WBF 1 — Genesis 2

0:00 What we're going to do here is we're going to have two sessions today. And the first session, I am going to reason with you about some of the introduction about marriage in the biblical sense. We're also going to look into some definitions that's outside the Bible, okay? And then we're going to quickly jump into the Word of God and see what the Lord has to say about this wonderful institution called marriage. And then we're to talk about, very briefly, some of the statistics that is so alarming in The United States about marriage and about relationships, about separation.

0:41 Something for you to know how important it is, what God has given us or what God has told us about marriage. It's it's it's very important not to scare you or not to bring about any contrast here, but to bring about the word of God serious enough in our lives that you would change our hearts and continue to help us to stay in the word of God, to be able to do us of the word of God, Okay? My wife Jenny is also here. We've been married by God's grace for twenty seven years now. And I put a picture of our family here.

1:22 We have three children, three boys, Nathan, Samuel, and Ezekiel. In fact, are praying for us even as we are speaking because they know that dad is not a good speaker in terms of marriage. Because I have my drawbacks and they all know about it. Okay? But Jenny and I, we have been blessed with three boys and we are very busy people working, but at the same time, I'm glad that God has given us the opportunity to be able to be here and talk about our struggles, our challenges.

2:01 And I'm glad we have the word of God. And when we got married twenty six years ago, we chose a verse. And I thought that verse is going to be such an appropriate verse for us to memorize because that's been our lifeline. And we're going to open our Bibles to Ecclesiastes four verse 12. Now, we're going to memorize it, I said.

2:26 Can somebody read it loudly? Read 12b, the latter part of Ecclesiastes chapter four, verse 12. Okay, a cord of three string is not quickly broken, all right? So we're gonna say that verse together because we're gonna do this every time we're gonna get together and convene for our meetings, okay? Okay, let's start.

3:00 A cord of three strings is not easily broken. We're going to use some of the fundamental biblical verses here before we start our discussion about the introduction of marriage. Number one, Ephesians chapter five verse one. And here's what it says, imitate God therefore in everything you do because you are his dear children. And here's a principle that we need to keep in our mind through this entire weekend.

3:36 We are going to imitate God. We're not going to imitate some person who has got their marriage perfectly well designed in this world. We're to look not at any ideologies. We're not gonna look at any any previous philosophers. But we're gonna imitate God in everything we do.

4:36 It's God and the Lord Jesus. And you also see the word love there. It's very important for us to see because it's a very, very strong instruction to live a life that's filled with love. Now he doesn't say get filled once in a while, he doesn't say periodically or for a season. I think we need to be filled with love following the example of Christ.

5:06 It's so important again. The love that what Paul is trying to tell here is not the love that you're manufacturing every day. It's the love that God has blessed us in our marriages. It's not something that we have attained, it's not something that we have acquired, it's something that's been given to us as long as we are going to follow and imitate God. Some of the quotes that I want to quote you is very interesting about marriages.

5:44 First of all, I want to give you the definition, the secular definition of marriage from Webster's. And here it is. It's very appalling. Marriage is a state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by the law. That's today's Webster's Dictionary definition.

6:08 Think about it. It's a state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by the law. How far from the true meaning of marriage? There's no place for God. There's no place for the truth.

6:29 It's consensual and contractual. Both can go wrong, isn't it? And here are some of the quotes. I'm sure all of you know of Friedrich Nietzsche. And here's what he says, It is not the lack of love, but lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

6:50 Let me read it again. It is not the lack of love, but lack of friendship that make unhappy marriages. How far that is from the true meaning of marriage. Here's another one. My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

7:12 That was by Winston Churchill. It's all about me, isn't it? That's what he thought it was. That is so wrong. Here's another one.

7:23 One should always be in love. That is a reason one should never marry. Oscar Wilde. So far from the truth. Look at the outlook of their lives.

7:40 It's from a broken spirit, deprived heart. One should always be in love, that is the reason one should never marry. Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution? Groucho Marx. Isn't it amazing?

8:02 How condescending that could be. It is an institution and who wants to live in an institution? All these statements are made, one thing that comes out very clear, that is Satan is at work to wreck and ruin God's institution, God's plan, God's passion, isn't it? Now, having said this, let's go back to the truth. And here is a biblical definition, and we're going to stick to this truth because I don't know anything other than this.

9:04 So there is a very clear cascade of writings there, or rather concept there, isn't it? First of all, you're leaving, and then you're cleaving, and then you're uniting or becoming one flesh. And we're gonna talk about this in detail as we go along this afternoon as well as tomorrow. Because those three concepts are biblical and also those three concepts have been attacked by Satan from the beginning of ages. And we're going to talk about that.

9:43 Leaving, cleaving, and uniting. Okay? Now, as we were driving, Jenny and I, we were reading a book by Ravi Zacharias. And some of the comments he made was so profoundly impressive. First thing he said actually, this concept called marriage is a hard work.

10:04 That's true. Why? Because we all sometimes struggle with these three things, isn't it? Sometimes we have difficulty leaving some things out. Sometimes we have difficulty to be cleaving together.

10:14 And sometimes we do have difficulty to be together as one because Satan wants to disturb us there. So you see this particular verse quoted four times in the Bible. One time in Genesis and we have the same quote in Matthew chapter 19, in Mark chapter 10, and finally in Ephesians chapter five verse 21. So it's designed plan of God to bring about the union between man and a woman. Okay?

10:50 It's very important that as we just now saw, four times has been mentioned in the scriptures. One time, it was mentioned before the fall of man. Have you thought about it? When God told in Genesis chapter two twenty four, it was prior to man's disobedience. And what happened?

11:13 After man's fall, God had to remind us three times what really marriage means. I thought that was very interesting because we are fallen people. We are sinful people. We need reminders because failing to be reminded, we would go back to the old nature of satisfying ourselves. The other topic, the other way to look at the biblical counter marriage, it is a prototype of God's plan when you look in eternal plan of God.

11:55 God is trying to inculcate some truth in our mind to show us about what's going to happen for eternity when we shall escape from the very presence of time or presence of sin. Now what I mean by that is, if you look at Revelation, it is full of excitement. It's full of celebration. And what was the celebration is about? It's a marriage of the lamb, isn't it?

12:25 So if God has taken that particular concept seriously to allow the son of God, the Lord Jesus who is the bride, and bring about us the saved saints into the picture as the bride. And as he eagerly looks forward to have this great celebration, the marriage of the lamb, the marriage feast, the excitement, how important it is for us to see that prototype being established on this earth. It only makes me to think that it is sacred, it is serious. It has to be handled with very... Handled very carefully.

13:49 We'll be visiting these verses quite often, okay? But every time we're to visit this particular repeated verses, it's got a whole different context, okay? And that's the beauty of god's word, isn't it? Look what happens here in look what what the lord has to say about Ephesians chapter five verse 25. For husbands, this means love your wives just as Christ loved the church, He gave up His life for her.

14:15 Verse 26, to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. Verse 27, he did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. In other words, he bought the church. There was a price involved there. He loved the church and gave himself to church, to the church, or rather for the church.

14:49 And his love is sanctifying. He keeps on working to sanctify us, to make us what he wants us to be. It's a continuous work that goes on. Chapter verse 26. And then someday, he's going to present this treasure, this bride of his to the father, totally spotless and without blemish.

15:14 So it's an active work that's in progress in the church. And how true that is in our marriage, isn't it? The Lord has given us the ability to love our spouses. And the Lord has given us ability to be able to live in an understanding in a way that is what is scriptural so that together we're being sanctified onto one purpose, is that when Christ sees us, when he presents us to the father, that we would be ultimately be spotless and blameless. So that is the...

15:55 I I would say it is the meaning in God's view about marriage. He's he's working. He has designed it and he's been working. And someday, his work is gonna be manifested for the glory of himself. That's important for us to recognize that.

16:20 As much as God is at work in our marriages, there's another person who's also working hard. Satan is working hard. Satan strategically targets marriages because if he gets the relationship between husband and wife, he can get the body of believers at large. It takes all marriages to break and disintegrate for the churches to vanish and the kingdom to be disintegrated. That's his idea.

16:56 He is there to wreck and ruin couples been married, couples are getting married. That's his strategy. You know, just for your information, I just was looking at some data about marriages in The States. This is a point. Average length of a marriage in The United States is eight years.

17:35 Fifty percent of children see their parents being divorced. Every thirteen seconds, someone, somewhere files for divorce. Not thirteen days, thirteen seconds. Why I'm saying this is because Satan is at work. Satan is at work.

18:03 Forty three percent of children are living without their father's involvement in a family. That is an amazing, astonishing number. Four percent of military goes through a divorce each year. So you talk about disciplined life, but Satan has got a way to disturb them too. One good thing that happened in my research recently is that as much as Satan is at work, the divorce rate has been falling.

18:41 The divorce rate was highest in, at least in our times, in the early 1990s. It has now fallen by five to ten percent. Thanks to our young children who are getting married because they've seen the effects of divorce. They've seen the damage and the repercussions that divorce brings and at least they are looking and considering to avoid this trauma. So that's the data we have to work with.

19:26 I want to talk about few basics of marriage before we take a break. I think 04:30, right, right? Okay. I want to talk about few things and then we're going to expand on that when we come back from the break. First of all, marriage is divinely designed.

20:03 It's a design plan. It was not an accident. It was not an afterthought when God created the universe, that which is seen and which is not seen. God did not plan as an afterthought to have two people created. He designed man and a woman.

20:25 It's very important to realize that one. Marriage is also an ordained covenant. Now, when you have a covenant that's been ordained, it is not an inconvenience based agreement. It's a covenant. So, let's be aware of it as we go through this discussions.

20:47 Marriage is an ordained covenant, not for convenience, but for commitment. God wants us to be committed in this covenant. It is not the way Webster dictionary described. It is not a contractual agreement. Because when you have a contract, it can go wrong.

21:13 It can get abolished, and you start all over again. But contract, marriage is not a contract. It is a covenant. Covenant marriages are not altered by human intellectual interventions. And we're to look into this one as we're going to study further.

21:39 Covenant marriages are not altered by human intelligence. There's no excuse for us outside the word of God to bring about end to marriage because that's not God's will. It is not his will. Outside the scriptures. Covenant marriages has got biblically based boundaries.

22:07 And Jenny and I, we often talk about this topic about bright lines. It's very important that we set bright lines in our covenant marriages. Because when you don't have bright lines, guess what happens? You tend to go in different directions for a reason that can cause destruction of your marriage. So remember that one concept, is to have bright lines in our relationship, in our marriages.

22:40 There are some things that you consensually agree to agree, you would consensually agree to disagree on some things, it's very important. Marriage in the scriptures is between a man and a woman. God did not have a second thought to make a woman when he created a man. If you look at Genesis, man, from man, the Lord designed to take the woman as he created. As they were created, they are two distinct people with two distinct morphological bodies.

23:23 God did not put man and woman to become... Be similar. They are distinct. That's his plan. Outside this plan is man made altered thinking.

23:37 It is behaviors, not scripturally based convictions. We gotta be careful about that. Because a lot of things that we see in the world, I'm talking about inside evangelical world, there has been so much of accommodation about behaviors, not convictions. It's so very important. Recognize that.

24:02 And why do I say that? It's based upon the word of God. Genesis two twenty four. And finally, God has got a designed, designated roles for man and a woman. That's his plan, not our plan, not some agenda in the evangelical churches.

24:31 God has designed a designated role for a man and a designated role for a woman. A role for the husband and for the wife. And we're gonna look at this very carefully because scriptures is full of it. There are some recommendations, I mean, there are some instructions given to husbands which are quite different when you see the instructions for the wife. And they're not interchangeable.

25:02 And there's a reason why God has allowed that to be in the scriptures. One of the scripture portion I want to draw your attention to before we take a break here is to James chapter four, verse seven. Can someone read that? Because I want to focus on one concept there, it's, and NLT is a little different. Can somebody read from maybe New King James Version?

25:38 Yes. New American Standard, submit to the court to God, resist the demo, we will flee from you. Correct. The word I was looking at actually was submitting to God. Okay?

26:25 You are making room for the devil. Submission is not a weak character. Submitting to God is a strength to resist the devil. Because devil, as we talked before, is always at work to change the scriptures, to manipulate work of God. So when you stop submitting to God, you will start seeing Satan at work.

26:58 And the entire concept of God's designed marriage falls apart. So, let's stop there and take a break. Remember, the concept here is leaving, cleaving, and being united together as one flesh. Second, submitting to God so that we resist the devil. So these two things I want you to remember.

27:27 And also, Ecclesiastes four twelve b. We're gonna come back, we're going to recite the verse together.