8-7-22 - God’s Design For Marriage

In your Bible, if you would look with me to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter number 5, Matthew 5, and when you find your place, you would honor God's word with me as we stand. We're going to read verse number 31 and 32, just two verses today. The Bible tells us in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 31, it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.

But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery. Lord, we thank you for your word today. We praise you for the truth of the Gospel. We thank you for the good news that Jesus Christ came and died and rose again.

And Lord, there's even people here today that perhaps don't know Christ as their Savior. I pray today that they might come and trust in Christ as their Lord. God, I pray that you would be with marriages. I pray that you protect the marriages of this church. I pray that you would draw hearts together. Lord, I pray that you would give a renewed vision of the purity and sanctity of marriage. Lord, I want to elevate it to where you elevated it to. And we pray that your word would do that today.

Speak to hearts. Be glorified in this message. We ask it in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Man, you may be seated. Our Lord has just dealt with the sin of adultery, as we saw last Sunday in the previous verses, verse 27 through 31. And Jesus showed that adultery is not something simply that happens at outside of a person or externally, physically speaking. But it's something that happens in the heart of a person, that it is the lustful intent that adultery begins. And adultery is found first in the heart before it is found in the life. Then after Jesus addresses the issue of lust and adultery in verse 27 through 31, he then deals with what can result from adultery, which is divorce. When sinners into a marriage in the area of adultery can often lead to divorce. Divorce is a massive issue in our day. It's become huge throughout these last decades.

And it was also a massive issue in the New Testament times as well. Each year in America, over two million marriages happen every year in two million marriages. And out of those two million marriages, there's a million of those marriages that end in divorce.

People who said I do end up saying I don't. And the effects are tremendous. They not only affect the people that are being divorced, but they also affect the children, the friends and family, the close people into their lives. And I know that there's probably no one here today that's not been affected by divorce in some manner, whether you've been divorced, you're a child of parents who were divorced, your family or friends, close loved ones. There's a lot of confusion and questions surrounding divorce and remarriage. What our Lord says here in verse number 31 and 32 is not all that the Bible says about marriage and divorce. And it actually, Jesus expounds upon this in chapter 19 of Matthew, as well as Paul talking about it in 1 Corinthians 7. And so next Sunday, I'm actually going to preach on a biblical, what the Bible says about marriage and divorce.

And we're going to look at that more in detail. But today I want to look at a message I've entitled God's design for marriage, what God's desire is for marriage. And I really want to give us a vision for what God says about this most special union that needs to be elevated. Because in our country today, marriage has been slaughtered. Marriage has been assaulted probably more than anything else in our country.

And this is the uprooting of a nation, this is the destruction of a nation and a people when that happens. And so let's look at God's design for marriage. In your Bibles, if you would flip back with me to Genesis chapter 1, we'll begin where marriage begins. Genesis 1, God gives the amazing account of creation, how that God brought all into existence out of nothing. He created ex nihilo, out of nothing all that is. Each day of creation started with the statement, God said and it ended with the words, and it was good.

God said let there be light, there was light and at the end of day one it was good. From creating light to planets to solar systems to galaxies to the universe to separating water from the land, the sea life, the animals and plants and vegetations. God's crowning creation happened in Genesis 1-26 when he made man in his own image. Genesis 1-26 says, and God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let him 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. Verse 27 says, so God created man in his own image and the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed him and God said be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, subdue it and have dominion. So you see that God blessed them to procreate after their kind and to have dominion over all that is, to rule over all the earth, to have dominion over the fish of the sea, fowl of the air, over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. In Genesis 2 the scriptures begin to rehearse some of God's creative genius that happened in chapter 1.

It goes into some more detail. If you notice in chapter 2 verse 18 the Bible says this. Chapter 2 it says, and the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helpmate for him. And the first statement that you see there in that verse is God saying it is not good that man should be alone. That's the first time that God says something is not good and it is not good. It is not fulfilled that man would be alone. God created man to be a relational creature. God did not make us to be isolated. Sometimes people say I just want to be alone.

No you don't, believe me. You ever known somebody that is real isolated? You get around them and they talk your ear off.

You know what I am talking about? They don't need anybody in life. You go say hi to them and five hours later they are still talking to you. It is like they are dying to communicate with somebody. All I need is my dog Billy.

No you need somebody who can talk back or somebody to listen. And so in one prison system in the United States there is 25,000 of the most dangerous inmates. They endure solitary confinement in small concrete cells. They virtually have no contact with the outside world. One of the inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary said the most difficult part of such isolation is, in his words, not being able to see somebody face to face to communicate, touch, hug or to feel.

You don't even feel human. And this man is declaring the pain of isolation. There is also a growing, and you may not be aware of this, but there is a growing rent of family industry in many countries like Japan to meet the needs of lonely people.

Some use this service to maintain appearance. Others to fill the void of some estranged relative that may not be in their home. One man in Japan said this, he said, I played a father for a 12 year old with a single mother. The girl was bullied because she didn't have a dad, so the mother rented me. I've acted as the girl's father ever since. I am the only real father that she knows.

If the client never reveals the truth, I must continue the role indefinitely. If the daughter gets married, I have to act as a father in the wedding and then I have to be the grandfather. It's a pretty tragic thing that people are looking to even rent people to fulfill those voids because there is an emptiness that's created. Some of you perhaps grew up without a dad or without a mom and that can be very challenging. This morning we had a wonderful celebration. We had a dedication for little Cruz Miller. It's a little precious child that Darren and Karen, they just finished the adoption this last week. It's so special when somebody adopts someone because they truly choose and desire to have that person in their family. It's a reflection of God. Do you know when you get saved, you're adopted into God's family? He has chosen you.

The Bible uses the word chosen and elected and called us and saved us. It's an incredible reality that God would love us in such a way. You need to understand man was created for relationship. The greatest of those relationships is found in the marriage union. I'm so thankful to be married. I told you last Sunday we celebrated 20 years of marriage this week.

My wife has put up with me for 20 years and I've gotten to enjoy her for 20 years. It's just so fun and we get to enjoy life together. I love to serve the Lord together. We've been out witnessing, led people to Christ together through the years.

We've counseled together. We've played sports together. She's beat me. When you marry someone who's a better athlete than you, it's really tough.

You try to stay up with her in different things. I went bowling with her this last week. I think she bowled a 227 on one of her games. This is who you marry, somebody like that. I got bowled seven strikes. I still lost.

Actually, I didn't bowled seven strikes, but I would like to have. I can tell you, friends, marriage is a bliss. It's wonderful.

It really is. God says, I will make him a helpmeet for him. It's not good that man's alone. I'll make him a helpmeet for him. What does this word helpmeet mean? Well, the word helpmeet comes from a Hebrew word azir, and this word does not mean that the woman is in a position of subservience to the man, but rather carries the idea that she is the ideal partner for the man. The Bible uses that word azir in a reference to God's relationship to us.

Psalm 115 verse 9 says, O Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is their help. It's the same word. God is our help, and in the same way, the woman fulfills that need in the man. And so it says, not only was he a helpmeet, but it uses the word for him.

That word for him is the Hebrew naged, and it means your counterpart. She's a helpmeet that is a counterpart of his. She's the right match. She literally would be, and the idea of it, she's just right for him.

She fits him. In Genesis chapter 2 verse 20, it says that, and Adam gave names to all the cattle and the fowl of the air and every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helpmeet for him. And so God gave Adam here in Genesis 2, 20 the responsibility of naming all the animals. Eve was not yet created, which probably helped in the argument process of naming animals. Could you imagine?

She probably would have cleaned the list up a little bit. Where did you come up with the name wilderbeast? Can't you figure out something better than that, Adam? So Eve was created after Adam names all the animals, but it says that there was no helpmeet. No one that was comparable for Adam out of the animal kingdom. And it goes on in Genesis 2, look at verse 21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept.

And this is God putting him under. And it says, and he took one of the ribs and closed up the flesh thereof. We see where God creates the first surgery, right? Performs it, verse 22, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the 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. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And so the woman was taken not from the head of the man or from the foot of the man, but was taken out of the side of the man. And also you see that she was taken out of Adam.

Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And this is reflective of the oneness of marriage. Marriage is the uniting of two unique persons who become one. And this is a unique relationship.

There's nothing like it on the earth. Verse 25 speaks of the purity and harmony inside of their marriage. It says, and going on in verse 25, and they were both naked, the man and the woman, and they were not ashamed.

And you see the innocence that both the man and wife had. They were not skewed in their minds from a pollution of a perverted world. They had a pure mind. Everything is pure to them. The Bible says to the pure, all things are pure.

And they lived in without shame, without guilt, without any adverse effects like that. And so in this, we see God's design laid out in Genesis chapter number one. And it's that God designed one man for one woman. He could have created multiple wives for a husband or multiple husbands for a wife, but he doesn't do that. He created one man for one woman.

That's God's design. And then he created the male and female. There's only two genders.

Anybody else believe that? There's only male and female. There is an X and a Y chromosome. I always find it interesting when the world wants to be scientific until it goes against what they think.

Right? I mean, if you just get down to the science of it, if you ask a historian or an archaeologist who dug up the remains of somebody, they can test that body and find out if it was a male or female scientifically. But now they've come out and said you can't say that because you don't know if that's the gender identity of the person that they dug up.

That's how insane the thinking is of our day. And so the Bible tells us God created a male and female. Marriage is designed by God. There's only two genders possible. The marriage creates a one-flesh relationship. There is no longer two.

You become one. There is a unity in marriage that is completely unique. Listen, I'm not one with my children, but I am one with my wife. My relationship with my wife usurps my relationship with anybody else on this planet. One of the worst statements people say in the world is my kids are number one.

That's tragic. You think that helps them? You think that benefits you or them?

That doesn't benefit anybody. Make your kids your God? Make them your idol? If you put your kids at number one, that will mess them up and it will mess you up. It will mess your marriage up. If you have a terrible marriage, that's giving your children a wonderful marriage is exemplified in your home, a joy-filled marriage. That's one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. The order needs to be God's number one, then your spouse, then your children.

Listen, your kids are going to grow up and they're going to leave you. At least they should. Amen. And that brings me to my next point. It says in verse 24, Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife.

There'll be one flesh. The Bible teaches a leaving and cleaving. When you get married, you don't live with mom and dad anymore. I don't know if anybody in the church is still living with their in-laws or parents or whatever else, but that needs to be short-lived. Sometimes there's a transitional process.

I understand that, but that needs to be short-lived. I know when we got married, we were finishing up Bible college for about a year and so forth, and we moved back to the state of Ohio to help my brother start a church. While buying a house, we had to live with my in-laws for about 30 days or so. Thirty days is about as long as I would prefer, and we transferred on.

Amen. I love my in-laws, but I don't want to live with them for long. And so, listen, this is a big deal. One of the things that messes can cause problems in marriage is outside family interference. One of the top three to four reasons for divorce is family interference into the marriage. If your kids get married, let them be married. They don't have to come over every single week of their life to see you.

They're married now. Let them enjoy their life. Don't inject yourself. Let me say a couple things. If you need marital counseling, don't go to your parents or in-laws for that. There's probably going to be somebody who disagrees with me, and that's okay.

I'm just telling you what I believe. The reason you don't do that is say I had a problem with my wife, so I call my dad up and said, you know what? My wife burnt the biscuits, and then she got mean with me, and da, da, da, whatever, and I'm bad-mouthing my wife, and she's treating me this way. Who do you think my parents are going to naturally side with?

Her, but no. And then if she did that to me, her parents would side with her, but what happens is you begin to pit your parents against the person. And then what happens when your spouse doesn't even know you talked to that, or in-laws or outlaws about that, but you went and talked to them about it, and then there's this discomfort. Listen, they're not the ones to be the counselors.

Now, there's time they can give counsel for different things, but you need somebody that's a godly mentor, a godly man or woman that doesn't have any skin in the game that's not going to side one way or the other that can give you some counsel. You need to be very careful about that. I've been married for 20 years. I've not called my parents one time in my life about anything negative about my wife. I've never done that one time in 20 years to her parents. There's probably 5,000 things she could have called them about.

I don't know. But listen, there's some things, just some biblical wisdom there that you need to understand. It says, leave your parents. That's what God calls us to do.

Cleveland to your wife. I've got four daughters, and I think about this, but there is a releasing of that. You're letting them underneath the care of someone else. And so marriage is also elevated here because God created three different institutions, the family, the government, and the church. And the first that he instituted is the family. God created marriage to be innocent and pure. There was no shame, no worldly impurities, no defiled hearts.

Their minds were clean. God also created marriage to be the one special union on the planet to produce children. He tells them in Genesis 1-28, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Like, have kids. You know, go enjoy your life and have a bunch of babies. I mean, God does that. And, you know, I need to say this. Children are such a gift from God.

They really are. Genesis 1-27 says, lo, children are a heritage of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. We live in a day-to-day where people see kids as a burden. Kids is a burden or, you know, it's very difficult. Like, you tell somebody you have three or four or five or six or nine or ten kids, and they think you're crazy. You know, if somebody ever comes to you and they said, yeah, we got seven kids, their response is, that's fantastic, awesome. That's a blessing. The families I know that have, like, a bunch of kids are usually, like, they seem to have a lot of harmony there. It's not the ones that just have one or two that keep the harmony.

And so we need to let people know how blessed it is. You know, one of the tragedies of our nation is you talk to the former generations, all of them had four, five, ten, fifteen kids. I mean, there were kids who grew up with more than five siblings. Raise your hand. There's a lot of older generation that have done that. And so you said you just beat on me, Pastor. You said I'm the older generation.

I raised my hand. But when you look around in the world today, you know, one of the reasons why Islam is growing faster than about anything else is because they have so many children where homes growing up with Christianity are decreasing the number of kids they're having very intentionally, some of them not even having any kids. And then people start making fun of families that have a bunch of kids. Well, I feel sorry for you. You know, poor you got four kids or five kids or ten kids.

No, no, no, no. That's a blessing, friends. That's a reward of God.

And that's a thing to be cherished. I have four daughters, and I tease about it sometimes. You know, four daughters pray for me.

I'm serious. I love having all four girls. They're just so fun. People always told me, oh, wait till you, you know, wait till they hit their teenage years.

They're 17 down to 11, and it's gotten easier. I just love it. I really do. I mean, it's a home of joy. Listen, it's not always perfect because I'm there. I'm not acting like we have some perfect little home, but I'm telling you, it is fun. It is not arguing. It is not yelling.

It is not divisive. It's the easiest years I've experienced. And I am so thankful for that. And don't be afraid. And also, sometimes people are like, well, you can't have kids until you're just financially ready. Got to be financially ready. Got to be suited. Have 20,000, you know, all this.

Who was not financially ready to have kids? Raise your hand real high and hold it up for just a moment. Keep it up there, okay? Let's put both hands up with our feet. I mean, ain't nobody in this room ready to have kids when you look at your bank account. We were not ready, were we? But guess what? You know what the Bible says? That God will also provide. And you know what the Bible says in Genesis 1, 29? That God said, Behold, I've given you every herding seed, face of the earth, of every tree. And God said, I'm going to provide for you. You get over to Matthew 6, the New Testament parallel to that. Jesus says, don't worry about your clothing.

Don't worry about your food. Your heavenly Father knows what you have need of. All these things will be provided. Stop worrying about having everything financially set in the world. And if God blesses you with a child, praise God for that child.

Amen? Now, sometimes you have to have, there's some wise planning involved, but I can tell you, you don't have to think that you have to have everything. I don't know how we made it through the years. And you talk to the older generations, and they had it even tighter than we did. And so, but God gave them blessing of posterity, have children multiply. He also gave them provision, gave them a garden that grew and produced. Then he gave them protection in Genesis 2 17. He warned them what to stay away from. He said, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do not do that.

You shall surely die. You know, God and his love comes to the marriage, and he protects it. There's some things that you have to guard your marriage and your home from. Get things away that are destructive.

Get things away that can cause sin to come and to destroy. And then God created man to have a perfect relationship with himself. In Genesis 3 8 9, it talks about how Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the garden, and God's relationship was perfect with man. And then God also designed marriage to be lasting, that there would be no end to the marriage outside of the death of one of the spouses.

The only thing that would end the marriage would be the death of a spouse. And your Bible is just, you can hold your place there in Genesis and flip over to the book of Matthew. I want to show you a few verses that are extremely important for multiple reasons.

But Matthew chapter 19 verse number 4. And I apologize if I sound a little scratchy today. I really struggled early in the early service. I've been dealing with some coughing and stuff this week. And so, thankfully somebody gave me a cough drop that tastes like I drank a gallon of Vicks VapoRub or something. I mean it has, I feel rejuvenated man. I feel like flowers are growing inside of me or something. Like E. coli or something, I don't know. Good night. They said, it's pretty strong.

I'd say it's pretty strong. I was trying to sing, I couldn't even sing. I'm like breathing. Is this legal to breathe this stuff in? I'm not eating this VapoRub.

What did this person give me? I may not live from this. But it opened me up man. I'm like all clear now. Matthew 19 verse 4.

I'm just being honest with you. I don't know. But here Jesus also deals with divorce and remarriage. And it says in verse 4, And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them?

And what's the next three words? So did Jesus believe in the Genesis count of creation? So you believe in that Genesis 3 stuff? Yeah, because Jesus did. So you believe Jesus died on the cross and rose again? Yeah, then you need to believe in Genesis 3. If you don't believe Jesus died and rose again, then I wouldn't believe in the Genesis count. But if you believe that he's the Savior, then you also need to believe in what he says.

And he said at the beginning he made them. What were the two genders? So does Babylon define genders or does God? So Babylon or America, none of these places. Verse 5, And said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, shall cleave to his wife, and they twain or they too shall be.

How many flesh? So we see a uniting. There's a oneness there. Verse 6, Wherefore they are no more twain or two, but one flesh.

Notice what he says. What therefore, what's the word? God hath joined together. Who brings two people together in marriage?

God does. God's the one who unites them. Marriage is not simply a contract between two, but a covenant between three. And he says, What God joined together, let not man put asunder. Do not let man divide that. They say, Why then did Moses command to give the writing of divorcement, to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, suffered you to put away your wives.

But from the beginning it was not so. God's design is for no one to be divorced. That's not his desire. God hates divorce, Malachi says. We will get into the details of why divorce happens and what God says about that next Sunday. We'll go into the details of divorce and remarriage and so forth.

And that has great implications for us. But you need to understand God's design is that marriage would remain together until death do you part. And so marriage is so special.

It's so precious. You need to understand this morning that there was one thing that God says, I want to show you what my commitment in salvation is like. I'm going to take the commitment that I have for mankind, the death, the salvation that I brought to mankind, and I'm going to use marriage as a picture of that. And so what you have in Ephesians chapter 5 is God comparing his relationship in salvation to bringing the church into relationship with himself as a marriage covenant. It's called the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19. But in Ephesians 5 verse 22 through 33, it compares the marriage relationship to God's relationship to us in salvation. He says in Ephesians 5, 25, husbands love your wife even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.

It's incredible. Marriage is God's design to work to conform sinners into the image of Christ. Now, this is essential for us to understand. It is where husbands and wives, I believe, get to express their love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, patience, respect, kindness, faith, commitment to one another. And out of all relationships, it is marriage that is the greatest and most consistent opportunity to grow you in your walk with God.

There's nothing that you will be involved in. There's no relationship that provides a greater opportunity that God has placed in your life to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, by this shall all men know you're my disciples, by your love one for another. And out of all relationships, it needs to be the relationship with your spouse that does that. God's design is for two people to live together in love, commitment, and to reveal Christ to the world through that relationship. It's important for marriages to see that, that husbands, you're called to grow your wife, wives to grow your husbands to be molded into the image of God, that they're your ministry that you would seek to reflect God to the world. So I would ask, what does your marriage reveal to the world? So you get to the end of Genesis chapter 1 and 2 and you have Adam and Eve happily married, totally fulfilled, without any sin, without any needs, in perfect relationship with God.

They're ruling the world, supremely blessed above all creation. There is no divorce. There's no adultery, no lust, no broken promises, no violations, no covenants of marriage been broken, no infidelity, no pornography, no lies, no deceit. This is simply sinless paradise and that is what God designed.

Perfection, beauty, harmony, joy, and that's what God left man with. And then what happens in Genesis 3, everything goes downhill because man puts his thoughts on it. Man begins to allow sin into the marriage and that's what we find. Secondly, the attack on marriage. Now marriage has been under assault in this nation. Romans 1 tells us one of the sins that will be known in the last days will people will be covenant breakers.

They will break their covenant, their vows. And so sin has assaulted marriage. It is what produces divorce. Today in America, we now define marriage between a man and a man and a woman and a woman. We'll marry anybody. There's no boundary to it. And when people say, well, if love is the foundation of marriage, love is not the foundation of marriage, truth is. It's got to be built upon truth. If you were to tell me that love is the only thing necessary for marriage then I would tell you then why can't a 12-year-old marry a 40-year-old?

Right? And that's not legal. Should it be?

No. Why can't five men marry seven women if love is the only issue? Why can't a man marry a horse? I mean, this is the insanity that our world is moving towards and happening. So just understand you have to, you can't divorce truth from love or you no longer have love because love and truth are harmonized, right?

So does that make sense? Don't make me preach through all that because I'll expand this and I can't even get through the whole sermon today. But one of Satan's greatest attacks is against the marriage because the Bible tells us if the foundations are destroyed, what will the righteous do? If he can undermine marriage, he'll undermine a society, he'll undermine churches. Let me give you three truths about sin and our marriages. There are some things that we need to see in this attack that Satan would bring against marriage. First of all, realize sin will pursue your marriage.

So marriage happens in the end of Genesis chapter 2. Look at chapter 3 verse 1. How long does it take for Satan to show up to attack the marriage? Chapter 3, 1, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and the serpent said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said?

Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. So what does it tell you that Satan shows up so soon? Does it let you know that there might be an enemy that would like to assault your marriage, somebody who would like to take it down? Was Eve looking for Satan? Was she looking for the enemy to attack her? Satan is the pursuer. He's the one on the attack. Let's read 1 Peter 5, 8 together.

It's up here on the screen. It says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. So the word be sober is built off of the previous verse which says God cares for you so you can have a sober mind, a peaceful mind knowing that God cares for you, but at the same time be vigilant. It's like be alert. And the reason you need to be alert is because you have an adversary, the devil like a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour. And the picture is like a lion coming after its prey. And if you ever watch those shows like When Lions Kill or something, and you have the little gazelles that are dancing around, and I know always inside of a crowd you have the gazelle fans and then you have the lion fans.

And who's the fan of the gazelle? Like you really want them to live. You're like, you know, I want them to get away. Who is like lion needs to eat?

Yes, that's me. I'm like, you know, come on, you know, Chase, get him. And all my daughters are like, no, Dad. You know, they're smacking me. I'm like, he's got to eat.

Give him some meat, you know. But it's just a baby. I don't have more babies, you know. But you see that, and the gazelles are so fast. I mean, these lions are, you know, they can't catch the healthy gazelles.

There's not even a chance. I mean, the gazelle like kicks them in the face, spits on them, and like runs off and laughs. But what the lion does is they try to sneak up, but they look for the ones that are little or the ones that are hurt or the ones that they can separate and they can surround.

And so the picture there is there's an isolation. The lion looks for the opportune time. They look for the one who isn't doing well, the one who is pulled away from the pack. And so what Satan does is he is watchful. He is pursuing. He will seek you at times when you're not ready for him. The marriage that is not watchful will find itself caught off guard.

I can tell you that. And so also when you read in Genesis 3, you see that he didn't come to Adam. He came to Eve. He didn't attack the man.

He attacked the woman first year. And so I ask the question, does God require men not only to care for their wives and protect them physically, but also spiritually, to put the hedge of protection around the home? And men, are you making sure that your home is safe from sin?

Do you put up some guards to make sure that your home doesn't get invaded with evil? So first of all, realize that sin is a pursuer. And secondly, we see that sin is not ignorant in its pursuits. Verse number 1 of chapter 3 says, Now the serpent was more subtle, the word means crafty. He is cunning.

He knows some things about people and how their processes are. And Satan will bring temptations that are suited to our desires. He attacks our weaknesses.

He tempts us at the point of those weaknesses. I think we see that very clearly in Matthew 4. It says when the tempter came, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread. Why did Satan tempt Jesus with bread?

Well, because Jesus had not eaten for 40 days. He attacked him at the point of greatest temptation. Listen, if you struggle with insecurities, it's easy for Satan to bring someone along who will validate you, who will affirm you, who will encourage you. If you struggle with lust, he will bring someone along that will tempt you in such ways or bring something in your life. If your marriage is going through a combative time, he may bring somebody in your life that's super agreeable to you, always getting along with you, to where you'll say, Why can't my husband or why can't my wife agree with me like that?

Why are they always combative? And you'll find yourself beginning to be fulfilled inwardly, even though there's nothing may happen externally. But if you start finding yourself being fulfilled in any way, validated, affirmed, encouraged, these things on the inside from someone other than your spouse, you need to recognize that is a sly attack from the enemy, that you need to remove yourself from such a relationship that could turn into something very sinful. He waits till you're worn out. He waits till you're tired. He waits till you're exhausted. He waits till you feel overwhelmed, you feel unloved. Then he hits you with the temptation, and you think that he has your best interest in mind.

You think that he really cares for you. That is why in marriage we need to hold each other up. You know, it's rare that both spouses go through a hard time at the same time. It's rare that like a husband's down and a wife's down. Usually the husband may be down in a season and the wife may be doing good and stable, or the wife's down and the husband's stable.

This is what you need to hear today. In a marriage, each spouse needs to see each other as a ministry. Your number one ministry, husbands, is to your wife. Wife, your number one ministry is to your husband.

There's no one on this planet that you're called to minister to before them. You're not one flesh with your kids. You're not one flesh with people at church. You're not one flesh with your lost co-worker. You're one flesh with your spouse.

It is God, your spouse, then your children, and then everything else. And so what can happen sometimes is the husband has a bad day not doing well. The wife's having a good day. He comes home, and he's just not being kind. He's not being gracious and cutting her off. And maybe his spiritual life has been down in the dumps. He hasn't been reading the Bible. Or flip that around where she's not been reading her Bible, and maybe she's having a bad season and he's doing well. You know what we need to make sure that we do is to see our spouse as someone we can minister to and not in those situations how they're failing to perhaps minister to you. Because what we can do is say, Well, if she's going to treat me like that, and then start punching back at her with your words or with your attitudes and being unkind and being ungracious and all this stuff, and instead of helping build her up and to protect her from the satanic and spiritual attacks that can come against her life, you're not looking to minister to her. You're looking to minister to yourself. And it becomes a selfish person that sees their spouse having a bad day or a bad week or a low season in life or struggling with depression or struggling with something and instead of saying, How can I build them up and minister to them? Maybe I need to just sit down and say, You know what?

How's your day going? And we need to talk and spend some time and to help build them up in the Lord. And instead of doing that, we get offended because they've been short with me or they were unkind to me and their response.

I asked them once and they were cutting me off and they don't care. Listen, selfish marriages become destructive entities. You need to have a selfless mentality, a minister mentality. I would ask this question this way. When is the last time you looked at your husband or wife as a ministry?

When's the last time you said, You know what? I need to minister to them. In my life, as I minister to people, I find it's almost impossible for me to get offended at people I seek to minister to. It almost is impossible.

It literally is. And you'll find this to be the case when you raise your kids, you're just constantly ministering to them. You don't get personally offended at them. Maybe you do when they get older because you start thinking about yourself in some situations more, but you look at them just as a ministry. If you go out and say you're ministering in some drug rehab, you're ministering to somebody in some difficult situation, if they say something off, recruited a little bit, you don't get personally offended. You're like, Man, I know they're going through difficulty, but I'm just here to minister to them and care for them.

When you look at your spouse as a minister, I can tell you it'll flip something in your brain. The reason people get offended is they're ministering to themself. That's why some young people are mad all the time. They're just focused on themself.

They're just me, me, me, my, my, my. And it creates the most miserable person on the planet. There's givers and takers. And if you're a giver, your life is filled with some joy. If you're a taker, your life is filled with some misery. So become a giver.

Be one who seeks to minister, to pour your life out to others. And so what are some of the elements of Satan's attack upon Eve? Well, you see in chapter number three, the first thing that he did was he got in a conversation with her. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, Be not deceived. Evil communication corrupts good manners. There are some conversations you don't want to get involved in.

There are some conversations you need to avoid. And then he caused doubt in the Word of God. He says, Yea, hath God said? The first question in history that we know of and in the Bible is the question in verse three. Yea, hath God said? Up to this point, it's all statements of facts.

Just truth after truth after truth. The first question is in chapter three, verse one. And he says, Yea, hath God said? So he begins to question the Word of God. Then in verse four, he just flat out denies it. Eve says, If we eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if we touch it, we shall die. And he says in verse four, Yea shall not surely die. And then we see here that he lessens the consequence. Not only does he cause doubt in the Word of God, but he lessens the consequence. You're not going to die.

You serious? You know the person who would preach the message, You'll never go to hell, would be Satan. Satan would be the first person who would say, Hell is fictitious.

I'm a universalist. Everybody goes to heaven. Nobody goes to hell. She said, If we eat of the fruit of the tree, we shall surely die. Satan laughed and said, That's a joke. You're not going to die.

So when somebody gets up and says, Hey, the Bible says without Christ, you trust in Jesus Christ. You're saved. You're going to stand before God. You'll be found guilty. You'd end up in hell. Satan would laugh and say, You're not going to hell. Are you kidding me?

What a joke. Satan is one who always lessens the consequence. Sin won't mess your life up. You know how severe Jesus talked about it?

He said, If your eye lusts, if your hand lusts, cut them off, chop them off, get rid of that. That's how severe, that's how real hell is. And Satan comes along and says, No, it's not. So where Jesus heightens the consequence, Satan constantly lowers it.

Which voice are you listening to today? And then Satan told Eve that it was not obedience to God, but it was, in fact, disobedience to God that would fulfill her life. Look what he says in Genesis 3.5. Satan told the woman, For God doth know that in the day that you eat of this fruit, you eat of this fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes shall be open, and you shall be as God's knowing good and evil. What Satan was saying is, You want fulfillment, you want true satisfaction, then disobey God. Then do exactly the opposite of what he told you to do. Satan will always lessen your consequence. He will always validate you in your sin.

He will tell you things like, You have a right to treat your spouse this way. Look at what they've done to you. You have a right to be angry, resentful, and unforgiving.

You have a right to yell and scream and to cuss them out. Anybody would act that way after what you've been through. Satan is always easy on the ears and on the conscience. He has no standards. He passes no judgment. He will not make you feel guilty. He will not convict you over your sin. Satan will never judge you.

Those are some of the things you need to understand. So sin will pursue your marriage. It is not ignorant in its pursuits. It is exact. It is precise.

It is wise in how it proceeds. And thirdly, realize sin has power to destroy your marriage. Sin is very powerful.

It is very powerful. Just think about how much sin did it take to destroy the world. It didn't take 50, did it?

It just took one. Sin is very powerful. When Adam and Eve chose to sin, it caused great separation. Notice the first thing it does.

And actually, let me give you a quick walkthrough of this. Look at verse 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food. So the first step in the process of her sin was she saw this and that it was pleasant to the eyes. That's the look turned into looking. The glance turned into gazing.

He fixed her eyes on the temptation. You see, before you ever take something that's sinful, you have to observe it. You have to look at it. You have to begin to long for it.

And when he can get you looking, he can get you taking. And that's where Jesus says, you've got to pluck your eyes out. You've got to rid your hands. You've got to get rid of this. And it says, so she looked upon it.

That's the first step. And a tree to be desired to make one wise, that's the desire. That's the lust.

That's the covetousness. That's that inward part of the person that begins to desire that which is not right. When you look long enough, the desire will be enhanced. And it's not long that after you desire something that the third step will happen.

And she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. What you look at, you lust for and you begin to take. And that three-step process, if you don't want to be a taker of sin, you don't be a looker at sin, right? Don't glance at it.

Don't observe it. Now, the things that happen immediately, notice what happens in verse 7. This is so tragic. And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.

You know the first thing? Their innocence was lost. You ever have kids and you're always one of the things you say, I don't want my kids to lose their innocence. I don't want them to hear things. I don't want them to see things in the world that could mess up their innocence.

You know what happened once they ate the fruit? Innocence is gone. Anybody get mad when your kids lose some innocence? That's why some parents around the country are pretty irate because they're teaching some R-rated material to kindergarten children in some places around this country and it's vile.

And it's like that doesn't need to be talked about, right? So you want to protect. And what it does is sin just destroys innocence. And then in verse 8 through 10, you know what they do? They begin to hide from God. They hid from the Lord. It wasn't Adam and Eve looking for God in the garden. It was God looking for Adam and Eve.

They hid themselves. I can tell you the first thing that happens when you get involved in sin is you don't want to be around the things of God. You don't want to be at church. You don't want to hear the Bible.

You don't want to have conviction. You want to distance yourself. You need to be very careful for that because what you desire, God can ultimately give you. You don't want him. He won't let you have him. Read Matthew 13.

They kept rejecting God, and God says, I'll turn the light out for you. You don't want me. You'll never have me forever.

I'll remove you from my presence forever. That's what he did to the Jewish people. They said, why do you speak to them in parables? He says, because to you it's given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them I've not given it to them. Because they have eyes they will not see. They have ears they will not hear.

And I'm giving them over. That is a judgment of God. And you have to take very serious the things that you hear.

I tell people, coming to the lighthouse is a very serious thing. Because you are accountable for what you now have heard. Not everywhere is going to teach you the scriptures. And when you hear the word of God, now you're accountable for that.

And you need to apply that to your life. And so sin separated them from peace and childbearing. We see in verse 16 that the woman fell under the curse where she now had birth pains and childbearing. They also had a fight in verse 11 through 13 where Adam blames God and Eve for the sin. Eve blames the serpent.

There's separation there. And they also deal with the great tragedy of chapter 4 where they're separated from their kids because Cain kills their son Abel. And then Cain is a fugitive. And sin has this massive effect. Instead of things getting better as Satan promoted and promised, everything got worse.

Everything became destructive. In verse 16, I want to highlight what a specific consequence came into their life. And I want you to see this. Look at Genesis 3, 16. It says, And unto the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. And then it says, And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Now what does that mean? Thy desire shall be to thy husband. I don't think it means that she's going to desire her husband physically because that is not a curse.

Plus, men typically have a greater desire physically than women do. The word for desire here is a Hebrew word, sukkah. And it is used only one other time in the entire Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. And it's used 15 verses later in chapter 4, verse 7. And the word means to compel, to seek, to control.

It does not come from a root word that means exciting or loving. And so look how it's used in Genesis chapter 4, verse 7. In Genesis 4, 7, God tells Cain that you need to bring the right kind of an offering. You need to bring the right kind of a heart in your sacrifice as well, and gives a warning in verse 7 as well. He says, If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not well, sin lies at the door. So sin will lie at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire. In other words, sin is waiting for how you respond, and it desires you, and thou shalt, or you should rule over it. So Cain, you need to do what's right, because if you don't do what's right, sin is literally crouching like an animal, and it's ready to pounce upon you to control your life. And so the grammatical structure and form is identical in chapter 4, 7, as it is in 3, 16 in the Hebrew.

It's exactly the same. And so whatever it means in chapter 4, verse 7 is what it will mean in chapter 3, verse 16. And so look at chapter 3, verse 16 again, and let me just share with you what it means.

Chapter 3, 16 literally could be like this. Your desire, wives, will be to control your husband, and he will rule over you. The desire for your husband is the desire to control him.

That's the desire. Prior to the fall, there was a blissful marital union. When the husband lovingly led his wife, the wife was respectful in submission to the husband. Harmony and love abounded, respect abounded, but after the fall, no longer the desire to be under the leadership of a husband, and the husband no longer lovingly led his wife, but was doing so in a domineering way. And here you have the battle of the sexes that erupted.

He would seek to rule over you, and you would seek to overthrow his leadership. And that has been the clash of marriages ever since the curse. You know why divorce happens? You know why divorce happens? Because sin was injected into the marriage. And the consequence is women hate submission, and men want to rule with a heavy hand. Those curses are intrinsically inside of the human heart.

And so now you have the feminist movement that seeks to overthrow everything that would be a type of male leadership of any kind, and we see that happening throughout our country, and we've seen over the centuries where male domination has been unloving, unkind, domineering, and evil in so many ways. And that has been the history of mankind. But what God's design is that the man would treat the wife as Christ treated the church, and that the wife would treat the husband as the church responds under the loving guidance of Christ's leadership. I can tell you, friends, marriage, according to the Word of God, He calls it the grace of life. You know what marriage is? Marriage is the grace of life. You want to have a wonderful marriage?

You build it on the Word of God. Stop looking at what the world has to offer. I want to say this to young people today. Save yourself for marriage. Pray for your marriage. Be excited for marriage. Don't wait till you're 30 to get married. Get married young enough, under some wisdom and guidance of some counselor at some level.

But listen, you need to recognize, save yourself for marriage. Marriages that get into fornication and live together before they're married have a 50% higher divorce rate than those who save themselves purity for marriage. Marriage is awesome.

So good. We're going to be doing some things in our church over this next year to really invest a lot more into the marriages of our church, really to help build them up, and I believe it will be generationally helpful. But understand, there's going to be some attacks upon marriages, and if you're a husband today, I would ask you, what are you doing to take care of your marriage? Sometimes men could be better at pre-maintenancing their truck than they are their marriage. Some guys are better at checking the oil in their truck than they are to see how their wife's doing. I'm going to ask you this question.

What's a more wise way to approach life? Pre-maintenancing things or post-maintenancing things? Is it better to post-maintenance your vehicle or to pre-maintenance it?

You'd rather check the fluid and the oil and all these things before they got overheated or they were too low, right? Let me ask, when's the last time you sat down with your wife, husbands? When's the last time you sat down and said, honey, how are you doing? How are things going to work? How are you doing reading? How's your spiritual life going? What are some goals that we could set for our marriage?

What are some things that we can... When's the last time, wives, you sat down and were concerned about how your husband was doing spiritually? When's the last time you sat down and asked him, how's your Bible reading going? Why don't we take some time and pray together? And there's some guys who say, man, I don't feel comfortable reading my Bible, praying. Listen, some of you guys have been to war.

Some of you guys have done some crazy things in life, been through battles. Get uncomfortable and read the Bible with your spouse. Get uncomfortable and talk about Jesus with your spouse.

If God's the number one and the only true God, and that marriage relationship is the number one relationship, wouldn't it be good to bring those together? It's necessary. Be willing to be made uncomfortable and talk through that stuff. And I know some guys are like, man, I'd rather go through World War III than have a long conversation.

I'm not sure how this thing works and all this stuff. Listen, that's all right. That's what courage is about. Be a man. Step up. Be courageous.

Get out of your comfort zone. Grab that girl's hand and say, you know what, I love God and I love you, and I want God to protect us, and say a five-word prayer or a 50-word prayer. It doesn't matter, but you lead that family in the ways of God. And wife, support him, encourage him, and you be that leader.

You come alongside him and encourage him and pray together, spend time together. How's your kids doing? How's your sons and daughters doing?

How are they doing? And if your kids aren't doing well, do you ever sit down and talk about it? Do you ever sit down and say, hey, let's pray for our kids this week?

I know our kids are going back to school. If the church can pray for them, surely we as a husband and wife, we could sit down and pray for our kids, and how are our kids doing, and I know they're going through this struggle, and let's talk about that. Let's get on the same page. Let's not address problems after they come. Why don't we address problems before they come?

Why don't we sit down and say, let's talk about this, and let's make sure we're both on the same page, because I don't want to go into this battle with our teenager, battle with our child, and then you have your point of view, and I have my point of view, and we end up arguing, and the whole place is a chaos. If these are the most important relationships, why don't we take some time and work on them? What else in the world is so important? What's so important on this little device that we can spend so much time on this silly thing and not spend time with our husband or wife or our children and investing in what really matters?

I can tell you after doing 130 funerals, no one has ever told me I wish I spent more time on this device, ever. There's people who with tears running down their face say, boy, I wish I spent more time with my family. I can't take it back. The pain in their face, friends, I've seen it. I can't even tell you how many times.

They can't even hardly get the words out. I would have done things different. If I could have gone back, I would have changed some things. There's not one adulterer that I've ever heard say, I wish I would have done that again. There's no fornicator.

I've sat down with marriages where a 70-year-old has been addicted to pornography for 30, 40 years. His life's a wreck, his marriage is a disaster. Was it worth it? No, it's chaos. It's chaos. I'm going to tell you something.

Put God first. Marriage is bliss. It is wonderful.

Is it work? Yes. But everything in life that's worth anything is work. Amen. And you want the production of a joy-filled life with wonderful kids. You can say, let's raise together. And when we're 70-year-olds, let's sit on a porch someday holding hands and just thinking back through the pictures and the memories and the joy, seeing our grandkids and all the wonderful things that God's blessed our life with and knowing that one day we're going to be in heaven together. This is the beauty of what God has for you.

Let's set the pinnacle where it needs to be. Let's put marriage on the top shelf and not on the ground where the world's cast at. Amen. Maybe today you just need to come and spend some time in prayer.

Friend, I encourage you to do that. Take that bride. Come down to the altar. I'm going to pray with my wife today down at the altar. Why don't you grab the hand of your wife and come down and maybe you're not married.

Maybe you're engaged. Why don't you come to the altar and pray? Maybe you say, I'd like to get married one day. Well, why don't you come and say, God, why don't you prepare me a life, prepare my life for the spouse that you would have for me one day.

Put your heads about me. And if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we'll have men and women stand at that door and this door down here. You can come today and say, you know what? I need to be saved. I need to trust in Christ as my Savior. And so I encourage you, whatever your need is, why don't you make that spiritual decision today?

Let's all stand this morning. Heads about nice, close the altars open. Father, we thank you for your word today. We thank you for your mercy, your love, your grace. Thank you for all your blessings. Pray that you would bless this invitation time. Help us to be humble. Help us to apply what you have for us. God, thank you. Pray if anyone is watching online or here today that doesn't know Christ, today they might come and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We give you all the praise for all you've done. In Jesus' name, amen.