HUMAN SEXUALITY SERIES: “MARRIAGE AS GOD ORDAINED”

Well, tonight we continue our study in human sexuality in light of the many challenges that we're facing today in light of the moral revolution that we are living through and seeing in society. We have opened this study with addressing the sort of overarching theme of identity, which is really at the heart of all that is happening in the culture right now, a struggle with identity and who we are as image bearers of God. We gave great attention to that in sort of the opening section. We then moved on last week to think about who we are as God made us, male and female. Obviously a very important subject for our day. What is a male? What is a female? We gave great attention to that. And we looked at some of the current cultural deviation of trying to implement the new category of gender into this equation. New categories to create new categories of personhood. Separate from the way we were made in our biological sex. We considered that last time. And in light of that, we're facing all of these challenges of people now changing their sex due to trans ideology, transgender ideology, because of this new category of gender that has been introduced and the overarching structure that now our desires are sovereign over our biology. And so we looked at all that, and that was an important subject last time. But tonight we move on to really what is one of the greatest targets in our current moment of the evil one. This is at the heart of it. And you know what that is. It is the design of marriage. What I want to do tonight is very simple. I want to spend some time. We have to go through a little bit of territory on this, on the difficulties and challenges of what marriage has become today and then to think a little bit about what marriage was designed originally to be as God ordained it and the benefits and the blessings of that and then end by considering how important that witness is in our current moment for us as believers in our marriages to fulfill that design that that affords for us a really strong witness in the day that we live but to begin tonight the the general statement that you will find out there is that the first recorded marriage was in 23 bc that's the sort of they say first record that we found out there of a wedding and a marriage is 23 bc and i was reading an author who went on to explain how that was understood in society sense and you can only imagine that it's probably not going to be a very positive view marriage primary purpose this author said was to bind women to men and thus guarantee that a man's children were truly his biological errors through marriage a woman became a man's property in the betrothal ceremony of ancient greece a father would hand over his daughter with these words i pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring well doesn't make marriage sound very exciting does it so what a challenge uh this is how marriage has been sort of viewed throughout history if you read the secular records of marriage throughout history what you have recorded really is not a overarching positive view of course there have been and there's been valued in cultures there's no doubt about that but the the whole institution is viewed as being founded by man that's why a lot of writers today are challenging the institution at its very heart because it's they think a human institution that was a cultural institution that throughout history has proven to create an oppressive design and has been very harmful to women well we we know better than that the first marriage was not 2350 bc you know that's not the first marriage the first marriage was at the dawn of history the first marriage was at the dawn of history um it was pure it was pristine when it was ordained everything about it was good for the flourishing of the human race marriage throughout history as you know of course post fall has always faced all kinds of problems and has always faced attack and i do think i do think women have been greatly mistreated throughout history in the in the marriage because of the fall i think that has been evident throughout history and we need to consider that but what i what i emphasize through this is that throughout the history of marriage this has always been this institution has always been at the heart of satan's attack at the heart of the evil one's attack his goal and all that we are seeing is not just to change marriage his goal is not just Obergefell 2015 just to redefine marriage you have to know the trajectory of where this is going as mayor as we have seen marriage in our times his goal is to utterly destroy the institution and marriage is becoming harder and harder for our young adults i mean they're marrying later and later there's a trajectory here you know and and they're layering later and later and what we're seeing is people aren't marrying at all i think the end game to this is the next wave of deviancy that we will be living on large scale is the abandonment of marriage itself paul warned about that paul said in first timothy chapter four that in the last days they will refuse marriage so so it's not just redefining marriage this has an end goal of the devil it is to abandon marriage it is to say after he has destroyed the sexes and destroyed distinctions this is over this is dinosaur idea this is something we need to move away from and i want to say up front tonight everything that we have experienced in the difficulties and challenges of marriage this is what i'm trying to do in this series is to take us back to the beginning and to think a lot about what it was designed to be how good it was how right it was and the consequences of what we've done we can just ask the question how's it going how's it going and so what we really have to do as we did last time and we began with this subject was go back to the very first wedding at the dawn of history the beautiful wedding that took place at the dawn of history remember when God brought the woman to the man remember she was created from the man she was taken from the man for the man out of his side out of his rib this is why I said last time I love weddings it was a wedding the other night and it's just so beautiful to watch at a wedding the excitement of the groom for his bride at that initial ceremony before it often in society descends into war, right? We love to see the beautiful and sort of, it gives us an imagery of the pristine beauty of marriage and the purity of marriage and the excitement of marriage. This was Adam in the Garden of Eden when he laid his eyes on the woman that God had made and whom God had built for him and said this is boat of my bone this is flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman for she was taken out of adam out of the man and he's ecstatic she's she's beautiful to him she's crafted beautifully by god she's a gift and it fulfilled the very design that god was establishing to complete them and to make them one in harmony and in love he fixated his eyes on his bride and she was radiant he loved her and god right then and there sanctioned ordained throughout history marriage as a lasting creation ordinance between one man and one woman for life therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh what god has joined together let no one separate they left and they cleaved to each other just beautiful imagery god had originally designed it that the two would become one and god wanted them to be together for life in this design what a wonderful design as you know the problems began right away marriage happens in chapter two we're right out of the gates in chapter three that that is when satan comes into the garden and we're going to spend some time on that as we go through this we don't consider what really the goal was but the goal of satan and coming into the garden had at its core his goal was to divide and to conquer and to separate adam and eve by challenging god's word at the heart of it was an attack on marriage right from the beginning marriage faced its first great assault right from the beginning so in some sense we have to say in a real sense we have to say what we're facing is not new it's always been going on it was an attack right from the beginning and when the fall happened you remember what happened And we'll come back to this at another part in this series. But as soon as the fall happened, the first thing that Adam and Eve did was they went out and they tried to sew fig leaves together to cover their shame. And the outward expression of that, the sort of token of that, was that the broken intimacy had now come about, that they were now embarrassed. They were now divided. They were now in shame, and they were trying to cover their own shame themselves. And that was the difficulty. So then came the curses. And at the heart of those curses, you'll remember that one very confusing verse. And he said to the woman, Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you. It's always been a challenging passage to understand. The history of interpretation is fascinating on that passage. Maybe that desire, as has been popularized since the 70s, maybe that desire on the part of the woman is to be a domineering one, to control the man, and the man will always rule over her. Maybe that's one way to look at it, as has been looked at. But maybe it just means that the woman has a longing heart to be loved, to be married, but marriage now after the fall suffers a lot of struggle and because of the fall now there's so much disharmony in this relationship whatever the case that verse illustrates there's major conflict there's major war the curse is that what was lost in marriage had at the heart of it a loss of love and intimacy and trust and that's the struggle with marriage to this day my guess here tonight is and let me call this the wives can confirm this i hate to put the husbands on the spot um but in your own marriage isn't there a deep often struggle and desire for deep emotional connection one in which the husband finds his wife fascinating talks with her engages her but there is real struggle in that intimacy there's real frustrations because of the struggle to maintain that intimacy to maintain that closeness to maintain and have engagement to enjoy true love and fellowship the woman desires it and at time the man is often very disengaged with his wife? Is that not a real struggle? Am I on to anything? And then maybe there's struggles with physical intimacy, frustrations in the area of physical intimacy. We know today, everyone knows marriage is not easy. And that real effort must be made between a man and a woman to nurture that love and to grow that love because the real experience of marriage is the struggle of marriage is to drift apart. To drift apart from each other. And that marriage can simply become a matter of convenience as if it's just a sibling. To take care of one another. To just be living in partners. But love is entirely absent. yes marriage suffers after the fall suffers in the fallen state in which it operates that's the realistic thing i say to count uh couples going into marriage you have to understand what you're up against that's really what this sermon is helping us understand but here's the problem i want to go with tonight here's what i want you to think about tonight satan is not done so you already have this challenge and satan's working overtime on this arena as he always has from the beginning on this institution. This is the good thing that God put in place. And his primary attack is marriage and the family. Have we not seen this proven today in marriage? Marriage is under attack in so many ways. I'll go through a few, but I'm going to get to the positive of this. So don't lose heart. But you know that, well, years ago, it was James Boyce who outlined in his day all the attacks this was in his day in the 90s he was recording these things of what marriage was under the attack and how and what he was facing and what the church was facing at that time in the culture and he outlined a sort of four-pronged attack and now we can see it's much bigger than that number one he said was the rampant hedonism of our day people come into marriage and everything is about feeling good it's the pursuit of pleasure and whatever feels good we're told to do it in the culture and so who anymore who anymore even believes in this crazy idea that sexual intimacy is designed only for marriage who believes that because we're hedonists so out is the discussion on premarital sex it's a dinosaur idea chastity is no more a quality of life what does that do to marriage a lot it destroys the intimacy intended for it it destroys the good design it destroys the attitude and focus of marriage instead of it being a sacrificial relationship built on love and trust it becomes a self-centered model with the single overarching cry of this person is not making me happy. Emotionally maybe or physically. Second, Boyce said, was the widespread acceptance of adultery. We don't even bat an eye at that sin anymore. That's just so far back compared to what we're dealing with now. But adultery has been so mainstreamed. Is it true that half of all marriages end in divorce in this country i don't i have a hard time believing that people say that whatever the case that is one of the great attacks of the evil one voice says is the ease now of divorce itself many of you know a generation ago that was and two generations and three generations ago actually now that i was considered a disgrace and people would have been shamed to divorce maybe not all homes were happy but at least you know people saw children children saw their parents stick with the commitment but now it's the ease of of divorce fourth he says the legalization of abortion on demand is the fourth attack on marriage the beautiful design of marriage and what it is to be is now attacked at a at the heart where we can destroy the children that marriage is intended to bring forth a woman today without the father's involvement can have the child terminated in the womb and essentially the state has given the power of the mother to kill the newest member of the family and as the statistics go I think it's every minute two to three babies are aborted in the U.S. in our time here today there will have been well over 120 babies murdered in this service now since boys 2015 fifth attack our governments have redefined it it's no longer between a man and a woman that is that is out it's codified into law same sex marriage so you see i raise all that so you see not only do we have this struggle the fall and sin but we have we have the overarching agent our enemy attacking with all of these things he's given his efforts to work on marriage in its broken state in our fallen society and the question i think that's important is to say can we see what it's done to society has this any of this been a good thing is anyone if we think logically has any of this been a good thing the reason the society is falling apart beloved is because marriage and family is falling apart that's the heart of what you're living when i was um working through um the beatitudes i've been reading a lot of calvin and i i'm in this i think he's so brilliant on ideas but he he said this in light of the beatitudes this morning that i thought so powerfully applied to this sermon. Listen to this. He says, If we would only heed what nature teaches. Now listen to that. If we would only heed what nature teaches, we would enjoy the happiest state that humans could desire. For God has created all of us in his own image that we only have to look at our neighbor to see ourselves we are one flesh and although appearances and attitudes are very different it is impossible to efface the unity which god has conferred on us if only that were etched in our minds we would live at peace with each other in a kind of earthly paradise. In other words, if we would even just follow what nature teaches of what God has put together and look at the beginning from creation and honor that and follow what is clearly etched in, as Calvin says, our minds, our life under the sun would achieve a kind of earthly paradise. Well, he's right. God has conferred upon us the unity of marriage. And we can't totally efface it. But if we could, consider what God teaches about marriage and the happy state we would enjoy in this life. And that's where I want to move to the good news of the design now and to help us appreciate that. When Jesus would speak of deviations from the law and the design of God, like even divorce, he would come and he would make statements clearly like this. You want to understand God's good design? You've got to go back to the beginning because from the beginning, whatever you've corrupted, it is not so. It is not so. Jesus was very concerned about creation. Jesus was very concerned about what was put in place at the beginning. And that's an important point for us. Most certainly, the best response is the moment to think, how is this working out? How is our tampering with the design and ruining the creative design, as God put it in place, how is that working out? God instituted marriage to be a lifelong monogamous covenantal union between one man and one woman. What then is the design? What is the purpose of marriage? How do we understand marriage? What should we be striving for? What does it look like? What should it be? Why? put down six of them here for you they were adapted from our urcna statement on marriage i want you to think through them with me just for a few minutes first now tell me how beautiful this is a husband and a wife are to live together in sincere love and holiness helping each other faithfully in all things Think of the beauty of the design. Think of how good and right that is. God knows you're lonely. And God put something in place for you. Now again, I'm going to come back to singles, okay? I'm not, I know this can be difficult. I'll come back to that. I'm not speaking to singles yet. But marriage as God ordained it, and marriage as God designed it, it's pictured as something beautiful and completing for us. It is pictured as God, just like in the garden, bringing that woman to the man and him finding his wife a beautiful gift from the Lord of somebody whom the Lord had obtained favor in giving her to him. So they lived in harmony and in love, sincerely depending on each other. This is the design of it, sincerely loving one another, living in harmony and depending on one another and talking with one another and enjoying one another and serving one another and being loyal to one another and being faithful to one another. That's one of the great purposes of marriage, that you be fulfilled. Second, God knows you have physical and relational desires. Not just physical, but also relational. He doesn't suppress that. The lie of the evil one is to say, God wants to constrict you. And God wants to constrict any kind of pleasure. We say, God has given us a great gift. And God has given us an arena to have this fulfilled. He gives us marriage as He made us, male and female, so that these desires might be fulfilled and that we might enjoy one another in marriage being fulfilled in those very desires that He knows we have. That's important. Well, what have we normalized in society? We've ripped it right out of the marriage relationship. To all those thinking about sexual intimacy, outside of marriage, know this. That's not God's will for you. Am I saying that to make life hard or this is some archaic dinosaur theology? I'm saying that because it's not right and there's no blessing on that. Think about this. There are consequences to this. This disrupts your life. This disrupts the design. This has long-lasting consequences in your life. You'll never be fulfilled outside of marriage in that. You're just being used. There's a beauty to this design. God has blessed those physical and relational desires in this design. And so you want to say to those who are young girls and are boys, don't fall prey to what the culture is pushing you to do. Don't fall prey to that. God has something way better for you. Third, by marriage, the human race is to be continued and increased through the institution of the family. And fourth, the structure is provided that enriches society and contributes to it. Now listen to this, orderly function, how's that going today? do we see an orderly function in society? The most healthy societies are those having children. Did you know that? Through the institution of the family. Now that we've redefined marriage, here's something to think about. Children are having gender reassignment. Guess what's happened? Guess what's happened? All in their desires. Has that gone well? Well, for all the sexual madness, and everyone's saying we're now being sexually fulfilled in society, we are told we have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world in the U.S. How's that work? Well, but you're fulfilled. Really? The fertility rate hit a new low in 2020, just as it did in 2019 and 2018. See what we've done to marriage and what's happening here? The average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime is now having is 1.6 children per woman in the U.S. Fertility rates have now fallen below replacement level. Which means the population of the nation is dying. Our nation is dying. You can't make replacements that benefit society this way. You can't sustain society this way. They're all saying this in our most modern society of advancement. Isn't this something? In the most modern society, in the society with so much advancement, and we parade ourselves with wisdom and being wise, this is the result. Africans have a better grip. Africa has a better grip on reality than Americans. This is Matt Walsh in his interview. It was just fascinating to him to go to an African village and ask the women of the African village, are you happy? And they said, what do you mean? And I know it's an American question, basically, but are you happy? And they said, we're raising children. What do you mean, are we happy? Of course we're happy. You see, this is one of the great purposes of marriage, to have children. That's how society continues. You can't have a society apart from the family that creates it. You know what I'm saying? You can't have that apart from the family that makes it. it's a beautiful thing. Fifth, by marriage, God advances his kingdom to the loving devotion of a husband and a wife as children are nurtured in the true knowledge and fear of the Lord. And I'm moving to the sort of last point tonight of how this marks us as different, talking about God's kingdom. One of the great responsibilities of Christians in our days is to have children. The selfish idea is, I don't want to bring children up in this. Really? Well, who's in charge? Who's in charge? When there is loving devotion between a husband and a wife, and children are nurtured in the knowledge of the Lord, let me challenge you a bit just with this for a minute. We are so worried today about cultural change. We are so worried today about affecting society. We are so worried today about changing the world. We are so worried today about redeeming things. Okay? Let's talk about that. Our solutions are quick fixes. Think of this morning. Maybe you felt this morning like, blessed are the meek. And I was saying, blessed are the doormats. what do we do? Nothing? What do we do? We're all talking about transformation of society. Well, that's not happening. Let's talk about that. Here you go. You want to see society affected? It will be through the kingdom of God, advancing in one of the most important ways through which the church is strengthened, And that is the godly family in this world who gives serious attention to training children to know the Lord. That is the most noble change you can make right now. One of the greatest and simplest ways you can make a difference in this world is making sure that our marriages reflect what it is designed to be from the beginning. thinking about this governments are changing marriage into something contrary and blessing same-sex marriage and their kingdom is crumbling for it it's unsustainable this way well we're still part of the earthly kingdom sure we're citizens of heaven but we're still part of the earthly kingdom in other words one of the greatest ways we can make a difference is right here young people working to keep your life pure repenting of sin in your lives as we marry sincerely learning and working hard it's hard work no one doubts to love one another helping each other faithfully in all things keeping the filth of sexual morality out of our lives and homes honoring the marriage bed and keeping it pure having children training them well and the knowledge of the Lord, teaching them to know the Lord, the blessing of the covenant, you will contribute to society today in surprising ways when you do that. Isn't that an encouragement? It's an encouragement to the moms here tonight too who are in the thick of it and raising children and thinking, what in the world am I doing right now? I'm stuck. No, well, you may feel that way. You're doing something wonderful. That's the beauty of this. We contribute to society this way. We contribute to the orderly advancing of society and the kingdom of God this way. This is why the church is struggling today. This is why the church is emptying today because maybe we need to go back to transforming the family first instead of talking about all the culture. Finally, marriage represents in all things these things the mystery of Christ in the church that He loves. That's a remarkable calling that I know, you know, all of us know, we can't fulfill on our own. Husbands, love your wives as Christ does the church. How much does Christ love the church? How do you even answer that? Wives, submit and respect your husbands. When we love and our marriages are lived by in faith, We represent something beautiful to the world. Something the world desperately needs to see. There's a mystery here, but it's a great witness. Don't get me wrong. The sacrificial love that Christ has for sinners, the sacrificial love that Christ has for broken sinners is what our marriage's story is privileged to tell. and that's a great witness in and of itself simply when you love one another will you fail do i fail all the time well that's why we need the gospel and the more we repent and look to christ and live in light of forgiveness and joy of the holy spirit that witness gets stronger when i do my premarital counseling i i do that little diagram for all of them and i do a triangle and I say Christ is up here and you're right here and your spouse is right here and when you're growing in your love for the Lord you're going like this and growing in Christ and guess what's happening you're coming together but when one of you is growing and the other one's going like this look what's happening this is a remarkable calling this will be a witness that stands out what is happening now in society beloved to close this out tonight is not sustainable a society can't live long this way this has a breaking point i don't know what that's going to look like but it has a breaking point i have no idea but maybe just maybe we christians who are many in this country if the lgbt plus community which is smaller than christians can make this kind of stir and stink what can we do maybe we could be zealous again on these things maybe with the same fervency as a few push their perversions maybe just maybe by the grace of god we will soon see a different kind of revolution this thing will break back the other way of people turning back to the lord because this is not going to work it's going to make life miserable and a nation of people who again ask the question what is marriage we've thrown away something really good how do we turn back to the goodness of what god put in place from the beginning for our good that beloved is i think where we should begin to think about and pray that the lord would drive people to ask that question and that we'd be able to give them an answer from our own marriages by god's grace let's pray heavenly father thank you for tonight helping us with this great subject we all confess lord our shortcomings and failures of loving our spouse the way we should we confess our shortcomings and failures for training our children the way we should we look to you asking for forgiveness that you would bless our homes bless our children and that you would turn this madness around again that your church would be strong with families who are committed to you who would never miss worship who sit together as families who love one another and who understand the purpose for which you gave marriage from the beginning let us be good witnesses in this and may we be humble before you and meek for we need you for everything for apart from christ we can do nothing and we pray that in confidence tonight that you will help us and bless us as your people in jesus name amen