We have noted that God created man. God created man, male and female. God commanded man to be fruitful and multiply. God created a world big enough to handle more than two people. In fact, God created a world that can handle more than the 8 billion people that they claim are on the earth now.
We also noted that God’s design is for a man to marry a woman and then they have children. We have seen too many who choose to have children before they get married. This is not a new problem in our time. King David chose to commit adultery with Bathsheba and there was a child that came from that immorality. This does not change God’s design.
We read in our verses today that Adam did not find a help meet for him among the cattle or the birds or of the beast of the field. Some people have their pets. Those pets cannot take the place of a human being. God designed the man to have an help meet for him. That help would need to be another human being. It would have to be an help that was not of the same gender as he was. God did not create Adam and Steve. He created Adam and Eve. Eve was the help that was meet for Adam. Adam knew that when God first brought Eve to him, he was very happy for this partner that God had created for him.
In verse 23 Adam noted that this is now bone of my bones. Adam knew that Eve was a human being. She was not a monkey or a cow or a parrot. This was bone of my bones. She was also flesh of his flesh. There are differences between the man and the woman, but there are also similarities that cannot be denied. Adam knew there were differences here and he called this person that God created as his help meet, woman. She was called woman because she came out of man.
Adam did not need to spend years in school to learn this. Adam was an intelligent man and he knew when God brought Eve to him, that she was that help meet for him.
Built upon these facts, God gave us verses 24-25. Verse 24 begins with the word “therefore”. The man is to leave his father and his mother and he is to cleave to his wife. This is the first time we read the word “wife.” God designed a man to marry one woman and to cleave to her for life. The word “cleave” means “to stick like glue”.
Jesus referred back to this passage when He answered the temptation of the Pharisees in Matthew 19. God’s design for man to be fruitful and multiply involved the man marrying a woman and leaving his father and his mother and cleaving to his wife.
Marriage is not a contract that is entered into on an experimental basis. Marriage is not something that is taken on in a careless manner. The man needs to consider the importance of the marriage before he enters into this agreement. The same holds true for the woman. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day had a messed up law regarding marriage. They put conditions on the length of the marriage. God did not put a condition on marriage. It was to be entered into seriously, under God’s design and His blessing. It is to be for life. God has never changed His mind on this.
The Pharisees came to Jesus and as part of their temptation to Him, they suggested that Moses commanded divorce in certain situations. Jesus corrected their distortion by telling them that Moses, as a man, responded to the hard heartedness of the Jews. Moses “suffered” them to divorce. Jesus also told them that from the beginning it was not so. Jesus acknowledged that Moses changed God’s law, but that change did not take precedence over God’s law. No one can go back and look at what Moses allowed and think they can justify infidelity in marriage based on that. Jesus taught us that we need to go back to the beginning and we need to enter into marriage on that basis. Pastors need to teach based on what God says, not the distortions of man that He recorded for our learning. We need to learn to lean on God, and not give in to man’s ungodly demands.
A marriage will work out if God is in charge. He designed marriage, and He can make a marriage work. Too many pastors want to create a loophole to allow for divorce and remarriage, when God gives no such teaching. God teaches that divorce and remarriage is committing adultery.
It is true that God did not create man to be alone. He designed marriage to be for life. Jesus warned of those who would dare to interfere with His design for marriage. Jesus gave one exception clause which is in the case of fornication. He did not say: fornication or adultery or marital infidelity. He gave one exception and that was for fornication. Fornication is an act of immorality committed by those who are not married. The betrothal period in Bible times could only be broken with a bill of divorcement. The betrothed couple did not live together and they did not sleep together. If the unmarried man and woman decided to go to bed together, that is fornication. That is not marriage.
Today there are many who commit fornication and never bother to get married. Children are born into this mess and they suffer as a result of their disobedient parents.
God designed the family and when we know Him and follow His way, marriage is a good thing. It works and it is not a battle of endurance. It is a love relationship where the man and the woman work together to make their marriage the blessing that God designed it to be. When God is not in charge, a marriage may last, but it is not what God designed it to be. Then there needs to be all kinds of compromises made that damage the marriage and damage the sanctity of marriage.
The apostle Paul wrote of the significance of marriage in Ephesians 5. Marriage is a picture of the relationship that Jesus Christ has with His body, the local church. When a person is saved, they are saved for life. They cannot lose their salvation. They cannot throw away their salvation. They are saved for eternity. When a person is saved, Jesus Christ works in that person’s heart and life to be able to present a pure person before the Father in glory.
Marriage is something that needs to be entered into with a sober heart and mind. It is something that needs to be undertaken under the authority and blessing of the Lord. It has nothing to do with the state. The government does not even know what a marriage is. God ordained marriage and the wise couple will choose to follow His design in marriage.
When the marriage is built upon God’s authority, then God can work within that marriage for His glory. That is where the blessing comes in. When a couple choose to marry without knowing the Lord as their God and Saviour, they will not know the blessing that God intended marriage to be. Too often those marriages end in divorce. You do not fix divorce with another marriage. You fix divorce with repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. The wise person turns to God and is saved before they get married. Then they can build that relationship according to God’s design. That is a blessing for the couple and for any children that God blesses them with.
Pastor Bartel