When you search for something it’s easier if you have a clue to guide you. Treasure hunts are based on signs. If you follow them, you find what you’re looking for.

The wise men searched for the Saviour by following the star and the Word of God, and they found him. But they weren’t the only ones to search for him. The shepherds also searched for the Saviour.

This sermon is part of our series: “Christmas Searches: The Search for the Savior.” And the title for this sermon is: “The Search of the Shepherds” (Lk. 2:8-20).

The angel had told the shepherds of the birth of a Saviour in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord. But what good would the news be if they could not find him, for to not find him is to not know him. His birth is the start. To find him is the challenge. And to know him is the goal.

How then could they find him? They knew that he was born, and they knew when he was born (today), and they knew where he was born (in Bethlehem). But where exactly in Bethlehem was he born? It was census time and the town was full of strangers, so much so that there were no vacancies in the inn. So, how could they hope to find him? What they needed was a sign!

What we learn from this passage today is that “God provides a sign for all who search for the Saviour.” First notice…

I. The Situation Of The Announcement (2:8-9)

⁸ “And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.”

Shepherds were the lowest echelon of that society. Perhaps we might think of them as “homeless people”, street people, despised people of society. People who smelled badly and dressed in worn out, dirty clothes, whose habits were not attuned to a sophisticated society. Here they were, just doing their lowly job, “keeping watch over their flocks by night.” No one knew who they were or where they were. Frankly, nobody cared. But to them was made the greatest announcement the world has ever heard.

Jesus’ birth was not announced to rich men, but to poor shepherds; not to wise men, but to uneducated shepherds; not in the capital city by The Jerusalem Daily Post, but in the country somewhere outside the insignificant town of Bethlehem; not by the king, but by an angel; not to the highest government officials in their ivory towers, but to the lowest of society on a lonely hillside; not to famous or prominent people, but to unknown, unnamed shepherds; not at noonday to the entire city, but at nighttime to a few shepherds.

There was no fanfare in the city, but there were fireworks in the countryside. There were no lights in the city, but “the glory of the Lord shone” in the dark countryside. No special editions of newspapers in the city, but “good news of great joy” in the countryside. No singing in the city, but a “heavenly host praised God” in the countryside.

Doesn’t this remind you of what the apostle Paul said to the Corinthians?

^{18 “}For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” ²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. ²⁶ For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:1:18-21)

Well, no wonder the shepherds were “filled with great fear”! The brightness of the Lord’s “glory” that broke through the darkness of that Judean night terrified them. The word “glory” means the weight or significance or excellence of something or someone that generates a response of awe and wonder. The shepherds’ response to this supernatural occurrence was “great fear.”

A number of years ago, our family went to Banff, a tourist town in the Canadian Rockies, to attend a relative’s wedding. After the wedding, some of us stayed around for a few days’ vacation. One day, everyone wanted to go skiing. After all, that was the big attraction in that area. To not ski at Banff would be like going to Vail, Colorado, and not skiing. That’s just what you do when you go to Banff. The trouble was that neither I nor my daughter had skied before. So we decided to rent the equipment and take a lesson before venturing up a ski lift on our own. When we arrived at the pro shop, we were told that all the ski lessons had been booked for that day and had already left. So, we said, “Ok. We’ll just rent the equipment anyway and go up on our own.” The man looked at us with one of those “can’t-believe-what-I-just-heard looks.” He said, “I don’t recommend that, sir.” I said to my daughter, “Well, what do you want to do?” She replied, “We didn’t come all this way to not ski.” So, I said to the man, “No problem, we’ll rent the equipment and go up on our own.”

So that’s what we did. Once we started up the side of the mountain in the ski lift I knew we were in trouble as the base of the mountain slid from view. Not only that, but when the ski lift stopped and we thought we were at the top, we actually had to get out and enter another one! We reached the top and upon getting out, I promptly fell flat on my back. There I was staring straight up into a beautiful cloudless blue sky at the top of Sunshine Mountain. Almost immediately I saw a little old lady looking down at me and she said: “Would you like me to give you a quick lesson before I take my last run for the day?” So that’s what she did. She showed my daughter and me how to snow plough in order to slow down, and how to crisscross sideways across the mountain in order to control your speed etc. And then, as quickly as she came, she was gone. I’m convinced to this day that she was an angel.

But then we were on our own. And as we started down the ski slope, I realized just how scary this was. The bottom of the ski slope seemed like miles away, the slope was so steep, and there were trees on either side. My heart almost beat out of my chest. So with trembling knees we proceeded very slowly down until after 40 minutes we reached the bottom, where we joined my wife and her friend who were sitting waiting for us. Evidently, our faces were white with fear and exhaustion. But after about 15 minutes of resting, my daughter said, “We didn’t come here just to take one run. Let’s do it again!” The second time, we made it down in 20 minutes. A great improvement.

All that to say, that skiing down Sunshine Mountain at that time was without doubt the scariest experience of my life. The shepherds also were “filled with great fear” when the glory of the Lord shone around them. You see, fear is the natural response to divinity – it’s startling, unsettling.

So, Jesus’ birth was announced to ordinary people in an ordinary place, to the “whosoevers” of the gospel, to the “least of these” as Jesus described them. God’s good news is declared to ordinary people in the most ordinary circumstances.

That was the situation of the announcement of Jesus’ birth. Then there were…

II. The Signs From The Angels (2:10-14)

There were three signs for the searching shepherds…

1. The Sign of the Angelic Sermon (2:10-11)

¹⁰ “And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

The shepherds’ fear was soon assuaged by God’s grace, which was extended to them through the angels. For the angel did not come to instill fear but to announce “good news of great joy for all people.” The angelic sermon was one of “good news.” Good news is characterized by “great joy,” therefore they need not “fear”. And it was declared to “all people,” specifically “to you,” the shepherds, who represent “all people.” In fact, the shepherds represent us.

The good news is that “unto you is born this day…a Saviour.” It’s a present reality not a future hope. He is born in the “city of David” – that’s Bethlehem. You may wonder why Bethlehem is called the city of David. Well, Bethlehem has always been a place of great significance. Originally it was called Ephrata (Mic. 5:2); later it was called Ephrata-Bethlehem or simply Bethlehem. The first time Bethlehem is mentioned in the Bible is when Rachel, the wife of Jacob died there (Gen. 35:19-20; 48:7). It’s mentioned again when Ruth travelled to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi (Ruth 1:19, 22). And there Ruth eventually married Boaz and gave birth to Obed, who would become the grandfather of David. Bethlehem was the birthplace of King David and it was there Samuel anointed him as the future king of Israel (1 Sam. 16:1).

“Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ, the Lord.” The good news is that the Messiah, the Anointed One has come! The One who delivers us from our enemies has come! The One who rescues us from peril has come! The Royal One, the Davidic king has come! “The Lord,” the absolute sovereign, God himself, has come in flesh!

That was the sign of the angelic sermon. Then there was…

2. The Sign of the Earthly Stable (2:12)

¹² “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

The wise men’s sign was a star: the shepherds’ sign is a stable. They wouldn’t have to search through every house, motel room, or campsite. Their search was for a stable, where they would find the Baby.

This is a most unusual sign isn’t it? A baby in a feeding trough? Could this be the confirmation of the angelic announcement? Who would look in a place like this for a new born baby? And especially one who was supposed to be the Messiah child! If the angel had not directed the shepherds and if the star had not guided the magi, then, neither would have searched for him nor found him.

If you were looking for a King, where would you look? Not in the best hotel, nor in an inn, and certainly not in a stable, but in a palace. In a good hotel you might find dignitaries. In an inn you might find tourists and visitors. In a stable you might find horses and cows. But you would never find a King there - especially the Saviour of the world!

If you did find a baby in a stable, what would you think? You might pity the baby or try to help its mother. You might report it to the Children’s Aid Society. Or, you might just pass by on the other side. If someone told you that the baby is the King of the Jews, the Saviour of the world, the Messiah, you might ignore them, scorn them, or, you might consider them a little daft. Probably you wouldn’t believe them.

The sign for the shepherds was a baby in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The sign was so unlikely that it had to be given by an angel or else it would have been dismissed out of hand. We would have expected pomp and glory fit for a King, but that is reserved for Jesus’ second coming, not his first coming. His first coming was in humility and isolation. If his birth had been glorious, the humble shepherds would not have come near. But in a stable, the poorest people on earth may come to him, alongside dignitaries from a far country.

In his best-selling book, “The Jesus I Never Knew,” Philip Yancey contrasts the humility that characterized Jesus’ birth to a visit from the Queen of England. Yancey was attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah in London. During the performance he looked toward the auditorium’s royal box where the queen and her family sat, and, he said, “I caught glimpses of the way rulers stride through the world – with bodyguards and a trumpet fanfare and a flourish of bright clothes and flashing jewelry. Queen Elizabeth II had recently visited the Unites States and reporters delighted in spelling out the logistics involved – her 4,000 pounds of luggage included two outfits for every occasion, a mourning outfit in case someone died, 40 pints of blood plasma, and white kid-leather toilet seat covers. She brought along her own hairdresser, 2 valets, and a host of other attendants. A brief visit of royalty to a foreign country can easily cost $20 million. In meek contrast, God’s visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendant present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feeding trough. Indeed, the event that divided history, and even our calendars, into two parts may have had more animal than human witnesses. A mule could have stepped on him.”

The sign of his birth foretold the story of his life and death. The humble shepherds are given a sign of a humble Saviour. At his birth he was bound in the stable with swaddling clothes, at his death he was bound by nails to a cross, and in the tomb he was bound with grave clothes. At his birth he lay helpless in someone else’s manger and at his death he lay in someone else’s tomb. He was born with animals and died with robbers. He was born in a manger and died on a cross.

Humble as the sign was, we must take Christ as we find him. How do we find him here and what is the sign? The first sign is humility. We find him in a stable not a palace. Solomon built a temple for God but God came to earth in a stable, “made lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:9). The second sign is love. He left heaven’s glory and stooped down to earth because he loved us (Jn. 3:16).

There was the sign of the angelic sermon. The sign of the earthly stable. And…

3. The Sign of the Heavenly Song (2:13-14)

¹³ “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ¹⁴ ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’”

An unusual sign is confirmed by an unusual occurrence. An angelic sermon is followed by an angelic song. A stable of humility is accompanied by a celestial harmony. An angel preached a great message to the shepherds and a heavenly host sings a great anthem to God. An inglorious sign is followed by a glorious song.

The stable and the song - one balances the other. The stable speaks of earthly poverty. The song speaks of heavenly riches. The stable speaks of humility below and the song speaks of glory on high. The stable presents a little helpless baby. The song presents a great and all-powerful God. In the stable the shepherds find him. In the song the angels glorify him. In the stable, the animals “low” a lullaby. In the song, the angels sing a sweet melody. The sign of the stable points the way to Christ. The song of the angels points to the glory of Christ. No angel ministered to Jesus at his death, but multitudes sang at his birth. The angelic multitude bears authoritative witness that the sign and the Saviour are true.

The choir sang: “Glory to God in the highest.” The heavens rejoice and praise God for salvation’s plan, that there is a remedy for sin, that there is “peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased.” The result of Jesus’ coming is that peace has been made possible between God and man (Col. 1:20). Those who know His peace are those who are the recipients of God’s favor, God’s grace. And the One who perfectly embodied all God’s favor was this Baby. He is the One in whom God is well pleased and all who follow him benefit from God’s good pleasure.

That was the meaning of Christmas to the angels. They sang not only of the One who was born but of the grace that had come.

The situation of the announcement is confirmed by the signs from the angels which initiated…

III. The Search By The Shepherds (2:15-20)

¹⁵ “When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’”

1. The shepherds acted in faith (2:15-16). They gave no thought to who would watch over the sheep. For a shepherd to leave his sheep, especially at night, was unthinkable, irresponsible. All their livelihood may be wiped out by this single act. But nothing would stop them in their desire to find the Messiah. Nothing would stop them from acting in obedience and faith.

¹⁶ “And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.” They searched for a baby and found the whole family. What they saw was exactly what the angel had promised - a baby lying in a feeding trough. Their faith was honored. The angels’ testimony was true.

The shepherds acted in faith and…

2. Their search was successful (2:17-20). Their success was evident in the responses.

There was the response of the shepherds’ “testimony” (2:17). ^“And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.” The sequence of faith is this: God’s Word prompted them to take action and their action gave rise to their testimony. They heard the Word from the angel and they acted in faith. They confirmed the sign and they testified to everyone about what the angel had said.

There was the response of the people’s “wonder” (2:18). “All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.” They were amazed at what they heard. But there’s no evidence that it affected their hearts or that it stirred them to action.

There was the response of Mary’s “reflection” (2:19). “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” She reflected on the events, attempting to understand them. She “treasured these things” because they were of inestimable value - they confirmed all that the angel had told her (Lk. 1:26-38). She “pondered them in her heart.” She reflected on everything that had happened.

There was the response of the shepherds’ “praise” (2:20). “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” What they had heard agreed with what they saw and they praised God just as the angels had.

Final Remarks

Remember our thesis: “God provides a sign for all who search for the Saviour.” So, what is our response and duty?

1. Our duty is to find Him, so that the news “unto you is born” culminates in the declaration “we have found the Messiah” (Jn. 1:41).

To find Christ is to bring glory to God, to acknowledge that we are sinners and that we need a Saviour, to respond in obedience to God, to bring honour to what God has done.

To find Christ is to have peace with God: (1) to have peace through his person (“He himself is our peace,” Eph. 2:14), (2) to have peace through his work (“He has made peace through the blood of his cross,” Col. 1:20), (3) to have peace through his justification (“Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Rom. 5:1).

To find Christ is to be well pleasing to God. God has declared: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” When we find and delight in Jesus Christ, we are well pleasing to God.

So, our duty is to find him. And…

2. Our duty is to worship Him, so that the song “Glory to God” culminates with adoration, “Worthy is the Lamb.” He has put a new song in our mouths even praise unto our God.

Most of us try to organize our lives around a schedule. You schedule appointments, schedule your school work, schedule time with your friends etc. Soon you find that your week is all filled up.

Some people don’t make plans at all. Or, if they do, they don’t stick to them. Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler, is reported to have once said: “I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who can’t seem to control their own schedules. Over the years, I’ve had many executives come to me and say with pride, ‘Boy, last year I worked so hard that I didn’t take any vacation.’ It’s actually nothing to be proud of. I always feel like responding, ‘You mean to tell me that you can take responsibility for an $80 million project, and you can’t plan two weeks out of the year to go off with your family and have some fun?’” At this time of year everyone’s schedule seems to be full with Christmas family gatherings to attend, Christmas concerts to enjoy or perhaps be part of.

Sometimes, unscheduled events occur. Cliff Barrows served as Billy Graham’s lifelong associate and crusade song leader. The story is told that in 1945, before he met Billy Graham, Cliff and his fiancée, Billie, had scraped together enough money for a simple wedding and two train tickets to a resort. On arrival, however, they found the hotel shut down. Stranded in an unfamiliar city with little money, they thumbed a ride. A sympathetic driver took them to a grocery store owned by a woman he knew. The newlyweds spent their first night in a room above the store. The next day, when the lady overheard Cliff playing Christian songs on his trombone, she arranged for them to spend the rest of their honeymoon at a friend’s house. Several days later the host invited them to attend a youth rally where a young evangelist was speaking. The song leader that night was sick and Cliff was asked to take charge of the music for the service. The young evangelist, of course, was Billy Graham, and the two became lifelong partners. You can’t schedule such unplanned events.

Sometimes, timing is everything. The plans we make don’t always work out. Unexpected interruptions come up and the timing of our plans has to change. When an unscheduled event occurs, you usually scramble to figure out how you can reorganize your life quickly. Perhaps it’s a health issue, or a death in the family, or a paper at school you forgot was due this week. Or, perhaps it’s the birth of a baby - sometimes babies do what they’re supposed to do and come into the world on time and sometimes they come unexpectedly. Herod hadn’t planned on the Messiah being born. This was certainly an unscheduled event for him and he began to scramble. That’s why he “summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared” (Matt. 2:7). Mary hadn’t planned on Jesus being born that day. But all of sudden, “the time came for her to give birth” (Lk. 2:6).

When things don’t go the way you plan, God’s timing is always the best. He may have plans for you that you know nothing about. The writer of Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven” (Ecc. 3:1).

We’re going to see today that God’s plan is perfect. All the details are fixed and certain. He made his plan in eternity past and he is carrying it out perfectly. His plan isn’t late, nothing is unscheduled, and it won’t change because it’s a perfect plan, God’s Perfect Christmas Plan.

God’s plan was determined before the world was made and spans throughout the entire history of the human race. His plan was so enormous that we can’t fathom its complexity. Yet, smoothly and surely his plan continues to unfold. Just as surely as his Word is eternally trustworthy so his plan for the human race is coming true. The point of the passage we are studying in this sermon is that the purpose for Jesus’ coming into the world was to fulfill God’s perfect plan.

A perfect plan has three components: (1) The perfect time; (2) The perfect person; (3) The perfect purpose. First, then…

I. God Awaited The Perfect Time

When the fullness of time had come… (4a)

1. The fullness of time was planned from eternity past. God has an eternal calendar, a schedule for human history, a plan concerning human beings and the earth. Throughout human history God has been unfolding his plan for the world. But throughout human history people have ignored God’s plan. They turn a blind eye to his plan and turn their backs on Him. Adam and Eve disregarded God’s plan for their bliss in Eden. The nation of Israel disregarded God’s plan for their blessing in Canaan. So, God has repeatedly warned, cajoled, and pleaded with people to repent, to be reconciled to Him, to trust him.

First, the fullness of time was planned in eternity past. And second…

2. The fullness of time was revealed throughout the O.T. It was revealed in Genesis 3:15, when God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and he offspring: he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” It was revealed through the time of the patriarchs, judges, kings, and O.T. prophets (cf. Heb. 1:2-3). And the years passed until the perfect time came, “the fullness of time,” when God intervened in history to execute his plan of redemption.

So, the “fullness of time” was planned from eternity past. It was revealed throughout the O.T. And third…

3. The fullness of time came when Christ was born. Christ’s birth was “the fullness of time” because it was exactly at the time of our greatest need. Human beings had shown themselves to be utterly incapable and unwilling to keep God’s law. Over thousands of years, the human race had proven that we are sinners in need of a Savior. “While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Indeed, “At that time, you were separated from Christ … having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).

It was the “fullness of time” because it was exactly according to God’s timetable. That was the time for God to effect his eternal plan of redemption. This was the culminating revelation of God’s plan. This was the apex of his unfolding drama of redemption. This was the zenith of all God’s ways with man. This was the perfect time when God himself was going to intervene in human history by coming to earth. The task was too great for any mere mortal to speak or act on behalf of God – not the prophets nor the kings or judges or patriarchs. So that was the time for God’s one and only Son to be born.

It was the “fullness of time” because it was exactly the right time for God’s plan to be put into action. The time had come to which all redemptive history had pointed. The right moment had come for God to disclose to the world how he would effect his plan of salvation, a plan that he had made known through the prophets, but a plan that the human race had ignored. That’s why, when Christ was born, no one seemed to realize what was happening. The people of Jerusalem and Bethlehem didn’t know, even though their own Scriptures had predicted it long before.

When Christ was born nearly 2000 years ago it was the perfect time for God to initiate his plan of redemption. And the perfect time for God to complete his plan will come again in the future. He acted once at Christ’s first coming and He will act again at Christ’s second coming. At Christ’s first coming, God revealed his grace; at Christ’s second coming, God will reveal his judgment and wrath. There is a limit set for God’s plan of grace. Yes, “God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). And so, God pleads with people today: “Behold, now is the favorable (acceptable) time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). And He warns everyone: “Surely I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:20). There is a limit set for God’s plan of grace. The question is: “Are you ready?”

God awaited the perfect time. And…

II. God Appointed The Perfect Person

…God sent forth his Son (4b)

This reminds us of the man in the parable who “planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.” (Mk. 12:1). First, he sent a servant to receive the fruit if his vineyard, but the servant was beaten by the tenants and sent away empty-handed. Then, he sent another servant who was shamefully treated, stoned, wounded and sent away. Then, he sent another servant who was killed, and many others, some of whom were beaten and some killed. After all that, “He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’” (Mk. 12:1-6).

Jesus, the perfect person, was “born of a woman” (4c). In God’s perfect plan, he sent forth Jesus, his beloved Son, who was “born of a woman.” He did not come the first time in the way he will come the second time. At his second coming he will come in power and great glory. Then, “he will come in the clouds and every eye will see him” (Rev. 1:7). And then every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10-11). But at his first coming, Jesus came in weakness and obscurity, “born of a woman.”

Because he was born of a woman, Jesus was fully human. But Jesus was also fully divine. Though he was fully man, Jesus was no ordinary man. He was no ordinary man because his conception was different than any other - the woman to whom he was born was a virgin. He was not conceived through the natural union of a man and a woman. He was conceived through the Holy Spirit: “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” the angels said to Joseph (Matt. 1:20). His conception guarded his deity. And his conception guarded his holiness – he had no sinful nature. He was fully human and yet perfectly sinless as Scripture attests: God “made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). He was “holy, innocent, unstained, separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26). He was “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

Thus, Jesus was the God-man. He was fully and perfectly God and fully and perfectly man. He was God “manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). This is a foundational, non-negotiable truth of Christianity (cf. Heb. 2:14). “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14).

So, Jesus had two natures - human and divine (cf. Phil. 2:6-7). It was necessary for our salvation that the Savior of men should be a perfect man. As John MacArthur puts it: “He had to be God to have the power of Saviour, and He had to be man to have the position of Substitute” (Galatians, 108). The debt of our sins had to be paid and it could only be paid by a sinless, perfect person. This idea is echoed in Cecil Alexander’s old hymn (“There is a Green Hill far away”)…

There was none other good enough to pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.

To satisfy the justice of a holy God, there had to be a perfect sacrifice. And the perfect sacrifice had to be a perfect person. Jesus, the perfect person, was “born of a woman.” And Jesus, the perfect person, was “born under the law” (4d). He was born under the same conditions as those who were finding it impossible to be justified by the law. Like any other person, he had the obligation to obey and be judged by the law. But unlike any other person, he perfectly kept and satisfied the law of God, because he was perfectly sinless.

So, in putting his plan into action, first, God awaited the perfect time. Second, God appointed the perfect person. And notice third…

III. God Achieved The Perfect Purpose

Every plan has to have a purpose, a goal.

God’s purpose was to change our standing before God. And He did this by sending forth his Son “to redeem those who were under the Law” (5a). To redeem something means to buy it back, just as slaves in Bible times were sometimes bought back from slavery. Because Christ was born under the law and perfectly kept the law, he is able to “redeem” all who were born under the law and were held in bondage by it, being unable to keep it themselves. We could not meet the holy demands of God’s law. We stood before God condemned, our mouths were shut. We had no defence before God, no advocate. We were guilty and enslaved with no hope of freedom until “God sent forth his Son” into the world “to redeem those who were under the Law.”

That’s what God revealed to Mary, “You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). That’s what God revealed to the shepherds, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:10-11). That’s what God, through Paul, revealed to the people in the synagogue, “Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (Acts. 13:38-39).

God sent forth his Son with the express purpose of redeeming us, redeeming us from our sinful flesh. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). If we believe in him, the condemnation of sin in the sacrifice of Christ prevents our personal condemnation. It changes our standing before God. That’s why Jesus came into the world.

By faith in Him, we are redeemed from the curse of the law, bought back from the power of Satan to the power of God, ransomed from death to life. Our standing before God changed. That was God’s purpose, to change our standing before Him. And also…

God’s purpose was to change our status before Him. God sent forth his Son “so that we might receive adoption as sons” (5b). That’s a change of status. Adoption in this context doesn’t mean what it does today in our society. In the Greco-Roman culture, a certain time was set when the male child in the family was formally and legally “adopted.” The word used here for adoption literally means “to place as a son.” So, at this pre-appointed time, the male child was placed in the position of a legal son and given all the rights and privileges of that position. This legal ceremony did not make him a member of the family, for he always was a member of the family. Rather, it gave him legal recognition as a son under Roman law.

There are two Greek words that are both rendered simply as “son” in our English translations, but they are, in fact, different. One word refers to a child by natural birth (teknon) and the other refers to the same child who has been legally declared a son in the eyes of the law (huios). Here in Galatians 4:5, Paul uses the term “huios” to describe this legal “adoption as sons” with full rights and privileges.

Paul’s point here is that, as adopted sons (and daughters), we have a new status before God. We who were slaves to the law have been redeemed from its grip and now, as free men and women, we have been adopted into God’s family with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of sons and daughters.

This new status brings with it a family intimacy, the like of which we could never have had with God before. Our status has been changed from slavery under the law to redeemed children adopted into God’s family. And now, because we are God’s children, “God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’” (6). Notice this beautiful sequence. Not only did God send forth his perfect Son into the world to change our standing before God by redeeming us (marvellous as that is), and to change our status before God by adopting us (marvellous as that is), but also He has sealed our new standing and signified our new status by sending “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (6a). Thus, we are brought into an entirely new relationship with God, a relationship of intimacy and security that a slave could never have with his master, but which we enjoy with God as his children. Now we know God in an entirely different way. Now we can call God “Abba! Father!” - “Daddy, Father.” Now we are “no longer slaves but sons” [and daughters] (7a). Now we enjoy a paternal intimacy with God of security, warmth, comfort, confidence, affection, joy, peace. We have a brand new relationship with God through Christ. That’s why the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world.

This new status not only brings with it a family intimacy but also…

This new status brings with it a family inheritance. Because of Christ’s redemption and our adoption into God’s family, we have become heirs of all that his children are entitled to inherit. If we are sons and daughters of God, “then (we are) heirs of God through Christ” (7b). We are brought into the family inheritance. As it says in Rom. 8:17, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” When we become part of God’s family through “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24) we receive the family inheritance. God has appointed his Son the heir of all things (Heb. 1:2) and now through faith in Him, all that is Christ’s by right is ours by inheritance because we are God’s adopted children (cf. Col. 1:16).

What, then, is the nature of our inheritance? Our inheritance is that we have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:3-5). Or, as Eph. 1:11-14 puts it, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

Final Remarks

What we see in this passage is that God’s Perfect Christmas Plan is at its core the plan of redemption. And if you trust him, you can be a part of his redeemed family. This is why Jesus came into the world, to be our Saviour and to bring us into this new relationship with God, our Father. To implement his plan (1) God awaited the perfect time; (2) God appointed the perfect person; and (3) God achieved the perfect purpose.

I can’t think of any better Christmas plan than that. The timing was perfect, the person was perfect, and the purpose was perfect. As a result the unsolved riddle of the previous 400 years before Christ is solved. The unsolved riddle was: “How can a man be just with God?” Now the solution is clear: “God sent forth his Son... to redeem (us).”

Remember our theme statement: The purpose of Jesus’ coming into the world was to fulfill God’s perfect plan. The question today is: Have you received the redemption that has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you ready to meet Him? Don’t let other plans hold you back so that you miss him when he comes again. Many things in our lives can distract us from what’s important.

During World War II, General Douglas MacArthur called one of his Army engineers and asked, “How long would it take to throw a bridge across this river?” The man immediately responded: “Three days, sir.” Gen. MacArthur snapped back, “Good. Have your draftsmen make drawings right away.” Three days later Gen. MacArthur sent for the engineer and asked how the bridge was coming along. The engineer reported, “It’s all ready. You can send your troops across right now if you don’t have to wait for the plans. They aren’t done yet.” What was important was getting across the river, not drawing the plans. Don’t wait until some other time to make your own plan to meet God. What’s important is to follow God’s plan. What’s important is being ready now, to get across the river, if you will. If Jesus were to return today, would you be ready to meet him? Don’t think that you have to stop doing this or start doing that first. Don’t say you plan to attend to it when you’re older. Don’t say you’ll think about it after you’ve sown your wild oats, after you get married, or when the kids are grown up.

Are you ready for the second coming of Christ in accordance with God’s perfect plan? Have you made peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? The One for whom there was no room in the inn will one day declare: “Come, for everything is now ready” (Lk. 14:17). Are you ready? There is still room in God’s house but it is filling fast. Soon the last soul will be saved and the door will be shut (Lk. 13:25). For those of us who have made peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, this reminder of why Jesus came - God’s perfect plan through Christ - should warm our hearts, fill us with hope, renew our commitment, cause us to watch and be ready, for the coming of the Lord draws near.

Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited transcription of the attached audio message.

Let’s turn in our Bibles for our scripture reading, please, to Genesis chapter two.

Now, for some time, I have been deeply concerned about a short series relating to marriage and we are going to start that this morning. We’re going to have a four week series that will be generally entitled “The Making of a Christian Marriage.” And I feel that this is one of the deep needs in our congregation, in that we have so many children and young people attending and I hope and trust that it will be a profit to those of us who are already married and save our homes from some problems that are so potential today.

So we’re beginning this morning by looking at Genesis chapter two and our title for our message is “The Divine Design.” Genesis chapter two, verse eighteen. Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. Now you will note that I’m reading from the New American Standard Standard Bible, which is, I think, very helpful in the translation of that eighteenth verse.

Verse nineteen says:

“Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

23 The man 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.’”

And although we’re going to save verse twenty four for our next message, we will read it for the connection.

“For this cause a man she leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall become one flesh.”

And we trust that God shall bless this reading of his word, which deals with the basic elements involved in a marriage.

Lets join together in prayer, shall we? Our father, we’re thankful this morning for the word of God, which instructs us in the way that we ought to go, and we thank thee particularly for that word which contains therein a revelation of the Lord Jesus and his great love for us. We thank Him for the death he has died, for the salvation he provides, for the forgiveness that he offers, for the power that he gives. We thank thee Father for the eternal life that is found in him. We thank thee, each one of us, who have entered into enjoyment of that forgiveness and eternal life.

We pray, Lord, that we shall revel this morning in that position, and that we shall respond to thy matchless grace in giving to us such a full and free salvation, by loving thee deeply and by serving thee faithfully.

We pray for each one bowed before thee this morning, Lord, and ask especially for those who do not know the joy of salvation and their sins forgiven. We pray, Father, that thou shalt draw them to thyself this morning through the preaching of thy word. That thou shalt give to them thy faith to receive Jesus Christ personally as their savior.

We pray for those unable to be with us. Many, father, who are laid aside in bed because of sickness, we commit them to thee. We ask for thy blessing in their lives this morning; for each one who is toiling under the burden of anxieties of life, we ask for thy blessing.

We pray, Lord, that the truth of this lovely hymn shall dawn upon our hearts this morning as we remember how faithful thou art in every situation of life. We commit to thee Father, the ministry of this chapel, and especially as we launch into this radio ministry, we pray that thou will expand the outreach of the group of Christians meeting here that we may reach many in this city, around the city, and perhaps farther as thou dost open doors, even around the country. We ask that thou richly bless this ministry and use it to glorify thyself in building up thy people and in drawing to thyself those whom thou art speaking to.

We commit to thee our young people this morning and ask for blessing in their lives. And we pray Lord, as we launch into this series on Christian marriage, that thou shalt make it a particular blessing in each of our homes. We pray for homes that are straining under the problems of their marriage. We pray for young people who are anticipating marriage, for many young people who are in the dating area of their life. We pray, Lord that thou shalt use these messages and this ministry in the teaching of thy word to heal wounds and to preserve young people from tragic situations in their lives. We commit to thee not only this hour, but the hours to follow this morning, the meeting of the church this evening, the Bible teaching meetings during this week. We ask, Lord, that we shall have a consciousness of thy presence, as we sense the last days upon us. Help us Lord to redeem the time for thy glory. We commit this hour to thee and ask for a sense of thy presence. Glorify thyself, prepare our hearts to receive thy word and to respond to it; for we ask it in thy name, amen.

Our subject for this morning is, “The Divine Design.” “Compared with marriage, being born is a mere episode of our career. And dying is a trivial incident.” Those are the words of Dorthy Dix, one America’s foremost female counsellors. And what she is trying to say when she says that, is that there is no more critical and important and crucial step than the step into marriage. And of course, few of us would want to debate that point.

Marriage is a giant step into either a life of deep fulfillment or life of desperate frustration. And which of the two is largely determined by the concept we have of the nature of marriage. For that reason, this morning we want to turn to Genesis Chapter two. We want to discover the divine design for marriage. And our purpose is to create a correct concept of marriage in the minds of many of our children and young people, and perhaps to correct some corrupted concepts that have developed in our thinking as older folk, as we have viewed marriages in our lifetime and in our day and age.

So in Genesis Chapter two, we have the basic principles that relate to the institution of marriage. We want to look in verses 18 to 23 at four basic principles that will help us to appreciate something of the divine design for marriage.

The first and probably the most obvious of all in reading through our section this morning, is that marriage is a divine institution; it is an institution of God that is apparent from reading verses 18 to 23.

J. Adams has suggested that it is quite wrong for us to think of a number of years, a number of centuries, a number of ages ago, a group of previously promiscuous people sitting in a dark cave around a flickering fire, all of a sudden thinking of the idea of marriage. Marriage is not a social contract that was thought up by men and thought to be useful for a particular period of time. Marriage is an institution of God. It was God who made Adam. It was God who said It is not good for man to be alone. And then it was God who made Eve; and it was God who brought Eve to Adam; it was God who gave Eve to Adam; it was God who presided at the first marriage ceremony. Adam did not take a wife to himself. He received a wife. Society did not invent marriage, it received it as an institution from God. Now that is the apparent principal that emerges from the reading of our section. Now, if that is so, there are at least two implications that we cannot avoid this morning. If marriage is an institution of God, we cannot discard it—if we would wish to. But yet that is precisely what is happening in our generation.

In Sweden today, marriage is going out of style. In Mills College here in the United States, a survey taken last year on the part of senior students, showed forty percent of the women indicated that marriage was no longer important to them.

Many people are writing now in our magazines and newspapers, that because of the pill and legalized abortion, much of the usefulness of marriage has disappeared. And we are in a period of time where marriage is being discarded, like a garment that we have outgrown, or like an object that is no longer useful for us. Now, if marriage is an institution of God, no legislature, no society, no individual, has the right to set aside what God has set up, or to eliminate what God has established. Marriage is an institution of God! And only God can abrogate that institution. He has not done so.

The second implication of this is just as obvious. If marriage is an institution of God, we must define marriage in God’s terms. One of the remarkable things that is happening about us today is that marriage is being redefined. Newsweek magazine about a year or so ago spoke of the more than two million middle class Americans that are engaged in group sex. And then the comment from Newsweek magazine, was that from coast to coast, married swingers are experimenting with a radical redefinition of marriage.

Carol Cline in her book, “The Single Parent Experience,” again notes the trouble that families are in, and as a result, how people are redefining marriage. Speaking of single women, who have decided to have a baby, she says, these are girls in their late twenties, pushing thirty, not married. Rather than coercing the man they were with to marry someone they did not love, they became mothers independently. And one of the amazing phenomena that is happening about us today, is that single girls are adopting babies. And mothers are keeping their babies born out of wedlock. And there is an amazing trend toward women becoming purposefully pregnant without having a man that is committed to being a husband or father for the children. And what is happening today is that a radical redefinition of marriage is taking place.

I was astounded to discover, that since 1948, the religious leaders in Israel have granted to 802 Jewish men in Israel, the permission to take a second wife, without having divorced their first wife, or becoming a widow. Now that is very close to bigamy. And yet, that is exactly what is happening in Israel today. What is happening in our society today because of the failure of the homes, is a radical redefinition of marriage. And yet, we cannot allow ourselves to define marriage in terms of the popular paperback that we see in the corner drug store, or in terms of the perverted production that comes out of Hollywood, or in terms of the promiscuous person that works in the office, or that lives in the dormitory on campus.

If marriage is an institution of God, it must be defined in God’s terms. And God’s definition of marriage according to verse twenty four, which we shall study in detail in our next message, is that marriage, first of all and clearly, is a monogamous relationship. He says, “for this cause, a man should leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife.” It is just as clear that it is to be a permanent relationship. He says that he is to cleave to his wife. He is to cling to her. He is to be glued to her. And it is just as clear from this that marriage is to be an exclusive relationship between that man and that woman, because it says, “and they two shall become one flesh.” Those are the terms that God uses to define marriage. It is a monogamous, permanent, exclusive relationship.

And it is very clear to anyone who reads their Bible, that it is within that relationship that children are to be born. And children are to be raised in a home. That is God’s definition of marriage. If we are to recognize that it is an institution from God that we cannot discard, even though we should like to, we must define it in the terms that God uses for defining a marriage. Now that is the first principle that is very apparent from the passage that we have read.

The second principle is just as apparent. It emerges from the first phrase in verse eighteen where we discover that marriage is a blessing from God. It says in that verse, “then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.” At first thought, that is rather a remarkable statement. God is in the process of creation. This is the first not good thing that God has seen in all his creative work. When you read that verse, you think for a moment, that it seems somewhat contradictory to the phrase in verse thirty one of chapter one. Notice. It says, “and the Lord God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good.”

Now it would appear for a moment then that verse eighteen is in contradiction to the thirty first verse of chapter one. Of course, we know that is not the case. You have two complementary accounts of creation, one in chapter one and one in chapter two, beginning with verse four. Now, these are not dual accounts taken from different sources, as the literary critics suggest, rather, they are complementary accounts. The one in Genesis chapter one is a panorama of the whole process of creation. And the account in chapter two is a particularization of one segment of that creative work. What is recorded in chapter one, verses twenty six and twenty seven, the creation of man and woman, is expanded in the particularization of chapter two. So the account in chapter two is that expansion, which really fits back into chapter one, verses twenty six and twenty seven.

Chronologically, then chapter two, verse eighteen comes before chapter one, verse thirty one. So if we work to pick the chronology of the sixth day up, we would see that at the beginning of the sixth day, God made the animals. And then he made man and he saw Adam alone, and he said, “it is not good for Adam to be alone.” And so he made the woman to be with Adam. And having made the woman, he completed his work and saw all that he had made and concluded it was very good. Now, one of the things included in that very good is marriage. Marriage is something that God says is very good. Now, may I repeat that? God says, “marriage is something that is very good.” It is one of the blessings that God has given to society.

Now, if that is so, there are at least three implications that touch every one of us in the audience this morning. If marriage is a blessing from God, if marriage is very good, then first of all, we ought to speak of marriage respectfully, When I was a young fellow, one of the things that used to go around our part of the country was something like this. “Marriage is a wonderful institution, if you want to spend the rest of your life in an institution.” The Germans have a proverb which says, “if you would have one happy year, marry. If you would have two, refrain.”

When we were up in Canada, we connected with a number of young couples who were going to a certain church that called their young couples class “The ball and chain class.” Donald G. Barnhouse used to say, “bite your tongue before you ever refer to your wife as your “ball and chain” or as your “jailer.”

Now, the jokes that have been made about marriage are legion, and we all say them very innocently. And, yet my friend, there is no such thing as joking innocently about marriage. Every such comment or joke, contaminates our children. With that type of conversation we are telling our children that what God has designed to be their happiest estate in life is all a big mistake. It sometimes has a way of destroying marriages, because it introduces wedges with those sarcastic remarks set out in public, often in a joking way, that leave wounds and scars and resentments that fester. Sometimes those jokes actually are exposing the very depths of our hearts and oftentimes many a true word has been said in jest.

But the most serious thing about jesting above marriage, is that you are contradicting God. God says it is very good and for you and for me to joke about it and jest about it with other couples in the presence of our partner, or in the presence of our children, is to say to them that what God says is very good I do not think is so good. Dr. Walter Meyer in his book, For Better, Not For Worse, has said “to speak disdainfully of married life, to invoke upon it sophisticated sarcasm, is to exalt the puny errors of pigmy minds over the eternal truth of heaven.” It is to blaspheme God. Now this is something that every parent, every husband, every wife, ought to be very sensitive to. If God says this is very good, this is a blessing from him, then we ought to speak of it respectfully. Secondly, we are to esteem it highly.

I have a close friend who for many years was the champion of celibacy. And his basis of course was the 1 Corinthians chapter seven passage where he thought that Paul clearly taught that celibacy was a higher estate than marriage was. It is true of course that Paul does say in that chapter, “he that marries does well, and he that does not marry does better.” The conclusion then is that celibacy is a higher state than the married state. Now is that what Paul was saying in that passage? Of course, the answer is “no.” That is not generally the case. In Paul’s case that was the case at that period of time because Paul says explicitly in verse 26 of that chapter, “because of the present distress.” He was anticipating a bloodbath. And so as he spoke to the Corinthians, he was speaking to an army of men who were about to enter into an unequal battle with an overwhelming foe on their own battleground for a prolonged period of time. What he was saying is, “this is not the time to get married.” That is exactly the point that he is making in chapter seven.

Celibacy is not a higher state than marriage. Marriage is the higher state. God says, “it is very good.” If God says that, we ought to esteem it as something that is very good.

Now the third implication of that is, that we are to regard marriage as honorable. Occasionally in our counselling ministry, we come across, a young lady, generally, who feels there is something a little defiling or inferior about marriage because of the physical relationship in marriage.

Now it’s very important to see, that the physical relationship within marriage was instituted before the fall of Man. After that relationship was instituted, God saw it and said that it was very good. And to underline it in Hebrews chapter 13, the apostle, or whoever is the writer, clearly asserts that marriage is to be regarded as honorable by all. And the marriage bed is undefiled. Now what the New Testament and the Old Testament are saying throughout the scriptures is that sex within marriage is very good. There is nothing inferior. There is nothing dirty about that. God says, “it is very good.” And we are to regard it as an honorable thing.

It is obvious from the fact that Paul parallels marriage with the relationship that exists between Christ and His church. God describes His relationship with His own in terms of a bridegroom’s relationship with the bride in the book of Revelation. It is very clear then that God does not consider marriage as being defiling or inferior in any state. He considers it as something that is holy and something that is very righteous. If God considers it that way, then we ought to.

I want to speak directly to many of you young people because you are subjected to all kinds of currents of thought today. I want to speak to you as simply as I can, so that you will be able to cultivate and develop attitudes toward marriage which are wholesome and biblical. I want to make it clear that God has given marriage to our society as one of His blessings upon men. He says it is very good and we ought to speak of it respectfully and esteem it very highly and regard it as something that is very honorable, because God does.

Now the third principle that emerges again from this saying in the 18th verse, is, I think very, very important for us to understand. And that is that marriage is a norm for society. That is clear from the 18th verse, which says, “then the Lord God said it is not good for man to be alone.” It is obvious, then, that the norm would be that man should not be alone. The marriage state is the normal state for men and women in our society. Now that is underlined surely by Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 2, when he says, “let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband.”

Marriage is the norm; celibacy is the exception. According to First Corinthians 7, it is for those who have been given the special gift, and it is for times of special distress. But apart from that, the norm is marriage. Now if that is true, again, there are three very important implications for many of us in the audience today. The first implication is that we ought to plan on marriage. We ought to plan on it.

If you are a young person in the audience this morning, then you ought to plan on marriage. It is the norm that God has laid down. Unless God makes it very clear that you are not to marry, then you ought to plan on entering into a marriage relationship, because that is the norm.

May I say a direct word to you mothers and fathers? We ought to plan on our children marrying. That is the norm. I’m astounded to discover how many parents refuse to talk to their young children, or to their teenage children, openly and freely and candidly about their marriage relationship with a young man or a young lady, for fear of putting ideas in the minds of their children. I have that told me often. “I would never say such a thing or I would never bring up such a thing for fear of putting an idea in my daughter’s mind that she might run off with some young fellow and get married.” Now that is a tragic mistake. I will have static for speaking as candidly as I am speaking this morning from some of you. You will fear that I am going to put some thoughts or some ideas in the minds of your children. I am speaking this way because I recognize that marriage is the norm, and your children are going to marry. And if you and I can plan on our children marrying, I am convinced that we will be much more concerned about giving them an example when they are four and five and six years of age, so that when they enter into marriage, they will be able to follow the example that we have given to them in our relationship with our wives.

I am convinced that if we develop the mentality of planning on our children marrying, that we will be much more diligent in training them and in teaching them for marriage. If we plan on our children marrying from the day that we look at them in that hospital nursery, then we will be much more prepared for the day when we have to give them away. And we will be able to give them away without interfering in their marriages, and in their homes, and being a great source of problems. You see, one of the reasons why we are so inefficient in training our children for marriage, and one of the reasons why we are such poor examples to our children for marriage, and one of the reasons why moms and dads on the day of a wedding, cannot come to give themselves away is because they have resisted all through the years, the idea that their child is going to marry. We need to plan for our children to marry.

Dr. Hall from the University of Texas has said that, generally speaking, a successful or an unsuccessful marriage can be forecast in the childhood of a child. Now that is remarkable. And that means that our role as parents is very crucial in determining how successful the marriages will be of our children. If you and I are not doing the job that we ought to do with the four and five and six your old, then we are going to be directly responsible for the lack of leadership that boy will give when he is married. Or for the resistance of submission on the part of the wife when she enters into marriage. It is during those young days that we ought to be working with our children, planning on them entering into marriage.

The second implication is that we ought to be praying about marriage. Now I know that that sounds very mundane and almost simplistic. And yet may I ask you my dear parent, when was the last time you sat down with your child and prayed for their marriage?

My wife and I were deeply moved when we read the story of Billy Graham a number of years ago, when his daughters were young, taking them up into the mountains of Carolina and sitting down with them on the hills and praying individually, when those girls were very young, praying individually for the husband that God had made for those girls somewhere in this world.

And God has moved us to that very thing in our home. Now if marriage is the norm, then as parents we ought to be praying for our children’s marriages.

As soon as we discovered that we were expecting a child, we started to pray for the salvation of that child, and I am sure that that is true of many of you parents. I must say that I am ashamed. I have been rebuked by my preparation for this message this week, that I did not start praying at that same time for the marriage of that child. It is one of the things that I am going to make a high priority in my prayer life. We want to make it a practice in our home to sit down with our daughters and pray with them for the husband that God has made for them.

What we want to do is, even now, to begin to pray about that. Imagine what would happen if our children were reared to pray that God would give them the kind of partner they needed. That God would guide them to the very partner that God had made for them; that God would give them the patience to wait for the one of God’s making, and that God would give them the grace to keep themselves pure and clean until that one is brought into their life! That could revolutionize homes and marriages and lives. And it is all an outflow of recognizing that marriage is the norm for society. If it is the norm, we ought not only to plan on it and pray about it, but we ought to prepare for it.

And I would like to say some things directly to you young people very briefly out of my counselling files this morning. One of the ways that you can prepare for marriage is to determine never to date seriously a person that you are not prepared to marry. Now some of you 15 year olds will smile and say, “what on earth do you mean by that?” I mean exactly that. Never date seriously a young fellow that you would not be prepared to marry, and I say that out of great experience. Not my own personal experience, fortunately, but from observing many experiences right here in the congregation in Believers Chapel. I have seen Christian people marry unbelievers, marry alcoholics, marry social misfits, mary spiritual Pygmies, because they started dating them seriously, never intending to marry them, but ended up at the marriage altar.

If you are to prepare for marriage, never, never date seriously one that you are not prepared to marry. And as you are in that dating relationship with someone seriously, the way to prepare for marriage is to build that relationship, not upon physical involvement, not upon social compatibility, but upon a spiritual foundation. That kind of foundation can hold up a marriage and no other foundation can do it. That is the way you want to be preparing in your relationship as you date a young man or a young lady. Those are the implications of recognizing that marriage is simply the norm that God has ordained for society.

Now from the whole section that remains, there is a fourth principle that we want to develop in our closing minutes. And the fourth principle is that God clearly has indicated that marriage is a partnership, and I want you to know from verses 18 through 23 that there are aspects of this partnership that are brought before us.

The first aspect is that the planner of the partnership is God. God was the one who made Eve for Adam. God planned that partnership and brought the two of them together in the relationship that they had. God made the marriage of Adam and Eve. Now this is a very solid note. It underscores what the New Testament says when it writes, “let no man put asunder,” those whom God has put together. The marriage of Adam and Eve was made by God. So I believe very deeply my dear friend that your marriage was planned and made by God.

Now I had a very good friend just this week turn to me and say, “but Bill, isn’t it possible that I made a mistake and married the wrong woman?” Sometimes we think that, especially when we entered into marriage before we became Christians, or entered into it when we were backslidden, or in rebellion against the Lord and our parents. And we look upon the situation, and we have second thoughts down the road a little, and say, “isn’t it possible that I married the wrong one?” My friend, the answer to that question is Ephesians chapter 1 verse 11, which says that “our God works all things after the counsel of his will.”

There is not one thing that transpires in your life that is out of God’s will. He is the one who works all things in this universe, and in your life according to His will. Now of course, it is possible that the young lady that you married wasn’t God’s perfect will for you. It is also possible that the young lady you married was in God’s permissive will for you. And there is a great difference. But the fact is, that whatever the case, it is God’s will. There is not one thing that God permits in your life that is out of His eternal plan or eternal decree. And the person that you are married to this morning is according to either the perfect will of God or the permissive will of God. But it is according to God’s will. God is the planner of marriages.

Now the second thing that emerges from our passage as we look at it, “why is it that God plans such marriages?” And so the purpose clearly is indicated, I think, as you come down through Verse 18, “the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper.” Now, isn’t it remarkable that God made Eve for Adam so that Adam would not be alone. That my friend is the primary and most obvious purpose for marriage.

It is for the companionship of a man and woman, and that is one of the beautiful things about marriage. I must say that I find it a tremendously delightful thing to see a couple that has been married for a number of years; really friends; companions enjoying each other’s companionship. Now that is what a marriage is all about! God designed marriage for the companionship of Adam with his wife. And if he designed Adam’s marriage for that purpose, He designed your marriage for exactly the same purpose. That you would have a companion in life.

Isn’t it remarkable that He says of this companion, that “I will make him a helper” and that adds a perspective to the role of a wife that is oftentimes overlooked. The wife is to be the helper of the husband. She is to help him in his role as being the head of the home. She helps him in raising the children. Helps him in administering the household; she is to help him in his role of a businessman in our society. She entertains his business associates. She encourages him, provides a context in a home where he can get out of the pressure of that society. She is a helper to him, the businessman. She is a helper to him, a Christian. She encourages the development of his spiritual gift. She stands side by side with him, a helper in his ministry.

That is one of the reasons why, at Believers Chapel, we encourage husband and wife teams to teach Sunday school. We are convinced that a great team effort is where the wife becomes the helper of the husband in his spiritual ministry. And that is the purpose that God has designed marriage for. That there would be a companionship, whereby the wife becomes the helper of the husband in the role that God has given to him.

Where is God ever going to find such a companion? We move on and note that the partners in this partnership are in a remarkable way, made to be complementary to each other.

The next word that is used in verse 18 is, “it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper, suitable for him.” Now that is a very crucial word. The helper that God was going to make for Adam would be someone who would be suitable for him. The word means, in a sense, corresponding to him. As the reflection in the mirror corresponds to the object being reflected, so the woman corresponded to Adam. God made Eve in such a way that she would correspond to him. As Adam was a physical, intellectual, social, and emotional and spiritual person, God made Eve with all of those same capabilities to correspond to him. And God has been doing that down through the centuries. He makes women to correspond to men.

Animals from all of the creation were examined. Not one was found that would correspond to Adam in these areas, but a woman was made to correspond to him, and a woman still is made to be the corresponder to men in these particular characteristics. When God brought Eve to Adam, she completed him. And no longer were they two separate entities, but they became the male and female of a single entity. And that is what God does when He brings a wife to a man. The wife that he has made for that man completes that man, and they become one entity. And then, in that relationship having been completed by his wife, those two partners complement one another. The strengths of Adam were balanced by the weaknesses of Eve. The assets of Eve were balanced by the deficiencies of Adam. They were made to complement one another. Wouldn’t it be a horrible thing for two identical persons to live together in a home? I can’t imagine what would happen if two perfectionists ever married. It would be chaos in that home. Or two people who were totally impatient.

God makes a man and a woman. They are made to correspond to each other. When God brings those that He is made for each other together, they complete one another, and in that completed state, they complement each other in the design that God has made.

Now I want to say to you young people that if it is in God’s design for you to enter into marriage, God has made a partner to correspond to you, and in God’s time, He will bring that partner to you to complete you. And in that completion, there will be a complement between you and your partner. I oftentimes in counselling situations hear people tell their complaints about their partner, their personality, or their idiosyncrasies, or their habits. And you sit back and you smile and say, “boy I can see exactly why God brought that wife into your life.” It’s exactly what you needed. That is the complement to you. Because we do not recognize that that is the design that God has in marriage.

When we see a partner who is a little different in certain areas, we react against it instead of recognizing that that is God’s design to complement us and to fill in areas of weakness and deficiency in our lives. Perhaps to cultivate qualities in our character that need to be cultivated. And so it is a very beautiful design that God has made as He has designed. The provision for Adam’s partner came from himself. Where was such a partner to complement him, to complete him, and to correspond to him, ever to be found? From all of the animals of creation, not one was found. So God took a rib from Adam, and the provision of the partner came from Adam himself. It was a part of himself.

The Jewish rabbis used to say that Eve was not made from the foot because she was not to be trampled down. She was not made from a head because she was not to rule over her husband. She was made from a rib; close to the heart of Adam, to be loved by him, and under the arm of Adam to be protected by him.

Whether that is really the essence of the message or not, I am not sure, but surely the point is that Adam recognizes, as Eve comes to him, that here is one who was actually part of him.

And that is re-echoed in the New Testament, when husbands are told to love their wives as part of themselves. And that is our responsibility as husbands: to recognize our wives as part of ourselves, and to nourish them and to cherish them as we do other parts of our own body.

Now that is the provision that God made for Adam. From his own self, He made that partner. The remarkable thing is, as you conclude through the passage and come through the New Testament, you discover that the partnership was sealed by a pledge between the two individuals.

There were three things that made marriage in the Old Testament:

1. the giving of a dowry
2. and then the making of a covenant or contract
3. and then the consummation of it

All three were essential for the making of a marriage. Now the center one was the making of a covenant. Malachi chapter 2 verse 14 says that we “make a covenant with our wives” when we enter into marriage with them. And that covenant is witnessed by God. The marriage covenant is simply the Covenant to be faithful to that person, and to live with that person for the rest of their life.

That marriage covenant is expressed in the marriage vows. It is legalized in the marriage license. And the point of Malachi 2:14 is that it is witnessed by God Himself. Now that makes the marriage vow a very, very solemn thing. Do not ever pledge to be faithful to an individual for the rest of your life, unless my dear friend you are committed to that, because to make that pledge is to make it in the presence of God Himself as your witness, and to break that oath, to violate that pledge, is to bring the consequences that inevitably come in violating a pledge or an oath to God! And many of us have made such pledges. We stood at the altar and we stood before that official and we made a pledge to be faithful to our wives. We made a pledge to live with that person for the rest of our life until death shall separate us. My friend, the day that you made that, God was standing between you and your wife and He was the witness of that pledge.

May God help us to be faithful to the pledge that we have made in that marriage covenant. It’s a remarkable thing then to see the design that God has for marriage. It is a partnership that God has instituted and He’s instituted it for the companionship of men and women; and therefore it is normative in our society. That covenant that exists between a male and a female is a beautiful picture, my friend, of the salvation covenant that a person enters into.

Just as the husband takes the initiative in loving that young lady and winning her love to himself, so Jesus Christ has taken the initiative in expressing His love to you and to me by giving His life and dying for us. And just as the young woman responds to the love of that young man, and by a deliberate act of her will, receives him to be her husband, so you and I are invited to respond to the love of Jesus Christ in dying for our sin. And by a deliberate act of our will to receive Jesus Christ personally as our savior. And just as the product of that initiation, and of that response, is a union for the rest of life. So the product of Jesus Christ, and your response in receiving Him personally as your savior will be a union not for the rest of life, but for all eternity, when you will be His. And his alone. That kind of relationship is the only relationship that is above and beyond the marriage relationship.

If entering into marriage is a gigantic step that leads into either a life of deep fulfillment or desperate frustration, receiving Jesus Christ is a more gigantic step. Because that is the step that leads into a life of Eternal blessing as a child of God.

If you have never received Him as your savior, we invite you to do so this morning. And if you have received Him, may God challenge us in relation to His plan and pattern for our lives in marriage.

Let’s stand, shall we, for our closing prayer. Father we do ask this morning that Thou will take the teaching of Thy word, the applications of Thy word, the exhortations of the Holy Spirit, and that Thou shalt apply them directly to each individual. Young and old, male and female, parent and child, husband and wife. Oh God, we pray that by Thy Spirit, we shall receive the word that You have for us individually this morning and respond to that word at this moment. For Christ’s sake. Amen.

Answer

Dear ******,

I think you and I are essentially on the same page.

With regard to your first question, the Scriptures (e.g. Leviticus 25) do not specifically address the matter of a Jewish slave/hired man and tithing. But if you stop and think about it, the goal is for him to pay off his master. I don’t think he has any personal assets of his own, which would be the basis for his tithing. His land will be returned to him on the year of Jubilee. Interestingly, if he borrows money from a fellow-Jew he cannot be charged interest (25:37). I would thus assume that one who has no assets would not be subject to the tithe.

In our world today, I would have to regretfully take note of the prosperity preachers, who seem to prey on the poor, promising them wealth if they “send in their check.” The gullible get even more deeply in debt because they think that giving (when they don’t have the money to spare) will pay them back all that they gave and more. If these prosperity preachers were correct, such giving would make sense, but sadly they only make the poor poorer.

I think we would do well to recall that God distinguished between those with means from those with limited means when it came to sacrifices:

6 “‘When the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, she must bring a one year old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering to the entrance of the Meeting Tent, to the priest. 7 The priest is to present it before the LORD and make atonement on her behalf, and she will be clean from her flow of blood. This is the law of the one who bears a child, for the male or the female child. 8 If she cannot afford a sheep, then she must take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and one for a sin offering, and the priest is to make atonement on her behalf, and she will be clean’” (Leviticus 12:6-8).

In the New Testament, Paul makes it clear that even when one has purposed to give, he or she is not obligated to give what they do not have:

10 So here is my opinion on this matter: It is to your advantage, since you made a good start last year both in your giving and your desire to give, 11 to finish what you started, so that just as you wanted to do it eagerly, you can also complete it according to your means. 12 For if the eagerness is present, the gift itself is acceptable according to whatever one has, not according to what he does not have. 13 For I do not say this so there would be relief for others and suffering for you, but as a matter of equality. 14 At the present time, your abundance will meet their need, so that one day their abundance may also meet your need, and thus there may be equality, 15 as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little” (2 Corinthians 8:10-15, NET).

I am not in favor of credit card giving. In addition, I fear that many Christians don’t look for opportunities to give because they are so deeply in debt. Once out of debt, a savings account for meeting needs will certainly prepare a person to give, and it will make him or her much more attentive to needs the needs of others.

It seems to me that Paul’s ideal is for saints to save up in order to have the means to give.

1 With regard to the collection for the saints, please follow the directions that I gave to the churches of Galatia: 2 On the first day of the week, each of you should set aside some income and save it to the extent that God has blessed you, so that a collection will not have to be made when I come. 3 Then, when I arrive, I will send those whom you approve with letters of explanation to carry your gift to Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16:1-3).

I also take note of Paul’s words here:

20 We did this as a precaution so that no one should blame us in regard to this generous gift we are administering. 21 For we are concerned about what is right not only before the Lord but also before men (2 Corinthians 8:20-21).

I realize that here Paul is speaking in reference to the way collected monies will be delivered and distributed. Nevertheless, I believe the principle stated has a broader application. I believe that unbelieving men would hardly approve of debtors failing to meet their commitments, so that they can give to the Lord. The One who “owns the cattle on a thousand hills” is not running in the red, and thus desperately in need of our gifts.

I would add one last thing as an aside, based upon my early days as a seminary student. It was my experience that those with lesser means were more alert regarding the needs of others than were those who possessed greater assets. (There were a few exceptions, but very few.) As an elder in a generous church (regarding the needs of others) for many years, I have also observed that some of those who were generously ministered to later became generous givers for the needs of others.

I hope this helps,

Bob Deffinbaugh