Scott Brown discusses the topic of marriage in the sermon. If both a husband and a wife keep their eyes on Christ, there will always be hope for your marriage. Marriage is one of the most defining and impactful things that a person will ever embark on in their life. Entering into a marriage should not be something that should be taken lightly.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV) - "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

And I think more than anything I want you to all understand that there is a beautiful pattern for your marriage And that means that there's hope. If you keep your eyes on Jesus and upon the gospel, you'll always have hope in your marriage. And I just want you to know that there's a perfect and beautiful pattern that God has given you. It's such a gift, it's such a wonderful gift. And so I hope that you're filled with hope as As we come and talk about all these things You probably already understand this that getting married was the most important thing you ever did.

It's the most powerful thing you've ever done in your life, for your life. It's in the culture that we live in, it's the most controversial thing you can do today is to think about marriage the way that you guys think about marriage, it's incredibly controversial. And you're living in a world that doesn't understand how you're going about this at all because they don't have the same pattern. It's also the most dangerous thing you've ever done. The most dangerous thing a person can ever do is get married and to saddle themselves with another person.

And that's why great care should be made in the selection process. And, you know, what you have done and by getting married is what God has ordained to really be the whole foundation of society. Everything that happens in the world has come out of a relationship between a man and woman. And this is the way God designed it. It's out, it's the most pivotal, most important thing that happens in the world is when a man and a woman come together.

And this is just so massively influential. You know, it's interesting in life, you don't really make that many important decisions, but this one is the most important decision you'll ever make. And of course, turning to the Lord Jesus Christ is the most defining thing about anybody's life so I'm not leaving that out but when it just comes to your life in this world it's the most important the most dangerous the most influential thing you'll ever do. So treat it with care and I also want to just begin the time tonight by recognizing the times that we live in. In 1 Chronicles 12 32 there's a verse about men who understood the times and they knew what to do because of the times that they live in.

You guys got married at a particular time and there are two parts to that time. It was a time in your life and all of you have had experiences in the background of your life and they've shaped you. And you need to understand how you've been shaped and how you either need to continue in those things that have shaped you or turn away from the things that have shaped you. Everybody is shaped by various experiences. You grew up in a family with a culture.

You have knee jerk reactions. And, you know, understanding the times of your life is really, really important. And, you know, as you're married, you're always having to think, what are the things that I need to abandon that I learned from my parents, from my own heart, from the people around me? But you need to understand the times. What kind of feelings have you gotten used to cultivating?

What kind of responses have you grooved? Grooves or grooves are a reality. You know, many years ago, at the beginning of the Alaska Highway, before it was paved, There was a sign at the beginning of that highway. It was a long, you know, three or four thousand mile highway. And it read, choose your rut carefully.

You'll be in it for a long time. And marriages are kind of like that. This is one reason it's so nice to talk about these things when you're young. It's a joy to catch people early on in their marriages. In fact, one of the reason that we started doing these and focusing on younger couples, as Deborah and I have done this, done these kind of gatherings for years.

And most of the time, people would come who'd been married 20, 30, 40 years. And a lot of them had a lot of kids. And they would always come to us at the end and say, I wish I'd heard this 20 years ago. And I heard that every single time And I thought well, let's try to find the people are still in that zone. You know let's try to catch them early I think some of the things that are going to be shared here could be very very powerful in your life if you get a hold of them And so I I pray that you're really able to to grasp that.

But, you know, you're living in a different particular time in your life, but you're also living in a particular time in the world. And there are people around you that View marriage, view manhood and womanhood, view children, very, very different than you do. And these things are very corrosive. You just got married at What I would say is the most corrosive possible time you could have gotten married in the history of America. Corrosive in terms of the family and what marriage is all about.

You know, Francis Schaeffer used to say that the church is always following the world. And he used to say that the church is always about seven years behind the world. That's the danger that you're in is to be about seven years behind the world. And so you have lots of influences to resist all around you. The whole creation is groaning and you have the culture pulling at you, that all the people around you don't think like you.

You have your own sin nature to deal with. I mean, there it's it's a it's a troublesome environment that marriage exists in. And that's why there's so much disappointment and failure in marriage. You know, in 2015, our nation through the Supreme Court decided that Marriage could be between two men or two women. And right now you're living in a time where people are so distorted in their thinking about marriage that 70% of the people in America today right now are in favor of same-sex mirage.

They're in favor of that. When in 2015 it was 60% and in 1996 27% were in favor. The reason I bring this up is there's a particular attitude toward an approach toward marriage that is so distorted, it's so ridiculous. And even to hang the word marriage after same sex is is completely deceiving. So you're You got married at a time where the whole culture has turned against the doctrine of marriage.

You got married in an era of the lowest fertility rates in the history of the world, all over the world, and even, even in America, I saw an article in the New York Times, here I'll just take one line out of it, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history. They're talking about the shrinking fertility rates. And what the article declared is that by 2030, that's 10 years from now, nine years from now, Something will have been happening that's never happened in US history. There will be more people over age 65 than there will be children in this nation. And There is this stunning line in this article, imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older.

That's the world you live in right now. And children are despised. But what's remarkable to me is the kids that I know that are getting married. They're having babies and I'm so thankful to see it and We need a generation of Christian young people who will love to have children and to raise them up Christians are going to be the only people who are going to be having babies other than Muslims The only place I know of in in the realm of Christianity where birth rates are going up is among the people that I know. Like when we have a conference, we just had our national conference in Ridgecrest.

It's astounding to me when I see the sign-ups Because you see these mega families, you know, and they've got six, eight, 10 children. It's astounding. You know, there's not a conference like that anywhere where you have where you have so many children in these families. And so I'm, I'm encouraged. I'm thankful to know those people.

They love children. And the wives want to give the best years of their lives to raising a generation for the Lord. You have no idea how powerful that will be. So I praise God, you know, for you who think that way, You got married in an era where people are refraining from getting married like never before. I'm just trying to paint a picture of the environment you're living in right now.

The way that you think about it and the way that we're going to advocate that you think about marriage is going away in America. In 1975, the average age of getting married for a woman was 20 and the average age for a man was 23. Last year in 2019, the average age for a man was age 29. And for a woman, 28. And like we're headed toward nations like Sweden where people don't even get married anymore.

And among millennials, I'm just going to read from an article I just read recently. Today, an unprecedented portion of millennials will remain unmarried through age 40. And the marriage rate among them might drop to 70%. My generation, baby boomers, 91%. The late boomers, 87%.

Gen Xers, 82%. And now you're talking about, you know, a very, very low downward trajectory. Twenty-five percent of millennials will likely never get married. That's what Pew Research says. I'm just saying you're living in a really different world.

You think really differently and I'm glad you do. And you should think differently than the other, the people in this world. You live in an era of easy divorce. You live in an era where there's actually a hatred of gender categories and gender roles that are fixed by God. You got married in an era where the state control of the family, state control of healthcare, children's education is at a level that we've never seen before.

You have Marxist revolutionary movements, the LGBTQ movement, Black Lives Matter, that have mounted a massive assault against the family. It's a hatred of home life, hatred of marriage, hatred of authority, hatred of submission. You need to realize that if you, as a wife, desire to honor and respect your husband, you're doing something subversive in the culture. If you are going to be the head, if you're going to love your wife like Christ, love the church and be the head of your wife, you are doing something subversive to the greatest movements that are afoot in our culture. You know, the Biden administration, the woke politicians, the big tech corporations, the World Economic Forum, they've all brought to the forefront the proposition that the patriarchy must die.

Hierarchy in the family must be abolished. And of course, you know, these kinds of organizations have been working to destroy the patriarchy which is really nothing different than the biblical order of a husband and a wife. And you are, if you teach this kind of thing you are teaching subversive doctrine. And we plan to continue to keep it up. The objective of the communist states has always been to destroy the family.

It has to be unraveled. The family does. I read an article about the coronavirus. Here's the headline. The coronavirus crisis shows it's time to abolish the family.

And that's because you cannot have these people living in hierarchical homes. You've got to get them out of these homes. This crisis will see a surge in housework, cleaning, cooking, caretaking, but also child abuse, molestation, intimate partner rape, psychological torture and more. Far from a time to acquiesce to family values ideology, then the pandemic is an acutely important time to provision, evacuate and eventually empower survivors and refugees from the nuclear household. So, you got married at a time that's very, very harmful toward family life.

And it's, it's to, things have changed. And it's a dangerous time to be married more than ever. But you and your children, If God gives them to you, you've been born for such a time as this you should be encouraged You are you are on site in the in in the middle of the most revolutionary Attack against the family that's ever existed Certainly in my lifetime probably in any time in world history. That's the world that you live in right now. And it's really important that you are like the sons of Issachar.

You understand the times and you know what to do. And that's, I hope that this time together will help you know what to do, how to engage this matter of family life. Now, the Bible makes it very clear that marriage is designed by God to be a picture of something greater. And If you're going to be married as a Christian, you must know why marriage. And you need to know why you're married.

Because if you know why you're married And if you know who you are in a marriage, you'll always know what to do you'll be like the sons of Issachar you will know the times and you will know what to do and Marriage of course is a picture of Christ's love for his church that's the most important thing you need to know about marriage. We're going to talk about all kinds of nuts and bolts about communication and relationships and how we talk to each other and sexuality and all kinds of things like that. But there's one thing you've got to get right in your mind, and that is why marriage. Once you understand that, you'll be able to operate in your marriage in a way that glorifies God. And the way that God created the world is that everything in this world testifies to something greater, everything.

And it's astounding to me to think about the way that God has ordered the natural world in order to point to truth, point to himself, point to heaven. And you know, for example, you know, a river is a metaphor. The sun is a metaphor for something greater. The stars, the light, everything is a metaphor of something greater in the kingdom of heaven. Food is a metaphor.

When you eat food, it should remind you that Jesus is the bread of life. When you go through a door, it should remind you that Jesus says, I am the door. When you see water, you should think that Jesus said he was a fountain of living water. So everything is a metaphor, but your marriage is a metaphor too. Your manhood, your womanhood, the fact that you're married is a metaphor.

And understanding that is very, very critical. And I really just wanna begin tonight with this one principle, and then We'll be developing The various tributaries of this principle, but I'd like you to open your Bibles to Ephesians 5 the Ephesians 5 I want you to find verse 31. And the reason I want you to turn there is that this is the premier text in the entire Bible about marriage. There are several really pivotal distinctive texts about marriage and you need to know all of them. But this one is unique because it draws into itself all the other teaching about marriage in the whole Bible and It it's a I'm just gonna call it a flagship text about marriage And I want us just to focus right now on two verses.

And it's verse 31 and 32, Ephesians five, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. So in the in this passage, you find this this matter of marriage where a man leaves his father and mother and he is joined, he he literally. Cleaves to his wife. That's another word that the translators used to cleave.

You leave and you cleave and the two shall become one flesh. By the way, just a side note, this matter of leaving and cleaving is so critical. But what does it really mean? You notice that the leaving and cleaving is directed toward the man and the man And the man cleaves to his wife. That's what's that's the most explicit Interpretation of this a husband cleaves to his wife There are two other places in the Bible that use this language in the New Testament And they they all have the same meaning it it it really it has to do with this matter of a husband drawing toward his wife and he gravitates toward her he leaves his old life and he cleaves to her and he stays close to her and and the two shall become one flesh.

He's talking about sexual intimacy. That's what one flesh means. And then in verse thirty two, he says the most astounding thing really when you think about it. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. What?

The sexual relationship is about Christ and the church? Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what it says. You can see now why the devil so wants to pervert the sexual relationship because it's meant to be something so beautiful And the devil is at war with your sexual intimacy. He hates your sexual intimacy, and he wants to pervert it, and he wants to kill it.

He wants to mess it up Because it's a picture of Christ in the church. That's what sexual intimacy is about. And so this when you when you are engaged in sexual intimacy, you're actually telling a story about Christ and His Church. And so when you When you're involved in every part of marriage, it's really important that you understand that you're telling a story. Your marriage is a metaphor that tells a story about Christ's love for His church.

And what God wants to do with you as married couples is always to bring you back to the storyline of redemption. To bring you back to Jesus Christ. You know, It's easy to say, well, Christ is the center of our marriage. Well, what does that mean? I mean, it's just it's it's it can be just a throwaway statement.

But one thing that it's meant to mean is that sexual intimacy is meant to be a picture of Christ's love for his church and that intimacy the leaving the cleaving and all these other other kinds of things and really every aspect of your family life is designed to tell a story. The husband tells the story of a bridegroom who comes and rescues a bride. And a wife tells the story of an obedient adoring church toward her Lord. Children tell the story of honoring children toward their father. And So this is so important because if you're going to be married, you need to know who you are in the story.

Who, what role do you play in that story? And of course, it's so obvious the husband plays a role. He's not his own. It's not his story. He has a responsibility to do something in this world.

He has been charged to paint a picture of Christ's love for the church. And the same way thing with a wife a Wife is not her own. This is not her story This is a story that has been given to her She's been given a script Not her own The most disastrous thing you can be in your marriage is to find yourself. That's the worst thing you can do. And you know, people today, they talk about, you know, just how They just need to continue to grow and find themselves.

Some of the great divorces over the last couple of years have come because, you know, Hollywood actresses and, you know, personalities said, well, I just have ceased to grow and now we need to move on and I need to find my truth. Well, that's that's the worst thing you can possibly do. You don't want to find yourself here. You want to find the Lord and his picture that you that he wants you to paint. And that's that's this heavenly design.

So marriage. Is is meant to express a heavenly design in the midst of an earthly life. And every part of your marriage is supposed to be like that. That you are a picture of Christ and His church. And so, the marriage between a husband and wife is a representative relationship.

It represents something. And you don't, a wife doesn't represent herself. A husband doesn't not represent himself. And and the marriage is designed to declare something. And that is that God sent his son to rescue a bride.

And replicating the picture of God's love is the essence of marriage. So you I know so many of you know this, but I think it's worth repeating. Just to understand what this is all about. You need to know who you are in the story. And if you know who you are in the story, you'll always know what to do.

A husband, when he encounters some difficulty with his wife, all he needs to do is say, Lord Jesus, how do I represent you to my wife? And a wife in the very same way. It's very strange because a wife also looks to Christ, but she also is playing the role of a of a glorious, submissive church. And so a wife's obedience is a is an illustration of her obedience toward the Lord. And if she's not obedient to her husband, she's become an illustration that obedience is not necessary to the Lord.

A husband that doesn't love his wife, he preaches a false gospel. He preaches a gospel that says, I don't need to love my wife. There's no love. You're just going through the motions. So that's the whole thing.

Now, so you have this, the two becoming one flesh. That's the primary illustration that I want to leave us with tonight, because marriage is about that kind of oneness. And what it means is that sexuality in marriage testifies to Christ and His church. So your sex life testifies to something greater. We live in such a fortified world, we've been so messed up by Hollywood, it's so hard for us to think like this.

But this is the way that God wants us to learn how to think. And he, what we learn from this is that God desires married couples to be close one flesh. And that's demonstrated by being skin close, that close. That's how close God wants you to be in your marriage. And that's why in 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul gives instruction.

And he says, let the husband render to his wife the affection do her and likewise also the wife to her husband do not deprive one another. So God has given commands to husbands and wives not to deprive one another. And. There's there's always an effort in the human heart to destroy this kind of sexual relationship and. You know, while while the sexual union is so pleasurable and it speaks of such wonderful things, the devil is always there to destroy it.

He's always at the door of your sexual relationship. And so I just I want us to try to think differently about the sexual relationship. The way that this passage of scripture speaks of it. And that the sexual intimacy is, it's holy, it is representative, and it's also selfless. And of course, in 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle says, the husband should not deprive His wife and the wife should not deprive her husband It's very interesting.

I published a book a few years ago It's really the writings of William Gouge on marriage. I think this is the best book that's ever been written on marriage. Of course, I didn't write it. I edited it. But William Gouge wrote this in 1627.

He speaks of the most intimate details. But he talks about everything that can happen in a marriage in this book. And I mean he talks about breastfeeding, he talks about What happens when your wife is pregnant and sexuality? What happens when of this? What happens?

He dissects every possible marriage situation you can imagine. And he talks at some length about this matter of depriving one another. And he offers some really interesting counsel to couples and he says that, you know, that there are two extremes. One is too much sex and then not enough and But he describes these pictures of husbands and wives where, for example, a husband would want to engage in intimacy and the wife wouldn't. The occasion where the husband wants to engage in intimacy, but he's afraid to tell her.

He talks about just some of the most practical things that take place. But all of this is a picture of Christ's love for his church. How do you transform your view of sexuality? Well, it begins in the way you think about it. You have to start thinking about it differently.

And I'm going to give you seven things that you are declaring when you engage in sexual intimacy. If it's true, and it is, that the sexual union is a picture of Christ's love for his church, then I Think these things are true. It testifies to the exclusive relationship we have with Christ Sexual intimacy is a picture of exclusivity, you know when you turn to Christ you only have one spouse You turn away from your idols and you say, I don't, I will have no other gods before the Lord. I have one spouse. And, you know, when you get married, it changes every relationship in your life.

And part of that is that you now have one spouse your relationship with everybody in the world has been altered in fact you know the husband he leaves and he cleaves and it totally transforms his whole orientation relationally in the world. But sexual intimacy declares the exclusive relationship you have with Christ, and there can be no other. And that includes no pornography, no flirting, nothing else, no other. There's only one spouse. The second thing that it declares, it declares the spiritual union that you have with Christ.

You know as Adam knew, knew in a biblical sense, Eve, the sexual union displays what it means to know one another. They there's this unguarded knowledge. And. This is the spiritual union that you have, and it's pictured in this skin-to-skin relationship that you have. The third thing is that it declares the experience of joy that you have in Christ.

The Lord Jesus said, I write these things that your joy might be made full. And Sexual intimacy is about joy. It's a joy. That's experienced on earth that points to everlasting joy and You know you remember the in the parable of the talents the Lord promises Something so great and what he says is he says enter into the joy of your master. I think the sexual union points to that.

That's why it's such a remarkable thing. Fourth, the unobstructed access we have to Christ. They were naked and not ashamed. That's unobstructed access. In the sexual union, you actually relinquish the authority that you have over your body.

And you give complete and reciprocal access to your spouse without fear of rejection. And it just reflects the fearless, open relationship we have with Christ. You know, He accepts us as we are. When you are justified, that means that all of your sins are covered. And the Bible says that he doesn't acknowledge your sin.

He's washed it away. All of it, every bit of it. And, you know, all of the flaws are not recognized It also represents the Covenant security we have with Christ covenants are sealed by various acts and I I want to suggest that the sexual union is a sign that you're married. When sexual intimacy is withdrawn, it's almost like saying that the covenant doesn't matter anymore. You know, Jesus said, let no man separate.

And when you withhold one another, it's almost as if you're acting like you're not married anymore. And because you've sort of withdrawn the covenant that you've made with one another for complete access. Number six, the consensual unity we have with Christ. The sexual union is a way that we serve one another. And you care about your spouse's desires and you come alongside to help your spouse in their needs.

It's very interesting this matter of serving one another through the sexual union. You know husbands and wives have to understand that they need to care for one another. There may be a pain involved in sexual union, and a husband needs to be very careful with that he needs to live with his wife in an understanding way and He he just needs to recognize that she's different I was reading some statistics where like 80 or 90 percent of women in the first 10 years of their marriage experience pain and sexual intimacy. And like 60 percent of them don't tell their husbands. They just don't.

And why? Well, they, for a lot of reasons, for a lot of good reasons, you know. But in the sexual union, you serve one another and you're sensitive to one another. And then finally, number seven, the compassion we experience in Christ. The Bible says, Be kindly, affectionate toward one another.

Sexual intimacy ought to be compassion expressed, you know, in action. As a merciful and a faithful high priest, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, we are kindly affectionate, in the same way the Lord has been to us. So the sexual union has a lot to say about about God and Sexual intimacy is a demonstration that we are separated for one another. And it should not demonstrate that we're separated from one another. You know, There are couples that, you know, early on in their marriage, they get disappointed, discouraged, bitter over the sexual relationship.

And, you know, it can last your whole life long. I've seen it last for decades. Don't let that happen to you. You guys are really in the early early stage. Do not let that happen.

Spurgeon spoke of this marriage, this marriage union like this. Our marriage union with husband and wife cannot be more clear, more sure, more matter-of-fact than our oneness with Christ and our enjoyment of that oneness. Joy, joy, joy, He whom we love is ours. So that's the design. And Satan always sets snares around the marriage bed.

And he wants to Devour that love and replace it with lust he wants To devour satisfaction and Replace it with selfishness You know one of the one of the the one of the most damaging things about pornography is that it's really all about you. It's all about taking. It's all about your pleasure. But the Bible has it totally flipped. The sexual union is about giving pleasure, not getting it.

And you know, transforming your mind about how you think about sexuality is So critical in first Corinthians 7 we we learned that it is a is a duty It's a pleasure, but it's also a duty that we have toward one another. And, you know, there are exceptions that the Bible gives us when there's a time of prayer or fasting. But, you know, if someone, if one is sick or traveling or things like that, there are right, there are proper interruptions. But okay, here's what I'm trying to get to. If you've lost physical oneness and intimacy in your sexual relationship, you need to know that it's a symptom.

It's a symptom of something else. And maybe you've done something or thought something that was wrong and you've allowed distance to take place in your relationship. And Do what you can to identify the cause of the distance. And the way to close the divide is to confess any sin that's causing the distance. Is there any thought that you've embraced that's contrary to the word of God?

Because God desires that you be close, skin close. God is against sex-starved marriages, okay? And I think it's very clear from the scriptures and The distance in your sexual relationship disfigures the picture of Christ's love for his church. It's that serious. And it's very interesting.

Sexual activity actually all over our society is dropping dramatically. You know, people think that all these unbelievers are just having so much sex. It's not true. They're not. And it's because they're all wrapped up in loveless things that kill sexuality.

So, The sexual union is like a sign and have, you know, are you continuing to perform the sign that you're married? And, you know, refusing to let sex die in your marriage is one way that you declare over and over that you're married, that you're not your own, and that you are painting a picture. So that's it. Now, you know, you're living in a world that is against everything that I've just said. And, you know, I pray that that all of us would just find all of our hope in the word of God And that we would be filled up with the knowledge of God.

And that's how you revive sexual intimacy in your marriage, if you need to. And that we would be like bees sucking honey out of every flower, filling up our minds with the knowledge of God. And so I hope you see the plot of the devil. I hope you see that you're living in a world that's against everything I've just said. But know this, your marriage is a picture of something greater.

And you need to know who you are. And if you know who you are, if you know who you are, you'll know what to do. And you can stand in the place of Jesus Christ as a husband, and you can stand in the place of the church as a wife, and you'll always know what to do. This is one of the most thrilling things about being a Christian. We're never left without instructions.

We're never left alone. We know what to do. We know what to think about the problems in the world. We know how to treat one another. We know how to work.

We know how to do everything because God has told us and We don't have to make it up on our own. So your marriage is a picture of the gospel, so you need to know who you are. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you that You have given us such wonderful ways of living, that You have done everything that You do to preserve love in the world, to increase our joy, to come among us and teach us how to live. And so, Lord, I pray that you would magnify your glory through the sexual intimacy that takes place in these marriages.

I pray, Lord, that if offenses have arisen, if sorrows have overcome, if sin has overtaken any of us here Lord that we would turn to you and repent of our sins and that we would cry out to you for help, and that you would give all of us, both husbands and wives, the tenderest and the truest ways of thinking through all these things. And so, Lord, I pray that you would work healing if that's necessary and anyone here, but that for all of us, you would help us to see the glorious calling with which you've called us to become like Jesus Christ. Amen. Jesus Christ. Amen.

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