Telling the Truth

Stuart Briscoe: We're so glad you've joined us for Telling the Truth with Stuart and Jill Briscoe. And 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.

Guest (Male): What's the most important thing to make your marriage incredible? Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe brings you one vital truth that kept her marriage going strong for more than 60 years. But first, if you want a strong and lasting marriage, the best place to look for guidance is the creator of marriage itself: God.

We want to help you build a healthy and fulfilling marriage by sending you Jill Briscoe's series, *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work*. We'll send you this resource along with a beautiful Bible verse print as thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ. So call today to request your copy of this powerful four-message series: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Let's go now to Jill and her message, "Guard Your Heart and Let God Govern Your Marriage."

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 this large women's gathering. In between everything else I was doing, I sat and listened for hours and hours and hours to women whose marriages are falling apart. They are not old marriages; they are young marriages.

I'm convinced that anything that 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 from 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 that was divorced. Now, that's incredible, isn't it?

But I honestly can't remember. I was sitting there over breakfast this morning thinking, can I think of anybody in my growing years, in my parents' generation? And I can't. And 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 to me and heartbreaking to see what has happened in the disintegration of marriage and family with it as we go along. Now we're in the new millennium. By the 1990s, things were not what they should be. I have a daughter who's a psychologist and she did her doctorate at New York University in the area of the effect of divorce on adolescent behavior.

In her textbook that she had at New York, 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, and 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.

What is marriage? I mean, it's just 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 it. In an article in here 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," she said. Two of them got married when they were young. Twenty years later, they'd outgrown each other.

One has not got over a husband's affair. Two friends are not even sleeping in the same bedroom as their husband anymore. Their personal happiness is placed last, and their kids know they are miserable. So 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?"

How is it? I know women all over the world whose heart is a lonely hunter, and they're looking for that satisfaction in marriage. Well, what does the Bible say about all this? I believe that all of us know, even those that are searching and 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, that He thought about it, and all His ideas are precious to Him. He is not impressed with people that try to reinvent His idea and figure out something better and something 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 here or separation, let's figure out if you understand what marriage is all about. You need to make a note if you can to go and read Mark chapter 10:1-9 and see what He says. Jesus said, from the beginning of time in Genesis—"beginnings," Genesis means the beginning—from the beginning of time, God made men and women.

He made them for a reason: that they might leave their parents and cleave to each other. There's two nice words for you in the King James: "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 her parents can't get along with the husband.

This is causing so much disruption that the marriage is creaking, and if something isn't done, it's going to fall apart. And so God says you're going to have to leave the old life and cleave to your partner if it's going to work. It'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, making a priority with your own marriage relationship.

Guest (Male): Your marriage grows stronger when you let God take the lead. That's what Jill Briscoe is talking about today on Telling the Truth. She'll be back soon, but first, one question we often hear from Telling the Truth listeners is: "What's the Bible secret to a long, happy marriage?" Over their years of ministry, Stuart and Jill Briscoe have both had a lot to say about this question. After all, they had the biblical wisdom and real-life experience—over 60 years of marriage—to back it up.

In Jill's four-message series called *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work*, she shares timeless truth on marriage from the Bible along with practical day-to-day advice from her own marriage to Stuart. We want to help you build a marriage that stands the test of time as you apply biblical truth to help your marriage not only survive, but thrive. That's why we're excited to send you *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work*, as well as a beautifully designed print featuring a Bible verse on marriage as our thanks for your gift today.

Your gift will help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's love with people around the world through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. So call today to request *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work* when you give: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Okay, now back to Jill and her message, "Guard Your Heart and Let God Govern Your Marriage."

Jill Briscoe: From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female, and for this reason a man shall leave and cleave. And 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. So you have to detach, and then you have to attach—two different things, two different skills—if a marriage is going to really work. So 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."

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 Black man, he was just terrific—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, well, how long are you going to leave me for? As they all departed out of the door to go shopping, all the women. And 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, "Oh, I just have to make myself a cup of coffee." And so he left the child in the living room and he went to make himself a saving cup of coffee. As he was making it, he heard this crash. So 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, been passed down from the family from generation to generation, smithereens on the floor.

Well, 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. And so he took after the kid, and the kid realized he couldn't get out the door, so he whirled around, looked at Papa's face, put his little arms out and ran towards him, saying, "Sorry, Papa! Sorry, Papa! Sorry, Papa!"

The granddad picked him up and held him against the 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? 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 and 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. Now, 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. And 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? I hate that." It grieves Him.

"I hate divorce," it says in this passage, 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." Now, 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." So both things grieve God because it was not what He intended. Now, 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? And 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. And we are to guard ourselves in our spirit. Now, what does that mean? Well, 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. So in the season that Israel went out to war, David stays at home, which is not like the leader of the commander of the force that he had been all his life.

So 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. And he sees a beautiful woman bathing herself, a naked woman. And David breaks something that is precious to God. He breaks faith. He breaks faith. And he calls for Bathsheba, and she comes. It takes two.

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 been out of print a long, long time. It was my second book I ever wrote.

And 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, and I wrote it as a piece of creative writing. When your husband's out of town, you get lonely. And 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. And I also see the women who are out of town, who are traveling without their husbands. And I see what happens day after day after day. And I sit there and I pray. I pray, "Oh no, no!" I see it happening before my eyes.

Guest (Male): That's Jill Briscoe on Telling the Truth. She'll return soon with more biblical wisdom to help God govern your marriage for the better. But first, God has given you the secrets to a long-lasting and joy-filled marriage, and they're found throughout the pages of Scripture. We want to help you mine the treasures of God's word so that you can grow your marriage God's way.

That's why we're excited to send you Jill Briscoe's four-message series, *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work*. This powerful series will breathe new life into your marriage as you learn to anchor your relationship to God's truth. We'll send you *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work*, along with a specially designed print featuring a Bible verse on marriage as thanks for your gift this month to keep sharing the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth with so many around the world.

Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God's healing love so they can experience life in Christ. If you haven't given before, consider a gift today to help keep God's word going out to you and many others. And remember to request *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work* and your Bible verse print when you call and give.

Just call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Jill is here to answer a couple of questions from today's message. Jill, in today's culture, it seems people are trying to make up their own definition of what marriage is. But what is God's true design for marriage?

Jill Briscoe: Fortunately, we can look in different parts of the Bible. One of my favorite parts is Malachi chapter 2. It says, "Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and in spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth." There's so much in the Bible to do with God's design and God's wishes for marriage.

He wants the best for us, and marriage is God's idea in the first place. So the true design is first to know God. You can't have a godly marriage without God; that sort of stands to sense to me. And it doesn't mean just having a wedding in a church; that's not how God gets into the marriage. It means on a daily, moment-by-moment basis, submitting the marriage to him. And asking him to make it the best that it can be.

Guest (Male): Jill, why is marriage so precious to God, and why is it so important to him that we do all we can to make a marriage work?

Jill Briscoe: In this passage that I just read from Malachi chapter 2, that God is looking for godly offspring. God is looking for children to have the chance to be brought up in a godly marriage for their sake, so that they may know the Lord, and so they may have a good marriage. And it's a question of blessing, not a question of God making a whole lot of rules to make the marriage miserable.

And God's idea is that two people know the Lord, love the Lord, obey the Lord, and submit to each other, and give to each other, and bless each other. And the children are the recipients of that. And when you get the godly offspring of a marriage being brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, then you've got good little citizens coming along. You've got people who will make their world a happier, happier place. So God's design is for society, and where a marriage is strong, society is very, very strong indeed. That's God's way.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Jill. Before we go, we want to remind you this month, when you give to continue sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll send you Jill Briscoe's four-message series, *Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work*, along with a Bible verse print about marriage. This powerful series will encourage you with eight biblical keys to a healthy, life-giving marriage.

So please request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. We're so grateful you joined us for today's broadcast of Telling the Truth. Be sure to come back again to hear more life-giving truth from Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Listen in and experience life next time on Telling the Truth.