Sermon Tone Analysis

Covenant Marriage

February 15, 2004

 

*Scripture:* Song 2:1-13

 

This is the day after Valentine’s Day.

We celebrate love on Valentine’s Day.

The kids gave out Valentine’s Day tracts last Sunday.

Perhaps you got one.

It told you that God is love.

But perhaps you also got a valentine from your spouse or a special friend if you are not married.

We know from the Bible that God is love.

“ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

(1 John 4:8 NIVUS)

 

We also know from the Bible that God wants us to love one another.

“34  "A new command I give you: Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

35  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."”

(John 13:34-35 NIVUS)

 

But for the world to go ‘round, God created romantic love between a man and a woman.

We find it in the Song of Solomon that we read this morning.

The famous church father, Origen, could not believe the Song of Solomon was a hymn to physical love and intimacy, so he allegorized it.

He felt that Solomon used the language of romantic love between a man and a woman to describe something deeper – that the book was really expressing what it meant for the Christian to love God with the whole heart, soul, mind and strength – that the bride is the Christian or the church itself burning with heavenly love for the Word of God symbolized by the bridegroom.

But either way, the one validates the other.

All of life in Christ is one big panorama of truth that fits perfectly together.

Romantic marital love pictures our relationship to God in Christ, and the nature of our relationship to God in Christ is exemplified in how he created us to relate to one another as husband and wife.

“22  Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

23  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

24  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26  to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27  and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

28  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

29  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30  for we are members of his body.

31  "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."

32  This is a profound mystery— but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

(Ephesians 5:22-32 NIVUS)

 

For the Christian, all this teaches romantic love the way God intended it to be – between one man and one woman for life – or we could also say between one God and one person for eternal life.

Now it is God’s desire for mankind to have children – to be fruitful and multiply.

We find it in the first account about mankind in the Garden of Eden during creation.

“27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28  God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."”

(Genesis 1:27-28 NIVUS)

 

Romantic married love is God’s way of keeping the parents in a family together for the good of the children and all succeeding generations.

“ Has not /the LORD/ made them one?

In flesh and spirit they are his.

And why one?

Because he was seeking godly offspring.

So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.”

(Malachi 2:15 NIVUS)

 

The quality of life, indeed even life itself is dependent upon this holy, God-ordained bond of marriage that is as much spiritual as it is physical.

To ignore this is assuredly catastrophic.

“5  "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

6  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."”

(Malachi 4:5-6 NIVUS)

 

When a romantic bond moves beyond interest toward fulfillment, it becomes marriage when combined with promise, commitment and accountability.

Marriage has been universally recognized in all cultures of man, and in all generations of man, as what it takes to make society work, and the Bible explicitly teaches it.

“2  But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

3  The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.

4  The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.

In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

5  Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.

Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

(1 Corinthians 7:2-5 NIVUS)

 

For the Christian, marriage involves an oath of a man and a woman before Almighty God to honor, cherish, and submit to each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, till death comes.

But marriage in our nation, and even in the church, is in trouble these days - not to mention morality in general.

Liberal forces are attempting to redefine marriage out of commonly understood existence.

Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco defied a 2000 state law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman by authorizing the city clerk to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples by changing application forms to read ‘first applicant’ and ‘second applicant’.

So the U.S. saw the first gay marriage in California this last Thursday between two very old women who should know better.

And for several weeks now, the state government of Massachusetts has been wrangling over what to do about the order by activist judges to allow gay marriage.

Fortunately, the majority of MA residents are not in favor of allowing gay marriage.

There have been many recent attacks on marriage by renegade judges.

Two notable cases have come to the forefront recently ---

 

/The first case concerns Cheryl Clark, a former lesbian, now a Christian.

Clark’s former partner, Elsey McLeod, sued for joint custody of Clark’s adopted daughter after Clark left their relationship.

The judge ruled in McLeod’s favor on the grounds that she had been a “psychological parent.”

As Clark’s lawyer, James Rouse, stated, McLeod “is being treated like a divorcing spouse even though they aren’t and can’t be married in the state of Colorado.

The trial court has effectively skipped the ‘gay marriage’ issue and gone to ‘gay divorce.’”/

/            And that’s not all.

At McLeod’s request, the court also barred Clark from exposing her daughter to any Christian materials or teaching “that can be considered homophobic.”

So Clark could be found in contempt of court for studying the Bible with her daughter or taking her to church.

Fortunately, Clark is appealing this outrageous decision./

/ /

/The second case is equally bizarre.

After David Blanchflower divorced his wife, Sian, because of adultery, Sian appealed the case, arguing that her lesbian relationship wasn’t adultery.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in her favor, finding that the state’s laws didn’t include same-sex relationships in the definition of adultery./

/            Even gay activists are upset about this one, arguing that it portrays homosexual relationships as less “significant.”

One advocacy group wrote in a “friend of the court” brief, “New Hampshire courts should treat gay adultery the same no matter the gender of the person with whom the spouse engages in an extramarital relationship.”/

/            Clearly, Sian was unfaithful to her marriage vows, but I think they’re missing the larger point.

It’s not just that gay adultery is treated differently; it’s that homosexuality in general is treated differently.

It is given preferential treatment in both of these cases./

Thirty eight states, including IL, have passed Defense of Marriage acts with the states of AK, HA, NE, and NV going further with constitutional amendments defining and protecting traditional marriage.

Just like there is a majority opposed to abortion in this nation, and partial birth abortion in particular, there is a majority opposed to gay marriage, but activist judges are attempting to make laws rather than interpret them in good faith.

Precariously, this moral majority is slim.

/USA// TODAY// reports 53% of Americans would oppose a law allowing homosexuals to legally marry, while only 24% would favor it.

/

 

We must make our voices heard by calls and votes to lawmakers before morality slips below the threshold of no return.

Even in the church, traditional morality is suffering extreme abuse as mainline Protestants wrangle with the issue of moral credibility regarding homosexual clergy and the sanctioning of gay marriages.

Much of our problem is our own fault – as a nation and as a church.

Columnist, Dennis Byrne, in his article, “Majority rules: Here’s the way marriage ought to be,” Chgo.

Trib., 2~/9~/04, p. 15 writes:

 

          /“If the majority of Americans want to stop same-sex marriage from undermining the institution of marriage – as polls say they do – then maybe those many Americans themselves ought to start showing more respect for heterosexual marriage.

/

/Too bad that so many don’t.

Judging by the last census figures, you might suspect that many Americans hold marriage in contempt.