Creating A Fighting Marriage Series

Making A Masterpiece Marriage Series

Creating A Fighting Marriage (3 of 3)

February 16, 2003 Chester’s FBC, Chester, IL Mike Fogerson, Speaker

Introduction:

A couple had been arguing about everything for years. Both spouses were tired of living in their state of perpetual conflict. Finally, the wife tipped off her husband about her prayer life. She said, "I’ve been praying for God to help us stop all of this arguing by taking one of us to Heaven. When he answers my prayer, I’m moving in with my sister."

A. When two people spent so much time together, there will be "heated" debates. We all have disagreements in our marriages.

a (ETS) In the Old Testament we see God arguing with His marriage partner all the time.

B (ESS) we can have these disagreements with out destroying our marital relationships.

a I hope you’ll take these rules into your next fight as a married couple.(PQ)

b Let’s look at two rules of engagement that God abided by when he had a fight with His lover. (TS)

I The first rule of engagement is that God showed astonishing patience.

Ezekial 16

[9] " `I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. [10] I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. [11] I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, [12] and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. [13] So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. [14] And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD. [15] " `But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. [25] At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, offering your body with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. [26] You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and provoked me to anger with your increasing promiscuity. [27] So I stretched out my hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. [28] You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. [29] Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied. [30] " `How weak-willed you are, declares the Sovereign LORD, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! [31] When you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment. [32] " `You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! [33] Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. [34] So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.

35-45.......tells of God’s tough love for Israel

[41] They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. [42] Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.

A Israel, His Wife, was defiling herself with anyone who wanted to lay in her bed.

a God said, you have given yourself away for free......you pay other lovers to be with you. (Not only a Prostitute, but a Cheap prostitute. Your giving your lovers gifts that I gave you.) *Floozy, trollup, whore....converted their home into a brothal.

*If anybody has ever had a reason to get a divorce it was/is God!!!!

*DON’T THINK HE DIDN’T THINK ABOUT IT!!!!

b EXODUS 32:

9 "I have seen these people," the LORD said to Moses, "and they are a stiff-necked people. [10] Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation." 11 But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. "O LORD," he said, "why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? [13] Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: `I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ " [14] Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.