Next Sunday is anniversary Sunday here at Grace Church. It is the day when we'll remember our birth 12 years ago as a congregation. I hope you'll plan to be here and participate in it fully. You'll notice that there is a special anniversary offering that is being received next week, designated gifts, which the elders have set aside for replacement of carpet around the building.
And if you've looked down at your feet as you walk through our building, you know there are places that that is badly needed. So God bless you as you come prepared to give thanks to Him with a special gift, above and beyond your regular giving, thanking God for the 12 years of ministry and for the ministry that He is growing in our midst.
I ask you to open your Bible with me now to Proverbs chapter 18 verse 22 where it says, He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord. Marriage is God's design and God's plan for humankind. To find a wife, or I think we can also say to find a husband, in God's will, is a good gift from Him. You can't improve on God's plan for marriage.
A preacher was stating that one time in his message and a young man in the congregation leaned over to the one seated beside him and said, I don't want to improve on this plan, I just want to get in on it. Well, of course, that's possible, you have to work at it. One young lady was asked to quote her favorite Bible verse and replied, if any man would come after me, let him. Marriages may be made in heaven, but the husband and wife are responsible on earth for the maintenance work to marriage.
And that's what we want to talk about today as we conclude this series on Proverbs that we're calling growing in marriage. Real institution suffers more from an identity crisis than marriage and the family. There is great confusion in our culture about what the family is all about. The family is being attacked, undermined, and redefined on several fronts.
Undoubtedly one of the most virulent and hostile enemies of the family in our culture today is the gay political movement, which seeks to redefine the family as including homosexual lovers. A billboard was recently put up in California featuring two lesbians, one of whom was very pregnant. If there was ever a contradiction, that's it. And beneath it, beneath the picture it said, another traditional family.
In our own state there is an attempt right now to add sexual orientation to the human rights bill, which is nothing more than a disguised effort to gain society's approval on perverse sexuality. Yet it's disguised under the name, it's time, Minnesota. And in fact, if polls are correct, this time it may pass. That's why it's important that you and I voice our opinions regarding that particular legislation.
Time Magazine, in a special edition this last fall called Beyond the Year 2000, What to Expect in the New Millennium, gave a number of predictions about what human life would be like in the future, including the family. That part of the magazine dealing with marriage and the family was entitled The Nuclear Family Goes Boom. And from there it went downhill. Jim talks about the family as it anticipates the family will be in the 21st century.
Jim Dobson summarizes the various points in the article under 12 headings. Number one, the family as we have known it will soon die. It is nothing more than an interesting anomaly, a mere blip in human history. We thought of it as normal, but we were wrong. The very term nuclear family will give off a musty smell in the days ahead, according to Time Magazine. Replacing it will be multiple marriages or what will be known as serial monogamy, just one at a time.
Divorce will be so common it has to be considered normal. Some marriage contracts will have sunset clauses to automatically terminate at a given age. Time also sees the future as including situations where many women will live with other women, much like the golden girls are depicted on the television sitcom.
Children will live with a bewildering array of relatives, mothers, fathers, multiple stepmothers and stepfathers, stepbrothers and stepsisters, grandparents and former grandparents, etc. The taboo against incest, says Time, will be weakened. The fractured family will consist of relatives, non-relatives and former relatives, breaking down the obsolete prohibition against intimacies at home. There will be more older people and fewer children than ever before.
The trend toward childlessness will accelerate. Children will be routinely victimized. They will be bounced from home to home as families splinter and reform. Pediatricians will teach children about the use of condoms at the time of their vaccinations against disease. Now this is Time Magazine predicting this. Theology, the study of the Bible and God will soon die. Schoolchildren of tomorrow will have no knowledge of spiritual matters nor even any interest in the topic.
And this is a direct quote from Time Magazine. The triumph of feminist religion will cause many Christians and Jews to shun references to God in personal terms, no more Lord or Heavenly Father. This in turn will strengthen the groups that worship a mysterious nature force to seek to deify the self. Time goes on to say forced abortions such as China imposes on its women will be necessary in nations with exploding populations.
Representative Patricia Schroeder, Democrat from Colorado spelled out the ideal quote, the most important goal for the 21st century is family planning for everyone, close quote. So what is the bottom line in Time's prediction of the future for the family? Again I quote, an even more radical approach may evolve. It is reasonable to ask whether there will be a family at all.
Given the propensity for divorce, the growing number of adults who choose to remain single, the declining popularity of having children and the evaporation of the time families spend together, another way may eventually evolve. It may be quicker and more efficient to dispense with family based reproduction. Family could then produce its future generations and institutions that might resemble state sponsored baby hatcheries, close quote from Time magazine.
Then Jim Dobson who leads Focus on the Family concludes his summary by saying, that ladies and gentlemen is the apocalyptic world envisioned for your children and grandchildren by the writers of Time magazine. Why do we get the impression from this publication that the impending death of the traditional family is not a tragedy to be mourned? Rather its demise is presented as a natural evolution to be welcomed. That should not surprise us.
The triumph of radical feminist ideology, new age philosophy and state controlled reproduction are cherished dreams of those who seek to undermine the family today. We're dealing with powerful forces in our culture that want to see the family as it is defined in God's word completely destroyed. In the confusion of our current milieu of contemporary thinking, what does God say in his word about the family? It might be helpful to summarize several points.
Number one, the heart of family as God defines it is monogamous lifelong marriage by a man and woman. Marriage is holy and God ordained. Marriage pictures the relationship between God and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who are his chosen people in the church. And God says that marriage is a classroom. Marriage is a place where we are challenged to grow as all of us who are married realize. God's wisdom exalts the commitment of marriage and tells us how to grow in it.
We cannot cover everything this morning that is said in God's word regarding growing in marriage, but I would like us to focus on a couple of thoughts that come out of Proverbs very directly. The first one is found in chapter five of Proverbs, verses 18 and 19. We have touched on it briefly before, but it's important to come back to it because it is an important aspect of marriage. May your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breasts satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love. In the first place, God's word tells us that we are to rejoice in our spouses. God wants you to rejoice in your wife, and we can reverse that and say, God wants you to rejoice in your husband. Now the context here is clear. It is talking about the delights that come from the privileges of intimacy in marriage. It's talking about sexual pleasure, which God himself says is good.
It is a gift from him, and it is holy. You say, well, this is pretty blunt, isn't it? Well, the Bible does say things very clearly. We have to be blind to miss them. Go to the Song of Solomon sometime and see what it says, not in some allegorical sense, but in a literal sense, and you will see the delights of love and sexuality. Or go to the New Testament where the writer of Hebrews says, the marriage bed is undefiled.
Or to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 where Paul lays down a number of principles and commands regarding marriage and sex and its purpose in life. God is not silent on this subject, and of course he need not be because God is the one who created us as sexual beings. It is important to grow in appreciation of your spouse as God's gracious provision for the emotional and physical desires that he has created within you.
We have to acknowledge that there is a difference between the emotional and physical desires of men and women. We don't operate completely on the same wavelength. That's part of the adventure in marriage. What God says here is that we are to grow in our understanding of our spouse. We are to rejoice in that person that God has given to us as a completer. As we rejoice in that one, we are to grow in our understanding of what pleases and satisfies our spouse.
We are not to selfishly use one another, for love seeks the welfare and pleasure of the other. It is too bad that there are some people, including Christians, who have a very negative attitude regarding sex. That is completely contrary to the wisdom of God. God created positive sex. The world created negative sex. Isn't it interesting how that's been reversed in the thinking of our culture? Our world thinks that God is negative and that it is positive. God is positive about sex.
He tells us that it's a gift from him to be used, and he tells us how to use it so that it is satisfying, so that it strengthens the unity of relationships, so that it gives us freedom in life. That's very positive. On the other hand, the world's ideas bring destruction, guilt, and disease. That's very negative. God has created positive sex. What we are clearly told in the book of Proverbs is that to grow in our marriage, we need to rejoice in that spouse that God has given to us.
God has created you to mutually enjoy life in all of its dimensions. As we begin in chapter 18, and there are other places in Proverbs where it says that your spouse is a gift from God, see that person as God's gift to you. That gift may be a little different than the wrappings appeared 20 years ago. That's true in every marriage. Did you know that? There are people who say, well, she's not the same one I married, or he's not the same man that I thought I married.
That's true, because you see that person has grown just like you have. And as your marriage has allowed a deeper understanding and transparency, that person is different to you. That's not bad, that's very good. God wants it to be that way. That's part of growth. See that person as God's ever unfolding gift to you. And yet I've heard statements, and maybe you have too, where someone says, my spouse doesn't meet my needs anymore.
One of my dearest friends is in ministry in another state, and six weeks ago, that's exactly what his wife said to him. As she moved out and went to live with a high school sweetheart, now high school was 20 years ago, as she went to live with a high school sweetheart who's a multi-millionaire who can meet all of her needs, she thinks. He just doesn't meet my needs anymore.
When I hear that statement, the first question that comes to my mind is, have you really communicated to your spouse what your needs are? Sometimes that has not been made clear. A spouse cannot meet needs that he or she does not know about. But beyond that question, there is this truth. No one, no other person can perfectly meet all the needs of anyone else. There is no marriage where one spouse completely meets all of the needs of the other. That's impossible, because we're all human.
It is important to remember that you are married to a person who is struggling with what it means to live in a fallen world, just like you are. And I've heard the statement, I don't love her, I don't love him like I used to. I can't deny my emotions. Well, that's true, we can't deny our emotions, but neither do we have to live by them. The feelings may be different for one reason or another, and that's a question you need to find out. Why do I feel the way I do? There's always a reason.
But you don't have to live on the basis of your emotions. If someone is listening today who feels that way regarding the spouse, let me encourage you to seek to understand why your emotions are changing. I've heard people say, I don't love my spouse anymore, there's no one else in the picture. And time after time, that is a lie. Almost always there is someone else who has come in to rob the affections of the heart. Almost always.
But if that's the way you feel today, you need to get the involvement of a trusted and godly friend or counselor. Above everything else, you need to decide up front right now before you go any further that you will be faithful. You choose to be faithful to the vows that you made before God. To love that person that God gave you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death we do part.
Someone says, well pastor, that's all well and good and that's the ideal, but my marriage has already failed. What do I do? I wish I could go into that completely this morning, I can't, but let me just suggest a couple of things. First of all, acknowledge whatever responsibility may be yours in that failed marriage. It may be large, it may be small, but whatever it is, be honest with yourself before God to acknowledge it.
Secondly, deal with bitterness and any other unhealthy or sinful leftovers from that failed marriage. Deal with them before God. Allow unhealthy, sinful emotions to remain in your life. Thirdly, serve Christ faithfully where you are now today. Do not allow yourself to become overcome by guilt from a failed past, whatever that may include. Serve Jesus Christ faithfully where you are today. So often it's impossible to go back. Humpty Dumpty cannot always be put together again.
In fact, usually he cannot. And so turn from the past once you have dealt with it and go on to walk with God and serve him faithfully and God will be well pleased. What Proverbs says first here is so very important, rejoice in your spouse. Rejoice in your spouse. But secondly, Proverbs suggests to us that we ought to respect our spouses. Turn to chapter 31 of the book, which of course is the last chapter. This is the chapter that deals with the godly woman, the virtuous woman.
I'd like for us to read just three or four verses out of this longer paragraph. Beginning in verse 10 it says, a wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. Verse 28, her children arise and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her the reward she has earned and let her works bring her praise at the city gate. What I see in this whole paragraph is a reminder that you and I are to respect that person that God has given us as a spouse. We respect our spouse as one who is equal in personhood and in relation to God. You see, we're in a partnership in marriage. Faith equality exists in the worth of the husband and the wife as persons created in the image of God.
The husband is not closer to God, the wife is not closer to God, they are equally close to God. Likewise, the husband and wife are completely equal in their worth as children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Sadly, this equality hasn't always been realized, even among Christians. Women have sometimes been treated in the home and sometimes in the church as second-class Christians who are relegated to certain duties.
While I am by no means a follower of feminist theology, I think that all of us have been sensitized by what we have heard in the last decade regarding the role of women to the fact that discrimination has sometimes taken place in the church, in Christian homes, and when it has, it's sin. It needs to be honestly confessed and corrected. We need to respect our spouse as one who is equal in personhood and equal in relation to God as ourselves.
Secondly, we need to respect our spouse as one who has assigned a role in God's order for the home and the church. The roles that God has given to us as men and women, as husbands and wives, are roles that are based upon creation, not the fall. By that I mean these roles do not reflect sin. They reflect His design for the order of mankind before sin entered the equation. The managing of marriage and of the home, God says that the husband is to be the head.
It's rather silly how some people try to redefine that word in the Bible. It's very simple as to what it means. It means the one who is the leader. The role of the wife in respect to the home and the marriage is that of a follower. You say that's discrimination. No, it's not. There is equality in that. That is simply a role that God assigns in His order, and that is reflected in the church, which I don't have time to go into this morning.
But in fulfilling the role of God, the husband is to love his wife. And the standard for his love is the way Jesus Christ loved the church, a love of total self-sacrifice. The role of the wife is to submit to her husband, the standard being the way that the church submits to Jesus Christ. When a wife and husband understand the role that God has given and seek by the power of the Holy Spirit to be faithful to that role, there is harmony in the home. It is born out of respect for your spouse.
How does all this relate to Proverbs 31? The Proverbs 31 provides a model that fit with an ancient, mid-eastern culture of Israel. It is not perfectly transferable today, but what you see here are two roles. There is the wife who cared for the home and the family, and who was appropriately involved in business adventures, enterprise. And then there is the husband, who is mentioned in verse 23 very briefly. Her husband is respected at the city gate.
Some people have looked at this and they say, well, see, the wife does all the work and all the husband does is sit out there at the gate all day long and gossip with his friends. Remember we're dealing with a culture that's not 20th century America. What was the husband doing at the gate? Obviously this is the suggestion that he was responsible as a judge in the city. That's where court was held at the city gate, and so he had a role to fulfill in the community in that way.
The point is simply is this, that each had a role which God ordained and God approved. And you see the mutual respect, the husband for his wife, praising her, blessing her at the city gates, and the wife fulfilling her role in the home, being more valuable than rubies to her husband. We see here each speaking praise of the other. By the way, that is so very important. That you speak good things, that you speak blessing to your spouse. You say, well, I show it by what I do. That's wonderful.
But it doesn't replace the spoken word. Keep doing what you're doing to show your love. Those tender embraces, the pats, the looks, helping with the dishes, doing the wash, scrubbing the floor, cooking the meals, or whatever it is you do. Keep doing those things, but don't forget the words. A survey was done recently at the University of Washington in Seattle.
And it showed that in couples that stay together, there are about five times more positive things said to and about one another than negative ones. In couples that stay together, the positive words outnumber the negative by five times. On the other hand, couples that divorced, there was one and a half times more negative things than positive things said. In other words, if you say, well, it's about equal, half and half, good and negative, then you're in trouble.
You need to praise and to bless your spouse five times more than the negative things that you say. Why is that? Because the negative things tend to stay with us. So often they dig deep, they wound. Therefore, we need to overcompensate on the blessing side.
First Peter 3, 7, I think puts this in beautiful perspective in the New Testament, where the apostle says, husbands in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker partner, that is physically, and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life. You see the equality there? Heirs together of life. And therefore, treat her with respect. And the whole previous paragraph talks to the wife and how to be submissive to her husband.
Respect one another as equals. Respect one another in those roles that God has given in the home. I want to tell you something. If you don't work at this, your marriage is in trouble in our world today. The husband and wife who think they can just coast along will find themselves eventually in trouble because our culture is so hostile to God's ideal of marriage and of the home. We live in a confused culture that has lost its way.
It has abandoned its traditional values and it has veered into dangerous waters where destruction awaits. One Sunday afternoon, Pastor Rick and I had some free time in our conference in San Diego. I'm sorry somebody had to go. And a young man and his wife who are part of our church but they're stationed out there now in the Navy arranged for us to go on a tour of a submarine at the Navy base there. I was so excited about that. It was worth the whole trip as far as I was concerned.
I began to believe the size of these vessels. Most of them of course below water. You just see the top when they come to the surface. Long longer than this auditorium is. That's when we'd gotten permission and went down into the sub. Began to see the various parts of the submarine. Now you picture these things as being very small, right? And the passage is narrow and confined. You almost have to duck to get through. They're absolutely right. That's exactly the way they are.
I was claustrophobic the moment I got in. I was glad I was coming out. The only thing I could imagine was that the sea was still out there below where I was. The very center portion of the submarine is an important room. About three by four. It's where the gyroscope is.
And we were able to look down into this compartment and to see the gyroscope that provides the gyro compass readings for the submarine so that wherever they are, hundreds of feet under the ocean, they can tell exactly where they are and tell the attitude of the ship. Because this gyroscope always is giving a reference point that's a constant plane for the submarine's commander. If that gyroscope were to fail, they'd probably have backup systems, but they would at least momentarily be in trouble.
Because they would not know where they were, the crew would be endangered. I want you to know that today, the gyro compass for our culture has stopped. Our culture is lost. It is drifting. And the whole crew, including you and me, were in danger. This culture is collapsing around us. The heart, the heart of society is the home. God says if we want our homes to be what He wants them to be and what will give us the greatest happiness, then we need to grow in our marriage. Rejoice in our spouses.
Respect our spouses for who they are is God's special gift to us. We need to seek the wisdom of God. We live in a world of fools. We who know God must seek to understand His wisdom, that is how to live skillfully. And here's where we learn it.
I hope that the months that we have spent studying the book of Proverbs and a number of its themes, and we've by no means exhausted the book, but I hope that the various themes that we've covered have helped you to get a grasp of what it means to live in the fear of God, to live wisely in a foolish culture, so that your life can go on course, so that your life will be filled with good things and happiness and prosperity and health and
long life, all of which are the promise of God to those who will live wisely. Are you living under the lordship of Jesus Christ and His Word? I hope you are because that's where wisdom begins. It is submitting one's will to Jesus Christ, receiving Him as Savior and Lord, and then beyond that, living each day in submission to Him. I hope that describes your lifestyle. If it doesn't today, you can enter it, you can know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You can have that personal relationship.
You can know the wisdom of God that will guide you on a course through life that you will never regret one day in this life, and certainly not in eternity to come. Let's pray. Our heads bowed and our eyes closed. I wonder if there may be someone here who would say, Pastor, I am without guidance in my life. I do not know Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. But my life is so lost, my life is so messed up, that I know I need Him. I am filled with guilt for my sin. I don't know which way to go.
I don't know how to pick up the pieces of my life, and I need Jesus. Will you call on Him right where you are seated at this moment and say, Lord Jesus, come into my life. I receive you as my Savior and Lord. Forgive me of my sins. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins and rising from the dead. I trust you alone for the salvation of my soul. Friend, if that is the prayer and the attitude of your heart, will you just do something as people around you pray?
Would you look up and just lift your hands so that I can see you? Let that be your profession of faith this morning. Just lift your hand and say, Pastor, call today. That is my decision. That is my faith to trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. Is there someone? Is there someone? Let's stand together. With our heads bowed. Children of God, I hope that you will join me in saying to our Father, Lord, teach me wisdom. Give me grace to avoid the pitfalls of sin.
Enable us to walk skillfully through this confused, declining culture. Lord, keep us on course. May we not allow the gyroscope that gives direction to our lives to fail. May the fear of the Lord, reverence and trust in him, give us not only power but direction that we may walk through this world as conquerors. As those filled with the Spirit of God, as those who are bound for heaven. To that end, would you bless us as we go? For Jesus' sake, we pray, Amen.