The Sanctity of Marriage - Ephesians 5 (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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My name is Miguelito. My name is Mike Abendroth. You know how you go to Spanish class back in the day, whatever it was in the 70s for me, junior high, and you're taking

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Spanish class. My friend Wayne took French class, and I just thought, I don't want to learn how to speak French.

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But Wayne said there are more girls in the French class. And I took the

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Spanish class, I just thought it was easier. I don't think I really liked the French language, although when

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I'm in France, too bad I can't speak it. And, you know, what's your name? My name's Mike.

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And he's like, okay, well, we're going to give you, you know, Miguelito or Miguel or something like that. And then, you know, that was like a one -to -one transfer.

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I kind of get that. But you know, then somebody else was, you know, your buddy's name,

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Benjamin, and he was given the word Jorge. He's like, wait, it doesn't look like it, it doesn't sound like it.

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What is going on, Jorge? You know, my bad reviews for No Compromise Radio, well,

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I should have a lot more bad reviews, but the bad ones, you know, if you go to iTunes or whatever, he sounds like he's sitting alone in a room laughing at his own jokes.

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Yes, that's true. I mean, come on, seriously. That's one of the things that I do miss about Twitter, as I would put on John Owen quotes and I would critique critical race theory and other things.

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And then once in a while, I just do something completely off the wall and I'd have some children's, you know, bicycle helmet on that was in the shape of Barney the

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Dinosaur or something. I mean, really, we take ourselves so seriously. And I think it's probably time in light of that for a little special, you know,

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I don't know about affirmation, but I do like daily affirmation. I declare, you will experience

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God's faithfulness. You will not worry. You will not doubt. You will keep your trust in him, knowing that he will not fail you.

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You will give birth to every promise God put in your heart and you will become everything

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God created you to be. That was number six, by the way.

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Affirmation number six. My name's Mike Gabenroth, No Compromise Radio. If you order Sexual Fidelity online at nocompromiseradio .com,

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I will send you things to go bump in the church. $14 book, no charge.

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We'll just include that. The website doesn't let you know that, but I'm just letting you know if you order the one, you get the two.

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I don't sell that many books anymore. I mainly sell Sexual Fidelity to men's groups, churches that want to have a book to go through as they talk about sexual fidelity.

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Well, today, a somewhat related topic, I guess. We're talking about marriage and husbands, as they love their wives, they are demonstrating a greater truth, and that is

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Christ loving the church, and that's Ephesians chapter five. I have been preaching last

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Sunday, and then for me tomorrow, or for you, the last two Sundays, I've been preaching on the sanctity of marriage, and I really wanted to say any attack on marriage is attack on the person and work of the

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Lord Jesus. They're linked. Thinking about marriage leads me to think about Jesus loving the bride, and loving the bride as Jesus did, made me think, and does, makes me think of the regular marriage between a husband and a wife.

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I've been talking some about that with some ramifications, kind of in the context of homosexual same -sex marriage, but of course, anything that denigrates the marriage institution designed by and ordained by the triune

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God, it's going to be problematic, whether that's, I think celibacy is a higher plane than getting married.

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I think that there should be no fault divorces for any reason, we're not talking about the biblical reasons for divorce, but every other reason,

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I just think that should be true. I think that abandonment is just fine. I think a husband that doesn't fulfill his duties and protect and nourish and lead his wife, and I think things like sex outside the marriage bed, or adultery, or even pornography, or sins, other sexual sins, like withholding sexual ...

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You start talking about sex and it's like, it's hard to do, is what the answer is. There's no laughing now, right?

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Withholding sex from your spouse, that's also sexual sin, even though you're not committing something.

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You should be, you are committing something, that is, on the day you said, I do, is the day you said,

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I will, medically speaking at least, as long as that's a possibility. There's all kinds of ways to denigrate the marriage, and we're just kind of working through some of that now on No Compromise Radio.

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We were working through Ephesians 5, and I just finished verse 31, The man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

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Paul is quoting Genesis 2, verse 24, and it's kind of been underneath all of this since chapter 5, verse 25, but he makes it very explicit now that this man leaves his family and holds fast to his wife, and they are one flesh.

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And that's why when you think about marriage, you should say it takes priority over every other human relationship.

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When you think about marriage, you should be thinking permanency. You should be thinking, oh, one flesh.

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You should be thinking Adam and Eve and original design. You should be thinking, this was designed by God before the fall, and therefore it's super good, very good.

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And you should also be thinking, verse 32, that your marriage preaches. This mystery is profound,

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Paul said, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. What's a mystery?

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Something mysterious and spooky, you know, twilight zone? Mystery here in the Bible is something that was true, but we didn't know until God revealed it.

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It was a secret, it was true, but it was a secret and we didn't know about it until God revealed it to us, typically through his apostolic messengers or his son.

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It was hidden, true, and now shown in time. True but revealed.

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We know that God uses marriage, Gerstner said, as an excellent illustration of the union between Christ and the church.

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More than that, it suggests that God created the marriage institution especially to be an illustration of the

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Christian mystery. In other words, we do not first have marriage and then its adaptation as an illustration of the mystical union between Christ and believers.

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This is a great mystery, a mystery with all kinds of applications and implications.

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It is showing us that while a husband may really, really, really love his wife, there is something that's a much greater love, a much higher love.

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Just thinking about songs when I said that. But your marriage preaches something, right?

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In divorce, your marriage would preach, you know, Jesus doesn't love the church anymore. Or if it's neglect, you know,

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Jesus doesn't care for his church. In abandonment, Jesus abandons the church. Your marriage is preaching all the time.

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And by the way, that convicts me. And then he gives the final statement, kind of back to earth, back to earthly truths.

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However, verse 33, let each of you love his wife as himself, right? You're one anyway.

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And let the wife see that she respects her husband. So this whole time he's been talking about, he did start off in verse 22 about submission, but then he deals mainly with the husband's role as, you know,

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Christ would take the lead, of course, in loving the church.

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And so as we have a mirror of Christ slash the husband, and then the church slash wives, and every husband has this duty to love his wife.

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And of course, Jesus loves the bride perfectly. And we know that as we're fused together as one in God's eyes, if you love your wife, you're loving yourself.

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And then he does close with a wife and her duty to respect her husband.

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And I've said only a few things about husbands loving wives and how they should cherish and nourish and love, and their marriage preaches, and you can never love your wife too much, and looking out for her own good, and protecting and honoring, all kinds of things like that.

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I've said a few things, so I will say now a few things about wives. And I could ask it this way, you know, husbands, do you love your wives?

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Well, I'm not in love with her. I didn't ask you that. Do you love her? Are you showing, giving, sacrificing, wanting her best?

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And then I ask you wives, and you particular, if you're a wife,

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I ask you in the singular, do you respect your husband? Good question.

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I don't because he hasn't earned my respect. I don't think the text says he has to earn it.

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It'd be nice if he did. But the respect is to be given. It's a command.

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See to it. And for all of us, as husbands, I think it's very convicting when we realize the extent of how we're supposed to love our wives.

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And even if they're not acting properly, and even if they're unlovable at a certain moment in time in our eyes, we're to love them anyway, right?

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And now wives are supposed to be respecting their husbands. And so if you take pleasure in, or think it's okay, wives, to have demeaning looks and accusations to your husband, and you like to make fun of, or there's kind of this sarcasm, maybe it's, well,

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I'm just short with my husband and he bugs me, I'm irritated, I say things like, you know, my dad would never do that, manipulating, withholding affection.

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That would all be, to say the least, frowned upon here in Ephesians chapter 5, respect.

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Husbands love, wives respect. The true picture is found here in marriage, and that's, of course,

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Christ loving the church. Well, my name is Mike Ebendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. You can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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I'm trying to think what my future will hold. I don't do much traveling these days, who really does?

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I will be in Cleveland, or south of Cleveland, in Beloit, Ohio. That's in late

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April, and I hope to see you there. I had a conference there in October that was scheduled, and then that was canceled, kind of a

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COVID cancel, and the last minute cancel, and so I'm scheduled to go back, and I'm looking forward to seeing my friend

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John Tucker there, Pastor Tucker, at Community Bible, I believe, and so that's going to be a sanctification kind of law gospel conference.

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And a conference, I don't know if it's public yet, but I guess it is now, a conference at Omaha Bible Church with Pat Ebendroth, and I think the other two speakers are going to be

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John Fesko and Matthew Barrett, at least that was the rumor, so if it's not announced yet, well, it's not announced yet.

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Last Sunday, I asked them questions in light of this passage in Ephesians 5, and how the marriage of the

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Lord Jesus and the church, you know, spoke of our marriages here on earth and vice versa, and so I just asked certain questions.

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My question to start was, where are the no men and no women? So when it comes to defending the biblical view of marriage, and the son and his bride, where are the people that would say no?

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And I talked about Machen and Galatians, and Paul saying in the third word, essentially the word no, it's not, but,

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I mean, it's, open quote, not, close quote. It's Paul, the apostle, not.

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And the whole epistle, and the whole New Testament is filled with things like that, no, no, that's not going to happen.

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And so when people say, are you going to rejoice in a marriage that's obviously not a

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God -ordained, God -designed marriage, I'm not going to rejoice in that, I'm not going to attend, I'm not going to go to the rehearsal, or the reception, or send gifts, or anything else.

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Where are the people that will say no? I also asked the question, have you bought into the lie that you want to be known for what you're for, and not what you're against?

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That's a big thing for churches. We want to know, we want to be known for what we're for, not what we're against. And to some degree,

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I think that this quarreling, contentious, fighting all the time, yeah, that's kind of, you know, that's the way to get ratings, by the way.

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You want to know why the no -co ratings are probably down? I don't know how many people listen, but my guess is they're probably down, why?

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Because I'm not as controversial as I used to be. I am thinking more about Christ -centered preaching, law gospel, covenant of works, personal work of Christ, that kind of stuff, versus, you know, what's the latest kooky thing,

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Beth Moore, Ann Voskamp, Rick Warren, Matt Chandler, Doug Wilson, I mean, whatever, you know, whoever said what to whomever,

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I would get better ratings, I would get more clicks, you know, the clickbait stuff, I kind of know how to do, but I resist that these days.

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But I'm still not buying into the lie, I want to be known for what I'm for, not what I'm against, because I'm for righteousness against unrighteousness.

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And with you, we are against sin, right? We are against impurity, we are against lawlessness, we are against all kinds of things that God is against, and that means the opposite, we're for Jesus because we're anti -Satan,

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I mean, you know, and the list goes on and on and on. Question three, I ask, can you be both a lover and a fighter, right?

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Jude is writing about common salvation, at least that's what he wanted to write about, and then he had a necessity to write that people would contend earnestly for the faith, that once -deliberate faith.

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And therefore, we're going to have to fight, and we are going to be labeled, right?

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If you see equal signs on the back of cars, the message is, you don't believe in equality if you disagree with same -sex marriage, that you are uncivil or unfair or whatever.

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But there is a time when marriage is to be contended for, and I think we're in that today.

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Are we not? Question four, and this is kind of new territory, this will be in my sermon tomorrow, which will be

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February, I don't know, it's another snow day, I think, February 7th, and this is a very simple question, do you honor marriage?

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Do you, singularly, do you personally honor marriage?

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Hebrews 13 .4, I love the book of Hebrews, it's about Jesus the high priest, I love it, he says in chapter 8, verse 1, now the point in what we are saying is this, right?

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We have such a high priest. He says in chapter 13, with all kinds of imperatives, he says, "...let

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marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers

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God will judge." Marriage is to be held in honor among all, so I ask the question, do you honor marriage?

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You say, well, what does it mean to honor marriage? I'd like to know more specifically, then

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I could give you the answer to your question. Well, let's come up with a few. To honor marriage means to value marriage as a divine gift.

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That is to say, do you honor marriage as defined by God? Here's a great gift that God gives for us, not for our impoverishment, but for our blessing, and we say, you know what, that's why we can hold it in honor among all.

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The text in Hebrews 13 has kind of an emphatic placement of the verb, sorry, of the word honor, and it means precious.

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It means valuable. It's used in 1 Peter 1, verse 19, but with precious blood of Christ, that's the word where we get honored, precious blood of Christ, like of a lamb without blemish or spot, he

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Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Marriage is to be highly prized, like the blood of Christ, precious, honorable, valuable.

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So too, that's the way we're supposed to think about marriage. It's not just kind of like this human institution, no, no, it's supposed to be honored.

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It's something good. God designed it, and if you think about it, there's a wonderful truth when it comes to this honor of marriage as defined by God.

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God didn't say to Paul, you come up with marriage, or I'm going to tell people about marriage through Paul speaking, through an angel speaking, in the garden, before the fall.

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Marriage was performed, as it were, by God. It was not a man, not an entity, not her own will, but God brings the wife to the husband,

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Genesis 2, 22. One writer said, thus marriage had more divine honor put upon it than had all other divine institutions because it was directly solemnized by God himself.

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That's interesting. Now, Sabbath discussion aside, do you see here this ordinance, this institution designed by God?

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I'm to honor that. You say, well, how else could I honor marriage?

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Well, you could honor marriage by seeing how Jesus honored marriage.

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How did Jesus honor marriage? Well, I think he honored marriage by performing his first miracle at Cana in Galilee in John 2 at a wedding.

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He turns the water into Welch's grape juice, sorry, wine, and can you imagine,

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Jesus shows up at your wedding. Just think about that for a second.

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Sometimes you're like, well, we have a guest list, and do we have enough food for the reception, and what about seating, do we have enough bulletins?

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There's a lot of questions, I guess, people could ask. Is somebody going to count all these people, do we have enough, et cetera?

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Who's attending? Maybe an ex -boyfriend attends, or something else.

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Somebody that used to date them, and will they show up? I guess there's lots of things that could happen that could go through your mind.

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This literally happened, by the way. You're at a wedding, your own wedding, and Jesus is there.

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By the way, if I had to officiate that wedding, and Jesus was watching me,

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I'd make sure I talked a lot about Jesus. And now I'm not laughing.

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That's why I talk about him a lot now at church, and you ought to go to a church that's not just a bunch of law and morals and pietism and to -do lists,

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TED Talks, Jesus is there. It's a service about him, right?

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You think about, oh, yeah, Sinclair Ferguson used to always say, if you were going to sing, and you'd like to sing with gusto and from heartfelt desire to honor the

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Lord, just pretend you're holding the hymnal with Jesus. How would you sing?

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Well, you didn't really give me a good voice, I can't sing. You'll just sing. Whatever you've got, you'll just do that.

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You'll try your best. And so, if you're preaching a sermon and Jesus is sitting there, I hope you're going to talk about Jesus a lot.

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That would be very wise of you. And for those of you that go to churches where they don't, I mean, this is the pandemic.

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Christless preaching, Christless Christianity, Christless, Christless, Christless. Oh, yes, he's a

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PS, he's an addendum. You tack it on, like Haddon Robinson used to say, for people that just quote a

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Bible verse and never go back to it in their entire sermons, Star -Spangled Banner preaching. You don't revisit the

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Star -Spangled Banner in the third quarter, right, of the Super Bowl. By the time you hear this, we'll know who won the

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Super Bowl. Anyway, there's my little divine rabbit trail, except it's not divine, it's my own.

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The divine rabbit trail is in Ephesians 5, as Paul talks about Jesus and the church and then talks about in the rabbit trail, here's how a husband is to love his wife and a wife is to respect his husband.

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Well, my voice is shot. My name's Mike Evendroth. I'm done for the day recording shows.

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And if you've got a show topic that you want me to address, I'd like to hear from you. If it requires a lot of homework, then

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I can't do it, but I have a day job. And that's the other reason why our ratings,

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I think, are down, because I talk about my sermons here like this, and then you're like, yeah, but I'm already going to listen to the

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Monday show. Why do I have to listen to the other show? That's a very good question. But I'm glad you listened. My name's Mike Evendroth.

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This is No Compromise Radio Ministries. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Evendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.