spend some time on this first section on the marriage covenant, and then we'll break up into our discussion groups and spend some time together talking about these principles, trying to come up with some applications. But we'll begin now with Rod Stevens and his tenets for a tenet bridge, Methodist Church. We'll begin now with this lecture. Let's pray. Lord, this is your holy word. We are your servants. give us understanding that we might know your testimonies. You have prayed, O Lord God, sanctified it in truth. Thy word is truth. Use your word this hour to set us apart for your service and your glory. Show us now great and mighty things which we do not know. The sower sows the word, O Lord God. Plow up the hard ground of our hearts. Give good soil that bears fruit upward. Protect us from Satan who would snatch your same word, making it fruitless in our lives. Protect us from a wrong reaction to difficulty and discouragements which cause the word to fall on rocky ground, being fruitless. Protect us from the world's cares and the delight of wealth and the passion of other interests which enter in and choke the word, making it fruitless in our lives. Lord, make your word fall on good soil. Let not your word go out and return void, but accomplish that purpose for which you have drawn us together, and that purpose for which you are now sending it out. Unsheathe the sword of your spirit, O Lord God. Cut now to the dividing point of soul and spirit. Judge the thoughts and intentions of each of our hearts. Father, we live in a dark and wicked age. Broad is the way, and many are I have which lead to destruction. Make your word a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Grant grace that we might see that narrow way in which we should walk. As we run in the path of your commandments, enlarge our hearts, O Lord God, that in loving you more, we might desire to obey you more. Spray Your Word before us as a banquet table. Grant us the sweet milk and meat of the great doctrines of Your Word. Give us the heart of the prophet who cried to You. Thy words were found and I ate them, and Thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts. Lord, drop Your Word against our lives now as a plumb line Grant grace that we might see where we deviate from its standards. Make your word to us a mirror over a guide. Grant us grace that we might see clearly who we are and what we are about. That we would not be as one who takes a look at himself in a mirror and goes away and properly forgets how he looks, but that we would be active doers, not merely hearers of your word. O Lord God, because of our fealty to you, because of our undying love and devotion to your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, we pledge our total submission to your holy, eternal, and inerrant written word, and we pledge our unquestioning In the name of our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray, Amen. Let's think about the marriage covenant for a second. A husband and wife's covenant needs are created by God. This will be our thesis statement. They are lasting and legitimate needs for which there is no moral outlet outside marriage. no moral outlet outside there. You'll get everything I'm saying next week. So you can just relax and listen, make notes on things that God speaks to you, write questions you want to ask during the discussion time, but you're under no kind of burden or compulsion to create a good outline. Just kind of sit back, take it in, and let God deal with your heart. You'll get this Right there. Yeah. Leave your cell phone on. I'm going to give you all the lecture notes. Just scribble ideas. Just do that. God's speaking to me. God's dealing with my heart. This will work. This doesn't work. And remember, I'm going away. Okay? You don't have to think, gee, you know, this teaching is kind of hard. I'm not sure I can handle this. Well, Eleanor and I, this time next year, will be in Kenya. And then in Russia and then in Eastern Europe and then back for Christmas and then in West Africa, South Africa, Japan and back to Russia. So you don't have to live with us. We're going away. Plus, I'm not your pastor. So you don't have to submit to me, do you? In fact, if anything I say deviates from his teaching, he's right, I'm wrong. How's that? We can live with that, can't we? So you can just relax. and enjoy this time together and try to allow God's work to impact your lives in some of the applications we do. And we'll try to differentiate between what God says and things that we've learned throughout life. Because you don't have to do what we do. If it's God's work, you're kind of stuck with it, don't you? Like when I'm witnessing and I share Hebrews 9.27, what does Hebrews 9.27 say? It's appointed for men? I don't know that. It's supposed to be appointed for men to die once, and after this comes Jesus. Yeah, do you have a whole Bible with him, Ross? Yeah, I don't know what he does. Oh, he does, okay. Yeah, Hebrews 9, 27. People say, well, I don't believe a loving God would send anyone to help. Well, you know, don't get mad at me, it's just in the Bible, right? Would you send my dad to help? No, I wouldn't send your dad either. We could have a meal going here, wouldn't we? I won't say if you're religious, you won't, but that's what we believe is needed here. When God said that God's word is not what we believe, we simply believe God's word. It's two different things, isn't it? But our applications are different. You don't have to do whatever I did, but we've got to do something, don't we? You can't say, well that worked in your marriage, that won't work in mine. I'll say, that's alright, what are you going to do with yours? Well, nothing. No, that's not a proper application, is it? So you don't have to do what we did, but you have to do something. And if you're not doing anything, try what we did, and then let it mutate into something that really works for you. So we're looking now at the marriage covenant. This marriage covenant was conceived and defined by God. Let's look at our Bibles at Genesis 2, 24 and 25. Who can I pick out? I'm going to pick out Rob and Pam to read. Okay, so Rob, you take Genesis 2, 24 and 25. Pam, you're going to get Matthew 19, 6 in a minute. So, this relationship predated the fall, didn't it? Had man sinned yet? No, man hadn't sinned yet. So marriage predated the fall. Jesus Christ said virtually the same thing in Matthew 19.6. What does that say, Pam? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate. So this marriage covenant was designed by God. It wasn't given in response to the fall. It wasn't created because of sin. It wasn't part of the covenant of the law. It wasn't something instituted by the church. It is just something that God did. Just His. People did it together. So we've got to read up my notes. See if that stuff that I wrote when we were at the dinner table, we're trying those notes, please. Matthew, I'm going to switch with you. It's just something that God did. Marriage was God's idea, not man's. No, I doubt it. Great. It's made with God. When we get married, we are making a covenant with God. Now for most people, a marriage is a party. And I've performed enough marriages to know this. It's one of the big parties of our lives, isn't it? And a lot of people won't even get married in their church that they grow up in because it's not suitable for the party. I've got the pictures and the flowers. I've got three daughters and a son. I've put on three weddings. I'm all for all those things. But it's important for us to understand that the party and the vows we make to God are two different things, aren't they? They're two different things. The vows we make to God are very important. And we make those vows whether we know we're doing it or not. How many of you here wrote your own wedding vows? I wonder if I did. Did you guys? That was big when we got married back in the 70s. You guys didn't write your own vows? That used to be a big thing. Can you imagine going into the bank to buy a house and saying, well, you know, that's an interesting contract. I think we've come up with a better one here. I think that would work. Going to buy a car, going to get a cell phone contract. Well, you know, that's kind of interesting, but the wording is kind of archaic, so we've worked out something like this. Well, most people think of their wedding vows like that. Their wedding vows like that. The wife is thinking, it's going too fast, I spent all this time and energy to experience Isn't that true? And the guys are thinking, I wish we could get this over with and get out without him. Isn't that what the guys are thinking? That's what the guys are thinking. And what God is thinking is neither of those things. God is thinking of a divine, mystical miracle by which he is going to bind both of you till death do you part. So, it's important for us to know what the fine print of the contract is, isn't it? Fine print of the contract is very important. I know when we first moved to Houston about 15 years ago, cell phones were just kind of coming into vogue and this was a big city and I was away from Eleanor and I found out real quick in Houston It's very unsacred and unsacrable types. Unsacred types of people hang around payphones. So, it's not a good thing to stop and use a payphone, which I'll call you why in a minute. Well, we're using a cell phone, and I was real happy with it. And then more cell phone companies started coming to Houston. So they had these great deals, much better than my contract. So I called our cell phone provider, and I said, listen, I want to cancel my contract. I'm going to go with this other deal, and I shall give it to him. And he said, well, that's fine. And then he named me this astronomical cancellation fee. And I said, what? I don't remember that. And he said, OK, turn over on the back of the contract. I said, I got it. Now he's flipping over in the back, and a smaller font in a different color, kind of a gray font. There it was, right? You've been there before, haven't you? One year penalty if you cancel before the window. And at that particular time, it was a two-week window, January 1 through 14. Well, I got burned. So I circled that. And in January, right after the first of the year, I call and I cancel, then I got a new cell phone contract. What if I didn't agree with that cell phone contract? Does that change anything? What if I didn't know? Does that change anything? What if I didn't like it? What if I had strong convictions that it shouldn't be there that way? Does that change? None of that changes, does it? And that's true about marriage. We might not agree with what the Bible says. We might not feel it should be that way. We might say, if we were God, we would do it differently. We might even say, well, my God wouldn't be that harsh. We might have a conviction that God wants me to be happy. God wants me to be happy, doesn't He? I would be happier out of this marriage, so I should be able to get out of this marriage. God wants me to be happy. We can say all those things, but it doesn't change anything, does it? It no more changes what the Bible says about marriage than it changes It's the same thing with a house contract. I wanted to be sure. When we were refinancing a house, I said, does this come with an early payoff penalty? He said, I'll look. And it did. And I said, we don't want this. We want that stretched out. So we got that stretched out. That's important. In fact, I've learned not to sign anything until I've run it past Ellen. Because when I read, I'm kind of going... But she actually reads the actual words. How many of you took your wedding vows from your pastor, took them over and studied them with your Bible open, so that you really understood what you were going to swear to God? I didn't do that. Did you do that? Take it down. In fact, I'd like to see that. You know, I wouldn't commit it to anything of this magnitude. I'm going to vow this to God. We've got a sign employed, this long-term contract. I think I'd like to see that. In fact, the vows you took may not even be God's vows. That would be interesting, isn't it? They might not even be God's vows. In fact, we are going to look at five vows you took, whether you knew it or not. Would you like to know what they are? God is holding you to them. Whether you did it or not. How many of you have children? School age. Okay. Have you ever heard this? She didn't say it was going to be on the test. Does that give you a pass on the test? No, you're still responsible for it. I couldn't find that. I didn't know I was supposed to read that book. You know, all the things. My son had a history teacher who had a sign on her desk that said, I'll always believe what you do. So I didn't come up to her with an excuse. What she's believing is not what you're saying, but what you did. Did you have your project? Did you have your homework? Did you finish it? What did you make on the test? Did you read the book? So always believe what you do. Well, that's how God is in marriage. God says in 1 John 3, 18, let us not love in word and speech, but deed and truth. God always believes what we do in terms of our marriage. And that's what is important to God. Irrespective of what you believe or what you thought you were bringing to, God holds you to his potential terms. Can your children get together and set the terms of the family and then turn it into you? They can't do that, can you? Can employees get together and come up with their policies of the company and turn it into human resources? Can they do that? No. Not even if you have a good union, you can't do it. Do people get to vote on traffic laws? And you don't do that. Some policeman starts you over and says, well you're going 75 and 55. Well, you know, we were taking a test vote here. And pretty much everybody on this stretch of 45 agreed that this should be 75. Does it work like that? No, it doesn't. See, in each case, the terms were set before the contract was admitted to. You simply have to submit to it. And that's what God has done with your marriage. He has. a standard by which he holds you whether you think you should be held to it or not. Have you ever said any of this to the police officer? I didn't see it. I didn't see it change. I said it. I still got the ticket. You know, it was indifferent to that. You should have. That was the response, isn't it? Drive down there and run around. You shouldn't put blame on your CD. You see, God doesn't take covenants lightly. When you got married, gentlemen, you agreed to five things. You swore to God that you would fulfill these five things. Lady, when you got married, you agreed to five things. You swore to God that you would fulfill these five covenant responsibilities. See, your husband has needs. Your wife has needs. And one of the things you swore to when you got married was that you would be the one who ministers to and fulfills your husband's or your wife's needs in these areas. You swore to do this. These are legitimate needs, and yet they have no legitimate outlet, no legitimate way to be fulfilled outside marriage. outside the covenant of marriage. Now, in Malachi 2.14, God convinced a young man by saying that he has dealt treacherously with his wife, though she is your companion and wife by covenant. In Proverbs 2.17, God convinced a wife by saying that she has forgotten her covenant with God. These are actually vows or covenants that we have made with God. And they're made on the basis of legitimate needs. This is legitimate. What are some things that were legitimate needs of Adam before he sinned? Before the fall? See, most people think needs are a result of sin. You might think, well, if my wife were only more spiritual, she wouldn't have this need. I wish she would just grow up. I wish he would just mature. You might say, my husband's such an animal. I just wish he would mature a little. Wish he would grow up a little. Then he wouldn't have these needs. But what these are not simply covenant vows. These are covenant needs. These are five things that your wife has, gentlemen, that will never go away. They are created needs. Ladies, these are five needs your husband has. And they will never, ever go away. They are covenant needs. Because we were created perfect, yet with needs. A need does not indicate perfect. A need does not mean you are not perfect. A need does not indicate sin. What are some needs Adam had before he fell? What are some things, some needs Adam had? What would you say? Pardon me? Oh yeah, companionship! That's exactly right. Companionship with God and companionship with Eve. That's it. That's excellent. That's good. Okay. What else? What else did he do? Others would say that. Okay. Well, you know Rob, I think that's excellent. You're being supportive. Well, he did police the students. Alright, what else? What else? Well, well, when God came in the garden, what did he get to say got to do with the garden? Okay, work. Work precedes the fall. We don't work because it's sin. The fall resulted in unfruitful work. But work itself is not a result of sin. Adam wasn't just lying around naked in the jungle, you know, pulling apples and grapes off the vines and trees. Okay, work. What else did he do in the garden? What did he do with the fruit of his labor in the garden? What did he do with it? Food. He ate it! Yeah, food is not a result of sin. Adams need to eat. You don't say to Adam, well, if you were a perfect Adam, you wouldn't eat beans. What's wrong with you? We all have that problem, don't we? We eat till we're full, then we wake up the next morning, and what are we? We're hungry again, aren't we? Is that because of sin? No! Adam had the same need and he was perfect. What else did he do? When God was going to make Eve, what did he do to Adam? Slept. Slept! Sleeping! Jesus slept, didn't he? Yeah. We don't sleep because of sin. That's how God made us. And no matter how much sleep you get, 18 hours later, what are you? You're tired again, aren't you? These are needs that we have. Talking. That's a need. Adam talked, Eve talked, God talked to Adam, Adam talked to God, Eve talked to God. There was companionship and fellowship, but there was also just talking, wasn't there? What else? Marriage? Marriage predates sex! Being naked and not being ashamed. That all predated the fall. Those were all needs Adam had, and Eve had, and none of those needs were as a result of sin. You wouldn't look at Adam, nor would you look at Eve, and say, if you would just grow up, you wouldn't need to sleep anymore. If you were just more spiritual, you wouldn't need to eat. If you were just more spiritual, you wouldn't want sex. If you were just more spiritual, you wouldn't want a toddler. You wouldn't need companionship. None of that is true, is it? That is how they were created. But what are our covenant needs in terms of marriage? Each of us brings... Sweetheart, I'll get you to come up here. This is my lovely assistant, Bella. She's going to write these on here. I would encourage you to write these down too, because in about just a couple of minutes, we're going to break out into our discussion groups. So, these are some covenant needs that we have. One of the covenant needs is spiritual leadership. This with the wire, number one, is going to be to follow this leadership. No, that's not working. Well, actually as we get into this, and this will be the first week, as we get into this, I think we'll find out that, it's been my experience, that most wives go into a marriage really expecting and looking forward to spiritual leadership by their husbands. And we teach them to look elsewhere. in the school of hard knocks. Don't come home and noddy, laugh at their questions, call us stupid, get distracted. We teach them not to. But we'll look at that. And then the wife, the husband has a need to be a leader, to lead someone spiritually. That's coming to me. Because we all know our children have needs, and they don't always agree with them, but they're still there, right? Like if you ask your child, what you really need to do is go to the dentist. Would they agree with that need? No. Okay, what's number two? Let's look at number two. The husband covenants to meet his wife's emotional needs. That would be being a conversational partner. That companion. Never. The wife makes a covenant to be sexually excited to her husband. So, in answer to the age-long question, I told her I loved her a million times, when is it going to be enough? And the answer to that question is, never. She's created with a conversational need. And the answer to the question, he got it last night, he wants it tonight, and he's just a sex animal, and the answer to that is... YES! It's never going to go away! It's created by God. Okay? Alright, number three. For the husband, it's truthful. Actually, I call it the three T's, trusting, truthful, and transparent, but we'll just put truthful under there. As far as the wife goes, number three, is to be helpmate. To be a helpmate, and that means a companion in your wife's pursuits. You know, I've asked the wives at If you don't want to go to the football game with your husband, which of the women from the church would you like him to go with instead? And I always tell the men, if you don't want to open up and be transparent and truthful to your wife so that she can be your helpmate, which of the men do you want to be eating with her and doing that instead? So that's one of the questions we're always asked on these. If you don't want to do it, who do you want to do it? Which woman from the church? You know, kind of like Sarah did, you're going to have my hand made. Like Abraham did, she's my sister, King, you can take her. So guys, if you don't want to do these, which brethren in the church do you want to step in? Gals, if you don't want to do it, which sister in the church? Number four, material needs. We make a covenant to meet the material needs of our wife. Number five, the family is a priority. And for the ladies, they make a covenant with their husband David said, who is that uncircumcised Philistine railing against the armies of God? It bothered David that Goliath was disrespecting God's people. And when people honk at me, my wife will turn around, who is that jerk? He's not back there honking at my husband. So, respect. But, on the other hand, it's my responsibility to make the family a priority. I was talking to my son, he was saying that, you know, as he gets older, he's married now and has children, and he's beginning to realize kind of how unique the family was that he grew up in. He was asking me about it. We were driving, I think we were driving back from Gander Mountain together, in this pickup truck, and I was telling him, well Sam, I think one of the things that I was blessed with was that I didn't have any hobbies but my wife and my children after I got married. Before I got married, I had lots of hobbies. I liked to play football, I belonged to city parks, basketball league, I liked to camp. There's lots of things I loved to do before I got married. And now that you kids are grown and are out of the house, I have hobbies and stuff too. But when I was driving home from work, I would put everything out of my mind and I would be thinking about Eleanor and you kids and my responsibilities on the way home." And I said, and I just know a lot of guys, on the way home they're thinking about sighting in their rifle, they're thinking about their computer program, they're thinking about their fantasy league football team, they're thinking about some club or organization they belong to, they're thinking about more work they can do, they're thinking about kids now that are driving some car or some airplane they belong to a cigar poker club they're thinking about those things instead of the family as a program so I say you know a family man just doesn't have that as a luxury just doesn't not if he wants to have a good marriage and good family so I said you know that was that was just I think that was just the grace of God and I appreciated Sam because he said you know I'm going to write that down and put that on an index card and stick it up a dash of this in my truck so when I go home I start clearing my mind and So there it is, that's the cover. And we're going to look at those. And the reason I show these to you, and we're going to close now, is to, this is your hook to get you to come back. So you see something on there that you really want your spouse to hear, right? That will keep you coming back as a couple. And I will tell you about this seminar, and I'll just be honest with you guys, most Christian books are written to on marriage to beat up on guys, aren't they? I think they're ready to beat up on guys. I think so. Because they'll say, now wives, their children are important to them. Talking is important. Going deep. And all these men are concerned about are their hobbies, and sports, and sex, and their work. You know, and those are kind of like this, aren't they? Those are the man's needs, but those are childish needs, and the women all have lofty needs. Now, there's two reasons for that. One is theological. It's a failure to study the Word of God and submit our values to God's. Because in God's value system, a man's life pursuits, his work, his desire for sex, his interest in sports and the outdoors, those are all spiritual, but they're created by God. That's one reason. The other reason is that 8 years ago, I don't know how it is now, 8 years ago, 87% of all literature bought in Christian bookstores was bought by women. And so that's just marketplace driven, isn't it? In fact, I had a good friend who was writing a book, he's a missionary in Mexico, and the publisher sent it back to him and said it wasn't feminine enough, it was too masculine. So that's the other reason, isn't it? Now, when you go into a Christian bookstore, do you ever see shotguns with verses on them like Bobby Nimrod did? And we laugh at that, don't we? You ever see a line of steel saw or a router with a Bible verse? Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen that? And we laugh at that, but we see little potpourri jars, and we see little fat, you know, The angels... I was going to say beer belly angels. We see picture frames. What does that have to do with anything spiritual? Not simply because it's a Christian story. It's a feminine environment. That's just the way it is. It's market driven. It's a feminine environment. So the reason I tell you that is, guys, I want to be pretty hard on y'all. from the Word of God. We're going to look really creatively at that location. But, I am an equal opportunity offender. And so, we're going to also look at these. It's not just going to be beat up on the guys. And it's not just going to be my male spin. What we're going to do is look equally at these. One a week. That's 10 weeks. So, this is the first week. That's 10 weeks. That's 11 a week. And then we'll have a close-up as well. and we'll just chuck through, and the marriage is gone. Okay? Let's stop. Let's stop right here.