Now, please turn in the Bible to Genesis chapter 3. This morning, I'd like to read down through verse 19. Genesis 3, verses 1 through 19. Genesis 3, verses 1 through 19. Let's stand together and hear the Word of God. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, I'm sorry, this starts in verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle. And more than every beast of the field, on your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken. For dust you are. And to dust you shall return. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we pray you to open up this word to us, establish these truths in our hearts and minds that we may further understand the import of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that good news that it would be good for us today. Amen and amen. Please be seated. People like to hand out New Testaments, the Psalms and Proverbs. And I wonder sometimes if people do not have Genesis 1 through 3 down very well, should they move on to John 1 through 3? It's important to have the fundamentals down. And this is the fifth and last in our series on fundamentals or foundations. Trying to get back to the foundations. If we don't have the foundations right in our minds, We can't move on to other things. We can't move on to the gospel. So let's be sure that we're good on the origins of man, the fall of man, the problems with man, that we might get to the redemption of man. That's the intent in probably every sermon that's ever preached from this pulpit. But let's be sure we understand God's truth from the very beginning. The foundations are increasingly under assault in our nation today and all the way through the Western world and perhaps everywhere else. And so it seems as if the world is doing everything it can to attack the creation order, to ignore it, but it's for us to come back to it, establish these truths in our minds, that we not be deceived by the world around us, so easy to be deceived. Now, the creation order, as we've brought it out in the last four messages, is the way things work. the way God has ordained it to be. So God has established the world in a certain way, by certain laws, by a certain order. And that's the way the world runs. And so it's the creation order, but it's also the order that God has ordained at the fall of man. So now we're moving on to the order that God has established or declared to be since the fall of man. So now, we're not only looking at the creation order, but the order that comes after the fall of man into sin, or the cursed state of human existence on earth. Now, you can argue against it. You can argue against the law of gravity as much as you want to. You can kick against it. You can speak against it. You can set all of your institutions against it. but you might as well be kicking against a mile-wide concrete wall and all that's going to happen is your tennis shoes are going to get pretty bloody. So there's just no use in fighting it. Now, the world does. The world opposes it. The world ignores it or tries to contradict it. Suppose for a second if every science class in the world ignored the law of gravity or even opposed it. Like every science class, K-12, universities, every science class in the world taught against the law of gravity. What would happen? Well, it'd be a lot of dead people around. People walking off of towers and coming apart and people would die. It would destroy the world, wouldn't it? So there are certain things that are hardwired into creation. I like the phrase hardwired. Because we understand that when something is hardwired, that's the way it's going to be. You can't in any way oppose it, just that's the way it is. So there are certain things that have been hardwired into our world after the fall, as well as before the fall. And one of the things that's hardwired, have you ever heard the expression, the only thing that's certain in the world is death and taxes? Have you ever heard that before? The only thing certain in the world is death and taxes. Well, I think the only thing certain in the world is death and judgment. That's what the Bible would say. It wouldn't say taxes. Taxes is an add-on. But okay, taxes most of the time, I get it. And I pay my taxes. But death is a certainty, there's no way around it. You can ignore it. You can pretend it doesn't exist, but it is extremely certain. And it's foolishness to ignore death. Utter foolishness, we know that. Okay, now here's one more thing I wanna say. You ever heard of the expression dynamics? These are certain dynamics that operate in human relationship. And there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of books written on the dynamics in the workplace, the dynamics in economics, the dynamics in human relationship, marriage or whatever it happens to be. But now, let me say this, that in terms of how things work out, when it comes to psychology, marriage, family, and sociology. Of the hundreds of thousands of books and all of the principles relating to dynamics and we're all trying to memorize it and this is the way we're going to do our counseling and this is the way we're gonna understand life and human relationship and marriage and so forth. May I suggest to you that the dynamics that God gives in his word are the very best. That if you're gonna go anywhere, If you're gonna go to any expert on sociology or psychology or whatever it is, let's go to God first. Okay, you can go buy 100,000 books, but if you ignore God's dynamics, that's ultimate foolishness. Don't do that. Okay, so let's start with this. There are three irrefutable realities that characterize a world of sin. three irrefutable realities that so characterize the world of sin. And we're going to go through those irrefutable realities. These are realities that make for the world around us and for all of human existence short of the redemption of Jesus. And now, okay, part of this message this morning is going to be the bad news, because we're studying the fall of man into sin. So that's, it's hard news. We're gonna get to redemption in a little bit, but I'm gonna describe it as best as I can, these three irrefutable realities about the world, about human beings, about how they operate, about how they think, about how they interact with each other in marriage and counseling and so forth. Three irrefutable realities, and here's the first one. Number one is that men and women do not want to face their sins. That's irrefutable. That's the way that we are all by nature. It is an inborn instinct that we are blame shifters. It's exactly what Adam and Eve did in the garden. Adam said the woman made me do it. Eve said what? The serpent made me do it. The devil made me do it. There's always the blame shifting. It is the default position of every man and woman on planet Earth by nature. People just blame shift. It's hardwired into your mind as a little six-month-old baby. It's there. You will blame shift. When there's a problem in your life by nature, your first go-to is to blame shift and point to somebody else. And that is so hardwired, as hardwired as the law of gravity. That's just the way it's going to be in the world. People always blame shift. They cannot face their sin. They will not face their sin. They absolutely instinctively will blame shift all the time. It's as instinctive as breathing. You don't think about your breathing, you just breathe. You don't think about blame shifting, you just blame shift. It's what we do by nature. And Adam and Eve are the examples of this in Genesis chapter three, directly after sinning against God. Now, occasionally, Christian-y people that have gone to a Christian church and know that it's the thing to confess your own sins because everybody confesses sins, and in the counseling, they will say, yeah, I've made some mistakes, I have some problems, I have issues. I sinned here, I sinned there. But the real root issue here, the real problem is my wife. The reason why I do what I do is because of her. The reason I do the things that I do, the reason I react to the way I did is because of Him. This is the way it works. It's the way it is by nature. It is hardwired, brothers and sisters. It's right there ingrained, as ingrained as it is that you have two eyes and two ears, you will blame shift by nature. We all do by nature. This is usually the basis for pointing at institutional sins, constant reverting back to political discussions on those bad Democrats, those bad Republicans. It's purpose for most political media talk shows. That's the reason for it. About 99% of it. I know there's 1% that maybe there's some good stuff coming out, but the bottom line is it's all about that. It's all about blame shifting. This is the reason for the wars in the world. The Ukrainians are so evil. The Russians are so evil. And so there's this whipping up on CNN or Fox News that we just, we have to be able to get to the point where it's just so angry against the Ukrainian, I mean the Russians, I mean the Ukrainians. I mean the Russians. I mean the Ukrainians. Depending on who you talk to. This is the reason, the magnification of the other people's sins. And then there's an atoning sacrifice that has to happen by war, by genocide, by bloody pogroms, and thus the elimination of hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century. It is blame shifting because people are guilty before God and they know it. And the only other thing they know what to do outside of Jesus is to point the finger at somebody else. It's instinctive. It's inborn. It's hardwired. The world is all about other people's sins. The world is about deflecting my sin to my righteousness. I'm a pretty good guy. My good deeds outweigh my bad deeds and so forth. They refuse to face their sin. They can't do it. They can't face it. bitterness grows up habitual going over other people's sins over and over and over again that's that's just bitterness so much bitterness in the world it's a reflex it's a hardwired instinct into every person to avoid facing the reality of me standing naked before a holy God that's the issue Everybody knows they're standing there before a thrice holy God, and they're not holy. They're full of sin, and they're besmirched, and they're guilty, and they know it. God's got a finger pointed at them, that they deserve everlasting wrath of God. They know it, they know it, and they will blame shift for it. 1 Samuel 6 and verse 19, very interesting passage. where the Ark of the Covenant is moving from one town to the next. And these guys from Beth Shemesh, they look into the Ark of the Covenant. Shouldn't have ever done that, but they did it. So listen to 1 Samuel 6, 19. Then God struck the men of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the Ark of the Lord. He struck 50,070 men of the people. 50,070 of the people Died and the people lamented because the Lord has struck the people with a great slaughter and the men of Bishop has said who is able to stand before this holy Lord God That's it right there who is able to stand before this holy God That's the question and every man woman and child understands this by nature That's why the six-month-old is already blaming his older brother for whatever just happened There's only one safe place place for all of us and they're only one safe place for for any of us for honesty and transparency and truth about ourselves and that is under the cross of Jesus Christ because There we need no lawyers. We don't need somebody to step up and say, no, it was her fault, it was his fault. No, under the cross of Jesus Christ, there we are, we see blood dripping down all around us. We say, where is this blood coming from? It's coming from the creator, the very son of God. The holy lamb of God came to take away the sin of the world. He himself so loved us, he went up on the cross for us and the blood of God, the blood of the son of God is dripping down upon us. And you say, why would he do it? Why? Why would He do it? Because I'm a sinner. I need no other lawyers. I have Jesus. And under the cross, brothers and sisters, we don't need to run from the truth. We don't need to blame shift. We don't need to live the lie. No, no, no, no. We don't need any of that. That's all set aside. Absolutely. Under the cross, I'm forgiven, I'm cleansed, I'm accepted, I'm free, I'm walking in the light as He is in the light. And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sins. You see, you got the both and there in 1 John 1. I can be out in the open. I can say, it's me, I did it. I'm the problem in this family. I'm the problem of the marriage. I'm it. Why? Because I'm under the cross, I understand that's why Jesus died. And I can confess my sins and know that Jesus will pay for it and His blood will cleanse me from that sin. Let's move on to number two. The second irrefutable reality that the fall has brought upon mankind is a curse upon the woman. Okay, it's a curse upon the woman. And there are two curses that are mentioned here in verse 16. The first is a multiplication of sorrow upon childbearing. Now, this is usually passed over too quickly, Stay here for just a second. There are two things here contained in this particular curse that was placed, that was hardwired upon the woman in the fall, and that is, yes, pain and childbearing, but sorrow and conception. All the pain, all the sorrow. It's a both end. You see, I understand pain and childbearing, we all do. The most intense pain known to man, woman, right? no man can really relate to, probably no more significant pain. God has multiplied the pain upon childbearing, so that's number one. But I want to get to the other part, because I think it's more basic. You will feel sorrow in conceiving the child. There's sorrow in the conception, not the birth, but the conception. At the point of conception, there's sorrow. Why is that? This is the more fundamental issue, and I think we all need to face it. It's an irrefutable truth. It's hardwired, guys. This is the way life is on planet Earth. Children are sorrowful. Having children is a sorrowful thing. It's a blessing, yes, but there's a curse to it. Why is that? Mothers love their children as they love their own lives. But their sons and daughters can bring so much sorrow to their lives. You look at a mother down at the portrait studio, you know, the photographic studio somewhere, this beautiful mother with her two little children, one-year-old, three-year-old, all smiling, and she feels very good about her little ones. There she is, a bright, smiling mother. She's happy with these children, but look at that mother at 60 years of age. 40 years later, look at that lady. 40 years later, bedraggled, pained, worn out. She's poured her life into her children and they've turned to drugs and witchcraft and rebellion and her son's doing time in prison. He's threatened her life four times. Guys, this is the world around us. It's a heartbreak. There are heartbreaks all over the place for mothers all over the world. You need to understand this, face it, realize it. Those children with devils throwing the kids into the fire and the recalcitrant child raising that child who's perpetually raising the fist at his mother and cursing in his mother's face. This is the world around us. It's all over the place. It's a heartbreak. Disciplining a child 50 times a day. You're telling me that this is not a curse. 50 times a day, that mother is disciplining that child. 15,000 times a year, make that four children, that's 60,000 times a year. 600,000 times in 10 years. You say that doesn't wear down a mother. That's not pleasant. If a mother says, I just love disciplining 600,000 times. It's been the most rewarding part of my life. Sends everything else. I'm just saying, guys, this isn't pleasant. This is a curse. It's a curse on the mother. Comes to us from the fall, hardwired into creation from the fall. Don't ignore it. It's a reality in which we live. How many times has a mama's heart broken, her love scorned, her sacrifices tossed down the garbage disposal. It's sickening. It makes me want to cry. I'm real haggard. It's a sentimentalized version of this. And mama tried, listen. One and only rebel child from a family meek and mild. My mama seemed to know what lay in store. Despite all my Sunday learning towards the bad, I kept on turning till mama couldn't hold me anymore. And I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. No one could steer me right, but mama tried. Mama tried. Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading I denied. That leaves only me to blame, because mama tried. It's a sad reality of a fallen world. God help us. Only by the mercy of Jesus. Only by the redemption of Jesus. We'll get to that in a little bit. So much pain and so much sorrow. So much pain and so much sorrow. Let's move on to the second curse placed upon the woman. Second curse placed upon the woman involves marriage. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Again, hardwired into our world. Now, may I say first that marriage is essential in our world. Marriage is essential. Even the pagan cultures, as I studied world history, I find the most primitive cultures respect marriage, all except for the modern world. But the most primitive culture, understand, you don't get society without it. So that's just basic. Now, typically the way it worked is men would own the women. They'd buy them, they'd own them, they'd rent them out. But the men would own the women. It's typically the way it worked in primitive society. Very sad, very horrible. But whatever the case is, there was at least a respect for marriage, that that man belongs to that woman and that woman belongs to that man. And even to this day, the sin of adultery in our country is considered the very worst of all sins. Because marriage is essential. That's hardwired into people's minds. They understand this. But by nature, marriage is miserable. And God said it's going to be a misery. Marriage is going to be miserable. It's going to be an important part of the misery of human life on earth. It will be miserable. God cursed marriage. Now it's very sad, I realize, but this is a curse that God has placed upon marriage. It's a burden. You're cursed if you get married, and you're cursed if you don't. Now that's typically the way the world sees it, too. The Muppets shared that wisdom back in 1970. You can't live with them. and you can't live without them. But what is this? What is this curse? And we're gonna look at it for just a second. Again, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Now, this is an important dynamic that has been hardwired into the marital relationship. And I want you to understand it. God, understand this. By the way, this is one of the most complicated passages of all, but there is an almost identical parallel passage in Genesis 4 God uses it almost word for word in Genesis 4-7. I want you to flip over there because it is parallel. This word for desire is only used three times in the Bible, twice by God. One in Genesis 3 and the other in Genesis 4. This is the wisdom of God. And so he gives us an idea of what the word means. Very rare word. Very hard to figure it out unless you have the clue. And the key is Genesis 4-7. So you've got to look at Genesis 4-7 if you're going to understand the curse that has come down upon marriage. So listen to this. The Lord said to Cain... This is where Cain was about ready to murder his brother. So Cain is addressed by God here. He says, why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen, Cain? If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not well, sin lies at the door. That's the word for desire. So God uses the very same word. Sin lies at the door. Sin, it's desire. is for you. I'm sorry. It's desire is for you. It's desire is to overpower you, to control you, to consume you. But next it says you should rule over it. Same two words used here. that it lies at the door, it desires you, it desires to overpower you and to control you and to consume you. But he says then, you should rule over that sin. You should gain the victory over that particular sin. So the relationship of the woman and the man in the marriage is configured using the same imagery as the relationship of sin and man. We're not equating women to sin, please understand. We're not equating them. We're simply saying the same sort of relationship is described. Now, what is that? Well, basically, it's the picture of a wild animal that is just waiting to pounce on a prey. The woman is, as a wild animal, waiting to pounce on the prey. Picture the animal. sitting there quivering, anticipating, intending, desiring to gain control and to consume and pray. That's what it's gonna look like. That's the dynamic that God has seen to hardwire in the marriage. Comes by the curse and fall. In every society, in every worldly society, this is what happens. The second part of it says, and here's the second part of the dynamic, he will rule over you. That is, he will overpower you. In the fight between the house cat and the bear, the bear will crush the cat. And he says it's gonna happen every time. That's the dynamic. It's not a good dynamic, it's dysfunctional, it's bad, but it characterizes every marriage on earth short the Reformation work of Jesus in our lives. In every society, in every worldly society, the man will always find a way to gain control. Now, I said it's a curse. It's a cursed relationship. But this is the way it is in the world. The situation is dysfunctional. The end result is always a dysfunctional, miserable, and barely tolerable situation. Extremely sad. But let's move on to number three. The third irrefutable reality that so characterizes our world around us today, and that comes in verses 17 through 19. Then to Adam, the Lord God said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and you have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. both thorns and thistles that shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the herb of the field in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for dust you are into dust you shall return now let me say this the pronouncements are gender specific has everybody got that so far there are these pronouncements given to the wife and then there's pronouncements given to the husband i believe that the problems that God brings in childbirth and marriage are more experienced and more felt by the wife than the husband. That's just the way it works. Now, I'm not saying they're exclusive. I'm not saying these curses are exclusive. I'm just saying they are generally gender specific. That's all I'm saying. And I believe that's true from God's word here. That men don't suffer, do suffer the heartbreak and sorrow of children. They do. But they don't feel it. They don't get stabbed in the heart as deeply as the women do, as the mother does. So the curse is primarily to the woman in that case, but also secondarily to the man. In the case of God cursing the ground and bringing out the thorns and thistles, women do not bear the curse of the thorns and thistles as a thrust, as the main thing, as much as men will. This is the curse specifically placed upon men. And yes, women will share something of it. But let me say this, that feminism has introduced the double curse upon the woman. She still has to bear the children. She raises them oftentimes as a single mom. And she's got to take on the work world almost at the same level as the man. She gets the double curse. That's the blessing of feminism. It's not a blessing, is it? It's a terrible thing. It's a horrible curse. It's curse squared. And so, by the way, women overtook men in the workplace for the very first time. That is, in terms of the number of hours worked in the workplace, men versus women on the gender difference, women overtook men in the year 2020 for the very first time. That is, there are more women doing more work in society than men as of 2020. So do the math. On average, women are bearing all the children. Is that true? How many men bear children? Guinness Book of World Records. Ripley's Believe It or Not. I haven't read it yet. Maybe there is one. But the way I calculate it is women get 100% of that. Is that true? Okay, yes. Okay, thank you. And women right now are 50-50. So they're getting at least 150%. That's the result of feminism. But what is this to men? And I'm not going to dwell on this as much because I want to get back to the solution as quickly as possible. But what men get is frustration and futility in their work. Frustration and futility. Setbacks. Inevitable. Any man in the workplace ever run into setbacks? You're cruising along, you're doing really well, and then suddenly you hit a major hitch. And you never expected that and you've got to claim a bankruptcy. for your organization. Boom, just like that. Ups and downs, we get them all. We run into the curse of work all the time. Disappointment will be the name of the game in a man's career. There's one reason for the midlife crisis, I believe. Men are disappointed. They finally realize the curse at 54 years of age. They finally realized the major hassle, and they have never really broken through that major hassle of work, and so they go through their midlife crisis at 54 years of age. Happens all the time in our society. Men are coming face to face with a curse in their own lives. All right. But God couches everything in hope, and let's not forget verse 15. Remember, verse 15 is the preview for everything that comes afterwards. The fix comes to the seed of the woman, that is Jesus, who will come to crush Satan's head. I will put enmity between you and the woman, the Satan that is, the devil and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. There will be a gigantic cosmic battle played out in which Jesus is going to crush the head of the serpent and overcome. All of this evil brought down upon the world. Okay. But let's talk just for a moment about what I call pseudo-salvation. Because what man wants to do is he wants to short-circuit the curse in the fall. Plan B. You know, man wants to figure this thing out, and he's going to figure it out, and he's going to fix it. Now, you need to understand that the lot of the woman is extremely sad in the history of the world. I don't want to describe the sorts of things that happen, even in pagan empires like Rome and Greece, the treatment of women in native tribes here in America. Wow. Men usually respond to this pouncing, this controlling, eager element to control the man, to do everything that the woman by nature wants to do in the controlling, the controlling emotionally, the controlling in sexuality, the controlling in the area of speech. and the nagging and the husband wanting to crush her for this, that reason, so forth and so on. So this dynamic is hardwired into men and women and have from the fall of man. And men usually respond by two controlling impulses. One is brute force and to crush. Secondly, by checking out. So men will respond aggressively by controlling in an aggressive way. He's bigger than she is, et cetera. He can control her in a physical manner, or he will check out, he'll abdicate. And these are the go-tos for every man who's ever been married by nature, by nature. But let me say this, both approaches, only increases the misery for the wife. She doesn't get what she wants. Brute force is pretty much the go-to. My brother in the Philippines, how many times has he been out in the street trying to keep a man from killing his wife? In pagan societies, it's all the time. Nobody else in the neighborhood would do it, but my brother would step out there and try to prevent this man from killing his wife. The civil master, he calls the civil master, he said, well, don't worry about it. We don't do anything about that sort of thing. Why? Because it's natural. It's what men do. It's what men have done for thousands of years. This is the go-to. This is the thing that's hardwired into the curse that's brought into marriage. In feminist societies, men usually just check out. But the overall misery index only increases and increases and increases. That's just what happens. because this is hardwired into the woman and the man in the marriage. But the modern world has fixed it in 1967. Finally, after 5,967 years, modern man has fixed it. He's got it. Ronald Reagan, governor of California, legitimized divorce in 1967 and legitimized abortion in 1967. It starts with Ronald Reagan in California and the Republican governor, John Love, in the state of Colorado. Yes, it began right here. They fixed it. All of the institutions in our modern world have created a social system for the first time in human history where all the necessary components for an end run around the curse has come to being. Truly extraordinary. The pseudo salvation is in place unlike any other time in human history. Man has found a way to circumvent the fall and the curse that God placed in the fall. Well, do I need to go through the components? Legalized divorce, convenience divorce, abortion. By the way, the pulling back of the capital punishment for adultery for the man who commits adultery in the divorce. You got to pull that back first, then you allow for convenience divorce, then abortion, sex without responsibility in relationship, government funded. And what do you do with the babies that do show up? What do you do with that? Oh, they've got a solution for that too. See, this is, everything is taken care of by the feminist and modern socialist dream. It's all come true. It's all happening. Government funded daycare, preschool, kindergarten, institutionalized child raising. Don't have to worry about it. Don't have to love your own child. Don't have to raise your own child. And best of all, mechanical wounds. What you need is mechanical womb. That will be the final solution. The mechanical womb, institutionalized daycare. On into preschool, end of kindergarten, derelationalized everything else. The government will take care of it. It's all done. It's all taken care of. Modern governments have solved the problem. Womb-to-tomb welfare takes place of husbands and fathers, complete with the provision of government-funded abortion, abortifacients, which happened under Obamacare. All of this feminism got the solution. This is what one feminist said, the liberated woman gets sex before marriage and a job after marriage. and abortion and birth control take care of everything. Finally, the solution is in place. And men are okay with this. Men love it. Men get sex without responsibility. They don't have to worry about the hassle of relationship. They have their homosexuality and pornography. Men don't have to work. It's all great for men as well. The salvation plan is amazing. The feminists have introduced women in the workplace. Men and women make their own paychecks. Nobody's dependent on anybody else, but everybody's dependent on the state. It all works. It all works. Young men don't have to get married until they're 40, 45. I'm not pointing to anybody here. I'm just simply saying, on average, they're just not doing it. They're not paying attention to it. They've got other options. They don't need to worry about it. So everything is fixed. Everything's fixed. Salvation provided by technology? State welfare, convenience, divorce, abortion, high efficiency abortifacients to remove the hassle of children. Salvation, finally salvation. To circumvent the curse that God placed on man at the beginning. Now we don't have to worry about the problem of gravity anymore. Except for the fact that it's not. Be nice to have an amen here. It's not. This is not salvation. It's entirely destructive to life on earth. The results are birth implosions, the unraveling of the social foundation of human society, a generational retrograde into immorality and social instability because kids are raised without fathers and sometimes without mothers, the loss of respect for human life, the love of many growing extremely cold, natural affections decimated, the isolation of humanity, the death culture, a seven-fold increase in despair deaths and suicides since 1990, economies that cannot possibly recover from the disaster that we have brought about by trying to circumvent the fall of man into sin. It's just not working. The pseudo-salvations cannot work. They don't work. They won't work. They're bringing a bigger disaster than ever before upon humanity. The only fix, brothers and sisters, to this problem that we ourselves confront is Jesus. To try to fix death by suppressing it, by drugs, etc., is futile. Fix the curse upon the woman by an end run around God. It's too futile. The experiment is blowing up marriage and destroying the family. It's proven to be the biggest disaster of all of human history in terms of sheer numbers of people affected. And to try to fix this curse outside of God's way is a total disaster. So how do we fix it? How do we fix the curse? How do we reverse the curse? Because we're up against this hard concrete wall in marriage. children, work, all these things. How do we do this? What are we gonna do? Facing the curse, realizing we've got a curse here. The redemption of Jesus Christ is the only way. Only Jesus can fix this now. And Jesus redeems our work. That's number one. Why is this? Because there's no frustration of futility. as we work with Jesus, for Jesus, for the kingdom that never dies. We plant seeds that will yield fruit into eternity. We lay treasures up in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt, where thieves do not break through and steal. God gives us a sense of our work for eternity. He establishes the work of our hands, not just here, but for eternity. And we know it. God has dealt with that futility in Jesus Christ. Number two, Jesus redeems our children. The promise is to you and to your children. Our children begin to prophesy, and we are surprised by that. Jesus has come, poured out His Holy Spirit upon our families. and our children are repenting of their sins, humbly confessing their sins. Mommy, I sinned against you. I'm sorry. I assumed the worst of you. I was arguing with you. I was proud. I was dishonoring you. I'm really sorry. I want to ask Jesus for forgiveness and receive His forgiveness because I know His blood will cleanse me from my sins too. Amazing! Amazing! The Holy Spirit's poured out upon our children. This is the most amazing thing ever. This is the comeback from the curse that has come upon us from the fallen. This is the Malachi 4, very last word, right? From Malachi, and He will turn the hearts. And I believe this is the Holy Spirit working through John the Baptist and others, but He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. That is, there is an amazing generational revival, a reformation that's occurring here. but I wanna focus on marriage just for the last few minutes. How does He redeem marriage? How does He do this? Well, He redeems marriage, again, in the only way possible. The situation, impossible, isn't it? Well, Jesus is the only way. He's the only way. And I know wives, husbands, I know what it is to bang my head against that wall, the wall of the curse that's been hardwired into my marriage to some extent as well as yours. The only way through it is through Jesus. That's it. He's come to redeem our marriages. And let me just run through this. How does he do it? By granting repentance. Yes, repentance, which is a change of mind. Jesus changes our hearts and he brings repentance to our minds so that our entire value system changes. The highest value in life is no longer my comfort and my control, my competing for power or my self-preservation. That is no longer the highest value in my life. We become more comfortable denying ourselves taking up the cross daily and following Jesus, who's carrying the bigger cross for us. Insults don't wound us like they used to. Taking the last place is more comfortable than it used to be. Winning the argument in marriage doesn't really matter like it used to. Why? Why? Because Jesus has come, he's changed our hearts. He's changed our minds. We have this 180 degree in terms of our entire value system. But number two, Jesus sets the pattern of humility for us. Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who had the right to control all things, but surrendered it, became a servant. took upon himself our sins all the way to the cross. Humility. Humility. And then the example of humility is given in 1 Peter 2 and 3 for the wife, specifically for the wife. And we typically don't read through it because there are chapter divisions, but I want you to look at it just for a moment as we wrap up. 1 Peter 2, and we're gonna back up to verse 22. Before we get to wives, look at this. This is exactly the way it needs to be read. It's typically not read this way, but read it this way. Read it the way that Peter wrote it. Look at 1 Peter 2, verse 22. For to this you were called. In this case, both men and women are called to follow Jesus in His humility. But listen, for to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. It's the point of these verses. He left us an example that you should follow His steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth, who when He was reviled, did not revile in return husbands, wives. When he was reviled, he didn't revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously, trusted in God's sovereignty. himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed for you were like sheep going astray but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls now chapter 4 3 verse 1 wives likewise wives likewise wives likewise follow Jesus be like Jesus do what Jesus did Be submissive to your own husbands. Even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Follow the example of Jesus. But let me move on to number three. Again, this is how Jesus redeems marriage. See, I think at root, there's a turmoil, there's an unsettling feeling in the hearts of all of us by nature. But our women, they feel a turmoil. Things aren't the way they're supposed to be. There's an unsettling feeling. There's a lack of peace in the human soul. There's turmoil in the marriage, turmoil in the relationship, turmoil in the soul of the woman. But now Jesus brings peace, for He is our peace. Ephesians chapter two. He brings peace between us and God and between our fellow men. Jesus brings peace. He brings peace between us. He brings a unity. He brings a harmony back into human relationship. He brings peace, first of all, to our raging souls, our raging consciences, such that we don't have to shift blame anymore. We don't have to be shameful or being guilty. We don't have to cast blame on others. We can let go of that accusation. that spirit of bitterness or whatever, we just let that go because we have peace with God and now peace with one another. We've been forgiven. We can forgive others. And then there's what I would call a peace for the controlling soul. See, there's this idea that we've got to control. We've got to bring something better. That's effectively what lust is. Lust desires something even better than what we have. And this is why we're grasping for, lusting after, trying to control what's happening because we want something better. That's what Eve wanted in the garden. She wanted something better than what God gave to her, not trusting in the goodness of God. So in a sinful world, of course, women want something better for their families. They want something better for their children, want something better in the marriage. That's what they want. In a sense, that's a good impulse there. But the problem is they want to get it for themselves. That's the problem. So surrender the control. That's it. Surrender it. Just give it up. Let it go. But you say surrender it to who? Surrender it ultimately to the Lord. Because if you surrender it just to your husband, you know he's a goof. That's already been established. But remember that we read further in 1 Peter 3 that Eve trusted God and therefore was able to subject herself to her husband. But you've got to surrender this first to God that God will bring about a solution for you. God will bring about a good thing for your family, for your marriage, for your children. So surrender that idea that you've got to get it for yourself. You're not the Savior. Jesus is the Savior. Let Him be the Savior. Move aside. Jesus can do this. You know, it's interesting, the great resolution to all conflicts comes in 1 Corinthians 3.21. I don't have this in your notes. You might just jot that down because there's a neat little verse there. It talks about all the conflicts going on in the church at Corinth and then it ends up with this, hey, what are we fighting over? What are we grabbing for? What do we need more of? You know, why do I need more of this? I need more control and I need more of that. Why all the grabbing? Why all this power shifting around going on in the church at Corinth? And Paul ends with this, listen. Let no one boast in men, for all things are already yours. And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. You've already got everything. Why are you grabbing for more? You've got everything in Jesus. Now, there's a lot in that verse, and I'm just going to throw it out at you. Could you meditate on it? That, to me, is the solution for everything. Okay. Adam bequeathed us with a lot of problems, a lot of needs. He was a lousy head. But Christ has bequeathed to us everything, all things made new, all things reconciled in Himself. That's what it's saying here is that Adam was lousy. What a lousy head. Gave us all this junk. Thanks for all the death. Thanks for all the terrible suffering that you gave to all of us. Thanks, big guy. That's kind of like the way I want to talk to him sometime, but maybe I shouldn't. By that point, I'm meeting him and we're all redeemed, so we don't have to go over that. But Jesus, what does He do? Jesus is the second Adam, the last Adam. He brings everything to us, all things made new. So this takes away our disappointment in others in the ultimate sense. This removes the pressure to resolve these problems for ourselves when it's not within our power to solve these problems. See, I think that's the issue. You finally got to realize, moms, it's just not within your power to do this. You're trying to grab the power and control to bring about the solution. Jesus already did it. Just let go. He brings the solution. And then finally, specifically to the men in the congregation, so much more to say about this. But love becomes the stimulus, the catalyst, the motivating factor. What happens in terms of how we're motivated in the sinful relationships, typically by power, sometimes by money, but oftentimes by power. If we can gain more control, it motivates us to more action. It's power that seems to be the highest value in human life out there. But as it turns out, love is the most powerful motive of all. And so follow me through on this, very important. Love becomes the stimulus or the catalyst, the most fundamental motive for serving. And love motivated Jesus to go to the cross. He loved his father, served his father, went to the very end for us. And the love of our Lord and master stirs up love within us. In other words, you're sitting there looking at your Lord and master, not washing your feet, but taking upon Himself the curse of sin, bleeding on the cross for you, and He's looking down on you and says, I love you so much, I'm dying for you here. And so you are so moved, you are so stirred, you are so motivated by love, it changes your life. Right there at the foot of the cross, you become a different person, and you're motivated by the most powerful motive known to man, and that is love for Jesus. The same principle applies to the wife. When she encounters the Jesus-like love of her husband, it stirs up love within her to lovingly submit to his lordship, even as we have lovingly submitted to his lordship. Now, there's a whole lot more to say about this, but I want to carry on an offline discussion this Wednesday night on this very issue. We're going through the covenant household by Douglas Wilson, chapter two, common sins in marriage, husbands, wives, where are the issues we break down? What is it that makes our marriages miserable? We're not quite getting it. We need to break through on some of this. And so I want to have more of an extended conversation on this on Wednesday night at 7 o'clock at our house. So I didn't really want to do an infomercial at the end, but I understand there will be lots of questions relating to these things because I've opened up a bunch of cans. But let's have further discussions on these. These are the fundamental issues that we're dealing with as the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. And brothers and sisters, there is redemption in Jesus. Do y'all believe that? He came to fix all of this. Hallelujah. And nobody here is gonna do anything to run around that. Amen. We'll go straight to Christ and He has got the solution for us. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus. We have come face to face with our sin with the challenges of marriage and children. Father, we've seen it. We're just saying something that we've seen. We can't deny it. It's all over the place. But so is your redemption. You have come to redeem it. You have come to restore the years the locusts have eaten. God, you have done this. Salvation is efficacious. You have brought about a beautiful and wonderful thing. We're gonna shout your praises over this redemption into all eternity. It's that big. But Father, help us to know your love for us today, mostly. so that we can lovingly submit and that we can love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. Father, it seems to me we just need the other shoe to fall today. We gotta get it. Holy Spirit, please help us to see it. Help us to see it, to see Your love, and to respond, and to see all this bondage, all that curse just melt away in the face of the love of Jesus. In His name we pray, amen. We take a moment to come to the Lord's table. I don't wanna speak to the final point that I made in the message this morning directly from Romans 5 and verse 7. Here's what the Word tells us, "...scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die." But God demonstrates His love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now I've read a lot of I've read some of the transformational moments of folks who've been converted. Just heard the testimony of a brother who was saved out of the depths of homosexuality this week. I was on the phone with him and he told me the story. And much of the transformational moments in which the soul is blown away and there's this radical moment of conversion is when Jesus approaches them in his love. I see this as Saul on the road to Damascus, that Jesus approached him in love and called him there. While he was killing Jesus, Jesus said, hey, I want you. You're mine. I'm placing my love upon you. And so there's this powerful moment in conversion where a man is confronted at the same moment by the ugliness of what he's doing and who he is, right there, and the love of God for him, right there, right there. There's something about that that brings about a conversion. That seems to be the catalyst to true faith and repentance in a person's life, that they have come to grips with who they are as an ugly sinner, an ugly wretch, and yet loved by God. while they were yet sinners. John Newton on that slave ship as he was being tossed to and fro in this massive hurricane, on every other side, I was surrounded with black, unfathomable despair, a terrible sinner. But he could see a glimpse of the hand of mercy extended to him through the despair. At the end of his life, John Newton was quoted as saying, this very end of his life, he was losing his memory. My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior. Brothers and sisters, Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. The supremely holy one for the supremely unholy ones. Here we are, the foul, undone sinners, standing at the cross, viewing the Savior, and hearing the words, I'm dying for my love for you. And at that moment, we are overcome, we are transfixed, and then transformed. It's just at that moment when we are, in every sense of the word, blown away. We are blown away. We're overcome. There are no words to describe it. The scene doesn't work for the self-righteous and the proud. It doesn't. If you're not moved by it, you've got pride issues, self-righteousness. You feel like you're a pretty good guy still. Okay, the gospel message doesn't work for you. I get that. But brothers and sisters, we are great sinners and we have a great Savior. Those who realize the stench is me. That stench, I smell it. Some, perhaps, have been sitting in the sewer for a very long time. They've grown used to the stench because they're comfortable in the sewer. They're comfortable there. But at some point, you get a whiff of it. You go, that's me. There have been moments I haven't taken a bath for a week or so, especially on missionary trips. I go, something stinks around here. And I go, that's me. And there's moments in our spiritual lives where we realize the stench is me. That's me. The foul creature in the mirror is me. Those who realize the corruption of the leprosy of sin that's been chewing on their dead souls, the contamination, the bondage of sin, those who realized this foul unloveliness of themselves. And then at the very same moment, the love of God for the unlovely. Who would love that? God loves that. God loves the unlovely, the most extraordinary thing in the world. The moment that is transformational, it's life-changing. That's conversion. It just sweeps over us again and again, and it sweeps over us again at the table. Why should we be at the holy table, partaking of, in a symbolic way, the holy blood of Jesus? Why us? Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the blessings of you, the unlovely has been made lovely by the love of God. See, that's the most extraordinary thing. We can now cry out amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. By the way, John Newton never got over the first lyric. It was just, it was embedded in his soul to this dying day. So brothers and sisters, this is a love that bowls you over. Let it bowl you over. Just let it bowl you over. You know, as you take it, roll a few times. Just let it bowl you over. Receive it this morning. Let it wash over you. How do we explain this love? What could possibly compare with this love? There is nothing. How could anyone see this love, really see this love, resist the love? God's love is what makes the unlovely lovely. While we're yet sinners, Christ died for us. While the woman was still a harlot, the husband died for her. Isn't that the picture of Hosea? While she was yet a harlot, while the church was still a sinner, while the bride was, well, not married yet, but soon to be married, while she was still a sinner, while she was still a harlot, the husband died for her. That's us, brothers and sisters. You received this love this morning. Huge. Huge. And so, here again, Jesus is making us lovely by His love at the table. We're experiencing this again as we receive this communion, as we commune with Him, the one who loves us, the one who died for His bride, and that is us. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, oh, there's no words to express, and we barely get our minds around it. In some senses, our having a hard time coming into the service because of our sin, yet you have received us already, you have forgiven us, you have washed us, you have made us clean. We are new creatures in you and Jesus. Yet we're thinking nothing in us to deserve this, but just love, just your love for us, just unmerited favor, just that grace poured out upon us. Now, Father, as we reach for the cup, we reach for the grace of Jesus and we receive his love. As we eat this bread, we do it with thanksgiving gratitude, knowing that you so loved us even when we were sinners, that you sent your son to die and Jesus gave himself for us. In his name we pray, amen.