The Scripture reading this afternoon is Genesis 2, verses 18-25. We take that also as the text for this afternoon. Genesis 2, verses 18-25. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an help, meat for him. 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 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 to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found and help meet for him. 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. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. So far, the reading of God's holy, infallible Word. May God place His blessing upon the reading of that Word. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, this afternoon we begin a series on marriage. It has been my desire for some time now to preach a series on marriage. There are a number of reasons why going through a series on marriage will be profitable for us. First of all, and especially what has been on my mind, is this. the institution of marriage is being attacked today from every side. From every side and through every means possible, whether it be through the television or through the internet or through politics, Satan and the culture around us are trying to utterly obliterate the biblical understanding of marriage. Indeed, even for many today, the biblical understanding of marriage is well-nigh unintelligible. Even for ourselves, we have to remind ourselves of what marriage actually is and where it comes from. Marriage is not a man-made institution. It is not merely a signed piece of paper. It is a divine institution, a creation ordinance that belongs to God. Marriage today is seen as a man-made institution. And therefore, you can do with it, and you can do with your own body, and you can do with your spouse, whatever you really feel like. So you have men and women hooking up together, living together without shame, who have no concern about getting married at all. Even in churches, fornication might be frowned upon, but it is accepted as something that we have to tolerate now today. Pornography. What a scourge upon marriages is pornography. Pornography is destroying marriages left and right. People are destroying themselves for marriage because of pornography. And divorce and remarriage is so rampant that we are threatened to become desensitized to how the world is shaping and influencing our own thoughts on divorce. And we forget that we need to hold the marriage bond in high reverence, in high esteem, as a holy institution of God, meant to be a picture of God's own glory and a reflection of His own divine covenant life. And it does seem that on our television screen, we are willing to watch and to tolerate more and more what God calls unholy and abominable. And we call it entertainment. And all the while it is having its influence on our families and on our marriages. It's having an effect on our own marriages. And we are attacking our own happiness by it. And we could say this, at the root of it all is selfishness. Man's idol is himself, his own pleasure, his own self-satisfaction, his own lust and self-seeking. And we, beloved, we have the exact same struggles with our own sinful natures, even within our own marriages, and the calling God gives to us. It's easy for us to forget that in our marriages we are called to reflect the covenant life of God Himself. We are called to reflect the glorious relationship between Christ and His Church. The truth about marriage is urgent today. So it's good to have this series on marriage. And then there are two other reasons why I have chosen to preach a series on marriage that are worth mentioning. Second, marriage is foundational for the church. And by that I mean that not only individual marriages in the church are of great importance for the health of the congregation as a whole, but I mean this, that marriage ultimately is something every single one of us is a part of. Because at the center of what the church is, is this. The church herself is the bride of Christ. We all, as God's people, have been brought into the marriage union with Jesus Christ. And that means that the doctrine of marriage concerns all of us. Marriage's great reality is not our earthly marriages, but the marriage of Christ and His church. That means that this series will be for everyone. We all need to know what our marriage to Christ is, what our calling is in that marriage bond, and what the joys of that marriage bond involve. And I will endeavor to stress that throughout this series, that we may see what the true great reality of marriage is, the great love between Christ and the church. And that will also then be the proper motivation for being faithful in our own marriages, growing strong in our marriages. That's also why the attack upon marriage is so serious today. It's an attack ultimately upon Christ and His church. And then third, I want to preach a series on marriage also for myself as pastor. If marriage is so important a doctrine for the church, if marriage is under such vigorous attack today, then as pastor, I too need to be intimately acquainted with this important aspect of the Christian life. This afternoon, we begin our series by going to the beginning, by going to the divine institution of marriage in the creation week in Genesis 2. It's essential that we begin everything seeing that marriage is an institution that belongs to God. And this afternoon and in the next few weeks, Lord willing, we will take our time to look at what marriage itself actually is. This afternoon we see that marriage is a divine institution, first of all. We take that as our theme, the divine institution of marriage. We look at that theme under three points. made for each other, brought together in marriage, and a creation ordinance. In the beginning, on the sixth day of the creation week, God created Adam. God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. However, in Genesis 2 verse 18, after God created Adam, this is what God said. It is not good. It is not good. It is not good that the man should be alone. That's striking. For over five days God has been at work creating all things for man. Preparing all things for man. And now on the sixth day, after creating all the animals, God carries out His crowning work of creation, the creation of man. And the man that God created was perfect. By that I mean, the man God created was in the image of God. In true knowledge, righteousness and holiness was Adam made without any sin. God created Adam so that when Adam was given life, Adam knew God, he loved God, and he walked with God and talked with God. And not only that, but Adam was given the high and glorious calling to be the king of creation. That was his position, to use all creation to precedent to the service of God's glory. And yet, congregation, when God saw Adam after he had created him, this is what God said. It is not good. It is not good that the man should be alone. More literally, it is not good for the man to be in his separation. Adam, as upright as he was, as perfect in one respect as he was, he was living as one who was separated from someone else who belonged with him. It is not good that the man should be alone. That Adam should be alone. There was a lack in Adam. He was not complete. And this was not good. And God even brought Adam to see that and to feel that for himself. Adam, not knowing any other condition, was not aware, as God was, that He was incomplete. So in Genesis 2, verses 19 and 20, God brings the animals to Adam. Not only that Adam might name them, but so that Adam might become conscious of his own lack, of his own need. At the end of verse 20, after naming the animals and seeing them in their pairs, male and female, male and female, male and female, this is what Adam felt. But for Adam, there was not found and help meet for him. That's what Adam experienced in his own consciousness. Adam was brought to feel his own lack and his own loneliness. He saw his own need. He wasn't complete. It is not good that the man should be alone. What we might ask right away, is that true for all men and for any man throughout history? Is it true that it is not good that any man should be alone? What we should see is that here in Genesis 2, there are certain principles that are being established by God. Because we should notice right away that God did not merely see that it was not good that Adam was alone. We should understand this. God actually created Adam that way. So that it was not good that Adam be alone. God was showing Adam and God was showing us that it is in created within man that he not remain alone. It is not good to be living completely separated from others, without companionship. And furthermore, God is showing us here that generally, it is not good for man to remain unmarried. And that is just the same for the woman inasmuch as she was created also not to be on her own, but to be the help meat for the man. This is how God created man. Adam felt in his own consciousness, there is not a suitable helper for me. This having been said, we do know that there are exceptions. We cannot make this a binding truth for all men or women, for neither does the Bible do that. Think of what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 8. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. In verse 7 he writes, For I would that all men were even as myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. So that if you have the gift to remain single, that is good. That is good, an honorable gift. One who has that gift is called by God to use it for God's glory. But then we also know that Paul says to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband. Jesus says in Matthew 19 verse 12, there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. And there you really get to the crux of the matter, because our marriage is, first of all, to Jesus Christ. And we live out of that marriage in all that we do. And whether that means we become married or we remain single, our lives are lived for the great bridegroom, Jesus Christ. That must be our motivation in all things, whether in the single life or in married life. But as Genesis 2 teaches, this is a general principle. It is not good for man, for woman, to be alone. And so, having made Adam, and showing Adam his lack, and preparing Adam in that way to receive his wife, God causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and God performs surgery on Adam, and out of Adam's own flesh, out of his rib, God forms and fashions the woman, Eve. It is very important for us to notice how God formed Eve, and what the Bible says about Eve. First of all, notice that God did not make Eve from a different, from a new, from another clump of dirt. God took great care in forming Adam. Forming Adam from the dust of the earth. But when God created Eve, we might say that God created Eve with even greater care. By taking out of Adam's flesh and forming a new creature out of Adam's own flesh. And that action itself emphasizes the unity between Adam and Eve. They are both from one flesh. By this, Adam was taught to love Eve as his own flesh, because she was of his own flesh. And by this, Eve was taught to love Adam as her own head, because he was her head. She was of the man. We might say that in this way God was even giving Adam and Eve a natural love for one another. This action itself also emphasizes the unity of the human race and the headship of Adam for the entire human race. Because Eve herself was taken out of Adam. Adam was her head and God designed it that way not out of some separate clump so that Adam might be the head of the human race. Secondly, However, notice that Eve, just like Adam, was made in the image of God. That's clear from Genesis 1 verse 27. In Genesis 1 verse 27 we read, And what that means is this. The woman, Eve, is not somehow inferior in her creation to Adam. They are equal in this respect. Equal in dignity, equal in value, equal in glory, for they are equally made in the image of God. In fact, we could say this, God's crowning work of the creation week was not His creation of the man. No, the crown of God's creation, after which God could say, it is very good. is His creation of the woman. She was God's crowning work. And yet, in making her, God was also bringing His creation of Adam itself to completion. The point being, Adam and Eve go together. They were made for each other. The only difference between Adam and Eve is this, to these two people, equal in value, equal in dignity, are given two different callings, two different roles. The reality is they are not equal in authority. And that is not because of them, but that is because of the callings and the responsibilities God has given to the man and to the woman. And then, of course, to be complete, we could also say this, perhaps we should say this, That when God formed and shaped Adam and Eve, God formed them with their respective callings in mind. So that when God created Adam as man, and then when God created Eve as woman, we can emphasize this. He created Adam as a man. Eve as a woman. So that Eve, created as a woman, she had a mind, but it was the mind of a woman. She had a body, but it was the body of a woman. She had a will, she had emotions, yet they were the will and the emotions of a woman. She is made in the image of God, no different than Adam in that way, but she was made a woman, Adam was made a man, so that, though being equal in value and dignity, they are also different as well. And their spirituality itself is expressed differently. Hers as a woman, his as a man. And they were also made that way for the respective callings God would give them for how they should even serve God. And in fulfilling their respective callings, taking up their place in the marriage bond, husband and wife are perfectly compatible and complement each other perfectly. A harmonious fit. Now all of this makes sense, all of this is impressed upon us when we see the actual purpose for which God made Eve. As it's stated in the text in Genesis 2.18, what was God's purpose in making Eve? Genesis 2.18 says, I will make him and help meet for him. That means this, God made Eve to be a helper, suitable, for her man. Eve was made for Adam. She completes him. And that's her glory. And that's his lack. God made Eve to be the answer to Adam's need. She will fill the lack in his life. Nothing but the woman could fill that lack in Adam's life. Not any animal. Not another man. And as I said, that was the way God formed Eve. God suited Eve for Adam in every respect. And when God made Adam, God was making Adam perfectly suited for Eve. God suited Eve for Adam in every respect, physically and bodily, and also mentally and emotionally. Eve is not Adam's competition. The wife is not the competition to the husband. Eve is Adam's counterpart. And because Adam was already brought to see his lack, when God brings Eve to Adam, Adam cherishes Eve and all that she is as the one who completes his life. He does not trample over her. He does not ignore her. He loves her, for she is what makes his life full and complete. Keep in mind, congregation, we're talking about marriage here, and our marriages too. The wife was made for the husband, and the husband cherishes the wife as what makes his life complete in the calling that God gives them as husband and wife. I see three ways in particular in which Eve was created as a helpmeet, as a suitable helper fitted for Adam. First, obviously, Eve was a suitable helper for Adam to overcome his loneliness. Obviously. She was the answer to his loneliness. She was given to enrich his life. That's very applicable. As husbands, we must not find our fulfillment in escaping the house to hang out with the guys. We must not find our fulfillment by becoming consumed by our work. Our wives are the ones God has given us to share our lives with. Their communication skills have been given to them so that we as husbands might communicate with them and share our lives with them. Second, Eve was a suitable helper for Adam in this way, to help him fulfill his earthly calling. Adam's calling was to be the king of creation, to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it. And Eve was given to Adam to help him with this calling, to help him do it with joy and with companionship. She was made to be his queen. Third, Eve was a suitable helper for Adam in this way, as a spiritual help. To help Adam understand to a richer degree what God's covenant friendship was all about. God gave Adam a wife so that in the fellowship of marriage, Adam and Eve together could experience more concretely what friendship is all about. And in experiencing that friendship of the marriage bond, which is only a reflection of God's own covenant life with His people, Adam and Eve, and today also we together as friends and companions in the church, we can understand more concretely what friendship with God in Jesus Christ is about. Adam and Eve as friends were mutually enriched as intimate friends so that together they were better friends of God. That was Eve's help to Adam. What we should see in all of this is the fact that Adam and Eve were made for each other. Eve was made for Adam. Adam was made for Eve. Husbands and wives today were made for each other as perfect companions in the relationship God has set them in. Just as we, as members of the body of the church, have been made for Christ. And in a very real way, Christ was made for us. This is the marriage that we all enjoy with Christ, our friend. That becomes especially clear that Adam and Eve were made for each other, just as the church and Christ were made for each other. In the next verses, where God brings Eve to Adam to be his wife, and Eve and Adam are brought together in marriage. In the last part of verse 22, we have the first marriage ceremony taking place. In the last part of verse 22, we read, "...and brought her unto the man." And that act of God bringing Eve to Adam, we have our first wedding ceremony. We have the institution of marriage. Congregation, that's where marriage comes from. God instituted it during the creation week on the sixth day. And I hope that for our young people, this sinks into your memory, and this sinks into your soul. I remember when I was younger, I was asking the question, why is marriage the way it is? Why all these rules for dating and for marriage? Why can't I divorce someone and marry someone else? Why can't I have two wives? And that's where I, even as a young person, still needed to learn this. Marriage belongs to God. Marriage originated with God. It is God's institution. God designed it. And marriage is governed by God's regulations. It is defined by how God defines it. We may not, we cannot change what marriage is. Governments cannot change what marriage is. God has made it what it is, and it is ours to follow what He has set forth. And besides that, we will get to this, Lord willing, in the next sermons, God has other high purposes with marriage than merely our own earthly fulfillment and joy. Purposes such as revealing his own covenant life. Purposes such as revealing, reflecting the marriage relationship between Christ and the Church. You see, this is fundamental to the entire argument on marriage. And the problem today is this, man regards marriage not as belonging to God, but as belonging to man. These are some of the thoughts that you are interacting with in the world when you talk to people about marriage and about politics and what's going on in the world around us. This is how people think. Marriage is only a human contract. Marriage is only two signatures on a piece of paper, and when someone breaks that contract, someone doesn't want to abide by that contract anymore, the marriage is over. Or, marriage is merely an invention of man. That man invented for the sake of social development. Man saw the need to protect his property. Man saw maybe that for the good of society, it was good to establish marriage rules. And now today, because society is changing, the rules for marriage can change with it. So that marriage really is an evolutionary byproduct. And here you see again how the teaching of evolution corrupts everything. Those who adopt the philosophy of evolution have no leg to stand on when it comes to defending marriage as God ordained it. That's why there's confusion. The attack upon marriage today is but the outworking of the wicked theory of evolutionism. But we must see this. Neither is marriage something like this. that I want to marry someone and now I need to get God's approval for it. I think perhaps practically that's how we think. I want to get married so I need God's approval. No. You see that with Adam. It was not as if Adam wanted the woman and now he needed God's approval for it. No, Adam didn't even know that he needed marriage or that he needed this woman, Eve, in particular. But the reality was, God brought Adam's wife to Adam, and when Adam saw her, he knew, that's what I need. That's also what I want. And Eve too, when she saw Adam, she must have said to herself, I was made for him. Let me be joined to him. Let him be my head. But the point is this, God did it. God brought the woman unto Adam. God married them. And in response to these events in verse 24, we have Moses' inspired commentary on what just took place. Verse 24, Moses with inspired commentary says, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. That's what marriage is. God bringing together a man and a woman in marriage so that they become one flesh. Marriage is an act of God. And our understanding of marriage needs to be thoroughly biblical and not shaped by how the culture around us looks at marriage. We may not do with marriage as we want. Marriage belongs to God. It is a holy institution of God. And the marriage form says something about what God does in marriage, doesn't it? The marriage form says this, just as God brought Eve to Adam, so God brings yet today every man his wife. The marriage form also says that God has called and united two persons in the holy state of marriage. And we make our vows before God and before witnesses publicly so that all may see that we are willing to enter into the marriage bond. We are willing to live in marriage as God has commanded. And we have our wedding ceremonies because we want to acknowledge that this marriage bond is something that God does and not something we do. And even when we consummate our marriage, That's what God is doing. God gives that intimacy in the consummation of marriage, on the marriage night, because this is God's own work of uniting two to become one flesh in the marriage bond. And the point then is this, even as we willingly enter into the marriage bond, It's God who's doing it. He makes two so that they become one flesh. That's what Jesus himself emphasizes in Matthew 19 verse 6. Now that's a mystery. That's a mystery in itself, how God unites two in the marriage bond. Because He does it on so many levels, in so many ways, so that man and wife become one flesh. That's a mystery. Lord willing, we will explore that mystery in the weeks ahead. But that mystery itself, is but a dim reflection of the great marriage that each one of God's children enjoys with Jesus Christ. Because that's the great mystery of marriage. The bond that God establishes, that God performs between Christ and his wife, his woman, the bride, the church. When we understand that marriage is an institution of God, that it is God's work, God's design, and governed by God's regulations, then we can go forward and we can understand what some of the principles of marriage are. Marriage is an honorable state. Hebrews 13 verse 4. Marriage is honorable above all and the bed undefiled. Marriage is between one man and one woman. Marriage is a lifelong bond. Marriage is the primary bond or relationship among earthly relationships. That's why a man needs to leave his father and mother, cleave unto his wife, because the marriage bond takes precedent over every other bond among earthly relationships. Marriage is a reflection of God's own beautiful covenant of love and friendship. Marriage does not belong to us. It belongs to God. And when we see that marriage is of God, and that God brings two together to become one flesh, then we also see that our own marriages, that we're living in, if the Lord has given us that calling, are no accident. God did it. In His own sovereignty, He brought each man his wife, and brought each wife to her husband. And now my calling, my duty, my privilege, and my joy as the child of God is to live in this marriage bond unto the Lord faithfully. This is the calling He's given me. This is where He has placed me because this is His work. It has not been my work. It was the Lord's work. This is the calling He's given. And when we see that marriage is of God, then we also see how God is in control of all things. And I think that has practical significance also for young men and young women who are desiring the marriage bond. In Genesis 2, God brought the woman to the man. God took care of it. Yes, God uses means. God always uses means. God calls us to use means. But if we are longing to find a spouse, we must remember God is the one in control. This is God's work. And if anything is striking, in the marriages in the church, if anything is striking, it is how God has led each man and each woman to their spouses in the church. And what all of us must be mindful of is this, God meets our needs perfectly. He meets our needs perfectly in His time, in His way. It was not good for the man, for Adam, to be alone. God met that need. God has done that with us as the bride of Jesus Christ, with giving us our husband. He met our needs, every spiritual need, by giving Jesus Christ to us. And even through the agony and darkness of the cross, if God has taken care of our needs spiritually, as the bride of Christ, making us the Bride of Christ, then He will most certainly take care of whatever our earthly needs are. And He will truly give us what we need, spiritually also. And that's true whatever our circumstances, whether single or married, as the Bride of Christ, Christ supplies what we need, where our lack is. Finally, as we look at what marriage is, and as we skip over a few of the things that we could draw out this afternoon from the text, Lord willing, we will come to them in future sermons. As we look at what marriage is, for the sake of completion, what I want to mention is this. That marriage is a creation ordinance. And when we say that marriage is a creation ordinance, what we mean is this. God instituted marriage not in the sphere of redemption, not in the sphere of salvation, but in the sphere of creation. God did not institute or establish the marriage relationship after the fall, but before the fall. And not just before the fall, but during the creation week. And that means that marriage is not just something that Christians must observe, But this is something that God has placed upon all men in all places for all of history. That means that all men are under the authority of this institution of God. And the significance then is not only politically, how we discuss marriage today politically, always having to go back to the foundation of the scripture, But what it means is also this. Marriages made outside of the church are genuine marriages. A marriage between unbelievers is valid before God and before men. God binds those two together until death parts them. That's why the marriage form says that marriage is to be held in honour among all men. Among all men. And men may refuse to acknowledge God's authority over marriage, but that doesn't change the institution of marriage. And that doesn't change the fact that God requires men to honor, and women, to honor the institution of marriage. Men may deny their relationship to God, but they still have that relationship nevertheless. And God holds them to their marriage vows. Marriage is of God. That's the first thing we must understand about marriage. Marriage is the mysterious work of God, bringing two into one so that they become one flesh. May God bless us in our marriages, that we might continue to acknowledge that our marriages are of God. Always confessing, always seeing the beauty That our marriage to Jesus Christ is itself entirely of God. And that's where we need to see how this is connected to the Gospel. Salvation is all of God. Salvation is God bringing the wife of Jesus Christ to Christ. It is all of God. Marriage, earthly marriage, is a reflection of that. Our earthly marriages are of God. as a reflection of how God has brought us to Christ. May we thank God that he has brought us to our great spouse, brought us into that beautiful bond of marriage to our glorious bridegroom, and given each one of us the exalted, joyful calling to live unto our head, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we pray that the preaching might be a blessing unto our hearts and lives, that we might apply it by Thy Holy Spirit. We pray that we might hear the voice of Christ, and the Word might always be the voice of Christ. that we might enjoy it and see the beauty, even through earthly marriage, of the glorious bond that Thou hast established between us and our beautiful Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Knit us, Father, more and more unto Him, whatever our calling may be. that we might rejoice in Him, and delight in Him, and live with Him, for Thy glory is our God and Savior. In His name, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.