Series:  Marvelous Marriage, #6

March 11, 2007

BIBLICAL MARRIAGE(S)

I.          Biblical Marriages

          When you hear the phrase, “biblical marriage”, what do you think of?  Does it suggest the ideal marriage, two people living together in perfect harmony as God intended, full of love and respect, applying biblical principles in every area of their relationship?  That’s typically what comes to mind. But what if we change it to “biblical marriages”?  What does that suggest?  This morning, I want to look at a few biblical marriages, i.e. marriages that we find in the Bible, and strangely enough, most of those are negative examples.  One of the things I love about the Bible is that it never tries to sugar-coat life.  The Bible is not a set of rose-colored glasses for the Polyannas of the world; it tells it like it was, and paints a realistic picture of the heroes of the faith, warts and all.

          Here’s just a quick run-down of some of the famous couples mentioned in the Bible, and then I want to go back and see what we can learn from three of them.

·        Adam and Eve.  Eve led Adam into sin and he followed her.

·        Abraham and Sarah.  Abraham was willing to sacrifice Sarah’s purity and honor out of concern for his own life.

·        Isaac and Rebekah   Rebekah was a scheming, manipulative wife.

·        Jacob and Leah/Rachel.  Jacob was tricked by Laban into marrying a woman he didn’t love, and then worked seven more years to marry Rachel, who was then his favorite.

·        Job’s wife encouraged him to curse God. 

·        Samson and Delilah  Samson married outside his faith and allowed Delilah to betray him to his enemies.

·        Nabal and Abigail   Nabal was what we today would call a “jerk”, married to a woman of noble character.

·        David and Bathsheba   They were both married to others and committed adultery with each other, with disastrous consequences for the rest of  David’s life. 

·        Solomon   Had 700 wives and 300 concubines, all unbelievers. 

·        Hosea and Gomer  Hosea married a prostitute at the direction of God!

          Now, the biblical record is not all bad; there are a few good marriages mentioned, such as Boaz and Ruth, Joseph and Mary the mother of Jesus, and Priscilla and Aquila in the New Testament.   Nonetheless, the roster is mostly of marriages that had serious problems.  But then, many of us grew up in homes where we said, we don’t want our marriage to look like that of our parents.  So we learned from their negative example what not to do.  We can do the same with the biblical marriages: what can we learn from them about how not to do marriage?  Here are three examples. 

II.       Adam and Eve: Spiritual Leadership   Genesis 3:1-12

          Genesis 3:1-3, Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" [2] The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, [3] but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

          We have to be careful about reading too much into this, but it seems to me that Eve is one of those women who resents every limitation placed on her.  In our Love and Respect Seminar, Emerson Eggerichs pointed out that Eve lived, literally, in paradise, and still wanted more. Some women (and men) are like that.  So Eve has everything in the world at her disposal except the fruit from this one tree, and she resents it.  I detect that resentment in the way she exaggerates God’s command. God had said, “Don’t eat from the tree;” she added, “we can’t even touch it”.  Even God’s minimal limitation rankles her, so she makes it sound worse than it was.  She’s like the wife whose husband says, Honey, we had a big car repair bill this month, so the clothing budget has to shrink a bit, and she tells her girlfriends, “My husband won’t let me buy any clothes this month!  He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks.” 

          The devil, of course, is not done with Eve.  Gen 3:[4] "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. [5] "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." [6] When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Here’s the heart of the problem in this marriage: Adam is not the spiritual leader.  Eve gets sucked in to the temptation of the devil, believes the lie that she would be better off going against God’s will, and falls into sin.  Then, because sin loves company (right?  Haven’t you ever been encouraged by someone else to join them in their sin?  Especially when you were younger?)—because sin loves company, she entices Adam to join her in it. 

          Do couples today ever do this?  Does one partner ever encourage the other to join them in their sin?  Have Christian husbands ever asked their wives to watch pornographic movies with them?—strictly as a marital aid, you understand.  Have Christian wives ever encouraged their husbands to get drunk with them?  Or what about something as innocent as gossip? – One partner starts in on someone they both know, and then the other piles on, and pretty soon it’s a blood bath of verbal wounds inflicted on someone who is not even there.  I would bet there are many instances where one spouse leads the other into sin.

          And the other one follows!  That’s the problem here.  Adam gives in!  What if Adam had responded to Eve with, “What have you done?!  God told us not to do that!  We have to go to Him immediately and see if He can forgive you, and fix this, because if we don’t, He said you’d die!”  If he had responded that way, the entire history of the human race would have been vastly different.  But he didn’t.  He wasn’t the leader; he was the follower. 

          We hear a lot about the need for men to be the spiritual leaders in their homes; what does that mean?  I think it means that the husband sets the spiritual tone and direction for the household.  He is the one who determines that they will go to church regularly; that they will have family devotions; that they will conduct their family along biblical lines in terms of honesty, love, forgiveness, sensitivity to each other, etc.  The details of working all that out are up for discussion, but somebody has to point the family in the direction of Christ.  

          All too often, the men leave this to their wives, and because their wives feel like somebody has to step into the leadership vacuum, they do it. But they’d be thrilled if their husbands would take the lead.  Many women, like Eve, wind up in the spiritual leadership role in their homes, and typically they are strong women married to passive men.  If you ask them, they will tell you they are glad to be the leader; that means they get to do things their way.  But I really believe that most women would be glad to follow a man’s leadership in these matters if the men would take the responsibility God has given them. 

          So we have a strong woman leading a passive man into sin, and the result is disastrous: Gen 3:[7] Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. [8] Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. [9] But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"  [10] He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." [11] And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" [12] The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."   

          This is a truly amazing statement from Adam, and it confirms just how wrong he is.  He thinks he is excusing himself, by passing the responsibility on to his wife.  “She led me astray.  It’s her fault.”  There’s also an implied accusation directed toward God:  this is the woman You gave me.  If you had picked a better wife for me, this wouldn’t have happened.  It’s partly Your fault, too.  Adam thinks he is slithering out from under the guilt of this incident, but he is sealing his fate.  Not only did he eat from the tree, but he has just with his own words condemned himself as the spiritual follower.  He freely admits that he didn’t have enough conviction or backbone to stand up to his wife and say, “No!  This is wrong.  I will not do that!”  He was a Milquetoast, not a man, and all humanity has suffered for it. 

          Men, it’s time to stand up and be counted.  I think there are far too many men in this church who are far too much like Adam.  You let your wives lead the family in prayer; you let them read the Bible story to the kids; you make them take the spiritual leadership.  And in so doing, you abdicate the responsibility God has given you.  How can you expect her to follow you, or respect you, if you won’t lead? 

          We can learn a lot from Adam and Eve about how not to do it.  Tonight before you go to bed, be a man and ask your wife how she feels about your spiritual leadership in the home.  You may not like what she says, but it can be the first step toward regaining your rightful place in the relationship, and improving your marriage by leaps and bounds.

III.      Isaac and Rebekah: Division  Genesis 27

          God designed the family as a unit, the most fundamental unit of society:  a husband, a wife, and their children, bound together by mutual ties of blood and love.  In God’s plan the children add another dimension of commitment and unity between the husband and wife, as they realize their need for each other in the daunting task of raising their kids.  These are their children, their own flesh and blood, and as such are a visible symbol of the unity of husband and wife. 

          Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.  Many times couples start out very much in love, very much focused on each other and their relationship.  But then children come, and their focus unconsciously shifts to them.  They are so cute! And so fascinating!  You could sit and watch their little facial expressions for hours.  Their development is mesmerizing: she rolled over today!  He took his first step today!  Her first word!  His first day at school.  Her first boyfriend.  His first Dear John letter.  And what happens through all of that is that the parents’ focus of attention shifts from each other to the children.  They begin to live life vicariously through their children’s experiences.  And then when the last child leaves home, they look at each other and say, “Who are you?”  The only thing they had in common for 25 years was the kids, and now that the kids are out of the house, the parents discover they are strangers to one another. 

          Isaac and Rebekah in the Old Testament are an example of a couple whose children got in the way of their marriage.  They started out well, with God’s obvious blessing on the way Rebekah came to be Isaac’s wife, and then they had twin boys, Esau and Jacob.  We don’t know when the trouble started, but it seems clear the boys were really different right from the start.  Esau was a rough, hairy, outdoors type; Jacob was slightly built and preferred to hang around the home more.  The problem that developed in this family was that the parents had favorites in their children.  Isaac loved the rougher Esau most, and Rebekah favored Jacob. 

          There was a comedy team on television years ago—I think it was the Smothers Brothers—in which one of the men frequently used the line, “Mom loved you best!”  That show of favoritism in Isaac and Rebekah’s home destroyed the unity they had, because it pit father and one son against mother and another son.  It looks to me like the parents diverted the love they should have had for each other to their favorite son, and it ruined their marriage. It was all the more tragic because the boys were twins, and should have been very close to one another. 

          Well, this division in the family grew, and simmered for years, until one day when Isaac was old, he called his favorite son, Esau, in and said, Look, I’m going to die soon.  I want to pass on a blessing to you before I do, so go kill some wild game and make my favorite meal, and I’ll bless you in the name of the Lord.  But Rebekah overheard this conversation, and quickly told Jacob (the other son) to go get some young goats from the pens, and she would make Isaac’s favorite dish, and Jacob would go in and pretend to be Esau (Isaac was blind by this time.)  They cooked up an elaborate scheme to deceive Isaac into thinking that Jacob was Esau, so he could get the blessing from his father instead. 

          This kind of suspicion, scheming, deceitfulness, lying, manipulating, controlling behavior is death to any marriage.   In this case, it centered around the children, and the parents’ huge mistake of picking favorites. 

          How is it in your household? 

·        Is there any chance you love or prefer or enjoy one child over another?  How’s that working out for you?  It will certainly divide you from the child or children who are not the favorites.  Is it enhancing your unity with your spouse?  Or is it dividing you? 

·        What about the suspicion level between you and your partner, the one you pledged to be “one” with for the rest of your life?  Have you given your mate any reason to be suspicious of you?  Are you always open, honest, aboveboard in your actions and your motives?

·        Have you ever intentionally deceived your partner, perhaps formally telling the truth, but in such a way as to insure that they will draw the wrong conclusion? 

·        Have you lied outright to your spouse?

·        Have you tried to manipulate them into doing what you want without just coming out and saying what it is? 

These are all negative lessons that we can learn from Isaac and Rebekah.  If any of these things are true of you, you need to repent, and apologize to your spouse immediately.  It may not be too late to save your marriage.

IV.     David and Michal: Spiritual Mismatch   1 Sam 19:10-17;  2 Sam 6:16-23

          We are all familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba, but we sometimes forget that David had another wife before Bathsheba, named Michal, who was King Saul’s youngest daughter.  There are two incidents in their history that give us some insights into the nature of their relationship.  The first is a time in 1 Sam 19, when King Saul is plotting to kill David.  Michal learns of the plot, and advises David to run for his life.  In order to buy time for David to get away, she tells the soldiers who come to kill David that he is sick, and shows them the bed where he is supposedly lying.  But she has placed some household idols near the bed, and made a dummy  and covered it with blankets to make it look like David is sick in bed.  The ruse works to delay the soldiers, and David escapes safely.  But it raises some questions about Michal’s commitment to the Lord.  Why does she have these household idols around at all?  We don’t know a lot about their use in that time, or the religious practices associated with them, but they were specifically prohibited by the Scripture (1 Sam 15:23).  So the fact that Michal has these in her house makes us wonder about her relationship with God.

          The next incident is more revealing.  David had become king, and had managed to return the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, after it had been in a neighboring country and then in another place for a long time.  This made David really happy, and to express his joy, he danced before the Lord, wearing a linen robe (2 Chronicles 15:27) called an ephod.  David loved God with all his heart, and he just had to let his love and joy out in some way, so as the Ark of the Covenant was being carried into the city, he was dancing along with it. 

          But Michal, rather than joining in the celebration, was watching all this from the window of their house.  When she saw David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.  Later that day, when they met up, Michal criticized him sarcastically, 2 Samuel 6:20, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”  Apparently the linen ephod David was wearing was not all that large a garment, and she thought that his display of enthusiasm was inappropriate for the king. 

          What we have here, in the relationship between David and Michal, is a spiritual mis-match.  David is a man sold out to God.  He doesn’t care what the servant girls think of him; he just loves God and wants to celebrate His presence.  Michal harbors household idols in the home; she does not get excited about the return of the Ark to Jerusalem, even though this is the place where God has promised to make His presence dwell on earth; and she criticizes her husband for the enthusiastic way he worships God.  

          How often this is true today.  One partner loves God, and the other doesn’t.  They may tolerate the “religious” one, but they are secretly embarrassed by their love for the Lord, and the extremes to which they go in their devotion to Him.  The non-spiritual partner often resents the time the devoted one wants to spend involved in church activities.  They may balk at the amount of money the other wants to give to the Lord (“Churches are just trying to get your money!”) 

          This spiritual mismatch is a serious problem.  The goal of marriage is unity, but how can you be one when the two of you have such vastly different views on the most important thing in the world, namely your relationship with God?  Whether you started out in different places spiritually, or one of you has grown closer to God over the years and the other has not, or however it happens, this is a source of great pain to many devoted Christians. 

          So the first lesson for us is this:  do not marry someone who does not share your love for God.  Talk a lot about this, because the difference between those who love God with all their hearts and those who do not is the biggest distinction in the world.  Nothing in selecting a mate is more important than this.

          But what if you are already married, and you find yourself in this situation?  Well, you have probably already discovered that no amount of talking will convince your partner to love God more.  You’ve probably already done enough of that to make it a sore subject that both of you stay away from now.  The Scripture says (and this is addressed to wives, but it certainly applies to husbands as well), 1 Peter 3:1-4, “Wives, … be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, [2] when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. [3] Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. [4] Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.”  We might phrase that a little differently for men, but the point is to let your spouse see your life, your character, your commitment to them, rather than preach at them.   You have to be the model husband, or wife, so that your partner has no reason to criticize you or complain about your devotion to them and the family.  They need to see that Christ has made a difference in you, not just in making you more “religious”, which is usually a turn-off, but in making you a better husband or wife.  I had a great compliment about our congregation this week from a man who has been attending here for some time.  He said that he noticed something different about the people in this church—that they weren’t just going through the religious motions of attending church on Sunday, but that they were real, and their faith was real to them.  That’s what we all need to be like, but it is especially true if your partner does not love God as you do. 

          There are a lot of other marriages in the Bible that you could profitably study on your own.  Some are positive role models; others, like those we’ve looked at this morning, are negative. But we can learn from all of them.  Romans 15:4-6, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. [5] May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, [6] so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”   

          That’s a great passage for married couples:  we can learn from the example of those marriages that are recorded for us in the Scripture, even those that are negative examples.  God made sure to record these people’s stories just as they were, without whitewashing them to make them look better, in order to teach us and encourage us, and develop in us the endurance we need to run the race of marriage to the end.  It’s not easy; but God gives encouragement and endurance, and He wants to give us a spirit of unity in our marriages as we follow Christ.  The goal of our marriages is not just our own happiness—you know, the “and they lived happily ever after” business.  The goal of our marriages is that with one heart and voice we may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  May we learn from the examples of biblical marriages how to do that better.