Sermon 2
GOD AND MARRIAGE
Gen. 2:18-25
Bob Marcaurelle
homeorchurchbiblestudy.com
What is marriage? There are all kinds of definitions. To some it is “the quickest way to kill a good romance.”
To a live-in girlfriend put in the street it is “a piece of paper that guarantees I will get some money for all the time I invest in a bad relationship.”
To some it is “the answer to most of my problems” and to others it is “where most of my problems began”.
Going to Genesis two, in the Garden of Eden, where God conducted the first wedding and formed the first marriage we find this possible definition. It is the union of one man and one woman by the will of God into a growing relationship of love for life.
A. A PURPOSEFUL UNION
Marriage in the Bible fulfills four purposes God has for mankind. The first is to populate the earth. In Genesis 1:28 God tells Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply.”
The second is to avoid loneliness. In Genesis 2:18 God says for the first time in the creation account that something is NOT good. He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
The third purpose, stated by Paul, is to satisfy sexual desires. In 1 Corinthians 7:9 Paul says, “. . .it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”
The fourth is to be a character building agency to produce godly children. Malachi says in Malachi 2:15,
“Has not the Lord made them one?” And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring.
Between birth and maturity a child lives 108,000 hours. Seven thousand are spent in public school. One thousand are spent in church. And ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND are spent in the home, under the influence of parents. Here is where a child learns the proper or the improper values he carries into adulthood.
Another definition of marriage I would like to offer is - marriage is where you find your heaven or hell in life. If you are not happy in your marriage you will not be a happy person. Your life will be a living hell. If you are happy in your marriage you will be a happy person. You will experience a little touch of heaven on earth.
It is sad but true that most people are not happy in their marriages. One out of every two and a half marriages ends up in the divorce courts. And of those who stay together, how many are truly happy and look upon their mate as the nearest and dearest person in life
Many marriage that stay together involve two people, doing their own thing, living their own lives, and tolerating each other. And no marriage is immune to this.
The Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod did a study of its pastors to determine the problems they were facing. The number one problem was in their homes, in the relationships between pastors and their wives.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale tells of the man who died and stood sulking outside the gates of heaven. St. Peter noticed something was wrong and asked him why he looked so mad. The man said, “I am mad and I have a question.
All my life I was taught that marriages were made in heaven. I prayed for a wife and believed God answered my prayer. I was a Christian and my wife was a Christian. We went to church brought up our kids in church.
But neither my wife nor I were happy. We seemed to make each other miserable so in the end, we left each other alone. She went her way and I went mine. God has let me down. My marriage was cer¬tainly not made in heaven. That’s why I’m mad.”
Peter said, “Let me check the book.” (By the way, some marriages are not made in heaven. Satan brings some people together.) He looked and said, “Sir, your name is here. You did marry in God’s will. Your marriage was made in heaven. But sir, you have made a very common mistake.
We get men and women every day with this problem. You do not understand. You think God gives the FRUIT of a happy Christian marriage, but He doesn’t. God gives the SEED. It is up to the husband and wife to cooperate with God and work and pray to produce the fruit out of the seed.
Men and women, God has given you the seed to produce a happy, godly, powerful, purposeful home. His Word gives you principles to follow and His Spirit gives you power to claim.
But I warn you of the sinister figure, Satan, who came between the first husband and wife (Gen. 3). All the powers of hell will be directed against your marriage, especially if it is Christian.
As the home goes, so goes the church and the nation, for the home feeds both. To cripple the nation, the church, and your happiness and effectiveness, all Satan has to do is make trouble in your home.
He is the author of arguments and greed and laziness and pouting and neglect and drugs and infidelity and alcohol and a thousand other demons that make your home a touch of hell instead of a touch of heaven.
Let’s go to the Word of God, to the first wedding and see how we can cooperate with God and build a home that is both holy and happy. The first thing we see is that in God’s eyes marriage is. .
.
B. A SACRED UNION (2:18-22)
God is the author of marriage. The wedding cere¬mony puts it like this, “Marriage is ordained of God.” Before God formed the church or the nation, He formed the home.
It is “the foundation of an honorable, happy society” says the wedding ceremony. Children need stability and education and character to build a suitable society and it is in the home more than anywhere else that they receive this.
But on a more personal, practical level, God wants the right kind of marriage not just for mankind or society, but for you and me. We see God here, reading the loneliness of Adam’s heart and working to meet his needs.
We do not see Adam frantically running all over heaven to find a partner. We don’t see him sulking under a tree blaming God for his emptiness. No, God put him to sleep, took out of him what he needed and quietly fashioned the ideal partner.
When Adam quietly and confidently left the whole matter in the hands of God, God supplied his need. This same God is concerned for your needs and mine and we should make fervent prayers that God will lead us to the person of His choice for us.
As you cooperate with God by seeking the person of His choice for you, the Bible gives some guidelines. It goes without saying that it should be a person of the opposite sex.
The world may call homosexuality an “alternate, acceptable lifestyle,” but God’s word calls it an abomination (Romans 1:26-27) Paul calls it shameful, unnatural and perverted and with a prophecy of things such as AIDS wrote they:
“received IN THEMSELVES the due penalty of their perversion” (Rom. 1:27).
I like what Adrian Rogers said, “God made Adam and EVE, not Adam and STEVE.”
God also wants to marry someone who is saved. I know, God has used saved partners to lead their husband of wife to Christ. First Corinthians 7:39 tells widows who marry to marry those “who belong to the Lord.” Second Corinthians 7:14 tells us not to be “ unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
God can and does bless the union of the saved and unsaved sometimes. He can and does use one to lead the other to Christ. But this the exception and not the rule.
To marry a non-Christian is to run the risk of having an unhappy home with a different set of values and interests and activities constantly pulling against each other.
In God’s will we marry people who are imperfect. One of my favorite cartoons shows a wife kneeling at the bedside of her sleeping husband. And she prays, “Dear God, please give Mr. Perfect one little flaw.”
I like the man who said, “There have been only two perfect people - Jesus Christ and my wife’s first husband.”
When God presented Eve to Adam, Chuck Swindall said his response was “Wow! Wrap her up. I’ll take her.”
He later found out Eve had weaknesses. He could have said, “Lord, could you slim her down a little and add a curve here or there. Could you put a control switch on her mouth so I can switch it off at times. Could you teach her to cook like mother? I’m tired of baked apples.”
I’m kidding, of course. But the principle applies. We are imperfect and those we love are imperfect and our task is to love one another “warts and all” and to do all in our power to bring out the best in ourselves and in our partner. Marriage should be a sacred union where God brings two imperfect human beings together. It should also be. . .
C. AN EQUAL UNION (2:18; 21-23; 3:16)
To give Adam a life partner God caused him to go into a deep sleep. Just as night preceded the mornings of creative activity in chapter one, so did night precede the creation of Eve in chapter two.
God took a rib (or a piece of side) from Adam and closed up his side like a surgeon (2:21). Then God “built” a woman from the rib. Then in a beautiful, solemn ceremony that Prov¬erbs 2:17 calls a “covenant” God brought Eve to Adam.
Not only did he say, “Wow!” he started singing. His words in Hebrew are poetry (Broadman Commentary). He sang:
“This is it / Bone of my bones /Flesh of my flesh / She will be called woman (e.g. manish) / Because she was taken from man” (2:23).
God’s word for Eve was “helpmate” (2:18). This is literally “a helper, corresponding to him or like him” (Pulpit Commentary). In every way she was ideally suited to be his co-partner and companion.
In these two texts we have the equality of husbands and wives. Eve was not taken from Adam’s head that she might rule over him. She was not taken from his heel that he might rule over her. She was taken from his side that they might walk together. She was taken from under his arm that he might protect her and from near his heart that he might cherish her. Marriage is a lifetime partner¬ship between equals.
Later on, after the fall, God told Eve that she would be ruled by her husband (3:16). This was not God’s original design but is part of the consequences of sin.
In verses like Ephesians 5:22 (Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1) where Christian wives are told to “BE SUBJECT” to their husbands, the idea is not inequality or even rule, but responsibility.
God holds the man of the house primarily responsible for that home and will call him to account first. The Christian wife is to give her husband, if he will take it, the responsibility.
This does not mean the woman is a slave or a doormat. This does not mean she cannot help earn the money to provide for her family’s needs. It does not mean she cannot have her say. It simply means she honors God’s decision to hold her husband more responsible for the home than her. This doesn’t mean the man “wears the pants” in the home, it means he carries the burden of responsibility.
Sinful man wants the pants without the burden. The man who rules as the head of the house but who doesn’t lovingly take responsibility is not displaying Christian leadership but his sin nature.
Marriage is an equal union. In my marriage ceremony I put it like this, “Marriage is a lifetime partnership between equals. Man is the head of the home and woman is the heart of the home.” Marriage is also to be..
D. AN EXCLUSIVE UNION (2:24)
Long after the wedding of Adam and Eve (2:18-23) God led Moses to make three comments. The first one was, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife” (2:24a). This tells us that marriage is an exclusive union. As the wedding cere¬mony puts it, “forsaking all others.”
This means, in a sense, we are to leave our parents. Though parents are always to be honored and loved and cared for, the union of the husband and wife must take priority over the relationship with our parents.
Someone said, “We need to leave DADDY’S PURSE STRINGS and Mama’s APRON STRINGS.”
Many times I tell couples in trouble, “The best answer for you is Seattle, Washington.” When they ask why, I say, “That’s about as far away as you can get from your in-laws and still live in America.”
One fellow said, “The only way not to have in-law problems is to marry an orphan.” Another said behind every successful man there is a surprised mother-in-law.
Friends, the real culprits are selfish and jealous parents who don’t want to let go and who secretly resent their son or daughter-in-law as an intruder.
We Christian parents should pray earnestly that God would give us the grace to be a loving in-law such as Naomi and a loving relationship such as existed between Naomi and Ruth.
When I hear a husband or wife say of their parents, “Mama and daddy love him (or her) more than they do me!”, I know I am looking at a marriage is helped and supported by godly in-laws, always ready to help when really needed, but mature and loving enough to give their child to the one God has chosen for them.
This also means we are to leave and not cleave to But more than any other sexual partner. The nakedness and un-ashamedness of Adam and Eve means they were open to each other and they belonged exclusively to each other.
God’s word has no place for infidelity. Paul said of adulterers,”. . .they shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:21).
E. A PERMANENT UNION (2:24)
In marriage men and women not only “leave” but “CLEAVE”. The term means doing something permanent – holding on for dear life. to their marriage partner. As the wedding ceremony puts it, “Until death do us part,” and “What God hath joined together, let no man pull asunder.” God’s design is one man and one woman, married for life.
I am not going to deal here with the difficult Biblical issues regarding divorce. Even Jesus (Matt. 19:9) and Paul (1 Cor. 7:15), in permitting divorce, point out that in this less than ideal world, there are times when divorce, though wrong, may be the lesser of two evils, and therefore justified.
I do not believe the Bible teaches that divorce is the unpardonable sin. It can be forgiven and life can go on. No home had a worse beginning than that of David and Bathsheba. To their adultery was added murder and dishonesty and pre¬tense.
Their sins came home to roost and David and Bathsheba suffered over their deed for the rest of their lives. But God forgave them and God let them go on with their lives.
And it was from David’s union with Bathsheba that Jesus, the Messiah, was born. Divorce is not God’s ideal. Divorce always brings unhappiness and pain. But divorce is not the end of the world or the end of our service for God.
But from this word CLEAVE and from the words of God in Malachi “I hate divorce” (2:16), we must speak against the flippant attitude which says, “If it doesn’t work out we can always get a divorce.”
In our society it is too often the first response to real trouble. The idea is, “Till disappointment do us part.”
To build a good marriage we need a deep commitment to work through our problems and stay married. I don’t tell people what to do, but my counsel on divorce is always it should be the last possible resort.
I tell young couples that the two secrets of staying together and growing closer together are a commitment to Christ and a commitment to stay married.
A commitment to Christ will change you and strengthen you. It will make you a better person for your mate to live with. It will make you more willing to forgive and to understand and to compromise.
This is why only one marriage in thirty ends up in divorce when both partners are active in their church on Sunday and Wednesday nights.
But coupled with this there must be a commitment to the marriage itself. Years ago I found this quote from Elton and Pauline Trueblood which sums up the idea of permanence in marriage:
“A successful marriage is not one in which two people, beautifully matched, find each other and get along happily ever after because of this initial match. It is, instead, a system by means of which persons who are sinful and contentious are so caught by a dream bigger than themselves, that they work through the years, in spite of repeated disappointments, to make the dream come true.”
(Source Unknown)
