Joys Of Marriage And The Family

0:00Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God's Government called your daily bread, taken from Christ's teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6.11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today's focus discussion will be on joys of marriage and the family.

1:00We all submit in a marriage, even though we have different roles. One other passage comes to mind as we lay this foundation tonight, 1 Corinthians chapter 7. This is a very interesting section on the mutual submission in marriage. Just to sort of drive the point home. Verse 1. Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Now what he is saying here is, celibacy is good. There were some questions among the Corinthians about, should you get married, shouldn't you get married and so forth. He is saying, celibacy is good, it's not bad, it's okay, touching a woman is a euphemism for intercourse, union in a marriage. So what he is saying is, concerning the things about which you wrote, they obviously have a question about it. It is good for a man never to have that relationship, it's good, it's okay, it's fine. Later on by the way, he makes this really clear in verse 26, I think then that this is

2:01good in view of the present distress for a man to remain as he is, meaning he's single. Stay that way, it's good. Verse 29. This I say brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had none. Those that weep as though they didn't weep. Those who rejoice as though they didn't rejoice, those who buy as though they didn't possess. Those who use the world as though they didn't make full use of it. For the form of this world is passing away, he is saying, you are living in troubling times, you ought to not get to attach to those. Verse 32, I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. Listen folks, marriage brings complications. You can't be single-minded for the Lord. You have to be concerned about your wife, verse 34, thus your interests are divided.

3:05But the woman who is unmarried and a virgin, unmarried referring to someone divorced, and the virgin, never married, is concerned about the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit. One who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. So if you want to stay single, it's great to stay single. It's much more focused. It isn't necessary, but it certainly isn't bad, it is good. Some of the Orthodox Jews of Paul's day believed marriage was an obligation. If a man didn't marry and produce children, the Jews said he has slain his posterity, and he has therefore lessened the image of God in the world. The idea was, you want to proliferate the image of God. And since the image of God is in every person, you want to proliferate persons. If you don't marry, you slay your posterity and lessen the image of God in the world.

4:12The Jews even went so far to say seven kinds of people are excluded from heaven. And the first one on the list, the Jew who has no wife, and the second one, a wife who has no children, pretty serious to say you couldn't get into heaven under those conditions. And that's probably what brought rise to these questions, and Paul is saying, being single is good, not wrong. But verse two, because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Well, what he's saying here is, it's good to be single, but because single persons might be tempted into immorality, it's better to marry. That's the general rule for the sake of purity, and of course, Genesis 128 for the sake of procreation. And Genesis 218 for the sake of partnership, a help meet, and song of Solomon. He brews 13 and 4 for the sake of pleasure. It's good. For the sake of purity, procreation, partnership, pleasure. So it's better if you have those longings and those desires for everybody

5:14to have his own wife or husband. And then we come to verses three to five, and that's what I'm driving at here. Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife. And likewise also the wife to her husband. And this context, it's talking about a conjugal duty, the marriage obligation, to give yourself physically to one another, as well as in love. But the idea is, now that you are married, you don't withhold that kind of thing because you are preserving yourself from impurity. By getting married on the assumption that you can enjoy the richness of that relationship, which God has wonderfully designed. And so let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife. And likewise also the wife to her husband. And then this wonderful thing, the wife doesn't have authority over her own body. But the husband does. And likewise the husband doesn't have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another. In other words, you have to mutually submit to one another.

6:14You have got to dispense with. I have a headache argument. Verse five, stop depriving one another except by mutual agreement for a time that you may devote yourselves to prayer. And then when that time is over, come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Marriage carries a mutual obligation. And the language here indicates that you have a debt to your husband, ladies and gentlemen. You have a debt to your wife. Pay that debt at the very basic level of sexual desire. This mutual submission can be seen. Marriage then becomes a permanent surrender of all you are to your partner. She is what you are to one another. It is in equality. I belong to you and you belong to me. Mutual agreement is necessary, by the way, for withholding.

7:14It's not fair to say, don't bother me, I'm praying. It's mutual only for a set time. And yet, even in this mutual submission in marriage, obviously we are not negating authority in 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 11. Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. I do not allow a woman to each or exercise authority over a man. To remain quiet, for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. It was not Adam who first was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression and so forth. There is still authority in submission, but the heart of it is mutual, humble service. When we have said all of this, we have laid all the groundwork really. Our authority is soft, gentle, tender, caring. It's the authority of one who provides. It's the authority of one who protects, who cares, who meets needs, who by strength and wisdom, insulates, preserves, secures. It's illustrated so wonderfully in teaching about how you deal with your children.

8:15You don't provoke them by your harsh leadership. You nurture them. And I'll tell you, if you don't start with this, there is not much hope, in fact there is not any. Oh, I suppose you can grit your teeth and decide to stay together for the sake of whatever. But apart from this kind of pattern laid out in Ephesians 5, marriage and family becomes an incredibly difficult struggle. Very unfulfilling. It becomes a battle for our individual rights. It becomes a terrible conflict and we watch the conflicts blow up. Every year, millions of hopeful couples pledge themselves in marriage or live together with a view to building a life and half of them end in a fight that splits the marriage. And those that have that one split go on to marry again, two-thirds of them will split. Ministers are even designing divorce services. Like running a film backwards, I suppose. Divorce is epidemic and where you don't have divorce, you often have conflict or you have ongoing infidelity.

9:17Men are often oppressive and insensitive. And women as well can be disloyal, unresponsive and seeking liberation. Men have no real examples. The chaos is absolutely tragic, absolutely tragic. So when we think about this whole subject of family, we have to start with these spiritual issues and from there we can start to talk about specifics. If you have a spirit filled, obedient, praising, worshipping, thankful, submissive heart, you got the stuff that's going to make a wonderful family, a wonderful marriage and a wonderful life. Anything else is a battle for your own way. It's that simple. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can overrule this and produce joy. D.L. Moody, the evangelist, once asked his audience a simple question, he said, I want you to tell me how to remove the air out of a glass and he held it up in his hand.

10:21One man yelled, suck it out with a pump. Moody replied, that would create a vacuum and shatter the glass. And several other impossible answers were called out, such as, you can hardly believe this, turn the glass upside down. Finally, Moody reached over to the side of the pulpit, where the water and the glass stood and picked up the picture and filled up the glass. There he said, all the air is out now. It's perfectly simple. In that sense, you can eliminate the stale air of marriage, but not with the pumps of human psychology, only when you fill your life with the living water, the Spirit of God and divine truth. And that's the key. That's where we have to start. You have to make that commitment. If you do, I can promise you all the bliss of the grace of life and the joy of marriage and family will be yours. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the joys of marriage and family. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong and continue to shine your light

11:21in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to GodisGovernment.com. Goodbye. And may your faith always leave the way.