The sermon focuses on Exodus 20 and the seventh commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' emphasizing the biblical understanding of marriage as a covenantal, one-flesh union between a man and a woman established by God. It underscores that marriage is foundational to society, and breaking this covenant, as in adultery, damages the societal fabric. The speaker argues against the legitimacy of same-sex marriage and polygamy, asserting that these practices are contrary to God's original design. The sermon explains that marriage is a reflection of Christ's relationship with the church, highlighting the redemptive purpose of marriage as outlined in Ephesians 5. It concludes with a call for repentance and a return to biblical principles to uphold the sanctity of marriage.

Exodus chapter 20, if you have a pew Bible, the Bible under the chair in front of you, you can find our passage this morning on page 77. Page 77. And we will be zeroing in on the 14th verse, we will begin in verse one in terms of our reading. Exodus chapter 20 beginning in verse one and I'll Ask the congregation to now stand as God now speaks. Hear now the word of our God.

Then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out to the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle, or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. May God bless the reading and preaching of this His word.

Amen. You may be seated. We sing about it this morning in our time of adoration. The first song we sang together as a congregation, we sing the mighty power of God in creation. And we sang of His great and awesome power.

Let me remind you of it. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God said let there be light and there was light. He separated the light from the dark. He called the light day and the dark night and it was good the first day.

On the second day of creation God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters and God called the expanse heaven and it was good and there was evening and there was morning the second day. On the third day God made the dry land appear, land and seas, and it was good. He made the earth to sprout forth vegetation, and it was good. Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens. And God made the two great lights and the stars also.

And God saw that it was good. There was evening, there was morning, a fourth day. On the fifth day, God created the living creatures of the sea and every weaned bird after its kind and God saw that it was good. On the sixth day God made the beasts of the earth and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind And God saw that it was good. And then God created man in his own image, Adam.

And for the first time, after saying it was good, it is good, it is good, For the first time God said, it is not good. It is not good, God said, that man should be alone. So I will make a helper suitable for him. And so from the rib of a sleeping Adam, God fashioned Eve, woman. And it was very good.

In fact, it was so good that as Adam awoke from his slumber and he saw Eve, at least in the English, he said, whoa, man. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Man and woman one flesh the first marriage, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

If you've ever had any notion that perhaps there was something wrong or something corrupted in the idea of marriage, no. God instituted marriage at creation. No sin, no corruption in the world, and marriage was and it still is very, very good. For this reason, Genesis tells us, God tells us, for this reason, for marriage, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Think on that naked and not ashamed. Intimate, one flesh, a marriage covenant before God, naked and not ashamed. They didn't stay naked and unashamed, did they? What happened? What happened?

Genesis chapter 3 happened, didn't it? Sin happened. And upon breaking the first table of God's law, upon Adam's idolatry, the second table of God's law, love for neighbor, beginning with your one flesh spouse, that table was broken too. Adam sinned and they knew that they were naked and they were no longer not ashamed, but ashamed. And so they hid themselves.

They went and hid themselves and then Adam blamed his bride And the world was cursed Naked and not ashamed uncorrupted sexual intimacy one flesh union Adam commits of the idolatry he breaks the first table of God's law. What comes next? The second table immediately with it. The dishonoring of Adam and Eve as parents, the murder of their son, and right on that murder heels adultery, the corruption of the marriage covenant, ultimately, at least in recorded history, beginning with Lamech. We're going to come back to Lamech in just a moment.

Brothers and sisters, the seventh commandment is very simple in its wording. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Five words in English. But in order to understand this seventh commandment, you must first understand marriage.

You must understand what the seventh commandment protects. You must understand what the seventh commandment defends. You must understand what it demands for you as men and women in Christ, you must sanctify as God sanctifies the marriage covenant. The covenant of marriage. You must fight for the covenant of marriage.

You won't get the seventh commandment unless you get marriage. Baked into the seventh commandment is a fundamental understanding of this institution beginning in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two, marriage, an institution that God has ordained as the bedrock from which society is built upon. Marriage and the home that the marriage union creates. And when you commit adultery, you destroy that bedrock, which means you destroy the home, which means you destroy the church, which means that you destroy society. When you destroy the foundation upon which your society is built upon, you die as a people.

So if you're going to understand the seventh commandment, you've got to understand marriage. You've got to understand what God did in the beginning. You've got to understand why marriage matters so much, so that you see why adultery matters so much. And so this Lord's Day and next Lord's Day, Lord willing, we're going to answer three questions. Question number one, what is marriage?

Question number two, what is adultery? And then question number three, in light of all of that, how then do you obey the seventh commandment so first question number one what is marriage what is marriage for this reason Genesis tells us a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And Jesus says in Matthew chapter 19 and in Mark chapter 10 that God is the one who joins the two together in that one flesh union. God makes that covenant happen. What God has joined together, Jesus says, let no man put asunder.

When two people are united in marriage, God has done that union. So Marriage is a covenant, one flesh union between a man and a woman. And who puts that together? God puts that together. God puts the man and the woman together.

A man shall hold fast to his woman. Now that Hebrew word for wife in Genesis chapter 2. That Hebrew word for wife is the same Hebrew word for woman. Marriage is a one flesh union that God puts together between a biological man and a biological woman. His biological woman.

So the idea that two men or two women can marry each other, that is not true. There's no biblical category for that. Homosexual marriage, the union of two men or two women, isn't real. God didn't institute marriage in that way, so it's not real. You don't get to make up reality as a nation or a people or as a person.

So you don't get to call up, down, and down, up. You don't get to call left, right, and right, left. No, you aren't the creator. The Supreme Court of the United States of America isn't God. Neither are you.

And so when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, that case was called Obergefell. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, Obergefell was and is disobedience against God. It doesn't matter what those justices call themselves. They can call themselves the Supreme Court, Okay, because they are, but they are infinitesimally small in comparison to God who is supreme overall. His law triumphs overall and the supreme one says very clearly, that's not marriage.

That's not marriage. So Obergefell is lunacy. Obergefell is the clay kicking against the potter. It doesn't matter what the Supreme Court has said. It doesn't matter what the laws of the land are in America when that law contradicts God.

The Creator God has not been confusing. Since day six, male and female, a man shall become one flesh with his woman. That's the Hebrew. A man shall become one flesh with his woman. That's the Hebrew.

A man shall become one flesh with his woman. That's marriage. And two men together or two women together is not marriage. That's called sodomy. It's what God calls it, sodomy, and it's an abomination when two men and two women think that they can redefine what God has clearly defined.

So I just want to make sure we understand this as we're asking the question what is marriage, you need to know what's not marriage. Homosexual marriage isn't real. So we can call it this word instead of marriage we can call it mirage. It's homosexual mirage. It's fake.

God says so at creation. And God also says so in his creation mandate. If you were to look in Genesis 1 28, you do not need to turn there, but in Genesis 1 28 what does God tell the man and his woman, the man and his wife? What does God tell them? He puts them together in one flesh union, and what's the next thing he says?

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That's the creation mandate, be fruitful and multiply. God has designed marriage to multiply his image through little image bearers called children that wake up at 3 a.m. It's glorious. That's the creation mandate.

Bear godly offspring. Raise children. Start a family. It's a huge part of the institution of marriage since Genesis chapter 1 bearing children. Now, that doesn't mean that married couples who can't have children don't have a legit marriage.

No, barrenness in this fallen world is real, but so is the creation mandate. So we don't divorce marriage from trying to bear children, We don't divorce the one flesh union from the desire of procreation. We leave it in God's hands God puts these two things together though marriage and The creation mandate so what is marriage then? How do we answer this question? What is marriage?

Well, here's what we have so far. Marriage is a one flesh covenant union between a man and a woman that God has joined together with the mandate to raise godly offspring as the Lord provides. God ties the marriage union to the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiplied. So just to bring it back to homosexuality for a second, you can't do that with two men. You can't do that with two women.

Literally, I know it's obvious. It's crazy that we have to save this kind of stuff. Literally, the plumbing doesn't work in a way that makes procreation possible. Homosexuals can't have children in and of themselves, which is why it's so abominable that we as a land would be giving homosexuals our own children, handing them over to insanity. How much does a land have to hate their children to murder them in the womb, and if we don't murder them, we'll take them and give them over to sodomites.

You have to, you have a land that hates children when they do that. So beloved, Do not be confused. Do not be confused. This land, your land, my land, full of murder, full of sodomy, that is not a land full of love and acceptance. That's what all the billboards say, right?

Love, tolerance, accept. This is what real love looks like, killing babies and giving them to sodomites. Accepting of homosexual mirage. A land full of murder, a land full of sodomy is not a land full of love and acceptance. It's a land full of murder and the wrath of God.

That's what it is. Hear me very clearly. Homosexuality in a nation, sodomy in a nation, according to Romans chapter 1, is part of the judgment of God. It's the exact opposite of what you see in the created order and what you see in the Garden of Eden. So Christians don't be deceived.

Homosexual Mirage in a nation isn't a sign of a nation that's full of love No homosexual mirage in a nation is a sign that that nation is full of the wrath of God Romans chapter 1 for the wrath of God is revealed In what way God giving them over to the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them and God gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. A nation full of that is not a nation full of love. It is a nation full of the wrath of God. And we would do well in America and in Iowa and in Ireland.

We would do well to remember where that word sodomy comes from. We would do well as a people to remember Sodom and Gomorrah and the fire and brimstone that rained down upon it. That word Sodomy comes from something. America should be on her knees. Starting with the church and the ways that we have been effeminate in our lack of leadership, in our lack of calling evil, evil.

So friends, if we want to last as a people, if we want to last as a land and a nation, we must repent, we must make clear with the laws of this land, marriage is a one flesh union between a biological man and a biological woman that God Almighty has joined together with the mandate to raise godly offspring as he provides. That's marriage between a husband and a wife. And sodomy, same-sex mirage, is not that. It's not marriage. Transgender marriage, not real.

That's mirage too. It's all an abomination. It's all fake according to the one who made the world. Okay? All right, that was an easy one.

What about other things? What about other manifestations of marriage? If we're gonna answer the question, what is marriage? Well, what about polygamy? Marriage to multiple spouses, multiple wives.

Isn't that okay? I mean there is a number of men in the Bible, Abraham, David, Solomon, I mean the list goes on. There are heroes in the Bible that had multiple wives. So why not me? Why not me?

Why not polygamy? Why not polygamy? Well, first off, it's against the law, at least for now, And I'm not sure how long that's going to last. I mean, it used to be against the law to murder children in your womb. Used to be against the law to be a sodomite in America, not anymore.

But polygamy is still against the law. We haven't squandered all of our Christian heritage yet. And that's precisely the point. Our Christian heritage, our forefathers knew that all these aberrations, that all these abominations that we've been talking about, our Christian forefathers knew that these things were evil. How did they know?

How'd they know that, saints? Because they knew their Bibles. How'd they know to outlaw sodomy and abortion? How'd they know to outlaw polygamy? Because they knew holy writ.

So we should too, don't you think? We should think hard about this issue and make the law of God reflected in the laws of America. So what does the Bible say about polygamy? Let's understand what the Bible says about polygamy. Well I said earlier that we'd come back to Lamech.

Do you remember that name? Lamech. Well we're going to come back to him now. If you were to look in Genesis chapter three, Adam's idolatry plunged the world into a curse. And immediately after Genesis chapter 3, we get to Genesis chapter 4, and what happens?

Cain murders Abel. Yes? And right after Cain is cursed for that murder in Genesis 4, what are we given in Genesis chapter 4? We're given Cain's offspring. We're given his lineage, his line.

We're given the line of the murderer Cain. What kind of line is that? It's an ungodly line. It's a line of sin. It begins with Cain, the murderer, and it doesn't get better.

It's not hard to see in the fourth chapter of Genesis, you have an unrighteous line stemming from Cain. And in that ungodly line of Cain, you get a man named Lamech. And at the end of Genesis chapter 4, if you were to look there, you don't have to look there right now. But as you go through that line of Cain, you get to Lamech and you see there the first instance of polygamy. Lamech takes two wives.

That's the very first instance of polygamy in the world. And that polygamy did not take place in the Garden of Eden. It did take place outside the Garden of Eden from an ungodly line, the ungodly line of the murderer Cain and an ungodly man, Lamech. So you need to understand this. When you're thinking about the merits of polygamy, ask the question, how does the Bible frame it at its inception?

Well, the answer is really easy. Remember Genesis chapter 2, Adam is alone in the paradise of Eden. Do you remember that? Just read it to you. And as Adam is alone, God says, it's not good that man should be alone.

And so what does God do as a result of Adam being alone? I love how Wilson puts it. He puts it this way, quote, when God determined to solve the problem of Adam's loneliness, he did not do it with a harem. No, instead God created one man and then one woman. He did not create Adam and Eve, followed closely by Susie, Sally, and Henrietta.

The text of Genesis 1 & 2 sees this creation order of one man and one woman as normative for all time. A lesson is drawn from this for all Adam's sons who take a wife. Adam, who had no human father or mother, is nevertheless the pattern for all men who leave their fathers and mothers. Adam was created not just as an individual, but also as a pattern for all men. And what is that pattern?

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife." End quote. So how does the Bible frame the issue of polygamy? The pattern for all humanity is one man and one woman. God creates the institution of marriage and through the created order you see what marriage is supposed to be. A man and his woman.

Singular. And then after that pattern, after Genesis 1 and 2, we're given a comparison of two lines. A godly line, the line of Seth, and an ungodly line, the line of Cain. The line of the murderer and the line from which we get Noah. So you get Cain and Seth.

And from Cain comes Lamech, the polygamist from Seth comes the monogamous Noah you know what happened to Noah found favor with God gets on an ark God saves him him in his household so we're given two lines compare what the lines do line of Seth line of Cain Monogamous Noah and the polygamist Lamech. Clearly one is righteous and clearly the other line is not. It's not hard to read this in Genesis 4 and 5. And so from the beginning, put all this together, Adam and Eve, that's the pattern, monogamy. One spouse at a time, that's righteous.

But polygamy is contrary to that pattern and polygamy is instituted not by God, but by the sinful line of Cain. Polygamy is sin, polygamy is unrighteous. Why is polygamy sin? Why is polygamy unrighteous? Because since the beginning, God made a man and he made a woman to be his helper.

He didn't make a man and his women. He didn't make a man and his helpers. No, a man and his helper. A man and his helper. God clearly communicates that marriage is between two humans of the opposite sex.

And any deviation from that is unholy and righteous. It's sin. So again, reviewing homosexuality is sin. Why? Because God didn't make Adam another Adam.

You get that? Homosexuality is sin, at least in part, because God didn't make Adam another Adam. And God didn't make two Eves, he made Adam an Eve. Bestiality is sin. You cannot marry an animal much less sleep with an animal.

Why? Because in the garden, here are all these animals brought forth to Adam and not one was found to be a helper suitable for him. And so what did God do? God made a woman. He didn't take an animal.

God made a woman. Bestiality is sin. Polygamy is sin because God made two. Which by the way, divorce is sin. Divorce is sin.

Now, it might not always be sin from both the husband and the wife. That's important to understand. It might not be both the husband and the wife's sin that results in a divorce, but it's somebody's sin. Divorce is never occasioned outside of somebody's sin. Divorce doesn't happen except through sin.

Jesus says this about marriage, what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Why? Because God puts a man and his woman together. He does that. He's been doing that since the beginning.

He does that and it's called a covenant between God and the man and his woman. And a divorce breaks that covenant that God has made, that God put together. Divorce puts asunder what God has joined together. And so divorce works against God. That's why it's always occasioned by somebody's sin.

So we've seen how God has instituted marriage in the beginning. We've seen how homosexuality is not marriage. We've seen how polygamy is not how God designed marriage to be. We've seen bestiality is of course sin. But we need to pause here and we need to point out a distinction between homosexuality and polygamy.

So, you might think, why are you going on here? As I go on to this next part of the sermon, you might think, This is kind of being weird. I'm going to tell you why I'm not being weird in just a second. You need to make a distinction between homosexuality and polygamy. Both are sin.

Okay? Do you hear me say that? Both are sin. But there is a very important distinction to be made between homosexuality, homosexual mirage, and polygamous marriage. Okay, so homosexual marriage isn't real marriage, right?

It's mirage. But polygamy is real marriage. Do you see that distinction? It's between a man and a woman. The bad part is it's multiple women typically.

Abraham, David, Solomon, the list goes on, those were real marriages according to God in the Bible. They're recognized by God as real marriages even though it was polygamy and contrary to God's created order. God calls polygamous marriages still marriages as opposed to the abomination of sodomy which God says cannot be real marriage. So there is a distinction here. I really need you to get this.

Both homosexuality and polygamy depart from the holy standard of monogamy in marriage set forth in Holy writ. There is no confusion there. But God doesn't put both of those sins in the same category when it comes to what repentance might look like. One is fake. One of none of this is righteous.

And the other one, although it's very warped, polygamy, it still is marriage. So we need to have the same categories that God has in our church, okay? As uncomfortable as that might make us, as stretching as that might take us because we're gonna go, ah, I just like to call things sin. We are calling it sin, But God has a distinction. We need to have the same distinction.

Why does this matter? Why does it matter to have this distinction? Why can't we just say, it's all sin, get rid of it? I'll tell you why it matters. Because you live in a land that murders their babies in their wombs and calls sodomy good.

Why do you think it would be crazy for us, in a few years' time, to just go ahead and give the green light to polygamy? Why not? What's to stop us from squandering the rest of our Christian heritage and to say, you know what, polygamy is fine too. If men can marry men and women can marry women, why not just say men can marry a lot of women? Why not say that?

And when that happens, brothers and sisters, if that happens, and I pray it doesn't, but if it happens, you've got to know how to deal with them. We cannot wait for things to happen in our world and then go, oh, I need to know what God says. It would be good to talk about it now, wouldn't it? What if we have a land that legalizes polygamy And then all of a sudden we've got all these polygamists and they're hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ if we're being faithful to evangelize And we knock on our neighbor's door. He's a polygamist because it's legal And he says I want to be a Christian God has saved me.

What do you do? What do you do with him? If he's a homosexual, that's really easy, isn't it? Your marriage to another man wasn't real. Repent, believe Christ, and live free, and go marry a woman.

That's easy. That's what repentance looks like for him. Same for the lesbian. I believe what does it look like to follow Jesus. Your marriage to another woman wasn't real.

So repent, trust Christ, and live free and go marry a man. Okay? That would be easy in talking about what repentance looks like for the homosexual. What do we do If a man who has multiple wives, hears the gospel, God saves him, he repents, he trusts Christ, and he comes to your pastors, he comes to you and he says, I want to live in a way that honors Christ. I want to live obedient to Jesus.

Tell me what I must do to keep with repentance. What does repentance look like for me? What would we have him do? We've got to think in the categories that God has given us. So he is really genuinely in the eyes of God, contrary to the homosexual, this polygamist is married to multiple women.

God says so in the Bible. God calls those marriages marriage. So what your pastors cannot tell this new Christian to do is to go pick his favorite wife and then divorce the rest. We can't do that. The Holy Scriptures tell us that each of these women are still his wives, and I know it's really messy.

That's what sin does, you know. It makes things really messy. Divorce is still occasioned by sin, So divorce is not an option for this new believer unless, unless the man's wives are not Christians and they decide to leave him. That is permitted according to 1st Corinthians 7. They can abandon him.

His wives could do that if they're not believers. But if they want to stay with him, he is commanded by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, he needs to keep his wives. So what would we do as a congregation? Well, your pastors, Pastor Matthew and I, we would not ask the polygamist to divorce his wives, but we would say to this man, no more wives. That's easy.

Stop that. Love the wives you have, but no more wives. And Then we would say very clearly and very loudly with Paul in the pastoral qualifications of First Timothy 3 in Titus chapter 1, you can't hold any kind of leadership ever in the church of Jesus Christ. Why? Because he's not a one woman man.

He's not the husband of one wife and that's what God requires of a church officer. He's not a one woman man and the pattern of his life, the pattern of his marriage, though forgiven, is not what God would have for the people in his church. And so while a Christian and while forgiven, he is disqualified from leadership. He's not a one-woman man. Nor is his marriage a picture of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ's one bride, the church.

And that, what I just said there, that, that is the fundamental reality of marriage that I haven't even talked about yet. Marriage is the picture of the relationship that Jesus Christ has with his bride for whom he died, the church. One bride. God's design in marriage is ultimately redemptive. So I want you to turn with me in your Bibles as we consider one more thing, Ephesians chapter 5.

Please go in your Bibles through Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter Ephesians chapter 5 beginning in verse 22. Ephesians 5 beginning in verse 22. Paul inspired by God says this, Wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body.

But as the church is subject to Christ, So also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. That he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church Because we're members of his body For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife And the two shall become one flesh This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church Paul tells you right here brothers and sisters In Ephesians chapter 5 that God designed marriage To be a window that you peer into to catch a glimpse of who Jesus is and how Jesus deals with his bride, the church. He died for her. He loves and cherishes her. Marriage is the God-ordained illustration of the headship of Jesus Christ as the groom and the obedience of his people of church as his one bride.

That's why when you get married, at least here at Crossroads, When you get married here, you take vows. The groom, and we're going to have one of those soon. All right. The groom, covenant-ing before God to be the head of the household, and covenant-ing before God and these witnesses and his wife to love and to cherish his bride as Jesus Christ loves and cherishes his bride. And then the bride covenants vows, promises to obey her husband.

Why? Because those are precisely the promises that Christ makes with his bride and that his bride makes with him Jesus Christ is the head and the church lovingly and gladfully and joyfully obeys In marriage you have a covenant And I keep using that word and you might be thinking I don't know if it means what he thinks it means. So I'm going to define what is a covenant. What is a covenant? I keep using that word and I haven't defined it.

A covenant is a solemn bond, sovereignly administered between two or more persons with attendant blessings and cursings. A covenant is a solemn bond, sovereignly administered between two or more persons with attendant blessings and cursings. So, in a marriage, the covenant is between God and a man and his wife and these witnesses. And that marriage covenant pictures the covenant of redemption in which Jesus Christ gave his life for his bride to make her spotless and blameless by dying on the cross 2, 000 years ago and raising up from the grave to make sinners his people forever. That's what's at stake in marriage.

You give up marriage, What are you giving up? The Gospel. And you wonder, well, he hasn't even got to adultery yet. You bet! Because you can't get the seventh commandment until you get marriage.

And you're not going to get the seventh commandment until you realize that marriage and the gospel are like this. Jesus promises to his bride, He covenants with you church. He vows to you, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. You are mine forever, no matter what.

No sin will condemn you, not even death will separate you from my love. That's His promise to you. For I have put it all under my feet, Jesus says. I have dealt with it all at my cross and my empty tomb, your groom says. And I will not break this covenant.

It is forever. That's the promise that your groom, Jesus the Christ, has made to you, Christian church. He will not divorce his bride. For 2, 000 years ago, he bought that bride, you, with his blood. And he is not about to let go what he has bought with his precious blood he will not let you go so I need you to hear this very very clearly Jesus Christ is a monogamous he is not a polygamist there are no two different peoples two different brides of God there was one bride Our groom saints has only one bride.

There was but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one bride. Who is that? All from the beginning of redemption to today to forever. That bride is all who have turned from their sin and been washed in the blood of Jesus the Christ by faith, baptized in the triune name, the Church, the bride of Jesus Christ. That's his bride.

Friends, in the beginning God gave Eve to Adam as a helper suitable for him. And it was very good. And yet when Adam sinned, everything got twisted, didn't it? I mean, you woke up this morning if you're married and you had marital problems Stemming all the way back from Genesis chapter 3 God came down to Adam in Genesis 3 and What happened he he asked Adam basically Adam what happened What happened Adam and how did Adam respond? Adam took his index finger, I'm reading into it a little bit, but he took his finger and pointed at his bride.

She started. She started. That's what he said. She's the problem. And he threw his bride under the bus.

Many many years later, another Adam came. The final and second Adam came. The promised Adam came and for his bride he came. And instead of pointing the finger at his bride, Instead of saying to the father, she's guilty, she's the problem. Which by the way would be completely true.

We are the problem. You are the problem. You are a great sinner. We are great sinners. He could have said that.

But instead of pointing the finger, instead of saying, give these sinners, give these sinners what they deserve, instead of doing that. No, Jesus did what Adam should have done way back in the garden. Here's what Jesus said, you take me instead. You take me the groom in the place of my sinful bride to church. Allow me to bear the penalty of her sin and let her go free and let her go spotless in my place.

And that's exactly what God the Father did. The righteous for the unrighteous, the thrice holy Son of God, the groom in the place of His bride, the church, hanging on a tree, hanging there for a guilty bride, for a guilty people who ate from the tree in Genesis chapter three. Just think about that imagery. Hanging on a tree for those that come from the line of those who ate from the tree in Genesis chapter 3 so that for all who trust and belong to that groom crucified on a tree, you may come and eat now from Him and be made well. Have life and be forever united in union with your groom Jesus the Christ.

Oh What a picture. What a reality marriage is. Marriage is a one flesh union between one biological man and one biological woman that God has joined together and covenant with him and with one another, with the mandate to raise godly offspring as the Lord provides. And it is an institution that ultimately proclaims the awesome gospel of Jesus Christ, his love for his bride, the church, and the church's obedience to her groom, the Lord Jesus. We haven't even gotten to adultery yet.

In a way we have, by understanding marriage, we've really set the stage to understand adultery properly now. And so that's what we'll seek to do next Lord's Day. We will answer the following questions. What is adultery and how do I obey the seventh commandment? But that's next Lord's Day, Lord willing.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for this your word, and we thank you for the awesome reality that sinners though we be, knowing all of our sin, knowing all of our guilt, knowing all of our fickleness and unfaithfulness and evil within us, You covenanted before time began in eternity past within the Godhood, the Father, you Father, planning and directing your son to secure the redemption that was required. The son coming and achieving that redemption, and then the spirit applying the redemption that Jesus accomplished and the Father ordained to our lives. We thank you for your thrice holiness and your thrice love your thrice holy love and your thrice holy grace we thank you for the marriage that we have with your son Jesus and we are blown away that you would call us and declare us righteous in your sight because the righteousness of Jesus has been given to us and our sin has been given to him and dealt with at his cross so that we bear it no more. Oh Lord, make us a people full of joy because we are the bride of Christ.

Make us a people full of joy because we belong to you, God. We belong to your Son. Make us a people who love marriage. Make us a people, Lord, who love your law, who love the seventh commandment and that we would fight for the sanctity of this gospel illustrating union, marriage. Help us and we thank you that you promise you will.

In Jesus name, Amen.