Cultivating Romance in Marriage | Part 1

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Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

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It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

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Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

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And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

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A lot of times we can get tiring.

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A marriage can get tiring sometimes.

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In fact, sometimes I tell people that marriage starts out for many as an ideal.

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For some it turns into an ordeal.

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Then, unfortunately, many look for a new deal.

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But I think that one of the things that's lacking in a lot of marriage relationships as we travel across the country and we do marriage conferences and deal with families all the time.

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And I think one of the great things that's really lacking is this thing romance.

Debbie Wood: 00:00:54

Marriage without romance.

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Now that's like salad without salad dressing, okay?

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It's like pancakes without syrup.

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And if you've got marriage without romance, you're performing out of duty instead of living out of delight.

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And you really might ask, you say, can a marriage survive without it?

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Well, I think a lot of marriages are surviving without it, unfortunately.

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But certainly God doesn't want us to survive in marriage.

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He wants us to enjoy our marriage relationships.

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And Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 9, 9, to live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of our life.

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That is, marriage should be a joyful relationship.

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Marriage should be a continual celebration.

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In fact, I share all the time.

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I think one of the greatest testimonies we can have to a lost world around us today is for them to see a husband and wife who are a picture of Jesus Christ and his bride, the church, enjoying each other in the marriage relationship because Jesus is the center of that marriage relationship.

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I like what Dr.

Sam Wood: 00:01:54

James Althea says about romance and marriage.

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He says this, and I quote.

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He said, one essential ingredient of a good marriage is romance.

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No, not adolescent infatuation, but the steady delight and genuine sparkle of two people who enjoy and nurture each other.

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Romance is not all of married love, but it is its indispensable emotional component.

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Without romance, not as a constant state of arousal, but as a general feeling of comfort, pleasure and delight, a marriage is destined to be listless, dry and dreary, no matter how strong the commitment may be.

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Without the emotional connection we call romance, a marriage lacks a zest and excitement that leads to satisfaction.

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Most couples, if all is well, experience this connection in a host of unsung and uneventful ways, as well as moments of intense passion, ways of tenderness and candles, soft music now listen to his last statement, and I hardly agree with this last statement.

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He says, a marriage without such a connection is a divorce that's waiting to happen.

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And I believe, unfortunately, in America today, that many marriages do lack this connection.

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They dry up, they're very listless, and they lack this connection called romance.

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And many of them do end up certainly in divorce.

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Dr.

Sam Wood: 00:03:06

James Dobson did a survey several years ago.

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He asked over 10,000American wives in churches all across America of their sources of depression.

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And the top four answers given by these wives was absence of romance in their relationship with their husband.

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I've had many people come up to me after I've done a message like this and say, well, preacher, is romance a romantic love?

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Is it really part of the character of God?

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Does the Bible really speak to this?

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And I'm going to show you tonight that it does.

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And I think we need to understand that certainly romance is part of the character of God.

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God is continually wooing his bride to himself.

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Jesus is wooing us to himself every day to be in a more intimate relationship, certainly with him.

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Romantic love is so important to God that he spends and takes time to write a little book in the Bible called the Song of Solomon, where he spends a lot of time in this little book talking about romantic love and marriage.

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And he talks about, in this book about relationship before marriage, the courtship, the day of the marriage, the night of the marriage, the days after the marriage.

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It really gives us a complete picture of the marriage relationship.

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And I want you to turn your Bible with me, if you would, to the Song of Solomon, if you would tonight.

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And this is not a book in the Bible that many people turn to very, very often.

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But I want to share with you some practical things that God has to say to us out of this little book called the Song of Solomon.

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Now, of course, Solomon wrote this.

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It's a love song.

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In fact, Solomon wrote over a thousand songs.

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And the Bible says in verse one, song of Solomon, of chapter one, that this is a song of all songs.

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This is the most beautiful love song the Bible says that's been written.

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And Solomon here is writing a love song about his relationship with his Shulamite bride.

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And it's a beautiful, beautiful picture of this relationship.

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Now it's 15 reflections, just to give you a brief overview of the Song of Solomon.

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Fifteen reflections in this song of their relationship.

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And they're not in chronological order.

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They kind of flashback sometimes, and they go back and forth.

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So sometimes it's very hard to understand if you really don't study this book really in depth.

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But before we go into this, I want to just share this with you that we need to understand that men and women.

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Now listen to me.

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Men and women look at romance very, very differently, ok?

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A man looks at romance more from his head than.

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And a woman looks at romance more from her.

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What?

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More from her heart.

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A man wants to put romance in a formula.

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Okay?

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Now, I can relate to this.

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I've got a degree in mechanical engineering.

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I love math, and I'm used to formulas.

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And I would love to be able to put romance in a formula.

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A plus B plus C equals a romantic relationship.

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That's the way men think.

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We're very logical in our thinking.

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But your wife does not want to be put in a formula.

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And ladies, if you want to say amen tonight, that won't bother me either.

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She doesn't want to be put in a formula.

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She wants romance to be exciting.

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She wants to be very mysterical, mysterious.

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Excuse me.

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And she wants it to also be, you know, very, very captivating and exciting to her.

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So we need to understand that women don't want to be figured out.

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They don't want to be put in a formula.

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They want to be intriguing, and they don't want to feel manipulated, and they don't want to feel controlled.

Debbie Wood: 00:06:18

Now, there's all kinds of jokes about how a man can never figure out a woman.

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But we are here to help you tonight.

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And we've got this little book with us.

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It's called For Men Only.

Debbie Wood: 00:06:29

And they did a survey of all these ladies about what they wished guys understood about them and their needs as far as romance.

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So, guys, this will help you to understand what makes a woman tick.

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Now, we were in one church not too long ago.

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The preacher took a look at this book.

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He said, no way.

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That thing ain't big enough to figure out what makes a woman tick.

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But it will help you a whole lot.

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And I'll tell you, the Bible does say it tells men in 1st Peter 3 that they're to study their wives, that they're to dwell with their wives according to knowledge, meaning they're supposed to study them.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:03

They're supposed to understand them.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:05

So books like this are helping you to fulfill the will of God in your life, helping you to understand your wife.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:12

Now, we don't want to leave the ladies out.

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And there's also a book for women only.

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And this book, they interviewed all these different guys on issues that they wish that women understood about the way that a man thinks.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:26

The way we found out about these books when our son was engaged and his fiance came to him and she found that book for women only, and she brought it to him and she said it was real hot on.

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On college campuses.

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She said, I want you to read this book.

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She didn't want to read it.

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She wanted him to read for women only.

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She said, I want you to tell me if the stuff in it is true, because I'm not going to waste my time read it if it's not.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:52

And he verified that it was.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:54

He read the book and verified that it is.

Debbie Wood: 00:07:56

And so we'll tell you it's very biblically based and it lets you know how men and women tick.

Sam Wood: 00:08:02

The Bible says that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived.

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Is that right?

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And he was the wisest man.

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Now, he had.

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He had over 700 wives, which makes me wonder about that.

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But he was the wisest man that ever lived.

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I believe Solomon is the most romantic dude you could ever find.

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I mean, he is a romantic guy.

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And you will find that as we look at this tonight.

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Now, I want you to look with me and I am going to share with you some very practical ways to cultivate romance in marriage.

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Now look with me at verse two in Song of Solomon, chapter one.

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This is a Shulamite bride, and she is thinking about Solomon.

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It is on their wedding day.

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They are not yet married, but she is thinking about him.

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And as she thinks about him, she says this.

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She says, let him kiss me.

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Kisses of his mouth.

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Then she says, for thy love is better than wine.

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And that word wine means a continual feast.

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Now what she's saying, when she thinks about Solomon, she's going to get married to him a little later in the day.

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And she's thinking, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is going to be better than a continual feast.

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Now, guys, I want to ask you, how long has it been since your wife came up to you and said, hey, baby, kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your love is better than a continual feast?

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Well, if your wife hadn't told you that very often, then listen tonight and maybe this will help you understand why she hasn't.

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Now, she was really drawn to him.

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I think we can see in verse two.

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She was very, very drawn to him.

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And the question we might ask is, why was she so drawn?

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Why did she say, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than a continual feast.

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Why would she say that?

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Now, as we look at this, we want to Share with you.

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And Debbie's going to share with you the first reason.

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If you look at verse three, it tells you why she was so drawn to him.

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It says, because of the savor of thy good ointments.

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And what that is saying is because you smell so good.

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We're going to be real practical tonight.

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The reason she was so drawn to him is he smelled so good.

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Now you all think about it.

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Have you ever had a baby?

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Just give a baby a bath?

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You know, he got that baby powder all over it.

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What does everybody do?

Debbie Wood: 00:10:10

They pick that baby up, they take a big whiff and then they kiss them all over the top of their head.

Debbie Wood: 00:10:16

And you know, and when Sam, when he takes a shower and he gets out and he's got this smell of shampoo and all that, I just want to be like that baby.

Debbie Wood: 00:10:24

Just kiss him all over the top of his head.

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And that's what they're saying.

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They were attracted to each other because they smell good.

Debbie Wood: 00:10:30

Now this is real practical.

Debbie Wood: 00:10:32

It says sometimes we need help on this.

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Now I have heard it said that Matthew McConaughey, how you say it.

Debbie Wood: 00:10:41

Anyway, he says that he doesn't have to wear deodorant, but the women still love him.

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But I want to tell you guys, that's probably not the case with you all.

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And it's really important.

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If you're going to go out and you're going to mow the yard and you're going to play basketball or you're going to do whatever you do all day long, work hard, it's important that when you come home that you smell good so that your wife will have a desire to want to be intimate with you.

Debbie Wood: 00:11:09

We did a marriage conference at this church and this woman called us up and she goes, look, I'm struggling here.

Debbie Wood: 00:11:15

She said, because when I'm around my husband, he.

Debbie Wood: 00:11:19

He has cigarette breath and that makes me sick.

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And she says, I look at his fingernails in there.

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They got all this dirt and grime under them.

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And she says it repulses me.

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So things like this are really important for romance, that you smell.

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So the first thing you need to do, guys, is what?

Sam Wood: 00:11:36

Smell good.

Sam Wood: 00:11:37

Take a bath.

Sam Wood: 00:11:37

Smell good.

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Ok?

Sam Wood: 00:11:39

And you guys have got a lot of hair up here.

Sam Wood: 00:11:41

You don't know what you are missing.

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If you didn't have all that hair, you could get good kisses on your bald head.

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So you don't know what you are missing.

Sam Wood: 00:11:46

Alright, look at the second thing here.

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And again I am just.

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This is not just going to be what we Are saying, I am telling you what the Bible says here.

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And God is very practical.

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And I think God.

Sam Wood: 00:11:53

He is.

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Look with me at verse three.

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The second thing she says, because of the savor of thy good ointments.

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Then she says, thy name his ointment poured forth.

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Therefore do the virgins love thee.

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Now, not only is she drawn to him because he is a man who smells good, but she's also drawn to him because he's a man of good character and he's a man of integrity.

Sam Wood: 00:12:16

I think that is so vital to understand.

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Listen, guys, your wife will be drawn to you if you're a man of integrity or you're a man of character.

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She'll be repulsed by you romantically if you're not.

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I remember when I was in engineering and I worked with a nuclear power plant.

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And one of my jobs was to check the integrity of the steam system in these nuclear power plants.

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And these huge pipes were under intense pressure.

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And what that meant, checking the integrity of the system was to make sure that none of these pipes had any.

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What?

Sam Wood: 00:12:48

They didn't have any cracks, didn't have any leaks in them anywhere.

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Okay?

Sam Wood: 00:12:51

They weren't leaking anywhere.

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And really that's what it's saying.

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It's saying that we are men of integrity where.

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That we don't have any leaks anywhere in us.

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There's no leaks in our integrity.

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I read a letter that a man wrote to the IRS a while back, and I thought it was right cute.

Sam Wood: 00:13:07

Let me share it with you.

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He said, I haven't been able to sleep because last year and filling out my income tax returns, I deliberately misrepresented my income and closed as a check for $150.

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If I still can't sleep, he said, I'll send you the rest.

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Well, he was patching the leak, but he wasn't getting the leak fixed.

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He was just going part of the way.

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One writer said it this way.

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He said, when wealth is lost, nothing is lost.

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When health is lost, something is lost.

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But when.

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Listen.

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When character is lost, everything is lost.

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I like what John Luther has to say about character and integrity.

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He says it this way.

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He says, good character is more to be praised and outstanding talent.

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Most talents are to some extent, a gift.

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Good character, by contrast, is not given to us.

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We have to build it piece by piece, thought by thought, choice by choice, which requires great courage and determination.

Sam Wood: 00:13:59

What I'm trying to say, if.

Sam Wood: 00:14:00

Guys, listen.

Sam Wood: 00:14:00

If 60 Minutes were to show up at your house and they were to do a background check on you, and they would look for dirt in your life, could they dig up some dirt?

Sam Wood: 00:14:08

Could they find something on you?

Sam Wood: 00:14:10

If you were running for President of the United States of America and you were being scrutinized, could they find some dirt, something in your life that would make you look bad?

Sam Wood: 00:14:22

God wants us to understand through this passage that a woman is drawn to a man of character and integrity, but she's repulsed by a man who does not have character and integrity.

Debbie Wood: 00:14:33

It's really, really difficult for a woman to fully give herself to a man that she doesn't respect.

Debbie Wood: 00:14:40

I heard two ladies not too long ago, I was just overheard what they were talking about.

Debbie Wood: 00:14:45

And they were saying how their husbands, it was so irritating them because they embellished facts all the time.

Debbie Wood: 00:14:52

They would tell a story, and every time they told it, the story just got more exciting.

Debbie Wood: 00:14:56

And they just added, spiced it up so much.

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And it made them feel like they couldn't trust their husbands.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:02

They never knew when they were telling the truth or not.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:04

And it was hard for them to have respect for them and to fully give themselves to them.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:09

So something really important, and that's something we also emphasize.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:12

I know there's just one single girl here tonight, or.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:15

But anyway, if you have single girls in your house, you really need to emphasize to them how important it is to fully check out the character of a guy before you get involved in a relationship.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:29

Completely and totally before you get involved.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:32

Because you see, if a guy will cheat on a test, he'll cheat on you.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:38

And if he'll lie to his parents, he'll lie to you.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:40

If he'll lie to the boss, he'll lie to you.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:42

Because it's a character issue.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:44

So really important that single people check out the character of a person before they get involved in a relationship.

Debbie Wood: 00:15:52

Now, what if you're already in a relationship?

Debbie Wood: 00:15:55

Now in the Song of Solomon, the Shulemachbat, if you'll look back over to chapter five, later on, you can go back and look at it.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:02

But in chapter five, she's having this dream.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:05

And in this dream, he is taking advantage of her.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:08

He keeps coming in late at night and just.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:11

She feels like he's just taking her for granted.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:14

And so she's pretty irritated with her.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:16

But what I like is later on in the book, later in chapter five, how she deals with this.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:22

So, ladies, if there's areas in your husband's life that maybe you don't respect, you can go by her example.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:30

And what she does is when she realizes this area that she doesn't respect for him, she starts thinking about all of his strong qualities that she does admire.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:42

And she doesn't just think, she names them.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:44

I mean, in very much detail.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:46

She names all of the different things about him that she admires, that she enjoys, that she likes.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:52

And she doesn't just say them out loud to herself, she tells them to her friends.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:56

And she continually builds him up.

Debbie Wood: 00:16:59

And so if there's areas in your husband's life that you're struggling respecting, then what you're to do is Philippians for ate him, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are of good report.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:16

If you can think of anything about your husband that has virtue, if you can think of anything about him that you can praise, concentrate on those things.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:26

Because if you concentrate on the things that are irritating, you will be an irritable person.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:33

Now, a man's number one need is respect.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:36

That's why we're taking time to go over this.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:39

His number one need is respect.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:41

And as wives, as ladies, our purpose in life according to the way that God made us, is we're to be a rock of help corresponding to our husband's needs.

Debbie Wood: 00:17:53

And if their greatest need is respect, then our most important purpose in life, next to worshiping God himself, is to show respect for our husbands.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:04

So it's really important that we nail this down.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:07

No matter what is in their character, that we obey God by showing respect for our husbands.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:14

This is more important than cooking and cleaning or anything else is showing him respect.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:21

Now, we have to be careful, though, because God made us to be a helper.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:26

It says in Genesis, we were made to be a rock of help corresponding to his needs.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:30

And because that's in us, it's part of our makeup.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:33

What we have this tendency to do is try to help him by giving all these suggestions and by continually telling him the best way to do things.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:45

We have to be real cautious because we can take that to the point where we degrade him in public.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:51

And that is absolutely a way to destroy your husband is by degrading him in public.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:56

So I'll warn you against that.

Debbie Wood: 00:18:58

But the other way is by nagging.

Debbie Wood: 00:19:01

And you see, if we're making these suggestions repeatedly and we're always offering suggestions of better ways to do things repeatedly, then what we're doing is we're being a nag.

Debbie Wood: 00:19:14

And the Bible warns continually against a nagging woman.

Sam Wood: 00:19:20

I was just standing here as I was listening to Debbie, thinking, if we were sharing this information on Larry King Live and how many emails we get back, I mean, because we live in a culture, we live in a day and time where society does not agree with what we're sharing here tonight.

Sam Wood: 00:19:33

I mean, to hear someone say that a wife was made to be a help meet to her husband, I mean, that's totally not politically correct today, but certainly it's biblically correct.

Sam Wood: 00:19:44

And let me make a couple comments about this because even as Debbie talked about a young lady needs to look at the character of a young man, certainly a young man also needs to look at the character of a young lady and needs to observe her character.

Sam Wood: 00:19:58

I've had a lot of young guys sometimes say, well, preacher, she's hot.

Sam Wood: 00:20:01

And I'm thinking to myself, and I tell them, I say, so is hell.

Sam Wood: 00:20:04

And I mean, she might be good looking, but I'm going to tell you what, if you go down the wrong road with the wrong woman, you'll be like living hell on this earth.

Sam Wood: 00:20:11

And so it's very, very important you get a young lady, young guy of character and integrity.

Sam Wood: 00:20:18

And certainly a man does need respect.

Sam Wood: 00:20:20

And one of the things that certainly can drive a man wild is to really have a wife who continually nags him, as Debbie was talking about a while ago.

Sam Wood: 00:20:29

And so this really leads us to something else, and that is you got to be careful as a wife that you're not what the Bible calls a contentious or a nagging wife.

Sam Wood: 00:20:37

And the Bible speaks of this in Proverbs chapter 27.

Sam Wood: 00:20:40

In verse 15 and 16, it says a continual dripping on a very rainy day and a contentious or nagging wife are alike.

Sam Wood: 00:20:47

Whoever restrains her, restrains, the Bible says the wind and grasps oil with his right hand.

Sam Wood: 00:20:54

The Bible says, listen, it describes a woman who's nagging her husband like someone who's getting a Chinese water torture.

Sam Wood: 00:21:01

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

Sam Wood: 00:21:06

You know, it's like trying to restrain the wind.

Sam Wood: 00:21:08

The Bible says it's like trying to hold oil in your hand, which you can't do.

Sam Wood: 00:21:13

And so you have to be very careful as a wife that you don't, you don't nag your husband.

Sam Wood: 00:21:18

It won't cultivate romance certainly in the relationship.

Sam Wood: 00:21:22

And ladies don't expect any love poems, don't expect any romantic getaways.

Sam Wood: 00:21:26

If you continually nag your husband, he might get away, but he might leave you at home.

Sam Wood: 00:21:31

So you better be careful that you don't do that.

Sam Wood: 00:21:34

So you need to be a man of character.

Sam Wood: 00:21:35

You need to be a wife who doesn't nag.

Sam Wood: 00:21:38

Her husband, but gives support, gives encouragement to him and shows respect for him.

Debbie Wood: 00:21:44

You have listened to the first part of a two part message by evangelist Sam Wood.

Host: 00:21:50

Thank you for joining the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

Host: 00:21:53

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Host: 00:22:05

Remember, fortifying your family starts with a strong belief in God's Word.