If you have your Bibles, you can turn
to Ephesians 5, Ephesians 5.25, the title
of the message is The One Thing Guaranteed
to End All Marriages.
The One Thing Guaranteed to End All Marriages,
and if you're not familiar with what we've
been doing, we've been going through the book
of Acts for quite a while, and now
we're going to do a series on marriage.
I don't know how long it's going to
be, four weeks, maybe five or six, but
the series is called The Blessed Marriage, The
Blessed Marriage, and I know what you're doing
right now if you're not married, you're tuning
me out.
But every principle that we're going through benefits
you and your spirituality and your walk with
God as well, especially this topic.
So don't tune out, tune in.
And we all know marriages that are crumbling
right now, don't we?
I'm pretty sure most of us do.
The idea is we want to get this
message out to people in our community or
in different states that need to hear what
God says about marriage.
So with that said, since we're talking about
the blessed marriage, what does the word blessed
mean?
The Bible dictionary defines it as this, and
what I'm trying to do is set the
foundation.
This morning's message is the foundation on which
everything else will be built.
So a blessing is a public declaration of
a favored status with God.
In all cases, the blessing served as a
guide and motivation to pursue a course of
life within the blessing.
So blessing isn't a bad word.
We believe that God blesses His people.
He blesses us with sometimes prosperity, sometimes good
health, sometimes not.
Sometimes just knowing that God is with us
and God has got our back, so to
speak, is a blessing.
And we believe, I teach, that there's a
blessing in marriage.
A God-ordained, biblically-based marriage, God blesses
it.
There's a covering, like an umbrella.
And you can stay under that covering and
be blessed of God.
Receive those blessings.
Not that you won't receive challenges, not that
life won't be difficult, but there's a blessing
to be received.
And one thing that's interesting is what the
enemy will try to do is get you
out of the blessed place.
And there's a doctrine in the Old Testament
called the Doctrine of Balaam.
The theologians will call it that.
And it's where King Balak hired Prophet Balaam
to curse the children of Israel.
So he would go and try to curse
the children of Israel, but after three attempts
he said, I can't curse them.
And he would start to proclaim blessings upon
the people.
And the king got upset.
He said, why are you blessing them?
You need to curse them.
And he said something interesting.
He said, you cannot curse what God has
blessed.
You can't curse what God has blessed.
But he said, but you know, you can
have the people remove themselves from the blessed
place and curse themselves.
And what he did was the king, or
the demonic realm of course, was working in
this whole time.
They got the women from the land, the
other nations, came and enticed the people to
follow after other gods.
To follow after sexual immorality and different things.
And the people walked out from under God's
covering of protection and blessing and cursed themselves.
So practically there's a lot of truth in
that.
Because there's a covering that marriage sits under.
A covering.
It is an institution ordained by God.
Think about that.
He has only ordained three institutions.
The church is an institution ordained by God.
The marriage, the family unit, is an institution
ordained by God.
And I hope everybody's ready for the third
one.
The government is an institution ordained by God.
Romans 13.
I have put this institution in place to
be a terror to those who do evil.
So it says, be afraid if you do
evil because they do not bear the sword
in vain.
So we see those three institutions.
And once you stay within God's standards, within
his framework, there is a blessing to receive.
So it's really about positioning ourselves to receive
from God.
And that's what I want to do in
this series, is to help marriages position themselves
to receive from God.
And we are declaring publicly.
That's what it says here.
It's a public declaration.
Others see how we live.
Right?
Do you live in a bubble like me?
At all?
And people see everything from what you buy
at the store.
There's this public declaration that what marriage means
to us and what it means to God.
And a blessed marriage does not come without
a fight.
Oh my goodness.
A blessed marriage does not come without a
fight.
There is warfare in your heart because I
shared with somebody recently that I didn't realize
how selfish I was until I got married.
Wow, I was great as a single.
I mean, I just go to bed when
I want.
I eat when I want.
I do what I want.
I can leave my clothes on the floor
if I want for as long as I
want.
And I can leave them in the dryer
for as long as I want until I'm
ready to use them.
It doesn't matter.
And then you get married.
Oh, I'm selfish.
Self-focused.
So God will also use the marriage as
a wonderful sanctification tool because it will sanctify
you in areas you never even thought you
needed help in.
Sanctification just means becoming more like Christ, changing
and shaping your character to the character of
Christ.
So marriage is a wonderful hammer and chisel,
chiseling away those areas in our lives that
we need help on.
And the next point before I get to
the message is this.
We have to say it in this day
and age, but what is marriage?
What is marriage?
I can read to you the biblical definition,
but marriage, biblically, is the union of a
man and a woman.
End of story.
It's not hate.
It's love.
Now let me read why, though.
It's an intimate complementing union between a man
and a woman, which the two become one
physically in the whole of life.
The purpose of marriage is to reflect the
relationship of the Godhead, the Father, Son, and
the Holy Spirit.
It's a mystery.
If I tried to take you through scriptures
on this, Paul says it's a mystery how
it works, but somehow it's a reflection of
Christ's love for the church.
The church is the bride of Christ.
So you wonder why marriage is being attacked.
That's why.
God says, let us create man in our
image in Genesis.
He created man.
Let us create man in our image.
And then one of the main purposes of
marriage is what?
Create life.
To create life.
That's why the enemy is going after it
so hard.
That's why it's under attack.
It creates life in the image of God.
See, that's what people don't realize.
You know, sometimes we get on this, oh,
God is this mean cosmic kill joy and
he's just going to rain down terror and
hell.
But he actually says, you're created in the
image of God.
Now God's not a person like the Mormons
teach.
We believe that God is spirit.
Those who worship him must worship him in
spirit and truth.
But we see the embodiment of God in
Christ, the character of God in Christ.
So that's a wonderful reflection.
We are made in the image of God
and sometimes you need to be reminded and
encouraged.
In the fall of Adam, the image of
God is marred.
It's damaged.
It's been fractured, but it's not erased.
See, that's why there's enormous value in life.
When we talk about abortion or the marriage
issue.
So what is the one thing guaranteed to
end all marriages?
If you have the handout, I found actually
an article on Focus on the Family I
want to share with you by a person
by the name of Meg Wallace.
And I'm borrowing the title from the article.
It stood out so much.
The one thing guaranteed to end all marriages
is a hard heart.
Ooh, 9am was much more receptive to that.
A hard heart, right?
Because it hurts a little bit.
The number one thing guaranteed to end all
marriages, this is where it will take you
down.
Single, you better know this now.
Dating, in the process of getting married, know
this now.
This is the one thing that it's guaranteed
to end all marriages.
But instead of talking about a hard heart
for a minute, let me talk about a
soft heart.
Because it's easier sometimes to see, okay, what
a hard heart isn't?
And do I reflect these traits in my
own life?
And I'll just throw it out there for
you in case you're thinking we have a
perfect marriage.
We don't.
We have the challenges that many people do.
The same exact challenges face us and I'm
preaching to myself through this.
I'm a work in progress.
My wife is a work in progress.
We fight arrogance.
We fight hard heartedness.
And we work on a daily basis preaching
the gospel to ourselves.
It's very important to keep, because that hard
heart just loves to, I had a picture
this morning of concrete.
You know when you lay concrete and it's,
you can make, you know kids like to
make little designs in it.
And they actually, in the city and county,
they'll put people to guard the concrete when
they first pour it on the sidewalk.
No kids coming on this and putting their
initials in.
But give it a night, it's as hard
as a rock.
Same thing with our hearts.
When you see that starting to happen, you
better get a bucket full of water and
pour it on that and just allow that
concrete to not get hardened.
Same thing with your heart.
It'll get harder and harder and harder.
So a soft heart produces fruit in keeping
with repentance.
In other words, if I have a soft
heart, when the hardness rises up in me,
I repent of it.
I bring it to the light.
I say things like, that's not right.
I shouldn't have said that.
I shouldn't have done that.
And you bring it to the light.
So a heart, a soft heart is not
a perfect heart.
See that's where we think, oh I could
never do that, Shane.
Me neither.
But a soft heart is one that is,
it doesn't go back to the old self.
A soft heart is teachable and not defensive.
How you doing so far?
Because we're not teachable by nature, are we?
Just criticize me.
I love to hear it.
Oh that makes sense.
Bring it on.
What do I need to work on?
Oh I love this.
It's the opposite, right?
We're not teachable.
We're defensive.
And that's why quite frankly a lot of
people don't change.
Because they're unteachable and they're proud.
A soft heart is forgiving and gracious.
Just like the heart of Christ.
But we like to keep track of things,
right?
Here's why a hard heart is so challenging
is because it will lead to unforgiveness.
It will lead to bitterness.
It will lead to anger.
The harder the heart becomes, the more the
characteristics of the world and the flesh come
out of us.
That's why God said I'm going to rip
out this heart of stone and give you
a heart of flesh.
A heart that's teachable and open and gracious
and forgiving.
I mean if you just had those two
issues in marriage, forgiving and gracious, you could
end half the quarrels.
Because that means you don't get the last
word in.
Gracious, graceful, showing grace, letting the person err
on the side of making a mistake instead
of quick to pointing out the faults and
the flaws in our spouse.
I know you don't do it.
I'm just talking about what I struggle with,
right?
A soft heart puts others first.
This is where our hardest year was the
first year of our marriage and finding out
how selfish we both were.
Things I wrote down like you take out
the trash, you do the laundry, you get
a job, you do this, you go to
the store, you, you, you, you, you, you,
you, right?
It's not me.
It's self-focus.
So you serve me.
See that's a mistake we go into marriage.
They'll serve me.
Warm dinners, right?
Every night at a certain time.
Back rubs.
They'll do all the chores and I'll just
sit and relax and work.
And we go into this with the false
perception of what marriage is because we also
look at the definition from the world.
A soft heart doesn't compare or excuse things.
It takes responsibility.
A soft heart doesn't demand that others change
first.
This is one of the most difficult challenges
in counseling, in marriage counseling is you're on
something, right?
Okay.
Area you need to work on.
Okay.
But they do this.
Okay.
Well, back to you.
But they, hold on, back to you.
But it's deflecting, right?
I get hit, I'm throwing it.
Throw me the stuff, I'm throwing it.
Throw me the stuff.
Blame deflecting.
We, we, it sounds like this, yeah, but.
Or yeah, you know, make excuses.
So a soft heart, though, doesn't demand that
others change first.
Actually, if we want to get really technical
here, the Bible could care less if the
other person changes.
It's always put back on us.
Paul doesn't say, well, just hold tight until
they change.
It's always me.
It's always I'm changing.
And then a wonderful principle comes into play
called reaping and sowing.
You start to treat the other person right.
You start to do things.
You start to put them first.
Guess what comes back around?
The other person's helping you.
And now there's unity in the home instead
of division.
Now there's praising and complimenting instead of complaining
and getting angry.
You see how that works?
The hard heart.
Now the reason I'm talking about it is
because I want to expose this thing this
morning.
The hard heart is very destructive.
But here's how it works.
Nobody in this room is free of this.
It will come in.
Even in my own life, it happens, it'll
happen frequently.
It's starting to get, you start to get
rigid and lack of joy.
You forget why some of us in ministry
and it becomes a job and a burden.
We start to complain.
We start to look at where it's going
on with the nation, things in our family,
financially.
And we begin to turn, we begin to
develop a hard heart about things, a hard,
cold, calloused approach.
The key is to notice, to realize it,
to repent of it.
It's a word we don't want to hear
sometimes, but it's a very good word.
To repent of it, to say this is
wrong.
How my heart's feeling is wrong and I
need to repent and God, you need to
change me in this area.
Here's what the hard heart does.
People ask sometimes about demons, right?
The demonic realm and how much will the
demons influence us and can the devil make
me do something and the devil can't make
you do anything.
Anytime we sin, the Bible always puts the
blame back on us.
You know, we did it.
Not the devil made me do it.
That little guy got me again.
You know, it's like not my fault, the
devil made me do it.
But what he does is he looks for
opportune times.
He knows your life, he knows my life,
and he looks for opportune times.
So when the heart begins to get cold
and calloused and hard, that's an opportune time.
Now he can plant certain things in your
thoughts, in your mind.
He can bring a person of the opposite
sex into now the equation at work or
different places and he can begin to work
with that hard heart.
He basically says to the hard heart that's
developing in you, let's work together to bring
this person down.
So you have the demonic realm working against
you, the hard heart working against you, and
then the world just says go for it.
If it feels good, do it.
We don't need to obey God's word anymore.
Did God really say?
That was written 2,000 years ago.
That doesn't apply to you guys today.
And he'll begin to taunt in that area.
So when the Bible says give no place
to the devil, don't give him a foothold.
Don't give him a place to begin to
set up camp.
And giving him a place is like a
place in your house, right?
You have open rooms, hey, let's give him
the dining room.
So a hard heart gives place to the
devil.
And that scripture I think in context is
do not let the sun go down upon
your wrath, your anger.
You're giving place to the devil.
Here's anger in this area is hard too
because we use it as an excuse.
Many people, they get angry.
Well, I'm just going back down to the
liquor store then.
Or I'm going back to that person then,
or that relationship, or I'm going to, or
with pornography, or I'm going, and we use
these things as excuses to go back into
sin.
So the hard heart is a very destructive
area.
If you don't humble yourself today and ask
God to soften your heart, there's not much
hope for your marriage.
And I'm not being negative, I'm being real.
And see, that was my biggest challenge this
week, preparing, is I want to shoot you
straight, straight as a gun barrel.
I want to show you the destructive nature
of the hard heart.
I want to challenge that area, but I
also want to be very encouraging.
Because I know if a person's in a
difficult marriage, hell on earth, you can't just
say, get over it.
Read the Bible, get over it, you're fine.
It's like telling somebody who deals with clinical
depression, just get over it.
The joy is in the Lord.
Psalm, just read Psalm, get over it, get
over it, come on.
It's like you can just change your mind.
Same thing with a difficult marriage.
I don't want to minimize that at all.
There are people, they are, many of us
aren't realizing it, but they live in a
living hell.
If a person's so controlling, and manipulating, and
dishonest, and they live in this very difficult
environment.
So I'm not discounting that, but I'm also
not going to sit here and placate a
hard heart.
I want to show you the destructive area
in this, that is destroying marriages.
And ironically, some people say, I'm not going
to come there and listen to what he
has to say about marriage.
I don't want to hear him tell me
what the Bible says.
The heart's hard.
I've had people tell me that.
Oh, I know what the Bible says.
I don't need to go there.
And we know, we have friends now, not
necessarily friends, all of them, but we know
people that they're just leaving their spouse.
They're leaving their children.
With no good reason.
Why?
Because of a hard heart.
It's grown and has developed.
2 Timothy reminds us that in the last
days, perilous times will come.
Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of
money, and boastful, and proud, and disobedient, and
unloving.
Do we see that today?
That's everywhere.
So the first scripture I want to put
on the screen, Jeremiah 18, 12, before I
get to Ephesians.
Here's the context though.
God is saying, return everyone from your evil
ways and stop doing evil and start doing
good.
If we even go back further, the nation
of Israel is being judged.
Their blessing has become a curse.
Back to what I said earlier.
So God's saying, here's the answer.
Return to me.
Come back to me.
Stop what you're doing.
And here's their answer.
But they will say it's hopeless.
For we are not, we are going to
follow our own plans.
Sound familiar?
And each of us will act according to
the stubbornness of his evil heart.
That's what the people told God.
So a couple of things.
Hopelessness often leads to a hard heart.
Have you ever been hopeless?
Many times we're not, when we're hopeless, we
don't say, oh joy, I'm going to take
it to God.
Instead, hopeless often leads to bitterness.
And many affairs start because the person is
hopeless.
I'll never get out of this difficult marriage.
And they meet someone else, and it begins
to draw them away from God and their
spouse.
Hopelessness often leads to a hard heart.
But God says, return and be healed.
That's the secret this morning.
Return and be healed.
Following our own plans.
It's funny, God says, here's the thing, probably
the most frustrating thing about preaching, and you
probably are frustrated too in this area, if
you share things about the Bible.
You can share it, and you can, all
the marriages I just mentioned, I know of
a half dozen, well probably a dozen in
trouble, going to divorce court.
And you say, here's the solution.
Here's what God's Word says.
Here it is.
Nope, we're going in our own direction.
We're going to do what we want to
do.
And on this issue, don't follow your heart.
Don't follow your feelings, because your heart, Jeremiah
said, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.
Who can know it?
And he's not talking about the new heart
and being born again.
He's talking about the old heart, the old
man, the sinful nature that's still inside of
us.
See, even as a believer in Jesus Christ,
you've got the battle within going on.
You've got the old nature that is warring
against your new nature in Christ.
And we say things like, I just want
to be happy.
God wants me to be happy.
I'm moving on.
I shouldn't have married you.
And you leave the spouse with a couple
kids.
It just makes no sense, because they're getting
direction from the world.
So let's ask that question.
Why is divorce an epidemic in the church?
Why?
Well, a couple different reasons.
But what I mean by an epidemic is,
most estimate at 50%.
And call me naive, but that's pretty sad.
If you can look at, people say they're
Christians, 10 marriages, 5 wanted a divorce.
That's not too encouraging.
What do you tell a young couple?
Well, that's, oh, darn it.
It's not going to make it.
Let's try again.
You know, but why?
Okay, here, I've got the answer.
We are embracing the world's mindset, not God's.
The divorce rate among Christians who are spirit
-filled believers, what I mean by that is,
they are filled with the Spirit of God,
they pray, they read their Bible, the divorce
rate is 1 in 1,500.
So you go from 1 in 1,500
to 1 in 2.
Why is that?
Because a spirit-filled believer, they've got the
heart of Christ in them.
They're in the Word of God.
What does it say?
I want to apply it.
God, I'm praying.
I'm in a difficult marriage.
I'm still sticking with it.
I want to apply it, God.
And you're filled with the Spirit of God.
The opposite though is you're filled with the
mindset of the world.
If it doesn't work, go get a new
one.
Right?
In California, I don't know, older folks will
remember this, but you couldn't just go get
divorced 60 years ago.
Now you can say, no fault, divorce, I
just want out.
You know, we've created this culture of, well,
I'll try it, number one, number two, number
three, and it's just, it's the world's mindset.
Now, let me bring the heart of compassion
in.
I know there are people trapped in difficult
marriages.
I have nothing but compassion on that.
I know you can't just get over it.
And I know you're struggling.
I know it's, sometimes you don't want to
get out of bed.
But I also want to remind you that
God makes provision for all of our needs
if we look to Him and look to
His Word.
Look to Him for the hope.
Look for Him for the direction.
Because, see, you can be broken in your
marriage, but filled with the Spirit of God.
You can be broken, and I have no
hope, but God, I have hope in you.
Joy cometh in the morning, even though I
weep today.
And you can be built up and strengthened
again if you look to Him.
But most people aren't.
They're getting bitter, and they're getting depressed, and
they get medicated, self-medication.
That's why all that's on the rise.
I mean, just look at the culture around
us.
It is rapidly falling apart.
The world's view.
I came across this from Jennifer Weiner.
The world's view.
She said this, divorce isn't such a tragedy.
A tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage,
teaching your children the wrong things about love.
Nobody ever died of divorce.
Oh, well, there you go.
Now, again, compassion side.
I don't know what she means by an
unhappy marriage, but the secular view of an
unhappy marriage is, this isn't fun anymore.
I don't love you anymore.
We used to do things.
There's irreconcilable differences, and we move on.
And here's the kicker.
Most people, I really want to say every
marriage, but I don't want to get a
lecture.
So I'll say 99.9% of marriages,
at some point you are unhappy.
At some point you are unhappy.
You are, you are miserable.
You want out.
Ask us the first year.
What happened?
I thought this is God's will.
This can't be God's will.
What happened?
So you will and there was another report
I was looking at.
They interviewed couples who were unhappy, unhappily married.
They interviewed them five years later, and like
85% were happier and happy they stayed
together and happier now.
The perseverance.
So that's what you need to also understand.
It's not this bliss, this knight in a
white horse grabbing you off the ground and
riding and doing everything you want to do
and everything he wants to do, and you
just get along like Cinderella.
Like, look at these stories the kids are
watching.
You know, it's difficult.
It's challenging.
Kids come in the picture.
Selfishness.
Okay, it's not about me anymore.
I guess I can't.
And just your whole world collapses when it's
selfishness.
So all of us go through stages of
being unhappy in our marriage.
But what do you do with that?
Do you develop a hard heart and get
bitter and cold or callous?
You say, Lord, this isn't right.
I know you brought me this person.
I know this is of you.
God, please help us in this area.
And you start to pray and you start
to contend for your family.
You start to come to church more.
You worship more.
You fight for those things worth having.
See, we've lost that.
Remember how, you know why they called the
World War II generation the greatest generation that
ever lived?
Because they worked their butts off and they
were men of courage and men of honor.
It's okay to say that word.
It was in the context, right?
I just get because they weren't lazy.
They were hardworking.
They stood by.
And now we've generation that just bells out.
Entitlement mentality.
Oh, goodness.
I'm going to get started here.
I'm going to need to stop.
Entitlement, right?
I deserve.
President Trump says something I don't like.
I'm going to go cry in a room.
I need things to play with.
I'm hurt.
My feelings are.
This is like, what is this?
The greatest nations have become the wimpiest nation.
Iran, North Korea, they're taunting.
They would have never tried this 30 years
ago.
They would have never tried this 30 years
ago.
Because they'd have about four destroyer ships and
aircrafts and everything right on the verge.
Now we're just passive and we're complacent and
we've just become just a lazy entitlement society
and generation.
And I'm not afraid to say that.
Because you got to speak the truth sometimes
in love, correct?
Now you be different.
Right?
My dad taught me hard work from the
farms of Oklahoma.
And it's okay to pick up a shovel
and do things and be busy and get
working.
It's biblical to work.
Actually, it says if you don't work, you
don't eat.
That's a whole nother.
That will not go well if I go
down that trail.
God's view of marriage.
Michael Reagan.
Well, God's view is perseverance and not giving
up.
There are, I believe, biblical grounds for divorce.
And anytime I talk about this, I get
lectured on email by people.
And hopefully I can talk about that in
the future.
But there is a biblical ground.
A couple things on that area.
I'm not going to get to that just
yet.
But Michael Reagan, Ronald Reagan's son, said divorce
is where two adults take everything that matters
to a child, the child's home, family, security,
and sense of being loved and protected.
And they smash it to pieces, leave it
in ruins on the floor, then walk out
and leave the child to clean up the
mess.
See, I think that's the thing that's most
frustrating is the damage it's causing.
See, what we're seeing in our nation is
just what's been happening in the family.
The nation is only as strong as the
family unit.
You get godly families raising godly children and
putting those children in positions of leadership and
education, and you'll see a different dynamic.
So that's why the enemy goes after the
family unit.
But people often say, but Shane, I'm trying.
I'm trying.
I don't know what to do.
I'm dead inside.
Have you said that?
Have you been there?
I'm trying.
I don't know what else to do.
Here's what I'll tell you what to do.
Turn to Him.
Turn to Him, not Oprah.
Not your hairdresser that says, woman, just go
take Him for everything He's worth.
You get out of that relationship, and you
head to Vegas tomorrow morning.
That's what we're listening to, the world's mindset.
When God says, no, come to me in
the prayer closet.
Come, and I will show you what a
deliverer is.
I will show you what a comforter is.
I will be your Father.
I will be your healer.
I will be your Redeemer.
You don't have anybody cry to me at
night.
I'll hear you at two in the morning.
I'll hold you, and I'll heal you, and
I'll bring you back to restoration.
You'll know the scripture that says that peace
will come in, peace that is beyond our
human understanding will flood in.
How in the midst of tremendous pain do
I have tremendous peace?
How in the midst of confusion do I
have stability?
Though He slay me, yet will I trust
Him.
We are hard pressed on every side, but
not crushed.
Perplexed, but not in despair.
Persecuted, but not struck down.
And we are, I forgot the last verse.
Oh, God humbles me sometimes, you know.
Hard pressed on every side.
Persecuted, but not forsaken.
Oh my goodness, I just feel this topic
is so important.
I see on Facebook, I see in the
face of children, of parents that are separating,
divorcing, the children are damaged.
You don't just bounce back like a plastic
ball.
They get hurt.
And it's the selfishness, and it's the pride,
and it's the arrogance, the hard heart that
needs to be crushed.
I'll put one more up on the screen
before Ephesians.
Oh gosh, I'm not even done with the
introduction.
I don't know how that happens.
The Lord does though.
He's not concerned with notes, and sermon homiletics,
and hermeneutics, and three points, and makes your
application, and you know, sometimes you just got
to preach what's on your heart.
And that's where the majority of change comes
from, and people.
So if I don't finish in the second
service, I'll try to do this next week.
Matthew 13, 15.
For the hearts of this people have grown
dull.
And it's interesting, the reason I like to
read Scripture too, and quote it, is many
times we're hearing from people now all over
the world, and even different states, and people
being changed.
And they say, I've heard that verse a
hundred times, but when you read that verse,
or when you preached on that verse, God
just hit me like a sledgehammer.
I had to pull over, and I repented.
And it's these kind of verses.
If a person's open, and they hear, for
the heart of this people have grown dull,
their ears are hard of hearing, and their
eyes are closed.
Lest they should see with their eyes, and
hear with their ears, and they should understand
with their hearts, and turn so that I
should heal them.
I remember something I wanted to bring up
in a minute.
So look, number one.
Hearts have grown dull.
See, it's a process.
Folks, it's a process.
That's why I'm trying to wake you up.
It's a process.
See, I'm lacking joy, I'm lacking peace.
My heart's growing dull, Shane.
It's growing dull.
It's a process.
Wake up, you can return to that.
He says here, they don't hear, they don't
see.
They don't hear, they don't see.
Isn't this true?
Do you ever tell somebody, don't you see?
Don't you see what you're doing?
Don't you see the damage it is causing?
Don't you see?
No, I don't.
Because my eyes are being blinded by sin.
My eyes are being blinded by a hard,
callous heart, an arrogant heart.
See, the hard heart wants to get the
last word, and it wants to fight, it
wants to make excuses.
And if you're making excuses in your mind
right now, yeah, but he doesn't know my
situation.
Be careful.
Because you don't see, maybe.
And then it says, turn and be healed.
Humble yourself today.
Don't wait until rock bottom.
Don't wait until it's too late.
Humble yourself today.
We say we are Christians, but where is
the fruit?
Here's what it looks like, Ephesians 5.25.
Husbands.
Okay, what I'm about to read, we've all
read, so just don't do the in one,
you're out the next, what's for dinner stuff,
right?
Or what kind of chili am I thinking
about right now?
No, no.
Think about this.
This would end half of your marriage problems.
I'm going to offer some counseling right now.
People say, when does Pastor Shane counsel?
In my sermons.
That's all it is.
All practical applications.
I'm counseling every Sunday, 9 to 11.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved
the church.
Love as Christ loved the church.
And He gave Himself for her.
That He might be sanctifying, cleanse her with
the washing of the water by the word.
That He might present her to Himself, a
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that she should be
holy and without blemish.
So husbands, love your wives as Christ loved
the church.
Here's the problem with that.
Every man in this room is thinking it,
and I have too.
That's impossible.
Love her like Christ loved the church.
And you know what?
It is impossible without the work of God,
without the Holy Spirit.
The Bible never, never lowers the standard.
It always raises the standard and says, I'd
rather you try to hit it and miss
it than lower it and hit it.
So it's love her as Christ loved the
church.
That's the example.
Yes, I'll fall short.
But that's my goal.
That's the example I'm to follow.
But we do this, that's impossible.
Forget it.
Nobody can do that.
See, here's the problem in marriages right now.
The man loving the woman what?
Say it loud.
There we go.
The man loving, the woman respecting.
And if you loved, she would respect.
I didn't say it's the first service.
I'm going to say it here.
I know people don't like to hear it,
but here we go.
I've been known to say things that people
don't like to hear.
My personal conviction, looking at the Bible, talking,
seeing, the man is the primary reason why
a marriage will succeed or fail.
They are the leader.
They are to guide.
They are to go in front.
They are to love.
They are to shepherd.
They are to pray for.
They are to fast.
They are to lead the family spiritually, financially,
relationally.
They are to be the head of the
household, and the majority of the responsibility will
fall upon that person if the marriage is
crumbling.
Now, the disclaimer.
There are men doing a wonderful job and
leading their family, but the wife still chooses
to lose or leave.
That's the exception, not the rule.
See, we like to look at the exception
and forget about the rule.
The exception just means there's a rule to
follow.
So the man, from what I know, I
mean, I've only been in this 20 years,
right?
On all the ones I can list, he
could change the environment of his home.
I can list a dozen names right now.
A dozen names right now.
He could change the environment of that home.
Always the case?
No, it's not always the case.
But the vast majority.
Who is going to leave a person that
loves them unconditionally?
Puts them first?
They're the apple of their eye.
Their priorities are.
Who's going to leave that?
Well, I haven't got to the respect part
yet, so I won't say amen just yet.
Well, husbands love your wives as Christ loved
the church.
But we have to remember, because that love,
that term is used loosely, isn't it?
What does love mean?
I mean, what's a world say love means?
Love means leave me alone, let me continue
my sin.
See, so whose definition are you?
Because I'm known as a hate preacher.
You know that, right?
Because I preach what the Bible says.
So a message of love has now become
a message of hate for those who oppose
it.
That's what real love, here's the definition.
Love is patient, love is kind, doesn't envy,
doesn't boast, it's not proud, it's not rude,
it's not self-seeking, it doesn't keep a
record of wrong done against it.
It always hopes, it always perseveres, it always
believes in the best in others.
You can look at 1 Corinthians 13 when
you get home.
1 Corinthians 13.
How did you do?
Love is patient, love is kind, it doesn't
envy, it doesn't boast, it's not proud.
I'm like, oh my Lord, you got me
at the first two.
Love is patient, right?
Patient, kind, gracious, and that's genuine love.
So when you start to, see here, you
won't do it perfectly, but you aim for
it.
Lord, I need your help in this area.
So husbands, here's the kicker.
Most don't truly love their spouse like this.
They love convenience, they love being served.
Here's what happens.
This is a Behonest sermon.
They go into it, they don't love, they
lust.
And when the lust is no longer fulfilling,
and the selfishness is coming out, marriage gets
difficult.
But if you went in loving unconditionally, I
mean, I actually had somebody tell me that
they're not fulfilled sexually, so they're leaving their
husband.
Well, biblically, that's not going to fly, sister.
Yes, it's challenging.
Yes, I got it.
I understand.
That would not be good, right?
But what do you do?
I can list Johnny Erickson Tata and all
these wonderful, their husbands push them around in
wheelchairs and they can't even move.
Unconditional love.
See, so we go into it, what can
I get?
Not what can I give?
What can I get from this?
And if you go in, what can I
get?
You will be a miserable wreck.
Angry all the time, bitter, upset.
Why did I get stuck into this?
Because you're a getter.
You have to go into it.
When I say I do, I do die.
I'm going to remember that next wedding I
do.
I do die.
Yeah.
Is that true?
I do die.
Do you take this woman to be your
lawful wedded wife?
I do die.
I will.
Life is, but that's really what it is
because that'll make you rethink marriage.
Oh yeah, you're dating Brad Pitt.
You might as well check his character.
I'd rather, well, I won't get into that,
but I'd rather take somebody, you know, that
maybe not as attracted to, but they're going
to be there for the long haul.
They're going, not this eye candy.
That's what young adults, I'm so in love.
No, you're in lust.
And then you go in the marriage, it's
the wrong foundation.
It's the wrong foundation.
And I said that the first service, I
think it's important here, people don't agree with
this statement either, but I've counseled people to,
from time to time, if you're in a
very difficult situation, it's okay to separate.
I didn't say divorce.
You remove yourself from a very toxic, hostile
environment.
You separate it and you get help.
Sometimes that aloneness, I've seen people, that aloneness
about what they're about ready to lose brings
them to the cross, brings them back to
Calvary.
People say, and people say, Shane, nope, they
should just stay in the same house all
the time.
That's not good advice.
Well, I beg to differ with you because
if somebody's getting the snot beat out of
them, and the husband's drinking, being belligerent, and
puts the kids in danger, yeah, you need
to get out.
You need to get some help.
You need to, not divorce, not go hit
the nightclub, not go find plan B, which
is eventually going to lead to plan C
and plan D and plan misery, but you
can separate for a season of what?
Separate to seek God.
And I know it's contrary, I know people
are like, oh, I don't know about that,
but from my perspective, what I've seen, again,
clarifying, not separate to go other directions, separate
to seek God in this manner to come
back.
You reduce something down to its lowest common
denominator.
You separate that in order for healing and
restoration to take place.
If you can stay in the home, if
you can work it out, that is by
far the best course.
But sometimes, have you ever been in a
hostile environment at home?
And it's better to just get out and
breathe for a season, and then you actually
get along, and you can talk, and you
can communicate, you can get counseling, you can
get help.
So that is an issue for many people.
Verse 29, I will conclude soon.
So husbands, or actually verse 28, as a
result of what Christ did for us, ought
to love their wives as their own bodies.
Here's an example.
I want to sleep, so let her sleep.
I want to take a break from these
kids, so instead you watch the kids.
See, everything you want to do, you have
them do.
You'd like an extra $100?
Give them an extra $100.
You'd like to get away from the kids
for a while?
Give them a break for a while.
You'd like to go and do something?
Then let them do something.
See, you love them as you would love
yourself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the
Lord does the church.
Then skipping to verse 33, nevertheless, let each
one of you, in particular, so love his
wife as himself, and let the wife see
that she respects her husband.
What does that mean, Shane?
Well, I'm glad you asked.
Here's what it means.
I will not diminish or put him down.
I will allow him to lead our home.
I will appreciate his strong points and stop
criticizing his weak points.
I will respect him, even if he doesn't
respect me.
And I don't know why these are challenging
issues, but you look at Genesis, and we
can see that God said, Eve, your desire
is to be over your man, but it's
not going to happen.
You'll have to compliment how I've designed you
and let him lead.
And she's been fighting that for 6,000
years, and we've been fighting the love aspect
because we love ourselves.
Men love themselves more than women love themselves,
I think.
Right?
The arrogance, the pride.
We have a hard time loving people because,
number one, we didn't have a good example.
Number two, we listen to the influence and
direction of the world, and we're not filled
with God's Spirit.
We're filled with the things of the world.
So I'll close with this.
It's a quote from the book Sacred Thirst.
The bride and the groom are standing in
front of everyone, looking better than they are
ever going to look again.
I didn't catch that at the first service.
Come on, this is a serious quote.
Getting so much attention and affirmation.
Oh, look at them.
Everybody even stands when they walk in.
So it's easy to think this marriage is
about them.
It's not.
Look at the worn out parents sitting in
the first pew.
This is not a funny one.
At least I didn't read it funny.
They understand this.
The only reason these parents are still married
is because long ago they learned how to
handle the hurt they caused each other.
They know that the last thing you ever
want to do with hurt is to let
it define you.
See, that's the closing point.
If you're divorced, don't let that hurt define
you.
If you're divorced, do not let that hurt
define you.
That's not who you are.
That has nothing to do with where God's
going to take you.
Don't live in those walls we built to
protect us and eventually imprison us.
If you're in a difficult situation, maybe separated,
don't let that hurt define who you are,
how you act, where you live.
Don't let it be the definition that God
has put on you because God calls us
back to relationship with Him.
They know the last thing they ever want
to do is to let hurt define you
and don't let it harden your heart.