Building A Lasting Marriage Part 1

One reason for us, looking to Jesus phone number for what keeps a couple together 76 years. Surviving your immigration deprivation and material want today the story of the parents of Dr. Erwin Sir why their marriage lasted so long get set for a heartwarming the Moody Church in Chicago. This is when with Dr. Erwin Sir, whose clear teaching helps us get across your parents had something you have anymore marriage with three quarters of a century. How did their example lead you to preach the series that begins today what you know Dave, my parents are in heaven today. Both of them have passed on, but they have left a wonderful legacy and the reason that I preach this series of messages is not only to honor them, but to give an example of biblical example of a marriage that was really conceived as a covenant commitment of two people during some very, very difficult and hard times but together they had five children and I had the privilege of being one of those children we had morning devotions all the time commitment to God and they've left this legacy so that's why I'm so glad that many people have joined us today and by the way, you might want to pick up the telephone and call someone and invite them to listen because I think that this message will be of great encouragement and it will give some direction, especially for those who have to be reminded of what marriage is all about. I am above all things most fortunate to have the parents that God gave me. So let's listen in now as I tell that story based on Scripture.

My father and mother were Germans, but they were born in the Ukraine was a time when Russia welcomed Germans into the heart of the Ukraine and said that you can stay here and live here, but when World War I broke out in 1914. Russia feared that the Germans within its borders might mutiny and if they knew need in sided with Germany that would be bad. So in order to weaken them and in effect destroy them. They made them all refugees.

My father's family went to Afghanistan. It was in Kabul that they were the city that is often on the news today. It is there that my father, who would've been 12 or 13 years old.

He lost step three of his sisters and one of his brothers in just a period of months and then, as if that wasn't enough, his own mother, my grandmother died at the age of 46 of typhoid fever, no opportunity to say goodbye to the children. She was simply whisked away to the hospital and then the children were told later your mother is dead and she was buried in a mass grave as many refugees were my father said that he threw himself across the bed and cried so hard that he never thought he would stop crying. Here he is in a strange land and having all of this tragedy, but thankfully his father lived in two of his brothers so they moved back to the old Homestead in 1918, when the war was over, and from there, my father came alone to Canada. My mother was born about 200 miles from my father, though they did not know each other there and in 19 teen one year before the war.

Her father, my grandfather came to Chicago and lived here for a whole year and he wrote back and said that the buildings in Chicago are so great that God must've built them. His intention was to bring the rest of the family.

But then World War I broke out in 1914 by the way, I've often thought that my grandma grandfather I should say who walk the streets. I often wondered if the thought never crossed his mind and I'm sure didn't that someday he would have a grandson who would be a pastor in the city of Chicago, but he was able to catch the last available boat back to Europe before the war began after that there were no passenger boats only boats that were filled with soldiers and war matériel. He got back and he was with the family and they went to the Ukraine. Now you have to understand all the things I'm skipping I'm skipping the boxcars without any toilet facilities. I'm skipping the deaths along the way but in the Ukraine.

My mother lost several of her siblings in the most heartbreaking was a six-year-old. My mother was seven at the time a six-year-old sister, with whom she had become so close in this little one died but was not able to be buried for over a week because remember, 1918. Not only do you have all of these tragedies, but that was also the time of the Russian Revolution 17 and 18 and therefore there was so much shooting outside the family could not go outdoors to bury their own child. She came back after the war was over and that she and her sister age 21 and 22 came to Canada and they started a new life. My mother came to Canada with a desire to know how to be born again. She had been baptized a Lutheran but she knew that she was not born again and she wondered how she could be and she began to attend the little church where there was preaching in German, the same church that my father happened to be attending and that they saw each other. She heard him pray and knew that he must be a godly man he had accepted Christ already in the Ukraine and that's when he asked if he could walk her home. She lived about 1/2 miles work for a farmer, a half-mile from the church and on the way.

This is the first date students. This is not the way it's to happen. He asked whether or not she would marry him. She said she'd have to think about it, but within three weeks they were married and last summer my father was 104 at the time. He said his birthday since he's 105. My mother will be 99 in a couple of months.

Last summer they celebrated their 76th wedding anniversary. Now if you ask them what it's like to be that old Bill tell you this. Okay, they have no peer. All right, peer pressure in honor of their 76th anniversary. They made the national news in Canada and what were going to see at this time is the news as it was across Canada on my parents of all marriages end in divorce by their life stories a lesson for all couples now that's lasted longer than most people are alive are just a few years himself and their secrets on decades of wedded bliss so I'm gonna help you not 98 and 104 years old. Wanda Gustav lutes are no thing or two about relationships. After all, they've been wanted for quite a while now, and shall have no contrary To know each other hand, is she since 1931 couple of been making beautiful music together. After immigrating to Canada separately from your down one another and settled down this week they celebrated their 76th anniversary of the King's Gustav and while this relationship seems to have lasted forever.

It all began in a flash. You see, Gustav proposed on one of their very first dates. Wanda said she needed some time expectance of correction only three days later she had an answer in three weeks. After that they were married. Starting a love story that would stretch more than 70 years when they begin they didn't have much over the years they came to have what they wanted. Most five children, 16 grandchildren 36 great-grandchildren and ultimately each other had the good life thickened, that's fine, and if so today age has taken its toll on the couple their daughter now cares for them in their home in six months ago Gustav began to retreat back into himself. He doesn't say much anymore, but today he said this about his wife, who I am. Well, their bodies if we can then their hair grown gray. Wanda says their love is only grow stronger, confirming her answer to an unexpected proposal is the best decision she ever meant Ross needs global news Regina medical national for Saturday were streaming this podcast now and from a national.com.

Thank you for sharing time is next on the how could my parents lived together for 76 years, and not only tolerate one another but love one another and go through all that they have done. Let me share with you some of their principles. But before I do I need to tell you that in marriage couples have certain stages that they go through the first is that they marry a dream. I actually think that marriage is going to bring happiness and then after you know after that. Then there is the period of disillusionment you know getting married is something like getting a phone call in the middle of the night. First of all you get a ring and then you wake up and also let and then after that the process of discovery, and I think that's where my parents began is the process of discovering one another knowing one another. Learning from one another and living together for 76 what I like to do is to give you five principles and by the way if there were a text one text I used today it would be the words of Joshua.

As for me and my house we will serve the Lord, that would be there text. First of all, they had a mutual commitment and still do a mutual commitment to the covenant when they got married. The divorce was not an option. Difficulties notwithstanding, because they understood that that covenant that promise that they made to superseded their own happiness superseded their own circumstances and they were indeed in a time till death do them part.

You know there many people today who live together without a covenant they say will were going to be married anyway.

Well first of all let me say that 22% of all those who live together only 22% end up getting married only 22% and if you live that way when you do get married, you will bring more baggage into your relationship than most pullman freight cars are able to handle. That's not the way to go will you say, but you know marriage is just a piece of paper yet is a piece of paper couple of years ago my wife and I bought a house.

We had an attorney.

They had an attorney. Now you know where honorable people. We keep our word. We bought the house from honorable people. Why did we sign anything. Let's just shake on the deal right now we must've signed 15 different papers why you know what were saying if you leave this and you go down the street tomorrow and find a house that you like better off lock your committed to this house. That's what marriage says your committed on till death do you part, even if someone else along the way may be more attractive.

You know that years ago a man by the name of Robertson, the quilt and when his wife and he was president of Columbia Bible College when his wife got to Alzheimer's disease.

He resigned the presidency to take care of her people said why aren't there other ways you could do. Yeah, he said this is not a difficult decision. It is clear to me there's not a struggle of obligation because he said I committed myself to this woman and an oncologist and oncologist said to him, the reason that is so surprising is because most women stand by their man, but most men don't stand by their wives in circumstances like this, but a bow is about and it should be a delight to fulfill it.

The Bible says in the book of Ecclesiastes. If you bow about to the Lord fulfill it because God does not have pleasure in fools. Secondly, the Bible says or I should say my parents live by this principle.

I mutual commitment to character and mutual commitment to character because you see the covenant itself means nothing means nothing if you are are a person who is untrustworthy. Many of you are listening to me today are divorced and the reason that you are divorced as the person entered into a covenant, but he or she, or maybe you didn't keep the covenant. A covenant itself means nothing. Listen to me carefully. I covenant does not bring about character.

Character supports the covenant. Sometimes young women get married in thinking that the covenant is going to change some money.

They say all you know he's struggling with alcoholism, but after we get married. He promised to give it all really. Or he'll say you know I've been promiscuous before, but surely now I'm going to live righteously. The average young woman who gets married thinks of three things on her wedding day the aisle walking down the aisle she thinks of the altar and then of course she thinks of him, but actually it's I'll alter him my going too fast for some of Jeremy very carefully.

If he drinks before you get married. I expect him to drink twice as much after you marry him all right.

The covenant will not change anyone.

It has to be based on character and my parents were totally committed to character to faithfulness and to integrity. People often ask as well. Did you ever hear them argue and the answer is yes, they had their argument but never once did I ever hear anyone of them raise his or her voice. Secondly, never did they call one another names and thirdly they never made statements like will you know you always do this or you always do that. They had their disagreements. They even had their arguments but they had their time of forgiveness and then they moved on to see one of the purposes of marriage is to develop character to develop humility to know how selfish we are because we are all more selfish than we realize, and nothing brings it out more than marriage. May I speak candidly. The Pope would've never claimed the infallibility of he'd been married all right. Will my friend. That certainly is true, isn't that someone has said that marriage is to people solving problems together the date of never had. If only they'd stayed single well. Indeed, God does use marriage in our lives to help us to understand that we might be less selfish that we might be more giving, that we might learn to forgive and for all those reasons we thank God for our mates.

You know my parents lived through a very difficult time. After World War I, they were in Canada when World War II happened, but because of my background. I've always been interested in Germany so I wrote a book entitled, when a nation forgets God. The seven lessons we must learn from Nazi Germany. In this book I talk about such things as propaganda. Now the purpose of propaganda is to so mold people's minds that even when they are faced with a heap of evidence they won't change their minds. How did Hitler do that will for a gift of any amount. This book can be yours. I think it will be a great blessing and during a time of political wrangling and difficulty. It reminds us of that which is most basic. Here is what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 the name of the book is when a nation forgets God. Seven lessons. We must learn from Nazi Germany. We have to learn from history so that we might not repeat it. Go to RTW offer.com. Or, as I have already mentioned, if you prefer. 1-888-218-9337 it's time again for another chance for you to ask extroverts or a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. The Bible's teachings on divorce and remarriage are interpreted in many different ways and Keith in West Virginia has a deep personal reason to find closure on this very difficult issue rights.

About three years ago I met a beautiful young lady in need of Jesus I witness to her and she is accepted an indoor life and is growing interfaith. We began to date. After her salvation. She confided in me. She had been married previously to a man who physically abused her and was unfaithful to their marriage.

She got a divorce and moved on with her life. While I struggled with the relationship after hearing about her divorce.

Many other believers told me that since she divorced for adulterous reasons. It was okay for me to marry her.

We have now been married for two years. I'm honest, when I tell you I truly love her, but I am bombarded with feelings of guilt and sin over the whole matter. It seems everything I read in here on the subject is split down the middle.

I the I am living in adultery by being married to a divorced woman, even if it was for adulterous reasons or they say we have every right to marry in this situation. I have read read and reread Matthew 19 Nine in Matthew 532 so many times that the words are beginning to lose meaning. I somehow can't get past. Let no man put asunder what God has joined and a woman is bound to a man as long as he lives. It seems so contradictory to the idea of remarriage. I am utterly lost in a sea of guilty feelings. My conscience never feels clean anymore and every time I read the Bible. I'm hoping to hit a magic verse dealing with this matter. Sometimes I feel like I am doing the right thing and sometimes I feel like I'm deliberately sinning against a holy God. I am so overcome with despair and guilt. I don't even know if I should be married anymore. Keith, I'm so glad that you wrote to me and thank you for getting me all of these details just a couple of comments. First of all I want to be very careful in thanking you for your sensitivity to God and other many people who remarry, who never give it a second thought. You are trying to think through this you are trying to please the Lord, and I want to commend you for that. Secondly also I can see that this problem in your mind is so serious that unless you clear it up. It's going to greatly impact your marriage and so I hope I can help you and give you some advice in that direction. First of all, let's assume the worst. Let's assume that when you married this young woman you committed adultery because God still recognize the previous bond effect is now you are indeed married and I believe that God recognizes this marriage is valid. You know, you think for example of Jesus speaking to the woman at the well, you know he makes that offhanded comment. You have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. I've often pondered that because surely Jesus wasn't saying you know you had five husbands because they all died and you remarried. The idea is that there was divorce involved and yet each of these was considered to be a husband. God recognize the marriage is valid. One day I was having lunch with a very famous Bible teacher who teaches that once you marry someone who has been divorced and you realize that every time your intimate together you commit adultery. You should sleep in separate bedrooms and I said to him, is that what you would want me to preach here at the Moody church where we have many divorced people who have been remarried. He never did answer that question and I think the obvious reason is first of all because he's wrong if you were to teach that, and secondly, it would be very unwise. So at this point. Keith you are married to this woman, except that marriage except the fact that you have been bonded together physically and metaphysically by God and move on. It is so important. It is so important for you to accept God's forgiveness for her.

Obviously, God is forgiven her any error that you might've made in the past, and having accepted that get on with your Christian life and your walk and love your wife as Christ loved the church thank you documents are if you like to hear your question answered. Go to our website@rtwoffer.com and click there on ask Pastor lutes or or you can call us with that question at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us at running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614. In one the lutes or celebrated 76 years of marriage in Canada.

Dr. Erwin lutes or was their fifth child, and he's telling their story on running to win next time on our broadcast more of the amazing saga of Dr. Luther's parents and their long marriage in concluding building a lasting marriage will continue discussing the five principles His parents together, running to win is sponsored by the Moody church