Today, the Bible & You - John Barela - "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God." (Revelation 19:7-9)

We are told in the Gospel of John that there is only one way we can experience the mystery of the oneness of a man and woman in marriage. How? - We must be born-again - Why?

“It is the spirit that quickens; (gives spiritual power to arouse and invigorate) the flesh profits nothing (is advantageous for nothing): The words that I speak to you, they are spirit (I am personally at
Gold trading at near-record highs above $900 an ounce begs the question: Who’s got the most? If you guessed the U.S. government, you’re right. God tells us that this is a great mystery in Ephesians 5:32, “This lS a rea! mystery: I speak concerning Christ and the church. But how does this Mystery of Marriage reveal the Mystery of Christ in the marital relationship and the future relationship between the Lamb and His wife, the church?

One of the most important things God wants to teach us in this Great Mystery is that the sexuality that exists between a husband and his wife is designed by God as a way to know God in Christ more fully. Moreover, when this is accomplished, knowing and experiencing the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ in this relationship, we will become more fully aware of God’s design, to guard and guide our sexuality, and adorning us for our future life in the heavenlies.

It is important to understand that the Deity of Christ is the most important truth we need to learn in the marital relationship that exists between the Lord Jesus Christ and His church. Having a working knowledge of this will cause the mystery to explode with the Spirit of Life in our lives.

Couples who are not able to understand this Mystery of Jesus

Christ and His church, create all manner of misuses in their sexuality that distorts the true knowledge of Christ. Furthermore, all misuses of our sexuality derive from not having the true knowledge of Christ. The Bible is clear when it tells us in Romans 1;17, “The just shall live by faith.” What does that mean? That the believer is to live their life in response to the Word of God, and of course this also refers to the marital relationship between a husband and his wife, having become one flesh. All sexual corruption serves to conceal the true knowledge of Christ. Having a practical knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ serves to prevent sexual corruption.

Sexuality Is Designed by God as a Way to Know Him More Fully

It is so important to understand how and why we were created. God created us in his image, as we are told in Genesis 1:26-28, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish’ of the sea, and .over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.~ male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply; and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.
God created us with capacities for sexual pleasure, and with a calling to commitment in marriage and continence, complete abstinence in sexual activity outside of marriage. God’s design in creating us in His image was to give us passion and individuality to make sure that there would be sexual language and sexual images. This is all designed to point us to the promises and the pleasures of God’s relationship to his people and our relationship in him. In other words, the ultimate reason why we are sexual is to make God more deeply knowable as we were designed to live by the indwelling Spirit. Your marriage is actually to reflect the personal and intimate union between Christ and His Church. The mystery of marriage is its reflection of the oneness of Christ, the Husband, and His Church, the Bride of Christ.

FIND OUT:
• How to use your marriage to reflect His wonder, majesty, and splendor.

• The mystery of marriage is the awesome privilege of each and every Christian marriage.
• How not understanding this mystery distorts the true knowledge of Christ.

Marriage, like any great mystery, is sometimes difficult to unravel while you’re in the middle of it, hut you always know that it will all work out in the end!

INSPIRATION AND INFORMATION

Ephesians 5:32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

God, in being fruitful and multiplying in every facet of life.

We are told the same thing in John 15:2-8, “ Every branch in me (Jesus Christ) that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples."

Living with a true knowledge Of Christ Jesus produces much fruit and God is glorified. Living without this knowledge of Jesus Christ in your life corrupts and causes you to be able to do nothing.

As the born-again believer is One in Christ, even so the husband and wife are One flesh. The language and imagery of sexuality is the most graphic and most powerful that the Bible uses to describe the relationship between God and his people. This idea is given to us in 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, “For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for .1 have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to• Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguilded Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

It is through the faithful and unfaithful examples between a husband and wife that God is able to help us understand our relationship and fellowship with Him. We must always remember that God is Spirit, not flesh. While God uses these illustrations, there is not a sexual relationship that exists between Him and His church. It is important to understand that we are God’s creation. He made us the way we are, the way we think and feel. And as such, it is important to know that God created us with sexual passion in order for us to understand what God is teaching us in His Word.

This is what God wants to teach husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:22-23 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Our Lord Jesus Christ creates and confirms and purchases with his blood the new covenant and the everlasting joy of our relationship with God. And the Bible calls it a marriage and presents us with what is called the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19:9, “And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.” All misuses of our sexuality (adultery, fornication, illicit fantasies, and so on) distort the true knowledge of God. God intends for human sexual life to be a pointer and foretaste of our relationship with him.

The practical knowledge of the Lord Jesus God’s Word also serves to prevent the misuses of our sexuality. On the one hand, sexuality is designed by God as a way to know Christ more fully. And, on the other hand. knowing Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality.

Because there have been so many pastors on TV that have fallen and wonder why if they seemingly had a true knowledge of God’s Word. If these religious workers who have held leadership positions of shepherding Christ’s flock, some will ask, “How can there be any correlation between knowing God and being sexually upright? This question should be answered from Scripture. But remember that knowing someone in the fullest biblical sense is defined by sexual imagery. Genesis 4:1 tells us, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.” Sexual language in the Bible for our covenant relationship to God does lead us to think of knowing God on the analogy of sexual intimacy and ecstasy. I don’t mean that we somehow have sexual relations with God or he with man. That’s a pagan thought. It’s not Christian. But I do mean that the intimacy and ecstasy of sexual relations points to what knowing God is meant to be.

It is virtually impossible to read this and then honestly say that knowing God, as God intends to be known by his people simply means mental awareness or understanding or acquaintance with God. This is not what “knowing God” means. This is the knowing of a lover, not a scholar. A scholar can be a lover. But a scholar doesn’t know God until he is a lover. You can know about God by research; but until the researcher is ravished by what he sees, he doesn’t know God for who he really is. And that is one great reason why many pastors can become so impure. The humble intimacy and brokenhearted ecstasy, giving fire to the facts, is not there.

God provides us with many answers to this question. Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; (to do •things they shouldn’t)” Suppressing the knowledge of God will make you a casualty of corruption. It is part of God’s judgment. If you trade the treasure of God’s glory for anything, you will pay the price for that idolatry in the corrupting of your sexual life. That is what Romans 1:23-24 teaches, “And changed the glory ot the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.”

When we come to Christ, we become a new creation in Christ Jesus. Ignorance of God’s wrath and glory does not fit us any more. The new way is sexual holiness, and Paul contrasts it with not knowing God. I Thessalonians 4:3-5 tells us, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication (sexual immorality); That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel (control his own body) in sanctification and honor, Not in the lust of concupiscence, (passion of lust) as the Gentiles which know not God.”

Not knowing God puts you at the mercy of your passions, and they have no mercy. without God. The desires that governed you in those days got their power from deceit, not knowledge. Ephesians 4:22:
“Put off your old self. which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.”
The desires of the body lie to us. They make deceitful promises, promises which are half true as in the garden of Eden. And we are powerless to expose and overcome unless we know God, really know God, his ways and works and words embraced with growing intimacy and ecstasy.

When God’s Word describes the new person in Christ, who is putting off the old practices and the old slaveries, he says in Colossians 3:10 that “the new man (self) which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” In other words, “1 will betroth you to me fbrever, and you will know me.” And in this knowledge you will be renewed, including your sexuality. 2 Peter has one of the clearest passages in the Bible on the relationship between knowing God and being liberated from corruption. In 2 Peter 1:3-4 he says, “According as divine power hat/i given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

The divine power that leads, to godliness comes “through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” And’ we become partakers of his divine nature, that is, we share in his righteous character, through his precious and very great promises. In other words, knowing the glorious treasure that God promises to be for us frees us, from the corruption of lust and shapes us after the image .of GOD. As our Lord Jesus said, in ‘John 8~31-32: “ . . ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ‘you free.

The truth that’you find in my word. The truth that you find in relation to me as my disciple. God wants us. to know. that sexuality is designed by Christ as a way to know God more fully, and that knowing the Lord Jesus Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality. All sexual corruption serves to conceal the true knowledge of Christ, and the true knowledge of Christ serves to prevent, sexual corruption. In order that some day we will, “.. he glad and rejoice and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her (the bride) was granted that she should he arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith ‘ unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lwnb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.” - Revelation 19:7-9