1459. Why Marriage?

Welcome to The Daily Platform.

Our program features sermons and development, Dr. Alan Benson, and the title is Why Marriage? from Genesis 1. And so please give Dr. Benson a warm welcome as he comes this morning. Well, good morning. Take your Bibles and turn with me, if you would, to Genesis chapter 1.

And as you are turning, we kind of have a unique thing this morning that for me is a tremendous blessing. Our president mentioned who our speakers are for the week. And actually, I am going to ask Dr. John and his wife, Suzy Layman, to stand. They're here somewhere in the building. Where are you at? Right back there.

You see them. I usually find him by his bow tie. What is really amazing about this week, and it really wasn't designed this way, is that just over 28 years ago, John Layman performed my wife and I's wedding ceremony. He was my wife's high school basketball coach. And they had such a great relationship. He was really so dynamically involved in her discipleship process that that's who the Lord burdened her heart to have perform her wedding.

That, and I think somehow she hoped that he would be able to make an impact on me. So anyway, I feel awkward coming to deal with this subject all the time because I know what my own marriage is like. People say, wow, you've been married 28 years. That's amazing. You must have a wonderful marriage. And we do. But I am telling you that in our relationship, my wife has carried 80% of the water.

I mean, she just, she really has. We were reminded this week, I had friends from back when we were in school here, send us pictures. And I got a particular picture that was me my freshman year, about six, seven weeks after I came to Bob Jones from Nova Scotia. My wife didn't come for two years after that. We got married after her junior year. I was a couple of years ahead of her. And I realized at that moment, when I looked at that picture, how much grace God had in my life, because if she had come the same year as me and saw that person, she never would have married him. So Bob Jones does some marvelous things in people's lives, like help them grow up. And it did that for me.

Thankfully, I had a couple of years before my wife actually got here to campus. Mowage. Twoo of, is what brings us to Gawa.

And I don't even have to tell you where that reference is from. Today, I really want to just answer some simple questions about a subject that couldn't have any greater importance. In light of the scope of your life, outside of the direct decision to trust Jesus Christ as your personal savior, there is no other decision that either positively or negatively is going to affect your spiritual growth than the decision about who you marry. We can debate all the other things that are factors in that. And you know, I've been a pastor.

I was introduced that way. And so the selection of a church is incredibly important. But there is no single decision that is going to either negatively or positively affect your spiritual growth any more than the person that you choose to spend the rest of your life with. And I hope you feel the gravity of that because the first side of that is it is incredibly positive that God offers us the opportunity of a relationship through which he can bring such shaping and discipleship into our lives.

But then there's also weight because it has such possibility for destroying us spiritually. I tried over the weekend to think through how many weddings I have done and honestly, I couldn't come up with the number a lot. And somewhere over the course of doing that journey, I decided that I would no longer marry anybody without having them go through four sessions of premarital counseling. I've done a lot of premarital counseling. I've done a lot of marital counseling. And unfortunately, I've done more than I wish I had of postmarital counseling. The statistics hold about the same. And they're about the same for those in the church and those outside the church that roughly about 50% of marriages fail.

And people think they've figured it out so they'll get into a second marriage and 60% of second marriages fail. I start every marital session where I'm doing premarital counseling with people. You know, we smile and we laugh and yeah, it's good.

And what have you been doing? And we walk through the, oh yeah, and let me see your ring and all that. And it's very special.

And then we get serious. And I asked this question, why are you getting married? And I get almost the same response every time. No, and I'm like, God, that's really great.

Why are you getting married? And you do have to answer. And then I get the, well, you go first. No, no, no, you go first. Yeah, and you go first. No, you go first. And I'm like, okay, so here's your first problem.

You got to figure this out. And I want you to hear this very clearly. When he gets down on one knee, if that's what he does, and he looks at you and he says to you, will you marry me?

You absolutely have the right. And I encourage you that maybe not at that moment, but somewhere in like the next few hours or maybe the next day or so that you sit down with him and say, now, look, I really want to be clear. Why do you want to marry me? Or maybe even more, why do you want to get married?

And it sounds kind of simplistic or perfunctory, but friends, I want you to know way too many people don't answer that question until it's too late. There are many that answer that question. And so the first question is, why do people get married?

The first one is people get married for friendship. I've heard so many answers to that question over the years. It's really very interesting. Some of them very, very sweet. You can imagine what I get. Oh, I just love him so much. And that's awesome.

That's how it should be. But I've had some really funny ones, and I won't go into them all just because of time, but I had one young lady. It came her turn to answer the question. It was very quiet and kind of somber, and she said, he was the best I could do.

So you can imagine me sitting as the pastor looking at him, who now has these big owl eyes, and thinking, okay, where do I go with this? And when she realized what she had said, then she started to stumble. What she was trying to say is, you know, I've actually given this a lot of thought, and I worked really hard at this, and I have decided he is the best in the world. That's what she was trying to say.

But she said, he's the best I could do. So we changed what we would normally do in counseling. We spent a lot of time on communication. We changed what we would normally do in counseling. We spent a lot of time on communication.

But I think you need to answer, why are you getting married? Because I think it's a really, really important question. You're living in a generation that psychology has now labeled as emerging adults. That means from the ages of 18 to 28, you're not actually yet an adult, you're an emerging adult, and you become an adult at 28.

Now I'm not saying I agree with that. And really the only hard data that they have for why 28 ends emerging adulthood is that's the average age when your generation is getting married. And so somehow they see that getting married is a really important decision if that's when you become an adult. Can I tell you, if you sit here today and you say, you know what, I really want to be an adult, so I'm going to get married, don't get married. So let's talk about that for just a minute before we jump into Genesis chapter one and look at God's answer for why marriage. Because I think there's some things we need to think through that I think are just really, really, really, really, really important. And one of them is that there are people who answer why marriage as though it is the solution.

You've been dating this guy or dating this girl for a number of years and you're struggling with things in the relationship. And so you look and say, I really, really, really, really love him, but he's just not responsible, so I think we'll get married. Here's a rumble of laughter, but do you realize that that is actually what people are doing and thinking? If we just get married, and I know what we'll do, we'll find a place to live that's more than we can afford. And we'll have cell phones that our parents couldn't afford us to have, but somehow we'll figure that out. And when we get married, this whole jalopy, we'll get another car and we'll run up the credit cards and that will help him become really responsible. And then you go visit your pastor in two years and you say, you know what, I just don't think this is working. Or you're dating them and it's back and forth and there's these little flitters that happen, but really you've had this great relationship. But every now and again there's something that bothers you, or you go to do something and it troubles you, and you sit and you say, you know what, we have this great relationship, we've been dating for quite a while, about seven weeks. But I'm really struggling with the fact that it just seems to be this lack of commitment in him, so we're going to get married. Because making the big decision about getting married, that's going to help the commitment problem. And you can see what I'm saying, these are the whys for why people are getting married, and they act as though marriage is the solution. Young man, if you're sitting here today and I want to be straight up with you, and you are sitting here today and you are struggling morally, you are struggling with pornography, and you're in a dating relationship with a young girl that you love, and maybe even in that relationship you have a commitment between you and her, that you are going to be morally pure, but you are struggling with pornography, and you're sitting here today and somehow you have told yourself, I know how to fix my pornography problem, I'm going to get married.

Listen to me, don't you dare do that to her. Because she will never be able to live up to the addiction that you have built in your life. I'm not telling you not to get married, I'm telling you go get help.

And if you think, no, no, no, no, really, I think this is something getting married can help me with, then you better be honest enough to tell her about the scope, the depth, the reality of your actual problem, and let her make the decision as to whether or not marrying you will fix your problem. Maybe some of the things that I'm saying to you, if you actually say he asked you to marry him, and you take like maybe five hours after you get over all of that, and oh look at that, and all of that, and you posted on social media eight different places, and then you sit down and say, so let me ask you a question, why do you want to get married? And you get one of these answers? I hope you're thinking through, hmm, maybe we need to talk a little more. Because again, I want to remind you that outside of your salvation, this is the most colossal decision in impacting your actual spiritual growth. So after all of that, and all the marriage counseling, and all the things that I've worked on over all of the years, I read a lot, and by the way, there is more help for marriage today from more places than there's ever been. And yet, you know what I'm finding? That nobody has the help that God offers.

You say, what is the number one reason that marriages fail? After all that you've done, your personal experience, the counseling, and friends, I've been there, right? Okay, I've been there. I've been in every form of scenario, all the way down to sitting on a holiday weekend in my church office, a coupling asking if they could come see me.

I'm the only one at the building. I say, sure, come see me. And about five minutes into the conversation, the husband pulls a gun out of his pocket and puts it to his wife's head and says, tell him what you did.

I've seen it all. What is the number one reason marriages fail? All the statistics would tell you things like, well, it's sex. Is sex a problem in marriage? Absolutely, it is.

Money. Is money a problem in marriage? Absolutely, it is. Communication. Is communication a problem in marriage?

Absolutely, it is. But I would tell you, none of them is the number one cause. All of them may be a part of it. But the number one cause for failed marriages, particularly among believers, is this. Unfulfilled expectations.

Unfulfilled expectations. And I don't think it has to be that way. So let's look at Genesis chapter one. And I want us to talk about why marriage, and you know this passage, it's foundational. I think it's a passage everybody should spend an awful lot of time in, reading, thinking, applying.

This is where we get the roots of our worldview. And I will tell you, marriage is a worldview issue. If you are not God-focused and God-centered in the why of marriage, you will struggle in your marriage.

If you get married thinking that your spouse is going to do for you everything that only God alone can do for you, you're going to struggle in your marriage. So Genesis chapter one, really what I want to do is look first of all at the condition of things, right? So go with me to verse 31.

It's a summary statement. And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was, what's the next word? Very good. And evening, the morning, or the sixth day. And you know that this comes on the heels of the creation narrative, of the week of creation. And after every day, I want to ask you to go through what was made on every day. But at the end of every day, God looked at what he had made and he said, it is good. Every day he said, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good. By the way, I want to encourage you at the end of every day, stop and look at your day as God did and look at what you did made in his image and ask yourself, was it good? And if it wasn't good, get right with God and prepare for the next day. But God looks at all of it and it's good. And he comes to the end of it and he looks at it and he says, it is very good, or the word is for perfection.

That's the condition of things. But then I want you to see the condition of man. Look at verse 26 and 27. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. God had a perfect creation for which he had a perfect plan. And he made a perfect man and he put him in that perfect place. So then I want you to look down with me at chapter two and verse 18, which interjects now into that story. And the Lord God said, it is, what's the next word? Not good.

That the man should be alone. Stop for a minute. Did God say good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, very good? Uh-oh. Did God look and say, how did that happen? Like I missed something. There was a mistake.

Obviously not. God is looking at his created order and he has made man in his image. It's the first time that we see plural pronouns. It's the first time God actually speaks of himself in the creation account and he makes God, God makes man exactly as he should be.

And yet there is still something that is not done. It is not good that man should be alone. And so notice what he does, verse 15, chapter two, and the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. The Lord commanded the man saying of every tree and he gives him this command about all that he is supposed to do.

It's a dominion mandate, a responsibility to keep God's creation as God designed it to be kept. Verse 21, and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Notice verse 24. This is a statement God makes and repeats four other times in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.

What is happening here? God looks and he says, I've made man in my image and yet there's something when him being alone about my image that he cannot yet understand. God is a trinity and there's a social dynamic to the Godhead and God looks at man alone and he says he will never fully understand the social dynamic of the Godhead unless he has a dynamic human relationship. And thus he takes out of man a rib and he makes a woman and he brings them together and says these two, not a three, but these two shall be one flesh so that now there is a relationship through which men can come to understand the social dynamic of the Godhead and rightly reflect it. That's God's plan in marriage before the fall was that there's something about man that through marriage gets completed.

What happens? Chapter three, the fall happens and as a result of the curse that comes with the fall, we see that there is this brokenness now in this dynamic oneness relationship. God talks about the fact that there will be a struggle for authority and power between the woman and the man and you have interjected now this brokenness into this dynamic relationship which now interferes with man's capacity to know, understand and reflect as God in marriage.

Why do I say all of that? I say it because of this, it is God's intention that in marriage it's not two perfect people marrying one another. It's actually two imperfect people marrying one another. You see God's intention particularly post-fall is that there be a redemptive process in marriage. God intends that through the marriage covenant a spouse looks at their spouse and he to her and she to him says I am agreeing with God that in this unique relationship I will allow him through me to make you more like Jesus Christ. You see that is the marriage covenant. It is an acknowledgement of your brokenness and your need to grow and change and that in a unique sense God wants us to understand him because we commit to him that we in this marriage relationship, a relationship where I will know you better than anybody else will ever know you and I will sacrifice more for you than anybody will ever sacrifice for you. That you might be made more like Jesus Christ through this personal relationship than through any other relationship in your life. And young people as you head into days when you're considering marriage you need to make that commitment to God before you make any commitment to him or her. You see the expectations of marriage are that you're marrying someone who is broken. That you are marrying someone that isn't yet like Jesus and that God intends to make more like him by using you.

See this is God's why in marriage. And it was God's plan before the fall. It was plan before the fall. It was about oneness before the fall. It was about man being like Christ, like God in understanding the social dynamic and what happened is the fall comes and sin gets interjected and now there's struggle in marriage. But it's still God's plan that we know and understand him better by having this oneness, this intimacy.

Only now we have to overcome sin. I hope in just a quick glimpse here you can see why this is why you should never marry an unsaved person. Because it isn't even possible with an unsaved person to see this happen. They can't grow in Christ's likeness.

You can't help them grow in Christ's likeness. So someone finds themselves, they get saved and they're married to an unsaved person. Does that mean it's over?

No. That's why we have clear instructions in the scripture. That you stay and you abide and you live the life of a believer so that they might come to faith in Christ. But as a believer, God doesn't call you to be an evangelist in getting married. He calls you to be a disciple maker in getting married. And if you think you're heading into that relationship and you know he is the knight on on shining armor riding in on a white horse, I hope that you will see that if you wash that horse it's probably very dark underneath. And that the armor that he has cleaned up needs oil because it's going to squeak.

And at some point you're probably going to be left picking it up off the floor. And the reality is I'm not saying all that to say guys are really horrible or girls are really horrible or anything else. What I'm saying to you is you better get the expectations right. Marriage is about discipleship. That being said as I close, you can't disciple somebody you don't know. So if you sit here today and you're looking and considering marrying somebody and at some point you have lived a sham and not been honest about who you really are.

You've given the impression you're some spiritual giant and you're actually not. Before you consider whether or not to get married you need to pray about whether or not to be honest because you can't do what God expects to be done in marriage unless you actually know who it is you're supposed to be doing it with. And so these are the days, the dating days, the engagement days to get really, really honest because you need to make sure that they actually are choosing to marry the real you. It's a wonderful thing and I hope as we go through the rest of this week and tomorrow's message and then in particular the Q&A sessions that we have that it'll be a real help to you as you hear real people who've struggled to answer the questions that you have asked. And I hope that you'll be just sharing with you what God has done in our lives.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for the gift of marriage. I thank you for the young people in front of me and God I pray that you would give them homes that are Christ honoring and glorifying relationships that are so satisfying that nothing else could compete with them because they've been real and honest and they go into marriage acknowledging that it's a marriage that is going to take work because broken people need help to change to be like Christ and that's what marriage is all about.

I pray you'd help them to throw away the unrealistic expectations get real and get honest and that out of that you would give them relationships that are what you intend for them to be. Dismiss us with your blessing in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to a message preached by Dr. Alan Benson, Vice President for Student Development at Bob Jones University. I'm Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University and I invite you to join us at our beautiful campus in Greenville, South Carolina to see how you can be prepared academically and spiritually to serve the Lord through one of our more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs.

For more information about Bob Jones University visit www.bju.edu or call 800-252-6363. Join us again tomorrow as we'll hear another sermon on marriage here on The Daily Platform.