Genesis 2:4–25

Genesis chapter 2, open your Bibles there. We're going to get started in the word tonight and we're going to take the rest. We took the first 3 verses of Genesis last week in our initial study of Genesis and we're going to finish the chapter today. That means we're picking it up in verse 4, Genesis 2, verse 4. I'll let you guys get there and we'll pray while you do. Father, please use this time to speak to your children. Minister grace to each one of us, fill us with the life that is only found in Jesus Christ. For that is why we're here and that's why we're digging into the word, that's why we're worshiping tonight, that's why we're coming together, gathering together to do what we do tonight. Lord, Your Word tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some and that's why we're here Lord. We're doing this out of obedience, but also out of a recognition that as the body of Christ comes together. There's a dynamic that we just don't want to miss out on because we are a family and you've made us a family, and it is through your blood and through your sacrifice that we have been made children of God. And it is a privilege, Lord, to gather together and we're grateful to be able to do it and we ask your blessing upon our time tonight, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. The ESV begins in verse 4 by saying, “These are the generations…” (ESV) And that may sound a little strange when it talks about the creation of the heaven and the earth. “4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth…” If you have a New King James Bible (NKJB) that you're reading from, yours says, “this is the history of the heavens and the earth,” and if you have a New American Standard Bible (NASB), it says, “this is the account of the heavens in the earth.” But the reason for the difference there is frankly an interesting Greek word, it's pronounced “toledot” and it is a word that when translated from… I said Greek, didn't I? That was wrong, it's Hebrew, excuse me. The reason I was thinking Greek is because when you take toledot, which is a Hebrew word, and translate it into the Greek, which the Septuagint did, it's “Genesis”. And so, this is where you get the name of the book. ---

This is the genesis, this is the beginning, this is the account, this is the creation “4 …of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” And with that statement there in verse 4, we're about now to zoom in on the sixth day of creation. In our first study of Genesis chapter 1, we looked at essentially the days of creation 1 through 6 and then we found out that God actually rested on the seventh day, although He continued to create. He created the Sabbath on that day, set it apart as holy, made it a day of rest. But now chapter 2 of Genesis is going to back away from what we've looked at and zoom in again just on the sixth day. So, this is really just going into more detail of specifically the creation of man and the woman. And so, that's what we're going to be reading about here. By the way, I thought I would just mention to you, also in verse 4 where it says, “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”, that is the very first time in the Bible that the name “YAHWEH” appears in the scripture and it is given to you as simply “Lord.” If you'll notice in your Bible, it's either in all caps or in small caps and that is to signify that is the name YAHWEH, that, what we call the “Tetragrammaton” which is the unpronounceable name of the Lord. Because the Jews left out letters because they felt like it was too holy to say. And so, this is what we have left. We’re basically left to guess a little bit, whether it's YAHWEH or JEHOVAH or… And it doesn't really matter of course but this is the first instance of it. Now, as we get into verses 5 and 6, we're going to be given some information here on how the earth was watered. Now remember last week, we talked about the fact that God, when He created the earth originally, it was just this massive water. And He took some of the water and he separated it above the sky and then He took the rest of the water and separated it down on the surface of the earth. And we talked about how that water above the earth created a vapor barrier or a vapor blanket around the earth, which would've kept a very median temperature going on the earth all the time. And it would've also filtered out all of the harmful UV rays which we know do a lot of damage, particularly to human cells. And we believe that is one of the reasons why lifespans were greatly enlarged during this particular time. But, we're going to read about this now and how the whole watering of the earth took place. It says in verse 5 that, “When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—" So, there was this mist, this dew, this heavy vapor that would simply, through a system of evaporation and condensation, take care of all of the watering that the earth required without rain, without rain. Now you can imagine, I think that this is probably the system that continued on up until the point of the great flood. That is my belief anyway and that is why when Noah began to pronounce to the people of the earth to repent and to prepare themselves because rain was going to come, they'd never seen it before. And that this is one of the reasons why it was such an odd sort of a prophecy. But anyway, this is how the earth was watered originally. And then we come to the focus of this chapter in verse 7 when it says, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” The first thing that we learned from this verse is that we were created from the basic elements of the earth. And, although I truly believe that to be the case, that we were, God basically used the elements of the earth that had already been created and gathered them together and so forth as from the dust of the earth and created the first man, there's also a statement in there of our humble beginnings. Because dust is often used in the Bible to describe humility or lowliness of that sort. Let me, there's an example that I'm going to give you. There was a prophetic word that God gave to a newly crowned king of the northern kingdom of Israel. His name was Baasha and when he became king, the Lord spoke to him through the prophet Jehu. Let me, put it on the screen for you from 1 Kings 16, and it says,

Et cetera, et cetera. You can see there, that what the Lord was doing or communicating to Baasha with the use of that word or that idea of dust, was that I brought you out of a lowly beginning, I brought you out of essentially nothing. And that is the same idea, again, although I believe that we were created, our physical bodies were created out of the elements of the earth. Because the Bible says that, “when we die to dust, from dust we were made to dust, we will return.” (Genesis 3:19) But it also speaks of just this humble beginning that really is of little or no importance, if you will. And another interesting sort of thing is that it tells us here that, God made man from the dust of the ground and the word “ground” in the Hebrew is an interesting sort of a wordplay because the word “ground” in Hebrew is “Adamah” and that of course is very similar to the name for man, which is “Aadam” or if you will, “Adam”. And so, the idea that he's created out of the ground and is literally named for the ground if you will, in a strange sense, that is the connection there. So, we see here that there's this very humble, very lowly element that is communicated to us related to man's physical creation, okay. So, what does that tell you? That tells you that the physical part of man isn't the really important thing. Well, what is the important thing? Well, the important thing is what we read in the latter part of verse 7, where it says, God “… breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man (he) became a living creature.” Or if you will, a living being. Because had God not breathed into man, he would just be this physical thing that was made from the humble and lowly elements of the earth. But what made man special and what made him, I was going to use made twice in that sentence. “What made him made”, in as special and unique and in the image of God, is that God breathed into him and made him a living being. And what's interesting here is that this phrase, “breath of life”, “He breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life,” it occurs only here in the Old Testament. This is the only time this phrase is used together. So that tells you, this is something unique, this is something special that's going on. And interesting too, that the Hebrew word for “breath” can also be translated “spirit”, so, really the same word. It's context usually that helps us to know which word to use: breath or spirit. In fact, it's the same thing in the Greek, that both languages have a dual meaning, breath or spirit. And so, when man was created, it was God who breathed His spirit into man and in so doing, the man became a living creature. And I understand here that it's only implied, but the strong idea that is being conveyed in these verses is that man's beginning is unique because of that work of the spirit making him alive, animating him, if you will, right?

And it is the man alone, it is mankind alone that the Bible speaks of having this kind of unique beginning. We have all the animals that were made, we have the whole animal kingdom and all the things that go along, every other living creature, every other living being and so forth. It is only man that is spoken of in this manner, that the Spirit of God, the breath of God, animated him, made him alive, and so forth. Only man is a spiritual being and we were created to be spiritual beings. The Bible will even talk about sometimes how, when I begin to just a walk after the flesh, it'll talk about how I will become like a brute beast. And that isn't, what that's trying to convey is, I'm more like an animal at that point. When I'm acting out of the flesh, I am acting apart from this unique creation that God has done in me and you and we're literally acting like animals. And we can do that, we can be like animals, we can act like animals when we live for the fulfillment of our fleshly appetites, you're no different than a dog or a cat, or a horse or a cow. The way we get animals to obey us, is we entice them with food. I remember when I was a kid, I've told you before, all my friends seemed to have horses. I never had one, but I hung out with them a lot and we rode all the time and we'd go there every day after school to take care of the horses, feed them, and brush them and so forth. And they, of course, they're out in the pasture somewhere and the way we'd get the horses to come is we'd get, we had a coffee can and we'd fill it up with about a cup of oats and we'd stick it out the door of the barn and just shake it. And the sound of the oats, the horses would just, they'd come right to the barn, because it was all about food. That is that brute beast that is all about simply my fleshly appetite and satisfying those appetites. And you and I can be that way when we begin to divulge, when we begin to just go for the things of the flesh. Now when it says that God “breathed into the man and he became a living being” and again that word “breath,” same as the word “spirit,” what we don't know for sure is whether or not Adam and Eve, the first man and the woman were indwelt by the Holy Spirit in the same way that we are today as believers. But my guess is they were, because the vessel, was clean, the sin had not entered the picture yet. And I believe that the first man and woman were indwelt by the Holy Spirit when it speaks of God's Spirit breathing into them. I think that's a very significant part of what is going on here? But when sin entered the picture, I believe that is the situation, that's what changed. We lost something and I don't understand all the dynamics of it, but what I do know is that when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, He said that now mankind has this overarching need to be born again. (John 3:3) He's been born, but that's not enough anymore, just being born of water. We're all, that's all of us, but now we need to be born of the Spirit. In other words, “regenerated” and that is a biblical word. And isn't it interesting that when we see the very first picture of regeneration happening in the Bible, we see a repeat of the sixth day of creation. John chapter 20 is the verse that we're looking at here. Do I have that up there Deb? John 20:22, John 20:22 (ESV)

And when he had said this, (look at this, this is Jesus with his disciples), he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” You think that was by mistake? No, that points us back to creation, that points us back to what was lost and had to be restored. Why was it lost? The vessel became defiled, the Holy Spirit could no longer indwell the temple of those humans, when sin entered the picture, the Spirit cannot do that, He's holy. The Spirit of God is holy and He cannot dwell in an unholy vessel. You might say, “well now wait a second, pastor Paul, am I truly a holy vessel?” Yeah, that's what Jesus has done in you by faith. He has cleansed the vessel by paying your punishment, the punishment of your sin and now that you, and now that I have been cleansed through the Spirit, now He can come and indwell us again, like I believe He did originally with Adam and Eve. I believe that's what was lost and that's what we've regained through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. And of course, there's going to be a whole lot more that we're going to gain when Christ comes back again and when we lay down these fleshly bodies that we live in currently. But this is what Jesus talked about, this is what it means to be born again, this is what it means to be regenerated, to receive the Holy Spirit, to be made new, right? Literally recreated, recreated. So, here we're seeing this picture in Genesis 2 of creation and you have come to Christ through repentance and faith and you've been recreated, regenerated, born again with the Spirit of God breathed in you once again.

So, we keep reading now in verse 8 and it says,

So, in addition to all of the fruit bearing trees and plants that God had created there on the earth and put in the garden, were also made aware in these verses of some very important trees; 2 other trees that God had provided in the midst of the garden. And the first is the tree of life and this tree was apparently provided for the perpetuating of life and it's actually even mentioned in the next chapter, and is one of the trees that Adam and Eve were not allowed to partake of once they'd become sinners. Skip ahead to Genesis chapter 3 for just a moment. I don't know if it's a page turn for you or not, or you can just check it on the screen. It says, Genesis 3:22-23 (ESV)

Then the LORD God said, (in verse 22) “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of (look at this) the tree of life and eat, and live forever—" therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” So, you see, once they became sinners, it was very important that they not eat from the tree of life. Why? Because there could be no redemption without death. That sounds kind of crazy, doesn't it? Death was a curse, but it was also the means of redemption. The problem is, had we truly experienced the death that was intended for us because of our sin, we wouldn't have been able to be around to enjoy the life afterwards. And that's what Jesus bore for us on the cross, He bore our death so that we could have life, so that we could enjoy life. So, you see, death was necessary.

So that's why God said, “no we can't let the man eat from this tree lest he perpetuate himself in his sinfulness and there be no option for redemption.” So that's the tree of life, by the way, the tree of life as you remember in our study of the very end of the Book of Revelation, remember, the tree of life appears again in the new heaven and new earth, which are merged and come together, and the tree of life is there in Revelation chapter 22 and so, all things are truly restored. But the other tree that's mentioned here by name in this passage is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we're going to hear more about this tree in just a few verses. But, before we get into that, we're given some more descriptions of Eden. So, look with me in your Bible now, beginning in verse 10, chapter 2, verse 10. We're told that,

And we're told in verse 12 that,

And, if you're sitting there thinking, well, this is interesting, the names of these rivers are very similar to the names of ones that we know of even today. So, maybe what we can do, is we can take the names of these rivers and we can plot and we can, figure out where the original garden of Eden was. No, you can't and the reason you can't is because when the great flood happened, all these rivers got washed away and new ones were made. And they sure they gained some of the same names, but there was a whole new set of rivers and lakes and continents that emerged out of the great global flood in the time of Noah. So, anyway, you're out of luck in that respect. But then we're told this in verse 15,

And so there it is, that nasty tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, “why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, if He just would've kept that dumb tree out of there, we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in today.” Well, as common as that question is, I think people are kind of secretly wondering if God did that to bait Adam and Eve. Kind of one of those situations where you know, you put something out in the open for somebody to steal and then when they do you arrest them sort of a thing. But what people don't realize is that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, being forbidden for them to partake of presented Adam and Eve with something they had to have, and that was a choice. I truly believe that when it says in the Bible that mankind was made in the image of God, that this is one of the primary images of God that we have been given and that is we have the ability to reason and choose based on that reason. Not that we always reason properly, but we have that ability. And your dog doesn't have that ability or your cat, or your horse, or any other created being. You have that ability, but I believe that this tree was necessary because they had to have a choice to exercise that freedom. They had to, they, here's the deal guys, if you have the freedom to choose, but you're never given an opportunity to exercise that freedom, what good is it? If you exist in an environment that never challenges you ever, never presents you with an opportunity to make a wrong choice, then your freedom, this freedom that God has given, which I believe, it pleased God very much to give man, mankind, it is nothing without the opportunity to do just that. And so, God gave them an opportunity to choose even if their choice led them away from Him. And you might think, wow, that's crazy, but you know what? God wants our obedience to Him to be a choice, He wants our love for him to be a choice. Otherwise, we're at automatons just following a pre-selected pattern of behavior that we have no ability to choose or dictate on our own level in any sort of a way and what is that? Can you imagine living with someone who is there simply because they have to be? They didn't, they've never chosen you. One of the most beautiful things in relationships is choosing to be with someone. Do you know what one of the dumbest things is to say? And I'll just, if you and some of you guys are, maybe still dating or something like that, don't ever say to your girlfriend or frankly, guys, to your wife, “I need you, I need you”, that's a dumb thing to say.

The most wonderful and lovely thing to say is, “I choose you, I choose you.” Because you know what? I got along just fine before I met my wife and I know that I could live without her. I choose her, I choose to be with her, I choose to share my life with her and that choice is a beautiful thing. Do you understand how beautiful that is? And it's the same with your relationship with God. We choose, I choose to love God, I choose to follow God, I choose to serve God. That's what He wants, He wants you to make that choice. He wanted the first man and the first woman to make that choice as well. Well, now we're going to zoom in for some more detail on the sixth day of creation when God created the woman. Here we go guys, yeah, this is where all the trouble starts, just kidding, I'm just kidding. Then the Lord God said, “18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Well, there's several things frankly in this first verse that we look at here concerning the creation of the woman that we need to look at. But right away the language of verse 18 presents us with an interesting change of direction, did you notice that? Last week we went through all 6 days of creation and God saw at the end of those days all that He had made, and what did He say about what He had made? “It is good.” And we heard that repeated over and over, “It is good, it is good, it is very good.” But now suddenly, we come to a different expression here as it relates to the man's lack of human companionship and suddenly the Lord says, “that isn't good, it's not good.” What is not good? “It's not good that the man should be alone.” Well, technically the man wasn't alone, he had all the animals, presumably. Okay, now don't freak out, but presumably some of them could talk to him. Because you'll remember when the serpent is having a conversation with Eve, she doesn't go, “eek a talking snake.” So, there's a lot of things that happened before the fall of man that I think changed the dynamic of God's creation. Technically speaking, the man was not alone, but he was alone from the standpoint that there wasn't anyone there just like him. So, God creates this need within the man. Remember, this is still during creation, we've gone back in time here in chapter 2. We're back in the sixth day of creation.

So, everything God is saying, He's creating. Remember that's how He creates, by speaking, “let there be light, let there be water, let there be, let there be.” Now, He says, “let there be a need within the man, it is not good for the man to be alone, it's not good.” So, He's creating this woman sized hole in a man's heart and being. But of course, He no sooner creates that need within the man, but He also creates the ability to meet that need within the man. Now, it kind of goes back here and tells us in verse 19 that you know, Adam truly wasn't alone because “now out of the ground (verse 19) 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. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man (it says, he,) gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. (and then we're given this important statement) But for (the man, for) Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” So, here's what the Lord does, verse 21, “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs…” The word there in the Hebrew literally means his “side”, rib is more of a traditional kind of an interpretation, but it just means He took something out of his side. We don't know for certain what the part was that God took from Adam, but in the end of verse 21, it goes on to say, “…and closed (He) up its place with flesh. 22 And the (part, or the) rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”” So obviously, Adam immediately recognized the woman as being of the same essence as himself, created in the image of God, sharing that unique image, that unique creative element apart from all of the other creation. And so that's the point of what we're reading here, that the woman, the man and the woman are made of the same essence. But there's so much meaning in these verses and it applies very much to marriage, that we want to look at this. Because what God is creating here, along with the woman, is, He is creating also the institution of marriage. And we're learning a great deal, even from these verses about that and what God's intentions are for marriage and particularly for the ministry of the woman. So, I want to back up a little bit again to verse 18. Go back with me there and look again as we read that verse, which says, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;” And then we find out how God took care of that need that He'd created within the man. He said, “I will make him a helper fit for him.” And so, there's 2 things we need to focus on in this statement about the woman that was created. The first thing is that she was created to be a helper for the man. But lest a woman read this and think that somehow this is a demeaning sort of a title or Appalachian for the woman, you need to know that it is not. In fact, you might be interested ladies to know that this term is often used in the scripture to describe God himself. Yeah, “the helper,” the one who comes alongside. Many times, referring to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the one who comes to help. So, this is not demeaning in any way. But as the helper, the woman was created to supply what the man now needed, okay. She was called to come alongside. It does not say that the woman was called to be the leader, it says she was called or created to be the helper. And it's important that women, wives understand that role within the context specifically of marriage or there's going to be issues, there's going to be problems. We talk about this actually in some length in my marriage series, which you can find on our website: https://www.ccontario.com/, it's called “God's Design for Marriage.” But this need for a companion hearkens back to the statement that was made earlier in looking at the life of Adam, where it said that for Adam, no suitable helper was found amidst all of the animal kingdom. And the animals were pretty cool, but none of them provided this suitable helper and so the woman was created. And that's the other thing about the woman, you'll notice also in verse 20 it says, “for Adam, there was not found a helper fit,” actually, “suitable” is the word that's used in the NIV, here in the ESV, it’s “fit”, she's fit. Now what does that mean? It means that when God created the woman with the intention of joining with the man in a marriage union, He made her, God made her a perfect fit, hand in glove. She doesn't have to do anything or be anything other than what God created her to be, to be a perfect fit. She is suitable, she is a fit companion for the man, simply the way God made her, right? And that's so important for, I think for women to hear. There's so much pressure on women and frankly, men even put pressure on women to be, or do something that is, that they are not somehow being and doing in their expectation of what a wife ought to be. But what we're doing men is we're putting pressure on our wives in ways that are frankly contrary to the word of God. A woman is made fit and suitable for her husband. Now, that doesn't mean that sin can't enter into the relationship and cause people to withhold what they've been created to provide within the context of marriage because we certainly do, we certainly do. We do it for many reasons and I probably don't have to enlarge on those. But I'm saying in an ideal sense, when a man and a woman come together in marriage, there is a suitable connectedness between the two that God has fashioned in the basic elements of creation to make them be able to mesh and work together. We do struggle working together, I'll grant you that, but again, all the issues. Guys, all the issues that we have with marriage, all of them are because of sin, all of them. You can cry incompatibility or any other legal term that you might try to throw out there to say, this just isn't working, but it's sin. S I N, that is the reason and the only reason why we struggle in marriage. And we're going to see the very first struggle in the next chapter, which we won't get to tonight. We're going to find right away as soon as sin enters the picture, Adam throws Eve under the bus, I mean right away. He doesn't waste any time in looking out for himself and doing it at her expense. And this has been going on ever since. And so yes, there are issues with marriage and that's why we do things like have these marriage series to help people kind of work through the dynamics of living together with two people who both have a sinful nature, and yet who are doing their level best to coexist within the context of the institution of marriage as God created it to exist. The closer we get to the biblical ideal that God intended in marriage, the better your marriage goes. The farther we get away from it, the more struggle some your marriage and your relationship with your spouse is going to be. So, if there are struggles in your marriage, just know this, it's not rocket science, we have gotten away from the biblical idea of what a marriage should be. In other words, God's intentions for marriage. If we get back to those intentions, then we begin to see a lot of those problems literally just melt away. And there are some simple elements that are given to husbands and wives in the word of God to begin to get back to that element or that idea, that ideal, if you will, of what a biblical marriage ought to be. And it's, and again, it's not super complex, what's complex is our inability to just walk it out. But the elements that are given to us concerning marriage are given to us in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where he simply says to husbands, “husbands, love your wives as Christ, love the church and be willing to sacrifice for her as Christ sacrificed Himself for His bride; the church. (Ephesians 5:25- 33) In other words, husbands love your wives in such a way as to be willing to lay down your life for her. And the man is to take that and to go before the Lord and talk about how that applies to his daily life. But it's really the opposite of what Adam does in chapter 3. And then the word that's given to wives is, wives, submit to your husbands in an attitude of respect. And these are the things that begin to bring a married couple back to center, back to that true north, if you will, that is God's design for marriage. So once again, if that's something that you and your spouse need to kind of get a refresher on, you'll find that under our Topical Series area on our website at https://www.ccontario.com/. So, here's the conclusion of the situation, look at verse 24 with me in your Bible, it says,

There are 3 things that we have to look at in this single verse, and the first one is, “a man shall leave his father and mother,” what's that all about? Simply talking about a man coming out from under the authority of his father because his father and his mother have been for him up to that point, the covering with their family unit. But when a man takes a woman, he comes out from under his father's authority and he creates a new family unit along with his wife. They have now come out and now literally it's like a cell separating and becoming two. A man is to leave his father and mother and there's a lot that goes along with that. It's, yes, it's creating a new family unit. When I'm doing weddings, when I talk to them about becoming husband and wife, I'll talk to them about the fact that on the day you get married, a new family unit will be created on that day. When you say, I do and you say I do, we see a new family being, a new family unit being created, and it's very cool. But for that new family unit to exist in strength, a man has to leave his father and mother. He can't continue to be tied to the apron strings of his mother, he can't continue to rely upon his father for everything and what am I going to do?

He has to be his own man, he's now the leader of this new home. He is the head of this woman and he must take up that responsibility. Now, when it says, “leave his father and mother,” it doesn't necessarily mean leave them geographically. I've seen men come out from under their father's authority and live on the same property with his new wife and do it successfully. I think that's possible, some people can, some people can't. Some people have to separate geographically to truly leave, but you got to leave one way or another because there are emotional ties, there's physical ties, could be financial ties that can just keep you from being the man that your wife needs you to be. And guys, if your wife is complaining to you about this, then you might need to sit up and embrace that and say, “well, that's a real, very real possibility.” Because I've had wives say to me, “my husband never left, his parents were married, but he goes to them for everything and he relies on them and they're kind of supporting him” and it's like, no, that's not a good situation. A man needs to leave his father and mother and that's what this is talking about, becoming a new family. The second thing we see here though is this statement that a man shall hold fast to his wife. So yes, he leaves his father and mother, but he also holds fast and that is a phrase in the Hebrew that means to “cling” or to “cleave.” Remember the old King James? That's what it said that, “a man is to cleave.” I think at our wedding, when Sue and I got married, the pastor's message was, “leave, cleave and weave.” Yeah, cute huh? Isn't that clever? Did I get it right, Sue? Yeah, that was a long time ago. Anyway, it was a good message, frankly because that's what we're called to do, to come together and hold fast. And this not only speaks of monogamy that is outlined here between the man and the woman, but that faithfulness and exclusivity that goes along with monogamy. The idea that. you're the one, you're the one, I'm going to cleave to you, I'm going to hold to you, I'm holding fast to you, I've made that choice. Again, that's that choice, I choose to be with you and I choose to be faithful. And then the third statement that we see in this verse is that “they” referring to the husband and wife, “shall become one flesh.” And this is the mystery of marriage, the culmination of this husband and wife coming together is that they become in the Lord's eyes, one flesh.

And of course, it speaks of the unity of the man and the woman in marriage. But in my marriage series, I talk about the fact that it is a description of intimacy. And intimacy is defined as that which we share with our spouse that we share with no other person, okay? Because I'm one flesh with my wife, there are things that I share on a physical, emotional, spiritual, and even intellectual level that I share with no other person. That is the idea of coming together and being one flesh and allowing that relationship, that one flesh relationship to be what God intended it to be. You might be surprised, you might not, to know that there's a good many married couples that share little or no intimacy within their marriage or intimacy has devolved into once in a while being physically intimate, but there's no emotional intimacy, there's no spiritual intimacy. They never pray or talk about the Lord together. They don't even really talk about what they're learning as people, there's no intellectual interchange going on between them, and that's really, really sad. And sometimes it happens for various reasons. Sometimes we just get busy, sometimes we get lazy. But I talk about this as firing on all the cylinders that God intended marriage to be defined under that idea of one flesh. And if we're going to really truly enjoy marriage and by the way, I don't know if this comes as a revelation or not, but God created marriage to be enjoyed, right? But I'm here to tell you that if it's not, if you get completely off base and you completely ignore the word of God as it relates to his intentions for marriage, it will not be a joy, it will be a misery, but it was never intended to be a misery. But the only reason it becomes a misery, again, is because of that one little 3 letter word, sin. That's it, it's not difficult. We, when people sit down with me and say, “pastor, we need to talk to you about our marriage.” I know what's going on, they want to get into a long conversation and I know that we're just, it's sin. I know that's what's going on because I've been married myself for 45 years and I know that when I, when we're having a hard time, it's because we're being impatient or whatever with one another, and it comes down to sin. But yet God calls a husband and a wife “one flesh” but because sin entered the picture, God's design for marriage has been marred and we keep forgetting about it and dropping it and doing our own thing. And so, the New Testament authors had to go on and talk about things related to marriage to help people get back on track. Like for example, Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, “I want you to understand,” he said, “that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Corinthians 3:11) He had to go on and remind couples that this is the order that God has created within marriage, order. Guys, it's all about order. Do you know what sin does? It gets us out of order, and you know what happens when things get out of order, you have chaos. What do you have when things are in order? It's just like, it's just like in your home. If your home is out of order, it's chaotic, if your home is in order, it's peaceful. No different in marriage and then he wrote to Timothy and he made statements like, and this is, some of the most controversial statements because people don't take time to understand it. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.” (1 Timothy 2:12) And people, oh man, people read that and they're just like, “I don't get that, that is the most, that is the worst thing he could have said, how dare he.” Well, Paul's trying to restore order within the home, and to do that, the church has to be an example. And that's why Paul said, “I don't permit a woman to teach or have authority or exercise authority over a man” because why? He had said previously to the Corinthians, because the man is the head, he's the head. And so, he says, if we're doing it wrong in the church and we're allowing women to teach in the church, to teach men, what happens when a woman teaches a man, she takes authority. She says, “now you sit down, I'm going to train you now, I'm going to teach you, you just sit there and you be quiet, and I'm going to tell you how this works.” You see what she has done? We've allowed her to exercise authority over the man. Paul says, “I don't allow that.” This was not a cultural issue, this was a creation issue because God created the man for some reason or another to be the head of that relationship and for that to exist, there must be order, there must be order, and that order must be maintained. And if the church is violating that order, it's going to make its way into the home. I've sat down with couples before where, it's kind of funny, well, I can laugh now, I suppose, but you know where a woman will… I've sat down with couples where a woman just flat out said to me, “well, I've been trying to teach him what it's he's supposed to do as a man, but he's just not listening” and I'm like, okay, we got a way to go here. And I'll ask her, “well, what are you doing teaching him in the first place?” “Well, how else is he going to learn this stuff?”

--- You see, we've taken the whole concept and we've just said it on its ear. We've made, and this is, ladies, your husband is never going to respond well to that because it violates a principle in the scripture. He knows, whether he knows it intellectually or not, there's something in a man that knows that he is the head, that God has made him given him that position. And if that position gets violated through the relationship, then it's going to cause all kinds of problems and believe me it does. I've told you guys many times the first five years of our marriage, we didn't darken the door of a church and we were not walking with the Lord. And what that means is, we were not applying biblical ideas, concepts, principles, and so forth to our marriage and that's why it failed. We were train wreck and then we got saved. Well, that put the train back on the rails, but we still didn't know how to run the dumb thing. And so, we had to learn and I learned that I was being a total wimp when it came to being a leader in my home. I was a total wimp and I was handing things over to Sue because she was better at it than I was and it just it just blew up in her faces. I was not being the head, I was not being the leader, I was not taking my position in the home. And by the way, this whole idea of the position in the home, you understand that this is just for this life, right? The order that God has created in marriage is not for eternity. You guys do know that when we pass from this life that the marriage union does not go with you and for some of you that's bad news. For some of you, it's really good news, but that's whatever. And that's why you're free to remarry if your spouse, were to go to be with the Lord, right? And you're not committing adultery because the original marriage bond has been dissolved through death. So, in the eyes of God, how does He see men and women? Well, there isn't this order of headship, it only exists within the context of marriage on earth and that's why Paul said to the Galatians, “in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave, nor freed, nor male and female.” (Galatians 3:28) Those things don't exist in the context of how you are seen outside of this life. This whole idea it exists for here for right now, but it is God's order for marriage and when we violate that order, we run into problems. I guess the last thing I really want to kind of say as we finish talking about marriage is that I want to just remind you that marriage was created by God, divinely ordained by him.

And what that means is that, first of all, for us as believers, married believers, those of us who are, we cannot violate God's institution of marriage without dealing with the consequences and we do. But the second thing is important for man to understand is that we have no right to redefine marriage. God defines marriage, He defines who can get married; and it's a man and a woman, that's what God defines. Now, man does not have the right to waltz into this party and say, oh, we're going to change this thing around. We're going to redefine the elements of marriage. We just, he just simply, I mean, he can do it, he doesn't have the right to do it, okay? He does not have the right to do it and that's an important thing to remember. The very last verse of the chapter is verse 25, which tells us, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” And that statement is frankly just given to us very simply here in this chapter to underscore the fact that this was prior to sin and that there was an innocence in the heart and mind of the man and the woman prior to the introduction of sin where they had no shame because and so, what this tells us is, shame comes from sin. In fact, we're going to, we're going to see and we get to the next chapter, they were ashamed when they realized they were naked, and they had that realization because of sin. Sin causes self-awareness, the realization of our situation and the shame that comes from that. No sin, no shame, so there you go, pretty cool. Anyway, chapter 2, so there we are. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, a lot here in this chapter, a lot here for us to pay attention to, a lot here for us to meditate on and think about. And Lord, I pray that we would recognize this as truth and that in our marriages, we wouldn't try to be smarter than the truth, but that we would appropriate this Word and apply it into our marriages and pray that you would help us every day to walk according to this ideal and your intentions for the relationship between a husband and wife. I thank you, Father, for the Word that you've given to us here tonight and I pray that you would allow it to simmer in our hearts and minds as we walk it out with fear and trembling. Be with us, we pray in Jesus precious name, all God's people said, amen. God bless you. ---