A Bilbical View of Marriage

Someone has once said that a man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.

If you don’t know where you are going, you will get there quickly. Nowhere.

When thinking about a successful marriage, we have to examine our own thoughts about it and why we got involved in the first place. To be sure, there will be something tainted in every aspect of our inquisition, but overall, there needs to be a clear intention to find God’s own purposes in our married lives.

To begin with, unless we have a correct view of God’s original intention, we will not be able to understand how we have gone wrong, if indeed we have. And we probably have.

To have a correct view of God’s original intention would be impossible if we did not understand God.

In fact, just as an example, look at Genesis 3.

1. Who was the conversation the serpent and Eve were having about?

God – Elohim
It is interesting that Satan does not call Him the Lord God. Jehovah Elohim.
The name which is used thoughout the Old Testament and which is the personal name by which Adam and Eve knew God.

First, Elohim is used in 1:1 through 2:3, concerning creation, then in v,5, the use of the Lord God, Jehovah Elohim calls into mind the caring God, the loving God, the God who would cause it to rain on the earth He created and who created this man out of the dust.

But the serpent uses the term Elohim, which is also the term Eve used in this conversation.

2. Why is this important?_____________________________

Because the point of Genesis is not about building a successful marriage. It is about God and who He is.

A Biblical View of marriage does not mean that you are going to be able to fulfill your dreams. God is in the business of shattering dreams. Let me repeat that.

The fact that Eve’s failure to consult her husband, resulting in her referring, as the serpent did, to “God” and not the “Lord God”, illustrates for us the difference in the attitudes of those who are in marriage to see what they can get out of it and those who are in marriage because they believe that God has ordained it for them.

What is the difference? Here it is.

You can either live your life hoping that life is fair, and God is good, all the time, and that He will certainly let you fulfill all of your wonderful dreams.

Or you can fall down before the Lord God, trust Him, and obey Him because He knows what He is doing and you don’t.

3. Now, what is the purpose of your marriage?_________________________ Your marriage is for God’s pleasure.
That’s right, everything that God created is for God’s pleasure, and you are a part of that.

God takes great pleasure when a couple is functioning the way that God intended them to, which we will get to next week.

God takes great pleasure in His own work, so when your marriage is working like it is supposed to, God delights in it. How is your marriage working right now?

Remember this. God does not run His world on the principles of fairness, success or dreams.

We need to get rid of our culture affected propositions if we are ever to find God.

Now, was the reason for God commanding Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree that was in the midst of the garden apparent?
No. It was not apparent.
Calvin said, “Very dangerous is the temptation, when it is suggested to us, that God is not to be obeyed except so far as the reason of His command is apparent.”

The whole tragedy of Genesis 3 is not that Adam and Eve fell, plunged the human race into darkness and got kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

The tragedy is that the advantages and blessings that the Lord God had given to them were abundantly sufficient and they ending up losing confidence that that was true, and thus dishonored God by their self-centered disobedience.

Everything was beautiful.

You remember this. Satan always says of God - ”Not sufficient.”

The way we get to thinking like this is that our marriages and families become the thrones of our lives.

When the only one who should rightfully occupy that place is Jesus Christ.

I am not here to teach you how to have a happy successful marriage. My job is to teach you that God has a purpose for your marriage and that purpose may be to crush you.

Part of what God sometimes does in a marriage is to use the differences in our mates to humble us and to mature our character into Christ-likeness. And that pleases God.
And no matter how far you may go in success or fulfilling your dreams, if God is not at the center it will only be smoke in the wind.

What is God’s purpose for your marriage?? To glorify Himself. That both we and others would glorify God for who He is.
First of all, marriage. What a great idea. And it is God’s idea. And it only works God’s way. And when it works God’s way, he is pleased and He is glorified.