The pillars of our society are crumbling; and if radical changes are not made, our society will fall
to pieces.  The pillars of the church are crumbling.  And, although the Church of Christ will not be
destroyed, churches and denominations will fall.  The pillars are families - the church, as well as the
country, depends on families.  As the families are strong - praying, worshipping, holy, families - the church
is a strong, God-honoring, God blessed church.  Families are in danger.  The truth of marriage and the
family, as it is ordained and biblically governed, is under relentless attack by the devil and the wicked
world.  Witness:  The need for sexual purity is denied except to avoid the dreaded sexually transmitted
diseases.  Men and women live together outside the marriage bond (just recently, San Francisco's city
council approved registering live-in lovers to give them all the privileges of married couples).  Condoms are
sold on college campuses and the "do-gooders" that give them away on street corners are today's heroes.
Quick and easy divorce, along with easy remarriage afterwards, is common.  The homosexual lifestyle is
accepted and condoned and encouraged, even by many churches.  And, families are not together anymore.

 If there is one instrument that the devil is using with a success rate second to none, it is the weapon
of the television.  By what is shown and by how much time is taken away from family fellowship and
reading, the devil uses the television to destroy families.  Because we love families, we show our colors
early and say that we believe the misuse (which is often the only use) of the TV is to blame for a majority of
family trouble.

 As a Reformed church, it's our hope that God will use these brief summaries of sermons (preached
in our church in 1988) to encourage God's people to pray that God will maintain good family life for the
preservation of His church and the glory of His name.

Marriage:  God's Good Creation
 The family is foundational because God made it that way.  God created the family in paradise as
the first institution He made.  To begin properly our treatment of good family life, we must understand the
beginnings of family life in creation, especially the first marriage and family.

 First, God made Eve out of Adam and not from the dust as Adam was created (Genesis 2:7), the
woman in creation was not independent, not his equal, but was made a helper, and perfectly "fit" for Adam
(this is the idea of the word "meet" of Gen. 2:18 in the King James Version).  What a wonderful creation of
God the woman is!  But now, since woman is not man's equal (except in terms of salvation), we need to
guard against thinking that women are lowly, insignificant, inferior creatures.  Not so!  The long history of
the woman being trampled on is not biblically founded!  Let every male chauvinist hear this:  God said that
it was necessary for Adam to have a wife (Gen 2:18).  Remember, too, that also Eve was created in God's
image, unlike all other creatures.  The woman must be glorified and her place must be exalted.

 Second, marriage is "leaving father and mother" (Gen 2:24).  Not that children must abandon their
parents when they marry, but they must see marriage now as the most important relationship in their life,
even above the parent-child relationship.  This is amazing!  The tie of flesh and blood takes second chair to
the tie God makes in marriage.  There are two important implications in this.  first, if this is true, parents
ought to let them go when they marry.  More marriage problems occur either because children don't really
leave, or because parents don't release them.  Second, if this tie is stronger, shouldn't people be even more
horrified at the abandonment of one spouse by another, than the abandonment of a parent of his infant
children?  Ah, how some have become numb to this horror!

 Third, marriage is "cleaving" to the wife by the husband (Gen. 2:24).  Cleaving means clinging to,
holding dearly to.  This refers to a covenant commitment by the husband and wife to each other.  They are,
as it were, glued together.  That's the picture in the Biblical word.  This also expresses the permanence of
marriage.  Jesus emphasized this in the New Testament in answer to the Pharisees' question on divorce:
"What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."  If a man and woman are not committed
to this kind of permanence in marriage, before God they may not marry.

 Fourth, marriage is "becoming one flesh" (gen. 2:24).  Marriage is even closer than cleaving to the
other; it is two becoming one.  Jesus reaffirms this in Matt. 19:6, "Wherefore they are no more twain, but
one flesh."  This refers to the sexual union but we shouldn't limit it to that.  Husbands and wives become
one in their entire nature - their thinking, hopes, sorrows, joys . . .  What a wonderful, good creation is
marriage!

 Is this what the television teaches?  That God brings men their wives?  That the woman is a helper,
perfectly suited for her husband?  That the woman was made in the glorious image of God and ought to be
honored for that?  That marriage is leaving parents and cleaving permanently to the wife?  That marriage
makes them one flesh?  That sex is just for marriage?  Rather, it teaches just the opposite, leading away
from the Biblical foundations.  One can hear the Old Testament prophet sing, "Rivers of waters run down
mine eyes, because they keep not thy law" (Ps. 119:136).

 God made marriage.  God brought Eve to Adam.  God performed the first wedding and established
it as a permanent institution among men.  The reason marriage is corrupted so badly is that this is denied.
Also, any kind of evolutionism necessarily denies this (that God created marriage), if not explicitly, then
implicitly.  And if marriage is not God-made, but man-made, then man may do with it as he pleases, as is
being done almost everywhere today.  Then the standards of right and wrong will be made by the Ann
Landers, Harvey Rubins, and Sally Jesse Raphaels. Then anything may be done.  But marriage is a creation
of God.  And because it is, we must obey God's regulations for marriage:  one man for one woman; sec only
in marriage; no divorce, except for fornication, and no remarriage unless death dissolves the bond;  the man
is the head of the woman, husbands loving their wives, wives submitting to their husbands.  We will look at
these more closely in the following messages.

 To disobey these regulations is to invite disaster.  Shall we say that because we don't like the
ordinance of gravity, we will disobey it . . .without suffering seriously?  So, too, with the regulations of God
in marriage.  No one can disregard them without suffering the most disastrous consequences, as we all know
so well.

 Our only escape from this misery is to look at the Creator of marriage, the Creator of heaven and
earth:  obedience to Him, following His ways, and finding grace in His Son, Who came to deliver us from
all our misery and destruction, yes, in family life too.