Wow, that's quick. OK, again, I would like to welcome you to the annual Steve Wilkins family camp in lovely Northern California. This is your third time, right? Third time. So either like him or is the only one to keep saying yes. Glad this is the last time. This is different though. You actually brought a family member with you. So this is new. Kind of changing things up a little bit. So we are pleased to have Pastor Wilkins again for family camp. We've been blessed with his last two visits and his messages. So with no further ado, please come up, sir. It is really, really nice to be back in the true California. You know, Northern California is the real one. The other one's fake, you know, the fake Southern California. Thank you for the invitation. Thanks for coming. And I appreciate your willingness to endure this again. You know, it's really, it's commendable, and I thank you for it. Pastor Stoos, when he asked me, I think a year ago or so, he said, why don't you speak on marriage? And I thought, no, I don't really want to do that. I think something maybe the Trinity and culture and things like that. And so he said, oh, OK, do what you want. And then the longer I thought about it, the longer I thought about it, I thought, you know. And also going through a year and again seeing what's going on in our country And in the churches, I thought, you know, I think Pastor Seuss was wiser than I am. I think it probably is best to go over marriage again. And I know, at least I'm not writing a book about it, you know, there are 400,000. 400,000 books on marriage. And I know, and I hope it doesn't distress you too much to hear that I actually did decide to go back to this topic, because I sometimes feel like, boy, we've heard this so much, everybody just goes into a zombie state when they hear that's what's going to be talked about. But the reality is, this is something, and I think Luther said, There's no state to which Satan is more opposed than marriage. Now, Satan, I would say Satan's, there's no institution that Satan is more opposed to than the church. The church is central. But you see, in a way, when you say the church, you're also talking about marriage there because of obviously what marriage points to. And so, I think this is correct. The way that Satan gets to the church, and many times, probably most of the time, and the way he destroys the church is through marriage. That's kind of the doorway where things start getting messed up and it really causes ramifications throughout the church. I don't have to tell you that. I mean, I don't know. I don't know anything about what's going on in your church other than the good things I hear. So I don't know, you know, Pastor Seuss hadn't given me all the skeletal butt and stuff, so I'm really totally ignorant. If I say something that sounds like something that you did, I promise you it is not true. I didn't know that. It's purely the Lord convicting you, speaking through this ignorant child, you know, in front of you. No, I don't know anything bad, but I just know what's going on in the churches. And we see it, of course, in our congregation in Monroe, where this is just a constant battle. Satan wants to get us, and one of the easy places to get us is to get us in marriage. And you see that in the culture, don't you? I mean, we're reaping the fruits of now, what, 40 years of terrible lies about marriage and male-female roles and all the things that go with that sexual morality and immorality. All those things. We're now seeing some of the wreckage of that, and some of that wreckage is drifting into our congregations. And I really do expect, as the Lord continues to bless us, We're going to see more and more people that have been damaged and sometimes damaged severely because of the lies that have been spread about marriage, family, gender roles, homosexuality. All these things are going to come in. We're already seeing it. I think there's going to be a flood of that. And what that means is we're going to be put in the position of repairing the ruins and and some of the disasters that have happened, and we're going to put our shoulders to this and try to help out some of these people that God calls to himself now, and they've become our brothers and sisters and part of our family, and we've got to help them. And it's not going to be easy. And of course, that means that Satan is going to have a bigger target on our backs than we have now. And I think, frankly, the CREC has a huge target on its back. And I mean that as a great compliment. I could not be happier about that. Honestly, we get hammered from every side a lot of times, many times completely without any basis in fact. But that tells you that we are doing, I think, something that's significant. And it's not because we're great. I mean, Pastor Susan and I both know we've got all kinds of weaknesses and we know our brothers and they've got all kinds of weaknesses. We're thankful for this, but it is truly God's grace. But we're having an impact in the country, and I think it's going to grow. But again, you see, what that means is Satan is going to focus on you to try to mess you up. And he's going to stir up trouble, and just be ready for it, and never be afraid of it, and never be fearful that this is going to happen. Be thankful when this happens, and be thankful that we have a target. Be thankful that people go out of their way and say things that are not true about us. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Leap for joy, for that tells you that we actually might be accomplishing something for the kingdom. But that means that we need to hear stuff over and over again. I'm not going to say anything new. Pastor Seuss has said this, I know, a hundred times. And so I can't promise you anything new. You know how good it is sometimes to hear things for the one thousandth and one time, because you've heard them a thousand times, but it's that thousand and one that all of a sudden kind of breaks through. And I'm hoping maybe that if there are places where we need to be reminded, you need to be reminded, and I, about what we are called to do in our marriages, that the Lord will help us in this one thousand and one time. of hearing these things. I wanted to read just a brief section of a familiar passage, but it really would be a shocking passage if it wasn't so familiar to us. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church, for we are members of his body. of his flesh and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church." Amen. Lord, help us to understand these things. This is amazing. Help us to see the glory of it. For Jesus' sake, amen. It's astonishing, really, what Paul does here. He's talking about marriage and tells wives, this is what y'all do, and husbands, this is what y'all do. And he says, now the reason I'm telling you this is because I want you to know about the church. I want you to know about what Jesus has done. I want you to know that you are members of His flesh and of His bones. You're not just people who profess to believe certain things. You have become members of the body of Jesus. And I can tell you, just as a husband becomes one with his wife, so you have become one with Jesus, and you need to understand that. And if you don't love your wife, you don't understand what loving Jesus means. If you don't love your wife, you don't understand what it means for God to love you. And this is so central to everything Paul just says. I give up if you don't see this. then you don't understand anything. You can't understand the church if you don't understand your own marriage. Marriage is central to life and to the gospel. And that's what, that's the first thing I want us to see. Paul says this is a great mystery. He's not saying this is like an Agatha Christie novel, you know, or something that Sherlock Holmes has to go and figure out for us. When the word mystery is used in the New Testament, It means something that's been hidden but is now revealed through the coming and the work of Jesus. Something that we didn't understand, now we can understand because Jesus has come and he has obeyed his Father, he has laid down his life, he has spent three days in the tomb and then been resurrected and he's ascended into heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father and he's poured out his Spirit. Now, all that together, we now can understand this. What was true all along now has been revealed in Jesus. And Paul here is, of course, as I mentioned, talking about marriage. That's why he goes into this reminding wives to submit to husbands and husbands to love their wives as their own bodies. It's very important emphasis there. You've got to love your wife as your own body because she is. And that's the point that Jesus loves you because you're his body. You are members of his body. You are of his flesh and of his bones. And Paul is speaking, of course, about Genesis 2. He's using all these phrases out of Genesis 2. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, he said, but it's talking about Jesus and the church. And you want to say, oh, Paul, no, he's talking about Adam and Eve. And Paul says, no, read your Bible. Right. And you're driving me crazy. Read your Bible. Here's a man who is put to death in a way, in a death-like sleep, and his side is pierced and taken out. And he gets a bride as a result. Read the Bible. What's that talking about? It's Jesus, who gave himself, and his side was pierced. He died. And out of that, his bride was born. He said, don't you have eyes? Can't you read the Bible right? And I'm sitting there going, what? No, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't deceive him, but I feel like an idiot. But that's the way he reads the Bible, and that's the way we've got to read the Bible, you see? And that's not spiritualizing the text or some goofy thing. That's just reading the Bible. Because Paul says, you understand that the most important thing about marriage is its symbolism. We think, oh, symbolism, that's just so, I mean, it's fun, it's nice, it's interesting, but that's really secondary to the reality. Paul says, no, it is the reality. The most important thing about you is that you're a symbol of God. You're made after his image. You reflect him. When I look at you, I ought to see what God is like. That's the most important thing about you. And that's why it's so terrible that we sin, because then I'm not declaring the message that I ought to declare with my life. Marriage is a great mystery that has now been revealed in Jesus and the Church. The relationship that Jesus bears to the Church is what marriage should teach us about. So the marriage of men and women, and in particular the marriage of the Son of God to his people, that's what we're talking about. So, I want you to think with me for a few minutes about how this works out. Marriage, we can say, is central to understanding God's purposes in the earth. The idea of marriage is foundational to God's purpose, of course, because we are told, before the foundation of the world, God planned a marriage. Right? He chose a multitude and omega number to be the bride or his son. That's his purpose. And so the whole of history is God sending his spirit as the great helper of God's people, the one who brings people together. He sends his spirit into the world to woo and to win this bride for his son. Some have said that the whole of the Bible can be summed up in this one line, boy meets girl. That's the story. Boy meets girl. That's what it's all about. That's why you see Adam and all of a sudden God does something to him, takes away his side and makes this, builds this woman for him and brings it back. Adam goes, unbelievable. And we're all there in this water, we garden and boy meet girl. And then, then you have, then you have Abram, you have Abram's servant going off into Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac at a water place. Doing the same thing. woman back and you have Jacob going off to Patanaram to find a girl at a watering place because it's kind of like you've got to replicate this whole story at the waters. That's where this all works out. And Moses flees to Midian and finds a woman at the watering hole. Because that's where you find women, at the watering hole. Boy meets girl is the story. You know, I've often said to guys, that story of the servant, Abraham's servant going to find a wife for Isaac, he says, Lord, I want the one who will draw water for my camels. That's the one. And I say, you know, if you can find a girl that will draw water for your camels, don't let her go. I mean, hang on to that woman. That's a good woman. Because camels can drink a lot of water. I mean, a lot of water. The servant knew what he was doing there. Okay, anyway, God plans a marriage. The Father determines to give a bride to His Son. So marriage points us to the glorious reality of Jesus' redemptive work and the purpose of God in sending His Son. It's central to all of life. It's the central theme of history. It forms the foundation of the Church and becomes the life-giving fountainhead of all society. And God works His gracious purposes in and through marriages. And his people, his church, his bride, the bride of his son. And so since the dominant theme of history is the marriage of the bride to the land that teaches us the centrality of the church. So now I can get to the topic I really thought was better. But in fact, this points to that very point that he's Paul says he put all things under his feet and it's under Jesus feet and gave Jesus to be the head over all things to the church. So now the church becomes, in Jesus, the head over all things. The church is central to history. It's the most important institution in that sense. And marriage, of course, is integral to this. So the church then becomes the place where life is found and it's experienced. Only in the bride can man find love and acceptance with God. It's in Jesus that we are the beloved, right? That's what Paul over and over teaches us. Only in the bride can we find acceptance with God. The bride of Jesus is the instrument through whom God brings his purposes of salvation to pass. So marriage is central to God's purposes. But also marriage is central to understanding the nature and destiny of man. Man is created after the image of God. He's created to look like God, to live like God, to act like God, to be like God. That's what being godly and godliness or godlikeness means. But remember, when God created man, the God who created man is not a unitary being. He's not a solitary monad. He's a tri-person being. He's three in one. He's not an isolated person. He's not three persons isolated and unrelated to each other. He's not three gods. He is three persons. One God. Three persons who live together in holy communion. In a holy communion of love. So the Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit loves the Father and the Son. The Father seeks to glorify the Son. The Son says, no, I want to glorify you. And the Spirit says, I'm glorifying both of you. So that you learn, you're created after that God's image. So how are you to live? Same way. You give up yourself to love others. You give up yourself to enrich others. You give up yourself to glorify others. To honor others. That's how we are to be. God can't be adequately revealed and His image can't be adequately displayed in isolated individuals, you see. It demands that man live in communion with others. And that's why God said it's not good for man to be alone. Why? Because man's my image bearer, and if he's alone, he's not an image bearer. He's not imaging me, because I'm not alone. I live in a holy, joyful communion. And man has to be in a loving, joyful, fruitful relationship with one another, or he's not really displaying my image. So it's not good for man to be alone. In fact, we would go on to say, as the Bible would teach us, it's impossible for man in isolation from his fellows truly and fully to show forth the image of God. His life must image the life of God, and thus he must live in holy communion, the holy, joyful, loving, sacrificial communion with others. He must have communion with other men in his family, in the society, and preeminently in the church, the family of God, the body of Jesus, if he is to glorify the triune God, who is in himself a holy communion, a community of love and fellowship. So the first and in a way the fundamental form of human community is the male-female bond. Man must have someone with whom He can commune, who will enable him to be fruitful, and who will teach him how to love like God loves. You know, when you live by yourself, it's easy to start feeling like you're really, really holy. And sacrificial. And just the most selfless person in the history of the world. Any woman would be so happy to have me. Now, shameful as it is, I thought that. And then I got married and backslid like you wouldn't believe. You know, it wasn't three weeks before I'm acting like this selfish pig. Oh, it was awful. What she did to me was terrible. Ruined my sanctification. And you see, the truth is, when you're all by yourself, you can look really good. It's only when you're called upon to give up your life for somebody else. And to bear with someone who aggravates you and not, you know, beat them within an inch of their lives and all that. You've got to bear with them, be kind and merciful when they're not. You've got to continue to love when they don't. Because you've got to be like God. And that's how God is. And you've got to be patient. And we don't like that. And we love God being patient with us. But if that woman gets out of the way, I tell you, I'll show you patience in a minute. Now that's, but you see, so God has to put you with someone to teach you that you've got a long way to go if you're going to be like him. And just as soon as you start kind of working things out, you know, where you're kind of living happily together, then God gives you a baby. Because you've got to be like him. You've got to learn to love a bunch of people that are not like you. Maybe more like you than you like. But this is all for the purpose of making you like him, so that it's not good for you to be alone. And you can think highly of yourself when you're alone. And so you've got to live in a fruit, you've got to be fruitful, you've got to multiply, and you can't do that by yourself. You can't do that until you give up your life and are willing to die. And then you can live because that's the pattern of history. What happens after we die? We're raised again. So we're not afraid of dying. In fact, when we understand it, we willingly give up ourselves. Just like Jesus did. Because he knew the purpose, here's the way God works is, the only way to live is by dying. The only way to get rich is give it all away. The only way to be famous is to humble yourself, deny yourself, and seek to make others rich and famous. That's how God works, and we've got to learn that, and we learn that by living in a bond, a communion that is bound together that you can't get out of. You vow to be loyal till death. You have to be loyal like God. Jesus says, I will never leave you or forsake you. We say the same thing in our marriage ceremonies. And we say that because we are to be like him. And we have to mean it because he means it. He's not lying when he said that. He hasn't left you yet. You may feel like he has sometimes, but he hasn't. He hasn't left you. He's faithful to his word and that's the way we have to learn to be and we have to understand that's what we're committing to and it is a big deal if you don't keep that commitment. So God gives Adam a companion so that he won't be alone. You could say, well was Adam really alone? I mean after all he had fellowship with God and he did. He wasn't technically absolutely alone because God was with it. He had innovative communion with God as his companion. But when God says that, what that tells you is that he's declaring that his fellowship with Adam is insufficient for Adam. And why would he say that? Well, because his presence is not always going to be the same. He's not going to manifest his presence to the same degree to Adam all the time. There are going to be times when he withdraws and, in a sense, is absent. He wasn't absolutely absent, because God is everywhere, so we can't ever get out of his presence in an absolute sense, but he wasn't going to reveal himself all the time to the same degree. So that on the sixth day, after he creates Adam and Eve, and they're happy together, he brings them together, and Adam is excited, she's excited, they're before him naked and unashamed, he withdraws and leaves them. for their time together. And then on the next day, when they sin, He comes. You see, the fact that they hear the sound of the Lord coming tells you that there was a sense in which He wasn't there, and He's now coming to be with them, which terrifies them, because they have sinned against Him. But that tells you what I'm talking about, that sometimes God's presence is not manifested fully in every place all the time. Now, this is why we can say on Sundays when we gather for worship that God is present with us in a way that he is not present with us through the rest of the week. That's true. I mean, he is present with us all times in one sense, but he's not present with us in the same way that he is on Sundays. Because on Sundays, we get to hear his voice as the word is read publicly and explained by the man that God has called and equipped and placed before us to be his spokesman. And we hear his voice, and that's why we sometimes, a pastor will say things that you know he couldn't have known ahead of time, but you start being suspicious that somebody might have slipped him a note or something. But he'll say something, and it just is exactly what happened at home that no way he could have known. And it's just scary. But what that tells you is, preaching is really Jesus interacting with you. Even though it just looks like, you know, the old guy up front giving us his lecture again. It's more than that. Because we know that if that guy is faithful, and he's been called, and he's been equipped by Jesus to explain the Word, Jesus speaks through him. Not that everything he says is infallible. But Jesus speaks through him in ways that you don't have Jesus speaking to you throughout the week. And we see the Spirit working on Sunday in ways we don't see. We see baptism. We see the Lord suffer. That's the Spirit's work. It's visible. And I know that's the spirit working. I can't see him most of the time. But on Sundays, I see him. I see him work. Because baptism is his work and he is working. And that's the special presence of God that we don't have all the time. Now, since we can extend this, you see, God doesn't reveal himself to us now in history like he will at the last day, right? At the last day, the veil that exists between heaven and earth will be removed. Heaven and earth come together in its fullness, and we see Jesus face to face. That's a revelation we haven't had up to this point. We see Him in the Word. We see Him by faith. It's a real revelation of Him. It's a real communion with Him. I'm not minimizing that, but it's not the same as it will be one day. We will see Him, Paul says, as He is. And so that's a step forward in Revelation. So God is not, doesn't reveal himself to us at this particular point in history like he will later on. This is the way it is. So I'm not saying anything out of the, you know, far out or weird. But until that day, we don't have the same kind of access and fellowship with God that we will have after the resurrection. Right? So that's what we're talking about. Now that means then that there are times when God is absent from us in the sense times when he withdraws his special presence, times when we can be said to be apart from him and alone. Not absolutely, but relatively. And in those times, we need other companions. We need other people who image God. We need, and this need is commonly met through marriage and through the families. And if I'm not married, it'll be through the church, the family of God. And that's why celibacy, though it's a lawful calling, it is a rare calling. And I want to encourage guys, especially if you're not married, don't jump to the conclusion, I must be celibate. I must have the gift of being single. Well, maybe, but that's yet to be seen. Most guys I've seen say that are also sitting at home all the time hoping the girl calls him up and asks him out. And if she does, say no, that's the wrong kind of girl for you. You are supposed to go out. I don't want that kind of girl calling you. Don't marry that kind of girl. City girl, don't do that. No, you're supposed to go out and go after her. And if you go after 550,000 girls and they all say no, you can kind of say, well, I guess maybe. when you're 98, I guess I have the gift of celibacy. No, it's a lawful calling, but it is really rare. Normally, you need a companion, a companion you're bound with, that you're legally bound to, that you're bound to covenantally, to be loyal to, someone specific. And of course, if that doesn't happen, you should not ever allow yourself to be alone. You join yourself to families and to the family, so that I may not have a wife, but I've got all kinds of fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children. I've got a big family. And I have to learn to love them. And I'm going to learn to be like God by loving all these people that have become my family by grace. That's the way we're to live. You're not to be single in the sense of being isolated. Never allow yourself to be alone. You're members of the family. Act like it. Be with us. Come be with us and join in. because you have obligations to us as we do to you. Don't be satisfied by sitting alone at home. And further, just as God's love couldn't be contained, but it overflowed in the creation of the world of men. You see, God is love, which means that the Father is loving the Son, the Son is loving the Father, the Spirit is loving the Father, the Son, and all this love is just overflowing. And Jonathan Edwards says, it overflows in the creation of the world. God couldn't contain it within himself because love always seeks greater and greater objects of its affections. And he said God had to create because he's love. He couldn't be satisfied with the perfect communion between Father, Son and Spirit. He had to have, he had to make his circle of his love wider and wider and wider so that he embraces creation and he embraces the whole of creation within the bounds and the circle of his love. And his love continues to make things fruitful and lively and more joyful and more full of blessedness. And so too, you see, marriage is to follow God's lead. The man and the woman are to be fruitful, to increase in number. They're to be fruitful and multiply. And so husband and wife, as God's image bearers, are covenanted together. And like the persons of the Godhead, that means that their love will overflow outward in the procreation of their own images, their children. And again, the analogy is not perfect, but it is an analogy, but it's a God-ordained analogy. It's just as it's not good for man to be alone, so it's not good for a husband and wife to be alone. And this tells you that if God doesn't give you children, you go out and in a sense, well, you could literally adopt them, but you go out into the church and you say, I've got to, I got to start helping out others with our children here, because remember in baptism, we vow to help one another rear this child. in the Christian faith, and so you're obligated to the children of the congregation, but they are yours as well. You see, in a very real sense, if God doesn't give me and my wife children, then I realize, oh, so he wants me to go out and take all the urchins and help them all. all the ones I want to stay away from. I got to go out there and help them. Yep, that's it. You got to go help the rest of us out with all of our adorables, you know. You got to help us. Our adorables need you. So it's not good. You need to serve others and not just yourself. And so you focus on assisting with the rearing of the children of God's people. And just as man, it's not good for man to be alone. It's not good for husband and wife to be alone. It's not good for a family to be alone. And we got some of our brothers and sisters think, yeah, I just, you know, what I want to do is find a place that's about a thousand miles away from you. and all human beings and get out there with me and my family and we'll just have this wonderful little garden of Eden and we won't be corrupted by you and your children and all those wicked things that you allow in your house and all that and they think they can be perfect and that's a disaster and I don't mean having your own place in a remote area is bad that's not what I'm talking about but I'm saying if you really are serious about being isolated You're making a serious mistake. You're believing a lie of Satan that it's good for you to be alone. It isn't. It's not. It never has been. Because glorifying God requires more than you, more than you and your wife, and more than you and your wife and your children. It requires a lot of families. If we're going to see the earth be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, you can't do it by yourself. And you better not think you can. Your family's not equipped for that. And it never will be, because God doesn't want your family thinking it's self-sufficient, because no family is self-sufficient. Every family needs to be joined together in covenant, bound together in a loyal bond with others that are not like them, that are not always blood-related to them, that are not always of the same ethnic culture with them. You need to be with others. That's why God's created us all. He didn't create us all different. He didn't create us all like you or like me. And that's a very good thing. Because we need one another. We need that in order to do what God has called us to do. And that's why we have so much, all the things that we have. You see, if it wasn't for other families, for other men, for other women, for other people's children, Maybe for children who lived centuries ago, you wouldn't have the joy and the pleasure and the conveniences that we enjoy today if it hadn't been for them. You didn't invent it all. And thank God that I'm not the one charged with inventing things. We'd still be figuring out, what are these sticks for? I can't figure out what else to do but beat them together. Man, I'm stupid. But the point is, God has created people who are brilliant. They look at the world and say, you know what I can do with that? I can make something really beautiful with that. And I go, make it brother. I sure do like pretty things and I can't make it up one. So I need you to help me. That's the way it works. And we've got to understand that. That's the foundation for loving one another, esteeming one another highly in love. Because when we see that guy fix that car, like he did in an hour, I want to bow down and chant his name. Magic man, what are you like? How do you do that? Oh? when you see a guy paint a picture or build a building or You know repair a light switch. I don't care what it is It's just amazing to me, and I'm thankful for that, but that's the way we've got to realize that there are people doing things in this world that we couldn't do and And you know, really sometimes they're not even interested in doing it, but they are. And because they are, everything is better for us. Marriage is central to understanding that. And then marriage is central to understanding redemption, of course. After God created Adam, he made him aware of his need for a companion by bringing all the animals to him to name them. And one of the things that Adam learns is, that everybody, every male has a female, but he is out of sync with creation. He doesn't. He doesn't see his counterpart as he goes through all of the species of animals. And so having made Adam aware of his need and his incompleteness, God causes a deep sleep to fall upon him. That's that death-like sleep. And he takes a portion of his side, not just a rib, but his side is the idea that's the word used to describe the side of a mountain or the side of a building or the side of the temple. He takes his side out and builds, and the word is build there, not just form, but he builds a woman for Adam. And Eve then is literally bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. And Adam is to love her as his own flesh because she is his own flesh. And when God brings her to Adam, he makes Adam whole again. Adam is completed. He's this half guy, half man, until he gets his wife and then he becomes whole and he begins, he's able then to live like he ought to. He is able to be what God has commanded him to be. There is then this union between the man and the wife that Paul says it's a great mystery but it's very real. Mysteries are always real, they're not imaginary. Again, we have to see the analogy with marriage to the bride of the Lamb. That's what this all points to. The first earthly bride signifies the glorious reality that would hold for all the redeemed. Eve was the body of Adam. The Church is the body of Christ. Eve was formed by piercing the body of Adam. And while Adam slept a death-like sleep, goes through a death-like experience. In the same way, the bride was purchased by the piercing of the side of Christ, which signified his death, which purchased the church and builds the church. And the first Adam had a bride chosen and created for him by his father, by God, from his own body. The second Adam has the same, and the bride is his body as well. And as God led the woman to the man, so the spirit brings the bride to Jesus. He built the bride for the first Adam, so he builds the bride for the second Adam. He builds up his church. And that whole idea of building brings in the concept of a city, which of course is the way the Bible speaks about the bride of the Lamb in Revelation chapter 21 and 22. That city that comes down out of heaven is not heaven. The streets of gold, the pearly gates, you know those. I'll fly away. That's the church. That's not heaven. What's paved with gold? The church. What's got the pearly gates? The church. It's the city that came down out of heaven that is planted on the top of a hill that shines throughout. It's the city set on a hill. And all the nations of the earth bring their riches into it. That's the church. In fact, God says, John, come over here. I'm going to show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. And John says, and then I saw this city coming down out of heaven. Where do we get that the pearly gates are heaven? Because we don't read the Bible. We just listen to Fanny Crosby's hymns or something. You sing bad hymns, you become a heretic. That's why you sing the Psalms, you know, that's why you do it. You don't want to be that wrong. That's embarrassing. No, you see, he's built the city and the city that has foundations is the church. And that's all the more glorious because now you realize the reality of where we are. It looks poor and needy and we're limping along and we're banging our heads in the walls and sometimes we act real goofy and all the rest, but it is the glorious city of God. And the light of that city is the lamb, says John as he sees it and describes it in Revelation 21. So every marriage is a picture of the redemptive work of Jesus. As men leave their fathers and home, so Jesus willingly left his father's home. And as men cleave to their wives, so Jesus cleaves to his bride and promises never to leave her or forsake her. And he joins himself to her and becomes one with her. And this is what Paul points to in Ephesians 5. No one ever hated his own flesh, he says, but nourishes and cherishes it just like the Lord does the church. You see what marriage is to teach you? It's to teach you about the love of Jesus for his bride. And we are, for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. And for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two should become one flesh. You notice how he uses the language of Adam and in Genesis to describe the relationship that exists between Jesus and the church. He's pointing to the fact that we're to learn from marriage, not merely the beauty and blessedness of love or of the covenant union of a man and a woman. but the glory that the love of Jesus, loving sinners and taking them to himself and giving himself to them for all eternity. That's what you're to learn from marriage. All the love and joy that exists in a human union pictures, in a very imperfect way, but a very real way, the blessedness that exists between Jesus and his church. So marriage is to remind us first and foremost of the great mercies of the infinite love of God. The earthly is the picture of the heavenly. And it's in this glorious context that God would have us think about marriage. It's in this light, the light of this glorious reality, that we see the preeminent importance of marriage. Every marriage is inescapably connected with the gospel. and God's purposes in history. Every marriage declares to the world the relationship that exists between Jesus and his bride. Faithful marriages play a vital role in the Great Commission. Now you can see this practically so because what will happen when you begin to love one another, your home becomes this garden that everybody wants to come to and enjoy and just to bask in a place where there are people who really do give themselves to one another because the world is more and more becoming this very cruel and heartless place where everybody is out for themselves. And so guys will promise girls anything until the time comes when they have to step up and give something. And then they run. So we have all these women out here with babies. And daddy's not in sight. Because daddy decided, I don't want a baby. I'm not going to stand there with you. And these people now need to know, because they're all saying, boy, this is, why am I alive? Why am I living? What's the purpose of life? There's no meaning to this. Why should I just live around, just waiting for somebody to betray me? They need to have a place where they can go and learn about love. And that place is your home. Many times. And the church, of course. And that's why the church becomes this place where it's a place of real refuge for the people that have been mugged by Satan and his lies. And we have to have it. But your marriage is central to that. And you seriously giving yourself to your husband and to your wife is central to this work of the Great Commission that we're going to have to get into up to our necks in the next decade and really in the next 50 years to recover from the damage that's been caused. People need to see the gospel displayed and acted out in the love and faithfulness that exists between husbands and wives and between church members in the church. So this is why we can see, we understand more fully why it's legitimate for men, people who are not married to seek to be married. For single women to desire to be married and to want it and pray for it and for men to seek out wives. And that's what God does. You do the same. That's what you're to do. We can see why divorce is hated by God. Unfaithfulness in marriage teaches the world that Jesus is unfaithful. And that's a lie. It blasphemes God. That's what it does. But that's what it's teaching. Which is why people who've gone through all this stuff, you start talking about Jesus, and they think, you know, I don't believe it. I don't see it. Because they haven't been shown it. By our lives. By our marriages. We see how wrong it is to have a sexual relationship outside of marriage. Marriage requires the death of self-centeredness. Lust is self-centered. You're not giving anything, you're taking. So sex comes, rightly, only in the context of sacrificial commitment and loyal bonding together. I've got to know that you are mine and I am yours. I've got to know that you are committed to me for life before we can have any kind of joy in sexual intimacy. Sexual intimacy outside of marriage mocks the love of Jesus for the church. You're blaspheming Jesus when you do that. It demonstrates the grotesque disdain of God's honor in his salvation and the gospel. It tramples on the purposes of God's love for the world. And that's why God says fornicators will not inherit the kingdom. They don't repent. No, because they blaspheme me by their lives. We see how destructive unfaithfulness in the marriage relationship really, really is. It's not merely injures you and hurts you and injures your mate and injures your children. It's a grievous sin against God. It perverts the gospel. It blasphemes Jesus. Every marriage preaches to the world about the relationship of Jesus and the church. So where there is an unfaithful wife who refuses to love her husband and honor him, there is the proclamation of the heresy that the church doesn't have to submit to Jesus and honor him. And the same is true with an unfaithful husband, of course. A man who commits adultery preaches the perverted lie that Jesus is an unfaithful husband who can't be trusted. A man who shirks his duty to teach his wife and lead her by his example teaches that Jesus is an unfaithful prophet The man who refuses to provide for his wife declares that Jesus is an unfaithful priest. He doesn't provide for us. He can't be trusted, and his provision is lacking. The man who abdicates his responsibility to sacrificially provide for and protect his family and his wife is saying that Christ is an unfaithful king. He may provide, but then again, he may not. And Paul says, if you teach that, you're worse than an infidel. Marriage is much more than meets the eye, in other words. It's much more than we see in our husbands and wives. You aren't just a married couple. You're a man and a woman joined in love for a purpose, and the purpose is to reveal the mystery of the love of Jesus for His people. It's the highest calling that you could ever have. And by the way you live together as husbands and wives, by the way those of you who are not married Respect marriage by keeping yourself pure before marriage. You proclaim the glory of the love of Jesus for his bride and the honor of the bride's love for her savior. It's one of the most powerful proclamations of the gospel that a perverted, immoral, licentious world can ever see or hear. And this is why marriage has always been and always will be under attack. This is why your marriage is in danger. And you can expect attacks. And you better be on your guard. Not like Adam, who sits back and waits to see what happens when his wife starts struggling with a lie. But step in and protect and defend your marriage. This is why Satan wants you to despise your own marriage and get bored with it. And be satisfied with what you know is not what God has called you to be as a husband or the relationship you're to have as a husband and a wife. But you get satisfied with it because you're not interested in sacrificing anymore. You can't do it. You can't allow that. Marriage, your marriage, is to be a powerful and glorious message to the world. And Satan wants to destroy it. And if he can successfully destroy or erode your marriage, then he is undermining. The reason why he attacks this is so that he can undermine the mystery of Jesus and his church. That's why he attacks us. Don't let it happen. Guard your marriage. If you're unmarried, keep yourself from sin. If you're married, love your wife, honor your husband, live faithfully, glorify God, live with joy. Let's pray. Father, help us. We need your help and your strength to defend ourselves against the wiles of the devil and the lies that he has spread throughout the world and that have affected our own thinking. Help us to think clearly and carefully to remember the love of Jesus and his persevering, fierce, jealous love for us so that we might be like him. Make us like him. Make us who are husbands to be faithful, zealous men, courageous men who will stand for our wives and with them and for the world and against all that injures and destroys. And help us help our wives to be faithful and loyal and devoted just as your church is to be to Jesus. Help us to be those who proclaim the glories of the gospel in our lives together. For Jesus' sake, amen.