The Bad News About Marriage

Well, it's great to see all of you here this morning. As we, come to the part of our service where we open God's word and we worship Him by listening to him and what he has to say to us. Today, we're going to be coming back to our, marriage series and we'll be back on this series for the next, this week and then the next, two weeks, and, If you want to give a title to the message, this morning, please don't walk out. Is the bad news about marriage.

The bad news about marriage. And let me have you turn in your Bibles to, I think Genesis chapter 2, which is where we'll be actually Genesis 1, no, I think it's 2. All right, Genesis 2. we, in our first two messages on our, in our series on marriage, we looked at seven basic truths about, marriage, largely from Genesis chapter 2 verse 24.

And there is everything to love about what we saw. The seven truths that we have learned are that God created and owns the institution of marriage. God created marriage to be heterosexual. God established marriage to be the couple's most important relationship.

God created marriage to be covenantal. God also sanctioned marriage as the context for sexual intimacy. He blessed marriage as the context for procreation, and God created marriage to display the glories of the gospel. These are things that we have learned, thus far, and what is not to love about this picture, right?

All of these facets look so beautiful, as we have seen them laid out in Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 and the surrounding verses. But sadly, we turn away from this picture and look at the reality. We look around in our world today and we look even inside of our own marriages and the picture is not so pretty, right? Or at least often is not.

We see shortcomings and pain on just about every level, everywhere we look. Coming into the ministry, A quarter of a century ago, I, I would freely confess to the fact that I underestimated the degree to which people experience pain inside of their marriage relationship. I have sat with married couples. And I have seen husbands and wives almost crazy.

With heart-rending, mind numbing pain, reeling with hurts caused by their spouse, and even dumbfounded with disappointment over their own behavior. Inside the marriage as well. I myself have failed in countless ways in mine and Donna's marriage over the years. As I have failed to love her as God has called me to love her.

I've literally held my wife while she has heaved with sobs over the hurts that I have inflicted. On her. Donna and I have reached low points in our marriage, low points in which I, I, I will confess this, in which I literally prayed for God to take one of us home. Either me or her because in that moment I had concluded that our marriage is not going to work out.

Donna would tell you, she recently confessed to me that she prayed the same prayer at some of those points. And while our marriage has grown and matured, And been beautified over the years and while it is true that Donna and I love each other and appreciate each other more now than ever, we would both say that marriage has been the hardest thing that we have ever done, filled with many humbling moments of frustration and struggle. There are marriages in this room, in our church that are experiencing pain.

The pain of present sin and the pain of past sins committed and endured.

Perhaps there has been And maybe is physical abuse in your marriage. Perhaps there is verbal or emotional abuse in your marriage. Perhaps the only thing left in your marriage right now is anger and despair. Perhaps you've grown apart over the years such that you hardly talk as a husband and wife anymore except in those moments where you absolutely must.

Perhaps you look at your marriage and you're saddened to see. And saddened to admit that your marriage is hardly a marriage at all. You look at other marriages for some sign of hope, yet you often see more cause for discouragement than encouragement as you look around. Sometimes even in the church.

Maybe you're sitting here today and you're like, Pastor Melton, if I really were honest, I have, I have no felt love in my heart for my spouse right now. Just bitterness, anger and disappointment. And disappointment with me too. We look at the brokenness all around us.

And inside of our marriages sometimes and we're left asking what happened. How did we get here? Why do we struggle in our marriages, in our own marriages? How do we figure out what has gone wrong and how do we get our marriages to the place where they need to be?

To answer these questions. We need to do more than to go back 5 years or 10 years or 20 years. We need to do more than even go back to our wedding day. We need to even do more than go back to your childhood.

To figure out what has gone wrong, we actually need to go back several 1000 years. And study what happened inside of the first marriage in human history. The marriage between Adam and Eve. It is there that we actually find the root of our own marital struggles.

From one standpoint, I expect the message today to be somewhat of a downer, but if you are struggling in your marriage, I think you will find this message to be oddly encouraging. Because it will make you feel less alone in your struggles and it will help you to realize the origin of your struggles, and that's the beginning. of transformation. It will also set you up to appreciate the good news of the gospel and the role that the good news of the gospel should be playing in your marriage relationship.

And if you're here today and your marriage is a joyous marriage, This message today will help you to see what an astonishing miraculous grace that is. I want to, with the time that we have, give you 3 pieces of bad news that serve to explain why our marriage, or why marriage is often such a struggle. Three pieces of bad news that help us to understand why marriage is often such a struggle. The first piece of bad news is that the first sins in human history occurred inside of the context of marriage.

As an institution, thinking of marriage as an institution, the first sins in human history happened inside of this institution. of marriage. To a large degree, the initial failures and sins of Adam and Eve were marital failures. They were more than that, but they were, in fact, fundamentally marital sins that ended up damaging the institution of marriage itself and also damaging every husband and wife.

That has lived ever since. You and I literally bear the scars of Adam and Eve's sins inside of their marriage and we bring those scars. Into our own marriages. To understand what went wrong with Adam and Eve's marriage, we need to go back to Genesis chapter 2.

In Genesis 2, we see that God has lavishly provided for Adam in the garden. God also observes that Adam is alone without a woman who can complete him. So God creates a woman and he gives her to Adam. This is the God that Jehovah is.

A God who sees Adam's needs and seeks to supply those needs in a lavish, beautiful way, Adam had every reason to trust God, to take good care of him. Notice the instructions that God gives to Adam before Eve is created. In chapter 2, verse 16, it says, the Lord God commanded the man. Saying from any tree of the garden, you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.

Eve was created after God spoke these words to Adam. So whatever Eve later came to understand, of what is being said here, she would have learned that from Adam. Now observe what happens next as the curtains open on Genesis chapter 3, we're introduced to the serpent who speaks to Eve, and look at verse 1, and the serpent said to the woman, indeed has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. I think what's happening here is that the serpent is trying to bring doubt into Eve's mind over how truthful Adam had been and telling her what God had said.

But the serpent's tactic doesn't work. However, the text says, beginning in verse 2, and the woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. Eve, through what she says here, Confirms that she believes that God really has spoken and that God really has given direction regarding the partaking of the fruit of the trees.

However, she is making some fundamental mistakes here in the way that she is representing God.

At the very least, She has removed the word freely from God's command to eat of all of the fruit of the good trees of the garden. She's also added to the prohibition by expanding it to include even touching the tree. Ultimately, what's happening here at the very least is that she is minimizing the generosity of God and maximizing God's prohibition. These shifts in her thinking will end up hastening her step towards sin and wreaking havoc on her marriage.

Ladies, just a quick word, do not be deceived. The way you understand and the way you handle God's revelation. Has a profound impact on your marriage. Observed the serpent's response, and the serpent said, You shall not die, for God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

The serpent is now impugning God in a direct attack. The serpent wants Eve to think that God is holding out on her and on Adam, keeping good things from them that they would be better off having. And it seems that the serpents strategy works. There's every indication that Eve embraces the serpent's representation of God.

And with this darkened view of God now clouding her judgment, Eve's perspective toward the tree begins to change. In verse 6, The text says when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband who was with her, and he ate. From verse 6 alone, We can see several additional layers of Eve's failure in the context of her and Adam's marriage.

First of all, we see Eve following the serpent's leadership rather than her husband's and actually joining the serpent in his rebellion against God and against her husband.

Remember guys, that the serpent was a beast of the field, which means that Adam would have named the serpent along with all the other beasts of the field on day 6 of creation, thereby demonstrating his, Adam's dominion. Over the serpent and all the other beasts of the field. Yet now the serpent who was under Adam's dominion is rebelling against Adam's dominion, and Eve is actually joining the serpent in his rebellion against her husband. And then against God.

After partaking of the tree herself, Eve. Then asserts herself and leads Adam contrary. To the leadership that God had given to Adam. God told Adam himself not to partake of the forbidden tree, but in Genesis 3:6, the text says that Eve gave the fruit of that tree to her husband.

The language of Genesis 3:17 makes it clear that Eve spoke when she gave the fruit. To Adam and that she instructed him, commanded him to partake of the forbidden fruit. So clearly, Eve is asserting herself and verbally leading Adam to behave contrary to what God had commanded Adam to do, and that is abstain from the tree. Related to this failure, we see here that Eve is all too happy to demote God from his position as the director of Adam's life and she's putting herself in God's place in Adam's life.

Taking upon herself the right to command Adam contrary to God's command. Taking this step is actually a logical step for Eve. She's partaken of the fruit, and in her own thinking, she's become like God, knowing good and evil. So now she feels that she has a prerogative to behave in this way.

As a God-like being, or so she thinks, Eve now wrestles with God and presumes. To replace God as the director of Adam's life. In the process, Eve is seeking. To be Adam's savior.

Seeking to elevate Adam to God-like status, to be as God, knowing good and evil. She clearly is not content any longer to have a husband who's merely a husband. She wants a husband who is like God in ways that a man should not be like God. And ever since then, countless women Throughout human history, get married, not looking merely for a husband, but looking for a man who is like God and who can meet needs in them that only God can meet.

As for Adam's failures here, there are a few things we can observe as well. There is the possibility, I'm not 100% dogmatic about this, but there is the possibility that Adam was passive when he should have protected and led. His wife, the text says that when she partook of the fruit, she gave to her husband who was with her, which could be understood in the sense that she gave to her husband who was with her at the time that she was tempted and partook. If this is the right understanding, then it would indicate that Adam apparently stood idly by when his wife was being tempted by the serpent, and he did not watch over her and intervene as he should have.

This would mean if this is the right interpretation, that what we have here is the first passive husband in history. And he wasn't the last. We also see that Adam obeyed Eve. According to the language God uses in Genesis 3:17, and he followed her leadership in direct disobedience to God.

He's letting Eve assume the place that only God should have in his life, allowing her to direct him contrary to God's will. We also see that in partaking of the fruit, Adam is choosing Eve over God. As one writer says, in the end, Adam fell not merely by choosing to sin, but by preferring God's gift of his wife over God himself. And loving his wife more than God.

Adam is actually not loving Eve well at all. Adam actually would have loved Eve better if he had loved her second. To God. As CS Lewis beautifully says, when I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better.

Than I do now You do not love your spouse well when you love them first and foremost over God. Adam, though, does not love. God better than his earthly dearest. He chooses to give Eve a place in his heart that should have only belonged to God and does terrific damage to his marriage.

As a result So what happens? This brings us to the next piece of bad news. The second fact we need to, to know in order to understand why our marriages struggle. To this day, and that is this, 2, the post-fall tendencies of husbands and wives are profoundly detrimental to their marriage.

The post-fall tendencies of husbands and wives are profoundly detrimental to their marriage. If you're married, as a husband, as a wife, you have inside of you indwelling sin, you have inside of you tendencies that if allowed, To run without check will destroy your marriage. We see the effects of Adam and Eve's sins immediately on display. First of all, we see that Adam and Eve, husband and wife, immediately began hiding themselves from one another.

This is so sad. In Genesis 3:7, the text says, then the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. This is a husband and wife, guys, a husband and wife who have the whole planet to themselves. And they're seeking to cover up and shield themselves from the sight of each other.

Suddenly they feel shame in the presence of each other and they sow fig leaves to hide their body parts from their spouse. And to this day Husbands and wives still hide and still withhold themselves from one another inside of their marriage relationships. Unresolved shame over our failures toward each other, along with disappointment and anger against one another, contribute to this distancing and hiding and withholding of ourselves from one another inside of our marriages. The place where we're supposed to be one.

And full transparency. Secondly, we see the husband and wife hiding themselves from God. In Genesis 3:8, the text says, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Rather than the husband and the wife uniting together and coming before God, they're hiding from God, they're running away from God.

When they needed God the most, they're actually running away from him just as husbands and wives do today, avoiding God. At all costs What happens next? The text says, then the Lord God called to the man and said, where are you? Where are you?

I don't know if this is on the, no, it's not. where are you? Look at verse 9 in Genesis chapter 3. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. Actually, it is up there. OK, very good. It's interesting to note, if you look at Adam's words here, Adam is not confessing his sin here.

He should have said, I'm hiding because I'm afraid, and I'm afraid because I sinned. But he doesn't do that. Instead he just says, I heard your sound in the garden and I was afraid so I hid myself. Adam is confessing consequences of his sins.

Not his sin. And we do the same We're great at confessing consequences. Not our sins. A wife may be consumed with anger against her husband and she's exhausted and depressed as a result, and someone asked her, how you doing today?

And she says, I have a headache, I'm exhausted, please pray for me. In such a moment, she's merely confessing consequences of her anger, not her actual sin of anger. Also, a husband may fail to nourish and cherish his wife and then people may ask him, hey, how's your marriage going? And he'll say, well, my wife is a mess right now, please pray for her.

What's he doing? He's simply confessing consequences. Of his sin, not his sins. We are all skilled at confessing symptoms, not sins, which is exactly what Adam is doing here.

Adam and Eve are hiding themselves from one another, they're hiding themselves from God. Thirdly, we see the husband and wife hiding themselves from their own eyes, afraid actually to see themselves truly. This is embodied in the fact that they're hiding from God. They're hiding from God, not simply because they don't want God to see them.

They're also hiding from God because they don't want to see God. And they don't want to see God because they intuitively know that to look upon Him is to see themselves truly. Think about Isaiah and Isaiah chapter 6. It was when Isaiah saw the Lord.

In all of his glory that Isaiah saw himself like he had never seen himself before. He realized his sinfulness more deeply than ever and said, woe is me. I'm an unclean. Man He says that and sees that after seeing God, and in the same way Adam and Eve are hiding from God because they know that to look upon God is to see themselves truly and the prospect of seeing themselves truly terrifies them.

And we see that in marriages today. So not surprisingly, we see yet a 4th tendency. In this first husband and wife on this side of the fall, and that is right off the bat, the first husband and wife become blame shifters. Have you ever seen this in your marriage?

How many of you would say yes, Pastor Milton, blame shifting. is a real problem in my marriage and my spouse is the reason for that. Just raise your hand. I see those hands Honestly, I've seen this in marriage counseling again and again.

A couple comes in with a troubled marriage, say, what's the problem? And they both sit there and do a phenomenal job of confessing their spouse's sins. And then when they're pressed on their own sin, they may acknowledge their sin, but then they minimize it by putting responsibility for their sin onto their spouse. This is an ancient art form that goes all the way back to what Adam and Eve do here in Genesis 3.

When God says, To Adam In verse 11, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I told you not to eat from? Adam should have said, yes, I ate. That's all he needed to say.

But he doesn't do that. Instead, in verse 12, The text says, and the man said, the woman. Whom you gave. To be with me She gave.

To me from the tree And I ate And pass the bug. Adam ends up eventually admitting his guilt, but not before he admitted Eve's guilt and even God's complicity in his sin. Adam's response was basically I know what you're asking me, Lord, but before we talk about my sin, I would first like to talk about this woman. Then I would like to talk about the fact that you gave this woman to me.

And then thirdly, I would like to talk about the fact that she gave to me from the tree, and then I'll get around to talking about my sin of eating what the woman whom you gave me, gave me. That's amazing. And it's all here. Becky Pippert in her book Hope Has Its Reasons, says Adam's reactions are so smooth and deftly developed that one would never guess he is a rookie at the business of sin.

Albert Camus, the French existentialist. Once said these words, the idea that comes most naturally to man, as if from his very nature is the idea of his innocence. We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something.

Each of us insist on being innocent at all costs, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself. This man's not even a Christian. And he sees this In us. And that's exactly what Adam does here.

He accuses the whole human race, which happened to be Eve at this point. And he also accuses heaven itself, God, in order to minimize his guilt. And Eve does. A little bit of the same.

In Genesis 3:13, it says, then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent. The serpent deceived me. And I ate Eve's first priority was to point to the serpent.

Her second priority was to point to the serpent's act of deceiving her, and her 3rd and lowest priority was to admit her guilt. So here's the deal guys. On this side of the fall, We all do everything we can to avoid and delay having to admit our sins, right? When we do admit our sins, we're careful to do so only after confessing the sins of other people first.

We are sinners To the core. And our sinfulness is manifested not only in the sins that we commit, but also in our quickness to shift the blame for our sin onto others. And the wonderful thing about marriage, is that we now have a conveniently flawed spouse that we can blame all of our failures on. I say that tongue in cheek.

In his book, When Sinners Say I Do, Dave Harvey makes this admission. He says after I was saved and before I was married, I lived under the mad, undaunted delusion that I was spiritually mature. Mine was a rich and largely imaginary holiness. If ignorance is bliss, then I was in permanent ecstasy.

The infrequent examinations of my seemingly innocent heart revealed little need for improvement. I lived expecting that at any moment God might send chariots to carry me to heaven, Elijah-like. Talk about a guy in need of the doctrine of sin. He goes on, but then it happened.

I got married. And became A blame shifter. After getting married, I can't tell you how many times I thought I never had these problems before. This must be my wife's fault.

The truth is, I had always been a blame shifter. It's just that after getting married, there were so many more good opportunities to express this fault. I think Dave Harvey speaks for all of us, so we should not look at Adam and Eve and say how dare they do all of this blame shifting. We do the same thing and it destroys our marriages.

Some people don't even go as far as Adam does. God would say to them, did you eat from the tree? And their response is, the woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave to me from the tree. Period.

They don't even go as far as Adam does here. Some of you may be in a In a spot in your marriage, and I've, I've dealt with couples where husbands and wives where they're in a spot like this, you cannot even see your sins because you're so focused on your spouse's sins. It's all you wanna talk about. Is your spouse's sins.

In summary, we see that as soon as Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they start hiding from one another and hiding from God and hiding from themselves. They also become blame shifters, which is simply another way of hiding from one another, from God and from their own eyes. Initially, Adam and Eve were hiding behind fig leaves and then trees, and now they're hiding behind deflections and delays and layers of blame that they're shifting off onto others. Such behavior is deadly.

To marriages and it may It may be killing yours. These are hard facts about marriage. The first sins in human history occurred inside the context of marriage. The post-fall tendencies of the husband and wife are now profoundly detrimental to a healthy marriage, and if all of this isn't bad enough, there's a third fact that serves as one of the key reasons why our marriages struggle, and that is husbands and wives are cursed with curses that impose great hardship on their marriage.

Think about that, guys. As far as we've gotten this morning, we haven't even gotten to the curse yet. First of all, let's look at the curses on the wife in Genesis 3:16. The text says, to the woman God said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth and pain you shall bring forth children.

Think for a moment about what's being said here. It's easy to read this and go, yeah, this is talking about labor pains when a woman is delivering a child during the several hours that she's delivering her child, but there's so much more here than that. The word that is translated childbirth is the Hebrew word that actually, it's the word for pregnancy and conception. So there's a lot more being said here than that the woman will experience pain when going through the labor pains.

of delivering a child. A good paraphrase of what we're looking at here would be this, God says to Eve, I will multiply, comma, really multiply your instances of pain. With regard to your bodily processes that render conception and pregnancy possible. And in pain You will bring forth children.

A woman's monthly cycle is included in this, right? And you ladies know this is true, because sometimes you refer to your monthly cycle as what? The curse, which is very biblical. you're being biblical when you say that.

I've had husbands who have said, well, whose curse is it, hers or mine? Cause I I've never, never said or thought that myself, but I've heard other men who have. But answer me honestly, does this fact, does this aspect of the curse have a negative impact? On the marriage?

Yeah. And then on top of that, there's the pains of pregnancy, the shortness of breath, the morning sickness, the hormonal changes, the middle of the night cravings, and then there are the labor pangs of delivering the child. One of my wife's sisters literally was with her fist pounding. On her husband during her labor and delivery, blaming him for doing this to her.

And fortunately, fortunately, he was a big guy and He could take the blows, but it clearly was not a strong moment in their relationship. Then there's the postpartum struggles, which sometimes are extremely difficult. For a woman, on top of that, if a person ever deserves a 3 month vacation in which they're free to do nothing at all except recover and heal and be pampered. It's a woman after carrying a child for 9 months and then giving birth.

But no such luxury awaits the woman. After giving birth. She won't be sleeping uninterrupted through the night for the next several months as she nourishes and cares for the growing child whose needs and demands grow with each passing day. The process of being biologically ready to conceive and Become pregnant, carry a child and give birth to a child and then raise a child is fraught with multiple instances of pain for a woman.

On top of that, when a woman has children, what I've observed is she grows 1000 new pain sensors in her soul, which make her more vulnerable to the pains and the sorrows of the world at large. On top of all of these pains, John MacArthur suggests that a woman's pain in childbirth includes the sad awareness that she passes sin onto all of her children, and this is a pain that fathers share in as well. And if this is not bothersome enough, God continues in verse 16 and says to Eve, and your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

Now we studied this and broke this down months ago when we were in this passage, but long story short, God is telling Eve that she will continue to have within her a strong desire to master her husband and to be the leader in the relationship.

It's what Eve did when she commanded Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit, and now God is promising Eve that this tendency. will be with her for the rest of her marriage. What Eve might have thought was a one-time act. is now going to be a lifelong tendency that will rage within her.

Yet contrary to this tendency, her now imperfect husband will maintain his position as the God ordained leader in the relationship. It is as if God is saying to Eve, you got your husband to sin along with you. And now that he has, you have a flawed husband who will rule over you and lead you. This is the beginning of the battle of the sexes and it has been raging ever since.

And if that doesn't make marriage challenging enough, notice the curses that God pronounces with regard to Adam. In verse 17, God turns to Adam and says, cursed is the ground because of you, and toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field, and by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.

We see here that the ground is cursed and will thus yield up its bounty far more reluctantly than it did before the fall.

As a result, the husband will have to work hard and be wearied, thus diminishing. The time and energy that he would have been able to invest in his wife. There will also be the pains of thorns and thistles along the way, souring his disposition as he seeks to provide for his family. Because of these curses, Adam's life will be governed by the demands of eking out a living.

The time he will spend making a living is time that he formerly could have spent enjoying with Eve, but now his energies must be invested elsewhere. He will work by the sweat of his brow, and then when he is done with his work, Eve will say, oh good, he's done with his work. We can have some relationship time now. But she will find that Adam is exhausted and that he often carries his burdens with him even to the dinner table, eating his food by the physical and the mental sweat of his brow.

God also promises to Adam in this passage that Adam will return to the dust of the earth, and this is a promise that includes Eve and all of her descendants as well. This means that Adam and Eve will eventually die and that their marriage will will die with them. Just think about it for a moment. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they would still be married today.

Celebrating their several 1000 year Anniversary They would be just as strong, just as vibrant physically as they were on day one. Their marriage would never end, but now all marriages die. All marriages experience the ravages of aging day by day, year by year with all the losses. And the troubles that go with the aging process.

I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it till I die. I used to live under the illusion that I would grow old. And then death would show up and come to me on my final day. And take me from this world.

I've learned however that death does not work that way. I am no longer waiting for death to pay me a visit. Death visits me every day. And death is killing me one hair follicle at a time, starting from the front and working his way back.

One cell at a time, one ligament at a time, one aching joint at a time. Every day, I think about this and I look in the mirror and I take sad measure of what death is taking from me day by day. My wife was looking at me recently. And she said, I'm starting to realize what you're going to look like as an old man.

I was very tempted to return the compliment, but But I have learned, don't, don't go there. My son, Benjamin was recently looking at some pictures of, of our family that included pictures of me from about 15 years ago and he looked up at me sadly from those pictures and he said, Dad, what has happened to you? What has happened to me is that I am a dying man. And I am married to a dying woman.

Day by day Donna and I become more physically diminished, more wrinkled, more gray, less able bodied, and one of us may end up requiring full time physical care. From the other We both know that one of us will likely attend the other's funeral. And Barry Their body In the ground, and this is all the result of the fall. Mine and Donna's marriage is suffering from a terminal condition.

And our marriage will die one day. And these are the curses that we all bear because of Adam and Eve's sin. And as we talk about all of these things, especially this right here, I know it sounds morbid and discouraging, the cumulative effect of all of these pieces of bad news. Make you just wanna cry and grieve over what's been lost.

But we're actually all the wiser for thinking about and being aware of these realities. It's for all of these reasons that Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:28. speaks words of counsel to those who are thinking about getting married. Listen to his counsel, this is interesting.

He says, if you marry, You haven't sinned And if a virgin marries, she is not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you. The word translated trouble. is the word for affliction.

Paul is saying that if you get married, you can expect to experience affliction in your life. And when Paul gives this warning that those who get married will have trouble or affliction in this life, he's not suggesting that there's no trouble outside of marriage. What he's trying to say is that there is unusual trouble inside of marriage. This is because marriage is ground zero of the fall.

It was inside the institution of marriage that the first sins in human history were committed and the institution of marriage was the first institution to experience the devastating effects of the fall. And because of that, to, and just be forewarned, part of what Paul's trying to spare you of is to spare you of the surprise. If you're thinking any different, to step inside of the institution of marriage is to bring Oneself into the closest possible experience of the keenest edges.

And the thorniest and most painful outgrowths.

Of the fall. And this leaves us with the final question that we'll address this morning, and that is why. Why would God level these curses upon husbands and wives and allow husbands and wives to experience the complications of sin that makes marriage so complicated and so difficult? Are these reckless punishments?

That God is dishing out here in Genesis 3 that have no redeeming purpose and no redeeming value? Actually, no. Think about this. Remember how Adam Or how Eve gave the fruit to Adam in the hopes that she would have a husband who was God-like in ways that a husband should not be godlike.

Remember how Adam chose Eve over God? Well, through these curses, God was rejecting Adam and Eve's arrangement, which was, as one writer says, joy in marriage apart from submission. To God's authority. That was the arrangement That they were seeking To attain And contained inside of all of these complications we've reviewed all of this bad news and these curses.

was a message. As Richard Phillips so eloquently says, listen to what he says here, God's curses said, in effect, you cannot enjoy marriage without returning your heart. To me. God's curses on the relationship were the poison for which God alone was the antidote.

This is why marriage is practically hopeless apart from the grace of Christ and why divorce is so rampant. The struggles that men and women experience in marriage are intended by God to drive us to our knees and to our Bibles that we would restore God to the center of our lives. And so hear me well. You may be struggling.

This morning in your marriage and your struggles may have so exasperated you. That you have fallen to your knees before God and said, I cannot do this, God. My spouse and I cannot do this. We need your help and if we don't get your help soon, we just might destroy each other.

Usually when a person is on their knees crying out in desperation like that. They are doing so because they are desperately desirous of a miracle, right? They little realize in that moment that it is a wonderful miracle that they're right now on their knees. At their wits end and crying out to God, ready to receive the antidote to all of the poisons that are afflicting their marriage.

This was God's plan all along. To bring such a one to himself so that they would come to him in humble desperation and restore him to the center of their life. That moment that you are on your knees, that your wits end. is a sign and a wonder that God has performed.

And all of these things, these complications and struggles and tendencies and curses have all conspired to bring you to that moment, to the end of yourself, where you're now desperately looking to God. And so there really is good news for your marriage that we'll get into next week. And but this good news can only be heard by those who are on their knees. And whose heads are bowed, and it can only be received by those who are truly at their wits' end.

And so if you're this morning at your wits end in sight of your marriage, Don't be discouraged, you're not alone and it's actually a miracle that you find yourself right now at your wit's end. That's God's first miracle. of many more that he wants to do. You are right where you should be and you're set up to appreciate why the gospel really is good news.

For our marriages. I should have asked you guys to make a commitment before we started this morning that if you're gonna sit here and listen to this message today, you have to come back next week. but I didn't do that, but I do beg of you guys to come back next week where we look at good news for marriages that are found in scripture and we will see the genius of God, the grace of God, of what he does for Adam and Eve and what he does for all of us as husbands and, and wives.

but let these things sink in.

See, Ask God to give you the eyes to see how these tendencies may be in you and how it may be afflicting your marriage. And open your heart to what God wants to do. In your marriage. Let's pray together.

Lord, we as a church, we're not gathered here today because we're better than other people, because we're better than the world. We're actually here. Because We know that we're broken and we need a savior outside of ourselves. That's what we all have in common.

And there's so much brokenness in our lives. And you've been saving us and rescuing us and transforming us, but even as we look, At our lives today, there's We still groan and long for eternity. And long for you to deepen your work of grace in our lives. I pray for those marriages in this room, Lord, that are struggling, that you would just minister to them of your consolations, your comfort.

That even what we've looked at today would be encouraging to them from the standpoint of letting them know. That they come by these struggles and tendencies very naturally and that you have a remedy. And it is powerful. It is huge.

May there be an outpouring of grace upon this congregation and upon the marriages that exist right now, the marriages that will come to pass in the days to come. That our marriages would truly get caught up in the larger story of what you're doing in the world, seeking to display the glories of your grace and your mercy and your power through our individual lives and through our marriages. May our marriages ultimately be powerful trophies of your grace. And vehicles through which the glory and the power and the grace of the gospel.

is wonderfully displayed. And help us to help one another to that end as well, Lord. Thank you for this opportunity to give up our offerings to you. Receive these offerings, Lord, that we give and use every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, and all God's people said,