OPENING
SENTENCE: There is an old joke, not a very good one and one I am sure most of you have heard, but it lays the groundwork for my sermon today so I will tell it nonetheless. It goes like this:
INTRODUCTION: God was once approached by a scientist who said, “Listen God, we’ve decided we don’t need you anymore. These days we can clone people, transplant organs and do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous.” God replied, “Don’t need me huh? How about we put your theory to the test. Why don’t we have a competition to see who can make a human being, say, a male human being.” The scientist agrees, so God declares they should do it like he did in the good old days when he created Adam. “Fine” says the scientist as he bends down to scoop up a handful of dirt.” “Whoa!” says God, shaking his head in disapproval. “Not so fast. You get your own dirt.”
In a very real sense that is the situation we find ourselves today regarding marriage and sexuality. We think we can do without God and we have a better plan for how marriage should work. But, in the competition between God’s design and cultures view I want to see that Gods view wins out. In His older conjugal view marriage is a comprehensive union inherently suited for procreation and the sharing of family life. It calls for permanent and exclusive commitment. It is also a moral reality with an objective structure, which it is inherently good. In this view, the state also has an interest in marriage because society needs children who become healthy adults capable of contributing to the common good and stable marriages are best suited for that.
In contrast, the new revisionist view espoused by our culture says that that marriage is essentially a private matter, an affair of the heart between two adults, in which no outsider, not even the children of the marriage, should be allowed to interfere. Marriage is primarily valued by how well it satisfies the adults individual emotional need and is primarily for and about adult happiness. If the sense of romance is absent or one or both parties find themselves unhappy then they have valid grounds for divorce. In other words, it is built on the emotional whims of romantic love.
TRANSITION
SENTENCE: Too many have bought into the lie that we can change marriage’s meaning and purpose without consequences.
TRANSITION: Marriage has an elemental structure, like water. Just as tinkering with the number of hydrogen and oxygen atoms turns water into something else, messing with the fundamental structure of marriage means it is no longer marriage and cannot fulfill the purposes of marriage. So, even if we reject the Bibles as an authority a convincing case can be made for the benefits of marriage simply by observing the evidence.
SAY WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAY: This morning I want to see that every society in history, pagan and otherwise, have recognized the intrinsic wisdom and value of conjugal marriage and its benefits to society- that is until the last forty decades. In that light, I want us to look at the question, “What can the weight of evident, scripture and wisdom teach us about the value of marriage?”
THEME: Both wisdom and evidence tells us that marriage benefits the person and society at large.
What can the weight of evidence, scripture and wisdom teach us about the value of marriage?
I. There is an ancient universally shared wisdom regarding marriage and sexuality. (1-6)
My son, pay attention to my wisdom, turn your ear to my words of insight, 2 that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. 3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil; 4 but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. 6 She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.
A. The lure of an adulterous woman can be powerfully appealing.
The first seven chapters of Proverbs are words of a father sharing wisdom with his son. From the warning in these verses we are reminded that the powerful appeal for a sexual encounter outside the marriage covenant is not new. It has existed since the fall. Men are visually stimulated and it is not only his wife that catches his eye. Yet, the message of this proverb is that sexual temptation is a powerful universal attraction that works against the marriage covenant.
Notice- there are several principles suggested in these verses. 1. There are sexual impulses that allures us to illicit affairs but we have the ability to abstain from acting on them. 2. There is an objective requirement to abstain from illicit affairs. In contrast, rooted in our contemporary culture is the “Playboy” philosophy which measures manhood by his sexual prowess and promiscuity with James Bond being a typical role model. 3. We place far too much value on the sexual appeal and prowess of a person yet sexual attraction has little to do with stable healthy relationship. 4. Manhood, in scripture involves a willingness to restrain his sexual urges and provide for and protect his family.
B. There are severe consequences when we succumb to her appeal.
When this proverb was written they did not have some of the medical advancements that reduce the impact from illicit relationships this passage implies. But, it has also allowed people to become more promiscuous and in that they think they can act with impunity. What are these advances?
1. Antibiotics/Medicines- Today we have medicines and antibiotics that either eliminate or reduce the symptoms of STD’s- yet they continue at epidemic rates in spite of them, and possibility even because of them, because it gives people a false sense of safety.
2. HIV- continues to be contracted at extremely high proportions especially in the gay community (Google CDC MSN). Contacting HIV requires a life time of treatments with antiviral drugs costing at around $800-1,000 a month per person.
3. The Pill/Condoms- The availability of the pill in 1960 is one of the key catalysts for the sexual revolution. Prior to its introduction the risk of unwanted pregnancies was a powerful deterrent for promiscuous sex. The pill and condoms reduce that risk but do not eliminate it altogether.
4. Abortion- I consider this to be the greatest tragedy of all. The most natural thing in the world is for a woman to cherish and nurture the baby in her womb. But something has happened in our culture to make this beautiful desire to be distorted. We have made the god of “self-autonomy and self- determination” so prevalent that we use it to rationalize the killing of our unwanted offspring- usually resulting from our illicit affairs outside the marriage covenant.
ILLUSTRATE: In his book, “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis says, “Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it: the old Christian rule is, “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.” Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong.
. . . You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?
. . . [Y]ou and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not.
APPLY: Before we can be cured we must want to be cured. Those who really wish for help will get it; but for many modern people even the wish is difficult. It is easy to think that we want something when we do not really want it. A famous Christian long ago told us that when he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been saying, “Oh Lord, make me chaste,” his heart had been secretly adding, “But please don’t do it just yet.”
THEME: Both wisdom and evidence tells us that marriage benefits the person and society at large.
What can the weight of evident, scripture and wisdom teach us about the value of marriage?
II. There are consequences when we neglect to honor the marriage covenant. (7-14)
7 Now then, my sons, listen to me; do not turn aside from what I say. 8 Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house, 9 lest you lose your honor to others and your dignity to one who is cruel, 10 lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich the house of another. 11 At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent. 12 You will say, “How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! 13 I would not obey my teachers or turn my ear to my instructors.
14 And I was soon in serious trouble in the assembly of God’s people.”
A. You lose your honor and dignity with your family and friends.
Notice the first major consequence of an illicit relationship is not that you will get pregnant or an STD but that it that it impacts you as a person. It impacts your honor and dignity- something intrinsic about who we are. It unites us in an unintended one flesh relationship. This is the point of Paul in I Corinthians 7: 16-18, “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”
Most people who engage in illicit relationships are not really free as they often claim. Their passion enslaves them so they lose the power to control it. Like the woman in the Proverb, “but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. 6 She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.” We may be free to act on our desires but we are not free to avoid the consequences.
B. You will eventually discover that you have been exploited for another’s gratification.
That is what is happening in our culture. We use each other for our own sexual gratification. It is not love it is exploitation. For the woman it often goes like this: I am lonely and feel unloved so I will provide the sexual favors of a man in hopes it will fill my emptiness and he will love me. For the man it often goes like this: I will appeal to a woman’s desire for love to use her to satisfy my sexual urges. In both cases, they are using each other for selfish ends.
The booklet handed out to with your bulletins shows the results of this exploitation. Both adults exploited each other for their personal gratification giving no real thought to the child that results from their union. Most of these men in such relationships will never know their child and their child will never know their father. This “using” of people degrades our worth and dignity. People are not objects to be used for mutual gratification.
C. Your own conscious and the public will ultimately condemn you.
In years past there was intense pressure on men to restrain his sexual impulses and marriage was a primary means of doing that. Our change of attitude regarding marriage has created the growth of fatherlessness. This has negative consequences not only for children and women but also for men. Men who do not father and who are not married can be a danger to themselves and to society.
The world over, young and unattached males have been a cause for social concern.
As sociologist Akerlof argues that, “… men settle down when they get married: if they fail to get married they fail to settle down.” When men delay or avoid marriage they continue with the often antisocial and destructive behaviors of single men. When we remove that element sexually unrestrained men become a risk to society. The booklet shows that Poverty, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Teen Pregnancies, Juvenile crime and violence, abuse against women, etc. are all directly related to our diminished view of marriage and the fatherless homes it produces.
ILLUSTRATE: The overwhelming evidence for the connection between broken marriages, fatherlessness and the social ailments has been known for 40 decades. So why are we still on following the same path as though we can still figure out a way to continue this path without its consequences. The answer is simple. We rationalize the problem away. Let us use smoking as an analogy. The association between smoking and lung cancer is well established but many rationalize their smoking like this.
“SMOKING IS IMPORTANT- BUT NOT THAT IMPORTANT: Research shows that not every smoker gets lung cancer. Conversely, not everyone who gets lung cancer is a smoker. Thus, many factors other than smoking may contribute to lung cancer. Indeed, new regression coefficient data reveal these key findings: persistent coughing may dam¬age lungs and is positively associated with the presence of lung cancer; healthy lifestyles, positive attitudes, and general physical fitness are posi¬tively associated with the absence of lung cancer; and some lungs are genetically more susceptible to disease, including cancer, than others. Therefore, smoking per se is probably misspecified as a major cause of lung cancer. Indeed, new data reveal that smoking is not a major factor in lung-related health problems of young children.
The goal here is to downplay smoking as a cause of lung cancer. The strategy is to disassemble smoking: to disaggregate its various aspects into stand-alone components. Then the analyst can cite the causal effect of one component-such as coughing, general physical fitness, or the relative rar¬ity of lung cancer among children who smoke-to suggest that "smoking per se" does not cause lung cancer.
APPLY: This is the approach used by critics of the old view of marriage who do not want to see the crisis that the new view is creating. You see when they try advocate for alternative families models.
THEME: Both wisdom and evidence tells us that marriage benefits the person and society at large.
What can the weight of evident, scripture and wisdom teach us about the value of marriage?
III. Marriage is far more rewarding at many levels (15-23)
15 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. 16 Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? 17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. 18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. 20 Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman? 21 For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths. 22 The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast. 23 For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.
A. Marriage provides a relational bond that lasts throughout your life.
The imagery of these verses is important. Drinking from your own cistern is used in contrast to succumbing to the appeals of the scandalous woman. It simply means, “let your own wife be the one to satisfy you desires.” Both the desire and the discipline of mind should be directed to her alone.
In his study of successful men, Robert Weiss reports, “When men who have been married fifteen or twenty years are asked how marriage changed their lives, their first thought is apt to be lost freedom.” “If I weren’t married I’d probably have one h--- of a time” is Mr. Brewer’s first, immediate response. “I’d probably spend my summers in Newport and my winters on the Caribbean.” In the next breath, Mr. Brewer offers a different vision of life without the burdens of marriage: “Much as I wouldn’t want to admit it, I’d probably be lonesome with life. Because I know quite a few guys that got divorced and what it really comes down to, a lot of them go home at night to a cold home.”
B. Marriage promises familial and public affirmation.
“Marriage is not only a private vow, it is a public act, a contract, taken in full public view, enforceable by law and in the equally powerful court of public opinion. When you marry, the public commitment you make changes the way you think about yourself and your spouse; it changes the way you act and think about the future; and it changes how other people and other institutions treat you as well.”
Friends can dissolve their friendship by themselves, but it takes a judge to grant a divorce. Laws regulating divorce carry with them an implicit understanding of what marital obligations are.
C. You experience deeper sexual fulfillment without guilt or remorse.
The supposedly boring qualities of married sex have long been satirized in popular culture—taken for granted and transformed into the butt of jokes. An old joke asks, “What’s the best food to curb your sexual appetite?” “Wedding cake” is the sobering answer. Over the last few generations, a new element to the old “ball-and-chain” story has been added: Yet that is a myth. In their excellent book, “The Case for Marriage” Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher confirm through evidence what the author of Proverbs realized. After looking at the best research on the subject they conclude, “What these prominent researchers found may shock you: Married people have both more and better sex than singles do. In the chapter they elaborated as to why.
ILLUSTRATE: Marriage goes through different phases and there is something about the marriage covenant that we need to get us through the disillusionment phase of marriage. Most people enter marriage through the “in-love” experience, and at its peak it is euphoric. Two people can become almost obsessed with each other and usually lasts several months to two years, includes the illusion that the beloved is perfect in every aspect that matters.
The second phase is when the in-love experience passes and the flaws in the other person come home to us. Things that seemed small and inconsequential now loom large. We begin to feel that we did not really know the person after all. And this presents us with the challenge of loving a person who, at the moment, seems in large part a stranger, not the person you remember marrying.
APPLY: This is the phrase that requires us to affirm the marriage covenant to work it through. Yet, that is what marriage is. It is two flawed, self-centered people who must learn to sacrifice self for this imperfect person and while it is seldom easy it has the greatest likelihood of long-term benefit.
SAY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID: This morning we saw that there is a universally accepted view of marriage that has severe consequences when we ignore it. Individually and culturally we must renew our commitment to the marriage covenant if we are to see these consequences reversed.
TIE INTO OPENING SENTENCE: Like the joke at the beginning the fact is God’s plan is still the best. I believe a crisis is looming we have believed we foolishly believe we can do better.
APPLY TO SPECIFIC AUDIENCE:
1. Maybe you have succumbed to temptations outside your married covenant. God’s grace may not remove the consequences but He is a God of second chances. Renew your covenant with Him.
2. It seems strange that we should even feel that we need to make a case for marriage. But that is the place we find ourselves in today’s culture. As a believer, we must stand apart from the culture.
3. Renew your commitment to God and your marriage covenant no matter what the cost- just as Jesus did for you.
HAYMAKER: An older married couple offered these words of advice to a young couple during their wedding ceremony: Your love is priceless and needs to be guarded. Selfishness, pride, lack of forgiveness, and inattentiveness are but some of the many thieves capable of stealing away your love. In a sense your marriage is like a treasure chest forming a protective casing around your love, preventing your love from being stolen. Treasure chests have hard sides. The hardness protects what is on the inside ….Many people live with the false assumption that love enables a marriage to survive. But that is not the case. Your love will not ensure your marriage will survive; it is your marriage which will ensure your love will survive. This is the very reason God ordained marriage. Marriage keeps love alive, not love keeps marriage alive.
Booklet Available at bonnyvillebaptist.com/sermons/Marriage in an iWorld/TheStateofMarriage…
