The title of this book says what we MUST pay attention to if we’re really serious about honoring God and our marital partner in how we conduct ourselves in our everyday world. You must LOVE YOUR MARRIAGE ENOUGH TO PROTECT IT. Like never before, the covenant of marriage is under full-blown, yet secretive attack. As author, Jerry Jenkins says, “One of the major causes of marital breakups in the Christian community is the lack of protective hedges that spouses should plant around their marriages, their heads, their hearts, their eyes, and their hands.”

The Bible tells us to “Be alert” because the enemy of our faith wants to destroy us—which would especially involve destroying our “Christian” marriage! He knows that marriage is viewed by God as a living picture of Christ’s love for the church (as the Bible talks about all throughout it) and for that reason alone, he seeks to undermine and destroy this message of the love of Christ that God wants our world to embrace. As the Bible says, our “enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:7).

We need to wake up to the subtle attacks aimed to destroy the testimony of Christ and our marriages and work to protect that which is dear to God and should always remain near and dear to our own hearts—our marriage.

We can’t be cautious enough because of what’s at stake! You’ll rarely meet a person who, having been caught up in an affair says, “Yes, I was looking for someone to help me destroy my commitment to my spouse.” But you do hear repeatedly, “We never meant for it to happen; it just did.” That needs to be a warning for us ALL to build up hedges BEFORE anything has even a CHANCE of “happening.”

With that said, we’d like to share with you excerpts from the book by Jerry Jenkins, Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It. Please pay close attention to what he has to say (and then pick up the book to fill in the details not explained here):

NO ONE THINKS HE NEEDS HEDGES UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE. Sexual immorality hits frighteningly close to home. Without being aware of the need to protect ourselves against it, we are vulnerable.

Not long ago I reminisced with several old friends. What a shocking disappointment to discover that every one of us knew personally of at least one painful marriage failure due to infidelity. Even more appalling, nearly all of us could point to incidents among our close relatives. Can anyone still doubt that the sexual revolution has brought about an epidemic of divorce?

Try an informal survey of your own. Ask friends and relatives if they know people who have fallen to sexual temptation. And if the people involved were vulnerable, who else might be? Who will be the next one about whom you say, “I never would have dreamed he would do such a thing?” You know these people, and you have to wonder what made them fall. What made them vulnerable?

Just as it’s the “little foxes who spoil the vine”, (see Song of Songs 2:15) so the seemingly small indiscretions add up to major traps. John and Sue [a couple discussed in the book] allowed themselves to admire, like, respect, and enjoy each other without giving a second thought to the progression of feelings, the danger of developing emotional feelings, and the lure of infatuation. Their feelings and emotions sneaked up on them when they least expected it, and then it was too late.

There’s a new openness to interaction between the sexes in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in counseling—even in the church. Christians touch more, speak more intimately, and are closer to one another. There are advantages to this but also grave dangers.

One potential danger: It’s not uncommon in the workplace to meet someone with whom there seems an immediate bonding. You like them, they like you; you hit it off.

You can be married 10 years and still develop a crush on someone. You think about them, find yourself talking about them, quoting them (even to your spouse), and generally becoming enamored with them. This is the time to deal with the problem, because it can become a serious dilemma. This is the time to remind yourself that this is nothing more than an adult version of adolescent puppy love, and it will pass. It really will. The person is off limits, and you should run from the situation as from a contagious disease.

You may still see the person in the work setting, and you may still enjoy proper interaction with them. But ground rules need to be set. Never tell the person you are attracted to them. Talk about your spouse frequently in front of them. Tell your spouse about the person, but use your own judgment as to how fully to explain your dilemma.

When you first become aware of the impact the other person has on you, that is the time to move into action. Don’t treat your new friend the way you treat an old, respected friend. Refrain from touching them, being alone with them, flirting with them (even in jest), or saying anything to them you wouldn’t say if your spouse were there.

So, what could John and Sue have done [to stop the affair from starting in the first place]? Had either realized they were becoming enamored with each other, they could have shifted gears, gone into a protective mode, and saved themselves from ruining many lives.

If hedges are constructed early enough, preferably well in advance of even meeting someone else, they can be painless and can nip marriage-threatening relationships before they get started. That’s the reason we so desperately need practical suggestions on ways to build impenetrable hedges around our marriages.

Call it what you will, but a man with as perfect a wife as he could ever want is still capable of lust, and of a senseless seeking of that which would destroy him and his family. If he doesn’t fear his own potential and build a hedge around himself and his marriage, he could naively head for disaster.

Shall we all run scared? Yes! Fear is essential. “There are several good protections against temptation,” Mark Twain said, “but the surest is cowardice.”

Look around. Let your guard down, don’t remind yourself that you made a vow before God and men, don’t set up barriers for your eyes, your mind, your hands, your emotions, and see how quickly you become a statistic.

A man may say, “It could never happen to me. I love my wife. We know each other inside out by now. We’ve left the emotional infatuation stage that ruled our courtship and honeymoon, and we love God’s way: unconditionally and by the act of our wills. We each know the other is not perfect and we accept and love each other anyway. We’re invulnerable to attack, especially by lust that leads to immorality.”

But when—because he has not planted hedges to protect himself—he falls, his tune changes. Then his excuse is that he fell out of love, the old magic was no longer there, the wife was too busy with the house and kids, his needs were not fulfilled at home.

Worse, the Christian deserter becomes so infatuated with his new love that he often gives God the credit. Know a counseling pastor or a Christian psychologist? Ask him how many times he’s heard a man say, “This new relationship is so beautiful, God has to be behind it.” Never mind that it goes against all sense and every tenet of Scripture, not to mention everything the man has ever believed in and stood for.

A complex litany of events takes place between the vows and the adultery, and it behooves those of us who want to remain pure to examine those events, expose them for what they are, and either avoid letting them happen or avoid letting Satan use them to trick us into justifying our sin.

Once we’ve identified them, what will we do about them? Will we pray over them? Resolve to conquer them? Turn over new leaves? Ironically, the answer is easier than that. We are not to win, not to gain the victory, not to succeed by the sheer force of our wills, our consciences, or our determination. “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). We are to run. To flee. To get out. To get away.

So what is the solution when temptation rages? If we’re weak and haven’t taken precautions, if we haven’t applied preventive medicine, we have already failed. The only answer is to plan, to anticipate danger, to plot the way of escape. The time to build hedges is before the enemy attacks.

So, let’s start planting some practical hedges. Here are pragmatic ways to guard ourselves against our weaknesses. We can plant hedges only after we have determined where they must grow.

[Below is a list of hedges with a few points Jerry Jenkins uses to protect his own marriage. This is just an outline—you’ll need to read the book for the reasoning’s and details behind each one.]

Two’s Company; Three’s Security: HEDGE #1—Whenever I need to meet or dine or travel with an unrelated woman, I make it a threesome. Should an unavoidable last-minute complication make this impossible, my wife hears it from me first.

• “Unless I am alone with a woman [and that can include within your thoughts], I will not engage in immorality.”

• “Logic says that if I am following the biblical injunction to abstain from even the appearance of evil, I will also abstain from the evil itself. My philosophy is, if you take care of how things look, you take care of how they are.”

• “Where I work we have a tiny window in every office door. Were it not for those little windows, I would feel obligated to invite my secretary to every brief meeting I might have with a woman, or to keep my door open. I want the reputations of the woman, my employer, my wife, or my Lord—not to mention myself—even to be questioned”.

•”I included dining alone with my meeting and traveling prohibitions. I don’t know why, but there is something very personal and even intimate about eating with someone. If that weren’t true, why are so many dates centered on food?”

Touchy, Touchy: HEDGE #2—I am careful about touching. While I might shake hands or squeeze an arm or a shoulder in greeting, I embrace only dear friends or relatives, and only in front of others.

• “If I embrace only dear friends or relatives and only in the presence of others, I am not even tempted to make the embrace longer or more impassioned than is appropriate. I like hugging women. It’s fun, and it can be friendly. But if I allowed myself to embrace just anyone, even dear friends, in private, I would be less confident of my motives and my subsequent actions.”

Some Compliments Don’t Pay: HEDGE #3—If I pay a compliment, it is on clothes or hairstyle, not on the person herself. Commenting on a pretty outfit is much different, in my opinion, than telling a woman that she herself looks pretty.

• “As a hedge, I stop short of the purely personal compliment, because you can never be sure of the reaction. Some women would be offended at such familiarity, and men who talk to women that way tend to get reputations for it.”

•”There can be hidden unseen factors that men need to take into consideration when talking to women. We may innocently think it’ll make a woman’s day if we pay her a compliment that borders on the personal. But how do we know that perhaps the pleasure and romance and even the sex and ego strokes haven’t long since evaporated from her marriage? How do we know that she hasn’t been longing for just this sort of attention from her husband? How do we know she hasn’t given up on ever getting any more strokes from him, and that this very personal approach from us may reach deep needs of which she is hardly aware?” [And the same can be the reverse for the husband.]

Looking Down the Barrel of a Loaded Gun: HEDGE #4—I avoid flirtation or suggestive conversation, even in jest.

• “My dad, a police chief, firearms expert, and marksman, once told me that prayer is like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. ‘You’re likely to get what you’re asking for.’ I put flirtation and suggestive conversation in the same category as a loaded gun. Maybe that’s because I believe in the power of words, written and spoken.”

• “Idle flirting gets people in trouble because the other person may need and want attention so badly.”

• “I’ve made it a practice—and can probably list this among my hedges—of not making my wife the butt of jokes. There are enough things to make fun of and enough funny topics without going for easy laughs at the expense of your spouse.”

Memories: HEDGE #5—I remind my wife often—in writing and orally—that I remember my wedding vows: “Keeping you only unto me for as long as we both shall live.” Dianna is not the jealous type, nor has she ever demanded such assurances from me. She does, however, appreciate my rules and my observance of them.

• “The sad fact is that there’s simply not enough emphasis on wedding vows anymore. We need to face it: this is one of the most significant problems in modern marriage”.

• “As we’ve seen countless marriages break up during our many years together, Dianna and I have talked seriously about this issue. Divorce is not in our vocabulary.”

• “Plant hedges wide and deep and tall against any weakness you may have. Remind yourself what price you’d have to pay for a brief season of carnal fun. We who have remained true to our spouses need to do something to ensure that we remain that way. That means working on our weaknesses, shoring up our strengths, pouring our lives into each other, and planting hedges. We must avoid the mess of adultery and divorce and the besmirching of the reputation of Christ. The time is long past for us to worry about people snickering at us for being prudish or Victorian or puritanical. Treat this blight on marriage as the epidemic that it is. Flee. Plant a hedge. Do something. Anything. Don’t become a sad statistic.”

Quality Time vs. Quantity Time: HEDGE #6—From the time I get home from work until the children go to bed, I do no writing or office work. This gives me lots of time with the family and for my wife and me to continue to court and date.

• “The only way to ensure a future with stable marriages and home lives is to begin strengthening our families now. Give kids a model of love and caring and interdependence. Show them what it means to make and keep a commitment, to set your course on a lifetime of love with no wavering, no excuses and no me-first philosophies.”

• “Make a decision. Set a course. Carve out the time it takes to devote to your wife and children, and plant a hedge that will protect you and her and them from the devastation of a broken home.”

SOMETHING WONDERFUL HAPPENS IN A RELATIONSHIP WHEN HEDGES BEGIN TO GROW. It’s crucial to understand that the hedges I’ve discussed have been my own, tailor-made for an over-sexed, gregarious, fun-loving, busy person who might otherwise follow his lusts, say things he shouldn’t, flirt, forget the most important person in his life, and not spend as much time with his family as he should.

Your weaknesses may be different. Some of them would make me laugh or think you’re a nut, as some of mine may have done to you. THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO KNOW YOURSELF, UNDERSTAND THE DANGERS IN YOUR WEAK AREAS, AND DO SOMETHING PRACTICAL AND CONCRETE ABOUT THEM.

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We hope you’ll obtain a copy of the book, “Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It” by Jerry Jenkins, published by Moody Press www.moodypublishers.com. There’s so much that needs to be said on this subject that Jerry says very well. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of taking this subject seriously. This newer edition (previously published under the title of “Hedges”) also comes complete with a Study Guide which will make the lessons personal. They’re designed for your own reflection or to talk them over with your spouse to help you to work through the different areas of your life that will need protective hedges put into place. We HIGHLY recommend this book to every married couple! 

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In addition to reading the above article (and obtaining the above named book) to help protect your marriage we have a link to a magazine article that we recommend you read. It’s titled, “8 Safeguards Against Getting Too Close” written by Jill Savage, which is featured in the Summer 2006 edition of the Marriage Partnership Magazine www.marriagepartnership.com.  

To read this GREAT article:

PLEASE CLICK HERE

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