Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #22 of Genesis, chapter 2 and we are going to read Genesis 2: 21-24:

And JEHOVAH God 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; And the rib, which JEHOVAH 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.

I will stop reading there. We saw in our last Bible study how God “built” the woman. The Hebrew word translated as “made” is overwhelmingly translated as “build” or “building.” We saw how this related to God building the woman or wife, the bride of Christ, which is also called the eternal church. We went to Ephesians, chapter 5 and we are going to go back there at this time. It says in Ephesians 5:22-32:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 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. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

It is just astounding how God has arranged the marriage institution and how He uses the marriage relationship. God is the one that formed the woman in the manner in which He did when He took one of Adam’s ribs and built the woman and brought him to the man, joining them together in marriage and the two would be one flesh.

Remember what Jesus said when the Pharisees questioned him about putting away a wife. It says in Matthew 19:4-6:

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 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? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

We have many institutions in this world, but how many institution are there that go back to the very beginning of creation and are said to have been started by God Himself? As it says here, “he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,” and God joined them together as one flesh in marriage. It really serves to highlight the marriage institution in a tremendous way. We have many things that are part of our society that we uphold and respect, but the marriage relationship is something that God Himself initiated. He brought the woman to the man, joining them together in marriage and they became one flesh in His sight.

Of course, God did it in a miraculous way when He took the rib from Adam and built the woman. Yet, at the time God did this it was before the fall of man into sin. Man was still good. The woman God created was good. They came together in marriage which was good. Every aspect of what God had done in regard to the marriage was good. There was no sin in the world. There had been no fall and subsequent curse upon mankind and the earth. That is how ancient the marriage relationship is because it predates the fall of man into sin. It goes back before Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit and before they were deceived by Satan. Before all this, they had been joined in marriage by God, so marriage has been in existence throughout the history of the world. And we know exactly how old the world is because God created the world in 11,013BC. The year 1988 was the 13,000th year of earth’s history. This is the year 2016, so we are living in the 13,028th year since creation. It was almost 13,000 years before the marriage institution began to be eroded, as the time of the end was getting near and God was allowing man to sink more and more into their sinful desires in order to prepare the world for judgment. Also, God was allowing the churches to go further and further astray. For centuries the churches had permitted the idea of divorce in some of its confessions and creeds. The Reformed Church permitted divorce for fornication and adultery and, yet, they did not utilize what was considered to be allowance by God for divorce. You hardly found divorce anywhere in the churches until the 20th century, but then it began to creep into the churches.

One of the big ways sin has spread through the development of the electronic medium – radio, TV and movies, and so forth. With the advent of the electronic medium there is an ability to communicate with the masses. People were amazed with movies and they began to hear about the Hollywood stars and how they were divorcing one another and it was shocking to people. It was shocking! Hollywood was a corrupt place in the eyes of many in the world and, yet, over time it became accepted as people admired these actors and actresses. Divorce began to seep into the culture at large and into the churches. The churches had a longstanding problem throughout its history, just like Israel of old and that was to look out upon the peoples of the world and lust after the things of the heathens. Israel of old lusted after the Assyrians that spoke a language they understood not and Judah lusted after the Babylonians that also spoke a language they understood not. God set up the churches to go apostate, in large measure, through the charismatic movement where a language was spoken that they understood not. The churches began to look more and more to the world. And then they realized that there were loopholes in the way the Reformers wrote down their confessions. They saw that when the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce, Jesus had said in Matthew 19:8-9:

He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

There is all kinds of information in this passage that teaches there is not to be divorce for any reason and, yet, with an “eye toward the world” or an “eye toward Hollywood,” the churches looked at this and they saw the phrase, “except for fornication,” and they said, “There it is! Like God, we hate divorce. We despise divorce, except that God does allow divorce for fornication.” That began to take center stage and it began to be in the forefront of the eyes of those in the churches and congregations of the world. Then in the 20th century there were members of churches divorcing for fornication. It had begun. There may still have been “gossip” about this one or that one that had gotten a divorce: “Oh, can you imagine?” But, just as it began in Hollywood and spread into society, as Pandora’s Box had been opened. Those in the churches felt justified because some Reformers had allowed it in a confession or creed.

They began by accepting divorce only in the case of fornication, but it was “the edge of the wedge.” When it comes to doctrine, this is often Satan’s methodology. “This is just a little thing. You can keep your major doctrines. I am not trying to destroy the marriage institution. This is just a minor thing. After all, how many people will actually divorce for fornication or adultery? It would just be a miniscule number, so just allow this one thing.” The pastors, elders and deacons may put up some resistance, just like Saul may have put up a little resistance when the people pressured him to do something. But, like Saul, when people want something they gave in to it. Society was changing and as they looked out into the world they began to want the same things, but in this case, just for fornication. But there is the “wedge” and it goes into that little crack and once the little wedge is in place, down comes the hammer and splits it wide open. That is what has happened today. Do churches today talk about divorce only for fornication? If you were to go into any church today, you would find a significant number of the members of the congregation are divorced. And many of them of them divorced while in the churches, with the blessing of the pastors and elders. Why? “Oh, we had insurmountable differences. We were arguing all the time.” Where is the fornication? It has opened up to divorce for any reason whatsoever and that is how it is in society. They get married and three months later they divorce after their first fight.

So, the marriage institution that God designed is shattered. Marriage was all God’s doing. It was not Adam’s idea and he did not say, “Here is how marriage should be. The woman and I will be one flesh.” God formed the woman, brought the woman to the man and declared that the two should be one. God also established protection and safeguards around the marriage relationship that stood for practically all earth’s history in the many nations of the world, even outside of the churches. For thousands of years it stood against assault. There would have been similar types of assault coming against the marriage institution in time past, but it stood until we got near the 13,000th year of earth’s history. Why is that? It is because the marriage relationship was built into the fabric of society. It is through marriage that children come and the resulting families form the towns and cities and states and nations. It is through the family that society functions. God required that time be allowed to unfold, so He required that society would function over the many thousands of years of history. Yes, there would be all kinds of sin in the marriage and in the family, but the basic framework was there and was safeguarded by God’s command: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Through this God worked to accomplish His purpose of salvation. It is ironic that one of the reasons that God wanted society to be available to function throughout history was so there could be a relatively stable world in which the Gospel could go forth to seek and save the lost sheep of the house of Israel, God’s elect. The elect would come together to build the woman, the bride of Christ. In other words, the marriage relationship was relatively stable throughout history while God was building the spiritual bride of Christ: “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Then when we got to the time of the end, the time of the completion of God’s salvation plan and the building of the spiritual bride of Christ, then suddenly the marriage institution became a shambles. The divorce rate is now over 50%.

Satan had desired to assault the marriage relationship all through history and he had some success, but never like what has happened in the last few decades. Now people live together without getting married and people that get married only marry for a short period of time. It is nothing for people to marry a second, third or fourth time. Now Satan has shattered the marriage relationship and what it illustrated in the spiritual realm to the point where men are marrying men and women are marrying women, which goes contrary to everything God had established.

We have to wonder. We find many indicators in the Bible regarding the time of the end of the world. There is the indicator of the apostate church and the end of the church age. We have the indicator of national Israel becoming a nation again, after having been scattered for 0ver 1,900 years. We have the indicator of increased wickedness all over the world as man’s iniquities are multiplied and his heart has grown cold. We have the indicator of the Biblical timeline of history coming together at this time. But another indicator that the end of the world is soon has to be the destruction of the marriage relationship, which we have seen play out in only the last few decades. Marriage is an integral part of family and family is the basis of society, so how can the world continue to operate? How can it continue for any significant length of time into the future when the marriage relationship is shattered? That glorious and wonderful institution of marriage has been shattered.