The Perfect Marriage? Series

THE PERFECT MARRIAGE? (GENESIS 3:1-20)

Awhile back, I received a tricky e-mail joke, which says:

“Once upon a time, a perfect man and a perfect woman met. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving their perfect car along a winding road, when they noticed someone at the side of the road in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help.

“There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys. Unfortunately the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident.”

Who was the survivor? (Scroll down for the answer.)

The perfect woman survived. She's the only one who really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.

Women stop reading here. That is the end of the joke.

Men keep scrolling****. (Scroll down for the answer)

So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving. This explains why there was a car accident. By the way, if you are a woman and you are reading this, this illustrates another point: women never listen.

Someone has said, “Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He did not have to hear about all the men she could have married and she did not have to hear about the way his mother cooked.” God created man, male and female, in His own image (Gen 1:27), called all that He had made “very good” (Gen 1:31), and placed them in a perfect environment (Gen 2:8-14), yet even in the garden of Eden, the perfect marriage did not exist. So what went wrong? How did “very good” (Gen 1:31) things go so awfully bad and hopeless? Because God gave people a choice, but man chose to go his own way. God did not make us as robots, puppets, or pawns. A person, by definition, has a personality, a choice, and the freedom to decide to follow Him or deny Him.

Why did man choose his own way? How did man and woman undermine each other and their relationship? What are the consequences to the family when a person rebels against God?

The Wages of Sin Is the Sting of Death

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'“

4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Gen 3:1-6)

A man wanted to go ice fishing. He'd seen many books on the subject, and finally after getting all the necessary tools together, he headed for the nearest frozen lake. After positioning his comfy footstool, he started to make a circular cut in the ice. Suddenly - from the sky - a voice boomed, “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!”

Startled, the man moved further down the ice, poured a Thermos of cappuccino, began to cut yet another hole. Again from the heavens, a voice bellowed, “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!”

The man, now quite worried, moved way down to the opposite end of the ice, sat up his stool, and tried again to cut his hole. The voice came once more: “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!”

He stopped, looked skyward, and said, “Is that you, Lord?” The voice replied, “No, I'm the Ice-Arena Manager!”

Some people just do not listen, especially to the word “no” or “don’t.”

Failing and refusing to heed God’s word is the heart of all human and marital problems. At the heart of every failing human relationship is a failing spiritual relationship – the failure to follow God’s established rules of order. God has given us a manual of instructions – the Bible – but we make our own rules. Eve and Adam’s problem began when she did not trust God’s promise; she did not listen to the Wise One – God, but listened to the Wicked One – Satan. Ironically the first recorded conversation in the Bible was not with God or Adam, but with the serpent.