Mf Aug 20 2018 the Matter of Your Heart

[background music: Battle Hymn of the Republic] Churchisms and fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God greatly desires a godly home front. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Life Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 1] As we begin today, we want to go to that Matthew 19 to look at where we left it last week. There were several other issues that Jesus raised beyond just what would happen to save because of a man's wife be like this; it is better not to marry. In Matthew 19, we were looking from verse 3. It says, "And the Pharisees came unto him tempting him saying unto him, 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?'" And Jesus answered and said unto them, "Have you not read that he that made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, 'For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder.'" Then they said to him, "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and put her away?" Then we were looking at the answer of Jesus. Jesus said unto them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, suffered you to put away your wife, but from the beginning it was not so." That was the verse we considered in several translations because we are kicking off from there today. We raised one thing about it in our last meeting. What was the one thing we raised about it? Several of us were around. We raised one thing: that from this scripture we were able to see that's why she said nobody is innocent in divorce. Anytime we talk about divorce as far as God is concerned, looking at this scripture, divorce has nothing to do with believers. That's what we raised and from there we want to move today. We need to look there again because we want to raise some other two or three issues from this verse. Let's try some other translation. NLT. Did you bring your English? You have it. Okay, we'll try those translations. NLT says, "Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard heart, but it was not what God originally intended.'" Amplified: He said to them, "Because of the hardness, the stubbornness, the perversity of your heart, Moses permitted you to dismiss and repudiate and divorce your wife, but from the beginning it has not been so ordained. It was not so ordained from the beginning." Yes, other translation apart from this one that I've read. [Speaker 2] Easy-to-Read Version: "Jesus answered, 'Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because you refused to accept God's teaching. Divorce was not allowed in the beginning.'" [Speaker 1] Divorce was not allowed in the beginning. In the beginning, it was never the mind of God. It was never a thing that God ordained. It was a matter of Moses. It was a matter of concession with Moses. That was not what God did at the beginning. [Speaker 3] Jesus answered them, "Moses said this because you people did not want to obey God." [Speaker 1] Moses said this because you people did not want to obey God. Okay. [Speaker 3] "All this thing was different at the start when he made the world." [Speaker 1] All these things were different at the start when he made the world. So when God was making the world, what was in his mind? Would there be divorce? Divorce was not a matter that God ever ordained. It was not a matter with God. Why it is not that, if we can get there today, we will get there among the things we will raise. But what we raised last week, and that was where we stopped a fortnight ago in marriage forum, the only thing we raised that Monday from this verse, we saw that at a point Moses had to say, okay you can divorce because the hearts of men were stubborn, people refused to obey God, people refused to accept God's teaching, people are not ready to follow what God has said, the heart was stubborn and was perverse. Now the question is, who are Christians? Are Christians men of perverse heart? Are Christians men of stubborn heart? Is a believer a man who refuses to obey God? Is a believer a man who refuses to follow God's teaching? That's not a believer. Look at this thing very carefully because when divorce is raised over a life, it's an indication that they never believed or he believed but he never grew. We will come to all of that later. John said, if any man continue in sin, he said two things. He said he has not seen Jesus or he does not know Jesus. It's one of the two. [speaking in Yoruba] People grow in church but not in the Lord. People develop a lot of spiritual things, but they do not have a foundation in God. I was telling about a case where a priest who has been preaching to people, preaching born again everything to people, later God born again at the end of his priesthood. So you see you may not have had this encounter. Salvation is an encounter with the Lord. Salvation is not a thing you assume. There must be an encounter. Some never encounter God, but they grew in the church but not in the Lord. That's the best I can express it. There are some other set of people, this set of people actually have an encounter with Jesus, but they never fellowship. He said, "Come unto me all you that labor and I will give you rest." That point everybody have that. But he now said the second thing: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in spirit and you will find rest for your soul." So there are two rests. Some get the first rest but their soul never enter into God. Their soul never find rest because there was no time they consistently sat under Jesus and so they never grew up to know Jesus. Jesus is a stranger to them. The point we raised last week, and that was where we stopped a fortnight ago in marriage forum, the matter remains that divorce when you see when God say, "Okay they can live separately," people will say, "Okay since they cannot stay together let them separate for a while." Paul gave that permission talking to the Corinthians too: let them separate for a while. It gives you an understanding that either the two parties don't know the Lord or never encountered the Lord or one of the parties is like that. It is not possible for two people who encounter Jesus and who are knowing Jesus, I'm not talking of two perfect people. We've addressed that earlier. Perfect in terms of people who don't have human weakness. People you cannot marry a wife or a husband that you will not have something about him that you don't like. [speaking in Yoruba] You need to handle that. By the time he finish resolving that, he may be very forgetful. It may be that he may be somebody who by the time you say you get up you want to sleep in the night, "Let's lay bed," you would like bed to be laid, he doesn't want. Somebody you feel that light must be on, you feel light to be off. Maybe somebody that by the time you want to sleep you have to readjust your sleeping pattern because to sleep beside him as it may be her, it will be [snoring sounds] and you say, "Hey, dear." "Okay, sorry." [snoring sounds] You have to adjust to that. You may marry somebody and you want somebody who is very romantic, and then the brother is just not so romantic. [speaking in Yoruba] You don't feel romantic with him. [speaking in Yoruba] Sorry, he is not your portion. This is your portion. Be more romantic, do something about this one. Try to bring the romance into him. You just find something about this person that you also have to cope with. But it doesn't mean that's why he said nevertheless let every husband love his wife and every wife submit to her own husband. The point I'm making is that you cannot find a believer, you cannot find a person who knows Jesus and is growing with Jesus, that person can never come to the point of divorce. To come to that point, the heart must be what? Can you see all the words that we have used? A perverse heart, unteachable heart, a wicked heart, a stubborn heart, a heart that refuse to obey God [speaking in Yoruba]. He's not a believer anymore. How do we know unbelievers? Ephesians 2:3. Who's getting there for us very quickly? [Speaker 2] All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. [Speaker 1] No, Ephesians 2:2 before that 3, please. [Speaker 2] Ephesians 2:2: In which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. [Speaker 1] Do you get it? When a man is disobedient, how did the Bible describe unbelievers? He said one time we were those who were walking according to this world, according to the spirit who is now in those who are disobedient. Disobedience is an indication that there is a wrong spirit. When a man knows that this is what God says and disobeys it, he has a wrong spirit, he is still dead, his spirit have not been refined. Look at people who have become believers. Look at 1 Peter 1:12-14. Let somebody read that. [Speaker 2] 1 Peter 1:12: Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into. Verse 13: Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober... [Speaker 1] Wherefore now he's saying that this thing that we received was meant for us, preached by the Holy Ghost that came down from heaven because it was not a thing that came from men. Wherefore what must we do? We should gird the loins of our mind, be sober, hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [Speaker 2] 1 Peter 1:14: As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. [Speaker 1] So how did the Bible describe Christians? Obedient children. Disobedience is a sign. Go and mark my word. It may look very simple. Disobedience is a sign. When a man knows that this is what God says and disobeys it, it's a sign that person never was born again. And if he got born again, the soul never came to rest. The person is not learning Jesus. You noticed that divorce becomes a matter not among children. Two children are not disobedient. They are not. If you look again into that verse, Matthew 19. It says, "Moses because of the hardness of your heart suffered you to put away your wife, but from the beginning it was not so." What is the second thing we can say in this scripture? Apart from the fact that divorcement, what we talk about divorce, we talk about putting away [speaking in Yoruba]. Go and check those type of life, there has been a fundamental problem about obeying God before they entered marriage. Their toughness is not their problem. Their perversity of their own heart is their problem. They did not grow with God along that area. They did not grow. Don't forget the matter we raised then: we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bone. Some are members of his body but they are not members of his flesh. Some graduate to flesh but they are not members of his bone. The shaping of their lives is not in the Lord. Other things shape their lives. It's important that these are things you need to check with yourself personally. Check it. There's no point and you notice again that when God raise the matter of divorce in Malachi, how did Baba conclude it? What did Baba say there as a solution to divorce? He said let everyone take heed to his own spirit. Have you ever checked that scripture? Take heed to your own spirit. The problem is not the other person, the problem is with you. Stop looking at [speaking in Yoruba]. It takes two to fight. If somebody meets you now and steps on somebody and then slaps you, say, "Me and you," then he folds his chest. [speaking in Yoruba] He say, "No, we must fight! We must fight, fight!" [speaking in Yoruba] After some time the person will start asking himself, "Ah, what's wrong with me?" That is why the Bible says, be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. That is the way of God. You overcome evil with good. You by good work silence the foolishness of those who don't obey God. It's by good work that you silence it. We are not asked to revenge evil, take evil for evil. That is not our that's not our but that is where most of us go. That is why today divorce has become a matter among those we describe as Christians, and that was because we have never been following Jesus. If you have been following Jesus, you know to this you were called, to suffer the way Jesus suffered. Is that not our Christian call? He has given us an example that we should follow. You never learned that with Jesus. If you have learned these things with Jesus, your spouse would not be your problem. I keep saying this thing everywhere I go. If you have learned these things with Jesus, instead of taking it to your spouse, you are taking it to where you missed it, you are taking it to what you are supposed to do, and you keep going along what you are supposed to do. The person who is mad will come back to the person's senses. Is that not what the Bible says in 1 Peter 3? These are scriptural things. He said, "Husband," he said, "Wife, submit to your husband, so that even when they don't obey the word, they will by your life be won back without argument." [speaking in Yoruba] I will prove to him today! I'm going to prove it! I will prove! How many times where are those things, where are they led into? What were they led into? Go and check it. I'm showing you something here that this matter of putting away, let's go and check our heart. I've deliberately skipped the word divorce. I'm using "putting away" deliberately. There's a difference between divorce and putting away in real life situation. But in English, it sounds the same way. Some translation says divorce, some say putting away. King James lo lo "putting away." Other ones use divorce. But myself and you know that divorce is the climax of several putting away. People don't just divorce. They'll first stop spending their money together. They will stop talking together. They will stop planning together. They will stop praying together. They will stop family devotion. They will stop. There have been several. Then one day it will now become, "Even you, [speaking in Yoruba]." Do you get the point I'm making? "Even you, we have separated money, we have separated bed, we have separated food, we have separated other things. But even you in this house, you are not allowing me to live. You must also go. I must drop your name so I can have peace." [speaking in Yoruba] Putting away. I'm talking of now about putting away. I'm not talking about divorce, the climax. How many things have you put away? If you have not married, check it with those you live with. Check it with your people that you call your friends today. [chopping sounds] And that's how you keep doing. You are not addressing the issue of your heart that your heart cannot forbear with people. Your heart cannot carry people's infirmity, people's weakness. Your heart cannot excuse your brother. You are not seeing that you keep thinking your brother is a problem. Continue. [speaking in Yoruba] By the time you now get to marriage, "In fact, I don't just understand!" You understand. Go and check the history of your life. You have always been used to divorce. Go and check the history of your life. Some people will have divorced their parents. [speaking in Yoruba] It's coming back to her husband. I'm telling you! I'm showing you. Let's just go and mirror ourselves. People most times don't look at themselves. One thing I've come to learn under God is that once something happens, if the Spirit of God is what is working in your life, God's Spirit don't point you to your spouse. It points you to yourself. As for your spouse, don't be her Holy Spirit or his Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit go and deal with you because let me tell you this truth: you can't change people. It is God that changes men. It doesn't mean you don't talk. It doesn't mean you don't relate matter to [speaking in Yoruba]. It doesn't mean but this thinking that by fighting, by contesting, by revenging, [speaking in Yoruba] and then you charge it, sharpen your word very well, you say [popping sounds] Actually you are revenging. Evil only beget evil. You don't understand. You can't sow tomato and reap orange. But it's quite a different thing if you want to make somebody see that this thing hurts you, and not that you want to revenge. Our problem is that we mix revenge with wanting to explain ourselves. There is a way. I know myself. People don't just call you and say Waley, Waley, Waley-ko. Even though you are not talking, what are you doing in your heart? This silence, what is the purpose? You want to revenge. [speaking in Yoruba] There is a way some things that look very innocent, they can be very very evil. There must be a work. I don't know how best to explain this. If you have not been working and God has been dealing with you as a person, your husband cannot deal with you, your wife cannot deal with you because God has never been able to handle you. So take the matter that Jesus is raising in that verse. He said, "Go and look at your heart." It is not what goes into a man that defiles him. It is what comes out. He said out of the heart are evil thoughts. People are not checking their heart. What I simply added today is that last time we talked about divorce as in divorce. What I stressed into it today is putting away. Go and check your putting away. Check how many things you have redesigned because the person did certain things. It's a different thing when there's peaceful resolution about certain things. You can be managing something one way, you now resolve that, "Okay let us not manage it like this let's do it like that. It will be better for us." But I'm talking of where you, you are the only one taking decisions. You're the only one acting. And you took it based on certain things that was done and you feel, "Yes, I've gotten my peace." You have not. Your soul have not found rest. That's not the peace that we are talking about. If you look again into this scripture, there is something here you will see. It said, "But it was not what God originally intended." It was not an original plan. He said, "It was not so ordained. It was never so ordained." So the question is: what then was ordained and why was it so ordained? It means what was ordained is that a man should not put away his wife. That was what was ordained. Is that not what was ordained? The question is: can a man put away his wife for every cause? And Jesus responded and said, "Have you not read? [speaking in Yoruba] Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning..." That is the matter. What was at the beginning? Are you following me? He said it was not so ordained. So he has come back again to what he first said. [speaking in Yoruba] When they first came to him, he told them the beginning. That have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them [pause]. That is the matter. So what was ordained at the beginning was what? It is not two together. That is not what he first said. He just said for this cause, that's the second step. There is a first step: that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female. Do you get that at all? He made them in pair. So if you say you lost your left leg or the right, the other one is useless. [speaking in Yoruba] Whatever ti eleyi ba ti so nu, se e ma lo bata yi? The other one is useless no matter how it was. He who made them at the beginning made them male and female. Do you get it now? That is why he said, "For this cause a man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife." He must get his female. [speaking in Yoruba] We didn't get it right. He who made them made them male and female. For this cause a man shall father mother and be joined to his wife. If you go to Genesis, [speaking in Yoruba] We will continue. Go and check scriptures! [speaking in Yoruba] Many wrong men now are on our pulpit today. They are preaching wrong things. They are saying what they don't understand. They are affirming what they don't know. [speaking in Yoruba] Let God also talk to you. We all have the Spirit of God. Don't be carried around by every wind of doctrine. It is better for a man to grow in grace and not by some doctrine that you find everywhere today. Let's go and sit down. Go back to Genesis, brethren. That may be where we will stop today and pray. God keeping us beyond then, we will gather again to we'll continue. Please note your note so that by the time we say where did we stop, what did you learn, you can know this is where we stop this is what we said this is what I learned. Write down what you learned because it's two weeks' time. You can read your note before you come to class. It's a forum. That's why we are all talking. We are picking from one another. We are learning together. I'm only coordinating it. Gather, we will have people give their personal experiences for this matter. If you go to Genesis where we'll stop today and pray, you will notice that every time Bible talks about marriage, it will go back to Genesis. Because that is where the genesis is. That is where the beginning is. What you don't understand, every time you leave the beginning, once you jump out of the road and you still want to get to where that road is leading to, will you get to that place? You can't get there. Some need to go back. [speaking in Yoruba] the beginning. Go and take the Bible yourself and study it. You are not babes in Christ. Meditating on this verse by verse, you will begin to see some very peculiar thing that the Bible says. What I want to call your attention to is this: you will notice that when creation was going on, animals were made first before man. Fishes, birds, all those things. We all know that they are male and female. Are they not male and female? But you will notice that beginning from the first thing whether birds down to animals, there was no time God ever said female or male. He said "after their kind." Go and check these things yourself. There was never a mention of male female at the beginning. He said he made the birds after their kind. He told them, "Be fruitful, multiply," which means females were there. Is that not? Because that word "be fruitful" was not first said to man. It was first said to animals, to birds, to creatures. Man was the second person to receive "be fruitful" too. Animals were the first to receive it. When God told them be fruitful, multiply and everything, how did the Bible say that? And he made birds after their kind, he make fishes after their kind. It was when God got to the point of making man that he said, "Let us make man in our own image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the beasts of the field and everything." Verse 27, it says, "So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them." [speaking in Yoruba: Let's first take it that simple way]. But that is a little watered down. I will show you along the line. When you want to really get that message very well, don't look at contemporary English. Go and look at the old English. Go and look at KJV. KJV brings out some very salient things. Look at how KJV put it. Yes, look at that KJV for me. [Speaker 2] So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. [Speaker 1] He first created he him before he now created he them. Eve was an extension of Adam. Not another creature. They didn't just take Adam and put sand around it and it became Eve. So Eve is not another person. Adam said, "This is now the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh." So Eve was not another creature again. Adam was just extended. So he created he him in his image. Then male and female created he them. So him, them. It's like you made the right leg with the copy of the right leg, you now made the left leg. When you pick that "them," actually they are not two. Please, is this two shoes? If you have it, do you say you have two shoes? I'm just showing you ordinary common sense. Some people just choose to be blind to God. We just choose to be hardened. We just choose to be difficult when even contemporary physical thing on earth can show it. If you look at it very well, check human beings. You can divide human being to two equal halves. One eye, one ear, the nose, the mouth, the limb. It can become two equal halves. When they were growing, they grow two equal halves. Bilateral symmetry. So even the human being itself is a pair. So why is it so difficult to comprehend that he made them male and female? "No, there's nothing like that! It is just old age. There's nothing like if one die. If one die now, he then he lost the wife, it doesn't mean that he cannot marry again. So what will now happen?" Foolishness! You cannot produce this thing that you bought. But if you lost the left leg and you still want to use the shoe, if you get back with the manufacturer, can't he get you again? What makes people cannot comprehend that God can still make and remake and remake again when it comes to the matter of death? What is the blindness with us? Why are we limiting God with our foolish common sense? Why are we reducing God to a man? We'll stop here today. We'll pick it from Genesis when we come when we meet next. From that point, we'll come back again to that Matthew. Let us have the word of prayer. I want you to talk to the Lord. I don't know how you have been seeing yourself, how you have been seeing relationship, those of us who are already married. How are you seeing your brother? How are you seeing your husband? How are you seeing your wife? And those ones who are not yet, what are you thinking? How many times have you put away? Some of you have put your father away, you have put your mother away, you have put your aunt away. [speaking in Yoruba] How many putting away have you done? Your problem is not your aunt, your problem is your heart. Your heart is stubborn. It's about your heart. Ask God to deal with your heart. Say, "Save me from the perverseness of the heart. Save me from the perversity, from the wickedness, stubbornness of heart." [speaking in Yoruba] and you think it's a good thing. [speaking in Yoruba] What is good in that? [speaking in Yoruba] What are you boasting about? What is the pride in that? Jesus said, "I am meek and lowly in spirit." You are not rejoicing that you are meek and lowly like Jesus and you cannot take revenge. You are meek, you are not revengeful. You are taking glory in that, you can take revenge. Is it not becoming like Jesus that to be your glory? I want you to talk to God, ask God to touch your heart. Ask him. [makes clapping sounds] [speaking in Yoruba - prayer] In the name of Jesus. [speaking in Yoruba - prayer] In the name of Jesus. Oh, Baba! [singing:] I will live for Jesus day after day. I will live for Jesus let come what may. The Holy Spirit I will obey. I will live for Jesus day after day. Day after day. I will live for Jesus day after day. I will live for Jesus let come what may. The Holy Spirit I will obey. I will live for Jesus day after day. One more time. I will live for Jesus day after day. I will live for Jesus let come what may. The Holy Spirit I will obey. I will live for Jesus day after day. Father, we thank you for this meeting.