MARRIAGE AS GOD INTENDED
By
Shelby G. Floyd
May, 2009
How many of you have bought some toys for your child, a bicycle, or some kind of appliance that you have to put together? I'm sure that your experience has been the same as mine, that when you get about halfway through assembling it, somehow or other, it just didn't fit together. You couldn't find all the parts, or this part didn't look like it would work, so finally you would open up the box and pull out a piece of paper that would read, "Please read the instructions first." So you would go back, tear it all down, and start and take it step-by-step, and it would go together according to the instructions. Well, I want to use that as an illustration of what people need to do today concerning the institution of marriage.
THE BREAKING UP OF THE HOME
I have read recently the
statistics concerning the breakdown of the homes in
Somewhere along the line, there has been a failure to emphasize the sanctity of the home. Man's tendency has always been to rebel against God will, and man exhibits this tendency in regard to the home by disregarding God's instructions concerning the home. This is seen from the case today that many people are living as husband and wife when they are actually not husband and wife. Or many people are living as husband and wife when they have no right to live in that relationship in the sight of God. Then on the other hand, there are people, who are not living in that relationship, but they look upon it with approval, and that is a sad state of affairs.
THE NEED FOR MORE TEACHING ON THE HOME
Today, we need to preach more on
the home, because it is the basic unit of our society. It is the basic unit of law and order, when
the home breaks down, then society breaks down.
Today, when we preach on the home, it is not because preachers are
against the home. I'm preaching on the
home because I want to exalt the home, and marriage, as God ordained it to be
in the first place. When we preach upon
the home it is because we want a husband and wife to learn to live together,
cooperate and conduct them selves so they will be able to spend eternity with
God in heaven.
In the third place, we
preach upon the home because it is the perfect place that God has ordained for
children to be brought into the world and to be reared to maturity. There is no better arrangement that has been
found to bring children into the world, and rear them to be adults, than a home
as God planned for it to be.
THE FUNDAMENTAL
Our lesson will really center
upon marriage as God intended it to be in the beginning. I would point out right here that marriage,
as God intended for it to be in the beginning is what we call the fundamental
laws of marriage. But God gave
additional information, regulations and laws concerning marriage after he gave
it in the beginning. Why? The reason is very simple. When sin entered into the world, it required
that God give some additional laws concerning marriage. Had sin never entered into the world, there
would have been no need for God to have given any additional instruction on
marriage. But the very fact that he gave
additional instructions on marriage is because sin entered into the
picture. So we call these laws
supplementary laws.
We have our basic laws
concerning marriage, and then we have the supplementary laws. The laws are supplementary because of
sin. The basic laws are found in
Genesis, chapters 1 and 2, before sin entered into the world. So now we want to look at marriage as God
gave it in the beginning, because Jesus tells us in Matthew 19, that he came to
restore the original laws concerning marriage.
MARRIAGE IN THE BEGINNING
In the first place, we notice in
Genesis 2: 18, "and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him an help meet for him.” God created man in such a way, that
generally speaking it is not good for man to be alone. That's the reason that most people marry when
they become adults. But this is not to
say that a person cannot live a faithful Christian life without being
married. There are some people that are
born eunuchs. There are some people that
are made eunuchs by men, and there are some people that make themselves eunuchs
for the kingdom of heaven’s sake (Compare Matthew
It seems that the apostle
Paul never was married because his attention was all consumed upon advancing
the
So a person can live a
faithful Christian life without ever marrying, but still the general idea is
that it is not good for man to be alone.
God saw that in the beginning. If
it had been good for man to be alone, then God would have never made a
companion for him in the first place.
God says, "It is not good that man should be alone," and
"I will make him a helper appropriate for him."
GOD MADE
Now the word help there means
that God was going to make somebody that would be a companion, somebody that
would assist man, somebody that would cooperate with him, and this helper would
be suitable for him. I used to think
that the word helpmeet was one word, but it is not. God said, "I will make him a helper meet
for him." The word “meet” means
answerable to his nature, in keeping with his nature. So God was going to make a companion that
would be suitable, or meet, or answerable to man's nature and purpose for being
put upon earth.
Notice in Genesis 2: 19-20, "and out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.”
Now
young people, today the modern theory of evolution has been received in every
institution of higher learning right on down to the grade schools and the
elementary schools of our land. The
theory is that man has evolved either from some kind of a simple cell of
protoplasm or from the animal kingdom.
So in the theory of
Notice here that God created all of these animals and Adam gave names to them. That means that he gave the genuses and the species of the fauna and flora world, the flowers, the plants and the animals. But the Bible says out of all these things that God created, there was not found help meet for him. Now if Adam had simply evolved from the animal kingdom, why wouldn’t there be some of these animals that would be appropriate to be his companion? Well, the answer is very simple. God created the animal kingdom, and he created man, and they are different. Man is made in the image of God, and that is not predicated of the animal kingdom.
No doubt, God brought all of these animals before Adam and had him to name them in order to create within Adam’s heart a sense of loneliness and a sense of need. After all, here were the cattle and they had their companions, and here were all the rest of the creatures and there was the male and female, but Adam was by himself, he didn't have a companion. This would cause him to want a companion like all these other beings that God created. So this brings us to the next step in the origin and sanctity of the home. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man (Genesis 2: 21-22).
Now notice, if man evolved from the animal kingdom, from where did the woman evolve? Did she evolve from the man? According to the Bible they stand side-by-side, having come into being almost precisely at the same time. No, she didn't evolve, man didn't evolve, God created the man, and then he made the woman out of Adam’s rib—side.
THE MARRIAGE OF
The Bible tells us that after God
made this woman, he then brought her to the man. Now I get the idea that God performed the
very first marriage ceremony. What does
it take to make a marriage? Well, I can
think of at least three elements today.
It takes the desire on the part of a man and a woman to want to come
together, and live together, as companions the rest of their lives. No one should be married unless they want to
be married. So the desire to be husband
and wife is the first element. The
second element of marriage is that in all civilized countries, it is required
that a marriage license be obtained from the powers that be. In other words, from the civil rulers it is
required that a couple obtains a marriage license, and that they make whatever
preliminary requirements the state requires.
Even in the
So marriage is looked
upon in the Bible as a covenant. A
covenant is an agreement or contract. In
Malachi, chapter 2, the Bible talks about the covenant of marriage. God gave the first covenant of marriage. So when we make a covenant, or an agreement
before God, we ought to keep our word.
And if there were no other reason for a husband and wife staying
faithful to each other, it ought to be because they have made a solemn
agreement, or covenant, before God to be faithful to each other until death
separates that relationship. Notice that
when God brought Eve, and presented her to the man as his wife, Adam said, "This is now bones of my bones, and
flesh of my flesh: she should be called woman, because she was taken out of
man” (Genesis
THE HUSBAND WIFE RELATIONSHIP
The Bible teaches that man is the
head of the woman (1 Corinthians 11: 3).
Now I know today that we say that man is the head of the woman, but that
the woman is the neck that turns the head however she wants to. Today, there is also the modern women's
liberation movement; and there is the movement in various states of our nation
to come up with equal rights amendments.
But after all is said and done, the Bible still teaches that man is to
be the head of the woman (Ephesians
No
one can disobey God's law in any realm without suffering the consequences. Today, the homes are being broken up simply because
God's laws concerning the home are being disregarded, rejected and
disobeyed. Adam said, "She shall be called woman, because she
was taken out of the man (Genesis
Woman was instrumental in the
fall of man. Eve, by her sin and
disobedience, brought shame and disgrace upon the family of man; but through
woman, salvation was brought into this world, because it was by woman that the
Christ child came into our world and lived and died for us. So the woman has redeemed herself, to some
extent, by being the agency for bringing Christ, the savior, into the world (1
Timothy
Notice, Adam said, “She shall be called woman," and so the very word woman honors the man, because you cannot say woman without saying man. That is the true design of marriage. The woman is to honor and complement her husband, and when she does that, she honors and glorifies God.
And
observe in the next place, in Genesis 2: 24, (I do not believe this is a
comment of Adam, I believe Adams statement is concluded in verse 23) we have a
statement given by inspiration, through the prophet Moses, who wrote Genesis
and the first books of the Old Testament, explanatory of the original
institution of marriage, "Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.”
LEAVING
I know this is a generic
statement concerning marriage because Adam did not have a father and a mother
to leave. Adam didn't ever have a father
and mother. God was his father. So this is a general statement that was drawn
from the institution of marriage: "Therefore shall a man leave his father
and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh
(Genesis
We notice here that marriage is for the mature. Often, young men and young ladies get married too young. They're not ready to leave their fathers and mothers. If you want to marry, you had better be ready to leave your father and your mother, and you had better be ready to assume your responsibilities. When you get ready to marry, you can't let mom and dad support your home. Marriage is for those who are mature enough to leave mom and dad.
In the second place, marriage is for those who will cleave to their wife. A leaving and a cleaving must take place in marriage. The word cleave, means to glue or bond. The reason marriages today are not surviving is because the husbands and the wives are not adhering to each other. They are not cleaving to each other until death separates them. Then scripture says, "They shall be one flesh.” I do believe Moses meant that in marriage they are one flesh by their cohabitation, and by the fact that they both produce an offspring. But, marriage is more than that my friends.
The
words one flesh here means that in marriage there must be an
affinity of spirit. If the marriage is
to continue and survive, there must be a conjoining of spirits and love and
affection, and not just some kind of animal attraction. Those marriages that survive 50 or 60 years,
or more, do so because there has been an affinity of spirits between the
husband and wife. They have grown into
almost one personality, because they have a kindred spirit in serving God and
in serving their homes.
We ought to try to make our homes like God intended for them to be in the beginning.*
*Shelby G. Floyd delivered this sermon