Romans 7:1-12 (Trading a Bad Marriage for a Good One, Pastor Jeff Kliewer)

Nabal, Abigail, and the Picture of a Bad Marriage

Help us to love thy law, in Jesus' name. Amen. Nabal was a fool. That's what his name meant. Nabal meant fool, and that's precisely what he was. He was super rich. Nabal had 3 ,000 sheep and 1 ,000 goats.

And it seems that he had really earned that wealth. It wasn't just handed to him because he's seen on the the fields with his men shearing the sheep. And he actually had his property separate from where he lived, so it seemed he had developed this business out in Carmel.

But Nabal was a hard-working man, very rich, and he came from a very prestigious family. That is the family of Caleb. Remember Caleb, who with Joshua was so courageous? Well, he was a Calebite, so he had the family pedigree.

Not only that, but he had a trophy wife. He had a trophy wife. Her name was Abigail, and the Bible says that she was very beautiful. Now, if you're rich and famous, very well accomplished, with a trophy wife, this could be a formula for arrogance, couldn't it?

Can you imagine that Nabal the fool had become a bit arrogant? Well, it turns out that he's described as being harsh and badly behaved. We can read into whatever that might mean, but you can picture Nabal, whose name means fool, being harsh towards his wife and badly behaved in many areas of his life.

Well, it came about that David was fleeing from the hand of Saul, who tried to pin him with a spear to the wall, so he left and took off, and he was a fugitive. Well, he came out to the fields near where Nabal's sheep were, and he began to protect Nabal's sheep from bandits who would come and steal some of them, and was no problem to Nabal.

And David sent some of his men to talk to Nabal at the time of a feast. He asked him for some provision, and he didn't demand anything. He said, whatever you have, could you help us out? But Nabal being a.

Fool and.

Harsh and badly behaved said to David's men that they could take a hike, and in fact, he very much insulted David. Now realize, at this time, God had already anointed David to become king. It was only a matter of time, and David was a forerunner of Jesus Christ, yet Nabal disrespected him, sent his men away, talked trash, and even called him a runaway slave.

He said, yeah, there's a lot of runaway slaves these days. He sounded like Bull Connor, just mocking and treating harshly the men of David. So David, being enraged by Nabal's insult, told his 300 men, strap on your swords, and David put his sword on his side as well, and they rolled down the hill, heading for Nabal to kill him and all of the males belonging to Nabal's house.

He would have died that day, except for Abigail. Abigail, being wise and beautiful, she took some provisions and went and interceded, came in between David and Nabal, stopped him in his tracks, and she spoke so graciously, with such wisdom, that David actually listened to her.

She reminded him that God is the Savior. You don't need to avenge yourself. She told him not to put blood guilt on his own hands, because David's overreaction.

Would have been sin also.

David didn't have a right to kill Nabal for what he did, but David was enraged and Abigail spoke graciously to the point where David listened. Now, David went home, back to the fields, and Abigail went back to her husband, this harsh fool.

When she got back home, she found Nabal.

Completely drunk.

He was hanging out with friends, probably celebrating the way he sent David's men packing, and he was delighting, merry at heart, and completely drunk, not knowing that Abigail had just saved his life and all of the men in their house.

So Abigail went to bed, and Nabal did too, and in the morning, she said, now's the time to talk. The night before, she knew she couldn't talk to this drunken man, but in the morning, she told him, last night, David and his men were about to slaughter you, and all of our men.

And when Nabal heard it, the Bible tells us, 1st Samuel 25, his heart failed, and he became a stone, or as stone. For 10 days, he sat there completely stunned. It might have been some kind of brain aneurysm or something, but it's, he just became a stone.

He just sat there unmoved, like a lump on the log. In fact, he was like a statue. I'm sure Abigail was not too impressed by his reaction. He used to be this harsh, domineering guy, and now he just sits here.

For those 10 days, she's thinking to herself, if he's gonna be a statue, why can't he be a statue that looks more like the statue of David? Where's Michelangelo when you need him? He's just a statue sitting there, good for nothing, and she has no recourse to do anything about this marriage.

She can't divorce him, because the word divorce in the Hebrew means to send a wife away. Women could not just divorce their husbands. They were trapped in this sense, and here he was, like a stone, and there was no way out.

But God,.

After 10 days of sitting like a statue, Nabal dropped dead, and by the law of Israel, the law demanded that a marriage is no longer binding when one of the spouses dies. So now, she was no longer trapped in a bad marriage.

She was free. Better than that, David came riding down the hill. David had been wronged by Saul. He had married Saul's daughter, but when he began, when Saul began to persecute David, Saul took David's wife and gave her to another man.

So now, by this adultery, David himself was free, and so David pursued Abigail, and they were married. A beautiful picture, and a good marriage that replaced a bad. In fact, when enemies came against them, the Amilkites actually captured Abigail at one point, an entire country, taking captives into a faraway land.

David, with his 600 men, pursued them, killed them, and rescued his bride. David was a good husband, whereas Nabal had been a fool. Ladies, who are unmarried girls, listen to your pastor for just a moment.

Receive the pursuit of a man, only if he listens to God. You see, in marriage, there is something called headship. Headship, leadership, authority. And if you accept the headship of a fool like Nabal, you will be bound and entrapped in a marriage where a fool is leading the home.

But the man that pursues you doesn't have to look like David, or play the harp like David, or be a king. You don't need your prince in shining armor. What you need is a man who listens to God. Because to submit yourself to a head means something real.

And the only protection, the only joy that can come of a marriage like that is if your head also has a head. Namely Christ. The man who listens to God, who has a Lord over him, and listens to the Word will be a good head to you.

And young men pursue a godly woman. One who will submit to headship. That is the test. And by the way, this is not only a figurehead. Very often in evangelicalism, when you hear the husband is ahead of the wife, everybody has to say what?

Amen.

Because it's in the Bible, right? But there's a difference between being a head and a figurehead. What's the difference between headship and a figurehead? A figurehead actually has no authority whatsoever, right?

Only a figurehead, like the the king of England might be. Although he has some. The real test is when the rubber meets the road. Let me give you an example. A certain situation arises where a child begins to have an asthma attack, and a wife is with this child, and knows that the inhaler is at her sister's house 12 minutes away.

She's on the phone with her husband, and the husband says, don't go to your sister's house, go to the hospital. And she really believes that the sister's house would be a better choice, because the inhaler is at the sister's house.

But the husband on the phone, in that moment, there's no time to debate. There's no chance to discuss this. You either go this way, or you go that. And the husband says, no. Go to the hospital. The rubber meets the road in that moment, in that car.

Will she obey her own headship, her own thought, her own opinion? Or will she obey the headship of her husband? Do you see the dilemma? Now, a good and godly husband would love to spend time talking and listening, and working through to a good and godly decision, but sometimes there will be differences.

No doubt there will be differences among us. Amen? Real headship means that there is the ability to say no. There is differences where the woman submits, actually submits to the man. Otherwise, without that, it's one thing to affirm headship, but there is no headship where the husband has no authority.

Make sense? So here we're talking about marriage, and many of us in this room can say what I can. So blessed to have a godly wife. Each one of us here who has a godly wife should praise the Lord for that gift from God.

And wives, if you have a husband who listens to his head, then you should praise God. This is a gift from the Lord. He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord. This is a very important part of life.

Marriage is essential in the plan of God, in the unfolding of the world. The very first thing God ever said to man.

Was.

Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. In this, he says, a man shall leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is God's design for the world, but I am telling you this morning that Paul will take this analogy of marriage and apply it to our relationship with God.

And understanding this is key, because Paul finds it important in Romans chapter 7, turn there if you will, key in understanding how we are to think about who we are in Christ. How we are to be sanctified and consider our relationship with God.

Dying to the Law Through Christ

Main idea, as with human marriage, we're trading a bad marriage for a good marriage is only allowed if the spouse dies. Our relationship with God actually exchanged a bad marriage for a good marriage by a death,.

Which.

Surprisingly was our own. Now, I say only allowed when I mean that in the legitimate sense. If one spouse commits adultery, which is illegitimate, the spouse who was cheated on is free to divorce. The same with abandonment in 1st Corinthians 7.

There are legitimate reasons, or abuse, which would be a form of abandonment. To separate in those cases is a biblical cause for divorce. But what I mean is when you have a godly person who is trapped in an ungodly marriage, no grounds for divorce, she has no recourse but to stay in that marriage, even if trapped.

And it seems like a very hopeless situation. But watch what Paul does with the analogy, because if one spouse dies, if Nabal dies, Abigail is free to marry David. Let's read Romans 7, 1 to 3, and I'm saying this applies to us and our relationship with God.

Or do you not know brothers for I am speaking to those who know the law? Mark that because we can't just think in modern 2024 American divorce culture. He's not saying I'm going to refer to New Jersey law of no-fault divorce.

He's saying I am speaking to those who know what? The law. That the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.

Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

Now, Paul is not primarily here discussing marriage, although there are tangential applications. We're going to talk a little bit about what this means for our human marriages. But why does Paul bring this up in the context of Romans 6 to 8?

He's teaching us about sanctification and how we are to think. And so he brings an analogy just like he did in chapter 6. Remember that he said I'm speaking to you in human terms when talking about slavery.

Because he didn't want you to take the analogy too far and miss the point. The analogy had a certain point. In the same way, he needs to double down on that argument, teach us something about the law, and the analogy, the human analogy to help us understand, will be to marriage.

So our relationship with God is now compared to marriage. And I want to say that the implication here is that we were trapped in a bad marriage. And there was only one way out. How could that be the analogy?

Well, look carefully at verse 2. When it says a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. How many of your translations have the word marriage there?

At the end of verse 2. The Greek actually reads she's released from the law concerning the husband. The law concerning the husband. And that's important because the analogy has to hold and apply to God and man.

Not just a husband and a wife. So in the analogy, who is the husband and who is the wife? And is it interchangeable? Could he have said a husband is bound to a wife unless she dies? Why does it say a married woman is bound by law to her husband?

Is that intentional? Absolutely, it is. Here's why. In the book of Isaiah chapter 54 verse 5, God says, for your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name. Again and again, this analogy appears in the Old Testament.

God is like a husband to Israel. Remember how Hosea was told to go marry Gomer who was a prostitute. And the reason for that was to say that just like Hosea must be a faithful husband even though he's married to an unfaithful woman, so God is a faithful and true husband, but he's married to an untrue faithless woman like Gomer.

Israel is the wife in that picture. Understand that in the law, a woman had no recourse to divorce her husband. Abigail could not have divorced Nabal apart from adultery or a violation of the covenant.

She was bound. How then does that apply in this case? I want you to turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 24 verse 1. Deuteronomy 24 verse 1. Without the law, we cannot understand the context of what Paul is saying here.

Again, we don't apply our modern categories of divorce. We have to understand the biblical parameters. Deuteronomy 24 verse 1. When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce.

By the way, in 2219 and 2229, whenever the word divorce is used, the actual Hebrew means send the wife away. It's the husband who can send the wife away in this context. So it could be very restrictive.

It could feel very restrictive, especially if you have a Nabal for a husband. In Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, it says, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, he can write her a certificate of divorce.

He can send the wife away. There were two schools of interpretation regarding this verse. The first was called Shammai. A teacher named Shammai and his followers of this rabbi who followed that tradition maintained that that term some indecency.

Do you see where it says some indecency in her? Irwith Dabar. They thought that this signified nothing less than adultery, unchastity, that she had committed adultery, and they argued that only this crime justified a man divorcing his wife.

The school of thought said the verse is talking about adultery, and he can only send her away if she's committed adultery. But the second school of thought was kind of like the liberalism of the first century.

In the days of Jesus, some would follow the more restrictive Shammai school. Others followed what was called Halal. A teacher named Halal and his followers would actually be like the liberals of their day.

Remember when they tried to catch Jesus up in this controversy? And they came to him and they said, hey, can a man divorce his wife for any and every reason? And Jesus answers with questions and very carefully upholds the law and refutes them and then changes the subject in a good way.

The Halal school believed you could send your wife away for almost any reason. The flimsiest of reasons, like spoiling a dish, burning the food, or putting on careless seasoning. Some of the rabbis boldly taught that a man had a perfect right to dismiss his wife if he found another woman whom he liked better.

He thought that she was more beautiful, and the reason they grounded that idea was in verse 24 1, Deuteronomy 24 1, she finds no favor in his eyes. If in his eyes, she's not as beautiful as this other person he's come across, he thinks he has a right to divorce her.

That's the Halal school. By the way, this was written in the Mishnah. So those who believe in Talmudic Judaism have in their Mishnah 1410, the following women may be divorced. She who violates the law of Moses causes her husband to eat food, which has not been tithed.

She who vows, but does not keep her vows, listen to this one, she who goes out in the street with her hair loose, ground for divorce according to Halal, or spins in the street, or converses with any man, or is a noisy woman.

What is a noisy woman? I'm still quoting. It is one who speaks in her own house so loud that the neighbors hear it. Aren't you glad that we don't live under the Halal school of interpretation? Go back with me now to Romans chapter 7, and understand what's happening here in this passage.

The marriage pictured in Romans 7 is between God, your maker is your husband, and.

Us,.

People who were made by God.

The marriage was bad.

Because the headship arrangement that God intentionally led us with only served to show us how badly we do under it. It's like, he said, sell your house for a million dollars,.

Knowing.

That we have no money to buy the house. It feels oppressive and restrictive, even if there's nothing wrong with it. And the question is, why was this arrangement this way? The answer is, it was preparation for a better arrangement.

It's to show us that we don't need more and more laws, rules, and regulations to relate to God because those things never accomplished what they would. What we need is a Savior. The law cannot bring us to God.

Now, follow this. In the law, for example, in Numbers 25, all of the Israelites had to wear tassels on their robes, and on the tassels was blue thread, certain blue thread. Which is why, have you ever seen the Israeli flag with the blue and white stripes?

Why does the Israeli flag have blue and white stripes? Because Orthodox Jews understand that you have to wear a prayer shawl that's modeled after the prayer shawl with the white and the blue threads hanging off of the tassels of your garments.

You have to do that. That's the arrangement. Not only that, all of your clothing has to be made from a single kind of fiber. No polyester with cotton. One fiber per cloth. You have to observe Sabbath laws that are meticulous regarding work.

Tithing is not just 10%, but after the 10%, there's a 10 of that 10%, and another 10 of that 10%, probably equaling about 23%. Not only that, you have to let your land lay fallow every seventh year, and on the 50th year, yet again, let it sit and live off other things.

You also have to perform animal sacrifices in which you lay the hand of your hand on an animal and watch him bleed out because you sinned. You have dietary restrictions. You cannot eat this, but you can eat that.

This, not that. This, not that. The law, the arrangement, is this outward display of obedience to God. And it's a bad marriage because the rebellious human heart does not like to be restricted in this way.

It feels oppressive. And we'll get to verses 7 to 12 in a minute where it turns out the problem was us, not the law. But notice what God has done. Here's the great news about the gospel of Jesus Christ, which isn't law.

It isn't formulaic, obedience to a set of rules. Something happened that set us free from that old law arrangement to which we were bound. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God, our maker, has always been the same.

But the arrangement changes and it can only happen if one of the marriage partner, partners, dies. Look at verse 4 to 6. Likewise, my brothers, you also.

Have died.

To the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit.

For God.

Look carefully. Who died? Here's the great surprise in the verse. It turns out you died. But I thought Jesus died. Notice in the passage that you died through the body of Christ. His physical body was put on Calvary's tree, but this goes back to Romans chapter 6 verse 5 when we're told, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

The idea in chapter 7 verse 4 is that when you became a Christian, when you were converted to Jesus Christ, your old man, your old way of relating to God, which was always in rebellion against his headship, a rebellion against his rule,.

That old man died.

With Christ. His death was counted as your death and you were buried with him in baptism. For those of you who witnessed the baptisms a few weeks ago, wasn't it beautiful? People put underwater, but it was symbolic.

Of death. You died.

And now you are a new person, which means you are no longer bound by the law. The world doesn't understand this because they mock us as Christians. We say God's moral standards are the same regarding homosexuality and bestiality and adultery and all of the sexual ethic of Leviticus 18.

We say nothing has changed there. But then they say, well, then you're hypocrites because you don't wear tassels and you mix your fibers and you don't leave your fields fallow. And our answer to that, church, you need to understand this, is that we died with Christ and we are not under the law as the arrangement between us and our head.

But the resurrected Christ is our husband in this way. Now, by the way, when I say husband, the metaphor is never for an individual Christian. The idea, the metaphor, is regarding the church. So some of the songs that you'll hear on the radio, which kind of sound like, you know, Jesus is my boyfriend, and they're taking the analogy too far and misapplying it.

Because the idea here is the arrangement between Christ and the church. And notice in verse 4, there is a fruit of that marriage.

Right?

What does it say at the end of verse 4? In order that we may bear fruit for God. John Gill points out that this is like Psalm 127 verse 3. Children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is her reward.

So as in human marriage, where children are a reward or a fruit, a beautiful blessing from the marriage that God has given, in the same way good works are to the church the result of this kind of marriage.

In the old covenant, the marriage was bad. There was no desire to serve God. But in the new covenant, this is a good marriage from the heart. We obey God and listen to his commands. Look at verse 6. It says, but now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us, what?

Captive. It was.

A prison.

Marriage isn't supposed to be a prison. Something that holds you captive and neither is your relationship with God. In Christ, we serve in the new way of the spirit. Not in the old way of the written code.

That's the point. It's a big point. Having come to believe in Christ, the old has passed away and all things have become new. A new covenant has taken over. And the old covenant, with all of its attendant regulations, dietary codes and animal sacrifices and dress codes, holiness codes, which were outward only, have been set aside in favor of the new work of the spirit in a Christian.

The person who knows that Christ has died for them, willingly goes out and does whatever the master says. Phil Wickham has a line in one of his songs recently that I really like. He says, he bore my sin.

I gladly bear his name. In this new way of the spirit, we don't serve by outer obedience to rules, but from the heart, by the empowering of the spirit, we're in a relationship with God that we want to be in.

So when you have a chance to study this analogy to marriage, you can look up John 3 .29. Maybe take note. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.

John the Baptist points to Jesus as the bridegroom. Jesus himself does the same in Matthew 9 .15. Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? Jesus is the bridegroom. Second Corinthians 11 .2, for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin.

To Christ.

And then, of course, the most famous of all, Ephesians chapter 5. A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. The mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

The Law Reveals Sin but Cannot Save

So verses 7 to 12 show us what the problem was in the previous arrangement. It wasn't the law. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? Was God wrong to impose that on Israel? No, there was nothing wrong.

It set them apart as holy and distinct from the nations. It was good and beautiful. By no means. Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known.

Sin.

For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. Did you think you were doing pretty good with the Ten Commandments? You never committed adultery. You never murdered anybody.

You don't lie. You don't use the Lord's name in vain. But then you get to that Tenth Commandment and it says, thou shalt not covet. And it's not even an outward command. It doesn't have anything to do with what you do and how you look on the outside.

It has everything to do with.

The heart.

And so it presses the command of God upon the heart. So if you're even coveting, you're violating the law. Wouldn't that mean that all of us are guilty? That's the point, right? Verse 8. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

If not adultery, adultery of the heart. If not murder, murder of the heart. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I.

Died.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. You guys still following the train of thought?

So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. The problem was never the law. The problem wasn't marriage. The problem was.

Us.

The covetousness of our hearts, the sinfulness of our desires. And so in this arrangement, we could never fulfill the law. Every command stood against us. Breaking one, we broke them all. So an application to all of this.

All along,.

The bad marriage, the problem in the relationship with God, was something of our own making. We felt like relating to God was a prison sentence. It was stifling. Because the sinful flesh coveted the things that the law said no to.

The outward ordinance only stirred up more desire. The heart wanted the things that God said no to. And so God was like a cruel task master in our minds, even though he was holy, righteous, and good. And his law was good.

David never said that the law was bad. Read Psalm 19 or Psalm 119. The law is good. But God, listen, but God, he made a righteous way for a good marriage to replace a bad one. We'll apply this first of all spiritually.

The death.

Of Christ and you dying in him put an end to your old way of relating to God. And a new way of the Spirit has now come about. Isn't that good news? You no longer live by ordinances, but by a sincere desire to serve God.

To submit to him, to do his will. He's made us a new creation called the church. And we serve gladly in the new way of the Spirit. We'll learn all about that in Romans 8, how you live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.

But I'd say there is another application, final one, and that is again to human marriage. Human marriage. The analogy is also important. Every one of us here who is married ought to give thanks for the gift of a spouse.

And if the marriage feels bad, where should each of us look?

To ourselves.

The selfishness, the desires of the flesh that need to die to make the marriage good. We are like Nabal. In relationship to Abigail. That's the point of that analogy. That it's our sinfulness, our desires that war against God.

Now we are like Abigail in relationship to Christ as she married a new spouse named David. I want you to think about your, it's how we think that matters here. If you're thinking that being a Christian is all about obeying these laws that just seem so hard and stifling, realize that one died to set you free from what you couldn't keep and now he lives.

And you are in a new marriage. Your marriage on earth then can match what you have with God. Some here have lost a spouse. You've endured one of the most painful sufferings that this world knows. The death of half of you.

The two shall become one flesh. If that's you, thank God for the years that you had. And realize that God will meet every need that you have. If you are single, listen, if you are single, pray for your future spouse.

And look for someone who submits to the headship of Christ.

Young men,.

You must submit to Christ if you will ever be fit to be a husband of a wife. You cannot take on that mantle of headship until you have bowed the knee to the lordship of Christ. Like a slave to a master, as the analogy in Romans 6, you need to step up in that way to be worthy to be the head of a wife.

Young ladies, look for a man like that. Respond to his pursuit if he is worthy. And by worthy, I don't mean perfect. I mean one who listens to God. Ask God for a spouse that listens to God, that isn't harsh and badly behaved like Nabal, whose heart will not fail and become like a stone.

Look for Christ-likeness. And to the hurting marriages, don't look outside your marriage because you are married until one of you, what? Dies. That's a human analogy. Adultery is not an option because that's death penalty in Israel.

Don't go there. Adultery is not an option. Abandonment is not an option. You stay in the marriage that God has given you. God can change the heart from the inside out. Focus on your own dying,.

Your own dying,.

That you would be new. I believe God's got amazing marriages planned for this church. Both for those whose marriages are hurting, he desires to heal and make it new. But also new marriages to be formed and we've seen so many of them recently, young and old.

It's a beautiful picture, not only of the earthly but of the heavenly reality. Let's pray for marriages and more importantly, even than that, for our walk with God. So Father, we thank you so much for this, what is a very difficult passage of scripture.

It's hard for us to follow the train of thought, but Lord, as you give us your law and you remind us of the context of your word, these layers unfold for us and they teach us how to live with you. We want to thank you, God, that we are not under the written ordinances to govern us in this relationship.

We are not in prison. We are not stifled. We don't have to wear tight tassels on our garments and observe Sabbaths and give tithes in such a way to meet a law criteria. But we want to thank you for Christ dying and us dying with him and the resurrected Christ as the bridegroom.

We, the church, want to submit to your headship, not as a matter of duty, but as a matter of heartfelt love. Help us, Lord, to love you more. And God, we pray right now in Jesus' name for marriages that are hurting.

We pray that this day by the preaching of your word and the hearing of your word, marriages would be made right. Bad marriages would become good marriages. We pray, Lord, right now for those who have lost a spouse and are hurting, that you would comfort and maybe even provide a second marriage, if it be your will.