It's no secret that our contemporary culture has a low view of marriage. Studies tell us that young men and women are delaying marriage, and consequently having children, later and later almost every year. But what does the Word of God say about marriage? In both Old and New Testaments, marriage is put forth as a precious, beautiful institution established by God himself that is to be held in the highest regard and defended. Christians ought to love the institution of marriage as a means of honoring God and fulfilling our God given desire for companionship and love and as a picture of Christ's love for his church.

What Tom graciously failed to mention is that I'm one of the fellows in the room who needs to work on his marriage far more than he does. And How often is that the case? Whenever the Lord, if you're preaching through the Word, and just expositing the Word, how often does He direct you to precisely what He would teach the one who is to teach? Well, That's what he's done this evening. You get to preach on marriage in front of your wife, in front of your children, in front of the people who know just exactly how little you know, and how much you have to learn.

And that has been one of the things that has really struck me in the weeks past especially as I've thought about and prepared for this message is just how much I have to learn about this beautiful institution of God That we call marriage that That he instituted how much God's Word Has to teach us how much the instruments Through whom God has spoken have have to teach us whether they be Puritans from the 1600s or whether they be modern preachers who are preaching in America today, how much God has to teach us, and how good things always come from God. From His Word, from His instruments. If there is any good that comes from our time together this evening, it'll be because God does it. Because He uses an instrument that is, frankly in His own strength, useless. And yet, by the grace of God, by the mercy of God, He brings us to the cross to meet Him, that cross we just sang about.

He brings us to a place where we look forward to His coming, as we just sang. I'm grateful to be with you this evening. It's been a very, very helpful time of preparation and study for me as I prepared to share with you this evening. It's been fascinating to see the high regard in which men of God hold marriage, especially its stark contrast to the way that our world is now treating marriage. One Puritan preacher said of marriage, we must never begin to see it as the world sees it.

A crown is a crown, even if it's been thrown in the dirt. It remains a crown. You know the enemy, I sincerely believe, understands how important and how precious marriage is. You see that by the fervor with which he is fighting against the godly institution of marriage. The enemy and those who serve him, our culture in so many ways, There's great evidence that they understand how precious and how important marriage is.

Sometimes I'm a little ashamed of those who would call ourselves Christians who are not responding in kind. We see marriage attacked with a fervency, and yet often our defense of what God has established and ordained is not as zealous, is not as fervent. And sometimes, brothers and sisters, that's because it's easier to lose or fail to protect something that we just don't hold as dear as we should. And as we begin to talk about marriage and some of the practical applications that we experience in marriage, one of the things that I'd like for us to consider is just how dear do we hold marriage? Do we see it the way God sees it?

Do we see it according to the commands of God? Do we examine the duties in marriage and seek to fulfill them according to the grace of God. Any one of us who are honest with ourselves about trying to fulfill biblical duties in marriage in our own strength, according to our own flesh, would have to admit it's a miserable failure. The high calling, the duties of marriage, God's perspective on marriage is one that He not only gives the commands as His Word promises that He will and as it instructs us, but He also gives the grace that we might be obedient to those commands. And so, the good things that we can understand about marriage come from God, and the good things that we can be involved in, engaged in, zealous about, striving for.

That comes from God as well. And He's the author and finisher of our faith. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to just be with you this evening and talk about these things. You might think that those who I studied and got to consider in terms of teaching about marriage, that the old timers would have been far and away the most zealous about marriage. That If I had a quote to read to you, it would probably come from a Puritan, someone who would have lived in the 1600s, somewhere in that ballpark.

Sort of what I expected going in, but it was pleasantly surprising and very encouraging to see that men of God throughout Christian history have had an incredible godly view of marriage, and those who have, have held it in such high esteem, in such high regard. I'm going to read something to you, not from one of the Puritans, but from a pastor who is preaching today, who had been preaching faithfully more than 40 years, someone who I believe you would respect and doctrinally find yourself having a lot in common and in agreement with with regard to theology and he preached a sermon and it's not one from centuries ago it's one from a few years ago where he said this about marriage and it struck me how a godly perspective of marriage will make us see marriage like this. And he said as he began a sermon about Ephesians 5, I'm just going to read some of his introductory remarks. So my opening word is, if you're not married, get married. That's pretty bold.

I mean immediately he stopped preaching and started meddling. If you're not married, get married. He's about to preach a sermon and he's introduced the fact that this is going to have most application for married people. But some of you here are not married. So here's what I have to say to you.

If you're not married, get married. This is the grace of life. This is God's best gift. If you haven't found someone willing to marry you, ramp up the intensity of your effort. Get married.

And if you are married, have children. This is God's wonderful gift. Now there are some people who have a gift for singleness that means a unique spiritual capacity to remain single for the purpose of serving the Lord. Unless you have that gift, and it's clearly defined for you by no desire at all for marriage, then you need to be married. I don't need to remind you that in biblical times, people were married by the time they were 15 or 16.

Some of you are way overdue. Get married. Many of you are focused on pursuing a career. Pursue a spouse. This is a very good place to find one.

Speaking, he was, as of his church, large congregation to whom he was preaching. He said, this is a very good place to find one because we have a huge number of single people who need to be married. They need to be married. For every reason that you can think of, but mostly for the reason that this is a gift of God called the grace of life. He is not pulling any punches, is he?

I'm not sure why in this particular Christian culture in which we live that we are prone to follow the habits of the world and remain single for long periods of time. But that is a worldly kind of life. Taking people who should be married and having them try to survive as single people when they are wired, hard-wired, and even given the opportunity by God to be married. Then he gets even more practical and he meddles a little more. He's not backing off or apologizing in the least.

Stop waiting for the Messiah, he says, ladies. And I don't think he's talking about not anticipating the second coming. In fact, it's clear. He came and went, he says, settle for somebody less. He's speaking of a prospective husband and the expectations that the ladies in his congregation may have of their prospective husband, I'm sure.

And men, stop looking for the Proverbs 31 woman. That is an ideal to which women aspire. And the truth of the matter is find another Holy Spirit-led, loving Christian and get married. Again, not from centuries ago, from a few short years ago, not from a young, reckless pastor who's just shooting off the hip, but from one with great experience, And one who I personally respect greatly. Read just a little bit more of what it is.

So now on that basis, you can listen to what I'm going to say because if you're not married, you're going to be getting married. And if you're married and you haven't had children and the Lord enables you, you're going to be having children. So for this is all very urgent for you. I'm asking you to do something very foundational. And you laugh because it sounds humorous, but there's so much truth in that we have as a society people who way over exaggerate singleness, who way over extend singleness, who develop habits of singleness and make it harder to come together with another person because the groove they are cutting gets deeper and deeper and it becomes harder and harder to then walk together with someone else in unity and love.

I'll stop here. Your singleness should be as short as possible, he says. Marriage as quickly as possible. And once you've picked the right one, engagement as brief as possible. And he goes on to say how much against the grain of our culture that this kind of advice runs.

You may be wondering, who would preach like that? Well, it was John MacArthur. It's refreshing, it's encouraging to me to hear someone, a contemporary one preaching today, demonstrating that kind of understanding and exhorting his congregation to understand that marriage is that kind of a treasure. That it is that much to be desired. That it is that special.

That God has that high a view of it. And that He will fearlessly champion that sort of a view of marriage. And it encourages me because as much as I can understand it, that's biblical. I'm not saying every word of that introduction was perfect and I expect that there were some chuckles in the congregation as he was sharing what he shared, but didn't back off of it. He preached another sermon the following week and he gave the same introduction and he actually told the young people in the congregation, I hope some of you are now engaged after my remarks from last week.

That's how we come to feel about marriage whenever we begin to approach God's perspective with regard to marriage. Whenever we begin to see what the Bible actually has to say about how special marriage is, Christians must cherish and treasure the institution of marriage, not as an end unto itself, but because of what it means, and because of the means that it is to glorifying God, to the Gospel, to the cross, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because God has chosen to relate to us in this institution that he established called marriage in ways that are just, frankly, more beautiful than I understand. Beautiful in ways about which I am just learning. Continuing to learn.

After almost 27 years of marriage, after almost 20 years as a pastor, I still have so much to learn about what God would show us about Himself, about the Gospel, about my Savior through the institution of marriage. And our culture understands that it's important. The one directing the enemies of God toward high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. He understands. His minions understand.

The cultural battle is very much engaged by the enemy as one's showing. You know what? This marriage thing is life or death. It is so critical, so important to a Christian culture, to a Christian understanding, to the Gospel. The assault that's going on against marriage really proves it.

It's a patient, calculated, ugly assault that's going on against marriage right now. We're all aware of it. I hope that we as Christians are grieved by it. I hope that we as Christians are battling against it, and that we will battle ever more fervently with greater zeal as we understand the flanking maneuvers that the enemy is about. You know, wolves are like that, aren't they?

You ever seen wolves take something down? They rarely go at it head on. They're always flanking maneuvers. They're always coming in from some cunning, not so obvious angle. Of course, we're warned about ravenous wolves seeking to devour.

And that's what we're encountering with regard to so much of the attack, the error that we're seeing with regard to marriage. And you know, the attack has been going on for such a long time. And so often as Christians, we don't realize it's going on even when it's happening right in front of us. The enemy's far-sighted. He understands that if he can get one degree of deviation, that given enough time, a ship will end up terribly off course, shipwrecked, crashing into icebergs, however you want to describe it.

All it takes is just the smallest deviation. And give it enough time. Disastrous, disastrous results. We've been seeing it go on in our culture in so many ways in the attack on marriage, and now we look around and we wonder how did we get here? What are we doing?

How can we as a culture be seriously redefining marriage in the ways that so many are, in ways that are perverse before the Lord and wrong and wicked before Him? Well, it started a long time ago. And it happens every time we are off just a little bit about marriage. We have just a little different idea than what the Bible would teach us about what God established. Every time a man thinks the wrong way about a woman.

We see these drastic examples of things that jump out at us, but sometimes the little subtle things that get us one degree off, we don't realize. We've got to realize that the battle is real and it is being engaged with a zeal that is sobering. And that our zeal to meet the charge ought to match. And perhaps one of the reasons that Christian culture in this country and around the world is not defending marriage in the way that it should is it's just not as precious to us as it should be. It's easy for generations to squander inheritance as we see it all the time.

And there really is a generational complacency about this beautiful institution of marriage which God established. And one of the things I'd like for us to do in our time this evening is try to have a better understanding of what God's Word says about marriage. Try to come to a place where where marriage is more precious to us. In just a couple of talks you know that you can't do much more than just scratch the surface with regard to what the Bible would say about marriage. And yet, hopefully we will do at least that.

And I pray that the Lord would work in our hearts to give us a more biblical understanding of marriage, a greater appreciation for it, a better understanding of the Gospel and how marriage connects to it, and of the beauty, the blessing, and the treasure of marriage. And there are a number of things that perhaps we don't always think about with regard to marriage that really show us God's heart in marriage. You know, when Jesus was attacked by the Pharisees, Matthew 19, and asked about divorce, you realize His response and what He took us back to. Matthew 19, let me just read to you. Just a couple of verses here.

Then the Pharisees also came to Him, speaking of Christ, testing Him and saying to Him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And He answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them at 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 then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?

He said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. You see what the Lord Jesus Christ uses as His chief beginning point weapon with regard to error, with regard to marriage. It didn't start with us. It's not just something our culture is experiencing. It has been a problem throughout Christian history, and Jesus goes where?

Right straight to the word of God, doesn't He? He is taking us right back to the creation account of God establishing marriage. And if we are to understand properly where marriage was established, Jesus makes it extremely clear here, Doesn't He? It's God who established it. He goes right back to that, which should direct our attention to it.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Genesis. We'll look at Genesis 1 and 2 here for just a few minutes together. If not, I'll read the Scriptures that we're going to talk about together tonight. Because this is exactly what Jesus pointed back to. If you want to understand where marriage came from, and where a defense of marriage should come from, and a defense against divorce should come from, Jesus said, let's look back at what God established.

And how He established it. He took us right back quoting from Genesis and reminding those who were trying to trap Him of exactly what they should have already known about the Word of God. Look just for a moment at Genesis chapter 1 and understand what we're going to read here is also discussed in Genesis chapter 2. And we see here an account of what God did at the time of the institution of marriage and the creation of man and woman. And then we see a history of it in chapter 2 that really points back to what God did and what is described in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1 verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them.

Then, God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. We move on to chapter 2, and we know that this is a history of what God did in chapter 1 because chapter 2 tells us that in verse 4. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

So, we understand what we're about to read here in chapter 2 looks back at what we just read about having happened in chapter 1. Let's look now down Genesis 2.15. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helper comparable to Him. Out of the ground, the Lord formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman. And he brought her to the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." So we have here a description of what was briefly summarized in chapter 1 when God made man and woman. Male and female. He created them.

Here we see the account, and here we see what Jesus pointed to whenever He Defended marriage. That's really a road map for what we need to do when we need to defend a marriage or anything from God's Word. It's interesting how the Apostle Paul showed us this in 1 and 2 Corinthians. We've been spending some time there as a church in recent months. And you see the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians correcting all kinds of just terrible doctrine and practice in the life of the church.

And then you see him in the first part of 2 Corinthians appealing patiently, really begging and pleading that the true believers who had been led astray by false teachers in that church which he had helped to found and to which he had written and sent messages through Titus multiple times, multiple letters. He continues to appeal with regard to their repentance, to give them time to be patient, to wait for them to hear Him, to turn their hearts back to Him. And he gets great news that most of those in the church have. And then at the last part of 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul turns his attention to the false teachers who have been opposing him, who have been teaching error. And the way they've done it is they have attacked Him.

They've said this apostle Paul, he's not a genuine man of God. He's not even really a believer. He's in this for himself. He is a liar. He is trying to bilk you out of money with these collections that he wants you to take.

They were attacking the apostle Paul so that they could undermine the Word of God. Again, another kind of wolfish, flanking maneuver to attack the truth of the Word of God. They didn't come right at the Word of God. They went after Paul. They want to hamstring him and tear him apart so that what he taught would seem to be a lie.

So that what they would then teach, which were lies, would be received as the truth. And they said, we're more charismatic. The apostle Paul, he writes strong, good letters. He's really tough from a distance, but in person he's really unimpressive. Well, the apostle Paul had purposed not to play the game in the same way that these false teachers played it he wasn't going to do things according to the ways of man.

He wasn't going to engage in rhetoric and and clever debate and and try to be imposing and and physically impressive and manipulative and do all the things that these that these worldly teachers were doing. They were engaged in worldly ways trying to take away from the truth. But Paul warns them, and he says, hey, I'm coming back. And you're gonna find that I'm the same man who wrote you these letters. And that when I come back, I will speak to you in the same way that I've written to you, that you have already acknowledged is powerful.

And I'm not going to come and play the game the same way you do. I'm not going to do this the world's way. I'm not going to try to be impressive, and I'm not going to bring rhetoric, and I'm not going to do this, and I'm not going to do that. I'm bringing the Word of God. You guys have brought a pop gun to a real gunfight.

And the Apostle Paul says I'm not going to play the way that you play. I'm coming with the Word of God. And it is going to be devastatingly effective. Because those are the weapons of my warfare. Those are the weapons of our warfare.

It's the Word of God. That was the weapon of Christ's warfare. The Lord Jesus Christ, when He was defending marriage, went immediately to the Word of God as we have sought to do in looking at the creation account of God's establishment of marriage and trying to understand how precious marriage is in God's eyes. God instituted it. That's one of the things that we need to understand makes marriage really, really precious.

Who is its author? Who instituted it? The Lord God Himself. And He gives reasons, and there are things that we can understand from the Scriptures that we're examining about how God established it and what God established it and how precious it is in His eyes that then help us to understand our duties and see the benefits in ways that are so beautiful. He, the Lord God Himself, established it.

You know, many of us think that before the fall, there was nothing which was not good in what God had created. We see this was good, this was good, this was very good. We see that, but you know what we've just read about happened before the fall. God found something that was not good that needed to be changed before the fall. And what was that?

It was not good that man should be alone. And so we see from the explanation in chapter 2 about what happened in chapter 1 that the Lord had formed man first and that he then created woman from the rib, from the side of the man, from near his heart, from the things that we have probably heard frequently in weddings. God said, Rather than you being alone with no helper suitable to you, you're better off to undergo a change. I'm going to do surgery, so to speak, to put it in at least human understandable terms. You're better off without a rib and with a wife.

Because you alone in paradise, this is not good. That tells us something about God's perspective on marriage. Jesus tells us that God established marriage, that He made them male and female so that they would and could be married. That's why He goes to Genesis 1, Genesis 2, in defense of marriage. That is precisely what God did.

He created marriage out of His grace and His love as an amazing gift for mankind. And He proved to Adam that there was nothing else suitable to Him Except for a woman. Not another man. Not the most faithful dog that you could ever have. Not his favorite horse.

There was no suitable helper for him except for Eve. Except for the woman that He created. How do we know that? Because we see in the description in chapter 2 that God brought everything He had created to Adam, and Adam named them all. That's really instructive.

Because as He brought everything to Adam, and Adam saw them and classified them and named them, Adam came to understand what God already knew. None of them were suitable helpers for him. There needed to be something else. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, needed to be created. That's what they were called in Acts 17.

And God created them male and female. Created He them. And He established them in the first marriage. And that's what Jesus goes back to when He defends marriage. This is what God created, what God ordained, what God did before the fall, making a perfect creation more perfect As God Himself declared that it was not good for man to be alone.

If it was not good for man to be alone in paradise, How much more so is it not good for man to be alone in this wilderness that we live in that is so far from the Garden of Eden? When work is difficult. When thorns are plenty. When travails are difficult. When sin has entered the world.

When the curse exists, when the spiritual battle goes on and on and on, If it was not good for Adam to be alone as God created him and before he fell, how much more important, how much better is it that man not be alone now? That's how precious and how important marriage is. And that's what God established in order to cure the problem of what was not good as He had created Adam and before He had created Eve. Adam needed to be established in marriage. He needed to be given the mandate to be fruitful and multiply, to take dominion, to have children again before the fall.

We begin to see the treasures and the blessings and the beauty of marriage whenever we begin to see how marriage was established and how God established it Himself the manner by which He established it. Taking the rib from Adam, the place in which it was established. In a place where there had been no fall, where there was no sin. In a place called Paradise. The time in which He established it.

We know, any of us who have studied the Bible know and understand that things of first impression are very, very important. Christ took us back to that when the Pharisees challenged Him about divorce and attacking marriage. And so we look here at what God established between the first man and the first woman, and we see this institution of marriage established by God is precious, precious in the eyes of God. And what kindness, what love, that a perfect holy God would love His creation that He would love man and give Him the kind of gift that a man receives whenever God brings him a wife. You see that language in chapter 2?

How did all those animals come before Adam? God brought them. And He brought this one. And He brought this one. And Adam named them.

And named them. And named them. And What did God do after He made Eve? He also brought her. And after everything that God had created had been brought before Adam and nothing had been seen to be suitable, finally God brought him that perfect Helper.

That Helper suitable to him. That gift brought Him a wife. And He set our salvation, our relationship to Jesus Christ, the cross, he set these things in the context of marriage. Do we wonder why the enemy attacks with such zeal? Folks, is this a war on marriage for the sake of marriage?

Is this something to promote a certain people group to which Satan or liberals or whoever we want to talk about have suddenly become very affectionate and sympathetic? Or is there a greater purpose in this? I want to suggest to you that the attacks we are seeing in our culture and that we have seen throughout Christian history with regard to marriage are not just attacks on marriage, they are attacks on the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are attacks on how God chose to communicate that gospel truth to his people. It is fascinating to consider marriage in relation to Christ as the Messiah came.

You see how it began. You see what God established. You see His kindness in doing it. Oh, that ought to just grip our hearts. Then we see, if we were to look on over in Genesis 3, the promise of salvation, wouldn't we?

That this curse, this fall, this separation from God would be cured. It would be cured by a Savior, by the Lord Jesus Christ, who would be what? The seed of the woman. Where does legitimate seed come from? From marriage.

He would establish Adam and Eve in marriage, and from that establishment of the first parents, the first Adam would come the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and the enemy hates that, and he is attacking it relentlessly. And we must defend it. To defend it as we should, we must understand and cherish the context in which salvation, the Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ, has been connected to the marriages that God allows us to enjoy. Think of Christ's connections to marriage. We talked about Genesis 3, Matthew 1.

You see Jesus' first miracle about to occur, but you see Jesus there in Matthew 1. Again, the seed of a woman, of an espoused woman, of a woman who is to be married and who is already in biblical understanding betrothed to her husband. The one who is betrothed to the church coming as the seed of one betrothed to a man. Look at the context of marriage. Look at it everywhere around the incarnation, the coming of Christ.

Is there anything more precious than that God would become man and come and save His own from their sins? Consider the first miracle. John 2. Where was Jesus? At a wedding.

Celebrating, honoring marriage at that wedding in Cana. Consider in Matthew 22 how Christ helps us to understand the kingdom of heaven. He puts it, doesn't He, in the context of a wedding feast. He talks about the guests who are to be at the wedding. He talks about those who are to have the wedding garment upon them.

This is the Gospel, brothers and sisters. And this is what the enemy hates and this is what the enemy is relentlessly attacking, and this is what we must treasure, what we must love. Because God treasures it. Because it is so much connected to His glory and to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of the Gospel. It is so illustrative of the relationship that Christ has to the church as we see and we'll talk about tomorrow, maybe, well, probably not this evening, from Ephesians 5.

There you see Christ, we are to relate to Him and to understand Him as Savior, as He relates in the context of His relationship to the church. He is the bride, or she is the bride brought to the groom, just as Eve was the bride brought to her groom, Adam. That's how we are to come to understand our union with Christ. In the context of God-honoring, God-established, God-ordained marriages. You can look at these things as you have time.

In John 6 and Psalm 45, Hosea 2, 2 Corinthians 11, we see it just rich with language of how we relate to and understand our relationship with Christ in terms of marriage. Look at how Scripture treats marriage. We've already mentioned Ephesians 5, which we'll talk about more tomorrow. 1 Timothy 2, talking about the curse under which Eve labored as a result of the fall being changed to a blessing. What blessing?

That the seed would crush the head of the serpent? And that salvation would come through Christ, through childbearing. That our God would come as an infant and be born of a woman. The picture of marriage. We could talk about the impact that marriage has on the world around us.

Even just the common grace that those who don't think of marriage in the way that they should and don't understand it and treasure it the way that a biblical understanding would lead one to. Yet nonetheless, the benefits that just by common grace that the world around us enjoys from marriage. Why do you think there are so many wanting to be recognized in marriage in relationships that are outside of what God established between one man and one woman? Why do they want to be included in marriage so badly? Well, Part of that is just because they want that benefit.

They want to be part of that, but as so often is the case, they do not want to do it God's way. And that's not just unique to some of the most overt attacks on marriage that we're seeing today. That's so often true just of our own flesh, isn't it? These battles with regard to marriage, they're not all the product of the world and the devil. A lot of times, our own flesh is enough to create some pretty significant battles and misunderstandings with regard to marriage.

Especially whenever it leads us to understand our own depravity and our own need for a Savior and our own helplessness apart from God. Whenever things challenge our pride and we respond to it in our flesh, the battle can rage even within, just like this battle from without. It's so obvious and so grieving to those of us who Love the Lord. Again, we have to move quickly as we try to just survey briefly together how God honors marriage and how we ought to honor it as He does. The crown doesn't stop being a crown just because it's been thrown in the dirt or because mud has been slung on it.

Our culture wants us to believe that, but Hebrews 13 tells us something very different, doesn't it? It talks about how honorable marriage is. That's what we must understand. How should we think about it? How should we relate to it?

We should have the mind of Christ, the understanding of marriage that lines up as biblically as we can try to line it up. That The Lord would permit us, allow us, strengthen us, give us grace and mercy to persevere in marriage, to preserve marriage, to protect marriage, to glorify Him in marriage. Such beautiful purposes that God has in marriage. If we want to see the love of God set on His own, on His children, oh, the purposes and benefits of marriage just shout that to us as we consider the grace of God, that He would not leave Adam alone without a companion. Even before the fall.

Even when sin had not entered the world, God, the Trinity in its counsel said, we'll make man in our image, male and female. There is really something beautiful and Trinitarian in how God established marriage, isn't there? As He took one and then made another from the one, from a part of the one, from the rib, from the side. And then He brought those two that He had made back together, made them one flesh in marriage. I do not pretend to understand the Trinity.

I accept what the Bible says about it as true. We certainly are not going to get into a deep discussion about that together tonight. But do you see how the Trinity in its eternal perfect counsel said, man doesn't need to be alone. You want to understand one of the big purposes of marriage? Simple companionship for one who was alone.

Established, Yes, by the kindness of God to make His life better even though He was living in paradise. God said I'm going to make this even better for you. This aspect of this is not good. That you're alone. Not to say that there are not times in which, as we've already mentioned and as we could talk about from 1 Corinthians 7, that it is even perhaps more appropriate to remain unmarried.

We've talked about that gift that some may have simply to only serve the Lord. We heard it mentioned in John MacArthur's remarks. We haven't really had time to talk about it beyond that yet. But understanding that what God normally has in store for His children is to expect, to enjoy the companionship of marriage. And to have such blessing and benefit from that.

I'm sure you're familiar with Ecclesiastes 4 that talks about when one falls alone, woe to him and how much better it is when there's another there to help him back up. Just the beauty, the blessing of companionship. That God would give that as a precious, precious gift. That we would have companionship as husbands and wives in our trials. That we would not go through these things alone.

Because God was too kind to require that, to leave us there. He cared and loved his own and gave them this beautiful gift of companionship. What great comfort from God in both physical existence, just the things of this life in sickness and in health, in trials, in good times and bad, in riches and poverty, in whatever case we might find ourselves, to enjoy the companionship of a wife, of a husband, to be blessed with children. The time has flown by as we just seek to try to unpack some of the richness and beauty that we see in a biblical perspective of marriage and what God has done. The kindness, the grace, the comfort that God has given us, not just in companionship, but in being blessed to have children.

To have the opportunity to raise a posterity that honors God, to raise godly seed. To see as we've heard that that very act of being fruitful and multiplying would be what God would use to bring the Lord Jesus Christ incarnate to us. That's a charge He gave immediately before the fall as soon as He brought Adam and Eve together. Immediately, He charged them to be fruitful and multiply. You see that in Genesis 2.22.

We just read it. In wedding ceremonies everywhere, people are joined in holy matrimony. You know what the root of that word is? Matrimony? It's matriarchal.

It's to make a mother. That's what really is described there when two come together in marriage. Marriage makes a woman who is not a mother into a mother. Marriage makes mothers. And the ultimate and beautiful example of the grace of God in marriage was that he would send the Lord Jesus Christ through a mother.

A virgin, a spoused woman though in the context of marriage. That the one betrothed to his church would come forth from a woman betrothed to her husband. You cannot get away from the Gospel, from salvation, from the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ without seeing marriage instructing us in how we relate. The Great Commission. The charge that we are, according to Proverbs 22.6 and Romans 10.17, to raise a godly seed, that we are to train them up in the way they should go, and that faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of God, that we get to be a part of this great commission work and that having children is such a beautiful part of that.

That is how the Lord Jesus Christ so often grows His church and how that great commission is fulfilled and how so many come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and why there is still a church because God said Christian people who love me have children, and raise them up in the way they should go. And Let their faith in God come by the hearing of the Word, and let it happen in the context of a family. In the context of marriage. That's the only legitimate way that children come into the world. It's not the only way that children come into the world, but that is how godly seed, according to God's plan, are to come into the world.

And what a great blessing for the world, for the church, these seminaries, that our families in which the Word of God is held up and preached. We could talk about the blessing of marriages after the fall, it is such an opponent to sin that a husband and a wife's relationship is at war with perhaps the most pervasive, awful path to sin that we see. Sexual sin. That a husband and a wife giving themselves to each other in a way that is beautiful before the Lord is the enemy of sin. The enemy of Satan.

And such a barrier to what Satan would do to try to entice men to sin. Oh, the benefits, the beauty, the blessing of marriage. We see them as we understand God's mind about marriage, and I don't pretend to have the understanding of that that I would love to have, or to have presented much more than just perhaps a bit of that to you in the time that we've had together tonight. But as we understand the blessings, the benefits, the purposes of marriage, Oh, we see the goodness of God. We see the Gospel.

We see the Lord Jesus Christ connected to it in so many ways, and we see a treasure. We see something that because of the treasure it is to God ought also to be a treasure to us. We see incredible blessings. And what should be our response? Shouldn't it be to be thankful?

How this world wants to lie and say, oh, don't consider marriage. It won't be a blessing. It won't be something for which you should be thankful. But aren't you grateful that God's Word makes it very clear that that's not true? And that God brought the Lord Jesus Christ through this very context, this institution of marriage, that God loved and cared about us so much that He gave us the companion, the solace and trouble, the help, the encouragement to each other that we can enjoy in marriage.

That He let us be about dominion work together as husbands and wives, that He holds marriage in such esteem and honors that so beautifully in His Word. We'll talk in the morning about some of the duties that we have in marriage, about how we should respond if we really treasure what God has established in marriage, if we really desire to preach the Gospel in marriage, if we really desire to tell the truth, if we really want to open God's Word and understand what has He commanded? What are His directives? What does God require of us with regard to marriage? And some of us will hear those things and will be tempted to respond the wrong way.

We'll be tempted to say, oh, well, yeah, that sounds good, but it also sounds completely impossible. In your flesh, that's exactly right. But what God has commanded, He does not call us to walk in obedience to in the flesh. I expect you're familiar with Philippians 2.13 which assures us that it's God working to will and do His good pleasure in whatever He may command. Friends, it's not just marriage that we can't manage in obedience to God's commands in our own strength, in our own flesh.

We can't manage anything that God's called us to in our own strength, in our own flesh, according to our own abilities, according to our own goodness. That's the point. There's nothing good that can come from us and there's nothing good that will. God who drew us to Him even shows us how He provides every good thing for us as He brought together the first husband and wife bringing that bride to the groom just as He brings His church to her groom, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian here tonight, you're not a Christian because there was something better about you when you weren't a Christian that somehow you just deserve God's favor.

And That's why you came to Christ. You're a Christian because God changed your heart. Because He brought you to the groom. You want to see a picture of the Gospel? The Lord brought Eve to Adam.

The Lord brings His church to her groom. He works in her heart. He gives her the truth of His Word. And as we humble ourselves and know that there's no good in us apart from Him, He gives us the grace, and He works to will and to do according to His good pleasure. And He does that in the context of marriage in such beautiful ways, in such gospel proclaiming ways, in such God glorifying ways, if we can seek to have His mind about it and to treasure this institution of marriage that God has established and that He treasures and that He honors.

May God put his mind, his understanding, his commands deep within our hearts. May he help us to work through those together tomorrow. And may we understand that it'll be God working to do and to will His good pleasure as we seek to honor and glorify Him in our marriages.