1 Corinthians 7. This chapter is all about marriage. It's about marriage. This chapter
talks about divorce. It talks about remaining unmarried, being single. It talks about believers being
married together. It talks about believers being
married to unbelievers. The heading at the top of my
page, it says, The Apostle Treateth of the Married State. Yours might
say something different. That's what the translators put
there. He treateth of the married state. He tells the Corinthians
what marriage is and what it ought to be. And the reason that
he did that is because verse 1, chapter 7, verse 1 says, now
concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me. The Corinthians
wrote Paul a letter asking him about the relationship between
men and women. And we've been going through Corinthians in
our Bible study and the Corinthians were in a terrible way, a terrible
way. So clearly the Lord is working
on their, he's convicting them. They wrote Paul a letter asking
about some of these things that they've been going through. Corinth
was such a wicked city. to say the phrase, a woman of
Corinth, or to say a Corinthian woman, what that meant, what
you're saying was a prostitute. That was the slang. It was so
common. It was so common. Um, that's
what it meant. And this is the environment that
the church was in, and they were affected by it. This church in
the middle of this terrible place, they were strongly affected by
it. The world's wickedness, it crept
into the congregation. Chapter 5, there was a case of
incest. Chapter 6, he told them, flee
fornication. That's what he told the church,
flee fornication. And it was just so common, they
were blind to how wrong it really was. They were just totally blind.
They didn't think anything of it. Didn't think anything of
it. So he tells them in verse 2,
to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let
every woman have her own husband. He's going to talk about marriage.
He's going to tell them about marriage. And here's where it
starts, verse 1. Verse 1 says, now concerning
the things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good for a man
not to touch a woman. Now Paul didn't write in his
letter, chapter 7. See where it says chapter 7? Paul didn't write that. This
was one letter. Coming off the subject of fornication,
chapter 6 verse 18 is where he said, flee fornication. Chapter
6 verse 20, he said, For you are bought with a price, therefore
glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.
Now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good
for a man not to touch a woman. Don't touch. That's what he said,
don't touch. I know this is such a foreign
concept to the world today. It wasn't, I don't believe, in
the 50s. I don't believe it was. Men opened the doors and did
all those kinds of things. But it's such a foreign concept
to the world today. With the mindset that we live
in, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in 10 or 15
years when our kids are a little older. It's awful. It's just
awful. What is being stressed to people
today and teenagers today is use birth control. That's what's
being stressed. Protect yourself from diseases.
You know what God said? Don't touch. That's what he said. Don't touch. Well, everybody's
doing it. Well, it still doesn't make it
right. Don't touch. Verse 2 says, Nevertheless, to
avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let
every woman have her own husband. Now let me show you how every
verse of Scripture points us to Christ. Every verse of Scripture
points us to Jesus Christ, even that right there. We all know
that the reason God ordained the covenant of marriage was
to show the relationship between Christ and His bride. We all
know that, right? Well, He said in verse 1, it
is good for a man not to touch a woman. Now think about this.
Had Christ not taken a bride, Had Christ not taken a bride,
he would have never had to endure the cross, ever. He would have
never been separated from God. He would have never been separated
from God his Father. He would have never had all of
that sin and all of that bitterness pressed into him. I'm the bride,
I'm the woman here. He would have never sweat, as
it were, great drops of blood. He would have never done that.
He would have never felt exceeding sorrow, even unto death. His
soul would have never been troubled. I am in awe every time I read
the verse of scripture where the disciples watched him and
they saw him become troubled. for the first time. For the first
time. They were always troubled. Right? Master, this ship is going down
and we're going to die. Don't you care that we're dying?
And he walked out to the bow and he said, Peace, be still.
For the first time they watched him and he became troubled, truly
troubled. But had he not endured every
bit of that, then we would remain dead in our trespasses and sins.
We would have spent an eternity in hell. That's what would have
happened. So thank God he said, I do. Thank God, he said, I do. God
has given us the covenant of marriage to see what Christ has
done for us. That's the whole reason. What
we now have in him and with him. Without the covenant of Christ,
there is no favor from God. None. And he illustrates that
to us through marriage. Without the covenant of marriage,
there's no favor from God. Go with me over to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13 verse 4 says, marriage
is honorable in all and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and
adulterers God will judge. He will. Inside this covenant
with Christ, we're safe. That's what that means. Undefiled,
safe. Outside of this covenant with
Christ, we're going to be damned. That's what it means. I need
to be married to Jesus Christ. I need to be married to Jesus
Christ. That's what earthly marriage
represents. Now go with me over to Genesis
chapter one. We're going to see that our Lord
ordained this from the beginning. Genesis chapter one. Genesis 1 verse 27 says, so God
created man in his own image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them and God
said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. by way of marriage. Chapter 2
verse 18 says, and the Lord God said, it is not good that the
man should be alone. I will make him and help meet
for him. It's not good that the man should
be alone. Now I want to point out, when I first looked at this,
there are 40 verses in 1 Corinthians 7 and I thought about doing the
whole chapter because he says so many things and I thought,
nah, we're going to take our time. He does go on in that chapter
to say, and we're going to see it, he says it would be better
for a man and a woman to remain alone, to remain single. And the reason he says that in
the chapter is because they would have more time to devote to serving
the Lord. He says whenever you are married,
you are required to, by God Almighty, see to their needs and focus
on them. He says difficulties come, and
they do. You're single and you do what
you want to do and you go where you want to go and all that stuff
is good and fine. And then once you get married,
it's time to compromise. And that makes a little friction
at first and all those kinds of things. He acknowledges in the chapter
that very few people can do that. Very few people can remain single
without, he says, burning. Burning up on the inside from
feelings, from desires. We literally become lovesick.
That's what happens. We just become lovesick. And
very few people can remain single and not be tortured. So he called
that ability the gift of God, that's what he called it. And
very few people have the gift. So verse 18 says, it's not good
that the man should be alone. Men and women both, we need a
help meet for us, that's what we need. The end of verse 20,
or verse 20 says, No, I'm sorry, the end of verse
20, it says, for Adam, there was not found a help meet for
him. He represents Christ. He represents
Christ. And verse 21 says, and the Lord
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. That's
our Lord's death. He died. And verse 22 says, 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. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they
shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and were not ashamed. This was all written
down to tell us that Jesus Christ, our Lord, stood before God, His
Father, and witnesses in a covenant of marriage to us. A covenant of marriage to us. He made a promise before God
and witnesses To us. To us. Verse 23, Adam said, Christ
said, this is now bone of my bones. We've had two weddings
in this building. And we ended your wedding the
same way we ended your wedding. You are now no more too. but one flesh. Jesus Christ married
us before God, his father, and that's the covenant he entered
into for us. You know, we talk about a covenant. He made a covenant
with us. What was that covenant? He married
us. That's what he did. He entered
into a covenant. He said, I will take responsibility
for her. Now wait a minute, let's get
this straight. Every woman on planet Earth? No, her. I'll take all of her debts upon
myself. Every debt she has now becomes
mine. Isn't that what we do? Every
debt. It struck me, this blessed my
heart so much, I was soaring on Wednesday. I prepared this
on Wednesday. I was thinking about this covenant,
this covenant. This is what struck me. When
our Lord began his ministry, he walked this earth for 30 years
and then he began his ministry. And do you know where he began
his ministry? A wedding ceremony. Remember
that? He turned the water into wine.
At a wedding ceremony. And he did not perform the ceremony. He sat in a chair and listened. He attended the wedding. He listened to the man tell what
all this represented and he listened to two people recite their vows
like we all do. Don't you love weddings? I love
it. I just love it. Love is in the air. It just is. I couldn't help but think of
him sitting there listening to all those vows being recited.
Him sitting there thinking about watching all that. Enjoying the remembrance of his
own vows that he took. His own vows. Now listen to this. A covenant was made. He entered
into a covenant. God the Father said, Son, do
you take this bride who you now hold in your right hand to be
your lawful wedded wife? And do you promise in the sight
of God Almighty and these witnesses, all these cherubims, and all
these seraphims, all these angels, the whole host of heaven, do
you promise that you will be to her a true and devoted husband? That you will love, honor, cherish,
and protect her in joy and in the sorrow of the cross? In health
and in the sickness of her sin, in wealth and in the poverty
of her ruin, leaving all others, you will cleave to her and her
alone as long as you both shall live. Son, do you promise that? You know what he said? I do. I do. Man, if that doesn't make us
want to be better husbands, I don't know what will. I don't know
what will. What an awesome responsibility
it is that in our marriages we represent the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, Husbands, love your
wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. We are
to give ourselves to her, for her. Everything. We're to give
it all. Everything. Everything is for her good and
it's for Christ's glory. Everything. It's not for the
glory of me. It's for her good and the glory
of Christ. Nowhere am I told to focus on
myself. Nowhere. Now, ladies, nowhere
are you told to focus on yourself. Everything is for Christ your
husband. Everything. All right. Now, all that being
said, go with me back to 1 Corinthians 7. Because of what marriage represents,
verse 3 says, let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence
and likewise also the wife unto the husband. Now here are four
definitions for the word benevolence. And remember, we're commanded
this by God. This is our commandment. This is our commandment. Benevolence
means kindness. It means goodwill. It means well-minded,
think well of. And it means reconcile. That's
what it means. Because of what Christ has done
for us, Husbands, we owe our wives kindness. We owe it. We owe it. It says, let the husbands render
unto the wife due. The word due means it's owed.
It's due. It's the promise that we made
in our covenant. Due kindness, due courtesy. Not only should we be this way,
we have to be this way. There's just no option. There's
just no option. And this flesh is so wicked.
We husbands and wives, we want to love each other. We want to
get along. But doesn't this flesh, it just It won't get down. It just won't get down. This
flesh is so self-ish. Nowhere is self in any of this. It's not in any of this. And we owe our wives due kindness,
due courtesy, due respect. And it says likewise also the
wife unto the husband. It's due. It's owed. Good will. Well-minded, that means think
well of. Speak well of. Whether we've
been married for a hundred years, one year, or not yet, let's remember this. We should
never, ever speak badly of our spouse, period. Whether they're with us, whether
they're not with us. You know, you get a bunch of
guys together on the job site and they're all going to be talking
about the ball and chain. They're all going to be talking about... God said, don't do it. Don't
do it. Christ never did that to us. Isn't it amazing how he speaks
of us? You know how he says, you're sanctified, you're washed,
you're holy, you're pure. I know I'm not, not in myself. You're sanctified, you're washed,
you're holy, you're pure. I'm just hiding in you. But that's what he says. Peter
said, I ain't touching that. He said, don't you call common
what I've made clean. Don't say it. I don't want to
hear it. So that's our commandment. The
Lord God, he married Gomer. That's who we are. We're Gomer
the harlot. But he said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love. That's what he told everybody.
He wrote this for the world to read. He said, you've ravished my heart.
Because of Christ, we husbands owe our wives, and wives owe
their husbands kindness and goodwill and well-mindedness. And then
there's one more, reconciliation. We owe it. We owe it to each
other. Reconcile as fast as possible.
as fast as possible. That's what Christ did for us
physically. You know how sometimes we talk
about us physically and Christ spiritually? Christ did that
for us spiritually, but Christ did that for us physically. I'm
going to get to go into the presence of God. I've been made acceptable
in the presence of God physically. He reconciled everything for
us physically. And he's commanded us to do the
same thing for our spouse that he did for his. And, you know,
pride is strong. Argument comes up. Reconcile.
Well, that's kind of difficult. Somebody has to say, I'm sorry.
Well, it ain't going to be me. Kind of difficult. It doesn't
matter. It does not matter. Just doesn't
matter. Reconciling sinners to God Almighty,
you think that was an easy task? But that's what he did for us.
And because of that, he said, be reconciled to each other.
We're going to, it's going to take some time, but we're going
to go through this. And if we will obey his word, we will have
happy lives. We'll have happy lives and happy
marriages. All right, you're dismissed.