Marriage: The Covenant

When I came from his reward, I cannot give an answer.

But this I know with all my heart,

His words have played my ransom.

But this I know with all my heart,

His words have played my ransom.

Father God, we are so thankful to be here once again.

And Lord, just a reminder of the past couple weeks

as the ice and snow was fun for most,

and a nuisance for others.

Lord, it is a privilege to be here.

Who would have thought it had been almost a month

since the last time we met?

And Father, time flees from us quickly.

Lord, I pray in the moments that we're here,

as I'm sure there's many people who

hopes and prays that this will end quickly.

Lord, we would not discard the time that You've given us,

Lord, but we would treasure it

and take advantage of every second that You've given us.

So whether we came willingly or we were drugged by someone else,

God, we are here.

And Lord, I pray that every heart and every person

would just humble themselves and say,

okay, Lord, I'm here. What do You want to do?

How do You want to speak?

How do You want to move in my life?

What do You want me to change?

All the questions we're afraid to ask sometimes

because we already kind of know the answers to them.

Lord, just send Your Spirit on this place in our hearts

to be willing to let You move.

Lord, as we gather and we talk about things,

ways that we can grow in our spiritual lives,

Lord, we know that there's a world out there

who's hurting and dying and all kinds of things going on.

Father, we pray for the families involved in the incident

that kind of ended up here at the church this past week.

But we just pray for them that somehow

You would bring healing to a terrible situation.

God, we pray for Sheena this morning.

She's right now having surgery,

and God, we just lift her up to You.

And in the midst of life,

we know there's really not anything we can do.

But Lord, we know You can.

So Father, we pray that we put her in Your hands.

We pray that you'll be with the doctors right now

and the surgeons, nurses, everyone involved.

God, we pray that You'll be with our body.

Thank You for the opportunity to be able to have surgery,

to live in a place where we can see that done.

So God, we pray that You would touch her right now.

Lord, we pray for all of our shut-ins,

all our people with ongoing health issues and spiritual issues.

Lord, we just ask that You would touch those situations and lives.

Lord, we need You today, and we acknowledge that.

We love You, and we thank You.

And we ask all this in Jesus' precious name,

all God's people said.

Amen. You may be seated.

If you heard about our little incident we had here at the church

it's a big incident, and you're not familiar with that.

If you're curious, I'll explain what little bit I know about it

if you want to hang around after church,

but I'm not going to talk about it during the service.

But we'd just be praying for the families involved and stuff

because that was a very terrible situation.

We talked about spiritual warfare for the past many weeks,

and I don't know if you noticed this,

but I feel like it was kind of brought a little more to attention

in my life, even in my personal life,

but also in the community around us.

As soon as we started talking about the need,

the idea that God created us to be possessed by Him,

but yet Satan wants to possess us,

we see a lot of crazy stuff happening in those weeks in our community.

We see a lot of crazy stuff happening in our own lives.

Well, we're changing gears.

We're talking about marriage for the next several weeks.

I've been here for going on eight years now,

and I've not talked about it, so it's time.

We've got to talk about marriage.

It's important, but I will say buckle up, okay?

I laughed yesterday.

I had breakfast with some of the men here,

and they were asking what I was speaking about this coming month,

and I laughed as I told them I was talking about marriage

because every time Hannah and I do premarital counseling

with a young couple,

it seems like we argue the most during that time.

We have everything that we talk about with this couple

that we're saying, hey, you need to talk about this work,

do it, pray about it, blah, blah, blah.

We're cutting eyes at each other and knowing, mm-hmm, mm-hmm,

the whole time.

So I'm fully aware that as we talk about marriage,

this is probably going to be something that once you're made aware of it

and you begin to work on it

and you want to devote this area of your life to the Lord,

it always seems like Satan comes in and really starts tweaking on you

and trying to tighten the screws and keep you where he wants you.

So just be aware of that and be praying about that this coming month.

Now, in seven years, I've done 18 weddings.

We got a lot more young people at the church who are getting ready to get married.

We got a couple weddings already scheduled for this coming year

that Hannah and I are going to be doing.

We're getting ready to start premarital counseling

tomorrow evening with a young couple.

This is important.

And so before we start this,

I want to say I'm fully aware that many of you in this room

have gone through a divorce yourself

or at least some in your family have experienced it,

whether it's a parent or a loved one or something like that.

This is not designed to shame what you've experienced in any way.

Okay, you can't change the past, right?

You can't undo what's been done,

but we can work on what's coming.

What is and what's coming, right?

Thank you. Okay, just want to make sure we understand that.

Now, I understand that there's some people in this room

your spouses are passed on,

and you're kind of living single lives now, and it's very different.

So you may think, man, this doesn't really apply to me.

It very much does because there are younger people in your life

who you know of who are, if they're not getting ready to get married,

they're going to be getting married hopefully sometime soon,

and you need to be praying for them,

guiding them, pouring wisdom into them in that

because it will come a lot faster than you think.

And nobody tells you this.

This is something that we talk about with our young couples.

Nobody tells you this.

Marriage is the second most important decision

that you will ever make in your life.

The first is choosing to serve the Lord.

Number one, number two is the person you choose to marry

because the person you choose to marry will make or break you.

Now we're talking, all right?

And all you young kids out here who are like dating,

thinking about getting married one day,

you know this is like something that you're looking forward to.

You listen to these older people in the next moments

because they're going to be echoing some of the pains

and hurts and frustrations that they've experienced in their life

and they don't want you to go through it.

Marriage, somebody said I should have,

this morning in the first service,

Pastor Evans said I should have opened up with the Princess Bride,

so it was very tempting.

Marriage is meant to be a wonderful blessing from God.

And you should know that.

There's a reason why everyone's excited to do it.

You should be excited to do it.

It is a wonderful thing if done the right way in the context

and the timing and the ratio in which God intended it to be.

It is a very wonderful and amazing thing.

Out of God's will, marriage can be the most terrible thing

you've ever experienced in your life.

And I'm surprised we haven't had an amen on that.

It can be one of the most difficult,

frustrating experiences you've ever had

because the person who can hurt you the most

is usually the people who should love you the most.

And a lot of times that happens.

And so marriage puts you in a very vulnerable position

as individuals.

And so today if you are married,

this is just kind of we're reminding one another of this,

that this is something we're called to work through

as we've committed ourselves before God to do this until death do us part.

And if you're thinking about being married,

you just need to know this and talk about this stuff and ask questions

because it's not just about finding a pretty face.

Or it's not just about finding somebody

who's got a couple things in common with you.

The person that you will marry

will put you in the most vulnerable position

you've ever been in in your life.

It is the biggest spiritual, financial,

emotional and legal decision that you will ever make.

And nobody ever says that.

The person that you marry can take half of everything that you have like that.

All they have to do is decide,

I don't want to do this no more.

And they peace out and they're gone.

And you have no control over them whatsoever.

You may think you can control them.

You may try to control them.

You cannot.

They are a person.

And so you're tying yourself to that person legally,

emotionally, financially.

The person you marry is going to be your business partner for life.

And they will drain you dry

or they will help you build your finances

in a healthy and beautiful way.

It can be the most wonderful blessing.

It can be a terrible thing.

It will test your walk with God.

The place that you feel like you should go home to,

that should be your sanctuary,

it should be your place to go home and be healed

and to be made whole and to have support.

It could be the very prison that you walk into every day

looking to escape from the next morning when you go to work.

That's what you don't want it to be,

but many times that's what it becomes.

You're exposing every emotional nerve that you have

and your partner can dance a jig on top of those nerves

or they can bring medicine and bring healing to that.

And you can ask my wife, I'm not good at dancing,

but I'm really good at finding the nerves.

If you have kids,

you're tethering yourself to these people forever.

Even if you don't have kids,

you're still tethered to this person forever.

Even if you're not married,

as you are dating right now as young people,

the relationships that you're having dating

is going to carry into your marriage.

And I'm speaking from personal experience when I say,

as I chose to be with Hannah and marry her,

there were decisions and ways that I act now

that are specifically results from previous relationships

that like, even though you can say,

I'm not going to let that affect what's to come,

it's not your choice, it will.

It becomes part of who you are.

The person you tether yourself with

becomes part of your testimony.

It's your life story, your history, your future,

because it will very most certainly carry over into the next one

no matter how hard you try to not let it.

And you're rolling the dice.

You think about this this morning,

you're rolling the dice on who you're going to be with.

Because the person that you love and care for as a teenager

is going to be a very different 20-something year old.

And they're going to be a very different 30-something year old

and a very different 40 and a very different 50.

And there's times where Hannah and I look at each other

across the table and it's like, who are you?

Like you are not the person that I married.

The person that you are choosing to live the rest of your life with

will change.

And that's a good thing.

It would be really sad for a 50-something year old person

to act like the 16 year old person that you dated in high school.

You don't want that.

That's not good either.

And so if you're not changing and growing together,

you're going to be in real poor shape

because you're going to look across that table one day

and that's why they say, you know,

it's about the seven year mark

where people really start like,

that's kind of the deciding factor of whether or not

they're going to make it.

40-50% of marriages end in divorce.

It's no different between out there in the world

and inside this room, inside the church.

This is why we need to talk about it.

Because you're going to marry someone

and one day you're going to look across the table

and they're not going to be the same person that you married.

They're going to be very different.

And they might still be the same person that you did marry.

They might still be the 16-17 year old kid that you married

and now you're 40 but they're still 16.

And that's going to be a problem too.

And we need to be reminded this morning

that as we enter into marriage with someone,

because we just trivialize this thing as a society

like it's almost meaningless.

As you enter into this covenant of marriage with someone,

this is not something that you're pledging to them.

This is something you're pledging before God.

You're not doing this for them.

You're not making this covenant.

You're not making promises.

You're not saying vows of the name.

You're doing this before the Lord.

And I know that I'm a pastor.

And I know that you're saying,

okay James, you're just saying this

because you're supposed to talk about it

from a biblical perspective.

But I'm telling you guys,

marriage is something that is supposed to be an eternal bond

between you and the individual that you are committing

a covenant with before your Heavenly Father

till death do us part.

That is what you're pledging.

So this morning I'm going to read a passage of Scripture to you

as we talk about the covenant of marriage

from Genesis 15 verses 8 through 11.

Genesis 15:8–11

You're probably going to look at this passage and say,

I don't know what this has to do with marriage

and that's okay.

But it's connected, I promise.

So God has been promising all these big promises to Abraham

because his name has not changed to Abraham at this point.

So God's been talking big to Abram.

Abram, come follow me.

Come follow me and I'll lead you away.

Your descendants will be as numerous as stars in the sky

all this land as far as you can see.

I'm going to give it to you.

You're going to be the father of many nations.

Your wife's going to be the mother of many nations.

You're going to be great and I'm going to be with you

and I'm going to bless the entire world through you.

And Abraham follows and Abram goes

and he does everything that God asked him to do

and he's clicking in on a hundred

and there's still no child yet

and he's starting to question because he's human.

And even though he's the father of faith

and even though he believed and he was very obedient to God,

there's still something in him that we all have.

It's like, okay, I believed you.

I still believe you and I've done everything you asked me to do

but how do I know that this is going to happen?

And this is verse 8.

But Abram replied, oh sovereign Lord,

how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?

There's that question, that doubt.

Then the Lord told him,

bring me a three-year-old heifer,

a three-year-old female goat,

a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon.

So Abram presented all these to him and killed them.

Then he cut each animal down the middle

and laid the haves side by side.

He did not, however, cut the birds in half.

Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses

but Abram chased them away.

Remember verse 11, that's like my favorite verse of this passage.

Here he is having this very intimate moment with God.

He's having this conversation,

this intimate worshipful setting,

he's preparing these sacrifices

and these dirty old buzzards swoop in

and they're trying to steal away

what's supposed to be happening between him and God

but he chases them away.

Now verses 17 through 18, let's skip to 17.

Then after the sun went down in darkness fell,

Abram saw a smoking fire pot,

which if you're not familiar with what's going on,

this is kind of like the cloud.

This represents the presence of God in the cloud.

And then a flaming torch represents the fire,

the presence of God at nighttime,

passed between the two halves of the carcasses.

And in verse 18, so the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day

and said, I have given this land to your descendants

all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River.

So point number one is cut a covenant,

cut a covenant or the contract.

And this is how it ties in.

So during this time,

there was something called a suzerain vessel covenant.

And this covenant was really kind of localized

to the Hittite people of that area where Abraham was.

And in this,

it's really important to see that God a lot of times does stuff

that we would recognize and understand.

Like this isn't something like God's,

like developing this covenant, bringing you out of the blue.

Like he's doing this as something that Abraham would have recognized

and understood of like, okay, this is what's going on here.

We're making this covenant.

And so the suzerain part of the covenant is many times

the greater party or the king or something like that,

where they would do this,

where he would be the one to kind of initiate the covenant.

And then the vessel would be the one who's the lesser party.

Sometimes it could be a king.

Most of the times it was like someone just pledging their fealty to the ruler.

And what they would do is they would take an animal

and they would cut it in half, literally like right down the middle,

split it right down the middle,

lay one half on one side, one half on the other.

And what they would do is they would walk in between these animals

and recite the terms of the covenant they were making with one another

to make sure that everybody understood what was taking place.

And what they were saying is, as we do this, as we recite our covenant,

if we fail to keep the terms of this covenant,

may we be like the dead animals on both sides of us.

And so a lot of times, like if a king was having someone pledge their loyalty to him,

he would make them do it by themselves.

Or if there was like two kings involved, sometimes they would do this together,

but they would walk through it together for the most part

and recite the covenant together.

They would walk in between.

So how does that tie into marriage?

It is basically where we get our marriage ceremony that we go through today.

So when you decide that you want to walk down the aisle

with the person that you love and you're going to commit yourself to them,

you're going to say your vows to one another.

Like, I promise to love you and keep you and cherish you and hold you

and support you till death do us part.

Like, that's what we do.

Like, that's kind of the, unless you do your own vows.

You walk down the aisle

and then the husband's usually already down.

He's waiting and the bride's presented.

They say their vows, they walk back through together

and everyone bears witness to what's being done.

So in this covenant,

as you pledge yourself to be married to one another,

understand that this is exactly what God decided to do with Abraham

whenever he wanted to make a covenant with him.

This is how serious of a covenant it is.

You're not pledging yourself to this person.

Like, we get the whole concept completely mixed up.

Like, we think the wedding is all about us.

Like, when Hannah and I got engaged,

I did not realize how much went into, like, planning for a wedding.

Like, I just thought, like, you just got married.

And, like, it was real simple. No.

When Hannah and I got engaged, like,

the next day her mama had, like, a five-inch three-ring binder.

It was already halfway full.

Like, there was pictures and tables.

Like, it was, I was like, whoa, this is,

this is more than I understood that it was going to be.

And it was a long year getting ready for that wedding.

It was a lot of stuff to do. We had a lot to do.

We think it's all about us.

And, like, so many times as we're doing premarital counseling,

like, couples are, there's a lot of tension with the couples

as what they want for the wedding.

There's a lot of tension with the couples

and then the family who's involved in the wedding plan,

because everybody has an opinion.

Everybody has something they want. There's so much to prepare for.

And we think all this stuff has to be done.

And truly, in all honesty, that wedding,

Hannah and I talk about this with every couple.

Like, we thought, like, everything that we were planning

that day was really important.

And there was stuff that I wanted to do for the ceremony.

And I wanted to keep it simple,

as simple as possible and short as possible.

And really, it doesn't matter.

We don't even remember it. It was a blur.

Like, we really hardly remember anything about our wedding day

because it was just, like, gone like that.

And then real marriage happens.

You're just like, this is way different.

The wedding itself, like, really doesn't matter.

It's like you plan all this stuff.

And it's like you think it's about you and all these decisions.

And truthfully, you are standing yourself before your Heavenly Father

and you're making an eternal covenant to pledge yourself

with this other person that you are going to be bonded with one another

for all of eternity, till death do you part.

That's heavy.

That should take a very different look on what it is

that you are looking forward to in your life.

Because here's the thing.

Whoever breaks the covenant is supposed to be committing themselves

to like, I would rather die than break the covenant.

And if I break the covenant, then I am committing myself

to basically being dead.

That's the seriousness of the covenant.

So let's talk about the aisle and the vowel, point two.

The husband, who is typically the greater party,

in this ceremony, in this covenant exchange,

walks down the aisle first and waits for the bride.

And the bride is brought down by her father,

the one who's supposed to be her keeper.

This is how it should happen.

It's brought down and given to the husband.

And together they recite the terms of the covenant

that they're making with God and one another.

And you're saying that if I break this covenant,

may I be like these dead animals laying on both sides?

We've cleaned it up a lot, haven't we?

I don't know if you've ever thought about what Abraham

may have looked like at this time,

but it wasn't like this covenant would have been

this easy process.

It would have been a lot of time.

I don't know about you if you've ever field dressed an animal.

It takes some time.

And they cut these carcasses in half,

split them right down the middle,

laid them on both sides.

Abraham's probably covered in blood.

I've watched Eli Garrett kill an animal one time.

With a knife, it did not give up easily.

That poor little bunny fought and screamed.

I'll tell you that story after church, too.

But it would have been messy.

It took a lot of time to prepare for this thing.

It had been covered in blood.

It would not be this romantic setting

like we have in church today where we go,

oh, we're going to go to church.

We're all going to dress up.

We're going to look nice.

We're going to have hopefully heat in the air,

nice cushioned seats, all this extra stuff.

There's so many times we impose our thoughts

of what things should be on what has been.

And it's so far from what it originally was.

We make it this fairy tale beautiful thing.

But when you look at this, you look at the passage,

the covenant was instigated by God.

God is the one who instigated the covenant.

He told Abram to bring the animals.

And he didn't make Abram walk down the aisle.

I think that's really important.

God and Abram didn't walk down the aisle together.

He just asked Abram to prepare it.

He asked Abraham to get it ready.

And then whenever God was ready, he showed up

and he moved in the aisle.

And he recited the terms of the covenant.

And think about what that is saying about God,

because he was the one who said,

if I break my covenant to you, Abraham,

may I be dead like these animals that are on both sides of me?

God was putting himself on the line to make sure

that Abram knew that the covenant he was making,

that God was willing to keep with his very existence and deity.

That's how special it was.

That's how serious God took the covenant.

And when you think 2,000 years later,

because it was about 2,000 years on the dot

from the time that God made this covenant with Abraham

until Jesus came,

even when God's people broke the terms of the covenant

and they strayed away from God

and they broke the system that God had set up,

God said, I will sin myself.

My son, Jesus Christ, I will come and I will be slain.

I will die to honor the covenant

so that you can be saved and still be my children

and come live with me for all of eternity.

So even though God didn't break the covenant,

he still died so that the covenant could be honored.

That's how serious the covenant is

that even Jesus was willing to come and die

so that he could still honor the covenant

that was started in Genesis 15.

He was slain as the rams and the heifer

and the goat was slain.

He gave up his life.

And another little tidbit just for fun facts.

Notice that the heifer, the goat, the ram,

the turtledove and the pigeon were all acceptable offerings

for the temple worship that would be set up

when Moses would come 400 and something years later.

God was already getting things set up

for the people of Israel to come

and to worship him.

Point number three, protecting the covenant.

This is my favorite part.

This goes back to verse 11.

Got them dirty old buzzards.

When God calls for this covenant,

Abraham prepares it.

He prepares the contract.

He's getting it ready

and he's waiting on God to come and sign it.

This is like one of the things about scripture

that I love the most, that we fail to see the most

is that so many times we think

all this stuff is just happening.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

It's all fast.

God, I wish you'd just moved in my life so fast.

And Abraham prepares this thing.

He's probably covered in blood.

We don't know how long he's sitting outside

waiting on God to come fulfill the terms of the covenant.

But he's sitting there and he's waiting.

And as he's waiting, these nasty vultures,

I don't know if you've ever even looked,

they just look ugly, like he's ugly.

I just want, like I try to hit him with a car

and they're smart.

Like you ever noticed that?

Like you can't hit him with a car.

Like they're never dead in the road,

but they're eating everything out of the road.

And anything else that goes in the road gets hit.

They never get hit, even though I try.

But they come in and enough time passes

where they like, they smell the blood.

They smell the dead animal.

And they're circling and they come in

and they start swooping down

and they start trying to take the carcasses away

and eat the carcasses.

They're trying to ruin what God has called Abraham to set up.

And guys, when you talk about marriage,

it's not just this idea of preparation of,

oh, you're engaged.

Now you get to plan for a wedding.

No, you're planning for getting married

should start now.

Now.

Not that you're preparing your ceremony

or you're picking out your dress.

Your plan for getting married,

your preparations for marriage should start today.

And if you're a parent and if you've got a kid,

it should start today.

You planning for your kid to be married.

And if you're thinking about having a baby

or if you haven't had a baby yet,

your plan for that child to get married

should start today.

Because we are called by God to be prepared

and to protect the covenant that's going to happen

until God comes in his timing to allow it to happen.

We don't know how long Abraham sit there with those carcasses,

but we know it was enough time for the buzzards to circle

and to come in and him have to fight them off.

And guys, if you're a parent or a grandparent,

you have a responsibility to fight off the buzzards

in your kid's life because they're going to come in

and they're going to try to take,

they're going to pick the bones clean of your kids

and your grandkids.

They will. They'll strip it clean.

There's going to be cute boys and girls

who's going to come along and you're going to question,

I don't know, should I let them do this?

How serious should we let them get?

Don't look at the world.

Don't look at what's normal.

If your kids and everybody else is doing it,

that's probably a really good reason not to do it.

If you're a teenager, you're probably hating me right now,

but I'm just being dead serious.

There's not a whole lot that the world does

that I think is super beneficial.

Every once in a while you might find a gold nugget,

but most of the time it's fool's gold.

We have a responsibility to protect that covenant

and that contract because our lack of preparation

and protection is going to make it so much more difficult

for them when the time comes along.

You're not going to be able to do it forever.

One day they're going to be of the age

where they're going to have to protect it.

They're going to have to be the one to defend that covenant

and that contract before God's timing has arrived

and it's going to be on them,

but don't leave them with a shattered broken system

before they ever get a chance to put their hands in on it.

Let them be the ones to break it.

You as a parent have a calling

and a responsibility to protect it.

Do not let your kids or grandkids get put in a position

to be torn apart or picked clean by buzzards.

There's going to be some cute boys.

There's going to be some cute girls.

There's going to be a lot of good opportunities in your life,

a lot of great things that you feel like all you could do

and you might miss out on.

And I'm telling you guys,

you have a responsibility to protect the covenant.

There's going to be plenty of buzzards

that you're going to have to chase away

and beat with a stick.

Don't be afraid because it's absolutely worth it.

What do you think would have happened

if Abraham would have said,

Well, God, I waited on you,

but then these buzzards came by and they,

I was just waiting.

You may feel like it's your time.

You may feel like you're ready to get married,

like you want to get married,

you're ready for this relationship.

And the truth be that God's just,

He's not ready to come yet.

But in His time and He will come,

in His time and He will be ready.

Guys, I truly believe that most people in this life,

God intends to be married.

I truly believe that.

Don't feel like you're not good enough.

Don't feel like you're not beautiful enough.

I used to tell the youth all the time,

Don't be afraid to wait.

Waiting is the hard part.

Some of the ugliest people I know have kids.

Anybody can find somebody.

The kids never laugh that hard.

Anybody I know, anybody can find somebody.

And I say that in all seriousness.

It's not like you have to prove yourself in some way.

The covenant of marriage is something that is so significant

that we really need to take a step back

and remind ourselves of how serious and important it is

as we embark on this.

It's not just the next phase of life.

It is literally the second most important decision

that you will make.

And I'm telling you guys,

when you talk about marriage,

something that was created by God,

if it's not done in God's timing and in His will

and in His way, the way that He intended for it to be,

it can be one of the most miserable experiences you ever have.

And there's a lot of people who have had

that miserable, awful experience.

And that's not something that we should want for ourselves.

And so that's why it's important to do it in God's timing

and make sure you're protecting it

because you don't want to not protect it

and then end up one day being in a position

where you feel like you have to settle for someone

who's not as good as you would like for them to be

just so that you can have someone to be with.

That's not a good position to be in.

And that's why we're called to protect it

and to have it prepared and have it ready.

And you can't change the past,

but you can do something about today

and you can do something about the future.

And we put our hands in our faith in God to help us.

Point number four,

the good, the bad, and especially the ugly.

Because everyone gets excited about marriage.

Everyone gets super, and they're excited for you

because they know it's a wonderful time.

And I think this is funny because there's some people

that I look at, I'm just like,

man, it doesn't seem like their marriage is very good.

And yet whenever I see them look at someone else

who's about to get married, they're still excited for them

because everyone has this idea

or this hope of what marriage could be or what it should be.

And so we're all excited for one another

whenever this happens.

But nobody ever talks about the ugly stuff of marriage.

And there's some really ugly things

that we have to talk about and be real about

because marriage is hard.

It's a lot of work.

Like if you don't like working,

you probably don't need to get married.

It's a job.

And there's some jobs that you love going to.

I don't know about you guys.

Like there's some jobs I love going to.

There's some jobs I hate going to.

Marriage can be one of those things

like you love waking up every day

and you love putting the work into it,

or you wake up every day and you're like,

man, this is my life and I've just got to do this

because this is what I committed myself to do before the Lord.

And we've got to be careful.

And I skipped verses 12 through 16 of this covenant

because a lot of times we don't talk about the bad stuff.

And God was very clear whenever he talked to Abraham

and he made this covenant with him,

he said, look, I'm going to do this for you.

But when we make this covenant,

I also want to tell you the bad stuff that's coming along with it

because there's going to be some hard times.

And in verses 12 through 16, he says,

as the sun was going down,

Abram fell into a deep sleep

and a terrifying darkness came down over him.

And in this moment,

as God is having this encounter with Abram

or Abram's having this encounter with God,

notice that like it's a terrifying darkness.

Like there's a seriousness in this moment that Abraham is experiencing

that's not typical.

Like we all want to meet with God and have this amazing experience

but we don't want to be terrified.

We want it to be like, ah.

In verse 13, it says, then the Lord said to Abram,

you can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land

where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.

He just gives it to him straight.

He's like, look, I'm going to do this for you,

but you need to know what's coming.

There's going to be some hard times come.

And you need to prepare for this.

And not only do you need to prepare for it,

you need to prepare the people who are coming behind you

because they're going to be the ones experiencing it.

In verse 14, it says,

but I will punish the nation that enslaves them,

and in the end, they will come away with great wealth.

As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.

After four generations,

your descendants will return here to this land

for the sins of the Amorites did not yet warn their destruction.

So God's being clear and God's being real.

He's saying, look, I'm going to do this for you,

but these are the things,

this is some of the stuff that's going to happen,

and you need to know this.

You need to be prepared for it.

And what you find when you get to the book of Exodus

and you look at the people of Israel that are in slavery in that moment,

they had forgotten about this.

Oh, God, when are you going to come?

When's God going to free us?

They had no concept of the time,

no concept of what's going to happen,

no concept of when they're free.

And then whenever they do get free,

and they're being led to the promised land,

and no matter how many great miracles they see,

they still don't look back at this.

They always look back to Egypt of what was,

because it was better than what they had

than to struggle through that moment

to get to where God wanted them to be.

And marriage is one of those things.

There are going to be some struggles.

You're going to have to struggle through some stuff together,

but if you struggle through it together,

the marriage will be better in the end.

It will be stronger.

It will be lasting.

It will be fulfilling.

It will be something that you find joy in

rather than bitterness in.

Marriage is a wonderful thing,

but I would be lying to you if I didn't tell you that,

man, it's hard,

and you're going to have to put some work into it.

So when you stand before God one day and you pledge yourself

and you make that covenant before Him

till death do us part like God,

I'm willing to die before I let this marriage break apart,

you're going to have to work for that.

You're going to have to work hard for that.

And it's not just going to be like a five-day job

or a four-day on and three days off.

It's going to be a seven-on, seven-on, seven-on, seven-on.

You're going to have to work every day.

There will be ups and downs.

There will be good times.

There will be bad times.

You will want to kill for the person you have made

and you will want to kill the person you're married to.

And that's not a lie.

You know 40% of murders are committed by spouses.

40%.

You know women are usually the ones who get excited about being married.

You know 36% of the 40% are husbands killing their wives.

It's not a joke, man.

And you start looking at murders in general

and you start looking at people who's like...

When I say it's hard,

70% of murders are committed by intimate partners.

That's like people who are either married or not married,

but yet they're in an intimate relationship.

70% of murders.

And most of them are women being killed by men.

So women who are so excited about getting married,

you need to make sure you know who you get married to.

And you really won't know until you do get married, right?

Because everybody puts on their best while you're dating.

Like I said, there's a reason why married couples look across the table.

It's like, who are you?

Who did I marry?

So this morning, if you're married and you're contemplating getting out,

I just challenge you.

You may not have understood the covenant that you were making

before you got into marriage, but you know now.

And you got to make a decision now

whether or not you will honor that covenant with your life

or whether you're just going to peace out.

And you may not have to answer for it now,

but one day you're going to stand before the Lord

and you will have to answer for it.

Again, what has already happened, you cannot change.

So don't think about what has happened.

You think about what you can do now,

how you can serve the Lord now and how you can be committed to Him now.

But before you get married, if you're a young person and you're dating,

if you can't look that person in the eye and ask them,

would you rather die or get divorced?

And don't listen to their answer.

You look them in the eye and you look at what their eyes say.

And if they don't say, I'd rather die than get divorced,

then you probably shouldn't marry them.

And if you look in the mirror and you say,

would I rather die or get divorced?

And the answer is die, you probably shouldn't get married.

Because chances are you're going to end up divorced.

If it's acceptable before you ever go into it,

it's going to be a viable option all the way through,

and it's not supposed to be.

The only reason Jesus gave concession for divorce was through adultery.

And guys, I'm telling you,

I know of couples whose spouses have committed adultery

and they have chosen to forgive them and stay with them in spite of that.

And so if you sit here and think today that adultery,

or not adultery, but divorce,

is an option in any way that you're not willing to commit yourself

and stick through this and work through it and say,

no matter what my spouse may do,

no matter what they may do to me,

no matter what they may do,

I'm committed to honor my covenant before God for them

and I would rather die than break that covenant,

then you probably shouldn't get married.

That's how serious it is.

And guys, again, it's not about what's already happened.

It's about the covenant we have now.

It's about what we can honor and keep now and to stay moving forward.

If we don't talk about it, how will we know?

If the kids don't hear it, how will they know?

Fifty percent of divorce is ending.

Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce.

Basically, you can take your kids if you got to,

you can flip a coin to see which one's going to end up split.

And that's not where we want to be.

That's not where God ever intended for it to be.

How willing are we to keep the covenant?

Let's pray.

Father God, thank you again for this day

and for everything that you blessed us with.

Thank you for the opportunity to come and read your word.

And Lord, I pray this morning that you would speak and move in a mighty way.

If there's hurt and pain in our lives in some of these situations,

as I'm sure there are many have it,

that God, you would bring healing and resolution.

Lord, I pray that if there's issues in our marriage right now

that we're dealing with, God, that you would give us strength

and courage to stick it out and to overcome.

And Lord, just to lean into you heavily during these times.

And Father, for those of these young people who are getting ready,

as the years will come quickly and they'll be looking forward to this moment,

that God, they would not do it haphazardly.

God, they would not just look for a pretty face.

But Lord, they would truly try to find someone

who is going to help them honor you.

It's going to help them serve you.

And Lord, somebody they can help serve you.

It's not just a matter of you preparing someone from us,

but Lord, it's a matter of you preparing us

so that we could be someone's spouse as well.

God, give us wisdom and understanding and teach us your ways.

We love you.

And we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen.