By Pastor Greg
A couple had recently been
arguing (I think it had something to do with men never asking for
directions). Anyway, neither would admit
they had done something wrong. You know the
routine; she was always critical and he never listened. They drove several miles down a country road,
not saying a word. As they passed a
barnyard of mules, the wife sarcastically asked, "Relatives of
yours?" "Yep," the
husband replied, "In-laws."
If you have been married any
length of time, there is a good chance you think I was riding in the back seat
of your car. Actually, just about every
couple goes through these trying and difficult situations. You put two humans together in a relationship
and there is bound to be tension and fighting.
I think we sometimes forget that
when sin entered this world, it not only affected our relationship with God but
our relationships with other people as well.
We do not act in ways originally designed by God. Our emotions, our wisdom, and even our gut
human instinct are guided by our sinful nature.
Paul says that “When [we] follow the desires of [our] sinful
nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful
pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling,
jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy,
drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these” [1]
(Galatians 5:19-21). In other
words, we simply cannot be trusted to
figure out life on our own. We cannot be trusted to discern what is right and
what is true.
When a society fails to
understand this, it will make all sorts of decisions about life that are not
based upon Truth. And when a society
refuses to consult God’s written standard of right and wrong, that society continues to walk farther away
from God by each self-guided decision it makes.
Take, for example, what has happened to Marriage. Something that God created and ordained has
become corrupt and contaminated by opinions and emotions rather than the holy
and sacred covenant it is supposed to be.
But, that’s what happens when a society ignores God’s Word and instead
makes decisions from a fallen human perspective.
Marriage and intimacy have been
redefined by a society that has ignored
God and created a defiled and corrupt image of
marriage. Our society has allowed
sin to define relationships, marriage, sex, and dating. Our society has taken a
glorious portrait and scribbled it with a black
crayon. No one seems to know anymore
what God intended marriage to be, which is why I think we need to examine the
Bible and discover what a biblical model of marriage actually looks like.
On that note, let me point out
that I am not passing judgment here. God
has something to say which is contrary to what our society is saying. So if you get angry about what I share, just
remember that I am merely showing you what relationships, marriage, sex, and
dating should be like when they are not corrupted by Sin. Every one of us fails to have a perfect
relationship or perfect marriage because every one of us is a sinful
person. We are less than perfect, which
is why we always need the Blood of Jesus and the Grace of God to forgive us
when we do sin. So, if you are convicted
as we study God’s word, ask for forgiveness.
Don’t just get angry.
To
understand marriage, we must first
realize that there is an enormous difference between biblical marriage and secular
marriage.
There is a difference between being married in the eyes of God and married
according to the Laws of the State. What
the Supreme Court addressed back in July was marriage according to the Laws of the
State. Our nation decided to grant equal
status to same-sex couples. They did not
redefine God’s definition of marriage.
It remains steadfast and unchangeable.
So, in truth, a person could possibly be married according to the Laws
of the State but not married in the eyes of God. To be married in the sight of God is to
adhere to His glorious, holy standard – which is what I really want to talk
about here. I’m not going to spend time
debating what our Government decided.
Their decision does not change God’s definition. I am not
surprised that a secular government, no longer guided by God’s Truth, would
promote a lifestyle outside of God’s holy standard, but I am alarmed when I
hear that same song and dance coming from the Church. This is why I feel the Church needs to examine
marriage as it was originally designed by God.
Marriage is actually something
God created a long time ago, a long, long time ago - way back in the
beginning. 18 Then the Lord God
said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just
right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all
the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to
see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He
gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild
animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. 21 So
the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the
Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then
the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. 23 “At
last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my
flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she
was taken from ‘man.’ ” 24 This explains why a man leaves his
father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no
shame” [2]
(Genesis 2:18-25).
The important part of this event
is that God was looking for a suitable companion for the Man. Nothing in all of creation was found, so in
His wisdom God created Eve, not Steve.
It’s that plain and simple. The
suitable companion for a Man is a Woman.
That’s how God planned it and designed it, but sin has redefined it. Also,
the woman was not simply some sex partner so this Man and Woman might have
children. I hear people say this so
often, and it disgusts me. They want to
turn the woman into some baby-making factory.
How demeaning is that? God called
the Woman a suitable helper, which is the same word used to describe the
Holy Spirit in John 14:16. The Paracletos
is one who comes alongside to comfort and guide.
What is notable here is that
God, the creator of this cosmos decided what marriage should be like. In His infinite knowledge and wisdom, He
designed, on purpose, a woman to compliment the man. For those who insist that marriage CAN be
between two individuals of the same sex, they are insinuating that God did not
know what He was doing. Actually, homosexual
behavior did not begin until after sin corrupted the world. That’s why
marriage between two members of the same sex cannot be one submitted to
God’s standard. It is a marriage defined
by sin. So too is polygamy – having more
than one wife. That practice began after
sin corrupted the world. Lamech was a
murderous, sinful man (Genesis 4:19-24).
His behavior is an example of someone following his or her sinful
nature, not God’s plan for marriage.
Before Sin entered the world, marriage was something that happened
between one man and one woman. Anything
other than that is a marriage defined from a fallen human perspective.
The relationship between that
first man and woman was pure and
spotless. The two were one. The two were naked and felt no shame. However, sin corrupted this first
marriage. The curse of sin would cause
the man to treat his wife disrespectfully and direct his focus on other
things. His labors would demand much of
his time and attention, neglecting the needs of his wife. The curse of sin would cause the woman to
feel abandoned and alone, desiring her husband’s attention (Genesis 3:16-19). We deal with this same curse as well. Since we too are sinful people, we must
struggle to overcome this curse in our
own marriages. That’s why a marriage
built upon our sinful nature will be a marriage filled with selfishness and
strife. However, a marriage that is
submitted to God’s standard of holiness will be built upon a different
foundation. Something we will look at
next week.
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