If you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 13. We're going to read one verse this morning. Yeah, one verse. And I'm going to just give you a heads up. There's things that I'm going to say this morning is going to offend some of you. And so this is not going to be one of those lighthearted messages, but I wanted to take this time to address certain things that are going on in our culture that is important.

And we wanted to make sure, and I'm sure it's not anything new to you, but I think it is important for us to address this going forward. And knowing that there is a fight for biblical marriage in our generation that we really need to be aware of and to participate in.

So let me read this text and then we'll jump in. Verse four, marriage is to be held in honor among all and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for wisdom. We pray for truth. We pray for love.

We pray, Father God, for your Holy Spirit to guide us. And I know, Lord, that your word will cut us. It will judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart. But we pray, Father God, that as your word guides and leads us, that ultimately it would bring us to true life.

Asking for your grace, asking that you would protect our church, this generation, Lord God, that we may be the light that you've called us to be. So we pray for your spirit's guidance. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I think you will all agree that some of your best memories from your childhood will probably be from your family interaction with your parents, with your siblings.

Families get together with uncles and aunts and grandparents. And so you have a lot of great memories of that when you're young. But also some of your most painful memories also come from your childhood because maybe your parents didn't have the godliest marriage. Or maybe, you know, a lot of you came from broken families.

And even if they didn't, weren't broken, they didn't have the healthiest, godliest of marriages. So you have very painful memories from that. And this is obviously, this is not unique to the church, people who are in the church. We live in a generation where supposedly more than 60% of marriages end in divorce.

So there's a lot of pain that people are living through and baggages that they have. And so part of the reason why there's the counseling, psychological counseling has kind of taken off is because so many people are in pain and as a result of that. They did a study and they said that 50% of people believe that marriage isn't that important to the health of society.

50%. Two-thirds of people who are in the age of 19 to 29 believe it's not even necessary. Since it causes so much pain, why do we even need to do that? Only 36% of the people believe that marriage is even necessary. So more and more people in our generation are coming to their own conclusion that if it's going to cause this much pain, why have it?

And you see celebrities coming out and openly saying that it is a dead institution. It is a construct of society that no longer works. So equal habit, if it doesn't work, move on, find somebody else. And that's kind of like the culture that has been readily accepted. There is nothing to me that is as clearly, that causes the church to be separated and defined and different than the biblical teaching of marriage and sexuality.

If there's any one thing that the world will look at and say, "Wow, those people are weird." At least in our generation, it's this human sexuality and the biblical definition of what a marriage ought to be. Especially now. If you haven't noticed it, I'm pretty sure it is coming.

That because if we are to remain faithful to what the Bible says, what marriage is and what human sexuality ought to be, that persecution is already here and it's only going to intensify. Because this one thing is going to separate us clearly in the eyes of the world. And all the more why we need to make sure that what the scripture says, that we do not compromise, no matter what consequences may come.

We're not here to appease the world. We're not here to make sure that the people in the world feel comfortable here. We're here to exalt Christ. And so we need to make sure that what Christ says is what is being taught in scripture, in the church. So this morning, there's two parts of this sermon.

The first part is, it says in verse 4, it says, "Marriage is to be held in honor among all." What does that mean? What does it mean to honor marriage and why is this so important? And then secondly, it says, "Marriage bed is to be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers God will judge." What is the application of that?

Practically, how do we honor marriage in a practical way? So first of all, marriage is to be held in honor among all. So let me start off by saying, among all, it's not just talking about those who are married, those who are of age. Among all includes everybody, young and old.

That you and I need to understand that all human relationships stem from the marriage between husband and wife. So there is no relationship between father and son or daughter, brother, sister, grandparents, uncle. All human relationship started by the relationship between Adam and Eve. So if the relationship between Adam and Eve is not honored, everything else that comes from that is also going to be distorted.

You cannot fix the human relationship until we fix the relationship between husband and wife. And so when it says to honor marriage by all, this is not just for those people who are married. This is something that married or not, young and old, single or not, that we need to recognize what the scripture teaches about this subject.

The word for honor is the same word it describes the precious stone in 1 Corinthians 3.12. In 1 Peter 1.19, that word for honor is translated precious as the blood of Christ. 2 Peter 1.4, it says the promises of God is also precious and to be honored. It means that we recognize the value of what this is.

Why is this so precious? Why is that word that describes the blood of Christ, the church of Christ, the promise of God, and that we ought to honor the marriage in that light? First of all, the Bible makes it very clear. Marriage is not a social construct. It was created by God.

Okay, let me say that again. Marriage is not a social contract that we are to say, "It doesn't work because it's broken that we're not going to do this anymore." It was God ordained. When was it ordained? From the get-go. In Matthew 19, 3-6, there's some Pharisees came to Jesus testing him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" And he answered and said, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?" From the beginning.

It wasn't hundreds of years later. It wasn't thousands of years later. He said, "From the beginning when he created them male and female, he said, 'For this reason man shall leave his father and mother to be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" So they are no longer two but one flesh.

"What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." So in every wedding ceremony, you will hear at the declaration of your covenant union, what God has put together, let no man separate. The first reason why we honor marriage is God created this. God ordained this from the beginning.

From the get-go. And every other human relationship. He didn't create Adam and Eve and then uncles and then children and all at once. He created man and female. All of the relationships came from these two people, from this marriage. Genesis 2, 18 says, "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make him a helper suitable for him.'" So this text specifically is the purpose of why he created Adam and the purpose of why he created Eve. He created all other creation and then he ends up by saying, "It is good." And then he creates Adam and he said, "It is not good for him to be alone." So we have to understand that when he says it is not good, he's not talking about morally not good.

The word good here can also be understood not complete. God created him and it was not good because what God had ordained him to be is not complete. Because God's call for Adam was to remember twofold. To be fruitful and multiply, right? And then to subdue the land. To be the ruler of the land.

Those are the two creation mandates. But in order to do that, he had to create Eve. And so he says, "I will make him a helper suitable for him." Suitable. You know, it's interesting the word suitable means someone who is opposite or corresponding. Someone who will compliment. You know, it's interesting because just by observation, most people who end up being attracted to one another are usually opposites.

And I'm not saying that's 100%. You may be sitting next to your husband and wife and my guess is 90% of you, your wife is a bit different. So if you happen to be very quiet, your wife may be extra. Maybe you're the extra and then your wife is a quiet one.

And I'm not saying that that's true of every relationship. I'm saying just for the most part, when we say opposites attract, that probably describes most people. Not 100%, nothing is ever 100%. What's interesting is the way he describes Eve is that she would be the corresponding partner, a compliment, not a supplement, not the same person, but somebody who's going to compliment.

And so he made Eve to be a compliment, even physically, so that they would physically fit each other. So that what he cannot do, that he needs her to be able to do that, both physically and spiritually. But here's the problem. That was God's ordination. He created Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, needed Eve to do that, and to subdue the land.

And so it was, if you look, before the fall, they're laboring together, they're naming animals, and they're working. But you know what happens. Sin comes in, they rebel against God, and the first thing that happens is Genesis 3:7, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked." Right?

Now, even if you're naked, it doesn't bother you if you're by yourself, right? Why were they hiding? "And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin covering." So who were they covering themselves to hide their nakedness from? Each other. It wasn't like, "Ew, disgusting." There's no mirrors back then.

They recognized their nakedness, and they hid from each other. So from the get-go, there was shame, and so this husband and wife relationship, they hid from each other. See, one of the most key things that we cover in marriage counseling is biblical communication, because nobody is completely, 100% honest.

And it shows in the way that we communicate, because before I say anything to you, I calculate in my head, "If I say this, what are you going to think? How will you respond? What will you think of me if you say this? Or maybe you said something that hurt me, so now I'm going to say this to hurt you." So everything that comes out of my mouth comes through some kind of filter.

So nobody is ever completely honest, and where this first comes in is a relationship between husband and wife. That's what it says. They hid from each other. So from the get-go, the marriage relationship was tainted. Genesis chapter 3, 16. He says, "Because of the sin, the curse on Eve was, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.'" Remember, this was the reason why Eve was created, so that she could be a suitable helper, so that they can be fruitful and multiply.

But here it says, "You will be fruitful and multiply, but it will be painful." And pain and childbearing is not just referring to the actual birth itself. It's talking about the whole process of giving birth, raising children. And again, those of you who've raised children, you know, right, the hardest thing that you do in life is to raise a sinner, right?

And we pray for salvation because it's really for our own benefit. Because it's hard raising a sinner, right? Even after they're saved. In pain, you will bring forth children, and then yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. You notice that? She was there.

She was created to be a suitable helper, to be fruitful and multiply. She was there to help him, but instead, there's contention in this relationship. Desire will be for your husband. And the word "desire" here is a kind of word where she's trying to challenge him, and he says, "But he's going to rule over you." Instead of being a complement, they became the adversary because of sin.

So she's still carrying out the creation mandate, but as soon as sin comes in, the very thing that they call them to do, it becomes contentious in the home. Genesis 3, 17 to 19, "Cursed is the ground because of you," and this is the curse to Adam, "in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life." Remember, he was called, he was created to take care of the land.

He said, "You're going to take care of it, but you will eat of it in toil. Both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread." The curse of the fall is not our job, because God gave him a job before that sin came in.

What happened was, your job became painful, and it produced thorns and thistles, "Till you return to the ground, because from it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." What God created was good. Sin came in and tainted everything, and it started with the relationship between husband and wife.

There's a reason why in our generation, in order to attack the work of God, the first place where it attacks is the family. Because if the family falls apart, then the relationship with husband and wife, then the children fall apart, and if that falls apart, then the relationship between siblings fall apart, and if that falls apart, then all the other relationships that hinges on this relationship also begins to unravel.

But when he says to honor the marriage bed, and to honor marriage itself, it really is at the core of the reversal of this curse, because curse first came in, in the marriage. That's why in Ephesians chapter 5, 22-32, you know the passage where it says, "Wife, be subject to your own husband as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, and as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body." And he says, "Submit to your husband as a church does to Christ." And then in 25-28, it says to the husbands to love them sacrificially, as Christ gave himself for the church.

When he says gave himself, he's not simply saying he prioritized her, he's saying he died. And so what he's calling the husband to do is to sacrifice who he is for the sake of his wife. You'll hear this, sermons about this at weddings, you know, and anniversaries, because it's a beautiful passage about the biblical mandate of marriage.

But here's how he sums it up in verse 31, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. But this mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church." So he says that this illustration is that Christ and what he did for the church is not to uphold the marriage, but the marriage is to uphold the gospel.

Because where the curse came in and the ramification of the curse came in between husband and wife, the reversal of the curse is going to also begin at husband and wife. And that's the reason why one of the qualifications of elders that's repeated in every list is that he needs to be able to manage household well.

That this man needs to, there needs to be evidence that there is regeneration in his life first at home between husband and wife and with their children. So that once there is evidence of genuine salvation, reconciliation with God at home, then that man could be a leader at church.

So the proving ground where regeneration, reconciliation happens first is at home. Is he a leader at home? And if so, then can he lead at church? Marriage is the epicenter of the enemy's attack. It has always been, but especially now. Marriage is where the greatest sanctification takes place. Now before you're married, you can kind of stiff-arm some people.

I mean, you shouldn't do that, but everybody practices that person. I like him. We're going to be acquaintances. We're going to be best friends. You're the person I'm going to tolerate. And so there's a lot of sinfulness in us and selfishness in us that we kind of pick and choose who we're comfortable with.

When you get married, right, and you say, "Well, you know, we got to know our wife and we got to know our husband." Yes, that's true. But every, no matter how well you know your husband and wife, there are hidden sins in everybody that you're not going to see until you get married.

There's selfishness that we hide. Of course we hide it, right? You know, we come out, when we go date, I mean, if that guy comes out with, you know, ripped jeans and he just doesn't care, like, right off the bat, don't give him a chance, right? This was not important to him, right?

At first date, if he doesn't put out his best foot, he doesn't put his best shirt and best pants and come out, already that tells you something. Just, "Eh," move on, right? But we do the same thing when we first get married because we want to give our best.

And so, you know, if you have a bad temper, you hold it. If you're selfish, you know, you're very generous, right? Sooner or later, our fallen nature is going to be exposed. But when you're married, a married couple, man, you can't go anywhere, right? When you're dating, like, you get mad and you go to your corner and you cool off after, you know, maybe a few days and then now you're back to your, the person that you want to present and you bring them back, but when you're married, you don't have that opportunity.

So God uses that to sanctify us because as they, as you see their sins, your sins are going to be exposed, right? Our sins get exposed by other people's sin. So when you see their sins, you're going to respond in a sinful way. And then when your sin gets exposed, like, we are to be sanctified.

And so marriage is a place because the most intimate relationship we have that we cannot hide from one another, God uses that to sanctify us. So it is the greatest place of sanctification. Marriage is where the greatest practice of agape love is to be practiced. There's a reason why he says to love your neighbor because neighbor is the person closest to you.

And there's nobody closest to us than our husband and wives. And so we are to practice that unconditional sacrificial love even when they don't deserve it, especially when they don't deserve it. We are to practice the love that he practiced in us. So where the rubber meets the road in the practice of this love is in marriage.

It is the proving ground for leadership in the church, which I've already mentioned. And then fourthly, it is where the future generation comes from. So if you want to attack the church and you want to make sure that it ends in this generation, ruin the family. And then the next generation, it would be it.

So there's a reason why our enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion, when he is wanting to attack, where he's going to attack first is the home between husband and wife. And so if you bring defilement into that, all the other relationships are going to unravel. And so this is why this is so important.

And this is why I'm taking this morning to cover this issue because we need to recognize what we're up against. We need to make sure that our idea of what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, is not coming from the culture. That is coming from, it's not coming from what is popular in our generation.

First of all, how do we do this? He says by keeping the marriage bed undefiled. And he's talking about sexual purity. Undefiled. You know, the term sex has become a dirty word, right? So if I say sex, my guess is automatically there's a little bit of discomfort. Sex. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex.

Just in case nobody heard it. Sex. Sex. Anybody sleeping? Sex. Okay, so. This is good for him. Let him pay attention. You know, first service, we had small children all over the place and parents were squirming. But the term sex in and of itself is not a dirty word.

It's not a dirty word. God gifted that to Adam and Eve. He said to be fruitful and multiply. He created Eve. And so how were they going to obey this biblical mandate? Through sex between husband and wife. But the reason why the term makes us feel uncomfortable is because almost everyone in this room, when we think of sex, we think of the perversion that is outside of what God intended.

Let me give you an example. I got water here. Drinking water. I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty. Now, you can't live without water. And I got some dirt. And I got this from this plant underneath here. In and of itself, it's great. In fact, you need, in order for this plant to survive, it needs the dirt that God created and it needs the water that God created.

That was, I was just thirsty. In and of itself, it needs it. And if I pour both of it into the pot, what does it do? It causes the plant to grow. It produces life. But the moment that I take it out of its ordained place and I pour it in here, I can't drink it anymore.

It's useless. The problem is not sex. God created sex to produce life. Then it is practiced in the ordained manner that God has given as a gift to husband and wife. But when you take it out of the context, it is useless. Now I can't drink it. Because sex was for the purpose, again, and there's a reason why God made it enjoyable.

It's not dirty. He made it so that you would enjoy it in obeying God's creation mandate. But the problem is that we've all been introduced to the defiled idea of sex in this world. And so what ends up happening is when we think of sex, we're not thinking about the biblical gift of sex.

We're thinking about the perversion that you and I all have been introduced to. Francis Schaeffer says that people drift along from generation to generation and the morally unthinkable becomes unthinkable as the years move on. Let me say that again. People drift along from generation to generation and the morally unthinkable becomes thinkable as the years move on.

Some of you who are younger may not have the benefit of knowing what it was like 30 years ago or 40 years ago. But those of you who are a bit older, you know exactly what he means by that. What was unthinkable, even in the non-Christian world, has become not only thinkable but openly practiced.

And sad to say it is starting to penetrate even inside the church. What is unthinkable has become thinkable and actually is being practiced. You know what's interesting is here the word fornicator, and then there's another word for adultery, says they will be judged. And the specific nuance of this word fornicator is pornos, where we get the word pornography.

And that word basically means to sell, to sell cheaply. And so that word was used specifically for male prostitutes. But the idea of this word is to take something that is valuable and cheapen it. That you see certain shows, you know, antique road show, and then you'll see somebody who picked up this painting for $15 and then they go and get it, you know, assessed and they say, "Oh, this was from Monet that they lost so many years ago and it's worth $15 million." But he found it at a garage sale because owner had no idea of its value.

That's that word, pornos. Is to take something that is so valuable and to cheapen it because we don't understand the value of what it is that God has given us. The word adultery basically means to live by your flesh, just to give into your impulse, to instinct. You know, we could think, humanly speaking, when we commit sexual offences, it doesn't hurt anybody.

When we slander people, we hurt them. When we steal, when we, you know, when we do these things, we actually hurt people. But you know, if we are impure and we're hooked on pornography, watch things that we shouldn't watch, right, it doesn't hurt anybody because it's just me being, doing it privately.

But here's what it says. In 1 Corinthians 6, 18 to 20, it says, "Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body." I've said this before. It is ridiculous that some people of prominence are saying that God screams social justice, but he whispers sexual immorality.

Look at what he says. "All other sins commits outside of the body." He is separating the sexual immorality with all other sins. But the immoral man sins against his own body. So the scripture screams sexual immorality. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Look at the scripture. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.

What is the most precious thing in this building? Guitar? The synthesizer? Is that an outdated term? Keyboard? The drums? Our A/B system? What's the most precious thing in this building? It's you. It's me. Because the Bible says that we have been purchased by the blood of Christ. That may cost two, three thousand dollars.

I don't know how much it costs. The drum, a couple thousand dollars. Maybe ten, fifteen thousand dollars for the A/B system. But every child of God was purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. The Son of God had to come and give himself to purchase us. And the Bible says that we no longer belong to ourself.

This is his. So when we think that we're not hurting anybody, the greatest crime, the greatest sin, is to defile what God had declared to be holy. He didn't just say we were holy. He died on the cross and shed his blood, absorbed our sins to make us holy.

So to think that somehow the sexual sin only bothers us is because we don't understand what it is that we have in Christ. To keep this marriage bed undefiled begins before we get married. Even after we get married. What we do even by ourselves. Saving ourselves for marriage. You know what's interesting about this word marriage?

It's not just in reference to people who are married. The marriage of institution. The specific nuance of this word is the marriage ceremony. It's the day that you get married. He's saying that do not defile the marriage ceremony. Meaning, when you come together, that you come together prepared, undefiled.

The way that dating happens in our generation is completely pagan. Let me say this again. If you follow the pattern of this world, and you date like everybody else dates in our generation, it is completely pagan. We're Bereans because we want to examine the word of God that everything that we do, that we're following what the scripture tells us to do.

When it comes to this, we have a tendency to have no intention to buy the car, but you're in the car, you're decorating the car, you're cleaning the car, you're investing, change the tires, and they say, "Are you going to buy the car?" I said, "No, not yet." So you start the engine, you put it on drive, and then you put one foot on the brake, and then the other foot revving it up as hard as you can.

Are you going to drive the car? I said, "No, not yet." And that's kind of how we date. We act like we're married, and then when we get physically intimate, it's like, "Oh, we made a mistake." But everything that you did led to that. It says in Psalm 8, 4, "I want you to swear, O daughter of Jerusalem, do not arouse or waken my love until she pleases." What he means by that is not to arouse.

Don't do things to arouse this passion until it's time. What's the time he's referring to? Marriage. So that night, when the husband and wife comes together, it was meant for that. He says, "Do not defile the marriage bed. Keep it holy, undefiled, until God ordains it." So when two people come together for the purpose of marrying, we're not there to celebrate the love of these two people, even though that's what brought them there.

Ultimately, we come to the Christian wedding, is coming to the altar and asking God to bless this covenant. That's why every once in a while, it's like, "I'll go to Vegas and let Elvis Presley ordain our marriage." It's like, you could do that legally and the world would acknowledge you, but that's not a Christian wedding.

You can go to a courtroom and then the courtroom, some clerk just signs the paper off and says, "Yes, legally in the world, you're married." But that's not a Christian marriage. Christian marriage is coming before the Lord and asking the Lord to bless this covenant. And so when a pastor says, "Whatever God has put together, let no man separate." So if we want God's ordination, we don't come with a paper that the world signs and say, "Hey, the world says I'm married, so I need you to acknowledge this." No, every time two Christians come together at the altar, that's where the wedding takes place.

That's where the union takes place. And so he's saying, "Do not arouse or awaken my love until she pleases." And I want to read this song from this great theologian, Beyonce, of our generation. Put a ring on it. I didn't realize that this was a song for sacredness of marriage until I read the lyrics.

You guys all seen the dances on YouTube and stuff, but here are the lyrics. All the single ladies. I'm not going to sing it. I'm not going to ruin the whole message because of this. All the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies.

Now put your hands up. Up in the club, we just broke up. I'm doing my own thing. Decided to dip, and now you want to trip because another brother noticed me. I'm up on him. He up on me. Don't pay him any attention. Just cried my tears for three good years.

You can't be mad at me. Because if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it. If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it. Don't be mad once you see that he want it. If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it.

Oh, oh, oh. There's two parts, two deep theological truths in this song. One is, if you wanted her, you should have put a ring on it. If you want to possess her, if you want to have her, marry her, that's what he's saying. That's what she's saying. So sacredness of marriage.

The other side of it is, if you've already given yourself to him, why does he need to put a ring on it? If everything that was reserved for marriage was given to him outside of marriage, why does he need to get married then? So this song really is about the sanctity of marriage.

Because that's what marriage was created for. When it says, "Do not arouse until it is time," meaning that we ought to stay pure until we are married. Thirdly, we need to uphold the marriage, honor the marriage by upholding biblical marriage between man and woman. You know, it's disturbing because 30-some years ago when I started preaching, I would go to a church, and it doesn't matter what church I am, I could talk about homosexuality being against the scripture, and I would almost get no response.

Of course. Even at school. Even at a secular setting. I would rarely get any kind of pushback. Now sometimes, even when I'm at a Bible church, I would say something like this, and somebody would come up to me and say, "How can you possibly say this?" Let me make this absolutely crystal clear.

The Bible is not ambiguous about the subject. It is not ambiguous about the subject. Genesis 127, it says, "God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them." More and more people in our culture are saying, "Male doesn't mean male.

Female doesn't mean female." And so more and more people who are sympathetic, I understand. And I know that you have people in this room, you could be struggling, maybe with same-sex attraction, maybe you have brother or sister or cousin or somebody that you know, you're really struggling with this, and because of your sympathetic heart, you want this not to be true.

I understand your heart. You cannot compromise what the Word of God clearly says. The Bible has not been written so that you need to go to school and you need to learn deep theology and then to come out and say, "Male doesn't mean male." And "female doesn't mean female." The Bible was written so that a child who reads it comes out and says, "Male and female." And more and more people are coming out and saying, "No, no, no.

Gender cannot be identified by human parts. It's happening what's inside." So male isn't male, female isn't female. Leviticus 18.22 says, "You should not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination." It is an abomination because it challenges God's purpose in creation. The very reason why you and I were created is to be fruitful and multiply.

So if Satan's going to attack, he attacks that. Once you attack that, you cannot obey the biblical mandate. Romans chapter 1, 26-27, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions. For their woman exchanged a natural function for what is unnatural. And in the same way also men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." This push to erase gender identity is not new. From the beginning, when Satan decided to challenge God, he began to attack the marriage. What's happening now is not new. It just happens to be more prominent and because we have media, it's being spoken of and there's pressure coming and for sure persecution is coming because of this.

Bible is not ambiguous. 1 Corinthians 6, 9-10, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, adulterers, nor idolaters, adulterers, nor effeminate are homosexuals." You know the word effeminate basically means a man who acts like a female. Basically it's referring to male prostitutes.

But an individual who has feminized himself to act like a female. That's what that specific understanding of that word means. Nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkard, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. The Bible is clear. So I ask you, and some of you may have been challenged by your friends and said, "That's not what the Bible says." And so I encourage you to be Bereans.

If what I say disturbs you, don't say, "I don't like that guy." That guy, that guy's like this. Test the scriptures. Go to the Bible. Look at the verses that are being quoted. And look at it for yourself. See if this is the prejudice of this guy or a few right-wing Christians or does the Bible actually teach this?

I'm telling you emphatically, there is no ambiguity in this issue. It is crystal clear. Marriage, fourthly, must be between two believers. In 2 Corinthians 6, 14-16, "Do not be bound together with an unbeliever, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial?

Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'" Evangelism, mission marriage or mission dating is not biblical.

Again, the Bible's clear on that. How can one person who believes that his whole hope rests upon Christ and his sacrifice and an individual who doesn't even believe in God raise children together? They cannot. Either the person has completely compromised their faith or they probably don't believe at all.

But the Bible is crystal clear on this subject. A biblical marriage is between two believers. Fifthly, marriage covenant is never to be broken outside of what God permits. And again, at the end of the marriage, we say, "What God has put together, let no man separate." In Malachi 2.16, it says, "For I hate divorce," says the Lord, the God of Israel.

And him who covers his garments with wrongs, says the Lord of hosts, "So take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously." I hate divorce. I mean, there's no ambiguity there. God makes that absolutely crystal clear. In Matthew 19.9, it says, "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery." Because God has ordained it, man does not stand before God and say, "No, I'm not going to take this seriously." So everyone who comes into the covenant relationship, it's meant to be permanent.

Now, the scripture does give guidance that if you have married an unbeliever, to not to divorce. They use it as an opportunity to share the gospel with them. But if, again, when the two believers come together, that they are never to separate, that we are to be sanctified, to grow and mature in that context.

And then, finally, marriage is to be honored by establishing biblical role of the husband and wife. I would say in the church, I get the greatest pushback from this. That men are to lead and the women are to follow. I'm trying to see who's bothered by this. I get greater pushback on this than probably any other subject because this is where the rubber meets the road.

But let me make this clear. We don't choose what's right and wrong based upon what is acceptable, what seems reasonable to us. We are, first and foremost, we have to be brilliant. What does the Bible say? Bible clearly says that men were given the task to lead. And that's why he tells women to submit.

But let me say this to the men. You have to be men first. You have to be men first. If you live your life like a child, you act like a child, you talk like a child, you behave like a child, and then you ask your wife to submit to you.

No wonder they don't want to come. If you have a commanding officer whose sole purpose is to glorify himself, and he's acting selfishly, and he's asking you to submit so that he can have a better life, who's going to follow this guy? So when a man stands up and is a man, and this is, again, the challenge in our culture.

If you say you're a man, automatically it's toxic. So the lines are being blurred where men have to act like women and women have to act like men. Completely unbiblical. Men have to first act like men. Now I'm not telling you specifically what that means, but let me get to something that I think is going to, if you haven't been bothered up to this point, it's going to be bothered now.

If you're a guy who has habits that is causing your wife to be frustrated because you're playing games all day, and it's affecting your marriage, or maybe your spending habit, or whatever it is you're doing, your living self-centered lives, you're not acting like men. Because God called us to lead.

He called us to lead. So when we tell or ask our wives to follow us and support us and submit to us, they need to know that if they follow us, that we're going to lead them to Christ. That they need to have confidence that if they submit to us, that we're looking out for their best interest.

That if they honor us, that they are following men who have committed themselves to pick up their cross and lead them to the cross as well. But if they are not confident that that's what you are doing, that's where you're headed, and then you say, "Submit." Who's going to submit to that?

If she's not certain that that's where you're headed, if she questions your selfishness, then even though the Bible mandates this, you've shot yourself in the foot. And then you say, "Let's go." In order for marriage to be honored, men need to learn what it means to be men. To lead.

To sacrifice. To put away childish things. I'm not saying that you can't play games. I'm not saying that you can't have hobbies. But if those things impede you being men in your home, before you shake the Bible and tell them, "Oh, wives are supposed to do this. Wives are supposed to do that." Before that happens, we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves.

Am I somebody that she can respect? So until men are first men, we cannot establish honor in the marriage. Having said that, women need to submit. What an outdated thing to say in this generation. And this is going to be reported. There are some people who are watching this.

I don't know who's watching this. I'm sure somebody's going to be offended. What I just said, I just quoted scripture. I remember the very first wedding that I was officiating, and the future wife had a problem with that. I said, "I don't want to say this word. It's not romantic." "The non-Christian guests who are coming are not going to understand.

So can you change that word?" And I thought long and hard for four seconds. And I said, "No." Because I'm asking you to quote a Bible verse. A Bible verse. So if you cannot adhere to God's ordained mandate in scripture, you're not asking for the Lord's blessing. You can sign a piece of paper.

You can get Elvis to come and officiate. But a minister of God in the right conscious cannot do that. Because he no longer represents Christ. He represents the culture. He wants to appease you before he is obedient to God. When a marriage is established where Christ is at the center, that's where true life is.

That's where true life is. The reason why he told his disciples to pick up his cross and deny himself is because at the other side of the cross was the resurrected life. So all that he has commanded in creation, all that he has commanded in this new generation is no different.

God calls us to submit to the word of God because the word of God, when we practice the way that God has given it to us, is the path of life. Is where the children are raised, husband and wives are happy. If you ask a husband and wife when something goes wrong, you know what they typically say?

The wife usually complains that they don't feel loved. And you know what the typical complaint of a husband is? I don't feel respected. Why do you think they say that? It's not because they looked long and hard into the scripture and said, "Oh, they're supposed to respect me and honor me." No.

Innately, that's how God has created us. For ladies to be loved and men to be respected so you can lead. It's embedded into creation. So when we give ourselves an obedience to that, we experience what God intended in creation. So we benefit, our children benefit, and our church benefits.

Let me wrap it up in this. Having said everything I've said, I'm pretty sure I've said enough to offend all of you. I'm pretty sure I've covered enough where there's not a single person, including myself, that is not indicted by what has been said. First and foremost, we must never compromise what the scripture says to appease the culture that we're in, no matter what the consequence.

No matter what the consequence. Because it is not safe to disobey God. It is not safe because the place where I find refuge is in Christ. My refuge is not in this world. My refuge is not in the good reputation that I get from this world. My reputation doesn't come from the size of this church.

That's not my refuge. My refuge is found in Him. So whatever storms may come as a result of running to Him is the safest place for any Christian to be. So we must never compromise the biblical truth. But number two, all of us are indicted by what I said.

Every single one of us. If you go to a secular psychologist, they'll tell you, "Hey, you know what? You're the way you are because your mom treated you this way or your dad treated you this way. Because something happened to you when you were a little girl. Something happened to you when you were a little boy." And so they'll identify and then they'll say, "You're the way you are because somebody did this to you." And so you can easily live your life and say, "I am the way I am because I've been sinned against.

And I sin against other people because I've been sinned against." If you're not a Christian, that may be a good justification. No Christian stands before God and says, "I am the way I am because of what they've done to me." Every single person who has become new by the blood of Christ stands in the presence of His throne of grace and says, "I am what I am because of what Jesus did for me.

I do what I do because He loved me. I am what I am despite all that happened in this fallen world. I am what I am because of what He did to me." All the filth and dirtiness and the pain that you experienced that came from your family, from relationships, where the curse gets reversed is in Christ.

So I can stand here and tell you the pain that I've had, the things that I've been wronged. And I'm sure every single one of you to different degrees can say the same thing. But the reason why you and I are here is not to share with each other how painful our past has been.

You and I are here together because Christ reversed this curse. He reversed this curse so that we no longer live. He said, "I hurt you because they hurt me." No. "I love because He loved me." And that curse gets reversed in the home first. That's why marriage must be honored among all.

And this bed must not be defiled. Let's pray. As we ask our praise team to come, let's take some time to come before the Lord. Whatever sins that we have committed, however deep we feel indicted because of the Word of God, our hope is in Christ. You can't reverse this curse.

You can't reverse what's been done by being good. The only power that can save us from our own sins is the power of the cross. So let's all come individually and collectively to refocus our attention on Christ, to be anchored in Him so that all that we do, all that we think will be led by the blood of Christ.

Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.