Let's remain standing for the reading of God's Word from Exodus chapter 20, Exodus 20 verse 14. When you find your place in Exodus 20, mark that. We're going to flip over also to Hebrews 13, Hebrews 13 verse 4 specifically. So Exodus 20 and Hebrews 13. As is the case quite often, I set out to cover the Seventh Commandment in one sermon. There will be two sermons. We have to do some groundwork first, and then we'll get into the full-fledged commandment, Lord willing, next week. Exodus 20, 14 is where you will find the commandment, but to understand what the Lord is commanding us here, we need to lay the groundwork for a biblical understanding of what marriage is in order to understand the seventh commandment. So Exodus 20, verse 14, let's pray and then we will consider God's word together. Lord, we just sang of how your word is sweeter than honey and drippings from the honeycomb, that it is more valuable than gold, even much fine gold. So Lord, we pray that we would taste and see that your word is valuable and sweet. Lord, help us as we come to your word, give us understanding, humble our hearts, affect change in us, and point us to Jesus Christ, our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. Exodus 20, verse 14. We'll pick up with verse 1 and 2 and then jump to verse 14. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Verse 14, you shall not commit adultery. And then Hebrews chapter 13, verse 4. Let marriage be held in honor among all. And let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous." Thus far the reading of God's holy and inerrant word. You may be seated. So as we've come to the 7th commandment, I want to begin by laying down a foundation, kind of like what we did with the 6th commandment. With the 6th commandment, you remember, in order to make the 6th commandment make sense, we had to go back to creation to understand that there is value and dignity to every human life because God has made humans, men, women, and children in his image and after his likeness. And therefore, you shall not murder. In the same way, I want to explore the seventh commandment by first establishing that that marriage as a creation ordinance, as a creation mandate, is the sphere in which God allows for the blessing of sexual intimacy. Now, I am a pretty straight-laced Presbyterian. I do not go out of my way to talk about these things necessarily. However, because it is God's Word, we will address these things. Because this is God's Word, I must preach it and the whole council thereof. And part of the reason why it is so necessary to not just jump to the seventh commandment but instead unpack God's intention for marriage is because we live in a culture in which Marriage and sex are bifurcated, or they're divided, as it were. We have a culture that celebrates sex and sexuality, but denigrates marriage, discourages marriage. The marriage rate is going down, and it has been for quite some time. no fault divorces since the 80s has skyrocketed even among professing Christians. And all the while, our culture is saying, well, you need to have more sexual intimacy. So so less marriage. More sexual intimacy. Which runs completely counter to what God has spoken and what God has told us in his word. Our culture is running contrary to godliness. And the seventh commandment has much to speak to us. But before we can get there, we must talk about marriage. This morning, I want to break down. I want to break down the concept of marriage throughout the whole of scripture, we're going to look at several places. First, I want us to see the connection between sex and marriage. Secondly, God's definition of marriage. And thirdly, and finally, what I hope we will see is God's gift of sex and marriage. And then we will have application at the very end. So the connection between sex and marriage, God's definition of marriage, and God's gift of sex and marriage. So first, the connection between sex and marriage. Marriage is the context, according to scripture, in which sexual intimacy is to be had and enjoyed. But before we go any farther, I want to simply say this. The Bible is profoundly pro-sexual intimacy. The Puritans get a bad rap, wrongly so. Often these 19th century looking back, this anti-Victorian notion that, oh, well, the Christians of yesteryear and even Christians today use the Bible to quelch any notion of sexual intimacy. That's not the case. The Bible is very much pro-sex and sexual intimacy. I have to say that because if the church doesn't say that, then you're going to buy into the lies outside the church that sexual freedom is found outside of God's holy will. And so this is actually the root teaching here in Hebrews chapter 13, verse four, where where the author of Hebrews says this, let marriage be held in honor among all all people, whether you're married or unmarried, whether you are to be married or whether you don't think you're called to be married. All Christians hold ought to hold marriage in high honor. Related to this. He says, and let the marriage bed be undefiled. So what is the idea here? That there is a context in which sexual intimacy is not only permissible, but righteous, and good, and holy, and pure. That's a good thing. That marriage and sex go together. That's what the author of Hebrews is trying to draw our minds to think about. There is marriage, and there is the marriage bed. Again, he's encouraging all to honor God's institution of marriage, and part of that honoring of marriage as an institution is honoring God's will to keep intimacy only within the confines of marriage. Biblical God honoring sexual intimacy happens within the context of marriage. That's the message of the author of Hebrews. You'll see this too when we start getting into particular sins that are enumerated, whether it be adultery, the inclusion of another party breaking a marriage covenant. or fornication, as we shall see, which is unmarried people enjoying sexual intimacy, but it's outside the context of marriage and therefore it is pronounced as a sin. That falls under the seventh commandment as well. We see that marriage lies at the heart of sexual intimacy in the scriptures. There's a connection. Marriage is the context for sexual intimacy. But secondly, we need to see God's definition of marriage. If marriage is the sphere in which sexual intimacy ought to be enjoyed and cherished and remain undefiled, according to the author of Hebrews, then we need to back up and say, well, what is marriage? You can come up with all kinds of definitions. Our culture has generally accepted, especially since the 2014 Obergefell versus Hodges decision, that it is just the union of two people. That's all they will say about it. We'll address that as well, Lord willing, next week. But what is marriage according to scripture? Marriage has its roots all the way back in the beginning of the scriptures, in Genesis. Chapter 1, for instance, in Genesis 1. I want you to consider this, friends, Genesis 1. God created the heavens, the earth, the sea, all that filled them. On the sixth day, He created man. After His own image, He created male and female, He created them, verse 27 of Genesis 1, and then Genesis 128, He says this, and God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. God blessed them. Here's God, a third party, having created them, He now unites them and He lays upon them covenant blessing and He says, be fruitful and multiply." It's the first instance of marriage right there. God bestowing covenant blessing and sending them out to go and fill creation. But we also see in Genesis chapter two, a little bit more insight into that first marriage. I love this text. We may have to dwell on this just a little bit. Let's notice Genesis two, verse 18. Remember that all in Genesis one, God has said he created this and it was good and he created this and it was good and he created this and it was good. And then we see in verse 18 of Genesis two, the Lord God said it is not good. Something's wrong here. It's not good. That man should be alone. I will therefore make a helper fit for him. So Adam is here and he doesn't have companionship. He is alone. And the Lord does this amazing thing. He starts putting puts Adam before all the birds and the beasts of the field, and he presents them to the man, and they're walking by. Some have postulated maybe it was like in the days of Noah, they're walking two by two. Here are the first pairs having been created. And they're walking two by two, and Adam's saying, oh, here's a giraffe. Oh, wait, there are two of them. I'm going to call them giraffes. Move along. Oh, here are some donkeys. Oh, here's two donkeys. Okay. Moving along. All right. Oh, here are two woodpeckers. Wonderful. Oh, but there are two of them. Okay. It is impressing upon Adam this idea that there is no helper fit for him. And so what happens, verse 21 of Genesis 2, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up the place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. God formed Adam out of the side or formed Eve out of the side of Adam. And and God presents this last of his created beings to Adam for him to be his helper, to be his help meet. And notice what a verse 23 is. Notice this is the first song that is sung in the Bible by man. And it's a love song. Notice this verse 23, this last. is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And then we get this definition. That this principle that is drawn from this narrative text of Genesis two, therefore, because of all this, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. This is the model for marriage. This is the boundary line of what marriage is. If you want a principle of Scripture to define what marriage is, this is it. A man leaves his father and mother, joins with a woman, one man, one woman, creating a new family becoming one flesh in a lifelong covenant with one another. This is the idea of marriage. This is what is presented to us. And I say lifelong because later on in the Gospels, Jesus will say, what God has put together in one flesh, let no man separate. And we'll talk about divorce and remarriage perhaps at another point, but there are provisions, particularly the breaking of the seventh commandment is legitimate grounds for divorce, but we can talk about that at another point. The main point is this. Here is the boundary line. Here's the definition of marriage, which comes straight from the scriptures. One man, one woman coming together in lifelong covenantal relationship. This is the definition of marriage. It serves as a boundary. a boundary in which sex is to be enjoyed as a gift. I want you to imagine for just a moment, you have two sheep, two sheep, and they're placed in this lush, vast, beautiful meadow. There's so much room for them. These two sheep, they're placed there and the shepherd says you can go anywhere. Enjoy the water. Enjoy the shade of the trees. Enjoy the lush green grass. There's plenty of it for you. Enjoy it. You have acres and acres and acres to roam and to explore, but there are boundaries. The boundaries are there for a reason. So that you don't fall off the edge and harm yourself. and to keep foes from coming in and devouring you. They're there for a reason. There's the boundary line. And friends, I want to submit to you that the boundary lines of marriage is God's safety boundary for you and me in regards to sex. And we see that when the boundary line of marriage is taken down, that's when we bring ourselves, our families, our society into ruin. When we try to go against creation order, it never works for us. Look at our culture. Exhibit A. A deteriorating moral cesspool of destroyed lives, of misery, of grief. Why? Because man thought he was smarter than God and could tear down God's boundaries and definitions of merit. Friends, God has given us this boundary for a reason, that in this boundary, God's gift and blessing might be enjoyed to those who enter into this lifelong one man, one woman marital union. This is God's definition of marriage. Thirdly, I want us to consider God's gift of sex in marriage. I want to submit to you that there are two reasons why the Lord has given sexual intimacy within the context of marriage. First is unification. And second, procreation. Now, we're not getting into any specificity. There are books you can read on that. I'm not not going into that here. I'm simply putting it this way. Two main reasons why the Lord has placed men and women in marital union. It's for unification and procreation. Unification, we saw this in Genesis 2, 24. A man shall leave his father and mother and shall hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. One flesh. That there is a closeness between a man and a woman who enter into marriage that is to be unique to them. That they should be so united in heart and mind, united spiritually, united physically. All of these are wrapped up in this idea of one fleshness. That the woman is not here viewed as simply a woman to bear children with. I love what Derek Kidner, a commentator on Genesis says about this. this particular text. Particularly in reference to the song of Adam, he says this, the woman is presented wholly as his partner and counterpart. Nothing is yet said of her as childbearer. She is valued for herself alone. He looks at her and he takes delight in her. Before marriage produces progeny There is that union between a man and woman which does not even change after project. Unification, one fleshness, that's the purpose of sexual intimacy. That's part of what it means to be one flesh. But there is the procreative aspect. We see this in Genesis 128 as we saw, God blessed them and he gave them this command, be fruitful and multiply. I'm not giving you the birds and beads talk up here, but let's just put it this way. Sexual intimacy results oftentimes in children. We'll leave it there. And that is one of the purposes behind it, and praise the Lord. We hold these two things together, unification, procreation. And we don't throw one of them out for the sake of the other. The purpose of it is to bring a man and woman together, to unite their hearts and their bodies together, to propagate the race, our human race. And I would argue against our Roman Catholic friends that the unification aspect takes precedence as the primary purpose of sexual relations in marriage. Maybe you've experienced it, and if you haven't experienced it, if you know somebody who has, you know that in this fallen world with bodies that are not perfect, we may not be able to contribute to the production of children. Or maybe it's because of disease or injury or age. I don't know. But nowhere in Scripture does it say, well, if you can't have children, then you can't have sexual intimacy with your spouse. No, unity, one fleshness through intimacy is still to be sought as an end of itself, but also with a name if the Lord has enabled us for the purpose of having children. Just a few thoughts on this. You see it in the language of the Song of Solomon. Now, there are, I remember when I was taking a class on the Song of Solomon on the poets in the Old Testament, we counted no less than 19 different interpretations of how to even approach the Song of Solomon before you even get down into the actual verses. Is it allegory? Is it purely and only about Jesus and the church? Or is it, as we came to agree, typological? It shows the intimacy of marriage, but yet shows forth the glorious spiritual intimacy which Christ has for his church, the love that he has for the church. Needless to say, though, it's very descriptive. And it's not descriptive in the sense of, this is purely utilitarian. I'm going to leave it at that. Same thing with Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 5, verses 15 through 20, where Solomon is saying, after he has had 700 wives, 300 concubines, sexual experiences with multiple different women every single night, what is he telling his son? He's looking at his son and saying, Drink from your own cistern. Take delight in the wife of your youth. Not do this just because you can have children. No, there is a unitive aspect to this, that sexual intimacy ought to be sought even if children are not able to be conceived. You see, friends, the Bible is extremely pro-sexual intimacy, as long as that sexual intimacy happens within marriage. And in fact, the Bible is so pro-sexual intimacy that the Apostle Paul says that husbands and wives should not deny the other the blessing of sex unless it's for a short and limited amount of time for the purpose of prayer. And then. And then you go back to enjoying one another. That's what you see in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. 1 Corinthians 7 is very, very clear here in this regard. 1 Corinthians 7 verses 3 through 5, husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and the wife her conjugal rights to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." What is Paul here saying? It is possible that a lack of sex in marriage leads to unholiness. Perhaps there were some aesthetics there in Corinth thinking, I know I'm married, but I'm not going to do that. And Paul is saying, you're opening the door for sin. Don't. Don't. The Bible is extremely pro-sexual intimacy. And so we've seen that there is a connection between sex and marriage. Marriage is the context in which sexual intimacy is to be had. We've seen what marriage is, a lifelong covenantal union between one man and one woman. And we've seen God's purpose in sexuality, but let me apply this to a few different spheres, again from Hebrews 13.4. We are commanded by the author of Hebrews that all of us would hold marriage in honor, that all of us, whether we are young or old, whether we're single, whether we're married, whether we're widowed or having never been married, all should hold marriage in honor. And that's going to look different based upon where you are and your situation. I first want to address the young people. What does it look like for you to hold marriage in honor? What does it look like? Well, first of all, young people, let me encourage you to think that marriage is truly something that God has created for your good. Don't listen to the culture that says, You should probably never get married, and if you do, then just wait at the tail end of your life. Live your life, enjoy your experiences. Singleness is the best thing you could possibly do. It's not true for everybody. Instead, marriage should be something you consider. From an early age, parents, let me encourage you, pray for your children's spouses, today, even if the children are still in diapers. Young people, I want to encourage you with this. That you when you begin to set your mind upon relationships with people of the opposite sex. That you always keep marriage as the goal in it. Let me encourage you with this. I want you to Ask this question. Am I ready for marriage? And if you are not ready to be married, then you're not ready for that relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Now, I know I may sound like a crusty, fuddy-duddy Presbyterian and that I am, but I'm trying to save you heartbreak and temptation. I do it because, not to make you miserable, but taking a long view that you may have the happiest marriage possible. It begins today, young people, before you're even married. Asking this question first, am I ready to be married? And if I'm not ready to be married, if I'm too young or I simply don't believe that I'm mature enough for it at this point, then you should not be forming dating or courting relationships with a young man or a young woman. Dating without the intention of marriage is a recipe for heartache, for temptation, for disaster, for sin. Ask this question honestly to yourself, young people, am I ready to be married? If you're not, then you're not ready to pursue those kinds of relationships. If you are ready to be married, and I pray that one day, I don't have a set age, I don't know your maturity, I don't know, but one day you may get this idea, it is now time for me to start looking for the person who I'm going to marry. You need to start asking this question when someone catches your eye. Maybe you're at a student union in a college or you meet somebody at church and you see them and they catch your attention and immediately your mind goes to, OK, there's someone. And you ask that question, am I ready to be married? And you're like, yes, I'm ready to be married. But then you must ask this question, is this person who has caught my eye someone that I would marry? If you're interested in a young man or young woman, but you're not interested in marrying them or even playing with the possibility of marrying them, then you're playing with fire. You're wasting your time. You're wasting their time. Dating and courtship must be intentional with the aim towards marriage. I'm begging you, young people, as someone who went through the rigors of dating for years before the Lord was so kind to me, to bring my wife into my life. For the sake of your heart, for the sake of your soul, don't succumb to the idea that dating can be done aimlessly and that it is of benefit to you, but keep marriage and hold it as honorable. Keep it before you as a goal in mind, as an aim when time comes for you to begin looking for a spouse. That's the young people, the single people, those who are single, who may not be young, I want to encourage you to hold marriage in honor by pursuing it if you burn with passion. If you're young or if you're old. If you've been married before and and and have lost your spouse and. You are lawfully able to do so to pursue another marriage. But don't be so desperate that you pursue the first willing person without asking these important questions. Is this person a Christian? Are we on the same page about really important things? Is there evidence of godliness in this person's life? If their parents are still alive or if you are young and you are single, asking this question, what do they think of their parents? Are they in rebellion against their parents or do they dishonor their parents? These are important questions to ask for a future spouse. Remember, if you are single. You are called to celibacy during your time of singleness. Now, we're not getting into the gift of celibacy that Paul talks about in First Corinthians seven. That is a possibility. But. If you're burning with passion, pursue marriage, but do it with godliness as the forefront, with godliness as the aim, with delighting and honoring the Lord as your chiefest and highest goal and honor. You can do that in a life of perpetual singleness, but you can also do it in marriage. I want you to consider that during your time of singleness, watch and pray. lest you fall into temptation. Temptation is all around you. Pornography. It is an evil that can eat away at your soul and twist and distort your heart. Don't do it. It will drag you down deeper and deeper into darkness. And if you find yourself single for the rest of your life, remember that your faithfulness to God does not depend upon marriage. Serve the Lord where you are. Pour your soul into serving him wherever you are. It is possible to live a godly life to the glory of Christ, even if you never marry. That's what Paul did. That's the example that we have most clearly. I would even say the Lord Jesus, while he did not have an earthly wife, he has the church, which we will get to in a minute. Faithfulness does not depend upon marriage. Fourthly, and I want to address husbands and wives for a moment, what does it look like you to hold marriage in high regard? Ground zero is this, you hold your own marriage in the highest regard. Your marriage is the most important earthly relationship that you have and that you will ever have in this life, ever. Yes, love your children. Yes, love your grandchildren. Yes. Yes. A million times. Yes. But your marriage always comes first. This is the logic that. That fights against that notion that I've heard some people joke about it, and I've heard some people actually follow through with it only to have their marriages fall apart later that they say, well, we would have gotten a divorce, but we wanted to we wanted to stay together for the children. No. No. Do it because you have committed yourself before God to love that person till death do you part. Seek to love your spouse more and more. Men, pursue your wives. Maybe you go back years, decades. To the day when you first met your wife and you think of how she caught your attention, how you pursued her, how you wrote letters to her, how you gave her flowers, how you were trying to do everything to get her attention so that you, you might have the blessing of her. Don't stop it. Don't stop it. Keep chasing after her, keep pursuing her, win her heart every day to the best of your ability. serve her and love her, couples. This is the kind of stuff we need to be doing, pursuing one another, loving one another, prioritizing our marriage, our own marriages. In regards to couples and directed to you, husbands and wives, unless there is a real medical, physical issue. In accordance with what the Apostle Paul has said, don't withhold intimacy from one another. Couples will often find themselves in this the state of affairs and they will say, well, he's not interested, she's not interested, so we're just not going to be interested. But friends, if that's the case, And there's a deeper problem. A lack of intimacy means that the marriage is lacking in some other area. There's a deeper disease. Couples, if you find yourself in this area, in this situation, seek counsel. Talk to the elders, talk to me. Seek a biblical counselor who will help you navigate, okay, what's going on under the surface that's causing this? Don't be satisfied with the state of affairs if your marriage lacks sexual intimacy, but seek to find out and address the root issue and work through the issues together. Sexless marriages are the devil's playground. It opens up The invitation for others to come in or for one of the spouses to flee, to find satisfaction elsewhere. Prioritize your marriage. Hold your own marriage in high regard. Hold your spouse in high regard. Hold marriage in high honor, all of you. No matter where your place is in marriage, singleness, as a widow, as someone who is never married, as someone who has no ambitions to marry, or as someone who desperately yearns to be married, hold marriage in high honor. But the most important way to hold marriage in high honor is to understand that these marriages that we have entered into, and praise the Lord for them, that the institution of marriage, which was established in creation, is not something that stands on its own, but points to something even greater than the love that exists between Adam and Eve, the love that exists between husband and wife today with every iteration of marriage covenant that's established. Now, there's something greater. Ephesians five tells us very clearly. There's a much richer and much more eternal reality in relationship and marriage that all of this is pointing to that the first Adam with his wife fell through themselves through each other under the bus. And our marriages, there will be failures in our marriages, yes, but there is a greater marriage. A marriage that is everlasting. A marriage that at first glance is unequally yoked. Why? Because one is perfect in holiness and righteousness and the other is sinful and wicked and depraved. And yet it is this marriage in Ephesians 5 which should be at the very forefront of our minds. Ephesians 5 25 husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Christ loved the church. How did he love the church? He gave himself up for her. He laid down his life for her to serve her. He did not come to to demand service from her. No, he came to serve her, to woo the church, to service to him, to to hold fast to to her with all that he is, with all of his almighty strength, with his perfect blood and righteousness, with the accomplishment of his blood. The accomplishment of his work on the cross to hold fast to the church forevermore. What does he do with her? Christ presents the church to himself in splendor. He does not leave the church in sin, but he, he changes the church and makes the church holy that on the last day, when the bride is brought forward to the bridegroom, the voice of Christ will raise up in song. As we read in Zephaniah three, he will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by His love," it says there. No one ate of his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. Notice verse 31 of Ephesians 5, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a mystery and it's profound, but I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Friends, whether you're married, you're wanting to be married, or you've put marriage so far back in the past and you say, I'm just going to be single for the rest of my days. Friends, don't miss this marriage. Don't miss it. To be part of the church of Christ, to come to him by faith, to be wrapped in His loving arms and cherished and held for all eternity. Don't miss the bridegroom. Don't miss Christ as we pray together. Lord, we pray that you would help us as we seek to apply this understanding of marriage to our own hearts. Lord, we pray that as we come to this table, help us remember that it is a type of rehearsal dinner. for the marriage supper of the Lamb, when He will bring us forward wrapped in His righteous robes, and He will love us, and He will gaze upon us, and He will rejoice over us as we rejoice in Him, our great Bridegroom. We pray, O God, that we by faith would acknowledge Him and love Him and trust Him. King Jesus, we owe our hearts to You. that we may participate in the marriage that lasts forevermore. We ask this in your name. Amen.