A lot of people just think of
the mercy of God as something that they take for granted, and they
just think that it is a general characteristic of God. And surely
it is a general characteristic of God, but it is not generally
applied, because the Lord's mercy is specific. And anybody that
doubts that can read what he told Moses. He said, I will show
mercy to whom I will show mercy. And so the mercy of God is not
something that a man has any right to expect. See, a lot of people expect that
God will show mercy to them. We don't have any reason to expect
that God would show mercy to us except that we know that He
is merciful and that He has revealed that He will show mercy in Jesus
Christ. And so, such is the blessing
that is ours to contemplate the mercy of God. some offhanded thing, but it's
an amazing thing that God would show mercy to such as we are,
who, you know, have consistently and constantly, as it were, bit the hand that
has fed us. And we have not listened to Him
as we should. We've not heeded His Word. Yet because He would show mercy,
He does show mercy. And His mercy is yet new every
morning, as Jeremiah said, lest we should be consumed. Now, we
have been looking in the seventh chapter of I Corinthians. And I'm going to begin, since
it's been a week since we looked at this, or it's been two weeks,
I'm going to read the beginning at the first of the chapter,
and then we'll make some comments perhaps
on some of the verses we have not looked at. This is 1 Corinthians
7, verse 1. Now concerning the things whereof
ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication,
And remember that word fornication there just simply means sexual
impurity of whatever kind you might consider. Let every man
have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the
wife due benevolence or kindness, and likewise also the wife unto
the husband. The wife hath not power of her
own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband
hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not
one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may
give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again,
that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. But I speak
this by permission and not of commandment. For I would that
all men were even as myself, but every man hath his proper
gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. I say
therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if
they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let
them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. And unto
the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the
wife depart from her husband. But, and if she depart, let her
remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the
husband put away his wife. But to the rest speak I, not
the Lord. If any brother hath a wife that
believeth not, she be pleased to dwell with him, Let him not
put her away. And the woman which hath a husband
that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her,
let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is
sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified
by the husband. Else were your children unclean,
but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart,
let him depart. A brother or a sister is not
under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife,
whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether
thou shalt save thy wife? But as God hath distributed to
every man as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk, and
so ordain I in all churches. If any man called, being circumcised,
is any man called being circumcised, let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision,
let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and
uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments
of God. Let every man abide in the same
calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant?
Care not for it. But if thou mayest be made free,
use it rather. For he that is called in the
Lord being a servant is the Lord's free man. Likewise, also he that
is called being free is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a
price, be not ye the servants of men. Now I'm going to stop
right there because that's a good place to stop reading. because it sums up what the whole
point of what Paul is saying here is about and something we
never need to lose sight of. Just like as he ended, I believe
it was, The chapter before, he said basically the same thing.
What? Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have
of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which
are God's. We belong to Him. He purchased
us. And so that's the whole basis
upon which everything that Paul would instruct the children of
God upon rests. It doesn't matter what we like
or what we want. That's of secondary importance
to what he's saying here. We're bought with a price. That
overrules everything. You know, it's a man, a woman,
humanity, we're complex beings. And the Lord made us that way
because He would demonstrate His mastery and sovereignty over
the most complex of creatures. Now, the angels, on the one hand,
they are creatures who simply do exactly what God would have
them to do. There's never any questions that
arise in their mind or whatever. Now I'm speaking about the elect
angels. We know there were some angels who were ordained unto
condemnation according to what the Scripture says. The Lord
said he saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. And so it is
that the demise of Satan was ordained from the beginning.
Satan did not start out as one thing, and lo and behold, he
messed up and turned out to be something else, but he was made
to be exactly what he is by the hand of God. And in God's own
time, he was cast forth from the Lord's presence. Now, I don't
know all the details about that, and anybody else that tells you
they do is telling you a story, because there's not a whole lot
in the Scripture about it. But we do know that Satan was
cast out of the presence of God. Now, he didn't get cast out unbeknownst
to God, But he was cast out because that was what God ordained for
him to do when he made him. That's the purpose that he has.
And that's exactly what he is. But Satan is no different than
really any of the other angels. The angels just do what they're
told. They just do it. And Satan really
is no different. Because if you look at the book
of Job, you see it pretty plainly. How the Lord said to Satan, have
you considered My servant Job? You see, the Lord was the one
that brought Job up to the devil. The devil didn't bring Job up
to the Lord. The Lord was the one that orchestrated
the events and the actions of Satan even as he does now according
to the good pleasure of his will. Now that doesn't make, because
the Lord orchestrates something, doesn't take away the accountability
of the creature that he makes. Because the Lord makes His creatures
accountable according to His own purpose. And man is accountable
for everything that he does. But man is a little different
than the angels, because the Lord made man in such a way that
he has a complex mind and, if you want to call it, a free will. Now, man's will is free insofar
as it is able to be free. give to man such a makeup that
he does have a mind. He does not think like the angels
think. The angels just do what they
are going to do. Men, on the other hand, must
be made willing in the day of the Lord's power. But the Lord
is able to do that, you see. Some people think of man's free
will as a sovereign. Like, man, he can just keep God
from doing something. No, he can't do anything. I mean,
God's will is going to be done. But the Lord works in men through
their will. He works in us both to what?
Will and to do of His good pleasure. Now, He causes us to be willing. He is the One that works that.
But it is a true act of the will, is it not? I mean, when a man
believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, he believes it not unwillingly. He does it because he desires
to. But it is the Lord that causes
the desire to come into the man. But the man is in that way a
complex creature. And so it is that he is bought
The Scripture says, with a prize. Now this is a little different
than the angels. They've never been bought. They've
just been created to be what they are. But you see, we have
been bought out of the slavery into which we gladly and willingly
put our own selves. We willingly went into bondage.
And the Lord has, of His own will and His own purpose, delivered
us from it. And that's why we need never
forget and to concentrate upon what He says here, "...Ye are
bought with a price." You're not your own. You belong to Him. And He says here, "...Ye are
bought with a price. Be not ye the servants of men."
We're not to be the servants of ourselves. We're not to serve
ourselves. And we're not to serve other
men. But we are to seek that which is above. That's why Paul
said, set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth.
You see, we have true affection, do we not? Affection is a real
thing. I mean, you look at a mother
as she holds her baby in her arms. And there's no way that
you can explain that, but she has true affection for that baby. I mean, that's just part and
parcel of her. There's no indication in Scripture
that the angels have any affection. I mean, they have obedience,
but they don't have affection. But you see, the Lord, He blessed
the human race with such emotions. as He would put in them and as
He would demonstrate to them by His own affection towards
us, how He loves us with an everlasting love. And so it is that if we
have that in our mind as we read these things that Paul is is
setting forth before the Corinthians. Now, he's already said, all things
are lawful to you, but all things don't edify. All things are lawful,
but all things are not expedient. And so what he's telling them
here in this chapter, he's not setting forth a hard, fast law
that he's laying down and saying, if you don't do this, you're
going to be destroyed. But he's saying, you're bought
with a price. Now here is those principles that ought to be guiding
your mind and heart. And thankfully, as the work of
the Spirit works in us, He does constrain us to see and know
that the truth of God is the truth of God. Now unfortunately,
because of the sinful flesh in which we dwell, we do not always
abide by those things that we know to be true, but nonetheless
we know them to be true. We know these things are correct
and right, and we will not offer up any course of argument against
them because we believe they are spoken by the Word of God. And so Paul says concerning this
matter of men and women in their relationships to one another
in marriage, He said, God ordained this for your good. See the angels, they don't marry
or give in their marriage. I mean the Lord plainly said
that. He said this is not part of their makeup. But He says
it is a part of yours. Now why did the Lord give this
to men? I believe for one primary reason. And that is that He might demonstrate
the love that he has for his bride, the church, the elect
of God, that he might demonstrate that, he ordained marriage. And that's the purpose of it.
Now, we know that secondarily, the purpose of it is Two-fold,
one that the man and the woman might be an help to one another. That is, as he said, the woman
was made a helpmate. Now some people have said that
to be a helpmate, but that's not really, it says a helpmate,
that is a help. a helper which was fit to his
need. Everything about the woman is
fit to the man's need and everything about the man is fit to the woman's
need. And woe be to humanity as they
corrupt that. As we see in our society today,
that's just thrown out the window today. And we will see what the
result of it is as time goes on as men disregard the very
plain teachings of the Lord and the very common things that even
nature itself teaches us. And these things cannot help
but be a destructive force among men. So the Lord designed the
man and the woman to come together as one flesh. And that is both
figurative and it is also literal in the sense in which the marriage
is designed in what he is speaking of here. As he says, let every
man have his own wife, let every woman have her own husband. That sexuality might be expressed
in its proper form. There is no other proper form
of the expression of human sexuality except in the bonds of marriage
between a man and a woman. Now, how anybody could ever read
the Scriptures and come to any other conclusion is beyond my
understanding. And the reality is they can't.
Because the only thing they could do is take the Word of God and
try to twist it into something that it is not. But if we look
at it for what it is, I mean, he says here what it is, why
the Lord gave it. And it's a good thing. Now he
said it's good for a man not to touch a woman. It's a good
thing if a man doesn't get married. Now there are some religions
that teach that Marriage is like a necessity. It's like you've
got to be married so that you can have this kingdom that you're
going to have going on, you know, in the eternal ages to come. You've got to have all these
different wives so that then on the day of the resurrection
you can raise them up and then you can have your kingdom throughout
eternity. What a carnal thing that is.
You know, that's not at all what Scripture speaks about. So there's
no advantage spiritually for a man to be married or a woman
to be married. There's nothing spiritual about
marriage itself. But it has a very great purpose
and we neglect that purpose at our own peril. He said it's good
that if a man doesn't touch a woman, that's a good thing. There's
nothing wrong with that. We don't need to think a man
has something wrong with him if he doesn't, or vice versa. But he said that's not the normal
thing that's going to occur in most people. Now some people
are able. not to be married. And that's strictly okay. But
he said in order to avoid sexual impurity of whatever kind it
might be, he said, let every man have his own wife, Let every
woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to the
wife due kindness or affection, and likewise also the wife to
the husband, because the wife doesn't have power over her own
body but the husband, and likewise the husband hath not power over
his own body but the wife." These things are mutually shared, and
they are ordained of God. And he says, don't defraud one
another. That is, if you have the necessity
to enter into the marriage bond, don't think that you can neglect
this and have no consequences of it. And he says, but I speak
this by permission and not of commandment. Now I want to comment
about what he is saying there. What he is saying there is that
there is no specific commandment written in the Word of God that
is in the Law of Moses or set forth that covers this particular
thing that he is talking about. He says, you know, I'm not telling
you this because the law says to do it, but he says, I'm telling
you this by permission, that is, that it is the thing that
you should do. Now that doesn't mean that it's
just his opinion, because he's speaking as an apostle, but he's
saying it's not of the commandment of God in that sense, But it
is that which is taught and it is a proper and true thing. So
it's not an optional thing. Well, you've heard people say,
oh, well, that was just Paul that said that. We don't have
to pay attention to that because that was just Paul. Well, Paul
wrote half of the New Testament. I mean, are we just going to
throw it out because that was Paul? No, that's not what he's
saying. He's just simply saying, look,
the Scriptures that are written at that current time don't cover
this topic. But I'm telling you this, and
it is true. For I would that all men were
even as myself, and Paul was an unmarried man as far as we
know. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after
this manner, and another after that. So that if a man hath the
gift of being unmarried, that's a good thing. Paul said it was. He said, it would suit me fine
if there was no such thing as marriage. But then Paul says,
but I'm not everybody. So he said, whatever you've been
given, if you've been given to be able to do that, then that's
good. Every man hath his proper gift, one after this manner,
another after that. And I say therefore to the married
and with it, to the unmarried and with it, it is good for them
if they abide even as I. Same thing he said to begin with.
There is no necessity in being married, but if they cannot contain,
that is, if they are not given to be sexually inert or not to
have any sexual urges, if that is not within them, then let
them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn, that is,
for those lusts to come out. That is what he said to start
with, wasn't it? He said, you know, in order to
avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. And unto
the married I command, yet not I but the Lord. Now listen, he
is saying something different here, isn't he? He said, now
I'm not talking to you about this by permission or something
that is a new thing that the Scriptures don't have anything
to say about. But he said, I'm telling you
this by commandment. He said, the commandments of
God say this that are already written at this time. It says, well, I lost my place. And unto
the unmarried I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not
the wife depart from her husband." Now, that's pretty plain, isn't
it? And he said, I'm not talking
to you about permission. He said, this is what the Word
of God says. It knows ifs, ands, and buts
about it. It says, don't do it. And if she depart, let her remain
unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the
husband put away his wife." Now, that is pretty straightforward,
isn't it? Now, a person cannot come to
the Word of God and say, God commanded us to put away our
husbands or to put away our wives. Because God said, don't do it. Pretty straightforward, isn't
it? Now, it's a good thing, is it not? When we read that and
we recognize the fallibility of men, that to those who are
in Christ Jesus there is therefore now no condemnation, because
He has satisfied the claims of the law. Now some have taken
that to mean that, oh well, now we can just go do whatever we
want. No. No, it still doesn't change what
He said. It's simply if we have fallen
short of that commandment, we are nonetheless received by Him
because He's fulfilled the law in our behalf. But it doesn't
change what God said. It doesn't make it right, and
that's what He said. Now we're going to stop there
because we're just kind of getting going, but it's very straightforward. The Bible, it doesn't mince words
about this particular subject. Now why is it so important that
we emphasize that the wife is not to put away the husband and
the husband is not to put away the wife? What is the singular
reason for that? Exactly correct. That's exactly
why. If you wonder why it's wrong
for a man to put away his wife or wrong for a wife to put away
her husband, it's because it would be flying in the face of
what God ordained marriage to depict. The Lord gave marriage
to depict His love for His bride. Will the Lord put His bride away?
No. He demonstrated that he wouldn't
put his bride away. If anybody has any reason that
he should put away his wife, it would be the Lord Jesus Christ.
But rather than put her away, he died for her to cleanse her,
to wash her from the very faults that would make her unacceptable.
as a wife of the Most High God. But oh, what a glorious thing,
dear brethren, when we see that. And oh, what a privilege we have
as the sons of God to manifest that picture in the earth. Therefore, let not a man put
away his wife or a wife put away her husband simply because of
that. If no other reason existed, that
would be enough, would it not? May the Lord help us.