HOW MUCH CAN A MARRIAGE ENDURE?
Let me ask you a very serious question. Just how much do you think your marriage can endure without breaking? Let me put it another way. Just how much are you willing to endure in your marriage without giving up?
We live in a day and age, even among Christians, when people are so quick to end their marriages. Couples today have very little tolerance for pain, discomfort, or the enduring of relational hardship and challenges in their marriage.
Consider this. Men, would you stay married to a woman whose decision and sin, resulted in the death of all humanity, including your own? Would you stay married to that woman? Would you stay married to a woman who enticed you to join her in that decision, and as a result, you’re thrown out of the best home you will ever have, forced to work like a dog the rest of your life, to scratch out a living from the land to support you both? How long would your marriage to this person last do you think? One year? Ten years? Twenty years? How about almost 850 years? Did you know that is approximately how long Adam and Eve’s marriage lasted?
Can you imagine, you have been living in a Hawaiian paradise, simply living off the fruits of the land, only to be thrown out to spend the rest of your life, the next 850 years instead in a place like Haiti, slaving all day long just to get anything to grow from the land, and survive? Don’t you think that would put just a little stress on the marriage? Can’t you just hear the arguments, the blaming going on, “Woman, if you hadn’t eaten that stupid fruit, listened to that stupid talking serpent, we wouldn’t be in this awful hell hole right now!” ”Well, Mr. Holier than thou, God made you first, you knew better, if you had just been the man you were supposed to be, you should have protected me from the serpent, you should have saved us by not eating the fruit yourself!!” And on and on it goes! Can you begin to imagine the strain on their marriage?
Would you stay married after giving birth to two wonderful sons, who upon reaching adulthood, finally stable in their careers, one son murders the other son? Would you stay married after that? Would you even consider having another child with such a man who fathered those sons, or a woman who raised them? Yet, Adam was 130 when his wife Eve gave birth to their 3rd son, Seth, and Eve exclaimed “God has granted me another son in place of Abel, the one Cain killed.” Would you be willing to survive such marital grief and sorrow, walking through the pain of one child murdering another, then have a 3rd son, and exclaim such a faith-filled thing? Would you go on for another 700-800 years to have many more sons and daughters with this woman, or this man? Would you like Eve, even mention the name God, or be walking with God after He threw you out of the garden, cursed your birth experience, and your husband for what you had done, and allowed one son to murder the other?
I would be willing to bet $100 dollars that none of you reading this has ever thought of these questions before in quite this way, or has ever heard a message preached on exactly what I just shared about Adam and Eve. Do you know why? Because we fail to really conceptualize the realities of the Bible people and their implications for our lives.
This is why I believe God and His word can solve all of our marital issues if, and that is a BIG IF, we are willing to own our own sins, repent, walk closely with God, practice rigorous faith, and desperately depend on God. Seeking him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Determined to pursue and live God’s will as our way of life.
If God can solve Adam and Eve’s problems, if they could endure through their almost 900-year marriage and build a life together, then my dear, dear friends, don’t you think by earnestly walking closely with God, following His word/will, owning your own sin, forgiving the sins of your spouse, you can make it for 70 years!
Maybe, just maybe you ought to go to an Adam and Eve marriage conference and learn from the couple who stayed married for one of the longest times in the history of the world, and simply do what they did!! Don’t you think that after what happened to them in the garden when they both ignored God’s commands, they concluded for all those 800 plus years after, We will never, ever, ever ignore God’s commands and advice again! Never!
Okay, I realize you can’t go to their conference after all, how about the next best thing? Get a babysitter some Saturday morning, or Saturday evening, and sit down as a couple together and listen to this Pastor Mark Darling marriage conference, Habits That Build A Healthy Marriage! This was an actual marriage conference I gave that was recorded. If you both do what you hear in this series it will change your marriage, and it will last as long as you both shall live.
Here is a real life testimony about this series, from a devoted Christ-follower, husband, attorney, and author, married for decades himself:
“Pastor Mark, Your series on Habits that Build a Healthy Marriage is fantastic! Hands down the best I’ve ever heard!”
https://strongdisciple.com/
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
