The Perfect Marriage

Why does Satan hate marriage so much?  

These words are God's answer to marriage and divorce. 

These words are not meant to discourage but to encourage.  God is wanting to work in our lives.   

Matthew 19:3-8 NKJV

3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” 

(Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?)

4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read (the Bible) that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 

5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined (yoked together like two oxen working together) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 

(Do you think that Jesus exaggerates about them being one flesh?)  No!  

6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” 

(Jesus's answer to their question was no.) 

   

John 1:17 NKJV

17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

In the Bible, Moses represents the law, but Jesus represents grace.  We would think that the law says that you can't do that, and grace would say that it's okay, but it's just the opposite.  Grace says no.  You're in a covenant with God and your spouse in your marriage. You must work it out.   

1. Marriage represents God.

This was their second question...

7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”

This was Jesus's answer to their second question.  

 8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

In every divorce there is at least one person with a hard heart. In Moses day, men were marrying second and third wives, but not divorcing their previous wives and not caring for them.  

Their previous wives weren't able to take care of their own needs in their primitive society; therefore, Moses was saying to give them a document of divorce for them to remarry for their own survival. 

Genesis 1:26 New King James Version (NKJV)

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Here is God's Trinity represented by using the word "us".  Both male and female together is the image of God because it reflects God's Trinity. It is not any man and any woman, but it reflects a marriage of a man and a woman. Marriage is the image of God on the earth.  

Satan hates marriage because it is the image of God on the earth.  Satan did not attack Adam.  He attacked marriage because it is a reflection of God's image upon the earth.  

If the Trinity is 3 persons in 1 and marriage is 2 persons in 1. How can marriage reflect God's image?  The three persons in marriage is the husband, wife, and God Himself.  These 3 persons in 1 is marriage. That's the only way that marriage works. 

The husband and wife are individuals in unity.  In the Trinity, there are three individuals in perfect unity. 

2. Marriage represents Christ and the Church.

Ephesians 5:31-33 NKJV

31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 

33 Nevertheless let each one of you (a picture of Christ) in particular so love his own wife as himself , and let the wife (a picture of the Church) see that she respects her husband. 

Suppose your trying to lead someone to Christ and they ask how will God treat me?  Say God is going to treat you in the same way that I treat my spouse.  Our marriage is an earthly representation of Christ to His Church. 

Jesus got upset about divorce. Would it be okay for the Trinity to get divorced? There is no male or female in Christ (Galatians 3:28). God plays no favorites.

3. Marriage represents covenant.

Malachi 2:14 NKJV

14 Yet you say, “For what reason?” Because the Lord has been witness Between you and the wife of your youth, With whom you have dealt treacherously;Yet she is your companion And your wife by covenant.

In a contract, you are trying to protect your rights and limit your responsibilities. In covenant, we give up our rights, and we pick up our responsibilities. 

If a lost people asks, how can I know how God will take care of me?  Tell them that they are making a covenant with God.  You can say look how I and my wife take care of each other because we are in a covenant too.  

Marriage is an example of the new covenant not the old.  In the old testament, God's part was to protect, provide, and bless.  Your part is to be perfect. 

God was giving us the standard of perfection to get us frustrated enough to come to Christ. God never wanted a legalistic relationship but a loving one. 

In the new testament or the new covenant, God's part was to protect, provide, and  bless. Your part is to trust Christ to live for you the life that you could never live, and to die for you the death that you should have died.  That's how we come into the new covenant with God. 

That's how covenant works with our spouse.  We keep our part whether they do or not.  Say Holy Spirit what are you saying to me in these words?  

It's okay for us to struggle.  We live in a fallen world and Satan is attacking us.  Say Lord, we give to you our lives and our marriage as Lord and Savior.  Only you can save us. You are the only one who can.  

Notes taken from Robert Morris, Gateway Church, The Blessed Marriage.

http://gatewaypeople.com/ministries/life/events/blessed-families-a-gateway-series/session/2018/10/20/the-blessed-marriage