Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, February 26th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What are some of the other non-negotiables you need to keep in mind when you're thinking about getting married? Stay with us, we'll talk about them today.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition, and if you're single, or if you know someone who is, and if you've ever thought, "Gee, I wonder if I'll get married," "I wonder what it takes to make a marriage work?" Well, today and tomorrow we've got a guy who has got the answers for you to that question.
Dennis: A straight-shooter.
Bob: Oh, man.
Dennis: He is a great friend of this ministry. His name is Tommy Nelson. He's the senior pastor at Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.
Bob: I've got to tell you, I've been listening to his tapes on Ecclesiastes. He taught through the book of Ecclesiastes, and I was teaching through it in Sunday school, and so I was listening to his tapes as part of my study to get ready for my Sunday school class, and he just tells it like it is. He just doesn't mince words. He's just an ol' Texas boy from Waco, Texas, who just kind of says it plain and moves on.
Dennis: He does, and he's a man after my own heart. He had an opportunity to speak to a number of collegians, over 2,000, and, Bob, if I was given the same shot to speak at 2,000 collegians, I would pick the same topic – how do you decide who you marry? Five guidelines for a successful marriage. In fact, here is what folks ought to do – if you know of someone who doesn't go to church – a single young man, maybe it's a brother, a sister, a nephew, a niece, somebody at work – pick up your cell phone and call them right now and say, "Hey, listen to FamilyLife Today. They've got a guy who is a straight shooter who is going to be sharing five guidelines for a successful marriage."
I'm going to tell you something – all singles are interested in this, and even those who are outside the church and may not have a relationship with Christ, well, this is one way we can kind of ease them toward God and His plan for their lives. Let's listen to Tommy Nelson.
Tommy: [from audiotape]. Marriage – being loved, romance, passion, affection. There's not a one of you here that hasn't thought of it, hasn't dreamed about it, planned about it, yea, schemed about it. Many of us have been hurt, and those relationships – dating, whatever – that lead up to it, it's the fireplace of life. You know, a home is a nice place to be, the fireplace is the place of warmth, the place of tenderness, the place of affection take place around that fireplace. And life, marriage, the romance, the passion of marriage, that's the spice, that's the beauty of living.
God is Trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He has never been alone. He has eternally been communicable. That's why the idea of a monotheistic deity that is not Trinity, as in Allah, that will leave you with a dictatorship, a God who is sovereign, who is infinite, eternal, but you are fuzzy on the tenderness and the – what we would call the – those mannish qualities that He – or eternally in God that He visits on us in the image of God in man – of tenderness and love and communication and the desire to be loved. Those marvelous ideas of God – God is Trinity.
Rightly did Francis Shaeffer say that if the Bible didn't teach Trinity, he would still have been an agnostic because you would not have had a reference point for those beauties of God, which are found in the tri-unity of His Person.
And He makes us in His image, and we long to love, and we long to be loved from the moment that we are born, we are reaching outward, we are not natural hermits. We long for someone to reach out and touch us. It is not good for that man to be alone, and the most intimate of all relationships you can have are in the differences of a man and a woman that mesh in all ways. It is marvelous that two become one flesh.
But it follows that anything that is that intimate is also something that can be the most deadly, painful, frightening relationship in your entire existence. As a matter of fact, you can implode a society by the implosion of a marriage and of a home.
Immorality, breakups – aren't those a joy? To be going with somebody and then to be told, "You're not the person. I don't want it to continue." That is painful. Being done wrong, being defrauded, divorce, abuse, alienation within marriage – that is a heartbreaking thing, and it filters down to the kids.
No, marriage is a deadly, horrific privilege that God gives us. It can be the charm of your life, or it can be the bane of your entire existence. And, students, when your marriage is in trouble, you don't cordon it off into a little area, which means it doesn't matter that if you have a high grade point, if you have a great job, if you make great money, if you've got great talents, if you are marvelously successful in what you do, when you come into a home that is rent and is in pain, I mean, it's red dye, it floods your entire existence.
I want to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest. You don't have to look around. How many of you desperately want to have a marriage that is better than your parents? Would you raise your hand – if you want a marriage better than your parents'? That's pretty good. How many of you, if your marriage is no better than your parents' it was good enough that if your marriage is no better than your parents' you will be wonderfully satisfied, it it's only as good as your parents'. Well, that's pretty good.
I'm going to give you five things. I have watched marriages, I have counseled them, I've taught the Song of Solomon for years, I've worked in the pastorate now for almost 30 years, and I've seen them come, and I've seen them go, and I have a marriage that is more good than bad, all right? Which is a great compliment to a marriage. I've got a wonderful union with a wonderful woman.
I'm going to give you five things. When these are resident in you, you are going to have a good marriage. I'm going to give you five things that have to take place between you and your future husband, you and your future wife. You have to be alerted to them right now, all right? I don't want to be dogmatic on this, but I'm the only one right.
[laughter]
Because I have counseled the heartache that arises from the lack thereof. I don't give these to you merely because of a priori reasoning from the Bible; I give them to you out of a posteriori observation of pain. If I was an atheist, I would still give you these same five things, because I have watched them take place in couples.
Number one, there has to be a theological unity. You and your future husband, you and your future wife, have to be on the same page on who God is, because He is your reference point for how you act, for how you perceive the universe, for how you perceive man, children, everything is your perception of God. They don't simply have to be a Christian, but they have to line up on the major particulars. If you are an evangelical, and you see it in a certain way, and you marry a charismatic, you're going to have some struggles. But, major league, if you marry a non-believer, you do not even interpret the universe the same – marriage or morality.
In Genesis 24, that's one of the longest chapters in the Book of Genesis, and it's finding a mate for Isaac, and when Abraham sends out Eliazar, his servant, he says, "You swear to me, by God, you will not take a Canaanite woman. You'll go back to that little pocket of monotheism. That woman has to believe in God and be willing to follow Him." Now, God provided a woman that was beautiful of form and face, which is usually at the top of a man's prayer list, but she better be someone that is on the same page theologically as to who God is, because that is the fountain, the matrix, out of which you interpret the universe, man, male, female, kids, marriage, and morality. Am I right? That's why in Exodus 34, Deuteronomy 7, it is part of the covenant of God with Israel – you do not take an unbeliever. That's why Ezra and Nehemiah, at the end of the Old Testament canon, had to do mass putting away of pagan wives, because Israel fell into it.
As a matter of fact, the taking of a pagan mate is considered, Malachi, chapter 2, and "act of," and I quote, "treachery." So the Apostle Paul says be married to whomever you wish only in the Lord. They're on the same page.
Now, can a Christian student do this? Listen – girls get nervous. I can't tell you how many girls I have seen that hit into their mid-20s and feel their biological clock running, their emotional needs reaching out, and the guy isn't there, and here comes a non-Christian, and a girl simply says, "I've got to take what I can get," and will drop her standards.
Christian men get antsy. Now, they can still reproduce into their 60s, they're not worried about being fathers, but they've got this sex drive that's beating within them, and so here comes that girl, and she looks good, she feels good, don't think that a man can't become like Ulysses approaching the sirens' island over here and not have to strap himself to the mast. We can do strange, injurious things. There's not a one of you here that, under the heat of being young and the longing for marriage can set aside what you know to be true and marry a non-believer. I can give you names, events, and dates where I've seen it happen.
Being single and being alone is a struggle. I was married at 24. I knew what it was to be out of college longing for a wife and not to have one. It's tough to be single, to be lonely. I'll tell you what's tougher is to be married and be lonely. To be lonely in a king-size bed with a person there that you cannot relate to in the major issues. When you are single, there is light at the end of your tunnel that is the providence and the timing of God.
"There is a time and procedure for every delight," Solomon said, "when a man's trouble is heavy upon him." Times will get better; you just keep trusting. But when you are in a king-size bed with a mate you can't relate to, now you are into some major-league troubles on beseeching God to change, at the very heart level, this person.
Number two – there has to be a moral unity, meaning that they can't merely both be Christians. They both must be under the auspices of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If you have a man that takes his dictums from his flesh – even though he can recite the Gospel and give the time of his testimony, we've got a problem. There has to be a moral unity, a North Star that doesn't move.
My wife has changed in her appearance, she has changed in a lot of things since we were married in 1974, but my wife has not changed, she has only grown in her relationship to God. Girls, my wife and I made a vow that we would never spend a day out of the Bible before we got married, because we knew that what attracted us to us was character, and that character was because of the person of God and His Word. And if we got away from Him, we lost essentially what attracted us.
Women, some men are men can never be husbands until they have been brides, until they have been the bride of Christ, they can't be your husband or any woman's husband. Because the qualities that you want in a man are going to be qualities of love, kindness, tenderness, gentleness, honesty – those are qualities that are in God visited upon men. So if that man is superficial with God, you have no guarantee that that man is going to maintain those qualities.
And there are some men who can simply never, ever be married. They can have dogs and cats, but they can't have a human in that house with them because when a man isn't submitted to the Lordship of Christ, he will become irresponsible or abusive, and both of those will drive you crazy. And so you check that man for his faithfulness in church, his faithfulness to his mother and his father, his commitment to moral purity. Look for those things in him, because that's the North Star that gives you a reasonable assurance of his character. That's the fountain out of which will grow your affection is the continuity of that character.
Men, watch that girl. If that girl has a problem with her authority of her parents, if she has a problem with her teachers, why do you think you will put one of these on, and she will look to you and say, "My head and my sovereign." Do you really think that will happen? Don't you do it. There are some women who can never, ever be married because of that very thing. And whenever you get a man, whenever you get a woman that is resistant to Genesis, chapter 1, who God is, you can't have Genesis, chapter 2 – marriage. First, Adam sees God; first, Eve sees God; then they see each other – amen?
Now, if they don't have this, they're still going to have the longing to be married, and this is what a carnal, fleshly kind of person must do. They must create an illusion of spirituality, or they must create a diversion. The illusion means that you know the songs, you attend the functions, but in the quiet of the home, you show who you are. Diversion means that you take the glance away from the heart to the car, the clothes, and all the paraphernalia. Can human beings be diverted by things like that? They can be.
Number three – there has to be a ministerial unity. You have to be going approximately the same direction. If I've got this girl over here – and I've seen it happen – this committed Christian woman that loves the Lord, loves His Word, loves to see people come to faith, and she is attracted to this guy who simply wants to make a million before he is 30, they're pulling two different directions. She has heavenly values; he has temporal physical values. We are going to have a division in that home.
Let me tell you where I met my wife, and I share some of this in the Song of Solomon conference. It was at a Campus Crusade. That's where I was discipled in college, and I remember seeing her as the girl that was the go-to girl of Campus Crusade. When anything needed to be done, they went to my wife-to-be. I remember sitting at conferences and watching her taking – I can still see her sitting at the back taking notes. My wife was always at the back. She was always serving. That's what made me fall in love with her. This woman wanted to serve God. I wanted to serve God. We just kind of came together running the same direction, and there was love, there was passion, but we have helped each other.
She has two ministries that she runs. She takes the wives of international students – North Texas University has 2,000 international students – their wives, a lot of times, are the most lonely of people because they're out of step in this foreign culture. My wife says, "You come to me, and I'll show you how to keep a checkbook, how to shop at Tom Thumb. I'll show you how to drive without killing people," if you know any international students.
[laughter]
She'll show them how to drive, she'll show them how to shop, she'll show them how to take care of their children, and as she goes along, the basis by which she teaches them is, guess what? The Bible. And so every Thursday morning my home was displaced, because my wife had 30 international women in there doing ministry. Now, that's the kind of woman that I married – theological, moral, and ministerial unity.
Bob: Well, we've been listening to the pastor of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas. Tommy Nelson talking about how to build a successful marriage. There are some married folks listening to this and going, "Yeah, I wish I'd heard some of this before I got married because it would have helped to know – at least just to know on the front end – that maybe we were out of sync in some of these areas." If you find you're out of sync in some of these areas, it doesn't mean you quit and go find somebody else.
Dennis: That's right.
Bob: It just means that you may have some adjustments you've got to make that are a little harder than other people have to make.
Dennis: Bob, have you ever been to a vacation area where you've seen tandem bicycles?
Bob: Yeah, the bicycle built for two, sure.
Dennis: There you go, you have usually the guy in the front who is steering and directing and having to pull more on the pedals, and his wife behind him.
Bob: She's helping to keep the thing going as well.
Dennis: That's right, and she's providing balance, and they're talking, and they're having fun as they're going in the same direction. It wasn't designed for two people to go in two different directions. One person wasn't meant to break off and take a right-hand fork.
Bob: Take the mountain route while the other one takes the low road, right?
Dennis: Yeah, I mean, that's where you run into trouble, and so that's why this advice that Tommy Nelson is giving young people is so important. Spiritually speaking, it is so important that a couple, as they begin their marriage relationship, have theological agreement, moral agreement, and a spiritual direction in terms of their focus and their ministry direction together as a couple.
Bob: You know, I love the fact that when you listen to messages like this from Tommy, he just shoots straight with you. I mean, we've already talked about that today, but he is plain spoken and straightforward on this stuff, and I'm thinking about the series that we have aired on FamilyLife Today from him – the material from the Song of Solomon, which was originally designed for singles.
He presented that material to a Bible study of about 2,500 singles who used to gather in Dallas, and he said, "You guys need to understand relationships," and took them through the Song of Solomon to look at what the Bible has to say about strong and healthy relationships.
And we've got that Song of Solomon series in our FamilyLife Resource Center. If anybody hasn't heard these CDs, heard these messages, it really is great material whether you're single or whether you're already married and been married for 20 years. You'll benefit from Tommy's messages on the Song of Solomon, and you can find them in our FamilyLife Resource Center.
Go to FamilyLifeToday.com, and the information about the series is available there. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com, or call 1-800-FLTODAY, 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY. You can discuss for information about the Song of Solomon series from Tommy Nelson, and our team can answer any questions you have about the series, or they can make arrangements to have it shipped off to you.
And while we're on the subject of relationship advice, let me encourage you to play to get away for a weekend this spring at one of our FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences. We are hosting these in cities all across the country throughout the spring, and whether you are engaged, you've been married for a couple of years or you've been married for a lot of years, the Weekend to Remember is a fun, romantic getaway for couples where together you can learn the biblical blueprints for building a stronger marriage, and you'll have a great time in the process.
Again, if you need more information about the Weekend to Remember or if you'd like to register online, go to FamilyLifeToday.com or call 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and we can take care of the arrangements with you by phone.
Now, from time to time, you may hear me or others on this station reference that our program and other programs like ours are listener-supported. What we mean by that is that the funding for this program comes from folks like you. If it weren't for your financial partnership with us, we could not continue to bring FamilyLife Today to you on this station and on other stations all across the country, and we appreciate those of you who in the past have made donations to our ministry.
This month, if you are able to help with a donation of any amount, we have a couple of CDs we'd like to send you as thank you gift. These are messages from Dennis and Barbara Rainey on the subject of manhood. Dennis talks to guys about what stepping up to manhood ought to look like, and Barbara talks to wives about what a wife can do to help her husband be the man that God wants him to be.
Again, we are happy to send these CDs out to you when you support the ministry of FamilyLife Today this month with a donation of any amount. If you are donating online, type the word "manhood" into the keycode box on the donation form online, or call 1-800-FLTODAY, make your donation over the phone, and just mention that you'd like the manhood CDs, and we're happy to send them to you. We do appreciate your support of this ministry and your partnership with us.
Tomorrow Tommy is going to talk about the importance of compatibility in a relationship. It's not as important as commitment, but it's something you ought to think about before you say "I do." I hope you can be back with us as we hear Part 2 of Tommy's message on tomorrow's program.
Thanks today to our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas – help for today; hope for tomorrow.
