Just what is it that we believe? Could you tell someone what it is you believe? In past messages we have discussed our believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We have talked about how we need salvation and cannot save ourselves and that Jesus is the only way. We believe in the church where we live out our lives as the body of Christ. But as the body of Christ, just how do we live out our lives? We live in community with one another, but right from the beginning of time God gave us the basic building blocks of society: The Family
The first organization God ordained was not the church, but marriage and the family. Yet the family, as we know it, is under attack. It is being attack and being redefined by the culture, by the courts, and by our government. In congress right now, is legislation formally redefining marriage (HR 8404). The bill has been called the “Respect of Marriage Act” but on closer examination it should be more correctly named the “Dis-respect for Marriage Act.” Not only will it codified same-sex marriage (and that alone will have far reaching implications for us), but it will demand that all states honor the all laws and definition of marriage from other states and door is open for way beyond gay marriage (child marriages, polygamy and more). This will literally change our world, and not for the better.
Our world is being turned quite literally upside down and perversion is being celebrated and is being forced on the rest of us. What God has ordained and defined, we do not get to change, regardless of the laws that are passed. We are starting this morning by going back to the beginning, back in Genesis, and looking at marriage and the family as God had set it up.
Genesis 2:22–25
Back in 1933, Dr J. D. Unwin, a social anthropologist, published a book called “Sex and Culture.” This almost 700 page book was a summary of the 7 volume work published at about the same time. Unwin studied 80 primitive tribes and six known civilizations through 5,000 years of history. He claimed there was a positive correlation between the cultural achievement of a people and the sexual restraint they observe.
Unwin was not a particularly religious man. His work only mentions religion in passing as it relates to his study, but his study has far reaching implications on our world today. At the risk of over-simplifying his observations and conclusions, I will attempt to briefly summarize what His said.
A society that has a very high moral code, the people remained virgins till marriage, sex was strictly limited to only within the confines of a heterosexual and monogamous marriage, that society flourished in all cultural areas of literature, music, arts, science, engineering , architecture, and agriculture. And when a society combined pre-nuptial chastity (no pre-marriage sex) with “absolute monogamy” (one mate for life) the society reaches it highest potential. Unwin noted that only three out of the 86 societies studied ever reach that level and none of them kept it for long.
But as a culture, a that society begins to experienced sexual freedoms, and as they abandoned pre-nuptial chastity, they also abandoned monogamy, godliness, rational thinking, all within 3 generations. He went on to say that when total sexual freedom was embraced by a culture, that culture collapsed within three generations, from within, and usually that people were conquered or taken over by another people with greater social energy.
How does that apply to us? The sexual revolution began in the 60’s and Unwin’s generation appears to be about 33 years. We are entering that third generation, that generation of complete social collapse even now. [1]
I have not even touched the tip of the iceberg as far as this study is concerned, but I believe you get the gist of where it is going.
Many people believe that God is a cosmic killjoy. Maybe God really has our best interest of heart when He laid down these standards in the Bible for us to follow. Maybe God knows what is best for our society to flourish.
Now let’s go back and see what God has done. My purpose today is not to go into all the details of marriage and family, but just hit on some of the highlights of marriage and family that society is wanting to change. When God made man, we see that God noted that he need a helper suitable for him.
Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
The KJV has “help-meet.” What is conveyed in the Hebrew is a helper that is like him, that corresponded to him. Eve was not exactly like Adam, but she had the same nature. What Adam lacked, Eve supplied. What Eve lacked, Adam supplied.
Despite what the world would have you believe, God made men and God made women. He made them male and female. Period. Each are different in many physical, emotional ways, but in the setting of marriage, these differences are complementary. They were made for each other, they complement and complete the other.
Genesis 2:22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
A lot can be said about Adam’s rib. In a marriage ceremony that I frequently use, I mention that Eve was fashion from Adam’s side, not from his head that she should dominate him, not from his feet that he should walk all over her, but from his side, to hold her close to love and protect and to share his life with her.
Genesis 2:23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
Paul mentions this as to the order of home in 1 Corinthians 11, woman came from man, not the other way around, so that man has the leadership roll, That is, as Christ is head of the church, so man is head of the woman. However Paul also quickly mentions that neither is independent of the other, seeing how man is born from a woman.
Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
This verse is quoted several times in the New Testament. A man and woman coming together for forming a new unit, a new relationship, the very basic beginning of a family, the basic building block of any civilization. You destroy the family as God has designed, you destroy the very fabric of society.
Very briefly I want to cover four Biblical reasons for marriage.
1. For companionship. Is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18)
2. For Procreation. For God said:
Genesis 1:28a God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, …
But we cannot ignore the one flesh aspect of marriage, God gave the very enjoyment of sex for the couple to enjoy. This is made very clear when Paul gives warning about immorality:
1 Corinthians 6:16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.”
The two shall be one flesh, is extended to mind body and soul. But we also understand sexual urges, so for reason 3:
3. For our self-control.
1 Corinthians 7:2–3 and 8-9 2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. 3 The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband … 8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. 9 But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Marriage is the only outlet for sex that has been given to us.
Now, love between the couple has been intended from the very beginning because:
4. Marriage illustrates the love and intimate relationship Christ has with the Church.
Ephesians 5:25 and 32 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her … 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Marriage is a very public thing. There are no secret marriages, they are before the public and vows are exchanged in front of God and family and friends and was intended for life. Marriage is how the Bible defines it, not as the world wants it
The pharisee were testing Jesus on the subject of divorce and it is interesting how Jesus defends marriage. He goes straight back to Genesis.
Matthew 19:4–6 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5 and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
God mad them male and female. There is no room for Adam and Steve here, or Eve and Lois. Nor is there room for group marriages and any other perversion man can dream up. Jesus defends the one flesh union for a man and wife, calling that what God has joined them together, and no one should separate.
Time does not permit me to discuss the very hot topic of divorce, but our laws and culture has made divorce so very easy and so many families have been destroyed. Most of you here today can vouch for that, for either with yourselves or some close family member has been devastated by divorce. But I’ll conclude this discussion on divorce with this simple statement:
Malachi 2:16a For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel …
But we have been talking primarily about marriage, but remember, there are children in the family. The best gift fathers can give to their children is to really and deeply love their mother, and mothers, love their children’s father. The Bible has much to say about raising our children.
Ephesians 6:1–3 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.
Children are raised to obey their parents. The Proverbs has much to say about disciplining our children. Again, time does not permit me to discuss the use of the rod, but let me say this:
Proverbs 13:24 He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.
Also proverbs tells us:
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.
So how are we to train our children?
Ephesians 6:4b … but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Another purpose of the family is to raise up the next generation of saints. In doing so, I must go on record as saying this: Godly instruction is not the responsibility of the Sunday school. It is the responsibility of the home. Sunday School can assist. But it is a shame, many parents leave all instruction in righteous living and the elements of the faith to the Sunday School, but if it is not being taught and demonstration in the home, whatever is done at church is next to worthless.
So how is done at home?
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
We are to have these things on our hearts. And we live them out daily. And we constantly talk about the things of the Lord, when we get up, when we sit to eat, when drive to school, when recreate, and all the way till we lie down to go to bed at night.
One of the biggest impression my father made on me growing up, was when I got up from bed (before my parents went to bed) to go to the bathroom, as I walked past my parent’s door which was cracked open I would see my father kneeling next to the bed praying. This did not happen just once, but many times over the years.
The Bible is a story about God’s family from beginning to end. God made families in the first place partly as a biological and social basis for the human race and partly as the channel of his grace and judgment. God is also making for himself a family of sons and daughters who will serve him and praise him and reign with him in his kingdom forever.[2]
Not everybody has come from an ideal biblical family, but God can work through you to make you family whole. And we, in the church, who are the body of Christ, and we are God’s family on this earth, and in this place and time. It is up to us to bring others in the family God. There are those without earthy families, and we in the church are their family. We are bother and sisters in Christ.
[1] Kirk Durston-Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought, www.kirkdurston.com/blog/unwin and J.D. Unwin, Sex and Culture, available from the Library of Congress at archive.org/details/b20442580/page/n7/mode/2up
[2] Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 267.
