In this sermon, Paul Carrington explores the doctrine of marriage as outlined in the Second London Baptist Confession. He emphasizes the significance of marriage as not only a personal blessing but as a fundamental narrative woven throughout Scripture, starting with Genesis and culminating in the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation. Carrington reflects on the cultural shifts and challenges to traditional marriage, including the impact of legal decisions like Obergefell and societal attitudes towards cohabitation and alternative family structures. He argues for a God-centered view of marriage, highlighting its divine ordination and purpose, which transcends human definitions and benefits. The sermon critiques the degradation of marriage in modern society, pointing out the decline in the marriage rate and the rise of practices that undermine its sanctity. Carrington also discusses the roles and responsibilities within marriage, though noting the lack of depth in the Confession regarding divorce and specific marital roles. He concludes by emphasizing the enduring nature of God's truth and the importance of reflecting Christ's love in the marriage covenant, urging believers to uphold these values amid societal pressures.

Well this evening we're going to be looking at the doctrine of marriage covered off in the Second London Baptist Confession. It's a beautiful topic at once, challenging, but also you know one that we can We can all learn from so much we can glean from we can all grow in as well. And I couldn't help but as I was going through this really just reflecting on marriage from a personal perspective. And I have to say that outside of coming to know the Lord the greatest thing that's ever happened to me was getting married and having that relationship. I think a lot of the brothers here would probably agree with me that after coming to know Christ, marriage is probably the best thing that's ever occurred in your entire life and I say that with all honesty and I'm sure the wives would probably agree with me too that your husbands have been the chief cause of sanctification and drawing near to God in many ways.

I know we do that quite well but tonight we're going to be looking at marriage from the perspective of God's ways and God's ways are right ways and you know You have to ask the question and start off by asking is there a hotter topic Than the topic of marriage right now Is there another topic with with greater implications when you think of it that just a couple of years ago I think it was just over two years ago, Obergefell was passed. And that seems almost like it's in the rear view mirror. It's something that's been done, been there, done that. It's now a settled matter in the minds of many. And so the cultures really kind of zoom past defining male and female relationships to going forward to trying to define what is male and what is female.

That's where our society actually is when you think of it today. It's gone so far afield and it's such a sad thing. But we want to make sure that, you know, while the Supreme Court seeks to legitimize deviance, we want to make sure that we're subject and we're looking to a higher court. And that is the Supreme Court of the living God. And so we're going to be looking at this today and also just keeping in mind when you think of marriage, marriage is really the baseline of the entire narrative of Scripture right from the very beginning really Genesis chapter 2 and we heard it today when our pastor Mike Davenport he read from Revelation 21 and chapter 22 continues with speaking about the the marriage supper of the Lamb of the bride and the Lamb finally being together we just sang about that about the bride and the groom And so this is what we're going to be contemplating tonight, but as we're here on earth in 2017, there's a lot of people right now that desire nothing more than that the institution of marriage just simply crumble over the edge into oblivion.

It's this idea that We're making such rapid progress in quotes, I would say. That's how our society looks at it, that we're obliterating all of the customs and the traditions and we're breaking new ground and going forward. There's been a direct full frontal attack and it's not only coming from the LGBTQ and all these other, whatever other letters you wanna add to it. But also there's just an attack in our culture in general where you think of things like cohabitation. Right now two thirds of millennials think that cohabitation is just fine.

And what that means is just a man and a woman getting together, living together without any bonds of marriage to kind of just see if marriage might be for me down the road. Or they use the analogy of you don't just buy a car, you've got to test drive it first to see if it suits you and then maybe if you want it you buy it. All these poor analogies, this total total degradation in terms of what marriage has looked at it and you look at it also and not only those that advocate for LGBT and those that advocate for cohabitation but just in general families kind of looked at as a nice to have, something that maybe one day I'll get around to. But our identity in the meantime is gonna be wrapped up in many other things. And you think of things like, I work for a high-tech company, and if you look over in Silicon Valley in California, there are companies like Facebook and Apple, which have become the first employers to offer female employees the opportunity to freeze their eggs.

So you're a 25-year-old employee, instead of getting married, a young lady, by the way, a young woman, and instead of getting married and having children, don't worry about that. We'll freeze your eggs for you. And when you're 40, when you're done with your career, 45 or whatever age, then they'll be ready and waiting for you. And everything's been put off where in 1960, 72% of all adults over 18 were married. In 2010, it was only 51%.

So you can kind of see this decline where marriage just isn't happening as much. It's still happening of course, but even when it's happening the bonds aren't quite there as they should be and ought to be. And so marriage is often seen as optional at best and disposable at worst. The fundamental reason for marriage is simply isn't there and there's been all sorts of attempts to mainstream deviation both from homosexuality, from fornication, divorce, things like that and unfortunately divorce is an area that the church can't just wash its hands from because the church in many ways has been silent on the matter of the church you know especially during the 60s 70s and so on there was a lot of divorce even happening within the church and the church might have lost its voice to be able to speak to these matters and to tell you the level of degradation and and the way that things like divorce are actually seen. It's astonishing to see where we're at right now.

There's mugs and t-shirts and all sorts of things you can buy if you want to host a divorce party. You can do that And I was looking online and one of them, one of the most popular items was a mug. Inscribed on the mug was, my husband and I divorced for religious reasons. He thought he was God and I didn't. And this is what they think is of a laughing matter.

There's actually a book written called a Divorce Party Handbook, How to Throw an Unforgettable Divorce Party When Divorce Do Us Part. It's packed with ideas for menus, games, invitations, gifts, and entertainment, everything to make the divorce party a momentous occasion. It also includes a chapter on divorce party etiquette. And so this is where our society is in terms of how it looks at marriage and who would have think that those who now advocate for the most fundamental building block of all civilization, marriage and then the family, would be kind of relegated to a minority position that if you even speak on it you can actually be attacked for thinking of it as though God instituted it. You may be called a bigot or hater, a hater or something else like that.

And it's really not just an attack on Christians, but really a direct attack on the citadel of God's Word, going back to, did God say? And just like abortion is an attack on God and the sovereignty of God where a woman says, I am the one over my own body, no one is above me, marriage is much the same way. And it's an attack directly on God. So we want to look at everything that we're looking at tonight under that auspice of God has said on the one side and what man is trying to say on the other side. And so the question is will we approach marriage from a God-centered view or from a man-centered view?

And if you look at the man-centered view, man will say well we created it and it remains in effect only so long as we deem it beneficial and desirable and when that's no longer the case we can dissolve it and of course because we define it alternate forms of marriage are fine We can come up with whatever combinations we want, whether it's a man and a man or a man and many women or whatever the case might be, we can define it because we're the ultimate authorities when of course that's not the case. But if you look at it from the fact that, the true fact that God designed, he instituted, the word used in the confession is ordained marriage. It's not manmade and it's not even primarily for man's benefit. But the primary reason for marriage is to depict and illustrate a much grander narrative, which is of course, like I said, the marriage supper of the lamb that's coming in the future. And think about it, how many illustrations in the Bible are beautiful illustrations, but they stop at the cusp or at the brink of eternity.

But the marriage supper is one that carries on for all eternity, the bride and the bridegroom. It's amazing to think about it. It's right there in the beginning. It comes right to the end, but it doesn't end there. It goes all the way throughout the endless ages of eternity and we need to see marriage like that the highest purpose is really to display the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for his bride which are those who make up his church and so in looking at this the actual confession doesn't really get into a whole lot of detail so looking at that we'll go through it there's four paragraphs but it doesn't really delve into roles like what is the role of a husband and wife doesn't really get into that.

The word love is never mentioned here. Great chapters like Ephesians chapter 5 aren't even referenced. And Christ in the church isn't really explored all that much either. It's just it's very very it's a confession. And So to make a confession for the confession, I want to just bring out one thing.

First of all, it doesn't mention anything about divorce. The Savoy Declaration and the Westminster both had paragraphs regarding divorce, very, very clear. But for some reason, and there's no real good reason that I could find that I could say confidently, this is why they did not include it. It's simply not there. It's very hard to explain and excuse that away, so I won't try to do that.

But just to read you what the Westminster said regarding divorce, It says this, adultery or fornication committed after a contract, the marriage, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. The man and woman get married, it comes out after the marriage is consummated that there was untruth and lies undergirding that whole thing from the very beginning before. It's full grounds to dissolve that marriage without any sin whatsoever. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and after the divorce to marry another as if the offending party were dead. And so the only two grounds they give for justifying divorce in the Westminster is for adultery and desertion.

Desertion you can find in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 15. But of course we know that God hates divorce and he hates it because it's always the result of sin. But there are valid grounds for divorce. And so unfortunately again it doesn't really get into that. And Another omission I would say and a less a less dangerous one would be that they didn't actually define marriage here in the actual confession.

They don't actually tell you what marriage is. They tell you who the parties are involved in all of that but it doesn't actually get into the definition of marriage and I think part of that you know you could you could just assume that well for thousands of years this is what marriage is and has been and they probably didn't maybe think that they needed to actually define it that could be a plausible reason They could never ever have thought that it would have been assaulted like it is today, right? 400, almost 400 years later. And so just what is marriage? Well Jay Adams defines it as a covenant of companionship between a man and a woman, sexual, verbal, emotional, and vocational.

And it's not merely a promise or commitment but an oath to each other before witnesses and a vow to God. And so marriage is defined by a marriage covenant it's not just a promise And it's interesting that marriage follows on the heels of the last chapter which was of lawful oaths and vows. So it's probably why it comes right after this chapter. And so there's two areas really not covered properly in the confession. The first one being divorce and the second is really coming up with a clear clear definition of marriage.

So we're going to look at the first paragraph and what they try to do here is outline marriage being monogamous. And so I'll read the paragraph it's a short one It says marriage is to be between one man and one woman. Drawing from Genesis chapter two right again I mentioned in the beginning that the very basis of the Bible it really starts with marriage. And so when when the Lord was was there and Adam had just been created we read in Genesis 2 therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And it's really interesting to see that this actually happened on the sixth day of creation.

So this is before the curse and this is really the only legitimate formula for marriage. There's no other formula outside of what is defined here. A relationship between one man and one woman and monogamy is God's intended design. One man, one woman. And it's protected in the seventh commandment as well, of course, where it talks about you shall not commit adultery.

So it's a binding for all times on all nations throughout the world. And of course we know that the Lord Jesus himself, he expounded on this in Matthew 19 when the Pharisees and the scribes, they came to him trying to trick him and get him wrapped up and tangled up in his own words. And he was very, very clear that the only reason that divorce was permitted was because of men's wickedness on the first hand, but he talks about the idea that from the beginning It was not so he he hearkens back to Genesis 2 in a sense Just basically stamping that and saying this is what God intended right in the beginning and he quotes it and says so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. And so, just one thing we can take from this is that anything else other than what we see here is not marriage.

Right, There's no such thing as a square circle. The moment it becomes a circle, it's no longer a square. You don't have the one who ordained the thing is the one who determines what it actually is, And the moment it is no longer that, it ceases to be that, it loses the original definition. It's no longer marriage at all. It's just like true north.

If I say, well, in my opinion, and I've met people like this, we met them down in Wake Forest, well, where's true north? Well, in my opinion, it's that way. And someone else may say it's that way and another person and we can all be right That's your truth. Well, that doesn't make any sense at all in the physical world And of course, it doesn't make sense before God There's only one true north and there's only one principal definition of marriage which is between one man and one woman it's the potter not the clay who defines marriage no matter what men may say and it says here neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time. And here the authors they make reference to Malachi chapter 2 verse 15 as their text and it says therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

And so many people might say well if you look back down through the annals of the Bible in the history you'll see men that had all sorts of wives. I think Lamech was the first man, the first polygamist. You'll find him in Genesis chapter 4 verse 19 and you see other men after him like Abraham and David and others who violated God's law on this point. But that doesn't justify what God's intended and initial design was. Right.

You do not want to draw your doctrine for marriage from looking at Solomon's family portrait. I think that's probably pretty clear. You don't want to say, well, he did it and so I can do it. It's the idea. One of the hermeneutics we can get from that is looking at seeing is something descriptive or is it prescriptive?

Right? We have to look at what God has prescribed and then follow that not just what has been described. And so very important because you can see it's totally destructive. It was destructive to him and it's destructive to everyone. We lived in a country where polygamy was widely practiced and you think well you know it's just an age-old practice and people say it's just tradition and the way it is totally destructive.

You see the ravages of it all over the place in terms of the hatred of the wives, the resent, all of this stuff, because it's not God's original intended design. But you'll notice here that God also makes room for for widows and widowers and those divorced for legitimate reasons, right, like I mentioned earlier, if desertion or adultery, they are free to marry. They're not bound by their initial vows before God. And likewise, a widow or a widower is not bound as well. But I think what's really clear is that any sexual relationship that is outside of the one woman, one man covenant of marriage is sinful.

There's no way around that at all. So that's paragraph one. In paragraph two, they seek to define the purposes of marriage. And I'll read that. It's, again, a very short paragraph.

It says that marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue and the preventing of uncleanness. And so again I looked at this and I'm looking at this list and I'm like, wow, you know, you could have probably added a few more reasons for marriage, right? I mean, there's all sorts of amazing stuff written about the purposes. But they they did make I think They graduated from the Roman Catholic view, which all they did was see the reason for marriage was one thing. Procreation.

That was the only reason really. It was kind of a necessary evil in order to propagate the species. That's really the only reason they could give for it. It wasn't anything beyond that than then hey get married so that people can continue But it's far better to be celibate Which is why you had a massive population of people going into nunneries and monasteries even at the time of the Reformation So one of the interesting things is you notice that word ordained, marriage was ordained, and that word means instituted or established. And it's established for the mutual help of husband and wife.

And you know, as I was going through this, I mean, there's so many good things, like I said, written. Gouge has some amazing things written. J.R. Miller has a book written on the family. We have the book obviously the NCFEC produced, the theology of the family that deals with the roles of the family specifically, but the husband particularly, the wife specifically as well.

And so much is covered off in these amazing treaties, these books that are written. But I found it, you know, to be honest when I'm thinking about the whole thing of marriage, personally I found it so much easier to look at all the outward attacks that are coming against marriage, right? I just mentioned the LGBT and, you know, the downward degradation of our culture that enables degradation or cohabitation and all the... But it's far more difficult to look in the mirror as a husband and see where I fail and the various areas where I fall so short and selfishness and all the other things that assault and cause problems and how far and how weak and dim a reflection of Jesus Christ I can be. So it's one thing to look at the culture declining, but it's far better, or just as important, if not significantly more important, to look at myself as a husband and say, hey, who am I?

And how is it going for me as a husband? How am I really treating my wife? Am I truly reflecting Christ in the church? These are things that really convicted me as I was going through this. And it's important for us because we're setting the tone for our children and for generations.

If you're a first-generation Christian which we happen to be, you're setting this tone that might carry God willing down through the line and you hope that there won't be a I hope I'm not like my dad, or I hope I'm not like my mother, but may God help us to truly reflect Christ in the church. Well, God ordained and instituted marriage, and we have a game at home, it's called Jenga, I don't know if you've heard of this game. It's called Jenga. It's a bunch of blocks that you stack on top of each other. It's probably about two feet high.

And your job is to take a block from the bottom and you put it on top. You take another block from the bottom and you put it on top. And you're going around in a circle. And whoever is the one that ends up taking the block from the bottom and everything crashes, that's what the game, it's over at that point. That person was the one that lost the game.

Well, our society is playing that game right now with taking the most fundamental building block out of all civilization for 6, 000 years and saying away with it, tossing it over the shoulder and we're gonna forge our own path into the darkness trying to cut, cut basically cut the rope and go out and float out across the ocean into nothingness. That's kind of what our society is arguing for right now. But God has spoken and God's ways are right ways and what he said is this, it is not good for man. That man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.'" And again, this was before the curse on the sixth day.

And I think it's so wonderful when you think about this. There's so much in this one line for the mutual help of husband and wife. There's so much, you could go down this portal and go into also, that's where you get books like J.R. Miller and Gooch because they explore this one line here. But to know that you're loved and someone is committed to you and you're committed to them through all circumstances and seasons of life, I can't think of anything better that God has provided.

And again, even when you look at it, I kind of joked about it earlier, but sanctification, right? I mean, it's really one of those things that you don't know how selfish you are until you're married. You can think you're pretty, doing pretty well until you're actually married and then you begin to be introduced to yourself in a whole other way. But how beautiful marriage is in terms of how you get support through all sorts of trials throughout life. You're known, you're being known, you're getting to know someone else like no one else in the entire world and you begin to be able to share joys that inside jokes or just experiences that no one else will ever be able to have any sense of.

And I remember I've been to some beautiful, beautiful places but when I've been I remember climbing to the top of Yosemite's El Capitan. It was a long, long hike. I can't remember the distance. It took me half a day to get up there. But I was up there at the top and I'm up at the top and I'm by myself.

And I spent, it was beautiful but I'm by myself and I didn't, who do you share that with? I spent about 20 minutes, took a few photographs, a selfie and then I headed back down. But it wasn't like I could say look at this and share it. But there's something to be said about sharing beautiful experiences with somebody else. And there's something to be, there's something empty when that's not there.

At least that's my experience and I'm sure for many of us as well but it's also important to know that Eve wasn't created inferior to Adam was she? Right that's very important but to compliment him and to enjoy the closest fellowship together. It wasn't a that she's lesser in terms of her value or anything along those lines whatsoever. And it also says marriage was ordained for the increase of mankind with legitimate issue. And so Genesis 128, of course, is referred to here where it says be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

And you look at modern sentiment which see children as a curse and then you see what the Bible says where it says that children are a blessing from the Lord. Who are you gonna choose? Whose word will stand forever? The word of man or the words of the living God? Well, of course we know God's words.

And his whole desire is that there would be more worshipers to declare his majesty throughout the ages of history. You see that in Psalm 78. You see that all the way to Deuteronomy 6 where you're passing down the glories of God from one generation to another and you see the tragedy when that doesn't happen like in the book of Judges where there came up a generation who did not know the Lord and all the things that he had done for Israel on the other side of that. And so you notice the word legitimate and I just want to point out yesterday one of the brothers Rob Tartt he was preaching on poverty. He gave an amazing talk and And one of the things he talked about is the number one reason for poverty in America is really broken families.

You wouldn't think that if you just, if I asked you what was the number one reason, you would point to something else. But he was saying the number one reason is broken families. And there's massive implications for the families because they do need both the father and the mother Fathers are protectors of daughters and they prepare their sons And so it's so important but you look at the United States right now and a question arises How can you prosper when you break God's design when you break God's laws as an individual, a family, or a nation. And right now, 41% of all American children are illegitimate, unfortunately. 41%, if you think that's a massive number, 75% of all black children are illegitimate.

75%, 53% of Hispanic children, over half are illegitimate. 29% of white children, that's still a huge, huge number, are illegitimate. So you begin to see how is this happening in our culture and in our society. It's because a war has been waged on the most central, pivotal, foundational institution, the family that God has ordained. And so it also says marriage was ordained for the preventing of uncleanness and of course this is addressing both adultery and fornication and Gouge in his book has a wonderful chapter on marital unity and sexual faithfulness and he talks about the remedies to prevent this heinous sin.

He talks about things like, this was written I think in the 1600s, but he talks about keeping the heart. How do you war against all the onsite? They didn't have even a fraction of what we face today in terms of all these intrusions into our lives, the technology at our fingertips, the temptations that are there at every turn. It wasn't quite as accessible as it is today and even then he was talking about it. He was saying you need to keep your heart, you need to guard your eyes.

He talks about things like dress, modesty, and ways to prevent fornication and uncleanness. He talks about things like feet, where your feet go. Are you cautious about where your feet go? And he says, and above all, the greatest remedy to hinder fornication, to hinder adultery, the fear of God. The greatest thing to remedy these types of things that assault us.

Fear God, love God, and you will have some sort of buttress against the onslaughts of the adversary because there's a massive push there's a massive push to get women into the workforce right now and there has been for the last 50 years so why what's happening well now marriage is being delayed till 28 30 you know it used to be a somewhat younger. There's all sorts of things, but as society has morally devolved, mankind, we haven't changed our impulses, right? The things, our animal instincts haven't changed, they haven't evolved, we're still the same. So while society's morally declining, people are putting off marriage, people are not putting off their desires, they're seeking to fulfill their desires in all sorts of other ways, which is a recipe for disaster. You look at a man that just died this past week, Hugh Hefner.

You know, this man, terrible man, died at 91 years of age. And you know, he was interviewed by the New York Times. And they asked him, what is your greatest accomplishment? I'm gonna read a quote. That I changed attitudes towards sex.

That I decontaminated the notion of pre-marital sex, that gives me great satisfaction." He wanted to be remembered as the author of the sexual revolution. But did he realize who he was basically in revolution against or rebelling against? It was the living God before whom now he has to stand and give account. But our society has been so dreadfully affected by this type of thinking, the sexual revolution, and marriage has been one of the things, again, heavily affected. And unfortunately, you wage war against God.

It doesn't go very well for you. And so Paul says this in terms of preventing uncleanness. He says, but I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am, but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Better to marry than to be enslaved to a burning passion.

And so hopefully that will be the law of many, and I know Scott often mentions that being patient. I was talking to a man yesterday who at the Father-Son Retreat, whose 27-year-old daughter is getting married on the 21st of October and he was talking about the beauty of waiting there were so many opportunities to go this way to go down that path and that path but she patiently waited and God brought upon her path a young man who he feels very confidently about that that he will be a good husband but it was just that she waited and and so it's very difficult at times when she saw her friends making bad choices wrong decisions but by waiting the Lord rewarded her with what appears to be a very solid man from what this father is saying and So what we've tried to do in these first two paragraphs is really identify the oneness of marriage, the monogamous, and then its purposes. We talked about some of those things. Now in paragraph three it talks about who can marry and it really talks about the parties involved. And these are, we're not going to spend all that much time in these in these paragraphs but it says this it is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent yet it is the duty of Christians to marry in the Lord And therefore such as profess the true religion should not marry with infidels or idolaters, neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked by marrying with such as are wicked in their life or maintain damnable heresy." And so that first sentence, it is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent.

You know Sam Waldron in commenting on this, he says older people may marry, handicapped people may marry, people from different racial backgrounds may marry, all sorts of people may marry. That's kind of what what he's saying here. And it is amazing how widespread marriage has been historically. I don't think you can go to any culture in the world where marriage isn't. You can go to the farthest reaches of the world and you'll find marriage.

It may not have been done in the way we would do it, but it's a part of us because again, hearkening back to Genesis chapter 2, it's just a foundation of every single society. And so despite the fall, this basic social underpinning has existed and continues to exist. And even if someone, so if someone is mentally incapacitated or too young, obviously they are not included as options for marriage, right? That's kind of what they seem to be saying right here. And it goes on to say, yet.

So you see that word yet. So everyone can marry, Muslims can marry Muslims and Hindus and you know all of that but then it comes very specific and it says yet it is the duty of Christians to marry in the Lord and therefore such as profess the true religion should not marry with infidels and In first Corinthians 7 it says a wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives But if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes Only in the Lord very very clear very categorical and so it's sinful It's not just ill-advised. It's not just, well, you know what, it's gonna be a hard marriage. It's sinful for a Christian to marry with a non-Christian. And I would include in that Catholics who are basically I would you could classify as idolaters they're not born again they're not in Christ and so you want to make sure that you never fall for marriage evangelism have you heard of that where people say well you know he'll change he'll change into do not be someone who falls for that Make sure that you're being married in the Lord.

It's super critical And so we've seen this right as we've traveled through Ezra and now we're in the book of Nehemiah We'll see it again in the last chapter of the book of Nehemiah just how critical this is and partially because God wants godly offspring. That's what we read in Malachi chapter 2. One of the main reasons for marriage is that God wants godly offspring and so how can you have godly offspring when there's two totally different world views competing for the mind share of the children. Where they speak half in the tongue of Ashdod and can't even speak in the Hebrew tongue like in Nehemiah chapter 13. It's not a good thing.

And we see the effects of this with Samson, we see this with Solomon, it's all over the Bible, the dangers of not marrying in the Lord, there's far far-ranging consequences in all sorts of areas of your life and so it says neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked by marrying with such as are wicked in their life or maintain damnable heresy. So it's not just saying, well, he says he's a Christian, he's been baptized, he takes the Lord's Supper. But it's calling for a deeper examination of the life of the person that you're considering to be yoked with. And it's really a deeper dive than just saying, well, yeah, they checked the box. The question would be, well, is that person born again?

And is there evidence that they've been born again? Are they sound in doctrine and in holiness? Those are some good things to really evaluate and what is their real profession of faith? Not what they say, but what does their life say? And sometimes you can never know.

I'm not saying you can perfectly nail it down, you can't, But you have to use the best judgment that you have to really evaluate that and do that well in advance of any emotional entanglements and try to get to the heart of that. And so remember that the visible church is full of professors who slip in without a wedding garment. You know that parable in Matthew. And so we don't want to take these things for granted. And paragraph four is pretty, I hesitate to say it, but pretty simple.

But then in the age that we're living in, you have to kind of just take that with some consideration here because it says this, marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity, a big word, which means with blood or with the same blood, which same family members, or affinity, forbidden in the word, nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful, but by any law of man or consent of the parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife." And again, so it's very, very plain. Really what this is addressing is what you read in the book of Leviticus, specifically chapter 18. The entire chapter 18 really deals with this idea of blood relations. And really in the Bible, it's forbidden to anyone closer than a first cousin you would marry. I think we have broader options today, So hopefully you're not just looking that far afield.

A little bit further would be good. But affinity, it also talks about affinity where marriage, like we saw in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, a man had his father's wife. That's what it talks about. So there's some sort of familial relationship. You may not be blood-related, but there's an affinity.

Obviously those types of relationships are totally out of bound as well, right? So some people won't say, well, hey, that's the Mosaic Code that you're referring to, but we just we obviously see Paul dealing with that in 1st Corinthians chapter 5, so it's it's binding and he talks about it as sexual immorality that is not even named among the Gentiles. That's how abominable what they were doing in that church was. And so John the Baptist, he lost his head over it because he was the one that preached against Herod and Herodias killed his brother and took his his wife and Leviticus 18 listen to this Leviticus 18 says this 24 25 do not defile yourselves with any of these things for by all these the nations are defiled which I am casting out before you for the land is defiled therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it and the land bombings out its inhabitants God takes sexual sin very very seriously. You can see that here.

And so a good thing just to consider another kind of apologetic is well people will say well how about Adam and his near relations right? His nearest descendants obviously married very, very close in terms of blood and so on. But of course human genetics at that time was was free from or freer. People lived centuries, right? It was different time altogether.

It was freer from defect originally and then gradually degraded over time. And you can notice that decline obviously in our age and in everything else as well. So those are the four chapter of paragraphs here in the chapter on marriage. Again, it could go much deeper, it could cover things like divorce, it could go much deeper into the roles of a husband and a wife and there's so many things that are written on it and so many good resources. But I think in terms of application, one of the things we could probably learn is that the authors of the Second London Baptist Confession probably could never have envisioned where we would be at 330 years later that marriage would be assailed like it is today.

It was probably unfathomable And so we don't want to take things for granted. I think that's one of the applications. Don't take things for granted when you express and explain things to your children or even try to get things into your own mind. Be able to explain and understand things from a scriptural perspective and then pass that on even if you think well that might that's that would never happen they would never have thought what has happened would have happened I think the other thing to just consider is that God's truth will reign and this he will reign long after the culture we are in either repents or burns itself out in corruption. God's ways are right ways.

God's Word endures forever. And so may we stand on his truth despite the force and the direction of prevailing winds even if we become the most significant minority in the country. As long as we're standing on the Word of God, we stand on solid ground. We must never ever compromise the Word of God. And then the last thing I would just say is that remember, just like how I started, that the marriage covenant foreshadows something wonderful.

It foreshadows Jesus Christ and his bride. This should always always be in, I want to be it more in my mind. I lament how little it's been in my mind throughout the course of 20 years of being married that I hadn't always thought of it in those terms. But for those of you who are anticipating getting married, may God help you to have that in your heart at all times. Christ and the church, it's wonderful.

And get your hands on good resources like Gouges and the theology of the family. Read them, study them, and make them a part of your of your of your world and actively seek if you're married already seek actively a better marriage May God help us Father we we come before you this evening and thank you Lord for this wonderful institution that you have ordained. The marriage covenant Lord thank you for providing men with wives and wives with husbands and And then the offshoot of that children and families, Lord, you have given us such comfort as we pass through this world. And all of it pointing to that great and glorious day when we will see you face to face, just like we sang about Lord, have the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face and that extended hand that's been pierced. Lord may we all have that riveted in our hearts, a desire to see you and long to see you, Lord.

Help our marriages. Bless us, O God, as husbands. Give us greater sensitivity and love towards our wives. And may you bless our homes, Lord. We so desperately need you and ask you to dwell with us.

Thank you, Lord, for your grace. Amen.