MARRIAGE: GOD’S GOOD PLAN & SATAN’S SCAM
Matthew 5:27-32
1. In Genesis 2 we read that after God had created the heavens and the earth and all the living creatures, He formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul.
• But while all the animals had their counterparts, there was no counterpart for Adam. So the Lord said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said, (WOLF WHISTLE). WOWEEEEE!!! - Well they didn’t quite translate it that way, but I am sure it happened something like that.
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ’woman,’
for she was taken out of man."
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
2. Marriage as the union of one man to one woman was God’s idea and plan from the very beginning. Within the nature of God there are both masculine and feminine attributes and so it took the creation of both males and females to fully depict the glory of God in human beings.
• And as a man and a woman come together in the blessed and sacred union of marriage they are to serve as the visible human expression and representation of God on the planet
• Together we are to express God’s tenderness and God’s strength, God’s gentleness and God’s power, God’s nurturing and God’s leadership, God’s creativity and God’s orderliness, God’s compassion and God’s serving nature – never the two in competition with each other, but complementing, highlighting and enhancing each other’s unique contributions.
• Like the violin and the bow are both essential to make beautiful music in the hands of the trained violinist – so it is with the husband and wife who understand and acknowledge their unique differences and how together they are to allow the Holy Spirit to bring forth a divine witness to the glory of God.
• Husbands and wives who recognize and acknowledge that their marriage is to be a billboard for God in their neighborhood will honor and respect one another. They will prefer one another and go out of their way to bless and delight one another – spiritually, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and physically.
• And within such a godly union children are the joyous and satisfying fruit and our calling is to raise them up by teaching and example to continue our witness to God.
3. Now that was and still is God’s plan for marriage. He hasn’t changed. He hasn’t come up with a more “with it”; more “up-to-date” plan for our well-being and happiness. The original plan always was, is now, and always will be the very best.
• Unfortunately since we allowed our hearts and our minds to be deceived and corrupted by the Deceiver, and have permitted ourselves to be suckered and hoodwinked by all his schemes and scams, we chose to believe the lie that somehow or another God doesn’t have our best interests at heart and that there are delights and passions that “the Old Meany” and “Spoilsport” just wants to keep us from enjoying.
4. Peter writes in his first letter that we “…be sober, be watchful, for our adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour”. (1 Peter 5:8). Paul writes to the church in Ephesus to “be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might”, urging them and us to “put on the whole armor of God that we might be able to stand against the wiles (scams) of the devil”. (Ephesians 6:10-11).
• We live in an age and a culture that has virtually committed itself to remove and eradicate all warning, taboo, and “Thou shalt not” signs as being “paternalistic”, “authoritarian”, “restricting”, “inhibiting”, “unenlightened” and on and on. And nowhere is that more blatant than in the realm of our human sexuality.
• And so instead of staying within the boundaries God has clearly marked and identified for our protection, our well-being, and our happiness, we have believed the lie, fled the coop, jumped the fence, and are now desperately trying to prove to ourselves and others that we have found a more liberated and liberating way – men with another woman, women with another man, men and women in groups, men with men and women with women, men with young boys, women with young boys, men and women even with dogs and horses and cows - and we wonder why so many in our society today, in this and so many other ways, are behaving worse than beasts!
5. Radio personality, Paul Harvey, tells the rather grisly story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. His account offers fresh insight into the deceptive, consuming, and self-destructive nature of sin.
"First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, and another until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.
"Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night. So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more--until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!"
When we believe the lie and refuse to acknowledge God’s truth, the lie will hold us captive till it ultimately destroys us. We humans can be "consumed by our own lusts." And only God’s grace can keep us from the wolf’s fate.
6. As we saw last Sunday in examining Jesus’ teaching on the sixth commandment, to not commit murder, that God’s rationale behind that law is that every human being is made in God’s image and likeness and therefore is precious and has inestimable value.
• That value is not based on the kind of life the person lives. It is not based on the goodness or corruptness of that person’s behavior, but on the fact that at the core of every person’s being is the personal autograph of the Almighty Creator God.
• And the simmering anger, bitterness and hatred that so often ends in either the physical taking of another life or the assassination of someone’s name, character, and sense of value is equally being directed at the One who gave that person life.
• And so applying that same rationale to the realm of our sexual behavior, whenever we treat another person as a thing, as an object of our own pleasure, as the satisfier of our lusts and passions, we have dehumanized and devalued one who was made in the image and likeness of God and we have as it were thumbed our nose in the face of God.
• Of course, we would seldom admit to ourselves that we are using another for those purposes. We would never be so crass. Instead, we will justify our mental and physical adulteries by pointing to an unfaithful or uncaring and insensitive spouse, to our loneliness and our deep need of intimacy and tenderness, or to the fact that our marriage has just settled into a boring, monotonous and humdrum routine – that it has lost the sparkle and excitement it once had.
7. Jesus underscores for us just how seriously we need to deal with the excuses and rationalizations we make to justify our abandonment of the commandment.
• He says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better to lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell”.
• Maybe your problem is not with who or what you look at and ogle at but who or what you touch and take with your hands or we might add where you go with your feet or your imagination and what you listen to with your ears.
• Jesus warns us to deal severely and radically with whatever areas of our lives lead us into moral and sexual impurity because no matter how small and seemingly insignificant that area might seem now, or how little we may think it is impacting or affecting others - the very real danger of all persistent sin is that we become increasingly hardened and calloused by it until it until our consciences are seared and it consumes our entire being.
• Don’t make excuses for it. Don’t try to justify your behavior by claiming that you are just a victim of your habit because of what others did to you or the environment in which you were raised. Don’t minimize or trivialize it. Get rid of it. Stop the behavior. Break off the illicit relationship. Don’t go to the places, don’t get into the physical or mental settings where those temptations entice and entrap you.
8. Richard Exley served as a pastor for nearly 25 years and was during that time the host of the nationally syndicated radio show, “Straight from the Heart”. He is also the author of 29 books and is much in demand as a conference and retreat speaker.
• He writes: “Lust is not the result of an overactive sex drive; it is not a biological phenomenon or the by-product of our glands. If it were, then it could be satisfied with a sexual experience, like a glass of water quenches thirst or a good meal satisfies appetite. But the more we attempt to appease our lust, the more demanding it becomes. There is simply not enough erotica in the world to satisfy lust’s insatiable appetite. When we deny our lustful obsessions, we are not repressing a legitimate drive. We are putting to death an aberration. Lust is to the gift of sex what cancer is to a normal cell. Therefore, we deny it, not in order to become sexless saints, but in order to be fully alive to God, which includes the full and uninhibited expression of our sexual being within the God-given context of marriage.” (quoted in Homemade, Vol. 13, No. 9, September, 1989.)
9. I love you and I care about and I want each and every one of us to walk in joyous and life-giving holiness and uprightness before God and one another. If the realm of sexuality is not at this time a serious or major area of temptation in your life – give thanks to God for His mercy and grace and continue to trust Him for His protection, for none of us can ever stand in our own strength.
• But though it may not at this time be an issue in your life, it certainly is an increasingly hazardous mine field for your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren and for your brothers and sisters in Christ and for your neighbors of every age group.
• Let us pray for one another – that none of us become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin and that each one of us remain watchful and alert and not become a casualty of Satan’s scams.
AMEN.
