God Takes Marriage Seriously

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Amen, I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of 1st Corinthians.
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We're going to be in 1st Corinthians chapter 7, looking at verses 1 to 16.
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Now, today is Father's Day, but we are not doing a particular Father's Day message.
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We're continuing our verse by verse study of 1st Corinthians.
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It is interesting, the subject of the morning, though, because we're going to be talking about the subject of marriage and the fact that God does take marriage very seriously.
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So let's look at verse 1.
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And each woman her own husband.
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The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.
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For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
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Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
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Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
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Now, as a concession, not a command, I say this.
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I wish that all were as I myself am, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
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To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am, but if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry.
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But it is better to marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
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To the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord.
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The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife.
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To the rest, I say, I, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.
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If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
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For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband.
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Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
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But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so.
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In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved, God has called you to peace.
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For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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Lord, today is a day where the subject matter at hand is one of which many people may feel uncomfortable.
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So I pray, Lord, that there would be an extra measure of your spirit given as we study this passage.
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I pray especially, Lord, that you would give me the right words to say, and that I would be able to speak clearly.
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And Father, that you would keep me from error.
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And I pray, Lord, for the married men in this room.
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God, that you would, by your mercy, help us to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
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To the wives in this room, I pray that they would love their husbands and respect them and encourage them in the Lord.
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I pray, Lord, that the young people might understand the gift that God has given to them.
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If they've been given a gift of singleness and celibacy, Lord, may they revel in that gift and be able to enjoy serving you with their whole life.
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And, Lord, if not, I pray that you would give godly husbands to the girls in this room and godly wives to the boys.
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Lord, we know that marriage matters to you.
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It's a sacred institution.
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And we say those words not lightly, for you established it in the garden when you joined the hands of the first married couple.
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And, Lord, you have continued by your grace to give it as a common grace to all men since that time.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would respect marriage, that we would respect the marriage bed.
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And, Father, again, that as I say what you've called me to preach this morning, which is your word.
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That you would speak through me by the power of your spirit to the hearts of the people.
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May believers be encouraged, Father.
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May unbelievers be converted.
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It's my prayer every time I preach, Father.
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In Jesus name.
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Amen.
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In the last decade, maybe a little longer than that, but at least in the last decade for certain.
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There's been a lot of talk about the sanctity of marriage.
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Particularly, it has risen because there is a push in our nation, as there is in other nations, to try to recognize certain unions that the Bible would certainly not recognize as being marriages, as marriages.
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And thus, because Christians stand against those things and we stand for the biblical marriage covenant, which is one man and one woman for one lifetime.
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There is often a great debate that springs up out of that.
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And what is often brought as criticism from the other side, if you will, is the criticism that the sanctity of marriage has long been overthrown because of the amount of destruction that has happened in the marriage just in the last hundred years.
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The divorce rates having risen, the idea of folks living together not ever getting married has risen, cohabitation, things like that.
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And so the idea of sanctity and marriage is to some people a joke.
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But the Bible takes marriage so very seriously.
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From the beginning of the Bible in Genesis all the way to Revelation, we have the idea that marriage itself is something that God takes seriously.
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And the sins that are associated with marriage are listed among the worst of offenses.
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It's listed alongside things like idolatry and adultery and hatred of God, or rather adultery being one of those.
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Because there's really two major sins against marriage that the Bible talks about.
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The first is fornication, and that's when two people come together without being married and have an intimate relationship outside of marriage.
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And then there is adultery, which is when someone in a marriage covenant goes outside of that covenant seeking to find some type of sexual relationship with someone else.
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So fornication and adultery are the two main sins that are associated with marriage.
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Certainly there are others, but those two are listed many, many times in Scripture.
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And I said the simple point is this, it's because God takes the marriage relationship so, so seriously, and so should we.
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Well in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul is addressing the issue of marriage.
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And he's addressing the issue of how we ought to understand the relationship that is formed in the covenant of marriage and the role and purpose of that relationship.
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And he is answering something that has been said by the Corinthians to him.
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Now I want to make a point even before I begin.
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When we read 1 Corinthians, I've mentioned this in the previous weeks, we have to understand that there's correspondence that we do not have.
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Paul is responding to something that we do not have.
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So we do have to, by conjecture, try to discern what he's responding to based on what he's saying.
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Look with me just very quickly at first verse 1.
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He says, Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, there it is.
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This isn't me just considering maybe he's responding to something.
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No, he is responding to something.
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He's responding to something that's been wrote.
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Now some people think that the Corinthians have written to him a list of questions.
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I think that's possible.
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But there are others, and I tend to fall more in this camp, that think that Paul has gotten the correspondence from them that has within it certain assertions that they're assuming.
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You see what I'm saying? He may have gotten a list of questions and he's responding to the questions.
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But it is more likely, I think, that they have simply asserted certain things that he's having to say.
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Now listen, we talked about this last week.
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I don't know if you remember back in chapter 6 when we were talking about the fact that Paul was responding to the assertion that all things are lawful.
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Remember he says, Yes, all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
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He's responding to something that they believed.
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He's responding to an assertion.
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You say all things are lawful, but I tell you not all things are helpful.
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You say all things are lawful, but I tell you I will not be mastered by anything.
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So Paul is dealing with certain things that have been said to him.
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And I think that chapter 7 is the same.
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I don't think necessarily they're asking questions about marriage.
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I think that they have made some assumptions about marriage.
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And Paul is having to deal with those assumptions.
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Now I have us down today to get from verses 1 to verse 16.
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Now we have not seen many miracles.
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But if we do get from verse 1 to verse 16, we can testify today to having seen a miracle.
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I do want to try though, because this all is part of a larger argument about the role of marriage in the life of the church.
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So let's get after it.
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How about that? Let's just get into it, go through it.
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Y'all know how I like to do it verse by verse.
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And let's just talk about it.
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The three parts that I've got it is a call to intimacy in marriage.
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A call to celibacy for those who are gifted.
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And a call to covenant faithfulness.
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That's the three parts of this section.
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The first is a call to intimacy in marriage.
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He says now verse 1.
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Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.
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Stop right there.
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If you have the ESV, you'll notice that phrase is in quotes.
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We talked about this last week.
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That is a translational decision to put the phrase, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.
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The translators of the ESV are assuming that that's the statement that Paul's responding to.
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I agree with that.
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I don't think that the phrase, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations, is Paul's point.
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I think that's the point Paul is responding to.
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However, there has been in the history of interpreting this passage, some who believe that Paul is saying here that it's good for a man not to have sexual relationship with a woman.
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In fact, some have taken it so far as to say that what Paul is actually saying is that it's good for a man not to be married.
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And they base this on the later in the passage when he talks about the value of being single and how if you're single, that that gives you a little more ability to focus on the Lord because you're not divided between the Lord and your spouse.
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And so some people think that what Paul is saying here is it's good for a man not to marry.
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And even some translations, International Standard Version, the Contemporary English Version, the Good News Translation, all translated that way.
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They say, now concerning the things which you wrote, it's good for a man not to marry.
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I don't agree with that.
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I'm going to say it from the outset.
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I don't agree that that's what Paul is saying.
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I do not think that Paul is saying that it's good for a man not to marry.
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You may agree with it.
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Send me an email.
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We'll have a conversation.
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But let me tell you why I don't agree with it.
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Because that ain't what it says.
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In the Greek, it specifically says it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.
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The word sexual relations is the word for sexual relations.
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It's not the word for marriage.
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And I think the point here is that Paul is addressing an issue in the Corinthian church that had arisen among the people who were seeking to identify themselves with a certain level of spirituality.
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The level of saying that we're so spiritual, we don't even have sex.
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We're so spiritual, we don't even have to deal with the physical desires of the flesh.
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You see, the Corinthian community believed, I believe, they believed that sex itself was not good even in marriage.
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Did you know that there are some people who believe that even today? That there are some people who believe that even married folk ought not have sex? You say, I see some eyebrows raising.
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I can testify from experience.
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I knew a man, he was a Christian minister, still a Christian minister.
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And he told his wife, he said, the only reason why we have sex is to have children.
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We are past the age of having children.
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So sex is no longer something that we are going to do.
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The Bible does not support that.
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In fact, I would say that such a perspective is going beyond what the Bible says.
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The Bible declares that intimacy between a husband and a wife is actually beautiful and worthy of praise.
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Interesting that this should fall on Father's Day, that we're talking about this.
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Because the Bible, I want you to hear this.
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This is a description in Proverbs of how a man ought to avoid going after a forbidden woman.
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You know, a harlot.
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How is a man to avoid going after a harlot? By enjoying his wife.
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This is what it says.
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It says in Proverbs chapter 5.
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Write it down if you want to know where it is.
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Proverbs 5.15, this is what it says.
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Drink water from your own cistern.
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That's your own well.
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That's your wife.
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You have your own wife, is what it's saying.
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Because he says, flowing water from your own well.
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Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets.
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Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you.
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Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
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A lovely dear.
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A graceful doe.
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Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight.
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Be intoxicated always with her love.
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Why should you be intoxicated, my child, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? So what does the writer of Proverbs say? Love your wife.
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Enjoy her.
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Appreciate her body.
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Appreciate the gift that God has given you in her.
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Don't go out to the harlot, but love and appreciate this beautiful doe that God has given you.
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This gracious gift that God has given to you and enjoy that.
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You know, oftentimes we think of the Puritans as being very stuffy.
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Right.
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The Puritans being very, you know, tight, you know, people.
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But I got to tell you something.
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When you read the Puritan understanding of the intimate relationship between the husband and wife, it's amazing.
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I want to I want to quote here.
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This is from Thomas Hooker, a Puritan writer.
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He said the man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves.
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He dreams of her in the night, hath her in his eye and apprehension when he awakes.
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Museth on her as he sits at table, walks with her when he travels and parlays with her in each place where he comes.
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He she lies in his bosom and his heart trusts in her, which forces all to confess that the streams of his affection like a mighty current runs with full tide and strength.
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This man loves his wife.
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He adores his wife.
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He is smitten with her affections.
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Another writer says this, another Puritan writer.
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He says, quote, with goodwill and delight, willingly and readily and cheerfully.
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They cohabit with their wives.
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He goes on to say they do err who hold that the secret coming together of man and wife cannot be without sin unless it's done for the procreation of children.
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See, the Puritans didn't believe what that guy told you about belief.
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He said, oh, it's just for children.
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And the Puritans said, oh, the secret coming together of the husband and the wife is not just for children.
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And when Paul is saying here, it is not good for a man to have sexual intimacy or sexual relation with a woman.
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He is not saying that it's not good for a man and wife to have sex.
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And that's how I believe the Corinthians had taken it.
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And a wrong understanding of that, by the way, I think leads into a wrong understanding of verse two, because in verse two, he says this.
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But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
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Now, I've heard people say this.
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The only reason God gives us marriage is so that we don't become tempted and go and do bad stuff.
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That's not what marriage is for.
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Marriage has so many purposes in our life.
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Partnership, procreation, the list goes on and on.
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Purity is what we see here.
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What does the marriage relationship allow? It allows us to be able to enjoy that intimacy that we desire with someone in an appropriate and godly way.
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So that we would not seek it in a way which is ungodly and inappropriate.
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And this is the point of this passage, verse two, because he says each man should have his own wife and every and each woman have her own husband.
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That word have there is in the intimate sense.
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This doesn't mean that each man should get married, each woman should get married.
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But what it means is in marriage, each man should have an intimate relationship with his wife and each woman should have an intimate relationship with her husband.
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Paul is saying that married couples should be intimate.
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Because if we forbid intimacy within the marriage, that can lead to temptation outside of the marriage.
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And that was especially prevalent in Corinth because in Corinth there was prostitution that was associated with pagan worship.
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There was prostitution that was associated with the pagan temples.
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So you can imagine a man who's very pious in church.
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And I'm not going to have sexual relationship with my wife because I want to remain super spiritual.
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And then he's on his way to the meat market and he passes by the temple which is offering a half off sale.
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And for a moment is given to that temptation.
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Paul says no.
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He says because of that temptation, don't keep yourselves from intimacy with one another.
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Because of that temptation, don't keep yourselves from being intimate with one another.
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In fact, John Gill on this passage, he says this.
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Let every man that has a wife enjoy her.
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Make use of her and let every woman that has a husband receive him into her embraces.
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Enjoy one another.
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I tell you what, I don't get many amens but that could have been one right there.
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And I love the fact that women aren't secondary here.
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Because it says let every man enjoy his wife and every wife her husband.
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It isn't a one sided thing.
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Later on, in fact in verse 3, it says the husband should give his wife her conjugal rights.
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And likewise the wife her husband.
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Conjugal rights.
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There's a certain, when we say I do, we give over a certain right to the other person.
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The right of our intimate relationship.
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Our bodies belong to one another.
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In fact, verse 4, for the wife does not have authority over her own body.
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Now some people, oh I can imagine the feminists just freaking out.
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The wife does not have authority, my body, my choice.
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Hashtag me too.
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But Paul didn't say it that way.
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He didn't say the wife has no authority over her body, period.
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He says the wife doesn't have authority over her body, neither does the man have authority over his body.
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They have given themselves to one another.
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I belong to my wife, she belongs to me.
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We are not our own.
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Now I mentioned the Puritans earlier.
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I read a story this week.
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It made me and Jennifer laugh.
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So I want to tell it to you.
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True story.
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This is taken from Ligonier Ministries and I've heard it from multiple sources.
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But the article is actually on Ligonier's website.
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The Puritans took intimacy in marriage so seriously.
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And the matrimonial duty of sex so seriously.
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That failure to extend due benevolence by either partner could be grounds for church discipline.
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And there is at least one instance of church discipline among the Puritans.
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Where a wife had her husband put under church discipline because he refused to be intimate with her.
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It's the truth.
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It happened at least once.
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She took him before the church.
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Because he was unwilling to be intimate.
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Yeah, we giggled too.
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Because it was her right to have her husband.
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And he was withholding that which was hers.
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That intimate relationship that she desired.
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This makes a little more sense of verse 5 now when he says, Do not deprive one another.
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Do not deprive one another.
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Now let's talk about this.
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Because that's the extreme example.
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Pulling church discipline.
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If you call me this week and want to put your spouse under church discipline.
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That's going to be a tough conversation.
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But I want to say this though.
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Where this really hits home.
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Is when spouses are cold to each other and they hold back intimacy for the purpose of manipulation.
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They hold back intimacy for the purpose of having the upper hand in the relationship.
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It's very unhealthy.
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It's very ungodly.
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To withhold embrace.
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To withhold intimate feelings.
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Because of your desire to have that upper hand in the relationship.
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And it can lead to all sorts of temptation on the other side.
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So Paul says, Do not deprive one another.
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Except perhaps by agreement for a limited time.
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Notice he says a limited time.
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Except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer.
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But then come back together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
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Yeah, you can take time off from intimacy.
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If it's for prayer and if it's for some kind of a devotional period.
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But that does not need to be the way that you live all the time.
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And that's why again I think the way I'm interpreting this is the issue in Corinth.
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I think that there were men and women in Corinth who said we're not going to have intimacy anymore.
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We're going to simply, we can be married but we're going to have a celibate marriage.
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Let me tell you something, that is an oxymoron.
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A celibate marriage.
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A marriage without intimacy is not a marriage.
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Doesn't mean you have to have sex necessarily.
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Some may be physically unable to do that.
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Some may not have the ability to do that particular act.
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But intimacy is more than sex.
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A couple that doesn't embrace.
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A couple that doesn't feel the holding of hands.
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A couple that doesn't feel the softness of a brushed cheek or a kissed lip.
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That's depriving one another.
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You understand? It's more than just the physical act of sex.
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It's an intimate connection that should be there.
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And I believe that that was being, had been separated by the Corinthians.
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Because as like today there are certain groups out there that just believe that any and all sex is wrong.
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It's not.
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Any and all intimacy is wrong.
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It's not.
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And looking at it that way can be potentially damaging.
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Joel Beek he said this.
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You see that was part of the Reformation.
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In case you didn't know.
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Before the Reformation there was a medieval thought in the church that any and all sex that wasn't for the purpose of procreation was wrong.
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The reformers said no to have a wife is good.
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You understand that priests today in the Roman Catholic Church still can't get married, right? You understand that is not biblical.
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And that has led to some of the worst atrocities in the history of the world.
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It's nonsense.
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The Bible says the elder is to be the husband of one wife.
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Not celibate.
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In fact I think it could be argued with merit that an elder must be married.
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Because if an elder doesn't have a wife and doesn't have children to take care of, how do we know he can manage the house of God? So the idea that celibacy is required for you to be godly is not biblical.
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Make sense? So the end of point number one.
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Men enjoy your wives.
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Wives enjoy your husbands.
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You're welcome.
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That's from the Apostle Paul right there.
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But now we get to verse six.
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And he talks about celibacy now.
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Actually verse six he says, In the ESV it sort of connects it with what came after.
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But it could be what came before.
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Paul is saying you can separate from intimacy for a period of time.
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But that's not a command.
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That's a concession.
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But it could also be that he's going to go into what he's about to say.
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Because verse seven says this.
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I wish all were as I myself am.
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I think that's the concession not the command.
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Because Paul's not commanding people to be like him.
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But he's saying I wish it was that way.
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What's Paul? Paul's likely a widow.
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Widower men are widowers.
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Why do we say that? His wife is not mentioned.
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But he was a member of the Sanhedrin.
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And to be part of the Sanhedrin.
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I believe a man was supposed to be married to be a member of the Sanhedrin.
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So if he was a member of the Sanhedrin.
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It's likely he had a wife.
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And now that his wife is not mentioned.
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I don't think he abandoned her for his missions work.
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I think that likely she had passed.
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So there's a good chance that Paul.
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When he says I wish all were as myself am.
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I don't think he's saying I wish you were all widowers.
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That would be a little mean.
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But he's saying I wish that you didn't have the constraint of marriage.
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Because there are certain constraints that come along with marriage.
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But each has his own gift from God.
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One of one kind and one of another.
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What's that point? What's the point there? To be unmarried is a gift.
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Because it takes a grace of God.
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To be single.
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If you can be single and be happy.
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And be filled.
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And not have the temptation.
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And the desire to be in a relationship.
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Praise God you have been given a gift.
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That's wonderful.
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Paul says that's the way I am.
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And I wish all could be as I am.
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But not everybody can.
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So he says in verse 8.
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To the unmarried.
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And the widows.
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By the way the unmarried there I think are divorced.
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Why would I say that? Well later he talks about virgins.
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Typically virgins is the unmarried who have not yet been married.
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In this sense unmarried would likely be talking about those who are no longer married.
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And by the way I didn't mention this in the outset.
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And maybe I should have.
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But the situation in Corinth was across.
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It was just all over the map.
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Because you had in Corinth.
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A situation where slavery was a real deal in the ancient world.
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And the slavery situation that a lot of these Christians had come out of.
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Had caused people to have to live in multiple relationships.
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That were where they were living together.
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Sometimes were married together.
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And then if let's say you're living with a woman for more than a year.
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At that point would have been considered common law marriage.
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And then that woman gets sold to another person.
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And now you're having to be forced into another.
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And now you marry another woman or begin to live with another woman.
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There was all of these things that had happened up until this point.
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And I think one of the things that was an issue with the Corinthian church is.
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We don't know what to do.
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Some of us have been married multiple times.
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And we don't know what to do.
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Some of us have been in common law marriages multiple times.
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And we don't know where to go from here.
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Right.
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So Paul says to the unmarried.
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I think that would be those people.
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To the widows.
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The people whose husbands have died.
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Wives have died.
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I say that it's good for them to remain single as I am.
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But if you cannot exercise self-control.
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They should marry.
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Now that doesn't mean that you're a bad, horrible, terrible, no good person.
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That you just can't exercise self-control.
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The reality is this.
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If you're not gifted to singleness.
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You ought not be single.
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For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
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Or to burn with the desire to be married.
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If you have not been given that gift of singleness.
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It's not for you.
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You need to be married.
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Jesus says this by the way.
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Mike read this morning.
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From Matthew 19.
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Go to Matthew 19 real quick.
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Just kind of see that Paul isn't making something up here.
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He's actually sort of paraphrasing what Jesus said in Matthew 19.
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Because in Matthew 19.
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Jesus is asked about divorce.
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And Jesus does say.
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That the only reason why divorce ever came into the picture at all.
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Was because of sin.
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Was because of the hard heartedness of men.
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That wasn't God's design.
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God's design was one man, one woman, one lifetime.
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Right? But because of sin.
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Divorce was entered into.
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Moses gave a certificate of divorce.
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Because of the hard heartedness of men.
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Right? But Jesus said there shouldn't be divorce.
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Unless on adultery.
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He gives that as a concession.
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Concession is the word that's used there.
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But specifically.
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Sexual immorality in the marriage.
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If somebody goes outside of the marriage covenant.
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Breaks the marriage covenant.
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There would be an allowable divorce there.
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But then he says this.
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Because the disciples say.
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If such is the case.
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Of a man and his wife.
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It's better not to marry.
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Well what are they talking about? Jesus just said the only real reason you should get divorced is adultery.
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And the disciples said whoa.
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It would be better not to get married.
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If there's only one way out.
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And that's the only way out.
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Then it'd be better not to get married.
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Verse 11.
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But Jesus said to them.
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Not everyone can receive this thing.
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But only those to whom it is given.
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For there are eunuchs.
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Who have been so from birth.
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There are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men.
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And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs.
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For the sake of the kingdom of God.
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What is a eunuch? A eunuch is a person.
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Who does not seek.
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Sexual.
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Relations.
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And he says here.
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Some people have been eunuchs.
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From birth.
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They never had a desire.
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For intimacy.
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Some people have been made eunuchs by men.
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And I don't even want to get into how that works.
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But yes.
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There's a physical thing that can happen.
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That can turn a man into a eunuch.
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It's horrible.
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And some have made themselves eunuchs.
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And decided.
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I don't want to be in this.
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I don't want to be in a relationship.
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And they've made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God.
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They've devoted themselves over to the kingdom.
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Decided not to be in a relationship.
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But what did Jesus say? He said.
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This is not for everyone.
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If you could go on being single.
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And be happy that way.
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Great.
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But it ain't for everybody.
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And I would say.
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If you're a single person today.
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I was going to say later.
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In chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians.
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You have a loyalty that's not divided.
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By the need to satisfy your spouse.
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Or to take care of your spouse.
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You can devote yourself to the kingdom of God.
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Praise God for that.
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That's a good thing.
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But it doesn't make marriage a bad thing.
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It doesn't take away.
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The wholesomeness.
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And the goodness.
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Of the marriage relationship.
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It simply distinguishes between the two.
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So I would say this.
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The call to celibacy is there.
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But only if you're gifted.
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If you are gifted to that call.
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Then.
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You exercise that gift.
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Make sense? Anything else? We're good with that? All right, well, let's go on to verse 10 then.
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Because this is the verses 10 to 16.
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Is the call to covenant faithfulness.
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He's just said.
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To the unmarried and to the widows.
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If you can stay that way, great.
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If you can't get married.
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But to the married.
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I give this charge.
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Not I, but the Lord.
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Now, I want to make this clear.
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Because he says that in verse 10.
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Then he says in verse 12.
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He says, I, not the Lord.
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What he is saying is.
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Paul is about to essentially quote.
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Jesus's words in Matthew 19.
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He's about to essentially reiterate.
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What Jesus has said.
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Paul is not saying here.
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I don't have the spirit of God.
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In fact, later he's going to say.
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What he's saying is.
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This is what Jesus said about marriage.
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And this is what I'm saying about marriage.
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Both of us have the Holy Spirit of God.
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It's all correct.
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But this is what he said.
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I didn't say it.
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This is what I'm saying that he didn't say.
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But both are true.
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Makes sense.
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He's not denied.
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Some people have used this to deny.
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The inspiration of scripture.
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He's not denying the inspiration of scripture.
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Or what he's writing.
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Unmarried, I give this charge.
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Not I, but the Lord.
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The wife should not separate from her husband.
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But if she does, she should remain unmarried.
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Or else be reconciled to her husband.
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And the husband should not divorce his wife.
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That is an absolute retelling.
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Of what Jesus said in Matthew 19.
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There should not be divorce.
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Divorce shouldn't happen.
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It's not supposed to happen.
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That's it.
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That's simple.
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You say, but it does happen.
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I know.
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I want to just throw this out there.
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Some people come into the church.
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And they say, okay, I've been divorced before.
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Now I'm married now.
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Do I need to go back? Do I need to go back and reconcile to my original husband? That ship has sailed.
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You got to go from where you are now.
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Now you're called to faithfulness where you are.
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You can't go back.
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You can't go back and rebuild that foundation.
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That ship is over.
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That ship has sailed.
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But you are called to faithfulness now.
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So if you came to me now and say, well, I don't like my new wife either.
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I'm going to go get another one.
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No, no, no.
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You understand you're in a covenant relationship.
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And the covenant is a covenant.
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And where you are now is where you should stay.
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Paul, in fact, is going to say later in this chapter about the fact that wherever you are is where you should be.
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Where you should be pleased and happy with where you are.
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So understand that.
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But the next question that Paul deals with or the next assertion is this.
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What if I'm married to an unbeliever? Okay, I'm a Christian.
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I got a husband or wife who's not a Christian.
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Can I leave them because they don't believe in Jesus? That's verse 12.
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That's what verse 12 deals with.
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He's just said we shouldn't get divorces.
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And that's overall the truth.
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Divorce shouldn't come in.
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Adultery can be a cause for divorce.
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But ultimately, divorce shouldn't happen.
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We should be faithful in marriage.
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But what if I'm married to an unbeliever? Verse 12.
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To the rest, I say, I not the Lord.
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And this is Paul saying, I'm saying this because Jesus didn't deal with this.
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That if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.
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If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
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Simple enough, right? If you're a believer and your spouse is not, you do not have grounds for divorce.
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Just because you have an unbelieving spouse does not give you the right to leave.
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Why? Verse 14 gives you the why.
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For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife.
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And the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband.
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Otherwise, your children would be unclean.
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But as it is, they are holy.
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You see, here's the thing.
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If you are a believing spouse and you have an unbelieving spouse, you are bringing sanctity into that home.
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You are bringing the only light of the gospel that that home has is shining through you.
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And your spouse is sanctified because of you.
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Not saved, and don't get confused here.
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Haggaios here is not referring to salvation.
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It's referring to the fact that they have been set apart from the world because of you.
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Because your home has set them apart from the world.
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Your home is set apart from the rest of the world because of you.
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And because you have brought sanctity in that home, your spouse has a certain type of sanctity that comes with it.
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And so do your children.
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Your children are made holy.
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Now, I don't want to get too far into this.
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Some argument is made about why children should be baptized because of the children being made holy and that this passage is used for that.
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I don't think that that argument holds water because then the other spouse could be baptized too.
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I mean, if you think about it, because he's made holy as well, but we wouldn't baptize him.
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This has nothing to do with baptism.
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This has everything to do with the holiness that's brought into the home for the saved individual.
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If you are saved and your children are not, they are sanctified because of you.
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If you are saved and your husband is not, he is sanctified because of you.
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Likewise, wives are sanctified because of their husbands.
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There's good reason to remain in a marriage even if you're married to an unbeliever.
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Verse 15.
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Here's the concession.
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But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so.
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In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved.
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God has called you to peace.
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Listen to that again.
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If you are married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever doesn't want to be with you, you are not required to stay tied to them if they depart.
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I've heard some people argue that you must.
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Even if they depart, you can never have any freedom.
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I think this is the opposite of that.
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Paul says here, you're not enslaved.
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If you're married to an unbeliever and that unbeliever abandons you, and likely because of your faith, then you are free from that relationship.
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There's a view out there called permanency.
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I don't want to create a big stir because everything I say goes out on the internet and I do get responses sometimes from things that I say.
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The permanency view essentially says that every divorce is not recognized by God.
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If anybody is divorced and they remarried, then they're sinning and they're continuing to sin by doing so.
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I do not take that perspective.
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I think that Jesus gives at least one allowable view when he talked about sexual immorality.
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Paul, I think, gives the position of abandonment.
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If a believer is abandoned by an unbeliever, then I don't think that they are bound to that relationship anymore.
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Paul says we're free, they're not enslaved.
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Thus, if somebody came to me and says, I had a spouse but they abandoned me and now I want to be remarried, I would not have a problem with remarrying them.
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Maybe one day God will change my mind on that, but I don't think that I would have an issue with that if somebody came and wanted to be remarried.
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Again, I appreciate those who try to hold marriage to a very, very high standard.
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We should all hold marriage to a very high standard.
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But if a person abandons someone and essentially leaves them alone, I don't think that they're bound to that forever.
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Especially, as Paul said earlier, if they burn with a desire to be married.
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So, we see this.
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If the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so.
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And then verse 16 wraps it all up.
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He says, For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? How do you know, husband, whether you save your wife? The point is this.
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You sought to live as Christ before them.
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You sought to live as Christ with them, and they departed.
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You don't know whether or not they're going to get saved.
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You don't know if you were going to save them.
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You stayed for the purpose of seeking their sanctity, and they left.
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We don't know what's going to happen.
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All we know is our responsibility.
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Our responsibility in the covenant relationship is this.
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We stand in the covenant of marriage.
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If someone that we are married to is an unbeliever, and they depart, we can't make them stay.
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We can't force them to stay.
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But we can stand hoping that they will be saved because of it.
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You understand? There's so much here.
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We could go through it all again, and deal with other scenarios and issues.
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This passage says so much about marriage.
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In the next few weeks, we're going to continue on.
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Verse 17 and following continues to deal with this subject.
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So if today was a little uncomfortable, strap in because it's not going to get any better.
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But I want to draw a few admonitions.
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I want to draw to a close with a few admonitions from this text.
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Just a few things to sort of draw applications.
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Number one, if you are married, do not deprive your spouse from intimacy.
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I think that's clear from the passage.
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I think that's an application that if we're married, we can all draw from it.
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Do not deprive your spouse from intimacy.
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Number two, if you're single, if you are single, are you confident that God has called you to that singleness? If he has, praise him for the gift and use it in his service.
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If he has not, seek a spouse.
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Because it's better to be married than to sit and wish you were.
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And I want to say this about being married too.
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A lot of people today will say, we're going to get married and we're going to get married six years from now.
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We've set the date.
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Not a good idea.
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Simply for the fact that, oh my goodness, the potential of temptation is awful.
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If you know you're going to get married, get after it.
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In fact, John MacArthur said this.
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He said in his church, he wished they could just have like marriage Sunday.
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Like on Sunday, everybody, just like you say, anybody who wants to be baptized, come forward.
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Anybody who wants to get married, come on, we'll have flowers.
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We'll have one cake and everybody will just share one big marriage ceremony.
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I thought that was hilarious.
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But the reality is too, why do you want to wait six years? Well, I want to make sure I know the guy.
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If you don't know by now, those type of long courtships are based on a wrong cultural attitude towards marriage, which says you can live together before marriage and it's okay.
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Because nobody's waiting six years to have that intimate relationship.
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So first, if you are married, don't deprive from intimacy.
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Second, if you're single be single by God's grace, remain that way.
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And if you cannot, seek to be married.
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And there's nothing wrong with either one of them.
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Both are a grace of God.
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Third and finally, to the married again, understand that you are in a covenant which God has designed to be from death till you part, or till death till you part.
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You've made a covenant with Almighty God.
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You're in that covenant now and God takes it seriously.
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I'll end with the words of John Piper on the subject of marriage.
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Piper says this, marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church.
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And therefore the highest meaning and most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display.
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So if you are married, that's why you're married.
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And if you want to be married, that should be your desire.
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To put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display for the world.
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In the weeks ahead, we'll talk more about that.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for this time of study.
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I thank you for the word.
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I pray that it has been encouraging to your people.
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I pray that we would seek, that we would seek to be faithful in marriage, faithful to marriage, and understand that you take it seriously.
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I pray for the married people in this room.
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I pray for the husbands, Lord, that they would love their wives as Christ loved the church.
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I pray that they would seek intimacy with her and that they would desire no one but her and that they would look to her as the source and the place where they find all of their delight.
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And I pray for the wives, Lord, that they would see that as well in their husbands, that they would see in him that they want to love and that there would be intimacy and that there would be desire and that there would be passion and, Lord, that there would be love.
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Lord, for those who are single, I pray that you would bless them in their singleness.
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As we're going to see in the weeks ahead, there's so much blessing that can come from a person who's fully and totally dedicated to you.
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We pray, Lord, that you would help them to maintain that.
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Lord, for those who want to be married, Lord, may they find spouses, Lord, that are godly, men that will lead their families, wives that will encourage their husbands.
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And, Father, in every marriage relationship here, I pray that there would be covenant faithfulness, that there would be a true understanding of it is only until death do we part.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.