“The Incense Of Love”
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Someone has said that love is an intense desire to please. This says:
True, pure love is precious. It is heavenly in its influence. It is deep and abiding. It is not spasmodic in its manifestations. It is not a selfish passion. It bears fruit. It will lead to a constant effort to make your wife happy. If you have this love, it will come natural to make this effort. It will not appear to be forced. If you go out for a walk or to attend a meeting, it will be as natural as your breath to choose your wife to accompany you and to seek to make her happy in your society. – Testimonies for the Church, Volume 2; pg. 416
Isn’t that a beautiful passage?
Only let a woman realize that she is appreciated by her husband and is precious to him, not merely because she is useful and convenient in his house, but because she is a part of himself, and she will respond to his affection and reflect the love bestowed upon her. Let your wife be the object of your special and hearty attention. When you feel as God would have you, you will feel lost without the society of your wife. Brother M, you fail to understand the heart of a woman. You do not reason from cause to effect. … Love your wife. She is hungering for deep, true, elevating love. … Seek her opinion and approval in whatever you engage in. Respect her judgment. Do not feel that you know all that is worth knowing. – Testimonies for the Church, Volume 2; pgs. 416, 417
“You know, one of the evidences to me that the writings of Ellen White are inspired is that as you read these scores of personal testimonies, you notice such an insight into human nature… I read on”:
A house with love in it, where love is expressed in words and looks and deeds, is a place where angels love to manifest their presence, and hallow the scene by rays of light from glory. There the humble household duties have a charm in them. None of life’s duties will be unpleasant to your wife under such circumstances. She will perform them with cheerfulness of spirit and will be like a sunbeam to all around her, and she will be making melody in her heart to the Lord. – Testimonies for the Church, Volume 2; pg. 417
Isn’t that wonderful? Notice another very practical suggestion:
Your spirit is strong. When you take a position you do not weigh the matter well and consider what must be the effect of your maintaining your views and in an independent manner weaving them into your prayers and conversation, when you know that your wife does not hold the same views that you do. – Testimonies for the Church, Volume 2; pg. 418
“You see, this man was so obsessed with the idea that he was the head of the house – that meant the boss, the dictator – that if there was some subject he and his wife differed on, he would even bring it into family worship and pray about it right there with all the children around. It was not a very diplomatic thing to do, was it? It was not a very loving thing to do.”
Instead of respecting the feelings of your wife, and kindly avoiding, as a gentleman would, those subjects upon which you know you differ, you have been forward to dwell upon objectionable points, and have manifested a persistency in expressing your views regardless of any around you. You have felt that others had no right to see matters differently from yourself… Your wife has just as much right to her opinion as you have to yours. Her marriage relation does not destroy her identity. – Testimonies for the Church, Volume 2; pg. 418
“Well, it is a wonderful chapter. I commend it to your study. But I just wanted to share it with you here in the beginning. Now, back to our study of the sanctuary as the type of the heavenly temple, which in turn is the pattern for the Christian home. Every home is to be what on earth? Heaven. And my dear friends, Moses could never have made anything like the heavenly temple, unless he had gone up into the mount and what? Beheld it, looked at it. He was up there for forty days, and, oh, what a revelation he received. You and I must come often to this heavenly pattern, and with eyes opened by the Holy Spirit behold the temple of God in heaven. Remember that God gave us the earthly sanctuary so that we might understand something of that temple in Heaven.”
“You remember in our classes here, we have likened, in the sanctuary of the home, the Most Holy Place to the special blended union of the husband and the wife. As only the high priest could enter in the most holy place of the temple here on earth, so only one man with just one woman is to enter this inner apartment of the home, the union of husband and wife. This relates to the physical union, of course, but it relates to much more than this. It relates to the entire blending of mind and heart so that two individuals become one in purpose, in love, and in understanding.”
“Back there in that ancient sanctuary, you will remember that there was incense offered here just before the veil, and also within the veil. When the high priest entered there, he entered covered with a cloud of incense. Where did he get the fire in that censer with which he entered the most holy place? Where did he get it? Off the altar of incense. Was that ordinary fire? That was sacred fire. Who kindled it? God did.”
“I want you to think of the fire on the altar as the fire of love. This fire in the censer is the fire of love. Turn please to 1 Peter 4:8 and you will observe a word here that has to do with fire. Peter is looking down, especially to this last generation for he says in the seventh verse”:
But the end of all things is at hand. – 1 Peter 4:7
Now in the eighth verse (And this word charity is more intelligibly translated today as what? Love. So we will read it as love).
And above all things have fervent … [love] among yourselves: for … [love] shall cover the multitude of sins. – 1 Peter 4:8
“Above all things have what? Love. And what kind of love? Fervent love. What does fervent mean? Warm, burning, glowing. And so as you think of this fire on the altar in the court, as you think of the fire on the altar of incense before the veil, as you think of the fire in the censer as the high priest goes into the most holy place, I want you to think of love in the home; and love as we are studying it in class, especially this special love, this exclusive love that belongs to husband and wife and to no other one.”
“Let us go back to the book of Leviticus. I want you to notice an experience that took place early in the sanctuary service. You will find it in Leviticus 10. This is the story of Nadab and Abihu. Who were Nadab and Abihu? The sons of Aaron. Were they priests? Yes. They had been consecrated, called by the Lord and consecrated. But now notice this first verse.”
And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. – Leviticus 10:1, 2
“Had God told them to put incense in the censer? Yes. Had He told them to put fire in the censer first? Why, sure. The incense would have been of no value without the fire. It took the fire to cause the incense to ascend in a fragrant cloud. They did everything that God said except what? They got the fire from the wrong place. That is all. Everything else was as we would say, okay. It was all right.”
“Did that make a difference? How much difference? It meant the difference between life and death, didn’t it? If God should strike everybody who does something similar as soon as they do it, probably there would not be many people left in the world. There are many kinds of sins and failures that down through the ages God has seen fit, on certain occasions, to indicate immediately His decided displeasure.”
“And again, He lets people run along. Think of the apostasy of Israel, when at times, for decades, they defiled this temple, and even had heathen gods there in the court of the house of the Lord, yet God did not strike them dead. But on this occasion He saw fit to do it, and to have it written down as an everlasting warning to us. It makes a difference to God where we get the fire.”
“Let us be very practical in this… dear friends. A home without love in it is like a sanctuary without incense, an altar without fire. But does it make a difference where we get the fire? Does it make any difference what kind of love we are getting?”
“May I tell you that there never has been a generation, unless it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the days before the flood, when what is called love is so talked about, discussed, and even worshiped, as at the present time.”
“Back then, in those ancient times, they actually worshiped the function of generation and the organs of reproduction. This is basic to all the heathen religions of antiquity. They were much in love with love, as it is called.”
“This word love, of course, covers a great many things. And the Bible, occasionally uses the word love in this physical sense even of an improper connection. If you looked up those verses in Proverbs that I gave you, you came across one example. Turn to Proverbs 7:18. You will remember this is the strange woman, which much of the instruction in the book of Proverbs is designed to save us from – the woman who tempts men to break the seventh commandment. Now, you notice, in this eighteenth verse, in her flattery and invitation, she says to the young man that she is enticing”:
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. – Proverbs 7:18
“This woman was very much up to date in her use of the word love. Or shall I say that modern immorality proves itself simply to be ancient… My point is this: This is strange fire. The strange woman with her offer of physical love to the man that she is not married to is guilty of dealing with strange fire.”
“In our homes, dear friends, we need heavenly guidance. We need the light of heaven in our hearts and homes, lest we borrow from the ways of this world a single thing that is unlike Jesus.”
“Young people growing up today, where have they gotten their ideas of what is called love? They have gotten it from the movies, the theater. They have gotten it from the TV screen, from the radio, from the popular newspapers and magazines, and from conversation with other people who have gotten their ideas that way. Does that take care of most it is? That is where most of it is coming. Along with this idea of the deification, almost, of physical love, there is a romance, a silly sentimentalism that goes along with it. And I am sorry to say, it is encouraged and nurtured by those who ought to know better.”
“Marriage, my friends, while it is a very sweet experience, and a very joyous one, it is also very solemn and sacred. I like to think of it like baptism. A baptism is a joyous occasion, isn’t it? Yes, very joyous. But nobody thinks of cutting up and having pranks and frolic at a baptism, do they? Why should it be at a wedding?”
“Again this matter of extravagance: Have you heard of anyone spending a thousand dollars for the decorations and the photography, and the gowns, and all the rest, in order to be baptized? No, we haven’t gotten there yet, have we? But have you ever heard of anybody taking a thousand dollars to be married? Sometimes it is way beyond that.”
“I know of a commercial photographer, who boasts to his fellow photographers, of weddings where he has gotten a thousand dollars worth of business, just for pictures. I know those are unusual cases. But I am bringing this in just to give some examples of what I mean, my dear friends, of borrowing from the world ideas concerning love and marriage and the home. The world did not get its ideas from God, and following those ideas will never lead us to God or to Heaven.”
“If we will take the time that the world is spending in filling its mind with thoughts of the physical union that belongs to marriage and all that clusters around it; if we will take the time they are spending in their study of that, studying what the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy say on these subjects, we will gradually get ideas that are heavenly instead of earthly. And this does not mean these are less joyous – not at all, they are more joyous.”
“The devil does not know how to make a success of anything. Even his own kingdom is about to fall to pieces. The devil cannot help you five minutes to have a successful home.”
“I have mentioned the popular press and the radio, the TV and the movies. But besides all this, there is a mass of instruction available today, in books and in marriage counseling, and in courses and lectures that the world puts on, dealing with this question of marriage – many books and magazines dealing with it. And my dear friends, I would not be wise enough to wade through all those, and tell you what is fact and what is fiction, what is truth and what is error.”
“I know this, in the Garden of Eden there were two trees. One was the tree of life. What was the other? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Was there any good in that? Apparently. But it was mixed with what? Evil. And believe me, you can depend upon it, when the tree is a mixture of good and evil, there is a serpent in the tree. And even if he can talk, more is the pity to those who listen to him. He is a deceiver. You see? So I would warn you, friends, to be wary of taking the strange fire of this world.”
“I realize there are many things that we can learn that scientific research has brought to view in anatomy and physiology. And married couples should be wise in these things. It is the philosophy of the world we need to be wary of. Whether a man is a Christian or an infidel, he can tell us that there are two hundred and six bones in the human body, right? He can tell us that the blood circulates beginning with the heart and on out through the aorta, out through the arteries and through the capillaries, and back through the veins and so forth. There are hundreds and thousands of facts in anatomy and physiology that can be learned. But the philosophy of the world is a mixture of good and evil. I warn you to be wary of it.”
Turn please to 1 Peter 3:7, where we spent considerable time in our last lesson, and I want you to notice again that verse:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge. – 1 Peter 3:7
“And as we brought out [*in the other lesson], the only way the husband can dwell with his wife according to knowledge is for them to get and follow true knowledge.”
Now, turn in your book Adventist Home, page 122:
Many parents do not obtain the knowledge that they should in the married life. They are not guarded lest Satan take advantage of them and control their minds and their lives. They do not see that God requires them to control their married lives from any excesses. But very few feel it to be a religious duty to govern their passions. They have united themselves in marriage to the object of their choice and, therefore, reason that marriage sanctifies the indulgence of the baser passions. Even men and women professing godliness give loose rein to their lustful passions and have no thought that God holds them accountable for the expenditure of vital energy, which weakens their hold on life and enervates the entire system. – Adventist Home, pg. 122
“So, you see, how the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy fit together, instructing us here that we ought to get some what? Some knowledge… You will remember that in an earlier class we spent considerable time studying the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy establishing the sacred character of the marriage relation, including the physical union. You remember that, don’t you? We read in Hebrews:”
Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. – Hebrews 13:4
“So, there is nothing in what we are studying… that is designed to lead us even in the slightest thought to believe that there is something holy about abstaining from the physical union in marriage – not at all. What this paragraph is dealing with and as the compilers have indicated at the beginning of this little section, is the duty to avoid what? Excesses.”
“What is excess? Too much. Can you eat too much food? Yes. Is the remedy to not eat any? No. Can you drink too much water? Yes. Is the remedy not to drink? No. Can you sleep too much? Does the Bible warns against it? Yes. Is the remedy not to sleep? Can you work too hard, too much? Can you over do it? Yes. Is the remedy not to work any? No? Well, have I made it clear, friends? Yes.”
“When we read in the Spirit of Prophecy these earnest warnings against excesses in the married life, we must avoid the views of those who have extreme positions on the matter, and who jump to the conclusion, that if there is danger of excess, the best way to avoid any excesses is not to have any. Well, I think we have shown by analogy that, that is neither necessary nor reasonable.”
“By the way, dear friends, I submit this to you, a very simply thing. If what the Lord had wanted was for married couples not to have any relationships, why would He warn them about excesses? Do you see? To go to excess is to have what? Too much. Well, then, if there is such a thing as too much, there is such a thing as the right amount. Right?”
“Now, in this class we are seeking to find out what Divine inspiration has to tell us on all matters relating to the home. I say on all matters. In this short series of classes, we won’t be able to go into many things that many of you would like to and that I would like to. In fact, if I were giving a name to this course, I would say, An Introduction to the Study of Successful Married Life. This is just a little introduction. You folks, as husband and wife, together, are going to need to continue to study this Adventist Home. We don’t even have time to refer to all the chapters or even the sections in this wonderful book. But I trust that we all are getting such wonderful blessings out of studying this, in these few classes, that we will want to keep going the rest of our lives.”
“But now, back to this matter of excesses. I would like to give you some practical suggestions, that may be helpful to somebody here. One of the great reasons that people eat too much food on the table is that the food they eat lacks some of the vital elements, and consequently there is a hidden hunger. Let me illustrate. In a community where I was doing missionary work once (nowhere around here), I was acquainted with a man who every day took to his work with him this lunch: some soda biscuits left over from breakfast, made, as you know, with white flour and soda, and lard. Then he would open up those white biscuits and spread them with lard, and sprinkle sugar on them. And those where his sandwiches for his lunch. Very appetizing, isn’t it? They had calories, no question about it. Plenty of calories from the starch and the sugar and the fat. But can you see how a person on a diet of that kind would have a hidden hunger? In some cases that hidden hunger is manifested in a loss of appetite. But in other cases, it is manifest in a ravenous appetite that people eat and eat and eat.”
“Do you know why the children, many times, are so anxious to get sweet things – soda pop, candy, cake, cookies, and all that? They are not getting enough fruits. Fruits are God’s sweets. But when you eat a date, along with the sugar, you get some minerals and vitamins. When you eat an apple, banana, grape, orange – I better stop or somebody will get hungry. But do you see what I mean? Do you see the difference between a natural diet and an unnatural diet?”
“There are some precious lessons that can be learned, if the Holy Spirit can speak to our hearts, of these intimate things – some precious lessons can be learned in this matter of the marriage relation. One of the greatest reasons that men and women, and particularly men, seem to crave excessive indulgence in the matter of the physical relation in marriage, is that neither husband nor wife know all that could be known, or experience all that could be experienced in deep, true, pure, unselfish love in these matters.”
Now, look at Adventist Home, page 123:
It is not pure love which actuates a man to make his wife an instrument to minister to his lust. It is the animal passions which clamor for indulgence. How few men show their love in the manner specified by the apostle. – Adventist Home, pg. 123
“So I do not have to depend upon human experience of what people say or what they write in books. God has revealed from Heaven in these inspired writings, that few men show their love in these matters in a pure, chaste, holy way. That does not mean it cannot be done. Oh, no, it can be. I read on”:
Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might [not pollute it, but] sanctify and cleanse it; . . . that it should be holy and without blemish.’ This is the quality of love in the marriage relation which God recognizes as holy. – Adventist Home, pg. 123
“Now, just to be real honest and face life as it is, there are multitudes of men who haven’t the slightest conception of any relationship between the physical act in the marriage union, and heavenly things. Those are in two separate worlds, entirely. I trust that in this class the lessons we have already had with the lesson we are having [now] will be sufficient to at least introduce us to this fact: God intends that every physical union shall be a heavenly experience. God intends that every time husband and wife are joined in union, body with body, that this shall also be a union of mind with mind, heart with heart, soul with soul, spirit with spirit in which the heavenly angels are welcome visitors and sanctified guides.”
“Look at Adventist Home, page 94 again. We had this in an earlier lesson, but in a different setting. This is beautiful, friends. And, oh, I hope every couple… more and more, are sensing the presence of the angels of God in the most holy place of your home. I hope this is something you appreciate and thank God for, and welcome.”
Religion is needed in the home. Only this can prevent the grievous wrongs which so often embitter married life. Only where Christ reigns can there be deep, true, unselfish love. Then soul will be knit with soul, and the two lives will blend in harmony. Angels of God will be guests in the home, and their holy vigils will hallow the marriage chamber. Debasing sensuality will be banished. Upward to God will the thoughts be directed; to Him will the heart’s devotion ascend. – Adventist Home, pg. 94
“You know, dear friends, I cannot prescribe any ritual for you, and I wouldn’t if I could. But I will tell you this, there is many a couple that if they really want to enter into these sweet, holy, heavenly experiences in the married life, they will need to pray earnestly and often, together, about these things.”
“It ought to be a sweet experience for the husband and wife, hand in hand and heart to heart, to kneel down together when they are alone. The children have gone to bed or they are in their rooms. There are husband and wife together. Everybody else is shut out, and rightly so. But, thank God, holy angels are shut in, that is if we want them. There husband and wife kneel down together, the husband leading in earnest prayer that God will teach him and his companion, together, the science of love, the art of love.”
“Love, my dear friends, is not selfishness. Dear husband, if in order to enter into this union, there must be force on your part – pressure whether it is physical or mental or emotional – then you don’t know the mystery and you never will. Love cannot be forced. Love cannot be bought. It can’t even be persuaded. Only by love is love awakened.”
“Will you go to Ephesians 5:25? This reference that we read in Adventist Home directs us to Ephesians 5 for guidance in this matter of the physical union in marriage. And I want you to see something here.”
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. – Ephesians 5:25
“How are you, dear husband, to love your wife? As Christ loved the church. Every approach, then (Don’t miss this!) whether it be by word, or look, or act, is to be as Christ would do – sweet, pure, holy, unselfish.”
“Now, turn over to Revelation 3:20, and I want you to get the picture of Jesus coming to His church. I want you to notice His method. Every husband will do well to copy the example of the heavenly high Priest, the heavenly Lover.“
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. – Revelation 3:20
“I will tell you this dear friends, the more you enter into the holy and the high in these experiences, leaving behind the earthly and the low; the more you find in the physical union of marriage and all the approaches to it a sweet and holy experience; the more you will understand this verse that we have just read. And the other way around. The better you understand this verse, the better you, as a husband, will be able to lead in these experiences, and the better you, wives, will be able to respond… Will you read the verse once again, with this thought in mind?”
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. – Revelation 3:20
“Where is Jesus? At the door. What is He doing? Knocking. What does He want? Why doesn’t He come in? Do you see, friends? Somebody must do what? Open the door. Many of you have probably heard the experience of the man who painted that wonderful painting of Jesus knocking at the door. When he had it finished, he brought his friends in to look at it. As they gazed at it, one man finally ventured the question, “Haven’t you forgotten something?” “What is it?” “The latch.” “Ah,” but the artist said, “The latch is on the inside.”
“Dear husband, the latch is on the inside of your wife’s heart. And until you have won her heart, do not attempt to invade her body. No. You will never know the mystery on that basis – never, never in all this world. And this applies not only at the beginning of marriage, but through all the days thereafter.”
“Every union is to be a fresh experience on the part of the husband, in revealing the seeking love of Jesus, and on the part of the wife, the response that the church makes when she senses the love of Jesus. This is the picture. This is the high and holy pattern.”
“And back to what I said a few moments ago, if there were more experiences like this, there would not be so much excess in the physical relations. It is because people are eating a lot of soda biscuits with lard and sugar sprinkled on them in these things, that is why they eat and eat and eat and are never satisfied. Do you see, friends? Do you see?”
“You see, when we look upon this as a holy experience, we shall not go to the extreme of saying it should not be entered into. No, no, nothing like that. Neither will we go to the extreme of thinking that it is something that has to be repeated so frequently that as we read here in Adventist Home, it actually drains the body and the brain of vital energy.”
“As you read this chapter, (and I hope you all read it) [Adventist Home, “Marital Duties And Privileges”] you will see that there are many physical, mental, and spiritual conditions that come from excessive indulgence. But the thing I am interested in is not spending a lot of time on that. The thing that thrills my soul and fills my spirit with great anticipation is when I see the potential in helping married couples to get the heavenly experience in these matters.”
“Let us go back to our sanctuary. Where did Nadab and Abihu get that fire? Where didn’t they get it? They didn’t get it from the altar in the sanctuary. They just picked up some fire somewhere, and put it in the censer. They died. Dear married couples, if you want the real heavenly experience be sure that the incense of love and the fire of love come from Jesus Himself.”
“Now, I will tell you what this is going to mean. It is going to mean that some husbands… are going to get down and wrestle with God and say, “Lord, give me more love, and a different kind of love than I have ever known before.” And that is all right, friends. And I will tell you this: No matter how far up the ladder you’ve come, there is something better ahead. No matter how far from this earth we have come, there are still some things of the earth that linger with us, that cling to us. Is it not so? In fact, I will tell you this: no husband can be a perfect representation of Christ in these matters until he is perfect.”
“If you know anyone who has reached that, I don’t. But Paul said, “I am not perfect, but I follow after.” It is one thing to acknowledge that we are not perfect, but, oh, it is a shame to just settle down in that and say, “Oh, well, nobody is perfect. My companion will have to take me as I am.” Oh, no, friends. Thank God through beholding we become what? Changed into what? The same image.”
“The greatest lesson in this, that I would like to impress your heart with, is that love, true love, and selfishness are as far apart as heaven and hell. Whatever savors of selfishness in the marriage relation, whether it be in the physical union, or deciding what color to paint the house or to get the car, or to decide what to have for breakfast, or any one of a thousand things, does not lead into the happy, sweet experiences that we are studying.”
“I want to read something interesting that Sister White wrote to one of her sons soon after his marriage. Sister White had four children, you remember. Two of them died before adult life. The other two grew up. This was written to James Edson, the older of those two. You will find it in the book In Heavenly Places“:
My son, guard yourself, and in no case manifest the least disposition savoring of a dictatorial, overbearing spirit. Ever speak kindly. Do not throw into the tones of your voice that which will be taken as irritability. Let only love, gentleness, and mildness be expressed in your countenance and in your voice. Emma will be all to you that you can desire if you are watchful and give her no occasion to feel distressed and troubled, and to doubt the genuineness of your love. Yield to each other. Edson, yield your judgment sometimes. You must be yielding, forbearing, kind, tender-hearted, pitiful, ever keeping fresh the little courtesies of life. – In Heavenly Places, pg. 204
“Somebody is saying, “But Brother Frazee, I thought you read some very clear statements in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy that the husband is the head of the house?” Precisely. But as we read there in 1 Peter, he is made the leader in order to give what? Honor. To whom? The wife.”
“So, dear husbands, I entreat you in the secret place of prayer, examine your hearts, and ask God to pull up every weed of selfishness. And if that doesn’t leave much in the garden of your heart, all right. Ask God to plow it up and plant some plants of love. They will grow. Especially if you will do faithful work in pulling up the weeds of selfishness.”
“But now a word to the wives. Dear wives, in these verses which we have read from the Bible, you are to be to your husband as the church is to whom? To Christ. And I will tell you this, if you wait until your husband is perfectly like Jesus, before you make any effort to show the love that the church has toward Christ, you will probably wait too long. It won’t happen.”
“Interestingly enough, just as God has allowed parents to have children before they are ready for them – do you know what I mean? Do any of you as you deal with your children, wish that you had known more about it before you had them? And yet God lets you have them. He lets you learn while you are going through the experience, right? – This is the same way it is in the marriage relation. So, dear wives, do not stand back and say (you wouldn’t say this in words at all, but in attitude or action), “Very well, husband. When you get to be like we studied about in the class, then I will know how to act my part, but until then I will have to pray for you, and hope you will learn something, sometime.” No, no. Don’t forget that wonderful statement, that we have read here”:
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
“And dear wives, you can be a wonderful influence to your husband. In this chapter on marital duties, beginning on page 121, I want you to notice how so much is said about the influence that the wife may have with her husband. Notice this, particularly on page 127: four times on that one page it uses the word influence – the mighty influence for good which the wife can have to elevate the husband, power of influence to high and noble things, a sanctifying influence. Study these pages.”
“But husband and wife, after the class is all over, and when you are all alone with each other and with God, the real key to this is what I gave you at the end of the first lesson. Do you remember that laboratory work? Matthew 18:19. If two of you are to agree on earth as touching something you what? Ask.”
“Would this be something [*what we studied in this lesson] that would be worth agreeing together to ask God for, with all your heart – that your home may be a heaven, that every experience of union may be a sacred experience, that you may welcome the presence of the angels of God, and that every experience may make you know more what the love of Christ for His church is, and what the love of the church for Christ is?”
“Heavenly Father, coming up into the mount as Moses did on Sinai, we have seen a glorious vision, we have seen a wonderful pattern – even the heavenly. Can it be that here on earth our homes are to be symbols of Heaven, a little sanctuary in which the holy Shekinah is manifest? Can it be that here on earth we are to have a foretaste of the union and peace and joy and unselfish love of Heaven?”
“Grant that each married couple, shall know in their innermost experiences, the great joy of putting aside every bit of selfishness, on the part of the husband and on the part of the wife. May there be a heavenly love, a holy love which shall lift us above the sordid and the selfish, and fill us with a great desire, first of all to make Thee happy, and then to make our companions happy. And thus may we know Heaven’s way on earth. And thus may we be able to bring to our children the fruit of union, a united attitude of love and respect which will cause them to thank God for their parents. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
-Continue on to the next study-
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* This study has been adapted from classes taken by Elder W.D. Frazee.