“Therefore Shall a Man Leave His Father and Mother”

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“I would like to invite you to turn to Exodus 24:12. Here is the invitation, yes, the command of God to Moses and it echoes down to our time. You remember that the children of Israel had come out of Egypt. They were encamped at Mount Sinai. They had heard the law, and now God has something further to give His people and He calls the leader”:

And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them. – Exodus 24:12

While Moses was up there in the mount, as Exodus 25:8 shows, he was given instruction to make what? A sanctuary.

And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. – Exodus 25:8

“I would like to have you meditate on this, for a little while… The home, is to be a sanctuary. In fact, this will be the theme of our studies from class to class – the sanctuary of the home. The sanctuary, of course, calls for a priest. I am going to study that with you. I want to study with you something of the services of the sanctuary, as they find their echo and anti-type, not only in the work of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary, but in the Christian home.”

A sanctuary is God’s house. Is your home God’s house? It is meant to be. It can be. What is the purpose of God in calling for the building of a sanctuary? What does he say here?

… that I may dwell among them. – Exodus 25:8

Your home can be God’s house where God lives. Isn’t that wonderful, friends? Can you think of anything more wonderful than that? God at home in your house. That would include your being at home in having God in your house, wouldn’t it – every room and every department of life? You will remember that in Exodus 25:40, God admonished Moses to be sure to make everything like what? Like the pattern. What was the pattern? The heavenly sanctuary God’s dwelling place in heaven. Paul plainly states this, you remember (and you can put it in your notes) in Hebrews 8:4, 5.

It was in the mount with God that Moses beheld the pattern of that wonderful building which was to be the abiding place of His glory. It is in the mount with God –in the secret place of communion–that we are to contemplate His glorious ideal for humanity. Thus we shall be enabled so to fashion our character building that to us may be fulfilled His promise, ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ 2 Corinthians 6:16. – Education, pg. 258

“So we are called up into the mount as Moses was. We are to behold the heavenly, because we have something to build on earth that is like the heavenly pattern. Not something built with wood and gold and angel embroidered curtains. No. We have something, in a way, more wonderful than that. Because of the home (I am thinking now not of the furniture, the boards, the house – I am talking about the people) is God’s masterpiece as far as an earthly temple is concerned. In the sanctuary of the home, God wants to reveal His purpose to dwell with men. We read here, that in this mount with God, we are to contemplate His glorious ideal for humanity, but what is humanity made up of?”

Society is composed of families, and is what the heads of families make it. Out of the heart are ‘the issues of life’; and the heart of the community, of the church, and of the nation is the household. – Adventist Home, pg. 15

“We think of the world as a whole. It is divided up among nations. Most governments have their territory broken down into different divisions. Here we have the states and those into counties, and those into smaller divisions. But as God looks at societies, He is thinking of them as grouped in what? In families. So when we are dealing with the family, we are dealing with something very important and very precious to God.“

“Back to our session on the mount that Moses was invited to enter into, and that you and I are invited to enter into. What was it that Moses beheld up there in the mount? The heavenly sanctuary. He saw the temple of God, and he was told to do what? Make a copy of it down here in this world. Did he do it? Did God recognize it? Did He come and live in it? Oh, yes. The presence of God was manifested in the earthly copy of the heavenly sanctuary.”

Home should be made all that the word implies. It should be a little heaven upon earth. – Adventist Home, pg. 15

“What? What is home to be? A little heaven upon earth. Is every home a little heaven on earth? Oh, no, friends. Too many homes are a hell on earth. And there are multitudes of homes that, in a sense, aren’t either one. They are just sort of going along, just going along. The people have a certain amount of satisfaction. They don’t know any better. They don’t know that there is anything any better, boarding housing. And they may even enter into certain experiences of human love. They are far from hell, but, my dear friends, as you will see before we get through this class, they are a long way from heaven.”

“I want to tell you, right now at the beginning of this first class of our series, you can have heaven on earth.  And why not have it, friends?  It has been bought and paid for.  This is what Jesus died for.  This is what He rose for and went back to heaven for.  This is what He is pleading for, there in the heavenly sanctuary.”

“Some day we are going to heaven, but I want to tell you, the only ones who would enjoy heaven up there are the ones who have already enjoyed heaven down here. I sometimes think of it this way: God gives us a little sample of it here, provided we want to taste the sample, so we can find out whether or not we like it. And if we really like it, He will let us have some more. There is plenty more where that came from. But it came from heaven, friends. And oh, let me tell you, we will never find out how to have this kind of a home from Hollywood or from anything that Babylon writes. They don’t know anything about it. They can’t help us get there. They were never there.”

“Moses had spent a long time in Egypt. But God had to take him out in the desert for forty years to sweat that out of him, and then He had to bring him to Sinai and take him up into the mount, and show him the heavenly temple. Dear friends, I pray that God may make us capable of, and willing to put a lot of what we have learned into the garbage can, where it belongs, for I know of no subject that is more polluted with worldly knowledge, worldly science, worldly experience than this is. But oh, if we will just put that all aside and come up into the mount with Jesus, and listen while He speaks, and look while He points out! Look folks, our pattern is in heaven. That is the pattern of the Christian home.”

Every family in the home life should be a church, a beautiful symbol of the church of God in heaven. – Child Guidance, pg. 480

Isn’t that wonderful? Your children, fathers and mothers, are to experience in your home, a church life, in the home, like the church of God in heaven. Oh, isn’t that wonderful? Can that be possible? Well, if it isn’t possible, this would not be written. All God’s biddings are enablings.

“But, it is not automatically that every home is like this. Oh, no. In order that we may make our homes like the pattern, we must behold and then build. Is that what Moses did? He beheld, and then he went to work and built. And most of the book of Exodus is taken up with the story of what Moses saw up there on the mountain, and then what he built down in the plain. Let us think of some things about the sanctuary – the one in heaven and your little sanctuary on earth. The sanctuary is where God dwells.”

Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. – Exodus 25:8

Now, God is love (1 John 4:8). So if God dwells in the sanctuary, what dwells there? What abides there? Love.

Every home should be a place of love, a place where the angels of God abide. – Adventist Home, pg. 18

“Do you remember in the ancient sanctuary that Moses built, what did God tell him to put in that veil that was there at the entrance of the sanctuary? Angels. And what was in the veil between the holy and the most holy? Angels. And what was in the ceiling veil that covered the whole thing on the inside? Angels, angels, angels, angels. Your home is to be a place where the angels of God abide. I will have more about that in another one of these lessons. There are some marvelous things about that. Think of it, isn’t it wonderful to have the angels of God in the home? Or is it? Ah, my dear friends, the more we sense the presence of the angel watchers, the more we will love what they love and hate what they hate. Right? If there is anything going on in your home that you would be embarrassed to have the angels see, ask God to take it out.”

Now, God’s great purpose in all this, in having us look at what is going on in heaven and make something like it down here, is that we may know Him. This is God’s purpose:

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. – John 17:3

“It is life eternal to what? To know God. Well, how are we going to know Him? Well, we know Him through the Word, through the Bible. We know Him through the life of Jesus. We know Him through nature, His creation. But there is another way to know Him. I want to read one of the sweetest statements in all inspiration. It is in Steps to Christ… see if you don’t agree. Now remember God is talking to us through nature. He is talking to us through the Bible. He is talking to us through the life of Jesus. But here is another way”:

Through … the deepest and tenderest earthly ties that human hearts can know, He has sought to reveal Himself to us. – Steps to Christ, pg. 10

“We think of the different human relationships. Isn’t the relationship between parents and children a wonderful thing? I hope you all had a wonderful mother and wonderful father. If you did, you have some memories to look back to. If somehow that pattern was marred through human frailty, remember, God’s ideal still stands and can be revealed to you. But the relationship between parents and children is a wonderful relationship. What is it for? It is to reveal God. That is what it is.”

His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father. – Isaiah 9:6

“Is God our Father? Yes. And why did God give the relationship between father and child? For two reasons: so that the child growing up could learn to love his father, and thus learn to know God. But that is only half of it. It is so that the father, in loving and training the little child, could learn to know how God feels. You remember a man in the Bible that is especially set forth in that connection. Who was it? Enoch. Enoch walked with God after he had begotten Methuselah three hundred years. You remember the Spirit of Prophecy comment on that. I will speak more on that in another one of these lessons. My point is: It isn’t just the children who learn to know God through being in the home. It is the parents that learn to know God by being parents.”

It is not only the father but the mother. Looking at Isaiah 66… all you mothers will appreciate this verse. And all of us, whether we are men or women, as we think back to our childhood, can appreciate this verse:

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. – Isaiah 66:13

“Do you know what I think of when I read that verse? Oh, I think about when I was a little fellow and I would stub my toe. I used to go barefoot a lot. I would stub my toe and there the blood was running on the top of my toe, you know. And I was just suffering. I hollered, “Mamma, Mamma,” and I would come running. And what would she do? Well, she would find a little rag somewhere, and put some salve on it, and wrap it around my toe, and kiss me, and I felt a lot better. What does God say?”

“As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” Isaiah 66:13

“Do you see? He is using that picture to try to reveal what? Himself to us. He is using father love and mother love. And remember, it is not just the receiving of it on the part of the children, but the giving of it on the part of the father and mother. And my dear men and women, you parents, every time your heart goes out to your children, every time you are concerned about their behavior, every time you seek to comfort them in sorrow, or to guide them in counsel, remember, you are not only to reveal God to that child. In that experience a revelation of God is to come to you. Do you see? And that is what it is all about. That is what it is for. This is the great purpose.”

“Now, the same with other relationships. Take the relationships between brothers and sisters. Oh, there are so many precious things in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy about the relation of brother and brother, sister and sister, brother and sister, and sister and brother. Precious relationships. We haven’t time to go into that in this class. You remember the verse that says”:

There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. – Proverbs 18:24

Jesus is set forth as our elder brother. Yes. And those who know the joy as brothers and sisters, of sharing in fellowship, oh, they have a revelation of the character of God. Do you see?

“But now, there is something, my dear friends, more intimate than any of all of these. That is the relationship between husband and wife. It is that relationship that we are going to study in this class. In this class, we are not studying particularly the relationship between parents and children. We may elude to it occasionally. There are other classes to deal with that, and oh, what wonderful things there are to study in those relationships. But basic to the whole pattern of human life, the core and center of every successful family, is the relationship between husband and wife. The relationship between parents and children is not the primary relationship. The relationship between brothers and sisters is not the primary relationship. The primary relationship is the relationship between husband and wife. That is the first relationship God established on this planet, didn’t he? Yes. Were there any children in the Garden of Eden? Were there any brothers and sisters there? No. All there were, were two individuals, a man and a woman, and they were joined in holy wedlock by God Himself. What was the purpose of it all? Why, what did we read here?”

Through … the deepest and tenderest earthly ties that human hearts can know, He has sought to reveal Himself to us. – Steps to Christ, pg. 10

“Dear husband, have you thought it through that the purpose of the marriage relation is to reveal God to you? But I have a second question: Have you thought it through that the purpose of the marriage relation is to reveal God to your wife through you? You will see this more clearly as we read references, but this is what this is all about. The purpose of the marriage relation is that the husband and the wife shall learn to know God as they could know Him in no other way. There are views of the character of God that you can get as a married man, a married woman, that cannot be gotten in any other way.”

 

 

“I want to talk about things that are within your reach. Now, you may not have attained to them yet. And I will say this to you, no matter how far up the ladder of achievement in successful married life you are, there is something glorious beyond. I am just as sure of that as anything. Perhaps I ought to give you the proof of that right now, so you won’t think I made that up. But here it is – Adventist Home, page 105. It isn’t merely from this book that I tell you that. It is from experience. I know that this is true, friends. As I think of my own experience, and as I have entered into the experience of many other people in the years I have been in the ministry, this statement sums it up so wonderfully”:

To gain a proper understanding of the marriage relation is the work of a lifetime.  Those who marry enter a school from which they are never in this life to be graduated. – Adventist Home, pg. 105

“Have any of you finished your lifetime yet? No. Well, then, are there still some things for you to learn? That is what this says. So you see, I am standing on solid ground. “Well, you mean I can’t graduate, even if I go to night school?” No. You can go to school all day long and have evening classes, you still can’t graduate. This is not to discourage you. Oh, no friends. I would hate to be a hold of something that was so little that you could master it in just a few years. We are dealing with infinite riches, tremendous possibilities.”

“This isn’t just some sentiment or sentimentalism. You know it is interesting. There are love songs written, and love poems, and all that sort of thing, but do you know, over ninety percent of them are dealing with people either that aren’t married or who have just been married? You know that is so, don’t you? And what is that a commentary on? It is a commentary on this, friends: that most people in this world never enter in, really, what we are studying. If they even get on the fringes of it, they don’t go very far.”

“I remember… hearing somebody sing, or recite a snatch of a song. (You will pardon this reference to a popular song, but you will see why I bring it in.) I couldn’t tell you the rest of the song, I don’t know it at all. But just this line. It is so significant: “I picked a lemon in the garden of love where only peaches grow.” Do you get the picture?  Isn’t that what a lot of people are going through, friends?  Why, only the other day, I heard about a young man, God pity them.  He and a young woman were married just a few years ago, I forget what it is, two, three, four years.  And now each one of them is married to somebody else.  They have already had their first divorce and their second marriage.  And you know where that is headed.  Isn’t it a pitiful thing?  What is the matter?”

“Ah, my friends, we need the guidance of the Lord. We need to come up into the mount with God and look at the pattern. How on earth could a carpenter put up a building, if the building amounted to anything, if he never looked at the blueprint? How could he do it? And what we want is a sanctuary where God dwells, but God has given specifications. He has told us how to do this. And the people of this world either don’t know anything about this, or if they do, they are not paying any attention to it. As the result, do you know what the average of success is?”

There is not one marriage in one hundred that results happily, that bears the sanction of God,

and places the parties in a position better to glorify Him – Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4; pg. 504

What is the percentage?  Less than one percent.  Listen, friends, wouldn’t you think people would want to find a better way?  Oh, I hope every married couple… while I know you can’t graduate in this world (But listen!) can learn enough that you can have heaven on earth, and you can begin to help other people to learn the way.

“Do you know what the devil does? You will pardon me if you say I am pretty well acquainted with him. I will tell you what the devil does. He slips up to some man or some woman… and he says, “Well, that’s the trouble. You have got the wrong mate. Your marriage is one of the ninety-nine instead of the one.” Well, friends, I have some good news for you. This is wonderful news. Now, if I were teaching a class, which I do from time to time, in how to prepare for a Christian home, then, my dear friends, I try to help young people learn how to select the right companion. But that is not my study in this class. My purpose in this class is not to help you select the right companion. That is already done. My purpose in this class is to help you see the glorious possibilities with the companion you have. That is already settled.”

“The devil would like to take some of these glorious ideals that we are studying, and make you think that they are so heavenly that such a poor match as you two cannot make it. The devil is a liar. I throw that lie right back in his teeth. And right at this point in the class, I want to clinch this thing and settle it so we will not be bothered about that any more at all.”

Adventist Home, page 351. Turn and look at it and mark it, because if you don’t need it you are going to find somebody before long who does need it, and when you do, I want you to know right where the help is. Two sentences, right there just past the middle of the page. This is a personal testimony. It is talking about a young woman, beloved of God, but held in bondage to a godless youth. And her nervous system is shattered and all that.

“Her marriage was a deception of the devil. Yet now she should make the best of it…” – Adventist Home, pg. 351

“Listen friends, the devil may whisper in your heart that you did the wrong thing. He could be right or he could be wrong. He is a liar. Even liars tell the truth, sometimes. But here was a woman who had the word of the living God that her marriage was a deception of the devil, yet now she was supposed to do what? Make the best of it. This is my question: If even this young woman, whose marriage was a deception of the devil, should make the best of it, don’t you think that you can make the best of it? But, listen friends, why not make the best of it? Why make the worst of it?”

“This is what so many people do. They get infatuated, allured. They get maneuvered into a marriage. And then pretty soon they find out that they are incompatible. That is quite a word, isn’t it? Incompatible? I want to tell you something, friends. Almost everybody that has ever been married since Adam and Eve came out of Eden, has been incompatible to start with. Did you know that? Well, if you don’t, you will know it before we get through with this class. One of the great purposes of marriage is to help people learn how to be compatible.  Here is how to deal with the devil, on this point”:

Though difficulties, perplexities, and discouragements may arise, let neither husband nor wife harbor the thought that their union is a mistake or a disappointment. Determine to be all that it is possible to be to each other. – Adventist Home, pg. 106

“What does harbor mean? Martin Luther used to say, “You can’t keep birds from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from making nests in your hair.” The devil may come around to you sometime, and say, “The trouble with you is you are just not married to the right person.” This says that neither husband nor wife should do what with that thought? Harbor it. Don’t let it in. If it hollers around outside, don’t open the door. Don’t even give it a drink of water. Don’t open the door and argue with it. Don’t pay any attention to it. Don’t harbor it.”

“This begins to introduce us to one of the important principles in this class. What we are learning in marriage is the science of love, and love is not selfishness. Love is unselfishness. And so in marriage I am to be thinking not what I wish my companion would do to me or for me. I am to be thinking of how I can be all that it is possible to be to my companion. Do you see, friends? And listen. Stop and think about it for a minute. The greater the incompatibility, the more I need to get down to business and work at my job. Isn’t that right? Because remember, we read there in the other statement, “now she should” do what? “ Make the best of it. I know we are living in an age where it is easy to just throw things up, but that is of the devil, friends.  The devil never did anything nice for anybody.  Did he?  And don’t think for a second that you are ever going to get any help by listening to him.  Your only help is to do what Jesus says – to make the best of it.  Will you do that?  That is what I am going to help you to do in this class – to make the best of it.”

“And listen, could you do any better than that – make the best of it? And let me tell you, this best is not some second-rate thing. Oh, no. It is the best. You can have heaven on earth no matter what a mess you have made of things. No matter what a miserable failure you are and your companion is, and the two of you together. You can have heaven on earth. I’ll guarantee it. God guarantees it. That is what this is all about. That is what it is for. You can have it. You can know it…  I am going to give you a little laboratory work:”

Determine to be all that it is possible to be to each other. Continue the early attentions. In every way encourage each other in fighting the battles of life. Study to advance the happiness of each other… Then marriage, instead of being the end of love, will be as it were the very beginning of love. The warmth of true friendship, the love that binds heart to heart, is a foretaste of the joys of heaven. – Adventist Home, pg. 106  

That is taken from Ministry of Healing in that chapter on the builders of the home. And in that same chapter from Adventist Home, (and you will find it in your little text book, page 112) is the promise that makes me know I am not holding out to you too much:

Remember, my dear brother and sister, that God is love and that by His grace you can succeed in making each other happy, as in your marriage pledge you promised to do. – Adventist Home, pg. 112

Isn’t that wonderful? God guarantees you that can do what? Succeed? That is what He says. You can succeed in making each other happy.
Somebody says, “Brother Frazee, you don’t know the person with whom I have to live.” No, but God does, and this is what He says. He says you can succeed in making each other happy. Somebody says, “Nobody could make my companion happy.” Yes, you can. You? Yes, you… I will tell you this though, it will take the two of you together. 

Remember, my dear brother and sister, that God is love and that by His grace you can succeed in making each other happy, as in your marriage pledge you promised to do.  Men and women can reach God’s ideal for them if they will take Christ as their helper. – Adventist Home, pg. 112

What is an ideal? Can you get anything higher than that?

Higher than the highest human thought can reach is God’s ideal for His children. – Education, pg. 18

This says you can reach it.

What human wisdom cannot do, His grace will accomplish for those who give themselves to Him in loving trust.  His providence can unite hearts in bonds that are of heavenly origin… Heart will be bound to heart in the golden bonds of a love that is enduring. – Adventist Home, pgs. 112, 113

“For the last few minutes I have been talking to anybody who might be discouraged. But on the other hand, take it clear to the other end of the scale. There may be some couple… that has just had heaven on earth from the day you were married to the present hour. I hope you have. Listen. There is something more wonderful ahead. We read it there. You are in a school that never in this life are you to graduate from.”

To gain a proper understanding of the marriage relation is the work of a lifetime. – Adventist Home, pg. 105

Now turn to Ephesians 5. I think in some ways this is the most wonderful chapter in all the Bible on this subject. I just love it. Remember, the whole purpose of this is to know God, and God is what? Love.

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. – Ephesians 5:1, 2

Here is the language of the sanctuary again, the fragrant incense. And love is it. We will study that more another time. But now, come down, Ephesians 5:22 and 25. Who is the twenty-second verse addressed to? Wives. What does it tell the wives to do? Submit. Oh, that is hard, isn’t it? That is hard. Well, it won’t be, if the rest of it works out… We will study that perhaps another time. But now come to the twenty-fifth verse:

Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. – Ephesians 5:25

“And dear husbands, if we as men who were called to represent the character of God, will reveal His love, our wives will know better how to fit in to the part they are to play in this whole matter. What are we husbands to do? Love our wives. How? As Christ also loved the church. What kind of love are we to manifest in the home? Christ’s love. The same love that Christ has for the church, we, husbands, are to manifest to our companions…”

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. – Ephesians 5:28 – 33

Tell me, what is Ephesians 5 talking about? Is it talking about Christ and the church, or is it talking about husbands and wives? Both. That is right. In the thirty-second verse he says this is a what? This is a great mystery. Do you know what a mystery is? I will read you a little comment on this. This is from the Adventist Bible Commentary, Book 7. Now, this is not the Spirit of Prophecy, but it is simply a statement of a historical fact. Listen carefully. We are on the word “mystery”:

In early Christian usage the term mystery did not mean something that could not be understood as it does today, but something that could be understood only by those who were initiated; that is, those who had the right to know. – Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7; pg. 740

Do you get the picture? You know there are various lodges, secret orders in the world. Sister White had occasion to deal with a man over in Australia who was a leader in one of the Masonic orders. The Lord gave her a vision and told her things that nobody but people on the inside of the Masonic order knew. And as she revealed those things to him, he was amazed. It convinced him that there was a prophet in Israel. Did he know the mystery of the Masonic order? Yes, he knew some of the mysteries. Sister White revealed to him some of the mysteries of the Masonic order that no woman was supposed to ever know. Now, do you get the picture of the word “mystery”? A mystery is something, as used in the Bible, that not everybody understands, and that nobody understands until they are what? Initiated.

All right.  Now let us go back to Ephesians 5

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery… – Ephesians 5:31, 32

“Do you understand it? “Oh,” somebody says, “Sure I understand it. I have been married a year, ten years, twenty years, thirty years. I don’t see anything so mysterious about it.” Well, my dear friends, you may not understand the mystery, at all. Now, only married people can understand this mystery. That is why this class is for married people. But just being married doesn’t automatically initiate you. I have already read from Volume 4, that the successful marriage is one in what? A hundred. In fact, it is less than one in a hundred, but we will just say one in a hundred. So ninety-nine out of a hundred couples that get married do not know the mystery.”

“Let me illustrate it. Here is the matter of baptism. Baptism is the outward symbol, an expression of the union of the soul with Christ. Have you ever seen a person baptized and have a wonderful experience with God, their hearts thrilled with love and joy as they recognized that they are united to Christ? But I want to ask you something. Have you ever seen people baptized without that experience? Does it happen? Too often. And if I see a person filled with the love of God, as they have been baptized and united to Jesus, and I say, “I wish I could feel happy like that, so I guess I will go down and get baptized,” will that do it? And if there is a married couple who knows the mystery and their hearts are full of love and joy, if I think if I get married I will be initiated into that mystery, folks, I may be fooled. I may be disappointed.”

“I want to challenge you in this class. Just as there is something more to the union with Christ than baptism – although it includes it – there is something more to the union of marriage, than the physical experience of man and woman joined together. Certainly it includes that, and I will study that more fully in future classes. But, ah friends, if all people know is the physical side of marriage, then they don’t even know that. I can tell you that. If all people know is the physical side of marriage, then they don’t even understand that. I want to study with you in this class, from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, how you can know the mystery – the mystery of two joined in how many, does this say? In one. The two shall be one flesh.”

I will close this class with a laboratory assignment.  You will find it in Matthew 18:19.  I want you to memorize this little verse:

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. – Matthew 18:19

“Here is a wonderful promise. And if there are any two people on earth that have a right to claim it, it is the husband and wife, in the light of what we have studied… Do you agree with me? I want to tell you something, friends, (you can read through all these classes, but) unless you enter into the laboratory work that I am going to assign you, you won’t get very much out of it. Here is the laboratory assignment: I want you, married couples, husband and wife… alone with God and with each other, to get down on your knees and take this verse and read it to each other, and then say, “All right, what is it that we want? What is it we desire?” Pick out your hardest problem. Pick out your greatest need. Pick out your deepest longing and agree together to do what? To ask. To ask God. You are wanting a miracle, friends.”

“It is a miracle when two people can live together in happiness and love. It is a miracle. That is what you need. That is what it takes to have heaven on earth. No matter how much you have had, why not reach up and get the richer gift, the larger blessing? Why not know what it means to be fully, completely blended? You can have it, friends. Take this laboratory assignment. Don’t miss it! Take this verse. Two of you are to agree on earth as touching what you ask and then, friends, you are to do what? What does this say? You are to ask. And what is the promise? It shall be done. Who for? What does that say? For them, the people that are asking, the two that are agreed. Who is going to do it? “My Father which is in heaven.” Can He do it? He is the one that planned all these wonderful things. Will you do it, friends?”

God help everyone of you to do it. Don’t miss this! Take this verse, and down on your knees say, “Dear Lord, we thank You for all you have given us in the past years that we have been together, but we see that there are heights above that we have never yet reached. Dear Lord, we are agreed together to reach those experiences. We pray that You will teach us the science of love, that you will teach us the art of love. Lord, we need it. We are naturally selfish. But, oh, God, teach us this wonderful experience, not just so we can get along together, but so we can know You; so that we can understand You; so we can reveal God to our children and to others.”

-Continue on to the next study-

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* This study has been adapted from classes taken by Elder W.D. Frazee.