What God Has joined together, Sermon 2 of 10
Foundation 2: Marriage Made in Heaven
Genesis 2:18
(Children's Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at bottom. Notes for young children to answer are throughout sermon)Please turn to Genesis 2:18. We are going to start with Genesis 2. From there, we are going to examine various other important passages in this foundational sermon. While you are turning to Genesis 2:18, I want to remind you that I am preaching a series that has the theme, "What God has Joined Together." Last week, in the first sermon, we covered the subject of singleness. In that sermon I laid the biblical foundation for the recognition that singleness is a gift from God. 1 Corinthians 7:7 (gift) with 1 Corinthians 7:17 (assignment) was our key passage base. In examining God's word, we found that we don't need to wonder whether someone has the gift of singleness. The liberating revelation that brings clarity to the status of all singles, is that everyone who is single is, in fact, abiding in their gift. In other words, God's word demonstrates to us that if you are single, you have the gift of singleness. We also touched upon the fact that marriage is a gift from God. In respect to singles who want to get married, we recognized that the gift of marriage is worthy to be sought after. This morning, we are going to continue to dig deeper into the vastly important Biblical principle of the gift aspect of marriage. This sermon is very significant. It is probably the most important one in this series. It is also different. What I mean is that it lays out the Biblical framework for a doctrine. As I preach this sermon, I want you to be seeking the Lord for the revelation to hit you in a profound way. When I first learned this revelation years ago, through the spotlight of God's word, my personal philosophical paradigms concerning this issue were shattered. It is my hope that a similar thing will happen to you too. Why? Because proper doctrine drives proper thoughts and actions. So I ask you to prayerfully prepare your heart to learn, along with me, in this sermon titled,
What God Has joined together, Sermon 2 of 10
"Foundation 2: Marriage Made in Heaven"
[prayer]
As we begin this morning, I want to ask you if you have ever heard someone say:
"There is a marriage that was made in heaven."
Maybe you have made this kind of comment yourself. I admit that it is becoming rarer to hear this cliche' being uttered in our age, but occasionally I'll still hear it, or read it. When someone makes this comment about a husband and wife, they are describing a marriage that is perceived to be exceptionally perfect. It makes sense to equate a perfect marriage with coming from a place of perfection, like heaven. It is poetically correct to associate exceptional marriages with being created from the place where the Perfect Creator would create the union. When we think about this figure of speech, wouldn't it be great if it was more than mere poetry? It would be nice to know whether there really are marriages that are actually made in heaven. It would be nice to know whether there really are perfect marriages. But as we consider these things, we must wonder:
If there really are marriages made in heaven, then what would we look for to identify them?
What exactly would a marriage made in heaven be?
This leads to other questions:
What would be criteria for defining a marriage as being perfect?
Do perfect marriages even exist?
In answering these questions, we need to get away from the definitions that come to us from the lost world culture. When the lost world culture comments about marriages made in a kind of metaphoric heaven they are not talking about the same heaven we Christians embrace in knowledge that comes by the Spirit. We also need to get away from our own subjective criteria. We must get away from measuring marriages from our limited perceptions of the dynamics that are going on with the husband and the wife. As usual, we need a Biblical answer, don't we? So what is it? Pay special attention to what I am about to say:
A marriage made in heaven is one that is designed and manufactured by the Creator and Ruler of both heaven and marriage. This type of marriage is perfect.
Everything in this statement is purely a biblical truth. It is a vastly important statement because it gets us on the right road in recognizing our own marriages for what they really are. It gets us out of the arena of philosophy, humanistic standards, and subjective criteria, and it puts us into God's view of what He has joined together. To accurately understand this, we are going to examine 8 Scripture passages (Note: There are 7 numbered points below representing 7 passages. The unnumbered passage is found in point number 3 as Judges 14:4). Each passage layers upon the other to provide a solid biblical foundation for this important truth concerning "what God has joined together."
/1/
The first passage we will examine is the text I asked you to turn to. It is important to examine the original marriage as recorded in Genesis 2:18–25. I want us to focus specifically on verses 18, 21 and 22. We read,
"... Yahweh God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him ...' 21 So Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 Yahweh God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.'' Genesis 2:18-25
@1 God fashioned the first woman for the first man from one of the man's _____________________. Then God brought her to the man. Genesis 2:18-25
As we look at the account of creation that Moses recorded by God's Spirit, I want us to notice that God made a decree in the beginning. God said that it was "not good for man to be alone." Not only did God decree this fact to be true, but God is the One Who made this determination. The man, which was Adam, did not decide this fact for himself. God did not consult Adam about the issue of man's aloneness as the sole human on earth. But I also want us to notice something else: God did more than make the decree. God also determined to do something about His decree. So God made a woman. And again; notice that God did not have some kind of a business meeting with Adam. God did not hand Adam a type of menu, and then ask Adam to order what he wanted for his perfect help mate. God did not ask Adam to engineer a design schematic that represented what he thought a perfect help mate should be. There is a reason for this. If God would have consulted Adam, and implemented Adam's ideas, then we would have ended up with man's ideas of what the perfect mate for himself would be. God would have been incorporating man's ideas into God's decree of marriage in His days of creation. It is unlikely that the creative result that the man would have come up with would have been anything like the woman, and the marriage, that God designed. While studying this account of God's creation, we recognize something that we Christians take for granted. We recognize that God is the smartest being of all. God knows everything. God knows more about His creation and what is best for it than His creation knows about itself. We can not even be sure that Adam knew what being "alone" was. Think about it; Adam had a lot of creatures around to keep him company, right? And yet we know for sure that Adam did not have a full picture of what a helpmate was, and needed to be, until God brought one to him. After God had determined, designed, and developed the woman for the man from the man, He delivered her to the man. Her name was "Eve." During this whole creative process, God's sovereign will remained constant and perfect. In His activity of bringing Eve to Adam, we see God's gift-giving in action. Essentially what God did was replace Adam's gift of singleness with another gift. It was the gift of marriage. During this event, Adam recognized God's artistic genius. He exclaimed
''... This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.'' Genesis 2:23
Notice that in this miracle, Adam received Eve for who, and what, she was. She was a complete gift. She was a perfect gift. Eve was, as James wrote concerning gifts from God,
''Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights ...'' James 1:17
But there is more. After bringing Eve to Adam, God explained that they both were no longer to be solely considered as two. Instead, they would be joined together in a relationship called ''one flesh.'' Joining together a male and female as "one flesh" is God's terminology for marriage. It is the same terminology that Jesus used in describing marriage. The point is that Eve was Adam's perfect gift and Adam was Eve's perfect marriage gift. The result was that Adam and Eve were the first people to have a marriage made in Heaven. So, this is the first foundational layer; the first marriage made in heaven that we find in Scripture is the first marriage. It is the marriage creation. It is the proto-marriage that defines essential elements of what marriage is. Later we will study the fuller revelation of marriage as a picture of Christ and His church, but for now, this is the first layer of the foundation.
/2/
This leads us to examine the next marriage made in heaven that is an important layer in our foundation. It is found in Genesis 24. It is the beautiful record of the historic marriage of Isaac with Rebecca. The account is overflowing with the hand of God determining, designing, developing and delivering a marriage. As we look at this drama in history, we see that it starts out with Abraham asking his servant to swear that he will go to Abraham's homeland to get a wife for his son. The servant must get the wife from among Abraham's relatives. Abraham's son is Isaac. The servant swore that he would take up the task. So, he makes his way to a city called Nahor. When he gets to Nahor, he kneels down and prays to God to manifest His sovereign hand in the venture. I am going to read the servant's prayer, from Genesis 24:12-14. As I do, I want you to pay special attention to the details of the servant's petition. The details are there for us to glean what the Holy Spirit is teaching concerning marriages made in heaven. Abraham's servant said,
"O Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. 13 Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; 14 now may it be that the girl to whom I say, 'Please let down your jar so that I may drink,' and who answers, 'Drink, and I will water your camels also'--may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.'' Genesis 24:12-14
An amazing thing happens next. Before the servant finishes praying, a girl named Rebecca, who was the daughter of Abraham's brother, comes out to draw water at the well. Miraculously, Rebecca fulfilled the requests of the sign from God that were outlined in the servant's prayer. A time of excitement follows. The servant goes to Rebecca's family. He explains what has taken place. After listening to Abraham's servant, consent is given for Rebecca to marry Isaac. This is a fascinating piece of history; and it makes a great bed time story. But we want to go deeper. We must give proper credit where it is due. It is the foundation that God wants us to have cemented in our own hearts. So, we need to fix our attention on what the Spirit says expressly implicates God as the one who arranged for Rebecca to be God's perfect gift for Isaac's perfect marriage. As we examine the servant's prayer, we notice an important detail. The servant asked God for,
''... the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac." Genesis 24:12-14
@2 God had ___________________________ his choice of a woman for Isaac to marry. Genesis 24:12-14
Think about this a moment. Why did the servant ask for this? The servant knew that if God was going to reveal a bride for Isaac, God would reveal the one God had "appointed." The servant was taking no credit for choosing who would be Isaac's perfect wife. Instead, he was submitting to the full wisdom of God in His sovereign determination for the appointed gift. Later in Genesis 24:21, we find that Abraham's servant was silently watching Rebecca,
"to know whether Yahweh had made his journey successful or not.'' Genesis 24:21
I really want us to get the sense of what the servant was doing. He was waiting; but not to determine, through personal opinion, and prejudice, if the girl was the best one or not. Rather, the servant was looking to see if God had provided His elect bride for Isaac. Then in Genesis 24:27, we see that the servant realized that God had brought about the answer he was seeking. In a state of worship the man exclaimed,
''Yahweh has guided me." Genesis 24:27
He was recognizing and confessing the truth of Proverbs 16;
''The mind of man plans his way, but Yahweh directs his steps.'' Proverbs 16:9
But there is more. In Genesis 24:50, Rebecca's family asserted;
''The matter comes from Yahweh;'' Genesis 24:50
Everyone involved is seen glorifying God in recognizing His will as having been manifested. Listen to what Rebecca's father and brother (Laban and Bethuel) say next,
''and let her be the wife of your master's son, as Yahweh has spoken.'' Genesis 24:51
Their understanding of all that God had done was that He had ''spoken'' His will (His determination). The NASB renders the Hebrew word, dabar, here as spoken. The NET renders the Hebrew here as "the LORD [Yahweh] has decided." The NIV team puts, "the LORD [Yahweh] has directed." What is going on here is that Laban and Bethuel recognized that God had revealed His sovereign decree; Rebecca is the one God has chosen for Isaac. They understood what we need to understand. They recognized that Rebecca and Isaac's marriage was a marriage made in Heaven.
/3/
This leads us to the next passages of Scripture. The book of Proverbs gives us another layer in our foundational building project. Proverbs 18:22, and 19:14 are the enlightening passages. We read Proverbs 18:22;
''He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from Yahweh.'' Proverbs 18:22
Then we read in Proverbs 19:14,
"House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from Yahweh." Proverbs 19:14
@3 A wife is favor obtained from ___________________________. Proverbs 18:22, 19:14
Proverbs 18:22 plainly states that the gift of a wife is ''good.'' The Proverb also states that the gift of a wife is God's ''favor'' bestowed upon the man who marries her. Whenever we consider the foundational principle we have been studying this morning, we must keep in mind that it is God who decides what is good and favorable. God does not want us to be confused about this. Proverbs 18:22 is clear: Whoever finds the wife God has for him has found a good gift from God and the wife he has found is God's favor bestowed upon him. Proverbs 19:14 magnifies the principle in a strong way. Proverbs 19:14 declares that our earthly fathers leave us a legacy of material items. Nevertheless, they simply are not capable of giving a prudent wife. Prudence is the attribute of governing oneself with wisdom, restraint, and discretion. The verse clearly states an inarguable Biblical fact in respect to God's people. Only God provides a prudent wife. Again,
"House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from Yahweh." Proverbs 19:14
But this leaves us with a question. Does God also give wives that are not considered to be so prudent? The answer is, "Yes." We see the evidence all throughout the Bible. Eve foolishly and selfishly fell for the lies of the serpent. She was the gift that God gave Adam. Adam's marriage was a perfect marriage. Yet, Eve was not being prudent. The harlot that God had commanded the prophet Hosea to marry in Hosea 1:2, was not prudent. The girl that Samson married was not prudent either. How many of you know that Samson was married prior to getting involved with Delilah? He was. Samson was married to a Philistine woman from Timnah. The problem was that she deceived him, and ended up causing a lot of trouble. But there is an interesting fact about this marriage that weaves in with the foundation we are gleaning this morning. According to Judges 14:4, Samson's marriage to her was
"... of Yahweh." Judges 14:4
Nevertheless, Samson's wife was not a prudent wife. But there is more. There was a reason why God ordained this union. The Lord used Samson's marriage in His process of coming against the Philistines. The marriage was later dissolved in the conflict after Samson's father-in-law took Samson's wife and gave her to another man. The result of the strife was that both the father-in-law and Samson's wife were burned to death by their own Philistine people. The Scriptures declare that God had ordained all of this as His opportunity against the Philistines. The main point is that Proverbs 19:14 is stating that ultimately a prudent wife comes from God. What we are talking about is the amazing principle that is woven all throughout God's word, and history. We are talking about the doctrine of marriages being made in heaven. But we are not finished.
/4/
We're going to look at Malachi for the next layer in God's doctrinal building project. In Malachi, we find that the men of Judah had become sinful in a lot of practices. Things had gotten so out of hand that God was not acknowledging their offerings to Him anymore. Amazingly, they were wondering why God was angry with them. So, God has the prophet, Malachi, explain the reason in Malachi 2:14-16,
''14 Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because Yahweh has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant"
[I want us to take special note of the next verses. I will be reading now from the Literal Translation Bible, verse 15;]
"and has He [Yahweh] not made you one?"
[Malachi continues by asking the rhetorical question,]
"And why one?"
[Malachi gives God's answer,]
"Because He [Yahweh] was seeking godly offspring [literally "a seed of God"]."
[Then Malachi goes on to say that God hates divorce.]
"I hate divorce,' says Yahweh God of Israel." Malachi 2:14-16
In answering sinful Israel about why God is not pleased with them, we find God explaining many wonderful truths about His marriages of His people. One of the most evident is God's sovereign design. Malachi indicated, through the use of a rhetorical question, that God was the engineer who made the husbands and wives into one. Notice the clear wording:
''has He not made you one?"
Being made "one" is a reference to "one flesh." Remember, this is an essential element of what God incorporates into His own definition of marriage--"one flesh." What else is so profound about God manufacturing the one flesh unions through marriage, is that God says that He did it for a specific, overarching, reason. Notice that God said that He brought His Old Covenant men together with His Old Covenant women because He wanted,
"godly offspring [godly seed].''
The NIV brings out the meaning in sharp clarity,
"Has not [Yahweh] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth." Malachi 2:15-16
@4 God made the Israelite men and women one in the marriages that He joined together because He was seeking a godly ________________________, but the men began divorcing their wives in the action that God hates. Malachi 2:15-16
The fact that God made these marriages, and intended these unions to last, explains why God expresses His hatred for divorce in verse 16. And of course, all of this flows perfectly with the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:6; 'What God has joined together, let no man separate.''
/5/
This brings us to that passage. It is the next Scriptural layer of our foundation. In Matthew 19:3–9 we see what Jesus has to say about the subject of God joining together men and women in marriage. In the context, Matthew relates to us how some Pharisees decided to test Jesus. The question they ask is typical of the debates of that time in respect to questions of the Law, especially concerning marriage and divorce. It centered primarily around two Rabbinical schools of thought. One followed the Rabbi Shammai. The other followed that of Rabbi Hillel. Each Rabbi made lists of what could constitute the basis for divorce. The school of Shammai was more restrictive than that of Hillel. So these pharisees asked Jesus a simple question concerning the Law of Moses,
''Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?''
[Jesus' answer is essential to the foundation.]
''Have you not read--he replied, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, 'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. 'Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?' He said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.'" Matthew 19
We must always remember that the Pharisees did not realize who they were talking to. I always chuckle when I read the dialogues that the Pharisees had with Jesus. Standing before them is God manifested in bodily form. John wrote, ''Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,'' John 1:3. We know this because the Spirit has opened our hearts to understand; but think about how those Pharisees were ignorant of this fact concerning Jesus. So, there stood Jesus. He is the promised Messiah. He is also the architect, and provider, of marriage to mankind, and divorce was not in His plan. To answer the Pharisees question, Jesus asked them His own question by referring them back to what was a familiar time and place for Him--the beginning. This was logical since that was where the first perfect marriage was created by Him. Jesus explained everything He had done in the beginning so that the Pharisees would not be confused. The first lesson that Jesus made sure they understood was that God was the maker of the first humans. Jesus also wanted them to remember that according to God's sovereign plan, He gave each human a different, yet complimentary, sexual design. This little lesson is marriage 101, with Professor Christ. He then explained that this was the ''reason'' for the male to leave his father and mother and be joined to the female. As this happens, the male and female become that composite which God calls ''one flesh.'' His next point was that becoming one flesh, in this particular manner, means that the two people are no longer separate in their created individuality. Now their marriage relationship is likened to a type of new creation. Jesus wanted to make His intended design perfectly clear to the Pharisees before He confronted them with God's sovereign intent for the marriage union. Jesus emphatically proclaims it in His next words;
''So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate,''
@5 Jesus says that God is the one who joins __________________________ His people in one flesh marriage. Matthew 19:6
We immediately notice a couple of things about this. First, we notice that the theme of this series is found here. Secondly, Jesus just poured a bucket of truth all over the Pharisees. It is the ultimate truth concerning the development of the marriage union--God joins people together in marriage; man separates the gift through divorce. It is like something I experienced in the kitchen area this morning just before our worship time. My sons had given our baby daughter some measuring cups and various cooking utensils to play with. There was one particular little kind of cup that had a space around the edges. It is an egg yoke separator. How many of you have ever seen one of those? It separates the egg white from the yellow yoke. As I observed this, I thought of God's creation of the one flesh union. God creates the marriage, in a sense, whole, complete and intact--much like He creates an egg. An egg is created as one unit. The yolk and the white are meant to stay together. It is only when man comes along and separates what God has joined together, that we get the damaged result that goes contrary to the way that God created the egg. Of course, the Pharisees did not remotely understand these kinds of insights, so the Pharisees did not stop at Jesus' original answer. They asked Him another one;
''Why then, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?''
The Pharisees are referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but they are not quoting what Moses said in a correct manner. Jesus knows this. Jesus also understands everything about the marriages that He makes in heaven. So immediately, Jesus corrects the Pharisees by saying that Moses did not command divorce. Instead, Moses was permitting it:
"8 He said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives;'" Matthew 19:8
The reason Moses permitted this was because their hearts were hardened against God and the gifts God had given them. But Jesus does not want His original point to go unnoticed, so Jesus referred to the beginning again by saying;''but from the beginning it has not been this way'' Matthew 19:8. In other words, things had changed through the ages with man's hard hearted response to God's original plan, but God's original design has never changed. It still hasn't changed. According to Jesus, the marriages of His people are made in heaven, and are meant to be bound on earth. From here we move forward in our scriptural foundation.
/6/
As we do, we find ourselves coming into New Covenant revelation with the apostle Paul. Paul strongly recognized the Lord's sovereign determination in the gifting of singleness and the gifting of marriage. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:7;
''7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.'' 1 Corinthians 7:7
What was Paul speaking of when he referenced each man's ''own gift from God?" Further analysis of the context of the passage reveals that "one in this manner, and another in that" refers to both the gift of singleness, and the gift of marriage. This is made evident when we realize that Paul was single;
"8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am." 1 Corinthians 7:8
Paul was describing the gift that he was experiencing. Because of the expectation of the impending eschatological hope, and what Paul calls "the present distress" 1 Corinthians 7:26; plus Paul's opinion on the best way to live at the moment in undistracted devotion to the Lord, Paul wished others had the gift of singleness like himself. Yet, Paul was considerate of the fact that not all men have the same gifts, so he stated;
"But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.'' 1 Corinthians 7:7
This brings to light the main fact of this sermon: Ultimately, God is the gift-giver, and marriage is a gift. Knowing this, then, Paul was essentially hoping that the single Corinthian Christians would try to continue to abide in the same gifting that Paul experienced; and yet Paul already established that this was his personal opinion and not a command from God. Further, Paul clearly states that marriage itself is a gift from God; and he made sure to indicate that this was God's opinion. Yes, marriage is a gift from God; and yes, marriages of God's people are made in heaven.
/7/
The last scripture we're going to examine is one of the most amazing. It is the apostle Paul's revelation of the most fantastic marriage of all. I am talking about the marriage which surpasses all other marriages in grandeur and importance. All God ordained marriages of Christians are representative types of that glorious marriage yet to be fully realized by us. The marriage I'm referring to is the marriage of Christ and His church. Paul wrote about that marriage in Ephesians. Since all other God-ordained marriages from the beginning until now point to that glorious marriage, we should be able to see God's determination; His design; His development, and ultimately, His delivery of His spotlessly perfect bride to His spotlessly perfect groom in His marriage that is above all others. Colossians 1:21-22, and Ephesians 1:4–5 with 5:25–27 will be our final layer this morning. We read,
"21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him set apart and blameless and beyond reproach--" Colossians 1:21-22
''He elected us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be set apart and blameless before Him." Ephesians 1:4
[Then 5:25-27;]
''Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her set apart, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but set apart and blameless'' Ephesians 5:25-27
@6 God elects certain people in His spotless Son, so that they would be a set apart and blameless bride without stain, wrinkle, or any other ______________________ of sin. Ephesians 1:4 with 5:25-27
If you are a Christian, then God elected you in Christ, along with all other Christians, and He did it for a reason. It is so that you will be "set apart and blameless before Him In love." This means that you are part of His Church, which involves two spiritual aspects:
1) All Christians are corporately called ''Christ's body'' as we read in the parallel epistle to Ephesians in Colossians 1:24–27
And,
2) All Christians are presented to Him as a pure virgin, 2 Corinthians 11:2.
This is you. God makes you into His spotless virgin bride in His miracle action of cleansing you with His blood. He reconceives you. He rebirths you. He adopts you as the righteousness of God in Himself, the Firstborn Heir. In doing so, He recreates you into a virginal miracle of righteousness. You are Christ's body. Paul explains to us that all Christians were destined to be, and designed to be, Christ's glorified bride,
"2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; ... but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, ...4 Therefore, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God." Romans 7:2-4
"2 For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin." 2 Corinthians 11:2
Our future hope is that we will be delivered to Him in the heavenlies, and the beautiful part about our Lord's love expression is that we will have already been cleansed from past sin through His work. Yes, it is salvation by works; but it is all completely the work of Christ Jesus. Isn't that wonderful? If you are a Christian, then that glorious future is your future. Now think about this: There is not a better helpmate out there somewhere for our Lord Jesus. He did not make a mistake in electing, and creating, His spotless bride. There is something else I want us to consider: His spotless bride does not always act prudently does she? Don't you still sin? But He loves her in His creation of her, He loves her in His cleansing of Her; and He loves her in His betrothal to her anyway.
Aren't you glad that God has this kind of loving grace with you?
But the reason that it exists this way is because it is a marriage made in heaven. You can rest assured that He will never leave nor forsake His special bride. To me, and I hope to you also, this brings a strong, life changing, revelation to my soul. The summation of all the layers that we have covered this morning is that clearly, by looking at all the Biblical revelation that we have on the matter, we recognize that God designs the marriages of His people for His purposes. Truly, God is a match maker. The Scriptures prove this over and over again. The grand importance of this truth is foundational to our understanding of marriage. Remember the summary statement. It is doctrine that should transform your mind. It is doctrine that should drive your actions:
A marriage made in heaven is one that is designed and manufactured by the creator and ruler of both heaven and marriage. This type of marriage is perfect.
In the arena of "What God Joins Together" everything from single to spouse is built on this foundation. The lost world culture is completely opposed to the God glorifying facts that we have covered this morning. The latest blockbuster movies are screaming messages that depict something that is light years from any of this. The typical marriage advice from the typical humanism minded marriage counselor will not even consider any of this. All the books on the best sellers lists for self improvement are void of this fact of existence for God's people. In fact, sadly, we rarely hear this truth being preached today from most pulpits in our country. But it is the foundation; and so we must let God speak to us. As we digest what the Spirit is teaching us, let's look at our marriages through God's eyes. He's given us the lens of Scripture. It is up to us to transform our minds with it. Consider your words very carefully when you speak of the things pertaining to Christian marriage. Consider that marriage is a sacred subject. God's sovereignty in the marriages of His people is a miraculous subject. Singles, listen to me; if you are contemplating marriage, then I urge you to look at it from the perspective of the sacred, and the miraculous. Be considering God's sovereign hand in the process of bringing Christians together with other Christians in truly "holy" matrimony. There is un-holy matrimony--but that's not what I am talking about. The sacred miracle of God's sovereign hand is what you are truly contemplating when you contemplate marriage with a brother or sister in Christ. If you are already a married Christian, consider that your marriage to your Christian spouse has been made in heaven. You say,
"But Kerry, I've never heard any of this before."
It does not matter whether you have heard this before. It does not matter whether you have been taught something else that seems to be completely contrary to this principle. It does not matter if you think your marriage is not as perfect as it could be, or whether you think it is a failure, or you think you could have, or that you can get, a better marriage. You need to thank God for His sovereign hand in joining you with your Christian spouse. Continuously seek out His will for your role in it. Glorify Him in your part as you live for Him, His will, and His way, as His special minister in your marriage. I want all of us to keep these scriptures in mind as we go through this very important series on what God has joined together. Next week we will examine how this truth relates to us as Christians in a practical way. Mainly we are going to focus upon what God does not join together. Yes, there are marriages that God does not join together. We need to know the difference between what man joins together in sin, and what God joins together for His New Covenant people. [prayer]
@1 God fashioned the first woman for the first man from one of the man's _____________________. Then God brought her to the man. Genesis 2:18-25
@2 God had ___________________________ his choice of a woman for Isaac to marry. Genesis 24:12-14
@3 A wife is from ___________________________. Proverbs 18:22, 19:14
@4 God made the Israelite men and women one in the marriages that He joined together because He was seeking a godly ________________________, but the men began divorcing their wives in the action that God hates among His people. Malachi 2:15-16
@5 Jesus says that God is the one who joins __________________________ His people in one flesh marriage. Matthew 19:6
@6 God elects certain people in His spotless Son, so that they would be a set apart and blameless bride without stain, wrinkle, or any other ______________________ of sin. Ephesians 1:4 with 5:25-27
