Session 5 - God's Design For Marital Union
00:00:00.880 | - Wow, that was a great lunch.
00:00:02.360 | Welcome back.
00:00:03.420 | This is the session where everybody stops breathing.
00:00:07.440 | All right.
00:00:08.280 | I'll never forget doing this particular session
00:00:11.560 | at a conference up in Central Ohio,
00:00:15.120 | and we had about 200 or 300 people there.
00:00:17.480 | And I said, now on the last session,
00:00:20.060 | we're gonna talk about the biblical view of sexuality.
00:00:25.060 | And then I'm gonna open it up for questions.
00:00:29.800 | So I talked about it, and during the whole time,
00:00:32.440 | people just kind of sat there looking straight ahead.
00:00:35.920 | All right.
00:00:37.280 | And at the end, I said, are there any questions?
00:00:39.220 | And everybody just sat there.
00:00:43.040 | Nobody moved.
00:00:44.220 | They were afraid to move.
00:00:46.320 | All right.
00:00:47.160 | And pretty soon, there was one guy about halfway back
00:00:50.160 | on the left-hand side that just kind of slowly,
00:00:52.940 | little bald-head guy, slowly put his hand up like this.
00:00:57.640 | And I said, finally, we got a brave person
00:00:59.440 | to ask a question.
00:01:00.920 | So what's your question?
00:01:02.880 | I said, now stand up so everybody can hear you.
00:01:04.720 | He didn't wanna do that.
00:01:05.920 | So he stood up, and he said, well,
00:01:11.320 | we have this friend, and the whole place lost it.
00:01:15.980 | Yeah, right.
00:01:19.720 | His wife turned all shades of red.
00:01:24.920 | They felt like crawling underneath the pew.
00:01:27.320 | But he went ahead and asked the question.
00:01:28.640 | I answered the question, and then the dam broke,
00:01:30.680 | and then we were there for the next two hours
00:01:32.560 | just answering questions about this.
00:01:34.760 | So this is a very important topic.
00:01:36.800 | Now, before we get into it, pop quiz.
00:01:39.740 | Gentlemen, you're gonna impress the ladies again.
00:01:41.640 | Three things you need to remember
00:01:42.760 | in order to be a godly husband.
00:01:44.400 | I know you had caffeine for lunch, so you can do this.
00:01:47.560 | All right, here we go.
00:01:49.520 | Number one, in order to be a godly husband,
00:01:51.080 | you've gotta be a, huh?
00:01:54.240 | Yeah?
00:01:55.680 | Yes, exactly, yay.
00:01:57.800 | Give the guys a hand.
00:01:59.600 | That's great, all right, wonderful, wonderful.
00:02:02.400 | All right, ladies, you're gonna put a smile
00:02:04.840 | on your husband's face by describing three things
00:02:07.840 | you need to remember in order to be a godly wife,
00:02:10.520 | and you've gotta say it right out loud,
00:02:12.680 | and they all start with S, remember?
00:02:14.640 | Remember, a little bit more sophisticated than the guys,
00:02:17.080 | but you gals got it, I know you do.
00:02:19.520 | Ready, in order to be a godly husband,
00:02:21.240 | I have to practice, uh-huh?
00:02:24.360 | Yeah?
00:02:27.580 | There we go, and selflessly reverent.
00:02:29.940 | Submission suitable, helper, selfless.
00:02:31.780 | Gentlemen, give your wives a hand, okay?
00:02:34.500 | Good.
00:02:35.340 | All right, four rules of communication.
00:02:40.220 | Four rules of communication.
00:02:41.340 | We're gonna go home and start practicing these right away.
00:02:45.500 | Even the kids, we're bringing the kids in on this, too.
00:02:48.780 | Four rules of communication that are really vital
00:02:51.180 | for us to understand.
00:02:52.300 | Number one, be?
00:02:53.700 | - Honest.
00:02:54.540 | - Number two, keep?
00:02:55.940 | - Current.
00:02:56.780 | - Number three, attack?
00:02:58.260 | - Fight.
00:02:59.100 | - That's right, number four, act?
00:03:02.140 | - React.
00:03:03.460 | - That's right, number four, act, don't react.
00:03:05.940 | Be honest, keep current, attack the problem,
00:03:07.620 | not the person, act, don't react.
00:03:09.620 | Now, we wanna talk about the sexual relationship
00:03:12.740 | and the marital relation, in marriage,
00:03:15.900 | and so if you have your notes there,
00:03:17.900 | just grab it and pull 'em out,
00:03:19.880 | and we wanna talk about six main principles
00:03:24.100 | that will help you to understand
00:03:26.860 | what does the Bible say about this.
00:03:28.980 | Most couples that I talk to,
00:03:31.040 | nobody's ever explained this to them,
00:03:32.780 | they've never heard this addressed in church,
00:03:35.560 | and nobody's ever sat down and discipled them,
00:03:38.220 | not even in premarital counseling
00:03:39.780 | was this really handled very much,
00:03:42.180 | even if they did have premarital counseling,
00:03:45.460 | and a lot of couples don't get premarital counseling.
00:03:49.260 | So, what does the Bible really say
00:03:52.160 | about the sexual relationship in marriage?
00:03:54.660 | This is important, and I want you to, in a sense,
00:03:58.420 | grab a hold of this and hold onto this.
00:04:01.380 | Now, when we're dealing with this,
00:04:04.220 | there is a whole spectrum of views
00:04:07.960 | out there in Christianity,
00:04:10.220 | and they run from one side of the spectrum
00:04:13.140 | to the other side of the spectrum,
00:04:14.420 | let me see if I can illustrate that for you
00:04:16.260 | just a little bit.
00:04:17.700 | There is a Victorian approach to union and marriage
00:04:20.740 | that basically says that sex is sin,
00:04:23.580 | it's a nasty topic, it's dirty,
00:04:26.120 | don't talk about it, you shouldn't talk about it,
00:04:31.020 | and there are a lot of people who are raised that way,
00:04:32.820 | raised in Christian homes,
00:04:33.860 | mom and dad didn't really say a whole lot about it,
00:04:36.680 | until the gals reach an age where they went through
00:04:41.000 | a time, menstrual changes that go on in their body,
00:04:44.740 | nobody has said anything about it, or very little,
00:04:48.420 | and there are some Christian homes that function like that.
00:04:51.220 | On the other side of things,
00:04:52.700 | there are other homes that are sort of postmodern view,
00:04:56.660 | which is sex is the highest of all human relationship,
00:04:59.480 | and it's what makes a good marriage,
00:05:01.300 | if you're not having great sex,
00:05:03.300 | then there's something seriously wrong with your marriage.
00:05:06.300 | So you've got this one view on this one side
00:05:08.860 | that basically says it's a sinful thing,
00:05:11.240 | it's a dirty topic, you don't want to talk about it,
00:05:14.620 | and then you've got this other view in Christianity,
00:05:17.180 | clear over here, that says, oh no, it's just the opposite,
00:05:20.460 | it's a wonderful thing,
00:05:21.620 | and if you're not having great sex in marriage,
00:05:24.220 | that is an indicator that you have serious problems
00:05:28.060 | in your marriage.
00:05:29.940 | Well, and then there are various views
00:05:32.700 | in between those particular views that you can highlight.
00:05:36.400 | So what does the Bible say?
00:05:39.540 | I mean, if the Bible genuinely is our guide,
00:05:41.620 | and the Bible's supposed to be our guide, right?
00:05:44.060 | What does the Bible really say?
00:05:45.780 | What does the Bible teach about this subject?
00:05:48.680 | I mean, if it's such an important topic,
00:05:50.500 | and I don't think there's any Christian
00:05:52.020 | that would not say that it's an important topic, it is,
00:05:56.540 | so what does the Bible really, really genuinely say about it?
00:06:01.540 | So, let's take a look at this.
00:06:04.300 | Now, remember what we said
00:06:05.980 | at the very beginning of our conference,
00:06:08.760 | and that was Romans 12, verse nine,
00:06:12.980 | let love be genuine, abhor or hate that which is evil,
00:06:17.980 | and cling to that which is good, right?
00:06:22.460 | So, at the end of this marriage conference,
00:06:25.020 | and people ask you, what did you do this weekend?
00:06:27.060 | I went to a marriage conference,
00:06:28.700 | and I learned how to hate more.
00:06:31.520 | What?
00:06:32.720 | I learned how to hate my own sin more.
00:06:36.140 | So if I am sinning in the sexual area
00:06:41.400 | of the marital relationship,
00:06:43.500 | I have to turn all of my negative emotions on that.
00:06:48.500 | I've gotta learn to hate that sin,
00:06:52.900 | if that's what I'm doing.
00:06:54.140 | Otherwise, I'm not really changing,
00:06:57.100 | and I'm not really growing, just as Pastor just said,
00:07:00.020 | reminded us, that's part of the progressive sanctification
00:07:02.420 | of the believer, in terms of changing and growing,
00:07:05.780 | I want to be more like Christ.
00:07:09.580 | Help me to be more like Christ,
00:07:10.860 | even in the sexual area in my marriage.
00:07:13.920 | Now, I know some of you are probably going,
00:07:15.920 | what does Jesus have to do with that?
00:07:18.940 | All right, everything.
00:07:21.500 | He has everything to do with this.
00:07:23.700 | So if you violate God's word in the sexual realm,
00:07:26.300 | then you've gotta learn to hate that violation.
00:07:29.220 | I've gotta hate it, and I've gotta change.
00:07:33.620 | I want to be more like Christ in this area.
00:07:36.840 | So let's take a look at this.
00:07:38.820 | Now, let's go back, and let's go back
00:07:40.660 | to where we began our conference.
00:07:42.820 | This is a good way to start this last session.
00:07:45.800 | Back to Genesis chapter one,
00:07:48.380 | and we'll fall in here in verse 27.
00:07:52.380 | So, God created man in his own image.
00:07:55.460 | In the image of God, he created him.
00:07:56.900 | Male and female, he created them.
00:08:00.220 | So Adam was created fully and completely male.
00:08:04.040 | Eve was created fully and completely female.
00:08:08.340 | All of that is true, and then later on,
00:08:13.200 | in verse 31, God calls everything he had created very good.
00:08:18.200 | So, the sexual relationship and the way
00:08:22.420 | in which you were created in your body is a good thing.
00:08:25.740 | Now, I realize we have a lot of problems
00:08:28.180 | in our culture with the transgender type of people
00:08:31.460 | who struggle with their identity.
00:08:35.140 | They struggle with who they are,
00:08:36.940 | and it's only culture that has done that to them.
00:08:39.100 | You understand that?
00:08:40.140 | That's what culture has done,
00:08:41.980 | and basically, they can become discontent
00:08:44.260 | if they have a woman's body, or if they have a male body,
00:08:47.640 | they become discontent with their body,
00:08:49.140 | and they wanna be a different body,
00:08:51.160 | which is very similar to what happened
00:08:52.780 | in the first century with the Gnostics.
00:08:54.760 | The Gnostics believe everything material,
00:08:57.820 | everything physical was evil,
00:09:00.300 | and everything spiritual was good,
00:09:03.100 | and so the goal for the Gnostic,
00:09:05.300 | especially the Docetic type of Gnostics,
00:09:08.700 | was to escape the body, get out of the body,
00:09:12.600 | and this is one of the main reasons
00:09:14.180 | that 1 John was written, to refute that kind of Docetism.
00:09:18.320 | We have it revisited today,
00:09:20.060 | and this whole transgender thing,
00:09:22.480 | this is not anything new to history,
00:09:24.760 | people being uncomfortable with who they are on the inside,
00:09:28.420 | rejecting who they are on the outside,
00:09:30.620 | and the way in which God has created them,
00:09:32.820 | and as a result of that, they just become unhappy people.
00:09:37.180 | Well, let me tell you something,
00:09:38.340 | and I've counseled transgenders before,
00:09:41.140 | God does not create junk, he doesn't do that.
00:09:45.340 | Your body wasn't created like that,
00:09:46.980 | and God didn't make a mistake,
00:09:48.180 | you're not his first mistake in all of human history,
00:09:51.700 | no, no, no, in all of eternity,
00:09:53.860 | you're not his first mistake,
00:09:55.360 | he doesn't make mistakes like that,
00:09:57.740 | so that means you have to bring your thinking
00:10:01.000 | and your feelings in line with the way
00:10:03.100 | in which you were created,
00:10:04.900 | and learn to be happy with the way in which you were created
00:10:08.180 | as a male or as a female, this is really key.
00:10:12.160 | You can self-identify yourself as a frog, I don't care,
00:10:16.160 | but you're unhappy with the way
00:10:17.420 | in which God has created you, all right?
00:10:20.700 | This self-identity thing is going to wreak havoc
00:10:24.340 | among young people today,
00:10:25.860 | because they believe this false notion,
00:10:29.540 | this horrible notion, and it's a self-destructive notion,
00:10:32.980 | that somehow I can determine who I want to be,
00:10:37.980 | all just on the basis of my willpower.
00:10:40.540 | That's who I am, all right?
00:10:44.500 | No, no, no, you can't do that, you're going to wreak havoc.
00:10:48.480 | A thousand years from now,
00:10:50.060 | you can have sex reassignment surgery,
00:10:52.780 | and you can change all the soft tissue in your body,
00:10:55.940 | and take all the hormones of the opposite sex,
00:10:58.480 | but a thousand years from now, they dig up your skeleton,
00:11:00.900 | they'll know immediately whether or not
00:11:02.340 | you were a male or a female.
00:11:04.180 | You're not going to change your skeletal structure.
00:11:07.300 | Not going to do that.
00:11:08.540 | God doesn't create junk.
00:11:10.120 | What God created, he said, was very good.
00:11:14.340 | That was very good.
00:11:15.380 | The way you were created as a male, as a female,
00:11:17.940 | was very good, that's not a bad thing,
00:11:20.260 | and it never was a bad thing.
00:11:22.460 | And it's important that we agree with God
00:11:25.020 | in this particular area.
00:11:27.260 | So, God created a husband-wife relationship
00:11:30.400 | in order to complement one another,
00:11:32.680 | in order to be companions with one another,
00:11:36.120 | in order to experience one fleshness
00:11:41.120 | in the fullest extent.
00:11:45.480 | You're never ever going to be one flesh,
00:11:48.560 | not in the fullest spiritual sense
00:11:50.560 | that the Bible describes, with a robot
00:11:53.820 | that's anonymically the opposite sex.
00:11:56.760 | You're never going to be one flesh.
00:11:58.400 | It's only with another human being
00:12:01.720 | that is in a heterosexual relationship.
00:12:05.080 | You'll never be one flesh, in the same sense,
00:12:07.960 | with someone of the same sex.
00:12:10.640 | You'll never be one flesh through masturbation,
00:12:14.000 | and most theologians, and I think that they're right,
00:12:16.640 | believe that masturbation is the first step
00:12:18.880 | towards homosexuality because it is the same sex
00:12:23.240 | satisfying the same sex.
00:12:25.240 | That's the first steps in that direction.
00:12:27.560 | You're never going to be that way,
00:12:30.560 | and you're never going to understand
00:12:32.160 | what true companionship and complementarianism is
00:12:36.720 | until you're absolutely satisfied
00:12:39.880 | with who you are in your body,
00:12:43.440 | and the way in which God has created you.
00:12:46.280 | God called it, again, very good.
00:12:49.640 | So, that's the first principle
00:12:52.520 | I think we've gotta nail down.
00:12:54.160 | The first principle is that sex and marriage
00:12:57.520 | is a pure and very holy thing.
00:13:01.520 | Sex and marriage is pure and holy.
00:13:06.680 | God called it not just good, but very good.
00:13:11.680 | This is important.
00:13:13.620 | And as Hebrews chapter 13 and verse four says,
00:13:18.480 | "Let the marriage bed be held in honor among all,
00:13:22.920 | "and let the marriage bed be undefiled,"
00:13:25.360 | or let marriage be held in honor among all,
00:13:27.640 | let the marriage bed be undefiled.
00:13:30.200 | This is a pure and holy thing.
00:13:31.880 | It's not a dirty thing, it's a good thing,
00:13:34.200 | it's a very pure thing.
00:13:35.840 | And in fact, how dare we call something dirty
00:13:41.160 | what God has called not just good,
00:13:43.480 | but God has called very good.
00:13:45.640 | So, that gets us away from that Victorian view of sexuality
00:13:49.760 | that somehow that says that sex is a dirty topic,
00:13:54.240 | it's a bad thing, you should never talk about it.
00:13:57.320 | I realize that we live in a culture
00:13:59.240 | that is twisted in such a bad way
00:14:00.960 | that almost every reference to sex
00:14:02.920 | is a negative, God-dishonoring reference,
00:14:05.280 | and it tends to make us as Christians in our thinking
00:14:08.040 | think that sex is a negative thing,
00:14:09.880 | but God never created it like that.
00:14:12.020 | It's a very beautiful thing.
00:14:13.880 | In fact, this is one of the things
00:14:14.800 | I spend a lot of time with when I'm working with
00:14:17.200 | or trying to counsel a person who is homosexual or lesbian,
00:14:21.960 | in this particular case,
00:14:23.320 | I want them to understand how beautiful
00:14:25.200 | the heterosexual relationship was originally designed to be.
00:14:28.800 | And when they get done,
00:14:30.540 | when I'm done painting that mural for them
00:14:33.200 | on what it's going to be,
00:14:34.420 | all of a sudden they realize how their practices
00:14:37.520 | and what they do are so inconsistent
00:14:39.840 | with what God designed it to be, now they're changing.
00:14:42.480 | In fact, we have a guy in our fellowship group,
00:14:46.000 | there, Grace, he is formerly a part
00:14:49.560 | of the homosexual community there in L.A.
00:14:51.720 | He was a leader among them.
00:14:54.920 | He was a significant leader among them.
00:14:57.200 | He came to Christ, was gloriously saved,
00:14:59.880 | and he just told me the other day,
00:15:02.200 | guess what, I'm dating a young lady here.
00:15:06.280 | I'm going, she-ass.
00:15:08.140 | This is so great.
00:15:09.280 | This is wonderful there at the church.
00:15:12.240 | And so it's really good to see those kind of things
00:15:15.980 | happen, transformations genuinely occur.
00:15:19.800 | So the implication is the heterosexual relationship
00:15:24.800 | in a monogamous marriage of commitment
00:15:28.900 | is what God has intended from the very beginning,
00:15:32.280 | and that it is a pure thing,
00:15:34.560 | and that it is very much a holy thing.
00:15:37.280 | It's not a dirty thing.
00:15:38.600 | It's not a bad thing.
00:15:40.360 | And we've got to get those kind of thoughts out of our head.
00:15:43.400 | It's a very good thing.
00:15:45.760 | Now there's a second thing I want you to understand.
00:15:48.120 | Not only that, but I want you to understand
00:15:50.720 | that sex is not the maces of marriage,
00:15:52.600 | and marriage is not a sexual relationship.
00:15:54.720 | This is important to see as well,
00:15:58.120 | which sort of gets us away from this postmodern view
00:16:00.900 | over here that says the highest of all human relationships
00:16:04.320 | is having great sex.
00:16:05.920 | That's not true either.
00:16:08.840 | Sex is an expression of marriage.
00:16:11.840 | It can be an expression of one fleshness,
00:16:14.840 | and a couple's companionship,
00:16:18.040 | but it is not the form of the highest
00:16:20.520 | of all human relationships.
00:16:22.300 | It's not it at all.
00:16:23.880 | Sex is a very important part of marriage.
00:16:25.880 | There's no doubt about that.
00:16:27.440 | Not to participate in it wholeheartedly,
00:16:29.760 | aggressively, and passionately is sin against God,
00:16:33.120 | spouse, as well as self.
00:16:36.280 | But sex does not equal marriage.
00:16:41.280 | Since the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church
00:16:43.320 | made sex equal to marriage.
00:16:45.080 | That's the reason why when a young man, young woman
00:16:47.200 | in Roman Catholicism would have sex prior to marriage,
00:16:50.040 | they would try to get them married as quickly as possible.
00:16:52.960 | That's one of the worst things that can happen.
00:16:55.360 | Sex does not equal marriage.
00:16:58.240 | Any two human beings can have sex.
00:17:01.320 | Any two animals can have sex.
00:17:04.500 | Any two gerbils can have sex.
00:17:06.640 | But that doesn't mean that that equals marriage.
00:17:09.880 | It doesn't mean that.
00:17:12.200 | And it never meant that in the Bible at all.
00:17:15.320 | There's no place in the Bible for that.
00:17:18.100 | Sex does not equal marriage.
00:17:20.000 | Sex is an expression of marriage,
00:17:22.820 | but it's not the same thing as marriage.
00:17:24.820 | Unity in marriage that the Bible talks about
00:17:29.320 | goes way beyond just the sexual relationship.
00:17:33.200 | And I think you understand that.
00:17:34.760 | Let me give you an illustration about this.
00:17:41.200 | Back several years ago, we had a couple in our church.
00:17:44.240 | Been married for about 12 years.
00:17:48.540 | Called me up, said they wanted to come in for counseling.
00:17:54.040 | I said, "Sure."
00:17:55.080 | So we set a time to meet.
00:17:56.480 | I couldn't imagine, they were a very active
00:17:59.160 | part of our church, very involved, wonderful couple.
00:18:01.680 | They loved the Lord.
00:18:03.080 | Couldn't imagine what they wanted to come in
00:18:05.280 | and talk with me about.
00:18:08.640 | So they came in, I had prayer, I said,
00:18:09.920 | "Hey, what prompted you to come in for counseling?
00:18:12.820 | "Why do you think you need it?"
00:18:14.720 | They kind of both hung their head a little bit and sighed.
00:18:18.040 | And I said, "Well, you might as well tell me.
00:18:20.400 | "I mean, you set up this appointment.
00:18:21.820 | "Why are you here?"
00:18:23.020 | And they said to me, "Well, you know,
00:18:27.100 | "we've been married for 12 years."
00:18:28.480 | I said, "Yes."
00:18:29.320 | "Well, in all those 12 years,
00:18:32.980 | "we have never yet consummated our relationship."
00:18:37.980 | Now, in counseling, you're never supposed to look shocked.
00:18:40.840 | But I'm sure I look something like,
00:18:45.080 | you've been married for 12 years,
00:18:49.640 | you've never consummated your relationship,
00:18:51.360 | what in the world is going on here?
00:18:53.960 | What's happened?
00:18:54.800 | They kind of hung their head,
00:18:57.320 | and then he began to describe the fact
00:18:58.920 | that he didn't know this prior to marriage,
00:19:00.840 | but he had a serious physical issue.
00:19:03.020 | And he had had several surgeries
00:19:06.680 | in order to correct that issue, it all failed,
00:19:08.960 | and now their desire to have children was quickly dying.
00:19:11.940 | And they were beginning to think that their relationship,
00:19:17.400 | their marriage, was on the rocks.
00:19:19.040 | Well, if I had a Roman Catholic view of marriage,
00:19:20.760 | I would have agreed.
00:19:22.120 | Well, you can't have sex, so you're not married.
00:19:25.240 | You might as well forget it.
00:19:26.580 | But I didn't have a Roman Catholic view of marriage.
00:19:28.200 | I said, "Listen, there are certain ways
00:19:29.760 | "you can learn to fulfill one another
00:19:31.180 | "even without having sex.
00:19:32.880 | "Since he has this particular physiological problem,
00:19:35.480 | "and the doctors don't seem to have any answer for it
00:19:37.740 | "at this particular point,
00:19:39.120 | "so what are we going to do?"
00:19:42.840 | Later on, by the way, they ended up adopting
00:19:44.920 | two Chinese twin girls from China.
00:19:48.240 | They're all teenagers grown up now.
00:19:50.780 | Raised 'em up in a godly Christian home.
00:19:52.520 | Those two girls are out serving the Lord.
00:19:54.080 | It's really great.
00:19:54.980 | But, and they're still married,
00:19:57.960 | and they're very happily married as well.
00:19:59.960 | And to my knowledge, now, what,
00:20:03.160 | it's probably been 25, 30 years now,
00:20:06.680 | they've been married, and my knowledge,
00:20:08.280 | they've never ever yet consummated their relationship.
00:20:10.760 | I don't think they can.
00:20:12.200 | It's not possible for that to happen.
00:20:14.560 | Well, this is the reason why we say
00:20:19.000 | that unity in marriage goes way beyond just sexuality,
00:20:24.000 | which gets us away from that postmodern view
00:20:26.840 | that says sex is the highest of all human relationships,
00:20:29.360 | and you gotta have great sex
00:20:30.840 | in order to have a great marriage.
00:20:31.800 | That's not true.
00:20:33.680 | Sex and what's going on in your marriage
00:20:36.240 | can be an indicator of certain problems in your marriage,
00:20:39.160 | but it doesn't mean that you've gotta be having,
00:20:42.280 | I mean, you look at these supermarket tabloids
00:20:45.640 | that you have to pass through,
00:20:47.080 | and they're all displayed on either side
00:20:48.960 | when you're checking things out.
00:20:51.080 | 12 ways to have great sex.
00:20:53.360 | You know, all that, I mean,
00:20:54.600 | this is just thrown at you constantly, everywhere,
00:20:59.600 | but that doesn't have to be true
00:21:02.640 | God never intended that to be the case
00:21:06.040 | because marriage success is much more than sexual success.
00:21:09.360 | It goes way beyond that.
00:21:12.240 | Marriage success is much more than sexual success.
00:21:15.640 | You say, okay, all right,
00:21:18.360 | if that gets us away from the Victorian view,
00:21:21.560 | and it also gets us away from this postmodern,
00:21:24.480 | liberated view that sort of makes sex
00:21:26.840 | the highest of all human relationships,
00:21:28.720 | if that's the case, then what is it?
00:21:30.400 | What is it, biblically?
00:21:31.320 | All right, let's talk about that.
00:21:33.320 | Grab your Bible.
00:21:34.160 | Let's go over to 1 Corinthians chapter seven.
00:21:36.960 | Now, I'm gonna need both husbands and wives
00:21:40.760 | to put their seat belts back on,
00:21:43.220 | the crash helmets, and flak vests.
00:21:48.440 | All right.
00:21:50.640 | 1 Corinthians chapter seven,
00:21:58.240 | in verse three, here we go.
00:22:01.840 | The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights
00:22:06.840 | and likewise the wife to her husband.
00:22:10.920 | Some translations say the husband should fulfill
00:22:16.120 | his marital duty to his wife,
00:22:19.600 | and likewise the wife should fulfill
00:22:21.800 | her marital duty to her husband.
00:22:25.000 | Now, when we read translations like that,
00:22:29.240 | we say duty, I've never viewed sex as a duty.
00:22:34.240 | This is something that I am supposed to view
00:22:37.520 | like going to work every day.
00:22:40.440 | That's my duty to go to work every day,
00:22:43.080 | so it's my duty to have sex.
00:22:45.800 | That's my duty.
00:22:47.400 | Is that what sex is?
00:22:49.100 | Well, the problem is not in the terminology.
00:22:53.000 | The problem is in our thinking about it,
00:22:57.440 | because it's very obvious in our culture
00:23:01.200 | we have been trained to think about sexuality
00:23:04.120 | in non-biblical ways.
00:23:07.200 | And what I'm gonna help you to do is face the fact
00:23:10.580 | that we need to think about it in a biblical way,
00:23:14.600 | because the Bible says that if you're a husband,
00:23:19.380 | then you have a marital duty to your wife.
00:23:24.380 | And if you're a wife, you have a marital duty
00:23:27.320 | to your husband, or to put it the way
00:23:29.880 | the English Standard Translation makes it,
00:23:32.200 | if you're a husband, then you should give
00:23:34.920 | to your wife her conjugal rights.
00:23:38.180 | And if you're a wife, you need to give
00:23:41.980 | to your husband his conjugal rights.
00:23:45.240 | When you said, "I do," that was part of the deal.
00:23:50.060 | That was it.
00:23:51.020 | So that tells me this.
00:23:55.020 | That tells me that sex has as its primary goal
00:24:00.020 | that of satisfying your spouse.
00:24:05.060 | I want that to sink in.
00:24:08.240 | Sex has as its primary goal
00:24:13.980 | that of satisfying your spouse.
00:24:18.140 | The goal is not getting pleasure.
00:24:20.980 | The goal is not having a climax or an orgasm.
00:24:25.060 | It's not necessarily to achieve children.
00:24:28.740 | It is to provide joy to your spouse.
00:24:33.740 | In other words, this goal is nothing about me.
00:24:39.220 | This goal is about my spouse.
00:24:43.780 | I am focused on doing whatever I can
00:24:48.220 | in my ministry role as a spouse
00:24:52.260 | in order to fulfill my wife,
00:24:54.700 | or a wife in order to fulfill her husband.
00:24:58.020 | That is your duty.
00:25:00.500 | That is your spouse's conjugal rights.
00:25:04.940 | And to withhold that from them is sinful.
00:25:10.980 | To withhold that from them is sinful.
00:25:13.860 | You say, "Oh, Dr. Street,
00:25:15.660 | you have just gone from preaching to meddling."
00:25:18.580 | All right?
00:25:20.980 | You are really meddling in my life.
00:25:23.980 | But it is.
00:25:25.260 | When you do that, when you withhold yourself from that,
00:25:28.380 | whatever the reason,
00:25:29.380 | then you're not thinking about them.
00:25:33.580 | You're thinking about you.
00:25:35.380 | You're thinking about you.
00:25:38.340 | It's all about you.
00:25:40.300 | It's all about my fulfillment.
00:25:42.820 | It's all about whether I'm happy.
00:25:45.580 | It's all about whether or not I'm gratified.
00:25:48.500 | No, that kind of thinking is not a part of Christian bed.
00:25:54.820 | The Christian bed says, "No, it's not all about me.
00:25:59.340 | It's all about you."
00:26:00.460 | Now, God has created you in such a way
00:26:03.180 | that in fulfilling your spouse,
00:26:07.500 | you receive a considerable amount of fulfillment yourself.
00:26:10.820 | But that fulfillment is not your goal.
00:26:12.940 | That's not your goal.
00:26:15.380 | Your goal is their fulfillment.
00:26:16.980 | This is kind of interesting
00:26:20.140 | because I love talking about this.
00:26:22.100 | We leave this to the very last in premarital counseling
00:26:25.340 | before couples get married.
00:26:27.700 | Last session, we talk about this thing.
00:26:30.180 | So they go off on their honeymoon.
00:26:32.700 | And they have their honeymoon.
00:26:34.980 | And they come back and I see them there at church.
00:26:37.500 | I said, "Hey, how was your honeymoon?
00:26:38.860 | Things go well?"
00:26:39.860 | "Well, yeah, we had a great honeymoon.
00:26:41.500 | It was just, you know."
00:26:42.500 | "So what's the problem?"
00:26:44.060 | "Well, you know, we did what you told us to do.
00:26:49.060 | I wanted to make sure my wife was absolutely fulfilled.
00:26:54.660 | I wanted to make sure my husband was absolutely fulfilled.
00:26:57.060 | So I did everything that I could.
00:26:58.380 | And it just kind of like didn't work."
00:27:04.580 | All right?
00:27:05.420 | So then I ask a few more questions.
00:27:07.820 | And all of a sudden, I start to discover
00:27:09.980 | that what's really going on in here
00:27:13.980 | is that she is trying to fulfill him
00:27:17.980 | the way a woman would be fulfilled.
00:27:20.540 | And he is trying to fulfill her
00:27:22.860 | the way that a man would be fulfilled.
00:27:24.820 | And they are like ships passing in the night.
00:27:27.900 | All right?
00:27:30.540 | No, no, no.
00:27:31.500 | Part of marital oneness is him learning
00:27:36.500 | what fulfills a woman that's giving her her conjugal rights
00:27:42.180 | and her learning what fulfills a man
00:27:48.100 | that's giving him his conjugal rights.
00:27:51.500 | Then all of a sudden, when they finally catch this,
00:27:55.500 | oh my goodness.
00:28:01.460 | All right?
00:28:02.380 | Then it happens.
00:28:05.140 | Then it happens.
00:28:06.900 | So the key here is that I am giving myself to my spouse
00:28:11.900 | for the purpose of their fulfillment,
00:28:16.820 | not for the purpose of my self-gratification.
00:28:20.260 | So I have to retrain my thinking
00:28:22.980 | from getting pleasure to that of giving pleasure
00:28:27.220 | because our whole culture is focused
00:28:30.620 | upon getting, getting, getting, getting.
00:28:33.820 | It's not focused upon giving, giving, giving, giving.
00:28:37.700 | This brings the mind of Christ right into the bedroom
00:28:41.940 | where I am giving and I am giving.
00:28:46.980 | I am here to minister to you on this level.
00:28:50.220 | When I said I do, that's what I did.
00:28:52.580 | I gave myself to you.
00:28:55.380 | Look at verse four, all right?
00:28:57.540 | For the wife does not have authority over her own body,
00:29:02.660 | but the husband does.
00:29:04.820 | Ooh, feminism, hates that.
00:29:07.340 | Likewise, the husband does not have authority
00:29:09.580 | over his own body, but the wife does.
00:29:14.020 | Most men don't like that.
00:29:15.780 | In other words, this thing,
00:29:18.980 | when you say I do, doesn't belong to you anymore.
00:29:24.020 | It belongs to your spouse, and you're gonna use this
00:29:27.340 | in order to fulfill them as best as you can.
00:29:31.220 | That's what you're gonna do.
00:29:32.940 | You're gonna use that to fulfill them all you can.
00:29:37.020 | Oh, my word.
00:29:38.900 | I know this is hard.
00:29:41.460 | I know some of you are sitting there,
00:29:42.780 | you're not breathing at this particular point.
00:29:45.100 | Let me see if I can illustrate this for you.
00:29:52.020 | I remember teaching this in counseling one day,
00:29:54.380 | and the wife sort of sat back, and she rolls her eyes.
00:30:00.860 | Some women have the capacity to do that.
00:30:02.860 | And I said, did I say something offensive?
00:30:07.500 | Did I say something wrong?
00:30:08.500 | She says, no, no, no.
00:30:09.940 | She says, I know where you're going with this.
00:30:12.260 | I said, you do?
00:30:13.860 | She says, yeah.
00:30:15.380 | You want me to make sure that he is absolutely fulfilled.
00:30:18.940 | I said, well, it's not what I want.
00:30:21.140 | It's what the Bible is talking about.
00:30:23.620 | And she says, well, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.
00:30:25.420 | That's it.
00:30:26.260 | And I said, the problem is?
00:30:30.300 | Well, she says, you don't understand my husband.
00:30:32.740 | What?
00:30:34.580 | Well, he's got this unrelenting sex drive,
00:30:39.140 | and that doesn't stop.
00:30:41.060 | I mean, if I did this,
00:30:42.220 | I wouldn't get anything else done in my life, all right?
00:30:45.820 | And there's nothing, we've got three kids.
00:30:47.900 | I gotta take care of those three kids.
00:30:49.300 | What would I do?
00:30:50.140 | Should I fix supper for them?
00:30:51.940 | This is all we would end up doing.
00:30:54.020 | I said, well, as impressed as you are
00:30:59.060 | with your husband's sex drive,
00:31:00.940 | I'm not sure that that is the issue here.
00:31:05.100 | I said, so I'm gonna give you an assignment.
00:31:08.220 | This week, I want you to go home.
00:31:14.900 | When your husband comes home from work,
00:31:16.460 | I want you to make sure you put a movie on the TV,
00:31:18.900 | do whatever you want, keep the kids occupied.
00:31:21.140 | You be standing behind the door with the nicest negligee,
00:31:24.820 | the one that he really likes,
00:31:25.820 | and you grab his hand and take him to bed.
00:31:28.300 | Oh.
00:31:29.140 | Are you serious?
00:31:34.700 | Yes, I'm absolutely serious.
00:31:37.060 | Oh.
00:31:38.020 | You can see the husband sitting in the other chair.
00:31:40.060 | He's sitting up really straight.
00:31:41.660 | This is gonna be an interesting week for him.
00:31:47.500 | (congregation laughing)
00:31:50.900 | So, they left, and she went shuffling out of the room.
00:31:55.900 | He went skipping out of the room.
00:32:00.220 | (congregation laughing)
00:32:03.540 | Week went by.
00:32:08.340 | They came back in.
00:32:09.180 | I had prayer with them, and as soon as I said amen,
00:32:12.060 | she almost came across the desk,
00:32:13.700 | and she pointed right at my Bible, and she says,
00:32:16.380 | this Bible stuff works.
00:32:18.500 | It works.
00:32:19.580 | I said, what do you mean?
00:32:20.620 | She said, well, I did what you said.
00:32:22.180 | I said, what'd you do?
00:32:23.020 | She said, well, when my husband came home,
00:32:24.700 | I was standing behind the door with a negligee on,
00:32:27.060 | and I grabbed his hand, and I took him to bed.
00:32:28.700 | First day it happened, second day it happened,
00:32:30.780 | third day it happened, fourth day it happened,
00:32:32.940 | fifth day he came in the door.
00:32:34.380 | I'm fine, I'm just fine.
00:32:36.580 | (congregation laughing)
00:32:39.900 | That's exactly what she said.
00:32:43.420 | I'm fine, I'm okay.
00:32:45.740 | (congregation laughing)
00:32:47.220 | She says, this Bible stuff works.
00:32:49.660 | I said, well, God designed you.
00:32:53.980 | It's supposed to work.
00:32:56.340 | We have to be serious about what we're doing here.
00:32:59.160 | It is part of your marital duty to fulfill your spouse.
00:33:03.940 | It's just as important for the husband
00:33:06.940 | to fulfill his wife in this way.
00:33:10.540 | This is really critical.
00:33:12.740 | I cannot tell you how often this has changed
00:33:15.980 | the thinking of so many couples.
00:33:18.220 | There are some people who will say,
00:33:20.940 | I had another woman in counseling who said to me,
00:33:22.980 | well, now, wait a minute.
00:33:24.740 | It's just not my nature to be aggressive or assertive.
00:33:29.740 | I'm just kind of quiet, and she kind of sat there
00:33:33.660 | and flicked her eyes a little bit.
00:33:36.660 | It's just not my nature.
00:33:37.860 | I know what she was saying.
00:33:40.860 | She was basically saying to me, well,
00:33:43.340 | I'm just too quiet and passive for me
00:33:45.660 | to initiate anything like this in our marriage.
00:33:48.980 | I just can't do that.
00:33:51.340 | And she kind of sat back, self-satisfied with that comment,
00:33:55.580 | and I said, let me ask you a question.
00:33:57.900 | It's just like anything else in life.
00:34:01.340 | Are you gonna let your nature rule you
00:34:04.580 | or what God's word says rule you?
00:34:07.060 | What are you gonna do here?
00:34:09.620 | Are you gonna allow your nature to rule you
00:34:11.780 | or what God's word says?
00:34:13.100 | When you said, I do,
00:34:17.100 | you gave yourself to your husband,
00:34:20.460 | and now you're holding back from him?
00:34:23.740 | What are you doing?
00:34:24.860 | No wonder there's so many problems.
00:34:27.660 | No wonder there's so much unfaithfulness.
00:34:31.820 | We're not taking this seriously in the Christian realm,
00:34:35.860 | and it needs to be taken seriously.
00:34:39.260 | Are we going to allow our natures to guide us
00:34:41.740 | or what God's word says guide us?
00:34:43.740 | 'Cause there's a lot of things in God's word
00:34:46.300 | that's not my nature.
00:34:47.460 | When God says, I need to forgive someone
00:34:52.260 | who has horribly offended me,
00:34:55.020 | that just is not my nature to do that.
00:34:57.820 | But I know I need to do it.
00:35:00.500 | I know I need to do it.
00:35:02.980 | And the same thing's true here.
00:35:08.380 | You have gotta take the initiative
00:35:09.940 | to make sure your spouse is fulfilled.
00:35:12.260 | I'm speaking to men as well as the women here.
00:35:14.580 | This is such a key thing.
00:35:16.940 | This presumes, and this is one of the reasons
00:35:18.860 | why we had this communication thing
00:35:21.740 | before we had the sex talk thing,
00:35:24.420 | because this presumes there has to be
00:35:27.980 | good, honest communication going on
00:35:30.540 | between a husband and wife
00:35:31.940 | so that the husband communicates
00:35:34.060 | whether or not he's fulfilled or not,
00:35:35.660 | the wife communicates whether or not she's fulfilled or not,
00:35:38.340 | and neither person is being offended
00:35:42.180 | by what the other person says,
00:35:43.620 | but they're willing to throw themselves
00:35:45.940 | into being a problem solver in this area.
00:35:48.420 | They're willing to do this.
00:35:51.180 | Are you breathing?
00:35:53.540 | Okay, take a good oxygen.
00:35:56.780 | Okay, there we go.
00:36:00.180 | All right, so sex has its primary goal,
00:36:03.500 | that is satisfying your mate.
00:36:04.620 | Now there's a fourth thing.
00:36:06.420 | The fourth thing is this.
00:36:08.780 | That God created both the husband and wife
00:36:11.940 | with an equal ability to satisfy one another.
00:36:14.380 | God created both the husband and a wife
00:36:18.500 | with an equal ability to satisfy one another.
00:36:21.500 | Now this is really critical here.
00:36:24.860 | Sometimes just by nature of the educational setting
00:36:31.660 | that I'm in, I read a lot of stuff,
00:36:34.580 | and I read feminists talk about
00:36:37.660 | they teach women through television magazines,
00:36:40.020 | through some academic literature
00:36:42.100 | that sex is for number one, manipulation,
00:36:44.020 | number two, self-indulgence,
00:36:45.260 | number three, financial gain, all right?
00:36:48.220 | That's what sex is for.
00:36:50.180 | It's for manipulation,
00:36:51.580 | for self-indulgence, and financial gain.
00:36:53.900 | That's what secular feminism says.
00:36:56.660 | You want something to destroy your relationship,
00:36:59.380 | whether a man adopts that philosophy
00:37:01.020 | or a woman adopts that philosophy,
00:37:02.940 | that will destroy your relationship.
00:37:04.860 | You buy into that feministic idea,
00:37:07.380 | and it will wreck a marriage
00:37:09.620 | because all of that is all about
00:37:13.180 | my personal self-gratification,
00:37:15.380 | what I consider is important to me,
00:37:17.740 | not what is important to my spouse.
00:37:20.140 | That's such a key thing.
00:37:23.180 | And God created the husband and wife
00:37:25.860 | with an equal ability to satisfy each other.
00:37:28.260 | No one has soul, power, or authority.
00:37:31.820 | You do not have this independent of your spouse.
00:37:35.460 | You don't.
00:37:36.660 | Your body belongs to them.
00:37:37.860 | Their body belongs to you.
00:37:39.940 | That means both should be aggressive.
00:37:42.500 | That means that as a man,
00:37:44.420 | I'm not gonna go to work
00:37:45.460 | and totally exhaust myself during the day
00:37:48.500 | and leave nothing for my wife in bed at night.
00:37:51.020 | I'm gonna leave some energy for her.
00:37:53.100 | That's part of my marital duty.
00:37:54.980 | I'm not gonna exhaust myself.
00:37:58.140 | As a woman, I'm not gonna exhaust myself
00:38:00.020 | with my job or my children during the day.
00:38:04.180 | I'm gonna leave part of that energy for my husband.
00:38:08.060 | I'm gonna do that.
00:38:10.140 | Both should be aggressive.
00:38:13.940 | Sexual relationships are to be equal and reciprocal.
00:38:17.820 | And it carries the mind of Christ,
00:38:20.340 | which basically says,
00:38:22.180 | I am here to find out how I can minister to you
00:38:25.780 | in this area of our marriage.
00:38:27.740 | Wow, that is the mind of Christ.
00:38:30.260 | How can I minister to you in this area of my marriage?
00:38:34.100 | Ecclesiastes 9.9 is a very important,
00:38:38.820 | which talks about,
00:38:41.300 | I remember several years ago,
00:38:43.740 | I did a marriage retreat just like this
00:38:46.220 | up in Sacramento area.
00:38:47.420 | It was actually up in Lake Tahoe.
00:38:49.700 | And we were in this big auditorium
00:38:51.180 | and had an all glass side
00:38:52.580 | and they were looking out on Lake Tahoe
00:38:54.100 | and the mountains and everything.
00:38:54.940 | And I'm not sure they even looked at me,
00:38:56.860 | but, which is okay.
00:38:58.980 | They can look at that as long as they were listening.
00:39:01.060 | And during that marriage conference,
00:39:06.140 | the pastor says,
00:39:06.980 | how do you wanna theme this?
00:39:08.580 | Was right around Valentine's Day.
00:39:10.380 | So I said, well, let's theme it like this.
00:39:12.220 | Ecclesiastes 9.9, will you be my Valentine?
00:39:14.940 | So the whole thing was about that.
00:39:19.780 | And we had a wonderful weekend.
00:39:22.460 | Everything went really well.
00:39:23.940 | And then when the weekend's over,
00:39:26.620 | everybody went back to their respective jobs and everything.
00:39:29.420 | And about 10, 11 months later,
00:39:33.060 | I got a call from the pastor.
00:39:34.500 | And he said to me,
00:39:38.420 | you remember the seminar you did up at Lake Tahoe?
00:39:40.900 | And I said, yeah, I do.
00:39:42.860 | He says, well, you realize how much trouble
00:39:46.300 | you caused us in our church.
00:39:48.220 | I'm going, no, that's not my role.
00:39:51.420 | I wanna be able to go in and compliment your ministry.
00:39:54.220 | I'm thinking to myself, what did I do?
00:39:55.460 | What did I say?
00:39:56.300 | I don't know what I did.
00:39:57.700 | And then he started laughing on the other end of the phone.
00:39:59.940 | I said, what's going on?
00:40:01.100 | He says, well, he says, I wanna let you know
00:40:03.260 | that we have had a baby explosion in our church.
00:40:06.180 | [congregation laughing]
00:40:08.260 | We have gone into a building program
00:40:10.980 | to triple our nursery size, all right, in our church.
00:40:15.980 | And we all attribute it back to that Lake Tahoe event.
00:40:20.020 | All right?
00:40:21.260 | That's what happened.
00:40:22.460 | So I just sent them into an entire new building program.
00:40:26.100 | And I realize around here, you can't build anything.
00:40:28.180 | So I don't know what you're gonna do.
00:40:29.980 | So after this, you're gonna be in deep trouble.
00:40:33.620 | So anyhow, there you go.
00:40:38.380 | Ecclesiastes 9.9, will you be my Valentine?
00:40:41.140 | Sexual relationships need to be equal.
00:40:44.060 | They need to be reciprocal.
00:40:45.820 | Proverbs, this is really interesting.
00:40:49.620 | Grab your Bible just for a moment.
00:40:50.700 | I want you to go back, put a marker here
00:40:53.100 | in 1 Corinthians 7.
00:40:55.100 | And I want you to go back to Proverbs chapter five.
00:40:57.900 | Proverbs chapter five, this is kind of interesting.
00:41:01.940 | When Solomon's talking about this, he says,
00:41:05.280 | in verse 18, he says, he's talking about
00:41:14.180 | the sexual relationship between a husband and wife.
00:41:15.980 | He says, "Let your fountain be blessed
00:41:17.220 | "and rejoice in the wife of your youth."
00:41:19.220 | Now, it's really interesting.
00:41:21.140 | In arid climate back in those days,
00:41:23.380 | sex was like taking a refreshing glass of water.
00:41:26.880 | When you live in an arid climate,
00:41:29.500 | that's what it's equated to.
00:41:31.240 | And so it's like a fountain.
00:41:32.820 | It's described as a fountain.
00:41:34.460 | And earlier, it's talked about a cistern,
00:41:36.660 | a well, springs, streams, that's sexuality.
00:41:39.500 | Verse 19 says, "A loving doe, a graceful doe,
00:41:42.620 | "let her breast fill you all times with delight.
00:41:46.100 | "Be intoxicated always with her love."
00:41:49.540 | And this is one of the rare times in all the Bible
00:41:52.180 | where the Bible says it's okay to get drunk.
00:41:54.940 | It's okay to get drunk, not on alcohol,
00:41:59.020 | but it's okay to get drunk on your husband or your wife.
00:42:04.020 | It's okay.
00:42:06.100 | Be intoxicated by them.
00:42:08.780 | Someday, I'm gonna preach a series of messages
00:42:10.740 | on all the places in the Bible it's okay to get drunk.
00:42:13.500 | All right, that should draw some people.
00:42:15.580 | [congregation laughing]
00:42:17.300 | All right, well, this is one of 'em.
00:42:19.620 | The Hebrew word is very clear.
00:42:20.860 | It's the same word that's used to get drunk on alcohol.
00:42:24.300 | Sakaar, which is beer,
00:42:26.060 | or ayin, which is wine in the Hebrew language.
00:42:28.920 | It's the same kind of thing.
00:42:31.760 | It's okay to get drunk on your love of your wife.
00:42:36.760 | Verse 20, "Why should you be intoxicated, my son,
00:42:41.740 | "with a forbidden woman,
00:42:43.020 | "and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
00:42:46.180 | "For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
00:42:50.800 | "and he ponders all of his paths.
00:42:52.260 | "The iniquity of the wicked ensnare him,
00:42:54.680 | "and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
00:42:57.320 | "He dies for lack of discipline,
00:42:58.720 | "and because of his great folly, he is led astray."
00:43:03.100 | In other words, we have a lot more self-discipline
00:43:05.700 | than we're willing to give ourself credit for,
00:43:08.300 | and God watches everything that we do.
00:43:13.740 | So you should be so overwhelmed
00:43:16.380 | that you cannot get one bit more satisfaction
00:43:20.040 | from anyone else or anything else
00:43:22.380 | than the deep abiding soul satisfaction
00:43:27.380 | of ministering to your spouse.
00:43:29.680 | That goes way beyond just the physical satisfaction
00:43:34.380 | of bathing your brain in some kind of release of chemicals
00:43:39.380 | from an orgasm or a climax.
00:43:43.260 | It goes way beyond that.
00:43:44.460 | This is a deep abiding soul satisfaction
00:43:50.220 | that God is very pleased with what you are doing.
00:43:54.700 | This is a good thing.
00:43:56.860 | This is an important thing.
00:44:00.060 | So God created both the husband and wife
00:44:03.380 | with an equal ability to satisfy each other.
00:44:06.460 | Number five, I want you to understand this as well,
00:44:09.340 | that pleasure then in sex is not sinful and forbidden,
00:44:13.180 | but it is assured and even encouraged.
00:44:16.960 | We can see that in Proverbs 5, verses 18 and 19.
00:44:20.860 | Satisfying your spouse is to be
00:44:23.780 | a deeply satisfying experience for you.
00:44:27.280 | It's just that your experience is not the goal,
00:44:31.460 | but your spouse's experience is.
00:44:33.700 | And when you get a husband and wife
00:44:35.740 | who has that kind of commitment to one another,
00:44:38.420 | they're interested in the other person
00:44:40.340 | having the best experience as possible,
00:44:43.180 | then you have a tremendous relationship,
00:44:47.100 | not just in the sexual experience,
00:44:49.100 | but in both knowing they are pleasing God
00:44:52.340 | by ministering to each other in such a way.
00:44:55.660 | This is such a key.
00:44:56.700 | This is something the world will never understand.
00:45:00.420 | Because everything in the world,
00:45:04.040 | everything that talks about sex in the world
00:45:05.980 | is all about self-gratification.
00:45:09.860 | It's about self-gratifying self,
00:45:13.500 | which is greed-oriented sex,
00:45:17.260 | and all kinds of greed-oriented sex
00:45:20.180 | has no place in the Christian life.
00:45:22.720 | We are to be ravished, or intoxicated,
00:45:26.380 | or exhilarated by our spouses.
00:45:30.780 | That's what should happen.
00:45:32.060 | Ephesians chapter 5, just for a moment,
00:45:38.780 | in verse 3, here Paul says,
00:45:43.780 | "For sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness,"
00:45:49.260 | there's the greed, "must not even be named among you
00:45:52.620 | "as is proper among the saints."
00:45:55.180 | The word sexual immorality is the Greek term poinaia.
00:46:00.100 | It doesn't just refer to pornography.
00:46:01.980 | It means any kind of illicit sexual activity,
00:46:04.540 | or any kind of impurity or covetousness.
00:46:07.560 | That covetousness is greed-oriented sex.
00:46:10.580 | There's nothing more greedy than masturbation.
00:46:15.580 | Nothing more greedy than that.
00:46:18.100 | That's the ultimate expression of greed sex.
00:46:22.320 | That shouldn't even be named among God's people.
00:46:25.600 | Shouldn't even be a part of it.
00:46:27.140 | Instead, exercising personal self-control,
00:46:31.940 | which means that pornography shouldn't be a part
00:46:35.220 | of any of this.
00:46:36.560 | Once you introduce pornography
00:46:38.180 | into a Christian marriage environment,
00:46:41.300 | then either watching those things
00:46:43.100 | in order to have better sex, those kind of things,
00:46:45.300 | you're not really having sex with each other anymore.
00:46:47.800 | You're having sex with people on the screen,
00:46:50.800 | or what you're seeing in pictures.
00:46:52.500 | And men's pornography is different than women's pornography.
00:46:56.780 | There in some cases, women's pornography
00:46:59.420 | is a much bigger issue in our culture,
00:47:02.380 | in the Christian culture, than men's pornography is.
00:47:05.860 | Men have a terrible problem with it.
00:47:07.300 | There's no doubt about that, but women do too.
00:47:09.340 | It's just that it's different.
00:47:10.300 | The women's is more acceptable in the Christian culture.
00:47:13.380 | The men's is not.
00:47:14.300 | Men's is about pictures of women.
00:47:16.860 | Women is more about words and storylines.
00:47:21.900 | Romance novels are women's pornography,
00:47:26.060 | because they do the same thing to a woman
00:47:28.760 | in her thinking and her body
00:47:31.020 | as the pictures does to a man.
00:47:33.700 | But you'll go to many church libraries,
00:47:35.440 | you're never gonna find men's pornography in there,
00:47:37.820 | but you'll find a lot of women's pornography
00:47:39.820 | in church libraries.
00:47:41.060 | And it should never be.
00:47:43.920 | We had a graduate student who did a complete thorough study
00:47:48.460 | of numerous churches on women's pornography.
00:47:51.460 | She was a woman, graduate student woman,
00:47:53.620 | and she came to unbelievable conclusions
00:47:57.540 | in her final graduate thesis on this.
00:48:00.440 | And in reading that thesis, I became convinced
00:48:03.100 | this is a much bigger problem than I ever thought.
00:48:05.660 | It is just huge.
00:48:06.960 | It's just a huge issue.
00:48:09.500 | No, no, no, this is not the way Christians act.
00:48:13.820 | That's not it at all.
00:48:14.900 | That's not the way Christians function.
00:48:17.060 | They don't drown themselves in romance novels
00:48:20.380 | or in television programs, soap operas.
00:48:23.380 | They don't do that.
00:48:25.020 | Christians don't develop their thinking from that.
00:48:27.940 | They develop their thinking from the Word of God,
00:48:30.940 | and they minister to one another.
00:48:32.820 | Anytime you indulge in those kind of things,
00:48:35.620 | then you are training your mind to be conformed
00:48:39.300 | to the principles of this world.
00:48:41.420 | You're not training your mind to be biblical,
00:48:43.900 | and that will wreak havoc in your marriage.
00:48:48.380 | It'll show itself up in your inability
00:48:52.100 | to be excited about your relationship with your spouse.
00:48:56.140 | It'll undermine everything.
00:48:59.220 | This is why I really think that this whole trend
00:49:03.700 | towards robotic partners in the future
00:49:06.660 | is gonna be devastating, because your robotic partner
00:49:10.260 | is never gonna get fat, they're never gonna get sick,
00:49:12.420 | they're never gonna have bad breath,
00:49:14.580 | they're always going to be willing,
00:49:16.380 | et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:49:17.980 | It's gonna wreak havoc, and we won't know in the future
00:49:21.180 | what genuine companionship is really about.
00:49:24.820 | We won't understand that.
00:49:26.620 | But we're already seeing part of that
00:49:28.660 | because of the role that both men and women's pornography
00:49:32.620 | is playing, and how it's undermining marriage.
00:49:35.900 | That's not what it should be.
00:49:37.860 | There should be no greed, self-gratifying kind of sex
00:49:42.820 | even hinted at among Christians.
00:49:46.100 | Shouldn't be there, if we're gonna be pure.
00:49:48.460 | So the idea here is that pleasure in sex
00:49:53.340 | is not sinful and forbidden, it's assured
00:49:55.220 | and even encouraged, but it's within the right context,
00:49:58.780 | that is monogamous marriage, with the right kind
00:50:01.580 | of relationship, and that is heterosexuality.
00:50:04.620 | That's the way God intended the expression of sex
00:50:10.020 | to be seen.
00:50:11.460 | Number six, last of all, then sexual relationships
00:50:14.860 | should be regular and continuous.
00:50:17.420 | Go back to 1 Corinthians 7, you can see this.
00:50:22.940 | Verse five, "Do not deprive one another except perhaps
00:50:26.660 | "by agreement for a limited time that you may devote
00:50:30.400 | "yourself to prayer, but then come together again
00:50:33.440 | "so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack
00:50:36.880 | "of self-control."
00:50:39.460 | This is really key, because what Paul does here
00:50:43.060 | in the marital relationship, he outlines four
00:50:46.540 | very key things about not having sex.
00:50:52.500 | Four things are listed here in verse five
00:50:56.740 | of when you are not to have sex.
00:50:58.940 | Number one, it has to be, notice this,
00:51:02.600 | not one person's, but mutual agreement.
00:51:07.500 | This is not a good time.
00:51:09.600 | It has to be by mutual agreement.
00:51:12.020 | It's not when one party decides we're not gonna do this.
00:51:15.260 | If that's true, then you are cheating your spouse
00:51:18.140 | of conjugal rights, right?
00:51:20.740 | Number two, there's an agreed upon time.
00:51:23.580 | There's agreed upon time.
00:51:25.740 | What does he say?
00:51:27.300 | For a limited time, he says.
00:51:30.860 | For a limited time.
00:51:31.700 | In other words, for a short amount of time,
00:51:33.020 | we're not gonna have sex.
00:51:34.880 | There may be various reasons behind that.
00:51:37.740 | Could be sickness, could be illness, could be
00:51:40.500 | other things are distracting, family crisis situation.
00:51:44.500 | There's an agreed upon time, we're not gonna be able
00:51:47.060 | to do this, but it's mutually agreed is the idea.
00:51:52.060 | And then some translations say for fasting and prayer,
00:51:56.020 | others say just prayer, but the implication,
00:51:58.500 | any time that prayer's introduced here,
00:52:01.280 | and especially that of fasting,
00:52:03.740 | is during genuine crisis situation, as by the way,
00:52:08.040 | was going on in the Corinthian church
00:52:10.100 | when Paul is writing this.
00:52:11.600 | We know this later on because Paul refers here
00:52:17.240 | in 1 Corinthians 7, in verse 26,
00:52:20.920 | in view of this present distress,
00:52:24.280 | Christians were under quite a bit of strain
00:52:26.200 | at that particular time, it's better to devote yourself
00:52:29.280 | to prayer and fasting than devote yourself to sexuality
00:52:34.220 | at that particular point because of this crisis situation,
00:52:37.400 | but during those crisis situations are good times
00:52:41.040 | not to be involved in sexuality.
00:52:44.760 | And then he says, last of all, then you terminate,
00:52:48.880 | that is, not having sex, and you start again, why?
00:52:53.600 | Notice, he says at the end of verse five,
00:52:56.080 | come together again so that Satan will not tempt you
00:52:59.280 | because of your lack of self-control.
00:53:01.200 | Once a couple is used to a mutually satisfying,
00:53:04.540 | self-giving relationship within the sexual realm,
00:53:08.800 | and all of a sudden that comes to an end,
00:53:12.320 | then Satan uses that as a temptation with other people,
00:53:17.320 | it starts in your thinking, for a woman,
00:53:22.640 | other men that you're around, for a man,
00:53:24.720 | other women that you're around,
00:53:26.360 | once you're used to a mutually satisfying relationship
00:53:29.000 | and all of a sudden it's cut off
00:53:30.360 | and it's not started back up again,
00:53:32.800 | then Satan uses that as a means to gain a foothold
00:53:36.380 | in your marriage, that becomes a problem.
00:53:41.720 | So we have four guidelines, mutual agreement,
00:53:44.680 | agreed upon time, fasting and prayer,
00:53:49.920 | then you terminate not having sex, and you start again.
00:53:54.560 | Those are the four guidelines.
00:53:59.340 | Well, I know there's probably a lot more that you have,
00:54:05.440 | and there's actually a lot more that I have,
00:54:07.880 | but at least I've given you the basics on that.
00:54:12.000 | So just remember Romans chapter 14, verse 23,
00:54:15.520 | whatever you can't do in faith is sin for you,
00:54:18.720 | so you're not gonna expect your wife or your husband
00:54:20.920 | to do things that are gonna be repugnant to them.
00:54:23.320 | You're not gonna expect that,
00:54:25.040 | and by the way, by you expecting that,
00:54:27.960 | then you're thinking about sex being for you
00:54:29.920 | and not for them.
00:54:30.960 | So you're not gonna expect your husband or wife
00:54:33.520 | to do things that they can't do with a whole heart,
00:54:36.960 | whatever it may be, in the sexual bed,
00:54:39.000 | because that's not right for the Christian.
00:54:43.900 | So there you have these six principles.
00:54:48.800 | Let me review them one last time for you real quickly.
00:54:51.920 | Number one, sex in marriage is pure and holy.
00:54:54.320 | Number two, sex is not the basis of marriage,
00:54:56.520 | and marriage is not a sexual relationship.
00:54:58.520 | Number three, sex has as its primary goal
00:55:01.540 | that is satisfying your mate.
00:55:03.420 | Number four, God created both the husband and wife
00:55:06.180 | with an equal ability to satisfy each other.
00:55:08.840 | Number five, pleasure in sex is not sinful and forbidden,
00:55:12.300 | but assured and even encouraged.
00:55:14.240 | And then number six, six sexual relationships
00:55:18.440 | should be regular and continuous in marriage.
00:55:23.400 | It should be.
00:55:25.140 | It has been a delight doing this with you,
00:55:30.580 | even though you're not breathing.
00:55:35.100 | Let's bow for prayer.
00:55:36.300 | Gracious Father, we thank you for the goodness of your word.
00:55:40.120 | It really clarifies a lot of things
00:55:42.400 | that possibly have been wrong in our marriage
00:55:45.520 | that we need to make right.
00:55:47.120 | We need to make sure that we are doing things your way,
00:55:53.440 | and that ends up solving a lot of problems.
00:55:57.200 | When we end up violating your word,
00:56:00.060 | Proverbs tells us the way of the transgressor is hard.
00:56:04.080 | Proverbs later says, Proverbs 18.21 that,
00:56:09.080 | or 13.21, that adversity pursues sinners.
00:56:14.140 | And we don't want adversity and hardship
00:56:17.420 | to pursue our marriages.
00:56:18.720 | We want them to be the pleasant, sweet
00:56:23.820 | type of companionship that you have intended
00:56:27.900 | from the very beginning.
00:56:29.160 | So Father, I pray for each man or woman
00:56:32.860 | present here today, you'll watch over them,
00:56:36.020 | provide for them the desire and the will
00:56:39.100 | to make the necessary changes in their thinking
00:56:42.660 | and in their marriage that need to happen.
00:56:46.180 | And then Father, we will be careful
00:56:47.820 | to give you all the praise and all the glory,
00:56:51.560 | and all God's people said, amen.