Our Minds and our Homes

That this, hopefully, is not ivory tower wisdom, but rather real life wisdom from the Word of God. It is relevant to every aspect of our lives as believers for God, and it is vital that we see that and have confidence in it. Now, the subject before us in the will of God for the hour before us is that of our minds and our homes.

Turn to Hebrews and chapter 13, first of all. We will just read one or two sections now and then come back and read some others as we come to them. Just a very familiar verse in Hebrews chapter 13, verse number 4. Marriage is honorable in all, and abed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

Now, turn to the familiar portion of Ephesians in chapter 5 this time. Ephesians in chapter 5, verse 21. Ephesians 5, verse 21.

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church. He is the Savior of the body.

Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.

He that loveth his wife loveth himself. No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the church. We are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Now we trust that God will add his blessing to these familiar verses that we have read together. There is the temptation with each meeting to say that there is no place that the thinking of our minds is so translated into everyday life as the subject we are going to deal with. So I'll avoid that temptation and I'll just say there is no subject where it is so obvious and no area where it is so vital where our thinking, what we are thinking, how we are thinking, our mentality becomes so apparent in our behavior.

So what is before us then is a very important subject. Every family is dysfunctional. Some of you might say, I knew that before you said it.

But some think they have ideal families. If they do, they've only got it because they're working at it. And no two people, no two Christians are really compatible.

Yeah, I know what I'm saying. Humanly speaking, we are not compatible because we are selfish, self-centered creatures. That's what we are by nature.

So no two people are genuinely compatible. So that for individuals to be compatible in a marriage and for families to take the fun out of dysfunctional and to be families as God intended them to be is going to involve a radical change in our thinking. Thinking that is guided by the word of God, not by pop philosophy, not by the current rage of what is the way to raise your children or how to love your mate, but principles founded and grounded in divine truth.

Because the one that made marriage and the one that instituted family life has given us his blueprint, has given us his handbook. And once again the problem lies that we come to it with our own biases. We come to it with our own presuppositions, that's what they're called in philosophy, our own ideas and we read into scripture what we want it to read back to us.

And so we read things like, wives be subject to your husbands. We say, ha ha, there it is. You better listen to me, I'm the boss.

And scripture could be, it would be hard for scripture to be more opposite to that mentality than it is. And yet that's what we take from it, isn't it? That's what we have taken from it for years. So we are going to have to get back to what the word of God says, to God's pattern, God's blueprint and learn what we should be in our marriages and in our parenting.

When I thought of dealing with both of these subjects at the same time, I thought it's a bit overwhelming and daunting. But then I thought there's a tremendous value to dealing with them together. Because the value of your parenting is directly proportional to the caliber of your marriage.

Bad marriage, bad parenting. It can't be any other way. If there's a bad relationship going on in the marriage, it is very unlikely that the parenting is going to be biblically oriented and scriptural.

The greatest gift you can give your children is to love your spouse. And to be the spouse God intended you to be. That will be the greatest gift you can give your children as far as a parent.

So let me just look at them very simply. Three broad, and I have to confess they are very broad things, concepts which have been distorted. Concepts distorted both in marriage and in parenting.

Conduct which has been debased both in marriage relationships and in parenting. And finally communication which is deficient again in marriage and in family life. I doubt we'll get to everything but I'll try to give you a brief overview of these.

And then hopefully if you have specific questions you can either ask me directly or put it in the question box. Concepts which have been distorted. So let's first of all touch on marriage.

A recognition of what marriage is. My role, my rights, my responsibility and then especially wrong expectations. Recognition, rights, responsibilities, roles and wrong expectations.

So first of all a recognition of marriage. We read in Hebrews chapter 13 marriage is honorable in all. Let me just give you a marginal reading.

Marriage is precious. Marriage is precious. Dear brother, is your marriage precious to you? Is it as important as the business? Is it as important as the assembly? Is it as important as your 401k? Is it as important as your hobby? Marriage is precious.

Now you know what you do when something is valuable don't you? You take care of it. You invest time. You invest energy.

You invest forethought. You're always thinking how can you make this thing even better? How can you guard it? How can you preserve it? How can you see it prosper? Is that the way your marriage is? Is that the way my marriage is? That it's precious? So Hebrews 13 tells us about the preciousness of marriage. The purity of marriage.

Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. The purity of marriage. The sanctity of it.

And then the perversion of marriage. Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. That's because marriage is so precious.

Precious to God and it should be precious to me. So a recognition of marriage and its value. A picture.

A hands-on day-to-day learning lesson of the relationship of Christ with His church. Given to you and to me to learn from and to grow in. Marriage is precious.

A recognition then of its value. But what about roles in marriage? Paul by the Spirit of God addresses first the wife. Be in submission to your husband.

And then the husband. Husbands, love your wives. Christ is the head of the church and the husband is the head of the wife.

And so he deals with these two roles in marriage of headship and of submission. Well, does submission mean being a doormat? Is submission really another role for just being a rubber stamp on whatever your husband says you agree with? Is it the idea that I'm a slave and I'm mindless and I never say a word, I never disagree. I just go along with everything and is that what submission is? And what about being head? Is headship the idea of boss, dictator, ruler? Is that what headship means? So what about these roles then and how have they become distorted? Submission is far from all that we have just mentioned.

You cannot read, and we'll look at it in a little while, you cannot read Proverbs 31 and come away with the idea of some quiet, unassuming, milquetoast, backward, shy, retiring, quiet, subservient doormat. The woman of Proverbs 31, the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 is everything but that. Her lips are open with wisdom.

She's energetic, she's seeking the welfare of her husband at every turn, and she's seeking the benefit of her family, but she's out there active, energetic, engaging. So what is submission then? How are we to understand the biblical concept of submission? We're to understand it the way the Scripture gives us the analogy between a head and a body. Your head, literally your mind, your brain, is responsible for decision-making, isn't it? It's where all the thought processes, all the weighing up of pluses and minuses, pros and cons, good and bad, that's where it all goes on is in your head, and it transmits that to the body.

But more than that, the body transmits back to the head, doesn't it? Be a strange type of creature that would not receive input from its body, that would receive none of the messages its body can give it as it makes its decisions. And so the body takes in what it sees, what it hears, what it feels, all of that, and integrates it all into the head, and the head makes a decision, and the body submits to it. So, using the analogy then, submission does not mean I am a doormat, it does not mean I never disagree, it does not mean I never give my opinion, it does not mean I am a mindless, thoughtless slave.

It means I am responsible to give input. I am responsible to talk to my husband. I am responsible to give advice.

Eve was created to be a help meet to Adam in every sphere of life. Every sphere, the spiritual, the material, the physical, the social. She was brought along to be a help, not a slave.

Brought along to assist him, to make him what he could be in every sphere of life. God has brought a wife along to your side for the great purpose of giving you advice, giving you counsel, balancing you, taking that factual, analytical mind of yours and giving it some emotion, and some feeling, and some sense, and enabling you together to move together for God. So, head and body working in unison, working in cooperation, moving together.

Now, there are times, there are times when the body gives input to the mind, that the mind overrules altogether, just negates it. If you've never had it, I'll tell you when one of those times is, you know, you're driving about one o'clock in the morning, getting home from a conference or getting home from somewhere, and your body says, go to sleep, close your eyes, you are tired. And you know that that's not the best advice at that time of the night on the highway.

And so your mind says, sorry, can't do it, have to keep going, have to keep awake, have to disagree with you this time. But really, when you think about it, those times are minuscule. Those times are rare compared to the majority of time when mind and body are working in absolute unity and harmony, absolute agreement.

This is the right thing to do. This is the right way to go. And so as head makes decisions and body follows, there is absolute unity and harmony.

That's what is envisioned here. That is the idea of submission, moving together for God with the input and the advice and the counsel. It is a foolish... I was going to say stupid.

Let me say stupid. I was going to say foolish. It's a little bit nicer word.

But it's a stupid man that doesn't listen to his wife. Okay? It's a stupid man that doesn't listen to... I don't know any other way of saying it. Doesn't mean she's always right.

Problem is she usually is. But not always. So I hold out for that not always.

It's my little... I just hold on to that for dear life. She's not always right. Usually right.

And I've learned. If my wife disagrees, I've learned. Just go slow.

Make sure. You know, I'm analytical to the point that it's almost obnoxious. You know, I can take all the factors in the decision, not only put them on the plus... I begin putting two pluses for this one, three pluses for this one, two minuses for that one, and I begin adding them all up and coming out with some nice analytical number.

And my wife will look at it and say, that's fine, but I disagree. Why? Can't give me a reason. Just disagree.

But give me a reason. The analytical mind has to have a reason. I just disagree.

There's something about it I'm not comfortable with. I've learned that usually she's right, I'm wrong. So it is a foolish man that doesn't listen to his wife.

The roles in marriage. What about headship? What is involved there? Dictator? No. Boss? No.

Every position of leadership or headship in Scripture is a position of serving another. Now, I can do no better than my dear brother David Oliver did. And he was very helpful this way in differentiating it.

And I think... Let me just give it to you and then I'll just leave it. Lordship and headship. Lordship is responsibility to someone.

Headship is responsibility for someone. So when you were made head over your wife, constituted by divine blueprint, God placed you in a place of responsibility for her. Not of rule over her.

But responsibility for her. And as we shall see, that involves responsibility for her physical, for her emotional, and for her spiritual well-being. You are responsible.

So rather than wearing a big badge that says, I am boss. Headship is a tremendous responsibility. And I say this carefully, but I believe as with every other responsibility placed in my hands by God, I will have to give an account of the judgment seat of Christ.

So brother, you're going to have to answer to God for how you've treated your wife throughout life. I don't mean that... We all have those ups and downs. We all have those maturing episodes, I'll call them.

Not speaking of that. You know what I mean. How you've treated your wife.

That's a responsibility. Have I been the head I should be in caring for her? Responsibility for. What about rights? What are my rights in marriage? None.

Did you get that? None. You won't find them in scripture. Never speaks of rights.

Doesn't tell you what you're entitled to as a husband. It doesn't tell you what you're entitled to as a wife. It tells you what your responsibilities are.

And I want to carefully, and in the fear of God, touch on one area that I think needs to be touched on. And I again ask the patience and indulgence of an older generation of Christians. When I come to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, which is the clearest and most explicit handling of the physical relationship in a marriage between a husband and wife, their physical intimacy, what I find remarkably is that there is no mention of headship and submission.

There is no demanding. There is no insisting. There is no games being played.

There is a mutuality. An absolute equality. A mutuality.

A mutual respect. A mutual consideration. A mutual understanding.

And it does not go beyond that. Now I'm just going to leave that there. And I think those who will need that ministry will understand where I am coming from.

And those that don't need it, then you don't need it. But there is that mutual respect of each other, of each other's body, of each other as a person. And there are no demands made.

There is nothing that would violate the other's respect. There is nothing that would demean the other person. There is a mutuality in 1 Corinthians 7 in the physical realm.

So we do not have demands that we make or things that we insist upon. We seek, with God's help, to carry out our responsibilities. Let me touch just very briefly on wrong expectations.

Again, how we think, what we think, our concepts, these concepts which have been distorted begin to have tremendous repercussions in our marriage. Futile exertions. Futile exertions.

What do I mean? Well, we're going together and we're going to get married. He has a few bad habits. But once we get married, I can change him.

Once we get married, I can change her. Forget it. You've got the most leverage while you're dating.

That's where you've got your leverage. Once you're married, your leverage is gone, fella. Let me tell you.

You've lost your lever bar. You don't have it anymore. You're married.

She's got you. And so why should she change? You know, you change now. But let me just bring it to a more general thing.

The more general is, I have a tremendous battle changing me, much less trying to change you. Don't ever marry someone thinking you're going to change them. And don't be in a marriage relationship where you think it's my job in life, my great mission in life is to change him.

Don't play Mrs. Fix-It. It won't work. You can't change people.

It may be, to your great surprise, if you change yourself, it may change them. It may be. But maybe not.

But you can't change anyone else. So that's a futile exertion. Just wasting all of that energy.

And then, of course, there are the fatal errors. The fatal error is that we're in love, this marriage is of God, we know, we've prayed about it, we're sure about it, and we are now married and we'll never have a problem. I feel like, you know, what Moses said, let me turn aside and see this great sight.

A marriage with no problems. Listen, two human beings, you know, do you ever see, sometimes you stand outside a hotel or a motel on vacation and you see families carrying in humongous amounts of baggage for just one night. Well, some people carry more baggage than that into a marriage.

Okay? A lot of baggage. No matter who you are, you brought baggage into your marriage. Because you weren't saved the day one.

And all your experiences haven't been with those who were saved. You brought baggage into a marriage. And as you begin opening that baggage, you know what happens? Some of the dirty clothes begin to smell.

And pretty soon problems arise. Yes, the success of a marriage is not the absence of problems, it's how you deal with those problems. How you handle them.

In the fear of God and in light of biblical principles. That's what gauges the success of a marriage. Not its absence, but how you address them.

And so never enter into a marriage with the idea in your mind, if we are Christians and if we are sure this is the will of God, all will be well. The most God-directed marriages in the Bible. Two of them have come to mind.

The most God-directed marriages in the Bible. You'll hardly take a breath until there are problems. God Himself brought Eve to Adam.

And she proved His undoing. And God brought Rebecca to Isaac. And it sounds so romantic and so wonderful.

And you turn the page and they're lying to each other and manipulating each other and trying to scheme with each other. And they've each got their favors. And they each want their will.

It's a power struggle that's going on. You know it so well. And yet it was a God-directed marriage.

So don't think that if it's of God, there's the absence of difficulties. In fact, it may well be that there will be more difficulties. That may sound strange.

It may be that there will be more difficulties if it's of God. Because it may be that God wants to refine you. He wants to develop you by enabling you to see things about yourself that only marriage to that person would have revealed.

And God uses marriage for many reasons. But one reason is to refine us and to make us what He wants us to be. So there can be futile exertions.

There can be fatal errors. There can be frustrated expectations. Again, I want to just touch briefly on the physical realm.

Because we live in a world that has hyped the physical to such an extent that young believers who have kept themselves pure, who have avoided all that is contrary to the mind of God, and they get married. And they expect immediately to experience all of the hype that they have heard about and read about and had surrounding them. And it doesn't happen.

It may happen for some. But for many, intimacy is a matter of growth. A matter of time together and learning each other and understanding each other.

The Bible does not carelessly... Now please note what I'm saying. It does not carelessly use the word knowing a woman as just a nice euphemism. You know, a nice way to say intimacy without really saying the word.

It means knowing each other at every level and consummating it with the physical act of knowing. That's one reason God intends that to be kept for marriage alone. Because you do not know everyone.

You do not know a person until you have known them at every other level. And so as you know each other, then what we are speaking of becomes more precious and it becomes more fulfilling. Now, I know that's not usually spoken of from a platform such as this, but I hope you'll bear with me.

Because many times, couples begin to do reverse thinking. That because the bulbs don't flash and stars don't go off and a 10 out of 10 occurs, then reverse thinking starts. Maybe we're not in love.

Maybe we never loved each other. Maybe we weren't meant to be married. Maybe we should... You know, it just begins the devolution.

Now, I'm not speaking just out of theory. That happens. But an understanding of that is vital to realize.

Time, understanding, patience, experience, all are involved. Linked with that is a fruitless effort that we frequently get into and that is to meet another's needs. This person is going to meet all my needs.

If that is your thinking, you're in for a big surprise. I don't do this all the time, but if I'm asked to marry someone to perform the wedding, I usually will spend a few occasions speaking to couples before time. I can't say it's always been helpful, but at least you try.

And usually, in one of those episodes where we're together, I would ask, I say, now look, I want the two of you just to look at each other. And you know what it's like for two people who are going together and going to get married. They kind of first smile and kind of grin.

You know, they're looking at each other. So I want you to take a good look because the person you're looking at is going to disappoint you bitterly someday. And they look back at you and say, it's impossible.

The person you're looking at is going to disappoint you bitterly someday. And do you really love them? Because they're not going to meet every need. You and I were not made for a human being to meet our needs.

We were made for God to meet our needs. Now God may use our spouses to help meet those needs, but no human being can meet another person's needs totally. Only God can fill the God-shaped vacuum of the human soul.

Men and women around us are vainly and tragically running from person to person looking for someone to fill the void of life. Something to fill the void of life. Only God can meet your every need.

Yes, a spouse is a tremendous thing. A spouse from God is the greatest gift we can have as human beings. It is what I think Peter is referring to when he speaks in 1 Peter 3 of the grace of life.

It's the icing on the cake. Life is a cake when you're a Christian. And marriage is the icing on it.

But no human being can meet every need of another human being. Disappointment will occur. So it's vital to grasp that ahead of time.

Distorted thinking in marriage, distorted thinking in parenting, modern styles. What is parenting to be like? Well, let me tell you some of the distortions. There's the general in the home.

Barking orders. No reason given. Because I said so and that's it.

Now that's fine when a child is six months old or a year old or a year and a half. They can't take in explanations. But if all you do all your life is bark orders and you're the general and everyone marches to your tomb, little wonder that they can't make decisions as they grow up and have no background upon which to make decisions on their own.

Not only is there the general, there's the Gestapo. You know that guy, don't you? He carries a nice big stick and you spill your milk and whack, you get it. The house is ruled by tyranny and everybody walks on eggshells because you don't want to get him angry.

The Gestapo. Then there's the guardian. I love those forms I have to sign.

Parent or guardian. I know that there is such a thing. It almost reminds me of people who are emotionally detached.

People who aren't going to get close to their children. Just cold, formal, stiff raising of children. Then there's the good friend.

The opposite. I don't want to make my child fear me. I want them to like me.

I'm going to be their best friend. Now I do believe in having as a goal, a goal, having your children as your friends. It is one of the most rewarding, one of the most satisfying things in life.

To have grown children who are married come back to you, not now as your children, but as your closest friends. That is one of life's most satisfying things. But I was not interested in my wife being my daughter's maid of honor.

Okay? I wasn't working for that. But I'm delighted now that our relationship is that of closest of friends. Now that they're on their own.

That's what we work for. But you can't do that when you're raising them because when you do that, what you're doing is abdicating. Abdicating your responsibility for discipline, for training, and all the rest.

Friends don't punish each other, do they? Friends don't discipline each other. But you've got to do that. That's part of your responsibility as a parent.

So you can't abdicate and just take the role of being a good friend. And then there's the gardener who just displays their, you know, children are everything. Here they are.

Aren't they wonderful now? The opposite of all that is godly parenting that we'll look at in just a moment. What then is the biblical standard for parenting? Let me just show you something that is very helpful. Turn, if you will, very quickly to the book of Exodus 2. Exodus 2 and verse number 1. You recall that Egypt was drowning all the children of the Jews.

And there went a man of the house of Levi and took the wife and daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived. We're talking here about Amram and Jacobet and Moses.

The woman conceived the bearer son. And when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. Turn to the book of the Acts.

Acts chapter 7. Peter's defense before the Jews of his day after the crucifixion of Christ in Acts chapter 7. Verse 18. Acts 7 verse 18. Till another king arose which knew not Joseph.

The same dealt subtly with our kindred. Evil entreated our fathers so that they cast out their young children to the end that they might not live. In which time Moses was born and was exceeding fair, nourished up in his father's house three months.

One final verse to add the final to this. Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 verse 23.

By faith Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. Now, did you notice what we read? Exodus chapter 2 says, she hid him. Acts chapter 7 says, he was hid in his father's house.

Hebrews 11 says, they. He. She.

They. Did you ever wonder why when Paul is writing to concerning the raising of children he speaks to fathers? Every one of us knows even back in biblical days that fathers had very little hands on with children. That it was the mother who did the raising.

So why address the fathers? Because of headship. Because of headship. You and I as fathers are responsible for our children in the home.

Can't blame it on a weak mother if only she were more stern. If only she were more disciplined. If only she were more direct.

No, no. It all comes back to us. We are responsible.

So, biblical parenting first of all involves headship. That the father is responsible for what goes on in the home. So that's why communication is so vital for no other reason.

But I mean the reasons are legion. But certainly there's got to be communication to communicate standards and to communicate techniques for raising those children and goals and all. So there's headship.

But then also, linked with biblical scriptural parenting, is stewardship. Stewardship. They, together.

Those children are stewards. Or rather, we are stewards of those children rather. God has committed children to us to raise.

Not to fulfill our desires. Not to satisfy what we missed in life. Or to fulfill my fantasies.

Or to further my agenda. Or carry my name into other regions and make me famous. They're gods.

They belong to God. And it is my responsibility as a steward to raise those children for God. So there is headship.

There is stewardship. And then there is partnership. Partnership.

Hid three months in his parents' home. By faith when he was come to years. And so on.

Or rather, he was hid three months in his parents' home. So there was a partnership. There was a moving together as they raised their family.

And as they sought to honor God in the lives of their children. So what then is biblical parenting? It involves headship. It involves stewardship.

It involves partnership. All of those are vital elements of what it means to raise children in a biblical, godly manner. Now there are difficulties and problems.

There's no issue. Raising children becomes more and more difficult. But still God has given us His standard.

Given us His principles. Given us His blueprint. Parental responsibilities.

I am to serve my children but not become a slave to them. There's a vast difference. There are parents who dote on their children and the child rules the home and the child rules the parents.

And everything is sacrificed for the sake of the child's agenda. That's not in the best interest of a child. Life is not that way.

You're preparing them for life. You're readying them for what that wicked, cruel world is like out there. And for you just to give them everything with no sense of responsibility is ruining them for the future.

So there's that wisdom that's involved. We are responsible for their spiritual well-being. For their physical well-being.

For their social well-being. For their intellectual. For their moral.

Every aspect of that child's development is under the responsibility of the father. Mediated through a mother. Who seeks in a hands-on way to raise those children for God.

Let me just, I have to hurry. Let me just mention then conduct which has become debased. In marriage, we've already mentioned there is a mutuality of honor.

Let me just mention two things from Proverbs 31. The wise woman, the virtuous woman so conducts herself that her husband is known in the gates. In other words, he doesn't have to feel embarrassed because of his wife.

She's never done anything. I can stand here today. I can tell you I have a wife who has never done one thing that would close my mouth in ministry.

You know what I mean? Never had to apologize. Never had to say, I can't touch on that. Can't speak on that.

Have to be careful there. I have a wife who has so lived that I have never, never had to retract or retreat from what the Word of God says. That's what the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 was like.

Her husband was known in the gates. He was respected. But then he says, let her own works praise her in the gates.

You see, they were both seeking each other's honor. Both seeking each other's welfare. Both seeking each other's blessing.

Both seeking to honor each other in their lives together. So it's a lovely picture then when you come to Proverbs 31 of God's picture of mutuality and care and interest. But let me come to the perversions.

The conduct which becomes the base. The moment I begin thinking, if my concepts are wrong, then my conduct becomes wrong. If my beliefs are wrong, my behavior is wrong.

So what happens? The moment I think I have rights, I begin demanding. And very, very close upon the heels of demanding comes demeaning. Maybe in the same sentence.

I deserve this, you little... Put yourself up, put them down. I've got to put you down so I can feel a little bit higher. So we begin with demanding.

We move to demeaning that person. And then of course what happens is because who's going to listen to themselves insulted all the time? We begin distancing, don't we? We begin distancing from each other in many, many ways. And that void begins being filled with business, work, the garden, the home, the children, the grandchildren.

We begin to fill the void because of the distancing that's occurring in our marriages. And then we detach. And then we divorce.

And I mean divorce without getting divorced. I'm not speaking about divorce today. But we literally have divorced ourselves from each other totally.

Own lives, own interests, own emotional world. All because beginning with wrong concepts. I deserve.

I should have. I want. I demand.

Someone has characterized marriage in four cycles. The sighing stage where it's so wonderful. And then it moves to the trying stage where we're really trying to make it work.

And then it goes to the crying stage. And then it goes to the dying stage. All because our thinking is wrong.

We've begun looking at ourselves, become self-centered, self-occupied, without realizing that God has put me in this relationship for the purpose of the other person. For their blessing. For their good.

For their honor. Not myself. So the perversions of marriage.

How about in parenting? We don't have time to look at it. You can look at Psalm 127, Psalm 128, Psalm 131. Those three Psalms are all part of the Songs of Degrees.

And there are four images that are given, four different metaphors which are given to us relative to children. Children are an heritage of the Lord. He speaks of them as being arrows.

He speaks of them as being olive plants. And He speaks of a weaned child. Now you take those four, and you have in those four, four great concepts.

When you think of them being a heritage from the Lord, it speaks of the dignity of a child, doesn't it? They're not just some little bag of sin. I want to be careful here. I've heard people talk about bringing home a child from the hospital, just born, nothing but a wicked bag of iniquity.

Listen, that child is a heritage from God. They may be a sinner. They may well be marked by the flesh and atom.

You gave it to them anyway. You know, it's not their fault. You gave it to them.

But I mean, they're a heritage from God with tremendous potential of what God could do with that infant if He ever saved them. So there's a tremendous dignity attached to a child. When you think of an arrow, it reminds me of direction, doesn't it? You just don't shoot an arrow into the air.

Felt of the earth I know not where. You know, if you like poetry, that's fine. But God intends direction to their lives.

Aim them and get them ready and let them go. When you think of an olive plant, you think about development. You think about fruitfulness of all there could be.

And certainly when you think about a weaned child, you think about discipline, don't you? Training that's involved. Those are all the concepts that center around the idea of raising our children. Having a sense of dignity.

Not that you fall down and, well, what a wonderful child. No. But recognizing what God has put into your hand.

The potential that's there. Recognizing the fact they need discipline and they need training. Recognizing the fact they need direction in life and that there's development that has to go into them.

Recognizing all of that is part of the great pattern God intends in parenting. But what of the perversions of that? Well, we can manipulate our children, can't we? Use guilt. I was going to say that's the Italian mother's disease.

I don't know if there's any other Italians here except me. But Italian mothers were great with guilt. But anyway, beside the point.

But manipulating rather than ministering. Now my mother never said this to me, so please don't get the wrong idea. But if you don't do that, I won't love you.

What a thing to say to a child. What a terrible thing to say to a child. What a way to manipulate.

What a way to make a child feel guilty. Just manipulating them. Using your love as a condition for you.

Never. God doesn't treat us that way. God never, never deals with us that way.

When I have a question about how as a father I should behave, you know what I do? I think about how that father treats me. That's my ultimate guide, my ultimate standard. How does that father treat me? That's how I as a father should be treating my children.

So, manipulating them. Domineering rather than developing. Making them be what I want them to be rather than recognizing what God has raised them up to be.

Suppressing and not supporting and controlling and not cultivating. Holding on rather than letting go. All of those are things that we are so prone to in our raising of our children all because of wrong thinking.

Not recognizing stewardship. Not recognizing headship. Not recognizing the partnership that's involved.

Perversions. Conduct which is the base. Communication which is deficient.

Now, probably the wisest thing is not to try to cover this. Let me just mention three things. Maintaining lines of communication and maintaining a listening ear and maintaining a loving care.

Let me just mention one or two things here and I'll have to leave it. Communication is vital then relative to the partnership of raising children, relative to the marriage prospering and being what God intended it to be. But there needs to be the awareness then of three potential problems in communication.

There are foreign languages. There are fighting languages. And there are false languages.

Now, what I mean by that very simply is this. Men and women actually speak different languages. And it can become a great source of difficulty unless you get tuned into it.

For example, if you ask a man or woman what communication means, to a man it just simply means stating the facts. Just the facts lady. That's all I want.

Just give me the facts. I'm too busy. Just give me the facts.

To a woman it means beginning way back here and telling you how you felt coming all the way here and here and here. Just the facts please. No, no.

I've got to tell you how I feel. And just two different ideas of what communication means. I told this somewhere else.

I think the greatest example is that tremendous word shopping. Let's go shopping. When I was first married I was foolish enough to go with my wife.

She wanted to buy a dress. And so the first store we went to she saw a dress she liked. It looked great on her.

Right price. Everything good. Okay, let's get it.

I said I wanted to go shopping. But you found it, didn't you? I told you I wanted to go shopping. If you didn't want to come, why did you come? But we found the dress, didn't we? And shopping to her meant going to 20 different stores, all in the mall.

I have these huge malls where we are. All these stores, looking at all these dresses. And to make things worse, coming back and buying the first one.

Okay? I was done shopping at the first dress. But to her shopping meant an experience. Now those are humorous.

But it does communicate this, that we use terms totally differently. We think we are complying or cooperating or doing something to show our interest. And the message coming across to the wife is he has no idea what's going on.

He is out of it. And that type of difficulty in communication can lead to great conflict. So we speak different languages and it's vital to begin to tune in to what each other mean.

Now, while that is humorous, there actually could be examples shown from Scripture, if time allows. That's not just, you know, personal observation. But there are foreign languages, there are fighting languages, where we defend ourselves because we don't want to be hurt.

And then, of course, there are false languages where we really don't say what we mean. We play games with each other. You know, if you really loved me, you would understand.

And so we keep raising the bar and making it harder and harder for someone to really communicate with us. Now, all of those are elements of communication that can be destructive to a relationship. Linked with that is the need to maintain a listening ear, learning how to listen.

We did not read, but we could have read in James 1, that every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. The key to communication, surprise, is listening. Learning to listen.

I have the greatest difficulty. I am the most impatient person that you will find. Difficulty listening, difficulty waiting.

But that is the key to communication, learning to listen. And then maintaining a listening ear and maintaining a loving care for another. How you reply, how you deal with them, how you handle differences, how you handle difficulties.

It is instructive to me that as I look at the Lord Jesus and attacks that were made upon Him, verbal attacks, personal attacks, attacks by all of those around Him, it's instructive how He dealt with them. In every attack, He always said or replied or dealt with them in a way that would have been for their blessing. He never just put down.

Now you think of that for a moment. When you're challenged by someone at work or at school, you know what our tendency is? If only I could put them down. If I only had the right word to say or the wisdom to say it, just to squelch them.

Make them feel, you know, like they deserve to feel. The Lord Jesus who had all of that ability never did it. Whenever He answered, His answer was always with this in view.

If they would actually honestly face this, it would lead them into untold blessing. In other words, even when He was being attacked, He was always seeking the good of the other. That's amazing.

So that even when there are difficulties, if I can keep this before me that God has meant me to be a blessing. That's what 1 Peter says, isn't it? God has called us to be a blessing. A blessing to others.

He's talking there about those who are being persecuted and those who are being dealt with. He's not speaking there of family relationships. But the principle is still the same.

That in that marriage relationship, God has called me to be a blessing to my spouse. So that in all of my communication, if I am going and I... Listen, I am not here to tell you I have attained this. But if I were moving according to divine standards, it would always be with a view to blessing another.

To being a blessing to a spouse. May the Lord help us. Our concepts.

If our concepts are wrong, if our concepts have become distorted, then our conduct can't help it. Our conduct is going to be debased. And undergirding all of that, reinforcing all of those wrong things is communication, which has become deficient.

We failed in it. This book that we hold in our hands actually would teach us how to communicate. It's not just a book of rules and dry Old Testament stories.

If you were to look in this book and if we had an opportunity, we could look at principles of communication, this book would tell us how to communicate with each other as believers. How spouses should communicate. It's a wealth of education for us if we only had eyes to see it.

May the Lord help us then to get our thinking right relative to marriage and relative to children. And as a result of our thinking being right, our treatment of each other will be right and will be as God intended and will be for His glory. Shall we pray?