"She Shall Be Called Woman" (Genesis 2:21-23)

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Worship Service 07/19/2020 Sovereign Grace Family Church www.SGFCJAX.org Songs: Your Grace is Enough Great Are You Lord You are My All in All Blessed be Your Name Sermon: She Shall Be Called Woman Genesis 2:21-23 Pastor Keith Foskey

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Now, as most of you know, we are reading one chapter a week through the New Testament, and we are now in the book of Philippians.
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So I'm going to be reading for us this morning from Philippians chapter three.
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So if you have your Bibles open and would like to read along, we're going to be in Philippians chapter three.
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We're going to read the entirety of the chapter.
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Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
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To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
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Look out for the dogs.
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Look out for the evildoers.
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Look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
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For we are the circumcision who worship by the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.
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Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.
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If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.
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Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.
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As to the law, a Pharisee.
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As to zeal, a persecutor of the church.
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As to righteousness under the law, blameless.
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But whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ.
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Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
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For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
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Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
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Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
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Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.
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Only let us hold true to what we have obtained.
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Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us, for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
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Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame.
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Their minds set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
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What a wonderful word we have from the living God, and I will say this as a preacher, it is hard for me to simply read that and not want to go back and exegete it, but that is our encouragement this morning from the Apostle Paul, and we'll leave the word as it is, and we'll continue to worship together.
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It's your friend, it's your friend, it's in you.
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Holy Father, gracious God, omnipotent King, Father we thank you so much for your many blessings that we sang this morning, Father you are the breath within our lungs, Father you are the one that upholds all things with the power of your word, Father we at times forget so much how we are dependent on everything that you do, the breath that we breathe, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, it all belongs to you, and Father we thank you for those gifts, Father we thank you for the gift of life, we thank you for the gift of being able to gather as a group of believers in spirit and in truth to worship you in spirit and in truth, Father to sing praises to you for the giving of offerings, and Father for the hearing of the word to be preached and the taking of the ordinance of the table, and Father thank you for the church, thank you for a body of believers that can come together in community to worship you and to be instructed, rebuked, reproved, and admonished.
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God I pray for those in our body, God, that are sick and weary, I pray that you would strengthen their bodies, I pray that you would give them extra measure of your grace, I pray that you would show them mercy, I pray that you would strengthen their bodies and bring those that are gone back to us, Father, quickly.
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I pray for those in this room that are struggling spiritually, God, that feel somewhat spiritually depressed, perplexed, downtrodden, Father I pray that you would strengthen them and help them to not lean on their own understanding but in all of their ways acknowledge you and that you would direct their path, and Father to guard their hearts to be pulled from either one side or to the left knowing that Father you will never leave them nor forsake them and the very work that you started in them, Father, you will complete into the day of redemption.
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Father, God, I pray for Keith, I pray that as he preaches your word today that you would empower his spirit, empower him with the Holy Spirit and as he preaches your word it will be with boldness and with clarity and that, Father, you would keep him from error and that, Father, our hearers would open their ears and their hearts would be opened and that our lives would be transformed and that we would be more conformed to the image of your Son and we would be, as we read this morning, as Paul said, imitators of Christ, Father, for that is what we are to become, Father, our sanctification at times is a struggle and, God, I pray that today as we hear the word that we would be encouraged, that we would be equipped.
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God, I pray for our missionaries, I pray for Scott as he is continuing to translate the Old Testament.
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God, I pray that you would be with him and his wife and his children, that you would continue to give them clarity of mind and understanding of your words as they translate the Bible.
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I pray that you would continue to give them the funds necessary to translate the Scriptures, to take the Scriptures across the other side of the globe and that, Father, you would strengthen them at this very difficult time, Father, where funds and travel are very difficult.
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I pray for Walter, I pray that as he is leading his small church, that, God, you would send him someone to help him lead the flock, that, Father, you would raise up elders and deacons within his church, that, Father, that would help him come alongside of him.
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I pray that you would continue to strengthen him as he teaches the word, that he teach with clarity and with boldness and that, Father, as he preaches the word, you would transform the hearts of the Croatian people and that, Father, they would come to faith and knowledge of your blessed Son.
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God, we pray all this in your precious name and for your sake.
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Amen.
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I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Genesis and go to chapter two.
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While you're turning in your Bible, I want to make an announcement that I meant to make earlier.
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We need to be praying for the Budd family.
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Chuck has his uncle Dom passed away just last night.
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So we need to be praying for Chuck.
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We need to be praying for his aunt who lost her husband.
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We just need to be praying for the entire family.
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So please add Chuck and his family to your prayer list.
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And as I said, I meant to mention that before the service and just simply allowed it go out of my mind.
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If you have your Bibles open to Genesis chapter two, we have been in Genesis now for many, many months, and we are continuing in a verse by verse study of this book.
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This is the first book of the Bible.
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This is the book of origins.
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That's what the word Genesis means.
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It means beginnings or origins.
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And this tells us not only the origins of humanity.
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It tells us the origins of everything, the origins of the universe, the origins of life itself, the origins of man.
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And today we are going to have the blessing of looking at the origin of woman.
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And I say that with awe and reverence because I've been looking forward to this message for a while because you know what? Women are pretty special.
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My woman is very special to me.
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And I know many men in this room who have a wife can say that your woman is special to you.
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And to think about what God did in creating for Adam, a helpmate to create for Adam, one who was a fit helper for him, one who was who was like him in the most important ways, but unlike him in the even more important ways.
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She was to come alongside him.
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She was to be his complement.
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She was to come alongside him.
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She was to be his partner.
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She was to come alongside him.
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She was to be the fellow image bearer.
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And so today we are going to look primarily at verses 21 to 23.
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But to get the sense of the context, what I would like for us to do is I would like for us to begin reading at verse 18.
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So we're going to read verse 18 and we're going to read all the way down to verse 25 with our particular emphasis today being on verses 21 to 23.
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Now, as you know, this is our standard practice here at Sovereign Grace that when we're going to hear the word, we stand.
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So let us stand for the reading of the word of God as we prepare for it to be preached.
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Genesis chapter 2, verse 18.
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Then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.
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I will make him a helper fit for him.
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Now, out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
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And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
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The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
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But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.
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So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
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And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
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And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
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Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
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She shall be called woman.
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Because she was taken out of man, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
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And the man and his wife were both naked.
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And we're not ashamed.
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May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word.
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May he write its eternal truths upon our heart and may he keep me from error as I preach.
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You may be seated.
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If you were here last week, you remember that originally I was going to try to preach verses 18 to 23 in one sermon.
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And then as I began to preach last week, I made the point that there's no way I was going to be able to do it justice by by going that fast through the passage.
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So what we focused on last week, and if you weren't here, I do want to reiterate this because this is very important.
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What we focused on last week was the deficiency of man.
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And you notice that in verse 18, when we see verse 18, it says, then God said, it is not good that the man should be alone.
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That is the first time in the Bible that we come across anything that is referenced as being not good or deficient.
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Up until this point, everything has been defined as good.
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God made the light and he said it was good.
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God made the land and he said it was good.
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God made the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and he made the beasts of the field and all of them.
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He said it was good.
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In fact, he says it was very good.
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But then we come to Genesis 2 and in Genesis 2, as we've already noted in weeks past, Genesis 2 is a longer version of what happened on day six, which is found in Genesis chapter one, where it says on day six, he created the animals and on day six, he created man and woman.
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Chapter two of Genesis is the longer version of that.
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Chapter two is, as I said in several sermons ago, it's like if you read chapter one, it's like you're standing up on a tower and you're looking down at a piece of property and you can see all the edges and you can see all the property lines.
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You can see where maybe the trees are and maybe where the where the pond is and you can see where your borders are and you can see where your borders meet other people's borders.
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That's what it's like to be up on a tower.
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But if you want to investigate one aspect of your property, you have to come down off the tower.
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You have to climb down and you have to get down with a magnifying glass and look at one part if you want to really investigate one particular part of your property.
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Well, that's what we see in Genesis 2.
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Genesis 1 was a was a large scale version of what happened in the beginning.
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Genesis 2 takes that large scale down to a microscopic view and it focuses on God's.
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Well, the high point of God's creation, and let me tell you this, it is no prideful thing to say that man is the highest of God's creations because that's what he says.
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In fact, man is the only part of God's creation that receives the the statement of being made in God's image, man is made in the image of God, and so this is God's high point of creation.
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So it makes sense that Genesis 2 would take the time to give us an outline of exactly how did he make this man.
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And we looked at the creation of man, God for man from the dust of the ground.
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He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living soul and the man was alive and he was in fellowship with God.
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He was in the most beautiful sanctuary in all of history, the garden, which was in Eden.
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He was there with all of the blessings that God had given him, food that was nourishing and wonderful, beauty that was beyond compare, and a fit relationship with God that was uninterrupted by sin.
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And yet it was still not good enough.
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It was still deficient.
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And as I mentioned last week, Adam had a perfect vertical relationship, vertical relationship with God.
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But what Adam lacked was he lacked a horizontal relationship.
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He did not have a positive relationship horizontally.
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He had a perfect relationship vertically.
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There was no interruption between his relationship with God, but there was no one with whom to share the blessings that God had given him.
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So God brings all the animals before him and says, name them.
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And in the process of naming them, he was reminding Adam of his dominion.
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The act of naming something is demonstrating your authority over that thing.
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As I mentioned last week, remember when you had children, what was the one great blessing that you had with your children? You got to name them.
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You demonstrated your authority over them.
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And so Adam has all of these animals brought to him and he names them, demonstrating his he's exercising that dominion that God had given to him.
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But it was also a lesson in education because God was showing him there's not another creature on this earth that's fit to be your partner.
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As Adam looked at the lions and as Adam looked at the zebras and as Adam looked at the gazelles and whatever other kind of animals there were that were brought before him, he noticed one thing that distinguished him from them is that none of them were just like him.
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All of them were deficient in some way.
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All of them were missing a vital element, and you know what that vital element was? None of those animals were made in the image of God.
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And therefore, none of those animals were a fit companion for him.
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None of those animals were just like him.
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This was an education for Adam.
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It was an opportunity to learn something about his own nature.
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He was different from the animals.
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You see, the evolutionists will tell us that we are simply part of a long line of animals.
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I remember going to the zoo.
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We love the zoo.
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My family and I buy annual passes because we live literally five minutes from the Jacksonville Zoo.
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So as homeschoolers, we, you know, when we during good, not right now because it's a thousand degrees, but in a good temperate time of year, we'll go once a week and have lunch at the zoo because it's right around the corner and the kids get to see the animals.
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But I remember years ago going to the zoo and I remember walking into a fixture hut.
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It was some kind of it had been built.
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And and on the on the sign, as you walked in, the sign said, in this room is the most dangerous animal on the planet.
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So I was curious.
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And when you walked into the room and you looked up, it was just a giant mirror.
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So the concept behind it was not only is man an animal, but man is the worst of the animals.
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He's the most dangerous.
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He's the most polluted.
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He is the worst.
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Beloved, we are not animals.
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We are creatures, yes.
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But we are man.
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We are created in the image of God.
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We bear God's image and we are unlike any other creature in the world.
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God laid upon man his image, and there we find Adam having looked at all the animals and saying to himself, there's not one fit for me.
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There's not one fit to be my companion.
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And so that leads us to verse 21 and the origin of woman.
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It says in verse 21, so the Lord God.
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And I want to just remind you, because it is important, this is the covenant name of God, Yahweh Elohim, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
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And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
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This is a short passage, two lines for the creation of woman.
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But yet it is immensely powerful in its detail.
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First, we see Adam at the end of verse 20 in a position of loss.
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He recognizes there's no one.
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There's no animal.
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There's no creature fit to be his companion.
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There's not a helper fit for him.
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So the Lord God.
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Caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam.
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God put Adam to sleep.
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This is the first instance of anesthesia.
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And all of human history, in fact, it is interesting to know if you look at the history of the science of anesthesia, the pioneer, Sir James Young Simpson, in the early 1800s, pioneered modern anesthesiology through his discovery of chloroform.
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You know what that is? That's you breathe it in and it causes you to go to sleep.
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Well, he pioneered that technology, stating that his research had been inspired by Genesis chapter two.
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He said, well, if God is going to do surgery with someone who's asleep, maybe that'd be a good idea for us.
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And so he pioneered this idea of putting people to sleep for surgery.
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And aren't you glad that he did? And aren't you glad they don't just whack you in the head with a rock or give you a bottle of wild turkey to get you through the surgery? Now, I've had several surgeries in my life, and I tell you what, I'm glad I was asleep for all of them.
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And so we have here the very first surgery.
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Being performed by God, he makes an incision, he removes a vital part of Adam's anatomy, he closes the wound, and all the while Adam is blissfully unaware.
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And I want to make a mention of something I have heard.
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Over the years, as many of you know, I've taught apologetics, that's been a favorite subject of mine, apologetics is defending the integrity and the truthfulness of the word of God against arguments that are made by unbelievers and even people from other faiths.
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And one of the arguments that I have heard is, well, the reason we believe in Adam and Eve is because man has one less rib than women.
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That ain't true.
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And if you've ever heard that argument, it's a bad one.
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And if you've ever used that argument, stop.
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It just ain't so.
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Because even if Adam, he did have a rib removed, that doesn't mean his son's going to be born without a rib.
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Any more than if I had a rib removed for whatever type of surgery I was to have, if I happen to have a child after that, it's not as if that son is going to inherit the one rib less gene.
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That's not how surgery works.
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That's not how any of this works.
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And so if you've ever heard the fact that we should believe the Bible because men have one less rib than women, it just ain't so.
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Get a skeleton, count it out.
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We have the same amount of ribs.
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This is unique to Adam.
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This is not something that men share.
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This is not based on some kind of later biology.
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And the reason why I mention that, because some people say, well, when you see the later biology of men having one less rib, that reminds us of this history.
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No, it doesn't, because that's not where we get the information.
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We get the information from the Bible.
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We get the information from God's holy, inspired and infallible and authoritative word.
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And it's what tells us that God took a rib from Adam.
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And from that rib, he made a woman.
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Now, the text does not tell us why a rib.
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And I have heard a lot of speculation on this one.
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Why did God choose a rib? And of course, there's that old and you probably heard this, the old Jewish fable, not fable, but it's a Jewish expression, which says this, God chose to make Eve from the rib of the man.
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He did not take her from his head so that she would rule over him, neither from his foot that he would rule over her, but from his ribs so that they would stand arm in arm as partners.
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You ever heard that or something to that effect? Maybe I didn't do it justice.
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The Bible doesn't say that.
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It's a nice sentiment like to think it was true.
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I'm sure there's some truthfulness to it.
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But again, we're coming to the word of God and we're coming to learn what it says.
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And what it says was that Eve was made out of Adam's rib.
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You know, if anything, I like to think of the fact that the ribs are under the arms.
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And it response, it shows Adam's responsibility in protecting his wife.
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I think about the fact that the whole reason for Genesis three, which we're going to get to eventually.
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The whole reason for Genesis chapter three is that Adam failed to protect the garden.
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His job, remember, was to work and keep the garden and the words work and keep the garden, express his responsibility, especially the word keep his responsibility to protect the garden and to protect his bride whom God had given to him.
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Genesis chapter three is not just a failure on Eve's part, who, of course, was deceived by the serpent, but it's a failure on Adam's part whose responsibility it was to protect his wife.
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But again, we don't know why a rib was taken, but we do know that a rib was taken.
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And we don't know the process by which God used to form the woman out of the rib.
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But we know that God can take dirt and make a man.
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He can certainly take a rib and make a woman.
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And so the woman was made out of man, which is very interesting, because from that moment forward, all men would come from women.
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If you think about it from that generation forward, all men would come from a woman.
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But the first instance is that the woman came from the man.
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So there's a turning of, if you will, the natural order on its head.
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Adam was not birthed, neither was Eve birthed, but both of them were created by God.
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This is very important.
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Because, again, going back to the argument from the evolutionists, some people are what you call Christian evolutionists.
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They believe in evolution and they believe in the Bible and they try to meld those two together.
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And what they will say is they will say that Adam and Eve were hominids.
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They were certain types of ape-like creatures that God looked down upon and said, see, here are these two creatures that I'm going to choose to imbibe with my image.
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Here's the problem with that.
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Adam and Eve were not born.
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Adam and Eve were made.
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In fact, the word for make here when it comes to Eve, when it talks about that he took the rib and he made her, it's the idea of fashioning something.
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God is the great artisan.
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God is the great craftsman.
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God makes man.
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And he says, I can do better than that.
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No, I think he did.
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But that's a different topic.
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He makes man and he says, here is man.
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Not good that man should be alone.
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I'll take apart from man and out of man will come woman.
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John Currid, in his commentary on this passage, says after the woman's creation, God brings her to the man.
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Earlier, we had animals brought to the man.
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But here God brings the woman to the man in a different way.
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The pronominal suffix her emphasizes the object.
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God is like a father who is presenting his son with a valuable gift.
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That is bound to please him and be cherished by him.
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God is, in effect, saying, see what I have prepared for you.
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Here is this woman and I have made her not only from you, I've made her for you.
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This is a prototype of how later the father would provide Jesus Christ, the son with a bride.
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The picture in the garden of God forming for Adam a bride and giving her to excuse me, forming for Adam a bride and giving her to Adam is a picture of how God forms his church and gives his church to Christ as a bride.
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Do you realize this? And this is very important theologically.
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Do you realize that if you are part of the body of Christ, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have been born again into the family of God, you are a gift from the father to the son.
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Turn with me very quickly to John chapter six.
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You need to see this because it's very important.
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In fact, in the gospel of John alone, five different times we are said to have been a gift that was given from the father to the son.
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In John chapter six, verse 37.
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Jesus is talking about how people who are coming to him don't really believe in him.
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He said, the reason why you come to me is because I fed you.
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It was right after he fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish.
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And he said, the reason why you come is not because you believe, it's because you have a full stomach.
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But then in verse 37, he says this, all that the father gives me will come to me.
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And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
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Notice what it says.
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All that the father gives me will come to me.
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Understand this, my friends, my beloved church, listen to this.
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If you have come to Christ, it is because God has worked a miracle in your heart.
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The miracle of regeneration by which you went from death to life.
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And you went from being a person who loved the world to a person who loved Jesus.
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And that was a work of God.
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God was like a father who in the ancient world would go and find a bride for his son.
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It's not like today.
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You know how it goes today.
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Man finds a woman, he likes a woman, he proposes to her, and then he may or may not come to the father and ask for permission for her hand in marriage.
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That's not how it was in the ancient world.
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In the ancient world, it was the responsibility of the father to go and find a bride for the son.
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It was a responsibility of the father to ensure his own progenity, to ensure that his family line would go on by providing his son a wife.
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So he would go out and he would find a good wife, and he would even be willing to give an offering for her.
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He would be willing to pay a price, sacrifice some of his riches for her, so that he would be able to give his son a good wife.
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And so the father goes and he gets a wife, and he brings her to the son, and he says, see what I have given you.
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I've given you this gift.
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And don't for a minute, ladies, get offended by that and think that I'm trying to indicate that women are property.
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I'm not.
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I'm talking about the value, the great value of a good wife.
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Doesn't the Bible express how valuable it is? A wife of great value, who can find she is more precious than rubies, the Bible says.
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And so it was the job of the father to go and bring the bride to the son.
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And we see that prototypically exemplified in God with Adam.
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It's not good that you're alone, son.
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Remember, Adam's the son of God.
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Luke 3 tells us that.
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Not in the same way Jesus is the son of God, but Adam didn't have a father.
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Adam didn't have a daddy.
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Adam had God, and God created him.
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And so God treated Adam like a son.
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He gave him a place to live.
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He gave him food to eat.
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He gave him a job to do.
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Family business.
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You're going to run my world.
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And God loved his son, Adam.
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And so God provides the son, Adam, with a bride.
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Thousands of years later, Jesus Christ comes and he is the son of God.
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He is God the son.
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He is the divine incarnate.
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All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily.
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And as he comes into the world, God provides him a bride.
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And that bride is the church.
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So what we see in Genesis two is a typification of what would what would eventually happen with Jesus Christ.
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This is why the Bible tells us.
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Husbands, love your wives as Christ himself loved the church and gave himself for her.
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Christ gave himself for his wife.
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So, men, we're called to give ourselves for our wives.
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We are called the bride of Christ because Christ is called the bridegroom.
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In fact, there's a marriage coming.
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Did you know that? The Bible says in Revelation 19 that we should rejoice and exalt and give him glory because the marriage of the Lamb has come.
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See, right now we're like the bride waiting on the groom.
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And one day the groom will return.
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And one day the groom will take us to himself.
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As he said, I go to prepare a place for you.
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And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself.
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That where I am, you will be also.
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Jesus is the great bridegroom who is to come.
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And when he comes, there will be a marriage ceremony like none other.
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And we will live with him forever.
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So in Genesis two, we have this picture.
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And next week, we're going to look at the subject of marriage more closely because we're going to look at chapter two, verse 24.
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But my point for today in this verse, verse 22, is simply the fact that God is giving the woman to the man.
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And this is a prototype of God giving the bride of Christ, the church to Christ.
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Then we come to verse 23 and we see Adam's recognition of his blessing.
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Verse 23, it says, Then the man said this at last.
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This bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
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You realize or maybe you don't realize this is the first time we hear Adam speak.
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Read through Genesis chapter two.
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This is the first time we have words from the man.
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It's not the first time he said anything because he named all the animals.
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This is the first time we have anything recorded from the mouth of Adam.
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And what's interesting about it is it's a poem.
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It comes to us in the form of Hebrew poetry.
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So the first man, the perfect man, the man God created with no sin, who was himself perfect at that in that state.
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Was a poet and the sight of his new bride caused him to break out into verse.
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Men.
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Has your wife ever made you want to sing? Maybe you say, I'm not much of a singer.
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It doesn't matter to her.
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My wedding day 20 years ago.
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No, 21 years.
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Something like that.
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It's been a while.
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August 1st, 21 years.
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But I was right here.
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Actually, I was here.
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This stage chancel area used to be a lot smaller.
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20 years ago.
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I stood right here.
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And there used to not be a sound room right there.
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There used to be two double doors.
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And.
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The pastor was here with me.
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I was 19 years old.
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And I looked down the aisle.
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And the doors.
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Opened.
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And.
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The most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.
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And a.
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Shining white dress.
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Appeared.
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In that doorway.
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And I wanted to sing.
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I didn't.
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But I understand Adam's heart.
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He's been asleep.
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He's been.
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Out.
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God has fashioned for him a bride.
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If Adam was the perfect man, Eve must have been.
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The perfect woman.
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And form.
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And Adam opens his eyes.
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And he says at.
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Last.
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Why does he say at last? Because he had spent all afternoon looking at creature after creature after creature.
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And there was not one fit for him.
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And he may have thought.
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That he was going to be alone.
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God puts him to sleep.
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And you know how sleep works.
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As soon as you close your eyes and you're out, you're awake again.
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We have no concept of the passage of time.
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We don't know how long it took God to form Eve.
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But for Adam, it was an instant.
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He closed his eyes and God went to work.
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And he opened his eyes and before him stood his new partner, his new love, his new companion, his help meet.
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And he said at last.
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Bone of my bone.
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And flesh.
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Of my flesh.
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Notice he doesn't see her as a servant.
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But as a companion.
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He doesn't see her as.
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Property.
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But as part of him.
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She is part of me.
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Bone of my bone.
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Flesh of my flesh.
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Women, you who have had children when you when you gave birth, was there not a certain sense of connection to that child because that child came from your body? I know this.
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I have five children.
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Three of them are natural children.
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Two of them are adopted children.
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But I will tell you this.
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My three natural children didn't like me at all for the first two years.
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Because they were mama's babies.
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They came out of mama.
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And I was just the guy who made funny faces.
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And after about three years old, they kind of come around.
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They warm up to you.
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But the first two years, it's all mama's babies.
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And that's OK.
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Because they came out of mama.
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Bone of her bones.
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Flesh of her flesh.
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Eve comes out of Adam.
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And he sees her.
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He sees her.
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As.
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His.
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Not as property.
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But as having come from him.
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Do you think of your children as property? No, but they're yours.
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We don't think of them as property.
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We think of them as ours.
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Because we love them.
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They came from us.
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Adam loves Eve because she came from him.
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And there's a relationship that's formed now that's new and unique.
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Because Adam finally sees somebody who shares the image of God with him.
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No other creature did that.
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No other form in the universe.
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No other place in the world did that.
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Only Adam and Eve were the image bearers of God at this time.
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There was no other.
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And together they would exercise dominion in the garden.
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They would be king and queen of God's sanctuary.
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Together.
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They would exercise rule.
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With Adam as the head.
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And Eve as his help meat.
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And again, ladies, please don't ever take offense at that.
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Remember what we learned last week.
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When it says when God said, I will make a helper fit for Adam.
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Remember that word helper is applied to God.
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So many times in scripture, I set my eyes upon the hill.
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From where does my help come from? My helper is the Lord who made heaven and earth.
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God makes for Adam a helper fit for him.
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And now we have a new couple who are about to be married.
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Now, next week.
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I'm going to talk about the covenant of marriage and the doctrine of marriage.
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And the establishment of marriage, which we have in one verse, verse 24.
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Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother.
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The two shall become one flesh.
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So that's going to be our subject for next week.
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But as I draw today to a close, I do want to for a few final moments make a few points about man and woman.
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God has created man and he has created woman.
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Distinctly, while they are both the same in the sense that they are both human beings.
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And while they are both the same, that they are both image bearers of God.
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They are not the same in that he is man and she shall be called woman.
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We live in a world where, unfortunately, there is a massive amount of confusion about the fact that men are men.
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And women are women.
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And I think the implications of Genesis one and Genesis two are massive for our world today.
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We live in a unique moment in history where, for the first time in history, the concept of male and female is up for grabs.
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And you may think I'm being exaggerative.
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I am not.
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If we watch the news, if we watch what's happening around us, there is a great deal of confusion about the subject of men and women.
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Back in June, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that it will now be against the law to not recognize someone's chosen gender in the workplace.
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Which means this, that ultimately, if a person says that they are a man, regardless of their biological DNA, that person can be identified as a man.
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Or if a person says that they are a woman, they can be identified as a woman.
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And you may say, oh, this isn't going to affect anything.
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Let me tell you, it is going to affect a lot of things.
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Because ultimately, this ruling redefines sex as gender identification.
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And laws that were meant to protect women are no longer going to be able to protect women.
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Because women will not be anything more than what they say they are.
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So for instance, women's sports? No, can't have that.
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Men can now compete alongside women.
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And we've seen the dangers of that.
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Women's shelters? No.
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Women's prisons? Well, who cares? They're in prison, right? No, we still care.
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The secular idea, this secular ideology divorces itself from any originalist concept of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.
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And this secular idea also defies science.
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Because there is no scientific category for gender identity.
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It's unprovable, it's undefinable.
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And what we have found is that we are going into a world that is very confused.
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And people are looking to be more and more confused about this issue.
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The Bible tells us very clearly that God made a man and he made a woman.
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And they are distinct.
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You cannot overlap the two.
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And you cannot exchange the two.
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And language matters.
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Adam is called is, in Hebrew, man.
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And she is called isa, woman.
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And of course, Brother Andy's famous joke, when Adam, why was he called woman? Because when Adam saw her, he said, whoa, man.
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That's your, reminding everyone of his zinger from a few weeks ago.
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But there's more to it than just a couple of letters.
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What we see is a fundamental redefinition of what it means to be a man and a woman.
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And again, you may think that's inconsequential.
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But one of the things that we're seeing today is the replacement of language.
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And I will promise you this.
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As the language goes away, so will our understanding of right and wrong.
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My wife and I were looking at Google and I was showing her this.
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She didn't believe me.
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I had to look it up and show her.
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I said, now, in certain places where you go, when you get your name tag, you know, those name tags that say, hello, my name is.
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So hello, my name is Keith.
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Hello, my name is Dale.
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Underneath the name tag.
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And these are very real.
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You can purchase them.
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You can check me out on this fact check me if you feel the need to.
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Underneath it says, and my personal pronouns are.
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Meaning if you want to be called he or him.
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Or if you want to be called she or her.
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But there's a new one.
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Z.
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Z-E.
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That means you don't identify as either male or female.
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And the real one, the big one now is they.
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T-A-G-Y.
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As a singular pronoun.
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I don't know about you, but as a person who prides myself on being somewhat of a linguist, using they as a singular pronoun is bad.
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Just from a linguistic point of view.
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Because it doesn't work.
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And it makes no sense.
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Dr.
01:02:34
Albert Moeller said this, if one is the master of language, then one controls the entire communication system.
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And for that matter, eventually the culture.
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To control the lexicon, to control the dictionary, to control the vocabulary is eventually to control the meaning, indeed the entire worldview of a society.
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The worldview shapes the vocabulary.
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But make no mistake, the vocabulary shapes the worldview.
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And this is where we are.
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Our entire vocabulary is changing.
01:03:04
Because we are trying to abandon the very foundation upon which the society of man was created.
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Because the society, by the way, when Adam was made, there wasn't a society.
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There was a man.
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But when Eve was created, there was a society.
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Because the most fundamental, the most fundamental part of a society is the family.
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The smallest microcosm of any society is the family.
01:03:39
So when God made Adam, it was a man.
01:03:40
But when God made Adam and Eve, he made a new society.
01:03:45
And in that, he made a distinction.
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He shall be called man.
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And she shall be called woman.
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We have to be watchful that we and our children are not overtaken by the murkiness of what is being taught in our world.
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My wife and I, again, I've talked about her a lot today.
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Hope she's not embarrassed.
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She doesn't necessarily like to be the object of my sermon illustrations, just so you know.
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But we've been talking a lot lately about educating our children.
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Many of you know that we have homeschooled for many years.
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And we don't think that's the only way to educate your children.
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But we do believe it's good for us.
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And so we do that because it's the way we believe God's called us to lead our children.
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But one of the things that is a benefit of homeschooling is that, in a sense, we get to help our children understand what the Bible says about who we are as people.
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We don't shield them.
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We don't keep them from knowing what the world says.
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But we help them to understand that Christianity is more than just a belief.
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It's an epistemology.
01:05:06
Epistemology means a worldview.
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It's a lens by which we see everything else.
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Christianity.
01:05:15
See, some people think you're a Christian on Sunday and then you live the rest of the week as the world does.
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No, if you are a Christian, it has a fundamental impact on how you see everything.
01:05:29
Because here's the deal, folks, and this is the truth of the matter.
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If Jesus Christ came into the world, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death, went into the tomb, and three days later came out of that tomb, that is world-changing.
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And if he didn't, none of this matters.
01:05:48
The Apostle Paul said, if Jesus Christ be not raised, then we above all men are most to be pitied because we believed a lie.
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But indeed, he has been raised.
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And because he has been raised, every single aspect of life, even down to the very nature of man and woman, falls under the authority of Almighty God.
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We do not have the right to redefine God's creation.
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We have the responsibility to submit to the one who created it.
01:06:32
Remember this.
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To do life the way the author of life intended is obviously the best way to do life.
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I'll say it again.
01:06:46
To do life as the author of life intended is obviously the best way to do life.
01:06:58
So as we look at this passage, God creates man, God creates woman.
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He makes them equal but distinct.
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And he gives Adam a place and position in the garden.
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He gives Eve a place and position in the garden.
01:07:12
And we today look back at that and some people say, oh, I can't believe that.
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We as Christians don't have that luxury.
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The Bible says this is true.
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And therefore, we believe it.
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We hold fast to it.
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And we know that this affects everything, especially how we interpret the world around us.
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So I'm going to now draw to a close with these words.
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If you've come here today and you have maybe been confused about where you came from, maybe you came here today and you're still wondering if you are part of a long evolutionary series of changes.
01:07:56
Maybe you feel like you are just an animal.
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Let me remind you, you are a person who is made in the image of God.
01:08:04
If you're a man, you're made in the image of God.
01:08:06
If you're a woman, you are equally made in the image of God.
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But the Bible tells us that we are also sinners.
01:08:14
And by sinning, we have corrupted the image that we were made in, but it has not been lost.
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We still bear the image of God and we're responsible to him.
01:08:25
And the Bible says that in our sin, if we die this way, we will spend eternity apart from God.
01:08:33
But if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he will take our sin from us.
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He will give us forgiveness and he will give us the gift of his righteousness, whereby we can stand before God as righteous and holy and sinless.
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So there's only two ways to stand today, to stand on our own and stand in our sin, or to stand in Christ and know that we've been forgiven.
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My prayer for all of you is that you would be in Christ today.
01:09:07
Let us pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
01:09:13
I pray that, Lord, that we would truly understand the value, not only spiritually, but also culturally, that this text has.
01:09:23
This text reminds us of the serious nature of creation and it reminds us of the reality that you have created us.
01:09:34
In your image, male and female, you have created us.
01:09:40
And Lord, now, as we sing out to you and we are reminded of your blessings, let us be, Lord, unified in the spirit.
01:09:51
And Lord, if there are those who are here who do not know Christ, Lord, may this be an opportunity for them to recognize their need by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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May they turn from the world.
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May they repent and turn to Christ.
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And Lord, may that be by the power of your spirit and the preaching of your word.
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In Jesus' name, amen.