Partners in Perversion | Part 1
Why do our relationships so often become marked by conflict, shame, blame, and brokenness? Part 1 of Partners in Perversion explores how sin shattered God's original design for humanity and why understanding the problem is the first step toward lasting hope.
Checkout these other Family Fortress Ministries Podcasts:
TIME FOR THREE daily couples devotional: https://time-for-three.captivate.fm/listen
RELATIONSHIP REALITIES: https://relationship-realities.captivate.fm/listen
Donate: https://familyfortress.org/donate
Free Online Premarital Training: https://preparingforpartnership.org/
Transcript
Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Speaker A:It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.
Speaker A:Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.
Speaker A:And now here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.
Speaker B:I'm going to ask you if you would to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 and verses 6 and 7.
Speaker B:If you would turn there.
Speaker B:And I would ask if you're able physically to stand, to stand in honor of the word of God, as I share the word of God with you here this morning.
Speaker B:It's in scripture that we get the true story of the world.
Speaker B:Genesis chapter three and just two verses here, verse six and verse seven.
Speaker B:And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
Speaker B:And the eyes of them both were open and they knew that they were naked and sewed fig leaves leaves together and made themselves aprons.
Speaker B:Well, this weekend has been a wonderful weekend.
Speaker B:It's been a different theme.
Speaker B:It's really the first time we've ever done this conference.
Speaker B:We've done this conference called Partners in Paradise before, but we've kind of totally revamped it into something somewhat brand new and we call it Partners in Paradise because the Garden of Eden.
Speaker B:The word Eden means an enclosed place of pleasure.
Speaker B:And God put man in a enclosed place of pleasure.
Speaker B:Even as we said this weekend, to find perpetual rest, to find his identity in God and God alone, and to image or mirror the image of God through pouring out selfless love to another image bearer that God would provide for him, that is woman, and that all of us with each other could pour out and mirror God's image by pouring out that same selfless love, certainly to one another.
Speaker B:Certainly.
Speaker B:As we look back to paradise, we look back to Genesis chapter two.
Speaker B:We look at the original, original paradise that God put man and woman in.
Speaker B:It's almost too amazing and wonderful to even describe with words.
Speaker B:But unfortunately, something happened in that paradise, in this beautiful place that God put man and woman.
Speaker B:Only one thing could mess it up.
Speaker B:And that one thing did happen.
Speaker B:That one thing was sin.
Speaker B:And unfortunately for all humanity, Eve yielded to the temptation of Satan to disobey God's one and only prohibition to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Speaker B:And Adam be with his wife.
Speaker B:The Bible says ate of the fruit and disobeyed God.
Speaker B:Ken Hughes says, in an instant, the original couple passed from life to death, from sinlessness to sin, from harmony to alienation, from trust to distrust, from ease to disease.
Speaker B:It didn't take a day.
Speaker B:It happened in a millisecond.
Speaker B:There were no longer partners in paradise, but partners, we might say, in perversion.
Speaker B:Paradise was lost.
Speaker B:So we might ask, exactly how was their relationship broken?
Speaker B:How is their relationship corrupted?
Speaker B:How is their relationship perverted by sin?
Speaker B:And I want to share several ways that it was here this morning with you.
Speaker B:First, I think as we look at Scripture, we see that sin caused man to be cut off from man.
Speaker B:We could call this social alienation.
Speaker B:Look at verse seven.
Speaker B:And the eyes of them both were open, and they knew that they were naked.
Speaker B:And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons before sin.
Speaker B:They were naked as in not ashamed, as it describes or gives a summary verse in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 25.
Speaker B:And I shared this weekend that that means they were known and yet still loved and accepted.
Speaker B:They had complete transparency in their relationship.
Speaker B:There was no shame, there was no guilt, there was no fear, there was no pride.
Speaker B:There they were fully known and yet still loved and accepted.
Speaker B:The minute they sinned, what did they do?
Speaker B:They immediately did.
Speaker B:What church.
Speaker B:They covered themselves up.
Speaker B:They tried to take fig leaves to cover up their sins.
Speaker B:I can't let you know who I am, because if you know who I am, you probably won't like who I am.
Speaker B:You won't love me the way you did love me, or you won't love me the way I want you to love me.
Speaker B:I got to take control over what you know about me.
Speaker B:That's us today.
Speaker B:Every one of us here today, if we would be honest with ourselves, would say, I'm in that position right now.
Speaker B:I am continually trying to cover myself with fig leaves to cover myself up, to make sure nobody knows who I really am.
Speaker B:Because if they really knew who I was, they probably wouldn't like me very much.
Speaker B:And we call this social alienation.
Speaker B:But not only that, sin caused man to be cut off from God.
Speaker B:The most devastating thing is man was cut off from God.
Speaker B:We could call this spiritual alienation.
Speaker B:We look at verse 9 and 10, and it says, the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou?
Speaker B:And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden.
Speaker B:And I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.
Speaker B:Adam and Eve were communing with God in the garden, enjoying his presence, abiding in his light.
Speaker B:But now we see in verse 10, they're afraid of God and they're hiding from him.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Because God said in Genesis 2:17, if you eat of the tree that I commanded you not to eat of, you shall surely what church?
Speaker B:You shall surely die.
Speaker B:Adam's reverential fear of God, that is having an awe of God, that is standing and revering who God is, turned into a slavish fear, that is the fear of a slave to a taskmaster, feeling like now that God would whip him like a taskmaster would whip a slave.
Speaker B:Because he had sinned against God, he is now alienated from God.
Speaker B:He's spiritually alienated because God is holy and God is without sin and he cannot be in the presence of sin.
Speaker B:He is a holy God.
Speaker B:And because God is holy and just, he now will have to judge man because of his sin.
Speaker B:And of course, this judgment is physical death.
Speaker B:But even worse than physical death is spiritual death or eternal separation from from God because of man's sin.
Speaker B:But not only did sin cause social alienation and spiritual alienation, but thirdly, sin caused man to be cut off from himself.
Speaker B:Look at verse 11.
Speaker B:And he said, who told thee that thou wast naked?
Speaker B:Hast thou eaten of the tree whereby I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Speaker B:And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me shall.
Speaker B:She gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
Speaker B:And the Lord God said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done?
Speaker B:And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Speaker B:When God asked Adam why he's now embarrassed about being naked, I mean, he's walked with God naked for who knows how long.
Speaker B:Now all of a sudden, it's changed.
Speaker B:He doesn't answer because God, I disobeyed you.
Speaker B:Forgive me.
Speaker B:He doesn't repent before a holy God.
Speaker B:He.
Speaker B:He rather blames someone.
Speaker B:He blames woman.
Speaker B:The woman made me do it.
Speaker B:When God says to Eve, what about you?
Speaker B:Eve says, the serpent made me do it.
Speaker B:They're both in denial because they're filled with fear and shame.
Speaker B:We might call this psychological alienation.
Speaker B:They're cut off.
Speaker B:Listen, folks.
Speaker B:They're cut off from themselves because they're cut off from God.
Speaker B:They've lost their identity.
Speaker B:Before sin, their identity, represented by the Tree of Life, as we talked about this weekend, was in God and God alone.
Speaker B:But now they don't know who they are.
Speaker B:They've lost the main purpose that God has created them for.
Speaker B:To worship God and to worship God alone.
Speaker B:Aw Tozer says, what was the real tragedy of that dreadful cosmic rupture forever affecting mankind?
Speaker B:The real tragedy in the Garden of Eden was that Adam and Eve lost their purpose.
Speaker B:They forgot who they were.
Speaker B:They did not know who they were.
Speaker B:They did not understand where they came from or what they were here for.
Speaker B:They forgot the purpose of their existence.
Speaker B:Trying their best to shake off this moral fog, they could not.
Speaker B:For no matter what they did, it would not shake away.
Speaker B:Therefore, hand in hand, they made their way out into the world, not knowing where they were going.
Speaker B:Humanity still wanders in this moral and spiritual wilderness.
Speaker B:They suffered from what I will refer to as spiritual amnesia.
Speaker B:As A.W.
Speaker B:Tozer stated, because of sin, all humanity has spiritual amnesia.
Speaker B:Wandering in a spiritual wilderness, trying to rediscover.
Speaker B:Listen folks.
Speaker B:Trying to rediscover who they are and why they're here.
Speaker B:That's the state of mankind today.
Speaker B:We've never lived in more confused society than we live in America today.
Speaker B:Of trying to discover who you are, what I am.
Speaker B:And we living in this time even from rooted in the sin of man called psychological alienation.
Speaker B:If you don't know the true God, Listen folks, and who he is, you won't know the true self for who he is.
Speaker B:It's only when we know the true God.
Speaker B:But also notice in verse 16 that sin caused gender roles to be cursed.
Speaker B:We might call this familial alienation.
Speaker B:Look at verse 16.
Speaker B:And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow in thy conception.
Speaker B:In sorrow there shall bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.
Speaker B:Now folks, we live in a day and culture where everyone is talking about gender and are confused about gender even to the point they don't know who they are.
Speaker B:I never could have imagined, as most of you could not imagine, that we would ever live in this day.
Speaker B:I could imagine that 10 years ago.
Speaker B:Hardly.
Speaker B:You say preacher, where did all this come from folks?
Speaker B:It simply came from sin.
Speaker B:The sin of man.
Speaker B:But we do see two important things in this passage I just want to mention briefly here this morning.
Speaker B:One is there are gender differences.
Speaker B:The Bible clearly says that.
Speaker B:And number two, sin has distorted gender differences and gender roles.
Speaker B:You have listened to the first part of a two part message by evangelist Sam Wood.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Speaker A:And if you feel encouraged by today's teaching, give us a follow so we can invite you back and share us on your socials so more marriages and families can be strengthened and fortified through the truths of God's word.
Speaker A:Remember, fortifying your family starts with a strong belief in God's Word.
