The VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast

Wisdom for Marriage: The 10 Commandments (pt. 3) :: [Ep. 243]

• David & Tracy Sellars • Episode 243

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Wisdom for Marriage: The 10 Commandments (pt. 3) :: [Ep. 243]

This week, on The VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast, we are wrapping up our study on the 10 Commandments, covering commandments like ‘Thou shall not murder,' 'Thou shall not commit adultery,' 'Thou shall not steal,' and so on. 

At first glance, most might feel they have easily fulfilled these commands when it comes to their marriage, but the enemy is sly and subtle in his attempts to cause people to stumble on these very commandments. 

Come join us today for practical advice and biblical encouragement for your marriage! 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast God's design for your marriage.

Speaker 2:

Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast. Hey, there we are, david and Tracy Sellers.

Speaker 3:

And, like you, we have made Vows to Keep.

Speaker 2:

We are so excited to continue with you today in our Bible for Marriage series.

Speaker 3:

We are in part six today. David, it's unbelievable. This has gone on a while and it's getting good.

Speaker 2:

I think the reason why it's good is because we are right in the center of God's word, taking really familiar passages We've gone through, like the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer. Now we're in the Ten Commandments, taking these things that we've maybe known since childhood and applying them straight and direct to our marriage. Some passages I've never even put in that context before, but that's what we're doing today as we wrap up the Ten Commandments, part of this Bible for Marriage series.

Speaker 3:

So we've got a sub-series within a series, is what you're saying.

Speaker 2:

Basically yes.

Speaker 3:

For the last two weeks we've been digging into Exodus, chapter 20, and we've covered the first five of the Ten Commandments. Today we're going to be trying to clip out number six, seven, eight nine and ten.

Speaker 2:

It's going to be trying to clip out number six, seven, eight, nine and 10. It's going to be a busy day, let's get to it. So David explained this to me. Number six says thou shalt not commit murder. How in the world are you going to apply that to marriage?

Speaker 3:

Well, we don't usually think about murder being part of marriage, but let me tell you a little story about something that happened just yesterday. So yesterday I was flying back from a business trip and happened to get into an Uber with a very kind gentleman and one of the things he shared with me after we got to talking about life a little bit and talking shop and cars is he told me about his marriage and he said to me I have been married for 20 years. And I said well, congratulations, that's awesome. And he said but while we're not divorced, we haven't lived together for like 18 of those years.

Speaker 2:

Oh wow.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, they have no children together at all, but that was what they thought it took to have a successful marriage, and I'm here to tell you that that is a great way to kill a marriage. While it may be that there's still that functional piece of paper between us that says we're together, nothing of our words or actions reflect that.

Speaker 2:

So basically what you're saying is, their marriage was on life support. Yeah, exactly A slight heartbeat, but not much happening as far as connection.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. And I think when we get into marriage and we sign up for it, boy, murdering our marriage is just not something we ever could imagine. We get married and we say oh, tracy, I love you so much. And everyone does this.

Speaker 2:

Sure, of course, at the altar and before that. I love you, I would never leave you, I'd never hurt you. But then comes those moments right, those moments where our eyes are shooting daggers at one another across the room and we're saying words that we never thought we'd ever say to one another yeah, yeah, this.

Speaker 3:

This guy relayed a story about how one of the straws that broke the camel's back was that he wanted to play on his xbox and his wife had had enough of it. So what became a conversation about him playing on his Xbox ultimately led to her leaving the house and getting her own house.

Speaker 2:

When I think of murdering your relationship, David, or murdering your marriage, basically I jump right to divorce. But what you're saying is with this guy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, with this guy. He killed the passion, he killed the friendship, they killed the love, the intimacy, and it was all by the actions and the things that they were thinking about, how they were prioritizing what was going on in their lives.

Speaker 2:

So, as you begin to think about this commandment today in terms of your marriage, think about this In what ways have you been killing the passion in your marriage? Have you been stonewalling and putting up barriers between the two of you so that passion can't even exist? Or maybe you've been killing the friendship in your marriage because you've been replacing the friendship within your marriage with relationships outside your marriage, and now you're seeing there's some other relationships in your life that are taking higher priority and they are killing your marriage.

Speaker 3:

Beyond that, you can really kill the love, the unity that it takes to build a God-honoring marriage, by doing things which destroy the unity right. It's disrespectful conversations, it's sarcasm, it's things which ultimately lead to hateful words being exchanged between the two of you. In James 4, we find what's at the root of all this. It says you want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You're jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight, you wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don't get because your motives are all wrong. You want only what will give you pleasure. How amazingly insightful this passage is.

Speaker 3:

In marriage, the process of murder is not something that just happens quick. We get to the altar and, of course, think we would never get to this point, but five, six, seven, ten years in many marriages have been put to a slow death, and it is a painful way to die a slow death and it is a painful way to die. But even if it's been years in the coming, one spouse can give the final cut. That kills the relationship and oftentimes, that is exactly what we hone in on. We omit in our memory all the things that have led up to the death of this marriage and we hang it all on that one final kill moment.

Speaker 2:

What a relief today to know that the opposite of murder, the opposite of death of our marriage is life, and Jesus came to give us that abundant life. He is the exact antidote that we need for the death of our friendship within our marriage, for the death of the love that used to be between us. He is our answer.

Speaker 3:

And that's why the greatest commandment is still so relevant. It still applies so well in connection to this commandment, because we're told to love our Lord God with everything we have, and we're told to love our neighbor in the same way. So think about who's the person, who's your closest neighbor.

Speaker 2:

David, it's you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, if you're thinking about the mailbox down the road, you've gone too far. It's certainly what's happening inside your marriage. So when you adhere to this command of loving your neighbor as you love the Lord boy, that puts a whole new context to what it means to have a marriage full of life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think, as you do that, as you put the greatest commandment, david, into your marriage, what you're doing is you're actually breathing life into your marriage. It's not that you're just maintaining the heartbeat and you've got some brainwaves here. Now couples can actually take the next step with their spouse, and that is exciting. That is the abundant life that Jesus has for us.

Speaker 3:

Certainly, one way that you can kill your marriage is by breaking the seventh commandment.

Speaker 2:

This is one that we probably have all heard. Right, you shall not commit adultery. And you might be thinking okay, but that doesn't apply to me. I've never had an affair, never cheated on my spouse before. But consider it from this vantage point today, Adultery boils down to this. Really, David, it's breaking your covenant marriage relationship.

Speaker 3:

So that looks like things like having an emotional attachment to someone who's not your spouse obviously physical, but there is certainly a very large component of a mental affair. Things are just happening in your mind and anytime we seek union with someone outside our covenant marriage, we're committing adultery, even if we haven't actually succeeded at that. When we try at that, we're headed down that road. Now, of course, most often we are thinking about adultery as being that physical affair. That's what the world would say qualifies you as killing your marriage. But it doesn't have to get to that point where we've actually broken our covenant with our husband or wife physically.

Speaker 2:

And we know that today, david, because we see what Jesus talks about in Matthew, chapter 5. He says you've heard it said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. I think that's exactly the point that you're getting at.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, the best example I can give is pornography. Effectively, what you're doing is trying to develop a physical union with someone you can't actually have physical unity with, but in your heart and in your eyes, that's exactly what's happening Now. Obviously, unity is a two-part experience. In the case of pornography, it's extremely one-sided, a two-part experience. In the case of pornography, it's extremely one-sided, but it is still adultery because you've made an attempt to unify yourself with someone else. It's like going to seek a prostitute but not having enough money, You've already committed the sin. The damage is done in your relationship when you're at that stage.

Speaker 2:

That is true, david, but as we sit across the table from someone that we're counseling, we have seen time and time again how God has taken the sin of adultery, specifically with pornography, and he has redeemed that marriage relationship and that is such an exciting thing to be a part of, exciting thing to watch God work in that way. If this is something that you're dealing with right now, or maybe your spouse is dealing with, this is not a deal breaker for your marriage. God is bigger than this and, like David said earlier, for women, a common form of adultery, a common form of breaking the seventh commandment, can come through an emotional affair being unified with someone emotionally, outside your marriage. Because, in the same way that David was just talking about physically, in an emotional affair you are uniting yourself to someone else, you are giving part of yourself to another person, the part of yourself that you should only be giving to your spouse.

Speaker 3:

And in this day and age, I think, especially with social media Tracy, that is getting to be a harder and harder thing for us to really draw the line in the right spot around.

Speaker 2:

And I think you hit the nail on the head there, david because there are boundary lines that need to be drawn. I think it's really wise for a couple to have the same Facebook page, because someone from the past might reach out, and then you can both be on guard about who we're going to let into our lives. Where are the lines going to be drawn?

Speaker 3:

This commandment is so practical, but it ties back to the first commandment in a really cool way. That first commandment says we shouldn't have any other gods before the Lord God that this should be a very exclusive situation, and the same is true when we're thinking about our marriage. This should be a very exclusive relationship and there has to be integrity in how we protect it. And that means that we actually should be okay with someone checking up on us, and I think for a lot of guys and gals, having your spouse look at your text messages or look at your your social media or look at your email would be something which they would almost feel is an invasion of privacy. But I think what God's word really says is that level of accountability inside your marriage is critical.

Speaker 2:

Because what it creates, david, I think, is unity, and that's exactly what adultery is taking away. Adultery breaks the unity that accountability brings it back.

Speaker 3:

So is this a conversation that you and your spouse need to have. Is there accountability in your marriage to make sure that adultery of any form isn't a temptation today?

Speaker 1:

if you have a marriage question, please email questions at vows to keepcom vows to keep will respond to you via email and perhaps use it on the air. Now let's rejoin vows to keep radio with david and tracy sellers.

Speaker 2:

So, david, I have a question for you. When was the last time you stole something from me? Was it that chocolate that I had hidden away? Oh, there was that.

Speaker 3:

In fact, I was going to go with stealing your heart, but we could talk about that chocolate.

Speaker 2:

Just yesterday someone gave me some chocolate with a present that she had specifically got for me, and there was chocolate in there, so I do have some scrolled away, but I'm willing to share it with you. It is dark chocolate caramel with sea salt.

Speaker 3:

Oh, my goodness oh yeah, thanks, sherry.

Speaker 3:

So a lot of you are asking okay, how does the commandment that you should not steal apply in my marriage? And I have to say, culturally today we're seeing this actually become more and more of an issue, and that's because we're seeing more and more people treat their spouse and their marriage with an entitlement kind of mentality. It's you owe this to me or this is mine. People that live separate financially, that live separately in their time and how they spend it. They effectively feel like that other person is stealing from them, when they should be looking at it as everything I own belongs to you.

Speaker 2:

So, David, what you're saying is, for example, okay, I'll take care of the mortgage If you take care of all the utility bills and the groceries, for example.

Speaker 3:

We divide and conquer and we think that's being really wise financially, but in the end, we are basically when that doesn't, that deal falls apart, whenever there's errors and issues in that. Or maybe I've spent money and I can't cover my quote, unquote part. What we see is a person who rears up in selfishness. Wait a second. Why should I have to cover what you should have been dealing with? It's a 50-50 type marriage Instead of saying everything I have is all God's, including my life, my time, my finances. There's no way to steal from me if I've given it all to you.

Speaker 2:

I read a quote the other day and it said something like this David God requires us to surrender everything to him, to give him all that we have, but in return he gives us everything that he has, and we know that that is an abundance. It is more than enough. We don't have to go around in our marriage trying to protect what we think is ours. When we see that everything we have comes from our maker, every good and perfect gift comes from above, then we don't have to be selfish, we don't have to try to protect, we don't have to try to keep our spouse from stealing from us. We say God, it's all yours, we're going to put you first, we're going to serve our spouse. And now, all of a sudden, this becomes a non-issue. It's easy to fulfill the eighth commandment.

Speaker 3:

Well, I want to wrap this eighth commandment up by really just boiling it down to this Stealing within marriage is rooted in selfishness. It's selfishness for those that would try to retain something instead of freely giving it. John 10, 10 reminds us the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, and Satan desires to destroy your marriage. So don't let you, misprioritizing things in your life, rob your marriage of oneness.

Speaker 2:

Just like when someone steals from their spouse, they're trying to gain something. That's exactly what commandment number nine talks about as well. It says you must not testify falsely against your neighbor. And I think anytime, David, that we are lying, that's exactly what we're trying to do. And I think anytime, David, that we are lying, that's exactly what we're trying to do. We are trying to gain something. Maybe we're trying to gain our own protection from being found out about a sin in our life. Maybe we're trying to gain someone's approval as we mislead them. Maybe we're trying to gain even monetarily. There's always a heart-motivated issue behind a lie. Another word for lying, like it says here in Exodus 20, is false testimony. I think in marriage we can give false testimony, David. We can, behind each other's backs, talk about our spouse in a way that is not true, Sharing maybe with a friend about what's upsetting us, and not representing our spouse in a true or positive way.

Speaker 3:

A lot of times we think to ourselves I would never lie about my spouse. Of course I'm going to represent them in an honoring, respectful way, but have you ever found yourself talking about the Lord's name in a way that wasn't to him, or about him in a respectful, god-honoring way? Well, this is very closely tied. A lot of us have taken the Lord's name in vain and not even thought twice about it, and the same thing is true in marriage. I often find, when I'm talking with a group of guys, that guys represent their wives as being this terrible ball and chain, or women represent their husbands as being these awful slobs that they have to live with, and they are not representing their spouse in a way that's really fair. They're only talking about one aspect of them in a way that is very, very degrading.

Speaker 2:

Many times these false testimonies about our spouses come in the wake of a heated argument. When I feel like I've been wronged, I tend to represent my spouse's actions in the worst possible way or light and get this, even if I'm just testifying to myself. You know those mental conversations that you have with yourself when you're seeking justification for your reaction. You're having that argument with your spouse in your head over and over again. All of a sudden it's really more one-sided than it was in reality, testifying to myself that my husband needs to change and if he doesn't, here's what I'm going to do. I know I'm not the only one who's done this and it's not a fair or a right thing to do and it is very quickly destructive to my marriage. It is a unity killer.

Speaker 3:

So how do we combat this? Well, we start by withholding judgment. We objectively look at the facts and then we do what God has asked of me, in spite of how my spouse might be treating me or how they might choose to act. It's key.

Speaker 2:

I know some people struggle with lying more than others, but maybe that's not your struggle today. Maybe here's what you need to be on guard against Not lying, but watching out for the lies that you are believing.

Speaker 3:

Let me tell you about three common lies that we hear out of unhappily married folks all of the time. The first is I married the wrong person. Instead of dealing biblically with the trouble we find ourselves in, we believe the lie that I just married the wrong person. In reality, we married a sinner, and that would be no different, no matter who we married. So allowing these thoughts to fester and kind of penetrate your heart is going to cause things to spiral out of control. So quickly you set yourself up for failure, you set your marriage up for failure, and I've seen this happen over and over again, where someone starts to pull away from their spouse emotionally and physically and they don't even realize it. When you married that person, they became the right person.

Speaker 3:

The second lie that we find is that we misunderstand love. We tend to spend a great deal of time comparing our fabricated definition of love with the love that we think we're experiencing or not experiencing in our marriage. How we judge love is based on our own untrue definition rather than the Bible's definition. And then the third most common lie is hey, I'm a Christian and I'm married. I deserve to be happy in this marriage. Now, this could sound harsh, but focusing on your own happiness is a really shallow approach compared to what God might have going on in your life and in your spouse's life. God is okay with us being happy, but his greatest desire is for us to seek him, to glorify him, and to do that together. So, with this in mind, when we seek glorifying God with our lives, joy and contentment become a byproduct of that obedience.

Speaker 2:

David, I really like the word contentment over the word happy, because I believe discontentment is really prevailing in our culture. Is it realistic for us to be content in all circumstances? The world would say no. But Philippians 4, 11, paul says I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. So how does this play into our marriages?

Speaker 2:

When we feel discontent or unhappy, what do we do with that? Do we start making a laundry list of all the things our spouse is doing wrong, everything they need to change? Do we maybe emotionally start to disengage and then physically disengage as a result of that? Do we try to fix things by passively addressing them without our spouse even knowing about our discontentment? Have you ever entertained the idea that you need to examine your own heart in this matter? Do we go to God with our discontentment and ask him what he's trying to teach us? See, asking ourselves these kinds of questions can help us discern our own heart and confront these lies before they begin to destroy our marriages.

Speaker 2:

So we're going to wrap up today on Vows to Keep Radio by talking about the 10th commandment, which says this in Exodus, chapter 20. Do you remember this one? You must not covet your neighbor's house, you must not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. David, you probably heard the phrase growing up, like I did, right Keeping up with the Joneses. Well, that can actually easily become a reality in our marriages if we don't watch out for it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's hard as a couple not to look at what other couples have and just want the same thing. Imagine the first time that you saw a car that you just had to have.

Speaker 2:

I actually remember that.

Speaker 3:

Well, I do too.

Speaker 2:

Or David. I remember the first time I walked into my friend Melissa's really large house and I realized, wow, my own little small box that we were renting at the time did not compare.

Speaker 3:

We have got whole TV networks dedicated to coveting someone else's house. But in marriage it's easy to see that someone else's spouse can be the same thing. We can look at them and feel like boy. That person has got it so much better than I do. He's a great guy and my husband's just sitting here on the couch like a slob. He's gained weight. He's a great guy and my husband's just sitting here on the couch like a slob. He's gained weight. He's lost ambition. Or maybe my neighbor's wife is easygoing and mine is always uptight, always nagging at me. Maybe my neighbor's wife is 15 years younger.

Speaker 3:

You get the idea, but God has been good to you. And in marriage this means that we acknowledge where we need to be. And in marriage this means that we acknowledge where we need to be content, to not feel slighted, to not feel concerned that in some specific area someone's got it better than you do. In your marriage we have to look at life through the lens of a giving God. The antidote to coveting is really two things the first is recognizing that God is a good provider. He's going to give everything we need for life and godliness, and the second is just having a grateful heart for those gifts he's given, and that includes someone like you, tracy, an awesome spouse.

Speaker 2:

And truly your spouse is God's creation, so that makes them awesome, as we've talked today. This may seem like a long list that you're going to have to hang up on your fridge and try to follow. You know A, b and C, one, two, three. God does want you to know his word. He does. And, like we've talked about on other broadcasts in this Bible for Marriage series, you are going to be blessed when you follow God's word. But God wants you to know today that all of these 10 commandments boil down to this right here loving the Lord, your God, god and Him only, making Him the only God you serve and worship, and then loving your neighbor as yourself the great commandment there and that fulfills all the other commands. We encourage you to spend time with your spouse going over the great commandment from Jesus in Matthew 22 and these 10 commandments in Exodus 20.

Speaker 2:

And if you've missed the last five parts of this Bible for Marriage series on Vows to Keep Radio part one, the Beatitudes for Marriage. Part two, the Lord's Prayer for Marriage. Part three, the Sermon on the Mount for Marriage, and part four, five and six. Now here on the Ten Commandments, go ahead and listen online. Go to VowsToKeepcom. They're right there on the homepage for you. And then we encourage you to join us next week as we continue in our Bible for Marriage series here on Vows to Keep Radio.

Speaker 1:

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much-needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows to Keep of Zanesfield, Ohio.

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David Sellars

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Tracy Sellars

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