What is Christian Marriage?: The Intimate Marriage with R.C. Sproul

just last week to a wedding and it was one of the most interesting weddings I’ve ever there were over 500 people there the bride was gorgeous but the thing that grabbed my attention at this particular wedding ceremony was the creativity of the wedding ceremony the wedding lasted over an hour and the bride in the groom had brainstorm together with the pastor in order to insert new and different and exciting elements into the wedding service and I enjoyed those but right in the middle of the ceremony they inserted portions of the traditional classic wedding ceremony and I noticed that when I began to hear the words from that traditional ceremony that my attention perked up and I was moved and I thought to myself I thought there’s just no way to improve on this this is so beautiful those words are so meaningful why can’t we just stay with the traditional service then I thought well I’m probably just old-fashioned one of these fuddy-duddy ministers and so on and I thought maybe the reason I like that traditional service so much isn’t it because I’ve heard it so many times most people only really hear it once when they get married or when they’re participating in somebody else’s wedding but when you’re a clergyman you have the benefit of doing it over and over and over again so that the words now become sharp in their definition and as I thought of that traditional wedding ceremony I realized that a great deal of thought and care had been filled in each word and so we have a tradition that has developed in this wedding service but you’ve all felt the tension in our culture as young people more and more are saying no to the traditional wedding ceremony and to the whole traditional concept of marriage people have experienced the pain in their own marriages and in their families we know that more and more young people are coming from broken homes and there’s a fear that’s emerged a suspicion about the whole business of marriage so we see couples living together rather than jumping into marriage for fear that the cost of that kind of a commitment may be too much it may be too heavy and make themselves too vulnerable and so we’re at a point in our culture where one of the most stable and what we thought once permanent traditions is being challenged every day I think most of us have seen the movie or the Broadway play Fiddler on the Roof how many of you have have seen that okay remember that I particularly like the movie version of it where we have the the story of that that venerable Russian Jewish patriarch Reb Tevye who his whole life revolves around his daughters oh how he loves his daughters and he looks forward to their future he plans through their future and he gets involved with the matchmaker in the village who is supposed to establish mates and the match for his daughters but suddenly the girls one at a time come to their father and they say Papa but we don’t love that man that the matchmaker has chosen I love the tailor or I love the butcher or whatever and these girls begin to pull at the heartstrings of their father one by one and they say Papa please let me marry the man that I love and poor rep Tevye he’s torn apart by this because on the one hand he wants to make his daughters happy but on the other hand he’s on the one hand and on the other hand he wants to maintain his allegiance to the traditions and so when he struggles with his daughters say no you can’t marry the tailor whoever the daughter says well why not and he said it’s the tradition and that should have been enough he thought that was an explanation I thought you can’t do it it’s the tradition but then they asked the next question but Papa why is it the tradition the repped every scratches his head a new sister why is it the tradition this is a tradition that’s all it’s what my father did that’s what my grandfather did and that what’s his father before him did it’s the tradition but he couldn’t give a reason for the establishing of the tradition in the first place and there was the crisis they had a tradition that was hanging in midair it was precarious what was the title of the movie fiddler on the roof what in the world that a fiddler on the roof had to do with this authority of this old man and his daughters who wanted to get married remember at the opening scene in the movie as them as the soundtrack gets moving and we see this little man dancing and playing his fiddle on a steeply pitched roof that’s the symbol for the entire movie the message is contained right in that because here is a man dancing and fiddling on a steeply pitched roof in a position that is highly precarious at any second we expect that fiddler to slip and to slide down the roof and crash into the ground and the whole point of that image is this that a tradition that is not understood a tradition that is empty of its roots is as precarious as a man trying to dance and fiddle on a roof like that sooner or later it will fall and it will be destroyed now the Christian has to ask this question why do we have a traditional order for marriage why do we have marriage at all one of the things I like about the traditional wedding ceremony is that in the wedding ceremony words are mentioned that explain to us why there is such a thing as marriage we’re told in that wedding ceremony that marriage is ordained and instituted by God that is to say that marriage is not something that just springs up arbitrarily out of social conventions or human taboos marriage is not invented by men marriage is ordained and instituted by God let’s take a moment and look back at the origins of marriage we go to the earliest chapters of the Old Testament – the opening chapters of the book of Genesis and in the first chapter of Genesis of course we read the creation account the narrative by which God creates the world and he does it in stages first he cries out let there be light and then he divides the light from the darkness and in the next day he may divide the the dry land from the Seas and the oceans and then he begins to fill the earth with vegetation with flowers and trees and so on and that he adorns his creation even further by making beasts of the field and birds of the air and fish that swim in the sea but then as we go through that narrative we see that the creation story reaches its crescendo with the crowning act of creation where God scoops down into that earth and grabs a piece of play and he begins to shape it and form it and mold it and then he breathes into it his own breath and we read that man becomes a living soul now we also notice something going on here that at every stage of God’s work of creation God honors a benediction now we’re all familiar with this word benediction we hear it every Sunday morning in church it’s the end of the service and some of us can’t wait for that to happen see that Minister raises saying say Lord bless you and keep you now and go home and eat or do whatever it’s particularly the sermon was boring so the benediction to us means the end of the service but what’s going on in the benediction is as we see in the word the root here bene means well or good and diction we know what it means to have good diction or poor diction it has to do with speaking so that a benediction is a good word where someone wishes you well and so we see God’s benediction being pronounced over each stage of his creation as he creates the Seas and the mountains he looks at what he’s made and he says that’s good and as he makes the animals and and and and considers them he looks at that part of his creation he says that’s good so we see this benediction being repeated throughout chapter one and in the chapter two of Genesis but suddenly something ominous comes into this story of creation in the middle of chapter two there’s a very subtle mood shift for in the first time in the history of the universe God notices something that provokes from his mouth not a benediction but what we call a malediction a malediction means speaking evil a curse for example would be a malediction a statement of judgment think for a moment and ask yourselves what is the thing that provoked the first malediction from the mouth of God what was the very first thing that God saw in his creation about which he said that’s not good we find it in the eighteenth verse of the second chapter of Genesis where God looks down at his creation he sees me and he sees the animals and he says it is not good that man should be alone [Music] his first malediction is directed against the situation of human loneliness so we ask why marriage God provides an answer to human loneliness I remember the Danish philosopher søren kierkegaard who who wrote frequently about the pain that of human experience and PR said that there’s a there’s a time for solitude there’s a time for when each person needs to get alone to be by himself to collect and gather his thoughts to reflect to meditate we remember how Jesus himself from time to time found it necessary to withdraw from the multitudes and the groups and just get away by himself and so solitude is something we need but we don’t want it in large doses at the same time as we need those moments where we have our own space and we can be by ourselves and think still the worst punishment that we can conceive of giving people who are incarcerated apart from physical torture and so on is to consign them to solitary confinement cutting them off from all human fellowship and the warmth of companionship with another person and I think it’s also true as we see in creation that God creates man and woman as sexual creatures male and female created he them so that there was a a certain attraction between the male and the female a certain complementing of each own individual humanity found in a relationship of intimacy between two people a man and a woman and so they’re in the garden God as a special act of creation makes the woman she’s not an afterthought she’s not inferior in dignity to her husband in fact there’s something special about the creation of the woman when when God sees that it’s not good for me and to be alone God brings all of the animals and parades them past Adam and Adam is looking for a helpmate Adam is looking for a partner he sees the kangaroo hopping by and he says it’s not what I had in mind right and then God brings this beautifully well-groomed German Shepherd and God Adam looked at that and he said wow he said that is a magnificent animal I can see how that dog could bring my slippers to me in the morning and on a cold night I could snug up against them we would call a one dog night but if it’s really cold I can have a couple of work on a three dog night he said but it’s still just not quite what I was looking at so then God brings this Palomino pony riding down the street and an assist now that’s interesting I can ride on that one save me a lot of labor it can pull my plow get me from one town to the next that would be tremendous labor saving device but god that’s I don’t want to be picky but it’s still not what I had in mind and so God said all right you don’t like anything here I’m gonna put you to sleep and God puts him to sleep and while Adam is experiencing the first anesthetic okay he has open chest thoracic surgery and God takes from his side a rib and he fashions that and creates a woman and then Adam awakens and he looks at this special act of creation and I don’t know what his exact words are but I think and they went some time he saw her and he said and that’s where the name came from I’m like that’s apocryphal I’m making that up but I think he he was beside himself when he saw that first woman and he said that’s it that’s now bone of my bones flesh of my flesh and God said and the man shall leave his father and his mother and he shall cleave to his wife God ordained marriage not as punishment not as ball-and-chain bondage but for human fulfillment for intimacy to have the finest expression of what it means to be a human being in this world now I noticed that when young people come to me and they want to write their own wedding ceremonies and and and and I appreciate the spirit behind them when I asked why do you want to write your own ceremony let’s say because I want my marriage to mean something I don’t want it to be an empty tradition I don’t want to just say meaningless words and sign a piece of paper and have that be that and so I say fine that’s a great spirit go ahead try your hand at it be creative write the wedding ceremony but the only proviso I give is is that it must be an authentic ceremony all of the elements of real male age marriage have to be there or I can’t perform the ceremony and I’ve seen wonderful wedding ceremonies written by young people they come back with all kinds of of creative things but you know there’s one thing I have never seen in a homemade wedding ceremony I’ve seen them say everyone acknowledged that marriage is instituted and ordained by God but I have yet to have a couple Express that marriage is regulated by God’s commandments which of course is an integral part of the traditional ceremony where we acknowledge that not only does God create marriage and give marriage to us as a gift but when he gives it to us for our well-being he does not abandon there by his sovereign authority over marriage God regulates marriage and he Institute’s it in a certain format the first thing we have to understand about this regulation is that God creates marriage in the form of a covenant dear friends the whole idea of a covenant to go is rooted very very deeply in biblical Christianity in fact we even divide the Bible don’t we between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant our redemption is based on the concept of a covenant what is a covenant a covenant is simply an agreement a contract between two or more persons and at the heart of a covenant is a promise on biblical terms every covenant had stipulations it had provisions rules if you will that had to be kept for the Covenant to stay intact and there’s something else I wanted to note in terms of biblical covens in the Bible there was no such thing as a private covenant a covenant was something that was undertaken in the presence of witnesses how many times have you heard young people say why do I have to go through a marriage ceremony say a few words sign a piece of paper what difference does it make why can’t I just have an agreement with my girlfriend friends it’s one thing for a man to whisper into the ears of a woman in the backseat of an automobile where nobody hears it where nobody is going to call him into account for what he has promised and to stand up in a church or in City Hall where in front of your parents in front of your friends in front of the civil authorities and in front of the ecclesiastical authorities in front of every authority structure in your life you stand there and publicly before God and these witnesses make a promise you take vows sacred vows holy vows and you make a commitment that if you don’t take it seriously maybe your parents will take it seriously or your friends I rent once was involved in counseling a divorce case that involved a triangle and I was pleading with this woman who was involved in this triangle to break this relationship and return to her husband and she says to me hey who am i hurting I want to be happy this is just between my husband and me and my lover the church doesn’t need to be involved with it and I showed her my appointment book and she couldn’t believe it that I had spoken to and made appointments with 28 people who were directly affected by this relationship I had to meet with both parents both sets parents the children the next-door neighbor the friends uncles and aunts employers who were all upset about the sea of devastation that was going on with one broken marriage and in those case this woman’s friends cared enough about her her church church cared enough about her to get involved but she wanted it to be a private matter but covenants aren’t private and we need to understand that that there’s a big difference between whispering something privately and signing a piece of paper and doing it formally in ceremony at a significant moment and a significant occasion where we mark that moment and we make that sacred vow then you see we have a covenant I say that marriage is the most precious of all human institutions we have it’s also the most dangerous it’s dangerous because it’s into our marriage that we pour our greatest and deepest feelings of expectations that’s where our emotions are on the line that’s where we are most vulnerable as we will see in the lectures that will follow this one that’s where we can achieve the greatest happiness but it’s also where we can achieve the greatest disappointments the most frustration and the most pain that’s why if I am going to enter in to a relationship where there’s that much at stake I need something more than a superficial hey yeah I’m committed yeah I love you stick with me honey you know because even with the formal ceremonies even with the authority structures being involved were at the place now were roughly 50% of those who are married dissolve the marriage and the statistics are much higher if we were to ask this question if you had it to do over again would you marry the person you’re married to it’s tragic to hear how many people answer that question without even hesitating they said no I mean I realized I’m in and I’m stuck I’m gonna stay I’m not gonna get but boy if I had it to do over if I could just be free but something has been lost about the sacred and holy character of the vow and of the Covenant that is regulated by God’s commandments it’s for our happiness but it’s also for his glory