Lecture 13: Marriage and Family Counseling

00:00:00.000 | All right, you want to have your Bible close by and we want to pick up and talk about the

00:00:09.620 | issue of communication here.

00:00:11.960 | A biblical and theological view of communication for the Christian family is really critical

00:00:17.220 | here and in doing so, we're actually going to end up talking about four rules of communication.

00:00:27.320 | We've already had you read an article by Leslie Vernick, there in the Journal of Biblical

00:00:34.320 | Counseling about the fact that if all you do is just teach people how to communicate

00:00:40.440 | correctly, then all you're doing is making good Pharisees out of people.

00:00:46.160 | You're getting them to perform on the outside in a certain way, where on the inside their

00:00:52.240 | hearts are really far from God.

00:00:54.500 | It may generally improve the condition of their marriage, but in reality they'll eventually

00:01:01.200 | go back to their default nature and their old sinful patterns of interacting with one

00:01:06.200 | another and they'll have the wrong desires.

00:01:09.840 | We don't want that.

00:01:10.840 | We want to address the heart so that the heart really changes in people's lives.

00:01:18.080 | Now when it comes to communication, here's a few little quick little comic strips that

00:01:23.000 | I think are really interesting.

00:01:25.840 | Why is it that men and women have problems communicating?

00:01:29.200 | Well, this is a little comic strip called "Why We'll Never Understand Each Other."

00:01:34.720 | And you see here on the left what he heard, "You're way too stupid to be trusted driving

00:01:39.420 | alone in bad weather," what she said, "Drive carefully, dear."

00:01:47.080 | Or down here at the bottom, what she heard, "It's your lot in life to stop whatever it

00:01:51.240 | is you're doing in order to serve my every need," what he said, "Honey, do you know if

00:01:57.560 | we have any more AAA batteries?"

00:02:03.600 | Or maybe communication in the home looks like something like this, what he heard, "I'm going

00:02:10.220 | to make you wish you were dead for the rest of the week," what she said, "Tell me the

00:02:14.400 | truth, honey.

00:02:15.400 | Do I look fat in this?"

00:02:20.760 | Or what she heard, "Anything less than absolute perfection makes you an utter failure as a

00:02:24.720 | wife and a mother," what he said, "Mom is coming over for dinner."

00:02:34.960 | Or maybe this, what she heard, "Life as we know it will cease to exist unless you can

00:02:40.360 | alter the space-time continuum," what he said, "Honey, are you almost ready yet?"

00:02:49.920 | Or what he heard, this is my favorite one, "Honey, why don't you put your head in a vise

00:02:53.680 | and I'll turn the handle until your skull explodes," what she said, "Honey, why don't

00:03:01.160 | we just turn off the TV and talk?

00:03:07.560 | Stick your head in a vise and I'm going to turn it until your skull explodes."

00:03:14.260 | Or lastly, maybe it's something like this, it says, "You're right," what he heard, "You're

00:03:20.260 | right to independent thought and ability to form an opinion has been revoked," what she

00:03:25.060 | said, "I do."

00:03:31.660 | I have some wives shaking their heads out there.

00:03:37.100 | Why is there difficulties?

00:03:38.420 | Well, one of the things we can say for sure is that good communication in the Christian

00:03:42.820 | marriage does not happen automatically, it doesn't.

00:03:47.700 | Why do we say that?

00:03:49.340 | Well, neither is the Christian marriage immune from problems.

00:03:53.940 | Why?

00:03:55.260 | Well, because you and your spouse are sinners.

00:03:59.340 | That's obvious from the Word of God, which by the way also tells us that there is no

00:04:04.580 | such thing as real basic compatibility, everybody on the planet is incompatible.

00:04:13.140 | Everybody is.

00:04:14.140 | At the very core, in our sinful selves, we are essentially egocentric, we are essentially

00:04:23.880 | selfish, we look out for our own desires and our own interests, we love ourselves way,

00:04:29.700 | way too much.

00:04:34.340 | We don't believe in what Alfred Adler says, that somehow we're born by the age of six,

00:04:39.220 | we have this implanted inferiority complex and it controls us for the rest of our life

00:04:46.700 | and now determines every decision that we make until we are somehow able to strive for

00:04:51.180 | superiority or what he used to call superiority and that became too much of a pejorative term

00:04:58.020 | and so it eventually was called self-realization or self-actualization or somehow we have more

00:05:06.660 | love for ourselves, no, that's not it at all.

00:05:13.220 | We're sinners, we're essentially self-centered, we're out for personal gratification.

00:05:22.160 | And because you and your spouse are finite with sinful hearts as well.

00:05:26.580 | That is, we're not infinite like God, we can't see what's coming around the next corner.

00:05:32.980 | So two sinners living in a very cramped household condition eventually are going to bump into

00:05:41.120 | each other and that's going to cause problems.

00:05:46.820 | In addition to that, your heart has various cravings and desires that conflict.

00:05:52.500 | I mean everybody's heard of those books, men are from Mars and women are from what?

00:05:58.900 | Venus, that's right.

00:06:02.820 | What's the basic idea within those books?

00:06:06.780 | Well the idea is that men are radically different from women and you can see this reinforced

00:06:16.820 | with other concepts like personality theories that are advanced, husbands sometimes have

00:06:23.660 | certain personalities, wives have certain personalities and these personalities are

00:06:27.780 | somehow conflict and that's what brings about dysfunctional marriages and dysfunctional

00:06:36.500 | families.

00:06:37.500 | Well nowhere in the Bible, a natural reading of the Bible would ever, never, ever render

00:06:43.260 | any of that.

00:06:44.260 | That's not what James 4 says, James 4, if you want to grab your Bible real quickly,

00:06:49.460 | what is it that James says causes fights and quarrels among you?

00:06:54.380 | He says, well, he says, "Is not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members?"

00:07:06.500 | James 4, 1, "You lust, you do not have, so you commit murder."

00:07:12.100 | Do I think that they were out running around committing murder?

00:07:14.620 | I don't think that was the case at all, physical murder.

00:07:18.740 | But was there another kind of murder?

00:07:22.220 | Yeah, any kind of hate, this is similar to what Jesus said there on Matthew 5, where

00:07:27.820 | if you have hate in your heart, you're as good as a murderer.

00:07:34.020 | So because your desires conflict with that of your spouse, there are going to be collisions

00:07:42.940 | within that marriage and collisions within home, certain desires that conflict that cause

00:07:48.940 | those arguments and disagreements.

00:07:52.740 | And then hatred grows up.

00:08:00.460 | And that hatred now is a form of ritualistic murder.

00:08:11.680 | Around here, if you go to auto shops, you can pick up on some of that stuff.

00:08:17.980 | You can get these little noisemakers you plant on your dashboard, and those little noisemakers

00:08:22.300 | you can, if you're traveling on a real crowded LA freeway, you can shoot the other person

00:08:31.780 | with a machine gun, or you can launch a missile at them, or you can throw a grenade at them.

00:08:42.020 | It's just a little noise thing.

00:08:43.780 | But what is that?

00:08:45.620 | All those people that are in front of you that are blocking your way in order to get

00:08:48.180 | where you want to go, you're just committing ritualistic murder with all those little sound

00:08:53.740 | devices.

00:08:55.620 | You're shooting them.

00:08:56.620 | You're killing them.

00:08:57.620 | You're blowing them up.

00:08:59.660 | Where does that come from?

00:09:00.880 | It comes from a deep-seated hatred and anger for someone who is getting in the way of your

00:09:09.220 | desires.

00:09:10.220 | What's your desire?

00:09:11.220 | Well, I want to get to my destination.

00:09:12.220 | That's my desire.

00:09:13.220 | And somebody else is in my way.

00:09:17.540 | So I think this is exactly what is going on here in James 4 too.

00:09:21.740 | There are certain desires that rule our hearts.

00:09:27.780 | And we lust and we don't have, so we commit murder.

00:09:30.440 | That is, in our hearts.

00:09:34.420 | You're envious.

00:09:35.420 | You cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel.

00:09:37.060 | So you do not have because you do not ask, that is, God and with the proper motives.

00:09:44.620 | You ask and you don't receive because you ask with the wrong motives, verse 3, so that

00:09:48.860 | you may spend it upon your pleasures.

00:09:51.180 | It's what you want.

00:09:53.380 | So there's disagreements, communication breakdowns because of these various cravings and desires

00:10:04.540 | that conflict in the Christian marriage.

00:10:10.380 | Now we also know that good marriages and lasting, loving relationships can be built by couples

00:10:19.140 | who are committed to being God's kind of husband and wife.

00:10:22.660 | We know that.

00:10:28.080 | If you take to heart biblical principles, communication, your marriage can begin improving

00:10:33.340 | today.

00:10:36.580 | That's something that you need to communicate to the people that you're counseling.

00:10:40.660 | If you're really serious about this, about following biblical principles and you believe

00:10:46.580 | God's Word has the answer, you can begin improving today.

00:10:52.500 | But you've got to be sincere in your desires to do things God's way.

00:10:55.660 | That means He defines what is best for your marriage, not you.

00:11:01.700 | He's the one who says this is what you should be doing and you're not doing, and you need

00:11:08.740 | to change.

00:11:15.980 | Now the primary text that we're interested in is Ephesians chapter 4, beginning in verse

00:11:24.420 | 25 and going down through verse 32.

00:11:28.140 | We want to identify here four critical rules of communication that should go on in a marriage

00:11:35.820 | relationship.

00:11:37.420 | And actually these four rules of communication can extend way beyond just marriage counseling

00:11:42.020 | into any kind of conflict between Christians.

00:11:47.260 | But they're, and there's nothing special or magical about these four rules of communication.

00:11:57.800 | They're just put together in such a way as to be memorable so people, if they're not

00:12:04.780 | around a Bible or they're not around their notes, can easily remember, am I failing or

00:12:10.620 | am I succeeding in following what God says I ought to be doing?

00:12:17.380 | These four rules of communication.

00:12:19.220 | So we're going to be interested in verses 25 through 32.

00:12:22.780 | Now in order to understand this, I think it's going to be very important that we take a

00:12:27.000 | look at the context right, immediately preceding this text.

00:12:36.540 | And if you understand the context here, beginning in verse 17 all the way through verse 24,

00:12:44.340 | this is a very familiar put off and put on passage.

00:12:46.740 | In fact, you pick up in verse 22, it says that in reference to your former manner of

00:12:51.900 | life, or you could actually translate that little phrase, former manner of life, your

00:12:57.260 | former pattern of life, your former way of life or habit of life.

00:13:06.280 | He says, and then he gives us three Greek infinitives that are really telling here.

00:13:14.460 | Number one, that you lay aside.

00:13:16.300 | That's the first Greek infinitive, and this is a active middle voice.

00:13:22.000 | So the emphasis is upon we ourselves laying aside the old self, which is being corrupted

00:13:32.080 | in accordance with the lust of deceit.

00:13:36.280 | So we have a responsibility to get rid of old habit patterns, old ways of responding

00:13:46.600 | to one another.

00:13:48.040 | And you know, you're not going to be in the ministry very long or in counseling very long

00:13:51.440 | without realizing that couples begin to form habits of interacting with one another.

00:14:00.780 | Every couple has them.

00:14:02.080 | Every marriage has them.

00:14:04.420 | Some of their habits may be good and some of them may not be so good, which encourages

00:14:10.740 | more misunderstandings.

00:14:13.600 | To lay aside, your active middle voice.

00:14:16.600 | So the responsibility is an active middle voice.

00:14:19.000 | The responsibility is upon us laying it aside.

00:14:22.260 | Verse 23, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

00:14:25.920 | Now this is a present passive, it's no longer active middle.

00:14:29.020 | This is present passive, which means this is something that is done to us by means of

00:14:34.100 | God's work in the spirit.

00:14:36.380 | God renews.

00:14:37.380 | And the word here renewed has the idea within its context of being refreshed or rejuvenated.

00:14:43.220 | You have a refreshing, rejuvenated outlook upon this particular problem, where before

00:14:48.380 | maybe you had a negative or pessimistic view of this particular problem.

00:14:53.680 | Now you have a rejuvenated, refreshing view of the problem in the spirit of your mind.

00:14:59.780 | You're renewed in the spirit of your mind.

00:15:01.680 | This is what God does to us.

00:15:03.300 | We don't do it, God does it.

00:15:06.020 | Verse 24, third Greek infinitive.

00:15:09.420 | And then you put on.

00:15:10.780 | Now we're back to middle voice.

00:15:13.420 | The responsibility is we ourselves have a responsibility to put on.

00:15:20.200 | So the first Greek infinitive is an active middle aorist.

00:15:24.420 | The second one is present passive.

00:15:26.340 | The third is aorist middle as well.

00:15:29.620 | So we have responsibility to put off and put on.

00:15:34.540 | Permanent change in the Christian life always involves putting off and putting on.

00:15:40.180 | It's always two-factor.

00:15:46.500 | So we put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God, has been created in righteousness

00:15:51.360 | and holiness of the truth.

00:15:55.460 | So if there's really going to be change in the communication patterns between a husband

00:15:59.660 | and wife, they've got to be willing to see what they're doing that's wrong and get rid

00:16:03.700 | of that.

00:16:04.700 | And then see what they should be doing and start doing that.

00:16:09.660 | They really haven't changed until that's happened.

00:16:14.020 | Now once you understand that background, then you can understand what we're talking about

00:16:22.460 | in these four rules of communication.

00:16:26.100 | Now let me share with you one way I like to teach this.

00:16:29.060 | In fact, I borrowed this little analogy from Dr. J. Adams several years ago, and it's been

00:16:34.980 | very helpful.

00:16:37.340 | You remember the old game years ago where kids used to -- it was actually a joke.

00:16:43.660 | They used to say, "When is a door no longer a door?"

00:16:47.020 | Remember that?

00:16:48.820 | When it's a jar.

00:16:49.820 | Okay?

00:16:50.820 | "When is a door no longer a door?

00:16:52.180 | When it's a jar."

00:16:54.660 | Now you can use that as sort of like a paradigm for this in teaching the concept.

00:17:00.900 | When is a liar no longer a liar?

00:17:04.980 | Or when is a thief no longer a thief?

00:17:10.100 | Or when is a -- or not a thief -- when is a sexually immoral person no longer a sexually

00:17:16.180 | immoral person?

00:17:17.860 | Well, most people will say a liar is no longer a liar when he stops lying, or a thief is

00:17:23.820 | no longer a thief when he stops stealing, or a sexually immoral person is no longer

00:17:27.620 | a sexually immoral person when they stop being sexually immoral.

00:17:31.220 | Well, the Bible says, "No, that's not true."

00:17:37.420 | When is a thief no longer a thief?

00:17:39.540 | When he stops stealing?

00:17:40.940 | No!

00:17:41.940 | A thief is no longer a thief when he begins to work with his own hands.

00:17:51.020 | A thief that has just stopped stealing is just a thief between jobs, all right?

00:17:57.860 | He's just waiting for another opportunity to be a thief again.

00:18:01.900 | No, in fact, look at verse 28.

00:18:06.260 | He says, "He who steals must steal no longer, but rather must labor, performing with his

00:18:10.260 | hands what is good so that he will have something to share with one who has need."

00:18:14.140 | Well, what about a liar?

00:18:17.580 | When is a liar no longer a liar?

00:18:18.820 | When he stops lying?

00:18:20.140 | No, when he begins to tell the truth, see?

00:18:25.780 | So it's not enough just merely to stop lying.

00:18:29.660 | A person has got to start telling the truth, being up front with the truth.

00:18:35.620 | This is what is genuinely true.

00:18:40.300 | So let's take a look at these four rules of communication in relationship to what we were

00:18:45.940 | just talking about.

00:18:47.460 | The first one comes from verse 25 that says, "Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak

00:18:53.860 | truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are all members of one another."

00:19:00.380 | So first rule of communication is this, be honest, be honest.

00:19:08.140 | And you notice how he talks about this in Ephesians 4.25.

00:19:14.860 | He says, he talks about the fact that we ought to speak.

00:19:19.460 | In fact, this is what we refer to as a imperative, you speak up is the idea.

00:19:29.900 | Why?

00:19:30.900 | Because people cannot read our minds.

00:19:34.100 | We have a responsibility to speak up with the truth.

00:19:36.780 | So clamming up is out for the Christian.

00:19:39.500 | It's not enough to just merely stop telling lies.

00:19:45.180 | We've got to speak the truth, speak the truth each one of you with his neighbor.

00:19:55.340 | So if we're supposed to speak, that means that if we decide to harbor things or clam

00:20:07.380 | up or not reveal something that's critical information to our spouse that would really

00:20:13.860 | actually be helpful in resolving this particular problem, then we're just as good as a liar.

00:20:21.820 | Clamming up is not an option.

00:20:25.260 | We've got to speak up.

00:20:28.060 | Not only that, but we've also got to speak the truth.

00:20:33.660 | Now speaking the truth here is a verb that involves continuous action with the present

00:20:38.340 | tense.

00:20:39.820 | So in this sense, it has to be a new lifestyle in the marriage.

00:20:44.840 | I'm always going to speak up.

00:20:46.740 | I'm always going to speak out with the truth.

00:20:51.020 | David says you must speak the truth from a heart of integrity, Psalm 15 too.

00:20:58.360 | That is not deceptively or with disguised or hidden or with double meanings, but we've

00:21:04.300 | got to speak the truth from the right kind of heart that gets back to the heart motivations

00:21:09.900 | again and how the heart motivations have got to be right.

00:21:14.180 | It's not enough to just merely perform the right thing, but it's got to come from a heart

00:21:18.940 | that's right.

00:21:23.980 | So if we're going to really resolve communication problems, people have got to be honest.

00:21:31.500 | Well not only must they be honest, but also we've got to be very careful on how we define

00:21:40.260 | dishonesty.

00:21:43.940 | Sometimes we can be outwardly dishonest.

00:21:47.500 | That's a deliberate falsification or deliberate lie or falsification or denial of the truth.

00:21:54.140 | Or there could be incongruities where your speech is inconsistent with your halo data.

00:21:59.540 | That means your nonverbal behavior.

00:22:03.700 | Sometimes people can say such nice things in such hateful ways, right?

00:22:07.900 | Like the husband who says to his wife, "I love you."

00:22:13.440 | Now the words "I love you" are really sweet.

00:22:17.540 | The way that he said it was not very sweet.

00:22:21.380 | It was full of disgust.

00:22:22.900 | "Do I have to tell you again?

00:22:24.540 | I've told you this in the past.

00:22:25.860 | Do I really have to do that?"

00:22:28.700 | So there can be incongruities where our speech really is inconsistent with the tone of voice,

00:22:37.900 | our inflection, our outward behavior.

00:22:48.180 | So those can be there.

00:22:50.420 | Or there can be all kinds of disguise communication.

00:22:56.220 | The human heart is very deep and deceptive.

00:23:01.580 | Disguise communication can be innuendos, insinuations, implied accusations.

00:23:10.500 | That's not being honest.

00:23:12.140 | That's not being forthright.

00:23:14.560 | That's not allowing our yes to be yes and our no to be no.

00:23:18.900 | On contrary, we have all kinds of fabricated ways to get around being responsible for what

00:23:27.820 | we've said or done.

00:23:31.120 | So you get this idea that honesty is more than just not lying.

00:23:35.260 | It has to do with being open and very honest with the truth.

00:23:41.140 | Verse 25 again, "Therefore laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor,

00:23:54.700 | for we are members of one another."

00:23:59.980 | And it's pretty obvious that God wants us to do that from the heart.

00:24:07.060 | We have a responsibility to speak the truth from a heart in this particular case of integrity.

00:24:13.700 | Colossians 3.9 says, "Don't lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its

00:24:19.740 | evil practices."

00:24:23.260 | That's part of the old way of life.

00:24:24.980 | That's the way unbelievers deal with one another, but that's not the way in which the believers

00:24:29.620 | should deal with one another.

00:24:33.020 | So we have to speak the truth.

00:24:35.460 | Furthermore, we need to speak the truth earlier in verse 15, he's talked about this.

00:24:43.340 | Speak the truth with love.

00:24:45.860 | In other words, speak the truth lovingly.

00:24:52.260 | Why does he say that?

00:24:53.460 | Because sometimes people can be brutal with the truth.

00:24:58.860 | They sort of use the truth like a sledgehammer to beat somebody into the ground with it.

00:25:05.740 | I remember having a guy in counseling who did that, where he said, "I told my wife the

00:25:13.340 | truth," he said to me, "I gave her a piece of my mind."

00:25:19.780 | And of course, you know, if you understand the creativity of my own mind, I'm thinking

00:25:26.580 | to myself, "Listen, you started with a very small mind to begin with.

00:25:29.860 | You give her any more pieces, you're not going to have anything left."

00:25:33.700 | That's not what I said, I bit my tongue.

00:25:39.540 | But that's a person who is brutal with the truth.

00:25:42.580 | Sure he had told her the truth, but he had told her the truth in a very devastating way.

00:25:49.440 | So if you speak the truth in spite and in anger, that's a wrong way to speak the truth.

00:25:57.320 | God's concerned not just with what you say, but how you say it, the time that you say

00:26:02.600 | it, or if you speak the truth without forethought concerning the person that you're speaking

00:26:08.560 | to or about, that's a way that you can be brutal with the truth.

00:26:16.000 | So Christians are to speak the truth, but they're supposed to speak lovingly.

00:26:21.940 | What do we mean by that?

00:26:22.940 | We mean by that that you speak with the other person's best interest in mind, not just getting

00:26:34.320 | off my chest.

00:26:35.320 | "Well, I just got to get this off my chest.

00:26:37.080 | I just got to tell you what I'm thinking.

00:26:39.560 | I can't hold this back anymore."

00:26:41.280 | No, no, no, no, that's not the idea.

00:26:43.480 | Christians don't talk like that.

00:26:45.520 | It's not about you.

00:26:48.380 | It's about how well we're speaking in terms of being beneficial to the person that we're

00:26:55.780 | speaking to.

00:26:57.280 | That's the ultimate determiner.

00:27:02.280 | So I'm going to be very, very conscious about that.

00:27:09.000 | I like the verse in Colossians 4, 6, where it says, "Let your speech always be with grace,

00:27:14.160 | seasoned as it were with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each other."

00:27:22.160 | I love the analogy there because the analogy is to salt.

00:27:27.360 | Now back in ancient times, salt preserved things.

00:27:30.720 | That's pretty obvious.

00:27:31.720 | They didn't have refrigeration the way we have refrigeration today or certain preservatives.

00:27:36.600 | So salt would preserve meats and other things would naturally go bad.

00:27:41.280 | But there's another element that salt was used for.

00:27:44.480 | Salt was also used for creating thirst, okay?

00:27:54.200 | You've heard the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

00:27:58.480 | The old farmer says, "Yeah, but you can sure salt his oats," all right?

00:28:05.400 | That's right.

00:28:06.400 | You can sure salt his oats.

00:28:08.640 | And that's the idea behind this verse.

00:28:11.940 | That is, when a person, when your speech is seasoned with grace, like salt, even though

00:28:19.760 | a person may be disagreeing with you, you say your side of the story so graciously,

00:28:27.560 | so kindly that they're thirsty to hear more.

00:28:31.840 | They want to hear more.

00:28:34.000 | You're so gracious and you're so kind with what you have to say, they're willing to come

00:28:40.940 | back and hear some more, even though they don't agree with what you have to say.

00:28:46.080 | Wow, that is gracious, kindly speech that has the other person's welfare first and foremost

00:28:56.480 | in our minds.

00:28:58.760 | So in order to be a godly husband or wife, the first rule of communication is, be honest.

00:29:08.700 | First rule.

00:29:09.700 | Now, let's take a look at verses 26 and 27, which brings us to our second rule.

00:29:16.920 | Verse 26 says, "Be angry and yet do not sin.

00:29:19.560 | Do not let the sun go down in your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity."

00:29:26.360 | Second rule of communication is this, keep current.

00:29:32.560 | Keep current.

00:29:33.560 | And you notice what he says here, "Be angry and yet sin not."

00:29:40.920 | Why?

00:29:42.440 | Because all anger is not sin, self-centered anger is always sin.

00:29:49.600 | I didn't get my way.

00:29:52.920 | I want to see my ideas prevail.

00:29:57.640 | Nope.

00:30:00.480 | That's very self-centered anger.

00:30:03.100 | That's always sin.

00:30:04.480 | But sometimes you may be righteously angry at your spouse.

00:30:09.800 | I have a good reason to be angry.

00:30:13.240 | What they did or what they said or what they didn't do or what they didn't say, you have

00:30:20.600 | a good reason.

00:30:21.600 | But even that anger can become sinful anger when it's left unresolved.

00:30:28.800 | That's where he says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger."

00:30:32.840 | In other words, you hold onto that anger for a long period of time and it goes unresolved

00:30:38.280 | for a long period of time.

00:30:39.800 | It's like raw meat.

00:30:44.200 | Raw meat has the elements within it, the bacteria within it to cause it naturally to go bad.

00:30:49.640 | And that's what's going to... it starts off the right way.

00:30:52.600 | You have good reason and a righteous reason to be angry, but if left to ferment for a

00:30:56.440 | period of time, it really goes bad real quickly.

00:31:00.200 | Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

00:31:03.240 | Why?

00:31:04.920 | Well, there are a number of reasons why this is a problem.

00:31:11.640 | Number one, obviously, we're guilty of sin because God has said, "Don't do it."

00:31:22.480 | I remember I had a couple, they had been married for about 20 years.

00:31:26.120 | Their marriage had been somewhat rocky and they had eventually come in for marital counseling

00:31:32.080 | and I was going through these rules of communication, these four rules of communication, I came

00:31:37.320 | to this particular point in talking with them about it and I'll never forget, the husband

00:31:42.560 | kind of sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

00:31:45.920 | He said, "Well then, I'm moving to Alaska."

00:31:48.480 | It went right over my head.

00:31:52.120 | I'm going, "What?"

00:31:53.120 | Oh, and his wife caught on.

00:31:57.320 | She rolled her eyes and she said, "You know, the sun shines for like 12 hours or 23 hours

00:32:03.640 | a day up there and he wants to hold on to his anger against me."

00:32:07.880 | I said, "Whoa!"

00:32:08.880 | Now, I did give him points for creativity.

00:32:10.920 | I said, "No, no, no, back up the train here.

00:32:14.400 | This is not what we're talking about.

00:32:18.920 | This is just a colloquialism.

00:32:20.360 | It means deal with your anger ASAP.

00:32:24.400 | Deal with your anger as soon as you have the opportunity to do so, you deal with it.

00:32:31.240 | It's not literally waiting until two minutes before sunset and all of a sudden you're sitting

00:32:36.920 | down with your wife or your husband and deal with your anger.

00:32:39.920 | You deal with it as soon as possible.

00:32:42.020 | It was a colloquialism that meant that.

00:32:43.960 | It's not literally you wait until sunset before you, or just before sunset for you to deal

00:32:50.200 | with your anger.

00:32:51.440 | Although, I thought that was rather creative.

00:32:56.920 | Some months in the summer, the sun shines for 23 hours and they only have one or two

00:33:00.560 | hours of darkness and, wow, no, no, no, no, that's not it.

00:33:05.360 | So they're guilty of sin if they haven't done that.

00:33:08.040 | Not only that, when you allow your anger to ferment, then you open the way to resentment

00:33:13.320 | and bitterness.

00:33:15.160 | That's pretty obvious.

00:33:22.000 | Sometimes I like to call it spiritual gunny-sacking.

00:33:23.920 | You know what a gunny-sack is?

00:33:28.680 | It's an old term.

00:33:29.680 | It's a hunter's term.

00:33:30.680 | When a hunter would go out and shoot rabbits or quail, you know, they would take the rabbits

00:33:35.840 | and quail and throw it in their gunny-sack and they carried it around with them until

00:33:39.480 | they got home in the evening and they'd dump out their gunny-sack and then they'd clean

00:33:42.420 | all their prey and have it for dinner or, you know, store it in some way.

00:33:53.760 | But people do that with their problems with one another.

00:33:57.200 | They spiritually gunny-sack them.

00:33:58.440 | They don't deal with them.

00:33:59.440 | They just throw it in their spiritual gunny-sack and they keep throwing it.

00:34:02.280 | There's one problem with their wife or their husband, they throw that in there and the

00:34:05.640 | next day, there's another problem, they throw that in there, it's unresolved, and the next

00:34:09.200 | day another problem and two or three more problems and the spiritual gunny-sack just

00:34:13.600 | continues to grow.

00:34:14.600 | You can't literally see it, but nevertheless, it's affecting their whole attitudes towards

00:34:19.180 | their spouse.

00:34:20.320 | And then one day, they know, they've been laboring under carrying this thing around

00:34:25.200 | for such a long time.

00:34:27.560 | And their spouse does little thing, I mean, comparatively, just a very, very little thing.

00:34:32.520 | And all of a sudden, they decide to empty their spiritual gunny-sack and empty the whole

00:34:37.320 | thing out all at once and boom, becomes a big issue.

00:34:40.600 | And the spouse is there, "What did I say?

00:34:42.680 | What did I do?

00:34:45.440 | It's not what you said or did, it's who you are."

00:34:48.360 | Now, why do they say that?

00:34:50.080 | Well, because this whole thing has distorted the way that they view their problems.

00:34:56.400 | It totally has distorted it.

00:34:58.280 | It distorts subsequent problems.

00:35:01.360 | And bitterness and resentment grows as a result of it.

00:35:07.680 | So that's the idea.

00:35:11.060 | There's distortion of subsequent problems, you open the way to bitterness and resentment

00:35:17.320 | there and then forth.

00:35:20.600 | The Bible says that eventually, with this bitterness and resentment, you endanger your

00:35:24.680 | physical relationship.

00:35:26.260 | The sexual relationship and marriage is now in danger.

00:35:29.280 | You know why?

00:35:30.280 | Because nobody wants to go to bed with their problem.

00:35:34.660 | Nobody wants to do that.

00:35:39.200 | Nobody on this planet, there's not a woman on this planet, there's not a man on this

00:35:41.440 | planet wants to go to bed with their problem, since the other person is the problem.

00:35:48.280 | And then we run into admonitions like 1 Corinthians 7, 5 that says, "Stop forbidding or withholding

00:35:59.620 | yourself from one another sexually."

00:36:13.760 | And because that opens the way for Satan into the relationship.

00:36:19.740 | So you're guilty of sin, you open the way to resentment and bitterness, you distort

00:36:23.920 | subsequent problems, you endanger your physical relationship.

00:36:29.740 | And then grab your Bible and go over to Matthew chapter 6.

00:36:35.380 | And we're interested in verse 34, there on the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says,

00:36:43.060 | "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself.

00:36:46.580 | Each day has enough trouble of its own."

00:36:50.740 | That's the reason why he's encouraging.

00:36:52.220 | There is this just Hebrew principle that's very prevalent here.

00:36:56.500 | Deal with each day's problems that day and don't carry that day's problems into the next

00:37:01.180 | day because then you have the next day's problems plus the previous day's problems and then

00:37:05.940 | you carry those problems into the next day and no, no, no.

00:37:08.940 | You keep very, very short accounts.

00:37:12.840 | That's what has to happen, very, very short accounts.

00:37:16.100 | You don't let things go on and on and on and on and on unresolved wrong.

00:37:25.020 | So rule number one, be honest.

00:37:26.740 | Rule number two, keep current.

00:37:28.220 | Rule number three, verses 29 and 30, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth,

00:37:35.820 | but only such a word is as good for the edification according to the need of the moment so that

00:37:40.460 | it will give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom

00:37:45.260 | you were sealed for the day of redemption."

00:37:47.380 | Rule number three is attack the problem, not the person.

00:37:54.140 | Attack the problem, not the person.

00:37:59.220 | Now this is really critical here because there are all kinds of unwholesome words and I think

00:38:07.900 | part of our difficulty here is that our view of what is unwholesome is a very narrow view,

00:38:17.420 | very narrow, okay?

00:38:20.620 | We think cursing, swearing, taking God's name in vain are unwholesome words.

00:38:27.860 | And they are.

00:38:28.860 | There's no doubt about that.

00:38:29.860 | That's unwholesome words.

00:38:31.380 | But it's a very, very narrow view.

00:38:33.720 | When Paul's here talking about unwholesome words, it's a much broader view.

00:38:40.420 | He says, notice what the verse says within its context, "But only such a word is good

00:38:46.620 | for edification according to the need of the moment."

00:38:50.540 | In other words, he says anything that would tear another person down is unwholesome.

00:38:58.060 | It doesn't have to be a swear word, it doesn't have to be a curse word, you don't have to

00:39:01.620 | take God's name in vain, all you have to do is tear that other person down in some suggestive

00:39:08.300 | way and that's an unwholesome word.

00:39:12.460 | In fact, the Greek word here for unwholesome is the word rotten.

00:39:16.700 | That's a rotten word.

00:39:19.580 | It's a rotten word.

00:39:20.980 | So don't let any rotten word, it was a word that was often used, referred to in the classical

00:39:27.140 | Greek to refer to like rotten fish.

00:39:31.800 | Nothing more repugnant than that.

00:39:33.980 | Very rotten.

00:39:34.980 | Ruben?

00:39:35.980 | >> Sarcastic?

00:39:36.980 | >> Yeah.

00:39:37.980 | See, sarcasm in the midst of a conflict can be a type of rotten word.

00:39:46.620 | Like you can say, well, in a sarcastic, you're always uncaring.

00:39:51.060 | What does that mean?

00:39:52.060 | You say, well, I was only being sarcastic.

00:39:57.500 | No, that actually tears down another person.

00:40:02.460 | Now, are there times where a person, where there's no conflict involved, no misunderstanding

00:40:08.340 | between people, where sarcasm could be used hypothetically?

00:40:11.580 | Yes, if that's what you're asking.

00:40:13.700 | I think there could be and it wouldn't be a sinful way to use it.

00:40:17.380 | But where there's conflict, there's a disagreement and a couple's having a hard time communicating

00:40:22.020 | with one another.

00:40:23.020 | Sarcasm is not good.

00:40:26.420 | What does unwholesome words do?

00:40:27.700 | They zero in on the other person's character.

00:40:32.180 | It calls into question their integrity, their character, who they are.

00:40:37.260 | You end up tearing them down.

00:40:39.880 | You end up demolishing their character.

00:40:46.140 | It's words like you always, you never, you turkey, you idiot, you dummy, stupid, dumbbell.

00:40:56.420 | We never let our kids say that.

00:40:57.740 | Those are as bad as curse words in our home.

00:41:02.520 | Is it true they always?

00:41:04.020 | No, that's 100% language.

00:41:06.840 | Is it true they never?

00:41:08.340 | No, that's 100% language too.

00:41:12.080 | You turkey.

00:41:13.080 | You know, what is that?

00:41:15.100 | That's just something to tear down someone else.

00:41:22.300 | So we have a tendency to only label curse words as unwholesome, which is a very narrow

00:41:27.180 | definition.

00:41:28.460 | God's definition on the contrary is much broader.

00:41:33.540 | Instead of these unwholesome words, here this verse says, verse 29, "We have to use edifying

00:41:46.380 | words, that which is good for edification."

00:41:52.820 | The word edification just actually means to build up, to build up other people.

00:41:58.580 | Words that do that.

00:41:59.580 | What are those kind of words?

00:42:01.780 | These are words that focus in on the problem, not on the character of the other person.

00:42:09.700 | I'm focusing on the problem.

00:42:11.660 | They're selected in order to make it easy for two people to find a solution.

00:42:15.540 | They're solution-oriented words that are full of graciousness, full of graciousness.

00:42:23.740 | They always have your partner's welfare first and foremost in your mind.

00:42:28.660 | Not your own welfare, but their welfare.

00:42:31.940 | Like for instance, "I disagree with what you've done, but I'm open to hear your side of the

00:42:36.100 | story."

00:42:37.100 | Or, "I want to find a solution to our problem that will be best for you in our home."

00:42:40.980 | Or, "I want to work through this with you so that Jesus is honored in our marriage."

00:42:47.060 | You know, there are some couples, if they were to say that in the midst of their marriage,

00:42:51.380 | their spouse would probably have a heart attack.

00:42:53.700 | "All right, who are you, and what did you do with my real spouse?"

00:42:58.940 | This is so radically different.

00:43:02.340 | "I disagree with what you've done, but I'm open to hear your side of the story."

00:43:07.020 | Or, "I want to find a solution to our problem that will be best for you in our home."

00:43:11.340 | Or, "I want to work through this with you so that Jesus Christ is honored in our marriage."

00:43:18.560 | Those are very deliberate words intended to edify the other person.

00:43:24.600 | That doesn't mean that you totally agree with them, but it's intended to build them up.

00:43:31.640 | Edifying words.

00:43:34.880 | That's why we say attack the problem, not the person.

00:43:38.600 | When we attack the person, we tear at their character.

00:43:42.880 | We tear them down.

00:43:44.200 | We call into question their integrity.

00:43:47.560 | No, instead we approach the problem together in order to find a resolution to that problem.

00:43:58.880 | So rule number one, keep current.

00:44:00.440 | Rule number two, be honest, excuse me.

00:44:04.640 | Rule number two, keep current.

00:44:06.000 | Rule number three, attack the problem, not the person.

00:44:10.340 | Rule number four, it's verses 31 and 32.

00:44:13.120 | "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along

00:44:17.800 | with all malice.

00:44:18.800 | Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has

00:44:23.800 | forgiven you."

00:44:26.440 | Rule number four is this, act, don't react.

00:44:33.960 | Four rules, be honest, keep current, attack problems, not people, act, don't react.

00:44:40.240 | What are reactions to problems?

00:44:41.520 | You can see them in verse 31.

00:44:43.440 | Bitterness, which is perpetual animosity that leads to harsh and unloving opinions about

00:44:48.640 | other people.

00:44:50.720 | There's wrath, which has to do with outbursts of passionate rage.

00:44:55.720 | Boy, sometimes can that happen in a marriage?

00:44:59.680 | Absolutely.

00:45:00.680 | Anger, which is a subtle, deep-flowing anger that can occur between individuals, or clamor,

00:45:07.960 | which has to do with outcry and shouting, or slander, which is speaking evil of another

00:45:13.800 | person that often comes from some kind of settled indignation towards them.

00:45:20.880 | Now, sometimes you'll get counselees to say, "Well, that's not true of us.

00:45:25.200 | We're not bitter or wrathful, or we don't practice this anger or clamor or slander."

00:45:30.040 | Well then, Paul sort of throws in at the very end of this list an item that is a big blanket,

00:45:39.400 | covers a lot of areas, and he adds to this, "along with every form of malice," or the

00:45:48.800 | New American Standard says, "along with all malice."

00:45:52.880 | You say, "What is that?"

00:45:56.120 | Well, malice is just a general wishing of ill will towards another person, which is

00:46:03.400 | the root of all the earlier vices, a general wishing of ill will, just wishing bad things.

00:46:15.600 | I remember when I was in high school, I sat next to a girl in English class.

00:46:19.040 | No matter how hard I studied or how well I did, she always got a better grade than I

00:46:23.000 | did.

00:46:24.000 | She drove me nuts.

00:46:26.440 | I remember sitting there thinking in class, "God, if you'd just let her flunk one exam,

00:46:34.640 | God never gave me my wish."

00:46:39.000 | That's malice.

00:46:40.000 | That's a general wishing of ill will towards someone else.

00:46:44.800 | It's like the wife and husband who have an argument early in the morning, and he goes

00:46:51.220 | tearing out the door, and she stands there washing the morning breakfast dishes and thinking

00:46:58.280 | to herself, "I hope he has a horrible day at work," she says, in her mind.

00:47:07.600 | It's malice.

00:47:09.560 | He goes tearing down the road in his car thinking to himself, "I hope the children make her

00:47:17.240 | life miserable today."

00:47:21.920 | That's malice.

00:47:24.800 | That's wishing ill will towards somebody else.

00:47:29.120 | He says, "You get rid of all forms of that.

00:47:32.040 | All of those things are sinful reactions to problems."

00:47:36.760 | That's what they are.

00:47:38.800 | Instead, verse 32, actions.

00:47:43.920 | What are the actions?

00:47:44.920 | There's three of them.

00:47:45.920 | The key ones here that he uses in verse 32, "Be kind," he says, number one, "useful, worthy,

00:47:58.760 | good, benevolent toward your spouse.

00:48:02.080 | Be kind to them."

00:48:03.080 | That's the way we're supposed to do it.

00:48:05.720 | That's what we put on.

00:48:06.720 | We put off all those other things in verse 31.

00:48:08.840 | We put on kindness.

00:48:10.200 | What's the kindest thing I can say?

00:48:12.800 | What's the kindest thing I can think?

00:48:15.360 | What's the kindest thing I can do for my spouse?

00:48:20.200 | The second one is tender heartedness.

00:48:22.960 | Literally here in the Greek, it's having healthy vows.

00:48:25.040 | In the Bible, they are the seed of emotions and intentions, therefore it means being compassionate

00:48:29.680 | with your partner.

00:48:31.040 | So having good emotions towards your spouse.

00:48:37.640 | The Bible assumes that we can do that.

00:48:40.680 | We can decide to have healthy emotions towards someone else, even though we've been in conflict

00:48:46.880 | with them?

00:48:47.880 | Yes, even though we've been in conflict with them.

00:48:52.600 | Tender hearted is the way a lot of translations translate this.

00:48:59.300 | And then third, we're to put on forgiveness, forgiving.

00:49:05.560 | To exercise grace in releasing the offense of your spouse that includes the willingness

00:49:09.580 | from the heart, like Jesus talks about in Mark 11.25 and the verbal granting of forgiveness

00:49:15.960 | when repentance has taken place in Luke 17 verses 3 and 4.

00:49:21.700 | So we are to be forgiving.

00:49:25.240 | So we have four rules of communication.

00:49:27.720 | Be honest, keep current, attack problems, not people, act, don't react.

00:49:35.720 | Those four.

00:49:38.620 | And often I'll say to marital couples, I'll say, okay, now when I'll teach these, I'll

00:49:43.680 | have them keep copious notes on what we're talking about.

00:49:47.500 | And I want the father to go home and teach this to the rest of the family and I want

00:49:50.560 | mom to create all the visual aids.

00:49:54.200 | She's going to put a little poster, the four rules of communication.

00:49:57.360 | She's going to make sure that posted around the house at key places where everybody can

00:50:00.960 | see them are these four rules of communication.

00:50:03.160 | Be honest, keep current, attack problems, not people, act, don't react.

00:50:08.600 | Everywhere they look on the mirrors in the restrooms, everywhere they look there's four

00:50:12.840 | rules of communication.

00:50:13.840 | Now we in our household, we're going to live by these four rules every day.

00:50:18.640 | We're going to learn brand new habit patterns of interacting with one another so that we're

00:50:23.760 | living in a biblical way.

00:50:26.940 | Those four rules.

00:50:29.000 | Those are really key.

00:50:30.080 | And I'll tell you, when a family decides to really practice those, it radically changes

00:50:37.960 | that home.

00:50:41.320 | And the benefits that in a sense swirl around this are unexpected in all those relationships.

00:50:52.880 | Between the parents and the kids, between mom and dad, the benefits are huge.

00:51:00.880 | All right, let's pick up and talk a little bit about God's design for marital union,

00:51:07.960 | a biblical and theological view of sexual relationships in the Christian marriage.

00:51:13.120 | Really critical issue here.

00:51:15.720 | And oftentimes you'll find yourself having to deal with this in counseling quite a bit.

00:51:20.480 | So, and in fact, probably in the past two weeks on at least three or four different

00:51:27.680 | separate counseling appointments, I've been dealing with this.

00:51:32.840 | In some cases it's dealing with counselors that I'm supervising who are working with

00:51:37.380 | other people.

00:51:38.800 | But this becomes a big area when it comes to husband and wife relationships and a big

00:51:44.840 | area for misunderstanding.

00:51:47.120 | You know, the top three, they always say, sources of conflict in marriage is sex, money,

00:51:52.880 | and in-laws.

00:51:54.320 | Those three things.

00:51:55.320 | Sex, money, and in-laws.

00:51:56.320 | Well, this is right at the top there, which has to do with misunderstandings in terms

00:52:01.760 | of sexuality.

00:52:03.080 | So let's take a look at this and keep your Bible handy.

00:52:06.600 | When we deal with this in the Christian domain, oftentimes what you encounter is what I like

00:52:11.700 | to refer to as a Victorian approach to union in marriage.

00:52:16.400 | This Victorian approach says that sex is a dirty topic.

00:52:19.840 | It's really sinful.

00:52:22.240 | It's nasty.

00:52:23.240 | You shouldn't talk about it.

00:52:25.800 | And so in many Christian homes, very rarely, unless it's about something negative about

00:52:33.520 | sex, sex is not really dealt with at all.

00:52:36.240 | That's not the way the Bible treats it.

00:52:39.500 | But yet there are a lot of Christian homes who do treat this as a really dirty topic.

00:52:44.280 | You don't talk about it.

00:52:45.840 | It's a bad thing.

00:52:48.020 | If you swing clear to the other end of the spectrum, you get a more recent view of this,

00:52:56.720 | and it's kind of a post-modern liberal view or liberated view.

00:53:03.780 | Sex is the highest of human relationships.

00:53:05.820 | It's what really makes a good marriage.

00:53:08.040 | And if you're not having great sex, then there's something seriously wrong with your marriage.

00:53:14.820 | That's just as wrong as the Victorian view.

00:53:19.900 | And yet that seems to be a more prevalent view in the day and age in which we live.

00:53:26.220 | So you've got these two extremes.

00:53:27.460 | On the one hand, you've got sex is bad.

00:53:29.900 | It's dirty.

00:53:30.900 | It's a nasty topic.

00:53:31.900 | You don't want to have to do anything with it.

00:53:34.140 | Or you've got this liberated view, which makes sex the highest of all human relationships.

00:53:39.860 | In fact, there's a Christian book that was published, oh, probably about 15, 20 years

00:53:47.400 | ago talking about this, entitled The Act of Marriage.

00:53:52.820 | It's really a very poor title because sex is not the act of marriage.

00:53:59.980 | It is an act of marriage.

00:54:02.780 | Just because two people have had sex, like two gerbils can have sex, does not necessarily

00:54:08.100 | mean that that's marriage.

00:54:11.220 | That's really quite a Roman Catholic view of marriage.

00:54:13.380 | It's not a Protestant view of marriage.

00:54:16.100 | For them, sex equals marriage.

00:54:19.260 | That's not true with us because any two animals can have sex.

00:54:24.860 | Now, sometimes when we talk about this particular subject, one of the first things I do is I

00:54:30.140 | want the couple to understand, grab your Bible just for a moment, let's go over to Romans

00:54:33.940 | chapter 12.

00:54:36.500 | The context of this doesn't have anything to do with sexuality directly as a topic,

00:54:42.700 | but there is a broader theological principle that is applicable to anything we do in life,

00:54:50.180 | including sexuality, and that's verse 9.

00:54:55.140 | Romans 12, verse 9, "Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to that which is

00:55:01.800 | good."

00:55:02.800 | The word "abhor" can be translated "hate what is evil, cling to that which is good."

00:55:08.540 | And sometimes I say to couples, "Listen, if after talking through what the Bible says

00:55:13.540 | about sex, and you find out that in your marriage and in your relationship you're violating

00:55:19.460 | what the Bible says, then you've got to get to the point where you hate that violation.

00:55:25.140 | You've got to get to that point.

00:55:28.020 | You hate that violation, and then you cling tenaciously to that which is good."

00:55:35.340 | So are you willing to do that?

00:55:36.340 | Are you willing to say, "Okay, if the Bible teaches that, and I'm not doing it, I know

00:55:41.240 | I'm violating what the Bible says, so I need to learn how to hate that because that's evil.

00:55:47.960 | I'm sowing discord in my marriage when I do this."

00:55:54.060 | So we've got to hate what is evil, cling to that which is good.

00:55:59.260 | So if we violate God's word in the sexual realm, we've got to learn as a husband or

00:56:06.560 | as a wife to hate that violation, and then change.

00:56:14.080 | Now let me give you six principles.

00:56:17.480 | Six principles that I believe help to sum up the biblical teaching about sexuality.

00:56:22.520 | Number one is this, that sex and marriage is pure and holy.

00:56:29.960 | From the very beginning, we have that understanding.

00:56:33.200 | Genesis 1, verse 27, and then later on in verse 31, God creates Adam and Eve distinctively

00:56:41.120 | male and female.

00:56:43.640 | He creates Adam distinctively male with gender distinctiveness from Eve, and God created

00:56:53.800 | man in his own image, in the image of God.

00:56:56.560 | He created him male and female.

00:56:59.040 | He created them.

00:57:00.620 | God created Eve distinctively female, and they both bore the image of God.

00:57:09.600 | She bears just as much of the image of God as he does.

00:57:15.160 | And in creating both the husband and wife, later on after Eve was created, she's the

00:57:21.120 | last bit of the creation that's created, and we see that in chapter 2.

00:57:26.640 | Then chapter 1, verse 31 says, "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very

00:57:31.600 | good."

00:57:32.600 | It was very good.

00:57:36.280 | This is not a bad thing, this is a good thing.

00:57:39.200 | So how dare we consider something that God has called "very good" to be somehow evil

00:57:46.360 | or ungodly.

00:57:48.880 | This is what Hebrews 13, verse 4 says, "Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let

00:57:58.920 | the marriage bed be undefiled."

00:58:00.920 | He says, so the marriage bed is good, it's a good thing, and it is to be kept undefiled

00:58:13.400 | by introducing into that marriage bed practices, or even other people that would defile that

00:58:21.240 | marriage bed, or selfish practices, as we're going to find out in a little bit, that could

00:58:27.720 | defile that marriage bed.

00:58:30.040 | Because I ask Christian couples this, is it possible for a husband and wife who are Christians,

00:58:37.360 | who love each other, who only have sex with one another, in their sexual relationship,

00:58:45.160 | while having sex with just one another, could they still be in sin?

00:58:51.440 | Most Christian couples would say, "Well, not if they're having sex with just each other."

00:58:58.480 | And I want to suggest that they could be still practicing sin in their sexual relationship.

00:59:10.240 | Let me explain why in our next couple of principles here.

00:59:17.400 | So sex and marriage, first of all, is pure and holy, which gets us away from this Victorian

00:59:25.120 | view that somehow, sex is a bad, nasty thing.

00:59:28.920 | It's not.

00:59:29.920 | It is a very good thing, and God intended it to be very good.

00:59:34.400 | In Genesis chapter 2, then he talks about it was both Adam and Eve who was both naked

00:59:39.840 | and they were not ashamed.

00:59:43.040 | This is a good thing.

00:59:48.280 | Sometimes we picture it as if it's bad.

00:59:50.680 | The second thing that I think is important here is that sex is not the basis of marriage

00:59:55.640 | and marriage is not a sexual relationship.

01:00:00.080 | Which sort of gets us away from that post-modern view, clear over the other extreme.

01:00:06.040 | Why do we say that?

01:00:07.280 | Well, sex certainly is a very important part of marriage.

01:00:10.800 | Nobody denies that at all.

01:00:12.940 | It is an act of marriage, not to participate in it wholeheartedly, aggressively, and passionately

01:00:21.300 | is a sin against God, your spouse, and self.

01:00:27.140 | But we're going to hasten to say that sex does not equal marriage.

01:00:33.500 | That certainly is a Roman Catholic view.

01:00:40.620 | And John Murray has a great discussion of that in his book on divorce, yes, a Roman

01:00:50.460 | Catholic view of marriage.

01:00:55.340 | Sex equals marriage, and if a young guy and girl who have not been married before ends

01:01:03.340 | up having premarital sex, most of the time Roman Catholics and even a lot of Protestants

01:01:09.460 | will do everything they can to get that couple married, when in reality they're demonstrating

01:01:14.300 | the fact that they do not have enough personal self-discipline to maintain the discipline

01:01:19.940 | of marriage.

01:01:25.100 | Sex does not equal marriage.

01:01:26.820 | John chapter 4, Jesus deals with there the woman at the well, and he talks about her

01:01:35.900 | prior relationships that he had, and even though she was with these men, these men were

01:01:46.780 | not necessarily her husbands.

01:01:52.120 | Unity in marriage goes, is much more than just mere sex.

01:02:00.420 | And marriage success is much more than just sexual success.

01:02:06.780 | When you read Christian books that are written on sexual intimacy within marriage, a lot

01:02:12.580 | of them are built upon a very pagan, secular idea that that is, you don't have a great

01:02:17.620 | marriage until you have great sex, and that's not true.

01:02:21.220 | It's not true, never was true.

01:02:25.340 | Marriage, sex is not the basis of marriage.

01:02:32.540 | And marriage is not primarily a sexual relationship.

01:02:37.740 | That almost makes sex a god.

01:02:39.780 | You say, "What is it?

01:02:41.780 | What's the biblical view?"

01:02:42.780 | Well, grab your Bible, let's go over to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and we're interested

01:02:48.700 | in verses 3 through 5.

01:02:51.740 | Here's the physical relationship within marriage, it says, "The husband must fulfill his marital

01:02:55.320 | duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband."

01:02:59.700 | That's verse 3.

01:03:03.100 | So from the very beginning, this brings us to principle number 3, sex has as a primary

01:03:08.540 | goal that of satisfying your spouse.

01:03:13.360 | That's the goal of sex.

01:03:15.980 | Sex has as its primary goal that of satisfying your spouse.

01:03:21.760 | It is a husband's responsibility to make sure that's his duty to his wife.

01:03:25.860 | It is a wife's responsibility to make sure that is her duty to her husband.

01:03:32.820 | Now, let me tell you, that is not the view of sex therapists out there in the world.

01:03:40.840 | In fact, I'm working with a woman who's counseling another woman, and this woman's having a difficult

01:03:48.300 | time accepting the principle that it is her responsibility to make sure that her husband

01:03:55.220 | is absolutely fulfilled in the marriage.

01:03:58.700 | And why is she having a problem accepting that?

01:04:00.820 | It's because she has gone to this sex therapist, and she wants to believe the sex therapist

01:04:05.940 | over believing what the Word of God says.

01:04:13.140 | And basically, almost all those theories that are out there in the psych world on this issue

01:04:19.100 | has to do with your own personal fulfillment, which is a very self-centered view of sexuality.

01:04:28.020 | First Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 3 is talking about making sure your spouse is fulfilled.

01:04:36.100 | That changes everything.

01:04:38.660 | So the goal here in sex is not getting pleasure, not having a climax, not necessarily to conceive

01:04:46.660 | children, it's providing joy to your spouse, which incidentally parallels exactly what

01:04:54.900 | Proverbs chapter 5 says.

01:05:00.100 | When Solomon admonishes his son there in Proverbs 5 about the marital relationship and sexual

01:05:06.100 | relationship, he says, "Drink water from your own cistern," verse 15, "fresh water from

01:05:15.140 | your own well.

01:05:16.140 | Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets, let them be yours

01:05:20.260 | alone and not for strangers with you, but let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in

01:05:23.820 | the wife of your youth."

01:05:26.580 | So now it's interesting, in ancient times and in the Bible, and especially in the book

01:05:31.180 | of Proverbs, sex is referred to, and you've got to understand the context and the setting,

01:05:39.700 | it's a very arid desert type of climate, sex is referred to as refreshing water.

01:05:47.100 | And what is it that a cistern, verse 15, a spring, verse 16, streams, verse 16, fountain,

01:05:55.780 | verse 18, all have in common, well, they all store and control water, that's what they

01:06:02.340 | all do.

01:06:04.100 | So sex within its proper boundaries, that is cistern, well, springs, streams, fountain,

01:06:10.460 | within marriage is a very good thing, within proper boundaries.

01:06:15.140 | Sex outside of those boundaries, like water that's overflowing, like we get rains here

01:06:20.380 | in Southern California come down through those canyons, overflowing can be very, very destructive,

01:06:27.180 | sex outside of those boundaries.

01:06:31.300 | So he says, verse 18, "Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

01:06:39.280 | you need to find your satisfaction in her, she finds her satisfaction in you," verse

01:06:45.580 | 16, "should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets, she should

01:06:49.420 | get a refreshment only from you."

01:06:54.900 | So that's why we say it is providing joy to your spouse.

01:07:01.380 | In fact, right there in that same context, he refers to it in the right type of context,

01:07:09.780 | or in the right type of marital relationship, verse 20, "For why should you, my son, be

01:07:16.500 | exhilarated by an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?"

01:07:22.340 | Early in verse 19, he says, "be exhilarated always with her love," that is referring to

01:07:26.220 | his wife, and the word exhilarated is the word that literally means to be intoxicated,

01:07:31.300 | it's the same word that was used to be intoxicated with alcohol.

01:07:34.860 | So the Bible recognizes that sex has an opiating effect upon the person's brain, same way that

01:07:43.500 | alcohol has an opiating effect upon the person's brain.

01:07:48.020 | That's why sex can be so enslaving, and that's why later on it says a person can be enslaved

01:07:57.980 | by it, verse 22, "his own iniquities will capture the wicked and he will be held with

01:08:01.540 | the cords of his sin."

01:08:02.540 | In fact, Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 26 talks about the similar thing where Solomon

01:08:10.380 | talks about those men who have been enslaved by sexual things, been captivated by them.

01:08:18.860 | So the idea here in the Christian marriage is that we have to retrain our thinking from

01:08:25.280 | that of getting pleasure to that of giving pleasure.

01:08:30.620 | It's my responsibility as a spouse to make sure my spouse is absolutely 100% fulfilled

01:08:39.320 | in this area.

01:08:46.340 | Now you may think this is crazy, but this is, and the reason why I think we think it's

01:08:52.280 | crazy is because it's 100 degrees the opposite of what the world tells us.

01:08:57.300 | And we're used to what the world says, it's constant cadence is to communicate that which

01:09:02.940 | is opposite to us.

01:09:05.420 | But you were created uniquely male or uniquely female, not for self-fulfillment purposes.

01:09:10.980 | You were created uniquely that way for the fulfillment of your spouse.

01:09:16.320 | That's why you were created that way.

01:09:19.540 | I'll never forget, several years ago, counseling this young husband and wife, they'd been married

01:09:24.580 | for a few years, and they were having sexual problems, and we started going over these

01:09:32.660 | very principles, and right in the middle of them, the wife started rolling her eyes, and

01:09:40.260 | I said to her, "What's wrong?"

01:09:44.060 | And she says, "You don't understand.

01:09:46.380 | I know where you're going with this."

01:09:48.820 | I said, "Well, where am I going with this?"

01:09:51.820 | She says, "I know where you're going with this.

01:09:54.780 | You want me to make sure that he is absolutely 100% fulfilled sexually, right?"

01:10:01.380 | "Yeah, you got it.

01:10:02.900 | Yeah, I'm a pretty good teacher."

01:10:04.300 | She says, "You don't understand my husband.

01:10:09.860 | His sexual drive is unrelenting.

01:10:14.460 | This is all I'm going to get done.

01:10:16.620 | I won't get anything else done.

01:10:18.420 | I'm not going to get anything else done.

01:10:21.740 | You don't realize what you're doing to me."

01:10:24.740 | I said, "Well, I'm not doing this.

01:10:26.100 | This is what the Bible says, right?

01:10:28.700 | If you're going to argue, argue with what God says.

01:10:31.020 | Don't argue with me.

01:10:32.540 | I'm just communicating it.

01:10:34.340 | Don't kill the messenger."

01:10:35.340 | Oh, she just rolls her eyes.

01:10:39.700 | So I said, "Okay, here's the assignment I'm going to give you this week.

01:10:42.900 | This week, every day that your husband comes home from work, every day, I want you to be

01:10:48.620 | standing behind the door with the nicest negligee, you know, the one he really likes.

01:10:53.740 | I want you to grab him by the hand and take him to bed with you, all right?"

01:11:02.340 | And she goes, "Ugh."

01:11:07.180 | So she's shuffled out.

01:11:10.260 | He kind of leaped out of the room, "It's going to be an exciting week."

01:11:18.720 | So a whole week went by.

01:11:20.080 | They came back the next week for counseling.

01:11:23.260 | And it's interesting.

01:11:25.780 | She comes bounding in the door.

01:11:27.820 | He comes shuffling in the door.

01:11:30.100 | And they plop down, and I have prayer with him, and I say, "Well, how did it go?"

01:11:34.200 | And she looks at me, and she slams her hand on the desk and says, "Pastor, this Bible

01:11:39.700 | stuff works!"

01:11:40.700 | I said, "What do you mean?

01:11:42.640 | What happened?"

01:11:43.640 | She says, "Well, the first day I did exactly what you told me to do.

01:11:47.600 | I stood behind the door.

01:11:48.720 | I grabbed him by the hand.

01:11:49.720 | When he came in the door, I took him to bed.

01:11:51.860 | Second day, did the same thing.

01:11:52.860 | Third day, did the same thing.

01:11:54.600 | Fourth day, did the same thing.

01:11:56.420 | Fifth day, he come walking in the door and said, 'I'm fine.

01:11:58.580 | I'm perfectly fine.

01:12:00.260 | Everything's good.'"

01:12:01.620 | She says, "This Bible stuff works!"

01:12:06.620 | And all of a sudden, she had a renewed appreciation for how true the Bible is.

01:12:14.580 | When she began to define, it's her role to make sure he is absolutely fulfilled, and

01:12:21.380 | it's his role to make sure that she is absolutely fulfilled, then you have that kind of great

01:12:27.780 | relationship.

01:12:28.780 | That's the kind of communication that should go on.

01:12:31.660 | She should be saying to him, "Sweetheart, how you doing?

01:12:37.300 | Do we need to get together tonight?"

01:12:40.640 | He ought to be saying, "Sweetheart, how you doing?

01:12:44.420 | Do we need to get together soon?"

01:12:48.020 | That's the kind of communication that should be going on between a husband and wife.

01:12:51.140 | The question, according to 1 Corinthians 7, 3, is not, "When do we have sex?"

01:12:57.300 | It's never the question in Christian marriage.

01:12:59.040 | The question is always, "When do we not have sex?"

01:13:04.740 | That's always the question in the Christian marriage, "When do we not have sex?"

01:13:08.160 | Sex is always assumed in the Christian marriage.

01:13:12.000 | It's always assumed.

01:13:17.600 | I remember just back a few years ago, I did a whole Valentine's Banquet.

01:13:23.400 | Actually, it was a seminar and banquet for a whole weekend, but up in the Sacramento

01:13:31.200 | area.

01:13:32.200 | In fact, we went up to Lake Tahoe with this church, and we taught on this very thing,

01:13:39.080 | that the pastor had asked us to come in, because it was all couples, all married couples in

01:13:42.540 | the group.

01:13:43.540 | So, we taught on these very things, spent time.

01:13:47.360 | In fact, our key verse for the weekend was Ecclesiastes 9, 9, which talks about, "Enjoy

01:13:55.320 | the wife of your youth."

01:13:56.320 | In fact, my theme was, "Ecclesiastes 9, 9, will you be my Valentine?"

01:14:03.920 | That was the theme for the whole weekend.

01:14:09.460 | We taught on the physical relationship and marriage and stuff.

01:14:14.240 | About 10, 11 months later, I get a phone call from the pastor, and he says to me, "Wow,

01:14:21.160 | I kind of really wish you wouldn't have come to our church."

01:14:23.560 | Man, you don't usually get a phone call like that, and you're going, "Really?

01:14:30.120 | What's the problem?"

01:14:31.120 | He says, "Well," he says, "I want you to know that after you did that whole marriage

01:14:36.800 | seminar around Valentine's Day, that we have the nursery exploding, and we don't have any

01:14:46.460 | room left in the nursery of our church.

01:14:49.960 | It's just exploding all over the place.

01:14:54.240 | Your baby's being born left and right here, and everybody attributes it to that Valentine's

01:15:01.120 | banquet and that whole Valentine's weekend."

01:15:04.560 | Well, at least they're obeying God.

01:15:09.720 | Sex has as its primary goal that of satisfying your spouse, and children, then, are the byproduct.

01:15:17.080 | The goal of sex is not kids.

01:15:19.960 | It's the blessing of it that comes, because you know as well as I do, there are some people

01:15:24.200 | who can have sex that, for some reason, don't have kids, but they can still fulfill this

01:15:30.880 | biblical admonition.

01:15:33.760 | Fourth, not only that, but look at verse 4, 1 Corinthians 7, 4.

01:15:41.800 | The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and likewise

01:15:45.840 | also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

01:15:50.480 | So principle number 4, God created both the husband and wife with an equal ability to

01:15:55.380 | satisfy each other.

01:15:57.040 | The implication here is that once you're married, this body of yours no longer solely belongs

01:16:07.600 | to you.

01:16:09.120 | Your spouse has a stake in your body.

01:16:12.400 | While you're single, that's not true.

01:16:14.080 | When you're married, now it's true.

01:16:17.080 | Your spouse has a stake in your body, so you can't do anything you want with it.

01:16:22.000 | You can't exhaust yourself during the day and have nothing to give your spouse at bed

01:16:26.000 | at night.

01:16:28.480 | That's bad, because then you're using your body for very self-centered purposes.

01:16:33.480 | The honey I've got a headache doesn't cut it here.

01:16:36.760 | Or I'm too tired doesn't cut it here.

01:16:41.360 | Then you're exhausting all the energy of your body, and you're leaving nothing for

01:16:46.960 | your spouse.

01:16:51.580 | She has a stake in her husband's body.

01:16:54.120 | He has a stake in his wife's body.

01:16:57.200 | There is co-ownership there.

01:17:01.600 | None of this extreme feminist or masculinist idea that our bodies are our own and nobody

01:17:10.240 | can tell me what to do with my body.

01:17:12.240 | It's not true in the Christian marriage.

01:17:15.520 | 1 Corinthians 7, 4.

01:17:17.920 | We are co-owners.

01:17:21.920 | When I got married, my wife owns my body.

01:17:25.560 | I have a stake in her body.

01:17:28.680 | What she does with it, what I do with it.

01:17:33.880 | So that's really critical here.

01:17:37.120 | So no one has sole power or authority.

01:17:39.600 | You do not have the independent.

01:17:41.640 | You do not have this independent of your spouse.

01:17:44.840 | That means then that both need to be aggressive in fulfilling this responsibility of satisfying

01:17:52.200 | our spouse.

01:17:53.440 | So sexual relationships have to be equal and reciprocal.

01:17:58.880 | As Ecclesiastes 9, 9 says, that we have a biblical responsibility to fulfill or to enjoy

01:18:08.320 | our spouses.

01:18:09.320 | Let me go over there.

01:18:12.520 | So Ecclesiastes 9, 9 then talks about the fact that enjoy life with a woman whom you

01:18:17.400 | love all the days of your fleeting life which he has given you under the sun for this is

01:18:21.120 | your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

01:18:27.120 | God graces you with that.

01:18:31.600 | That is your reward.

01:18:33.520 | So in this particular case then, she has everything that she needs to fully and completely satisfy

01:18:40.760 | her spouse.

01:18:41.760 | God's given her that.

01:18:43.040 | He has everything he needs to completely and fully satisfy his wife.

01:18:47.840 | God has given him everything he needs for that and they should be content with that.

01:18:53.080 | There's no other person or no other thing on the planet that can be any more satisfying

01:18:58.920 | than their spouse.

01:19:00.900 | That's really critical here.

01:19:03.720 | God has created both this husband and the wife with an equal ability to satisfy each

01:19:07.640 | other.

01:19:08.640 | Then number five, pleasure then in sex is not sinful and forbidden but it's assured

01:19:16.520 | and even encouraged.

01:19:20.100 | We already saw that in Proverbs chapter 5 where we're dealing there with Solomon and

01:19:27.000 | his son.

01:19:28.880 | God wants, verses 18 and verse 19, the husband and wife to enjoy each other, to be intoxicated

01:19:37.200 | with marital love.

01:19:38.200 | There's nothing wrong with that.

01:19:39.880 | So, satisfying your spouse is a deeply satisfying experience for you.

01:19:45.000 | We are to be ravished, intoxicated, exhilarated by them, Proverbs chapter 5 verse 19.

01:19:54.800 | The problem is, is that our personal pleasure is not the main goal.

01:19:59.240 | The fact that God gave us an enjoyable experience in satisfying our spouse is the side benefit

01:20:10.040 | but it's not the main purpose.

01:20:15.480 | Then let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 5.

01:20:19.160 | Then he says, "Stop depriving each other except by agreement and for a time so that

01:20:23.160 | you may devote yourself to prayer and come together again so that Satan will not tempt

01:20:26.960 | you because of your lack of self-control."

01:20:30.160 | First Corinthians 7 and 5 then brings about this principle that sexual relationships need

01:20:37.160 | to be regular and continuous.

01:20:40.520 | He gives us four guidelines for not having sex here in this verse.

01:20:44.760 | One is by mutual agreement.

01:20:46.600 | This is not a good time for both of us and that's okay as long as your spouse is fulfilled

01:20:51.520 | and satisfied, you're good.

01:20:53.900 | There has to be an agreed upon time.

01:20:56.240 | In other words, there's a certain time where we're not going to have sex for a time, he

01:21:03.400 | says.

01:21:04.400 | Then some translations say fasting and prayer.

01:21:08.920 | Most of them say prayer here but whatever the case, this is a good example.

01:21:15.360 | For instance, someone has the flu or someone's had a surgery or there are times that are

01:21:23.640 | and usually with fasting and prayer, it usually had to do with crisis times.

01:21:27.800 | This is not a good time for sexual enjoyment because of this crisis that we're going through.

01:21:34.120 | Then he says, "Then terminate again, terminate that is not having sex and start having sex

01:21:43.120 | again as soon as possible."

01:21:44.480 | Why?

01:21:45.480 | Well, notice he says, "So that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

01:21:51.760 | Once you're used to an ongoing, regular, satisfying sexual relationship, it's hard to stop and

01:22:01.600 | not be tempted."

01:22:02.600 | It's very hard.

01:22:05.720 | This is where marriages get themselves into trouble.

01:22:09.760 | A husband starts withholding himself from his wife, a wife begins to withhold herself

01:22:14.420 | from her husband and then Satan sends a nice young lady along and all of a sudden, the

01:22:28.560 | husband now is starting to pay attention to this nice young lady or Satan sends along

01:22:34.520 | a nice young man, her direction and she begins to pay attention to this nice young man.

01:22:41.760 | Why is that?

01:22:43.120 | Because they are violating what God has clearly said to do and that is they should have an

01:22:50.720 | ongoing, regular sexual relationship.

01:22:54.160 | That's why I said the question is not when do we have sex in the Christian marriage.

01:22:57.840 | The question is when do we not have sex?

01:23:01.000 | Then there has to be an agreed upon time.

01:23:03.320 | First Corinthians 7-5 is clear.

01:23:06.480 | It has to be by mutual agreement.

01:23:09.320 | How many people do you know say, "Hey listen, we're not going to have sex tonight because

01:23:13.580 | we're going to spend the evening in prayer instead?"

01:23:17.840 | Not many Christian couples I know that do that, but fasting in prayer and then terminate

01:23:23.120 | again so you can start, terminate not having sex and then start again is the idea.

01:23:30.360 | Now this naturally leads us into the issue of birth control for the Christian marriage.

01:23:40.700 | In order to understand this, I think we're going to have to take our Bibles and go back

01:23:43.920 | for a moment to Genesis 3-16.

01:23:59.120 | To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.

01:24:02.520 | In pain you will bring forth children and your desire will be for your husband and he

01:24:06.240 | will rule over you."

01:24:09.120 | The biblical paradigm for making decisions here I believe stems from Genesis 3-16.

01:24:17.000 | Most translations here supply the word "in" and that particular little preposition is

01:24:23.020 | not in the original language.

01:24:25.880 | It's not there.

01:24:28.280 | Or the word "childbirth."

01:24:32.560 | The Hebrew literally is "and."

01:24:35.280 | There's the "vav," "and childbirth" is the idea.

01:24:43.540 | Part of the curse was that Eve had a difficulty, had a greatly increased capacity for childbirth.

01:24:56.800 | For the sake of argument, some theologians have suggested that before the fall she could

01:25:02.640 | only have a child maybe once every 1,000 years.

01:25:08.120 | Why?

01:25:10.660 | Because they live forever.

01:25:11.920 | They live forever.

01:25:14.240 | She didn't need to have a child more often than that.

01:25:17.960 | Can you imagine that, ladies, ovulating only once every 1,000 years or even having a period

01:25:24.720 | once every 1,000 years?

01:25:28.800 | That would be a blessing by any standard.

01:25:34.040 | But now that death and because of the curse has entered into their existence, the human

01:25:39.600 | race would quickly go out of existence unless the birthing rate is greatly accelerated.

01:25:48.360 | And you notice what verse 16 says, "I will greatly multiply your pain," and then it should

01:25:55.160 | say, "and your childbirth."

01:25:59.400 | Both.

01:26:01.880 | Multiplied pain and multiplied childbirth.

01:26:05.760 | Why?

01:26:07.720 | Because, well, humanity would quickly die.

01:26:19.720 | Many of us know literally for centuries husbands and wives would have 10, 20 children and half

01:26:26.200 | of them would die before the age of six because of death.

01:26:31.160 | Some of them would die in utero and that still occurs today.

01:26:38.400 | In fact, our own daughter lost a child, her first child.

01:26:43.360 | And then later on this afternoon, in just about 10 minutes, the doctor's going to be

01:26:47.600 | inducing her first hopefully live child.

01:26:54.280 | So God says he has greatly increased, and it's interesting that along with this increased

01:27:05.000 | childbirth also comes a lot of the woman's physical problems.

01:27:13.600 | A lot of the difficulties and a lot of the cancers and stuff that are associated with

01:27:18.240 | this, which is under the curse that ultimately brings about death, is now associated with

01:27:23.600 | this as well.

01:27:30.160 | Now with that understanding, then how do we handle the issue of birth control?

01:27:36.240 | Well, there are different positions on this.

01:27:39.320 | There are some who say that any kind of birth control then is permissible.

01:27:46.840 | And so some have suggested that birth control really is a non-issue for the Christian, anything

01:27:52.840 | in any type is permissible because we have to control the population.

01:28:00.440 | We have to be good stewards of the population.

01:28:11.720 | Really loving Christians they would say would allow a couple to make the decision as they

01:28:14.880 | see fit.

01:28:17.800 | So abort-efficient types of birth control are permissible because God doesn't instill

01:28:22.480 | independent personhood until after birth or until birth.

01:28:28.900 | And that's the way that they would reason this.

01:28:30.940 | Once a child is born, then independent personhood is now there.

01:28:34.920 | That child is detached from its mother, now it's an independent living being.

01:28:39.080 | Prior to that it is a growth, but up to this particular time it's nothing more than that.

01:28:49.280 | But now that the child is born, now it's an independent person.

01:28:53.160 | So even abort-efficient types of birth control are permissible in this particular case for

01:29:00.640 | Christians they would say.

01:29:05.560 | Then in a sense you can go to the other extreme and you can find people at different points

01:29:10.960 | along this continuum.

01:29:13.520 | But the other extreme would be the no birth control is permissible position.

01:29:18.600 | They would say anything that inhibits the natural procreative process in an attempt

01:29:22.920 | to preempt God and His will for your life is not permissible for the Christian.

01:29:29.680 | The cultural mandate is Genesis 1:28, it's to be obeyed and actually they would say is

01:29:39.680 | disobeyed and circumvented when any type of birth control is used.

01:29:47.360 | Even the rhythm method.

01:29:53.200 | Man ends up playing God in preventing conception they would say.

01:30:02.600 | So you've got one side that says any kind of birth control is permissible and there

01:30:07.680 | are Christians who advocate that position.

01:30:09.680 | There aren't many, but they are.

01:30:11.480 | And then there is the other side that says no birth control is permissible and far more

01:30:17.440 | Christians or at least people historically that label themselves as Christians are in

01:30:23.240 | that camp.

01:30:27.200 | It's interesting from a historical point of view the Roman Catholic Church started doing

01:30:30.280 | that because back in the Middle Ages Roman Catholicism was beginning to die out because

01:30:36.280 | of the Crusades.

01:30:37.280 | All the men were going off to war and dying.

01:30:40.320 | So the Pope and the Cardinals had to get together and figure out how they were going to reproduce

01:30:43.560 | the church and so they started advocating that any kind of birth control or birth control

01:30:48.820 | methods is forbidden so they would have more kids so the church could continue to grow

01:30:53.920 | even though the Crusades were still going on.

01:31:01.160 | Then there is fourthly a position that says the only non-abortificient birth control.

01:31:10.840 | Birth control drugs and devices that attempt to interrupt a bona fide pregnancy destroys

01:31:14.880 | a child like inner uterine devices, IUDs, morning after pills and patches.

01:31:24.360 | Genesis 3.16 in this position clearly establishes the fact that man would struggle with multiplied

01:31:31.280 | pregnancies as he would with other consequences of the fall.

01:31:37.440 | In other words there would be a strain on resources due to scarcity because of the fall.

01:31:47.120 | That's part of the curse.

01:31:50.400 | To be consistent then forbidding birth control would also necessitate forbidding all other

01:31:56.880 | efforts to combat the effects of the fall like disease and weeds and pestilence.

01:32:03.320 | Anytime you take medicine attempts to affect or negate the effects of the fall.

01:32:16.840 | So to me this fourth position I believe is a very biblical position.

01:32:26.680 | If you forbid birth control on the one hand then you're going to have to be consistent

01:32:32.120 | with all the other effects of the fall.

01:32:34.080 | You've got to forbid taking medicine.

01:32:36.480 | You've got to forbid weeding your garden.

01:32:39.200 | You've got to forbid any kind of control of pestilence.

01:32:43.320 | So let pestilence run rampant throughout the earth and destroy crops.

01:32:49.320 | Birth control is a means by which man now tries to be a good steward over his environment

01:33:00.440 | with limited resources.

01:33:02.840 | But the fact that man has the capacity now to reproduce almost at any time is a way to

01:33:08.040 | keep the human race alive.

01:33:13.180 | Now does this imply then that children are not really a blessing?

01:33:20.560 | That they're really an evidence of the curse?

01:33:23.060 | No it doesn't imply that at all.

01:33:24.960 | They're still a blessing.

01:33:27.360 | They're not the result of the curse but the frequency that children could come into the

01:33:31.880 | world groaning under the curse becomes a significant strain on man and his resources.

01:33:41.600 | The ultimate result of the curse then is man laboring against death.

01:33:46.240 | For centuries we know families who would have multiple children, 10 or 15 or more, and half

01:33:51.280 | or more of them would die before the age of six.

01:33:55.220 | Now man is forced to make stewardship decisions in the shadow of the curse that has to happen.

01:34:06.180 | Now I wish we had more time to cover some of that but Ruben, question?

01:34:09.780 | I was talking with a guy about this very issue and he was holding the first view, no, the

01:34:29.180 | second view, no birth control at all.

01:34:30.180 | Yes.

01:34:31.180 | And he was claiming, well, first the blessing of God in Genesis 1 and 28 was under that

01:34:32.180 | blessing there are three commands and the same-

01:34:33.180 | And through four multiple I fill the earth.

01:34:34.180 | Yeah.

01:34:35.180 | In Genesis 9 because he was saying that, well, most people argue that after the fall of the

01:34:36.180 | two kings, that's like the fourth view, but then why in Genesis 9 to no one is given the

01:34:42.020 | same command?

01:34:43.020 | Yeah.

01:34:44.020 | And so he wasn't approaching birth control as controlling the result of sin but he's

01:34:50.020 | following that command because then humankind somehow still tries to obey that command because

01:34:59.100 | we still try to submit the nature in one sense.

01:35:04.900 | Yeah.

01:35:05.900 | And actually if I were to repeat your question or your statement, here's a guy who was arguing

01:35:10.780 | with you about the fact he was taking the position that you should use no birth control

01:35:14.980 | whatsoever.

01:35:15.980 | And he was arguing in Genesis 1, 28 and 29 where it talks about the issue of, it gives

01:35:23.740 | the cultural mandate, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it.

01:35:27.580 | And he says then after the curse we see even Noah later on is supposed to turn around and

01:35:32.700 | do the same thing in terms of populating the earth.

01:35:36.340 | Well, you got to understand Genesis 1, 28 was given in an idealistic environment.

01:35:41.980 | There was no sin, there was no curse at that particular time.

01:35:44.860 | Man could have taken centuries, millennia to fill the earth.

01:35:48.580 | No time limit was ever put on that.

01:35:50.980 | But once the curse came, now we're severely limited.

01:35:55.100 | Our lifetimes are now shortened from that of forever to only a few dozen years.

01:36:04.980 | So now man's existence is not going to go on forever.

01:36:09.600 | He's going to be during those years plagued with death and sickness, disease.

01:36:17.460 | He's going to be plagued by scarcity, by pestilence.

01:36:22.540 | All those things are going to be the case.

01:36:25.540 | So when there's just a few people, they can afford to reproduce as quickly and as rapidly

01:36:33.580 | as possible with a lot of those babies dying.

01:36:36.660 | That's okay.

01:36:37.980 | Once you get to a point where you're reproducing beyond your ability to be able to support

01:36:43.580 | those children or supply for them because of the curse and scarcity, now it becomes

01:36:48.900 | a stewardship judgment.

01:36:54.740 | And I would say that a person who takes that particular position doesn't take Genesis 3:16

01:37:00.220 | seriously or doesn't take the curse seriously.

01:37:05.180 | And if he's going to be consistent with his position, then he, as I said, he's going to

01:37:10.860 | have to forbid any kind of resistance of the curse because birth control is dealing with

01:37:17.740 | that.

01:37:18.740 | It's dealing with trying to be a good steward of the resources and health that God has given

01:37:26.580 | us.

01:37:29.060 | For example, I love kids.

01:37:32.060 | I can't wait until my granddaughter is born, all right?

01:37:34.900 | Can't wait.

01:37:35.900 | I love kids.

01:37:36.900 | I could have had a dozen of them.

01:37:37.900 | I could have had 20 of them.

01:37:39.740 | But after we had our first two kids and then we had twin boys and I saw what it did to

01:37:46.140 | my wife's body to do that, then we decided as a couple that's it with the kids, all right?

01:37:54.860 | Because I think I had a good stewardship responsibility as a husband in regards to her health.

01:38:02.220 | I have a good stewardship responsibility as a husband in regards to caring for the children

01:38:06.080 | that God has given me.

01:38:09.860 | When I have multiple, large number of children, what really ends up happening is somebody

01:38:15.080 | else ends up taking care of those kids and somebody else ends up supporting those kids,

01:38:20.260 | the church, the state.

01:38:24.260 | The guy doesn't and that's his responsibility to do that.

01:38:33.940 | Other questions?

01:38:34.940 | By the way, not just questions on this but also questions about the sexual relationship

01:38:39.340 | and marriage.

01:38:40.340 | I didn't cover any of those.

01:38:42.380 | For instance, some people ask questions about the issue of oral sex in marriage and in marital

01:38:50.520 | counseling.

01:38:51.520 | I talk a little bit about that.

01:38:52.920 | There's nothing in Scripture whatsoever that forbids it.

01:38:55.460 | However, there's that overriding principle, that principle number three that we talked

01:38:58.540 | about.

01:38:59.620 | That is our goal here is not self-satisfaction but satisfaction of whom?

01:39:05.220 | Spouse.

01:39:06.220 | So anything that's going to be repugnant to our spouse is not something that we're going

01:39:10.800 | to practice, right?

01:39:14.420 | Anything that's going to be repugnant to our spouse is not something that we're going to

01:39:17.140 | practice.

01:39:18.220 | There's the guide.

01:39:23.340 | What about other, using other objects or I had a Christian couple come in.

01:39:30.140 | They've been married for several years.

01:39:32.460 | They had a good relationship with each other but they wanted to make their relationship

01:39:37.700 | more exciting and they suggested, "Listen.

01:39:40.140 | Would it be good for us to watch some quasi-pornographic movies to enliven our sexual relationship?"

01:39:48.480 | Well, when that happens and somebody watches that, who are they ultimately having sex with?

01:39:56.040 | Their spouse?

01:39:57.040 | No, they're not.

01:39:58.980 | They're having sex with the person in that movie, which basically says, "My spouse doesn't

01:40:06.640 | have everything I need for my satisfaction at all," or, "I don't have everything I need

01:40:17.040 | for my spouse's satisfaction.

01:40:19.120 | I need to bring in something from the outside into our marriage in order to make this work."

01:40:26.600 | In that particular case, it would not be a biblical alternative to introduce into the

01:40:32.360 | Christian marriage.

01:40:37.360 | Other questions?

01:40:38.360 | Victoria?

01:40:39.360 | If you're just counseling one person, say if I'm counseling a woman and she comes in

01:40:40.360 | concerned about their physical intimacy saying that he has no interest in satisfying her,

01:40:41.360 | then do you send her away saying that you just need to worry about your husband's satisfaction

01:40:42.360 | or is there a way to facilitate that?

01:41:00.920 | No, you need to train her to fulfill her biblical responsibility that if she has a husband that's

01:41:07.640 | not interested in satisfying her and you're counseling a woman, then you need to train

01:41:13.840 | her to do everything she can to satisfy her spouse and God will take care of her.

01:41:20.160 | God will see to it that her basic needs are met.

01:41:25.080 | I've often said this to single people that I've counseled as well as sometimes marital

01:41:29.120 | couples like you have a husband or wife who is a Christian and their spouse is not a Christian

01:41:33.840 | and they sexually tease them but they're not interested in fulfilling that.

01:41:39.720 | Well, the bottom line is nobody ever died without sex.

01:41:45.520 | Nobody ever died without it.

01:41:47.240 | In the history of the planet, that's never been the case.

01:41:50.760 | So they're not going to die without it.

01:41:52.200 | It may be something that's a big desire on their part but they're not going to.

01:41:57.400 | They have to learn biblical self-control, focus on the responsibilities that God has

01:42:01.600 | given them and then let God work.

01:42:05.480 | Usually when you do good, this is what 1 Peter 3 says, "When you do good to unbelievers,

01:42:13.800 | usually they will want to do good back to you."

01:42:18.960 | That isn't true all the time but usually that's the general rule.

01:42:22.800 | And so if she's doing good to her husband even though he may even be a professing Christian

01:42:27.500 | but he's acting like an unbeliever because he doesn't want to fulfill her sexual desires,

01:42:34.360 | then it'll make it easy for him to want to do likewise with her.

01:42:41.000 | And by the way, God has created her in such a way as well as him that he finds a certain

01:42:45.280 | amount of enjoyment in satisfying her and she finds a certain amount of enjoyment in

01:42:48.920 | satisfying him.

01:42:54.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Lecture 13: Marriage and Family Counseling - Dr. John D. Street

Chapters