In his goodness and his graciousness to us, he has given us this opportunity to come together as his people to hear from his word about our supreme and sovereign and great God. And before I introduce our speaker, I want to mention that we do have a handout tonight that our speaker will be going through. And if you do not yet have this handout, if you wouldn't mind raising your hand, we have some extra copies. I know not all of you got it as you got in, so we'll get those copies to you. I'm Pastor Phil Leighton. I have the privilege of being a pastor here. I also have had the privilege of being a student of Dr. John Street down at Masters Seminary. Dr. Street is the chairman of the Biblical Counseling Department at the Masters College. He serves on the board of the National Association of New Thetic Counselors, which if you're not familiar with that organization, is an organization that seeks to apply the sufficiency of scripture to counseling and to all of life. I have personally benefited greatly from Dr. Street's teaching. I am very excited that we have him here in our community to bring the word of God to us. His wife Janie is also with us there in the back. It's great to have you here Janie and we are looking forward to what the Lord has for us. Let me pray a blessing on our time in the word if you would bow with me. Our gracious God we thank you for your kindness and your giving us your all sufficient word and that you have not left us on our own in regards to our most important relationship with you and with our spouses and with our families. And so, Lord, we thank you that you, through your word, through through Jesus Christ, have given us what we need to know for life and godliness. And I pray that you would be with our speaker, Dr. Street, as he has traveled all day to be here, that you would give him clarity, that you would fill him with your spirit as he speaks to us. that you would give us ears to hear, Lord. I pray for each and every person represented in this room from different churches, different stages in their marriage. I pray, Lord, that you would give hope and help from the gospel and from Christ himself tonight for the glory and honor and magnification of his name. We pray. Amen. Wow, thank you, Pastor. It doesn't deal directly with marriage, but the broad theological principle is very applicable to the entire weekend that we will be spending together. Romans chapter 12, and I'm interested in verse 9. It says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. The word abhor here that I'm reading from the New American Standard Version is the word that can literally be translated, hate what is evil. Now, after this whole weekend is over and somebody says to you, what did you do this weekend? You can say to them, I went to a marriage conference and I learned how to hate. Okay. What? I went to a marriage conference and I learned how to hate. In fact, the speaker, that's all he talked about was how to hate more. And that's one of the problems that Christians have today. They don't hate enough. They don't hate their sin enough. So I want to challenge you this weekend as we get started. That if there is something in your life that's not right. And you see it. It's not enough to dislike it. It's not enough to say, well, the way that I'm treating my wife or the way that I'm treating my husband or the attitudes and dispositions that I have about my marriage are wrong. It's not enough to say that. You have to turn all of your negative emotions on that evil. You've got to learn to hate that evil. Now, most marriage conferences, you're not going to hear that. But in this one, you are. That's the only way real change is going to occur. I've got to learn to hate the sin that I've put up with in my own life that has brought problems into my marriage. I've got to learn to hate that. That's really critical. Now, I realize that in a lot of marriage conferences you go to, around the country and around the world, they're going to talk about loving self. No word in the Bible does it ever say you need to love self more. There's not even a hint of that anywhere in the Bible. In fact, the Bible is replete with verses that says we need to learn to love ourselves less and hate sin more. That's where we get into trouble. And you'll see why I say that. You're probably thinking right about now, this guy's off his rocker. What is he talking about? Well, hang in there. Just hang in there. The first session we want to deal with tonight is God's design for marriage. And if you have your notes in front of you, we want to dive into those notes and we will get started talking about this very thing. And as soon as I get this adjusted, we'll get out here. Okay, let me pull this out. And you'll forgive me this weekend because last weekend I was in Houston, Texas doing a marriage conference and I picked up some kind of Texas bug. So every now and then I'm sniffling. There's a Texan back there. All right. I picked up one of those Texas bugs and every now and then I'll start sniffling a little bit. So you'll forgive me if I do that, but I'm still recovering from that just a little bit. Alright, take your Bible again. Let's go back to Genesis. We're interested in Genesis chapter 2. We're going to go right back to the beginning and talk about how God designed marriage. How did God design marriage? We've got to start here because this really forms the foundation of everything else that we will talk about through the entire weekend. If you don't understand this, then you will miss everything else that we're trying to say. How is it that God designed marriage? Well, one of the things I want to start off with, you don't have to go very far before you realize that marriage is in trouble. About 11 years ago, my wife and I moved to Southern California to teach there at the Masters College and Seminary. And when they first moved us in there, we had to move into a condo until we bought a home of our own. And I hope, the Lord willing, I'll never have to do that again. But we're on the third floor of this condo, and I can remember we were living so close to other people, we could hear them brushing their teeth. in the other condos. And we would sit at the breakfast table and be discussing things in the morning and sometimes having prayer together. And we could hear yelling, screaming, people throwing things. And I can remember turning over to my girlfriend. She's my wife, too. She's the gal back there. Have to clarify that nowadays. I remember turning over to her and saying to her, if this is the condition of marriages in America today, we are in deep trouble. Serious, serious problems. And the family is in trouble today. Marriage is in trouble today. Why? Why are there so many problems? Well, part of the reason is that people marry for the wrong reasons. They get married for the wrong reasons. Some people get married because they have been promiscuous prior to marriage, and they feel kind of guilty about that. And somebody, maybe a clergy person, has told them, well, if you've been promiscuous, you've got to get married. Those are the very people that shouldn't be getting married because they're not ready for marriage. Just because they have a little piece of paper that says their marriage doesn't mean somehow they're going to have the discipline to be able to follow the commitment to that marriage. So they've been promiscuous. So some people get married because they feel guilty over that. Other people get married in order to compensate for faults. Maybe they are running from perceived faults. Maybe things are part of their past. Some people get married because they grew up in a very poor family. Now, I was a little bit intimidated coming here. This is the first time I've been to Shingle Springs. It's the first time I've been to Gold Country Baptist Church. And I just had the picture that everybody was extremely wealthy here. And I was just not going to fit in at all. I'm just a poor old pastor and professor. That's all I am. They don't overpay us. Okay? So, some people marry for money. Wow! He's got so much money. And of course, you've heard the old adage, if you marry for money, you end up earning every penny of it. Every cent. Other people marry because, well, She's so outgoing and I'm just so quiet and I've always wanted to be married to somebody that was the life of the party and that's the way she is. He marries him because he seems so quiet and stable. The interesting thing about it when that occurs, our strengths, that is prior to marriage, later on after we get married, our greatest strength becomes our weaknesses because Later on, she begins to think, he is so quiet. Is he ever going to talk to me? And he thinks she is all over the place. Is she ever going to settle down? Now, why? They're the same people. Same people. But our perception of them have changed. But they're the same people. Our greatest strengths prior to marriage become our greatest weaknesses after marriage. greatest strength. So some people marry in order to compensate for some kind of fault that they perceive as part of their past. And then they find themselves miserable. Then there are other people who marry to realize an image. Now, gentlemen, the women are light years ahead of us here. By the age of seven, they have their entire weddings planned out. They know exactly what they're going to wear. It doesn't even cross a guy's mind until he reaches about 25. Oh, yeah, maybe I'll get married someday. All right. But the ladies have been thinking about it for a long, long time. And they imagine, you know, having a little white house with a white picket fence around the kids happily playing in the yard and a little dog yelping and a swing set. and a tire swing and everything and it's just... And so they marry to realize that image and their marriage then ends up becoming a horrid nightmare. They marry to realize an image. Something they dreamed about. And then there are other people who marry to have sex because I don't have to feel guilty. We're married! In this case, ladies, the guys are way out in front of you here. It legalizes sex. They have sex all the time. Bad reason to get married. Bad reason to get married. Wait a minute. Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible it's better to marry than to burn? That's actually 1 Corinthians 7. And yes, it does say that. But if you study that within context, Paul was not saying that marriage cures lust. Every man and woman sitting here knows what I'm talking about. Marriage does not cure lust. Doesn't do it. That's not what it's saying. Well, so we have people who marry for the wrong reason. No wonder marriage is in trouble. And that's not an exhaustive list. I'm just giving you examples. But not only that, we also find out that in our culture and society today, marriage is constantly under attack. I mean, it's coming from everywhere. The whole playboy philosophy. The whole playboy philosophy is an attack upon God's institution of marriage. Because it trivializes marriage. It turns marriage into nothing but sex. It's all about sex. People are objects for my satisfaction. Then there are gay and lesbian agendas. That's an attack upon God's institution of marriage. And then there's the entertainment mediums. You've got television sitcoms. You've got the internet. You've got movies. You have radio. And almost everywhere, marriages are broken apart. We had a national educator, Christian man, come to the college recently. He was talking about most school teachers know today in the public school system that 50% of their class, those students come out of broken homes. That means 50% are a little bit left. an intact family. So, the traditional family is becoming quickly, in America, the minority. Quickly. So, these attacks are starting to bear some kind of fruit. And even when you do find an intact family, pictured on television or in the movies, when you do find that, then usually, Dad is a buffoon. You ever watch The Cosby Show? Yeah. Dad's a buffoon. Even though he's a medical doctor, the kids and mom always knows better. He's an idiot. That's not the way that God intended the family to go. And then you've got materialism. Materialism really elevates things above people. They're more important than people. I actually know of a guy who got married because his wife had a really good job and she could then buy his toys. The boats he wanted, the off-road vehicles he wanted. So, his salary paid for their living expenses and her salary paid for all the playthings. That's why he got married. And I think there are a lot of guys who probably wouldn't admit it, But there are some who do the same thing. They get married in order to have things. So much stuff. And it's an extra income for us as a family. And then we've got in society today all kinds of substitutes for marriages. You've got contract marriages, live-in lovers, semi-married, prenuptial agreements, lat marriages, which are people living apart together marriages, which is very popular around San Francisco. That is a couple living in two separate homes. On paper, they're legally married, and occasionally they'll sleep together in the same bed, but essentially they're running two separate lives. And that's not an exhaustive list either. All of that is supposed to be some kind of substitute for what God intended marriage to be. A genuine, loving relationship between a man and a woman that is covenanted together for life. So, we have a two-fold effect that's gone on today. That two-fold effect, first of all, there are a lot of young people that are unsure about marriage. I see that in a college setting all the time, and I work in a Christian college. But I can still see couples that come in and ask in our department, in the counseling department, they want premarital counseling, they want someone to take them through and you, even though they're really excited about their relationship and they're really excited about getting married, there's that far off look. You know, in the future, are we going to be one of those statistics in marriage? You can kind of see it because they know, they've heard it. Some of them come out of homes that are broken and they've seen the heartache that has gone on there. So, there are a lot of young people who are very unsure about marriage. And then I think a second effect is that there are many people already married who have lost hope. They really don't think there is any hope. They don't think so. This is the way it's always going to be. Not true. Not true. Now I've been counseling for almost 30 years now and I've sat across the table from an awful lot of couples older couples, middle-aged couples, younger couples, couples that had just recently been married. And I've sat across and listened to stories and things that have gone on in their relationships and some of the stuff that I'd share with you would make the hair on the back of your head stand up. You'd say, oh my goodness, there's nothing that'll save that marriage. But you know what? They are living together happily for Christ. I've seen that happen over and over again. But the key thing here is this. We have got to make a commitment in our heart and mind to do things God's way, not our way. I've got to make that commitment in my heart. I've got to do things God's way. I've got to stop messing up my marriage by doing it my way or by doing what Oprah says. I've got to stop buying into all the pop psychology stuff that comes down the line. That is not helpful. That is destructive. And I've got to take the authority that God has given me. That is his word. And I've got to trust it because he designed marriage. In fact, I want to suggest to you that the Church of Jesus Christ has lasting answers. And we've got to get busy proclaiming those answers. Now, let's talk about that. Let's build a little bit of background. That's what, in a sense, is going on in our culture today. You say, why are marriages in trouble? Well, there's a snapshot picture of why marriages are in trouble. And again, that's not an exhaustive list. The first thing here that we want to talk about is contemporary presuppositions and God's design. Contemporary presuppositions and God's design. There are an awful lot of secular theories about marriage out there. But if you were to take a lot of them and boil them down, and I try to stay up with all the latest stuff that comes down the line, in graduate schools and sociology and psychology and marriage and family courses that are offered in a lot of secular universities at UCLA and USC and CSUN and some of the major universities here in California. I tried to stay up with all that literature that's coming across. And if you were to take it all and all the stuff you read and boil it down to what are they really saying about marriage, just synthesize it down, it would be something like this. Man was the one who invented marriage. Marriage is a result of man's planning and man's design. In other words, marriage, in a sense, is an evolutionary caveman arrangement. Man built it. He designed it from the beginning. So, back in prehistoric times, There were two cavemen. One of them was named Bog, and the other one was Gog. OK. And one day, Bog said to Gog, can't tell your woman from my woman. What we do? Gog said, Oh, not sure. I can't tell your woman from my woman either. Oh. Bob thought for a moment and said back to God. Oh, I have idea. Oh, God said, What idea? He said, oh, let's create marriage. Oh, dog says, what's marriage? Oh, you grab nearby woman by hair, drag her to next cave. All of her children will follow her and we will have marriage. Oh, dog says, oh, sounds great. So he grabs nearby woman. takes her, grabs her by the hair and takes her to nearby cave and now they have marriage. Now you think I'm goofy, don't you? You take and you read all the sophisticated theories that are out there and they boil down to that issue. Back in prehistoric times, this agrarian culture required basically marriage and home relationships. That's what helped to build society and culture at its rudimentary level. But now, because we live in a sophisticated society and highly technological society, we really don't need that anymore. We really don't. We're much too sophisticated. for those ancient prehistoric relationships and forms. So, you understand that theories of origin have huge implications on how you think about something now. You understand that, right? Theories of origin have huge implications on how you think about things now. And of course, the issue here is, if man designed marriage, then man can redesign marriage any way he wants. He can destroy marriage if he wants. Because after all, He created it. Now, if you believe the Bible is the Word of God, you have serious problems with that. You have serious problems there. And this is what brings us to Genesis chapter 2. And we're interested in verse 18. Then the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. The two words helper suitable are the Hebrew terms, Ezer Kanigno. I will make an Ezer Kanigno for him. I used to call my girlfriend, my little Ezer Kanigno. People thought I was cursing at her. That's not true. It was a term of endearment. Suitable helper, my little Ezer Kanigno. He's sitting right back there. So, it was not good for man to be alone. So, now we're getting a clue as how a Christian thinks about the origin of marriage. Marriage was not invented by man. In fact, the scripture tells us that God designed marriage. Marriage was given by God. And if you go back to Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, here he says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. Now, I want you to note one thing about verse 26. Verse 26 is a play on singular and plural. You can even see this in the English, all right? It's very apparent in the Hebrew language, but it says, "...let us," plural, "...make man," singular, "...in our," plural, "...image," singular, "...and according to our," plural, "...likeness," singular, "...let them," plural, "...rule." You get it? In other words, let us. Now who is that? Is that the angels? No, the angels were not a part of the actual creative act. So most theologians actually believe that this is an early reference to the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Let us make man in our image. our likeness, so you have that unity and plurality. We were not made in the image of the angels, so this is not the angels talking about. We were made in the image of God and in His one likeness, even though He's referred to in plurality here, which is an early reference to the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. So, God in plurality makes man in plurality with gender distinctiveness To be one. To be one. And you can see that later on in Genesis chapter 2, in verse 24, where this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. One flesh. So God in relationship creates man in relationship. Male and female, He creates them. And it's really interesting. I remember reading a THM thesis on on the word image and likeness there that really goes back to ancient Chaldean roots. And the idea is, back in ancient Chaldean languages, the words image and likeness actually refer to large stone or wood obelisks. So, back in ancient times, most people couldn't read. So, when a king went into a territory and conquered a territory, he would usually set up at the crossroads of that territory an obelisk or an image of himself, so that everybody passing through that territory knew that king ruled here. That king ruled here. Let's notice how closely attached here the word image and likeness is to man's rule. So, God, in that same sense, creates man and plants him on the earth, so all the hosts of heaven will know God rules here. God rules here. And he creates man in gender distinctiveness. Whoa. God creates Adam, fully and completely male. God creates Eve, fully and completely female. And it's not until he's creative that we call that very good. She becomes the crowning point of that creation. Wow. So, you can see, God here is up to something very deliberate. Marriage was created by God. Why am I going to all this trouble trying to demonstrate that? And this is a critical point. Because if God created marriage, then He has answers for marriage when it gets into trouble. Which means there's hope. If man created marriage, he really doesn't have any answers except for redesign the whole thing. It's a bad design. Destroy the design. Make something else. Man has no answers for marriage when it gets into trouble. What answers man does have is like putting band-aids on cancer. It may help you feel good for a short amount of time, but eventually it's going to take and destroy the marriage. So there's real hope for marriage. It's God's hope. And you know what? That makes me pretty excited. Pretty excited. Now, let's take a look at this a little bit more closely, because I think this is critical in our understanding. When it comes to Christian presuppositions in God's design, then it's pretty obvious at this particular point that celibacy was not intended to be the norm. You're not somehow more holy to be celibate. That's not what God designed from the beginning. I know that that was the invention of middle age, in the middle ages of monks. Somehow you're more holy if you're a celibate person. That's not true. In fact, God intended man and woman to be together from the very beginning. This also tells me that marriage is not to be disparaged. It's a holy and honorable institution. And yet oftentimes when you hear people talk in groups, you hear a group of women talking or you hear a group of men talking and they're talking about marriage. They're either telling jokes about marriage or somehow they're disparaging God's institution of marriage. In reality, God's institution is just fine. There's nothing wrong with it. It's the people in marriage that have the problems. That's the reason why I started off with Romans 12, 9. It's the people in marriage that have the problem. Well, and then again, sex and procreation then becomes a part of marriage and gender distinctiveness is what God calls very, very good. In fact, it's almost assumed in marriage. and everything that's there. Furthermore, we find out that marriage is not to compete with human options. Not to compete with human options or substitutes. God never intended marriage to do that kind of thing. You'll notice, if you had the time to read all the way through Genesis chapter 1, God creates everything He does on the first day of creation. He calls that good, second day good, third day good, fourth day good, fifth day good, Six day, he creates Adam. And this is the first time he says, it's not good. It's not good that man be alone. I will make an Aether Conigno for him. And then he creates Eve. And after he creates Eve, he says, now that's very good. Every year, my wife and I have a chance to go to Switzerland and Germany and do teaching there at two different locations. The Germans call it Zirgud. All right? Very good. God calls that Zirgud. Very, very good. After creating Eve. So, now let's go over to Genesis chapter 2. You'll note this. here in Genesis chapter 2, marriage now becomes, in fact, let me make this observation, then we'll go to Genesis 2. Marriage then is the picture of Christ's relationship to his bride, the church. It teaches an important spiritual reality about God's relationship to his people. So, if marriage gets messed up on the earth, then our picture of Christ's relationship as the groom to his bride, the church, gets messed up. So, God intends The Christian marriage to be a picture of his relationship to his people. Which brings us then to Genesis chapter 2. And the original purpose of marriage. Let's go back to verse 18. Then God said, it is not good for man to be alone, and I will make a helper suitable for him. So here we have the original purpose of marriage. It was not good for man to be alone. So, marriage was not made so that we could be little factories for babies. That's not the reason why marriage was created. That was not the primary purpose of marriage. That's one of the blessings of marriage, Genesis 1 tells us. But the purpose of marriage was companionship. And that's the very thing that goes out the window. The first thing that goes out the window when a marriage gets into trouble, there's no companionship. But yet, that's what God intended from the very beginning. It was not good for man to be alone. Well, if you read the story, you realize that when Adam was placed on the planet, he was not alone. The whole planet was teeming with animals. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis 2 and pick up the story in verse 19. And in fact, that's exactly the point. Let's go over to Genesis And he's her conigno. So, sandwiched between verse 18 and verse 20 is God creating all the animals and bringing them to Adam. And Adam's purpose now is to name them. Which shows you the incredible super intelligence of Adam. Super, super, super intelligence. Why? Adam was able to name all the animals that God created on the planet. Every one of them. and not reproduce any of them. And he was able to remember all the names. We still haven't named all the animals on the planet. We're still discovering some of them. And a lot of them have passed out of existence. We're discovering dinosaurs. We didn't even know existed. Adam was able to name every animal and every species and remember them all. And he was able to do that in one 24 hour day. Super super intelligence. So imagine spending your entire day naming animals. Now, if he did it in a typical somatic way, he usually, they would name something based upon its most common characteristic. So Mr. and Mrs. Elephant would come by, name it big, fat, great creature with long, skinny nose. All right? We're going to call you that. Mr.. Mrs.. Skunk comes by a little black and white smelly creature Mr.. Mrs.. Durable comes by cute little fuzzy things So that they would name everything based upon you can even see this reflect in some of the names that are given people in the Bible So whatever the most common characteristic of that particular animal or person became its name is the idea so Adams does this all day long. And at the end of the day, so why does God do this? Because this becomes one huge object lesson to him. Adams seeing Mr. and Mrs. Elephant go by and Mr. and Mrs. Giraffe go by and Mr. and Mrs. Hippopotamus go by. And at the end of the day, Adams standing there saying, Lord, there is no one to correspond to me. Ah, who do I have? The dog is not man's best friend. But the dog was there. That was not man's best friend. I know I just alienated all you dog lovers. So verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. And he took one of the ribs of the flesh and closed the flesh up at that place. And the Lord God fashioned into one the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man." I like what John MacArthur says when he says, Adam went to sleep single, woke up married. Some of you did that on your wedding day too, I know. Went to sleep single, woke up married. How did I get myself into this? And then, verse 23, what does Adam do? Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. You say, what is that? What is Adam saying? There's only one other time the same Hebrew phraseology of words is used in the entire Bible, and that's 2 Samuel 5.1. 2 Samuel 5.1 is David being coronated as king over Israel. And the people come to David and say, bone of bones, flesh of flesh. What are they saying? They are vowing their allegiance to David. That's what they're doing. You're part of us. We're a part of you. We're vowing our allegiance to you as our king. I think that's exactly what Adam is doing here with Eve. This is the first marriage vow. Bone to bones, flesh to flesh. He vows his allegiance to her, which is incredible. You know why? Because Eve didn't have any competition. There are no other Eves around, and yet he vows to her bone to bones, flesh to flesh. I'm committed to you. Is anybody else around? Wow. And then what's he do? He names her. She shall be called, the English says woman. Hebrew says Eshah. But the very core, what does he do? He names her based upon her most common characteristic. Most common characteristic. Now, I don't know exactly what he did here, but he may have gone up to her and said, whoa, and poked her. Because the root of the Hebrew idea, the etymological root of this word means soft. Soft. You shall be called salty. Because he was taking out a man. Now, I don't know whether he was rough and hard. But somehow he noted she was soft and that was a good thing. All right, that was really good. That becomes her most noteworthy feminine characteristic. It's amazing to me how many women today don't like the fact they are that way. They try to turn themselves into men. No worthy feminine characteristic. Soft. He liked that. He liked soft. I don't know whether all the animals were kind of really hard. They probably were. I mean, if you've been messing around with dinosaurs all day. I guess she would look pretty soft. She shall be called softy. Because she was taken out of man. So here we've got in one little statement a vow of loyalty and companionship, and then he names her based upon her most common feminine characteristic. Wow, this is really key. So, you can see here, she becomes the fitting completer. She becomes the one most ideally suited for him. He didn't have a companion. And the animals wouldn't do. God didn't create a father for Adam, a mother for Adam, a child for Adam, a brother for Adam, a playmate for Adam, or even a golfing buddy for Adam. I know, I've gone from preaching to meddling there, haven't I? He created a wife for Adam because He knew that's exactly what Adam needed. If there is going to be true companionship, and the truest companionship on this planet occurs between a man and his wife, that's what God intended. If there is going to be companionship, it's going to be between him and her. That's the way that God intended marriage. He created a wife for Adam. Then I want you to notice in verse 24, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united or join to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed. So notice this. The last observation I want to make has to do with the covenantal bond in marriage, because later on in Proverbs 217, as well as Malachi chapter two and verse 14, the Bible uses the Hebrew word covenant. to describe marriage. It's a good word. It's the word burrito. Not burrito, that's Mexican. Alright? It's burrito. Burrito. It means, it actually has the idea to cut a covenant. Back in ancient times, rather than signing papers the way we do when we make an agreement with someone, they would actually, if this was a serious agreement, they would slaughter an animal and slice that animal in half and the two parties making the agreement would walk between the two halves of that animal. In essence, they would be saying, If we were to ever break this covenant, may God do to us what has been done to this animal. And everybody would see that and say, okay, those two parties are making that agreement together based upon the death of that animal. It became a pretty serious vow. So the idea of Berit means to cut a covenant. It means to make a sacred vow that To break it would mean the giving of a life. You know, it's sad to say that some marriages are in such bad circumstances. They're in such bad circumstances that people would rather be married to their dog or their cat than their husband or their wife. Back in ancient times, they used this word to describe marriage. They'd be willing to sacrifice their dog and cat. They're making such a sacred vow that, in essence, saying publicly to everyone, if we were to ever break this covenant, may God do to us what was done to this animal. Sacred vow. We don't understand that today. We don't understand that. We've lost that. Things become unhappy. We become, well, he or she is not fulfilling my needs. Then we're ready to bail out. Wow. So marriage was considered a sacred and breakable bond. It was considered a lasting lifetime commitment. That's what God intended marriage to be. Lasting lifetime commitment. And you notice in verse 24, he highlights three things. The essential unity and the bond of marriage is characterized by these three things. First of all, he says, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother. That doesn't mean you abandon your parents, but it does mean that now your primary relationship is no longer to your parents. Your primary relationship is to your spouse. That's what it means. You're no longer slavishly dependent upon the parents. You're moving forward. Your mate's ideas now come first. Come first. Your mate's needs come first before mom and dad. This also tells me that the parent-child relationship God intended from the very beginning to be a temporary one. Temporary. Now, that's significant. Now, we have four children. We have two older daughters, both of whom are married. And they've given us three grandkids. I know you're sitting there thinking, how can somebody who looks 25 years of age have three grandkids? That's what I'd be thinking if I were you. But we have three grandkids. And then we have twin boys. They just graduated from college. One just started seminary. The other one's going to go into seminary soon. In fact, he just filled out his application day before yesterday to start the seminary. So, we've had four kids, and we've been able to rear them and praise the Lord by His grace. They're following the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives. But we reared them not to stay in our home. We reared them to leave. We reared them to leave. It's really key. Most parents really don't do that anymore. In fact, they act as if their kids are going to be there forever. Now, for several years, almost 25 years, I pastored back in the Midwest. I remember going to a pastor's meeting one day and there was about, oh, I don't know, 20 some pastors standing around a group just talking about things. And all of a sudden, everybody began to realize that Each one of the churches that those pastors represented, there were divorces occurring in all these churches. People have been a part of the church for years, but they've been married about 25, maybe 25, 30 years, and all of a sudden this couple's making an announcement that they're getting a divorce, and we're all going, what is going on? And then the discussion went on a little bit further, and we began to discover that a lot of those homes were homeschooled Homes. Now, we homeschooled our kids for several years. We think homeschooling is a great thing. They also spent a few years in public school, and they also spent a few years in Christian school. So, I got a little bit of everything. My back, okay? Background. But we're not opposed to homeschooling. But one thing we discovered is that those homeschooling homes began to build their entire home around the kids, not around their relationships. Mom, the whole center of her life is the education of those kids. It's not her husband any longer. And if you do that, you do that in your home, you are sowing seeds of future destruction. Because once the kids do grow up and they're going to leave, you can't hold on to them. They're going to leave and they're gone. Then mom and dad are going to look at each other and they're going to say to each other, well, we did our job. Nice knowing you. No. All right, we've married off two daughters. We've got two sons that we're looking to marry off soon. And when the last one gets married, I'm going to chase Janie around the house, okay? When that happens. We raise them to leave. Now, I don't love my kids any less than you do. But they're on their way out. You know, you heard that old song years ago, this world is not my home, I'm just a passing through. Well, you can sing then about our house. This house is not your home, you're just a passing through. Alright? Your treasures are laid up with somebody new. You build your home and your marriage around kids, and you're sowing the seeds of its destruction. And yet, that's the way America is built. Kids first. They advertise it and they drill it into our heads. Kids first. No, no, no, no. Spouse first. Kids second. Spouse first. kid second, that has to be. You say, well, that hasn't been true in my home. Well, nothing like tonight to begin to change. If you haven't been doing that, then you have to turn all your negative emotions upon that and say, that's where I'm sitting. I'm sitting. Don't look at your spouse. I know you came here to fix them. I know that. I know how that goes. I've done enough of these conferences and talked with them. You came here to fix them, but I'm really working on you. And you have to turn all of your negative emotions, every bit of them, upon that and say, no, that's wrong. That's ungodly. This is not what God intended from the beginning. A man should leave his father and mother and claim to his wife. And that's the primary relationship. That's the key thing. So it says, in essence, that the husband-wife relationship is the permanent relationship that God has intended from beginning to end. Once it starts, when you say, I do, then it's intended to be permanent. And you'll notice here, then he not only says, must the young man leave his father and mother, but he says, They need to cleave together. In fact, the word that's used there is to weld together, which is the basis of a commitment. It means to weld together. I'm sure back in ancient times, they would have had superglue. It meant superglue them together. You ever get superglue on your hands and try to pull apart and pull some skin with it? Well, that's exactly what should happen. A husband and wife are superglued together. This means that the basis of that marriage is a commitment they made before God. It's not some kind of romantic notion of love. What? Wait a minute. Will you say that again? That means the basis of that relationship is a commitment that they made before God, and it's not some kind of romantic sense of love. The Bible doesn't say, leave in love. The Bible doesn't say, leave and be infatuated by. The Bible doesn't say, leave and enter an intense romantic relationship with. The Bible says, leave and cleave. Say, well that's not what my chick flicks say. Well, it may not be. It's not what my romance novels say. Aren't you supposed to have the little flutter things that happen on the inside? Isn't that what's supposed to happen? Well, it's nice that those things are there, but that's not the base of your relationship. And if it is, your marriage is in trouble. Because if your marriage is built upon the fleeting, vacillating feelings of human emotions, you know as well as I do, those change, right? Let's change. I mean, gentlemen, you remember the first time you saw her without makeup? After you're married, they never let you see them without makeup before. It was after marriage. You rolled over in bed and you go, ah! All right, all the makeup's worn off. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Ladies, you remember the first time you rolled over in bed and there he is snoring? And that sound would stop a freight train. And you say, All those mushy, warm feelings are gone. And you think to yourself, what did I do? I've ruined my life. Feelings vacillate. You know that. Some days you have really good days, some days you have bad days, and they just go up and down and up and down and up and down. And if you, and most marriages do, they're built upon these vacillating feelings. Where you wake up one day and you say, well, I guess we're not in love anymore because I just don't feel like it. Really. The Bible doesn't say leave and enter an intense romantic relationship. The Bible says leave and cleave. Be welded together. May I suggest to you that the most intense, meaningful feelings come from that commitment over the years. I love my wife a hundred times more than I did when we were first married. And I thought I loved her a lot then. Over the years, it comes through commitment. Remaining faithful to each other through the good and bad times. And that relationship has a history. A good history. Believe, plead, last of all. Boy, there's so much I want to say about that. Be one flesh. Now, this is much more than just the physical relationship and marriage. We will talk about that tomorrow, but this is much more than that. This means oneness in every sense of the word. Physical, yes, but in your view of parenting, in your view of finances, in the way that you view the Word of God and talk about the Word of God, it becomes one in every sense of the term. To the point where some of you have seen Christian couples who have been married for several years, they even start to look alike. You ever see them? One of them starts to say this, the other one finishes it. You go, how do they do that? They start to look at that. Now the world looks at that and says, oh my goodness, it's horrible. They've lost their individual identity in this somehow mishmash of this relationship. And the Bible says, boy, that's a really good thing. That's a really good thing. They so view things as one. Now, I'm sure that there are some areas that my wife and I don't see eye to eye on. I don't know what those are, because as the years go by, we seem to view things more and more exactly the same way. Exactly the same way. And we talk about a lot of stuff. We just view things the same way. We eat the same things. She can order all my food for me and she knows exactly what I like, what I dislike. She knows that. You see this outfit? She picked it out. I didn't. You wouldn't want to see what I picked out. Okay? She picked it out. She says, you're not going to stand up there in front of people with that outfit on. She does that. And that's the way a marriage should work. So there is this becoming one, one flesh. Let me share with you a story, first year of marriage. Our first year of marriage, we lived in this little teeny apartment. Winter was coming on and it ended up being one of the worst winters they ever had for decades. And in fact, I remember in that particular winter, The snow was so deep it came halfway up our front window. That's how deep it was. We had literally corridors through the snow and they were delivering milk to homes in half tracks that winter. It was so bad. So during that particular time, I needed a winter coat. And so I saw one at a store, and I happened to have enough money. And actually, the coat cost $100, but it was a half-price sale for 50 bucks. And back in those days, in the early 1970s, that was a pretty nice coat. So I had 50 bucks on me. Since we've had kids, I've never had 50 bucks on me since then. But at that time, I had 50 bucks on me, and I went ahead and bought the coat and took it home. Janie and Janie was working in the back room, and I remember bouncing in the house and, hey, sweetie, come here. Got to show you something I got. She says, what? She came out. Did you know I need the winter coat? Yeah. Well, look, I pulled the thing out. She goes, wow, nice. How much you pay for that thing? I said, 50 bucks. Half price. I was so proud of myself. She goes, oh, hmm. She turned around, walked the back room. What just happened here? She didn't really act as excited as I thought she was going to be. Well, because she had designs on that money. I mean, they weren't very important. She wanted to pay the rent with it. And, you know, and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I viewed those dollars as mine, not ours. I still fought like a single guy. I didn't think as one. Now, when I was a single guy, if I had some money on me, I'd just buy something and skip a few meals and, you know, make up for it later. But now that I'm married, I can't do that. Uh-oh. How are we going to pay for the electric bill? How are we going to pay for the rent? Well, we can live in my coat. Now, when you're first married, that's not too bad. But that gets old really quick. No, that's not going to work. And all of a sudden it dawned on me. I thought about that money. As mine, I still fought like a single guy. I didn't think as one. And there are many ways that we do that. You know, there have been guys that have been married and girls who have been married for 25 years, they still do that. It's my money. No, it's not. Not if you're married. It's ours. It's not yours. It's ours. Why did you get married? If you're just going to keep this little thing off to the side, why did you do that? So you make it easy in case things get really bad to split the resources. Is that the reason why? When you should be going the opposite direction, you should be making it hard to split up. Not easy. That tells me you're thinking about splitting up before you even split up. No. And that's what you're thinking. You've got to learn to hate that. I hate that about myself, that sin. I need to repent of that before God. Be one. Therefore, a young man shall leave his father and mother, shall cleave unto his wife, and the two shall be one. One flesh. Let's bow for prayer. Gracious Father, we thank you for your love and your grace. We're going to talk more about that tomorrow. But we certainly have a better understanding of how and why you created marriage. And from that standard, we're able to tell a lot about where we have gone wrong. why we have the problems that we have. And it starts with me. It starts with me as a husband. It starts with me as a wife. Rather than casting the critical eye upon my spouse, I pray that you'll help me to identify what's wrong in my life Learn to hate it as sinful, as ungodly and evil, and something that has been corrosive to the unity of our marriage. Repent, change, and adopt the opposite attitude. I pray for each man or woman that's here. Father, I pray for their marriages. I know that a crowd this size, There's represented a lot of stories out there, a lot of heartache too. I may not know what those are, but I know you know, and I pray that as a result of what happens this weekend, this will begin a process, a radical process of healing so that Christ is honored in each one of these marriages. This we ask. in our Lord's most precious name. Amen.