Life and Your Marriage (2)

[Speaker 1] Praise the Lord. We thank our God again for this privilege to gather this second Saturday in the month of March for our monthly marriage forum. I want to welcome everyone joining us on Telegram, brethren connecting with us on Mixlr. You are all welcome to our monthly edition of marriage forum of every second Saturday of the month. And I trust the Lord that as we gather again today, it will be a time of blessing, a time of refreshment, a time of encounter for each and every one of us in the name of Jesus Christ. Let us have a word of prayer as we start this morning. Almighty God, we are grateful unto You. We thank You for Your love, for Your mercies. We thank You for Your goodness and grace. We appreciate You for all who You are and all that You are to us. Lord, we are really, really grateful. Accept our thanks, oh Father, in the name of Jesus. Lord, unto You we gather this morning. Lord, we pray everywhere we are, Lord, we ask, speak to us in a way that we would understand. Meet us where we need You most. Let it be, oh Lord, a time of meeting with You as we fellowship together this morning in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You, our Father, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Last month, we started the series "Your Marriage and Life". We considered what life is. We went ahead again to separate between life and existence and the implication of life in our marital relation. And then we were looking at how do we bring life into our marriage? How do we do it? And in the month of February, we focused on "Life and Your Marriage 1", and we went to look at how God defined life and how we can bring life into our marriage. And we realized that the first thing about bringing life into our marriage relates to the issue of the tongue. And in the month of February, we have looked at the first part of that issue of the tongue, which is your tongue should not speak evil. Please, let's go to the text that we are considering for the topic "Your Life and Your Marriage". So this March edition is the second edition of "Life and Your Marriage". And we are looking at the matter of life and your marriage from Psalm 34. We began our reading from verse 11 last month. Psalm 34:11-16 "Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life and love many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, your lip from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them who do evil to cut off their memory from the earth." Please, if you were not with us in the first episode, that of the month of February, please, I would that you, if you are on the Telegram page, the recordings are there. If not, please go to our website and check it out. Marriage Forum for the month of February. You cannot afford to miss the first episode because that was where we tried to define the matter of life, how it relates to our Christian life, how Apostle Peter by the Spirit of the Lord raised this same matter that we are looking at in Psalm 34 in 1 Peter chapter 3. So it's very, very important for you to listen to that. So today we want to move on to the second thing the Bible raised, what the word of God is confronting us with about bringing life into our marriage. Last month, we came to a conclusion. We said if you don't want death in your marriage, if you don't want to gradually kill your marriage, if you don't want to gradually kill your relationship with your spouse, if our relation with our spouses must be alive, then we must refrain our tongue from evil. What are the three evils in the tongue? Please, check it out in episode one. Today, we are in episode two where we are looking at the next thing about the tongue. It says, "Keep your lip from speaking deceit." The Bible is saying if you want to bring life into your marriage, if you don't want your relationship to die, then one, apart from dealing with speaking evil, another thing is that you must be deliberate and intentional about this second thing. You must keep your lip from deceit. Anybody who deceives his spouse, that person is an individual who has planned that the marriage should die. That is as simple as that. As practical as I've said it. Because we read the text from 11. "Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life?" So do you desire life? Do you want life in your marriage? Do you love many days? You want your marriage to be there for years. And do you want to see good in your marriage? If this is your desire, that this my marriage I want to see good, then make up your mind: I must never deceive my spouse. That thing that made you to deceive your spouse is that thing that is telling you "destroy your marriage". If anybody is telling you "deceive your spouse", the person is telling you "destroy your marriage". We must be deliberate and intentional about this matter. Please, the Bible says that if we want to enjoy life in our marriage, we must as believers, we must as Christians, realize this truth from the word of God. We must refrain, we must deliberately refrain from being deceitful. Of course, being deceitful is not just a matter of our spouse. But we are only saying that when you bring deceit into your marriage, then your intention is to kill your marriage. That may not be what you plan to do. You might be thinking that, "Okay, let me just do this a little lie to get this, to get that, or to achieve one thing or the other. Let me deceive, let me do this." But please, I am saying that what will be the consequence of that thing you are doing is that you are bringing death into your marriage. Now, I want to call your attention to some practical things in the scripture about this matter of deceit. Some practical things in the scripture about the matter of deceit. Let's see some things in Proverbs. Let's see Proverbs chapter 6. We want to take our reading from verse 16. Proverbs 6:16 "These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are abomination to Him: a proud look, a lying tongue." You are an abomination to God if you are a deceiver of your spouse. You are an abomination to God. That's just a simple biblical truth. You may argue it this way, that way. I'm only trying to make you see something. Deceit, lying is not the way to solve any problem. You don't solve any problem by being deceitful. Rather, you are creating problem by being deceitful. You are bringing death into your relationship. So you must be proactive, must be practical about this thing that we are discussing. God hates a lying tongue. A tongue that lies is an abomination to God. Do everything in your marriage not to be an abomination to God because the Bible says, "The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked." So if you begin to deceive your spouse, then in a way you are bringing the curse of the Lord upon your house. Please be wise. Please be wise. Look at another scripture, just trying to read some scripture about the issue of deceit before some more general discussion. Look at Proverbs chapter 8, verse 13. Proverbs 8:13 "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and a perverse tongue I hate." All who fear the Lord will hate evil. That is why I hate pride, arrogance, corruption, and perverted speech. If you don't hate perverted speech, you don't have fear for God. You may want to argue it. That is just the bottom line. Anybody who deceives with his tongue does not have regard for God. If you truly have regard for God, you cannot be deceitful with your tongue to anyone, not to even make mention of your spouse. I mean, you should not be deceitful to anybody. Deceit, telling lies, is something that you should not be. We are now bringing it to the matter of your marriage, that if you are deceitful, what you are doing to your marriage is that you are killing your marriage. Our focus is life and your marriage. And we are seeing that anybody that loves life, anybody that loves many days, anybody that wants to see good, they are people who refrain their tongue from telling lies. So anybody who is lying to the spouse, anybody who is deceiving the spouse, is somebody who doesn't want that marriage to live, who doesn't want the marriage to see good, who doesn't want that marriage to last. So if you truly love the Lord, if you truly fear the Lord, reality is that you will hate a lying tongue. "Perverted speech I hate." God hates a lying tongue, and those who fear Him also don't have a lying tongue. Look at what God said about Himself before we came to that place. God was speaking about Himself in that same Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 8 from verse 1: "Does not wisdom cry out, and understanding lifted up her voice? She takes up her stand on the hilltops, on the top of the high hills, beside the way where the paths meet. She cries out by the gate at the entrance of the city, at the entrance of the door: To you, oh men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. Oh, you simple ones, understand prudence. And you fools, be of an understanding heart. Listen, I will speak of excellent things, and from the opening of my lip will come right things. For my mouth will speak truth." May that be the kind of person we are. For my mouth will speak truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lip. Is wickedness an abomination to your lip? All the words of my mouth are with righteousness. I'm talking about the God-kind of man, the man who is in the image of God, the individual who is reflecting God's image. All the words of their mouth are with righteousness. Nothing crooked or perverse is in them. May that be the kind of tongue we have in our marriages so that our marriages will not die. One thing you need to know about deceit is that the day your spouse come to discover, come to realize that you are deceitful, what you have done to that marriage is that you have killed trust. That's what you have done to your marriage. You have taken your knife and you have stabbed trust to death. What some people are suffering today in their relationship: "This person don't trust me, my spouse. I don't understand. Can't you trust me? Can't you just believe me?" Go and check. You might just be reaping what you sowed. You might just be reaping the fact that you have been deceitful. Might just be reaping the fact that you have not been sincere and true, and the person have come to realize it. Your way forward is not to be angry. Your way forward is to ask for forgiveness, is to turn from your evil ways. Don't justify evil. If there is one thing today that I know is affecting several marriages, is that we justify evil. There is no justification for evil. There is no justification for doing wrong. Two wrongs can never make a right. Stop justifying evil. Deceit is evil, lying is evil. Those who fear God hate evil. Those who disregard God, they are those who tell lies, they are those who are deceitful. Anybody who is deceitful, that person has no regard for God. No regard for God. That's the reality of our Christian life. That's the reality of our life. You cannot disregard God in the matter of your marriage and then you say you are preserving your marriage, you are making your marriage to work, you are working towards the success of your marriage. No, you can't be disregarding God in your marital relationship and then you say that you are trusting God to bless the relationship. How? Where? Let's just examine our way. I plead with you, let us examine our way. It is very, very important. We need to examine our way. Very important to do so. Look at another scripture again I want to read to us that is honestly very, very instructive for us. Proverbs chapter 26, verse 18 and 19. Let's see that scripture together. Proverbs 26:18-19 "Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows and death, is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, 'I'm only joking.'" Are you following this reading? Let us read it in NIV: "Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, 'I was only joking.'" Amplified: "Like a madman who casts firebrands, arrows and death, so is the man who deceives his neighbor and then say, 'Was I not joking?'" I read this same thing from The Message: "People who shrug off deliberate deception saying, 'I don't mean it, I was only joking,' are worse than careless campers who walk away with smoldering campfires." I just want to make you see the place of telling lies, just as damaging as a madman shooting a lighted weapon is someone who lied to a friend and then says I was only joking. Ah, to even say that you are joking with it is deadly. Just trying to make you see what it means to tell lies. That is to a neighbor, that is to a friend. Not to talk of to a wife or to a husband. You are like a madman. It is madness. You are like a madman, just throwing deadly arrows. You don't know what damage that will cause. Just imagine a madman entering into your compound and it just throws firebrand arrows. Do you know how many things he's going to destroy? Do you know what is going to be burnt down? Oh, may you not with your hand burn down your marriage. You are burning down your home. You are burning down your relationship. Deceit is never a way forward. It doesn't solve any problem. It doesn't. So we must be careful about it. We must be careful, it is something we must take far from us. It's something we must be deliberate and intentional about. It is something we must take to be very, very far away. Don't say you are joking with it. Don't deceive and then as a means of excuse sometimes say, "Actually, actually, I was not, I was just trying to joke. I did not..." The Bible says when you say you are joking after you have deceived your friend, your neighbor, your spouse, then look at yourself as a madman that is busy throwing firebrand arrows here and there. Imagine what is going to happen. And that is it about our relationship. Let us be careful. Let us be watchful. Let us be deliberate and intentional about the things we do in our homes. Many times, we are the ones with our own hands pulling down our marriages. It is with our own hands that we are pulling down our marriage. Later, we start crying foul against somebody. But we are not watching our own actions, the things we are doing. It is very, very important for us to know this. Let us examine our ways. I don't know how it has been in your own marriage. I don't know how you have been managing your marriage. But I want to beg you, I want to plead with you that being deceitful is never a way forward. It's never. Never a way forward. Being deceitful is a way down, is many step backward, is destructive. It doesn't pay your marriage, it doesn't help your relationship. It is not in any way profitable. I don't know, we might be having questions here and there in our heart as I'm speaking and you are listening right now. So it's very, very important. If questions are arising in your heart, please raise it on the platform. We will sure attend to the questions. We may not respond to the question immediately for some reason, but please place your question, we will sure give response to the questions. Please, I plead with you, I beg you, look into your marriage again. Number one: you are an abomination to God if you manage your marriage by deceit. Number two: you are somebody who does not have regard for God if you deceive your spouse. Number three is that you are like a madman shooting deadly arrows here and there when you deceive your spouse and then only turn back to say, "I did not really mean it, what I really meant is... I was just joking. I was..." No, please, let us take it out, out of our relationship. Let us make life to be in our relationship. Very, very important. Let's make life to be in our relationship. Lying is something that can be very, very costly. It is something that brings people so much against God. It sets you against God, it sets your home against God. And as I'm saying that, the example coming to my mind is that of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts. Look at what happened to that marriage. Acts chapter 5: "But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession and he kept back part of the possession, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?'" So I'm trying to make you see what lying is. Lying is... the Bible says that lying is the natural tongue of the devil. Anybody who lies is in the image of the devil. Why are you bedeviling your home? Why are you bedeviling your relationship? Why are you giving room for the devil in your marriage? Why? Look at how the matter goes. "And kept back part of the price of the land. While it remained, was it not yours? And after it was sold, was it not in your control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You did not deceive men but God." I want you to look at that. I want you to look at this very serious story. I'm trying to make you see how God sees the matter of lying. The attitude of God to it. I want you to see the level of damage you are bringing to your home when you lie. I'm trying to make you see the level of damage you are causing to your matrimony. If you are deceiving your spouse, you are destroying your home. You are weakening your marriage. You are destroying, you are damaging. In fact, I just want to imagine when the Bible says that like a madman shooting firebrand arrows, you know firebrand arrows, as it lands, wherever it lands, everything start burning. When you bring lie into your finance, your finance is burning. When you bring lie into your dealing with, handling your children, your children start burning. When you bring lie into your career, your career start burning. Anywhere you shoot that arrow, a burning is going on. May you not with your hand destroy your home. May you not with your hand destroy your children, destroy your finances, destroy your health, destroy different aspect of your life because everywhere you lie is going, it's firebrand arrows that you are shooting. I want you to rethink. I want you to rethink. If you have been deceiving your spouse one way or the other, please repent. Please turn away from it. Stop telling lies. Why do you need to lie? When you have not sold it, it is your own. After you sold it, it is your own. So if you don't want to give everything to God, you remove and then you say "this is what I want to give". There's no need trying to be deceitful. There's no need trying to lie. And of course, you know what happened. Hearing that, the man fell down, he died. Look at what lying can result to. This is how many people have killed their spouse, I mean the love of their spouse for them, the trust of their spouse for them, the connectivity between them and their spouse, the affection and everything, they have with lies slain them! When the person come to realize how much you have deceived them, how much you have lied, when the person begin to see that you are not truthful, you are not sincere, everything just die inside them. And then you start wondering, "Why is the person not connecting with me? Why is the person not connecting with me? Why is this person behaving like this? Why is this person doing that way?" Don't fail to go and fall down on your knee, beg the person, repent, ask for forgiveness, and begin to do everything to rewrite your story. Please go and rewrite your story. Go and rewrite your marriage. Go and rewrite your home. You have been bringing death into it by being deceitful. You have brought death into so many things about your marriage because of deceit. Life, your life and your marriage. If you want your marriage to be living, your marriage to be strong, your marriage to be alive, your marriage to see good, your marriage to see many days, if that is your desire, then make up your mind to refrain your tongue from telling lies. Make up your mind about it. Not to be deceitful with your tongue. And you discover what happened in this place. The husband was the first to go. That happened to the husband. Later, the wife came in. And the wife was given the opportunity just to be sure, let us see, maybe the husband forced this thing on the wife. Maybe the wife had been trying to say "look, we don't need to lie, let us tell the truth". But it was something that they both decided. Because when they asked the wife, instead of if she was not part of it she would have said that "actually, this is the amount we sold it although my husband..." then you build a way when you are not part of something, you want to say "actually, what happened was this", you want to give some explanation. And that's why I tell people, it is very, very important for us to understand the dynamics of certain things we do. Understand the dynamics of what you do. Do not destroy your life. Do not destroy your relationship. Do not destroy your marriage. Do not destroy your home. Certain things we do have dynamics. They go forth and they come back. Consequences are there. As we round up this morning, something just came up in my mind now, and I feel I should just mention it because sometimes there is a way we, instead of looking at the Bible holistically, we begin to draw on instances that are not consistent with the totality of the truth. Some will start to refer the Hebrew midwives, they lied and God blessed them, that it may not be as bad as we are saying it. Some people have funny way of looking at scriptures instead of looking at something in the totality of it. The question I'm asking you: the people you call the Egyptians, please think about it. Just Egyptians that you are talking about. Did they know God? Did they fear God? Did they have any understanding for God? They don't have any relationship with God. They are unbelievers. To whom much is given, much is expected. Much could not be expected from them. They are unbelievers. They don't know the laws of God, the ways of God. But they fear God. They have concern for this God, and they thought they want to stay before that God. And the way they know is they went to their leader and told a lie to their leader. That is the way they know. They don't know the way of the God because they don't have relationship with that God. Because some people just talk sometimes and then make some statements that are baseless and useless. So in your own walk with God, in your knowing God, is God teaching you the relationship with Him that you should deceive people and that He will bless you? Is that what your God is teaching you? When the Bible says, when God, when the Bible was speaking about God in Proverbs, it says there is no corruption in my mouth, there is no deceit in my mouth. If God don't deceive and God don't lie, will God be teaching you to be lying? If you have a relationship with that God, then maybe you don't have a relationship with our God. That's why you are thinking you are as an Egyptian. Then you can go the way of the Egyptians without relationship with God. When people just make certain statement that they don't have what Apostle Paul call foolish questions, foolish and senseless that have no bearing with the truth. And sometimes some have gone as far as to say that after all, Abraham lied and God defended Abraham. And so Abraham told Sarah, "tell them that you are my brother", and when Abimelech or Pharaoh in both cases when they tried to sleep with Sarah, God defended Abraham. So after all, even the father of faith lied and God defended him. I honestly just don't understand these kind of things when you see people make these kind of allusion, this kind of reference. Then I normally try to ask myself: are the people speaking, are they people who have a walk with God? Are they people who have the Spirit of God? Are they people who have a relationship with scriptures? Does the word of God dwell in them richly? Are they paying attention to the totality of the Bible? Are they really studying the Bible to show themselves approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth? Are they doing this? When God called Abraham, who was Abraham? At the calling of Abraham, who was Abraham? Abraham was called from a life into another life. He was living a life. He was not called when he was holy, when he was pure, when he was upright. He was called the way we are called: an unbeliever coming into, becoming a believer. Is God calling upon our lives such that God called us because we are perfect, or He's perfecting us because we are called? Which is it? Of course, the answer is obvious. God did not call us because we are perfect. He's perfecting us because we are called. So when God called us in all our imperfect ways, in all our infirmities, in all our shortcomings and everything, so when in that my call to God, when my shortcoming manifest, my weaknesses show up, does that become a reference point for somebody to learn from and say "no, okay, this thing God approves it"? When the weakness of Abraham, his failures, his shortcomings showed up, is that what you can learn from it, that God approved just approve that when our shortcomings manifest, God approve our shortcomings? Is that what you can learn about that, about God? Are you saying that when you make mistakes in your life, what somebody could learn from that is that God approve that mistake? May your mind not be clouded. May you not be hopelessly confused. Wake up from your slumber. Awake unto righteousness and sin not. God is right and He's the right way as far as heaven is concerned. That's why please go and listen to the first episode. The Holy Spirit raised this matter also in the book of Peter, 1 Peter chapter 3 from verse 8 downward. Go and read it. Says anybody that will love life, if you love life, if you really want life, you must refrain your tongue from telling lies. Our Lord Jesus Christ, there was no deceit in His mouth. Please let us have a rethink. As we round up today, I don't know whether there are questions. Please send in your question, place it on the platform. We will sure attend to the questions. We may not respond to the question immediately for some reason, but please place your question, we will sure give response to the questions. We'll sure attend to the question. As we round up this morning wherever you are, please talk to the Lord. How are you running your home? Your relationship with your spouse. Talk to the Lord. Our Father, we thank You for this morning. Our God, we look up unto You. Lord, we pray everywhere Your people are. Lord, help Your people, help us to get it right. Help Your church. Help us to get it right. Lord, we pray that our tongue will be consistently upright in all we think, in all we say, in all we do in the name of Jesus. Thank You, Eternal Father. Blessed be Your holy name, our God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's share the grace together: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us now and forevermore. Amen.