Super Glue Marriage | Part 2

How can we hold our homes together through and sustains your love, not vice versa? Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the profound messages and practical biblical teaching of Adrian Rogers. We live in a tragic and dangerous day of disposable and discardable marriages.

The enemy strives to break up homes to create a vicious cycle of broken people. But marriage is the highest of all earthly relationships. The purpose of marriage is for a man and a woman to come together. But marriage is for a man and a woman to come together as one flesh, sharing in the closest bond and communion possible permanently.

If you have your Bible, turn to Genesis chapter 2. We'll begin in verse 21 as Adrian Rogers shares instructions to maintain a superglue marriage. We're not yet married and to help those who are married to have what I want to call today a superglue marriage. I want to show you today how to make up and not to break up.

Because dear friend, if you do break up, I can tell you with all of the emphasis, function and emotion of my soul, there's going to be heartache, there's going to be difficulty. There are no whole eggs in a broken nest. Now thank God, God has given us a book. That tells us how to stay married and to be what God wants us to be.

I'm reading here in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 21. Now what happens is this, dear friend, that the enemy, the devil, comes in and breaks up homes. And what happens is that people are taken out of man. They're taken out of man, and therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now what happens is this, dear friend, that the enemy, the devil, comes in and breaks up homes. And what happens is that people who come from broken homes have broken lives. And people with broken lives tend to build broken homes which tend to produce broken lives, which tend to produce broken homes. And there's a vicious cycle. Psychologists tell us that girls tend to marry men like their fathers. Now you can see why mothers cry at weddings. Now, somehow we've got to get in and break that cycle.

You can't do anything about your ancestors, but folks, you can do something about your descendants. Let me tell you a verse that's been a life verse for me. You might want to make it a life verse for you. I claim this verse.

Psalm 112, verses 1 and 2. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

I want to be that man. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed, his children, his grandchildren shall be mighty upon earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed.

Isn't that a wonderful promise? While we cannot deal, dear friend, with our ancestors, we can deal with our dependents. Now look, if you will, in verse 24 of the Scripture. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, underscore the word leave, and shall cleave unto his wife, underscore the word cleave, and they shall be or become one flesh, underscore the word be or become.

Three action words, three verbs, leave, cleave, and become. And there God gives us, in a nutshell, what marriage is all about. You see, when God says that a man shall leave his father and mother, that speaks of the priority of marriage. Marriage is the highest of all earthly human relationships. When God says that a man shall cleave to his wife, that speaks of the permanence of marriage.

Actually the word here, cleave, means to weld or to glue. That's the reason I'm talking to you about a super glue marriage. Alright, that's the permanence of marriage. And then they shall become one flesh, that's the purpose of marriage. That a man and a woman come together and become in that closest bond and communion one flesh.

Now, I want us to look at simply the cleaving, the welding, the bonding. How do we stay together? Because, my dear friend, it is not easy. There must be such a total commitment to marriage if you want your marriage to last. Now, thank God for love. It takes love to build a home. If you don't have love, don't get married, but you listen to your pastor this morning. It is not primarily your love that holds your marriage together. It is your marriage that holds your love together. It is your commitment that sustains your marriage and sustains your love, not vice versa. Now, you see the Bible says that a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church.

I won't ask you a question. Is Jesus Christ committed to the church? Or when I failed, does Jesus say, well, so long, Adrian. I want a divorce from you, Adrian. I no longer want to be your Lord, your Savior. I'm finished with you.

No. My Lord stays with me and he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Praise God for that. Do you want me to tell you what a perfect husband is? A perfect husband is a man who does not demand a perfect wife. You want me to tell you what a perfect wife is?

Vice versa. One who does not demand a perfect husband. There needs to be, listen, total commitment, a lifetime commitment. For this reason shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, be glued to her, welded together to her. Not only must there be a lasting commitment, but number two, there must be loving communication.

Now, most marriages get in difficulty because the husband and the wife don't learn how to communicate. Now, again, let's go back to the analogy of Christ in the church. Does Jesus Christ communicate with the church?

Yes, he does. He's given us his word. He speaks to us. He has sent his Spirit into our hearts. He whispers to our being that we belong to him. We have the most intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ who said, I don't call you servants anymore.

I call you friends. The servant knoweth not what his master doeth. That is, Jesus said, I have given my Spirit to you to share my heart, to share my life with you. Most husbands and most wives fail in their marriage because they've not learned to communicate.

Look, if you will, at the last verse here of our text. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now, truly, that deals with the physical part of marriage. There was no shame there in the physical sense. You have to see, dear friend, that what he's saying there is, there was no mental barrier there. There was absolute oneness.

They were absolutely one flesh, uninhibited. There needs to be that intimacy. There needs to be that communication.

Now, watch. Number one, there needs to be a lifetime commitment. Number two, there needs to be a loving communication. Number three, there needs to be a loyal confrontation. A loyal confrontation.

If you think that being in a home is just smiling and making out like everything is fine, there are no problems, you're wrong. Does our Lord have problems with His church, His bride? Certainly He does. Does He confront His church?

Indeed, He does. As many as I love, He says, I rebuke and chase Him. But notice He confronts us in love.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chase Him. There are going to be some conflicts in your marriage. I tried to analyze in my marriage counseling and from study I have done, where are the major conflicts in marriage?

Let me just give you some, some conflicts that are going to need a loyal confrontation. Number one, selfishness. Most of the marriage problems that I deal with at their root is nothing but selfishness. Selfishness is one of the major problems it comes across in so many ways.

I'll tell you another area is financial, money problems. Or you say, that's right, not enough money will ruin a marriage. No, I'm not talking about not enough money.

I'm talking about the mishandling of money. Poverty doesn't break up a home. Many times it brings you together. The problem in marriages is not so much a lack of money as it is a mismanagement of money, for the Bible says that godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment, that's what people need.

Godliness with contentment. I believe that charge accounts are the devil's plan to ruin marriages. And most people need a little plastic surgery.

Take those cards and just cut them up. And learn that you can do without anything except one another. All right, let me tell you another problem, of course, is sexual. All of the things, the bitter fruit of the sexual revolution, we're reaping it. And indeed, that's one of the causes for divorce and sex is a gift of God. It is a form of communication. God says when husband and wife would have sexual relations that thus and such a person knew his wife. The sexual union of a husband and wife is a form of communication. He knew her.

It's a way of saying I love you that cannot be put into words. And when all of that is fine, it seems like it's not such a big deal. But when it's out of whack, when it's skewed somehow, it takes on immense proportions. Now we need to learn what the Bible says about this matter.

And we'll talk more about that in our series. Another problem, believe it or not, and it's a real problem, is just the problem of nagging. Just nagging.

Fault finding over trivial things. You didn't put the top back on the toothpaste. You squeezed it in the middle. Or you hung your stockings again on the shower rail. Or you never pick up your clothes. Did you know the word nag and the word gnaw are related?

You ever had anybody gnaw on you? It ain't funny. Here's what the Bible says. You can tell old Solomon knew what he's talking about. Proverbs 21 verse 19. It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 27 verse 15, a continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

Drip, drip, drip. But it's not only the women who nag. Men nag.

You need to confess it not as a weakness but as a sin and break the habit. In-laws, they're another part of the problem. And 9 out of 10 complaints about in-laws are women complaining about the mother-in-law.

Why is this? Often it is the case of two women in love with the same man. The mother can't give her boy up and so she begins to find fault with the daughter-in-law and vice versa. In-laws need to be wise. Let me just give you some rules for being good in-laws. They're just so simple if you want to be a good in-law. You just simply say hands off, prayers on, mouths closed and hearts open. God will help you to be good in-laws.

And then of course there's substance abuse, drugs, alcohol or other forms of vice like gambling and all of these things. Now folks, you will face one or more of these things in your marriage. You're going to call for a loving confrontation, a loyal confrontation. Our Lord says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. So let me give you some rules for having a good fight, okay? Let me tell you how to confront and all of these things I can back up with scripture. I mean you're going to have to confront your mate, you are. I want to give you five principles here.

Very quickly, I just want to name them all. And if you do this, you'll learn how to make up and not break up. And you'll learn really to have that super glue marriage.

And you'll not be able to do these unless you have the first two already, which is that lifetime commitment and that loving communion or communication. Then you can have that loyal confrontation. First of all, isolate the problem.

Pinpoint the problem. Know what it is that you're truly arguing about. Because many times we're hurting in one place and we're grunting in another. For example, your wife, she may be scolding you and fussing at you, but maybe she's tired, maybe she's sick, maybe she's afraid. Maybe you hurt her feelings over here something else that you said or didn't say and you have no idea that you did it.

And so what you're really arguing about is not the point at all. Or maybe you, you come home and you find yourself in an argument with your wife and you're not really mad at her. You're mad at what happened to you on the freeway coming home or what your boss said to you. Zig Ziglar, who is a great communicator, tells a story about a Mr. Sparks who was going to the health club one day and he was a business executive. And he was stopped for speeding. It made him so angry when he got back to the office, he chewed out the sales manager because the sales were down. He wasn't mad at the sales manager, he was mad at the highway patrolman. He got all over the sales manager. The sales manager took it, couldn't say anything back, but he talked to his secretary and said, Where are those five letters I gave you?

How come they're not in yet? Get those letters out. The secretary began to burn, do a slow burn. She went over to the switchboard operator and said, Oh, you sit there every day and just answer the telephone. You don't do anything else. Why don't you help me?

Why don't you do something to help me get these letters out? Chewed out the switchboard operator. Switchboard operator went home that day and her 12-year-old son was sitting there watching television, had a little nick in his blue jeans. She said, Look, you've torn your pants.

You go upstairs, no more television for you and no more dinner for you. About that time the cat crossed this little boy's path. There was a mistake for that cat to come past right then, and he kicks the cat. Now Zig asked this question.

Wouldn't it have been a lot simpler if Mr. Sparks, the business executive, had gone over to the switchboard operator's house and kicked the cat himself and not disturbed so many people in the way? So many times we're hurting in one place and grunting in another. Happy is the couple that can say, What is the problem? What is the problem? Pinpoint the problem. Pinpoint the problem. Number two, dear friend, learn to attack the problem and not one another.

Oh, we can only do this. Most arguments are ego against ego, right? Trying to prove we're right rather than attacking the problem. I've said it before.

I'll say it again. There are no problems too big to solve, just people too small to solve them. If we would learn that the maid may have done something wrong and that is the problem, but the maid is not the problem. It's what the maid did. You say, I can't slice it that thin.

Oh, yes, you can. Listen, if you have a child, for example, and you need to confront your child, your child comes in with bad grades or stayed out too late, don't say to that child, You're no good. You're a bad child. You have no respect. You have no integrity. Don't talk to that child that way. You've attacked him.

Don't do that. Attack the problem. Hey, son, grades are important, and here's why. Here's what you did that's wrong, and here's how we're going to fix it. What you see different so many times is ego against ego, and our rotten pride wants to be right. I'll tell you a third thing that we need to do if we're going to have a successful argument. We need to deal with one problem at a time and deal with problems as they come up.

Now, the Bible says, Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath. Many of us collect trading stamps. You know, you go to the store and they give you these stamps. You put them in a little book, and then one day you go down and redeem them for some lawn furniture.

Wait a few months. What you do, you just put them in the book. Now, that's the way a lot of marriages do. Your husband hurts you, put it in the book. Says something else, late for dinner, you put it in the book. Forgot your anniversary, put it in the book. You don't deal with those things as they come up, and then one of these days there's an explosion.

She comes in to cash all her stamps. I mean, all at one time, or he comes in, and you wonder why, where did all of this happen, how did all of this happen? You have failed to do what the Bible says to do, and that is to deal with these things as they come up when they're small, when they can be dealt with.

One trading stamp is not so big. It can be dealt with. Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath. Stick to the subject.

Know what it is. Don't attack one another. Attack the problem.

Deal with these things as they come up. Next of all, learn to negotiate. Don't get in a win-lose situation. Rather than having a war where both husband and wife lose, have a negotiation where both husband and wife win.

Let both save face. Give in, adjust, compromise. Be gentle. Jesus does that. Jesus said, I have many things to tell you.

You're not able to bear them. He knows what we're able to do. Learn not just to force your point all the way down to the bitter end. And then last of all, know how important this is. Pray, pray, pray, pray and pray some more. It's amazing how prayer will help you through these things.

And, friend, if you do these things and they're so simple but so real, your marriage can be a marriage that will stay together as you have that commitment, that communion, that confrontation all sheltered over with His great love. Would you pray for your home right now? Say, Lord, help our home to be all that you'd have it to be. Father, give us better homes. Make good homes better. Heal broken homes and broken hearts. In Jesus' holy name, amen.

Amen. What a powerful and timely message today. Aren't you grateful for Adrian Rogers' insight in how to cultivate a marriage that stands the test of time? You know, at Love Worth Finding, we love hearing how the ministry and the messages of Pastor Rogers have inspired you in your faith journey. If you can, go online to lwf.org slash mylwfstory. There you could submit your own testimony or read others who've shared their stories. We often select stories to be shared through our Love Worth Finding community and we'll always protect your privacy if that's what you desire. Please let us hear from you today.

Again, go to lwf.org slash mylwfstory. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message in its entirety, you can call us at 1-877-LOVEGOD. Mention the title Superglue Marriage. This message is also part of the insightful series Superglue for the Family. For the complete collection, all four powerful messages, call that number, 877-LOVEGOD or you could order online at lwf.org slash radio or write us at Love Worth Finding. Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. You may not know you can also purchase our new Bible studies much like this message in our online store.

For information, go to the website, again, lwf.org slash radio. Is your marriage a superglued lasting commitment? Is it full of loving communication and loyal confrontation? Pray over your marriage today that God would give you a passion and fervor to maintain your marriage. And join us next time for more from Adrienne Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding. Here's some encouragement we received recently from a donor. My husband and I have our alarm clock radio set each weekday to hear Love Worth Finding with Adrienne Rogers. We might drip back to sleep afterward, but more often than not, the profound but simple words of Pastor Rogers speak to our spirit and we're hooked.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us. You know, at Love Worth Finding, our mission is to help Christians grow deeper in their faith through the timeless teachings of pastor and author Adrienne Rogers. That's why when you donate to the ministry right now, we'd love to send you a copy of the powerful book, His Story, rooted in the timeless teaching of Pastor Rogers. This book will help you learn practical ways to increase your head and heart knowledge of Jesus. Request a copy when you call with a gift right now at 1-877-LOVEGOD, or give online at lwf.org slash radio.