[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Way Community Church Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our mission is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: My name is Darahal and I am the pastor of the Way Community Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you would like to join us as a member or if you simply need prayer or if you want to worship through giving, you can find the links and the transcription of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we continue our conversation about where we stand as a church, we're gonna talk today about where we stand on the subject of marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanna encourage you to follow along to the transcript of this podcast, grab your Bibles, let's study guys work together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pick up lines can be key to the spark of a new love interest and trying to figure out what to say to a person the first time you you say anything to them?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that,
[SPEAKER_01]: That's important because you want them to remember it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to just set the tone for where you're trying to take the relationship and where you want to take the conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are a lot of good pickup lines that I'm sure you have heard or you have used or heard that those of you's.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to put one at the top of the list and I think it's got to be one of the coldest pickup lines in the history of humanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Adam said to Eve, you've borne on my bone.
[SPEAKER_01]: flesh of my flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first moment he saw her, God created Adam first and put Adam to be vice-region of this ecosystem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his anticipation for Adam was not just to keep that garden, but in the words of Dr.
[SPEAKER_01]: Miles Monroe to make the rest of the world as beautiful as the garden he started in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he had complete demand, which means he immediately started to explore the garden and all that was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more he explored, the more he discovered that there was nothing there like him.
[SPEAKER_01]: God solved this as a relational issue in his life and decided to remedy it by creating a woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when Adam saw the woman, he, he, he authenticated her value as equal to him and we see the first wedding.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just the first wedding or first marriage that we'll consider today, but I want you to think about what immediately happened after they said I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: After they said I do all hillbroke loose.
[SPEAKER_01]: First between them, then all around them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Satan got into mis things, and they both send, send into the equation, and from that, they had to live with the grief of losing their fellowship of God, of losing the whole curated for them by God in the garden, of having their older son killed their second older son,
[SPEAKER_01]: and to live in a world where death decay and sickness started to creep in to eat away at this paradise that was shaped for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They left that garden with a lot of things they couldn't take with them like fruit from the tree of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they also left that garden with two things that reminded them of the grace of God in their life.
[SPEAKER_01]: They left that garden covered by the animal skins that God made for them as a picture that sacrifice will cover you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They also left that garden with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And regardless of what they face outside of that garden, they face it together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so from beginning, marriage has been,
[SPEAKER_01]: a beautiful picture of the potential of God's best for us which is why the church needs to have a conversation about marriage because all of us have an opinion about it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether we've been married or not, whether we have married friends or not, we have an opinion or a thought about it so it's important to have a conversation about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a similar tool of churches of the past,
[SPEAKER_01]: who came together for in councils to shape theology.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done the same thing here in the way community church.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a theological committee come together.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took us about a year and a half.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we came together to shape where this church stands or key issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: So today as I share where we stand on marriage, this is not just my opinion.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a unified statement designed by eight people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eight people total four women, four men.
[SPEAKER_01]: within that group were people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we discussed together what scripture says, cultural points of views and our own thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And literally, line by line, word by word, shaped our stance on each subject matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for the last two months, I've been sharing where we stand on gifts of the spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where we stand on leadership, emphasizing the her as a play on words for women and leadership roles.
[SPEAKER_01]: We looked at where we stand on politics on Jesus' identity, on the resurrection, and last week on artificial intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: So today I want to have that same conversation about where do we stand on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing I'm going to give you is one position on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the way community churches of digital position on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the second thing we're going to look at is two questions about marriage and the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then in the end, I'm going to give you three principles about Christian marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the first thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, one position on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's where this church stands on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to read it with me, you can't on account of three.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, two, three.
[SPEAKER_01]: We believe that God created marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis records that God's design for marriage was between one man and one woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, we maintain
[SPEAKER_01]: that any other type of marital union is outside of the will of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fallen nature of humanity resulted in the perversion of marriage in a multitude of ways, and there are many old testament examples of this perversion.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the new testament, real farms, gods, original designs.
[SPEAKER_01]: So whenever you want to build a solid biblical framework for whatever you're trying to understand, it is key to start the first time that subject or issue was mentioned in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we've been dealing with this law of First Mention.
[SPEAKER_01]: The law of First Mention proves that marriage is God's eye deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what was mentioned, Genesis chapter two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 18 says, then the Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will make him a helper suitable for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: God saw a single man, a lonely man in the middle of all he created for him and said, this is not good for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not going to do well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 24.
[SPEAKER_01]: For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and what church be joined to his wife and they shall become what y'all, one flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from the outset, here's some marriage mythbusters that we get just from the first time marriages mentioned in scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is not a human construct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is not a human contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is not just for her and marriage is not just for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that important?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's a whole lot of opinions about marriage swirling on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on,
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is not a human construct.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are those who feel like marriage is just this human construct to keep us, you know, to force us into an agumous relationship when we are not an agumous by nature, is just this human construct.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's actually not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is God's idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: The potential of marriage is so beautiful that only God could have created something with that much, potential in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, it's also not a human crime track.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice there's no judges, no lawyers, or no court in this garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, now some people may say, see, that's why we only have to put a ring on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can just go to a garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just go standing in the garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm saying is it's more than a human contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all picking it on what I'm putting down?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you reduce it only to its legalities, then you miss out on the potential of what a covenant can be, which far exceeds contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is also not just for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I heard the famous basketball player say that marriage only benefits the moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said it with his chest.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was on some podcast, some after-dark podcast, and I saw a highlight of it on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was sitting across from a chick and I'm assuming he was trying to get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So his whole approach was, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I could tell off camera when he was trying to slide, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: But on camera, he goes to say, marriage is just for women.
[SPEAKER_01]: What benefit does marriage have?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only to give a woman security.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I disagree, marriage is not just for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because she was not the one with the armament relational need.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was the answer to the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the one with the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: because I'm gonna be thinking, you know, then this Patriarch, Patriarchyarchy, marriage is just for you to come under the power of a man who controls you and tells you what they're doing, Blas A. Blah, not the type of marriage God desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know marriage was not just for him, because as soon as he saw her, he didn't subjectate her.
[SPEAKER_01]: He honored her as equal in all things.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't say when he saw her, yeah, you beneath me, I control you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do what I say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he said, you bone on my bone, you flesh on my flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, you, you equal to me like nothing else I've ever experienced.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a few other plans we noticed from the first marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marriage is the first human to human relationship in history.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that important?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we got other relationships, a focus we love, and we struggle not to love them more than we love our spouse.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how's she gonna love us on more than she love out of?
[SPEAKER_01]: You might got a cousin, you love, you might got a grandma, you love, you might have a sibling, you love.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time humans related to humans was through the covenant of marriage, and marriage is the only human relationship that existed before sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every other human relationship came to be after Sam was in the mix.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and the first man is what we see is that there are three parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: His God is one man and his one woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: His three parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And God could have made that any way he wanted.
[SPEAKER_01]: but God chose in the first to set the tone.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, more man than one woman, which is why at some weddings, I read this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he cleans the assies chapter four verse 9 through 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor.
[SPEAKER_01]: For if either of them falls, the woman will lift up his companion, but walk to the one who falls, when there is not another to lift them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Furthermore, if two lie down together, they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?
[SPEAKER_01]: If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at this, a court of what church, three strands is not quickly torn apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is some marital math right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what it's saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: One person alone can do with two can together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And two can only stay together if the two is really three.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're on your own, you might not get as far as if you had a companion.
[SPEAKER_01]: You won't even get as much out of your labor because you don't have a partner who's laboring with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you fall, who's gonna pick you up?
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all have failed many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many times and many seasons that I probably would not have made it through.
[SPEAKER_01]: If Ed was a deader, pick me up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it says, but a three-strand court is not quickly torn apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the third strand?
[SPEAKER_01]: God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get it, picking up what I'm putting down.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so that's our one position on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, on number two, let's look at two questions about marriage and the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: As your pastor, it's not a subject that I'm unwilling to approach.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these two questions that I'm trying to wrestle with in front of you is not because I fully understand
[SPEAKER_01]: everything about them but because I want to display for you what it looks like to be faithful and be honest about what you don't understand, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, it's religion that makes you avoid certain uneasy topics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Faithfulness will help you dive into something that is a
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's two questions about marriage in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna ask out loud that many of you have asked me one way or another in some of the acts for my answer on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost shared is, it's best I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the first question we're gonna wrestle with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is polygamy in the Bible?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, here's the second question.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna be wrestle with that is, what about divorce and remarriage?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, now, if the Lord says the same, I'll come back to this fall and teach a whole series on marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're gonna dive in now, which all, you know, we could be here the next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: We each want to meet.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'll pick on the road on put now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the first question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is there polygamy in the Bible?
[SPEAKER_01]: Real?
[SPEAKER_01]: You just said that God made one man in one woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then why in the Bible, we see people with multiple spouses.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's up with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the simple answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: The simple answer is because saying in people makes us pervert everything God made to be pure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not enough, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That can be true and not complex enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: The complexity of this, though, is very layered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the first layer.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first layer is, just because something is recorded in the Bible does not mean it represents God's standard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of us have the wrong idea about Muslim and Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: If somebody comes in and says, oh, is that in the Bible?
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends on just because it's in there, don't mean it's what God wants to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can just be a record of what was done.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is not a religious book full of thou shalt and thou shalt not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually 70% narrative or story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you find in these stories is the same thing you find in every other good story.
[SPEAKER_01]: The good, the bad, and the...
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Bible is not about, do this, don't do this, every chapter, every verse.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's mostly stories, and what we see is in the ugly of humanity, the consistent beauty of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the Bible is about, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first layer to this, but we don't go deeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Real, so you're saying the Bible is about God's holding this God's faithfulness, God's, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what about the godly people who practice polygamy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's not just people practice polygamy, it's people who love God, did it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna give you some names, like Jacob.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob, whose name became Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: became the father of 12 sons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those 12 sons became the chiefs of the 12 tribes of Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of them was Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great, great, great, great granddaddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: His name was Judah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, Jacob had 12 sons, but he also had faux baby mumbles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they all lived in the same house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the family God used the brain that saved me to the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob showed up.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was running away from his big brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he went to go live with a relative when he got there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He saw a woman so fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says she was beautiful in form and face.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the Bible, say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it in the Bible?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says Rachel was beautiful and form and face.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this man was so enthralled by this woman that he said, we're her daddy, whatever he calls.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you want for me, so I can take that above your hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was like, look, work for me for seven years, then you can marry her.
[SPEAKER_01]: This man worked for seven years and waited the whole time.
[SPEAKER_01]: They get to the weather reception, they get towed up from the flow up.
[SPEAKER_01]: They throw through.
[SPEAKER_01]: On wedding night Jacob goes in and he and then like girl, I waited saving.
[SPEAKER_01]: long years, and she just quiet, she ain't saying, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoo!
[SPEAKER_01]: He's sleeping off.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wake up the next day a little bit more sober, and he wake up like, ooh, you are born on my parr.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's your muffler.
[SPEAKER_01]: until the sun light peaked through the window and lights up on the face of his bride and he realized this ain't the one that he worked seven years for.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how old the sister.
[SPEAKER_01]: No wonder she was quiet.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's up with this?
[SPEAKER_01]: The falloffs that, oh, man, I forgot to tell you seven years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't marry the younger sister before the older sister married.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should've told you my bad, below.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one you wanted to marry, you can marry her too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the only thing I need from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need you to work for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven more years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this woman was so fine, he said.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he is a married two sisters and they both come with a hand made.
[SPEAKER_01]: These sisters get into a fertility fight in the home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the one he loved couldn't produce children, she said, well, here, take my hand made.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like, oh, good.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you insist, years later, he ends up with 12 kids, my phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he heard the story of this baby boy named Samuel, who grew up to be this mighty man of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: His mama name was Hannah.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was a faithful woman who loved the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: She just kind of helped children.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she prayed to the Lord for a child of the Lord Gabriel child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was married to a man named El cano or El cano.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also had another wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her name was Penenta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Penenta Kahawk kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was always pregnant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The P.M. Penenta stands for pregnant.
[SPEAKER_01]: The H in Hannah stands for Can't Get Breaker.
[SPEAKER_01]: That didn't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she prayed to the Lord and the Lord opened a war.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then King David might be another good example.
[SPEAKER_01]: King David, the Bible says, is a man after God's own heart and this man has multiple women.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he also had an appetite problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because he was King, who was going to stop him from getting what he want?
[SPEAKER_01]: David decided he wanted one of the closest men in his life wife, so he used his authority as commandor and chief to set this man up to be killed in war, so he can secretly or openly marry his widow, even though he used his power to make her a widow, so he can make her his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: God was mad when he did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look what God said to him after this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to throw you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second Samuel chapter 12 verse eight says, I also gave you your master's house and put your master's wives into your care.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I gave you the house of Israel and Judah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that God telling David that I gave you a bunch of wives?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want it more, I would have gave you more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would a God who created us to be monogamous, say something like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I be honest?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't pretend to know the full mind of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I think is happening in this text, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is more about letting me meet your knees than it is about you can have as many women as you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think God's issue with David was his grittyness made him manipulate circumstances to meet his own need when God said, I gave you everything you could have asked for.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you needed something, you should have came to me and I would have fulfilled your soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead you trying to go around me to get what you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I think that passage is about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But David had an issue, David's issue, is he would try to satisfy himself with women.
[SPEAKER_01]: And guess what, his son had the same issue, his son's Solomon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at this passage and first king, chopped it 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: Solomon had seven hundred wives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who went do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: 700 birthday, 700 valentines, 700 adversaries, y'all know he went doing none of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not it, and 300 concubines, but here's what a Bible tells the truth and his wives deal with.
[SPEAKER_01]: turn his heart away.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, the Bible tells the truth on if you want to do wrong, the Lord not going to take your free will, but the Bible also going to tell the truth on the consequences your own free will brought into your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what God essentially says to Solomon, I know you got a wise mind, but you don't have a faithful heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not going to even give you a heart capable of being faithful to me, because you can't be faithful to nobody.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's hard, it's turning away from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because how could I keep my heart on God when I can't keep faithfulness and the most important covenant in my life?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's interesting is Solomon wrote some of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the books he wrote is Proverbs, another book he wrote is Song of Solomon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Song of Solomon is a love story.
[SPEAKER_01]: The name of God ain't mentioned nowhere in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-uh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love story, I'm going to leave it right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my sister, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my mama speaking through my sister.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a love story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another McGee wrote his Proverbs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time Solomon wrote about marriage, he always wrote about the wife in the singular, not the plural, even though he had a thousand wives and curcub irons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Legal with Solomon said in Proverbs, Proverbs 5 or 8, 10, let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the white church, wife of your youth.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Proverbs 12 or 4.
[SPEAKER_01]: And ex-select wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shangs him is like rotting his bones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proverbs 1822, he who finds a wife singular, finds a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't say he who finds wives, finds good things, Proverbs 1914, house and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the lower.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proverbs 3110, an excellent wife, rhetorical question, who can find her?
[SPEAKER_01]: for her work as far as I'm Jews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Solomon was one of those people who knew right, even though he did wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ever have somebody do wrong, but tell you right?
[SPEAKER_01]: As they do wrong, look man.
[SPEAKER_01]: You wanna protect your lungs at all, call for them, tell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to put their paws in it, you don't want them to tell me what she starts, you can't stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to tell me right to do as you do wrong?
[SPEAKER_01]: Solomon had a thousand enough to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just get one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I telling the truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I went to the Massamara.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an animal reserved in Kenya.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are massage people there who are indigenous to the region.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we went to what would be like a village that they would have lived in history.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the chief of that particular branch of the tribe was there to host us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so while we walking around and talking, the chief tells us the story that his father had 10 wives.
[SPEAKER_01]: So me, you know, 19 year old man, I'm inquisitive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Raise my hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: He asked me, yeah, he, and now let's be honest, hey man, how many wives do you have?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, oh, I have one wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: A few more men is went by, I got another question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Raise my hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: He and now let's be like, why don't that have 10 wives, but you only have one?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said,
[SPEAKER_01]: because I saw my father's life with Ted, and realized I only need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the major key.
[SPEAKER_01]: The major key is this, you only need one.
[SPEAKER_01]: just pray to God that you find the right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: 700 husbands, 300 sugar daddy's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to keep you from thinking you need a zaddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[UNKNOWN]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is about as much as I can do with something that complex in that amount of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the second question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, what about divorce and remarriage?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The simple answer is that God hates divorce, but it is not an unforgivable sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when it comes to divorce, this is a complex conversation, and I am going to hear in a second read and teach what the Bible says about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to be honest about the complexity of it, and here it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: When a marriage dissolves, nobody else truly knows what happened in that relationship other than the two who were in that relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's easy to say, let's skirt to teachers, and you can be right, but it's not easy to know how to apply that tool situation you didn't have to live one day in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that makes this conversation complex, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here are two passages that are very clear on what the Bible teaches about divorce.
[SPEAKER_01]: First Corinthians 7, verse 10 through 11, says, but to the Mary that I give instructions, not by the Lord, that the wife is not to leave her husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if she does leave, she must remain our Mary or it'll be reconciled to our husband, and that the husband is not to divorce his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew chapter 19, verse 3, through 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him, and asking, is it lawful for man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?
[SPEAKER_01]: And said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife in a two-shel-become one flesh?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just quoted the same verse we read.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jim is just too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So they had no longer two but one flesh, therefore, where God has joined together, let no man put us under, let no person suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: They said to him, why the end, the Bible said, why Moses said in the Old Testament that you can just give us a certificate of divorce and you good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus said to them, because of the hardness of your heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: because you were stubborn in what you wanted, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, from the first marriage, this was not the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, or husband divorces her, right divorce her husband, except for sexual immorality, and marriage another woman commits adultery.
[SPEAKER_01]: These disciples, all they teenagers, they hear him say all this is an ACA.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if it's like that, then we might as well just not get married.
[SPEAKER_01]: The disciples here, Jesus, talking, and they're like, I'll even ignore if I want to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're saying it's like that, it's better to not do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you see there is a sobriety because they understand the severity of the covenant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Jesus' answer is so plain and clear it don't need no interpretation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It don't matter what it means in the Greek.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to change the clarity of what Jesus just said.
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially what Jesus is saying is, a sigh from adultery, God does not permit divorce.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it could be said that marriage is the most sacred covenant that a human can have with another.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could also be said that sex is the most sacred act that a human can perform with another, which is why adultery is so terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: adultery is terrible, but it is not unforgivable.
[SPEAKER_01]: God hates divorce, but loves the divorcee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna slow down through here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure, I don't know why it's only one thing on this list of what God would approve for divorce.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause I can think of like three or four miles.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been on this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: abuse in all forms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Physical, verbal, psychological, financial, sexual, it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or or?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just completely finding out your spouse is somebody totally different than you thought they were.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number, I mean, hey, just, I mean, just complete sabotage, or, or, or, or, you stay in ages walked away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to stand here today, get back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not down the lower.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not disrespecting the lower.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just admitting where my understanding stops.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't get why it's not a few more things on that list, but I'm not God.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I can't say is, hearing lies, the tension of knowing what the Bible says and being faithful to a play it to different contexts, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to tell a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a story about my pastoral experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to tell you, I've been a pastor.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a glamorous job.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an honorable one, but it's not a glamorous one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of the weight of what you say, what you do, the eternal implications, is not something that you want to just walk into, unless the Lord just tell you that you can't be a rapper.
[SPEAKER_01]: You post to be a pastor.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a couple in this church, and I'm gonna try to tell this story in a way that protects their dignity, because they are in their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm gonna look down and I'm straight ahead, because I don't want to make a mistake to make eye contact with them while I'm telling the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then y'all be all up in a cool way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Years ago, when we were not yet in the wake of a new church, when we were even sequins, they came to me, they desired to be married, and they acknowledged that they had both been in a previous marriage, and they had both been divorced.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were concerned about some of the passages I just read to you, and what these passages could mean for their potential union.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that union would be God or a danger or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had to have an honest conversation with them,
[SPEAKER_01]: If we discover that they're only would not be God or they ain't, I couldn't perform in the weather.
[SPEAKER_01]: Monge is one man and one woman, but that's multiple ways to be avert marriage, and this could be one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had some honest conversations about both of their previous marriages, and my simple question to them was, at any time,
[SPEAKER_01]: In that marital dynamic, had adultery happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or since those relationships had been dissolved, had any one of them or their exes already moved on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say, moved on, I mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: had they been up through that with somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we discovered was whether it was pre-divourse for one couple or post-divourse for the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: the act had already happened in one way or another, which equates to which scripted the fines as adultery, but as what breaks that coming in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all picking up what I'm playing now?
[SPEAKER_01]: So then in that moment, I had to acknowledge that yes adultery is saying, but it's not unforgivable.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's what my pastoral advice was, I couldn't bend no, I'm 39 now, I couldn't bend no older than 30.
[SPEAKER_01]: My pastoral advice was, hey, sense, what has, sense, what scripture says, dissolves a marriage has already happened in one way or another.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about in this moment, we each repent individually, for whatever part we play and move forward and mercy.
[SPEAKER_01]: because even though it's wrong, it's forgivable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can't live under the burden of that for the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we did it, we prayed, they both did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I still married them in good faith, in good conscience before God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They said, I do, and all these years later, they still do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those two questions are important ones, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you read in the Bible, you know, who?
[SPEAKER_01]: When they give me happiness, the Bible is fine on the voice, but it's serious, but it's not unforgivable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm saying that to the person in the wrong, who was struggling with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So few groups in this room, I agree with it right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the top of that list is widows, widowers.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you loved and lost, because the Lord decided to separate you all by death,
[SPEAKER_01]: You at the top of that list.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you divorce for whatever reason, maybe you was in mature, maybe you picked them for the wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you need to talk to God before you pick them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you got in and in and was like, woo!
[SPEAKER_01]: This ain't it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you got out of it, you mature.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now you own your second marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to move to your second marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with the people in this room who carry burdens around this conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: wanting to do my best to tell the truth about the scriptures, but also tell the truth in love, cause every situation that you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all picking up what I'm putting down?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, number three.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three truths about Christian marriage, and I'll let you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the first truth about Christian marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a picture of Jesus and the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it important because when you're trying to meet somebody or you're trying to hook up and you ask them, when they birthday is, you tell them when your birthday is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you a foodie?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you like movies?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your favorite color?
[SPEAKER_01]: all these levels of accountability and compatibility you're looking for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you say, I do, your marriage really ain't even about the fact that you're both like pizza.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your marriage really is a whole lot deeper than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your marriage should show people what the relationship is like between Jesus and the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't make this up, Ephesians chapter 5, first started in 133, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: The two shall become one flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: This mystery is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am speaking with reference to what y'all Christ and the Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nevertheless, ask for you individually.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each husband is to love his own wife, the same as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christian marriage points to something greater than it, something beyond it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, why is that a picture of Jesus and the Church?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because,
[SPEAKER_01]: because it glorifies God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a way that proves only God could make two knuckle heads, look like Jesus and the church together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I telling the truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the temptation.
[SPEAKER_01]: The temptation is to look at your marriage and say, well, my marriage don't look like Jesus and the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as you start looking at how your marriage on a little light Jesus in the church, you know what you do, you make a list of all the reasons why it don't look like Jesus in the church and it's 10 reasons on your list, why don't and 90 on your spouse list.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey y'all, my name is Darrell Hall.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a recovering critica.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how Ed made it through the first two years of our marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I critiqued everything she did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did it out of ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't grow up in the house where marriage was in my house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody in my immediate family was married.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had extended family members who were married.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where I get all these ideas of what a white should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know I was eating the way it like, so I thought I was helping.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: I must have burnt my head on the whole spirit got my attention, but what I learned was when you look at your marriage and compare it to Christ in the church and you realize where it's incongruent, start with Joe Park first.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's how it should feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should be so focused on the incongruent season, our relationship that I caused,
[SPEAKER_01]: that I'm exhausted with the Lord working on me so I find comfort in the arms of my spouse who love me even though I don't love myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you say, Rev?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop critiquing them and let the Lord convict you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I promise you, if you open up to the Lord showing you you, you're gonna be so tired of seeing you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you not gonna have no energy to fight them.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time you get mad, they're gonna be tired of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You hold me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm tired.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's wrong with you being running?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: You been to the gym?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: You been at work?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is I'm tired?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's a lot of dealing with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm tired of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even know I was a weirdo.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You thank you normal to you get married.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd think your home life was normal to you get married.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then when you see normalcy on the other side, you'd be like, wait, I'm from the crazy family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I telling the truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Social picture of Jesus in the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, Christian marriage is a threat to the enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christian marriage is a threat to the enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I son of a tag.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why you have in conversations with your friends and they tell them you crazy stuff about marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's a human cause, true.
[SPEAKER_01]: God never made us a me with one person.
[SPEAKER_01]: They probably not lawyer why you ban lawyer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you are here knowing you believe but you're hearing this from another side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even knowing that your marriage is under attack because it's a threat to darkness.
[SPEAKER_01]: because your marriage ain't about you getting what you want when you want how you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: And y'all like pizza together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your marriage is a picture of Jesus in the church and a testimony of the goodness of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: How was my marriage of testimony on the goodness of God, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: When two people who know only God got us this far, still together,
[SPEAKER_01]: What that tells the world and the darkness and the devil is and they know you can throw this way that God can see us through and God ain't gonna get glory for That's why I support to the enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You remember when you was dead all you could see is what y'all had in common You like you go to church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I go to church too You like music.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I like music too
[SPEAKER_01]: Then soon as you get married, all you could see is which I don't have in common.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, soon as you say I do, all of a sudden, who are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the tissue coming out of the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: You like the tissue rolled out of the bottom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh!
[SPEAKER_01]: You turn off every light out of everyone you walk out of, and you leave on every light of everyone you walk out of.
[SPEAKER_01]: You walk out of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you, why are you so meticulous?
[SPEAKER_01]: All you got, you just put your shoes at the front.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, every time you walk in, we're a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: You wear your shoes into the house, all the way to the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I telling you I'm true?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a never-sman money.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a never-not-sman money.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't cook.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't cook.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're dead, all you see is what you got in Kermit.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you marry all you see is, you
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a look at the battery and realize it's a positive side in a negative side and the power don't flow without polarity.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ought to be grateful for the opposite in your spouse, who balances out what you don't have because you can't have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, that's another line, ain't gonna hold you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Girl, you're the plus to all my negative.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are pal!
[SPEAKER_00]: One new working pal!
[SPEAKER_00]: LAUGHTER Resurrection!
[SPEAKER_00]: LAUGHTER Doing numbers, pal!
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all, give me all this poopy, I'm... LAUGHTER I'm too far gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I'm almost done, first 74, one, two, three.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the spirit explicitly says that in later times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits, and teachings of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience as what are branding iron, who would, for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: While with demonic teaching for being marriage,
[SPEAKER_01]: While it demons and darkness for be it marriage, because a Christian marriage is a threat to the enemy, because there's a testimony of the grace of God, because only the grace of God could have killed two people like us and made us one for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number three, I'm let you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the last thing about Christian marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy, but it can be beautifully rewarded.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna sit up here a lot of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can love the Lord, He heard your cry.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can read the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The toughest role in my life I currently have is father.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the role that's caused me to sacrifice the most and grow the most is husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot be in a Christian marriage long without growing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it can be beautifully rewarded.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's what I want to encourage you to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love your spouse so well that they are forced to dig deep to believe they're even worthy of such love.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should be loving your spouse beyond what they feel like they are working.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should make them be like, how?
[SPEAKER_01]: Respect your spouse so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: that it make you deal with imposter syndrome of why somebody so wonderful chose you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the last thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: See Jesus in your spouse so vividly that the stuff you used to criticize, now you pray that God will help you be like that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey man, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey man, give me a little hand type of praise if you would.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate it.