Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: If we don't take the time to talk to our children, communicate with our children, communicate with our wives, communicate with the husband, then what's going to happen is we're going to give Satan an opportunity to come into the marriage and to come into our family and begin to divide our family. And that happens all the time.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. Today as we press forward in our series centered on the health and well-being of your family, we're glad to have you along. Raul will encourage you to make time to evaluate the true state of your home, recognizing the need to stay vigilant against Satan's attacks.

You'll see that when you care for one another's needs and hold fast to God's word, you can grow in joy and strength as a united family. Here's Raul Ries with our study, Family Life. Join us in Proverbs chapter 27, verse 23.

Raul Ries: Now when I read the scripture this week, usually when you read a scripture immediately you want to know what it relates to. And of course many have described this scripture as relating to literally a shepherd and his sheep or his flock. But here Solomon is speaking of the family.

Listen to what he says. He says, "Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and attend to your herds." In the NIV it says, "Be sure you know the condition of your flocks and give careful attention to your herds." Now, we know that there are a lot of family problems. This is a very important topic today.

Some of your homes are a mess this morning and you need help quickly. Otherwise, your family is going to break up. One of the things that we see is that we have a great responsibility given by God to each one of us as parents. One of these days you'll become a parent, you are going to be held responsible also concerning the condition of your flocks.

That is, Solomon is saying, "Do you know exactly what is happening with your family? Do you know the condition of your flocks? Do you know what's up with your wife? Do you know what's up with your husband? Do you know what's up with your kids?" And it's not only directed to parents, but also to grandparents and great-grandparents.

We need to know the condition of our family. The reason I say that is because Satan surely is ripping up a lot of families today. Solomon is exhorting here and commanding us to make sure that we know the condition spiritually of our families. And then once we know the condition, then we need to search the needs of the family and also meet those needs that are lacking within our families.

That's a responsibility that we have. These needs may be physical, they may be emotional, or they may even be spiritual. But husbands and wives have a great responsibility to their children. Now, I know that a lot of homes today are single-parent homes.

And the reason is because father and mother have divorced, the children have been divided. And usually as you counsel with people, in the last couple of weeks as I've been counseling with people and overlooking over the last couple of years, we have seen surely an increase of family problems and also the problem with the young people within their homes as they see in their homes not only hypocrisy but they don't see a consistency in the home.

And so we as the parents set the temperature in the home. We know that there is a great separation today not only in divorcing as husband and wife separate or they divorce one another, but then what happens after the separation or the divorce comes the neglecting of the children and their needs. Children left without a parent, without the presence of a father or without the presence of a mother in the home.

And some of these children have become victims of parental problems and some even have gone to the point as even committing suicide because of the conditions of their homes. The parents have become too busy to take care of their children and their needs. And also, parents have become not only selfish in themselves but also seeking out desiring materially everything that they can buy by actually sacrificing their children by going to work with both parents or maybe you don't have to do that.

This is not an old story. This has been happening for a long time. And one of the things that I am concerned about is when I talk to the children and you talk to young people today. And so this week as I was just meditating and searching the scriptures, I had to go back to the beginning of things because I think it's important that we understand what God has established from the beginning.

If you have your Bibles turn with me right now to the book of Genesis chapter two. And one of the things about the establishment of marriage in the Bible is that this is what God planted before the law was given of God. This is before Moses received the law from God. Here we have not only the beginning of the world, we have the beginning of creation. And here we have the first marriage in the Bible, the first family unit being placed in the Garden of Eden.

Now, one of the things about God is God is sensitive and God knows every one of our needs. He knows if you're lonely. He knows who you need in your life. The problem is that we're always looking to man instead of seeking God out for his help. You see, because man always fails you, but God will never fail you. And what's interesting is that as God had created everything, God created first of all man in the garden to take care of it, to watch over it, and God created man in a perfect state.

No sin. Everything was perfect. Yet look what the Bible says beginning with verse 18 of chapter two of Genesis. He says, "Then the Lord said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him.'" Now, the first thing that I recognize is that when God gives you a wife, he's giving you somebody that is going to help you. You see, God made a helper. But you see, this was in a perfect state that God is speaking here. No sin has entered yet in the Garden of Eden.

And then it says in verse 19, "And now the Lord God formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air, and then he brought them to Adam or to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." And the second thing we see here is that God created man with intelligence. He wasn't a dummy. He was intelligent.

And then thirdly, notice as we continue there, but for Adam no suitable helper was found. So as God created the Garden of Eden, he created every animal in the garden, yet God began to see that nothing in the garden was comparable to man so that man could actually come into unity or oneness with that person. Watch what he says in verse 21. "And so the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, while he was still sleeping he took one of man's ribs and he closed up the place with the flesh was."

So as God saw the emptiness and the loneliness of man, and you notice that man didn't go out looking for a wife and as you see here also the woman didn't go out looking for a husband. God brought the woman to the man. That's something for you young people to understand. It's so important that we understand God's ways are not man's ways. God's ways are perfect. So when God saw the emptiness of Adam, he put him to sleep and literally here it said that God took one of his ribs.

Now the word rib in the Hebrew, it's a very interesting word. There's really nothing. It's actually a curved side. And literally some of the translators that have taken the scripture here, they said that God actually did a blood transfusion here between the man and the woman. And so God here in creating woman, creates woman out of man. And then this is what he says, verse 22, "And then the Lord God made a woman."

Notice, he didn't make two women, one woman. Not two men, two women, one man, one woman. Notice that. From the rib which he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man. Now what do you think Adam's reaction must have been after looking at giraffes and elephants and lions and all those animals? You think he noticed something different? I'll bet. And when Adam saw her, he must have been not only attracted to her, I mean he has his testimony here what he says.

"And then the man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, isha, for she was taken out of man.'" Notice that. And then check this out, verse 24. Then he says, "For this reason, a man will leave his mommy and his daddy." And notice what he says too, "And shall be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh." Which means what? Your mother and your father and your friends never get in the way of your relationship with your wife or your husband.

And what's beautiful about that in that perfect state, it says that the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed because sin had not entered the world yet. But just as you read in the next chapter, chapter three of Genesis, it wasn't too long that Satan, the serpent, began to see somehow that man was absent from the garden. He was off somewhere else, I don't know if he was fishing or what, but he was out. He was gone.

And Satan saw an opportunity to come and tempt the woman. The first thing that Satan did when he came to the woman, he began to challenge her spiritually. What did he do? He challenged the word of God. Why? Because Adam was the head of his home. The husband has been given the responsibility to lead and to provide for his wife and for his children, not only physically but spiritually. That's why the Proverbs says, "Do you know the condition of your flock? Do you know what's happening in your home? Do you know what your wife is facing?"

"Do you know what your children are going through today emotionally and spiritually?" Now when Adam was gone and Eve was tempted by Satan, he challenged the word of God. And then the Bible says what? That the woman began to speak to the serpent. She should have never spoken to that serpent. She should have never said anything to the serpent. But yet she did. And when the serpent saw an open door, then Satan went for the whole thing against that woman.

And what did he do? He brought the woman down and the woman gave to her husband and they both sinned and their eyes were opened and they found themselves naked and they hid in the Garden of Eden from the presence of God. That's what the Bible teaches. Man fell into sin. Now as man fell into sin, God provided for them as God not only killed an animal and gave the coats of skins to the Adam and Eve to cover themselves with.

But as we begin to read through Genesis and into Exodus and we go through Numbers and Leviticus and you come to the book of Deuteronomy, all the way from the beginning of time God already had created a woman and a man to be together until death do us part. So help me God I do. That ring that you give to your wife and to your husband is a token of your love for one another and the circle stands for eternity. That is you are giving yourself to her, she's given herself to you.

And this is why Moses gives the instruction once again to parents to listen to God. Parents, pay attention, listen to what God says to you. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four through eight. "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength." Notice what God desires of you first: to fall in love with God. Your relationship with God is the most important thing above anything else.

Then if your relationship with God is complete, then then God says this. He says, "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. Parents, you shall teach your children diligently. You shall talk of them," that is the scriptures, "when you sit down in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be frontlets between your eyes."

God is commanding for you as a parent to instruct your children. It's so neat to go into a Christian home whether you go into the kitchen or the bathroom or you go into the living room or one of the master bedrooms, whatever it is, and you look and there's actually these pictures with scriptures on the wall. And when you walk into the bathroom, there are devotionals in the bathroom. It seems that wherever you go throughout the house, the word of God is there to maintain the house. Because that's what God desires.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. We are committed to equipping you with wisdom from God's Word as you and your family walk together in faith. Visit SomebodyLovesYou.com for resources. You can also download our free app for live-streamed Bible teaching and digital studies. Now back to more with Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: God has commanded that. Now, the reason I'm pressing upon this point is because if we don't take the time to pray as a family and take the time to talk to our children, communicate with our children, communicate with our wives, communicate with the husband, then what's going to happen is we're going to give Satan an opportunity to come into the marriage and to come into our family and begin to divide our family. And that happens all the time.

It's sad. But think how your children can get into drugs, into alcohol, into sexual adventures. You can't be with them 24 hours a day but know one thing: the Holy Spirit is omnipresent. The Holy Spirit, if you've been teaching, if you are doing your job spiritually as a parent, then you leave everything else in the hands of the Lord. You trust in the Lord. Because we're all going to make mistakes, but we have to learn from our mistakes. Otherwise, you're going to continue to make greater mistakes.

And God desires that we pay attention to what God says. By the time Moses gave the instruction and the parents began to teach their children, by the time you get to the time of Joshua in the 24th chapter of Joshua, Joshua is old, he's getting ready to die, he gathers the people in together and he says, "You guys, I have one thing to say to you: for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord the rest of our lives together. Choose you this day who you're going to serve."

And all the people responded by saying, "Hey, for me and my house we're going to serve the Lord too." Let me say that words are cheap. A lot of people have made a lot of promises that have broken completely. Because by the time you get to the book of Judges, turn to Judges chapter two. All of a sudden those people that were instructed, the parents to not only nourish and take care of their children, now those parents are passed away, a new generation's arising.

Check this out, verse 10. "And when all that generation had been gathered together to their fathers," speaking of their parents, "another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel." Why? Because the parents messed up. The parents didn't take the time to teach their children all the Bible stories: how God provided for the people of God with manna, how God delivered them from Egypt, how God did this and how God did that, and all the miracles and the wonders.

So by the time these people stopped teaching their children, their children actually came to grow up in a heathen country with a heathen god and they were totally away from God. Check this out, look what he says in the next verse. "Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and they served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them and they bowed down themselves and they provoked the Lord to anger." Wow.

This is why Paul the Apostle in the book of 2 Corinthians 6:14 says what? "Be you not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever, for what fellowship has light with darkness, or what fellowship has Satan with God?" Why? Because what happened is that these children had no foundation. The parents neglected to give a foundation to their children. So what did their children do? Their children went into the world seeking after other gods, and they forsook the Lord their God.

Again he says, "And they forsook the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths," that is, the gods of fertility. "And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, so he delivered them into the hands of the plunderers who despoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, the hand of God was against them for calamity and the Lord said it is, the Lord has spoken."