All right, let's get started, please. Yes, Karen Godley, if you'll open us in prayer, please. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we enjoy the pleasure of worshipping you on Sundays and the freedom that we enjoy. Thank you so much that Dan is able to bring us insights on such an important topic or help us to have listening ears, take everything in and absorb it and think about it properly. I pray this is Jesus' name. Amen. All right, you should have outlines ready. I'm so very glad to see all of you. Thank you for taking the trouble to get out so early and join us. I told you last week would need to be packed and rushed, and this week less so, so I'll deliver on my promise. We, I doubt that we'll make it all the way through the outline that you have. Last week's was really the only one that I planned to have where I wanted to get everything in, in one lesson. So with these, a little more open-ended and more room for discussion. The purpose is not to have a discussion group per se, but there'll be room for questions, answers, interaction. So first, by way of introduction. I want to talk about my aims for the course so that you know what to expect and what I'm planning to talk about in the weeks to come. I don't plan to talk about every possible marriage-related truth. We'll get into some controversial areas, but my aim is not to get into all controversial areas or any controversial areas per se. My aim is to talk about biblical truths that I think are essential for understanding marriage and that are often neglected. So those are going to be the two driving factors. These are essential, big, loud biblical truths. But these are biblical truths that I think often aren't taught enough. They aren't applied enough. They aren't understood enough, both by people who teach and write on the subject and by we married people and by singles as well. The Bible has a whole lot more to say than I think we often mine. So here's some examples of what I'm going to be talking about in the weeks to come, Lord willing. We're going to be talking about What's with the male and female? What did God have in mind in making male and female? What is marriage? Why is marriage? What difference does it make to know the what and the why of marriage? What's the practical application and takeaway of knowing what marriage is and why we have marriage? What is the husband's God-given role? What's the wife's God-given role? How do I find a husband or wife? How does God do that? What is God's will for me as a single person in thinking about marriage? What should be happening in marriage? What can I do to prevent misery and heartache in marriage? What can I do to address present misery and heartache in marriage? What has God provided for me for my marriage, wherever it is, right now, today? And finally, at every point in all of those issues, what difference does Christ make to those issues? So, sound relevant? Sound important? And that's the sort of things we'll be talking about. Bruce, I just think it's really warm in here. Would you please get a little cooling going? Thank you very much. So Roman numeral one, the most important truth about man and marriage. Turn to Genesis one one with me, please. And you'll have all this to help you follow along in the outline you should have found on your seat. Genesis 1, 1, you say that doesn't have anything to do with marriage. Well, we'll see. Genesis 1, 1. And in some of this, by the way, where we start today, we are going back to some of the things we talked about last week, but slowing down and showing the application of these things to our specific concern about marriage. So Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So, we saw here that God created by fiat. Fiat is the Latin word that just means let it be. Fiat looks, let light be. So, to say that God created by fiat means that he created by simply exerting his will, that he wanted to create so he did. He didn't have to apply at the Department of Creation, you know, for a permit. He didn't need to go chop down dirt and wood and build a world. He didn't need to consult with other gods. He wanted to do it. He consulted with himself. And he did it, because he wanted to do it. So it's an expression of his will. It didn't go through a process. It's not like a committee. Anyone who's served on a committee knows what a frustration that can be. You get 12, 15 wonderful, smart people together, and then things go south from there. And there is no committee in creation. There is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who have always been in perfect harmony throughout all creation. And so everything was created as a direct expression of the will of God. So God didn't create independence on anything, but in sovereignty. God didn't create from need, but from fullness. And sometimes you'll see people say, well, why did God create man? I've heard this many times. And it said, well, he created man because he needed someone to love. No, God didn't create because he needed anything. God created out of fullness. Creation is not an expression of anything God needed or intended to address any need of God. The father had the son to love. The son had the father to love. Son and father had the spirit to love. God was never lonely. So creation does not arise out of any need in God, but out of the fullness of God. So finally, creation is an expression of God's will and therefore exists for his glory. Now we're going to look at that more closely in a second. I just want to pause for a second here and talk about the application of this. If you watch TV, you watch cable or anything like that, you know that there's hosts like Piers Morgan and Martin Bashir and Larry King and others. They like to get Christians on and they like to try to embarrass them about what they think about homosexual marriage. Ten years ago, it was trying to embarrass them about what they think about wifely submission in marriage or about women not being morally able to be pastors in Christian churches. That was the big hot issue 10, 20 years ago. Now the big hot issue is homosexuality and the idea of homosexual marriage. And so they'll get some Christian in the whole range of what it is to be a Christian today, and they'll try to embarrass him with questions about homosexuality, and usually these guys will try to give answers, and they vary in their quality. I think if I were ever on one of those shows, though, I think I would take a whole different approach. I think I would say, okay, so you're wanting to talk to me about what Leviticus 18 and Romans 1 and 1 Timothy 1 and all that says about homosexuality. Or you're trying to talk to me about what 1 Timothy 2 and all these verses say about women as pastors or Ephesians 5 about women in marriage. You're wanting to do that, but when you do that, you're nibbling at a leaf that is offensive to you. I believe something far more offensive than that. If you want to talk about what's offensive, let's go to the most offensive thing that I believe. Here's the most offensive thing that I believe, and I'd go to Genesis 1-1, and I'd read it, and I'd say, I believe Genesis 1-1 and everything it implies. That's way more offensive than what we believe about homosexuality, or women in marriage, or any of these issues. Because if you believe in Genesis 1-1, then you believe that we are created and defined by another. We're not self-creating and self-defining. Another has created us. So that means we have a Creator and we have a Lord that we're morally answerable to. So that means that we're all not little gods left to follow our hearts and define our own path and define our own system of right and wrong, Our way of thinking about the world, about marriage, about church, about morality, the whole nine yards is in the arena before a sovereign Lord who created us and defines us. And so we don't have the right to redefine what He's defined. We don't have that right. We do it, but whenever we do it, it's an act of rebellion. Whenever we do it, it's a criminal act. It's a morally reprehensible act. to redefine what God has defined. See, that is way more offensive than the specific thing we believe about homosexuality. In ten years, it'll be something else, if the Lord tarries. In twenty years, it'll be some other issue. Today, it's homosexuality. Twenty years ago, it was women. It'll be something else in twenty... Or it'll come cycle back, like society has done over the millennia, just cycles these issues. But the bottom line of it is whether or not you believe Genesis 1-1. If you don't, well then forget the rest of it. Don't bother with it. But if you do believe it, then the rest of the Bible follows from that. And the fact that here's the ultimate offensive truth about Genesis 1-1. We are not ultimate. The infinite personal God is ultimate. In our proud rebellion against God, that is the most offensive truth. So we might as well just start there. We might as well talk about that. If you don't accept that, then talking about this and that about marriage is just nibbling at the edges. It's just little adiaphora, relatively unimportant things when you're leaving the most important thing untouched. You see? Any questions about that? Your quick response about that? OK, so there's Genesis 1.1. There's where I'd go. You have in your outline Genesis 1, verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. And I bet many of you, if you've looked at it, you know right away what the point is, or you can even guess. Each of these verses, verse 4 says, God saw that the light was good. Verse 10, he called the dry land earth, the gathering of the waters he called seas, and God saw that it was good. Verse 12, The earth brought forth vegetation and God saw that it was good. Verse 18, the lights in the heavens and God saw that it was good. Verse 21, the great sea creatures and the birds in the sky and God saw that it was good. Verse 25, he made the beasts of the earth after their kind and the cattle and so forth. And God saw that it was good. And then finally, verse 31, crowning all six days of creation. God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Now, let me ask you a question. This is not a trick question. Very good according to who? Very good according to God. So there we have it again and again and again throughout the creation narrative. God evaluates everything, and everything he does, he evaluates as good. And what is it that makes it good? It's that it is what he made. Sorry? That's right. It is what he made it. Now, everything changes in chapter three when things start trying to redefine themselves and then things aren't good anymore. And that's where things go south or hellward. But at the crown of creation, God evaluates everything and it's good. So what is bad? Bad is deviating from God's created purpose. Bad is deviating from the will of God. At the crown of creation, everything's good. And in the six days, we'll be focusing in more closely. God creates the man and the woman and institutes marriage. And he looks at all that and he says, all that is good. And then man tries to get creative in an ungodly way, in a rebellious way. You could say re-creative or you could say anti-creative. And that's where bad is born. That's where evil is born. violation of God's will, God's design will, because as creator only he has the right to make that determination. There is nobody else who has that right, because nobody pre-existed God. Everything that exists, exists by the will of God, so only he has that right to define, to determine, to morally direct things. He is ultimate, he's creator, he's Lord. OK, now let's focus in on verses 26 and 27 of chapter one. And let me get somebody to read that for me, please, who volunteer. Yes, Andrea. Thanks very much. So who's a copy of whom? Man's a copy of God. God is the original. Man is the knockoff. God is the exemplar. Man is the copy. So, when you consider man, who are you supposed to think of? God. Man is meant to make us think about God, not the reverse. So that's the way we want it. We want to start with man and get to God and make a God that fits us as we are now. That's not the way it works. God made us as images of himself as in his likeness with a specific purpose. And we're going to look at this a lot more closely in the time to come, Lord willing. But right now, I'm just looking at this to make the point that once again, I talked just a moment ago in the fact that in the creation of the universe, God is ultimate. Whether we're talking about sparrows or snails, whether we're talking about stars or suns, God is ultimate. Whatever it is, whatever its size, God is ultimate. We talked about that at great length and the implications of that. Now we're talking specifically about man, and we see that in the creation of man, you and me, God is ultimate. In the creation of man as male and female, God is ultimate. And men and women alike, reflect the image of God. Men and women alike are created in the image of God. And as we'll see in chapter 2, in this compressed version of the creation of man is built in the creation of marriage and family. Chapter 2 expands that. Chapter 1 says it in compressed fashion. So God creates us and creates marriage and family as part of a reflection of Him, part of an expression of God. And so, once again, God is ultimate. So if man is about God, or let's personalize it, if you are about God and not God about you, then that means that everything that concerns you is about God. All the details of our life, whether we're talking about work, marriage, whether we're talking about how we spend our time, how we think about things, what is ultimate is God. It's not me. I was created as a knockoff, as an imaging of God and not God of me. So in the rebellion of man, man tries to reverse the favor, create God in his image. But we are created in God's image. So that's Genesis 1. Let's look at other scriptures. You see Psalm 8 there in your outline. So turn there please. Psalm 8 is something of a poetic reflection of Genesis 1. Psalm by David. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth, who has displayed Thy splendor above the heavens. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes thou hast established strength, because of thine enemies, to make the enemy and the vengeful cease. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou dost take thought of him, and the son of man, that thou dost care for him? Yet thou made him a little lower than God, and doth crown him with glory and majesty. Thou dost make him to rule over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the sea. O Yahweh our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth. Now, I trust you see in that that he's reflecting over Genesis 1. This is a poetic reflection on Genesis 1. All these categories of creation. Man and the beasts of the field. And the creation of man over the beasts of the field. But the thing I want to go back and highlight is the start and the end of the psalm. O LORD our Lord, O Yahweh our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth. Verse 9, O Yahweh our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth. And if you went through and you just looked at all the thighs or the yours in this song, that it's the the moon and stars you ordained. Heavens are the works of your fingers. And then verse eight excuse me, verse six, all the works of your hands you put under his feet. So he goes through creation and just reminds us that every part, the whole And all of the components of creation, it's all made by God. It's all for the glory of God. It's all God referential, including us. We are created as God referential. We are created to point back to God. And so that's going to make, and I'm going to show you, I'll make sure that I end up with enough time to show you today, that that makes a great deal of difference in how we think about marriage. But everything is created not ultimate. Everything is created with God's ultimacy. Everything from the height of creation, which is man, a little lower than the angels, but crowned with glory and honor as a work of God. to make God's name majestic. So your marriage or your singleness or how you think about marriage must reflect the glory of God. It's got to be about the glory of God. It's got to be about the splendor of God's name because it's part of creation. And every part of creation is to be about the glory of God and the splendor of His name. Turn to Psalm 24 next, please. Psalm 24. Can somebody read me verse 1, please? Who would do that? Alright, John. I won't belabor that much. You just see that reflecting what we've been saying since the start of the class, pretty much. That the earth and everyone who dwells in it belongs to God. Nothing belongs to itself. If you looked on the label of the shirt of everything in the world, on that label it says, God. You know, when you were a kid, your mom put your name maybe on the label on your shirt or on your lunchbox. Did with me anyway. Well, if you could look close enough, you'd see on everything and everybody's shirt label, God. Everything is created by God. Everything's owned by God. There is no place where God says, all right, that's off limits to me. You know, we say secular and sacred. This has to do with God and this doesn't have to do with God. There is nothing like that in God's eyes. There's nothing He didn't create. And so it's all owned by Him and it's all about Him. Yes, Jonathan. That's right. Even when we create things out of created things, we're creating things out of created things. We're just sub-creating. That's right. We're using things that are made by God. Isaiah 43, verse 7. And who will read that for me? Isaiah 43, 7. Judy, please. Thank you, specifically speaking about the redeemed in Israel there, but it certainly applies beyond that. Created for my glory, I have formed, I have made. Once again, although they are blessed and they receive of God's goodness, they're created for His glory. Two more verses. Turn to Romans 11.36. Romans 11.36. And this is at the conclusion of that grand suite, Romans 9 through 11, where Paul is talking about the Messiah rejection crisis in Israel and did God's plan go off the rails? And he goes into the fact that no, he talks about the the ultimate sovereignty of God, about God's election, God's electing grace. Yes, Sidney? Yeah, you volunteering to read? Perfect. Thank you. Well, thank you. That just says what we've been saying from the start, doesn't it? From Him, the Greek preposition meaning originating from Him. He's the ultimate source of all things. Things come from Him. And through Him speaks of His mediation, that He's the agent of the creation of all things. And then unto Him, meaning that all things refer back to Him. So they start from His heart. They're executed by His hand. And they still refer back to Him. And then Paul says to Him, be the glory forever and ever. The glory. The splendor. The praise. The magnifying of His greatness in His name and His attributes. All things are for God's glory. All things are God-referential. And finally, Colossians 1.15-16 Who will read that for me? Colossians 1, verses 15 and 16. Yes, Betty, please. And read the next verse, please, Betty. Firstborn of all creation." Thank you very much. Now, if you're in our Colossians studies, maybe you remember verse 15. This phrase, the firstborn of all creation, really means the firstborn over all creation. That He has the family rights over every created thing. He is supreme over every created thing. He's not the first created thing Himself. He is uncreated. Because verse 16 says, He, Christ, this is about Jesus Christ. He is the Creator. By Him, all things were created. And then the end of verse 16, created by Him and for Him. See, that's the same thing Paul said in Romans 11.36 about God. He says here about Jesus Christ. Everything is created by Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ. Everything is Christ referentials specifically. Everything is handmade by the Lord Jesus Christ. By Him and for Him. And verse 17 says, He's the One who holds everything together. So everything that breathes You, me, the atheist in the street, the Hindu, everybody breathes and exists by the continued work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that again means that everybody is accountable to God. Everybody and everything that lives is about Christ because even things that just their very existence, their continued existence, is by the continuing work of Jesus Christ. You've heard of the teaching of deism that was kind of big at the start of this country. It's not so big now formally that there are a lot of informal deists. And that's the thought that God created everything and then just step back and let it work by itself. You know, like you spin a top and then you walk away and you watch it spin. Man, that's the view of God. God creates everything and then God just steps back. Well, that's not the biblical view of God, obviously, and certainly not in verse 17 here where Christ continues to maintain everything that exists. So, let's talk a bit about the impact of this. Well, let me ask you, let me start with, yeah, Smiley. If it's easy. Do deists believe in answered prayer? I don't know. I'm not sure that they wrote theologies. I'm not sure how formal a religion it was. But modern deists would say no. I think of some fairly famous people who are informal deists and they say, God doesn't want to be bothered with our concerns and so forth. And so when they say that, they're talking like deists, not like Christians. See, I remembered to repeat that. I need to repeat your questions because the microphone doesn't pick you up, so I'm not being pedantic and repeating your questions. While we're paused, is there another question? Because I'm going to ask you a question. All right, here's my question for you. So, can you begin in any way to tease out for me the implications for marriage of the things we just talked about. What does any of that or all of that have to do with marriage? I know I've given you some clues, but what more would you say? The way you look at marriage as a single person or the way you look at your marriage as a married person, how does everything we just looked at have an impact on that? Yes, Debbie. I'll be repeating you all, if I remember, for the recording. You have no right to make up your own rules about marriage. You need to be accountable to God, because marriage was God's idea. That's right. Very good. Exactly right. Well, we're done. Let's close in prayer. They laughed. What other ideas do you have? Yes, Bobby. Because you're saying that what we looked at, what it says to a person who's married to an unbeliever is that his or her marriage is still about God, even though his spouse doesn't see that. But for him, he still knows that or she still knows that. Well, it's true for the unbeliever, too. He just doesn't acknowledge it. Yes, his his or her rejection of God doesn't cancel out your acknowledgement of God. That's right. Somebody else's rebellion against God doesn't doesn't okay me to rebel against God. That's right. Either by passive failure to obey or by active disobedience. That's right. All right. Very good. What other thoughts? Bruce? Well, thank you, Bruce. Bruce is going to put some Bible in. Discovering how to make marriage work is not a matter of Yes. Yes. You know what? I really appreciate that. I taught with that with that unspoken premise, but I should have spoken it because because we accept that here. But you're absolutely right. So let me make that clear. I really appreciate that. What Bruce, I think, is saying and tell me if I'm not getting you right. is when I say that everything's created by God, I'm not saying, so we need to go to our microscopes in our mountains to philosophize and reflect and see if we can divine what God's purpose is. I mean that we need to look at the word of God and see what he says his purpose is. Is that what you're getting at? Yes, I'm very glad that you made that point. That's exactly right. So I meant that when I said Genesis 1.1, because everything flows from Genesis 1.1, including the authority of the Bible as God's word flows from Genesis 1.1. So when I talk about everything having a purpose assigned by God, the next part of that is to say that we find that purpose in His Word where He takes the initiative and speaks His mind to us. He tells us His will. He tells us His heart. Thank you very much, Bruce. That's a very good coda. Yes, Amy? Amy says those who pray together, stay together, should go to him as ultimate answer. OK, what other thoughts from where we started, what it has to do with marriage? Oh, preach that, preach that. She said it's not about how happy I am. That's yeah. Did you want to say more? No, no, you're spent. Yeah. Well, in saying that, you've said a lot and you've said a lot that a lot of Christians don't get. That's exactly right. I think I wrote a post. Oh, I wish I could remember the title. I'm going to have to find it and I'll put it on our Facebook page. But the point of marriage is not to be happy, per se. That's not the most important thing in marriage. So it's. So let me start to give you some ideas to add to your very good ideas. The impact of all these truths from Genesis 1 and elsewhere is how you see yourself, whether you're single or married, has everything to do with whether you see yourself as created by this infinite personal God of Scripture. How you see yourself as a single person, how you see yourself as a married person. If your purpose in life is to make your own meaning and be as pain-free and happy as you can on your own terms, then that's one whole way of living. But if your purpose in life and my purpose in life is to give glory to God, to exist for His fame, to exist to be a trophy of His grace and His holiness and righteousness, then that's an entirely different way of living. These are not parallel paths. These are 180 degree opposite paths, opposite directions, do you see? It makes all the difference. Whether your worldview is you-centered, me-centered, or whether it's centered on the God of Scripture. So more specifically, how you see the question of marriage as a single person, how you look at marriage as a single person, you look at marriage. And if your biggest question is, do I feel like I need marriage? That's one way to approach it. If you approach it with the question of, do I better serve and glorify God if I get married? That's a different question. If you look at marriage as to whether you think it will make you happier, that's one question. You look at marriage as to whether you think that it will serve and glorify God, and that will make you happy. That's a whole different question. It's a very different way of approaching marriage. So, let me be even more specific. You approach somebody you're thinking about possibly marrying, and if you ask the questions, and you are most concerned with the questions, does this person make me happy? Does this person make me feel good about myself? Does this person entertain me? Does this person meet my needs? Well, that's one question. That's one way of approaching marriage. Another way is to ask, does this person love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength? Would we be a more effective team in the glory of God? Could I serve this person? Were I his wife? Were I her husband? Would I effectively serve her and bring blessing into her life and and be good for him and be a helper to him? And together, would we serve God more effectively and glorify God more effectively than we would if we were single? See, those, again, are entirely different ways of thinking about marriage. And the way you answer those questions will come in entirely different ways. But what I've observed in decades of being a Christian is the people who say that they're Christians approach marriage like this. They check the boxes. Yes, I believe God is creator in this and that and the other thing. And when they approach marriage, you know, that person's commitment to Christ is secondary. He says he's a Christian. That's good enough. But where she is, where he is relation to God, it's not the most important thing. But if that's the most important thing in all of creation, then that's going to be the most important thing in approaching marriage, isn't it? Where does that get an exception? To me, it's all the more the case. So now let's move, were you raising your hand? Okay. Poor lady, she's just scratching her nose. That's all right. Yes, Debbie? Yes. Yes. No, that's very true. Debbie says, if you go into marriage with the mindset that I'm doing it primarily to make myself happy, you're very unlikely to be happy. But if you go into marriage with the commitment that we're going to serve God and glorify God and I'm going to serve my mate in the name of God, you're likelier to be happy. And that's true. You shouldn't hear anything I'm saying is saying that I'm against happiness. I'm not against happiness. I'm 100% in favor of happiness. I just think that happiness is the perfect byproduct of glorifying God. that the Christian is happiest when he's happiest with God. He's most blessed when he is most God-centered, when he's most enraptured with Christ, with Christ's glory, with his preciousness, with his beauty, with God's excellence, that that is the most blessed and happy place to be. And so happiness pursued as a God is a pretty harsh God. Happiness as a byproduct of pursuing God is a wonderful thing and more assured. That's very good. And you're actually anticipating where I was going to go, Debbie. So this is terrific. And I can prove it. I have it written down. I'm not just saying that. But let me just take what you said, Debbie, and move it in another position. And I've known people who profess Christ, and they enter into marriage, and they run into difficulty, and they start talking divorce because they're not happy. Because they're not getting along, because this marriage isn't meeting their needs. These are Christians. Now you say, well, yeah, it happens all the time. Yeah, all sorts of horrible things happen all the time. Doesn't mean it's a good thing. See, and the fact that in the modern church, people can say this and be cheered on and understood. My point is not to come down harshly on unhappy people. I want to help people be happy. I'm for that. I'm for happy people. Believe me, I really am. But that's not the way. That's certainly not the way to be a happy Christian. Trust and obey. We sing for there's no other way to be what? Happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Well, we sing it, but do we really believe it? So when somebody comes to a place in his marriage where he's not happy and his wife is not meeting his needs, her husband's not meeting her needs, And then he starts thinking terminal thoughts, you know, how can I get out of this marriage? I would suggest that that's a person who's not gotten what we just talked about. A person who thinks, OK, I've come to a place where this is not making me happy, and so what do I do to make myself happy is not a person who is first of all thinking about the glory of God. And I'm not saying that there's no circumstances where divorce, we're not going to talk a lot about divorce and mostly going to talk about how not to ever get divorced. But the Bible does say there are circumstances where divorce is permitted, but they're in narrow range and it's never enjoined and it's always a tragedy. And it's something that really I want to try to Help people never do, if I can have anything to do with it. But my point is, I can tell you stories. I know of somebody, when I was a young Christian, somebody who cheated on his wife and told me that, well, you know, she was in an unhappy marriage. He was in an unhappy marriage. So maybe this was just God's will. Maybe this was just God's way to work and bring them blessing. This adulterous affair. And I was just a young Christian, but I said, there's no way in heaven or hell that that's God's will when He says that He wants you to leave your father and mother and stick to your wife. Don't make God the author of your sin. But the thing is, He's left the Bible, and He's left it as God's law of word, and He's left the orientation of God's glory. His needs weren't being met in His marriage. His accomplices' needs weren't being met in her marriage. And so they had an affair. Maybe that was God's will. Yeah, maybe if the Bible's not true. But if the Bible's true, you don't look that way. Another man entered into difficult times in his marriage. His marriage wasn't making him happy. So he concluded that God didn't want him to be in that marriage. You don't get that vision from Scripture. You just don't get that vision from Scripture. My happiness on my terms is not the ultimate. One of the things I'm concerned about is that if we think it is, then we've got nothing to take us through difficult times. We get to a difficult time and we say, this was not the way this was advertised. This was supposed to make me happy. It's not making me happy. Now look, when the thing I buy isn't working, I take it back to Walmart. When I get something that breaks down in my new car, I take it back to the dealer. And if he can't fix it, he gives me a new one. Well, my marriage isn't working, so I can return it, right? No, it's not what Scripture says, but even more what I'm saying is if we don't have something higher than our immediate happiness, then we're not prepared to get through these difficult times and to work through these difficult times. And let me say also on the basis of many years of experience that a person who deals with those difficult times with the central concern for the glory of God, is made to grow by those difficult times in a way he never would have if he'd run away from it or she'd run away from it. That dodging that experience, finding a way around that experience would have also been finding a way around growing in Christ as a commitment to the glory of God and to being all about the glory of God would not have done. That would have resulted in growth and growth results in holiness. Let me just. Here's a good place to end. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. All right. Yes, Aaron. That's right. Aaron says he sees in scripture that it's part of God's will to put us in trying circumstances, and that's how we grow. That's what gets our muscles working. Yeah, that's right. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not get arms like that by doing this, by curling sheets of paper. It was by curling stuff that was hard to curl, picking up heavyweights. And so Hebrews 12, I'm just going to pluck out a couple of things where He's talking about the writers talking about Hebrews, chapter 12, talking about. entering trials as Christians, and he isn't specific about it. He just says to look at Jesus who endured such trials and such misery and suffering. And he says in verse 4, you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin, and you've forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons. And he quotes from Proverbs 3 about how the Lord disciplines those he loves and whips every son he receives. And then he says in verse 7, It is for discipline that you endure. And then in verse 8, he says, if you're not disciplined, you're not children of God. And then look at verse 10. For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best for them, but He disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. It wouldn't be discipline. If it doesn't hurt, it's not discipline. Yet, you know, your parents says you such miserable grades on your schoolwork. I'm going to buy you a hot fudge sundae. Oh, wow. Suffering. That's not discipline. So he says, yet to those who've been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. So, yes, centering on the glory of God is not the way around suffering. Centering on the glory of God is the way to know blessing and happiness through suffering. And that's going to apply to how we view marriage. So I've got one more minute. Yes, Bruce. Absolutely. And blessing to us. Yes. Yeah, Bruce says there's passages in James and 1 Peter that say suffering brings glory to God and blessing to us. James 1.12 blesses men who endures temptation. Afterwards, he'll have the crown of righteousness. And Peter often says that by suffering, we know the spirit of grace and glory. All right. Yes, I have 56 seconds. God's idea of blessing is not the same as ours. And yes, that's true. So that's where a conviction about the goodness and wisdom of God is all important for when our obedience takes us into hard situations, when being an obedient wife and obedient husband or an obedient single person is being hard. The conviction that God is good and God is wise and he knows what he's doing and he knows better what I run on. I want to make this point off of I think what Bruce said earlier, but I forgot to that. You know, it's like God build us to be gas running engines and we insist on pouring corn syrup in. And insisting that, you know, that's the only way we'll ever be happy. But that's not what the engine was built to run on. And we're not built to run on autonomy, on self-worship and self-rule. We're built to run on God-centeredness. That's a hard way, but that's the way of blessing and ultimate joy. All right, we're going to stop now. Let's close in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for my brothers and sisters who have come and taken the time and trouble to come and be with us in this. And thank you so much for the richness of your word. And Father, we pray that the Holy Spirit will drive these points home to our hearts and help each of us to Remember them, to think about them, to grow in our understanding of them and in our application and the path of knowing joy as Jesus did, which led him through the cross to your right hand. And as we follow him, we must be prepared that it may take us the same, well, it's likely to take us the same route, but it will have the same destination. Eternity of joy in your presence. Thank you for that. In Jesus' name, Amen.