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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

The Good News About Marriage

Well, today I'm talking about something that hopefully is practical.

My intent is not to be discouraging to anyone, and I hope to be inclusive of everyone.

I think that the topic today is something that singles or marries or even Divorcees looking to remarry and a variety of things can benefit from and so that is our intent today You know you stop and you think about the Garden of Eden How nice it would be there wouldn't it?

To not have to worry about and stress about the things that are taking place in this world today, to have a perfect life, a perfect existence, to be able to be face-to-face with the Father.

But there are 2 things that God gave us in the garden of supreme importance that is not only for our benefit, but for God's glory.

I heard somebody say the Sabbath and marriage.

The Sabbath and marriage, both for our benefit, for our growth, for our rest, for our renewal, for our relationship with God to grow to better understand him and who he is and The devil knows that The devil smart he's cunning.

He's wise and So he is attacked very strongly those 2 things the Sabbath and marriage And we see it in society today, don't we?

Here's 1 article, a columnist, 5 Reasons Marriage Doesn't Work Anymore.

You read further on, he talks about how marriage is dead.

It's not relevant to the day and time in which we live.

And I don't think you can read that, maybe you can.

Talk to any millennial and you can envision an America virtually marriage free, with everyone happily single.

Wouldn't that be nice, everybody happily single, Let's just do away with marriage, says this CNN opinion article.

4 reasons why marriage is a dying institution.

And we get bombarded with all of this bad news on top of bad news on top of bad news, don't we?

Lesbian activists, surprisingly candid speech, gay marriage fight is a lie to destroy marriage.

Not only were they lobbying certainly for the gay marriage, but ultimately their goal, and that's why this was such a big deal when it hit the press, Their ultimate goal is we just wish there was no such thing as marriage.

And this gal in her 2012 speech, Misha Gessen, an author and outspoken activist of the LGBT community, is just now going viral and includes a theory that many supporters of traditional marriage have speculated about for years.

The push for gay marriage has less to do with the right to marry, it's about diminishing and eventually destroying the institution of marriage and redefining the traditional family.

Well, you think back to the creation account, right?

When God creates on day 1 and on day 2 and on day 3 and each day What does he conclude the day with a little phrase that keeps reappearing?

It was beautiful it was just as it was supposed to be.

But then we get here to Genesis 2.18, and we see the same voice saying, it is not good that man should be alone.

And so in verse 21 of that chapter, And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept.

And he took 1 of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.

Then the rib which the Lord had Taken from man he made into 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.

How excited he must have been to see now.

Here is a creature that is like me but uniquely different a helpmate verse 24 therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be Joined to his wife and they shall become 1 flesh This is God's idea This is God's institution.

I mean really this sounds kind of odd because they don't have a mother They don't have a father but Jesus is saying these words not just for them, but for all of humanity This is how it will work When you get to The right time when it's no longer diapers is no longer clean up your messes and all the rest Then it's going to be the time that you will leave your father and your mother What college student hasn't quoted that verse a few times and cleave?

To my husband to my wife And they shall become 1 flesh There's an important part of that to this 1 flesh God says this is going to bond 2 individuals 2 people in such a close and connected way that I can't have this just happening Here there and everywhere, but we have to put this hedge of protection around it, and we're going to call it marriage.

They're going to covenant with each other and with me, and they're going to say, I preserve this and I reserve this for this 1 person, this safe relationship where I can be fully and completely vulnerable unlike I can be vulnerable with any other human on the planet.

And to protect that vulnerability he says I'm going to put this hedge around it and we're gonna call it marriage Hebrews 13 4 says marriage is Honorable It's a good thing Jeremiah 3 14 That's another aspect of this as I believe God wanted us to better understand the relationship.

He longs to have with us The jealousy perhaps that God feels how he has reserved us how he is He's coming to get us his bride.

And so some of these verses Jeremiah 314 return Oh backsliding children Sayeth the Lord for I am married to you notice the language I'm married to you I'm covenanting with you I'm committed to you that's part of the lesson God wants to teach Isaiah 54 4 and 5 fear not thy maker is thine Husband the Lord of hosts is his name and I redeemer the Holy 1 of Israel Revelation 19 7 Let us be glad and rejoice give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready that's just a few verses of the many throughout scripture of God comparing his church to his bride and he as the husband of his bride.

Then there's this 1, husbands, love your wives.

Love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.

When did Christ speak harsh words to tear down rather than to build up.

No husbands, and I think we could say wives too, love your spouse, love your wife just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.

There might be some men in the room that says, I'm ready to die for my wife.

Yes, but are you ready to live for your wife?

When did Jesus abandon, abuse, mistreat the church?

And that word for love, there's a lot of forms of the word for love in the Greek, and you've heard, I'm sure, this before.

There's phylos, towards friend, brother, sister.

But then there's agape, that's the divine love.

And so in this passage, that agape love, that's the immeasurable, unfailing love of God, and it only comes from God, it's divine.

And he says, husbands, I want you to love your wives the same way that I love the church.

It comes from God, but if you're connected to God, you can do all things through Jesus Christ.

And you can agape, you can love with the immeasurable, unfailing love of God.

God instituted it, it's his idea, and he says, I'll even teach you how to do it.

Love as I have first loved you, he tells us.

So husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.

Here's a quote from Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, page 63.

Marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for the glory of God in the benefit of humanity.

As the creator joined the hands of the holy pair in wedlock, saying, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall become 1.

And he annunciated the law of marriage for all the children of Adam to the close of time This is how it's to be that which the Eternal Father himself had pronounced good was the law of highest blessing and development For man stop and think about it There is a level of sanctification that God can achieve through his church, through other believers, but let's just be real there's a level of sanctification that will never come except through a husband or a wife because you won't take it from anybody else.

Nobody else can tell you about this little thing or that little thing, but your spouse can come along and say, honey, it's true.

But it's for our highest blessing and development.

It's for our own sanctification that God gives us this gift of marriage.

Now all the wives are saying, see I'm supposed to nag you.

But there's something about that relationship, that vulnerability, that allows us to grow in ways we couldn't otherwise.

What if God's primary purpose in marriage was not to make us happy, but to make us holy?

Now don't get me wrong, God doesn't want us to be unhappy in our marriages.

But The idea today is that, well, we'll stay together as long as we're happy, and that trumps everything else.

And people will say, well, why'd you leave him?

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The Good News About Marriage

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