PREACHED:OL,8-17-03,AM

 

“WHAT IS MARRIAGE?”

 

INTRODUCTION:

11  CONFUSION ABOUT MARRIAGE

 

          A.      Western culture—dominant philosophies:

 

                   1.      Humanism & Post-modernism

 

                             a.       Feelings not reason -

 

                             b.      Standards strictly individual -

 

                                      1)      Culture not Bible is right

 

                                      2)      Divine imperatives rejected

 

                             c.       Morals & ethics situational -

 

                                      1)      Fletcher’s Situation Ethics,

                                                60’s.

 

                             d.      Non-judgmental dominates -

 

          B.      Recent optimism—decreased divorce rate

 

                   1.      Misleading—living together!!

 

a.       Statistics prove—live together before marriage…more unstable!

 

          C.      Confusion in religion:

 

                   1.      Homosexual religious leaders

 

                   2.      Push for same-sex marriage

 

                   3.      Unwillingness to speak out

 

21  WHAT THEN IS MARRIAGE?

 

          A.      Not world’s concept

 

                   1.      Can’t control that

 

                   2.      I John 2:15,17. “Do not love…”

                             II Cor 6:17. “Therefore go out…”

 

          B.      Divine concept

 

1.      I Cor 2:12. “Now we have received not…”

 

                   2.      Matt 5:31,32. “It was also said…”

 

DISCUSSION:

 

1$  ORIGIN

 

          A.      Dates to the beginning -

 

                   1.      Ordained by God, Gen 1,2.

 

2$  CONSTITUTION

 

A.      Formation, organization, make up, structure, quality or character:

 

                   1.      Gen 1:26-28.

                             Gen 2:21-24.                        

Matt 19:4-6.

                  

          B.      Restricted to male and female!

 

                   1.      Lev 18:22. “You shall not lie…”

Lev 20:13. “If a man lies with a male as with a female, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

                            

2.      Rom 1:26,27. “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

 

                   3.      “What is natural?”

 

                             a.       Gen 2:18-22.

 

1)      1:27. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them…”

 

b.      Matt 19:4,5. “Have you not read…?”

 

                   4.      Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!

                             Adam and Eve, not Amy and Eve!

 

          C.      Lifetime relationship:

 

1.      Rom 7:2,3.  “…a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. According, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.”

 

2.      Matt 19:6b. “What God has joined together, let no man separate…”

 

          D.      Exception:

 

                   1.      Matt 5:31,32

                             Matt 19:9

 

E.      Marriage is: an agreement by which a man and woman consent to live together as husband and wife, mutually accepting all the responsibilities which the relationship involves and properly expecting all the rights and privileges incident to it. Marriage is a social, legal and scriptural contract by which a home is established.

 

F.      Because a Christian is a good citizen and obedient to all laws that do not contradict God’s laws, he or she will comply with all civil requirements that making marriage binding.

 

1.      But the requirements followed by Christians will be first and primarily what God considers to be right and binding!

 

3$  PURPOSE

 

          A.      Companionship -

 

                   1.      Gen 2:18.

 

a.       God’s fit (proper, corresponding) helper was a woman for man, not a man for man.

 

2.      BILL GIBSON: “Marriage is the complete fusion of the hopes, possessions and cares of both the man and the woman. ‘I’ must be subordinated to ‘We.’ Even father and mother must take a secondary position. Husbands and wives are required to put each other first.”

 

a.       Gen 2:23,24. “Then the man said: ‘This is now bone…’”

 

3.      “Two minds with but a single thought. Two hearts that beat as one.”

 

          B.      Sexual satisfaction -

 

1.      I Cor 7:2. “…because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband…”

 

                             a.       Restriction: Make & Female!

 

1)      Paul clearly condemns sexual passion between men and men and women and women!

 

          C.      Propagation -

 

                   1.      Gen 1:28. “Be fruitful…”

 

a.       Propagation is impossible without both a man and a woman!

 

                   2.      God desires godly offspring.

 

a.       Malachi on why God rejected Judah’s offering:

 

1)      Mal 2:14,15. “…the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was God seeking? Godly offspring.”

 

D.      ROY LANIER, SR. “From a general knowledge of scripture we may say that marriage is an institution from God to man for the birth, preservation and comfort of children and the perpetuation of the human race; for the comfort and pleasure of the husband and wife; for the cultivation of moral purity and refinement, which are so necessary in a society where Christianity flourishes; and a union which God forms intended to last until death parts them.”