Biblical Marriage "Stuck Like Glue"

Happy Sabbath to all of you. As I mentioned a little earlier, I may go a little over an hour today, so please smile a lot and bear with me. I've got a fair amount of information to cover. In a sermon I gave about three years ago, it was January 12, 2019, it was entitled, Where the American Cultures Headed in the Next 20 Years. I made this comment at that time, and I will quote myself. Here is the four-step process to relabel depravity into becoming acceptable. Number one, first you promote deviancy as if it is equal to a conventional norm. So that's step one. Step two, then you legalize it. Step three, then you have the government subsidize and promote it with tax dollars. And by pointing people to cabinet positions, to very prominent government positions, to say, See, this isn't normal. See, this is acceptable. So those are the first three steps. Number four, then you move on to an even deeper level of degeneration, and you repeat the cycle over and over again. In the same message I mentioned that day, that the ultimate goal of what we see going on in our culture today, the assault against marriage and gender identity, the ultimate goal is to legalize polygamy, incest, and pedophilia. That's the ultimate goal of where all of this is headed. Today I want to talk again, maybe a little bit of a cultural update on the ongoing assault on the institutions of marriage. I mentioned a couple of recent events and articles. The first one is one that Mr. Kubik mentions. It's the Statutes of Canada 2021. It's now part of their criminal code. It received royal assent on December 8th, 2021. I'm not going to read its preamble to you, because you might find this interesting. It's even worse than the preamble, but I'll just be kind and only read this. Quote, Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to the persons who are subjected to it, whereas conversion therapy causes harm to society, because among other things, it is based and propagates myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, including the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. So what the preamble says is, it doesn't matter. You came out of the womb, the doctor looked at you, and your mom looked at you. It's a boy. It's a girl. That's a myth.

Your true gender identity is what you decide like you feel like today. And that's literally what the preamble of this says, and it even gets worse from here. And obviously, the ultimate potential implications of this—let's look five years, ten years down the road—a disgruntled church member decides it because he read a piece of literature published by the United Church of God that he felt compelled, pressured, to stop a particular lifestyle, and now he regrets it, and he feels that's a form of conversion therapy.

Maybe he or she sees a TV broadcast across the border from the United States, because I doubt it will be in Canadian TV in the near future, and they see that. And maybe they decide to repent. Ever hear of that? Repent and change their lives! And then a few years later, they go back to the world. There's nothing to stop them coming back against the United Church of God and saying, they were using conversion therapy on me, and my rights had been violated, and they violated the criminal code. So this is the kind—some of the things where this can lead to.

A number of cities, obviously even in Ohio, now have laws against conversion therapy. Now, just to make—I understand we don't participate in conversion therapy, per se. We're not going to sit anyone down under hot—under a hot light like they're being interrogated by the FBI and force them to change their gender identity to conform to something else. That's not what we do. But nonetheless, the way this is worded and the way the law has been expressed here in Canada could open up some real issues for all churches who want to maintain the biblical concept of marriage.

I'm going to read another article. This was just a week or so ago, January 10, 2022, from the USA Today. Let me read this for you. The headline is, The Complicated Research Behind Pedophilia. You might even know where it's going already.

Quote, pedophilia is viewed as among the most horrifying social skills, but scientists who study the sexual disorder say it is also among the misunderstood. You see, they're just misunderstood.

Continuing. Michael Sato, forensic research director at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group in Canada— same nation that just recently came out with this new criminal code— anyway, said there is more neuroscientific knowledge of pedophilia than ever before. MRI research is showing how sexual interests develop in the brain. Quote, I think as a field we've accepted the idea that it is not something people choose, Sato said. You're being set up. It's not really their fault. See, this is all an effort to destigmatize pedophilia. Continue. Next paragraph. Research also offers insights into risk factors. Sato said men with pedophilia have a much higher incidence of early childhood head injury. Now, how do you determine that?

All young men have childhood head injury. I mean, I saw my grandson a few weeks ago probably fall and hit his head like a dozen times. He's growing up. One study on diagnosed pedophiles showed they were more likely to report their mothers had received psychiatric treatment, which suggests the disorder may be influenced by genetic factors. Let's use a little critical thinking here. Maybe the disorder is influenced by having a mother who needed psychiatric treatment.

Continuing. Sato said pedophilia is something people are born with or at least have a predisposition to. Evidence shows men are more likely to have to have pedophilia than women. This aligns with research showing men are more likely to have other paraphilias, including exhibitionism, voyeurism, and sadism. Men are more likely than women to commit criminal acts. Well, again, let's use some critical thinking here. Men are born with up to 20 times more testosterone than women. They have a stronger sex drive. They're naturally more aggressive. So maybe that's the reason. Now, my favorite paragraph here. An academic at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who talked about destigmatizing pedophilia, that's a talk you want to have. You probably can find that on YouTube. Destigmatizing pedophilia and referred to pedophiles as, quote, minor attracted people resigned in November following an outcry over the phrase. Alan Walker argued destigmatizing the attraction would allow more people to seek help and ultimately prevent child sexual abuse. So that's too strong of a term. You want to begin referring to them as minor attracted people.

Now a little bit of something on the light side. This is from This Week magazine, November 3, 2021. Here's the headline. Woman who married herself divorcing after meeting someone else.

Let me quote this to you. I don't know. Maybe she was just tired of being married to a loser.

Quote, a woman who married herself earlier this year is now divorcing herself after meeting someone else. I can barely read this with a straight face. Chris Galera wed herself in September after growing tired of relying on men. However, the Brazilian is now headed for divorce after she met quote someone special and fell in love. I started to believe in love the moment I met someone special, she said. So this is the world that we live in today. Welcome to the 21st century.

Isn't this a great time to be alive? With this background, what I wanted to do is give a very brief history of how marriage has changed in the United States since the Second World War. And there's been a dramatic change. I lived through all of this. I've read numerous sociological articles on this topic. And I'll express some of the themes of those articles. In a little recap I'm going to give here, about five years ago CNN actually had an incredible series on the 60s. All the changes that took place in our culture regarding marriage, sexual mores, and everything else that changed in the 60s. It was actually a very interesting, very informative series that they had a number of years ago. I realized that some of these things I'm going to say, some one could say these are stereotypes, and obviously it wasn't everybody. I chose not to live this lifestyle. I lived through it, and I watched it happening, and I watched a lot of my friends being affected. Mr. Graham lived through these events. He chose a different path than what I'm going to say here. But speaking from the perspective of sociology, here's how we got from a time when marriage was respected, divorce was very low and rare, to where we are today with sexual gender confusion, marriage between same-sex couples and leading down a merry pathway of incest. After all, if they love each other and they're committed to each other, who are we to tell brother and sister they can't marry? Mother and daughter, they can't marry. Who are we to tell them that? That'll be the reasoning. So let me just give a little recap of what happened. By the end of the Second World War, most individuals in the United States had lived in a world of scarcity and self-sacrifice. This was the generation before the Baby Boomers. We call them the greatest generation. Most soldiers returning home were small children or born immediately after World War I. They lived in self-sacrifice, scarcity, and depravity. World wars are hard in the nations. They felt the effects of the Great Depression, more depravity, more struggling. By the way, the United States didn't get out of the Great Depression until we spent a ton of money building up for war to get our industries working again and people employed. That's what got us out of the Great Depression. But they experienced the effects of World War I, even if they weren't born during World War I, they felt the effects of the Great Depression. They had just come home from World War II as soldiers. They risked their lives. They were tired of fighting. They were tired of the world that they lived in. They were tired of sacrifice. They wanted to start families and leave the world of scarcity and self-sacrifice behind them. So we entered the early 1950s. They came home and married. Some of them married too soon, as statistics show. America experienced an economic boom after the war. So was also the boom of creating babies. That's known as the Baby Boom, of which I am a recipient of the Baby Boom generation. These parents wanted to give their children every benefit possible to live better lives without lacking anything, like they did. They wanted their children to live better than they had.

They showered their children with lots of toys and material blessings in comparison to what they had ever had, or in comparison to previous generations, what they had ever had. They were showered upon my generation. I can look back and I had things that only came into existence. I had a tape recorder, a 12-inch little black and white TV set. As a young boy, I had an erector set. I had the Gilbert microscope. I could go on and on, all the great little things I had growing up to play with and to explore. So again, lots of toys and material blessings were showered upon my generation, the generation of the Baby Boomers. By the 1950s, television had become the primary medium to influence people. I'll be honest with you, growing up, television was my babysitter. As a small child, I probably watched television four to six hours a day. Thankfully, television wasn't like television is today. Back then.

So we went from the greatest generation to a very secure generation, and every part of culture reinforced the biblical concept of marriage. From movies, look at the movies in the 40s and 50s. From early television shows, look at the kind of television shows that were in the 40s and early to mid-50s. The printed media churches actually believed that...

I know this is hard to believe, but back then churches actually believed that marriage was between one man and one woman. And government, the government believed there was a compelling interest to promote and reinforce the traditional nuclear family. Laws were structured so that people who were married to each other would be rewarded for marriage, and there was a concerted effort on the government because they had a compelling interest in society being stable and normalized and functioning, that they actually celebrated and rewarded marriage.

The divorce rate was 2.2 persons per thousand people, as the baby boomers were coming of age and beginning to marry themselves. As they themselves began to marry, the divorce rate increased 236% from 1960 to 1980. Again, those are statistics. We just can't deny that. So why is this? What's this change taking place? Well, my generation never had to sacrifice anything. I made a comment a few weeks ago, and some of you snickered, but the comment was truly meant. I mentioned that I have never missed a meal in my life except when I chose to fast, and some of you laughed.

But I'm serious. My generation never lacked anything. I was a little bit too young for the Vietnam War by the time I came of age and was draft bait. They had a lottery. My number was very, very high, so I was never drafted. But aside from dodging that bullet, I've never gone for lack of anything in my into. There's always been jobs available. There's always been plenty of food. There's always been a way to generate wealth. I've always been comfortable and secure.

So my generation never had to sacrifice anything except for those few examples like Vietnam and a few other things in which sadly some gave up their lives to protect this country. Frankly, we were spoiled, and we were given too much too soon. Instead of appreciating that, we grew up resentful while I'm being stifled by this conservative culture. I feel so hemmed in. I'm not allowed to be me whom I am. So we felt stifled, and we felt like things weren't fair. We became resentful and rebellious towards our parents and a very conservative culture rather than thankful for it. Then there's the arrival of the birth control pill that allowed more promiscuity because now there weren't consequences.

You didn't have to go out Saturday night and sow your wild oats and then Sunday go to church and pray for a crop failure. Now the birth control pill took care of that. We were attracted to louder, aggressive music because we wanted our own thing.

We wanted to be independent. We were tired of Lawrence Welk. There was a new liberal media that was taking hold as early as 1953. Playboy magazine was published. It couldn't have been published in the 40s. Man would have been thrown in jail. One of the major steps, by the way, in stigmatizing and keeping women down was Playboy magazine and magazines of its sort, which basically said, women are sex objects. The major role that women play in the world are sex objects.

That's what that media reinforced. And then there was the influence of Hollywood that was dramatically changing. We were assured that we were being stifled and controlled by the rigid culture of 1950s America. Be free! And the sexual revolution began. America began to rapidly change. Just to give you an example of how much it changed. Now, Playboy magazine came out in 1953. And I can remember, as a young boy in elementary school, someone brought a page that they ripped out of their dad's Playboy magazine.

And all of us boys gathered. You know how boys are looking at the picture. And it was taboo. And the reason we reacted that way is you didn't look at dirty pictures of girls. That was considered taboo in the early 1960s. Now, by the time I had my first job in 1972, the company I worked for, as a Christmas gift, gave hundreds of Playboy calendars as Christmas gifts to men, women, all their customers, to everybody.

That's how much the culture had changed from a magazine that was taboo to one in which it's given out as Christmas gifts to women, men, customers, employees. That's how much in just 20 short years the culture had flipped from being ashamed to look at a dirty picture to something that was hanging on walls and offices and buildings and shops literally everywhere. So family-oriented shows like Ozzy and Harriet became laughable according to my generation. Father knows best my three sons leave it to beaver.

Mrs. Cleaver was mocked for vacuuming her home in high heels. Well, you know, maybe Mrs. Cleaver just believed in being elegant. Maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Cleaver had class. Maybe she didn't want to dress like a slob in her own home. Isn't that her right? She shouldn't be mocked for it, and neither should that generation. But these kinds of shows, which always showed mom and dad dealing with the most complex issues of the day, like does beaver have a pimple, dealing with the most complex issues of the day, always had a positive ending, and mom and dad may have had disagreements, but they always respectfully talked their disagreements out. But these were replaced with shows like Maud, Roseanne, the new media presented loud-mouthed dominant wives with husbands that had 20 times less testosterone than their overbearing wives. We had shows that stigmatized minorities like that's my mama, that ridiculed and stigmatized minorities, and we wonder why we have the kinds of problems that we have today. Fathers were presented in this new media as either absent or weak or complete blithering imposals. So we wanted to make sure that we diminished what fatherhood was in our culture. Many of our politicians today grew up in this culture, and it's part of their value system and their own lack of respect towards marriage. In the late 1960s, no-fault divorces came into law in most states. Previously, you had to have a genuine reason to get a divorce. Now it's, she makes my eggs runny. I'm just tired of her. I just want to trade her in for a younger model. Divorce became very easy because it was no-fault divorce.

So all of these are the kinds of things that were happening at this time. Previously, society had been structured so that one income could support a family comfortably. Just one worker, one dad, even working in a grimy factory job could provide for a wife and a family of four and live comfortably. But no, that wasn't good enough. We wanted to drive the culture so that today, in order to live comfortably, many wives feel forced and compelled to work outside of the home in order to be able to pay for all the grossly inflated items we have in our world today.

Those are the changes that we brought upon ourselves. As we entered the 1970s and beyond, the destruction of the family was in full swing. The churches were gutless. The politicians were feeble. The media was relentless on destroying the concept of family. Many baby boomers entered college where they were indoctrinated to be anti-religious, anti-patriotic, anti-family. Many of these graduated from college and poisoned our public school systems as teachers and later as superintendents. Later, they sat on the boards of these schools. The legacy of my generation is that we have dominated the schools, business, and government for decades.

I apologize for that because my generation let this nation down. My generation brought this nation to the point that it's in today, and I'm ashamed to say that I'm part of that generation. Many of the prominent politicians you see today either grew up in divorced homes or have been divorced themselves. I was meeting with a client a few weeks ago. This is what's happened. Meeting with a client a few weeks ago was living with his girlfriend. And I implied, well, maybe long term since you're living together you would like to make it a little more official.

He said to me, after looking at my parents' marriage, I'll never marry. And that is the mindset of tens of millions of young people today. They'll live together, but marriage is an option. Maybe if it works out 10 years or so, then maybe we'll make it official. And meanwhile, they're living with each other. That's exactly what is the end result of these changes that occurred since the Second World War. During the last 50 years, we have experienced mainline churches becoming weaker, less biblical, less influential. The truth about most mainline Protestant churches, particularly, is that they never lead culture. They follow culture. Whatever culture decides is right or wrong, that's what they'll be teaching 10 years later. That's the truth. Now we have a media controlled by degenerates, politicians, whose only value system is winning the next election, and recently established laws that redefine marriage and the concept of what family really is. So here we find ourselves in this condition, in this country, in the year 2022. I thought I would read to you a quote from what World Book Encyclopedia says marriage is before it's removed, before they cancel it. Quote, this is from World Book Encyclopedia, marriage is a universal human institution which has formed the foundation of family throughout history. While the traditions surrounding marriage ceremonies and the rights and obligations of marriage, the way of choosing one's marriage partner, and even whom one has permitted to marry, may differ from culture to culture, the essential necessity of marriage has long been recognized economically, legally, spiritually, and socially as the primary social institution for raising children. It is widely recognized that marriage provides the proper setting for cultivating love between a man and a woman, and for the fulfillment of both. End of quote. We'll see how long that lasts on the internet.

So, as I did a year or so ago, I would like to review Gant's original intent for marriage, because we are religious people and we really do believe what this book says. We try very hard to live by this book, understanding, of course, that there are two covenants. There's an older covenant, there's a newer covenant, which is more rigid, more demanding of us as New Covenant believers, so there are differences between those covenants. We recognize that, but overall, we recognize this as writings inspired by God Almighty. Let's go to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 27 if you'll turn there with me. Genesis chapter 1 and verse 27.

The Scriptures say, so God created man in his own image, and in the image of God, he created him.

And again, when we were created in God's image, it doesn't mean that God necessarily has a nose and two eyes. It means that we have the creative, the intellectual capacities that God has. That's why we've been able to build the kinds of civilizations and discover the technologies that God created that we're just catching up to, the scientific things that have been there all along that we're just being enlightened to. Those are aspects that we have being created in God's image. We can discover. We can create. We can be intellectual. We can look up into the sky and ponder. Why do I exist? Why are those stars there? Look at those stars move. We have the ability to do those God-like characteristics that other things on earth don't have. In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. God created two genders, a male and a female. Verse 28. Then he blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And of course, dominion doesn't mean abuse it, tear the earth apart, soil it, deface the earth. We have to be responsible trustees of what God has given us and allowed us to do. So here God created both man and woman as equals. Eve was his helper. We'll see in a few minutes she was taken from his side. She's his sidekick, his partner through life. God placed them in a sexual union by blessing them in a special covenant relationship. Close examination of the Old Testament shows that the ancient pagan Egyptians and Philistine kings also recognized the sanctity of marriage.

When the patriarchs lied, and there were a number of times when they lied to these kings, fearing for their lives, saying, she is not my wife, meaning their real wife was not their wife, and they were acquired by the king of Egypt or the king of the Philistines, and it was revealed to these individuals through dreams that this woman was already married. They returned these women back to the patriarchs. So they too believed in the sanctity of marriage, even though they were pagan. God created both male and female, and here we see in these verses, he blesses them both. They were told to make whoopee, have lots of children for the children to spread across the world, and I'd say overall humanity's done a pretty good job with that. So why did God say this?

He says this because family is not simply a human institution. Family is a spiritual institution. God is a family. It's composed of God the Father and God the Son, and they are two spiritual beings who are joined as one. But God's not content with the present Godhead relationship. He's a generous God. He's a giving God. He wants to expand his spiritual family to include billions of sons and daughters through a plan that he's been working on before he created Adam and Eve. The concept of family is a spiritual institution reflected by our own families, by the creation of our own families. The male and female that God created were capable, if they chose, of producing offspring. This is important to God because he is producing offspring, his own children. God created sex between the man and woman, and he said it was very good. He didn't say that it's dirty. He didn't say that it's bad. He didn't say you should be ashamed of it. If you're committed to each other through marriage and in a covenant relationship, there's no shame at all that should ever be attached to having marital relations. This is a lifetime bond between Adam and Eve. It's unique because most male creatures in nature spawn and move on. That's just the reality. That's biology. Most male things in nature just spawn children and they move on and go their very way. But that's not what God had intended for the human race. That's not what he had intended for human fathers. We need to understand that and appreciate it. Adam and Eve had a lifetime monogamous relationship and did not acquire additional spouses. This was the role model that God intended for all humanity. Now the first individual mentioned in scriptures to have more than one wife was Lamech. He was Cain's son. Genesis chapter 4 and verse 19 says, then Lamech took for himself two wives. The name of one was Adah and the name of the second was Zillah. This, by the way, is when the subjection of females began. And eventually, this permeated every human culture on earth. This was the time when women were beginning to be seen as just basically property, something for me to possess. I have a cow, I have a dog, I have two wives.

Polygamy is very degrading in the eyes of God. And though he allowed the patriarchs to do polygamy, like he allows lots of things to go on, God says, how many times do I have to tell you the right thing to do? How many times do I have to model for you my will and the right way that something should be done? Let's go to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 20. Next chapter.

Chapter 2 and verse 20. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. The Hebrew word helper here is azer, means aid. There was nothing else found that could help him because he had 20 times more testosterone than the woman that would be created that presents unique challenges for a male. And they need someone to counterbalance that fact and their tendencies because they have that fact. They need a nurturer. They need someone to aid them, someone to help them. And let's see how God solved this problem. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall and Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in his place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman. And he brought her to the man and Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She's very much equal to who and what I am. She's literally from my own body. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. The Hebrew word joined here is dabak, and it means to cling, to adhere to, to cleave to. There was a song out a few years ago that I really enjoyed by a group called Sugarland. It was called Stuck Like Lou. That's the way God wants and had originally intended marriage. One man, one woman, sharing a lifetime with each other, stuck like glue. These scriptures, these verses show us Adam was incomplete by himself. The other beast may have been entertaining to watch, but he could not share his thoughts with them. He couldn't love them. He couldn't communicate with them on a human level. So from Adam's very body, God created Eve. She was taken from his side to be his lifetime partner. She was not taken from a bone in his foot so that he could walk on her. She wasn't taken from a piece of his skull that she could make all decisions for him and tell him what to do and boss him around all day. She was taken from his side so that she could be his sidekick.

And his friend throughout their lives together. Let's go to Matthew. Now let's go to the New Testament. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 31. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 31.

Jesus was asked about marriage and specifically about divorce.

Matthew chapter 5 and verse 31. Jesus said, Furthermore, it has been said, and this was from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 24, it has been said, Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. And again, as mentioned in Deuteronomy chapter 24, where I might add, the reason allowed for a certificate of divorce is called some uncleanness. So there had to be something serious going on even in the law of Moses to divorce. Couldn't divorce your wife because the eggs were runny, because she wore pink and you don't like pink. There had to be serious ethical reasons why you wanted to sever that marriage. Verse 32. But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. So in context, Jesus is talking about the marriage union to an audience of Jews who are descendants of the old covenant. They understand what he's saying because they're familiar with Deuteronomy chapter 24. He's stating that the allowance for divorce was granted in the law of Moses due to sexual abuse or infidelity. In time, unfortunately, since that time, by the time you get to the age when Jesus walks the earth, it had become easier and easier to receive a divorce. All you basically had to say a few times is, I divorce thee. I divorce thee. I divorce thee. Done. That's how easy it basically had become. So to this audience of Jews who were familiar with the law of Moses, Jesus is saying that the only allowable reason for divorce is sexual immorality.

The Greek word used here is porneia and is a very broad meeting, including sexual behavior such as prostitution, extramarital sexual intercourse, adultery, pedophilia, promiscuity, homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, premarital sex, bestiality. It's a very broad meeting. Porneia is a very broad meeting. It's a very broad meeting. It's a very broad word to include sexual immorality according to the original Old Covenant. Let's see what else Jesus has to say in Matthew chapter 29 and verse 3. Let's see if he's changing the original intent that God had for marriage between one man, one woman sharing a lifetime together, stuck like glue, with no additional spouses, with no additional deviations to God expressing his will. Matthew chapter 19 verse 3 says, the Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And he answered, and he said to them, have you not read that he who made them at the beginning, referring all the way back to Genesis, the early chapters that we just read, he who made them at the beginning made them male and female. Poor Jesus. You know, he just didn't realize that Tumblr today, if you sign up for an account on Tumblr, you can choose from any one of 112 genders. He obviously was ill-informed.

But he says he made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. He's quoting from Genesis, some verses we just read a few minutes ago, and the two shall become one flesh, so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.

So Jesus Christ here is declaring and reinforcing a number of important biblical values in these verses. This is where we get our understanding of the sanctity of marriage, not from the internet, not from government edicts, not from Supreme Court decisions. We get our understanding of the sanctity of marriage from Scripture. First of all, God made two genders. Jesus said that very clearly, male and female, period. They were made with complementary designed parts.

It is God who joins two people together in an intimate relationship to become one new family, because with God, there's more than just a family. There's far more than just a male and a female coming together, and either being a family themselves, or if God blesses them, having additional children, a family is a spiritual concept reflected by human beings in our concept of family. The male and female are to leave their own biological families to become joined together in one brand new family unit. And of course, Jesus states that it is God who joins a man and a woman together. That's verse 6. One must be very careful not to violate or separate this union. Now, I'm the product of a divorce. I know how difficult divorces are in families. My parents were the result of the Second World War. They married too soon. They had a very difficult marriage. They split for a while. They came back temporarily. Then they split again, and they divorced. And I know divorce is very difficult on families. There is certainly no doubt about that. And that's why Jesus emphasizes the importance of marriage and the legitimate reasons for divorce. Let's take a look now at verse 7. They said to him, Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away? And he said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, getting going all the way back to Genesis, it was not so. God's original intent was that there would be no divorce.

But, as Jesus says, because you're carnal, selfish beings, you were permitted to divorce your wives in the Old Covenant. But that's not the ideal. That's not what God intended from the very beginning. He intended you to be stuck like glue for a lifetime, sharing your lives together. As mentioned before, and I'm not going to go in detail now, but there's a big difference between what God allows and what God's will is. God allows polygamy. It's not his will that any relationships be polygamous. God's will is that there be no divorce. God allows human beings, under certain circumstances, as Jesus has discussed here, he allows human beings to divorce. Continuing here, verse 9, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality, that's again that's the word pornea, and marries another, commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. So Jesus adds in these verses the understanding that from the very creation of Adam and Eve, God intended a very narrow limit on divorce, and that included the violation of the marriage covenant if sexual infidelity occurred. And why is that? Because it violates faithfulness and trust. That's why. As the prophet Malachi wrote in chapter 2 verse 16, for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. So the context of these answers by Jesus is why there is a sanctity within marriage. There is a reason also that Jesus would not use the word homosexuality or same-sex marriage. I've seen that scam. I've seen people say, well, it must not be too bad because Jesus never addressed homosexuality and same-sex marriage. That means that we just have to accept it, that we just have to be Christian about this and love one another. Well, first of all, if you were to have said to a typical Jewish person listening to him that homosexuality was acceptable, they would have stoned you. It was so contrary to what the old covenant said, so contrary to their culture, you would have been stoned. And on top of that, Jesus didn't address it because it's a self-evident truth that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

How many times does he have to allude to the beginning that it was between one man and one woman? So that's why he does not address homosexuality, and the fact that he doesn't address it does not make it acceptable or right or something that we should just accommodate within the Church of God. While things get a little more complicated, as the gospel goes to the Gentile world, Paul has to address this issue. Let's see more discussion on marriage from the Apostle Paul. Whereas Jesus is addressing Jews living under the old covenant, and his audience are Jewish people, and they understand what the Torah says, they understand the Old Testament, what we would call the old covenant, Paul has a different audience. He has different converts. They're from a Gentile background, so he's got other problems that Jesus doesn't address in his discussion, often believing couples coming into the faith together. And that's wonderful! But sometimes people come into the Church with unbelieving mates, and sometimes those unbelieving mates are very hostile to the faith, and they turn against their spouse who has become a believer. This is what Paul has to figure out and address. Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 10. If you'll turn there with me, 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 10. So how is Paul going to address this?

It's not easy being an apostle, and I don't think it paid very well either, except in spiritual blessings. A reward to come. 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 10. Now to the married, that means the couples who both believe, both are believers who have come into the faith. Now to the married, I command, yet not I but the Lord. A wife is not to depart from her husband, but even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. A husband and a husband is not the divorce's wife. And that's true for us today. If you and your wife are both in the faith, and you worship together, and you celebrate the faith together, divorce is not an option. Verse 12, he says, but to the rest. What does he mean here by the rest? Well, he means an individual who comes into the faith, but their mate is an unbeliever, usually a hostile unbeliever, because they've given up paganism that may have been in the family lineage for hundreds of years. So they're violating the family custom, the family tradition. He says, I, in other words, I have to make the decision through prayer and meditation. This isn't something that Jesus spoke on. I have to make the best decision I can. I, not the Lord, say, if a brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. If you can work it out, even if there's tension, even if there are difficulties and you can work it out, Paul says, stay together. Verse 13, and if a woman who has a husband does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. In other words, the believer brings special blessings upon the unbeliever and upon their own children, just by having that spiritual connection of being a child of God. And the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. They're special in God's sight. You know how they're special? Because the believer can have a positive influence on their spouse by their example, on their children by their example, and it opens up the opportunity for the children to be called into the faith. By our example, it opens up the opportunity for our spouse to say, wow, he's changed. He's not the same person he used to be. There must be something to this religion because he's different in a positive and a wonderful way. It says, but now they are holy. Verse 15, Paul continues, but if the unbeliever departs, if they abandon you, if you're faithful, and due to animosity, due to hostility, your spouse leaves, he says, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace, so make every attempt to make it work out, but if it works out that way, you are free to marriage. You are no longer locked into that covenant relationship because you've been abandoned. Verse 16, for how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Think of your example, Paul says here. How do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? Make every example an opportunity to work things out, but if push comes to shove and they leave you and they depart and they don't want to work it out, you are not subject to that marriage covenant. So Paul states that for converted couples of faith, divorce and remarriage is not an option. If both husband and wife are in the faith, they worship together. He goes on to say that in his view, if a believer is abandoned by an unbelieving spouse, they're no longer bound to the marriage covenant due to abandonment.

All right, our second last scripture, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 30, as we begin to wrap the sermon up today. See, it wasn't as bad as you thought. The son hasn't set yet.

Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 30. Paul is going to reveal a great mystery.

Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 30. For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. We've read that a number of places already, but here's something additional. Paul reveals verse 32. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Here's the mystery, according to the apostle Paul. The very nature of covenant marriage, the intimacy, the mutual respect, the love by the husband, the loving response back from his wife, all of that was intended to say something visually about Jesus Christ and his church. It all represents what Jesus Christ and the bride of Christ are going to do as they have a marriage union in the future and are stuck like glue together for all eternity. The great mystery is that from the beginning marriage was intended to represent the future relationship between Jesus Christ and his church only on a human level.

This means within our marriages should be commitment. Within our marriages should be an intimacy, should be faithfulness, should be love, should be mutual fulfillment. Our marriages are intended to be a sermon about the good news of the coming kingdom of God.

Our marriages should not be about the seven last plagues. Our marriage is our relationships with our spouses. Again, getting back to what I said a few weeks ago about being positive lights to the world can be a dynamic influence when we have our act together and when we're living in harmony with our spouses, when our relationships are growing stronger all the time, people can see that. It's a witness to the power of the good news when we have good and healthy marriages. It matters who we are. It matters how we act as married people. All right, our final scripture today, 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7. 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7.

1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7. Husbands, likewise, dwell with them, that is with your beloved wife, with understanding. Seek to understand her. I'm not saying that's easy, because men and women are different. It's not just the testosterone. We do look at things from a different perspective, and that's good. But sometimes we have to work very hard to understand where our spouse is coming from. Dwell with them with understanding. Giving honor to the wife is to the weaker vessel. Now, biologically speaking, wives usually are smaller than their husbands. They don't have the upper body strength that men do. This is not talking about women being weaker mentally, or their fulfillment, or their potential. That's not what this is talking about at all. It's talking about a husband's need to protect, provide security for his beloved wife, especially if she's in an environment where she feels threatened.

Giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together, stuck like glue, heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered.

So if your spouse is in the faith, if you've been very blessed to have that, it's a unique blessing. Cherish it. Believe me, I've seen so many situations, so much heartache, sometimes leading to divorce where couples were not on the same page regarding religion, regarding their faith. It's an incredible blessing to have your spouse as part of the faith. Share your lives together. Strive to understand and respect each other, is what the scripture is saying. And never forget that your relationship has sanctity.

It's God who established sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, stuck like glue for a lifetime. And anything else is sin. Anything else is a deviation from the will of God. No matter what governments say, no matter what courts say, no matter what other churches say, we're only interested in what this says. Have a wonderful Sabbath day.