The First Marriage Intervention

Behold how good and how pleasant are the sounds of brothers and sisters dwelling together in unity. I love the greeting time part of our service. but great to see all of you here today. thank you for choosing to worship with us.

Today through song and now through opening our hearts and listening to God as he speaks to us through His word. And to that end, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. We are continuing in our marriage series entitled The Gift of Gospel marriage, and this is the 4th. installment in this series.

And if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be the first marriage intervention. The first marriage intervention. Several years ago, when we were back at Linden Street, I got a phone call at the church office from a man who very early into the conversation said to me, Pastor Milton, my wife and I Need marriage counseling. And I then said, well, what's going on that makes you and your wife need marriage counseling?

And he said, Well, my wife is angry with me. And I said, well, how do she's angry with you? How is she showing her anger towards you and he said, well, she won't let me in the house. And I said, well, how long has this been going on?

And he said, it's been 3 weeks now. And I'm living in a camper in our backyard because my wife won't let me in the house. So being the skilled pastor that I am, I did a quick assessment in my head and then said to the man, you're right, you need marriage counseling. The next day, this couple was sitting in my office and the husband was very evidently at his wits' end.

He started off by describing ways that he had let his wife down and failed her, and as he spoke, he seemed to me to give evidence of having a fair assessment of his sins, and he seemed appropriately apologetic, yet his wife was stiff and unmoved completely by his apologies and his sorrow. it was then that I looked at her and I asked her, I said, do you think that you will ever be able to find it in your heart to forgive your husband for the things that he has done. And very matter of factly, she said no.

Absolutely not.

Not knowing what else to say, I spoke to the woman and I said, do you realize that you have sinned against God yourself and you stand in need of forgiveness from Him? You realize that, don't you? And she said, no, I have not sinned against God. I realized then and there that this woman was not a believer at all.

So it made sense that she was not able to forgive her husband. So, at that point, I put on my Moses cap and I began to point her to the law and to go through the 10 Commandments to help her to see how she has sinned against God. And how that she is worthy of God's judgment because of her sins. And amazingly, through no skill of my own whatsoever, the Spirit of God showed up in that room and he did a work in her heart.

After 20 minutes of looking at the law, this woman literally was in deep despair. She saw her sin. And her worthiness of God's judgment to such a degree that about 20 minutes in, she looked up at me and said, I guess there's no hope for me, is there? She was weeping.

And I responded by saying, actually, I'm very happy to tell you there is great hope for you. And it was then that I began to lay out for her, the gospel of Jesus Christ telling her what Jesus had done. And dying on the cross and bearing the punishment that she deserved for her sins so that if she would believe in him, she could have forgiveness from God through Jesus. And as I'm explaining the gospel, she gave every indication of drinking in the truths of the gospel.

So when I finished, I said to her, would you like to receive the forgiveness of sins right now by calling on the name of the Lord? And she said yes. So then and there she bowed her head and she prayed and she called on the name of the Lord for salvation. It was an incredible moment and her prayer was as beautiful as it was heartfelt.

But when she finished praying, we all looked up and for about a few seconds there was silence, but then I said to her, now back to your husband. Do you think you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive him? She sat back in her chair and literally with a look of dawning realization, almost like she was having an epiphany, she said, yes. Yes, I do.

And she reached out and she grabbed her husband's hand and extended forgiveness to him. It was a wonderful moment for them. It was a wonderful moment for me as a pastor to witness. I drove home from work that day, loving Jesus Christ and loving the gospel more than ever, and I know that this husband was loving the gospel that night because he was able to get back into his house for the first time.

In a handful of weeks. But theirs was a marriage that needed an intervention, a gospel intervention, and the gospel made all of the difference. And ladies and gentlemen, that is the power. Of the gospel.

Do you believe that? Now I have to say that marital conflicts don't usually get resolved that fast. But whether it's in slow motion or fast motion, that's the power that the gospel wields when it is planted. Inside of a marriage.

And that's why whenever our marriages are struggling and are in need of an intervention, the intervention that is needed is almost always a gospel intervention. How many of you have reached points in your marriage where Your marriage needed an intervention. Just raise your hand. Mine and Donna's has, OK, maybe half of our marriages, looks like.

Today we're going to watch. God do a marriage intervention. With the first married couple in human history. And we will try to draw some lessons from this intervention that will, I think, help our marriages today.

Last week, we studied Adam and Eve's fall into sin in order to gain a better understanding of why our own marriages struggle. We saw Eve disobeying God's revelation and eating of the forbidden fruit. We saw Eve giving the fruit to Adam and instructing him to eat of the forbidden fruit. In so doing, she was demoting God from his rightful position as the director of Adam's life and she was asserting herself into that.

position in Adam's life. She was also In the process, seeking to elevate Adam to the status of being like God in ways that a husband should never be like God. We also saw how Adam took the fruit from Eve's hand and ate. And in so doing, Adam was allowing Eve a place in his heart that only God should have had.

He was also choosing to love Eve more than loving God and thereby he rebelled against God's revelation that God had given to him. We then saw last week the after effects of these failures. We saw how Adam and Eve immediately felt shame and how each of them started using fig leaves to hide their bodies from their spouse. We saw them running and hiding from God and hiding from their own eyes also, we, when God confronts them.

About their sins. We listened in as they admitted their sin, but not without doing a considerable amount of blame shifting in the process just like married couples do today. Adam shifting off some of, some of the blame onto God and the woman and Eve shifting some of the blame onto the serpent. By the end of Genesis chapter 3 verse 13, Adam and Eve really are a pathetic sight, hiding behind trees, dressed in fig leaves of their own making, yet still feeling naked before God.

They're guilty of sin, alienated from God, alienated from one another, and alienated even from Their own selves. They stand in need of an intervention just like our marriages often need today. The gap that we see in scripture between Genesis 3:13 and Genesis 3:14 is literally the hinge upon which the rest of the Bible turns. If God does not intervene and do something, At this point, Adam and Eve would have died that day, or else they would have spent the rest of their gradually dying existence, hiding from God, hiding from each other, and hiding the truth about themselves even from their own eyes.

Experiencing no grace from God, Adam and Eve would have had no grace to give to each other. They would have spent the rest of their pathetic existence blaming each other and blaming God and blaming the serpent for everything that had gone wrong. Adam and Eve would have never had the courage to face their own sins squarely and say to each other, I was wrong to do what I did. I am without excuse.

Will you forgive me? And neither of them would have ever experienced the blessing of hearing the other person say from the bottom of my heart. I forgive you. Instead they would have continued hiding and withholding and blaming in an endless cycle that would have only become more vicious with each passing year, and the pains of life in a broken and a dying world would have only intensified their guilt and their shame as well as their bitter complaints against Each other Whatever God does at this point of the narrative, he has to do something huge.

Something that will address their guilt, the guilt of their sin, and rectify their post-fall tendencies and persuade them that they don't have to hide from him any longer and withhold themselves from one another any longer. God has to do something that sets them on a hopeful course. And brings them back to him and back together with each other. And this morning, we'll see how God actually does that.

The way we're gonna break down our study this morning is we're gonna observe 4 acts of God in this marriage intervention, which rescue Adam and Eve's marriage and set them up for a hope-filled, grace-filled marriage. In a post-fall world. The first thing that we see that God does and we learned so much about God through this and about what our own marriages need. Here they are broken and in great need, separated from one another and from God.

Their marriage is in shambles right now. God intervenes and the first thing that he does is God preaches the gospel immediately. Immediately. After Adam and Eve confessed their sin to God, God turns to the serpent and curses the serpent to crawl on his belly for the rest of his existence.

Then immediately, God speaks. In verse 15, some of the most important words that are found in all of scripture. Words that amount to really good news for mankind and for our marriages, for husbands and wives. To the serpent, God says, and I will put enmity between you and the woman.

And between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise him on the heel. Theologians call Genesis 3:15, the first gospel. Martin Luther said of this verse, this text embraces and comprehends within itself everything noble, And glorious that is to be found anywhere in scripture, in the scriptures. And that's so true.

In fact, we can say that the rest of scripture is merely a blossoming of the flower that we call Genesis 3:15. And the wonderful thing is that God preaches this first gospel on the very day That this first husband and wife have sinned. He knew that they needed to hear the gospel right away just like we do in our marital difficulties today. In verse 15, the first thing that God says to the serpent is, and I will put enmity between you and the woman.

The word enmity speaks of hostility. And warfare. God is declaring war. Upon the serpent, and God is promising that the woman will be aligned with him, be aligned with God in that war.

Against the serpent Essentially, God here is promising that a change is going to come over the woman and God will cause that change, that God will convert Eve to his way such that her former submission to the serpent will now turn into hatred against the serpent. God is promising that the woman will be on God's side and will join with God in his war against the serpent. Part of what God is saying to the serpent is this, you mess with the wrong person in deceiving this woman. You gained no ally in her by doing what you have done.

In fact, you have just gained for yourself a formidable foe. In this woman, and I, God, will see to that. God continues his pronouncement. He doesn't just promise that there will be enmity between Eve and the serpent, but he goes on to say, and between your seed and her seed.

In other words, between those who are the children of the serpent or of Satan, and those who are the true children of Eve and who follow her ways. That God will be instilling in her. This promise from God also includes the Messianic line, which will descend from Eve culminating in the Messiah, the great champion himself. This is why God narrows the seed or the offspring of the woman to one person, and he makes this promise to the serpent in verse 15, he, this seed, singular, this champion shall bruise your head and you shall bruise him.

On the heel God is foretelling a day in which a battle of champions is going to occur and he promises that he, the ultimate seed of the woman will deliver a crushing blow to the serpent's head. He will strike the serpent's head. God also promises that during that battle, that the serpent will succeed in delivering a painful blow to this champion's heel. We've studied this passage a number of months ago.

Clearly this passage is a reference to the battle between Satan and Jesus Christ at the cross. 2000 years ago, it was at the cross that Christ suffered injury. He died horribly, but it was at the cross and at the tomb that Christ delivered the punishing. Mortal blow to Satan's head.

And here In Genesis 3, on the very day that Adam and Eve sin and their marriage is a wreck. God spoke of this coming day of victory. God is making a wonderful promise that as Eve would have listened in, would have filled her heart with hope. Yes, she gave the fruit to her husband, yet God is apparently willing to enlist her in his war against the serpent.

And God will use her to bring into the world someone. Who will crush the serpent. Yes, the serpent successfully used her as an instrument to get to Adam and to bring sin into the world, but God will use the woman as his instrument through which salvation and redemption will come into the world. Actually from what God is saying here, Eve would know that inside the context of her marriage, she will bear and raise children and will triumph over the serpent and will ultimately crush his head.

Eve now knows listening to what God is saying, that she will not only live, but she will be a vital player in God's plan of redemption. In the very context of her marriage to Adam. Every Christian wife can and should think this way, coming into her marriage. Ladies, you are a vital player in God's plan of redemption.

If you believe in Christ, you can be at war. Against the serpent and fight him at every turn. And when sin shows up in your life and in your husband, and in your children and in your marriage, don't be dismayed by that. Put your war paint on.

And go to battle Against Satan. Be at enmity, relish your role in being at enmity against Satan. Be at enmity against Satan, not against your husband. Satan is the enemy, not your husband.

Fight Satan. God has put you in that marriage to fight Satan on every front. So step up to the plate and be the woman of valor that God has called you to be. Often when I do premarital counseling, I will In the first session, I'll ask the guy and the gal, why do you want to get married and why do you want to marry this person?

And I get various answers and I love almost all of them. But ladies, if someone were to ask you, why do you want to get married? You can legitimately give this answer. Part of why I wanna get married.

I want to make war. I want to make war against Satan through every means possible together with my husband. Including even through the children we bear and raise to love Jesus and hate Satan. Here in Genesis 3:15, God preaches the gospel for the very first time in human history.

And he preaches it on a bad day in Adam and Eve's marriage. The worst day of their marriage. God promises that this coming Messiah will suffer and ultimately prevail and that Eve will be siding with this coming Messianic champion and she will even have a role in producing him. But God goes further.

With the redemptive intent, God also sets it up that Adam and Eve would share in the Messiah's sufferings in a way that is positive and which points them to the coming champion and which actually will serve to intensify their longing for him. And for his coming This brings us to the next act of God in this marriage intervention as he sets up Adam and Eve for a hope-filled marriage in a post-fall world. Let's word it this way, God imposes consequences which are limited by grace and which point to gospel truth.

You've heard God's promise.

To the serpent regarding one of her offspring who would crush the serpent's head, and I'm sure at that point, her thought was, man, this is awesome. I can't wait to have children and get this started. But it's then that God turns to Eve and says, as for you, young lady, I will, and this is a literal translation, I will multiply, really multiply your pain with regard to conception and pregnancy in pain, you shall bring forth children. Putting verse 16 together with the promise of verse 15, Eve would know that she will experience multiplied instances of pain and struggle when it comes to conception and pregnancy and childbirth, yet she will know that her pain will culminate in a coming champion who will bring deliverance.

For mankind. She will also know that all of our pain. will merely serve as a harbinger of the pain of this one who will be bruised in bringing salvation to the world. He will suffer, he will bleed.

He will experience a spear thrust into his abdomen. Yet through his suffering, salvation will come. And when that day comes, Eve will be honored to have been able to experience pain. That is organically attached to the suffering of this Messiah.

God's curse That he is voicing to Eve here, which we unpacked last week. comes coupled with a consolation actually, and I wanna just linger here for a moment because we did not talk about this last week. After speaking of Eve's future pain with regard to childbirth, God then says, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Last week we focused on the negative aspect.

Of this particular promise from God. Taking this passage negatively or this promise negatively, God is at least in part telling you that she will desire to control her husband and that he will rule over her contrary to her desire for control. I think we can hold to that interpretation. While at the same time allowing for something positive.

In this aspect of God's promise. Some interpreters, including ancient Jewish interpreters and including one of my seminary professors understand this aspect of God's promise. In a positive way. They understand God essentially to be saying to Eve something like this, Eve, even though you will experience such pains associated with conception, and pregnancy and childbirth as a result of sin, yet, Yet you will still desire and yearn for your husband, and he will rule over you according to my original design.

In the Song of Solomon chapter 7, verse 10. The wife is speaking and she's speaking of her husband and she says, I am my beloved's and his desire is for me. And the word translated desire there in Song of Solomon 7:10 is the same word that God uses here in Genesis 3:16. And in Song of Solomon, it means something beautiful and good, speaking of desiring someone relationally.

And even sexually. If we apply this meaning to Genesis 3:16, then we can see that it's a good thing that Eve will desire and yearn for her husband rather than hate him and want nothing to do with him. Based on this interpretation, it's also a good thing that Adam will rule over her. The Hebrew word that is translated rule here is a good word that is often used in the Old Testament to speak of God's rule over his people.

There's nothing bad about these terms. Now we all know that because of the corruption. Of sin that the woman's yearning and desire for her husband will often morph into a desire to control him. And we know that because of sin, the husband's legitimate rule over his wife will often morph into a flawed, sinful domination.

But if we pull out the good, For our purposes this morning, from this aspect of God's promise here in verse 16, we actually see that there is a dimension of care. That God is providing for Adam and Eve's relationship on this side of the fall. Even though they both have sinned, and even though Eve will have pain connected to childbirth, their marriage relationship evidently will survive. God wants Eve to desire her husband, and he wants Adam to have a wife who desires him.

God also wants Adam to lead his wife and he wants Eve to have the blessing of having a husband who leads her. When both of these elements of desiring and leading are done well, a marriage experiences the blessing of God. Even in a fallen world. Does that make sense?

It's at this point that God turns to Adam and tells Adam that because he had listened to the voice of his wife and eaten from the tree in violation of God's will, God says, cursed is the ground for your sake. 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. 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 talked about this last week.

I just want to point out that the fact that God says to Adam, literally that the ground is cursed for your sake. Indicates that this is no mere punishment. But also something positive and redemptive. There will be many valuable lessons for Adam to learn through the hardships that await him.

In a fallen world, yes, he will work by the sweat of his brow. Yes, he will experience toil. And pain and we'll have to deal with the thorns and the thistles of life in a fallen world. And yes, there will be death that will come to Adam.

But actually guys, all of these things that Adam experiences will point him to the coming champion who will also labor and toil. And who will sweat drops of blood in another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and who will have his head crowned with thorns. And who will experience the curse of hanging on a tree as he labors and dies to bring forth the harvest of righteousness from mankind. The point to keep in mind here is that there is no aspect of the curse that God levels on Adam and on Eve that does not end up being organically tied to the pains.

That Christ will endure when he suffers. Adam and Eve can also know that even in this broken world, God clearly intends to preserve their marriage, nurturing within Eve a desire for her husband and giving Adam the responsibility to lead his wife. So that coming forth from their marriage will be the Messiah of the world, who will crush the head of the serpent. So we, we see here, guys, that yes, it's true that the institution of marriage, as we talked about last week, is ground zero of the fall.

Yes, the first sins in human history occurred inside the context of the first marriage, and yes, the institution of marriage got hammered as a result of the fall. But God is saying here, That marriage is also ground zero of the restoration. God is literally making Adam and Eve's marriage the launching pad for his plan of redemption. He's telling them that their marriage has a role to play in the larger story of what he will be doing in bringing salvation to the world.

Would any of you in this room, if you were a counselor, have looked at Adam and Eve's marriage? In Genesis 3:13 and thought, what? God can use this marriage. God can use this marriage.

It's a startling thought to consider that God looked at Adam and Eve and all of their mess and in all of their brokenness. And decided that from this marriage, I will launch a plan of salvation from, for the world. God did that. Don't for a minute think that your marriage is too broken.

To be a mighty instrument in the hand of God. No matter where your marriage is today. How deep the brokenness. I ask you this morning, is your marriage just a marriage, or is your marriage caught up in the larger story of what God is doing in the world?

Do you just hope that your marriage will lead to happily ever after for you? Or do you see that your marriage plays a role in the larger romance that leads to happily ever after for Christ and his bride, the church? Are you spending your energies? On your marriage, trying to enlist God's help.

And helping you to have a good marriage. Or are you letting God enlist you? And enlist your marriage and the larger story of what he's doing in the world. In Genesis 3:15 and following God is painting a grand cosmic picture of his vision for salvation, and he's wanting Adam and Eve to know the role that their struggling marriage is going to play in that vision.

That's not all that he does in Genesis 3. In order for them to play the role that God wants them to play, God knows that Adam and Eve will need atonement. And this brings us to the 3rd act of God in setting up Adam and Eve for a gospel marriage, a hope-filled marriage in a post-fall world, and that is God provides a sacrificial atonement for Adam. And Eve In verse 21, the text says, and the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and he, God, clothed them.

One of the things that is notable about the Genesis account is the economy of words and the loaded terminology that speaks volumes, that stops you in your tracks. And the loaded term here in this passage is the word skin. Based on what is said here. God does two things in particular.

He makes garments for both Adam and Eve and his wife, and he clothes them. And because these are garments of skin, meaning animal skin, we can infer that God would have had to slay an animal in order to use its skins for the clothing. So actually we observe here that God does 3 things. He slays an animal, he makes garments from the skin of that animal, and he clothes Adam and Eve.

Let's focus for a moment on the fact that God slays an animal, making this the first death and the first bloodshed in human history. Imagine that. Imagine what that would have been like for Adam and Eve to witness that. This would have been a jarring and a heartrending experience for Adam and Eve to witness this, partly because they would have made a clear connection between the fate of this innocent animal and the fate that both of them, Adam and Eve, deserve because of their sin.

God had promised to them that they would die in the day that they ate of the forbidden fruit, yet here an animal is being killed by God instead. An innocent animal. As John MacArthur says, the first physical deaths should have been the man and his wife, but it was an animal. A shadow of the reality that God would someday kill a substitute to redeem sinners.

Yet another writer points out that when God slew the animal, he was showing Adam and Eve that by no easy and cheap process could the sinner be restored. Adam had to learn that sin could Could not be covered or could be covered not by a bunch of leaves snatched from a bush as he passed by, but only by pain and by blood. As costly as this price is though, God is willing to pay this price to the death of this animal in Genesis 3. On top of that, the rest of the Old Testament will drip with the blood.

Of innocent animals. The sacrificial system and the law will require The bloodshed of literally millions of innocent animals for multiple sacrifices over Israel's history and all of these sacrifices we learned in the book of Hebrews will point to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ Himself on the cross. Here in Genesis 3:21, God is teaching a profound truth to Adam and Eve, which is this, and that is for Adam and Eve and their marriage to be truly made whole, and innocent must die for the guilty.

An innocent must die for the guilty.

The same is true for Our marriages. Today, I know if you go to a secular Marriage counselor, they won't tell you this. An innocent must die for the guilty in order for your marriage to be made whole. But it's true For a number of reasons.

Someone has once said a marriage or a good marriage is the union of two good forgivers. Isn't that great? That's true, and I love it, but I think we can add to it. It's probably even better to say a good marriage is the union of two good confessors.

And Forgivers, confessors of their own sin and forgivers of the sins of their spouse. And the only people who can truly be good. At deeply confessing. Their sin with courage.

And forgiving the sins of their spouse. are people who themselves have experienced blood atonement. Through the cross of Jesus Christ. These are the people who end up being able to face their own sins squarely.

And with courage and thus experience God's grace and thus have grace to give. Right? In his book, When Sinners Say I Do. Dave Harvey tells the story of a husband and a wife named Jeremy and Cindy.

Jeremy had committed adultery and when Cindy discovered her husband's adultery, she was left shattered and reeling as we can imagine. She went through a season where her heart was Consumed with anger and bitterness against her husband. But over time, Cindy shares. That the cross of Christ softened her heart and gave her power to actually forgive her husband.

Listen to what she says about her journey to forgiveness. She says over time, I began to see my own sinfulness and God's grace and mercy for my sins. It was very hard to look at my own contribution to the breakdown of my marriage. I wanted to just focus on his part, my husband's part, and leave the blame there.

But God opened my eyes and helped me to see that even as a victim of my husband's sin, I could not claim innocence in my marriage and certainly, I could not claim innocence before a holy God. She goes on to say, the gospel gave me power to forgive my husband. Christ had died for both our sins, dying in our place and drinking the full cup of God's wrath that we deserved for our sins. And through the revelation of this truth, I was humbled and disarmed.

We, my husband and I, were more alike than different. And from this standing place. Forgiveness flowed. Nobody can forgive like this.

Without the cross of Christ. Do you see what a gift the cross of Christ was? And Jeremy and Cindy's marriage, helping Cindy to taste of God's forgiveness for her own sins and then giving her the wherewithal to forgive. Her husband of his sins.

Do you see the gift that the cross can be to your marriage? Giving you atonement and equipping you with the capacity to forgive your spouse? For their sins? Sam, Mel, I, I believe in Jesus.

I'm a Christian. My question is, is the cross at the center of your marriage? Do you relate to your spouse at the foot of the cross? Is it where you live?

This is the gift that God is providing Adam and Eve and sacrificing this innocent animal on the other side of their marital sins in order for them to experience atonement and thus have the wherewithal to give grace, to experience grace from God. And to then have grace to freely give. To their flawed spouse. If you want the forgiveness of all of your sins this morning, if you want the power to forgive other people's sins, if you want the power to forgive your spouse's sins, then you need to believe in Jesus and call on his name for salvation.

And you need to make the cross the operating center of your life and of your marriage. If you don't believe in Jesus, And if you don't Make the cross central in your thinking and in your heart. You will never stop being a hider and a blame shifter, and you will never be able to truly and deeply forgive your spouse from the bottom of your heart. And you will never have a God glorifying marriage ever.

As amazing as what God does so far, he's not finished. He could have stopped there, but he's not finished with this marriage intervention. God gives Adam and Eve atonement through the slaying of this animal, but he knows that what they need is some way to keep this atonement ever before their eyes. So God does something really wonderful, and this brings us to the final act of God and setting up rescuing their marriage and setting up Adam and Eve for a hope-filled marriage in a post-fall world and that is that God clothes Adam and Eve with garments fashioned from the atoning sacrifice.

The text in verse 3021 says, and the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and he, God, clothed them. God doesn't just slay an animal. To provide atonement for Adam and Eve, he wants them dressed in this atonement. The text tells us that God took the skin of the animal and made garments of skin.

Imagine Adam and Eve watching God do this, making garments. Of skin for Adam and his wife. After making the garments of skin, God doesn't leave it to Adam and Eve to put the garments on themselves. He doesn't toss the garments Adam and say, put these on.

No, God dresses both of them Himself. God himself approaches Adam and personally dresses him with the garment that he had made. Then God approaches Eve and dresses her in the garments that he had made for her. Think about what an amazing moment this had to have been between Adam and God and Eve and God.

And how it must have been forever. enshrined in their memory. to experience God clothing them. And then to watch God clothe their spouse.

With the skins of the animal that he had slain. This is the God against whom Adam and Eve have sinned. They deserve to have God withdraw himself from them forever. Yet God draws near to them in this way.

And he dresses them. You don't get more personal. You don't get more wonderful than this. This is how God treats sinners that he chooses to save.

This is how God does a marriage intervention. This is the God Adam and Eve ran from. When he showed up in the cool of the day. And look what he's doing.

For them Why does God clothe themself? As one ancient Jewish rabbi said, he himself clothed them to show that he still loved them despite their sin. Among many things that he's saying, he's saying to them, I love you. I care about you.

Despite your sin Adam in receiving these garments and being clothed by God Himself would know that God loves me despite my sin. And in watching God clothe Eve, Adam would know God loves my wife despite her sin. Eve will know That God loves her despite her sin, and in watching God clothe Adam. Eve will know that God loves her husband despite his sin.

You don't think that made a difference in their marriage? How do you mistreat a spouse that's wearing clothes that God made? And that God put on them And how do you act so high and mighty against your spouse when you're wearing garments that God made from the skins of a slain animal who is innocent, and God has shown you this grace and you're wearing this grace and you're gonna act all high and mighty. Against your spouse and be vindictive against your spouse.

No, this is radical. God knows. He knows what we need. He knows what Adam and Eve need here.

And let's also not forget what these garments represent. They represent the atonement. That God had provided for them. God knows that in the days to come, there will be moments when Adam.

is gonna be seized with regret and guilt over the sins he committed on this day and on future days. God wants Adam in such moments to observe and to feel the atoning garb that God has put upon him and for Adam to know all is well between Me and God God knows that Eve will experience similar moments of guilt and remorse for her past sin on this day and in future days, and God wants Eve in such moments to look upon and to feel her atoning garb upon her body and be reminded of God's forgiveness and mercy and know that all is well.

They won't have to rely on some increasingly distant memory of an animal slain on this day. No, they're wearing the atonement.

And it's visible. To their own eyes and to their spouse's eyes. God also knows that in the days ahead, there will be moments when Adam and Eve are gonna struggle with anger against each other for their sins on this day. When Adam may be ticked that Eve, he's fine today after this moment and God loves them in this way, but maybe a week later he wakes up thinking, why did she give me that fruit?

And I told her, I gave her clear instructions and she defies my instructions and rebels against me and against God and she gives me the fruit and maybe a week later he's thinking about that and growing angry against his wife. Maybe Eve later will grow angry against Adam. In a weak moment thinking about why didn't my husband stand up to me. When he should have or protect me.

Instead of being passive. But in those moments, God wants Adam and Eve to be able to look at their own garments and know, God has given me so much grace. I know what I deserve. I deserve to be dead.

Instead, I'm wearing these clothes. And God wants Adam and Eve to be able to look at their spouse and see their spouse dressed in the atoning garb that God had given to them. How do you mistreat a spouse? How can you stay angry against a spouse who's dressed?

In atoning garb that God has given to them. Ultimately God wants Adam and Eve to see themselves and to see each other inside the context of the gospel promises. That he has made and in the context of the atonement that he has provided for them and clothed them with, God is beautifully tending to their marriage by clothing them in this way so that they will from this day forward, always look at themselves and their spouse in the context of God's love. Atonement and grace.

Do you think this tangible token of God's love for Adam and Eve made a difference in their marriage? You think these garments were a help? To them and their marriage, absolutely. Adam and Eve are no doubt dressed in these garments, loving God more in this moment than they ever have.

The person who's forgiven much loves much. Jesus said, and I'm sure their hearts are bursting with the desire to love and please and obey this God who has shown them this amazing grace. And you can bet that it affected the way Adam and Eve treated each other. In the days ahead.

Before they were hiding from one another, hiding from God and blame shifting as much as they could, and now they no longer need those things anymore. They're free. Free to love and confess and forgive and be forgiven and now play their role as God's agents. In God's unfolding plan of redemption.

So there you have it. This is the first marriage intervention. In human history, This is what it looks like and it's a sweet intervention of grace, right? I'll close today by making a confession to confession to you if you're married.

We actually tricked you today. We put a lot of work into making this seem like a normal Sunday worship service. But actually, we're all here to do a marriage intervention, and it's your marriage. That we're after.

Imagine if that were really true. But I want you to feel as if it is. Don't think about anybody else's marriage. Think about yours.

God brought you here this morning to do. A marriage Intervention. How is your marriage? Is your marriage full of sin and hiding and withholding and accusing and bitterness?

And acrimony. Will you let God today do a sweet intervention of grace in your heart? And in your marriage, do you hear God preaching the gospel to you? This morning Do you see him sending his son to die to provide atonement for your sins, including your marital sins?

Do you see him dressing you and your spouse? If they know Jesus in His atonement, Will you choose today to begin to look at your spouse from this day forward in the context of his or her gospel story and stop only looking at your spouse in the context of their sin history? Will you dare to believe that God delights to take broken marriages and start making them whole and in the process of making them whole? Enlist those marriages, including your marriage, in the larger narrative of what he is doing in the world.

Will you let God this morning enlist your marriage? In his cause Will you let God and His grace intervene? Into your marriage today. Let's pray together.

Lord, your wisdom is infinite. It is just so infinite. Your knowledge of us is so deep, us better than we know ourselves, and so what we need even before we're aware that we would have needed that. And so when you speak to us in your word regarding marriage and what you want husbands to do and wives to do, and when we see the way you handle Adam and Eve here, we are stunned by your wisdom.

By your understanding of your human creations and what their needs are before they know what their needs are. Lord, do a work in our hearts inside of our marriages that we would cease from our running. Cease from our hiding. And stop running from you.

And running from this grace. That is so transformative. Pour out your Spirit on our church and every individual in our church, including every marriage, Lord. That cornerstone would be a congregation full of individuals, single.

And full of marriages. That are enlisted in this greater cause of what you are doing. In the world We're begging for a deep work. In each of our hearts, Lord.

Give help, give encouragement, give hope. To broken Marriages today. We thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord. Receive these funds, do much.

With every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus, the great champion. In whose name we pray, and all God's people said,