All right, you want to have your Bible close by and we want to pick up and talk about the issue of communication here. A biblical and theological view of communication for the Christian family is really critical here and in doing so, we're actually going to end up talking about four rules of communication.

We've already had you read an article by Leslie Vernick, there in the Journal of Biblical Counseling about the fact that if all you do is just teach people how to communicate correctly, then all you're doing is making good Pharisees out of people. You're getting them to perform on the outside in a certain way, where on the inside their hearts are really far from God.

It may generally improve the condition of their marriage, but in reality they'll eventually go back to their default nature and their old sinful patterns of interacting with one another and they'll have the wrong desires. We don't want that. We want to address the heart so that the heart really changes in people's lives.

Now when it comes to communication, here's a few little quick little comic strips that I think are really interesting. Why is it that men and women have problems communicating? Well, this is a little comic strip called "Why We'll Never Understand Each Other." And you see here on the left what he heard, "You're way too stupid to be trusted driving alone in bad weather," what she said, "Drive carefully, dear." Or down here at the bottom, what she heard, "It's your lot in life to stop whatever it is you're doing in order to serve my every need," what he said, "Honey, do you know if we have any more AAA batteries?" Or maybe communication in the home looks like something like this, what he heard, "I'm going to make you wish you were dead for the rest of the week," what she said, "Tell me the truth, honey.

Do I look fat in this?" Or what she heard, "Anything less than absolute perfection makes you an utter failure as a wife and a mother," what he said, "Mom is coming over for dinner." Or maybe this, what she heard, "Life as we know it will cease to exist unless you can alter the space-time continuum," what he said, "Honey, are you almost ready yet?" Or what he heard, this is my favorite one, "Honey, why don't you put your head in a vise and I'll turn the handle until your skull explodes," what she said, "Honey, why don't we just turn off the TV and talk?

Stick your head in a vise and I'm going to turn it until your skull explodes." Or lastly, maybe it's something like this, it says, "You're right," what he heard, "You're right to independent thought and ability to form an opinion has been revoked," what she said, "I do." I have some wives shaking their heads out there.

Why is there difficulties? Well, one of the things we can say for sure is that good communication in the Christian marriage does not happen automatically, it doesn't. Why do we say that? Well, neither is the Christian marriage immune from problems. Why? Well, because you and your spouse are sinners.

That's obvious from the Word of God, which by the way also tells us that there is no such thing as real basic compatibility, everybody on the planet is incompatible. Everybody is. At the very core, in our sinful selves, we are essentially egocentric, we are essentially selfish, we look out for our own desires and our own interests, we love ourselves way, way too much.

We don't believe in what Alfred Adler says, that somehow we're born by the age of six, we have this implanted inferiority complex and it controls us for the rest of our life and now determines every decision that we make until we are somehow able to strive for superiority or what he used to call superiority and that became too much of a pejorative term and so it eventually was called self-realization or self-actualization or somehow we have more love for ourselves, no, that's not it at all.

We're sinners, we're essentially self-centered, we're out for personal gratification. And because you and your spouse are finite with sinful hearts as well. That is, we're not infinite like God, we can't see what's coming around the next corner. So two sinners living in a very cramped household condition eventually are going to bump into each other and that's going to cause problems.

In addition to that, your heart has various cravings and desires that conflict. I mean everybody's heard of those books, men are from Mars and women are from what? Venus, that's right. What's the basic idea within those books? Well the idea is that men are radically different from women and you can see this reinforced with other concepts like personality theories that are advanced, husbands sometimes have certain personalities, wives have certain personalities and these personalities are somehow conflict and that's what brings about dysfunctional marriages and dysfunctional families.

Well nowhere in the Bible, a natural reading of the Bible would ever, never, ever render any of that. That's not what James 4 says, James 4, if you want to grab your Bible real quickly, what is it that James says causes fights and quarrels among you? He says, well, he says, "Is not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members?" James 4, 1, "You lust, you do not have, so you commit murder." Do I think that they were out running around committing murder?

I don't think that was the case at all, physical murder. But was there another kind of murder? Yeah, any kind of hate, this is similar to what Jesus said there on Matthew 5, where if you have hate in your heart, you're as good as a murderer. So because your desires conflict with that of your spouse, there are going to be collisions within that marriage and collisions within home, certain desires that conflict that cause those arguments and disagreements.

And then hatred grows up. And that hatred now is a form of ritualistic murder. Around here, if you go to auto shops, you can pick up on some of that stuff. You can get these little noisemakers you plant on your dashboard, and those little noisemakers you can, if you're traveling on a real crowded LA freeway, you can shoot the other person with a machine gun, or you can launch a missile at them, or you can throw a grenade at them.

It's just a little noise thing. But what is that? All those people that are in front of you that are blocking your way in order to get where you want to go, you're just committing ritualistic murder with all those little sound devices. You're shooting them. You're killing them. You're blowing them up.

Where does that come from? It comes from a deep-seated hatred and anger for someone who is getting in the way of your desires. What's your desire? Well, I want to get to my destination. That's my desire. And somebody else is in my way. So I think this is exactly what is going on here in James 4 too.

There are certain desires that rule our hearts. And we lust and we don't have, so we commit murder. That is, in our hearts. You're envious. You cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. So you do not have because you do not ask, that is, God and with the proper motives.

You ask and you don't receive because you ask with the wrong motives, verse 3, so that you may spend it upon your pleasures. It's what you want. So there's disagreements, communication breakdowns because of these various cravings and desires that conflict in the Christian marriage. Now we also know that good marriages and lasting, loving relationships can be built by couples who are committed to being God's kind of husband and wife.

We know that. If you take to heart biblical principles, communication, your marriage can begin improving today. That's something that you need to communicate to the people that you're counseling. If you're really serious about this, about following biblical principles and you believe God's Word has the answer, you can begin improving today.

But you've got to be sincere in your desires to do things God's way. That means He defines what is best for your marriage, not you. He's the one who says this is what you should be doing and you're not doing, and you need to change. Now the primary text that we're interested in is Ephesians chapter 4, beginning in verse 25 and going down through verse 32.

We want to identify here four critical rules of communication that should go on in a marriage relationship. And actually these four rules of communication can extend way beyond just marriage counseling into any kind of conflict between Christians. But they're, and there's nothing special or magical about these four rules of communication.

They're just put together in such a way as to be memorable so people, if they're not around a Bible or they're not around their notes, can easily remember, am I failing or am I succeeding in following what God says I ought to be doing? These four rules of communication.

So we're going to be interested in verses 25 through 32. Now in order to understand this, I think it's going to be very important that we take a look at the context right, immediately preceding this text. And if you understand the context here, beginning in verse 17 all the way through verse 24, this is a very familiar put off and put on passage.

In fact, you pick up in verse 22, it says that in reference to your former manner of life, or you could actually translate that little phrase, former manner of life, your former pattern of life, your former way of life or habit of life. He says, and then he gives us three Greek infinitives that are really telling here.

Number one, that you lay aside. That's the first Greek infinitive, and this is a active middle voice. So the emphasis is upon we ourselves laying aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit. So we have a responsibility to get rid of old habit patterns, old ways of responding to one another.

And you know, you're not going to be in the ministry very long or in counseling very long without realizing that couples begin to form habits of interacting with one another. Every couple has them. Every marriage has them. Some of their habits may be good and some of them may not be so good, which encourages more misunderstandings.

To lay aside, your active middle voice. So the responsibility is an active middle voice. The responsibility is upon us laying it aside. Verse 23, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Now this is a present passive, it's no longer active middle. This is present passive, which means this is something that is done to us by means of God's work in the spirit.

God renews. And the word here renewed has the idea within its context of being refreshed or rejuvenated. You have a refreshing, rejuvenated outlook upon this particular problem, where before maybe you had a negative or pessimistic view of this particular problem. Now you have a rejuvenated, refreshing view of the problem in the spirit of your mind.

You're renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is what God does to us. We don't do it, God does it. Verse 24, third Greek infinitive. And then you put on. Now we're back to middle voice. The responsibility is we ourselves have a responsibility to put on. So the first Greek infinitive is an active middle aorist.

The second one is present passive. The third is aorist middle as well. So we have responsibility to put off and put on. Permanent change in the Christian life always involves putting off and putting on. It's always two-factor. So we put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God, has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

So if there's really going to be change in the communication patterns between a husband and wife, they've got to be willing to see what they're doing that's wrong and get rid of that. And then see what they should be doing and start doing that. They really haven't changed until that's happened.

Now once you understand that background, then you can understand what we're talking about in these four rules of communication. Now let me share with you one way I like to teach this. In fact, I borrowed this little analogy from Dr. J. Adams several years ago, and it's been very helpful.

You remember the old game years ago where kids used to -- it was actually a joke. They used to say, "When is a door no longer a door?" Remember that? When it's a jar. Okay? "When is a door no longer a door? When it's a jar." Now you can use that as sort of like a paradigm for this in teaching the concept.

When is a liar no longer a liar? Or when is a thief no longer a thief? Or when is a -- or not a thief -- when is a sexually immoral person no longer a sexually immoral person? Well, most people will say a liar is no longer a liar when he stops lying, or a thief is no longer a thief when he stops stealing, or a sexually immoral person is no longer a sexually immoral person when they stop being sexually immoral.

Well, the Bible says, "No, that's not true." When is a thief no longer a thief? When he stops stealing? No! A thief is no longer a thief when he begins to work with his own hands. A thief that has just stopped stealing is just a thief between jobs, all right?

He's just waiting for another opportunity to be a thief again. No, in fact, look at verse 28. He says, "He who steals must steal no longer, but rather must labor, performing with his hands what is good so that he will have something to share with one who has need." Well, what about a liar?

When is a liar no longer a liar? When he stops lying? No, when he begins to tell the truth, see? So it's not enough just merely to stop lying. A person has got to start telling the truth, being up front with the truth. This is what is genuinely true.

So let's take a look at these four rules of communication in relationship to what we were just talking about. The first one comes from verse 25 that says, "Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are all members of one another." So first rule of communication is this, be honest, be honest.

And you notice how he talks about this in Ephesians 4.25. He says, he talks about the fact that we ought to speak. In fact, this is what we refer to as a imperative, you speak up is the idea. Why? Because people cannot read our minds. We have a responsibility to speak up with the truth.

So clamming up is out for the Christian. It's not enough to just merely stop telling lies. We've got to speak the truth, speak the truth each one of you with his neighbor. So if we're supposed to speak, that means that if we decide to harbor things or clam up or not reveal something that's critical information to our spouse that would really actually be helpful in resolving this particular problem, then we're just as good as a liar.

Clamming up is not an option. We've got to speak up. Not only that, but we've also got to speak the truth. Now speaking the truth here is a verb that involves continuous action with the present tense. So in this sense, it has to be a new lifestyle in the marriage.

I'm always going to speak up. I'm always going to speak out with the truth. David says you must speak the truth from a heart of integrity, Psalm 15 too. That is not deceptively or with disguised or hidden or with double meanings, but we've got to speak the truth from the right kind of heart that gets back to the heart motivations again and how the heart motivations have got to be right.

It's not enough to just merely perform the right thing, but it's got to come from a heart that's right. So if we're going to really resolve communication problems, people have got to be honest. Well not only must they be honest, but also we've got to be very careful on how we define dishonesty.

Sometimes we can be outwardly dishonest. That's a deliberate falsification or deliberate lie or falsification or denial of the truth. Or there could be incongruities where your speech is inconsistent with your halo data. That means your nonverbal behavior. Sometimes people can say such nice things in such hateful ways, right?

Like the husband who says to his wife, "I love you." Now the words "I love you" are really sweet. The way that he said it was not very sweet. It was full of disgust. "Do I have to tell you again? I've told you this in the past. Do I really have to do that?" So there can be incongruities where our speech really is inconsistent with the tone of voice, our inflection, our outward behavior.

So those can be there. Or there can be all kinds of disguise communication. The human heart is very deep and deceptive. Disguise communication can be innuendos, insinuations, implied accusations. That's not being honest. That's not being forthright. That's not allowing our yes to be yes and our no to be no.

On contrary, we have all kinds of fabricated ways to get around being responsible for what we've said or done. So you get this idea that honesty is more than just not lying. It has to do with being open and very honest with the truth. Verse 25 again, "Therefore laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor, for we are members of one another." And it's pretty obvious that God wants us to do that from the heart.

We have a responsibility to speak the truth from a heart in this particular case of integrity. Colossians 3.9 says, "Don't lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices." That's part of the old way of life. That's the way unbelievers deal with one another, but that's not the way in which the believers should deal with one another.

So we have to speak the truth. Furthermore, we need to speak the truth earlier in verse 15, he's talked about this. Speak the truth with love. In other words, speak the truth lovingly. Why does he say that? Because sometimes people can be brutal with the truth. They sort of use the truth like a sledgehammer to beat somebody into the ground with it.

I remember having a guy in counseling who did that, where he said, "I told my wife the truth," he said to me, "I gave her a piece of my mind." And of course, you know, if you understand the creativity of my own mind, I'm thinking to myself, "Listen, you started with a very small mind to begin with.

You give her any more pieces, you're not going to have anything left." That's not what I said, I bit my tongue. But that's a person who is brutal with the truth. Sure he had told her the truth, but he had told her the truth in a very devastating way.

So if you speak the truth in spite and in anger, that's a wrong way to speak the truth. God's concerned not just with what you say, but how you say it, the time that you say it, or if you speak the truth without forethought concerning the person that you're speaking to or about, that's a way that you can be brutal with the truth.

So Christians are to speak the truth, but they're supposed to speak lovingly. What do we mean by that? We mean by that that you speak with the other person's best interest in mind, not just getting off my chest. "Well, I just got to get this off my chest. I just got to tell you what I'm thinking.

I can't hold this back anymore." No, no, no, no, that's not the idea. Christians don't talk like that. It's not about you. It's about how well we're speaking in terms of being beneficial to the person that we're speaking to. That's the ultimate determiner. So I'm going to be very, very conscious about that.

I like the verse in Colossians 4, 6, where it says, "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned as it were with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each other." I love the analogy there because the analogy is to salt. Now back in ancient times, salt preserved things.

That's pretty obvious. They didn't have refrigeration the way we have refrigeration today or certain preservatives. So salt would preserve meats and other things would naturally go bad. But there's another element that salt was used for. Salt was also used for creating thirst, okay? You've heard the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." The old farmer says, "Yeah, but you can sure salt his oats," all right?

That's right. You can sure salt his oats. And that's the idea behind this verse. That is, when a person, when your speech is seasoned with grace, like salt, even though a person may be disagreeing with you, you say your side of the story so graciously, so kindly that they're thirsty to hear more.

They want to hear more. You're so gracious and you're so kind with what you have to say, they're willing to come back and hear some more, even though they don't agree with what you have to say. Wow, that is gracious, kindly speech that has the other person's welfare first and foremost in our minds.

So in order to be a godly husband or wife, the first rule of communication is, be honest. First rule. Now, let's take a look at verses 26 and 27, which brings us to our second rule. Verse 26 says, "Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity." Second rule of communication is this, keep current.

Keep current. And you notice what he says here, "Be angry and yet sin not." Why? Because all anger is not sin, self-centered anger is always sin. I didn't get my way. I want to see my ideas prevail. Nope. That's very self-centered anger. That's always sin. But sometimes you may be righteously angry at your spouse.

I have a good reason to be angry. What they did or what they said or what they didn't do or what they didn't say, you have a good reason. But even that anger can become sinful anger when it's left unresolved. That's where he says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." In other words, you hold onto that anger for a long period of time and it goes unresolved for a long period of time.

It's like raw meat. Raw meat has the elements within it, the bacteria within it to cause it naturally to go bad. And that's what's going to... it starts off the right way. You have good reason and a righteous reason to be angry, but if left to ferment for a period of time, it really goes bad real quickly.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons why this is a problem. Number one, obviously, we're guilty of sin because God has said, "Don't do it." I remember I had a couple, they had been married for about 20 years. Their marriage had been somewhat rocky and they had eventually come in for marital counseling and I was going through these rules of communication, these four rules of communication, I came to this particular point in talking with them about it and I'll never forget, the husband kind of sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

He said, "Well then, I'm moving to Alaska." It went right over my head. I'm going, "What?" Oh, and his wife caught on. She rolled her eyes and she said, "You know, the sun shines for like 12 hours or 23 hours a day up there and he wants to hold on to his anger against me." I said, "Whoa!" Now, I did give him points for creativity.

I said, "No, no, no, back up the train here. This is not what we're talking about. This is just a colloquialism. It means deal with your anger ASAP. Deal with your anger as soon as you have the opportunity to do so, you deal with it. It's not literally waiting until two minutes before sunset and all of a sudden you're sitting down with your wife or your husband and deal with your anger.

You deal with it as soon as possible. It was a colloquialism that meant that. It's not literally you wait until sunset before you, or just before sunset for you to deal with your anger. Although, I thought that was rather creative. Some months in the summer, the sun shines for 23 hours and they only have one or two hours of darkness and, wow, no, no, no, no, that's not it.

So they're guilty of sin if they haven't done that. Not only that, when you allow your anger to ferment, then you open the way to resentment and bitterness. That's pretty obvious. Sometimes I like to call it spiritual gunny-sacking. You know what a gunny-sack is? It's an old term. It's a hunter's term.

When a hunter would go out and shoot rabbits or quail, you know, they would take the rabbits and quail and throw it in their gunny-sack and they carried it around with them until they got home in the evening and they'd dump out their gunny-sack and then they'd clean all their prey and have it for dinner or, you know, store it in some way.

But people do that with their problems with one another. They spiritually gunny-sack them. They don't deal with them. They just throw it in their spiritual gunny-sack and they keep throwing it. There's one problem with their wife or their husband, they throw that in there and the next day, there's another problem, they throw that in there, it's unresolved, and the next day another problem and two or three more problems and the spiritual gunny-sack just continues to grow.

You can't literally see it, but nevertheless, it's affecting their whole attitudes towards their spouse. And then one day, they know, they've been laboring under carrying this thing around for such a long time. And their spouse does little thing, I mean, comparatively, just a very, very little thing. And all of a sudden, they decide to empty their spiritual gunny-sack and empty the whole thing out all at once and boom, becomes a big issue.

And the spouse is there, "What did I say? What did I do? It's not what you said or did, it's who you are." Now, why do they say that? Well, because this whole thing has distorted the way that they view their problems. It totally has distorted it. It distorts subsequent problems.

And bitterness and resentment grows as a result of it. So that's the idea. There's distortion of subsequent problems, you open the way to bitterness and resentment there and then forth. The Bible says that eventually, with this bitterness and resentment, you endanger your physical relationship. The sexual relationship and marriage is now in danger.

You know why? Because nobody wants to go to bed with their problem. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody on this planet, there's not a woman on this planet, there's not a man on this planet wants to go to bed with their problem, since the other person is the problem.

And then we run into admonitions like 1 Corinthians 7, 5 that says, "Stop forbidding or withholding yourself from one another sexually." And because that opens the way for Satan into the relationship. So you're guilty of sin, you open the way to resentment and bitterness, you distort subsequent problems, you endanger your physical relationship.

And then grab your Bible and go over to Matthew chapter 6. And we're interested in verse 34, there on the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." That's the reason why he's encouraging.

There is this just Hebrew principle that's very prevalent here. Deal with each day's problems that day and don't carry that day's problems into the next day because then you have the next day's problems plus the previous day's problems and then you carry those problems into the next day and no, no, no.

You keep very, very short accounts. That's what has to happen, very, very short accounts. You don't let things go on and on and on and on and on unresolved wrong. So rule number one, be honest. Rule number two, keep current. Rule number three, verses 29 and 30, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word is as good for the edification according to the need of the moment so that it will give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Rule number three is attack the problem, not the person.

Attack the problem, not the person. Now this is really critical here because there are all kinds of unwholesome words and I think part of our difficulty here is that our view of what is unwholesome is a very narrow view, very narrow, okay? We think cursing, swearing, taking God's name in vain are unwholesome words.

And they are. There's no doubt about that. That's unwholesome words. But it's a very, very narrow view. When Paul's here talking about unwholesome words, it's a much broader view. He says, notice what the verse says within its context, "But only such a word is good for edification according to the need of the moment." In other words, he says anything that would tear another person down is unwholesome.

It doesn't have to be a swear word, it doesn't have to be a curse word, you don't have to take God's name in vain, all you have to do is tear that other person down in some suggestive way and that's an unwholesome word. In fact, the Greek word here for unwholesome is the word rotten.

That's a rotten word. It's a rotten word. So don't let any rotten word, it was a word that was often used, referred to in the classical Greek to refer to like rotten fish. Nothing more repugnant than that. Very rotten. Ruben? >> Sarcastic? >> Yeah. See, sarcasm in the midst of a conflict can be a type of rotten word.

Like you can say, well, in a sarcastic, you're always uncaring. What does that mean? You say, well, I was only being sarcastic. No, that actually tears down another person. Now, are there times where a person, where there's no conflict involved, no misunderstanding between people, where sarcasm could be used hypothetically?

Yes, if that's what you're asking. I think there could be and it wouldn't be a sinful way to use it. But where there's conflict, there's a disagreement and a couple's having a hard time communicating with one another. Sarcasm is not good. What does unwholesome words do? They zero in on the other person's character.

It calls into question their integrity, their character, who they are. You end up tearing them down. You end up demolishing their character. It's words like you always, you never, you turkey, you idiot, you dummy, stupid, dumbbell. We never let our kids say that. Those are as bad as curse words in our home.

Is it true they always? No, that's 100% language. Is it true they never? No, that's 100% language too. You turkey. You know, what is that? That's just something to tear down someone else. So we have a tendency to only label curse words as unwholesome, which is a very narrow definition.

God's definition on the contrary is much broader. Instead of these unwholesome words, here this verse says, verse 29, "We have to use edifying words, that which is good for edification." The word edification just actually means to build up, to build up other people. Words that do that. What are those kind of words?

These are words that focus in on the problem, not on the character of the other person. I'm focusing on the problem. They're selected in order to make it easy for two people to find a solution. They're solution-oriented words that are full of graciousness, full of graciousness. They always have your partner's welfare first and foremost in your mind.

Not your own welfare, but their welfare. Like for instance, "I disagree with what you've done, but I'm open to hear your side of the story." Or, "I want to find a solution to our problem that will be best for you in our home." Or, "I want to work through this with you so that Jesus is honored in our marriage." You know, there are some couples, if they were to say that in the midst of their marriage, their spouse would probably have a heart attack.

"All right, who are you, and what did you do with my real spouse?" This is so radically different. "I disagree with what you've done, but I'm open to hear your side of the story." Or, "I want to find a solution to our problem that will be best for you in our home." Or, "I want to work through this with you so that Jesus Christ is honored in our marriage." Those are very deliberate words intended to edify the other person.

That doesn't mean that you totally agree with them, but it's intended to build them up. Edifying words. That's why we say attack the problem, not the person. When we attack the person, we tear at their character. We tear them down. We call into question their integrity. No, instead we approach the problem together in order to find a resolution to that problem.

So rule number one, keep current. Rule number two, be honest, excuse me. Rule number two, keep current. Rule number three, attack the problem, not the person. Rule number four, it's verses 31 and 32. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." Rule number four is this, act, don't react. Four rules, be honest, keep current, attack problems, not people, act, don't react. What are reactions to problems? You can see them in verse 31.

Bitterness, which is perpetual animosity that leads to harsh and unloving opinions about other people. There's wrath, which has to do with outbursts of passionate rage. Boy, sometimes can that happen in a marriage? Absolutely. Anger, which is a subtle, deep-flowing anger that can occur between individuals, or clamor, which has to do with outcry and shouting, or slander, which is speaking evil of another person that often comes from some kind of settled indignation towards them.

Now, sometimes you'll get counselees to say, "Well, that's not true of us. We're not bitter or wrathful, or we don't practice this anger or clamor or slander." Well then, Paul sort of throws in at the very end of this list an item that is a big blanket, covers a lot of areas, and he adds to this, "along with every form of malice," or the New American Standard says, "along with all malice." You say, "What is that?" Well, malice is just a general wishing of ill will towards another person, which is the root of all the earlier vices, a general wishing of ill will, just wishing bad things.

I remember when I was in high school, I sat next to a girl in English class. No matter how hard I studied or how well I did, she always got a better grade than I did. She drove me nuts. I remember sitting there thinking in class, "God, if you'd just let her flunk one exam, God never gave me my wish." That's malice.

That's a general wishing of ill will towards someone else. It's like the wife and husband who have an argument early in the morning, and he goes tearing out the door, and she stands there washing the morning breakfast dishes and thinking to herself, "I hope he has a horrible day at work," she says, in her mind.

It's malice. He goes tearing down the road in his car thinking to himself, "I hope the children make her life miserable today." That's malice. That's wishing ill will towards somebody else. He says, "You get rid of all forms of that. All of those things are sinful reactions to problems." That's what they are.

Instead, verse 32, actions. What are the actions? There's three of them. The key ones here that he uses in verse 32, "Be kind," he says, number one, "useful, worthy, good, benevolent toward your spouse. Be kind to them." That's the way we're supposed to do it. That's what we put on.

We put off all those other things in verse 31. We put on kindness. What's the kindest thing I can say? What's the kindest thing I can think? What's the kindest thing I can do for my spouse? The second one is tender heartedness. Literally here in the Greek, it's having healthy vows.

In the Bible, they are the seed of emotions and intentions, therefore it means being compassionate with your partner. So having good emotions towards your spouse. The Bible assumes that we can do that. We can decide to have healthy emotions towards someone else, even though we've been in conflict with them?

Yes, even though we've been in conflict with them. Tender hearted is the way a lot of translations translate this. And then third, we're to put on forgiveness, forgiving. To exercise grace in releasing the offense of your spouse that includes the willingness from the heart, like Jesus talks about in Mark 11.25 and the verbal granting of forgiveness when repentance has taken place in Luke 17 verses 3 and 4.

So we are to be forgiving. So we have four rules of communication. Be honest, keep current, attack problems, not people, act, don't react. Those four. And often I'll say to marital couples, I'll say, okay, now when I'll teach these, I'll have them keep copious notes on what we're talking about.

And I want the father to go home and teach this to the rest of the family and I want mom to create all the visual aids. She's going to put a little poster, the four rules of communication. She's going to make sure that posted around the house at key places where everybody can see them are these four rules of communication.

Be honest, keep current, attack problems, not people, act, don't react. Everywhere they look on the mirrors in the restrooms, everywhere they look there's four rules of communication. Now we in our household, we're going to live by these four rules every day. We're going to learn brand new habit patterns of interacting with one another so that we're living in a biblical way.

Those four rules. Those are really key. And I'll tell you, when a family decides to really practice those, it radically changes that home. And the benefits that in a sense swirl around this are unexpected in all those relationships. Between the parents and the kids, between mom and dad, the benefits are huge.

All right, let's pick up and talk a little bit about God's design for marital union, a biblical and theological view of sexual relationships in the Christian marriage. Really critical issue here. And oftentimes you'll find yourself having to deal with this in counseling quite a bit. So, and in fact, probably in the past two weeks on at least three or four different separate counseling appointments, I've been dealing with this.

In some cases it's dealing with counselors that I'm supervising who are working with other people. But this becomes a big area when it comes to husband and wife relationships and a big area for misunderstanding. You know, the top three, they always say, sources of conflict in marriage is sex, money, and in-laws.

Those three things. Sex, money, and in-laws. Well, this is right at the top there, which has to do with misunderstandings in terms of sexuality. So let's take a look at this and keep your Bible handy. When we deal with this in the Christian domain, oftentimes what you encounter is what I like to refer to as a Victorian approach to union in marriage.

This Victorian approach says that sex is a dirty topic. It's really sinful. It's nasty. You shouldn't talk about it. And so in many Christian homes, very rarely, unless it's about something negative about sex, sex is not really dealt with at all. That's not the way the Bible treats it.

But yet there are a lot of Christian homes who do treat this as a really dirty topic. You don't talk about it. It's a bad thing. If you swing clear to the other end of the spectrum, you get a more recent view of this, and it's kind of a post-modern liberal view or liberated view.

Sex is the highest of human relationships. It's what really makes a good marriage. And if you're not having great sex, then there's something seriously wrong with your marriage. That's just as wrong as the Victorian view. And yet that seems to be a more prevalent view in the day and age in which we live.

So you've got these two extremes. On the one hand, you've got sex is bad. It's dirty. It's a nasty topic. You don't want to have to do anything with it. Or you've got this liberated view, which makes sex the highest of all human relationships. In fact, there's a Christian book that was published, oh, probably about 15, 20 years ago talking about this, entitled The Act of Marriage.

It's really a very poor title because sex is not the act of marriage. It is an act of marriage. Just because two people have had sex, like two gerbils can have sex, does not necessarily mean that that's marriage. That's really quite a Roman Catholic view of marriage. It's not a Protestant view of marriage.

For them, sex equals marriage. That's not true with us because any two animals can have sex. Now, sometimes when we talk about this particular subject, one of the first things I do is I want the couple to understand, grab your Bible just for a moment, let's go over to Romans chapter 12.

The context of this doesn't have anything to do with sexuality directly as a topic, but there is a broader theological principle that is applicable to anything we do in life, including sexuality, and that's verse 9. Romans 12, verse 9, "Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to that which is good." The word "abhor" can be translated "hate what is evil, cling to that which is good." And sometimes I say to couples, "Listen, if after talking through what the Bible says about sex, and you find out that in your marriage and in your relationship you're violating what the Bible says, then you've got to get to the point where you hate that violation.

You've got to get to that point. You hate that violation, and then you cling tenaciously to that which is good." So are you willing to do that? Are you willing to say, "Okay, if the Bible teaches that, and I'm not doing it, I know I'm violating what the Bible says, so I need to learn how to hate that because that's evil.

I'm sowing discord in my marriage when I do this." So we've got to hate what is evil, cling to that which is good. So if we violate God's word in the sexual realm, we've got to learn as a husband or as a wife to hate that violation, and then change.

Now let me give you six principles. Six principles that I believe help to sum up the biblical teaching about sexuality. Number one is this, that sex and marriage is pure and holy. From the very beginning, we have that understanding. Genesis 1, verse 27, and then later on in verse 31, God creates Adam and Eve distinctively male and female.

He creates Adam distinctively male with gender distinctiveness from Eve, and God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them. God created Eve distinctively female, and they both bore the image of God. She bears just as much of the image of God as he does.

And in creating both the husband and wife, later on after Eve was created, she's the last bit of the creation that's created, and we see that in chapter 2. Then chapter 1, verse 31 says, "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good." It was very good.

This is not a bad thing, this is a good thing. So how dare we consider something that God has called "very good" to be somehow evil or ungodly. This is what Hebrews 13, verse 4 says, "Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled." He says, so the marriage bed is good, it's a good thing, and it is to be kept undefiled by introducing into that marriage bed practices, or even other people that would defile that marriage bed, or selfish practices, as we're going to find out in a little bit, that could defile that marriage bed.

Because I ask Christian couples this, is it possible for a husband and wife who are Christians, who love each other, who only have sex with one another, in their sexual relationship, while having sex with just one another, could they still be in sin? Most Christian couples would say, "Well, not if they're having sex with just each other." And I want to suggest that they could be still practicing sin in their sexual relationship.

Let me explain why in our next couple of principles here. So sex and marriage, first of all, is pure and holy, which gets us away from this Victorian view that somehow, sex is a bad, nasty thing. It's not. It is a very good thing, and God intended it to be very good.

In Genesis chapter 2, then he talks about it was both Adam and Eve who was both naked and they were not ashamed. This is a good thing. Sometimes we picture it as if it's bad. The second thing that I think is important here is that sex is not the basis of marriage and marriage is not a sexual relationship.

Which sort of gets us away from that post-modern view, clear over the other extreme. Why do we say that? Well, sex certainly is a very important part of marriage. Nobody denies that at all. It is an act of marriage, not to participate in it wholeheartedly, aggressively, and passionately is a sin against God, your spouse, and self.

But we're going to hasten to say that sex does not equal marriage. That certainly is a Roman Catholic view. And John Murray has a great discussion of that in his book on divorce, yes, a Roman Catholic view of marriage. Sex equals marriage, and if a young guy and girl who have not been married before ends up having premarital sex, most of the time Roman Catholics and even a lot of Protestants will do everything they can to get that couple married, when in reality they're demonstrating the fact that they do not have enough personal self-discipline to maintain the discipline of marriage.

Sex does not equal marriage. John chapter 4, Jesus deals with there the woman at the well, and he talks about her prior relationships that he had, and even though she was with these men, these men were not necessarily her husbands. Unity in marriage goes, is much more than just mere sex.

And marriage success is much more than just sexual success. When you read Christian books that are written on sexual intimacy within marriage, a lot of them are built upon a very pagan, secular idea that that is, you don't have a great marriage until you have great sex, and that's not true.

It's not true, never was true. Marriage, sex is not the basis of marriage. And marriage is not primarily a sexual relationship. That almost makes sex a god. You say, "What is it? What's the biblical view?" Well, grab your Bible, let's go over to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and we're interested in verses 3 through 5.

Here's the physical relationship within marriage, it says, "The husband must fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband." That's verse 3. So from the very beginning, this brings us to principle number 3, sex has as a primary goal that of satisfying your spouse.

That's the goal of sex. Sex has as its primary goal that of satisfying your spouse. It is a husband's responsibility to make sure that's his duty to his wife. It is a wife's responsibility to make sure that is her duty to her husband. Now, let me tell you, that is not the view of sex therapists out there in the world.

In fact, I'm working with a woman who's counseling another woman, and this woman's having a difficult time accepting the principle that it is her responsibility to make sure that her husband is absolutely fulfilled in the marriage. And why is she having a problem accepting that? It's because she has gone to this sex therapist, and she wants to believe the sex therapist over believing what the Word of God says.

And basically, almost all those theories that are out there in the psych world on this issue has to do with your own personal fulfillment, which is a very self-centered view of sexuality. First Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 3 is talking about making sure your spouse is fulfilled. That changes everything.

So the goal here in sex is not getting pleasure, not having a climax, not necessarily to conceive children, it's providing joy to your spouse, which incidentally parallels exactly what Proverbs chapter 5 says. When Solomon admonishes his son there in Proverbs 5 about the marital relationship and sexual relationship, he says, "Drink water from your own cistern," verse 15, "fresh water from your own well.

Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets, let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you, but let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth." So now it's interesting, in ancient times and in the Bible, and especially in the book of Proverbs, sex is referred to, and you've got to understand the context and the setting, it's a very arid desert type of climate, sex is referred to as refreshing water.

And what is it that a cistern, verse 15, a spring, verse 16, streams, verse 16, fountain, verse 18, all have in common, well, they all store and control water, that's what they all do. So sex within its proper boundaries, that is cistern, well, springs, streams, fountain, within marriage is a very good thing, within proper boundaries.

Sex outside of those boundaries, like water that's overflowing, like we get rains here in Southern California come down through those canyons, overflowing can be very, very destructive, sex outside of those boundaries. So he says, verse 18, "Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, you need to find your satisfaction in her, she finds her satisfaction in you," verse 16, "should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets, she should get a refreshment only from you." So that's why we say it is providing joy to your spouse.

In fact, right there in that same context, he refers to it in the right type of context, or in the right type of marital relationship, verse 20, "For why should you, my son, be exhilarated by an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a foreigner?" Early in verse 19, he says, "be exhilarated always with her love," that is referring to his wife, and the word exhilarated is the word that literally means to be intoxicated, it's the same word that was used to be intoxicated with alcohol.

So the Bible recognizes that sex has an opiating effect upon the person's brain, same way that alcohol has an opiating effect upon the person's brain. That's why sex can be so enslaving, and that's why later on it says a person can be enslaved by it, verse 22, "his own iniquities will capture the wicked and he will be held with the cords of his sin." In fact, Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 26 talks about the similar thing where Solomon talks about those men who have been enslaved by sexual things, been captivated by them.

So the idea here in the Christian marriage is that we have to retrain our thinking from that of getting pleasure to that of giving pleasure. It's my responsibility as a spouse to make sure my spouse is absolutely 100% fulfilled in this area. Now you may think this is crazy, but this is, and the reason why I think we think it's crazy is because it's 100 degrees the opposite of what the world tells us.

And we're used to what the world says, it's constant cadence is to communicate that which is opposite to us. But you were created uniquely male or uniquely female, not for self-fulfillment purposes. You were created uniquely that way for the fulfillment of your spouse. That's why you were created that way.

I'll never forget, several years ago, counseling this young husband and wife, they'd been married for a few years, and they were having sexual problems, and we started going over these very principles, and right in the middle of them, the wife started rolling her eyes, and I said to her, "What's wrong?" And she says, "You don't understand.

I know where you're going with this." I said, "Well, where am I going with this?" She says, "I know where you're going with this. You want me to make sure that he is absolutely 100% fulfilled sexually, right?" "Yeah, you got it. Yeah, I'm a pretty good teacher." She says, "You don't understand my husband.

His sexual drive is unrelenting. This is all I'm going to get done. I won't get anything else done. I'm not going to get anything else done. You don't realize what you're doing to me." I said, "Well, I'm not doing this. This is what the Bible says, right? If you're going to argue, argue with what God says.

Don't argue with me. I'm just communicating it. Don't kill the messenger." Oh, she just rolls her eyes. So I said, "Okay, here's the assignment I'm going to give you this week. This week, every day that your husband comes home from work, every day, I want you to be standing behind the door with the nicest negligee, you know, the one he really likes.

I want you to grab him by the hand and take him to bed with you, all right?" And she goes, "Ugh." So she's shuffled out. He kind of leaped out of the room, "It's going to be an exciting week." So a whole week went by. They came back the next week for counseling.

And it's interesting. She comes bounding in the door. He comes shuffling in the door. And they plop down, and I have prayer with him, and I say, "Well, how did it go?" And she looks at me, and she slams her hand on the desk and says, "Pastor, this Bible stuff works!" I said, "What do you mean?

What happened?" She says, "Well, the first day I did exactly what you told me to do. I stood behind the door. I grabbed him by the hand. When he came in the door, I took him to bed. Second day, did the same thing. Third day, did the same thing.

Fourth day, did the same thing. Fifth day, he come walking in the door and said, 'I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. Everything's good.'" She says, "This Bible stuff works!" And all of a sudden, she had a renewed appreciation for how true the Bible is. When she began to define, it's her role to make sure he is absolutely fulfilled, and it's his role to make sure that she is absolutely fulfilled, then you have that kind of great relationship.

That's the kind of communication that should go on. She should be saying to him, "Sweetheart, how you doing? Do we need to get together tonight?" He ought to be saying, "Sweetheart, how you doing? Do we need to get together soon?" That's the kind of communication that should be going on between a husband and wife.

The question, according to 1 Corinthians 7, 3, is not, "When do we have sex?" It's never the question in Christian marriage. The question is always, "When do we not have sex?" That's always the question in the Christian marriage, "When do we not have sex?" Sex is always assumed in the Christian marriage.

It's always assumed. I remember just back a few years ago, I did a whole Valentine's Banquet. Actually, it was a seminar and banquet for a whole weekend, but up in the Sacramento area. In fact, we went up to Lake Tahoe with this church, and we taught on this very thing, that the pastor had asked us to come in, because it was all couples, all married couples in the group.

So, we taught on these very things, spent time. In fact, our key verse for the weekend was Ecclesiastes 9, 9, which talks about, "Enjoy the wife of your youth." In fact, my theme was, "Ecclesiastes 9, 9, will you be my Valentine?" That was the theme for the whole weekend.

We taught on the physical relationship and marriage and stuff. About 10, 11 months later, I get a phone call from the pastor, and he says to me, "Wow, I kind of really wish you wouldn't have come to our church." Man, you don't usually get a phone call like that, and you're going, "Really?

What's the problem?" He says, "Well," he says, "I want you to know that after you did that whole marriage seminar around Valentine's Day, that we have the nursery exploding, and we don't have any room left in the nursery of our church. It's just exploding all over the place. Your baby's being born left and right here, and everybody attributes it to that Valentine's banquet and that whole Valentine's weekend." Well, at least they're obeying God.

Sex has as its primary goal that of satisfying your spouse, and children, then, are the byproduct. The goal of sex is not kids. It's the blessing of it that comes, because you know as well as I do, there are some people who can have sex that, for some reason, don't have kids, but they can still fulfill this biblical admonition.

Fourth, not only that, but look at verse 4, 1 Corinthians 7, 4. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. So principle number 4, God created both the husband and wife with an equal ability to satisfy each other.

The implication here is that once you're married, this body of yours no longer solely belongs to you. Your spouse has a stake in your body. While you're single, that's not true. When you're married, now it's true. Your spouse has a stake in your body, so you can't do anything you want with it.

You can't exhaust yourself during the day and have nothing to give your spouse at bed at night. That's bad, because then you're using your body for very self-centered purposes. The honey I've got a headache doesn't cut it here. Or I'm too tired doesn't cut it here. Then you're exhausting all the energy of your body, and you're leaving nothing for your spouse.

She has a stake in her husband's body. He has a stake in his wife's body. There is co-ownership there. None of this extreme feminist or masculinist idea that our bodies are our own and nobody can tell me what to do with my body. It's not true in the Christian marriage.

1 Corinthians 7, 4. We are co-owners. When I got married, my wife owns my body. I have a stake in her body. What she does with it, what I do with it. So that's really critical here. So no one has sole power or authority. You do not have the independent.

You do not have this independent of your spouse. That means then that both need to be aggressive in fulfilling this responsibility of satisfying our spouse. So sexual relationships have to be equal and reciprocal. As Ecclesiastes 9, 9 says, that we have a biblical responsibility to fulfill or to enjoy our spouses.

Let me go over there. So Ecclesiastes 9, 9 then talks about the fact that enjoy life with a woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which he has given you under the sun for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

God graces you with that. That is your reward. So in this particular case then, she has everything that she needs to fully and completely satisfy her spouse. God's given her that. He has everything he needs to completely and fully satisfy his wife. God has given him everything he needs for that and they should be content with that.

There's no other person or no other thing on the planet that can be any more satisfying than their spouse. That's really critical here. God has created both this husband and the wife with an equal ability to satisfy each other. Then number five, pleasure then in sex is not sinful and forbidden but it's assured and even encouraged.

We already saw that in Proverbs chapter 5 where we're dealing there with Solomon and his son. God wants, verses 18 and verse 19, the husband and wife to enjoy each other, to be intoxicated with marital love. There's nothing wrong with that. So, satisfying your spouse is a deeply satisfying experience for you.

We are to be ravished, intoxicated, exhilarated by them, Proverbs chapter 5 verse 19. The problem is, is that our personal pleasure is not the main goal. The fact that God gave us an enjoyable experience in satisfying our spouse is the side benefit but it's not the main purpose. Then let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 5.

Then he says, "Stop depriving each other except by agreement and for a time so that you may devote yourself to prayer and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." First Corinthians 7 and 5 then brings about this principle that sexual relationships need to be regular and continuous.

He gives us four guidelines for not having sex here in this verse. One is by mutual agreement. This is not a good time for both of us and that's okay as long as your spouse is fulfilled and satisfied, you're good. There has to be an agreed upon time. In other words, there's a certain time where we're not going to have sex for a time, he says.

Then some translations say fasting and prayer. Most of them say prayer here but whatever the case, this is a good example. For instance, someone has the flu or someone's had a surgery or there are times that are and usually with fasting and prayer, it usually had to do with crisis times.

This is not a good time for sexual enjoyment because of this crisis that we're going through. Then he says, "Then terminate again, terminate that is not having sex and start having sex again as soon as possible." Why? Well, notice he says, "So that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Once you're used to an ongoing, regular, satisfying sexual relationship, it's hard to stop and not be tempted." It's very hard. This is where marriages get themselves into trouble. A husband starts withholding himself from his wife, a wife begins to withhold herself from her husband and then Satan sends a nice young lady along and all of a sudden, the husband now is starting to pay attention to this nice young lady or Satan sends along a nice young man, her direction and she begins to pay attention to this nice young man.

Why is that? Because they are violating what God has clearly said to do and that is they should have an ongoing, regular sexual relationship. That's why I said the question is not when do we have sex in the Christian marriage. The question is when do we not have sex?

Then there has to be an agreed upon time. First Corinthians 7-5 is clear. It has to be by mutual agreement. How many people do you know say, "Hey listen, we're not going to have sex tonight because we're going to spend the evening in prayer instead?" Not many Christian couples I know that do that, but fasting in prayer and then terminate again so you can start, terminate not having sex and then start again is the idea.

Now this naturally leads us into the issue of birth control for the Christian marriage. In order to understand this, I think we're going to have to take our Bibles and go back for a moment to Genesis 3-16. To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.

In pain you will bring forth children and your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." The biblical paradigm for making decisions here I believe stems from Genesis 3-16. Most translations here supply the word "in" and that particular little preposition is not in the original language.

It's not there. Or the word "childbirth." The Hebrew literally is "and." There's the "vav," "and childbirth" is the idea. Part of the curse was that Eve had a difficulty, had a greatly increased capacity for childbirth. For the sake of argument, some theologians have suggested that before the fall she could only have a child maybe once every 1,000 years.

Why? Because they live forever. They live forever. She didn't need to have a child more often than that. Can you imagine that, ladies, ovulating only once every 1,000 years or even having a period once every 1,000 years? That would be a blessing by any standard. But now that death and because of the curse has entered into their existence, the human race would quickly go out of existence unless the birthing rate is greatly accelerated.

And you notice what verse 16 says, "I will greatly multiply your pain," and then it should say, "and your childbirth." Both. Multiplied pain and multiplied childbirth. Why? Because, well, humanity would quickly die. Many of us know literally for centuries husbands and wives would have 10, 20 children and half of them would die before the age of six because of death.

Some of them would die in utero and that still occurs today. In fact, our own daughter lost a child, her first child. And then later on this afternoon, in just about 10 minutes, the doctor's going to be inducing her first hopefully live child. So God says he has greatly increased, and it's interesting that along with this increased childbirth also comes a lot of the woman's physical problems.

A lot of the difficulties and a lot of the cancers and stuff that are associated with this, which is under the curse that ultimately brings about death, is now associated with this as well. Now with that understanding, then how do we handle the issue of birth control? Well, there are different positions on this.

There are some who say that any kind of birth control then is permissible. And so some have suggested that birth control really is a non-issue for the Christian, anything in any type is permissible because we have to control the population. We have to be good stewards of the population.

Really loving Christians they would say would allow a couple to make the decision as they see fit. So abort-efficient types of birth control are permissible because God doesn't instill independent personhood until after birth or until birth. And that's the way that they would reason this. Once a child is born, then independent personhood is now there.

That child is detached from its mother, now it's an independent living being. Prior to that it is a growth, but up to this particular time it's nothing more than that. But now that the child is born, now it's an independent person. So even abort-efficient types of birth control are permissible in this particular case for Christians they would say.

Then in a sense you can go to the other extreme and you can find people at different points along this continuum. But the other extreme would be the no birth control is permissible position. They would say anything that inhibits the natural procreative process in an attempt to preempt God and His will for your life is not permissible for the Christian.

The cultural mandate is Genesis 1:28, it's to be obeyed and actually they would say is disobeyed and circumvented when any type of birth control is used. Even the rhythm method. Man ends up playing God in preventing conception they would say. So you've got one side that says any kind of birth control is permissible and there are Christians who advocate that position.

There aren't many, but they are. And then there is the other side that says no birth control is permissible and far more Christians or at least people historically that label themselves as Christians are in that camp. It's interesting from a historical point of view the Roman Catholic Church started doing that because back in the Middle Ages Roman Catholicism was beginning to die out because of the Crusades.

All the men were going off to war and dying. So the Pope and the Cardinals had to get together and figure out how they were going to reproduce the church and so they started advocating that any kind of birth control or birth control methods is forbidden so they would have more kids so the church could continue to grow even though the Crusades were still going on.

Then there is fourthly a position that says the only non-abortificient birth control. Birth control drugs and devices that attempt to interrupt a bona fide pregnancy destroys a child like inner uterine devices, IUDs, morning after pills and patches. Genesis 3.16 in this position clearly establishes the fact that man would struggle with multiplied pregnancies as he would with other consequences of the fall.

In other words there would be a strain on resources due to scarcity because of the fall. That's part of the curse. To be consistent then forbidding birth control would also necessitate forbidding all other efforts to combat the effects of the fall like disease and weeds and pestilence. Anytime you take medicine attempts to affect or negate the effects of the fall.

So to me this fourth position I believe is a very biblical position. If you forbid birth control on the one hand then you're going to have to be consistent with all the other effects of the fall. You've got to forbid taking medicine. You've got to forbid weeding your garden.

You've got to forbid any kind of control of pestilence. So let pestilence run rampant throughout the earth and destroy crops. Birth control is a means by which man now tries to be a good steward over his environment with limited resources. But the fact that man has the capacity now to reproduce almost at any time is a way to keep the human race alive.

Now does this imply then that children are not really a blessing? That they're really an evidence of the curse? No it doesn't imply that at all. They're still a blessing. They're not the result of the curse but the frequency that children could come into the world groaning under the curse becomes a significant strain on man and his resources.

The ultimate result of the curse then is man laboring against death. For centuries we know families who would have multiple children, 10 or 15 or more, and half or more of them would die before the age of six. Now man is forced to make stewardship decisions in the shadow of the curse that has to happen.

Now I wish we had more time to cover some of that but Ruben, question? I was talking with a guy about this very issue and he was holding the first view, no, the second view, no birth control at all. Yes. And he was claiming, well, first the blessing of God in Genesis 1 and 28 was under that blessing there are three commands and the same- And through four multiple I fill the earth.

Yeah. In Genesis 9 because he was saying that, well, most people argue that after the fall of the two kings, that's like the fourth view, but then why in Genesis 9 to no one is given the same command? Yeah. And so he wasn't approaching birth control as controlling the result of sin but he's following that command because then humankind somehow still tries to obey that command because we still try to submit the nature in one sense.

Yeah. And actually if I were to repeat your question or your statement, here's a guy who was arguing with you about the fact he was taking the position that you should use no birth control whatsoever. And he was arguing in Genesis 1, 28 and 29 where it talks about the issue of, it gives the cultural mandate, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it.

And he says then after the curse we see even Noah later on is supposed to turn around and do the same thing in terms of populating the earth. Well, you got to understand Genesis 1, 28 was given in an idealistic environment. There was no sin, there was no curse at that particular time.

Man could have taken centuries, millennia to fill the earth. No time limit was ever put on that. But once the curse came, now we're severely limited. Our lifetimes are now shortened from that of forever to only a few dozen years. So now man's existence is not going to go on forever.

He's going to be during those years plagued with death and sickness, disease. He's going to be plagued by scarcity, by pestilence. All those things are going to be the case. So when there's just a few people, they can afford to reproduce as quickly and as rapidly as possible with a lot of those babies dying.

That's okay. Once you get to a point where you're reproducing beyond your ability to be able to support those children or supply for them because of the curse and scarcity, now it becomes a stewardship judgment. And I would say that a person who takes that particular position doesn't take Genesis 3:16 seriously or doesn't take the curse seriously.

And if he's going to be consistent with his position, then he, as I said, he's going to have to forbid any kind of resistance of the curse because birth control is dealing with that. It's dealing with trying to be a good steward of the resources and health that God has given us.

For example, I love kids. I can't wait until my granddaughter is born, all right? Can't wait. I love kids. I could have had a dozen of them. I could have had 20 of them. But after we had our first two kids and then we had twin boys and I saw what it did to my wife's body to do that, then we decided as a couple that's it with the kids, all right?

Because I think I had a good stewardship responsibility as a husband in regards to her health. I have a good stewardship responsibility as a husband in regards to caring for the children that God has given me. When I have multiple, large number of children, what really ends up happening is somebody else ends up taking care of those kids and somebody else ends up supporting those kids, the church, the state.

The guy doesn't and that's his responsibility to do that. Other questions? By the way, not just questions on this but also questions about the sexual relationship and marriage. I didn't cover any of those. For instance, some people ask questions about the issue of oral sex in marriage and in marital counseling.

I talk a little bit about that. There's nothing in Scripture whatsoever that forbids it. However, there's that overriding principle, that principle number three that we talked about. That is our goal here is not self-satisfaction but satisfaction of whom? Spouse. So anything that's going to be repugnant to our spouse is not something that we're going to practice, right?

Anything that's going to be repugnant to our spouse is not something that we're going to practice. There's the guide. What about other, using other objects or I had a Christian couple come in. They've been married for several years. They had a good relationship with each other but they wanted to make their relationship more exciting and they suggested, "Listen.

Would it be good for us to watch some quasi-pornographic movies to enliven our sexual relationship?" Well, when that happens and somebody watches that, who are they ultimately having sex with? Their spouse? No, they're not. They're having sex with the person in that movie, which basically says, "My spouse doesn't have everything I need for my satisfaction at all," or, "I don't have everything I need for my spouse's satisfaction.

I need to bring in something from the outside into our marriage in order to make this work." In that particular case, it would not be a biblical alternative to introduce into the Christian marriage. Other questions? Victoria? If you're just counseling one person, say if I'm counseling a woman and she comes in concerned about their physical intimacy saying that he has no interest in satisfying her, then do you send her away saying that you just need to worry about your husband's satisfaction or is there a way to facilitate that?

No, you need to train her to fulfill her biblical responsibility that if she has a husband that's not interested in satisfying her and you're counseling a woman, then you need to train her to do everything she can to satisfy her spouse and God will take care of her. God will see to it that her basic needs are met.

I've often said this to single people that I've counseled as well as sometimes marital couples like you have a husband or wife who is a Christian and their spouse is not a Christian and they sexually tease them but they're not interested in fulfilling that. Well, the bottom line is nobody ever died without sex.

Nobody ever died without it. In the history of the planet, that's never been the case. So they're not going to die without it. It may be something that's a big desire on their part but they're not going to. They have to learn biblical self-control, focus on the responsibilities that God has given them and then let God work.

Usually when you do good, this is what 1 Peter 3 says, "When you do good to unbelievers, usually they will want to do good back to you." That isn't true all the time but usually that's the general rule. And so if she's doing good to her husband even though he may even be a professing Christian but he's acting like an unbeliever because he doesn't want to fulfill her sexual desires, then it'll make it easy for him to want to do likewise with her.

And by the way, God has created her in such a way as well as him that he finds a certain amount of enjoyment in satisfying her and she finds a certain amount of enjoyment in satisfying him.