The Giving Over

Transcript

Well, hello radio friends how in the world are you? Doing Alright? Why, I’m so grateful for the privilege of talking with you and sharing from the Word of God.

We’ve been looking at Mark chapter 10 where the Lord Jesus was talking about divorce. I think the Christian point of view concerning divorce has to agree with God and God says, “I hate divorce”, He says that in Malachi chapter 2 verse 16, “I hate it”. He never intended that people’s hearts should be broken, He never intended that homes should be broken up. God never intended that little children should cry and say, “Why isn’t daddy coming home anymore”. You know? God never intended that. “Sin came into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men, for that all of sin”. We live in a sinful world and we have a sinful inheritance of a sinful nature and things don’t happen the way God intended them because sin came in. He hates it and yet there’s of the other side of it.

God can see you through a situation that is humanly impossible. He can, He can restore them to you, the Bible says, “The years that the locust hath eaten”, in other words, God can make up to you for the hurt and the heartache that you’ve had. How wonderful He is to do that. And then I want to tell you too, if some of you are in a rocky situation and you’re, you’re considering divorce, there are, there are many human situations that do respond to the saving grace of God. Listen to some of the prayer requests that come in to various television ministries for example, and hear them say, “I prayed with your counselor over the, the telephone when I phoned in, and asked for help with my marriage and God has healed our marriage and we’re back together again”. That sort of thing is happening every day and so I have to tell you, there’s hope beloved for you if you seek God. Oh you say, “You don’t know my situation”. Well, I’m sure I don’t, but I also know that God has been healing marriages all over this country, as people sought Him. You see, to talk to each other only increases aggravation. When people say, you have to get together and talk this out, well you end up shouting at each other, don’t you? But to get on your knees together and commit your human frailty and weakness and failures to the Lord Jesus Christ, oh that makes such a difference. What I’m saying this morning. I’m just pleading with you, if you’re considering divorce, stall everything off, hold everything off long enough to seek God about it, will you? And get, engage the, the prayer help of someone who can touch the throne for you, and pray that God might just intervene and He will. Oh, God wants to save your marriage. Many of the reasons we give for breaking up are not good reasons, after all. “He doesn’t show me any consideration, he is critical, she is critical, he is thoughtless, his job comes before his home”, so on and so on, a lot of, lot of things that hurt. I’m not saying that these things don’t hurt, of course they do, leave your heart raw and hurting. It’s not that they don’t hurt, but it is that Jesus can heal these things. He can heal a marriage; He can change things around when people let Him become Lord of their lives.

There was a man and his wife that came forward many years ago at a meeting, when I was pastor. On a Sunday night the two of them came forward and although they had been attending church many years neither of them had really been born again, they’d never been saved, they’d never really trusted Christ themselves as Savior, which they did that Sunday night. Well, the truth of the matter was that this man had been considering a divorce. They hadn’t been happy at all, the two of them, and they had been considering divorce, but that night they came, gave themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Week or so later they stopped to chat with me again after Sunday night service and now it was the lady who led the conversation. As they sat there holding hands like two teenagers she said, “I want you to know that since we were saved and really know the Lord Jesus, it’s like being on a second honeymoon. We’re very much in love”. They looked at each other and she blushed. God can make a difference, yes He can. As I said to you in the last broadcast, there may be some situations where you simply have to leave the individual. The person is psychotic, abusive the, the, the, the, the, the, the man who batters his wife and, and, and, and children whatever it may be, you know libertine running around whatever. There may be some situations where you have to leave the individual. I’m not the judge of that, my beloved. All I’m saying is give Jesus a chance to heal your marriage. Give Jesus a chance to heal your marriage, He can do it, oh yes He can. God’s still on the throne and He still answers prayer.

Well you say, “All that talk is fine, but I’m over the hill on that, I, I am divorced. Now what do I do”? Number one, the truth is still there. Give yourself to Christ as you are. You can’t go back and undo things, but you can, by God’s grace, go on and live for the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever your situation, your marital situation, I mean to say, is beloved, start now to consult your blessed Lord about the things you say and do. Start now to live in His presence and for His glory as you are. God has no limitations. He’s able to take the life that you offer Him and use it for His glory if you let Him. So just give yourself to Christ as you are and trust Him a hundred percent with your future.

Divorce is such a hard subject. I, I hate to talk about it, but it’s here in the, in the, in the Bible. Remember then, what Bob Cook has said. God doesn’t intend, never did intend, that homes should break up. See He says, “He hates it”, but He, God is realistic and recognizes with you and with me, far better than we as a matter of fact, how sin has affected our human condition. So there are situations where people do breakup. God says so. He hates it, didn’t intend it, that isn’t His way and when the grace of God operates in a breakup situation, God can heal that situation by His marvelous grace.

If however you’ve gone through the heartbreak and the suffering of the breaking up of your marriage and you’re on the other side of that, but you’re still hurting, remember Jesus loves and cares and He’s able to heal that hurt, and so I’m saying to you, wherever you are in this matter, let the Lord Jesus Christ be Lord of your life. Good idea?

Oh, I pray that that’s been of some help a blessing to somebody. It’s such a heartbreaking business and it’s such a hurting old world. There so many people who are hurt by life and by people and by sin. I know it. I could just cry for some of you whom I know, and for lots of the rest of you that I don’t know, but God is still on the throne beloved, and He still answers prayer and He still loves you and He still is able to take you where you are and do something in your life. Please let Him. Turn your life over to Him just as you are. Let Him lead.

Well, we’ve come into Mark chapter 10 verse 13 and it says, “They brought Him young children that He should touch them and His disciples rebuked those that brought them, but when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased and said to them, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not for of such”, little children that is, “of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein’, and He took them up in His arms and put His hands upon them and blessed them”.

Beautiful passage there. “Little children, young children that He should touch them”. You and I could learn a lesson from this. What should you do about your child in relationship to the Lord Jesus? Early, early in life, let that child know about the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The early touch of Christ upon the life, “Train of a child”, said Solomon, “in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it”. The early touch of God upon the life. I’m so grateful for that in my own life. I was barely 6, when I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ and just a few months later was baptized in old Lake Erie at a place called Beulah Park. That was before the denomination the CNMA moved their conference grounds to, to Vermillion, Ohio. They call it Beulah Beach now, don’t they? Beulah Park at 156th and the Lake in Cleveland. I remember it so clearly. To, to know that I’d given my heart to Jesus and to know that I was confessing my faith in Him in God-given ordinance of believers in baptism. Early then in life I was introduced to the Lord Jesus, so grateful for that because it started the development of my life and character, and kept it going in the right direction.
Little children need His touch. I made a pastor call one day and was just about to turn away from the door because no one had come to the door as I rang the doorbell, and as I turned away the door opened and there was the mother with her little three-year-old, standing smiling at me. She said, “Pastor I’m sorry that we didn’t come to the door right away, but we were, we were talking to Jesus”. She said, “We like to practice the presence of our Lord”, and the little three-year-old looked up in her face was radiant, for she even as a little toddler had learned the preciousness of being in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. “We were practicing the presence of our Lord”. “Little children brought to Him that He should touch them”. You see, a child will receive whatever you offer as the givens in life. The things that, that we do because they are the things to do. That includes then, doesn’t it, family worship, personal and private prayers, and a personal introduction of that precious little child to the Savior who loves him or her. Let your child enjoy the touch of Jesus. Good idea? We’ll talk about this little more the next time we get together.

Father God today, we give ourselves to Thee. Make us a blessing to people as we go through life, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!