Transcript
We're going to read in Genesis chapter 3, beginning at verse 6. Genesis chapter 3, and verse 6:
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. 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. 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?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
As you know, the biblical overall title of this series is “Male and Female Created He Them.” And I would like to take note of the fact that the Bible is not saying He created them a unisex.
One of the problems that we have in our culture and society today is that people are allowing the created distinctions between men and women to break down. And that's a very fatal step to take. It produces all kinds of difficulties.
And this is one of the reasons we've gone back to the beginning of the account of the creation of man and woman.
The more practical title of my overall series is “How to Get Along with Your Spouse.” But when it was announced today by Joe from the pulpit, some wag in the audience whose name shall not be mentioned by me said, “I didn't know Zane had a spouse.”
Well, please notice that the title does not say “How to Get Along with My Spouse,” but the title is “How to Get Along with Yours”! And I want to suggest to you that spouses do not get along well until both spouses accept the role that God has given to them in creation.
And the secret of a happy marriage lies first and fundamentally in the willingness of the man to take the man's role and the woman to take the woman's role.
Now as you know, the title of our previous discussion, which we called Ladies' Day, was as follows: “The Woman Who Wrecked the World.” And we focused, of course, on Eve and upon the way in which the devil succeeded in getting her to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
I was tempted to give a quiz today. You know the old saying, “You can take the teacher out of the school, but you can't take the school out of the teacher.” And there's no way I will ever be really satisfied with not being able to give examinations.
I was thinking of bringing a sheet of paper and a pencil for all the ladies. But I decided that would not be fair because we didn't have anything to test the men on yet.
I hope, however, that the ladies could have succeeded in this task because the point that we made last time was that the woman was created to be man's helper. And we're not talking here about doing the dishes or carrying out the garbage or preparing the meals.
What we discovered from the creation account is that God created the woman to help the man fulfill his responsibilities to God.
And if I had given a quiz today -- ladies, be alert because somewhere down the line I will not be able to resist this temptation -- if I had given a quiz today, I would have asked you to list one, two, or three ways in which you are trying to improve your performance as someone who helps her husband to perform the will of God and to be a better servant of God. But that's for later.
Today we'd like to talk to the men. And, as Joe has already announced to you, the title of our talk today is “The Man Who Went Along to Get Along.”
Now we know that one of the sad features of modern culture is that we have produced a lot of wife abusers. There are men who occasionally strike their wives, and there are men who frequently abuse their wives physically.
I'm glad, as far as I know, nobody sitting at this table ever strikes their wife. When I find out that a man has struck his wife, my opinion of him sinks below zero. It seems to me that he's a coward. It seems to me that he's less than a man.
Anyone who would strike a woman, no matter what the provocation, that's inexcusable. If a man does this periodically and regularly as some men do, and sometimes beats their wives within an inch of their lives, then that man's a sicko, in my opinion.
That man's sick, and he needs therapy. He needs treatment. He needs the Lord, of course, but he needs treatment because that kind of performance is a sign of a very serious psychological and spiritual problem and a very serious addiction to violence.
And we admit that one of the sad signs of the decay of our society is the increasing number of men who abuse their wives physically.
But this afternoon I want to suggest to you that the problem of most men is not that they are abusive husbands. The problem is that they are passive husbands.
I would suggest to you that for every man who is an abuser, there are probably five, six, seven or more men who are passive husbands.
Now please understand that when I talk about a passive husband I'm not talking about the typical stereotype. You know, the henpecked husband. Everybody can tell that his wife wears the trousers in the family, and she tells him what to do, and he does it. This is the “Yes, dear,” husband type.
You know, he says to his friends, “I always take a positive attitude toward my wife, always.” And they say, “How come?” “Well,” he says, “whenever she tells me to do something I say, ‘Yes, dear. Yes, dear. Yes, dear.’ ”
There are some husbands like that, but that's not the type of husband that I'm talking about this morning. You can be a passive husband in the sense in which I'm talking about it right now and still be very stubborn, have a mind of your own.
So when you are carefully seated in front of your television set watching the Cowboys or the Rangers and the wife comes up and says, “Could you take me over to the mall so I can do some shopping?” you may say, “There's no way I'm going to go to the mall with you until the game is over.” We're not talking about that kind of passivity.
The kind of passivity I'm talking about is the husband who is passive regarding the spiritual welfare of his wife. Let me repeat that: the husband who is passive in regard to the spiritual welfare of his wife.
And I would like to suggest to you that many husbands display that kind of passivity because they're sons of Adam. They're behaving like Adam behaved in the passage of Scripture that we read.
Did you notice that after the serpent has deceived the woman into taking a different kind of look at the tree, we read that, “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate it.”
And then it says, “And she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Now I don't really know whether Adam called Eve “sweetheart.” Okay? I just kind of like the term.
You know, one of my parents' favorite songs -- I think it was a favorite of theirs because it had been popular during their courting days -- “Let me call you sweetheart. I'm in love with you. Let me hear you whisper that you love me, too.”
I could go on, but what's the use of my doing that? But all preachers have to have a little license here, okay? So I'm going to pretend that Adam called Eve “sweetheart.”
And he said to her, “Oh, no, no, sweetheart. Do you realize that you are offering me a piece of fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God has commanded us never to eat of? And, sweetheart, I can tell that you've already eaten because you have a half-eaten piece of fruit in your hand. And I'm disturbed by this. This is a terrible, terrible mistake.
And the most important thing for us to do right now is to get it straightened out with God. So when God begins to walk in the garden in the cool of the day, as He does every day, well, we're gonna have to go into the garden, and you're gonna have to tell God what you did. And I'll be right there with you. I'll be right beside you, and we'll tell God that something awful has happened. We'll admit to this fault, and we'll see what God will do about it.”
Of course, you all know I'm making this up. Obviously, Adam didn't say anything like that, did he? And have you ever stopped to consider how different the history of mankind might have been if he had? But he didn't.
And notice what the Scripture says, “she took of the fruit of the tree and ate it, and she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Just like that. Whew! As far as this record is concerned, no argument, no resistance. She gives the fruit to him, and he eats it.
And later on in the day, the Lord is walking in the cool of the garden, and Adam and Eve, who have now felt ashamed over their nakedness and have put on some fig leaf aprons, have hidden in the garden.
And God says, “Where are you, Adam?” And Adam said, “I heard Your voice, and I hid myself because I was naked and I felt ashamed.”
And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
And then comes the classic statement. Folks, not only did sin start in the garden of Eden, but passing the buck started in the garden of Eden, too.
And the man says, “The woman gave it to me.” The buck is here passed to Eve. But he has attempted that. “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit.”
Well, what do you know? “God, You're to blame. You gave me this woman. Now look what she's done to me.”
Now don't think that men have never thought or felt or spoken that way since the garden of Eden. “Lord, why in the world did You give me a wife like this? Why did You bring this woman into my life? Look how she's ripping my whole life apart.” Of course, conveniently forgetting that when he married her he thought she was the best thing this side of fried chicken.
But when it goes wrong, “Ooh. Why did you do this to me?”
Now, he's passing the buck. I want you to see that clearly. And wouldn't you expect him to go on and say, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit, and I said, ‘No no no. I can't do this.’ And she said to me, ‘Please do it.’ And she pleaded with me and she begged me and she cried. And she nagged me and nagged me and nagged me. And she wouldn't speak to me for five hours. And finally, Lord, I couldn't take it anymore, and I ate.”
You don't find that here either, do you? But you better believe if he could have said it, he would have done it. He's already passing the blame to Eve. He's already passing the blame to God.
But notice, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” As simple and as easy as before. He can't tell that he resisted this. He pushed her away from him. He fought with her over this. “She gave me of the fruit.”
You know, here is the world's number one pushover. Number one because he was the first man. And number two because, as the New Testament says, he wasn't fooled by any of this. The woman was deceived by the serpent, but the man was not deceived. He knew what he was doing.
And without the smallest amount of resistance, as far as the scriptural record is concerned, he just went ahead and did it.
Why? Why? Now, I want to make a suggestion, and in doing this I may run afoul of the male fraternity here. This is my opinion. This is my opinion.
One of the greatest fears that married men have is the fear of losing intimacy with their wives. Let me repeat that. I think one of the greatest fears that married men have is the fear of losing intimacy with their wives, personal intimacy and physical intimacy.
Now, I don't find anything particularly wrong with the word “sex,” but I'm not going to use it in my message today because I think it may be better, given the harsh overtones that it sometimes has in the culture, to use the word “physical intimacy,” because that's what God created in the marital relationship from the very beginning.
Now what I want you to think about very carefully is what kind of position Adam was in at the moment that his wife came up with this piece of fruit. You've got to put yourself in his place.
Remember that Adam knew what it meant to be alone. For a while he was the only created human being. And remember that God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
And God began to create the animals, and He brought the animals to man. And Adam named all the animals, but not one of these animals was a suitable companion for Adam.
And then God made Adam go to sleep. And while Adam was asleep, God takes out one of his ribs, and He creates the first woman. And when Adam woke up, there she was.
And I'm sure she was marvelously beautiful, perfect from head to toe. And they began a life of complete and total harmony. The only perfect marriage that has ever taken place on the face of the earth took place between Adam and Eve before the fall.
Think about it for a minute. They never fought. Neither of the partners was ever selfish. “What do you want to eat tonight, Adam?” “Peaches, but what would you like to eat, Eve?” “Apples.” (I don't think apples were the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.) “Let's do it your way.” They never disagreed.
And beyond all that, they had physical intimacy such as no two human beings have ever known in the history of the world. The intimacy and perfection of their relationship to each other day by day found its consummation and fulfillment in the physical intimacy that they were able to have with each other.
Now, remember that Eve had never known what it was to be alone. She was created when there was already a man there. But the man knew what it was like to be alone.
And when Eve came to Adam and said to him, “Here, eat this.” For the very first time he was confronted with the possibility of creating some kind of a breach between himself and his wife, of having the first disagreement of their whole marital experience, of giving her the first criticism that he had ever given to her.
Can you imagine this? He knew what it had been like to be alone, and he knew what it was like to be with this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful woman. And when she said to him, “Eat of it,” he said, “Okay. Okay.”
He was not willing to risk the intimacy, the oneness, the union that he had with his wife to be obedient to God, or for that matter, to look out for her interests.
So, what should he have done? He should certainly have said something like I suggested earlier, “No, Eve, we can't. We'll have to go to God and talk about this. I don't know what this means for our relationship, but we have to get it straightened out with God.”
How do I know he should have done that? Because of the model for married love that is given to us in the New Testament. And the Modeler of married love is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.
What is the model for man's love for his wife? It is the love of Christ for the church. It is the love that drives the Lord Jesus Christ to sacrifice everything for the church.
And notice something in the passage I just quoted to you. The Lord Jesus Christ is not saying, “Oh well, I've saved her, I've justified her, and she's pretty good. I can live with that.” No, He continues to work with her, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
The smallest imperfection in the church is a burden to Jesus Christ, the Head of the church.
That, my friends, husbands, is the model for your love to your wife.
And isn't it clear that when Adam took the fruit from Eve, he wasn't thinking of what was good for Eve? He was protecting himself. He was protecting the relationship that he thought he had to have.
Have you ever heard a man say, or maybe you've never said it, but one of his friends says to him, “You know, I hate to tell you this. I don't like to talk about your wife, but she is a terrible gossip. She's gossiping all the time.”
And the man says, “Yes, I know that.” He says, “I've tried to bring it up once or twice. But every time I do, it ticks her off so bad. And she burns the supper meat that night, and she won't talk to me for three days, and when it gets really bad, I sleep on the couch for a week. So I won't bring it up anymore. I don't talk to her about that. It's bad for the marriage.”
Is that the model of love?
Now guys, careful here, careful, careful, careful. I don't want you all running home after this message and sitting your wife down and saying, “Here are the spots and wrinkles in your Christian life that I think we need to deal with right away,” because I don't want you running back to me next week and say, “Zane, I took your advice, and she kicked me out of the house.”
Let me give you a piece of advice about helping other people, which Jesus gave. Do you remember that Jesus said, “Why are you thinking about the little speck of wood in your brother's eye, and you're not paying attention to the log that is in your own eye? First,” says Jesus, “cast the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to cast the speck out of your brother's eye.”
More likely than your wife kicking you out of the house, if you go home and do what I suggested you not do, is that when you have listed all little specks in your wife's spiritual life that are not good, she will list all the logs in your life that are not good. Chances are excellent that that could happen.
So what does that mean? It means first of all, husbands, get your act together. Get your act together.
Your model of behavior toward your wife is nothing less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Your attitude, your tone of voice, your decisions, everything, have to be modeled on the character of the Savior.
And when you are behaving in a Christlike manner toward your wife, then God is going to be able to give you the skill and the wisdom and the love and the grace to deal with the problems that she has in her spiritual life, but probably not before that.
I'm very fond of the story which some of you have heard me tell about the mother who was being honored on the occasion of her 60th wedding anniversary. And during the course of the celebration there was a younger woman who was having trouble in her marriage, and she approached the grandmother, and she said, “Tell me, what is the secret of your happy and enduring marriage?”
And the grandmother said, “Well,” she said, “on the day I was married, I made up my mind that I would write down a list of ten faults of my husband for which, for the sake of my marriage, I would overlook.”
And so the younger woman said to her, “Well, tell me what were the ten faults of your husband that you wrote down?”
And the grandmother said, “Well, to tell you the truth, I never got around to writing them down. But,” she said, “every time my husband did something that made me hopping mad, I always said to myself, ‘Lucky for him. That's one of the ten.’ ”
Now I hope that you guys are lucky enough to be married to a woman who does that. You probably need to be married to a woman that does that.
And I hope, by the way, wives, would you do that?
Now let me tell you something honest, guys. If I were married and I thought that my wife could sit down at the writing table and, in the blink of her eyelashes, she could write down ten huge faults that I have, I should probably quit. Maybe I'm smart not to have married, but let me just tell you that if I thought my wife could do that, I would be horribly ashamed and embarrassed.
And I would feel that somehow or other I was not loving my wife as Christ loves the church.
Get rid of the logs so that you can see clearly to help your wife.
Let me close with a story my mother told me. I believe she told me this story the last time I visited her. I'd heard it before, but had kind of forgotten it.
When my brother and I were growing up, my dad had an old cap that he used to like to wear out into the garden when he was working in the garden, and it was a grungy, ugly, dilapidated cap. And everybody in the family hated it except my father.
So my mother told me this story. She said one day my dad was out in the garden doing his gardening, and he had this cap on. And she was at the sink, and from the sink she could look through the window and see him gardening.
And David came up to her, and David said to my mother, “Mother, I wish that Dad wouldn't wear that ugly old hat when he goes out into the garden. I hate that cap.”
And my mother told me that this is what she said. She said, “Yes, David, I know. But your father is so superior to other men that I think we can put up with a few things like that, don't you?”
Now she told me this after he was gone. She had told it to me before, but after she had lived with him for 66 years.
Did ever a husband get a better compliment than that? I wonder. I kind of doubt it.
And I will tell you folks that one of the greatest privileges that I have ever had was I was raised by a dad who was probably one of the most Christlike men that I've ever known. And I am lucky if I'm half as much like Christ as he was.
Now, that was a man who could help his wife.
So my advice to you guys is to go home and start behaving like the Lord Jesus Christ in all of your relationships to your woman, to your wife, to your sweetheart.
And then, as God gives you wisdom and grace to do it, help her with her weaknesses, her needs, her deficiencies.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.
That's not easy. Nobody said it would be. But it's possible through the grace and power of Jesus Christ our Lord.