Grace Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday, March 28, 2018

We have now begun a study on the Fifth Commandment — Honor Your Father and Mother or Respect for Authority = applies to the four divine institutions: (1) Volition; (2) Marriage; (3) Family; (4) Nationalism; produces patriotism.

The Hebrew verb in EXO 20:12 is kabad which refers to honor and respect.

Here, the word kabad refers to respect for the AUTHORITY of your father and your mother with the promise of blessings for those who respond to the command.

This is not a commandment to love your parents or even to respect them as a person but, it is a commandment TO RESPECT and honor THEIR AUTHORITY.

Now, I said on Sunday that marriage and the family for the Christian is the most difficult, the most challenging and the place of more failures in the Christian life than anything else.

2TI 3:12 And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

ECC 9:9 says Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your life which woman God has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life, and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

And so when the Lord created the woman for the man, He desired that marriage should be the beginning of virtue-love and respect in your relationship, not the end of love.

There has to be an understanding of the principles of Bible doctrine and respect for the authority within the marriage and the family.

Now, when Eph 5:32 talks about the mystery, it is referring to the mystery that goes back to the Garden of Eden and the principle of what the first Adam lost in the Garden at the fall and what the last Adam, TLJC, restored and how it relates to the angelic conflict.

All it takes is one person in a marriage to become degenerate or involved with apostasy and that marriage has an excellent chance of self-destruction.

The woman must respect the man. The man must respect the woman, while the family is taught legitimate principles of authority.

A genuine marriage starts with some sort of love and as time goes on and the two involved become less attractive physically, the relationship even becomes greater because it becomes spiritual.

Any relationship in life, to be successful, must be founded upon principle.

But there is usually “no time off” from marriage.

And sometimes it may start out as a good marriage but it isn’t going to make it because it just takes one in the marriage who fails in the spiritual life.

Now, two people who are mismatched in marriage, without the principle of Bible doctrine or without the establishment principles for the unbeliever, will not make in marriage.

Now more mistakes are made today in Christian marriages than anywhere else because marriage is also a very sensitive spot with regard to your spiritual life.

Privacy should continue after marriage but in many cases, it doesn’t.

And you surrender a certain amount of privacy in marriage and as you do so it is inevitable that you get to know the one that you’re married to.

In reality the ultimate in happiness is fulfilling the PPOG.

Once people get their eyes on people it is very difficult to remain in objectivity in the PPOG.

Subjectivity = Occupation with yourself Objectivity = Occupation with others.

And when you’re stuck with someone and the facade of their beauty or their attractiveness or whatever it was disappears….. then it is very difficult to remain in a situation like that.

If you are a woman with money never marry a man who doesn’t have money unless you have seen your lawyer and he has written up for you a contract where your money always stays with you.

The tragedy in marriage is not the problems between the husband and wife but the fact that born-again believers cannot handle their own problems – because of a lack of understanding Bible doctrine!

  1. Marital problems are symptoms but the disease is the OSN = Human failure in life.

This is why 2CO 5:16-17, says Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know   Him thus no longer.

2CO 5:17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

  1. Marriages fail because people are failures as human beings NOT BECAUSE OF MARRIAGE.   It’s not the failure of marriage but the failure of people in marriage.
  2. Marriage is not designed for happiness but for virtue. Virtue = conforming to certain standards or rights. Virtue = Christian Doctrine applied to every facet of life.
  3. Virtue is the source of happiness not marriage.

Marriage is not a solution to anything but it’s for those who have found their solutions.

  1. Most people try to solve marital problems by changing their partners.
  2. The problem with marriage therefore is people – not marriage.
  3. The Man must never use his authority to try and change his wife.
  4. Marital counseling is a waste of time – all counciling does is give people personal attention rather than – Bible doctrine.
  5. Most people approach marital problems from the standpoint of subjectivity – self being justified in their own actions.

However, in marriage there are TWO souls involved AND sets of volition – one should never dis-regard the input of the other.

He has no virtue, honor, or integrity when he doesn’t realize the woman has a soul – ie. (Free-will).

  1. Men-you can’t destroy your wife’s free-will and then expect them to love you, etc.
  2. Solutions to marital problems are never permanent because people are failures.
  3. Marital problems should never be made public property but solved in privacy.
  4. Solutions for believers only in marriage is spiritual growth.
  5. Real decision therefore to solve your marital problems is your daily attitude toward doctrine – and how high in your scale of values doctrine is.
  6. Problems in marriage is not incompatibility with believers but failure to apply two doctrines:.      1) Humility      2) Virtue
  7. Most marriages are failures for the following reasons (I have seven): a. Bad decisions in the selection of a mate. This is why losers shouldn’t make a decision for marriage until doctrine matures them!
  8. Inability to handle personal problems before, during, and after marriage.
  9. Failure to learn doctrine
  10. Unstable in church attendance = instability in marriage.
  11. Taking bad advice – (friends, ministers, mommy, daddy, etc).
  12. Dis-loyalty and unfaithfulness on the part of one or both mates – Pro 6:32.
  13. (7) No personal sense of responsibility on one or both mates.
  14. You can’t solve a bad marriage by having children, you just make a bad marriage worse.
  15. A pastor must learn the humility of not answering marital problems because he doesn’t have all the facts even though he may have answers.
  16. Marriage is not designed for perfect people but for people with OSN. So, don’t think there’s a perfect person for you.
  17. Therefore, the only wrong with marriage is not principal of marriage – but people.
  18. No woman can be successful in marriage unless she has learned to entertain herself.
  19. Ladies again – you did not marry an entertainer but a provider.
  20. No man can be a successful lover of a woman and at the same time be a successful lover of himself.

This is why Paul says in EPH 5:28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

  1. No man can exercise his authority properly as a husband without honor, integrity, and virtue.
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