God’s Original Blueprint for Marriage (Part 1)

Cultural Norms That Conflict With God’s Will

2.23.2025

Introduction

Hebrews 13:4 (NLT)

Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

Over the next few weeks, I want to talk about Marriage – God’s Original Blueprint For Marriage.

Today – Cultural Norms That Conflict With God’s Will.

Susan and I will be married for 46 years on September 22.

Marriage as it has been defined for thousands of years is under attack.

When you dishonor marriage, you ruin a culture…

The world has changed since we were married in 1979. But, our personal values have NOT changed.

In this series, we’re going to address the following questions:

What do you think about marriage?

If you are not married and want to be married, what in your mind makes a good marriage that lasts?

If you are married, how do you deal with differences that produce friction?

If you are divorced, what do you think God thinks about divorce? How do you deal with your children after divorce?

If you are married to a person who is not a Christian, how do you show them the change Jesus has brought into your life?

How do you make marriage a pleasant experience?

Why did God create the relationship called marriage in the first place?

Does God recognize same-sex marriage?

How do you solve problems that come up in marriage?

Email me your questions about marriage! [email protected]

We’re going to cover:

The current cultural climate and then contrast that to what God says. (I have some quotes from the year we were married that are shocking).

What it means to be One Flesh

The Role of the Woman in the Home

The Role of the Man in the Home

The Glue That Keeps Marriage Together – Unconditional Love

Good Communication

Married to a Non-Christian?

Divorce, Remarriage, and the Bible

Sex – The Gauge of Your Marriage Closeness

Today:

The current cultural climate in contrast to what God says.

Marriage was God’s Idea.

God’s idea of marriage and family life is not:

-Two roommates sharing a house.

-Several ladies sharing an apartment.

-Several men sharing an apartment.

-A homosexual or lesbian couple sharing a house.

The world system has nothing to do with God’s value system.

It is controlled by the spirit of Antichrist and is anti morality,

anti monogamous marriage, anti self-control, anti long range

relational planning, and anti family!

The World system is based on atheism, evolution, relative

values, and amorality.

It is an AntiChrist system that leaves God and the Bible out of

human relationships!

God’s idea of family is based on the concept of

heterosexual marriage.

Hetero is from the Greek word Heteros which means

different or other.

Genesis 2:15-25 (NLT)

15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 16 But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.

21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

23 “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” 24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

God NEVER created a male to marry a male, or a female to marry a female!

A great definition of marriage:

One man and one woman united spiritually, emotionally, physically, publicly and legally, in a lifetime bond of loyal love, for procreation, channeling sexual and emotional energy, and serving as a civilizing and stabilizing factor in society.

– I Never Thought I’d See the Day by David Jeremiah, p. 110

Marriage creates a family that is intended by God to be the incubator of human personality.

Think about it:

Young animals survive on their own in a few weeks or months – chicken/kitten/puppy.

A human baby is fed a few months by its mother and then must undergo years of training at home before that child is ready to go out on its own.

God’s original family plan included a male father and female mother creating a nurturing environment for human personality to grow and thrive.

Nothing can take the place of the home environment of a loving mother and father who nurture a child in an atmosphere of love.

The Shema

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NLT)

Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Mezuzah)

Malachi 2:15 (AMPC)

And did not God make [you and your wife] one [flesh]? Did not One make you and preserve your spirit alive? And why [did God make you two] one? Because He sought a godly offspring [from your union]. Therefore take heed to yourselves, and let no one deal treacherously and be faithless to the wife of his youth.

Jesus was raised in a home with a mother and a father.

Matthew 1:20-21 (NLT)

As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus,for he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 1:24 (NLT)

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.

Luke 2:51-52

Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart. 52 Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

If God knew that His incarnate Son needed to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad, then it must be really important!

God chose Abraham because He would raise His family to honor God.

Genesis 18:17-19 (NLT)

Should I hide my plan from Abraham?” the Lord asked. 18 “For Abraham will certainly become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. 19 I have singled him out so that he will direct his sons and their families to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then I will do for Abraham all that I have promised.”

The Revisionists’ Ideas of Marriage and Family Will Destroy America.

Before there was a nation, a government, or a church, there was a heterosexual marriage.

Without a family based on heterosexual marriage, there is no ability to pass values to the next generation.

Without the foundation of heterosexual marriage, there is no way to communicate values and discipline to children.

So, every generation carries the seeds of its own demise.

A quote from many years ago…

http://www.familypolicyinstitute.com/fpi/deathofmarriage.pdf

Louis P. Sheldon is the founder of the Traditional Values Coalition. He wrote an article many years ago entitled The Destruction Of Marriage Precedes The Death Of A Culture.

And I want to give you a few quotes from this article written many years ago.

In his 1979 book, Our Dance Has Turned To Death, Christian sociologist Carl W. Wilson outlined the dangers facing traditional marriage and the family in America’s increasingly sexualized culture. Wilson could clearly see what was going to happen to the American family if our society continued to be sex-saturated.

Wilson noted that history reveals that nations decline and eventually die when sexual immorality becomes rampant and the traditional family is discarded in favor of group sex, homosexuality, infidelity, and unrestrained sexual hedonism. He pointed to the writings of British anthropologist J. D. Unwin, whose 1934 book, Sex and Culture, chronicled the historical decline of numerous cultures. Unwin studied 86 different cultures throughout history and discovered a surprising fact: No nation that rejected monogamy in marriage and premarital sexual chastity lasted longer than a generation after it embraced sexual hedonism. Unwin stated it this way, “In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence.” [Or, self-control both before and after marriage].

Unwin found that nations that valued traditional marriage and sexual abstinence were creative and flourished. He described this as “cultural energy” that can only be maintained when sexual activities remain restricted within marriage.

Sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, in The American Sex Revolution, found essentially the same thing when he examined sexual immorality as it relates to cultural decline. Sorokin noted in the late 60’s that America was committing “voluntary suicide” through unrestrained sexual indulgence. He observed that as individuals began engaging in premarital sex unrelated to marriage, the birth rate would decline and our nation would be slowly depopulated. He predicted an increase in divorce, desertion, and an epidemic of sexual promiscuity resulting in a rise in illegitimate children. His predictions, unfortunately, have come true.

Sorokin’s study of decadent cultures convinced him that a healthy society can only survive if strong families exist and sexual activities are restricted to within marriage. Sexual promiscuity leads inevitably to cultural decline and eventual collapse.

Carl Wilson notes that decadent cultures display seven typical characteristics: Men reject spiritual and moral development as the leaders of families; men begin to neglect their families in search of material gain; men begin to engage in adulterous relationships or homosexual sex; women begin to devalue the role of motherhood and homemaker; husbands and wives begin to compete with each other and families disintegrate; selfish individualism fragments society into warring factions; and men and women lose faith in God and reject all authority over their lives. Soon, moral anarchy reigns. When the family collapses, the society soon follows.

If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. And, once the decline begins, it will be very difficult to turn things around.

Marriage Definition:

Marriage is a Covenant We Make Before God to Give Another Person the Companionship They Need In Order To Prevent Loneliness.

Genesis 2:18-20 (NLT)

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.

Genesis 2:24 (NKJV)

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

A covenant of companionship

Proverbs 2:16-17 (NKJV)

To deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, 17 Who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.

Malachi 2:14 (NKJV)

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.

Marriage is a Covenant of Companionship.

It parallels our relationship to Jesus.

Ephesians 5:22-32 (NLT)

For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. 25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body. 31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

Action Points

1. Make a decision to fight for your marriage!
2. Talk to your children about the origin of marriage and why it is important.
3. Pray for marriages.
4. Do your ideas of marriage and God’s original intention for marriage agree?

Homosexual and lesbian marriage are doomed to failure.

1. Do you see marriage as a covenant of companionship?

When Susan and I first married 46 years ago, we talked about problems that would

arise, and determined to never look to divorce as a solution to problems.

1. If marriage is a model of Jesus’ relationship and commitment to the church, what do

I need to change in the way I treat my spouse?