Marriage Counseling in Eden

Well as we press forward in Genesis 3 We're not quite toward the end yet. We're gonna be looking at verses 10 through 13 this morning and then from that next week, we'll Thankfully have Greg brother preached to us.

That's in part in anticipation for the little McDonald, baby. And then after that Lord willing on the 8th, we'll come back and finish chapter 8. Story chapter 3. I'll take us to the very end. So this morning we're continuing on what we began a few weeks ago.

We looked at the fall and then last week. We even considered the fallout of the fall. You begin of course with this alienation between man and God and That alienates man from himself now that heart of flesh becomes a heart of stone.

Now the soul is dead and trespass and in sin. Though the body is alive the body's now decayed. So first man is immediately cut off alienated separated from God and then from himself. Everything is at war within himself and then from nature.

That which man inhabited this Edenic paradise was meant to draw him toward God toward God's goodness. Toward the infinite complexity of God and yet the divine simplicity the goodness and of the artistry of God.

Every leaf that he saw Would have the glow of of the divine touch and and now we see man actually using creation as a barrier to God instead Of being drawn to God through it. He tries to use it to hide himself from God.

He he makes a covering out of leaves. He presses himself into the ground to hide. And then of course we see as we move into verses 10 through 13 that man is at odds with his neighbor. Man is at odds with his spouse.

Man is at odds with His flesh in that one flesh union that we looked at in chapter 2 and so this morning We're looking at the continuation of the fallout of the fall and that is the marriage the effect of the curse of sin upon marriage the corrupting effects upon the relationship between a husband and a wife and That begins well, I'll begin in verse 9, but we'll be looking at verses 10 through 13.

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've done? The woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate. The relationship Adam and Eve had with God was perfect. They delighted in him and he delighted in them. But as we've seen as a result of the fall pure fellowship.

Pure fellowship between God and man was broken. God takes the initiative by grace to restore Something of what was lost, but it's not pure fellowship. It's not what it was and it won't be until the finality of the redemption that God introduced into the world.

The relationship between man and God then was perfect now broken. The relationship Adam and Eve had with each other was also perfect. Man delighted in woman. Woman delighted in man. But as a result of the fall pure fellowship between man and woman between husband and wife was broken.

And we still in our marriages retain the effects of the fall pure fellowship. What was Has been broken. I remember as a boy as you might have heard me say in times past. I was sort of a GI Joe kid.

And.

That meant usually much to my sister's embarrassment that I always dressed up in fatigues from the mass army-navy store whenever I got home from school, and I remember one day going over my neighbor's house and His mom had gotten this wonderful gift this beautiful ceramic bowl imported from Italy from a relative beautiful and it had Beautiful paintings of fruits on it and it was the pride of her living room table.

Well, I had a dud pineapple grenade on my h-strap suspenders and Unfortunately, my little paperclip came out in that little, you know, two-pound metal sphere smashed that bowl to smithereens. That that is what happens with the fall now.

You could painstakingly superglue those pieces together and have some semblance of what it was. What it was meant to be like the contours the shape you'd get a sense of the decoration, but no one could say This is how it was.

And that's how it is even on the best marriages in this fallen world. No one could say this is truly what it would have been like as God designed marriage to be. We're cracked. We're chipped. We're broken.

There's pieces missing. Even the redemption that that has begun to work in us and through us in our relationships is only a faint Dim echo of what God had originally given and what God will ultimately restore.

As God had created the world there never would have been a need for marriage counseling. Think about that. Marriage counselors would be out of business. If it weren't for the fall there would be no Jay Adams writing the books that Jay Adams writes.

Wayne Mack would never write strengthening your marriage because every marriage would be perfectly strong. I don't know what the ladies would study on Fridays. It wouldn't be adorned because adorned probably wouldn't have been written if there hadn't been a fall.

And this is all because Eden was perfect prior to the fall. So only moments before where we are in chapter 3 there was no discord. There was no lack of harmony no sense of tension no irritation. Can you imagine a marriage without a glimmer of irritation?

Not a glimmer a little too much pepper on the mashed potatoes, you know none of that a Husband that's just sort of oh, honey. I've had such a long day. Can you take care of this? No irritation. Can you imagine what that would have been like no sense of lack?

No unfulfilled desire from each other or for each other perfect harmony. But as a result of entering into sin that sin immediately corrupts their relationship to God and therefore their relationship with each other.

It's not coincidental that the law is given in this very order. That the law is given first by respect of our relationship to God and second Bound up with it by relationship to our neighbor. That's how Jesus summarizes the law of how we love God and the second being like it of how we love our neighbor as ourself.

The image of God as it was reflected originally by Adam and Eve. That's the significance of Genesis 128. Not simply as individuals but as man and wife in this mysterious union that image of God expressed in human community.

Comprised this love for God and this love for one another. Love for God and love for neighbor are Inseparable they're part of what it means to be the image of God. They're part of how we reflect God. There's an individuality.

That's that's as true and as necessary as community now. That's less so in us than it is in God in terms of God's essence. But nevertheless we see it reflected and we live in a time where our individuality is pressed over against our sense of community.

There's a reason that opioid use and depression and suicide rates have increased since March. It's because of this human beings weren't made to be alone. So what's fractured and distorted by the fall is this marriage relationship that once?

Existed in perfect harmony. There's an immediate dysfunction and we see it as soon as the falls taking place. Even in the temptation dynamics leading up to the act that really is the fall. And so let's consider how to counsel Adam and Eve in Eden.

Immediately after the fall as we examine these dynamics and then apply them to us. We've already considered in times past that Adam was given specific tasks in Eden. Remember Genesis 1 27 and following God created man in his own image in the image of God.

He created him male and female. He created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful multiply fill the earth and Subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Adam and Eve together carried out this calling of dominion together. They served as vice regents and what God had given them and they were to expand the glorious order and presence of God over the face of the earth beginning from Eden and then stretching to the very end of it as they produce Generations that like them would reflect God's glory God's perfection God's goodness.

This was meant to be man's role. Secondly in Genesis 2 15 and following we see something specific given to man. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and to keep it. Notice specifically that this is given to man.

Work and keeping as we've said from before looking at numbers three for instance. This is what the priests do in the tabernacle. So this is all by way of review. Eden is sort of the primordial temple.

If by temple we mean the dwelling place of God the tabernacle is then decorated to look like Eden. Solomon's temple then has decorations inspired by the Spirit of God to look like Eden. The temple is this garden like presence of God.

It's a temple garden. John picks us up in Revelation 22 we return to Eden and now it's also the heavenly Jerusalem. Which is as a city the whole temple and there is no Sun the light comes from the Lamb.

It's this beautiful picking up of all of these biblical themes culminating at the very end of Scripture. But significantly in numbers three We read that the priests were called to attend to and to work and it's the same words to to guard and to keep to work.

To a bod to keep or guard Shamar and this is what Adam is tasked to do in Eden. In other words Adam is a priest. So going back to 216 the Lord God commanded the man. Saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat.

Did you notice that? The Lord God commanded the man. To tend and to keep the garden of Eden as a priest. Would tend and keep the tabernacle of God's presence and in 216 God commanded the man.

Of.

Every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it You shall surely die. So Adam is the garden. Adam is the protector.

Adam is the keeper. Adam is the one who has the commandment. God commanded the man. So what does that require of the man? Not only is he to be the priest, but he's to be the prophet. He must now declare God's Word.

This is what God has said to us concerning this tree. My wife listened to me. Do not go near this tree. Do not provoke the Lord. All right, he's the one that's the guard he's the one that's to protect.

He's the one that's received the word and therefore he's the one that must declare the word and that's how we come to Genesis 3. And we find the serpent so much more cunning in a class all his own this ancient serpent the dragon and in that cunning He goes to the woman.

Because the woman's not the guard or the keeper. Per se the woman's not the prophet and so he goes to the woman to tempt him. You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Did God really say this? The cunning serpent goes after Eve not Adam.

Adam Fails to guard the garden from the presence of the serpent. Adam fails to protect His wife Eve. He fails as we'll see to sacrifice himself. So all these fallen dynamics come on the head of Adam. We read with our eyes trained on the activity that's taking place.

And that's why we always have our little reformed dad jokes about a you know, if you don't like giving birth. You shouldn't have eaten the fruit. What should stand out to us is the absence of Adam in chapter 3?

Where is Adam? Where's the guard? Where's the keeper? Where's the head? Where's the leader? Where's the warrior? Where's the king? That's what should scream out to us. Why is why is chapter 3 all about Eve at the beginning?

The absence of Adam is something that should should immediately grab our attention. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food that it was pleasant to the eyes in a tree desirable to make one Wise she took of its fruit and she ate and she gave to her husband with her as we said a few weeks ago.

He's there. He's he's with her. He's standing next to her. Completely mute. Completely complacent completely complicit. He's not guarding. He's not protecting. He's not acting as a head. He's not laying himself down.

He's not acting as a prophet. He's not rebuking. He's not exporting. He's not directing. He's not reminding. He's not saying god forbid. We do this evil in his sight. Do you know what he said? He's laid out the curses.

So the first thing we see with Adam is this this utter selfishness. This utter selfishness. We see it then. Continue as the narrative unfolds. Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

It's interesting in Hebrew in Hebrew you can attach a pronoun to as a suffix to the end of a noun and that's what we have here. We actually have it attached to the verb. The pronoun for Adam is part of the verb to hide and that emphasizes that Adam is hiding himself.

Adams about Adam. So here's the fall and we read in our translation Adam and his wife hid themselves. More literally, it's Adam hid himself in his wife. It's kind of like the wife's an afterthought. Yeah, just lay down there.

I'm about protecting myself. So immediately there's this there's this emphasis on Adam's Selfishness and his absconding from his role to be the protector the keeper the one who would sacrifice himself for his bride.

And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him you see Adam confessed this. When the Lord God called Adam and said to him, where are you? He said I heard your voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked.

I hid myself. I hid myself. I Didn't stand between even you Lord. I hid myself. It's the opposite of Christ, isn't it? He stands as it were between the sinner and the wrath of the father and he cries out father forgive them.

It's the opposite here.

Crisis. I lay my life down for the sheep. He puts himself in that place of judgment. Even though it's not a judgment. He deserved. Adam deserves this judgment and he wants nothing to do with Eve. So he's not guarding her.

It's not guarding the garden. He's not guarding his wife's heart. He's not guarding her from temptation. He's not leaving her. He's not protecting her. He's not sacrificing himself where there's a need to sacrifice all of these things guarding protecting sacrificing.

Do you notice that these are all? Actions. They require effort. They're labor-intensive. They can be exhausting. It takes work to guard. You have to be proactive. You have to be alert. You have to be thoughtful.

You have to think through the trajectory of decisions. If I don't do this at this time or if we start going down this path, what will this become. There's an activity to that. It's it's exhausting. It takes work.

Protecting.

Always always being able and prepared. Being equipped to protect and then in the midst of that crisis or in that moment or in that situation to lay down yourself. To sacrifice yourself. It's the ultimate form of protection.

All of this is activity. All of this is activity. So the great sin of husbands then. The great failure behind all these failures is.

Passivity.

If all of this is activity the great failure of Adam and every husband since Adam is passivity.

Passivity.

The fall corrupted God's design of loving.

Sacrificial other oriented headship.

Into hostile self-serving Often overbearing but more often completely indifferent passivity.

You know, I realize there are some.

Husbands who tend to be more overbearing or more selfishly dominant and that that is certainly a result of the fall. But in my experience every husband is passive in one stripe or another. It tends to be that that aggressive dominance.

That selfish dominance comes out in all the areas. It shouldn't. And the passivity. Comes out in all the areas. It shouldn't where a man should be aggressive where he should be dominant. We should have these masculine instincts that tends to be where the man is passive.

Indifferent lazy and selfish and on the things that he he should be passive. He should be loving. It shouldn't be a big deal there. For some reason he becomes very dominant very obsessive. Very upset.

If he doesn't get his way see everything is corrupted in on itself. What we've seen Adam up to this point is a shocking passivity a scandal of spiritual laziness.

Sleeping at the wall.

While the enemy breaches and destroys and burns down what is what has been so good and so perfect. Adam quickly then blames Eve for his sin. He doesn't protect her. He doesn't bleed her. He doesn't sacrifice for her.

He hides himself without any thought to her. And when he gets called out he blames her instead of taking responsibility before God for his own actions his own sins. Instead of covering her of doing what Moses did with Miriam when Miriam was really persecuting Moses.

Instead when God begins to bring judgment upon Miriam Moses intercedes.

Show mercy God.

We don't see that in Adam. Notice even how he talks of her. It's degrading from from the get-go the woman. You gave to me the woman you gave me you named her. She has a name.

You named her.

You named her when you looked upon her and your heart leaps for joy and you spontaneously composed a love song Flesh of my flesh and bones of my bones and and she was the sort of exclamation point on your worship of God's goodness.

And artistry this was the greatest of all of his creations. And you named her Eve the mother of all living. But now it's just this you see already the hostility and the resentment that's taking place in this relationship.

She gave me of the tree. That's not a way for a guardian a protector a leader a head or a king to think. It doesn't it doesn't matter the mechanics we all know that the one in authority is where the buck stops.

Adam has this role of authority. We saw that if you saw the the VP debate, right? We know that you know, Barack Obama and Joe Biden weren't welding cages, right for ice compounds. But the reason you can say who built the cages.

Joe. Who built the cages. Joe. The reason that's effective is because if you were in charge ultimately you're responsible.

Adam's in charge. She's responsible.

But instead of owning that responsibility instead of saying you called me you gave me that commandment about the tree. You gave me the warning you made me the prophet. You made me the priest in the garden.

You made me the garter and the keeper of the sanctity and of the purity of my wife. You put that upon me instead now. It's this distanciation. She gave me of the tree and I hate she put me up to it. It's almost like she deceives me.

It's really me against the serpent in my wife. That's how Adams portraying it. Sin does what sin always does. It spurns the good gift of God and with it it spurns the giver. Who is God it isolates? It becomes so selfish that it becomes blind into selfishness.

It rejects any thought or concern for the other. But denies any and all responsibility. The people lose self-awareness in sin. They become so hardened in it. So indifferent to the damage that it causes so oblivious to the way that they portray themselves.

Adam this head this guardian this protector who is in one flesh with Eve is essentially saying God.

She did it.

Condemn her. When you gave me that commandment you said in the day you eat of it you will die.

She did it judge her kill her kill her. God.

We can go back to how things were if you just kill her. What a leader. What a lover. What a head. What a guardian. How how anti Christic is that? Christ's exclaims of his bride father the same words. She did it.

But condemn me and judge me and kill me and show her mercy. Christ shows us what the husband truly was meant to be. Why that authority was given to him. Why he was made head. That he would be a covering.

That he would be a fortress. That he would be a refuge. Adam had been God's vice-regent in this perfect world. And now he's a selfish hardened Coward blaming others for his sin. And the spineless blame goes so far.

Adam even insinuates that God is somehow to blame. The woman whom you gave to be with me. So on our hey, you know things are pretty good between us Lord. Now, I know you said it wasn't good. I was alone, but I wasn't complaining.

You gave her to be with me. It was your fault. Really if you think about it Begins to blame God for his sin his passivity. And that's almost comical to us. It's so absurd and yet we do the same things in a myriad of ways.

We blame God by blaming the circumstances of the situations whenever we speak of having to make the wrong choices. We are in effect blaming God. I was put it was put before me. What else could I do? We begin to think my little Eden would be perfectly fine without my Eve.

I was doing great in my walk. Eve ruined everything. It's a passive selfish cowardly absconding.

Husband.

That thinks that way and people all over the world do this. They blame God for their problems and their choices and their sins. Adam should have pondered the words that he said the woman whom you gave to be with me verse 12.

The reality is God did give Eve to him to be with him for what?

To be guarded to be protected.

To be a co-laborer in the work of dominion. To be a co-heir of the glory of God and all of the world. To point to the mysterious fulfillment of Christ in his church. He's using as a negative the woman you gave to be with me instead of seeing that's the calling.

You gave a woman to be with me. You gave me this woman. You gave me charge. You called me to certain responsibilities. You said you must be the kind of head that will guard and keep that will nourish and protect that will comfort and help that Will work together.

Unto the calling that I've given to both of you. So husbands. How's your priesthood. How's your Eden? How are you dwelling with the woman that God gave to be with you? God gave her to be with you. Are you guarding her?

Are you protecting her all that activity that requires thinking through decisions? Not just for the day or the week but for the decade to come. Things that we're doing now that are gonna form such deep ruts of routine that they'll be impossible to climb out of in five or ten years.

That kind of guardianship that kind of sense of protecting. Are you covering? In other words, are you laying your life down and sacrifice? When it's your needs. Against the direction that God would have you go.

Do you willingly? Deflate your ego. Do you willingly set aside yourself? Do you not seek to do your pleasure? But the pleasure of him who called you for the good of she whom he gave to be with you. Are you dwelling with them as Peter would say.

Do you know where they are spiritually? It's hard to be a priest if you don't know where the person you're ministering to is spiritually. Now there's a sense that every believer is a priest, of course.

But I'm saying there's something unique about the role that God gives to a man to a husband. There's a spiritual guardianship a spiritual headship that's very much like unto a priesthood. It's a great book I'd encourage you to read it by Samuel Waldron called the man as priest in his home.

Where he lays out the principles here. It's very important. You can be right next to her and be oblivious. Dwelling with doesn't mean that somehow just because you're occupying the same space means you're fulfilling any one of these things.

Adam was right next to Eve. Blindly failing everything that he was meant to do as a husband. So it's not proximity that equals success. It's not being around. Or giving scant attention. It's actually this active spiritual labor.

And if you're like me you feel the weight of that you feel your failures in a day by day. How passive you can be on things that matter the most? And how the only things that get a rise out of your things that ultimately don't matter the things that relate to your comfort things that relate to your ambitions.

The husband's not just called to be there but to know his wife to know his wife. That's it. That's a euphemism in Scripture for marital intimacy, but it's it's more than that. It's not just that it's more than that.

It's it's recapturing this idea of of the harmony. The harmony which is truly knowing the other as you know yourself that that's the biblical vision. To see God as he is to know God as he is from a creaturely perspective.

We again and again and again return to Ephesians 5 for husbands. Love your wives as Christ loved the church gave himself for her. He guards his bride. He protects her. He lays himself down for her. He sanctifies and cleanses her.

With his word he presents her to himself glorious. No spot, no wrinkle nor any such thing. She's holy without blemish. Christ is our high priest in heaven. He's doing the work of a husband. You need to know your wife.

What does she struggle with? What does she often mention. What seems to be a recurrent theme? Can you detect some root of bitterness or envy that you need to take the time and the patience and the care to uproot?

You're in the unique position to guard her soul and protect her soul. Has she been spending time obsessing over worldly things or worldly issues? There's some blind spot that she's unaware of and she's been unaware for a long time.

You can't be passive with that. You have to do the work of recognizing that and it's a spiritual endeavor Lord. Help me help me to lead her through this Lord. Help me to guard her from from the world the flesh and the devil.

Help me to be ahead that that's guiding her on this on this holy way Lord. It presupposes that the husband understands the word and that he can wash her with it. That means that the husband as a priest is a student of the word.

He's hiding the word in his heart. He's meditating upon the word day by day he's creating the Spiritual carwash as it were within his own soul. And you have to know then where you yourself are weak. Where you yourself need washing and often it's in that very dynamic as you're seeking to minister to lead to guard.

It's causing you to be convicted to be humbled to cry out for the cleansing touch of a Savior. Often it's in that very marital dynamic. It's not that you were some reservoir sanctification and oh my poor wife.

She's so spiritually weak. Let me go help her again. It's rather in the dynamic that as you feel this calling from God, it reveals all of these.

You know.

Ungodly things in your own life and walk and so you're dependent upon the same mercy that you'll be then showing to her. You're asking to receive the same grace that you're hoping to impart to her. There's a spiritual dynamic to this.

Each of you then must know how to possess your own vessel and sanctification. First Thessalonians 4 you have to know to possess your own vessel. It's yours. You don't blame others for its current state.

You guard you protect you keep. It's your commandment your calling your responsibility. You're the priest in your home. You're the head in your marriage. Marriage counseling. When you have a couple we all know this right?

You know you as the counselor. You put your seat directly in front of the husband. Doesn't mean the wife doesn't have issues that have to be worked out. It just means the husband is the head. Ultimately, there will be no change apart from changing him.

Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it.

Cherishes it just as the Lord does the church.

Remembers of his body of his flesh of his bones. You see All those things that Adam had peeled away from in Genesis 3. That in Christ we see.

Restored.

When he's dealing with marriage issues in the church can't but help of going back to Genesis 3 and then speaking of Christ from that. Going back to Genesis 2 and speaking of Christ from that and this is how he's addressing marriage to the church.

He says that a husband nourishes and cherishes himself in the same way He ought to nourish and cherish his wife. He must love her in this way the same way that Christ loves his bride. That means that there's a gentleness in a husband.

That's grounded in and reflective of Christ. Some of you know, and I think I've mentioned it. I've been reading A book by Gavin Ortlund on the gentleness and meekness of Christ. You said of Moses that he was the meekest man on the face of the earth.

I think it was said should be said of Christ that he was the gentlest. There's a gentleness to being a husband. It's not this endless series of irritations. But then you you swallow every third and you sit back content like I've gotten a lot better with my frustration.

My temper. I only get mad about a few things in any given day. Wherever you're irritable. You're essentially doing what Adam did. You're blaming God. You're saying things would be better without her. You're not saying you gave her to be with me this blessing this co-laborer my flesh my body.

I'm gonna be endlessly gentle. I'm gonna nourish. I'm gonna cherish. I'm gonna become weak to meet her weakness. I'm gonna put myself aside. This is a principle. It begins in the marriage and it works its way out into other relationships.

If you can't do it in your marriage husband. You're not gonna able to do it in any relationship. But if you can do it in your marriage the most demanding the most pivotal. Of all relationships in this earth horizontally.

Then there's no relationship that you couldn't exhibit these same Christlike qualities in. This is a Christian principle and I'm saying it begins in the marriage. We who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the week.

Romans 15 1 and 3 not to please ourselves for even Christ Did not please himself. The Christian principle is honors given to the weak. That's a Christian principle not a pagan principle. It's not an enlightenment principle.

It's a Christian principle. We read the gospel sometimes and we look at Jesus coming to the lepers or you know to the paralytics or to the demon-possessed. And we read it as though if we were there, we would be having the same compassion that he has.

We would be calling Oh Lord, please go to him once you receive him. We we read the Gospels in this way filtered through the compassion. We've already received from God. You must know. This is something that is not true.

We would have treated those social outcasts of social pariahs in the way that they were treated back in Jesus day.

Jesus comes.

Full of grace.

Full of mercy and compassion and he uplifts and gives honor to what is weak. Christian has this mentality that they bind and mend and bear up they lose themselves in their esteem of others. And I'm saying this begins in a marriage Husbands love your wives and do not be bitter toward them Colossians 319 such profound simplicity That if obeyed it followed could end so much marital stress.

Love your wives.

Don't be bitter toward them. Some wives are such patron saints that they just have adjusted to the bitterness. If I remember, you know, I remember giving Elsie wedges of lemons when she was Younger and she just could take a big bite out of lemon and be I'm not even blink unfazed.

Bitterness had no effect on her and there's some wives God bless them. They've walked with their husbands a long time and their husbands have not decreased. They've increased in bitterness and the husband the wife has just adjusted to that.

Don't be bitter to your wife. The husband should be.

Sweet.