Gender Wars - Part B

There's no such thing as the perfect man who marries the perfect woman, has the perfect wedding and the perfect marriage.

It doesn't happen. But there's a redeemed man and a redeemed woman, two sinners forgiven, redeemed, restored back to their creator, and in the relationship restored to each other. Since the fall of mankind, man and woman have been engaged in a gender war, a direct consequence of their sin.

But as Skip Heitzig shares in today's message, we don't have to be stuck in that war because Jesus offers redemption even in our marriage. But first, here's a special resource bundle you'll love to have or give as a gift to a special woman in your life. Betty White said, it's not easy being a mom. If it were easy, fathers would do it.

That's not a sly shot at dads. It's a compliment to the wonderful work of mothers. Here's a great way to show your appreciation for a mother in your life. It's the heart songs package, which features a teaching series on the Psalms led by Lenya and Janae Heitzig. Psalm 45 is a love song. And in it, you're going to find a groom and a bride and it's their wedding day. And it includes an ornate dress and bridesmaids and perfume and gifts and guests. The heart songs package also includes a beautiful Sheology quiet time journal and a bag of Skip's library roast coffee. It's a great gift to honor a special woman in your life with encouragement and strength as she studies God's word and spends time in prayer, all while enjoying a delicious cup of the coffee Pastor Skip loves. The heart songs package is our thanks for your gift to help share biblical teaching and encouragement with others through the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig.

So be sure to request yours when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now we're in Genesis as Skip Heitzig kicks off today's teaching. There's a book out on brain physiology, provocatively titled Brain Sex, the difference, the real difference between men and women written by a man and a woman. Ann Moyer and David Jessel. The book gives empirical evidence, scientific evidence for the difference between the sexes, male and female. In the introduction of the book, it reads quote, men are different from women. They are equal only in their common membership in the same species, humankind, but to maintain that they are the same in aptitude, skill or behavior is to build a society on a biological and a scientific lie.

And the book gives chapter after chapter of scientific empirical evidence to that regard. The book goes on to say that men and women are different because their brains are different. Now I said different. I didn't say better or superior or inferior, but we're different and it will help us and it will help us get along with each other if we understand that we're different. We are different physically, physiologically. Dr. Paul Popenoe, founder of the American Institute for Family Relations in Los Angeles said men and women differ in every single cell of their bodies.

He lists a few physical differences. Number one, we differ in basal metabolism. A woman's metabolism is slower, a man's is faster, more active.

This is the reason he wants the windows open in a snowstorm and she wants a wool blanket when it's 95 degrees. Metabolism is different. We differ in skeletal structure, says Popenoe. Women have a shorter head, broader face, the chin is less protruding, a longer trunk, shorter legs. With a woman, the first finger of a woman's hand is usually longer than the third finger. Men have the reverse setup, the third finger longer than the first.

I'm watching you all look at your hands right now and then looking over, well that it's true. A woman's major organs are larger. They have a larger stomach, kidneys, liver, appendix, but smaller lungs.

Now I know some that would dispute that, but I will not. There are glandular differences between a man and a woman. In a woman, the thyroid is larger and more active, so that during pregnancy and menstruation, it provides resistance to cold. And this glandular difference is associated with smooth skin and a relatively hairless body, which I find nice features actually. A woman's blood contains more water than a man's, but 20% fewer red blood cells.

The red blood cells are what supply oxygen to the body. This explains why a woman tires more easily and is more prone to faint than the male. There's a difference in the heart rate. A woman's heart beats more rapidly. 80 beats per minute is the average.

A man has 72 beats. That's physiologically, that's physically. There are differences in the way men and women communicate. Our social interaction is different. It's estimated that a woman, on average, maintains direct eye contact while speaking with someone for 12 seconds.

A man maintains it for three seconds. Women tend to find their identity in close relationships with other people. Men tend to find their identity in what they do, their occupation, their status, their job. A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.

A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife. And we're different in the way we communicate, I mean radically different. Harvard University studied hundreds of preschoolers and their interactivity and communication with each other. And what Harvard decided to do is put microphones on a children's playground and listen to the playground conversation, record it and analyze it.

And they did. And they discovered that the sounds that come from little girls mouths were recognizable words. Whereas only 60% of the sounds that came from little boys mouths were recognizable, period. 40% of the sounds that came from little boys mouths were sound effects or yelling. You know, things like vroom, vroom or toot, toot or rah.

Isn't that fascinating? And you know what, can I just be honest with you? Things don't change a whole lot when you grow up. I've been analyzing my communication lately and I do make lots of sounds still.

And as we grow, men, even though they're adults, tend to speak in shorter phrases. Not a lot of details. Not a lot of details, man, because you want the bottom what? Line.

That's what you love to use. Your wives are telling you about things and going on and on and you're nodding your head and then you interrupt and go, tell me the bottom line. Am I right, women? They want the bottom line. Women are opposite. They want to know details, details, details and more details.

And to men, details are aggravating and frustrating and confusing because we want the bottom line. Now, with all of these differences in physiology and in communication and in sociology, I believe that we see them in the scripture with the fall of Adam and Eve. And I believe that we see them in the scripture with the fall of Adam and Eve, with what we have already read in previous weeks in Genesis chapter 3. There is a difference between Eve and Adam, man and woman, in falling into sin when tempted by the devil. You see, Eve, the Bible tells us, was deceived, whereas Adam was obedient.

Big difference. First Timothy chapter 2 verses 13 and 14, Adam was formed first and then Eve. Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.

Let me just explain what that is. It makes Adam's sin worse. He knew what he was doing.

He disobeyed. She was deceived. Doesn't make Eve guiltless. Doesn't make Eve less wise.

It just seems to make her more trusting. If you recall back in Genesis chapter 3, the fall of man in verses 1 through 7, we have Eve and the serpent, the devil, having a conversation. And we have Eve listening and responding and engaging in the conversation and reasoning, right? The devil comes along and says, has God said that you shall not eat of any tree? And she goes, well, no, actually, God didn't say that. What God said was that we can eat of the fruit of any of the trees in the garden, but there's just one little tree, right? And she goes on and has this conversation and reasons with them.

That's the difference. When we get to the next verse, you know what it says about Adam? He ate. That's it. He ate. She's talking and reasoning and thinking.

And it's like he grabbed it. That's it. Now, communication experts will tell us that the average woman uses 25,500 words a day. That's what the communication experts say. That's the average, 25,500 words per day. Whereas they will tell you that the average man uses 12,500 words per day. Huge difference, right? Huge capacity difference, right?

25,500, 12,500. Okay, so what does that mean merrily? Well, it means that if he's at work all day, by the time he gets home, he may have used, I don't know, 12,495 words. He's got five left.

He's kind of coming in the door panting. How's he going to use his five words? What's for dinner? That's three. And good night. He's done. Five.

He's done. She's just getting started. She wants to know about his day and his feelings and the other guys at work and what happened, would you eat for lunch? How'd your day go?

And she's lucky if he can just get out fine. So the result of all of that is if you were to talk to the guy who's going to be at work, you talk to the gal and you talk to the guy and you say, how's your home life? How's your marriage?

You talk to the guy. You know what his answer is going to be? One word. Great. Good. Ask the woman that same question. How's your marriage?

How are you doing? Well, I don't know what he's thinking. We don't communicate.

He doesn't tell me anything is often the result. So we are different by design and as different as we are by design, here's the point. When these two individuals get together in the covenant of marriage as outlined and blueprinted by God, the marriage is designed to minimize the differences that are between them and to maximize each other's lives.

I'm going to make him a helper comparable to him, someone who will fill out what is lacking in his life, someone who will be the South Pole to his North Pole, the opposite of him, like opposite him. And God said the two shall become one flesh. So that woman, husbands, that man, wives, is God's gift to you to complete to complete you.

Don't resist the completion process that God is taking you through. I believe that failure to accept your mate as a gift from God to complete and complement you expresses your rejection of God's provision and is an act of unbelief. Paul writes, or excuse me, Peter writes in 1 Peter chapter 3 to wives and then to husbands.

And I'm just going to go right to the husband's part because I am one and I need to hear this. In the same way you husbands give honor to your wives, treat her with, here it is, understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she's your equal partner in God's gift of new life.

If you don't treat her as you should, your prayers will not be heard. Well, that's a powerful statement. It sort of seems to say that the secret to an effective spiritual life is an effective marital life. So that I as a husband am to dwell with my wife in an understanding way, understanding there are differences between us, understanding that there are weaknesses on her part, weaknesses on my part, strengths on her part, strengths on my part.

And a failure to understand those differences can be catastrophic at a number of levels. So then to distill it back to those takeaway points, a marriage is designed to mirror God's image, manage God's realm, and now mutually complete one another because we're here to complement each other. So that's God's magnificent design. That's God's match design, that you guys rule together and that you have roles that complement one another. But then we get to Genesis chapter three and it all goes downhill. It all goes south. And we go from the magnificent design and the match design to the marred design.

No longer ruling with each other, rolling with each other, but now ruling over and against each other. I take you to Genesis chapter three verse 16, to the woman he said, after the fall, to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children.

Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Then he said to Adam, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken.

For dust you are and to dust you shall return. Now the design is marred, marred by two things. First of all pain. Don't you find it interesting that God predicts that the pain they're going to experience is pain in the very areas where the man and the woman would find their identity. For a woman her identity is found in close relationships.

The most satisfying typically to a woman is found in the home in the burying of children. There's going to be pain associated with that. And to the man who finds his identity and his job and his work there's going to be pain, the sweat of your brow, anguish, aggravation as you eke out a living to provide for your family. It'll be marred by pain. Even Job said as surely as the sparks fly upward sorrow is part of our experience.

Pain is part of our travail. The second thing is that it's marred by conflict. I want you to look specifically at the 16th verse of chapter 3 and look at the last phrase. God says to the woman, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. I see that as a prediction by God to the man and the woman, a prediction of marital strife.

Conflict in the relationship as a consequence of the fall. Now again go back in your mind to what we read at the beginning in Genesis chapter 1. God's original magnificent design is that they rule together, right? Be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth. Both of you have dominion over the earth.

Both of you. That was before the fall. Then we have verses 1 through 7 of Genesis 3.

That is the fall. And by the way, in the fall, Satan attacks God's design and leadership. Don't you find it interesting that Satan doesn't go to the man, goes to Adam, bypasses Adam, goes around Adam, goes right to Eve.

Designed to be a follower in the relationship. Now Eve sinned and Adam sinned. How did Eve sin? How did Eve sin? By disobeying an explicit command of God, not to touch, not to eat, but more than that, also.

She acted independently of her husband. And Adam sinned. How did Adam sin? By number one, disobeying an explicit command of God, but more than that, he yielded to Eve's usurping the leadership role.

So you have a woman who takes charge in the temptation and a man who abdicates passively, abdicates his leadership role in the relationship. Look at verse 16 again. Notice the word, and he shall rule over you.

Mashal is the Hebrew. It means to reign, exercise dominion, or to dominate. That's part of the curse. Once Adam and Eve designed to be co-regents, co-ambassadors, co-leaders, now is dominated. Look back also in verse 16 at the first word in the phrase or the second word in the phrase. Your desire shall be for your husband. Okay, stop there.

I have read about every commentary probably written on the book of Genesis, at least that I've been able to find over the years. And they all say a common thing about this. They say, well, first of all, we find this a very difficult verse to translate. And we find this phrase an extremely difficult, complicated phrase to translate because of the word desire. What does desire mean?

The Hebrew word teshukah, which is a word that can mean to compel, to urge, or to seek control over, or to desire. Now, in trying to figure out, well, what's the best way that we should translate it, I'll tell you what I think. There's only one other time it is used quite like this, and it's found in the very next chapter.

And I believe if you compare the usage in the next chapter to this chapter, you're going to have your answer. Go with me to chapter four, and you'll notice it's about Cain and Abel, and they both bring sacrifices to God, and one is accepted and one is not. So verse seven, Genesis four, God is speaking to Cain, who's had his sacrifice rejected, and the Lord speaks to Cain, and he says, look, if you do well, will you not be accepted? Dude, if you lived right, if your life was right, you'd be accepted. And if you do not do well, now watch this, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

Did you notice that? Almost the same construction as the verse in chapter three, verse 16. Its desire is for you, but you shall rule over it. In other words, Cain, look, sin wants to rule over you. Sin wants to dominate you. You must rule over it. You must control it. You must master sin.

And then we go back to chapter three, verse 16, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you, would probably best be translated, you will want to control your husband, and he'll want to subdue you. Now I want you to stop right there and let that sink in, because the verse that you and I just read is where the battle of the sexes began. Now you have the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say. Here's the rest of the story.

This is where it all began. This is where the gender war started way back then as a consequence of the fall. And there's been two strains, two emphases throughout history in gender wars that are very marked. One is male chauvinism, which has dominated the historical landscape more than any other ism. In time immemorial, even there's cultures today where women are oppressed and suppressed and seen as something that is owned like slaves, and certainly that was the case in ancient cultures, even in Rome. Male chauvinism, oppression, domination, subduing. But our society is different.

That is no longer the case. What is the case, however, is the other strain, the opposite strain of that called feminism, where men are pushed aside. And during the 70s it was big to say men and women are identical on every single level. And the best science says that's just not true. There are marked differences and there are differences and roles to complement one another.

But the landscape shows feminism and unfortunately it's very strong even within the church. So there's this tension, and the tension comes as a consequence of the fall. There was a fourth grade class and the teacher asked the class a simple question, what does God say about marriage? And one little fourth grader shouted out, father forgive them for they know not what they do. Obviously there was some tension in his house between his mom and dad.

He had noticed this tension. Things weren't perfect, things aren't perfect. There's no such thing as the perfect man who marries the perfect woman, has the perfect wedding and the perfect marriage. It doesn't happen. But there's a redeemed man and a redeemed woman, two sinners forgiven, redeemed, restored back to their creator, and in the relationship restored to each other so that though we have fallen, though the image of God is marred in all of us, still our home can become, even if it's just a slight reflection, a reflection of the Garden of Eden before the fall, in our homes where we are fruitful together, where we multiply together, where we have dominion together, and there's a beautiful blend of unity.

Because if you try to do it and expect to be happy and satisfied apart from redemption of God, the interaction of God in your lives, the help of scripture, and the help of godly accountability, you might as well try to build a bridge to Hawaii. It's impossible. Perfect? No. Redeemed?

Yes. Back in the 1800s, a man by the name of Robert Schumann wrote, when I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I found her. I found her.

But alas, she was waiting for the ideal man. Ideal? Perhaps not. Perfect? Certainly not. Redeemed?

Certainly not. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Keep Calm and Marry On. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now listen as Skip shares how you can keep teachings like this one today coming to you and others. Your support today means that more lives will be changed to the power of scripture. With your generosity, you'll help expand the reach of these broadcasts into more major U.S. cities.

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