We appreciate the special singing tonight. We are glad to have all of these young people join the folks from Alabama to sing tonight. Even Mr. Melsom. We didn't know if Mr. Melsom would be here or if he would be quarantined somewhere. Well, we were very happy to hear the day begin. Our brother Brame was giving some lessons in pronunciation. He was saying, y'all. How many here know the plural of that? All y'all. That's right. Just to see how knowledgeable you are. How many people here Knows what I mean when I say arn. Some of you, if you were to see an arn in board, then you might understand. So, we are very glad that you are being properly educated. Well, we are going to turn in God's Word tonight to Genesis chapter 2. I have to confess that I have come to love Genesis chapter 2. And it's wonderful to know that after the completed creation of six days, there was a chapter that spoke of things in a perfect state. Let me dispense with the French, all of that. I do appreciate the opportunity to be here and I appreciate all the work that has been done to make the preparations for this camp and to see to all of those meticulous things that must be attended to. So we are very grateful to Brother Brame Dr. Allison and Brother Starr and all those, Brett and all the others who work on the programs, the games and stuff. There's a lot of work that goes into a camp and seeing it in good operation. And let me say how relieved that I am as an old man not to have to do such. So it is a great blessing to be here. to enter into the labors of others. We're going to read tonight from Genesis chapter two, beginning with verse fifteen. Let us give careful attention to the word of God. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make and help meet or fitting proper, suitable for him." And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found and help, meat, fit, suitable or proper for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. And he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Amen. We end our reading at this interesting portion of God's Word and trust that the Lord will bless it to our hearts tonight for Jesus' sake. Let us all ask the Lord to bless us tonight, for certainly we all need a blessing. Let us pray. Oh, God, our Father, We would dare to venture into Thy holy presence only in and through the blood and righteousness of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. O Lord, we confess with Thy Word, with Thy servant Isaiah, that we are all as an unclean thing. Oh, Lord, we confess our corruption. We confess that we are so naturally filthy, so unworthy to draw nigh to thee. But, oh, God, we praise thee that we are not coming to thee tonight on the basis of our worthiness, but we are coming as sinners against God, pleading the mighty name of our Redeemer. Lord, we pray for the everlasting glory of Thy name, that Thou wilt minister to us in this gathering. O Lord, we pray that Thou wilt not let one sinner go away from this meeting untouched and unblessed. O Lord, I pray that Thou wilt come and quicken me and bless me. And Lord, we pray that Thou wilt not let the most stubborn nor stout-hearted escape the cutting edge of Thy holy, eternal and infallible truth. Lord, we pray that Thou wilt save precious souls. We pray that Thou wilt revive Thy people. O Lord, we pray for a real quickening in all of our hearts. We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast demonstrated afresh the goodness of Thy providence in causing the storms to pass by. And Lord, we pray that Thy good hand would be upon us in the things of the Spirit of God tonight. And bless us, O Lord, even in the outward circumstances, in the weather. Lord, we pray that Thou would hear us for the namesake of thy well-beloved Son, Jesus. Amen. Amen. that it was the very same day that they were made, or very close to that time that they fell into sin. Well, we do not know exactly how long Adam and Eve were together before Satan deceived Eve. But we do know that God has given us the completed creation in chapter one, and then this wonderful second chapter, that gives to us this perfectly made creation, an unfallen creation, and also an unfallen and a perfectly married couple. Now, some of you here may not be morning people. How many people here are not morning people? A lot of you are not morning people. I have a child that is very distinctly not a morning person. And I can't understand that because I don't like to get out of bed in the morning, but it's still okay to be happy in the morning. Well, how many of you can remember awakening at any time in your experience and the golden rays of the sun have flooded into your chamber and you are delighted and you cannot but praise the Lord and lift up your voice in joyful gratitude. How many could actually say at any time with the hymn writer, when morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking cries, may Jesus Christ be praised. Perhaps some of you have actually experienced that. Well, can you imagine what it was like when Adam, our father, awakened from his first sleep ever and saw before him God's perfect creation brought to him. Man, that was something, and I believe that was the first time that Adam went to sleep, and when he woke up, he began to wax very eloquent in his Hebrew poetry. He said, wow, wow, wow, woman. That's what I'll call her. And so you notice in verse 23, Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken. out of man. Now, very seriously, do we not see in this making of a woman a glorious picture of the gospel of our Savior? For Adam, when he went to sleep the first time, it was for the purpose of this glorious bride being made for him and even from him. And Adam, by lying down in sleep, awakens to have presented to Him a bride without blemish, spot or wrinkle. She was holy and glorious. As Adam had never slept before, so God had never died before. Now let me speak carefully and reverently. Christ the God-man, having assumed a true human nature, lay down His life once to taste death for us in order to gain His bride, His glorious church, holy and without blemish. Now, this week, we have been thinking about what it means to trust in the Lord for our salvation, to know Him, to learn to trust Him for everything in our lives. Well, I have to confess that I came here not knowing what I was going to preach. And the Lord only made it clear, as our brother McClellan last night was preaching, that we should trust the Lord even in regard to a life's partner according to his will. So tonight we must think a little on this vital matter of completely relying on our loving Christ to provide in his way, in his time and in his will, a life partner for you. We will look a little then at verse 22 of Genesis chapter 2. Verse 22, "...and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, He made a woman and brought her unto the man." Now, we must always keep in mind that human marriage is not an ultimate relationship. The ultimate relationship, of course, is the marriage of Christ and his church. It is that vital union and it is that glorious communion that abides between the saint and his savior. Now, Christ told us as much when he was teaching in his ministry upon the earth. He said that the eternal state is not to be confused with the present state, for there, there is no marrying and giving in marriage. Look, there is something that is ultimate, and we are looking forward to the glorious fullness, the marriage supper of the Lamb, the privilege of being a part of His wife, His bride, The church now. We're looking at this matter of Genesis two and marriage, human marriage is only a dim picture of the blessed reality of Christ's union with his bride, the church now in that. Garden of Eden in the perfect state, human marriage was holy, it was happy, it was heavenly and it was harmonious. But understand, we are no longer in the Garden of Eden. And there is the very real possibility that you, young people, any of us, could find that marriage is more like hell than heaven. It is a very important issue. And you had better make sure that you get the very explicit will of God in that matter. We are living in the 21st century. And marriage as an institution ordained by God is under attack from many angles by the powers of darkness. The attack on marriage is a general attack on marriage, but it is especially an attack on Christian marriage. Now, understand this, that this attack on marriage is carried on by many fronts. Did you ever in your life see such an awful evil that's more hell spawned than sodomy and lesbianism? These evils strike directly at God's covenant grace and would try to annihilate God's holy seed of a covenant people from the earth by doing what is even below the animal creation, marrying a male to a male. and a female to a female, thus ending human life on earth. That's the real purpose of it. It's devil inspired. For from such foul relationships, there results no holy seed, no children on the earth. Now, these devilish movements have been aided by the popular culture of the mid 20th century, in particular the rock and roll coming on strong, hippie culture, free love. And I would just say that the free love of all that period was nothing but a hypocritical response to the hypocritical marriages of so many lost Americans who only stayed together in order to save face and maintain some semblance of respectability in society. And that has produced the awful live-in, non-committed relationships that ten million Americans are involved in right now. Imagine that. Ten million Americans. I'm going to confess. I preached this message last Lord's Day with a few minor changes, and I was stunned When an older couple, I had never seen them before on the face of the earth, came after the service and confessed for 30 minutes after the service was dismissed that the Lord had spoken directly to their situation in their 70s. Well, well, besides the queer movement and the shack up movements, divorce is the third force that destroys marriage. For half of all those who do actually choose a real marriage, half of them end up in divorce. What can be done? While we believe that legislating morality as Christians is right and that we should do all that can be done in our power to get a marriage bill through Congress stating that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, The rest of the answer is what we've been thinking about here is knowing the Lord. It is trusting him. It is walking with him. It is practicing God's truth ourselves and teaching the generations to come. Now, we thought about the trouble that marriage is in right now in our country. But we must remember that the 20th century jerk failed miserably. Let me say that again. The 20th century church failed miserably in America and in so much of the rest of the world. To maintain the biblical teaching of former generations on the matter of marriage. You may not like the Puritans. Some of you folks are from New England and you Eastern Coast people. You can thank God for the Puritans, because America has been so mightily influenced by what God did through the Puritan movement. Hallelujah. Well, we have sadly, even in professed Bible believing churches, turned from doctrine and devotion to flirting with the world. and fashion in the 20th century. Not only did the church fail to teach the old reform doctrines and practices by the power of the Holy Ghost, the professing church has left behind the old historic Christian Bible teachings and descended into the dark abyss of the world's dating game. Now, let me just say, look in the Bible. You say, preacher, you're crazy. You've gone off your rocker. Look in the Bible. Where are we to get our understanding of what we are to do? Are we to get it from the world? Are we just supposed to be a little bit behind the way the world is? That's not Christianity. The world is not to set our standards. It's God's holy word. The world's dating game is no more biblical and Christian than casino gambling is. Understand that the dating game is no more biblical nor Christian than casino gambling is. If you can find where I should be active in casino gambling, then I will tell my children, go out and start looking in your concordance. OK, now then. It is high time for professing Christians to reexamine the Scriptures, to determine how our young people are to get their life partners. It cannot be left as it has been left for generations now in our churches to just hopefully somehow work out for the best. Let us examine again the foundational truths of marriage in God's Word. And here, there's no better place to begin than in Genesis chapter two. In verse 22, I want us to notice especially the end of that verse 22. It's saying that God brought her unto the man. That is the thought that I want the Lord to put in your minds so you can never forget it. God brought her unto the man. There are five implications I want to briefly speak about. And believe me, in five minutes, I'll be through with that. But then we'll have an application. OK, first of all, the Lord gives his permission to Adam and Eve to marry. That's very obvious. The Lord brought the woman to the man. Second implication, God ordained marriage as the way that mankind would fill the earth. He said in Genesis 127, he 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. The Lord says, fill the earth. with human beings. It is the responsibility of God's people to fill the earth with godly children. All right. The third implication from this verse, in true marriage, it is the Lord who makes the match. It is not our doing. Now, here is something that we need to get very firmly set in our hearts. The scheming of our heads The plotting of our hearts is not to be what gets our last partner. It is the doing of the Lord God Himself in person. I better reiterate that. True marriage is the Lord Himself making the match. You wonder where I got these? Thomas Manton. OK, number four. God blessed Adam and Eve at their wedding covenant. Genesis 1 and verse 28, and God blessed them. And God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Well, no couple had dared enter in the estate of holy matrimony without the direction of God. And I can promise you, It won't be holy. It won't be heavenly. It won't be harmonious and happy. Without the blessing of God, there can be no comfort. There can be no real happiness abiding in the home. The last implication is this. In Genesis 2.22, when God brought Eve to Adam in marriage, we have a pattern set for all of providential history. It is God's will and plan for one man to be married to one woman. Christ referred back to this account in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 19, and there He was telling the Jews who were, by their tradition, establishing a veritable polygamy. Divorce for any reason gets you a new one. That was a polygamy. The Lord was making it very clear as He referred back in the beginning, it was not so. between shall be one. Now, understand this, that the Lord Jesus Christ, our God, when man was made, did not intend for man to have more than one wife. It would have certainly been Adam. That was the perfect point in history. That was the logical place. If Adam was to have If Adam's descendants were to have more than one wife, that would have been the place to begin, because in history there would have been no better point for God to have introduced it since it was for God's glory that the human race fill the earth with human beings. If Adam had many wives, there would have been a speedier fulfilling of God's holy plan of filling the earth with people. And what a powerful argument then our Savior made from Genesis two for monogamy and against polygamy and divorce. Well, you may be wondering at this point, Preacher, why are you talking about this here in this meeting tonight? Well, I hope you'll see. Whether you are married, whether you are planning to be married, whether you hope to be married or whether you hope never to be married or you think you'll never be married or whatever. I want to tell you there's something here for every one of us. And I want you to get this. We're coming down toward the application. As we begin to draw this message to a conclusion, we must understand that if marriage is going to be holy, if it's going to be pleasing to the Lord, the man and the woman must have the overpowering and the awesome consciousness that they are given to one another by God's hand. I'm going to tell you that again. You are to have a happy life as being a married person on this earth. You and your spouse both must have the overpowering, awesome consciousness that you have been brought together by God. And I'm going to say this. Oh, what a blessing it is to know that. I confess that so many of us went about the world's wicked way of playing the dating game, and well, the Lord had mercy upon us, and so many of God's people can confess that they know, in spite of the circumstances and all that surrounds it, that the providential hand of God brought them together for this purpose on the earth. Both the man and the woman must be very careful to seek God in His Word and in prayer. And you don't pray about it once. You make it a matter of prayer and seeking the Lord about. Both man and woman must wait on the Lord and they must wait until they have the full consent of both their families. Each of them then must make sure that they're depending upon God's providence and not on trying to steal a mate by plotting sinfully and selfishly, there must be no alluring the partner by carnal means. But all efforts put forth to obtain the partner must be in reverence to the Lord, must be in submission to His will, and must be undertaken only for the glory of God now and forever. There must be in the whole process, and here is where it touches every one of us, there must be a dying to self. There must be this awesome experience of the Lord bringing us to the point of absolute surrender of ourselves, of our heart, of our very life itself. Every one of us must be brought to experience what the hymn writer said and meant. Dear desire, self-will, resign. In such a surrender, we must be willing to submit to God's will, to be content, to be happy, to live a single life for the rest of our days, if that's what God wants us to do. The idol of self must be smashed to pieces. The idol of having another person must be forever broken to pieces and lying before us in ruins at our feet. We must earnestly and honestly give ourselves to Christ to be his devoted and perpetual love slaves. You will never be happy until that happens in your life. You can look for your happiness in a person. You can look for your happiness in things and you will never find it. You will never find it. And that is the heartbreaking reality that so many people will never find it because they're looking for happiness and they will not submit themselves to Jesus Christ. They will not surrender. They will not give themselves to Jesus Christ alone. And you can't be happy any other way. It's amazing to read the testimonies of God's saints down through the centuries, and I dare say you could even hear the testimonies of some of God's saints here, that it was only when the Lord brought them to that resignation that they were willing to give up their will and they were willing to do God's will, no matter what the cost, that then And only then did God give them a life mate. Hallelujah. Well, you must be willing to die to self. You must even as you submit yourself to the Lord, look forward to a single life and see what God the Lord will do. For the Lord is God. He is the Lord alone. He hates idolatry. He will not tolerate idolatry. He will not bless idolatry in our lives as long as we have the idol of ourselves upon the throne of our lives. Or if we put another sort of raft around our idol and we bow before that idol, the Lord will not bless us. We will be miserable. Can we not see it clearly? The world rejects the Lord. The Lord rejects the crown rights of King Jesus. The Lord's sovereignty is over us, but the world hates that sovereignty. They will not have this man to reign over them. Will you have this man to reign over you? That's the question. Will you have this man, Christ Jesus, to reign over you? Or are you going to say with the rest of the world, this man will not reign over me? You're no better than a sodomite. OK, let's get to this. I'm running a little ahead of myself, but that point I'm going to drive home with the help of the Lord. All right. Now, can we not see it? The Lord is worthy of our love. He loves us so tenderly. He loves us with an everlasting love. And it was that love that brought Him down to this earth for us, even to the very dust of death for you and for me. He has passionately and lovingly given us His soul poured out unto death, His very lifeblood, His all to redeem us to Himself. And now He is lovingly drawing us to Himself through His Word. by His Holy Spirit. All He wants in return is our heart. He wants our heart, our highest love lavished back upon Him in praise, in devotion, and in obedience. We have thought about divorce, polygamy, living together, filthy immorality, sodomy, and lesbianism, and even the thought Of some of these gross things cause some of us here to shiver. Hallelujah. The thoughts of such things cause some people here just a shiver and a shudder. Well, but let us understand. That when we come right down to it, the sin of idolatry, either inside or outside of marriage, is just as horribly wicked and an abomination to the Lord as is sodomy. The great issue is the heart. Who has our heart? Is our heart given to Christ or do we selfishly hold on to our hearts? Do we keep ourselves as our idol, or will we smash that idol and beg the Lord in his grace and mercy to sit upon the throne of our hearts as our Lord and Savior? Well, how dare we ruin another person's life by joining with them our wicked Selfishness and idolatry, if you're not submitted to the Lord, you can hurt and destroy and ruin somebody else's life by taking such an unsanctified and putrid life and joining it to someone that may even be desirous of following the Lord. Psalm 51 always is appropriate for us. The Lord Jesus Christ has given Himself the great sacrifice for our sins. But He tells us in Romans chapter 12 and verse 1, we are pressed by the Apostle Paul to present ourselves, our bodies, living sacrifices, wholly acceptable unto God. What is the acceptable sacrifice? Oh, we do well to go off into Psalm 51, for what is it that the Lord would have of us? The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh, God, thou wilt not despise. God will not despise a broken spirit, a broken heart, a contrite heart. For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased through Jesus Christ. Have you come to the place where you have died to yourself? Have you said, Lord, I want you to be the sovereign over every area of my life? I hope so, because that's the way to be truly happy, to be content, to be a joyful Christian, to be a real Christian. You will be miserable if you live your life without being broken, a broken vessel beneath the feet of our loving Savior. Let's bow our heads and pray. Oh, Lord, we do pray that thou will take thy word. Oh, Lord, we pray that thou will touch our hearts. We pray that thou will deliver us. from the selfishness, deliver us from the idolatry. O God, we pray that Thou wilt change lives, make those who are so self-conscious transformed into those who are God conscious. O Lord Jesus, we love Thee. for wearing the thorns on Thy brow. We pray that Thou wilt apply generously Thy cross work to all of our hearts. We pray in Thy holy name, Amen. Amen.