Sex And Marriage Part Two

Sex and Marriage - Part 2

Genesis 2:18-25

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1187810/Britains-longest-married-couple-celebrate-81st-anniversary.html

Frank Milford is 101 and his wife Anita is 100 years old. This year marks their 81st wedding anniversary making them Britains longest married couple. The couple have two children Frank Junior who is 74 years old and daughter Marie who is 79 years old. They have six grand children and seven great grand children.

The couple met at a YMCA dance, in 1926, two years before their wedding at Torpoint in Cornwall. Frank said: We are always here for each other. It is all about give and take on both sides. You need a happy outlook and to just get on with it. I don’t know where the years have gone to. It’s marvelous really.

They say the secret to a lasting marriage is to iron out your arguments before bedtime and share a kiss and a cuddle every night before bed. Mrs. Milford said: It is our golden rule. Couples these days dont last long because they often dont take enough time for each other.

Our advice to young couples would be to make time for a little romance every day.

Mr. Milford added: To win over your sweetheart you need a dose of old-fashioned chivalry and don’t let your standards slip. We do everything together.

Well friends today I want to revisit the topic of sex and marriage from a biblical perspective and I could think of no better way to start than to offer the Milford couple from Britain as an example for us all.

God designed the Bible to start with and end with marriage. We have the first couple in Genesis Adam and Eve. Eve was made from Adam she was always apart of him but God drew her out of him so that Adam might have a perfect companion and partner. In this way too man could see his true fullness as a created being reflected by the beautiful creature called woman. In this way man gains a greater appreciation for the creative power of God.

Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said - It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

In this way Adam would remember that she and he are of one flesh created by the hand of God.

We notice that God put Adam to sleep and removed a rib from Adams side from which to fashion Eve. God did not want Adam conscious during this time maybe to keep Adam from making suggestions as to how Eve should be fashioned.

The great theologian Matthew Henry said it best…

Eve was made not out of Adams head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.

Background -

Matthew Henry: Matthew Henry was born near Wales on October 18, 1662 and was primarily home-educated by his father, Rev. Philip Henry, and also at the Thomas Doolittle academy from 1680-1682. Henry first started studying law in 1686, but instead of pursuing a career in law he began to preach in his neighborhood.

After the declaration of liberty of conscience by James II in 1687, he was privately ordained in London, and on June 2, 1687, he began his regular ministry as non-conformist pastor of a Presbyterian congregation at Chester. He remained in this position for 25 years. After declining several times offers from London congregations, he finally accepted a call to Hackney, London, and began his ministry there May 18, 1712, shortly before his death. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry.html

After God had made Eve Adam was allowed to give her the title - Woman - Genesis 2:23

Mathew Henry says of her - Yet man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eves being made after Adam, and out of him, puts an honor upon that sex, as the glory of the man, If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one remove further from the earth.

Reading of our origins and the great beauty that we once possessed as a couple makes one wonder how we have come to debase ourselves in every respect.

Men it seems no longer see women as their crown but instead women are brought down and treated as common or worse by our society. Sex is made to be vulgar and dirty.

Women today no longer see themselves as sitting upon the mans head as a crowning declaration Instead there are many who see themselves above the man and make the man subject to her. It would seem that one man is as good as any other or as bad as another.