Marriage in the Beginning: Marriage Conference Part 1 - Voddie Baucham

0:05 Well, good morning. Good morning. Oh, I like that. It is good to be here with you this morning. As was said already, I'm Voddie Baucham, and I live in Houston, Texas. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, but I now live in Houston, Texas. I am officially the worst kind of Texan. I'm a Texan by choice. Thank you. Yeah, wasn't born there, just got there as quick as I could.

0:37 And I ain't leaving. Okay, well, maybe if God wanted me to go somewhere else, I would. But other than that, I'm not leaving. I'm staying right there. But this place is okay, too. And I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to be here with you over the next few weeks. Grateful for the opportunity to be here. Thank you for trusting me with this opportunity to be here over the next few weeks. over the next few weeks, we are going to talk about marriage. We're going to talk about marriage from a biblical perspective. We're going to talk about marriage by design, what it is that marriage was intended to be. It's very important that things be used for the purpose for which they were intended. Now, you're going to learn a lot of things about me over the course of these next few weeks. One of the things you're going to learn about me is that I have a hobby about which I am passionate. I consider myself an amateur chef. Okay, I'm way better than that, but I have to say amateur because I don't do it for a living, but I love to cook and eat.

1:41 And I have stuff in my kitchen that, you know, people come in the kitchen and they're like, what is this and what is that? There's more stuff in the kitchen than there's just stuff all over the kitchen. And every now and then I'll come into the kitchen and I'll find some of my stuff that I have in the kitchen that is for very specific use. And I'll ask questions like, what happened to the tip of this knife? And somebody will say something like, well, see, I couldn't find a screwdriver. Why? So now my knife is messed up. Why? Because it was used for a purpose for which it was not designed. When we use things in ways like that, we tend to destroy them. The same is true of marriage.

2:44 Marriage was designed on purpose and for a purpose. And when we use marriage for things other than that for which it was designed, we find ourselves in trouble. Now, let me tell you, I don't stand here before you as a marriage expert. I don't. I don't stand here before you as a counselor or as a psychologist or any such thing. I don't. So what makes me qualified to stand here and talk to you about marriage? Well, this book does. Because what I do know is this book. And what I do know is that regardless of what our background is or what our experience is, the one who designed marriage has provided and preserved and protected for us his self-revelation called the Bible. And because of that, we have access to all kinds of information about the purpose and design of marriage.

3:45 Now, my background doesn't qualify me to do this necessarily. I grew up in the projects in South Central Los Angeles. I was raised by a single teenage mother who did the best she could with what she had. She raised me by herself. I knew who my father was. I saw my father from time to time. but I did not grow up in a home that taught me much about marriage. In fact, I didn't grow up in a family that taught me much about marriage, nor did my wife. Over the last two generations, on both sides of our families, both of our parents and all of their siblings, and all of our siblings, you combine the last two generations on both sides of our marriage, there have been 25 marriages and 22 divorces. Now, if you're paying attention, you realize our marriage is one of the three that didn't end in divorce.

4:42 Besides us, the other two, one ended in a premature death. No, she didn't kill him. The other was marred by adultery. That's our legacy. That's our background. And so here we were, we got married. We got married my sophomore year in college. I just turned 20, like a month or two before we got married. And here we are my sophomore year in college, and we get married, and we know absolutely nothing about what it means to be married. Well, what are we going to do? We're going to ask my folks? Not. We're going to ask hers? No. So what we did was, we found people who were doing it well and hung around them until they told us we were bothering them.

5:44 And we got into this book to figure out what this thing called marriage was all about. That was all we had. Last week we celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. And we'll celebrate 17 more. And then 17 more after that. Because I tell my wife all the time, if you leave me, I'm going with you. Open your Bibles with me to the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2. And let's look at marriage in the beginning. Let's look at what it is that God has to say about marriage. What does the designer have to say about his design?

6:45 Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 18. In Genesis chapter 1, we have sort of a snapshot, an overview, a synopsis of creation. In Genesis chapter 2, we slow down and we get to see a picture of God's creation of man and more specifically of God's creation of marriage in the family. Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 18, we read, Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. We just need to pause right there for a minute. There's a clue right there. The Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone. The Lord God looked at Adam and said, he needs somebody.

7:34 That boy ain't going to make it. There's a pattern in creation, the pattern for six days before God rests on the seventh day. By the way, here's a little footnote. You know, people are always trying to ask these complicated questions, you know, trying to find out, you know, how crazy you are. Do you actually believe in a literal seven-day creation? I love when people ask me that. Because I go, no, of course I don't believe in a literal seven day creation. He did it in six, baby. All right.

8:15 And so there's a pattern here. The pattern is let there be, then there was, and then it was good. That's the pattern throughout creation. God says on day one, let there be, then it was, it was good. Day two, let there be, then it was, it was good. day three day four day five day six let there be and it was and it was good and now the first time something's not good what is it that old boy being by himself Everything else was good. Last day was very good. What about Adam? That ain't right. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

9:16 He was smart. Very smart. I couldn't have done that. whatever the man called a living creature, that was his name. The man gave names to all the cattle and all the birds of the sky and every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused the deep sleep to fall upon the man so he wouldn't mess up what he was about to do. and he slept. Then he took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which we had taken from the man and brought her to the man. I love that. Adam, God just took some dirt. The Bible says made him. Eve, he fashioned. Thank you, Jesus.

10:15 All right. What happens when he wakes up? The man said, Mm, mm, mm. This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Eshah because she was taken out of Esh. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife. They shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. marriage by design. Several things we see in this text. The first of which is this,

11:01 God created marriage. God designed marriage. Marriage was not man's idea. Marriage was God's idea. God is the one who looked at Adam and said, it is not good for him to be alone. I will make him one to come alongside and complete him. I will make him a corresponding part. I will make him whole. Now, let me put a footnote here. Here's what I'm not saying, and here's what the Bible is not saying. The Bible is not saying that any unmarried person is unwhole. There are some individuals, and we see this according to 1 Corinthians 7, that are called and gifted to be single. There are certain individuals whom God has given this ability. Not me, but certain individuals. And if that's you, God bless you.

11:59 Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Go forth. You are fine and complete and whole. But if God has not called you to that life and gifted you for that life, you're in trouble. Unless and until you are in a relationship that God designed for men and women to be in. God designed marriage. God created marriage. So what are the implications of that? If God is the one who designed marriage, if God is the one who created marriage, then marriage is a good and honorable state. Marriage is a good thing, a holy thing. Marriage is a wonderful thing. I say this because we seem to have forgotten that. I say this because we talk about marriage as though it is a disease. I say this because it wears me out when I hear particularly men talk about marriage.

12:59 Men talk about their wife as the ball and chain. I feel sorry for you. Because the Bible says in Proverbs 18, 22, when a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing. Proverbs chapter 31 and verse 10. a virtuous woman who can find her price is far above rubies. Marriage is a wonderful thing. Marriage is a beautiful thing. Marriage is an incredible relationship, opportunity, and ministry, but we do not believe that. I have had women that come up to me, and it's usually women who come up to me doing this on more than one occasion. Tears streaming down their face. End of a service, I just need to talk to you. Okay, what's the matter?

13:54 It's my son. What? And I'm bracing myself, you know? Because I'm like, okay, here I am. I'm at this place. I'm visiting this place. I'm here for a day and she's getting ready to unload some stuff on me that I'm not even ready for? Because obviously, from the look of this, this is heavy stuff. He's getting married. to which I respond to a girl right And go, yes. I go, okay. That's all? He's still in college!

14:50 I said, okay. Would you pray for him? Sure. Would you talk to him? Yeah, but you know, kind of before I do, you might need to know. I got married when I was a sophomore. At that point, I just want to ask, when did we begin to think about marriage as something so terrible that it's actually destroying people's lives? She acted like he had cancer.

15:33 On one occasion, sat there and actually entered into a dialogue with the woman, because I just wanted to talk to her about it. I said, what's the deal? What is the problem? Why are you so worried? Well, I'm just worried because I just think that he should wait. I just think that he should go ahead and he should get his education. Okay, that's great. You think he has to do either or? Here, let me ask you another question. How old is he? And in one instance, the kid was a junior. And so I just asked, can I just ask you something real quick? Does he love this girl? Yes, he loves her very much. Does he want this girl? She's shocked by that question. Like, come on now. You don't sit up here crying. This is serious. I need to know. Let's get down to brass tacks. Does he want this woman?

16:22 Yes. So here's what you're asking him to do. You're asking him for the next year to two years to be stronger than Samson, more godly than David, and wiser than Solomon, because all of him fell into sexual immorality. He wants this woman. God has designed a relationship wherein he can have this woman in righteousness and holiness. But you would rather ask him to be stronger than the strongest man in the Bible, wiser than the wisest man in the Bible, and more godly than the godliest man in the whole Bible, so he can finish school first.

17:10 Help you. She called her son and said, Baby, how soon can y'all arrange this? It's as though there's this extra biblical material out there that I didn't have access to. I didn't understand this. Having gotten married at age 20, I would tell people that I was getting married and people would look at me like, why? Isn't it a wonderful thing? Isn't it a good thing? Yes. But haven't you read in Second Hesitations, thou shalt not marry until after college? And I'm not saying that everybody needs to go and get married. That's not my point. The point that I'm making is this.

18:01 If that kid had gotten drafted into the major leagues, do you think she'd have been balling like that? Because he wasn't going to finish college. Do you think LeBron James' mother sat around twiddling her thumb saying, oh, I just, all those millions, he may not go back to school. He can buy one if he wants to.

18:28 Pay somebody to go to college for him. Nobody worried about it. Oh, but marriage, anything but that. no wonder marriage is in the state that it's in today. If that's our attitude towards it, God designed marriage. It is a good thing. It is a blessed thing. And again, we're going to unpack this over the next three weeks. I'm not talking about going into this haphazardly. I'm not talking about going into this foolishly. when we understand the design and we understand it's a good thing, it's a blessing from the Lord. The second thing we understand from this text is not only is God the one who designed marriage, but because God's the one who designed marriage, God is the one who gave marriage its purpose.

19:26 He looks at Adam and says, it's not good for him to be alone. And he says, I will make him a helper suitable for him. In the Hebrew, literally one to come alongside him and complete him. What are the purposes for marriage? Why was marriage designed? Now, if you ask 10 people, you'll get 12 different answers to this question. And most of them will be man-centered answers, you know, that God designed it for my happiness or he designed it for companionship or he designed it for whatever. Especially the whole happiness deal. We believe that wholeheartedly. That's why people come up and say, you know what, I'm just, I'm not happy. And I just don't believe that God would want me unhappy. So I'm leaving. I'm walking out. I just want to know one thing. Where in the whole Bible did you find that God's principle and chief concern is your happiness?

20:18 I'd like to see it make me feel better about myself. There are two basic biblical purposes for marriage, neither of which is your happiness or mine. The two basic biblical purposes for marriage, and there are a lot of purposes that sort of boil down into these two purposes, but there are two basic biblical purposes. Purpose number one is procreation. Purpose number two is illustration. Let me explain. Back up with me, if you will, to chapter one, beginning verse 26. I told you that chapter one was sort of the overview. It was the big picture of the design of marriage. Look at chapter 1, beginning at verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and then rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creature that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image.

21:10 In the image of God, he created a male and female, he created them. God blessed them. And God said to them, what's the first command out of God's mouth when he creates man? The first command is not, don't eat of the fruit from that tree in the middle of the garden. No, the first command is be fruitful and multiply. I don't write the mail, I just deliver it.

21:41 That's the first command out of the mouth of God. to human beings. Be fruitful and multiply. Now by procreation, I don't just mean having babies, although that's kind of a very important part of the whole process of procreation, okay? By procreation, I don't mean that God just intends for us to have children and for them to just be, you know, just sort of let loose out there. The whole idea of procreation brings with it the idea that we would represent God on the earth. And so the idea of procreation is that he gives us marriage so that we can bring forth children and raise them up and the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The idea of procreation is not just about having our children. The idea behind procreation is behind raising children that will represent the imago dei, the image of God abroad throughout the earth.

22:36 That's the first command that God gives. After the flood in Genesis chapter 9, guess what he says in 9 verse 1? Be fruitful and multiply. In Jeremiah chapter 29, we love Jeremiah 29 11. I know the plans that I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future. But if you back up to verses 4 and 5 and 6, you'll see that part of that plan has to do with multiplying greatly in the land. You cannot understand God's promise in Jeremiah 29 11 apart from procreation. Amen, lights. We get real quiet on that one, don't we? Here's why. Because we live in a culture that hates kids. Our attitude toward children is, a boy for me and a girl for you, and praise the Lord, we're finally through.

23:34 It is. If you don't believe that we live in a culture that despises children, follow a woman with six or seven kids into church or into the grocery store. People will look at her like she's got a third eye in the middle of her head. People who don't even know her will ask her questions like, don't you guys have a TV at your house? Newsflash, she probably heard that one around kid four or five. But why is this our attitude?

24:08 Mostly because of selfishness. And also because of tradition. That's why this is our attitude. Birth rates in our culture, for the first time, have fallen below replacement rate. That means we're having less than 2.1 children per family. 2.1 children per family, that's replacement rate. That means a culture is not healthy, but that means a culture is not dying. That means when a couple leaves off the scene, they've replaced themselves so that that culture still has the same number of people. 2.1, that's replacement rate. Our birth rate currently is 1.8. And we are among the best in the industrialized world. Places like France have birth rates around 1.5, 1.4. The lowest birth rates in the world are in Italy, right around 1.1, creeping down towards 0.9. In case you want me to put some skin on this and explain what this means, in France, you saw the unrest in France with North African Muslims who have migrated into France. We saw all the unrest there. You know, Muslims in France average six children per family. Newsflash. France will be a Muslim nation in two generations by birth rates alone.

25:26 Christian families, we're losing our children at a rate of 75% to 88% by the time they enter their sophomore year in college. That's right. 75% to 88% of the children who grow up in Christian homes, who grow up in our churches, 75% to 88% of them leave the church by the end of their freshman year in college. Now, let me put these two things together. If we have a birth rate at around two, and conservatively we're losing 75% of our young people. That means it currently takes two Christian families in this generation to get one Christian into the next. Marinate on that. start with 4 million Christians in generation 1. You get under 1 million in generation 2.

26:21 250,000 by generation 3. That quickly. One of the two main purposes for marriage is procreation. And listen, I'm sitting here as a guy who bought the lie. I'm sitting here as a guy who after we had our second child, we listened to what people said. We had our first child 10 months after we got married.

26:47 That's 2 Hesitations 3. We didn't read. people were like, okay, see, y'all are crazy because you got married when you did. Then you were smoking some crack because you had a baby in 10 months after you got, like, we're just efficient. We make love, he makes life. I mean, what's the deal? And so we were like, okay, we'll be good. And so it was three years before the next child was born. After the next child was born, we heard it from everybody, not everybody, everybody. That's a whole lot of people. Everybody, that's beyond everybody. We heard from everybody. Okay, now you have, all together now, the perfect little family. And we listened. So my wife and I hired a doctor to speak to God for us. We said, Doctor, we want you to tell God that we don't trust Him and we don't need Him anymore in this area of our life.

27:42 And He did. Several years later, under conviction, we went to another doctor and asked that doctor, please take back what the other doctor said to God on our behalf. We want some more babies. Amen, baby. Oh, no. We wanted that right there.

28:09 Couldn't undo it. Couldn't undo it. We were crestfallen, heartbroken. Went to an adoption agency a little over two years ago. Said, we'd like to adopt three, four, five babies from you guys over the next few years, if that's okay. Ma'am, are you okay? And she did. She looked at us and she said, okay, here's the deal. You got, I mean, your kids are like big. They feed themselves and clothed. Why do you want some more babies? We still have enough babies. We want some more babies.

28:46 Wait right here. She goes and gets her supervisor. Tell her what you just told me. So we'd like to adopt three, four, five kids from you guys over the next few years, if that's okay. Ma'am, are you okay? A few months later, we had little Elijah. Little Elijah turns two on Friday.

29:10 And we've been waiting for a few months now for baby number next. One of the reasons that we've been waiting for so long for baby number next is because we went on hold for a while, because first we thought we were going to get triplets this time. And so we went on hold to be ready for the triplets. We didn't get the triplets. So we're like, okay, one at a time, three at a time. You can bring them however you want to bring them.

29:34 It's not for everybody. I would never say that it was for everybody. But we caught a glimpse of what it could look like if we were to devote our lives to raising and training a mob of godly children. the other purpose is illustration over the next two weeks we're going to look at that in Ephesians chapter 5 in Ephesians chapter 5 we see that God designed marriage to be a living breathing illustration of the relationship between Christ and his church so we see that God designed marriage we see that God determines the purpose for marriage because he designed it. The third thing I want you to see is that God designed man to desire marriage. I love what happens in the text. It's not good for man to be alone. I'm going to make him a helper suitable for him. And then all of a sudden there's something that happens in the text that seems to be completely out of place. He needs a wife. Okay. Give him a wife. No, that's not what happens next.

30:48 What happens next? Adam, name the animals. Huh? What's that about? I'm glad you asked. Here's Adam naming the animals. There's an ape right there. See, he ape and he she ape. That's a gorilla right there.

31:10 So he gorilla and she gorilla. That's zebra. He zebra and she zebra. The elephant right there, the elephant and the she elephant. Adam, what's the matter? God, everybody got somebody and I don't like none of them. God is the one who lets Adam know that he needs a wife.

31:48 Adam doesn't know what a loan is. Adam doesn't know what he needs. He has no concept of it. This thing has not been created yet. He has no idea of this overwhelming need. God is the one who places this need in us. So newsflash, and let me say this to free somebody up in this room, because in our culture, especially in church, we've made people in particular, in general rather, and women in particular feel very unspiritual if they yearn for marriage. We treat them as though, well, you know, if you were more spiritual and prayed more, you wouldn't be thinking about marriage all the time. Newsflash, God creates that yearning in us. Don't you be ashamed of it. God designed marriage. It's a good thing.

32:40 He designed the purposes for marriage. And those are good things. And God is the one who awakens in us a desire for this thing that he created. Don't you be ashamed of that. You're not more spiritual if you refuse to desire what God created you to desire. Any more than it's more spiritual not to want water when you're thirsty, hello? Hello?

33:07 God created the desire in us. God makes us yearn for that. Not obsess, but yearn for it. That's okay. But here's what burdens me. you know we were sitting down the other day and my children and I were sharing a meal with some folks I was preaching and had my children with me and my son's actually here with me today I travel with them quite a bit but we're sitting down and my 16 year old daughter was there we're talking and talking about her and what she this and that and the other what do you want and what are you looking for where you're going where you're headed and they look at my 16 year old daughter and asked her the question, what do you want to be? And my daughter looked at him and said, I'd love to be a homeschool mom like my mother.

34:02 the people who were sitting across from us, this couple sitting across from us kind of looked at each other and they looked back at her and they said, you're 16, right? And she goes, yes. And she goes, okay, for real. I mean, like beyond, like your goals, she said, I want to be a mother. I'd love to have seven or eight kids.

34:31 And they looked back at each other and they looked at me. And so they were gonna call CPS on me because I messed this girl all the way up. Here was the problem. In our culture, that's beyond not normal. It's unacceptable. that's not supposed to be your goal. That's not supposed to be your aim.

34:56 That's not supposed to be that important. As a matter of fact, you're supposed to have a desire to run from it as long as possible and only give in to it once subdued after you have finished having all of your fun. Listen to me. I am decorated dust. Last time I checked, the death rate was one per person. which means I'm getting out of here. And when I get out of here, there could be a couple of ways that I go. Way number one, I could leave here saying, I got mine. I got it all.

35:42 My philosophy was, get all you can, can all you get, sit on the can. And I got it. I'm there. I came, I saw, I conquered. It was awesome! Here's the other possibility. My wife and I invest our lives in a relationship that is an illustration of the relationship between Christ and His church, and do the best that we can to spend the rest of our days together bringing glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ through the way that we love, respect, honor, and cherish one another. And then at the end of our lives, when we breathe our last, we will have raised a mob of children who have been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

36:39 So that when the adversary sees me breathe my last, he does not say, don't have to worry about that one anymore. When I breathe my last, the adversary will see a mob of godly children crawling over mom and dad, moving the line forward further than I ever could have in my own life with my own limited resources, so that when it's all said and done, it's not about me and what I experienced. It's not about me and how satisfied I was with what I accumulated and acquired. but it is about a godly heritage and a godly legacy that has been left behind because we grasped and understood and walked in the design of this thing that we call marriage. That's what I'm choosing.

37:32 If you're here today and you are not married, my prayer for you is that if God has called you to it, He would ignite in you a passion, not just for what the culture calls marriage, but a passion for marriage by God's design.

38:02 You're here today and you are married. My prayer for you is that God would open your eyes, that you would see your spouse and your children as a blessing and not a burden. There are some of you in this room today, and you've been wrestling with whether or not you were going to have children. And you're not wrestling with whether or not you're going to have children because of any kind of medical situation or anything like that. you're wrestling with it because you're wrestling with whether or not you want to share your life with another individual, whether or not you want the intrusion in your life.

38:41 My prayer for you is that you would not continue to look at marriage and family through the lens of our culture or through the lens of our own selfish desires, but that you'd back up, broaden your view, and trust God with the purposes of the institution that he designed. You're here today and you were married. My prayer for you is that God would use today and our next couple of weeks together to teach you, to instruct you, and to prepare you so that at least, at the very least, you can use your experience to help somebody who's about to walk into some of the same mistakes that you made, not to walk around and bash marriage because you had a bad experience.

39:40 Because God designed it and it's good even if we had a bad experience. My prayer for us all is that in this culture in which we live, when marriage is being maligned, when marriage is being challenged, we would be like beacons of hope shining in a dark and decaying culture that says, look here, this is what God designed marriage to be. Would you pray with me? Father, as we bow to you, we say that we are grateful.

40:26 Grateful to you for being so good to us. Grateful to you for not only giving us Christ as our redeemer, but giving us brothers and sisters in the Lord so that we can live in community. and, in many instances, giving us husbands and wives and parents and children. We can live in families. our prayer is that we would do so according to your design and not in opposition to or in violation of it pray that you would use these truths to give us hope pray that you would use these truths to bring correction I pray that you would use these truths to bring healing Most of all, I pray that you would use these truths to bring glory and honor to our Lord through our lives.

41:33 I pray these things because we believe that they're in accordance with the will and nature and authority of Jesus.