Dale Partridge - Covenant Home Part 2： Defining Christian Marriage with Dale Partridge

00:00:00.960 What a blessing it is to talk about marriage today.

00:00:11.520 Imagine playing a game, maybe chess, maybe a card game, without any defined context,

00:00:23.320 rules, or roles.

00:00:25.040 first it make the experience just unpleasant it'd be confusing second it would not permit

00:00:38.540 any person a path to success rules in a game make it so that it's possible to win

00:00:49.940 And without rules, you can't do that.

00:00:55.980 That's how many Christians approach marriage and family.

00:01:00.900 They face conflict and frustration because they attempt to build a successful marriage 1.00

00:01:05.280 and household without the understanding of the essential principles that would produce

00:01:12.520 that type of household.

00:01:16.020 And that's the whole purpose in this series over the next several weeks.

00:01:20.140 This is part two, is to define the Bible's identity around order and rules and roles

00:01:30.980 in the covenant household.

00:01:34.440 So last week, we discussed the first part of this five-part series, and I walked us

00:01:42.940 through the fundamentals of covenant theology.

00:01:47.940 We learned that in the same way, Adam and Christ are representative heads of humanity.

00:01:56.440 One is a representative head over the covenant of works, Adam, and the other is a representative

00:02:01.600 head over the covenant of grace, which is Christ.

00:02:04.820 In the same way, husbands are the representative heads for their home.

00:02:12.280 We learned that Christian husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church.

00:02:20.200 But Christ demonstrated that love most clearly by representing and taking responsibility

00:02:28.620 for His bride.

00:02:30.520 Now Christ was not guilty for the sins of His bride, but He took responsibility for

00:02:36.880 the sins of His bride by dying for them on the cross. 0.93

00:02:41.000 And so, this taught us that covenantally, a wife's condition is a husband's responsibility. 0.88

00:02:52.200 So a husband is responsible for his wife's condition before the Lord. 0.89

00:02:57.340 He's not guilty of her sin, but he is responsible for it. 0.81

00:03:03.960 We also learned that authority is granted to those who joyfully accept responsibility

00:03:11.400 for their household.

00:03:13.660 That is, you know, if a husband wants authority in his home, he does that by owning the sin

00:03:21.160 and the shame that's within his household.

00:03:25.860 He shifts his perspective from me to we.

00:03:31.800 He shifts from it's their problems to those are my problems.

00:03:39.760 And in a world where men often struggle to take responsibility for their own sin, getting

00:03:43.340 a man to take responsibility for the sins of his family is difficult.

00:03:47.400 Ultimately, we learned that in the same way that Christ makes his people godly and holy,

00:03:57.120 A husband is to make his home godly and holy.

00:04:02.980 And so today, I'm going to be discussing covenant marriage.

00:04:09.020 I'm going to be discussing our marriage because I believe that much of our marital sorrows

00:04:17.060 and difficulties come from a misunderstanding of the nature of marriage.

00:04:26.140 And so when reading a book, if you look at your book, you have your Bible.

00:04:33.100 When reading a book, the first and the last chapters of a book are crucial.

00:04:39.880 The first chapters open up and they introduce the characters, the plot, the theme.

00:04:46.340 The last chapters essentially resolves the plot.

00:04:51.560 But it provides closure for the tension within the story.

00:04:58.500 Now, when we look at the Bible, we're going to see that marriage is not just a feature

00:05:01.820 in the plot of the Bible.

00:05:06.080 Marriage is actually the foundation and the capstone of the entire Bible.

00:05:13.240 Okay, it is the theme throughout the narrative.

00:05:17.380 It's a wraparound narrative from Genesis to Revelation.

00:05:21.560 The Bible opens with a marriage between a man and a bride living in a perfect world.

00:05:29.720 And the Bible closes with a man and his bride living in a perfect world.

00:05:37.560 It is the wraparound theme of Scripture.

00:05:42.540 In fact, we're actually going to see that Scripture, the entire narrative, the meta-narrative of Scripture is a wedding.

00:05:50.160 that's really what's happening and so by emphasis alone if we just look at the

00:05:56.720 emphasis God is communicating his valuation of marriage it's important

00:06:02.300 it's an important theme it's an important component of his vision for

00:06:09.780 the world now God is a God of symbolism he knows that our finite minds need a

00:06:20.160 the power of visual metaphors so that we can remember spiritual truths.

00:06:28.860 For example, God does this with the Sabbath, rainbow, circumcision,

00:06:36.560 the Passover, baptism, the Lord's table, head coverings.

00:06:42.300 God is constantly using symbolism to communicate spiritual truths.

00:06:49.380 And marriage is another form of a spiritual metaphor.

00:06:54.700 It's God's means for man to visually and experientially grasp the tenets of the gospel.

00:07:03.920 It's like an earthly picture of a spiritual reality.

00:07:09.360 It's a mortal reflection of an eternal truth.

00:07:12.740 Ultimately, what happens in marriage is that it communicates the relational aspects of salvation to you, to your children, and to anybody else that's watching.

00:07:26.380 And this is why the world is so zealous on distorting and redefining marriage.

00:07:34.540 When you confuse marriage, you confuse the gospel.

00:07:38.760 And when the visual aid is distorted, the truth it conveys becomes unclear.

00:07:49.160 And so when two men are in some sort of union or relationship with one another, it evangelizes

00:07:57.260 a false gospel.

00:08:00.060 And this is important because if you look at marriage as just like an isolated expression

00:08:03.820 of love, rather than a means to experience and model spiritual truth, you're going to fail to see

00:08:12.140 how your marriage or how a marriage and the behavior that is within it affirms or denies

00:08:22.620 the truth of the gospel. So the way you act in your marriage either affirms or denies

00:08:31.420 the truth of the gospel. When a woman fails to submit to her husband, she's telling herself, 0.86

00:08:38.900 she's telling her children, and she's telling the world a lie about the church's relationship to 0.96

00:08:46.040 Christ. When a husband fails to love his wife, he's telling himself, his children, and the world

00:08:55.240 a lie about Jesus's relationship with the church. And so let's start just by backing up a little

00:09:04.380 bit. I want to define marriage. So first, marriage is not simply an intensified expression

00:09:15.480 of relationship. It's not like an intensified version of other human relationships. We often

00:09:22.800 Some think of marriage as like it's on the spectrum, right?

00:09:26.840 Acquaintance is over here, you know, best friend, siblings, and marriage has got to

00:09:33.580 be over here.

00:09:34.580 It's like the most intense version.

00:09:40.220 Marriage isn't even considered a relationship in Scripture.

00:09:43.580 There's relational elements to a marriage, but relationship is different.

00:09:49.600 Marriage is a covenant.

00:09:52.380 It doesn't even really fall into the relationship category.

00:09:56.260 Relationships are often based on feelings.

00:10:00.680 They're based on mutual benefits that you can receive from that relationship.

00:10:05.880 But a covenant is different.

00:10:09.440 A covenant involves a moral commitment that's made before God to become one with a person.

00:10:18.740 To become one with a person.

00:10:21.980 that covenant is there regardless of changing circumstances or relationship

00:10:25.760 feelings or whatever that may be, you do not become one with your best friend. You

00:10:32.180 do not become one with your child. You do not become one with your brother or

00:10:37.820 sister. Well, the only relationship you become one with is your spouse. And this

00:10:44.960 is why when we're at a wedding, we're not simply there as guests. We're not there

00:10:51.320 as you know we call ourselves guests but we're actually there as witnesses before God observing

00:10:57.480 two people ceremonially becoming one entering into covenant with signs and seals it's very biblical

00:11:07.800 when you start to realize how we do weddings it's not just some random ceremony that we came up with

00:11:15.640 this is important because society wants to reduce marriage to some sort of social construct

00:11:21.320 Because when you can do that, people feel like they're entitled to modify it or redefine it.

00:11:29.820 If it's just a social construct, there's no problem with redefinition.

00:11:34.800 So the protection of marriage is not merely a preservation of traditionalism.

00:11:42.660 It's a guard against the perversion of the gospel. 1.00

00:11:46.920 That's why we are vocal against the onslaught of homosexuality and transgenderism, 1.00

00:11:53.620 all the things that are going on in that world. 1.00

00:11:55.880 But there's more to covenant marriage than merely understanding that marriage is a covenant.

00:12:01.680 So to fully understand marriage, we're going to look at the passage of Scripture,

00:12:06.780 Genesis 2, 18 through 24, which we read part of it.

00:12:10.000 I'm going to read it again, and then we're going to follow along.

00:12:13.700 I'm going to take seven observations from this passage that will help us understand the nature of marriage.

00:12:22.800 So verse 18.

00:12:25.440 And if I skip a verse in here and there, just don't worry, I know what I'm doing over here.

00:12:32.200 Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone.

00:12:37.180 I will make a helper fit for him or comparable for him.

00:12:39.960 Now, out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of

00:12:45.260 the heavens and brought him to the man to see what they would call him, or what he would

00:12:50.940 call them.

00:12:51.700 And whatever the man called everything, that was its name.

00:12:55.880 But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.

00:13:00.680 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

00:13:03.800 And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed it up with a place of flesh.

00:13:07.440 and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man,

00:13:11.960 he made into woman and brought her to the man.

00:13:16.060 Then the man said, this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

00:13:20.260 She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

00:13:23.660 Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife 0.97

00:13:27.620 and they should become one flesh.

00:13:30.100 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

00:13:34.100 I'm going to go back to Genesis 128 for a second and read another passage.

00:13:37.440 It said, God had blessed them.

00:13:42.360 And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have

00:13:45.420 dominion over the fish in the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living

00:13:50.320 thing that lives and moves on the earth.

00:13:54.480 So I'm going to make again seven observations that I think are important on the nature of

00:14:00.080 marriage.

00:14:01.080 What is the foundational, fundamental understanding of marriage?

00:14:07.700 So number one is that marriage is a solution to singleness.

00:14:16.420 Okay, so the first thing you notice, it says,

00:14:20.260 it is not good that man should be alone.

00:14:24.560 Now, we live in a time of rampant singleness,

00:14:27.680 more than any other generation in history.

00:14:33.680 And because of bad exegesis,

00:14:38.580 many pastors have attempted to tell young people

00:14:40.360 that their singleness is a gift.

00:14:44.700 Oh, it's a gift that you're single.

00:14:47.740 This is a tragic misunderstanding

00:14:49.380 because of 1 Corinthians 7, verse 7,

00:14:52.100 where Paul says he's a single man while he's writing this.

00:14:54.760 And he writes about marriage,

00:14:55.780 And he's writing against marriage being a safeguard against sexual immorality.

00:14:59.820 And he says, for I wish that all men were even as I myself am, but each has his own

00:15:05.920 gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

00:15:10.620 So for about 40 years, pastors have been misunderstanding and misinterpreting this

00:15:15.660 passage because they've made the object of Paul's desire, his singleness, rather than

00:15:21.160 his gift of celibacy.

00:15:23.820 Okay.

00:15:24.300 Okay, Paul is not desiring that everybody's single.

00:15:28.160 Paul is desiring that everybody has his gift of celibacy

00:15:31.820 for the purpose of full-time ministry.

00:15:36.440 And singleness is something that providentially

00:15:42.180 the Lord may have for you in a season.

00:15:45.200 We're not to be satisfied in singleness.

00:15:48.360 We are to be content in it.

00:15:50.540 There's a difference there.

00:15:52.120 It's not good for man to be alone.

00:15:55.760 And the gift is not singleness.

00:16:01.720 No, the gift is celibacy.

00:16:04.020 And some people have that gift.

00:16:06.680 And they typically have that gift for the purpose of full-time ministry.

00:16:09.960 And having that gift means that they don't burn with passion.

00:16:16.000 Number two, marriage is a human solution to loneliness.

00:16:21.600 It's a human solution to loneliness.

00:16:25.880 Notice when God says that it's not good for man to be alone,

00:16:29.500 God did not say to Adam,

00:16:31.900 you know what, Adam?

00:16:34.160 I'm enough for you.

00:16:36.300 I'm enough for you.

00:16:37.980 No, he doesn't say that.

00:16:39.940 He says that it's not good to be alone.

00:16:43.540 Therefore, I'm going to make a wife for you.

00:16:45.820 and so this is God indicating that God is not sufficient to solve human loneliness

00:16:57.780 by himself that's a shocker to many people but it's not good God just spent saying it's good

00:17:06.180 it's good it's good it's good the first thing he says that it's not good is that man is alone

00:17:10.300 And he is not the solution to that problem completely.

00:17:18.940 Now, is God enough for us in our singleness?

00:17:21.860 Absolutely.

00:17:23.000 Is God enough for us in our loneliness?

00:17:25.900 Absolutely.

00:17:28.440 But is the ideal, is God's design, is God's intention

00:17:34.900 that our singleness is found its complete resolution in God?

00:17:43.760 No, because God made woman for man.

00:17:52.800 And this is important because, again, we've told an entire generation 0.99

00:17:55.500 that they should be satisfied in their singleness

00:17:57.000 and that their singleness is a blessing.

00:18:01.480 Again, they should be content in their singleness.

00:18:04.900 But we don't need to be satisfied with our singleness.

00:18:08.580 Not if you have a desire to be married.

00:18:12.060 If you have a desire to be married, that is a great desire.

00:18:17.020 It is a normal desire.

00:18:19.740 It is a blessed desire.

00:18:23.060 And outside of those that are called to be eunuchs for the gospel, given the gift of celibacy,

00:18:27.920 there's nowhere in scripture that it affirms that singleness is a blessing.

00:18:35.860 People say, oh, but what about Jesus?

00:18:37.500 He was single.

00:18:38.740 Jesus isn't single.

00:18:40.680 He's got a wife.

00:18:43.620 What about Paul?

00:18:44.460 Paul was likely married before he was called to ministry

00:18:48.060 as a member of the Sanhedrin.

00:18:51.960 There are several of the apostles that were married.

00:18:56.500 And so it is an absolute blessing to have a wife.

00:19:00.040 He who finds a wife, according to the Proverbs,

00:19:03.280 finds a good thing and so the truth is that we are interdependent beings 0.70

00:19:09.760 we are interdependent beings that's like offensive in our autonomous individualistic

00:19:15.760 culture that you as a woman might need to be dependent upon a man 1.00

00:19:22.720 that's offensive target would not like that 0.90

00:19:27.760 but that's what we are designed for that a man might not actually need some

00:19:33.280 Some help? He's not sufficient on his own? That breaks the pride of many men.

00:19:43.020 So singleness is not sinful. Know that. It is not sinful to be single, unless it's intentional

00:19:49.880 so that you can indulge in sexual immorality. That's sinful. But singleness is also not the

00:19:57.520 human ideal. No, the human ideal is seen in a world before sin. God makes a man and a woman

00:20:04.980 and puts them together. Number three, marriage is helpful monogamy. So God says that he will 0.97

00:20:15.380 make Adam a helper fit for him. Notice that he doesn't say helpers. He says helper in the singular.

00:20:24.300 Now, in a world that's growing more and more interested in group marriage,

00:20:27.180 or polyamory, or polygamy, or whatever it may be,

00:20:31.380 at the fundamental level, this passage is actually an affirmation of monogamy.

00:20:35.900 God made one woman for one man.

00:20:39.140 It also describes that he was going to make Adam a helper.

00:20:49.600 Now, first, this identifies that man needs help.

00:20:53.580 Okay? Just, we need to, as men, recognize that. We need help. And it identifies that woman was

00:21:02.820 made to help. That's what she's made for. In a world that has eliminated this engendered

00:21:13.560 interdependence and elevated personal autonomy. 0.97

00:21:19.700 Men have to see their need for a wife, and women need to see how their purpose is dependent

00:21:31.740 upon men, or particularly a man. 0.94

00:21:35.940 I can't tell you how many young people I've met

00:21:41.620 who feel, especially young men,

00:21:45.180 who feel that they have nothing to offer a woman

00:21:48.940 because the provision and the protection

00:21:53.080 that men used to offer in previous generations

00:21:56.520 can now be attained by women on their own.

00:21:59.560 They could provide for themselves, 1.00

00:22:01.440 they got alarm systems and they have their own gun

00:22:03.980 everything you know I'm just safe on my own and women and men can live

00:22:07.920 independently there is no engendered interdependence for one another and the 0.91

00:22:18.100 administrative help and the sexual dependence or companionship women offer

00:22:25.740 to men in previous generations can now be attained by men on their own through

00:22:32.480 internet and resources and pornography and whatever it may be. And so we've seen a generation

00:22:38.660 drive a wedge between the actual necessity for men and women to thrive off of what one another

00:22:52.020 can offer to each other. And so the individualism of this generation has really stripped away the

00:22:58.840 mutual dependencies that God aimed for being expressed in marriage. That's what individualism

00:23:10.020 does. It absolutely deconstructs the very fundamental nature of creational identity

00:23:22.840 for men and women. And so we really need to raise up a generation of men who provide and protect 0.50

00:23:34.000 and shepherd and a generation of women who won't go and seek to do those things on their own.

00:23:43.260 Last night, Veronica and I were talking about how she was expected as a young lady out of high 1.00

00:23:50.280 school to go get a job, provide for herself, move out. What is she going to do for her life? 0.96

00:23:54.780 Like there was no, she was expected to be a man, basically. She wasn't waiting to be dependent

00:24:06.320 upon a husband. She was planning to go do it on her own. And that very structure of how we raise

00:24:16.180 children needs to shift so that we raise the next generation, that they are ready to embrace

00:24:26.020 their biblical, creational identities. Is there anything wrong with a woman getting a job? No. 1.00

00:24:33.200 I'm not saying that. I'm saying that women should certainly, in a generation that says, 0.73

00:24:40.480 you know, women rule the world. A woman really does need to restrict herself and be willing 0.99

00:24:48.740 to be dependent upon a man, longing for that. And men need to obviously restrict their access 0.99

00:24:56.060 to pornography and help in all their various ways so that they can really see the value 0.93

00:25:04.120 of having a woman in their life.

00:25:07.280 The more young men and women that I meet,

00:25:10.680 they really struggle to see the value of a spouse

00:25:13.740 because we've made the world function without marriage.

00:25:19.100 And it's unfortunate.

00:25:21.660 Number four, marriage is a solution,

00:25:25.620 is a human solution to companionship.

00:25:30.740 So the passage says that man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the

00:25:36.280 heaven and to every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helper fit

00:25:41.540 for him.

00:25:42.860 So God parades the animals before Adam, and he was aware of his aloneness.

00:25:50.200 He was aware of his aloneness.

00:25:52.520 Now, if you put a modern day liberal in the garden, they would have been like, I'm not

00:25:55.460 alone.

00:25:55.840 Look at that dog. 0.59

00:25:57.360 Oh, I'll marry that dog.

00:25:59.780 So, there's no other creature comparable for him.

00:26:08.980 Again, this is a subtle observation, but animals are not sufficient companions for people.

00:26:18.860 Not relationally or sexually.

00:26:21.960 So, this is an anti-bestiality text, I guess you could say, too.

00:26:25.200 but in a world where marriage has been diminished and distorted so much that it's leaving people

00:26:32.240 single and childless the obsession with kind of animals as uh you know fur babies or four-legged

00:26:39.660 family members um and people identifying as pet parents uh that's a grossly common reality

00:26:48.540 okay cities are building dog parks faster than they're building parks for children

00:26:54.440 hundreds of thousands of dollars are being invested the money is following

00:27:00.020 the culture and again remember the culture is following the church and so

00:27:07.880 we have an entire generation that has misplaced the affection that is

00:27:13.040 reserved for spouses and children and grandchildren and redirected that

00:27:18.200 affection towards animals. It's gross. Your pet is not your family member. It's an animal. 0.86

00:27:26.940 Your pet is not sufficient for you. It's not your child.

00:27:32.780 Number five, marriage is a setting for realizing creational identity. 0.65

00:27:41.600 So the passage says, and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman.

00:27:48.200 and brought her to the man.

00:27:51.580 But the man said,

00:27:53.240 this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. 0.78

00:27:55.820 She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

00:28:00.200 I've always appreciated Matthew Henry's commentary on this text.

00:28:02.920 He says, quote,

00:28:03.820 The woman was made of a rib out of the side of man, 0.66

00:28:08.920 not made out of his head to rule over him, 1.00

00:28:11.800 nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him,

00:28:14.960 but out of his side, to be equal with him, under his arm, to be protected by him, and near his heart, to be beloved by him."

00:28:24.960 Beautiful.

00:28:26.960 I want you to catch some important symbolism here, because we're theologians, right?

00:28:32.960 We understand the fundamentals of Scripture.

00:28:36.960 In the same way that a bride was first made from the side of the first Adam,

00:28:43.960 Adam, the bride of Christ was made from the side of the second Adam.

00:28:54.000 John 1934, it says, but one of the soldiers pierced the side of Christ with a spear and

00:29:02.060 at once there came out blood and water.

00:29:05.980 So the substance of blood and water represent the Lord's table and baptism, the sacraments

00:29:11.720 of the new covenant and just as Eve's creation from Adam signifies their

00:29:19.520 covenant in marriage Christ's side being pierced signifies the covenant of

00:29:26.820 marriage between Christ and his bride the church there's some beautiful

00:29:31.340 parallelism that's occurring between the first Adam and the second Adam it shows

00:29:38.240 is also what's called an ontological truth. Now, ontological is just the word that we use for the

00:29:43.340 studying of being or nature. So Dr. McFaul writes in his book, and I'm going to give a quote here.

00:29:51.480 He says, in the case of man, he was created out of pre-existing non-human dust, and his breath

00:30:03.520 comes directly from God's mouth. In the case of woman, she was created out of pre-existing human 0.53

00:30:10.940 matter, Adam's rib. And her breath comes directly from man, not from God's mouth. So her manner of 0.96

00:30:20.440 creation was not the same as his. He was made directly from God to serve God. She was made

00:30:30.180 directly from man to serve man, end quote. Now, this is why 1 Corinthians chapter 11 says, 0.60

00:30:37.440 verse 8 and 9, for man was made not, sorry, for man was not made from woman, but woman from man.

00:30:49.060 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man, end quote. That's a very offensive passage

00:30:58.260 of scripture in a feministic culture. 1.00

00:31:02.480 Feminism wants to eliminate 1.00

00:31:04.140 any differences between men and women. 1.00

00:31:07.620 This is a very important distinction.

00:31:10.800 Because without an understanding of identity,

00:31:13.180 why you were made,

00:31:15.880 why you were made, 1.00

00:31:18.620 women will struggle to embrace 1.00

00:31:20.420 their divinely appointed purpose 1.00

00:31:22.940 in a feministic culture. 1.00

00:31:26.140 Feminism has made it 1.00

00:31:28.260 So that anything, any woman that adheres to the biblical position feels oppressed.

00:31:38.000 And any man who adheres to the biblical position feels like a misogynist. 1.00

00:31:47.880 That is the goal of feminism.

00:31:51.240 And by the way, if we believe that men are responsible for the condition of women, then feminism is men's fault.

00:32:05.700 Anything that happens in the feminine world, it's men's fault.

00:32:10.480 It's the father or the husband of those women. 0.96

00:32:15.800 It's either men who are too intense and have caused a reaction for women to desire freedom from the evil rule and dominion of a man.

00:32:31.180 or it's wimp, lazy men who have not taken up leadership and a woman had to lead as a result.

00:32:47.420 There's been a generation for about a hundred years where there was not the balanced men 0.56

00:32:53.520 that could shepherd and lead and protect and care for the women in their world

00:33:01.520 without being overbearing and without being a wimp.

00:33:06.880 And that is the fact. 1.00

00:33:09.960 How will feminism be resolved? 1.00

00:33:13.320 It's not through the women. 1.00

00:33:15.820 It'll be through the men. 0.94

00:33:17.860 And it'll not be through domineering.

00:33:20.820 And it'll not be through not speaking up.

00:33:26.160 It'll be through balanced biblical leadership over generations of time to restore the loss of the last hundred years.

00:33:41.020 When a woman can joyfully accept that she was made from man and for man,

00:33:48.360 She can be a glorious helper, again, without buying into the idea that she's being oppressed.

00:33:59.820 And lastly, this passage shows that God's design for marriage is not homosexual, but it's heterosexual.

00:34:09.720 This is in the scriptures.

00:34:11.720 If you look at Genesis 2, this isn't duplicated sameness.

00:34:16.160 He didn't create Adam and Adam.

00:34:19.100 No, it's duplicated difference.

00:34:21.940 He created Adam and Eve.

00:34:25.420 Eve is the same species as Adam, but she has a different being.

00:34:32.020 She has a different biology.

00:34:34.140 She has a different soul. 1.00

00:34:37.840 She has a very different purpose. 0.76

00:34:39.360 And again, we have a generation that at every level will try to convince women that what God made them for is evil and wrong.

00:34:53.400 And so we need to be very adamant on loving our wives, our daughters well, and leading our wives and daughters well.

00:35:03.960 Number six, marriage is a sanctuary from shame.

00:35:11.840 The passage says, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

00:35:18.500 So shame around nudity is an effect of sin.

00:35:23.540 It's God's way of telling us that we need to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

00:35:28.420 In fact, the act of, if you remember the account of Genesis chapter 3, God slaughters animals

00:35:36.620 and covers Adam and Eve, covers their nakedness and sends them out of the garden.

00:35:45.280 And so that covering of their nakedness with the slaughtering of animals is actually a 0.61

00:35:50.400 foreshadowing of God one day slaughtering Christ and covering them with the robes of

00:35:55.840 righteousness.

00:35:58.420 But in Christian marriage, when a man and a woman are redeemed by God,

00:36:04.640 when their souls are redeemed,

00:36:07.500 and they're comprehensively loved by one another,

00:36:13.080 they can be completely exposed and experience the shamelessness

00:36:18.560 that Adam and Eve had in the garden.

00:36:20.900 But without redemption, and honestly with the reality of the fallenness and struggles

00:36:30.620 of marriage, the insecurities that creep in to marriage, if you're not regularly washing

00:36:39.240 your wife's mind with the water of the word, if you're not regularly devoting yourself

00:36:44.840 to scripture, the perversion of the thoughts, of the mind, of the expectations, of the impressions

00:36:52.540 upon the marriage bed, you can easily get back into a place where there's shame within

00:37:02.020 the marriage bed.

00:37:04.280 The responsibility to overcome that shame is laid upon the husband.

00:37:09.200 it's his job to turn to scripture

00:37:14.200 and to remind his wife through a variety of actions

00:37:19.340 of her loveliness

00:37:21.000 when you meet a wife on her wedding day

00:37:27.260 you should expect 10 years later for her to be more lovely

00:37:30.240 we could do the same thing because when we look at the church

00:37:36.840 We expect the church in 1,000 years from today to be more lovely

00:37:43.400 because Christ is coming back for a white, pure, beautiful, clean bride. 0.62

00:37:53.660 And so when a man marries a woman, his job and duty,

00:37:59.060 though we fail but we succeed also by God's grace,

00:38:02.000 is to make our wives more lovely

00:38:07.840 and to reduce any shame that they might have 0.93

00:38:14.080 because they don't feel the truth

00:38:20.060 about who you think they are.

00:38:23.880 And so it's a man's job, a husband's job,

00:38:27.320 to restore a sense of shamelessness in a marriage

00:38:34.060 with unconditional love and the washing with the Word.

00:38:39.220 Number seven, marriage is a means for dominion.

00:38:44.540 So the passage says,

00:38:45.860 Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

00:38:50.640 This is referred to in theology as the dominion mandate.

00:38:54.300 The first Adam failed at the dominion mandate

00:38:59.500 The second Adam will not fail at the dominion mandate

00:39:04.480 He is reproducing fruitfulness

00:39:08.800 Multiplying across the earth through the gospel 0.98

00:39:12.720 But marriage is the means for Adam to fulfill that band-aid

00:39:20.820 Adam probably looked at that garden and goes

00:39:22.940 I don't think I could do this by myself. First, I need a helper. And even with her,

00:39:28.880 this garden's big. I don't think I can take order over this thing without more of us.

00:39:39.420 And so, the mandate is not just about reproduction.

00:39:44.660 the reproduction is qualified it's to be fruitful and multiply it's not just multiplication

00:39:53.200 it's be fruitful while you're doing it malachi 2 15 says that god is not merely looking for

00:40:01.120 more heartbeats in the world he's looking for more godly offspring or children to fill the world

00:40:07.540 who love him. That's the purpose of one of the purposes of marriage, is to reproduce

00:40:17.420 godliness in our children. Furthermore, it's evidence that God wills that married couples

00:40:25.100 direct their sexual reproductive activities or their sexual maturation toward reproduction. 1.00

00:40:32.080 We got this stupid trend called dinks that's going on in society, right? 0.99

00:40:38.120 Dual income, no kids. 1.00

00:40:40.840 Okay? 0.97

00:40:41.780 These are people that are married that are not directing their reproductive capacity towards having children.

00:40:51.280 It's actually instead reoriented towards selfishness.

00:40:56.820 That is the trend of today.

00:40:59.420 What we have to see is that God created sex not just as recreation, though it is that, but it is actually re-creation.

00:41:09.620 It is a form of re-creation, of godliness.

00:41:15.660 And arguably, I would say that quantity matters. Arguably.

00:41:20.600 Let me explain.

00:41:22.220 Two children replace yourselves.

00:41:26.840 It's not technically multiplication.

00:41:32.780 To multiply mathematically requires three or more.

00:41:37.440 Now not everyone is blessed with three or more children.

00:41:40.240 I know plenty of families throughout my time in the pastoral ministry that couldn't have

00:41:45.920 any kids and some that could only have one or two kids.

00:41:51.680 Now, the issue I think is really going back to the heart.

00:41:58.020 Are these individuals, couples that are having, are they willfully limiting their children

00:42:03.680 for their selfish desires?

00:42:07.040 That's the problem.

00:42:09.680 Or is it just that the Lord has not permitted them to conceive?

00:42:14.640 And maybe they turn to adoption?

00:42:16.920 the Lord only permitted them to have one or two. The issue of the heart of this passage

00:42:24.660 of scripture, I think really gets to what is preventing you from having kids? Is it

00:42:32.240 selfishness? Is it faithlessness? Is it fear? Or is it just the reality that you have unique

00:42:42.200 circumstances and you're actually facing challenges of being fruitful with the ones you have?

00:42:46.920 a valid point you might have three or four kids and you realize i'm barely hanging on being fruitful

00:42:56.520 with the ones we got and that's okay that's okay there is no number that we should be placing

00:43:04.920 legalistically upon parents for children but there is something that the scripture does describe as

00:43:11.560 we have a desire and love for children we should want children we should want

00:43:17.800 many children we should want as many children as we can have as we can be

00:43:22.180 fruitful with and that might be different from story to story my story

00:43:30.700 is that we thought we were gonna have eight kids we wanted a lot of kids and

00:43:34.060 then I got sick and honestly there was a season there that may be having a child

00:43:40.960 in the face of me possibly dying was not wise and I made that call and I said I'm

00:43:48.940 willing to stand before the Lord and go I think this was the right decision in

00:43:52.840 this season of life and the man will do that and so you as a husband get to make

00:43:59.620 that call at what point is your family exceeding in multiplication and failing

00:44:08.860 and fruitfulness. Those are really important distinctions to make.

00:44:15.060 So to conclude, marriage is at the center of God's work in the world. It's gospel imitation

00:44:24.580 and it's evangelistic metaphor. It's helpful companionship in the work of dominion and it's

00:44:33.380 a setting for realizing your creational identity. It's defense against sexual immorality and it's 0.97

00:44:40.580 meaningful and fruitful reproduction. And again, I know that it can be when you study the nature

00:44:49.120 of something, the definition of something, it can feel clinical and sterile. Like, okay, that was

00:44:57.620 interesting. Thank you for all the facts about marriage. Next week, it'll be warm.

00:45:06.100 Next week, we're going to get into the relational and the affectionate dimensions of marriage,

00:45:12.860 the things that really are practical and hit. And it's going to take these descriptions that

00:45:18.520 we learned today, and it's going to transform them into a more heartfelt and practical application.

00:45:24.540 Amen? Amen. Let's pray.

00:45:27.620 Father, we thank you for marriage.

00:45:31.680 We thank you for the beauty of it, and we thank you for the clarity in a world that

00:45:36.000 is trying so hard to distort it.

00:45:38.620 Lord, we ask that you would help our church to see the beautiful vision that you have

00:45:44.940 for marriage and family.

00:45:47.380 Lord, that you would bless this congregation with spouses and children.

00:45:53.900 Lord that you would give order and understanding Lord that we might be a

00:46:00.080 light to a very confused world we pray for that in Jesus name

00:46:05.920 Amen

Dale Partridge - May 07, 2024

Covenant Home Part 2： Defining Christian Marriage with Dale Partridge

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