1 Do Over

Introduction

Indeed they are true, and indeed we should believe. It’s a great hymn that Glenda wrote. This lesson tonight is the result of a comment made quite some time ago now and a discussion that followed actually very recently with Ross Harkrider. Ross was not here last Sunday. So I assumed surely they would be back tonight. No. Does anybody know where the Hark Riders are? Someone thought they might have been sighted in Nacodogis, and that they’re slowly on their 45-day trip or however long it is, slowly migrating back. And so I didn’t mean to be talking about Ross and Laura behind their backs. But if you ask a question of the preacher, and he’s only preaching one Sunday night in a month, then this may be the night that he addresses your question.

So hopefully Ross will get to hear this. If not, it will be valuable instruction for all of you, I hope, especially if you are married or contemplating marriage or speaking to those who are in marriages. So that’ll apply to most of us here tonight, won’t it? There will be some application to you. This year, I have been concluding all of my meetings with a sermon that I did here earlier this year, I think, from Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 35. Therefore, do not throw away your competence, which has a great reward. I like where we can take just one verse and focus on that. Do not regard as trash or invaluable your confidence, your faith in the living God and your trust in him and his word.

Because that confidence has a great reward. And so I then speak to the people, as I did on Wednesday night in Johnson City a couple of weeks ago, on maintaining your confidence, because so many don’t. They foolishly throw away their confidence. And I talk about all of these reasons why people are tempted to give up on their faith. This was the sermon, if you’ll remember, where the points did not come onto the screen in any particular order. I do that just to be different sometimes. And so I talked about all of these reasons that people give up on their faith and their confidence. And it’s this particular point, marriage is not a fairy tale, that I began using my Ross Harkriter illustration. And so, as I preached this on Wednesday night, and then began the journey home on Thursday, which required flying from Kingsport slash Johnson City, and a lot of you don’t know where that is.

If you need to know, no one knows all about it. And flying from there to Charlotte and then Charlotte back to Houston. Now you might remember I made that trek on the Saturday to get to the meeting, and I flew into the edge of the hurricane, yes, in North Carolina. That was fun. I was so looking forward to that. It was a very memorable experience. And so I take off out of Charlotte on Saturday on a dash 8300 airplane. I didn’t really pay much attention to that at the time. But one of the members in the church there is a pilot. His name is Chip Spratland. And I’m just going to go ahead and throw him in and mention him because he went to Auburn. He played golf at Auburn and actually beat Tiger Woods in a tournament one year in the NCAA tournament.

So, you know, Chip can play golf. And he was telling me this. I asked him how old this plane was. And he said, well, it could be about 30 years old. And so when we took off from Charlotte, the whole thing was shaking. And it had one of those turboprops engines. And I’ll show you a picture of that now. This happens to be the Dash 8300. I flew back when the weather was much prettier on the way home on Thursday. And you can see the Appalachian Mountains in the background. Beautiful view. And much more smooth flight. Headed home. And I was feeling good, which on Thursday after a meeting, usually I’m so exhausted, but I’m looking out this window, and of course, looking at this propeller, you don’t see this very much anymore.

And I was writing this sermon that I’m preaching tonight. Oh, did I mention Chip Spratlin and that he was an Auburn Tiger? Well, let me throw that again in again. He works for a brick company called General Shale. Yes, a brick company that has a pilot. A couple of pilots, in fact. And in the front of their facility, they have this museum of ancient brick. It has nothing to do with the topic of the lesson tonight, but it’s a real faith builder. I mean, we’ve got stones, bricks, that were used in biblical times, some of them rate related to biblical people like Nebuchadnezzar. They have this graphic display of all these real bricks from ancient times, and I could not help but think of many of the Bible stories as I looked at that display.

Okay, back to Ross. And the sermon that I was writing when I was sitting in that crop duster on a beautiful day. But I was thinking about the illustration in that sermon, the marriage is not a fairy tale, and that’s why people give up. And the Ross illustration, do you remember? We were in Bible class, I believe it was a Wednesday night. Laura was not in the auditorium when Ross said this. We were talking about marriage, and he was just theorizing, just asking a question, and he said, Why doesn’t God give us one do-over in marriage? And I can’t remember now whether I said this or I just thought it. When Lara gets back in here, you’re a dead man. She has just given birth to your third son, and you’re inquiring about one do over.

And so we all had fun rushing to Laura as quickly as possible to inform her about Ross’s question. Now, Ross wasn’t trying to get out of his marriage or looking for an escape plan. After all, he’s married to an absolute jewel. Okay, yeah. Laura, yeah, absolute jewel. So that’s not what his point was. In fact, we talked about it later. See, I told you I had to throw Laura under the bus as part of this. We’re talking about it just a couple of weeks ago, so because I tell you, I had to say, hey, I’ve been using that illustration in this meeting where I talk about this everywhere I go, so everybody knows about Ross. And he said, well, you know, and we started talking about the question again about the one do over.

1. This Is God's Institution and Should Be Respected

You know, it’s not that a lot of us are looking for that, but you know, she said, young people, when they get married, you know, they don’t have a lot of life experience, and perhaps they choose poorly. And why didn’t God make one exception for certain people that they could try this again with someone else? Perhaps a better match. And he was just wondering why God’s instruction was what it was. I think it’s something good to consider. And I want to share several thoughts with you about marriage and about that. And the first one is this. As we go to Matthew chapter 19, we have God’s instruction when the question was raised by the Pharisees, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?

They might have been thinking in terms, they might have been thinking in terms of covenant people only, but they certainly didn’t couch the question in those terms. They’re talking about divorce, period. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all? And Jesus goes back to the beginning when God instituted this marital relationship, when he created male and female, and he quotes Genesis 2 in verse 24 and then concludes in verse 6 that when two people marry, they are no longer two, but one flesh. And again, Jesus doesn’t say this is just for covenant people, those who are in a right relationship with God. He simply makes the observation, what therefore God is joined together, let no man separate. And so he’s answering the question to verse 3.

And the answer is, it is not lawful to divorce your wife for any cause at all. I think I see that rather clearly in Matthew chapter 19 and verse 6. So why not, why not, in some cases that the Lord would have to specify? And let me just go ahead and say, what would that instruction look like? You know, I mean, it would require a great amount of explanation. Okay, you have to be under the age of 30, maybe. Once children are born, it’s off the table. The one do over exception. Because now you’ve got another person involved, a little person, who’s going to be affected by this breakup of mom and dad. So if you have a child, that’s it. Under the age of 30, you know, I don’t know.

What other kinds of stipulations you’re going to put on it? How are you going to regulate this? Every person who enters into one marriage gets to do over somewhere along the line. Of course, the scriptures don’t talk about anything like that. And so I wanted to make this observation. Why is it like this? One man, one woman for life. Why not additional exceptions? So we know Matthew 19 to verse 9. Sexual immorality, and then we’re always trying to define what that is because only behavior that constitutes that allows an innocent party to put away a guilty party, and that’s another whole aspect of that discussion, who truly is an innocent party. But he gives one exception. Of course, death, that’s the end of the union. We read about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

As long as the husband lives or wife lives, bound by God’s law regarding husbands and wives. And so we have this one exception while the mate is still living. Why not additional exceptions? And physical abuse always gets raised. Now, there’s some things that should be done in cases of physical abuse. To protect yourself, protect your family, get the person help. I mean, there’s all kinds of things we can talk about in relation to that. But put them away. And then again, what constitutes abuse? And then somebody starts arguing for verbal abuse. That’s just as damaging to the emotional psyche of someone. And so then that argument goes down that track. And again, without a thus saith the Lord. How are we going to regulate all of that?

How are we going to decide all of that? And so let me just first of all say the why of God’s commands are not always ascertainable. That is, I don’t know why God’s legislation is what it is. We could talk about instrumental music tonight in that vein, because it was acceptable under old covenant worship. Of course, so were animal sacrifices, and I don’t hear anybody clamoring for that again. let’s all go to Jerusalem and offer animal sacrifices once a year. You know, I don’t I don’t see anybody wanting to do that, but instrumental music, that’s more enjoyable, and so we want to include that in worship. So I don’t see any harm in it. We’re still we’re still praising God. But we don’t have any positive instruction in the New Testament authorizing that kind of worship to God.

Why is the Lord’s Supper like it is? Why not turn it into a more lavish meal like the Corinthians apparently did in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and Paul has to say you have houses to eat and drink in. I mean, the point is worship. The point is not filling your belly. Why is worship what it is? Oh, look at some of the Old Testament instruction that God gives to Israel. We can go through the book of Deuteronomy as we did very recently, from what they could and could not eat, things that you and I can eat, and Scott’s pretty glad that pork is allowable for us, and things they could and could not do, like parapets for their house. We talked about that. I mean, we might understand some of the wisdom behind that if you don’t have some barrier on the flat roof of your house and you’re up on the roof of your house, as they generally use that as an open sort of courtyard kind of thing.

I mean, somebody could fall off and get hurt. And so somewhat of a protective barrier. So there’s something about parapets in the book of Deuteronomy. But the why of God’s God doesn’t say in every place where he commands something here. Let me tell you why this is. Now we may be able to figure out some of the wisdom of that, especially in relation to baptism for the remission of sins. I mean, I can see some washing, I can see that and cleansing and what it represents, and of course the death, burial, and resurrection. I see that imagery in baptism, but is that all of God’s wisdom? In relation to the why of baptism? I don’t know. I can only know what God has revealed. What the Holy Spirit in searching the deep things of God has revealed to us.

The things that have been revealed belong to us and to our sons forever. They said back in Deuteronomy, and that’s that’s true of us as well. This is what we can know about the mind of God, and this is the limits of what we can know. About one whose understanding is infinite. Who counts all the stars and knows them all by name, Psalm 147, 4 and 5. Now that ought to tell us something right there about this marriage command and restriction. That this is this is God’s institution. He created man, he established it, he regulated it, and we need to respect God’s institution. And one of the problems people have today is a lack of respect for God and the one who has authored this instruction.

You know, we want to come along and make it different, certainly in cases where now we’ve got a problem in evangelism because these two people are in a union that God does not approve. They made this decision when they didn’t know any better. Whose fault is that? Whose fault is that? Oh, maybe their parents didn’t instruct them properly. But people generally have a sense of marriage and promises that are made when they get married. I think that’s still pretty common to bow to love and nurture. And even if they make themselves willingly ignorant of marriage, is that any excuse? Look at Herod and Herodias in Mark chapter 6. I mean, you talk about people, their relation to the covenant of Israel, but yet John the Baptist tells them it is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.

He should have known that. And they saw that statement from John to have severe implications, if not, why having murdered? Why having killed? And so the fact that someone said, well, I really didn’t know what God’s instruction was in regard to marriage, and so somehow I’m not amenable or accountable to God’s instruction. You know, it’s somewhat like Romans chapter 1 and verse 20. Well, we can argue the same thing about acknowledging God as the Creator. God says we ought to know from the things that are made, the design of our universe, that He exists, and that to ignore that or deny that, He says, you are without excuse. This is God’s institution and should be respected. And I think there’s another thing that flows out of that.

2. We Need to Learn Submission

The issue with God’s instruction is that we need to learn submission. Submission, not we are kings. We can lament the consequences of his instruction and or attempt to alter those unchanging standards of the new covenant, and we can toss them aside. But if we get to do this here, why can’t we do it in other places? You know, if I get I if I get to decide, well, I really don’t like that or the implications of that, and I really don’t want to sign on to that, you know, why can’t I just get an exception here? Or how about modesty? People don’t really like that in the 21st century either, so I get my exception in terms of what I wear or want to wear. I mean, once you start setting instruction aside because it’s difficult, it doesn’t comply with my present situation and circumstances, I need to then set it aside so that I can be happy.

And really, what this is about is I want to be king. Instead of submit to God, I want to rule. I want to make the rules. I want to decide what’s best for me. And when you set aside God’s rules, as so many religious groups allow and tolerate and do not preach against. God’s rules are set aside. I decide what’s best for me. That’s what people want. That’s why what I’m teaching about one man, one woman for life, what you’ve commonly heard from this pulpit and what Matthew 19, verses 3 through 6 teaches. The reason why that’s not popular is that people want to make their own rules.

And when you do that, even in the religious world today at large, many people will applaud. Many people will go along. But I’m reminded of Psalm 50. When the people were engaged in rebellious conduct, and God says, Because I was silent, you thought that I was just like you. You thought I agreed with you because I didn’t do anything visibly to stop you and what you’re doing. And so many people conclude that. Wow, everything’s going fine and dandy. God must be okay with this. No, he says, ultimately, you will be torn into pieces. Ultimately, there will be a day of reckoning for the choices and decisions that you made. Just because a bolt of lightning doesn’t come down and strike you for your rebellion, does not mean that God has not tallied it to your account.

This is the hardest part for us, not just in regard to marriage, but in regard to all of God’s instructions. I must learn submission.

3. A Proper Regard for Marriage and Its Purpose

I’m not king. God is. And I thought this, I think maybe the greater issue here about marriages that struggle, and about marriages that have failed, is that so many, including some of us, do not have a proper regard for marriage and its purpose. I want to go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Ecclesiastes chapter 4, this verse sometimes gets quoted in marriage ceremonies, and I like it. As this is the wisdom of Solomon. Two are better than one, Ecclesiastes 4 and verse 9. Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there’s not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together, they keep warm.

But how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. Now, I know he goes from the observation of two people to three people at the end, and so he’s talking about something more than just marriage. But isn’t this one of the reasons why marriage exists in the first place? To provide companionship. Adam and Eve had companionship and union with one another. And in previous generations, marriage was about companionship. Maybe that’s why there was more success in endurance in marriage because it was about companionship. And even more, it was about survival. We live in affluent times. But in ages past, marriage was about two people forging a bond together to assist each other in the struggle of life.

It was about companionship, it was about survival, and yes, it was about procreation. Especially if you owned a farm, you needed more workers in the field. It was satisfying a number of needs and enhancing life. And I think that’s what Solomon is talking about in chapter 9, when he says, eat your bread and happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart. And then he says, Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life, which he has given you under the sun. For this is your reward in life and your toil in which you have labored under the sun. Our affluent lifestyle provides options. And time to pursue them. We have a lot more time to focus on ourselves. My wants.

We call them my needs. My wants, my desires. And those might just be scintillating for a moment or two. Marriage by God’s design is for friendship. Mutual support, selfless care and concern for another’s well-being. Now I’m not saying anything yet about sexual intimacy, and of course, that’s a part of God’s design for this union, that these two people can establish a unique connection with one another. And notice I use the word unique.

He did not design us to have that connection with a lot of people, but with one person to form a unique and intimate bond with one person, and unfortunately, it has degenerated today into a vehicle for pleasure. Entertainment. Scintillating moments of self-seeking, objectifying the opposite sex, trophies to be won. Not God’s design. I’ll tell you, we could be thankful that if marriage is not in the cards for us, perhaps a union in our past ended in a way that does not allow another marriage. Maybe no fault of my own. Maybe it was false of mine. Maybe it can’t be reconciled at this point for whatever reason. Because I think that would be ideal, of course. But let’s say you have to live alone. Perhaps there’s no one interested in you, or you’re not really interested in anyone else.

Thankfully, our culture allows people like that to survive and even thrive in our affluent culture. I mean, if you’re like Mary Madden, just get a couple cats. She’s not here tonight, this was where she says. Get a couple cats. You need to meet Winston and Webster, cute little cats that she has. And you can be happy in your single status. But if we’re going to pursue marriage, we need to have a proper regard. Remember, this is God’s institution. I’m not the king. God is. And a proper regard for God’s intentions for marriage and our contentment with God’s rules. And our contentment with the spouses that we’ve been given.

4. What You Can Control in Your Marriage

And now as I talk about that, I want to talk to you about what you can control in your marriage. Because if you’ve been married for any length of time, one of the things that you know is you cannot control your spouse. How am I looking at Gary Christine? You cannot control your mate. What they decide to do or don’t decide to do in relation to you is totally up to them. And fellas, I know we’ve been put in somewhat of an authoritative role as a leader in the home, but don’t think that means you can force your mate to do anything. Marriage by God’s design is a selfless endeavor.

The man is concerned about nurturing his wife. And if he’s not concerned about that, his prayers can be hindered. That suggests fellowship with God not present in 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7. Well, but she’s behaving in such a way. Okay, so you don’t have to love her then. Is that what you’re saying? And that’s what I mean by selflessness. The husband is concerned about the things of the world, how that he might please, and the idea is to take care of his wife. The wife is concerned. I almost always quote these in the marriages that I do because I think they’re the key to marriage. 1 Corinthians 7, 32 through 34. The husband is concerned about taking care of the wife, the wife is concerned about taking care of the husband, and that’s my job.

And I’m responsible for my job.

And if you want your marriage to be right for you, that’s your job. Now, whether they do it or not, again, is their choice. And they may in turn walk away from this marriage, but that is your job. And that’s going to be a challenge for each one of us. And that leads me to this. That’s a part of this. Instead of looking for an exit strategy, sure there’s not a do-over clause in there somewhere. I want to try this with someone else. A better match for me. Let me just say something about that. There’s going to be incompatibility with anybody that you marry. And those of you that have been in position to marry a second person in a scriptural way, you might have picked better the second time around, maybe, but there’s still some incompatibility, right?

You’re always going to find some incompatibility. I say this all the time because look, her parents are not your parents. Okay? You come from different families. You will be different people. There will be areas, and no matter how much I guess when we’re dating, all we can think about is all the ways that we’re compatible. But when you get married, you find out all the ways that you’re incompatible. That’s what happens. And it doesn’t take very long, it doesn’t take five years. You’re going to find out. And when you marry a second time, or even a third time, you’re going to find out there’s some places of incompatibility. You might have hidden those. The real you might not have come out in dating, and it usually doesn’t.

Even if you dated for a number of years. You let your hair down when you get married. But when I look at what God has given us in regard to instruction, the key to surviving in a marriage. Now your marriage may not thrive again. It takes two people. But the key to spiritual survival in a marriage is to realize that what God is wanting me to do in this union is to grow to be more like Christ, and in nurturing this character, I will be fulfilling God’s desires for me.

Christianity may be Christianity may be as much or more about character than it is worship. I think so when we look at Christianity is getting the right terms of access, the right terms of admission into the kingdom, the necessity of baptism, and finding people who believe the truth and worshiping with them on a regular basis. And Christianity involves that, but I think more than anything else, Christianity is about character.

It’s about who you choose to be. If we only saw marriage as a proving ground of character, marriage is a proving ground for character rather than the fulfilling of my desires.

One of these old timey buildings where as you went toward the back, it went up like this, and so I could see the people really well. They were four feet higher than everybody else. Really neat old church building. We went to the wolf’s for lunch, an older farming couple. It was one of those meals where, man, there was, I don’t know how many kinds of meats and vegetables and desserts. It was a feast. And I’ll never forget the little, I think it was a plate on the wall that said, the biggest room in your house is the room for improvement. And that is so true. In regards to the nurturing of this character. The development of character leads to right, holy, and godly decisions in areas that involve judgment and the application of God’s principles.

5. If One Do Over, Why Not More Than One?

Another question as I finish this up tonight about the one do over. If we can have one do over, why not more than one? Again, once you laid down all the stipulations for the do-over, why not two? Why not three? Maybe the second time you marry a bipolar narcissist. And you didn’t know it. Okay, maybe there needs to be an exception. If you marry a bipolar narcissist, then you get a third chance of doing this. Someone who has a clinical personality disorder. I don’t know, I think all of us are disordered to some degree or another, but I was looking this afternoon. A psychology today article from 2012 began.

And that was the lead in to an article about divorce. What are the statistics, you know? First marriages that end in divorce. You had to guess. 50%, right? That’s what you’ve heard. That’s true. That’s true, 50%, roughly. What percentage of second marriages end in divorce? 67. From one half to two thirds. Well, you would think, you would think that in a second marriage, they’re a little bit older, a little bit more mature. That’s the problem with this one of the problems with this one do over concept. That the second marriages are even less successful than first marriages. That’s a shocking statistic. Guess what? Third marriages, maybe the third time around, maybe your mid-30s by now. And it’s going to be better now. 73%. Nearly three.

We go from one half to two thirds to three quarters of third marriages. That’s, I guess that’s why we find in Hollywood people that once they get past three, they end up with six or seven or eight. That’s where Brad Pitt’s going. Why is that? The articles were, I thought I was going to get some better answers, but it was basically, well, there’s more complications because both of you have large families, and so there’s a lot more people to deal with, a lot more interference. And I don’t think that’s really it. I think it is the same unrealistic view of what marriage was going to be is going to follow them into the second marriage and the third marriage and beyond. And that the problem was not, as so many often conclude, I’m getting out of this thing because that person was terrible.

6. The Key to a Thriving Marriage Is Love

And sometimes they are. But I wonder sometimes if we’ve not done anything to fix ourselves. And our problems that contribute to failed relationships. So that we bring those same problems into a second union. Or a third union. Not always the case, but I wonder about that. So if we’re going to have one do over, is that going to guarantee more permanence in marriage the second time around? The statistics say no. Well, it’s not going to be earth-shaking when I get to the last point, but the key to a thriving marriage is love. The biblical definition, of course. 1 Corinthians 13. Hey, you want your marriage to be better? Start with the first two. Love is patient. Love is kind. Just start there. This person. I’m married too.

I need to be kind. I’m going to have to be patient. Oh, and love does not seek its own. Let’s get to that quickly. Because that is probably the greatest failing that leads to the impermanence of marriage.

Conclusion

So young people, that’s the key to it. And there’s something about persevering in marriage, despite obstacles and difficulties, a greater friendship will form. A greater companionship will develop. And your character, we talked about character, your character will be nurtured as you persevere. And say, we’re in this together, come what may.

And if one of you checks out, that happens. But these are the rules that govern God’s institution. And may we always respect it and regard him and it very highly.