We cannot begin to even imagine
the intelligence that Adam possessed. God created him in innocence.
He created him perfect. Adam had perfect use of his mind. It would just be amazing to me
to be able to have perfect use of my mind. But he named all
the Adam, or Adam named all the animals, but there was none found
like Adam. In all creation, there was none
like Adam. Everything else had a mate, but
Adam, he didn't have one. God says it's not good for the
man to be alone. There's just something about
that word, as I was looking at this again yesterday, all day
yesterday, there's just something about that word alone, alone. It sounds so empty. Doesn't it? It just sounds so empty. It sounds
so incomplete. It sounds like something's missing.
It just sounds like something missing. God said it's not good
for man, for the man to be alone. So God creates man a helpmate,
a woman. God says, I will make him a helpmate for
him. or help me. Adam was full of
love, but no one to share it with after his kind. You remember,
if you go back in the first chapter, everything God created, he created
after his kind. And Adam had no one to share
his love with after his kind. He had no one to share the beauty
of that garden with. No one. No one to be touched
or to touch. Oh, the power of a touch. You
know, the Lord, with that leper, just touched him. Just touched
him. He said, I will be thou clean.
Oh, the power, I tell you, the power of a touch is unbelievable. He had no one. Companionship,
he didn't have as far as someone like himself. Companionship and
togetherness is necessary in order to share love. He had no
one in which he could produce others like himself. Now, I know
you probably think, well, he had God. But God said, now God
said, it's not good that he be alone. God said that. It's not good for him to live
in his garden by himself. So out of the ground, the Lord
God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air
and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof, and they haven't changed since. And Adam gave
names to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, and to every beast
of the field, but for Adam, but for Adam. There was not found
a helpmate for him. Wasn't one for him, none. None
like Adam in all of creation. We're gonna see more of this
in Christ here in a little bit. But there was none, none with
the intelligence that he possessed. The brilliance that he possessed. None with the ability to communicate
like he could communicate. None could reason like he could
reason. None could love like he could
love. He had no one to reproduce after
his kind. In a sense, in a sense, he was
like an alien in a garden. There was none like him. Out of all creation, out of all
that our Lord created in the beginning, There was none like
Jesus Christ. None. He is the Lord of hosts, but
none of the hosts were like him. None of the hosts were like him. The angels, Adam was created
in his image, but there's still something missing there. There's still something. None
were on the same level as he was. None. But that's about to change. That's
about to change. And the Lord God calls a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he, that is God,
took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh. Instead, God put
Adam into a coma. That's what he did, he put Adam
into a coma. And he opened up his side and he took a rib You
see, Adam was made from the dust of the ground, but ladies, you
weren't. You were made from a rib that came from Adam, and that's
where you came from. That's where you had your start.
God took a rib and made a woman for him, one like him, one with
the same DNA. They could love the same things
now, They could love the same one, together, God. There's just
nothing more beautiful than when God saves a man and a woman and
enables them to worship the Lord Jesus Christ together. There's
no better home than that. No better, none better. They
could love the same thing, they could enjoy the same fellowship,
I tell you, it's something when you love the same thing. That's
the reason why you and I can have fellowship together. We
love the same one. We love the same Lord. We have
the same Father. We have the same faith in Christ. That's why we can have fellowship. And as I said, Eve was created
She was created from a rib that was in Adam's side. God created
her from Adam's side, listen, to be equal with him. My wife, Vicki, she's equal with
me. Now God has set an order, God
has set an order that the husband is to be the head of the house.
But now that doesn't mean that I'm just this superior and she's,
Inferior? No, she's equal with me. She's
probably more intelligent than me. She's equal. God created her
from Adam's side to be equal with him, to be loved by him
and to be protected by him and for him to provide for her. That's
his responsibility. This is just my responsibility
to provide for Vicki. It's my responsibility. It's
not her responsibility to provide for me. Take care of the home,
it's my responsibility. God gave me that responsibility.
He gave me that authority. You know, you're not gonna stand
before God and say, she wouldn't let me do it. Do that, it ain't
gonna fly. I can assure you that, it ain't
gonna fly. Because he holds us responsible for that. He holds
the man to be responsible for the home. But this is a very
good picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. God put his son, listen now,
he put his son to death. He put Adam to sleep in a coma. But he put the Lord Jesus Christ
to death that he might take out of him his church, his bride,
his wife. The Lord's church right now,
right now, is being put together. She's still being formed. That's
why this whole thing hasn't ended yet. God has not completely yet
formed the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, the church. There's
still more to come into the fold. There's still more sheep to be
brought in. There's still more that makes up His bride that's
got to be brought in. Now, when God took Eve from Adam's
side, It says he closed up the flesh thereof, and instead thereof,
he closed it up with flesh. He didn't leave an open place
for a scar. But in taking the bride out of
the Lord Jesus Christ, in forming his bride out of him, he left
a scar. He left a scar. Thomas, put your
finger in my side. There's a scar there where that
spear went in. There's a place there. Christ
had to redeem His wife from sin. He had to redeem us from sin
and the curse of the law. And that left a scar, the nail
prints in His hands. That spear went through His side,
it's still there. It's there. Now note the oneness here now.
And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a
woman and brought her unto the man. That is, you know, in Hebrew
it means he built it. God built a man a wife, a woman. That's what he did. He brought
her as a gift to Adam. And that's exactly the way we
ought to view our wives as a gift from God. Scripture says that
a man who has a virtuous woman finds favor of the Lord. God
gave her. He gave her. And what a beautiful
gift she was. I can just imagine. No sin, no
sin had ever touched them yet. Not yet. And she was no doubt
a beautiful woman. And now Adam has someone to share
his love with. He could look at a beautiful
flower and say, Eve, come over here. You gotta see this. You
gotta smell this rose. You gotta smell this. He's got
someone to share his love with. The greatest thing about having
someone you love and loves you, here's the greatest thing. It's
the things you share together. It's the things that you're able
to share together. Do you know what makes a beautiful
sunset? Do you know what makes a beautiful
sunset? Being able to sit beside of someone
you love and watch it, watch it go down. There's just something
about that that makes it complete. Just something about it. God has given to his son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, a bride. A bride to share the new heaven
and new earth with. He's gonna share that new heaven
and new earth, he's gonna share it with his bride. And he's gonna share it with
her throughout eternity. Oh, he said, Father, I will,
that those whom thou has given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory, the glory I had with you before the
world was. I want them to see this. I want
them to experience what I've experienced. And that's exactly
the way it is when you have someone you love. You want them, you
say, oh, I wish, I want them to be here to see this. There's
been times that I've traveled, you know, a lot in preaching
and Vicki's not been with me. And there's been times I've called
her, I said, Ma, I wish you was here with me today. You could
have seen this. You should have seen what I saw. Adam said, this is now bone of
my bone, flesh of my flesh. She's just like me. She shall
be called woman because she was taken out of man. This is my
wife. That's what Adam said. This is
my wife. I have no doubt Adam was awestruck when God brought
Eve to him. I have no doubt he was just awestruck. He had probably had in his mind
all this and Eve too. All this and her too. I have
no doubt that he felt that. All this and her too. God made Adam from the dust and
then he made Eve from Adam and brought her to Adam and said,
Adam, here's your wife. Could God build a better, who
could build a better wife than God? Who could build a better
wife than God? That's why it's important to
wait on the Lord. To wait on the Lord. Doris was teaching a class one
time. I heard it from Henry. He sent it to us in a message. She was teaching a class one
time to the little kids. Of course, these kids are now
growing up in their 40s now. But they were just little kids.
And she was teaching about Christ and Christ being the gift of
God to us, God's greatest gift. Then at the end of the class, she asked the class, she said,
now, what's the greatest gift God has ever given to a man? One of the little girls raised
her hand and said, woman. And he said, you know what? That's
the second greatest gift. That's the second greatest gift
that God's ever given to a man is a woman. The first is the
Lord Jesus Christ. But the second is a woman. Bone
of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Now they're one. Adam has someone
that's just like him. Just like, and listen, the church
is one in Christ. She is born, listen, she is born
of His Spirit. You see, we have a connection
to Christ and to God in a way that Adam didn't. Because Christ, who is God in
the flesh, became bone of our bone. That He might make us and
enable us to be born of His Spirit and partaker of the divine nature. We are partakers of the divine
nature of God. Now, in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we can love the same things, enjoy the same fellowship, love
the same God, Let me read, I'm going to read this to you for
time's sake. But in John 17 in verse 20, the
Lord says, Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also
which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may
be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me, and the glory which thou gavest me I have given to
them. I've given to them." Whatever
that real glory is, you know, we're yet to experience the fullness
of it. And to understand what it really
is and to really taste it, you know, that's yet to come. But
he said, the glory, I said, and the glory which thou gavest me,
I've given to them. that they may be one even as
we are one, I in them, thou in me, that they may be made perfect
in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me,
and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father..." And I can just, when I read this,
I can just, I know I can't enter into it, but there's this desire,
this yearning, I may be using the wrong words, I will that
they also, I will, and he don't want to say that. I will that
they also whom thou has given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory, which thou has given me for thou lovest
me before the foundation of the world. I wanted to be there. The greatest glory you and I
could ever behold is our Lord. It's His glory. He said, I will
that they be with me where I am. As I said, the church is taken
out of the Lord Jesus Christ as the woman was taken out of
the man. It's written over in 1 Corinthians
11, it says in verse 7 and 9, For a man indeed ought not to
cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of
God, he was made in the image of God. But the woman is the
glory of the man, for the man is not of the woman, but the
woman of the man. Neither was the man created for
the woman, but the woman for the man. And here, now listen,
for us to understand this, the whole purpose of the church,
the whole purpose of the church is for the Lord Jesus Christ. She's created for Him. And we're
just types. The woman, the man, the woman,
marriage, it's just a type. It's what Paul tells us over
in Ephesians, I believe it's chapter six. The church is created for Christ.
You and I are created for Christ. Not ourselves. Not ourselves,
but for Him. But for Him. And we are to serve
Him and love Him, respect Him, honor Him. Now, let's not argue with the Word
of God. If that's the way God has established it, that's the
way it is, isn't it? And we're not gonna change it.
We're not gonna, I don't care, listen. Especially you ladies. We don't give in to peer pressure.
We don't give in to the peer pressure of the world. What we
do, we submit to the Word of God. We submit, it is our guide. It's our guide. There is nothing
more beautiful that when things work together in the order that
God has established them. Nothing more beautiful than that. Sin's what messed up the order.
Sin did that. Now when a man and a woman marry,
Mary was instituted by God first, the husband is to take care of
her just as Christ takes care of the church. Who takes care
of the church? Is it me? I'm an undershepherd. I'm a watchman. But the one who
takes care of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the husband
is to take care of the wife as he takes care of the church,
and provide for her, and listen, and not depend on mom and dad
anymore. Visit mom and dad. and take care of mom and dad,
but mom and dad has, you have your own life now. Husband and
wife, you have your own life. And mom and dad has to stay out
of it. They gotta stay out of it. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they
shall be one flesh. One flesh. You know, I can say this, I can
say that my parents and Vicki's mother, my mother, has never
ever in 42, going on 43 years, has never one time, not one time
ever butted in, stepped in, said, I don't think you're, not one
time. And the husband is to cleave
unto his wife, It doesn't mean he doesn't take care of the parents,
it doesn't mean that. It just means that they got their
own family now, and now they gotta go on. They gotta go on,
together. Through the rough times, they
gotta go on. But notice here their answers,
and I won't close. And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and were not ashamed. They didn't know what shame was,
because they didn't know sin. Scripture says, to the pure,
all things are pure. But to the ungodly, the undefiled,
nothing's pure. Nothing. I mean, you can just
say a word, they'll turn it into something unpure. But to the
pure, all things are pure. Your thoughts, You think about
things, you try to put a... Because I know what sin is. I know sin just ravishes our
minds and our thoughts. But to the pure, all things are
pure. They were not ashamed. They knew no sin at that time. That's why they were not ashamed. Their inward holiness required
no outward covering. It required no outward covering.
You know, it's like religious people who are religious but
lost. The less they have on the inside, the more they try to
show on the outside, the more they try to put on on the outside. But I like this statement, the
inward holiness required no outward covering. They were not ashamed.
Sin has brought in shame, it brought in lust, and brought
in all manner of wickedness. And one day, one day, you and
I gonna lay this sinful body down and we'll never know what
it is to be ashamed or embarrassed again. We'll never know what
guilt feels like ever again, ever again. Someday when this
life is over, we will stand in the perfect righteousness of
our husband. and not be ashamed. All right.