16 July 2023 AM – Genesis 2:24 – Worldview – Scott Childs
Introduction: During our study of the Biblical worldview of God, we established that man is moral (i.e., man has an innate sense of right and wrong). Such morality must come from a moral Being who is the absolute authority. That Being must be God.
While God created Adam and Eve innocent, He also gave them a free will or ability to choose to obey or disobey. God did not make them robots because He wanted their love, fellowship and worship to be voluntary, rather than forced upon them.
In their innocence, Adam and Eve did not know good and evil. All they knew was perfect, holy harmony with God. The Garden of Eden, their home, was perfect in every way, with thousands of fruits, vegetables and seeds to eat. In that paradise, God placed a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from it, or they would die.
They understood exactly what God said, but Satan, through a talking serpent, lied to Eve, and deceived her into eating, and Adam joined her. At that moment, they lost their innocence and perfection, plunged the human race into sin, and came to know good and evil by experience.
Humans still have an innate sense of morality, but many today are trying to live amoral lives (i.e., claiming that there are no moral laws from an absolute authority). By this relative thinking, they claim to be their own moral authority. In reality, by rejecting God’s absolute authority, they are living immoral lives.
Transition: While morality covers all areas of right and wrong, this morning we are going to focus primarily on sexual morality. I want us to have a clearly biblical worldview of sexual morality.
1. God has the right to make moral rules.
a. He is the creator of all that exists.
1) We saw this in Genesis 1:1.
2) Since God created us, we are accountable to Him.
3) If God does not exist, and all things are evolving from nothing, no rule-giver or rules exist. Evolution is subtly promoting mass murders, sexual immorality, and the breakdown of marriage and the family.
b. As creator of all, God has set the rules.
1) God has every right to set the rules because we belong to Him.
2) Being righteous, God’s rules are all righteous.
3) Because He loves us, God’s rules are for our good.
2. God has made His moral rules clear in the Bible.
a. God ordained marriage (Genesis 2:22-25).
1) A biblical marriage will provide leadership, love, security, companionship, and stability.
2) God placed man as the leader in marriage (Genesis 2:22-24). The husband is to be the head of his home as a loving leader, but not as a harsh dictator. (Ephesians 5:25-27) “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.“
3) God said that marriage is a voluntary union. God did not make marriage mandatory, but He did restrict all sexual intimacy to marriage. (1 Corinthians 7:1-2) “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.“
4) God said that marriage was to be heterosexual (i.e., a union of a man and a woman). Any other union is a perversion of God’s plan.
5) God said that marriage was to be monogamous (i.e., one man and one woman, not polygamy) (cf., Deu 17:17).
6) God said that marriage forms a new family unit as the couple leave father and mother. Jesus affirmed this. (Matthew 19:5-6) “And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?“
7) God said that marriage was a permanent bond, as the husband cleaves to his wife. Jesus affirmed this as well. (Matthew 19:6) “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). If you have been through the pain of divorce, you ought to hate it too. If you will confess it as sin, God will forgive.
8) God said that marriage is a one-flesh union sealed by God (Matthew 19:6, above).
9) Marriage is God’s plan for producing offspring (Psalm 127:3). Children are a blessing, not a curse. Children need a biblical home (#1 above) for their emotional stability, instruction, discipline, and spiritual mentoring.
10) God said that marriage is to be a completing union (Genesis 2:18). Being alone is not good (i.e., pleasant, agreeable). God designed marriage for companionship, completion, and procreation. The wife is to be a help (i.e., helper) meet (i.e., a parallel or counterpart) for her husband. As help meets, wives are not to dominate their husbands. Rather, they are to submit to his leadership. (Ephesians 5:22) “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” Sadly, many wives, who claim they are submissive, manipulate their husbands to get their way and to stay in control. Manipulation may take the form of giving to get, complaining to get, withholding to get, dishonouring to get, I did … so you ought to …, conditional love, etc. For a happy home, men, be leaders, and wives, be submissive.
b. God confined sex to marriage (1Corinthians 7:2).
1) Marriage is right; fornication is wrong. The Bible makes it clear that all sexual intimacy before marriage is sinful. (1 Thessalonians 4:3) “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:“
2) Marriage is right; adultery is wrong. Adultery is sexual intimacy with someone other than your marriage spouse. (Exodus 20:14) “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Hebrews 13:4) “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” There is no getting around the fact that living with a partner without being married is sin.
3) Marriage is right; perversion is wrong. Read Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:25-27. How can this happen? The word “changed” in these verses literally means to exchange. They exchanged the truth for a lie. They exchanged morality for immorality. It is exchanging right for wrong.
a) Why is this increasing today? It is because people watch and listen to media and music that present this exchange as a normal way of life. Advertisement sells!
b) Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for the Nazi German government of the Third Reich, understood the power of repeating falsehoods. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,” he asserted, “people will eventually come to believe it.”
c) Repeatedly exposing your mind to immorality on TV and other media does the same thing to your heart as repeatedly shovelling dirt does to your heads – it creates callouses. If you watch TV, you will have a difficult challenge maintaining a biblical worldview of morality in your mind. The devil’s advertisements are powerful.
d) The devil is using immoral media and godless peer pressure to fuel the epidemic of gender and moral confusion in our world today.
Conclusion: If you have a biblical worldview of morality, work diligently to protect and maintain it. If the world, the flesh and the devil have corrupted your worldview of morality in your mind or in your life, do not make excuses. Instead, admit it and ask God for forgiveness.
Then follow these five steps: spend more time in the Bible, obey God’s Word completely, guard your eyes, guard your ears, and choose only godly friends. For some of you, establishing a truly biblical worldview of morality in your mind and in your life may require radical change. If so, ask the Lord for grace to do what you must do!
If you have not yet asked Jesus to forgive your sin and transform your life, that is where you must begin.
