Sex & Marriage

Genesis 1:26-28

World Christian

Fellowship

Sex and Marriage - 02

Last week we saw the foundation of Marriage from Genesis Chapters 1 & 2. The most wonderful gift God gave to man in the Garden was woman, his perfect partner. Marriage was ordained by God and its greatest blessing for man.

Sixth day God created man.

Detailed description of that creation is in Genesis chapter 2.

The location of man in the Garden of Eden. The vocation of man was to take care of the garden. The probation was not to eat the tree of life. The relationship of man was to be with women. The marriage was to fulfil the desires of man and women physically and emotionally.

God designed marriage for

• Procreation,
• Partnership,
• Pleasure,
• Purity,
• Providence, and
• Protection.

A male and a female you have the potential of reproduction. The whole created being has the same potential in reproduction even in the plant world where there are male and female elements even in plant life that bring about reproduction. That is certainly true in the animal kingdom as well.

One of the most hopeless dilemmas for the evolutionist is to answer how some ape or something developing into a man, but simultaneously some other one developing into a woman so that that compatibility can become reproductive.

God created sex at the,

• Animal level,
• Plant level, and
• Human level.

When it comes to the human world God created it to be within a relationship called marriage.

God created sex and marriage was to be the environment in which that sexual compatibility is exercised. The only environment, there is to be no sexual conduct between a man and a woman outside of a husband-wife relationship. That's a very clear instruction in the Word of God.

One man, and One woman for life. That is the context of sexual conduct for the purpose of being fruitful and multiplying and other purposes that God created. God doesn't really care what plants get pollinated by what other plants. God doesn't really care what bugs cohabitate with other bugs. God doesn't care what animals get together with other animals.

God does care what people do and made it very clear. God has designed monogamous marriage. Marriage in God's design is for one man and one woman to come together in a relationship for the purpose of reproduction and for the purpose of fulfilment.

Because monogamous marriage is God's design, then God hates whatever violates that. That's why God hates sexual sin, that all through the Old Testament. We make that very clear as

we read the Old Testament. All through the New Testament God pronounces judgment on sexual sin. God hates, not only what violates the marriage morally, but what violates the marriage covenant.

Malachi 2:16,

God hates divorce. Now divorce has been around a long time. You find divorce in the Pentateuch. Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible, we can find divorce in them. We know divorce has been around a long time. It was introduced, of course, by the fall, which occurs in the third chapter of Genesis.

Since the fall divorce has always been a devastating reality. Since the fall there have been other sins such as fornication, rape, incest, adultery, polygamy et., Though it's not condemned at every point in which it exists, at every point in which it exists in the Bible there is a clear understanding of the terrible and tragic outcome and consequence of that kind of sinful behaviour.

But divorce also can be seen in the Old Testament. Wherever it is seen is always in a negative light.

In our society today there's an increasing number of divorces. Although the increase in divorces may be slowing down because, people are just not bothering to get married in the first place. One side you have the sins that violate the morality of marriage. The other side, you have the sins that violate the covenant of marriage.

There are people who would rather not make the covenant because then it's too binding and it has all kinds of strings. So, they will just sin together by living together. Now our culture does have/has had increasing numbers of divorces.

Recent survey conducted at the National Statistics office in UK concluded that following.

• The proportion of the population of England and Wales aged 16 years and over who were married in 2017 (51.0%) has remained broadly unchanged since 2010 but has reduced slightly since 2002 (54.8%).
• The single, never married population aged 16 years and over in England and Wales increased by 3.9 million from 2002 to 2017 whilst the number of married

people only increased by 1.2 million over the same period.

• One in eight people aged 16 years and over in England and Wales in 2017 were cohabiting, continuing a steadily-increasing trend since 2002.
• The majority (61.4%) of the population aged 16 years and over in England and Wales were living in a couple in 2017.
• An increasing proportion of 50- to 64-year-olds in England and Wales in 2017 were single and never married (12.9%), nearly 30% of whom were living as a couple.

Let us turn to Matthew 19, let me set the background for this. The Jews were in a backslidden from God and His commandments. Though they were professing to be following Jehovah God yet in reality they were not. To be precise biblically they professed to godly but denying the power of it in their life.

The name of God was on their lips but not on their lives, so divorce surfaced in the society. Divorce was common around the time of Jesus among the Jewish people. You should remember two well-known Rabi’s in those days. Hillel and Shammai.

Hundreds of disputes between Hillel and Shammai are recorded in the Talmud. (The Talmud is the source from which the code of Jewish Halakhah (law) is derived. It is made up of the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Mishnah is the original written version of the oral law and the Gemara is the record of the rabbinic discussions following this writing down.) Hillel was born 110 B.C and his teaching about Divorce was very popular among the Jewish community when Jesus was there. He taught that a man could divorce his for any reason and God would authorise it.

Didn't matter what it was, if read things in Jewish history that will be fascinating, they have divorced because she burned his breakfast, didn't like the way she looked, she said an unkind word to his mother, and any other reason.

Shammai was born 50 B.C. on the other hand very strict Jewish leader who would not authorise divorce at all. Beit Shammai held that a man may only divorce his wife for only a serious transgression. Jesus was very popular because

• Hs teaching was profound,
• He was compassionate,
• He was sympathetic,
• He was tender hearted.
• He casted all sickness from Palestine.

Massive healings everywhere demonstrating His power over the physical world and massive deliverance from demons. So, the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders are always trying to discredit Jesus in front of the people. Herod Antipas was ruling over region of Galilee, Jesus was in a town named Pariah. He divorced his wife in order to marry Herodias, who had been the wife of Herod Antipas'half- brother Herod Philip. Herodias was also the daughter of another half-brother, Aristobulus.

John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus had confronted Herod Antipas for having an adulterous relationship with his own brother's wife. Because John confronted him, John got his head chopped off. The Pharisees were thinking that they can get Jesus into trouble by asking the question about Divorce.

If Jesus oppose the divorce, then Herod Antipas get his head chopped off also. Let us look at this.

Matthew 19:1-6, Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. 3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is

it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” 4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 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’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Jesus answers them Point blank. God never designed for divorce in the beginning. Jesus quotes from Genesis 2. This is the way it is from the beginning. God created them male and female. A very important statement.

Who instituted marriage? God. If God puts people together like that, you better not separate them. Marriage then is defined as a creative work of God. By which he puts two people together for life. God repeats this in Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:14, "Don't covet your neighbour’s wife." That's outside God's plan and creative design.

That's outside God's creative design. You have your wife; your neighbour has his wife and that's how it should stay. The book of Proverbs you have wisdom of God. In the early Chapters of Proverbs are primarily around the idea that parents are instructing their sons.

The sons have leadership in the Family, Home, and Community. So, they are the ones who need special teachings, training and it's also passed on to the daughters. In fact, occasionally the daughters are even been referred too.

But in teaching these young people about life one of the strongest emphasis in the whole early part of Proverbs is on being faithful to your own wife.

Proverbs 2:2-11, Talks about how to grow in the wisdom of God. How Wisdom protects one from the temptations of both a wicked man and a forbidden woman. It ends by contrasting the fate of the righteous with the fate of the wicked.

Proverbs 2:16-17, shows how you can keep yourself pure in the eyes of God with immoral women.

When you know divine wisdom, when you know the truth of God the wisdom of God, the discretion of God, the discernment of God, the understanding of God. When you know what the word of God teaches, it will deliver you from that strange woman.

They were married remember early at the ages of 13, 14. She has forgotten the covenant of her God, that's the marriage covenant that she made before God. And as a result, her house sinks down to death and her tracks lead to the dead.

You can't break up a marriage, violate a covenant, tear up a home without tremendous consequences.

Proverbs 3:1-13, instructions to get hold of wisdom. A father’s speech to his son. He tells him to follow in his ways, trust in God, pursue Wisdom, and treat others properly. He also tells him not to envy the lawless because God gives them what they deserve.

Now getting into practical.

Proverbs 5:1-23,

Proverbs 5 is a father’s lecture to his son. The father warns his son about the dangers of the “strange woman” and, on the flip side, encourages him to enjoy his own wife. The lecture ends with a statement about the wicked: they will die for their sins.

The father warns his son about sexual temptations. V3-4, If you don't have the wisdom of God, you're going to get seduced. If you haven't got a death grip on divine truth, if you haven't made the wisdom of God your passion, you're going to get seduced.

If you hold onto wisdom, you'll be protected.

Proverbs 6:20-29, Proverbs ⁶ has two sections.

1. Four independent Wisdom sayings

• a. Surety
• b. Laziness
• c. Good for nothing
• d. Numerical things

2. A father’s lecture to his son that adultery is a self-

destructive practice. V28-29,

Proverbs 7:1-27 A father’s message to his son and he tells his son a story about a foolish young man who fell into the trap of a seductress and warns him not to do the same. Read Verses 6-8, Verses 18-20, Verse 22, Verses 24-27, Marriage is God's created design. One man, one woman for life. That's the best that God could give you.

• It's marvellous,
• It's glorious, and
• It's fulfilling.

Now you are NOT going to marry a perfect person. Very few of us have that privilege. But God will give you the grace to enjoy marriage to the fullest capacity that a Christian can enjoy it with all of its benefits. This is the best relationship that God could give to man and what does man do?