Distinctive Sexual Identity, Part 3

In this part of the sermon: Martin welcomes visitors and provides an overview of the ongoing adult Sunday school series on crucial issues, specifically the biblical foundation for male and female identity…

Martin welcomes a military member, expressing gratitude for their service in protecting the nation, linking it to God's restraint of outward sin.

While we are waiting for others to find their seats, let me extend a very special welcome to a number of you for whom, in a sense, this is like homecoming. It was a great delight to see several of the graduates of the Academy with their wives and families down with us. For the wedding yesterday and staying over for this morning, we're also delighted to have someone who's presently giving his life to help protect us, flying around with those deterrent instruments called hydrogen bombs and atom bombs, someone in our military. And we don't say that tongue-in-cheek.

0:21 - 1:05 Read in full sermon

The point: When looking for a wife, look for one who is prepared to adapt to you, having submitted herself to God first, understanding that her femininity is bound up with response.

Martin quotes Elizabeth Elliot's 'The Mark of a Man' where she writes to her nephew about Eve being 'made to order' as an 'adapter' and the importance of a woman's submission to God to fulfill this role.

The new edition of Elizabeth Elliot's book, Let Me Be a Woman, is a bit smaller and just has a picture of her daughter, Valerie, on it, but it's the same book, and then her companion book, The Mark of a Man. Now, to give you a little idea of how Mrs. Elliot, or Mrs. ...

5:15 - 5:33 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Expounding Genesis 3:1-8, Martin identifies a 'tragic role reversal' where Eve, isolated from Adam, takes the lead in transgression, and Adam hearkens to her voice, overturning…

Martin draws stick figures of Eve and Adam on the board to visually represent Eve's isolation and Adam's presence, making the scene of the Fall more concrete for the audience.

And this is Eve. I'll make her like that, all right? Because I usually...

15:36 - 15:44 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Adam was not utterly deceived. He went in as it were with wide-eyed disobedience whereas Eve was duped for God may I say it reverently God did not make her to be in that place of isolation.

Martin reads a lengthy quote from Donald MacDonald's 'The Doctrine of Creation in the Fall,' which elaborates on how Adam's hearkening to Eve's voice constituted a 'total perversion of the divine ordinance of marriage' and a reversal of prescribed roles.

And it was Adam who instructed Eve about that tree of the knowledge of good and evil and passed on to Eve the revelation he had received from God. He was appointed to be her leader and instructor in these matters of knowing and doing the will of God and instead there is a reversal and he hearkens unto the voices of his wife instead of the voice of his God. There are some wonderful comments in a reprint the doctrine of creation in the fall by a man named MacDonald Donald MacDonald obviously a Scot and some

20:02 - 20:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that the disposition to blame-shift and evade personal responsibility is inbred in you from the Fall, complicating male and female relationships.

Martin contrasts Adam's initial delight in Eve ('bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh') with his post-Fall blame-shifting ('the woman, that thing'), highlighting the dehumanizing effect of sin in marital relationships.

this resolves why is it so difficult at times for us to be able to find a husband and wife to sort out a spat or a problem when it comes to fixing blame because this is part and parcel of our fallen disposition to blame our spouse or to blame God for giving us such a spouse the woman that thing well wait a minute at the end of chapter 2 I mean he was like Howard was yesterday with Doreen this is now bone of my bones flesh of my flesh he doesn't say my flesh he says the woman the woman that thing the woman that you gave to me

28:07 - 28:50 Read in full sermon

The point: When you have sinned against your spouse, look them straight in the eye and say, 'I sinned,' rather than 'I'm sorry,' and ask for forgiveness, placing the issue in their court.

Martin uses the metaphor of being 'the tail that was wagged by the dog' to describe Adam's attempt to portray himself as a helpless victim, shifting blame from himself.

implicating the woman implicating God as though he was sort of the helpless victim that just sort of came along he was the tail that was wagged by the dog what a terrible thing and you will never understand the tensions in your marriage until you face honestly that that disposition is inbred in you from your very conception and though its dominance is broken when God breaks the law when God breaks the law when God breaks the law when God breaks the law when God breaks the dominion of sin and regeneration brings us to repentance and faith it is one of the most stubborn strands of remaining sin ...

28:50 - 29:35 Read in full sermon

The point: When you have sinned against your spouse, look them straight in the eye and say, 'I sinned,' rather than 'I'm sorry,' and ask for forgiveness, placing the issue in their court.

Martin provides a concrete example of how a husband should confess sin to his wife after losing his temper, emphasizing 'I sinned' over 'I'm sorry' and explaining how this shifts the 'ball' into her court for forgiveness.

and instead of saying oh God I lost my temper we say the woman she did this and she said that and she did this and she she she she and wait a minute and wait a minute and wait a minute and wait a minute and right at the end we kind of mumbled through clenched teeth oh yeah your teeth oh yeah I did it that's why it's so hard for somebody if you look your wife straight in the eye and not to just say oh I'm sorry I won't do good look her straight in the eye and say honey I sinned blew my cool not say I'm sorry don't start with I'm sorry that's just telling you how you feel Judas went into the tem...

29:35 - 30:20 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second liability is the intensification of pain in childbirth for women. Martin discusses the debated meaning of 'thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over…

Martin uses the analogy of bodybuilders pushing themselves beyond comfortable exertion into pain to build tissue, suggesting that childbirth pain after the Fall is a similar intensification beyond what would have been a 'satisfying muscular exertion' before the Fall.

So I would like to think that what a woman experienced, would have experienced before the fall, was just the same kind of satisfying muscular exertion that you feel when you go through a good workout. Some of you that work out with weights at all, you know there's that point at which you just feel that the muscles have been properly exercised. And you feel good. But there's that point at which professional bodybuilders must undergo pain.

35:46 - 36:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second liability is the intensification of pain in childbirth for women. Martin discusses the debated meaning of 'thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over…

Martin points to societies where women are treated as 'chattel' or 'house slaves,' impregnated to increase male status, as an example of the oppressive and insensitive male rule resulting from the Fall.

And certainly we can see whole societies where the woman is treated as a chattel, as a house slave. She is the object that men impregnate in order to bear them children to increase their status. And all you do is keep that thing clothed and fed so that it can produce little status symbols for you in the tribe or in the village or wherever else it is. And so one of the results then of the fall is that there is an intensification of male dominance that is not an inherent blessing.

38:53 - 39:30 Read in full sermon

Driving home: So left to ourselves, men, we will either be wicked. Wimps or tyrants, to put it bluntly.

Martin bluntly categorizes fallen men as either 'wicked wimps or tyrants' in their leadership, highlighting the perversion of gracious assertiveness.

In its place there is a disposition to lead, if at all, with tyranny, with insensitive harshness, with a domineering, ugly kind of aggressiveness in leadership. So left to ourselves, men, we will either be wicked. Wimps or tyrants, to put it bluntly.

47:52 - 48:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Have the courage to ask your wife today if you govern and rule with a government that reflects the dynamics of grace, or if she feels ignored or like a 'thing'.

Martin uses the metaphor of a wife feeling like 'one of those little magnetic buttons on the refrigerator door' to illustrate how a tyrannical husband can make his wife feel like a nobody, ignored and unvalued in group and family situations.

Or the ugliness of wimpiness? Or the ugliness of tyranny? Where in group situations you utterly ignore your wife, you never draw her into conversation, you're so full of your own ideas and your own words and the way you want to say it and your own opinions, your wife feels she's a nobody. She may as well be one of those little magnetic buttons on the refrigerator door.

49:21 - 49:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not function as an 'unbroken filly' resisting God's design for submission; that is ungodly and ugly.

Martin uses the metaphor of women acting like 'unbroken fillies' who refuse to be led or submit, illustrating an ungodly and ugly resistance to God's design.

So you see, women either rear back and are like unbroken fillies. And as Pastor Nichols said yesterday, ain't no man going to hold a bit, neck rein me, mouth no, sir. I'm going to get...

53:54 - 54:09 Read in full sermon