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Oregon Youth for Christ

Jed Daniel Lee

Be a (Biblical) Man

As you know, this last week, to provide some context, this last week was, we celebrated in America, Father's Day.

And if you don't know, I am blessed to be a father of 3.

And as such, I'm going to be preaching this sermon primarily to me, as a man, a husband, and a father.

In other words, Jed Daniel Lee is the intended audience for this sermon.

Now those of you who are listening, I pray that God will make this message relevant to you, especially for you men out there.

Some of what I'm going to be discussing this morning is going to be, how shall I say, a little difficult to hear because it will sound, from a postmodern thinking perspective, a little unpopular, or maybe even perhaps politically incorrect.

In fact, in that same Bible, God prophesied that there will come a time when people will say, do not prophesy to us what is right.

Because there will come a time when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

Well I sincerely pray that we here at Stone Tower do not fall into those categories.

So if you'll please join me I'd like to have another word of prayer shall we?

Jehovah God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

It is only by the blood of Jesus Christ that I'm here frail trembling inadequate And yet you've placed words in my mouth.

May they truly be your words and not mine.

May the people who come here, may they see Jesus Christ.

For I ask and pray this most sincerely in Jesus' name.

If you'll turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 13.

1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 13, it says, watch ye stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

The phrase quit you like men is translated from a single Greek word, andrizomia.

And the interesting fact about andrizomia is that it occurs only once in all of scriptures.

If you look at the root, the root of the word is in English, it's man, an individual male.

And if you understand that back in 1611, the English word quit meant to conduct oneself.

So literally this verse is saying, act like a man.

Other translations like the English Standard Version says, act like men.

And I like especially the Apostolic Bible polygot which renders it, be manly.

But I don't want to be a man merely in a worldly sense.

I rather would want to know what the Bible tells me I should be in terms of being a man.

Hence the sermon title, Be a Biblical Man.

Well before we address that question let me ask you a different 1.

What are the 2 basic institutions that were established by God for the benefit of humanity?

Okay, I hear marriage and the Sabbath, and you are absolutely correct.

Like good, typical Seventh-day Adventists, that answer just rolls right off your tongue.

Marriage, and by extension the family, and the seventh day Sabbath were the 2 twin institutions that God gave to benefit mankind.

So there's significance of the fact that God establishes marriage and family and the seventh-day Sabbath even before sin entered the world.

Okay, So if you were the devil, what 2 institutions would you try to attack the most?

The Seventh-day Sabbath and the family institution.

Now, for our purposes today, I won't be discussing the seventh day creation Sabbath, but we all know what has been done to the Sabbath by the devil, do we not?

Rather, I want to focus on the concept of marriage, and by extension, the family.

Well, if you think back to Eden, the pattern was established there.

Turn with me to the first 2 chapters of Genesis and look there.

And I know most of you are familiar with these texts, but we're going to be looking at them from a different perspective, hopefully.

And let's put on our Holy Spirit thinking caps, shall we?

If you look through the first 2 chapters of Genesis, you will find that you can reach at least 4 conclusions regarding the essence and the meaning of marriage.

There's more, but for the sake of time, I'm gonna only talk about 4.

First, we learn that the originator of marriage is none other than God who endorses and blesses the marriage ceremony.

We know this because when the marriage happens and the couple is blessed and told to propagate, then God saw that it was, quoting Genesis 1.31, that it was not just good, but very good.

And notice with me, the first 6 days of creation, except for day number 2, God uses the pronouncement good 6 times.

We won't get into why he didn't say day number 2 wasn't good right now, but then at the end of day 6, he already said something was good, but then at the very end when humanity was in essence complete after the marriage, he looked and he saw that everything was very good.

Not only that, you will notice in Genesis 2.18, it is Jehovah God who said, it is not good that man should be alone.

God himself will provide a helper suitable for man.

So, first thing we learn, the originator of marriage is God himself.

Second, Genesis 1 and 2 make it plain that a marriage takes place between people of the opposite sex.

You can see this because in the text itself, there's a repeated use of contrasting gender terms.

Genesis 1, 27, 28, he created male and female.

Later in 2, 22, he fashioned a rib that he took from the man into a woman.

And then in verse 22 at the tail end, he took her to him.

And then the man calls her woman because she was taken out of a man, verse 23.

So in a very precise, well-defined manner, we can see that the original marital form was heterosexual.

Next, when you read Genesis chapter 2 verses 21 through 24, it is quite evident that marriage took place between 1 man and 1 woman.

Now you're saying, Jed, I thought we already covered this.

Well, what I'm focusing on is something a little different.

The repeated, look at the repeated use of singular nouns and pronouns.

The point I'm making here is the number of partners.

The original concept of marriage was monogamous.

And finally, if you focus on the last part of Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, where God said, I will make a helper suitable for him.

The revised English Bible states, I shall make a partner suited to him.

Other translations interpret this crucial phrase as a suitable companion, or 1 like himself, or who is like him.

And these Bible versions are capturing the essence of the Hebrew, which literally means counterpart, or 1 who corresponds to him.

Obviously, for Eve to be a truly suitable spouse for Adam, among other things, she would have to have the same faith perspective as Adam.

Because how can 2 walk together unless they agree?

And in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 and 15, it says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

So to summarize, we see here, in the very beginning, Genesis 1 and 2, the institution of marriage was firstly originated, endorsed, and blessed by God.

And number 4, it was intra-faith, or it was between people who shared the same faith.

Has Satan been busy attacking the institution of the marriage?

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Be a (Biblical) Man

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