This time we'll now read in the Bible from Genesis chapter 1. This time we'll read all of Genesis chapter 1. There we read this word of God, Genesis chapter 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seeds. And God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb, yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created the great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, created he him. Male and female, created he them. And God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat, and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. That's as far as I'll read. God bless us in the reading of scripture regarding the first six days of history. Read that in connection with Lord's Day 41 of the Heideburg Catechism. Verse 27 of Genesis 1, God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him. And then we read, male and female created he them. The basis of that passage in all of scripture stands the instruction of Lord's Day 41 concerning the Seventh Commandment. Question 108 asks, what doth the seventh commandment teach us? The answer is that all uncleanness is a curse of God, and that therefore we must with all our hearts detest the same, and live chastely and temperately, whether in holy wedlock or in single life. Doth God forbid in this commandment only adultery and such like gross sins? The answer is, since both our body and soul are temples of the Holy Ghost, he commands us to preserve them pure and holy. Therefore he forbids all unchaste actions, gestures, words, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, because of the increasing hostility of the world against God and against scripture and against Christ. A sermon about the Seventh Commandment with its specific focus on the basic truth of gender becomes necessary. What's not new in the history of the church is the church's opposition to sins against the Seventh Commandment. Already, of course, in the Old Testament, the prophets faithfully preached against, warned against sins against the Seventh Commandment, warned against sexual immorality, especially that was true in the days of Israel in the land of Canaan when they were surrounded by the Canaanites who lived in all manner of different types of sexual immorality. And so God in the book of Leviticus warned God's people against those sins, shows his clear condemnation against sexual immorality, all sorts of perversions that became famous, for example, in the city of Sodom. The church still today must faithfully proclaim the truth of the Seventh Commandment according to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ over against all fornication, adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual perversions, various other sins against the Seventh Commandment. But a sermon against What the world is promoting against the ordinance of gender becomes necessary because of the world's, it seems, increasing open defiance against the very basic creation ordinance, gender. To us, it seems inconceivable that someone would actually think that there are more than two genders. And yet, that is becoming official policy in most of the nations of the earth, that more than two genders must be recognized as legitimate. You'll be surprised, not in the United States, but in other countries in the world today, when citizens apply for a passport, something as basic as a passport, and answering the questions about gender, there are not two selections for the applicant. Three. And the third one is other, with a blank, and the applicant can supply what he decides his gender or her gender may be. That, beloved, is an indication of the offensive push of the kingdom of darkness over against the church and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, this basic creation ordinance. And in response to that, the church must proclaim this truth of the word of God taught on all of scripture and set forth in the confessions according now to the seventh, Lord's Day 41 and the seventh commandment. Thus, beloved, we must respond by faith in the conviction that we are ready to stand for the truth of God's word. It's not our word, not our opinion, but for the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, and be willing to suffer persecution, to go to jail, and to do so for righteousness' sake, on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact is, man is becoming bolder and bolder in his sin. He becomes bolder to declare through all sorts of temptations and entertainment, but even now in government policy, sexual immorality, that's not sin. This is a legitimate, loving lifestyle for the citizens of the country. And then all those who speak against what the government has said as a loving, legitimate lifestyle, all those who speak against that are considered enemies, bigots, cruel, unloving, hateful, those who have committed even hate crimes for speaking the word of God. That's the world, beloved, in which you live and I live. That's the world in which we bring forth our covenant children. That's the world in which we must educate our covenant children in the fear, not of man or being afraid of man, but in the fear of Jehovah and in his word. God give us the strength to fight the good fight of faith, of the faith, even the faith in which we must say no to the world's views concerning gender and by faith. That conviction say yes to what God has declared in the scriptures. What he declares according to the seventh commandment, sexual purity, and a faithful use of the gift of gender. A gift to be received by God with thanksgiving, with the word of God and prayer, and then to be used and pressed into the service of his kingdom and covenant, all obedience, modesty, and chastity. We consider then the truth of the seventh commandment, according to this theme, obedience to God concerning our gender. We'll notice our daily duty, secondly, its sovereign standard, and then thirdly, its gracious source. Truth of Genesis 1 and all of scripture is that God governs by his providence and gives to his living creatures, humans, the characteristic of male or female. This phenomena can be viewed in many of the other creatures which God made and we've seen in Genesis chapter 1. Those who have the knowledge and the skill of studying plants Botanists know that there are male and female parts even in plants, so that the grass may bring forth, and as Genesis 1, verse 12 teaches, an herb-yielding seed and fruit-tree-yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind. Now, though verse 12 of Genesis 1 doesn't mention male or female, yet that concept of bringing forth Other fruit trees, like the parent fruit trees, implies that parent-child relationship and a bringing forth and the concept of male and female. Same thing with the fish and the birds that are mentioned later in Genesis chapter one. Fish, birds, and animals are made male and female so that they, as the scriptures teach, can bring forth abundantly after his kind. That is, the dog, male and female, bring forth a puppy in the image of the parents so that the puppy looks like the parents. Contrary to evolution, which says that the dog can eventually bring forth a horse or something like that. No. This is supported later in Genesis when God commanded Noah concerning those animals of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark." Now why would God have Noah bring two animals of the living creatures, two of every sort? Bring them into the ark to keep them alive with thee. Why two? they shall be male and female. Genesis 6, verse 19. And by faith, Noah obeyed the commandments of God, and we discover in chapter seven, verse 16, that they went in, the animals went into the ark by a miracle of God, male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him, and the Lord shut him in. God made Then on the same day, a little later on that day, God made man then also male and female. In Genesis chapter two, we learn more of the history of that creation of man on the sixth day. And we discover that man wasn't made completely at the same time. There was a gap between God creating Adam and then creating Eve. Adam understood. It is not good for me to be alone. I see in the animals, they have their male and female, their pairs, but I am alone. This is not good. God taught him the ordinance of the need for male and female, similar to the animals and even the plants. So God made Eve out of the rib of Adam fashioned her, breathed into her the breath of life, and man was created male and female. Eve was similar to Adam, out of the dust of the ground, given the breath of life, made body and soul, created in the image of God, and yet she was different, physically different than Adam, mentally different, given different characteristics that belong to the female as compared to Adam, who was male with his characteristics, physical, mental, psychological. Adam was given his male characteristics fitted for his station and calling in life. Eve given her female characteristics suited for her station and calling in life as the wife of Adam, who was, Adam was the king at that time of creation. There is that difference between male and female, even which must be recognized according to 1 Peter 3, verse seven, where God says, likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. There the apostle explains the woman is different. She's a different vessel. of value to God for the cause of his kingdom and covenant, but nevertheless different. There is a difference between the male and the female, the husband and the wife in marriage. The Lord teaches then, according to scripture, that a person's gender is a gift that God bestows. Our gender, your gender, my gender is not something that originates from man. Parents decided what our gender would be. It does not originate from the arrangement of the stars as astrology would teach. It does not originate from the influence of various spirit gods or idol gods as the evil religion of animism teaches. Gender along with sex and sexuality is a gift of God. As 1 Timothy 4 verse 4 teaches, it's a creature or gift of God which is good and nothing to be refused and not to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. It is a gift A legitimate and good gift from God. And when we say gift, we do not mean in the common human sense of that term. It is not a gift which we have earned. It is not a gift which we deserve. It is not a gift which we make. It is not a gift which we will. It is not a gift which we activate by something we have done. It is all gift. Freely we receive it. Efficaciously it's given to us in God's providence through our parents and according to his wisdom that we must receive with thanksgiving. The seventh commandment teaches that having then been born into this life, conceived and born into this life either as male or as female, you as a servant of God must handle that gift as a good steward in faithfulness. In the single life, the catechism teaches, you must live chastely and temperately. As teenagers and children, we must learn to use that gift and preserve that gift of sexuality and our gender correctly, faithfully, not foolishly and wickedly as the world will tempt you to do, but we must receive that gift as a good steward of the Lord, guard that gift, honor that gift with chastity and temperance, avoiding all that the world tempts us to do, and preserving that gift and using that gift faithfully until the day if it's the Lord's will, we'd be brought into the bond of marriage there to serve his kingdom and covenant and church. Specifically then that means in our battle with the world over gender, we may not seek to become another gender, the other gender. Not only in this commandment does the Lord forbid the sin of sodomy or homosexuality, but it also forbids what the world is promoting today. You may decide what your gender should be. Don't let your parents tell you. Don't let your elders tell you. Don't let the minister tell you. Don't let your teachers tell you. You decide. God says that's evil. I have given you your gender. You are my servant, now use it faithfully in the single life, in chastity and temperance, waiting, if it is the Lord's will, for you to be married. For those of us in the married life, we must also use that gift chastely, temperately, wisely, sacrificially. Husbands must love their wives as Christ loves his church. The wife must submit to her husband in love as the church is subject to Christ her head. You must love with the love of Christ, the love which gives. Love in that bond of marriage which God has instituted between one male and one female, so conceived and born, joined by God together in that institution of holy marriage, with the approval of parents, with the word of God and thanksgiving under the authority of the government for life until God in death parts. That's the teaching of scripture regarding our gender. And we might be asked someday, well, by what authority do you say these things? What's the standard for your teaching Well, beloved, the sovereign standard for the teaching of gender stands in contrast to the foolishness of the world and its development concerning its views on gender. For some, male and maleness or female and femaleness is determined, they say, by culture. Standards or cultural norms have decided that we need to have these two things called male and femaleness, male and female. Others have said, no, this is the product of evolution, that there are males and females comes from the animals, comes from the fish and the plants and the birds, and that's the origin of gender. And that's then also the standard by which one must handle the gift of gender. In the modern world, they've said no. The standard for what we're going to teach and how we're going to live regarding gender is one's feelings. The parents cannot tell the child whether he's going to be male or female or something else. The child needs to, according to how he feels, must decide, must develop in the direction he feels or she feels is good for him or her. Gone, of course, is even the objective standard of chromosomes. There's an obvious difference in the chromosomes between male and female. Instead, gender is entirely subject not to what God has in his providence stamped in us, even into our genes, but it's subject to what the individual feels. And then even more recent in history, the world proposes in the fourth place another standard, not of man's feeling, but of his will. The child must be left to choose what he will be, male, female, or fill in the blank. Whatever he figures out that, or she might figure out what that blank may need to have in it. Man must choose. And when we as God's people hear that, man must choose Our ears perk up because we've heard that before. Yes, that is the lie of the devil in paradise. When he said to Eve, you will be as God, you can decide what is good and evil. And so man today has developed and has clearly expressed in its opposition to the ordinance of gender from scripture and from creation and from God himself, I will choose my gender. No one else is going to tell me what I am. I will decide what I am, male, female, or something else. And that is a clear expression of man in his sin. I am sovereign. I will be God. Over against all those anti-Christian and anti-God standards, we believe that Since God is the source of our gender, he is also the standard. He is the only standard of gender and the conduct with which we must handle our gender. The scriptures teach and make known that human gender is based ultimately on God and the nature of God and God's masculinity. That attribute of God's masculinity is denied by the feminist movement. They don't want a God of scripture who is a he or a him. They want a female God, a she, a her. And certainly this is denied by the gender preference movement because God is the standard. That's the reality. but they want God cast and thrown out of the earth and out of their lives. Though wicked men try to overthrow the sovereign God and his standard for all of our life, including our gender, the truth is he is the standard. His infallible scriptures make that known and teach us that God reveals himself as the standard as he reveals himself as masculine. Now that doesn't mean that God is a man with male characteristics as the men and the boys do, not at all. Just as the scriptures teach God's right hand is the revelation of the truth of his sovereignty, of which God is all sovereign, and yet God has no human right hand, so also the scriptures teach God is he and him. to reveal his masculinity. When Jesus then is born in Bethlehem, he is born not as a girl, he's conceived and born as a male. Through that man, Jesus Christ, then God makes his essence known in his infinite, transcendent, spiritual masculinity. of which human masculinity and human femininity is a creaturely reflection. That's the deep theological basis for the creaturely ordinance of male and femaleness. That means, beloved, when we read through scripture, especially in the Psalms, God declares He is Father. I am omnipotent. I am sovereign. I love. I am good. I am holy and jealous. I am steadfast, especially with regard to the care of my children, whom I've adopted by my son, my only begotten son in his shed blood and made my children by my spirit. I am faithful to my children. I will bear them up in my arms of everlasting mercy. I am their father. And while the ideas of masculinity come out in those expressions in scripture, his fatherhood also reflects the earthly reality of femininity and motherhood. When in Psalm 103, we read of his tender, loving kindnesses, his compassion, his nurture, his long-sufferingness to us, his gentleness towards us. That masculine God, of covenant fellowship, created man, male and female, to reflect his essence, and then commanded that the male and the female joined in marriage are one flesh, to reflect his Trinitarian life of diversity of persons in unity in the one Godhead. Therefore, beloved, to change the definition of marriage whatever man decides it to be, or even to change the definition, the ordinance of gender, is to attack God himself, and to overturn that creaturely reflection of our creator God, the triune God. The word of God maintains, beloved, the ordinance that there are only two genders, male and female. And when God brings the male and the female together, that is marriage. And the word of God also determines, teaches that God determines our gender for his purpose in Jesus Christ. Because beloved, that is the standard of our gender and the standard of our conduct regarding our gender, we must receive that gift of gender and use it according to the seventh commandment. Negatively, that means the seventh commandment does not permit you and me to do what we feel like with our gender. We may not reassign our gender. I may not say, well, I identify as a woman now, A man may not dress and act as a woman, or the woman may not dress and act as a man. A man may not covet to be the other gender, and the woman may not covet to be the other gender. Nor may we think, as we go through life and experience the troubles and the pains of our specific gender, begin to think that, well, God made a mistake with making me a man or making me a woman. No. The seventh commandment requires us to humble ourselves before our sovereign God. All that I am, I owe to thee. God has fashioned me in his wisdom to be what I am, male or female, to serve his glorious purpose in his church, for the purpose of his glory and the service of his church. As males then, beloved brothers, you must love God if you are in the single life in all holiness and chastity. In the married life, likewise, in all love and faithfulness to the wife God has given to you. Until death do you part. And as females, beloved sisters in the Lord, Love the Lord with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, too, in the single life, in holiness and faithfulness, and if God so wills, then also in the married life, as a faithful, Christian, godly wife and mother, if God also pleases to give you children. All disobedience to the seventh commandment, then, beloved, is forbidden by God, That disobedience comes from our old nature, which hates this sovereign standard, hates this commandment of God, wants the easy way in life, wants to play with sexual immorality and sin. We must remember, beloved, according to Lord's Day 41, that all disobedience to the seventh commandment, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, gender reassignment, surgery, whatever it may be. All of that is accursed of God. God curses then all disobedience and perversions even concerning the basic creation ordinance of gender. God will punish the evildoer who continues to resist that ordinance of God. And that God curses all of that isn't just the opinion of the minister, that's what God teaches in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9. All those who walk in those sins of uncleanness and sexual immorality, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And in Romans chapter 1 verses 26 through 27, the Apostle Paul teaches that for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet or fitting. The apostle there is describing what was going on in the city of Sodom. Homosexuality and lesbianism. taking that creation ordinance of gender and perverting it to whatever they wanted to do. And the reward or the wages of that sin was fire and brimstone from heaven, which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in a moment in that day when Lot was taken out of Sodom. That's the reality concerning all of our sins against the seventh commandment, even sins against our God-given gender. They deserve God's wrath. Beloved, that's the sin to which we are prone. So that's the source of our obedience to the seventh commandment, we understand, Not in you and me. That's the humbling reality. We deserve to be consumed by God's wrath for all of the sins that we commit against the seventh commandment. And in repentance and faith, we must look to Christ, all of our righteousness, all of the holiness, for faithfulness unto the seventh commandment, even with respect to our gender, male or female. We must look to Christ, who atoned for our sins against the seventh commandment, and died and was convicted to death as the one who had transgressed the seventh commandment. Upon him was placed our sins of not just murder and blasphemy and sins against the other commandments, but also our sexual sins, those thoughts, those words, maybe even those deeds. Jesus died not only for murderers and blasphemers and so on, but he also died for his people who were prostitutes. homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders, fornicators, adulterers, even those in the bondage of pornography. Christ was nailed to the cross. as the sinner against the seventh commandment, even though he himself was always faithful to his gender as the faithful bridegroom of his church and the faithful son of his heavenly father. And for us, his sinful brothers and sisters, only his elect sinful brothers and sisters, he died in our place to receive that fire and brimstone of God, to take it away and remove the curse from us so that we might be redeemed and delivered from the bondage of sin to the seventh commandment. We must look, beloved, to Christ when we look at the seventh commandment Consider Christ, who in his masculine love, delivered you and me, his sons, his brothers and sisters, from the bondage of the devil, to be as God, to decide what we're going to do with our gender, to deliver us from that. so that we might be brought forth by the spirit to be his sisters and brothers, to be brought up in the feminine bosom of our mother, the church. That's the teaching of scripture regarding our gender and how it fits into the work of God and our salvation. Christ fully obeyed the seventh commandment, even in regards to gender, as the seed of the woman, that male child, be forsaken by his father, so that you might be the sons and daughters of the father, adopted by the blood of Christ, renewed by his spirit, so that you might serve him faithfully in the single life or in the married life. to the glory of his name. Beloved, as we look out into the world and see the tidal wave of iniquity coming against the church, including all of the temptations regarding the seventh commandment, put your hope in Christ as your only deliverance and protection from that world. And believe that in Christ, we and our children will overcome the wicked world. In Christ there is the grace to resist the temptations of the world, to be as God, to decide how I'm going to live and how you're going to live and even how we're going to behave, whether male or female. No. Grace to overcome that, to be faithful unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace even to overcome sins if our children might fall into that sin, to be rescued from that sin, and to be brought back to the path of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, to walk in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Look to Christ, beloved, for that grace which will protect us and conquer and overcome the world, grace which brings peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by faith alone, within the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. By that faith, beloved, go to the Lord's throne of grace daily in prayer, seeking that God will continue to grant you a rich measure of his grace to train up your children in the fear of the Lord, even in regard to your children's gender as they grow up in this very wicked world. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father who art in heaven, we look to thee for strength. We might resist the wickedness of this present world, which grows in iniquity and pride against thee, even the basic creation ordinances thou hast set, being male or female, according to thy will and good providence. Thankful, Father, for the instruction of thy word, that in the beginning Thou didst make man male and female, and so even today Thou didst, by Thy providence, give unto us that gift to us as Thy sons and daughters in Jesus Christ. Grant us much grace to be faithful, to resist the devil and his dominion, to overcome the works of darkness, and by thy grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, to shine with the light of thy word. Out of that faith, to live in all obedience and good works, even in regards to the seventh commandment, in the single life and in the married life, according to thy will. This we ask in Jesus' name alone, amen.