here to stay.” Is that really a possibility? It doesn’t seem to have been for the most famous and successful athlete in human history. This week Michael Jordan’s wife, Juanita, filed for divorce. Michael and Juanita had met at a Bennigan's Restaurant on Michigan Avenue during his second season with the Chicago Bulls. They were married at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas in 1989. They have three children, a stratospheric income, and 28,000-square-foot mansion that looks from aerial photographs like a stunning, white marble hotel complex which includes a putting green, tennis courts, a basketball court, a small lake, a guest house for visitors, and a movie theater. But evidently there’s not a home in that house; or at least, there’s not a marriage in that mansion. And Juanita wants a divorce and half of all Michael’s assets. Mr. and Mrs. Hosea Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned marriages that boasted of love that lasts forever? Last fall, as I was reading through a portion of the Old Testament, I rediscovered the obscure little Old Testament book of Hosea, and as I read it, I thought to myself, “This would be a great Sunday night study.” So we began looking at Hosea on Sunday nights. But we had so many interruptions in our schedule during those months that it was impossible to maintain any sort of continuity, and the study fell by the wayside. Now, as we devote our pulpit studies during this month of January, 2002, to relationships, I want to go back to the prophet Hosea and pull out one incredibly important lesson that I was never able to really get to last fall, and that lesson is—Never Give Up On Your Marriage. Our love needs to be here to stay. I believe that’s one of the underlying themes of Hosea, and it is the theme of my message today. If you’ll turn with me to the book of Hosea, I’ll show you how this lesson unfolds in this strange little book. Look at this strange command in Hosea 1:2: When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him,
“Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness,
because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the
Lord.” So he married Gomer
daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore a son. Most of the Bible scholars I consulted don’t believe that God was telling Hosea to go out and marry someone who was currently living in sin, for that would violate what God has told us elsewhere. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says that we should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. But evidently, the Lord led Hosea to marry a woman who had been sexually active at some point in the past. This woman’s name was Gomer. Now, we don’t think of “Gomer” as being a woman’s name because of the character in the television show of several years ago—Gomer Pyle, USMC. But the Hebrew word used here in the Old Testament means “Perfection.” The word “Gomer” means “perfect, complete,” and it implies that Gomer was a very beautiful woman. I’m absolutely convinced that Hosea fell deeply in love with her, and they were married in the presence of their family and friends, after which they settled down into ministry (Hosea was a preacher, a prophet), and they had a family—two sons and a daughter. But as the story unfolds, we begin to suspect that of their three children, only the first was truly the child of Hosea. It appears that Gomer had fallen back into sin and had been sleeping with other men. Dark and painful suspicions began to cloud Hosea’s mind. Look at the way it is put here in this book: Verse 3: So he married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. In other words, she bore a son of whom Hosea was the father. But now, look at verse 6: Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. The wording here is different. It says nothing about the father. It does not say that she bore him a daughter. And then in verse 8: After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. She had a son, but who was the father? I don’t have time to go into it, but the Hebrew names given to these children indicate that their paternity was in doubt. Then look down at chapter
2. Verses 4 and 5 tell us that
Hosea came to a deeply painful conclusion at last. He said: I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in
disgrace. She said, “I will go
after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my
oil and my drink.” And so we have a family in the ministry, torn apart by the adultery and infidelity of the wife. This happens today. It happens to non-Christians. It happens to Christians. It happens to those in ministry. According to the Barna research organization, as of 2001, 33% of all born again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce, which is statistically identical to the 34% incidence among non-born again adults. But the significant thing in this story is that God told Hosea how to respond to this crisis in his marriage. Hosea had grounds for divorce. He had biblical justification should he have chosen to divorce his wife. But look at chapter 3 of this book. The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though
she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves….” Verse 2: So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. In other words, Gomer had somehow in that society become the property of another man. Verse 3: Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.” And through the conscious, sacrificial, Christ-like choice of Hosea, his wife and marriage and family were restored. Now, there are two levels of
meaning to this story—a spiritual and a literal meaning. The spiritual meaning (and the real
reason this book is in the Bible) is because God was giving us a spiritual
lesson about His own love for us.
In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was considered the “bride”
of Jehovah God, just as in the New Testament the church is the “bride” of Christ. When the people drifted into sin and idolatry,
it was a kind of spiritual adultery.
Look at Hosea 4:11: My people…consult a wooden idol and are
answered by a stick of wood. A
spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God. And yet God so loves His bride
that He will go to any lengths to reclaim her. He will not give up on His “marriage.” Look at chapter 6: Come,
let us return to the Lord. He
has torn us to pieces but He will heal us; He has injured us, but He will bind up our wounds. After two days He will revive us; on
the third day He will restore us, that we may live in His presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us
press on to acknowledge Him. As
surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter
rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. God, the Master Teacher, was using Hosea as a living object lesson of a love that will not give up. And I can to you—God loves you, and He isn’t going to give up on you. That’s the great message of Hosea. God will not give up on His marriage to His people. Never Give Up That’s the spiritual
lesson. But, of course, there’s
also a very literal lesson here.
God absolutely did not want Hosea to give up on his marriage. Chapter 3 again: The
Lord said to me, “Go, show you love to your wife again, though she is loved
by another and is an adulteress.
Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites though they turn to other
gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a
lethek of barley. Then I told
her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be
intimate with any man, and I will live with you.” In other words, we have an important principle here—Never give up on your marriage. Hosea’s wife didn’t just commit adultery. She stumbled back into her old profession of prostitution and eventually sold herself as a slave in an immoral relationship. Still, Hosea didn’t give up, and in time his home and family were restored. I think, in general terms, Christians should be people who never give up. In Luke 18:1, we read these
words: Then Jesus told his disciples a
parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. Romans 12:11 says: Never give up. Eagerly follow the Holy Spirit and serve the Lord (CEV). The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:7: Even when we don’t
know what to do, we never give up (CEV). He said in verse 16 of the same chapter: We never give up. Our bodies are gradually dying, but we ourselves
are being made stronger each day (CEV). One of Winston Churchill’s
shortest speeches became one of his most famous: He said: Never give in! Never give in!
Never, Never! When asked the secret of his success in life as a Christian statesman, President
Herbert Hoover replied: With the help of God, I never gave up. When asked the secret for his success as a football coach, Alabama’s
Bear Bryant replied: Don’t give up at
halftime. Concentrate on winning the second half. When asked the secret of his success as an America hero, Captain Eddie
Rickenbacker replied: My
mother, a very poor woman in Columbus, Ohio, taught her kids to pray, to read
the Bible, to follow Jesus Christ and never to give up. Golfer Tony Lema said: If I had to cram all my tournament
experience into one sentence, I would say, “Don’t give up and don’t let up!” Harriet Beecher Stowe said, When
you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as
though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is
just the place and time that the tide will turn. Thomas Edison said: Many of life’s failures are people who did
not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.—Thomas
Edison When Conrad Hilton was a young man he became very discouraged with his business operations. They were about to go bankrupt. He told his mother, “Maybe I’m in the wrong business. Maybe I should have learned to make cradles and coffins.” He later said that his mother leaned back with a powerful look on her face and replied, “Some men jump out windows, some quit, some go to church. Pray, Connie. Pray harder. And don’t you dare give up.” Conrad Hilton later credited that advice with all the success that came afterward. Missionary Isobel Kuhn said in
her book, In the Arena: When things are the blackest and most
discouraging is the very time not to give up…. We need to look resolutely away from the impossibilities
and to the Lord. I believe this is the Christian approach to all of life, and it also represents the Christian approach to marriage. Even many non-Christian sociologists and psychologists agree. There was a book published last year by Doubleday entitled The Case for Marriage. The thesis of the book is that marriage is a vital protector for adults of both sexes and for children, and its benefits are not replicated in other family structures. The breakdown of the traditional family could not have more disastrous consequences for both individuals and society. One of the most surprising findings in this book is no fewer than 86 percent of unhappy spouses who stick it out find that five years later their marriages are happier. So Hosea just has a very simple message for us today. Don’t give up on your marriage. A Case Study In preparation for this message I came across the true story of a couple named Dan and Susan Carlson. Their story appeared last year in the magazine Marriage Partnership, and was written by Phil Callaway. Dan Carlson grew up in Columbia, South America, as a missionary kid. A friend there introduced him to novels, and as a teenager he found himself excited by the graphic sexual scenes in the books. He stayed away from Playboy-type magazines, but he began reading these novels and fantasizing. His thought life spun out of control. When he was 17, he began dating an older Columbian girl. His parents didn’t feel good about the relationship and threatened to send him back to the States if he didn’t stop seeing her. He began sneaking around with her. There didn’t become physically involved, but the sense of doing something that was forbidden excited him. That relationship didn’t last very long, and Dan returned to the states shortly afterward, but he still harbored what he called a “lust for the forbidden.” At a church hayride he noticed Susan. She was impressed with his knowledge of the Bible and his love for God. She wanted to marry someone who would be a spiritual leader, and so they began dating. But they went to far physically and she became pregnant. She had always dreamed of a big wedding and perfect marriage, but under the circumstances they had a quiet ceremony, and the marriage was rocky from the very start. After the baby was born, they became more involved in church, becoming youth sponsors. Dan decided he wanted to go into business administration, and he signed up for a night school course two hours away in Seattle. It was in Seattle, two hours from home, that Dan began to visit a massage parlor. I’m not going to describe the next several months, but it was a sordid story of pornography and prostitutes. It created a financial nightmare for the couple, and even the money Susan thought was set aside for their tithe was going to prostitutes. Susan knew something was wrong, and the marriage was a disaster. She began having panic attacks. When a friend told her that Dan might be involved in this kind of evil, she said, “No way. He’s a deacon in our church.” But she began praying a very specific prayer. Knowing that her husband was hiding things from her, she began praying: “Lord, help Dan to be honest and truthful with himself, his family, and especially with you.” Late one night as they were in bed together, unable to sleep, they began to talk. They had been married twenty years at that point, and at 3 a.m. Susan began asking him questions. Dan began weeping and started telling her everything. Susan’s first thought was one of relief: “So I’m not crazy after all.” The next day, Dan quit his job, hoping to avoid the temptations that came from traveling on the road, and he began the painful task of coming clean before his friends, his family, and his church. They began going to a Christian counselor who recommended a period of separation, for they needed time to work through the anguished levels of pain, and Dan moved to a nearby city to look for work. He collected bottles and cans to keep food on his table and to send a small check each month to Susan and the children. He also started meeting with an accountability partner, and began reading and memorizing Scripture by the hour. Susan had to find work, because for the first time in her married life she had to support herself. But as she did so, and as she continued seeing a Christian counselor and learning Scripture, the day came when she just woke up and the pain was gone. They were separated for sixteen months, but they stayed in touch and Dan often cooked meals and had the family over to his apartment. The Lord gave them both the same verse during this period of separation—Joel 2:25: I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten. Finally the day came when Dan and Susan renewed their vows in the presence of family and friends. Now Dan works every day to completely restore Susan’s trust in him. He’s careful about what he watches on television, about what he reads, about staying in touch with accountability partners. They work on their marriage every day, and Susan says that for the first time ever, she has real unconditional love for her husband. And the Lord is restoring the years that the locusts have eaten. Now, no marriage should ever get into that kind of condition. But sometimes we have problems. Hosea did. He was an Old Testament preacher who went through a crisis in his marriage. But God told him not to give up. And in the end his home was restored. I believe that’s what God wants to do over and over and over again. He is in the business of restoring the years that the locusts destroy. You say, “But what if my partner gives up? What if he or she walks away? What if my spouse refuses and forces us into divorce court?” Well, you can’t take over another person’s life and make their decisions for them. If your partner leaves, he leaves, or she leaves. But you can be responsible for your own decisions and for your reactions. The Bible says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with one another” (Romans 12:18). So I would say, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, work on that marriage and never give up.” And in all of life, I would say
to you: All discouragement is
from the devil. Resist him and
he will flee from you. Draw near
to God. Take the Lord at His
Word, keep your eyes on Christ, trust His promises, pray earnestly—and never
give up. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
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