Love Worth Finding

Guest (Male): The gifts that God has given us are not meant to be shameful. Listen to Adrian Rogers.

Adrian Rogers: Sex is a gift of God. When God says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," when God says, "Flee fornication," God is not trying to keep us from sex. God is trying to keep sex for us. It is God's gift. And so God has put some high walls to protect it and preserve it. It is God's wonderful gift.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Love Worth Finding. Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers said a home is the sweetest place on earth, the nearest place to heaven. It’s the only part of the Garden of Eden that we have left.

Now, your enemy, who has waged war on the family, knows this, and he will do everything he can to bring calamity on your home. Most times he uses our own sins to bring destruction. That’s why in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus discusses the importance of family faithfulness.

If you have your Bible, turn there now. We’ll begin in verse 1 as we learn more about the supreme commitment of marriage with part one of "Family Faithfulness." Here again is Adrian Rogers.

Adrian Rogers: Would you take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 19? We’re going to be talking about family faithfulness, keeping love alive. You know, there’s something very sad in today’s world, and what it is is this: we have so many who have what I call just throwaway marriages. It just doesn't work out, and so they just throw it away.

As somebody said, they get married as an ideal. Then that ideal turns to an ordeal, and then they're looking around for a new deal. That’s sad. I can remember when families really were traditional. I came from a traditional family. I married a girl who came from a traditional family.

Mothers took care of the home, fathers went off to work, we ate our meals together, we went to church together, we fussed together, we played together. We were a traditional family. That’s not true anymore in America. In the typical family, both husband and wife work.

Another six million-plus households have not a father and mother, but a single parent. That means one out of four families are led by a single parent. Experts tell us in the coming years, half of all children will grow up in homes with a single parent, and most mothers will work outside the home.

Now, a lot of this is caused by divorce. I was reading in Newsweek magazine: "The landscape is littered with victims of the divorce epidemic." Notice this is not some preacher, but it’s Newsweek talking about a divorce epidemic. "Ex-wives raising their children alone, former husbands trying to start new lives and still be good fathers to kids they see only on specified days, and the children themselves often torn between two warring parents."

And then this Newsweek went on to say about a study of 60 divorced middle-class families in Northern California. There was a psychologist, her name is Judith Wallerstein, and she found out of these 60 couples, only 10%—only 10%—of the ex-spouses said they had succeeded in improving their lives. Only 10% said this divorce made things better.

And then she went on to say, Wallerstein says this, "Divorce is seen as a wrenching experience for every family I have seen." And then of course we know the devastating effect on the children. Broken homes produce broken lives, which produce broken homes, which produce broken lives, and on and on it goes.

No wonder God says in the book of Malachi, chapter 2 and verse 16, "I hate divorce." That’s what God says. God says, "I hate it." Now we have the sophisticated intellectuals of today who tell us, "We’ve come way past what you believe in and what you Christians believe in."

So we're being told today that sex between unmarried couples is normal and acceptable. We’re told that homosexuality is just an alternate lifestyle. We’re told that unmarried motherhood has no great shame to it. We’re told that marriage is not sacred because nothing is sacred. And the only law today in America, the chief code in America, is "Don't be judgmental." That's the way we live today.

Well, let's see what God's Word has to say. Matthew chapter 19, beginning in verse 1: "And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee and came into the coast of Judea beyond Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them. The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him"—that means testing Him—"and saying unto him, 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?'"

That is, if she’s not attractive, or if she cannot cook, or if she has mismanaged the finances, or if she’s irritable, "Can I just put her away?" And He answered and said unto them, "Have ye not read?"—and by the way, Jesus expects you to read the Bible, my friend—"Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female?"

One of the most damning things today that the devil has done is to blur the distinction between male and female. "He made them male and female and said, 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and a mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain'—that is, they two—'shall be one flesh.' Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

They say unto Him, "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away?" He saith unto them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you or allowed you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication"—that means sexual immorality—"and shall marry another, committeth adultery. And whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."

Guest (Male): I’m going to stop reading right there for a moment. There are three things I want to lay on your heart, and I pray God that He will write them indelibly upon your heart.

Adrian Rogers: The first thing I want you to understand is that marriage is made by heaven. Look, if you will, in verse 4: "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh'?"

Marriage did not come from sociology. It did not come from the primordial ooze of evolution. Marriage is not some cultural innovation. Marriage is made by heaven. It is God's plan. If you could take the best carpenter in the world and give him the assignment to build a house, but if that carpenter doesn't know what a house is, there's no way he could build it, no matter how good a carpenter he is.

You can take the best people in the world and say, "Build a home," but if they don't know what a home and a family is according to God, there's no way possible that they can build it because they have no guide. God gives us the guide here. And in all marriage problems and all marriage counseling, it’s all built around three words here, three verbs.

Number one is the one "leave." Look at it. "For this cause," verse 5, "shall a man leave his father and mother." Underscore that. "And shall cleave," underscore that. "And then finally, and they shall be one flesh." Underscore "they shall be one flesh."

And there it is: leave, cleave, be one. That’s what marriage is. You leave and you cleave. When God says you are to leave, that speaks of the priority of marriage. If you’re making notes, write that down. "Leave" speaks of the priority of marriage. Do you know what you have as a parent? Do you know what your task is as a parent?

Your task as a parent is to get your children ready to leave the nest. The Bible uses this idiom "as an eagle stirs her nest." You know what the eagle does? It has little eaglets there in the nest, and it has a nice place there; the mother has lined it somewhat softly with feathers and other bark and leaves, and that eaglet there is up there high on that crag in that nest, and the mother is bringing the little eaglet a mouse and a nice juicy worm, and everything is fine.

But there comes a time when that mother knows that little eaglet has to fly, it has to leave the nest, and so she begins to go in there and beat that little bird with her wings and flap over that bird and get it up on the precipice and finally push it over. And it begins to fall and tumble and tumble and scream and screech, and finally it stretches its little wings and catches the wind.

If it looks like he’s going to fall, she’ll just sweep under it, catch it on her wings, bear it up on her wings, and bring it back to the nest. But what she’s doing is teaching that little bird to fly. That’s the same thing you do with your children. You’re going to have to teach them to leave the nest.

My responsibility has been as a father, and your responsibility is if you still have children in your home, is really to work yourself out of a job. I am successful when my children no longer need me. You are successful as a mother when your children no longer need you.

It’s against human nature to want to work yourself out of a job. You know why we have children to begin with? I’m not talking about biologically. I’m just talking about what the emotional need is. We have a need to be needed. God built that into us. We want somebody to depend upon us.

So we have a need to be needed, and so the love that you have for your child is that need-to-be-needed. When your baby is born, you look down at that baby; you’ve never met them before, you don't know anything about them, but you love them. That is called need-to-be-needed love.

And then the little baby loves mother. Does she love mother because mother is charming, because mother is beautiful, because mother is so intelligent, or has a good sense of humor? No. The baby needs mother. And so the baby has need-love and the mother has need-to-be-needed love. So you take need-to-be-needed love and need-love and there is a bonding.

There comes a time, however, when mother is not needed as much as she wants to be needed. There comes a time when a child will grow up and reach a particular age where they don't need mother to make every decision and to fuss over them and to care for them and to guide them and say, "You must do this and you can't do that."

That’s normal. That’s natural. That’s the point we’re trying to bring them to where they no longer need mother, they no longer need father, they can get out in this world and operate on their own. As Jesus said, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife."

Sometimes a mother who needs to be needed, at that point, will begin to create artificial needs to keep that child tied to the apron strings. Why? Because she needs to be needed. And what will the child do? The child is trying to untie those needs because he has needs to be an individual of himself, and so he’s trying to break free.

Parents sometimes say, "Ah, you are a rebellious child." The child may not be rebellious at that point, but it can turn into rebellion if the parents don't understand that there is a legitimate need-to-be-needed time and there is a legitimate need time, but there also comes a legitimate time when that little eagle has to learn how to fly.

And that’s very hard for us to work ourselves out of a job like that. But let me tell you something: when they get to a certain age, they're like a bar of soap. If you squeeze them too hard, they'll pop out of your hand. But you hold them gently, and you understand when that right time is, and you learn this: while you work yourself out of a job, you don't work yourself out of a relationship.

When you let them go as children, they will come back as friends, and they will be the best friends you’ve ever had. I tell you something: there’s something about your family as they come back and they come back as friends. It is absolutely wonderful when we learn what God has said, that "for this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife."

Sometimes we talk about mother-in-law problems. You know what mother-in-law problems often are, and especially it’s the mother of the groom that causes the problem so many times? It’s two women in love with the same man. I mean, she is trying to control him. She still wants him to be her little boy, and the daughter-in-law says, "Hey, he’s my husband."

And that’s where that problem comes from. And so don't commit emotional incest. Let them go. Marriage in physical relationships is the supreme commitment. You are to honor your parents, but your parents are not your supreme commitment. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother."

You are to love your children, but your children are not the supreme commitment. Mate-to-mate is a stronger commitment than children-to-parents and parents-to-children. And we better learn that. "For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother." Listen, business is not your supreme commitment.

Some of you businessmen are sacrificing your family upon the altar of your business, and the corporation is just moving people around, and so often that is the cause of great distress, and a man sacrifices his family for the corporation. In my estimation, a man is not a success when he has a divorce at 28, an ulcer at 31, and a cardiac at 45. Everybody says, "But look what he did. What a success he is." To me, he’s not necessarily a success.

Now, look. First of all, to leave, that is the priority of marriage. Now, secondly, watch. And "to cleave." To cleave. That is the permanence of marriage. The word "cleave" means to weld or to glue. When you get married, friend, it is a lifetime contract, not an optional one.

You show me two kids who consider divorce as an option, and I’ll show you a family that has a great potential for disintegration. You show me people who do not consider divorce as an option, and I’ll show you a family that will hang together and stay together. Those families who stick it out and those who don't have basically the same kinds of problems.

There are no problems too big to solve, just people too small to solve them. If we would learn to attack the problem rather than one another, we could work it out. He says that we’re to leave, that’s the priority of marriage. Leave father and mother. We are to cleave. That is the permanence of marriage. It literally means, I say, to weld or to glue.

And then he says we are to be one flesh. That is the purpose of marriage. He’s talking about more than sexual union. When you got married, you married a whole person, body, soul, and spirit. And see, you’re no longer an individual. You become one flesh. God's arithmetic is 1 + 1 = 1. That’s God's arithmetic.

Marriage is a romance in which both the hero and the heroine die in the first chapter and a new person comes into being. That new person is one flesh. Now we’re to be one flesh physically. Sex is not dirty or impure. It is a wonderful gift of God. Hollywood has made sex dirty. Sex is a gift of God.

When God says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," when God says, "Flee fornication," when God says, "Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled, but adulterers and whoremongers God will judge," God is not trying to keep us from sex. God is trying to keep sex for us. It is God's gift.

And so God has put some high walls to protect it and preserve it. It is God's wonderful gift, so that a husband and wife can know one another in the most intimate of relationships. As a matter of fact, when husband and wife would have this relationship in the Bible, the Bible would say they "knew" one another.

It’s a way of saying, "I love you," that cannot be put into words. And the devil has tried to take this which is so wonderful and beautiful and to trivialize it. What is the purpose of marriage? That we might be one flesh physically. That we might be one flesh emotionally. Not only should we be sweethearts, we ought to be friends.

My best friend is Jesus, and my next best friend still comes behind my best friend, who’s Joyce. She’s my friend. She is my lover, she’s my sweetheart, but she is my friend because we are one flesh physically, we’re one flesh emotionally, and we are one flesh spiritually because we love the same Lord, we’re members of the same body, His body.

Friend, that’s what God wants for marriage is that wonderful unity. And so Jesus says, "Here’s what marriage is. Marriage is made in heaven." He gives us the purpose of marriage. He gives to us the very essence of what marriage is. But now, here’s the second thing I want you to look at with me today.

I want you to see that not only is marriage made by heaven, but marriage can be marred by hell. Look, if you will, in verses 1 and 2: "And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee and came to the coast of Judea beyond Jordan, and great multitudes followed Him and He healed them. The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him and saying unto him, 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?'"

That is, just as I said, we’re going to be looking for a new deal. Go on down to verse 7: "They say unto Him, 'Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away?' He saith unto them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery. And whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.'"

God desires that marriage be a permanent union. And the only reason that Jesus allowed divorce was for immorality, for fornication. Put in your margin Matthew 5, verses 31 and 32. Jesus said, "It hath been said, 'Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement,' but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, except or saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."

Now, let’s look at this very carefully here. Moses permitted divorce. He never commanded divorce. Jesus said from the beginning it was not so. This is not God's original intent. A marriage may be broken by the continual marital unfaithfulness of one of the partners.

The word fornication is the Greek word *porneia* and it means sexual impurity. But even when a husband or a wife has been unfaithful and committed adultery, does that mean that a divorce is called for? No. Reconciliation and forgiveness is called for.

Guest (Male): And with that we’ll conclude today’s portion of Adrian Rogers’ convicting message. Don't miss part two coming up next time. Now, do you have a prayer request you’d like to share? At Love Worth Finding, one of our greatest honors is to come alongside you and pray with you and for you.

If you can, go to our website homepage, lwf.org/radio, and scroll down to our prayer wall. You’ll find the option there to submit a prayer request or pray for others. This resource is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another’s needs. We can’t wait to hear from you today.

I loved this insight from Adrian Rogers. He said, "Marriage is a romance in which both the hero and the heroine die in the first chapter and a new person comes into being, and that new person is one flesh." That’s a good word to take with us today, and we hope you’ll join us for the conclusion of "Family Faithfulness" right here on Love Worth Finding.

We loved this message from a pastor who took our "Preaching for Impact" course not long ago and shared this: "It deepened my knowledge on the need to prepare well before any delivery. I gained so many insights. Preaching for Impact is highly recommended."

At Love Worth Finding, we are honored to be able to share these timeless teachings and the exciting new resources we develop to help you flourish in your faith. And that’s why when you donate to the ministry this month, we’ll send you a copy of the powerful book, *His Story*.

In this collection of eight powerful messages, Adrian Rogers shares the largest pieces of the Bible story from start to finish in a simple and clear way. Request a copy of the book when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or you can give online at lwf.org/radio. And thanks for your generous support of Love Worth Finding.