Marriage is sacred space. It is consecrated ground. When you wed, you enter “The LORD’S holy institution which He loves” (Mal. 2:11). It's like going to the White House. You are on someone else’s property. You don’t get to do what you want. Similarly, when you dine with the Queen of England, you’re not free to eat any way you please. In this podcast, Scott Brown discusses the need for couples to set aside bad behaviors and honor marriage as the sacred space that it is.

Let's talk about one of the most important things you need to know about marriage. Marriage is sacred space. It's consecrated ground. Like when you get married, you consecrate yourself to your spouse and to God and you make vows. It's a consecration and you are consecrating yourself to God's institution.

Malachi calls it God's holy institution. Now marriage changes your state of being. You move from the state of singleness to the married state. You leave father and mother, you cleave to your wife, the two shall become one flesh. And this is a sacred bond before God.

It's sacred space. What's it like? Well, it's like a lot of things. One thing it's like is like going to the White House. When you go into the White House to meet with the President of the United States, you can't do whatever you want to do.

You can't go wherever you want to go. You can't rummage through the drawers. You can't tease the dog on the floor. You are in sacred space and you have to behave in a particular way Here's another illustration a few years ago My wife and I were teaching our grandchildren Table manners and we saw this really interesting video of what you have to do to dine with the Queen of England. Incredibly elaborate.

You can't just hold the fork any way you want when you dine with the Queen of England. You can't sit any way you want. There's a particular way you have to sit. And you can't just ask any kind of question you want. You're not on your own.

You're in sacred space. And it's like when your children go into somebody else's house. They can't run on the furniture. They can't run around. They can't scream.

They can't go into the bedrooms. It's incredibly impolite when children walk into a house and they act like it's their own house. It's not their own house. They've actually entered into a jurisdiction and they can't snoop around and they must enter respectfully and they must exit respectfully. That's because they've entered into a different jurisdiction and that's exactly what happens with marriage.

But the problem is with us, is when we go into God's institution, a lot of times we go in with our bad manners, we go in with selfish motives, and we're existing in God's institution with our flawed patterns, with our dull consciences, with our worldly ideas. That Maybe it's wrong ideas about manhood and womanhood, wrong ideas about sexuality, but marriage is sacred space. It's God's holy institution. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.