Family Relationships

Introduction

But I beg you a pleasant good morning again. Memory is such a wonderful thing, such a grandiose gift from God. It allows us the blessed privilege of storing up bits of information. Good information and bad information both. And then when the occasion demands it to regurgitate that information, to recall it, to recollect it. To remember it and look at it all over again. And sometimes we can even remember how the smell was or how the scene was or how the clouds were or how the terrible devastation was. Memory is just a wonderful gift from God. I have recollections of so many wonderful people in this audience. It would be an enjoyable, interesting, and uh profitable endeavor to just start with some of the people in the audience that I’ve known and with whom I’ve shared very pleasant and inspiring moments, some of whom with which with whom I have cried, and tell you what kind of enjoyment I’ve gotten out of both the good and bad that we’ve shared.

Thank you so much for restoring in my heart today so many recollections of so many good things that we’ve enjoyed together. I have a great respect and regard for this congregation of God’s people, not only because of what you are personally, but what you do collectively in the kingdom of the Lord. It’s been a very inspiring service this morning, one that I’ve enjoyed and profited from. And I pray God that He was glorified, and I believe Him to have been so.

I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, said the Apostle Paul. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith unto faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. I’m reading from Romans chapter 1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God hath shown it to them. For the invisible things from him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own flesh to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature, and likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men working with men, that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. I’m not naive enough a Bible student to assume that Paul looked down through the annals of history and came to the year 2000 and penned with the pen of inspiration what he saw in 2013.

But I must say to you that it is an accurate depiction of how we are today. It is a shame and a disgrace where we’re headed. I am very nate by very nature a positive person. In fact, I have been vehemently talked to about being too positive. But I must say to you that I believe that Paul has described our present age in this description from Rome. The fact of the matter is that the home in this generation, which is the fabric of that society, has been decimated. It has been fragmented, it has been torn into shreds. The husband has left the place of honor that God gave him when he created him in the marriage relationship. He’s gone off in directions that God never had in mind.

1. Return to God’s Law of Order

She’s gone in a different place. There is nothing wrong, and don’t you go away and say that I said it was wrong for a woman to work outside the home. But she must be a home keeper first. And if she cannot be a homekeeper first, she better quit her job and go home. Because that is part of the problem that has decimated the home. We must turn back, ladies and gentlemen, to God’s order, to how God had it planned, to the way God wanted it done. I want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians, please, the 11th chapter. And I want to read a very simple passage of Scripture, albeit a very powerful one. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I have delivered them unto you. Please stop. Don’t take those words for granted. He speaks here of what has been ordained. That means something that came from God. That means something that God wants protected. It means that it’s something that He does not want added to nor diminished from. It means that the power of it must remain extant throughout all ages.

Praise you that you remember me and keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you. But I would not have you, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ. And the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. That is what I have chosen to call God’s law. God’s law of order. God is always first in order, no matter the relationship. Christ is always next to God in this plan that God had for the redemption of man’s soul. Christ, without whom there would be no good example for marriage or society. He is the ruler over all moral endeavors. And then the woman is to be in subjection to the man. Hear me carefully, ladies, hear me carefully.

That no more indicates weakness in the woman when she submits to the headship of the man than it indicates weakness in Christ when he submits to the headship of God. It is God’s role for Christ. It is God’s role for the woman that she be a help meet to the man. And the disregard for this order has done damage. I will not say irreparable damage, but it has done damage to the home as God would have it. And as goes the home, ladies and gentlemen, so goes society. The home was the very first divine arrangement by God. He made a man, and when he saw that it was not good for man to be alone, he said, I’ll make a help meet for him. And he created the woman.

2. Love Is the Predicate of a Good Marriage

And he said they too will remain one flesh. They will become one flesh. Just because there is no immediate punishment for disregarding these things does not mean that that’s not going to happen. So I want to encourage you to return to the original order of God, to return to God’s law of order and place our confidence there and make sure that we walk in that way. Well, what do we do about the decimation of the home? Let me just say to you, first of all, that a house is not a home. A home is a house, but it’s a house with love in it. I want to suggest to you that to make marriage work, there must first of all be love. Love is the predicate on which a good marriage is formed.

Once we understand God’s law of order, then we begin to make the motive that God had in mind for that order a part of the divine relationship of marriage. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have faith so that I can remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Paul then, in this 1 Corinthians 13 chapter, personifies love. Let me say that word again.

He personifies love. He said, if love were a person, here’s how you could recognize him. If love were a person, here’s how she would look. Watch carefully. Love suffereth long. If you want a marriage to work, you’ll have to learn to suffer long with a mate. My wife does several things that just drive me nuts. I don’t ever tell them about tell her about them. Because I understand the business of love. There are things that don’t make any difference. They’re just things that are kind of offensive to me. And I realize that if I am being tolerated, if I tolerate her, maybe she will tolerate the multitudinous number that I have. Because I have more than she has, and I know that. So love is kind and suffers long.

In many marriage relationships today, we not only don’t have husbands that don’t suffer long, we have husbands that don’t suffer short. In fact, husbands don’t suffer at all. If they get mad, they walk off. Or if they get mad, they say some bad thing and go off and get in the car, screech down the high, go somewhere else. That’s poor. P O R E poor. You ought not to be doing that sort of kind of thing. Love does not operate that way. And love is the fundament. Love is the predicate on which the marriage relationship exists. Love, he said, is kind. Are you aware that our English word kind is akin to our English word kin? Adam reproduced after his own kind. The things that God created reproduced after their own kind.

That simply means that we treat one another like we’re kin to one another. Like we actually love one another. Then he says, love envyeth not. Love doesn’t operate on jealousy. Love does not vaunt itself. Humility is a hot is a huge part of love. We don’t understand, I think, humility. Humility is not something where you crook your shoulders like this and put your neck down like that and just barely look up at your mate. That isn’t humility. Humility is putting yourself at the disposal of her. It’s putting yourself at the disposal of him. If you’re going to be a good husband or a good wife, you’ll have to put yourself at the disposal of your mate. That means that you’re not going to vaunt yourself and make yourself strong.

That means that you’re going to have an uh an attitude of humility, an attitude of wanting to serve, an attitude of wanting to help. Do you have that kind of thing? Vaunteth not itself. Is not puffed up. The male ego has an inclination to puff up. If we’re going to be good husbands, we must love our wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it. I know you’re aware of that, but do you think of it? Is it a part of your operational procedure in your marriage? Is it how you handle your marriage? Do you go about your marriage relationship with a love that emulates and replicates the love of Christ for the church? Is that what you do? I’ll guarantee if you do that, it’s going to make your marriage a stronger entity than it’s ever been before.

It’ll have a kind of a strong constitution about it. It’ll have a real good persuasive dynamic about it. It will have a good motive and it will send you in the right direction all the time. I’ll tell you one way that I think we need to humiliate ourselves and stop this business of being puffed up, is holding hands. Let me ask you a question. How long since you held hands with your wife? Now, way to go, guys. I’m not talking about a wedding somewhere. I’m not talking about some special occasion. I’m talking about how long has you has it been since you held hands with your wife? You ought to hold hands with your wife all the time. She ought to hold her hands with you.

She ought to reach over and take your hand all the time. Because that’s how love operates. It humbles itself and makes itself accessible all the time. You ever do that? Just a mere suggestion. I think maybe it would help your marriage, though, if you did it. And could I say something to you? I don’t care that you’ve been married 50 years. It doesn’t make me any difference about that. It’s still her hand. It’s still your hand. It’s your hand and her hand. And there’s something significant about that. It just says that this togetherness thing is something we’re serious about. It says that love is ingrained in our relationship. It’s a kind of a coupling together. You know, there are two kinds of hand holding. I found this out a long time ago.

There’s a kind of hand holding where you just hold one another’s hand like that. Then there’s a kind of hand over where you open your hand and you take her hand like that. That’s the kind of hand holding I’m talking about. That’s the kind of love that is not puffed up. It’s just gonna say, I’m yours and you’re mine, and I sure am glad. And if you’re not experiencing that, you’re you’re you’re missing out on something in your marriage. Love behaveth not herself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked. I tell you, if you’re gonna have a good marriage, you’re gonna have to learn to have a fuss. There’s a certain way to have a fuss. And you just have to work to get it down.

If you have a fuss where everybody’s mad and it causes a separation, you you’re just she’s never gonna be happy. You’ll have these little old spats all the time, and the first thing you know, they’ll get bigger and bigger. My wife and I, she did something that just made me mad as a wet hand. And so we were driving around the loop in Houston, and uh I told her right quick, like that I was not pleased with what she said. And I wasn’t pleased with how she was acting, and I was mad about it. And she uh I was driving down the road, and she looked over at me, and I looked over at her, and I was mad. She said, I think it’s gonna rain.

3. Wives Love Their Husbands as a Help Meet

Now here I am, here I am, I’m mad. I am mad, I mean tell you all the way down to my toes, I’m mad. And she’s saying, I think it’s gonna rain. Well, I thought to myself, you big dummy, don’t you understand that she’s trying to rebuild the fence? So I slid my hand over toward hers. She slid her hand. And I said, I’m sorry. And she said, I’m sorry. Holding hands. We drove right down the freeway in the rain. Listen to me. Wives need to love their husbands and seek their best interests. When the scripture says that God said, I’ll make a help meet. We emphasize that meat business and we say, well, that means suitable. We need to make sure that we understand it was a help suitable.

Listen to me, ladies and gentlemen. He looked at the man and saw that he needed help. And he gave a help meet. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that we need help. And I want to say to you that if your marriage is what it ought to be, the woman’s role is this to make the man become all that he can become, is the first manifestation of her love for him. She is to make him everything that he can become. She is his help suitable. She helps him in every way. She helps him when he’s down, she helps him when he’s up. She helps him in every way, whether it has to do with the children or the home, or it has to do with the church, whichever it is, they’re together.

4. Love Rejoices Not in Iniquity but in the Truth

Don’t we understand that marriage is togetherness? That’s what it’s all about. They twain shall become one flesh. Is not just saying about the business of sexual intercourse. It has to do with the bonding relationship that takes place and the love that’s in it. Love, then, is the basis. You have to love your husband and be a help meet for him. Love doesn’t behave itself unseemly, seeketh not our own, is not easily provoked. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity. Homes are going to have problems as it come along. And you’re going to have disagreements. And we have to understand that we need to go back to the Bible all the time. No marriage is going to hold together very long that is based on human philosophy. Lawlessness in the world.

We talked about that a while ago. You look at Romans the first chapter, and you see how people have gone to the extent that they’ve gone in this age. I tell you, it’s it’s awful. We are presently immersed. Listen to me, we are presently immersed in entertainment. It doesn’t make any difference who you are. If you’re not an entertainer, people are not going to pay any attention to you. We have to have entertainment every hour of every day. We got to have it when we go to bed at night. We can’t go to bed without watching the last bit of the entertainments that’s on for that day. We’re immersed in it. Whatever happened to divorcing yourself from all of the activities of present uuresses and situations and just sitting off and being together as as a man and a wife and just conversation.

Whatever happened to conversation, maybe that’s the best way to say it. Whatever happened to just simple conversation. Truth.

The marriage that is God’s kind of marriage does not rejoice in lawless things. It rejoices in the truth. And the truth has to constantly be protected. You’ve got to constantly be shining it. My grandpa, he was shaving one day when I walked in. He was a veterinarian. And I said, What are you doing, Grandpa? He said, I’m shaving. And he began to talk to me, and he said, if you want to get along in life, you’ve got to keep a smile on your face and a shine on your shoes. And listen to me, truth has to constantly be brushed off. You’ve got to keep it shining all the time. And the only way that’s going to happen is that you have intercourse that’s not sexual, but intercourse that is conversational.

Get to know one another. Be with one another. Entertainment is not what life is all about. Entertainment’s going to pass, by the way. It won’t be long till people will say, Elvis, who? They never heard of him. That’s all going to pass away. But your husband or your wife is yours for a lifetime. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they’ll fail and went along. And he says, There abideth these three, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. I want to say something to you. Those three things in the marriage relationship are inseparably connected. They cannot be divorced. Faith produces hope. And hope and faith are predicated on love.

5. Good Children, the Finest Product of a Godly Family

Love is the basis for everything. Faith and hope come out of that love. The grace of God is the love of God. The grace of God gets predicated on the love of God. And that’s how your marriage relationship must be. Faith, hope, and love ought to be characteristic of the marriage relationship. Well, how do we have a good family? Well, first of all, we have a good husband and we have a good wife. And then we have good children. What makes a marriage work? Good children. There isn’t anything any better. Good children are the finest product of a godly family. You have any? How you feel about them? We need to be with our children. We need to make sure that our children are with us.

We need to understand that good children, as I said, will behave because they see it in us. Good children will do good because they’ve been taught to have their own convictions. We need to teach our children to have their own faith. And that starts when they’re little teeny. You get them in class and you get them and you talk about those things and you have conversations about it. Good children honor and obey their parents. I tell you what I see in the day and age that is before us. I see too many children who don’t honor their parents. Let me say that again. I see far too many children who do not honor their parents. One reason for that is that we’re immersed in a cult of youth.

We think everything has to go toward young people. We want to look younger, we want to talk younger, we want to run younger, we want to do everything younger. We don’t respect wisdom. We don’t respect experience. We need to teach our children to respect wisdom and experience. We need to teach them that they ought to pay attention to their parents. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. Good children are ready to hear instruction, and we need to teach them to hear our instructions. And then good children need so desperately to be loved. I’m afraid we’re too busy for our children sometimes. I’m afraid the mother’s working and she comes home and she’s got 900 chores to do, and the husband, he’s busy, he’s got to get to the golf course as quickly as he can.

And the first thing you know, the children are just left to watch the television or to turn on the internet or do the things that that do. Uh we need to love our children more than that. We need to love them with a fervor that says, I want for you what is best for you. Love them enough to discipline them, love them enough to teach them about God. Love them enough to make them understand what is important. I tell you what. You better love your kids while they’re young because you’re going to turn around about three times and they’ll be gone. One of these days you’ll shout, why don’t you kids grow up and act your age? And they will. Or you guys get outside now, find something to do, and don’t slam the door, and they will.

Bumper stickers all discarded, spread, tucked and smooth, toys displayed on the shelves, hangers in the closet, animals caged, and you’ll say out loud, now I want it to stay that way. And it will.

Silence, do you hear? And you’ll have it. No more plastic tablecloth stained with spaghetti. No more bedspreads to protect from damp bottoms. No more gates to stumble over at the top of the basement steps. No more clothespins under the sofa. No more play pens to arrange the room around. No more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent. No more sand on the sheets. Or Popeye movies in the bathroom. No more iron-on patches. Well knotted tight shoestrings or rubber bands for ponytails. Imagine a lipstick with a point on it. No babysitter for New Year’s Eve. Washing your hair only once a week. Seeing a steak that isn’t ground, having your teeth cleaned without a baby on your lap. No PTA meetings. No carpools. No blaring radios. No one washing her hair at 11 o’clock at night.

Having your own roll of transparent tape. Think about it. No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste. No more sloppy oatmeal kisses. No more tooth fairy. No more Easter bunny. Only a voice crying, why don’t you grow up? And the silence echoing. We did. Irma Bombeck. And so true. Love your kids. Don’t ever stop hugging your kids. Love needs to be as physical as it possibly can without being inordinate. Love your kids. But let me suggest something else. Don’t love them to the exclusion of your mate. Because just as Mrs. Bombeck points out, they’re going to be gone pretty soon. Your kids you’ll have with you for about 20, 25 years. God willing, you’ll have your wife for 50. You better keep the friendship alive and active.

Conclusion

And so do we how do we have a good home? Well, maybe we ought to pass some new laws about it. Or maybe we ought to just uh make divorce real easy and and just let people do what they want to whenever they want to with whoever they want to and just go through life that way. Do we need more and more laws or punishment for crime? Do we need to make that stiffer? Or what do we what about gangs and drive-by shootings and and lewd bookstores and licentious music and chronic lying and all the other moral problems of today. Do we need to elect better officials for that? The answer’s not simple. It may well include all of those things. But one thing is sure.

Hear me carefully. Good families are the need of the hour. Good families are a vital part of the answer to our problems. And good families start with you. Good families start with me. I haven’t always done the best job I could in my family. But I’ve tried.

And so I’ve tried as hard as I know to have a good family. I have loved my wife. She’s been the joy of my heart. She is the wind beneath my wings. She’ve had her for 52 years. And 51 and a half of them have been pleasant. That’s not bad out of 52. No, I tell you, even in the bad times, it’s been a wonderful journey, one I wouldn’t take for, nor one that I wouldn’t change on many fronts. So let’s be Godlike in our families. Let’s remember where the family came from. Let’s remember who put it into focus in the first place. Let’s remember what he said about regulating our families. And let’s love our husbands. Love our wives. Love our children. But first of all, let us love our God, and the other will come along in the right course.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We want to offer an invitation song now. There may be some here who owe some duty to God. If you are out of duty and you need to make things right with God, you need to come back. Having begun the trek, you’ve fallen by the wayside. Come back and make your life right with God again. Or if you’re here and you’ve never obeyed the gospel, or maybe you’ve been studying with someone, and you have understood that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who He said He was, and that you have understood what He meant when He said, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. And that you have perceived what He meant when He said repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.

And you need to do that this morning. We’re here to help you. And listen to me carefully. We’re not going to look down on you. We’re all just a group of fellowship of forgiven sinners. We just want you to be a part of us because we want you to go to heaven when you die. Because I want to tell you something, folks. If you miss heaven, you’ve just missed all there is. Will you come to him while we stand and sing?