Real Marriage_ The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark Driscoll [58]
Weary of wandering from my God,
And now made willing to return
I hear and bow me to the rod
For thee, not without hope, I mourn:
I have an Advocate above
A Friend before the throne of love.
O Jesus, full of truth and grace
More full of grace than I of sin
Yet once again I seek Thy face:
Open Thine arms and take me in
And freely my backslidings heal
And love the faithless sinner still.
Thou know’st the way to bring me back
My fallen spirit to restore
O for Thy truth and mercy’s sake,
Forgive, and bid me sin no more:
The ruins of my soul repair
And make my heart a house of prayer.
The stone to flesh again convert,
The veil of sin again remove;
Sprinkle Thy blood upon my heart,
And melt it by Thy dying love;
This rebel heart by love subdue,
And make it soft, and make it new.
Give to mine eyes refreshing tears,
And kindle my relentings now;
Fill my whole soul with filial fears,
To Thy sweet yoke my spirit bow;
Bend by Thy grace, O bend or break,
The iron sinew in my neck!
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Ah! give me, Lord, the tender heart
That trembles at the approach of sin;
A godly fear of sin impart,
Implant, and root it deep within,
That I may dread Thy gracious power,
And never dare to offend Thee more.
* * *
a Heb. 4:15.
a Luke 11:4.
b Ps. 51:4.
a Eph. 4:32.
a Jer. 31:34.
a Heb. 12:15.
a Eph. 4:29–30.
b Heb. 12:15.
a Ruth 1:20.
b Eph. 4:25.
c Ps. 103:8.
d Ex. 32:19; see also Ex. 11:8; 16:20; Num. 16:15; Lev. 10:16; 1 Sam. 11:6; 20:34; 2 Sam. 12:5; Neh. 5:6; Mark 3:5; Luke 14:21.
a Eph. 4:26.
b Eph. 4:26–27.
a Eph. 4:32.
a 1 Cor. 13:5.
Part 2
SEX
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6
SEX: GOD, GROSS, OR GIFT?
They were both naked, the man and his wife,
and were not ashamed.
—GENESIS 2:25
We only had fifteen minutes between teaching sessions at a marriage conference to say hello to people and expected that perhaps a few would come up and introduce themselves. Instead, they lined up more than a hundred deep to drop the bomb of their sex lives on us in a minute or less. Women who were molested as children, weeping so hard they could not breathe; husbands who had been caught, yet again, viewing porn; a married couple who had not had any sexual contact in more than a decade; a woman who had sex with her husband twice a day and was still unsatisfied, wanting more; a few couples who had been married more than a year and were still virgins; one woman who had not told her husband she had dozens of partners before they met; a wife who asked if her husband was guilty of raping her; and a Christian couple who wanted to know if they should keep watching porn together. And those are just a few of them.
Getting back up to teach was difficult, to say the least. Our hearts were broken. We felt completely overwhelmed. There was an epidemic, and people were suffering more than we could have possibly imagined. Worse still, they were desperate for answers, and they had nowhere to turn. How did sex, which is a gift from God to married couples, turn into such a curse for so many of us?
We have to begin in the beginning. In the beginning God created our first parents and brought them together to meet. For Eve, it was a big day. She had just been created, met God, and was going to her first “date” and wedding naked. Upon seeing his wife for the first time, Adam was overwhelmed and uttered what are the first recorded human words in all history. In response to Eve’s glory, Adam sang what is in Hebrew a rhythmic and poetic love song, not unlike an epic musical, in which he named her “woman.”
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As her father walking her down the aisle, God brought Eve to Adam. And as their pastor, He officiated the first wedding ceremony, declaring them husband and wife.
God blessed them because He is altogether good, and He invited our first parents to make some babies, steward