[0:00] Take your Bibles, if you would, and go with me to Proverbs. It will be in chapter 5. While you're turning in your Bibles, I want to ask you to really be praying about the Easter offering.
[0:10] I know that our church sees the training center, and it may not have the allure to you. It does everywhere else. I just got back from Ohio. I preached three times on Sunday morning, or Sunday morning to 2, and then Sunday afternoon, and then from 6 o'clock to 1.30 or 2 o'clock at night, Sunday night, and then Monday all day, and Monday night, and Tuesday morning at 6 o'clock for a prayer meeting, and then all day, and then priest, and then all night, and I drove home.
[0:43] So I'm home just to work. Amen. But I had a great time. They're going to bring 40 or 50 people to the summit, Lord willing, just out of that one church.
[0:53] They're excited about what God's doing. The pastor really believes in all his heart that he is the captain of world evangelism. He's very, very personally responsible.
[1:04] It was a tremendous blessing. I want you to pray. Pray that our church, pray that all the churches are going to give will. Their church already sent 2,500, and they're pushing for this offering on top of that.
[1:16] So others are taking this seriously. I certainly hope that we will as a church and that we will give big time. So I want to ask you to pray about that, pray about what you could give, and give something special if you would.
[1:30] Then, because I was at a prayer meeting at 6 o'clock on a Tuesday morning, I thought, that's a good idea. I did not enjoy getting up at that time. But I thought about Brother John Pearson.
[1:42] He'd already been up two days by the time I got up to go there. I got up at 5 and took a shower, and then we left at 5.30, and then we prayed for 45 minutes.
[1:55] So Wednesday at 6 a.m., I want to have prayer with whoever will come, man-wise, all the men that will. Well, Wednesday at 6 a.m., not p.m., which is a much nicer time.
[2:11] But a.m., because maybe you'll come. I've tried to do different things for us to pray more, and I just thought when he said that, I said, you know what, I ought to do that. So we'll try it.
[2:23] Pray with whoever will come. They have just a couple of guys that come, but maybe a couple of guys from here would come. Go me to Proverbs 5. Now, tonight I'm going to talk to you about marriage in just a minute.
[2:39] But before, I want to remind you what's going on in chapter 5 so you'll know. And I'm going to be in Song of Solomon, a little bit of everywhere, to talk with us briefly about marriage.
[2:49] I'm sure everybody in this room has got a great marriage, and except all these people over here that want to have a great marriage. Say amen. And so this ain't going to hurt you. It's all straight out of the Bible.
[3:00] It's okay. But I want you to look, if you would, at chapter 5. And remember, we went over this last week. The prophet of the king says to his son, Attend unto my wisdom.
[3:14] Look at that in verse 1. He said, Bow your ear. Verse 1. He said in verse 2, regard discretion. Learn how to make decisions. And he said, you want to get deep knowledge or keep knowledge on your lips.
[3:29] Then he started explaining a bad woman. Now, it's not because women are bad. It's because anybody that's foreign to you is bad.
[3:40] So there are foreign or strange men, and there are foreign and strange women. But Solomon is talking to his son, and so therefore he talks to a woman. Go down to about a woman.
[3:51] Go down to verse 7. He said, Depart not from the words of my mouth. Now, listen to me, buddy. I'm trying to teach you and help you. And then he says in verse 8, Remove thy way.
[4:03] Get away from her. Get away from her and stay away from her. I told you this last week. I'll just remind you in passing. But in verse 9, he said, Lest.
[4:13] If you don't do it, you're going to lose your honor. And you're going to lose your wealth. In verse 10, Lest, strangers. In verse 11, you're going to lose your health.
[4:25] Your honor, your health, and your wealth all gone because you don't listen about how to deal with women that aren't yours. I read an article today where they were making fun of, you know, which principle do you use about how you deal with women.
[4:43] You know, you do something archaic like Vice President Pence where you don't go out with another woman. And I just thought, yeah, I'm real archaic. I'm just going to go out with my wife.
[4:54] He says in verse 12, you're going to get so bad off that you're going to be saying, boy, I messed up. I sure did wrong because I refused to listen to instruction. Then we got down to verse 12.
[5:06] And I just want you to maybe put a circle, maybe put an arrow. And I want you to realize that he went from don't to do. It's never about stopping.
[5:17] It's about starting. It's about stopping and starting. In the Bible, separation is never about getting away from sin. It's about getting close to God, which will entail getting away from sin.
[5:30] Amen. It's not the idea in the Bible that ought to quit sinning. It's ought to start loving Jesus. It's not the idea in the Bible ought to get away from women. It's ought to love my wife.
[5:40] And that'll make me want to get away from women. Amen. I don't want to be around other women. And so he goes through that passage of scripture and talks about it. If you've got your Bible open, I'd like to look at about four places here in Proverbs chapter 5.
[5:55] And I just want to walk our way through it. And the first thing I want you to do is, you know, God's given, look at verse 15. God's given us all we need to enjoy life. God's given us all we need to enjoy life.
[6:06] If you have your Bible in verse 15, would you just underline own and own. O-W-N. Mine. If you went to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and I'll just read that to you right quick.
[6:18] 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 1 and 2. I'm pretty sure is where we'll get it. Let's see. They got it right there. Look here. Now, considering the things where you wrote unto me, it's good for a man not to touch a woman.
[6:30] That's Proverbs 5, first part. Second part. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband.
[6:41] God gave us all we need in our own cistern, in our own will. And I ought to save myself from everything that might contaminate me, might mess me up.
[6:53] And I ought to save myself for the person that God would have for me. If you understand that and agree with it, just say amen real quick. See, that's what we want to do. And we ought to realize that their joy is found in verse 18 with the wife of our youth.
[7:11] I wish you'd circle the word rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice. I ought to be excited and happy about the woman I married when I was a kid. I ought to be excited about the woman I married when I was a kid.
[7:24] We're not like Hollywood. We don't change wives ever so often. We don't change wives every few years. We stay with our wife an entire lifetime. Amen? One man, one woman, and one lifetime.
[7:38] That's God's plan. And I ought to be involved with my wife. Verse 18 said, thy fountain. Referring to her, I ought to be with my wife.
[7:48] Verse 19, she ought to be my satisfaction. She ought to be my satisfaction. The Bible says, let her breast satisfy thee.
[8:00] Would you underline satisfy thee? I ought to get all I need from the person God made for me. And I ought to be ravished with her love.
[8:11] I don't need anybody else's love. I can be very satisfied with that of my wife. Proverbs chapter 5, he said, son, stay away from these strange women.
[8:23] Get you a woman and stay with her. Stay away and stay with. Stay away from that other woman and stay with. God's watching how we treat our spouse.
[8:35] Look at verse 21. It says in verse 21, the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his goings.
[8:46] God's watching me. God's looking and watching how I treat my wife. You might think that's an Old Testament thing, and it's a little scary, but it's a New Testament thing, and it's still scary.
[8:58] Look at 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7 with me. 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7. The Bible says, I wish you'd underline your prayers be not hindered.
[9:25] It's a funny thing there. God wants to hear me and answer me. He said, if I knock, he'll open. He said, open your mouth wide, and I'll fill it.
[9:35] He said, I'm a prayer hearing, prayer answering God. And then he said, now listen to me, Austin. You treat Betty right, or I'm not going to hear so good. You treat Betty right, or I'm not going to hear so good.
[9:49] And then the verse, he kind of tells me how to treat her right. Look, if you would, at verse 7. Dwell with them according to knowledge. You know, it takes a little bit of study. You men will have to agree with me on this, but women are strange.
[10:04] Amen. Somebody even wrote a book, said something like, one of us is from Mars, and the other is from Venice. And women, I'm sure men are strange, though. I don't think so, but I'm sure you do.
[10:14] Amen. But we ought to work at it. I need to learn. I need to know my wife. I need to know my wife. I need to understand what's going on. Look in verse 7.
[10:26] I need to give honor to my wife. Giving honor unto the wife. That's a very strange sentence. Because women have been property for so long.
[10:41] They were property. I mean, you bought them, you could get rid of them. You could even get rid of them. She could go marry another guy, but you couldn't marry her again.
[10:52] I mean, it was kind of a bad thing. Even with Jewish people, it wasn't that good. But by the time you get the New Testament, the Holy Spirit of God is saying, that's not my plan. From the very beginning, I made man and I made woman.
[11:05] I made one man. I made one woman. That's what he's saying. And he said, hey, I want you to honor her. She's a gift from God. Adam looked at her and said, she shall be called woman.
[11:17] And then when he realized that they weren't going to die because they sinned, he said she was going to be the mother of all living. That's what he named her, Eve. Look at it.
[11:28] I ought to give honor to her. And it says, weaker vessel. And I know you know more about this than I do. But that's really not about how strong or intelligent they are. Because there are women.
[11:39] They can whip all of us. Huh? Yeah, that's not what he's talking about. Not talking about because they're weaker than us. And there are women that are smarter than all of us.
[11:50] That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about I ought to treat her like she's fragile. I ought to treat her like she's valuable. I ought to treat her like she's important. I ought to treat her like she's somebody.
[12:04] And in the society you and I live in, that may not be what everybody wants. But you and I are not like everybody else. Amen. We ought to treat our wives with deference. We ought to treat our wives kindly.
[12:17] Oftentimes in Peru, I would notice the men coming home from the market and about two steps behind them, their wife would be coming with two or three bags in her hands, and he wouldn't have a one. And I preach pretty strong on this one little verse right here.
[12:29] I know you would never do anything like that. But sometimes we work full-time jobs, and she works full-time jobs, and we come home and sit while she comes home and does all the work.
[12:42] That's not really a very much honor. That's not really very much when I expect her to do as much job outside the home as I do, and then expect her to do as much job in the home as she would do if I were paying the bills and she could stay home.
[13:01] Y'all mad yet? Next one is, she's an heir together. Would you underline that? That has got to be the most beautiful thing in the world.
[13:12] You know, women are equal heirs. Now, can we remember a little bit about the Bible? They didn't do inheritance like we do it. In my family, there were four of us, two boys, two girls.
[13:25] That meant when my daddy died, I'd have got two-thirds of everything daddy had. I'd have got to take over the family business and ministry, and my brother would have been kind of like my little helper to run around there, and my sisters wouldn't have gotten anything because girls don't or didn't inherit.
[13:44] The fact is, the Mormons kind of stuck with that. For a Mormon girl to go to heaven, she needs to marry a good Mormon boy. But if you read 1 Peter 3 and verse 7, my wife's just as much an heir of Jesus Christ, an heir of God the Father, an heir of salvation as I am.
[14:00] Amen? Her prayers get through just as much as mine do, probably more. I was just with a good guy. I really liked the pastor there. He said he told his church, he said, if you need prayer and you want somebody to pray for you, you need to see my wife.
[14:15] He said, I mean about three other women, and I think I can come in about fourth or fifth in this church. But I think that, you know, I ought to realize I'm an heir together with my wife.
[14:26] She is on the same plane. And though we may not have female pastors, and ladies may not have authority over men, they're heirs together with us.
[14:37] I need to be very careful. I need to be very careful. God is watching how I treat my wife or my prayers might get hindered. Now, I'm going to give you four things you can write down.
[14:48] If you're on a marriage retreat, that's what I'd be saying to you. So you can just take it. Some of you can just throw them away, but some of you might find them interesting. Go with me to Song of Solomon, chapter 1 and verse 15.
[15:00] Number one, learn to say sweet things to your spouse. Learn to say sweet things to your spouse. Men, we ought to say sweet things to our wives.
[15:13] Ladies, you ought to say sweet things to your husbands. Not negative things. There's enough negativity out in the world. There's enough negativity everywhere I turn. We ought to hear some good stuff.
[15:25] Look at verse 15. I just love this. I just love what the Bible does. In Song of Solomon 115, it says, You are fair. Now, in modern American English, we don't say fair very much.
[15:40] That's like you are beautiful. You are pleasing to look at. You are a pretty lady. Now, I really like this.
[15:50] Look at this. My love. My love. You got your Bible open there? In verse 15, she's my love. In verse 16, she's my beloved. Now, look at it with me if you would.
[16:01] He says in verse 15, two times, You are pretty. You are beautiful. He says there, You're beautiful, my love.
[16:12] Behold, you are. Man, I mean, look at you. You are beautiful. You have dove's eyes. Don't tell your wife that. Just don't go there.
[16:23] Amen? Just don't go there. I mean, find something else that's a little more modern than that. First off, your wife doesn't even know what a dove's eye looks like. And she wouldn't know what you've been looking at, too.
[16:35] So you don't have to do that. But you know what he's doing? He's saying, Hey, I'm telling you, you're as beautiful as something, so beautiful that God created. Verse 16, He repeats that thou art fair.
[16:47] I mean, she must think he's a broken record. He's going, You're beautiful, my love. Boy, I'm telling you, you're beautiful. I like your eyes. Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved.
[16:58] Yep, you are pleasant. Look at that. You got your Bible open there? You are pleasant. Won't you write beside pleasant? The word means lovely and delightful.
[17:09] He looks at his wife and says, You are lovely and delightful. And then it says, And our bed is green. That's not because she didn't wash the sheets.
[17:20] It just means fruitful. You know, it's not because she didn't wash the sheets. You pray that the sheets are green if they say your bed's green. Amen. Can I just say a couple of things to you real quickly?
[17:31] Do not say negative things. Do not say negative things about your spouse. Learn to look at your spouse and say nice things.
[17:42] Some of us hurt our marriage because we say ugly things or we don't say anything at all.
[17:56] In the book of Song of Solomon, the idea was you ought to say good things. Look for every opportunity to say something positive. To say something positive.
[18:08] There is a real problem of insecurity even in our marriages. Does he still love me? Does she still love me? Are they still happy with me? I'm getting older.
[18:19] I've gotten a lot fatter. I mean, I just weigh. Today, I actually weighed only 101 pounds more than when I got married. Amen. That's all.
[18:29] Just 101. Miss Sandy, that's uncalled for. Miss Sandy is enjoying the fact that I... Hey, that's why I lost weight to get to that. Well, hey, man.
[18:41] Just play it. Choose to think the right things and you can say the right things. I'm going to just tell you this verse. We're not going to look at it, but in Philippians 4.8, he says, Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are, and he lists a whole bunch of great things that are probably references to Jesus, and he ends the verse with, Think on these things.
[19:04] Can I just tell you about what I need to do with you, what you need to do with me, what you need to do with your wife, what you need to do with your husband, what you need to do with your children.
[19:18] Can I just tell you what we need to do? We need to learn to think. It's not about what you're saying. It's about what you're thinking because what ends up happening is when you start talking, whatever you've been thinking comes out.
[19:30] So if in my marriage, I'm kind of thinking something like this, I'm just really tired of the way she's treating me. I don't think it's right the way she does me. She hasn't been being very appreciative here, he's been being kind of a jerk here.
[19:43] You think that, and then all of a sudden, when you start speaking, it'll just come out, and you'll say what you didn't really want to say. You was thinking it, but you didn't want to say it. Told you the Spanish people's phrase for that is, se me escapó, which means it escaped out of my mouth without my permission.
[20:01] So when I said that, I didn't mean to. That's how we say it in English. We say I didn't mean to. I just love the way the Spanish people say it. It's like it was in there running around, and it jumped out. And that's what we say when we say, I didn't mean to say that, but if it wasn't in there, it couldn't have escaped.
[20:18] Amen? Could I just say to you real quickly about your spouse, and this is something I try to practice with my wife, and I'm just as serious as I can be? What about thinking about, boy, she's kind to me.
[20:30] Boy, she's pretty. Why don't you think in detail about your spouse and think about the blessing that she is? Here's a funny thing. If she died, you'd start thinking all that good stuff.
[20:43] Boy, if she died, or if she were laying on a ventilator in the hospital with COVID, even Betty started thinking nice stuff, you know? I mean, she was even thinking nice stuff, you know?
[20:55] Can I just tell you that the way we get along here, the way we're going to get along, the way you think nice things about the other person, you quit thinking about yourself. You know, you can't hurt me if I ain't thinking about me.
[21:08] You can catch that. You can't hurt me if I ain't thinking about you, or thinking about me. If I'm thinking about you, I'm thinking about I want to help you. I want to bless you. I want to be there for you. I want to learn to think good thoughts.
[21:21] In Song of Solomon, chapter 2 and verse 14, he does exactly what I'm challenging you to do with me. Oh, not with me, with your spouse.
[21:32] Oh, my dove. Don't you dare call me your dove, or I'll punch you. I'll be a hawk when you thought I was a dove. Amen. Oh, my dove.
[21:46] That art in the cleft of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs. Let me see thy countenance. Let me hear thy voice.
[21:57] For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. Now, it's kind of a funny thing. I'm not sure what's going on in the verse, but you kind of get the feeling she's being secretive with him.
[22:12] She's like there, but she ain't there. She's just kind of hiding. In any moment, she's just going to pop out. She's like a dove in the clefts of the rock. She's in the secret place of the stairs. I don't know. She's, there's a little curtain, and she's looking out, and he can see she's back there, but he's still, come on out here, baby.
[22:26] Let me see you. Now, look what he says to her. Let me see your countenance. Let me see your face. Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. Sweet is your voice, and your countenance is comely.
[22:41] It is beautiful. It is delightful. It is pleasing. That's what I say when I see my wife, he says. You know, here's what we need to work on doing.
[22:53] When we choose to think the right things, thank the Lord for your partner, your spouse, your wife, or your husband. Admire your partner. Admire your spouse.
[23:03] Admire your wife in your mind. Think about how beautiful she is. Admire the details of your spouse. Proverbs chapter 20 and verse 29, use specific praise.
[23:21] Specific praise. Proverbs 20, 29, the glory of young men is their strength. So those of you married to one of these young men, you grab his little muscle arm, or it ain't got nothing on it, and just say, ooh, feel them muscles.
[23:38] I know your line, and you know your line, but he'll think it's pretty sweet. And then look at what my wife does. She looks at me, and she says, oh, that's a pretty gray head. I love that part, don't you?
[23:50] The beauty of old men is the gray head. Brother Sam, me and you won that one. Say amen. I don't know what happened to Brother Wayne, but anyway.
[24:04] Ladies, approve of his ideas and his opinions. Let him know you believe in him. Sweet things. Help him where he's weak. Always be praising. Praising.
[24:14] Number two. Write this down somewhere, real quickly. Take care to avoid little things that spoil your love. It's little things that spoil your love. Bible says in Song of Solomon 2.15, take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines.
[24:33] For our vines have tender grapes. You know what ends up happening? It messes up marriages. I'm sure you know all this, but typically when I've done marriage counseling and they're in really bad shape, they can't remember what caused the problem.
[24:50] It's just been one grain of sand after another grain of sand until you finally had the straw that broke the camel's back. It's little things. Or they have to grasp way back in the past something that was supposedly forgiven, something that was supposedly forgotten.
[25:08] And if they didn't have a computer with a lot of memory, they wouldn't even be able to remember it, but they do. And he says, hey, he said, be careful with these little foxes. They spoil.
[25:19] They damage, the word spoil, damage, ruin, disturb, wrong, destroy. Little foxes. We're not talking about elephants.
[25:30] We're not talking about elephants. I'm going to have to get one of you to help. I've got coyotes in my backyard. I'm pretty sure either that or some kids back there crying out at night. If I ever find him, I will perforate his skin.
[25:44] But anyway, our vines have tender, vulnerable grapes. You know, love's tender. And a marriage is tender. And a relationship between any two friends is tender.
[25:58] So I need to be careful. It's a little things. Very few of us are going to mess up our marriage with something major. And if we do, it'll be because we got away with too many little things for too long.
[26:11] So here's a few thoughts you can take with you. Don't go to bed without fixing your problems. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. You know what?
[26:21] We need to be saying, I love you. I want to fix things. I don't want to hold on to things. And I'm afraid one of the things that we tend to do is we sweep it under the rug. And we don't even have that many rugs anymore.
[26:34] You know, when I was a kid, you didn't have carpets. You had big old throw rugs. I have been known to sweep a lot of stuff under that rug, don't know what my mother called it. And, but you know what? If you do that, it just builds up.
[26:45] So we got to get rid of it. Be courteous to each other. Using all the manners your mother taught you. Be courteous. Be courteous. You're not going to like this one, but it's what I teach about at marriage conferences.
[27:00] So here's the next one. Take a bath and put on some perfume. That's for both of you. Song of Solomon 112. While the king sits at his table, my spikenard, parentheses, perfume, sends forth the smell thereof.
[27:18] A bundle of myrrh, perfume, is my well-beloved unto me. He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. He's evidently got clean hair.
[27:29] She said, man, I got on spikenard. Don't try to buy that at Walmart. They don't sell it, but it's a perfume. And he says, hey, he says, she's got on sweet perfume. And she said, when he lays his head on my chest, it don't smell like greasy, oily, dirty hair.
[27:44] It smells clean and perfumed. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Proverbs 7, 16.
[27:56] Proverbs 7, 16. Look at this. Boy, God gets into all kinds of details. That's a prostitute here. But you know what? Every one of us ought to work at this. I have decked my bed.
[28:09] Underline deck. Man, I have fixed up the bedroom. I have fixed up the bedroom. I got fancy quilts and tapestries. I got carved works and fine linen of Egypt.
[28:21] I put perfume on the bed. A whole bunch of it. Myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning. It ought to be that I ought to be worried about my relationship with my spouse that I would be like that to a great degree.
[28:39] Touch each other tenderly. Touch each other tenderly. You know, our spouse ought to know we love each other.
[28:49] As little touches is all it takes. Nothing sensual. Nothing trying to go in here further than that. Something just said, boy, you're special. I recognize you. I'm glad you're sitting beside me.
[29:00] I like being with you. Song of Solomon 2, 6 said, his left hand's under my head. His right hand doth embrace me. Number three, recognize your partner as being one out of thousands.
[29:15] I personally like this much, much here. I think your spouse ought to be like, he likes me more than anybody. There's no competition out there.
[29:27] No competition. If you look around the room, you won't find anybody. Song of Solomon 2, 2, he said, as a lily, this is really bad, because old Solomon's got a bunch of wives.
[29:39] I just can't, honestly, this lady, she had to be pretty insecure. I mean, there's 999 back at the stable. And he looks at her and says to her, boy, you're the one.
[29:50] But look at it. As a lily among thorns. Wouldn't it be sweet if your wife thought you thought that? The thorns are the other women. The lilies your wife. So is my love among the daughters.
[30:03] As an apple tree among the trees of the woods. You're out in the woods, there's an apple tree. That's my beloved. I sat down under his shadow with great delight.
[30:14] His fruit was sweet to my taste. Chapter 6 and verse 8. There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number.
[30:25] My dove, my undefiled is but one. She's the only one of her mother. She's the choice one of her that bear her. The daughters saw her and blessed her.
[30:37] Yea, the queens and the concubines. And they praised her. I think we ought to make our spouse know there's no one like them anywhere.
[30:51] I choose you. Doesn't matter your size. Thank Lord. Betty can maybe hopefully believe that. Doesn't matter your gray hair. Doesn't matter your muscles have all dropped down from your chest to your drawers.
[31:06] It doesn't matter, you know? Jeff, that was enough. So let me just say a couple things about that real quick. You're recognizing your partner. Don't make comparisons that aren't flattering.
[31:19] Never make comparisons that aren't flattering. He made a comparison. Lily, thorns, regular trees, apple tree. Choice one.
[31:30] Did you see that? Choice one. Mind defiled is but one. There's only one for me. It'd be better that you were hardly noticing others. But if you do notice, remind her she's better.
[31:43] Be the one your partner wants. Song of Solomon, 710. I am my beloved's and his desire is toward me. I am my beloved's and his desire is toward me.
[31:57] He loves me. Nobody else. Last one. Have special dates with your spouse. Song of Solomon 2, 4. Prepare a banquet for her.
[32:09] Look at this. He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. The guy's flying the flag of love. He said, stay me with flagons.
[32:21] That means cakes and sweet food. Comfort me with apples. I'm sick with love, sick of love. That means I'm about to faint. I'm so in love. I'm about to faint.
[32:32] Years ago, I was up in the high mountains of Peru and Mindy Stinson was a girl that was in our group and Jeff Bush was a boy that was in our group and Jeff Bush was riding a horse and he got hurt.
[32:46] He fell off the horse because the saddle wasn't on. The horse drug him. Mindy and Jeff were not together and they were both kind of acting like, no, there's not really nothing going on here. You know how people are, you know?
[32:56] And she fainted. She fainted right on the spot. Boom. Hit the ground. I'm like, I got a guy down over there and a girl down over here. That's what, Mindy was sick of love.
[33:13] Oh, hush Jeff. It's sweet, isn't it? Let's work on that. Remember the sweet stories. Song of Solomon 711.
[33:24] Spend time together. Go on some dates. Come my beloved. Let's go forth into the field. Let's lodge in the villages. Let's get up early to the vineyards.
[33:35] Let's go out and take a hike through the vineyards in the early morning and let's see the vines flourishing and when the tender grapes are coming and the pomegranates are budding. Therefore, there will I give thee my loves.
[33:47] The mandrakes, that's a love fruit. That's an aphrodisiac. The mandrakes give smell and all our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, oh my beloved.
[34:03] We need to have some time. You know, when you were dating, boy, you just sought time to spend with her. Now you're married and it's like, is mine to wear clean? Did you make the bed?
[34:16] How about a little bit of time? Wait to see your spouse anxiously and make preparation. Song of Solomon 2.8. The voice of my beloved, behold, he comes leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills.
[34:32] He's wanting to get home. He's running and jumping and skipping like, whoo, I'm on my way to a party.
[34:43] I'm going home. Verse 9, my beloved is like a row or a young heart. Behold, he stands out behind our wall. He looks forth out the window, showing himself through the lattice.
[34:55] My beloved spake and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth.
[35:06] The time of the singing birds has come. The voice of the bird, the turtle dove, that's what that is, is heard in our land. It's not a turtle singing, by the way. The fig tree puts forth her green figs.
[35:18] The vines of the tender grapes give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, come away. Oh, my dove, that art in the cleft of the rock in the secret places, let me see your face.
[35:30] Let me hear your voice. It's sweet. I'd like to go to the last verse. I'm going to do two things here. You know, they don't know what, Song of Solomon's kind of a hard book for them to understand why it's written.
[35:44] Was it written to be about a man and his wife or about how the Lord would feel about his church? Because Ephesians chapter five, starting in verse 21 or so, all the way down to verse 33. In 532, it says, I ain't talking about marriage.
[35:57] I don't talk about the church, Jesus and the church. But in Song of Solomon 6, 3, there's a covenant between the two of us.
[36:09] I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. I belong to him and he belongs to me. But marriage won't work without Jesus.
[36:21] We need the Lord Jesus in our lives. You know, if I love Jesus, I'll have to love my wife. And by the way, if I love Jesus, I have to love my wife.
[36:33] I didn't say you had to feel love. I said, you have to act love. It's an action verb. If I'm in love with Jesus and I'm saying, Jesus, I love you. He's going to say, then go be nice to your wife.
[36:44] He's going to say, read 1 Corinthians 13 and find out all the action words I used for love and go do that with your husband. In other words, it's not like, you know, love's not some kind of, ooh, it is when you're 17, but not when you're 67.
[37:02] Say, man, it's not about the feeling. It's about the action and the action will bring the feelings. But if you don't know Jesus, there's no hope.
[37:14] You realize, listen to this, you realize you never deserve to be loved and I never deserve to be loved. You realize that? But the Lord calls me his and I can call him mine.
[37:27] But I can do that because when I sinned and failed a good God and a holy God and when I deserved to go to hell and when my sin weighed down on me and there was no hope for me, he came to love me.
[37:40] And he paid my sin debt and saved me and rescued me because I accepted his invitation of love. So I end tonight with this. Make a covenant between the two of you.
[37:52] It ought to be a regular thing. We ought not have to wait till the funeral. We ought to keep it sweet at home. Can I just tell all of my older brothers and sisters that know more about marriage than I do?
[38:05] The world's watching our marriages. If our marriages aren't better than their marriages, what's the use? But if we can love each other like the Lord wants us to love each other, it'll be like, man, marriage doesn't work for anybody.
[38:21] I've had no time. How many people tell me, how will you stay married 48 years? But you know what? If you know Jesus, it's a great thing. So we need to, they need to know Jesus, but I need to give a good testimony.
[38:34] Father in heaven, I love you. Thank you for the chance to serve you. I pray your name would be wonderfully glorified. In Jesus name, amen. Thank you.