Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: As I think about marriages saved, I'm more convinced than ever that the things I want to share with you are awfully important. I've just come back from a large women's gathering. In between everything else I was doing, I sat and listened for hours and hours to women whose marriages are falling apart. They are not old marriages; they're young marriages.

I'm convinced that anything we can do to try and put a foundation under marriages that isn't there—and that's the case so often—or even if a marriage has had a foundation and is showing signs of cracking, if we can in any way get to that situation before the whole building is tumbling down, then that's what we want to do.

For this first session I have with you, I'm going to deal with two of the eight things that make a marriage work. Of course, there are a hundred things that make a marriage work. I've just chosen eight that, in my experience, in our marriage, and also as I deal with counseling people all over the world in their marriages, I've figured out what I think eight of the essential things are that make a marriage work. I hope they'll be helpful to you.

When I married, our worldview of marriage was very much different than the worldview of marriage that it is now. Marriage was a bit like a besieged city; everyone outside was trying to get in and everyone inside was trying to get out. That was how I married. There were unhappy marriages all around me. My parents' generation had stayed in their marriages, but they were not happy affairs.

Divorce was hardly an option. I can't remember growing up knowing anyone who was divorced. That's incredible, isn't it? But I honestly can't remember. I was sitting there over breakfast this morning thinking if I could think of anybody in my growing years in my parents' generation, and I can't. So, it was a very different situation for me.

When we stood there at the church and said, "For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part," we meant it. We did not mean "till divorce us do part," which is often what is meant today. It's very interesting and heartbreaking to see what has happened in the disintegration of marriage and the family with it as we go along.

I have a daughter who's a psychologist. She did her doctorate at New York University in the area of the effect of divorce on adolescent behavior. In her textbook, it said a continual moral transition will be apparent by accepting sexual relationships with one person at a time. Serial monogamy, the civilized and moral way to behave, will be apparent.

In other words, you'll have a wife for your child-rearing days, then you'll have another spouse for the middle-aged period that would be more suitable, and then you'll have another partner for your waning years. Serial monogamy. In England, it's a lot worse. They're about a generation ahead of us in all of this. In Europe, even with the background that we have of traditional religion, it is still well ahead of us.

Their idea now of the civilized way to behave is to have an extended family where the children in it will not know who their parents are. There will be many parents in this extended family, and they'll all be living together. It is absolutely wild, but it's just about where we are. Marriage is being redefined. Even in the courts, marriage is being redefined. Family is to be redefined.

I was interested as I put this message together to pick up Time magazine. Let me quote from an article called "Flying Solo." It says, "In many cases, women who choose the single life have looked at those around them and vowed not to make their mistakes. 'My mother married her first boyfriend. All my relatives stayed in marriages that are really tough. When I looked at the unhappiness that was in my parents' marriage, I said I can't do that.'"

A divorcee who gets depressed, called Cynthia, thinks of her five closest girlfriends. They're all just existing in their marriages. Two of them got married when they were young. Twenty years later, they'd outgrown each other. One has not got over her husband's affair. Two friends are not even sleeping in the same bedroom as their husbands anymore. Their personal happiness is placed last, and their kids know they are miserable.

In this day and age, does marriage matter? Interestingly enough, a quote in this magazine caught my eye. "How is it that with all the insistence that it doesn't matter anymore, an internal and universal yearning to belong to a companion pertains?" I know women all over the world whose heart is a lonely hunter, and they're looking for that satisfaction in marriage.

What does the Bible say about all this? I believe that all of us know, even those who are searching and searching in multiple relationships with men, that the answer is not to be found in a relationship down here on earth, but the answer is to be found with a relationship in Heaven. The Bible says that marriage matters to God. He thought about it, and all His ideas are precious to Him.

He is not impressed with people who try to reinvent His ideas and figure out something better that will work for whatever reason. If marriage matters to God and I love Him, then marriage should matter to me—marriage as God intended it to be. Throughout the Bible, we see examples of what God meant. He talks about marriage a lot, saying it's one of His creation ordinances.

In Mark chapter 10, some people came to Jesus and they started to talk about divorce. They said, "What do you think about divorce?" Instead of talking about divorce, He talked about marriage. That's what we always try to do when people come to talk to us about divorce. We start by talking about marriage. We say, "Before we talk about divorce or separation here, let's figure out if you understand what marriage is all about."

You need to make a note to go and read Mark chapter 10:1-9 and see what He says. Jesus said that from the beginning of time, in Genesis, God made men and women. He made them for a reason: that they might leave their parents and cleave to each other. "Leave" and "cleave." Leave means to leave. Half the problems we have in marriages today is because in-laws interfere.

I spent a lot of time listening to young women whose marriages are falling apart because their parents can't get along with her husband, or his parents can't get along with the husband. This is causing so much disruption that the marriage is creaking. If something isn't done, it's going to fall apart. God says you're going to have to leave the old life and cleave to your partner if it's going to work.

There's going to have to be a redefining of your relationships with your parents and his relationships with his parents so that we all get that sorted out. Cleaving is making a priority with your own marriage relationship. From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female, and for this reason, a man shall leave and cleave.

The word "cleave" is an interesting one. It means glue; stick to. My husband often says when he's marrying people, he's very tempted to look at the young couple and, at the end of it when he presents them, say, "Now you're stuck with her and she's stuck with you." Out of that, we sort out all our differences. Leave and cleave. Attach. You have to detach, and then you have to attach—two different things, two different skills, if a marriage is going to really work.

Marriage is precious to God because we are precious to God and He wants us to be blessed. Jesus told us not to mess with things that are precious to Him. "What God has joined together, let no man or woman put asunder." God has joined together. I love it when my husband really gets going in the marriage ceremony and he says that in a big loud voice with his Bible in his hand: "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder."

God is not impressed when our marriages fall apart. He doesn't want that for us. We've broken something that's precious to Him. I was at a convention a couple of years ago and the music director, a great big man, he was just terrific and he had that whole crowd of people singing from the depths of their hearts. In introducing a song, he just gave a little story, and I've never forgotten it.

He said, "I'm a grandfather and I was left looking after this kid, just a two-year-old. I said, 'How long are you going to leave me for?' as they all departed out of the door to go shopping, all the women. They said, 'Oh, just for an hour.' Well, about three hours later, the women were not back from shopping and Grandfather was on his last legs chasing this two-year-old all around the house."

In the end, he said, "I just have to make myself a cup of tea." So, he left the child in the living room and he went to make himself a saving cup of tea. As he was making it, he heard this crash. He raced back into the living room and there on the floor was a very precious ornament, something that meant a lot to his family that had been passed down from generation to generation, in smithereens on the floor.

The two-year-old took one look at Papa's face and he took off, running away from him down the corridor. He said his first reaction was anger, his first reaction was grief. He'd broken something that was precious to him. So, he took after the kid. The kid realized he couldn't get out the door, so he whirled around, looked at Papa's face, put his little arms out, ran towards him saying, "Sorry, Papa! Sorry, Papa! Sorry, Papa!"

The granddad picked him up and held him against his heart and said, "Oh, sweetheart, it doesn't matter at all." He said a little voice said to him, and it was God's voice, "Why don't you do that? When you've broken something that's precious to me, why don't you turn around and run into my arms? Yes, there is anger there in the heart of God because you've broken something that's precious to Him, but there's grace there too, and there's forgiveness there too. He wants you to run into His arms so we can begin to do something about the thing that has been broken together."

Marriage is precious to God because we are precious to God. He wants us to be blessed. When we break something that's precious to Him, He needs us to be close to Him if He's going to be able to do anything about this mess.

In Malachi, there's a little passage about marriage. I'm not going to ask you to turn to it because, first of all, it's very hard to find. I had half an hour to look for it, and I'm not going to do that to you right on the spot. But let me read you what God says to the people of Israel through the prophet Malachi. It's in chapter 2.

"The Lord is acting as a witness between you and the wife of your youth." Now, he's talking to the people of Israel who should know better, who know what marriage is all about, and they are messing up their marriages. They're breaking something that's precious to God.

"The Lord is acting as a witness between you and the wife of your youth because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one in flesh and in spirit? They are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring."

I don't know if you've ever read this, but it is an incredible statement of what God intends for marriage in order that it might be a blessing to us and to our families. Why one? Because He was seeking godly kids. So, guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

They were breaking something that was precious to God. What was it? Faith with her. They were being unfaithful. Just like that ornament was smashed on the ground, the marriages in Israel were being broken basically by the men. The women had no voice, had no option. All he had to do was say, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you," and that was it; you were gone.

The woman had no voice in court or in any other place. But God was the witness, and He said, "I will speak for the woman," because He was looking at women who were being treated in this way and were having their marriage covenant violated as the man got involved with other women, and He was not impressed.

God has instituted marriage and He intends unions to last. So, we're not to break something that's precious to Him. In other words, God says, "I hate that. Don't you hate that?" It grieves Him. "I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the Lord God Almighty.

"So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith." It's not clear here if there are two sins the Lord is talking about: violence and breaking faith with the wife. Most people think the violence is breaking faith with the wife. God looks at that as violence. He looks at that in a very serious way. He says you are doing damage to a human being who's made in my likeness. Both things grieve God because it was not what He intended.

The reason that He's warning us here is very helpful to me. He is warning us: guard yourself in your spirit. What's going to happen? Some of you perhaps are sitting there saying, "This will never, never, never happen to me." Well, we're going to look at a story briefly where it did happen. God puts the lonely in families, Psalm 68:6 says. He's the father to the fatherless and a defender of widows and a defender of the family that He thought about in the first place.

We are to guard ourselves in our spirit. Now, what does that mean? In 2 Samuel, the story of David and Bathsheba is given us. I want to just look at this and remind you about the story. David is in bed. It is evening. He has not gone out to battle where he should have gone out to battle. He has sent Joab.

The chapter opens by saying in the years when the kings went forth to war, David sent Joab. It sounds as if there was a season for war. Couldn't fight in the winter; now it was the summer, so it's the war season. In the season that Israel went out to war, David stays at home, which is not like the leader of the commander of the forces that he had been all his life. He's got a bit lazy.

In the evening, he gets up and he goes to the flat top of the Middle Eastern house that he's staying on and he looks around. He sees a beautiful woman bathing herself—a naked woman. David breaks something that is precious to God. He breaks faith. He calls for Bathsheba and she comes. It takes two. He breaks faith with her and she comes.

Some people say, "Well, she had to come; he was the king." No, she didn't have to come. She didn't have to come, but the problem with Bathsheba was she was lonely because her husband was out of town. Years and years ago, I wrote a book called *Prime Rib and Apple*. It's out of print a long, long time. It was my second book I ever wrote.

I wrote a chapter, "How to commit adultery when your husband's out of town." I got more letters on that chapter than I have ever got from any other book I've ever written. I wrote it as a piece of creative writing. Let me just read you a little bit.

"The snake was busy editing lust's manuscript. The spelling was dreadful, but the ideas were as bad as they could be. The snake knew it would be a hot-selling item on the market. In fact, he knew exactly who the first purchaser would be: beautiful Bathsheba. She'd buy it. He flicked his tail in evil delight. Putting the finishing touches to the porno cover, he deliberated over the title. With a flash of evil genius, he came up with the bestseller: *How to Commit Adultery When Your Husband's Out of Town*. 'How about that?' he asked lust, who drooled approvingly and rushed away to present it to Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.

Now, she was going to be a little hard to convince, perhaps. Her strength of character was courageous. Fiery temperament indicated a positive response to crushing adversity. Her husband was fighting Israel's battles far away. He'd be an easy target. But what about her? What was she going to do with this? Well, he arrives at her front door. Her husband is out of town. That's enough.

Omnipotence allowed temptation to knock at the door. Bathsheba opens it and smiles. 'Come in,' she says. Now, temptation is not sin. If it was sin, then Jesus was a sinner, because Jesus was tempted. In fact, we read in Omnipotence's book that the Holy Spirit actually led Jesus into the wilderness to meet temptation. He knew who stood behind temptation's shadow, that is, the snake. He knew the experience of resisting would result in His returning in the fullness of the power of God. No, temptation is not sin, but to obey his evil suggestions is.

Bathsheba wasn't a bit afraid of him; after all, he was very familiar. In fact, he was common to man. Everyone she knew was acquainted with him, so why be suspicious? She had faced him before and had usually been able to ignore his suggestions. But this time it was different. She was lonely. Uriah had been away such a long time. She was bored. There was nothing to do. She was also depressed. She was not usually so, but then temptation is not stupid enough to approach us when we're at our best. No, it's when we're vulnerable, hurting in some area of our life, that he cunningly appears with his directives.

And so it was with her. Beautiful prime rib noticed her visitor was carrying a new book in her hand. She didn't know it had been written especially with her in mind. She was also unaware that it was straight from the pit of hell. There appeared to be an intriguing picture of her king on the front, which captured her attention—at least it seemed to be intriguing until she noticed he was naked. She gasped in horror and her eyes traveled to the title: *How to Commit Adultery When Your Husband's Out of Town*. She looked long and hard into temptation's eyes. They had a hypnotic quality about them. They appeared to be calm and reassuring, as if to say, 'Don't run away. Just give me a chance to explain the whole idea. Just take it in your hand and think about it. You've plenty of time on your hands. What you need is a good book to go to bed with.' Did she really think he wanted her to go to bed with a book?" chortled the snake.

When your husband's out of town, you get lonely. I travel with the husbands, and I go into hotel bars, which is the only place you can get a sandwich when you arrive somewhere these days, and I see your husbands who are out of town. I also see the women who are out of town, who are traveling without their husbands. I see what happens day after day, and I sit there and I pray. Oh no, no, I see it happening before my eyes.

What happened? He didn't get off the roof. First thought isn't sin; the second one is. You guard your spirit. The thing that David did displeased the Lord. Of course it did. So, how do we guard our hearts?

First of all, you call things by their real names. Psalm 51:6, the psalm that David wrote after he committed adultery with Bathsheba, says, "What you want is truth from the inside out. Truth in the inward parts." What God wants is for us to be honest. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. If we are meddling, fiddling, if we have our little fingers in something we know we shouldn't have, if we're playing with something for whatever reason and we're going to get burned, and it's going to lead to trouble, be honest. Guard your spirit. If your heart is saying, "Uh-oh," listen to it. Know your heart. Know yourself.

I was in Australia years ago, and a beautiful pastor's wife came up to me. She was a big-boned, gorgeous Australian girl, and she was absolutely gorgeous. She looked me in the eye and said, "I can't relate to what you've just told us." I'd been teaching Bathsheba as well as all the other women in the Bible. She said to me, "Murder, yes, but adultery, no. I could kill him at some point, but I could never be unfaithful to him. We have a wonderful marriage, we've three young children, we've a great church going here."

I said to her, "Have you ever had a chance to be unfaithful?" She said, "Yes, I have," which didn't surprise me. I said, "How did you cope with it?" She said, "It was easy." I said, "Tell me why it was easy." "Well, this guy in the church, and this, that, and the other. It was just easy, Jill. I could never respond to something like that." I said, "Tell me about this fellow. Was he like Frankenstein, or was he like David?" She said, "Well, he wasn't quite like Frankenstein, but it was easy to say no to him, if that's what you mean." And I said, "Wait till David moves in next door." Never say never. Let she that thinks she stands take heed lest she fall.

We talked a little bit and I took her address and said I wanted to keep in touch. Over the years, three or four years passed, and we just sent each other little notes, doing great. Then one day I got a letter, frantic. "Pray for me. David moved in next door." As temptation presented to her, as he presented to Bathsheba that book, she fell. She did not get off the roof. Marriage gone, ministry gone, family totally destroyed.

Do you know why she didn't? Because she wasn't obedient to the word of God and the promptings of the Spirit. She did not guard her heart. She wasn't honest. She told me afterwards, "I wasn't honest. I was making all sorts of excuses. 'Well, this man's a wonderful Christian, he's heading up this department at church, and we're forced together to work in the ministry, and so that's how this is happening.'" She started making excuses instead of saying, "Heart, you like him! There is chemistry! Be honest! Guard your heart! Never say never!" For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, and sexual immorality, Jeremiah 17:9. Get off the roof and keep your heart pure and clean.

There was a time when Israel dug wells. The Philistines came along and bunged them all up with muck and stones. Then Isaac, who's the well-digger, or the re-well-digger, came along and unbunged them. As I read the story of Abraham, it was exciting. Jacob, it was exciting. But when I looked at Isaac, he was the sort of nothing sort of person. I thought, "Well, what? This isn't a very interesting guy."

But when I found out that he spent his entire life unbunging wells, which doesn't seem very clever, I saw the spiritual picture and how important that was because without water, you die in that part of the country. What he did is get down in the muck and the mire with some men and got rid of the muck. As soon as he did, the water sprang up, and they had life and health again.

So our job is to keep the well clean because Philistines in our lives are going to come and put this muck and stones in our marriages, in the well. What we have to do is keep the well clean. Genesis 26:18, you can read that story. Proverbs 4:23 says this: "Guard your heart; it is the wellspring of life." Not only of life for yourself, but life in your marriage.

In the spring, at the times when kings went off to war, David sent Joab. Mistake: laziness. The stone of laziness. One evening, David got up from his bed. What's wrong with this picture? Lustfulness. Then David sent messengers—and I hate this—to get her. Intentionally putting yourself in the way of temptation or making that overture in some way that I believe women know very well how to make. David sent messengers to get her, but she had already told him she was available.

So, how do you clean the well? I would recommend that you take Psalm 51 to bed with you tonight. That's a good thing to take to bed with you. Just read through the psalm. That's the psalm that David used to confess his sin, and it is an incredible psalm. God sent a man to him to help him, to confront him, to bring him back to God. His name was Nathan the prophet.

As soon as Nathan came, he confessed his sin. Sin against people is a sin against God. "I've sinned against you." Well, he'd sinned against Bathsheba; that is a sin against God. Any sin against man is a sin against God. "Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

You know what God can do? He can forgive you so thoroughly and so totally. It's just like cleansing a leper. Hyssop was the little plant you find in the Middle East that you dipped in the blood of the sacrifice, the blood of the lamb. It was used by the priest to cleanse lepers. Lepers would come and say, "I think I'm healed." The priest would examine them like the doctor makes sure they were, and then they would ritually and spiritually cleanse them. They would take the hyssop, dip it in the blood of the lamb, and put it on the man and say, "You're clean." Even a leper.

David said, "I'm a leper. I just feel like a leper." Have you ever felt like a leper? Something you've done that you're so ashamed of? Well, God, because of what He did for us, can cleanse us. David says at the end of that psalm, "Now I'm going to tell transgressors your way. Now I can be a blessing to my world again."

Marriage matters to God. Secondly, let Christ govern your marriage. Once you've figured out you're going to guard your heart and never say never, remember the devil is after your marriage. The devil hates marriage. He hates anything to do with God. All God's ideas are anathema to the devil.

Right back there in the beginning of time, he said, "Has God said this, that, and the other? That's not a very good idea, Eve. Did God really say that? I don't think that's a very good idea." He hates God's ideas, and so he hates us if we are in a Christian marriage. He hates our children. He hates our grandchildren. He hates anything that smells of God, and so he's going to be after it.

The thing that happens to keep your marriage safe and guarded is as you do your part, God will certainly do His part to assist you in that. Then you let Christ govern your marriage. When we got engaged, I wanted an engagement ring with three stones. We did. The Lord in the middle, Jesus, and Stuart one side, me the other. Every time I look at that ring, I am reminded: Christ governs our marriage.

In John chapter 2:1-10, there is a story, a wonderful story of a wedding. If you ever wonder what God thought about marriage, the first miracle Jesus ever did, and Jesus was God on earth, the first thing He ever did when He performed a miracle was at a wedding. He went to a wedding. He blessed a wedding ceremony with His presence.

That's what God thinks of it. He said, "The first thing I'm going to do on earth, when I've lived in Nazareth and I've blessed family for 30 out of my 33 years—I lived in Nazareth with my family—and for three years I worked on the redemption of the world." So, if you ever wonder what Jesus feels about family, look at 30 years in Nazareth. And if you ever wonder what Jesus, who is God, thinks about weddings and marriages as He intended them to be, look at that first miracle in John chapter 2.

It was a wonderful occasion. It was a happy time. It was a wedding. You've got the bride and the groom, and in between them, the governor. It's a little different than what we do, but the governor was responsible for everything that ran in the marriage ceremony. He was probably the most important person there, not the bride or the groom.

Something terrible happened in Middle Eastern culture: the wine ran out. In other words, they were going to lose face, and that's very important to those people, if it was discovered that the wine had run out. Mary, the disciples, and Jesus have been invited to this wedding, not as the governor of it. Jesus was not the governor; He was the guest.

Most of us have had marriages where probably that's true. You wanted Him at your wedding, not as the governor, but as the guest. You probably didn't even realize that. You certainly wanted Him at your wedding; it's why you had it in a church. But perhaps He was the guest. What happened when the wine ran out? Jesus took over and became the governor.

He told them to fill the water pots with water and then to pour it into the wine glasses. Those men took their jobs in their hands because He'd never done a miracle. Just imagine if they poured water into the wine glasses; they wouldn't have worked the next wedding. That catering job would have been out of business and bankrupt.

But there was something about this man who had never performed a miracle, some authority, some instinct that made them do what He told them to do. They filled the water pots with water and then poured them into the glasses, and God turned the water into wine. The Bible says it was better than anything they'd had before.

What a picture! Marriages that started off with a lot of wine, somehow now they're just water. All the sparkle's gone. They're running out or have run out because Jesus is only the guest and not the governor. When Jesus was made the governor and not the guest, He turned the water into wine, and it was better than anything they had had before.

We came here in 1970. We immigrated to the States in 1970, and there was an usher at Elmbrook Church who was in the Rotary Club. He said to me one day, "Would you come and speak to the Rotary Club?" I said, "Sure, what do I speak to a Rotary Club about?" He said, "You can bring a spiritual emphasis, a value message, in a secular club here in America. They're sort of used to that. We have pastors speak to them, and rabbis, and religious people."

Well, I'd only been here a couple of months and it was in the days where we had those hairpieces. You can't remember this, but your mother would. That's what hair was like. I had got a hairpiece because that's what everybody did. Stuart was at church; it was a Sunday night. He gave me the address and I looked at it and I thought, "Goodness, I don't know where that is."

I found the address on the map and I thought, "Okay, it's up on Capitol Drive, wherever that is." I was driving on the wrong side of the road because I come from England. Here I am, I've got to get myself—never driven over here until this night, just been there a few weeks—to this meeting to this Rotary Club and talk to them.

It's snowing and it's windy, and we're on a hill in the first parsonage we had. So I back out the car straight into the ditch and I'm stuck. It is blowing a gale and I get out, and my wig is coming apart. I am unaware of this because I'm panicked and I have to get in the car and go to this meeting. So the neighbor comes and helps me, gets the car out of the ditch. I'm now late and I roar down the street and I get myself to this address, and it's a bowling club.

I go inside and I say to the man, "Is there a meeting here? A meeting, like a Rotary meeting?" "Oh, yes," he says, "we have a meeting room, and people have it, and the Rotary Club are meeting right back at the bowling alley." I go back and I open the door, and the man who has been speaking in front of me has been doing this item thing on wine. It's a wine tasting that's before I speak.

By the time I get there, everybody is very happy and having a wonderful time, and they've been tasting all this wine for about an hour from this bottle and this bottle. I slip in and I sit there, quite unaware of what I must look like. I have not had time to go to the ladies or to do anything else, so I'm looking absolutely wild with my wig over my eye.

He comes to the end of his talk and he says, "Now there's another speaker here and her name is Jill, Jill Briscoe, and I can't really read this, what she's going to talk about here. I think she has a comedy act." This is my introduction. I walk up with my heart thumping like mad saying, "God, what do we do with this?"

Because I'm just from England, I'm still very English and I put out my hand to shake his hand, which I used to do all the time until I got acclimatized that you don't do that over here. I put out my hand and he put the bottle of wine in it! So here I am standing at the front of this with the bottle of wine and my hair over my eye, fitting in perfectly to the whole scene.

I'm saying, "Oh God, help, give me an idea." Immediately, of course, the idea came. I looked at the bottle and there was a little tiny bit left, and I said, "Look at this, the wine's run out. What a shame." I said, "You know, that happened once before, 2,000 years ago in the Middle East." Then I told the story I've just told you.

I told them how to get Christ as governor of their life and what a difference it would make to their marriage. Well, they were on the table, under the table; they were embarrassed, they were looking down. I thought, "I've only been in America three weeks, but I think this is too strong a talk. I'll have to adapt it next time, if I get a next time."

At the end, there was a young woman who didn't leave hastily. Everybody else left hastily. I was left, put the wine bottle down, and I went over to this young woman who was in tears, and she said, "The wine's run out." She came to Christ. What an incredible thing! When Christ is governor, it will be better than anything you've had before.

Pray with me, if you will. Heavenly Father, thank You for marriage. Thank You that it was Your idea from the Genesis of the race. You intended that men and women should leave and cleave. God, what a mess we've made out of it, and that's because we live in a period of time called life after the fall with a sinful nature. But You came and You died on the cross to redeem the race and to roll back the effects of the fall in every dimension, not least marriage.

So those of us that profess to know You and love You and try to be the Christians You're calling us to be, and those of us that are here that want our homes to be godly and to be blessed, help us to know how to guard our hearts. Help us to know how to be honest with God. Help us to know how to keep the well clean. Teach us, Lord, when temptation comes to slam the door in his face through the power of the Lord.

Father, guard our marriages. I pray for every marriage. I pray that You would strengthen it, that You would lighten it, that You would brighten it, that You would turn any water into wine. I pray for the children of those marriages, that they may see a godly example and grow up to hold marriage as something that is precious to You and precious to them. I ask it for Christ's sake, Amen.