Well, good morning and welcome Trinity Bible Church, as well as those who are family visiting for the baptisms today. A full Lord's Day. We're excited to continue our time as was mentioned in the announcements of public worship will not actually end until the benediction is given after the baptisms are completed. So please do not leave, rather stay and continue in public worship through the observation of water baptism. Do you have a couple of announcements that are pretty important? The first being that starting next month, starting in March, every first Sunday of every month, we always take the Lord's Supper on the first Sunday. Something we're going to be doing from now on moving forward is there will be no children's church on those first Sundays. We will have a family integrated service every first Sunday, meaning that the Lord's Supper will then have everyone here. There'll be no one over there. It'll be a perfect opportunity for parents to explain to their children what the Lord's Supper is. as well as all of us participating in that communal meal together. So there'll be no second hour children's church moving forward. We will still have some children's Sunday school courses going on during the first hour every first Sunday. There's a lot of firsts in there, so I realize that. So basically, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. there will be childcare and Sunday school for children, but a second hour there will be nothing. We'd like to have everyone in the service together. The second announcement is that for those that have been a part of the church for a while, or even just the last year, know that one of our missionaries who we sent out, Michaela, who was in Northern Canada, she has left the mission field, and so it left a kind of budget, which we gave generously to Michaela, 50% of all of her needs was through church giving. And so we had told the congregation we were keeping that money set apart until we found other missions to give that to. And so we wanted to report to you today. We have found some, although we're still looking. We wanted to give you an update on how that has happened. The first one I would mention would be someone you know well, the Batlucks. Joe and Heike who are in Kondern, Germany. Joe is a pastor of Black Forest Christian Fellowship and Heike and Joe both work at Black Forest Christian Academy, which is the school there. The school is a school where missionaries all over kind of the world have their kids stay and go to school. And so Joe and Heike are very involved in that locale in general, but particularly with the church and the school. That is a something with in terms of the laws in Germany as well as that they're not a church because the church has to be funded completely through the government and so they're a club and so as you can imagine just getting raising funds in general is very difficult. So one of the things that has happened in the last few months is that all of Joe's people who were living in Condon, who were residents there, who actually gave to the church, have all moved away. So now the entirety of the congregation of the church is 100% missionaries or missionary kids. So they lost a huge portion of the actual giving. And on top of that, he had a couple of families that were significant, donors or supporters of of his as well who based on their own financial Needs had to stop giving to him so they were at quite a deficit and they've had to cut a lot of things so we have upped Joe's giving to help since he was already a supported missionary and we've continued conversations with him because there's also with Joe in the end of the 2026 year, they actually have to come back for citizenship reasons. And so it's going to be a bump in their support for this conceivable end of this school year and the 2026 school year. And probably in the next few months, we'll have more announcements to make on the Batlucks future and things like that. But also Joe has asked and put out there that they would really love to have a group from the church come this summer some time in the summer to help with the graduation and so there'll be more information coming out about that as well, dates and whatnot. Okay, I think that's all with the Batlocks. Secondarily, we have someone else who many of you have known for a long time by the name of Lena Voda. Now, Lena is someone that I know some of the families here have known since she was a girl. And then she went on to become a missionary. And so in all these things, she was helping or building or running women's shelters. And the one that she was running, had to do with abused women. And she would minister to them, witness to them. And she is an incredible ministry. And now she's gone back and she has found a property. And she has a lot of funding for it, but she needed more. And so with the kind of extra that was there from Michaela, we have given a significant amount to Alina so that she can purchase that property and reopen her. And so we're in the conversation with Alina that will be ongoing for her needs moving forward, like kind of like more giving. One of the elders has had a correspondence with her this week. And for those of you who know her well, you'll find this humorous. And so every time he was asking if there's a certain amount, and she just kept saying, God provides, God provides. And so we're gonna have to really nail down like, okay, but can we help with that provision in some way? There still is a surplus from Michaela's giving. So for the people that we've talked about, like we have some of Information Mothers, we're still looking where we can best. support other missionaries for Trinity. So there's a lot more announcements than usual. If you have any questions about, as it pertains to First Sunday, the missionary giving of the increase with the Batlucks and the adding on of Alina, please ask any of the elders after the baptisms today, and then we'll be happy to have that conversation with you or throughout the week. Now, catching your breath and shifting gears. And we continue in the book of Genesis. The purpose of this series in the first three chapters of Genesis, Genesis one through three, is kind of a back and forth of things that we went through in the gospel of Matthew, covering all of the gospel from the incarnation to the humiliation to the crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ. Foundational understanding for the Christian church. Also, we thought there's other foundational aspects that we should all understand, and so we wanted to talk about creation, fall, and the promise of the redemption that we just went through together when we were studying the book of Matthew. And then after that, we'll be looking into the book of Revelation after we finish these first three chapters of Genesis, looking to the blessed hope of the church in the victorious return of Christ our Redeemer. And now you can look at where we're covering here in Genesis one through three, in an older way of kind of categorizing it, starting in like the fifth century, people began talking about it as a series of gifts. I've always enjoyed that. The gift of the cosmos, meaning that chapter one, as God is creating the heavens and the earth, he's actually making something as a gift. as a gift for humanity, who he's going to put in charge over it, as we've seen Adam, as his representative. And then this series of gifts will continue throughout things God does for man, showing his grace, his mercy. In here, the account we're looking at today, 2, 18 through 25, is the gift of the bride. And so this is going to be two weeks, 18 through 25, Just going to have to deal with it. We're going to go through all of it this Sunday, and then we're going to go through all of it again next Sunday. It won't be the same sermon, like, is he working even? No, it's going to be kind of different points. But these are important, not just for the culture of today, but I want you to kind of conceptualize something, if you will. No matter what you think about society, no matter what you think about government, no matter what you think about the church, no matter what you think is going on, I want you to consider the fact that here a covenant relationship is established by God, marriage, and it precedes civilization. So civilization, the bedrock of civilization is this covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. And the gift of the bride then continues thematically throughout the scriptures after the fall in what would be an inverted kind of horrifying, bizarro way. Is that moving forward, what we see the clarity of here is that when sin enters into the world, the poem that we will go through this morning that Adam praises his wife for After the fall, he will immediately blame that same wife for his own sin. And then moving forward, everywhere we go, throughout the line that God is making and building for redemptive purposes, you have sin destroying this beautiful, gift, the patriarchs having multiple wives, playing favorites with their children, the frivolity of how marriage is treated throughout all of the Old Testament. You have Solomon, or for those on Wednesday night, Jedidiah. who in the book of Proverbs writes against both the adulteress and the adulterer with the same charge of forgetting the spouse of their youth. Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament that we have chronologically, is one of the last charges he has. You have put aside the wife of your youth. So it didn't matter what was going on governmentally. It didn't matter if they were in Egypt. It didn't matter if they were in the wilderness. It didn't matter if they were in the promised land. It didn't matter if they were in exile. It didn't matter if they were returned. It didn't matter if they were waiting. It didn't matter until Christ came and when he's speaking to the brood of vipers throughout all of that history, the gift is in ruin. So let us look at this type, the archetype that leads to and points to ultimately we'll see the perfect vision of the gift of the bride is the marriage supper of the lamb. I'll be reading through the entirety of chapter two so we all see the flow of the chapter leading to its ending here. I ask after the reading that you take this time to pray silently, and that God the Holy Spirit would be preparing your mind and your affections to be turned to him. And then I'll pray corporately for us when we enter in the time of the word. Reading now the entirety of chapter two in the book of Genesis. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done. He rested on the seventh day from all this work he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created in the day of the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land, no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God did not cause it to rain on the land. There was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. 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. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. And there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. There it divided and became into four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold that is in the land is good. Delium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Then the Lord God said, it is not good the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field, 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. The man gave names to all the livestock and all the birds of the heavens, every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs, closed on its place with flesh, and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Please take this time to pray. Heavenly Father, as the church gathers here on the Lord's Day, we come to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Lord, we thank you that by God, the Holy Spirit, we can be transformed through regeneration, sealed, and set apart as adopted sons and daughters by the blood of Christ, by his merit alone, are we justified. And Lord, we now, in shared communion, in union with Christ, through his blood and through the work of God the Holy Spirit, Lord, we ask you to illuminate or open our minds to the word Lord, draw our affections or everything that makes us who we are inwardly to you and away from those things that draw us away from you. Lord, we know our hearts are always seeking idols. Lord, destroy those in our lives. Let us be honest before a holy and true God with whom nothing is hidden. Let us now bow down before your word, holy and true. And we may be confronted with our own waywardness, our own sinfulness. And Lord, drawn closer and closer to Christ. his beauty and his holiness. Remind us this morning of your unending grace for your people, for the church. Lord, let us celebrate this continuation of our public worship as we anticipate the future time when we will worship you in fullness in your kingdom. Lord, we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen. through all this kind of retelling in chapter two of kind of a very smaller event in chapter one of the creation of male and female, and the creation mandate, or what's called the cultural mandate of being fruitful and multiplying. We see here how, looking in hindsight, all of these animals that have come before in chapter one, each with its own kind, is kind of the essence of how it was written. And now we have leading up to the, as Bo covered the last couple of weeks, the uniqueness of the garden. Adam in the garden, Adam given the mandate to work it and keep it. And in the midst of that now, we have a kind of show or a picture of everything that's leading up to the next gift. And so all that leads up to it is that the Lord God said, and this is kind of leading what's going to happen, but then kind of going back to go through something else and then going back again to this first phrase. It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. So here we have the name of God being displayed, the Lord God. And it is not good that man should be alone. This is a inverse of everything else that God has stated so far, meaning throughout all of chapter one, when God created something and he looked at it, he said, it is good. And then when he finished everything, he said, it is very good. And now he uses this unique phrase thus far to say that looking at Adam as himself saying, it is not good that he is alone. meaning that Adam is the one, the only one who has no other of his kind. Now we know that as the audience, the original audience knew that because again, this is an audience that is in the wilderness, has coming out of Egypt, has been given the law, is more than likely in the midst of the wilderness or somewhere around Kadesh Barnea looking into the promised land while a unfaithful generation is dying out. and they all have been married, they've been given into marriage, they've rebelled, they've seen numerous givings and goings through those travels of what you would call, what we're seeing here, the gift destroyed. So here they are, there's already the decalogue of, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not covet another man's property, his wife, or anything like that. There's all of these things already there for the original audience to go, and yet look back and go, here is its purpose. So Adam had nothing of his kind, and yet he's the kind of sovereign representative of his king, who is Yahweh, who is God. And he's put there in the garden. And the picture now is God pronouncing, it's not good to be alone. And so all the other things made from dust, as Adam was made from dust, are brought before Adam. And that's the picture you have of this. Now from the ground, 19, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, 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. The man gave names to all livestock, to all the birds of the heavens, to every beast of the field. Let's stop there. This is a picture of Adam's authority. It's a part of the chapter one mandate to rule over. He was given authority over this gift of the cosmos. All of the everything else that was created prior to him and on the same day as him on day six, Adam uniquely is charged over all of it. And so that's what this naming is. The naming is something that would show in the Near Eastern culture that clear authority over something is to name it. It's like you should use it more often when you say your children's name when they're not listening. I own you. I have absolute authority. And when they say things like, hey, this is a democracy, oh, foolish little child. No, this is not. This is a dictatorship in the highest form. Sorry. That's not at all how I talk to my children. Anyway. But this naming aspect is showing the authority conferred by God to Adam. He has complete authority. And all of these things are brought before him and he's naming him. And where things go sideways when we talk about these verses, everyone's like, I wonder why he called it a tiger. That's not the point. The point is like he's showing his authority over all things and God is bringing all these creatures to him to name. But the real purpose of this whole story is to go like, none of these things are actually a companion or someone who fits or corresponds completely to Adam. I already see the objections in the eyes of some people. What about a dog? Because cat people aren't thinking that. But what about a dog? Neither are lizard people. If you have like a reptile, it's just there. But dog people are like, what about my dog? They love me. No, they don't. They don't at all. You're the leader. You're the pack leader. And that's why if you say things a certain way or your body position a certain way, they collapse on the ground and show you their belly. It's not because they want to hug. It's because they're terrified of you because of who you are. But they don't, in order, as one commentator said, in order to actually communicate to a dog, you have to get down on the dog's level. When we say hi to each other in the morning, none of the grown men are going, what are you doing? Or anything like that. Why? Because we're not dogs, and that will start a fight. But the reality is there's something missing. Now, this is the beauty of the way this is written. Everyone receiving this letter in the wilderness knows this. They know like, yeah, of course not. No, not animals. No, not this. No, there's only one thing. There's only one thing. There's only man. He's male. He's Adam. He's by himself. There's something missing. Everyone reading it goes, I know the answer. I know the answer. We all know the answer. And it's showing in the midst of this though, this kind of beauty of the way it's written is like, when, how does she arrive? It's to be seen as. which you say holding attention in the narrative of anticipation of when she arrives. It's not good that man should be alone. He takes all the livestock. And but for Adam, it says in the second part of 20, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. Now you go back up to 18, second half of 18. I will make him a helper fit for him. So God, in what's called divine deliberation, which I covered in chapter one, where in chapter one, you have this God saying, we will go. Here he's saying, I will make a helper fit for him. He brings all the other things that are already created before Adam. And so the narrative purpose here is to actually show Adam. God's already determined he's going to make the one fit for him, but now he's showing Adam. There's nothing else made from the dust that corresponds to you. The word for helper. is used throughout the Bible in the Old Testament probably about 22 times. But the combination that's used here in Genesis is a little unique. It's just to show that it's actually used for God in a few instances as well. Like where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. It's the same Hebrew word. And the reality is, it's like, who's the one that's going to, when you look at the way that it's written, that corresponds to man, to Adam? Who is the one? It's none of these, it's none of the other things in the dust. And again, it's making you go, who is it? Who is it? Who's the one? God's going to do it. God's going to create this new creature. because there is no helper that fits for Adam. So in 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs, closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Let's stop there. Now, let's talk about the rib. Well, let's talk about God's anesthesia first. This is, in essence, to show you God doing surgery, if you will, on Adam. He puts him to sleep and takes a part of him. And this is what I kind of wanted to say. Some of the translations, I'm reading from the ESV, and some of the newer translations always denote it as a rib, like he took a rib, but the word itself is kind of like side, it's just side. And so rib is fine, but it's, I guess what I'm gonna try to communicate, don't make too much of it. Again, the Middle Ages, a scholastic theologian by the name of Thomas Aquinas. Some of you probably have heard of him. Some of you, if you have a certain type of schooling, have to read him. My condolences. And that he kind of went through this whole thing of like, well, this is why God, and this has kind of been the thing since then, is this kind of Thomism view of looking at it. Well, of course he made it from the rib because God couldn't make it from Adam's head unless she have authority over him. and couldn't make it from his feet, lest he, you know, have authority over her and stomp all over her. So he had to take it somewhere where it was equal, like, exegetically, it's just side. It's just side, like he took something of Adam, and that's what he's taking. So the point is, if anything, that you want to correspond to a verse, this will seem crude, Esau loved to eat red, what? Stuff. So Eve is made of the same stuff. or substance that atom is. That's the purpose. How are we going to find one that corresponds or fits with atom? It's going to be someone made from the same. That's the whole point I will push. And again, whenever you get into creation, there's going to be plenty of things. This is not something I will fight to the death on, or I would never fight to the death on any of these things. Sorry about that. But this is not something that I consider super important other than don't make too much out of the rib. Other than to say, God put him to sleep, took a part of Adam from the side. And it says, from that, taken from man and made or formed into a woman and brought her to the man. I try to de-romanticize things as often as I can. You should go, you're so lucky, Christina. What I mean by that, this is a similar language to building the tabernacle, these two words. The side and the build are the same words to describe the building of the side of the tabernacle. And so God is building something from man's side, particular for man, and if you wanna look at anything that has real meaning, it's God's purpose of this gift. And so the side and all these things, these are details leading to the real thing, the gift. Who is she? Is she coming? You know, all the people are anticipating without already knowing what's happening. And so from the man he made or created into a woman, brought her to the man. So this is God presenting the bride to the groom. He puts Adam to sleep, takes a part of him, heals the part he takes out, creates Eve, wakes Adam up, and brings or presents Eve to him. And then what we have next is the instant that Adam beholds this new creation. And in it, I will say, all of civilization is built on. I want you to think about that for a second. Civilization, as we know it, is built on marriage. It says, it's not good for man to be alone. And so, therefore, there's someone for him. Now, I wanna take a second time out. I understand There's people who are widows and widowers. I understand there's people who have been divorced. I understand there's people who suffer in terrible marriages. I understand all of that. And so, more importantly, does Christ, your Savior, yet, The standard that we have here in the pre-fall world is dependent and precedes all civilization. Before there is a civilization, God presents man with woman so that they would be together and be fruitful and multiply. And so he presents woman to man. And in all of this is kind of interesting for those of you that know Hebrew, I think there's a handful of you in here, that what's interesting in 18 through 25 or 18 through 23, Every time man is used, it's just kind of the generic term for Adam or Adam. And then when woman is used, it's a word that's like Issa or Isha, depending on who you had as a teacher in Hebrew. And then after that though, it's going to kind of change when we get into the actual poem. When he begins it, every word that corresponds with each word has a masculine and a feminine aspect to it. Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. It's all kind of very, beautiful in the way that it's written, that's very purposeful in the way that it's written to talk about like, it's almost like trumpets are going off to let you know like something grand has happened, something that was summarized in chapter one, now is expanded in chapter two to show you how important it is. So he brings the wife or the woman before him. And this is what the man said, this at last is bone of my bones. flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Now, too much frivolity is used when looking at that. People often then go like, ladies, when's the last time your husband gave you a poem like that? Like, well, hold on till chapter three to see how poetic you think Adam is. But that's not actually the point. The beauty of the prose that's written here is to show what? God knew what Adam needed. Adam wasn't complete on his own. There was something missing. So God shows him by bringing every other created thing before him, who will be the one who corresponds to him, his helper, the one who is with him. None of these things in Adam make Adam go, that's the thing. Instead he goes, you're this, you're this, you're this, I have authority over you. And now God shows him by taking a part of him, forming or creating Eve, or woman, presenting her to Adam. He sees her and doesn't go, whoa, man. He sees her and goes this, innately, with full knowledge that God's given me, is the one that corresponds to me. The side is returned. The message here is be fruitful, multiply. One man, one woman. In Genesis 1, it's a simple explanation of talking about there's two sexes. There's male and there's female, just like there were in every other thing of its kind. But here in 2, it's talking about how they actually correspond one to another. They were created for each other, and on their own they feel a missing piece. And so when she is presented before him, Adam goes, that is mine. Not in the same ownership that he would all other created things, but that is what was missing from me. That's why he says, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman, Isa, because she was taken out of man-ish. It's a word play. And now she's returned to him. In this 24, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. This is marriage. This is the first marriage. This is covenant language in 24. Some of your older translations have words like cleave to and become one flesh. It means a husband and a wife. And understand this, this still applies to the fallen world. One husband, one wife, that's the standard. Yes, sin has entered the world. Yes, things have happened. Yes, people fail and all these things. The standard that is here, pre-fall, is this language used here. Christ repeats this language in Matthew 19. Paul, we're gonna read later, will use it in Ephesians 5 when describing the church. But what does this look like? He shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Sorry for the children in the room. Yes, it's talking about the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife. It's considered the oneness. It's also supposed to be more than that, meaning it's the spiritual, it's the emotional, it's everything. Because why? Because separated, they are not what they are supposed to be, but together they're complete. And so it implies, at the very least, what the marriage relationship should look like. The husband and the wife are there for each other in everything. And we see the depravity of the fall and that with the immediacy, if you're thinking about the garden and the life in the garden, it's Adam and Eve walking together, working together, and all of these things with God there present, and that they are to be in oneness with each other in all that they're doing. We'll get into authority next week of the husband over the wife and what that all that means and all that things and that now no one's going to show up and so but here it's giving you the picture of what it's supposed to look like and leaving the father of mother holding fast to his wife that that kind of has a necessary maybe comment in the ancient near eastern world the original audience for this book. There were no suburbs. And so when you got married, It's not that you didn't live in your parents' basement with your new spouse, because it was kind of gonna be on the property or whatever the ownership of the father of the groom was going to be. So it's more than just, you don't live in the same house. As a matter of fact, it's probably a shallow understanding of what it is. It means that now you're one flesh and you're now starting your own family. It's not that your parent's relationship is severed from the son or the wife's parents are severed from the wife. It's now. The husband and wife are their own team. And so everything moving forward in their family can't be, can't be, cannot be run by the parents of the father or the parents of the mother. You have to be moved and set apart and be your own family. Even though you would have been on the same kind of land or property, even though you'd have been removed from a different house or things like that. The idea of being that he leaves his father and mother, meaning, if I can say this in the most insulting possible way, no mama's boys is what that means. I'm going to say it again. No mama's boys. Meaning, not that you don't love your mother. I love my mother. She's not here, but she's listening. I love you, mom. But a man leads his family. And what's supposed to drive the leadership of that family is God's word. And so he leads his wife and his children through the word of God, through the understanding of who he is in his own household. The priest, the prophet, the king, without emphasizing the king, you know, it's allegory, not saying like no one, no one, no one, No one call me about that one. Why? Because that's the mandate. That man takes his wife, she's his, he is hers, and they live for the purpose of glorifying God, fighting in the midst of now a fallen world to complete and total fidelity to one another. That takes a lot of effort. That takes a lot of love. That takes a lot of communication. And it takes a lot of forgiveness. I want to emphasize in this general cloud of what I'm teaching this morning about the purpose of marriage. is that the Christian church, the Christian man and woman, have to reckon with this reality, this is my husband, this is my wife, and together we have complete fidelity one to the other. Knowing because you're sinners that you're going to hurt each other. Knowing that you're going to fail each other. Hopefully, less and less as the years go on, but still, It will continue, but we're in this to glorify God in a reflection of Christ's love for the church. Now, two footnotes. Because of sin, because of the hardness of their hearts, Jesus would say in Matthew 19, Moses allowed for divorce. And then Jesus kind of goes and takes it very narrow and says, except in the case of adultery, The man who divorces his wife makes her an adulterer, meaning Jesus gives one reason that you can divorce a spouse, and it's the sundering of the covenant of marriage through the act of divorce. And Jesus, in the imagery of that passage, is looking back to when God tells Israel that he's divorced them. He's divorced them because of their idolatry, and their adultery to other nations. He uses stronger language in Jeremiah that I won't say. And then Paul gives one other condition as well, abandonment. If a spouse is abandoned by their spouse. And there's people that disagree with all of those things. The elders of Trinity believe the clearest reading of those passages is in the cases of adultery and abandonment, the Christian man or woman can divorce and not be sinning or held in any type of church discipline or contempt. But that is not what we should be looking to as the standard. That's the horror of sin. I want all of us who are married, and even those who are not, for the younger people who are maybe looking forward to one day being married, Like look at this covenant bond as described here in Genesis 2. God puts Adam somewhere to show him his need for his wife. God creates her for the purpose of being his helper that corresponds or matches with him perfectly. I would love for every married couple in our church to make sure you take time daily to invest in one another. Praying with one another. Reading with one another. because the fallen world, Satan and his minions want nothing more than to devour your marriage. I said two weeks, I may take three weeks on this passage. But to show us where this all leads, the fall happens, the gift is ruined, We watch the history of God's people as marriage is torn asunder. Paul, more than anyone, uses marriage as a reflection or a picture of something else. So let's look here at the end of this passage to Ephesians 5. Really we'll be focusing on the quotation of this verse, but look how he attributes marriage. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water and with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. Did you catch it? It's a recognition of the same fleshness. Just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Paul takes marriage and gives applicable advice on how to treat and view marriage foundationally. But then he goes through this dialogue with husbands towards their wives from 25 all the way down, and he keeps mentioning flesh, and he keeps mentioning the same flesh and all these things, and then he quotes the verse from Genesis. Leave his mother and father, hold fast, and they shall become one flesh. And then he looks to very next to say, we're all part of the body of Christ. So Paul is taking marriage and the serious view of what it means to be one flesh, turns it to the reality that we're all the church, the body of Christ, and that we, one day, will be presented to him, the bridegroom, spotless, holy. It's another example of there's not one single thing in your life that the Bible doesn't mention that is supposed to be given up to God in Christ in the ultimate hope that you can't wait for his return. Because then the struggle ends. Sin is with finality destroyed. And if you can view your marriage as an analogy to Christ and the church, I think that's a winning formula. Heavenly Father, we pray as we will continue in this in the weeks to come, marriage is not only the foundation of society, It's the proving ground of the Christian church. Lord, we pray that we would seek Christ. We pray that we would view our, for those that are married, view our spouses as Christ views the church. Lord, we pray for those who are widowed in messages like this, maybe painful, that you would gift them with the knowledge of the marriage supper of the Lamb. We pray for those who are single and yearn for marriage, to which this is a painful message. We pray, Lord, for both contentment, but also, Lord, that you would draw a helper to them as well. But ultimately, our purpose here is to glorify God, both in word and deed. And so may the church be found about the work of Christ. Sanctify your church. Draw us closer to you through the Holy Spirit and the word and the fellowship of the saints, that you may be glorified in the Lord Come, Lord Jesus, come. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.