In many countries, including my own, upwards of 40% of marriages end in divorce. 40%!! How does that happen? I mean, have you ever wondered, how does this couple, this man and this woman, go from the courting and romance stage, through to the marriage commitment and honeymoon stage … on to, the divorce stage? Have you ever wondered that?

It’s an interesting question isn’t it. How do two people go were once madly, head-over-heels in love with one another, end up in the divorce court? When a man and a woman are standing at the alter, as it were, being married, the last thing on either of their minds, is divorce, right?

And yet … in the west at least 40% of marriages are ending in divorce. And in countries where divorce is culturally unacceptable – places like India for instance, where there’s a very low divorce rate, around 1.3% I think – in those countries, many couples are technically married, they’re living under the same roof, but their relationship, if you could call it that, is strongly reminiscent of the mutually assured destruction between America and the Soviet Union during the cold war that I grew up in.

Well, you know the cycle. It starts with romance – head over heals, madly in love, you can’t get enough of one another. You marry, you go on the honeymoon, you become one flesh as the Bible says, and everything’s great … until the kids come along. Until the day-to-day pressures of life tear away at the Achilles heel of your marriage. Until your soul mate’s weaknesses start driving you crazy. Until the grass starts looking greener on the other side.

There’s a book in the OT of the Bible called the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs as it’s sometimes called. It’s about the relationship between a man and a women. And this is what it says, Song of Songs 2:15:

Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards—for our vineyards are in blossom.

In other words, it’s the little foxes that nibble away at the base of the vine that kill it off and rob it of its fruit. That’s what happens. It’s like Chinese water torture where they used to tie you down and drip little drops of water on your forehead. A drop of water is nothing. But keep doing it to someone for day after day without stop, and each drop of water starts to feel like a brick being dropped on your head. There’s a sense of accumulation … a build up of frustration and disappointment and pain … that will eventually harden your heart .

It’s like when you’re out in the garden digging a whole, or putting up a fence or laying bricks. Your hands develop calluses, to protect your flesh. That’s exactly what your heart ends up doing, it hardens itself, to protect you from a world of pain. And that’s how many people feel about their marriages – it’s a world of pain.

It’s something that Jesus spoke about when He was questioned about divorce. Matthew 19:1-9:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there. Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”

Why was there a concession through Moses all those years before, to allow a man to divorce His wife? Why? “Because of their hardness of heart”. God’s plan is that marriage is a life–long relationship, of two imperfect people who never give up on each other, but if we allow our hearts to harden, eventually we do give up on one another.

Think about it. Your heart doesn’t harden to someone overnight, not normally. Sure there are exceptions. If someone were to punch you in the face, or hurt one of your children, or steal something from you … sure, your heart would harden instantly. And for those women who have suffered abuse and are suffering abuse – I totally get that. We’re going to talk more about that tomorrow on the program.

But for most of us, this hardening of heart is this accumulation effect. A combination of the stresses and strains of life in general – work, finances, the mortgage, children, the commute, tiredness, exhaustion, sickness … just putting food on the able – and on top of all that, putting up with your marriage partner’s weaknesses and failures. And let’s face it, we all have those.

So somewhere as we swim through that toxic cocktail of life, we decide that this isn’t fair. A few years ago there was a very popular song on top of the charts, called ‘What About Me?’ Here’s how the chorus goes:

What about me, it isn’t fair, I’ve had enough now I want my share
Can’t you see I wanna live, But you just take more than you give

There’s the anthem of a person whose marriage is headed for the divorce courts. People say that they’ve drifted apart. Perhaps, maybe … but the bigger problem is that their hearts have hardened, as they decide that they’re not getting their fare share. We make the mistake of thinking that marriage is 50/50. No, divorce is 50/50, marriage is 100/100.

So that’s the problem – this hardening of hearts. Question is, what do you do about it? How do you combat it? How do you stop it happening in the first place. Well, there’s a simple answer to those questions, although while the answer is simple, living it out isn’t. The answer is forgiveness. Forgiving your wife or your husband every time they do something that annoys you or frustrates you or hurts you. Every time, as quickly as possible.

Peter the Apostle had a question about forgiveness. And here’s how Jesus answered it, Matthew 18:21-22:

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Okay, that question was asked in the context of church relationships. But if he’d asked it in terms of marriage relationships, I’m sure Jesus would have said, “Not seven times, but 7,777 times!” Here’s how that’s supposed to play itself out.

I am married to a wonderful woman, Jacqui. Now, she’s not perfect (anymore than I’m perfect) but she is the most wonderful wife. So, here’s the decision I’ve made. Whenever she says or does something that frustrates me, or angers me, or hurts me, I have decided that I am going to forgive here – completely forgive her, completely wipe the slate clean – just as quickly as I can. Like, within 10 minutes, or worst case a half an hour. Forgiveness – quickly and completely.

No, it’s not always easy, but that’s what Jesus told me to do. And would you like to know what the impact of that is on me? Every morning I wake up with a new love for her in my heart. Just as God’s mercies are new every morning, so my mercies toward her are new every morning because I didn’t let the sun go down on my anger. Ephesians 4:26:

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.

I don’t execute it perfectly every time, sometimes it involves prayer for God to help me forgive. But I believe that whilst she is not perfect, anymore than I am, she is God’s perfect provision for me. And so help me God, I am going to love her until we’re old and grey and potty and dotty … so help me God. Forgiveness stops your heart from hardening, it stops your relationship from falling apart.

Forgiveness is the antidote to a decaying marriage. So, in your marriage, what will you decide to do?

The more affluent a society becomes, the more prevalent is the instance of divorce. In most so–called developed economies, divorce is running at around 40% of all marriages.  As much as we don’t want it to happen, it does. That’s why so many people have asked me to talk about divorce, which is exactly what we’re going to do today.   

So, de facto relationships are becoming more and more common. Let’s hitch up, let’s live together and see how it goes. It seems to make sense. Sure, why not. And yet … that’s not God’s perfect plan for you, for me, or for anyone else that matter. So if it isn’t, you have to ask … why not?   

Back when I was young, we’re talking the 1960’s and 70’s here, a man and a woman living together without being married was an absolute scandal. A woman falling pregnant outside marriage – well, that was pretty much unthinkable.

Today, both those things, in most societies, represent a perfectly valid lifestyle choice. The question is, is it progress. Or is it a retrograde step that’s decaying the very fabric of our society. Right there, you have the divide between liberalism and conservatism, that seems to dominate the politics of many a country.

I’m going to tell you right up front what I think and why. I believe that God’s plan is for a man and a woman – and only a man and a woman – to be joined together in a life-long relationship of marriage. A permanent, intimate relationship – emotional, spiritual, physical, financial – the whole kit and caboodle. The whole nine yards. The cottin’ pickin’ lot. All in, boots and all.

At this point, some people might want to brand me a conservative, a fundamentalist and anything they can think of. It seems these days, when we disagree with someone, what we do, is we hurl a label at them that has derogatory connotations, as a way of marginalising their perspective.

This happens particularly when Christians express views which go against popular opinion and the “wisdom of the day”. It seems to me, that when we’re talking about what constitutes a family, people have very short memories. It’s only 50 years ago, well within my lifetime, that both the extended and the nuclear families were the norm.

Where marriage was the appropriate way to express the love between a man and a woman. Where marriage was the only place in which to bring children into the world. All of that was based largely on the Judeo–Christian beliefs that come from, yes, you guessed it … the Bible. Well, today many have rejected those considering marriage to be an anachronistic institution. And let’s face it, sex drives a lot of that thinking.

We don’t like to talk about it too much, but we’re all sexual beings and sex drive is an incredibly powerful drive – and rightly so. It’s part of God’s plan and God’s design, to make sure that we continue to be abundant and multiply and fill the earth. Well, that bit seems to be working just fine.

But God’s plan for sex is to bind to people – a man and a woman – together in a life–long relationship. Jesus, quoting the book of Genesis, puts it this way, Matthew 19:5:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

God’s good and perfect will is for a lifelong relationship of commitment and intimacy. Intimacy is more than sex. It’s a deep emotional connection that finds its fulfilment in a man and a woman exclusively sharing their lives and their bodies with one another. It’s a beautiful plan. It’s God’s very best for us.

And so I look at living together, de facto relationships without commitment … and I ask myself, why would you possibly want to do that? Why would you want to settle for second best?

I’ve spoken to women who have decided to live with men. And they’re biggest complaint is the lack of commitment and certainty. There’s an old saying that women give sex in order to get love and men give love in order to get sex. Now, that may seem a little cynical, but there’s some truth in that.

I remember one woman, living with a man, saying to me, “My mother told me never to live with a man, because if you do, he won’t want to marry you. I think she was right.”

We live in an ear where values of courage, of persistence, of sacrifice, of discipline, of commitment are being undermined, eroded through the self-centredness of a consumer society in which we have so much choice as to how we can entertain ourselves and fulfill ourselves. Although let’s be honest, filling ourselves never delivers the fulfilment we’re looking for.

How much of not making the commitment of marriage, falls into this self–centredness that we’ve bred ourselves into, I wonder? “Well, what I’ll do is that I’ll try before I buy. I’ll live with her, or him as the case many be, and we’ll see if it works. If we’re compatible.”

That’s the mentality. Well let me tell you – now man and woman are completely compatible. They are going to drive each other nuts sometimes. They are going to hurt each other sometimes, They are going to tread on each others’ toes and get in each others’ space sometimes. And when your partner is driving you completely bonkers, the one thing that keeps you together isn’t the great sex I have to tell you, or all the romantic notions that you had when you set out on this journey.

What keeps you together is the commitment you made to one another when you took your marriage vows. It’s that sense of inviolable commitment that causes you to forgive. It’s that sense of commitment that causes you to cover up the faults of the other and to compensate for them.

By definition, love cannot be love unless its based on commitment. So-called love without commitment is just a form of manipulation, getting what you want out of the relationship. And when you’re done, hey, just walk away.

That is not God’s plan. That is not God’s best. And I have to tell you I have never met a couple who abstained from sexual intimacy until they were married, who regretted that. But I have met people who have had multiple sexual partners and are now in a marriage, who regret their sleeping around.

The last thing I am being here is a prude. God invented sex. It was His plan not just for procreation of the species, but for an intimate bond, a becoming of one flesh, in which children could be brought into the world, nurtured by their mother, taught and disciplined and strengthened by their father, in a family unit of love and safety, based on the certain knowledge of commitment.

My counsel to any couple, young or old, thinking about just living together, just shacking up together, just sleeping together, is … DON’T.

If you are in a de facto relationship, get married. Make the commitment formal. And if your partner doesn’t want to get married, get out. That may seem harsh, but a lack of willingness to marry is a clear sign, an obvious sign of a lack of commitment.

God places a high premium, a very high premium on marriage, Hebrews 13:4:

Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.

In other words make marriage a high priority and keep it pure. Great advice. Really. I would hate to wake up every day wondering whether my ‘partner’ is committed to me. As it is, I know that my wife IS committed to me. And that is such a blessing. I think the mistake that we make is that we think that God is all about, “don’t do this and don’t do that”, when all along, like any good dad, He just wants the best for us. His very best.

So I come back to it – why are so many people settling for second best or third or fourth best? What’s the matter with us that we’re prepared to believe the lies of this world – rather than the pure truth of a God who only has His best in mind for us? Seems like a pretty messed up way of looking at things if you ask me.

Just as we’re smack bang in the middle of a series about marriage and family here on A Different Perspective, it seems to me appropriate to talk about singleness. For some … protracted singleness. Because being single is one of the most misunderstood family issues on the planet.   

In the UK, the US, Canada and New Zealand, Australia, in fact, across the Western world, 28% of households contain only one person. That’s staggering. Between one quarter and one third of all households contain only one person. 28% seems to be a pretty standard figure across the developed world.

Now, you might think that in much more family-oriented societies such as in Asia the picture would be different. And to some extent it is, but things are changing. Take India for instance. This is what the Hindustan Times has to say:

Since the dawn of time, human societies have structured themselves around the family group held together by bonds of affinity. In India, typically, families were large, including several generations and tightly knit. There was safety in numbers in an unpredictable world with meager resources. Only those who didn’t have a choice, victims of some terrible calamity, were compelled to live alone. But things are changing.

Indeed, they are changing so fast that India will have 17.4 million single-person households by 2020. According to the projections of London-based marketing firm Euromonitor, only the US, China and Japan, in that order, will have more single person homes. This is a big shift — culturally and economically — for a society that generally celebrates the idea of the family.

And see that’s the transition that’s been going on around the world over the last 50 years or so. As levels of affluence have risen, the extended family has given way to the nuclear family, which is, in many respects, giving way to the single-person household. Why is this related to affluence?

Well, the more affluent we become, the less we need “safety in numbers”. Or so we think. But not withstanding this trend, so many people who are married, who are living in family situations look down upon singleness. And that is particularly true, let me say, of Christians. The activities of many churches revolve around families and couples, leaving singles out in the cold. People head off after church on Sundays in groups, to lunch. The young families with kids tend to go out together, the older people without kids form clusters and go somewhere quieter for lunch. And the singles – and I remember this happening to me when I was single – seem to be … just forgotten.

We don’t quite say it out loud, but singleness in the thoughts of many, is a lesser state. There must be something wrong with you if you’re single. But that’s simply not what the Bible teaches. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. According to God’s Word, and therefore, according to God, singleness is a much higher calling than being married. 1 Corinthians 7:1–8:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind.

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self- control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion

Now the thing I love about God’s Word is that it’s plain and direct about things. And here, God is saying through Paul … well, He’s stating the blindingly glimpsingly obvious. We both, men and women, have a sex drive. It’s been put there by God for very good reason, to procreate the species and as a great blessing of intimacy. But the only appropriate place where that should be exercised is in the context of a lifelong, exclusive relationship of one man and one woman.

And despite the strong assertions to the contrary these days when it comes to same–sex relationships, or casual heterosexual relationships, or just living together – as much as those sins are being promoted as valid lifestyle choices, you don’t have to be a psychologist or a biologist to figure out the wisdom of God’s plan of the expression of intimacy in marriage alone.

But pick up now what Paul says, about all this … I say this by way of concession not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind of gift, and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am.

Why does Paul say that? Well, frankly, Paul simply couldn’t have done what he did if he’d been married. In fact later in this very same chapter, he goes on to say that, 1 Corinthians 7:28; 32-38:

Those who marry will experience distress in this life and I would spare you of that. … I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.

And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

So then, he who marries his fiancée does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better. A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, only in the Lord. But in my judgment she is more blessed if she remains as she is.

Do you see what he’s saying here – singleness is a higher calling than marriage, because when you’re single you can be singularly focussed on God and getting about the business of doing what He’s called you to do.

So, to those who are single, let me say this: recognise that this may be God’s calling on your life. If it isn’t, if in your heart of hearts you know it isn’t, don’t rush out there and get hitched to the first wife or husband that comes along. As someone once said to me when I was single and keen to find a wife, the only thing worse than being single, is being married to the wrong person.

But if you know in your heart of hearts, that God has called you to a single life to serve Him, then I want you to be encouraged today to recognise the high calling that He has put on you and to get on with being who He made you to be. Don’t let the trashy opinions of others who seem to stare down there noses at singleness, distract you from what God has called you to. The one who marries will do well, but the one who refrains from marriage will do better.

And to all those who are living in families, and who enjoy that, I pray that this message about singleness will be a bit of a wakeup call of the special single people that you have in your life. Churches … wake up to these special people whom God has called and placed in your midst. They are free agents, to work as soldiers of the Lord in the spiritual battle for souls that is playing itself out on this earth.

They’re capable of giving time that married people aren’t capable of giving. They’re capable of getting up and going, wherever God calls them on the globe to serve Him, in a way that we married people are not. The single life is a much higher calling than the married life, a calling that, as Jesus said, not all are able to follow. For living a single life in the service of the Lord, is not a calling that all can follow.

Families. We love them … but they can be difficult sometimes, can’t they? I think with almost six and a half decades alive on this planet, I have yet to encounter the perfect family. And so sometimes, we need a wider support network, an extended family … God’s family.   

Well, over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about all different aspects of our families, in this series I’ve called: ‘Family – When Things Don’t Turn Out the Way You’d Hoped’.

We all sometimes look at our family situations and wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into, and why it’s so hard some days, and why our family members are so difficult and on and on and on, right? No matter how blessed you are through your family, there are times when your thinking heads down that path. We look at all those other apparently perfect families ‘out there’ and wonder to ourselves, why am I having so many problems?

We think at this point that we’re Robinson Crusoe, that we’re the only person on the planet that’s going through what we’re going through. “Why is my husband so difficult? Why doesn’t He get it?! … or Why is she so emotional? Can’t she just think through it logically for once in her life?!”  …. or when it comes to our children … “Is he ever going to grow out of this? Is she going to turn out alright? Why can’t they just do as they’re told for once?”

And for those who are single, for those who we talked about yesterday who are part of the mounting statistics of single person households across the globe, “If only I had some people around me who I could talk to, who understand.”

Those pressures mount up and mount up and unless we have people to share them with, people who’ve been there, people who aren’t directly involved and yet understand and care, the pressures can become unbearable.

One of the things that God’s Word talks a lot about is His family, the church. Now, I know that many people have had bad experiences at church. We all have in fact, truth be known. And the reason is that there aren’t any perfect families on the planet – God’s family is no different. In fact, because it’s so much bigger than our immediate family, there are more imperfect people in it to frustrate us and annoy us and hurt us.

People often look at the church and they imagine that it’s like Noah’s ark, two perfect specimens of each type. But that’s not it. It’s not like walking into a zoo and seeing a perfect family of lions in this enclosure and monkeys in that enclosure and deer in that enclosure.

Think train wreck. Think hospital emergency ward with people being patched up. Think rehabilitation ward, as people learn to walk again and talk again. God’s family the church is jam packed full of sinners saved by grace. People, frankly, who look very much like you and me. They’re all different, they all have different strengths and weaknesses. Here’s the picture that the Apostle Paul paints of this large and very imperfect family, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

It’s a powerful picture – people with different abilities and different weaknesses. My weakness is your strength. I don’t have a pastoral bone in my body, but you’re able to visit people in hospital and sit with them for hours as they recover … or as they perhaps die. You may not be much of a public speaker, whereas I’m able to stand up in front of a group of 5 or 5,000 and open the scriptures in a way that changes people’s lives.

Does it make sense for my inability to do what you can do to get you upset, or vice versa? No!

And in that family, in God’s family, there are people who’ve been through what you are going through in your family. There are older women there for you younger wives, who have seen their difficult teenagers grow up into apparently normal, effective adults – older women who can encourage you and share some wisdom with you if you are a young mother struggling, juggling work and family.

There are older men, for you young guys who don’t know where your life is headed, who have enough grey hair and life experience to sit with you and share with you.

There are people who have been through marriage breakdown and divorce and come out the other side, who can hold and comfort those who are struggling through that terrible, terrible time right now. That’s why the Bible says this, Hebrews 10:23-25:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

We need to get together, to meet together, in this world where communities are fragmenting, where extended families have been replaced by nuclear families, where people have more time to spend on social media than with each other … we need to get together and form bonds and relationships that sustain us through all. Some days I’ll be able to encourage you with a hug, or a few words of wisdom or just a smile for goodness sakes. And other days you’ll be able to encourage me. Or inspire me. Or show me that God does have a plan.

Years ago when I was in the Army, I was stationed to a remote ammunition depot. It was a cold, miserable hole and its only saving grace was a rather lavish officers’ mess, with a huge roaring fire. Now because it was a coal town, we would often burn coal in the fire – coal burns with such incredibly tense heat. And every now and then, a piece of coal would tumble out of the fire and lie on the large piece of stone flooring in front of the fireplace.

Within just a few minutes, this burning hot, glowing red piece of coal would turn black. Within half an hour it was cool enough to pickup. And within an hour it was stone cold. Right there you have the picture of the Christian who neglects meeting with other Christians as, in this day and age, so many are prone to do. As difficult as they can be sometimes, families are about support and encouragement and inspiration. They’re about make sure that we don’t grow cold in our faith. They’re about making sure that the fire that’s burning in our heart for Jesus doesn’t go out.

God’s family is part of God’s plan for you. It’s going to make you a better father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter and friend. It’s going to support you when you’re going through difficult times. And like any family, it’s going to help you learn to play nicely with others, get over what you’re going through and grow up into a mature follower of Christ. Do not neglect meeting together as is the habit of some.