“Biblical Marriage”

Rev. Dustin Largent

Exodus 20:14; Genesis 2; Malachi 2

October 12, 2025

 

We've come to the seventh commandment. And the more I started to go into the seventh commandment, the more I said, can't do it in one week. A long time ago could have done it in one week. A man and a woman joined together in a covenant, and they get married. Pretty common sense. Can't do that anymore. Today, I'm going to have to go into it. What marriage is. And a lot of people don't know what marriage is. They don't understand. I don't know. It's hard. And not just marriage in general, but what is biblical marriage? So, I want to warn you a little bit today. I'm not standing behind a pulpit to give me some type of authority to speak to you. I'm standing behind this book. O.K. So, what I tell you today is not me giving you opinions about what it is. I'm going to read to you from the Bible so that you understand what God says marriage is. This isn't a bunch of interpretation. It isn't a bunch of that. It's just what the Bible teaches. And so there are some folks that may be watching online, or even some of you may be in here that are like, well, I have my own preconceived ideas of what a marriage is. And that's O. K. It's O. K for you to interpret however you want to, but don't call it biblical marriage unless it's what the Bible says.

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So, there are some of you that are going to say, well, I don't necessarily agree with the Bible. Well, then you don't believe this book's true. And that you're in a whole different category of people that are approaching this. There are some of you say, well, I believe this is true, but I just don't know if what you're going to say is going to agree with what I believe. Just listen. See what the Word of God says and kind of take it from there. O. K? Because thou shall not commit adultery is the commandment that we're on, but that has to deal with dishonoring and destroying marriage. And marriage is beautiful. Marriage is so important to God. The way he designed marriage is just perfect. Marriage isn't something we show up in the New Testament. Marriage is something that we see right in the beginning parts of Genesis, chapter two. He's talking about marriage, and it's really, really powerful. And so the consequences of distorting and eroding biblical marriage have always been devastating, not just for the people that destroy marriage in their own life, but the destruction of marriage has always been devastating for the society around it. O. K? This is in the commandments that are related to love your neighbor as yourself, but this is deeply rooted in the very first commandment that you shall have no other gods before me.

 

O. K? There's one God, he defined marriage. Now, if you want to define marriage differently and have a different God that's not the God of the Bible, you can worship that God. Feel free to do that, but you're not worshiping the one true God, the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. When you start making crap up and saying God said it, you're not worshiping the one God. You're worshiping a different God that you've created or your government's created or your political parties created in their own head. O. K? I don't care about any of that. I've been accused oftentimes of saying, well, Dustin, you're not political enough. Fair enough. I'm not a political, but I'd rather be a Billy Graham than a Franklin Graham, but I will say this. I'm speaking about this because politicians have entered into my domain. O. K? I didn't get into the politician's idea of whether we should have roads that are fixed or not. I didn't get up here on Sunday and preach, oh, you know what? We should have this particular law or that particular law. I didn't do that. But the government has come in and decided that they're going to tell the people of this country what the Bible says about marriage and what the Bible says.

 

So you took the gloves off. This isn't meant, again, this isn't meant to be political. This is meant to be, I'm not going to allow you government to teach and be false teachers of the flock. I'm concerned with the flock. I'm concerned with the people of this country understanding scripture. I will stay in that lane. But if you enter into my lane, be prepared for war. And so what is marriage? What is marriage? Let's open up our Bibles. You got a Bible? We got to go way back to the very beginning to get into what a marriage is. All the way back to *Genesis chapter 2*. In *Genesis chapter 2, verses 18 to 25*, we're going to find our first word. I'm going to give you six words today. How many fingers do I got? Six, one, two, five, six. There you go. I graduated from second grade. This is six. Six words that will help you to define what a marriage is. And the very first word is this. You get it in your notes, you can write it down. The first word is complementary. Complimentary. You go, what's complementary? I'm giving you compliments? No, not complementary. Complimentary. They compliment each other.

 

So look at this. *Genesis chapter 2, verse 18*, it says, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable helper for him. Who made the suitable helper for man? God did. Who decided what a suitable helper for a man would be? God. Did he say, take a vote, decide, how do you feel about it? No. He said, I am going to make a complementary being that goes with man. Now, the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So God gave names to the animals. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of sky, and all the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. Now, what does that mean? That means that the animals were made in pairs. So there was what we call a boy duck and a girl duck. And so God created boy ducks and girl ducks, but he didn't create two boy ducks because that wouldn't fit right. That wouldn't be complementary. He created a complementary partner for each animal.

 

So, there was a boy cow that looked a certain way and a girl cow that moved a certain way. And those were complementary because they fit each other. Now, my son is only 15, but even when he was four, he understood how Legos work. That on a Lego, Legos are complementary. They're created to complement each other. On the top of the Lego are little things that pop up, little bumps there. And on the bottom of the Lego that you want to attach to it are little holes that fit those bumps and they go together. Now, I could decide that that's the way they were created to work. Lego got together in some meeting one day and said, you know what, let's make them, that this is how they'll go together. We have designed them to click together and then stay together. But you get some jackwagon kid that's messed up, right? And he's, and he takes glue and he says, I don't want to go this way, I want to go this way. And so he takes the bottoms and tries to go, no, you can do that, but it's not the way Lego designed it. Okay, God designed male and female.

 

I can't believe I'm talking about this. But the problem is that Adam didn't have a suitable helper. Okay, Adam, there were all kinds of animals and they all had partners, but Adam's looking for the one that looks like him. And there's no suitable complimentary being that fits him. He says, well, there's a boy dog, there's a boy cow, there's a boy me, and there's a girl cow to go with that, but there's no girl me. There's nothing that complements me, not just physically, but none that talks like me, none that I can live with, none that I can love, none that shares my conscience. There's none that fit me in that way. And it says Adam saw no suitable helper to be found. So, the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. So, he went to bed, God knocked him out. And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. That's nice that God decided not to leave a huge open, gaping wound out the side of it. Then the Lord, God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to him, to the man. So, God makes the complimentary being that is supposed to be married to the man.

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And so, you see that they come together. The father, the father takes the woman, my father-in-law did this exact same thing. He took the woman, walked her down and gave her to me. That's the picture of marriage. God does that with this woman and he marries this woman to God and says, you will now become one flesh. So, then God made the woman from the rib, he taken out, brought her to the man and the man said, this is now bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh, he shall be called woman for she was taken out of a man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and he was united to his what? Wife. It's biblical marriage. A man leaves his family, leaves his brothers, leaves his mom, leaves his dad and goes and takes a wife in the same way that God brought Eve and gave her to Adam. The first marriage was with Adam and Eve. All the others are supposed to be patterned after that. That complimentary beings go together. And so, the problem is there's an entire segment of society that if you ask them, what's a woman? They can't tell you what a woman is.

I think a woman is. And they get all ticked off and mad. Like getting ready to throw cars at you in Legos. Right? Cause you said it was that a woman has certain chromosomes or the woman had, I mean, I knew who women were when I was in the second grade. I could just tell, right? When I was in junior high, I could really tell. It became even more blatantly obvious. And it has nothing to do here. God doesn't come in here and say, what do you feel like? What do you got going today? Well, you know, I'm feeling kind of feminine today. You know, I'm feeling like I'm attracted to women. I feel like I'm attracted to men. I feel, well, that doesn't change what God made you. Now that is normal in the sense of this, that all of us are born after sin comes into the world. We are all messed up in our sexuality. And none of us like to admit it that we're messed up in our sexuality, but guys, we figure it out as soon as we become a teenager. I am messed up in my sexuality. I'm thinking about stuff I shouldn't think about. I'm attracted to this or that. And even as you grow older, you still are. There are men that are 50 years old, 60 years old that are attracted to younger women.

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Well, should they be? That's acknowledged that that will be the fact in scripture because God makes allowances and says, you need to stay with the woman of your youth. He knows that men will have those types of desires. He knows that those things will happen. And he allows in scripture, he's very adamant that, no, you need to stay with the woman that you made a covenant in your youth. Right, so you get some guy that he married a girl when he was 19 and the girl's 19, and they get married and then now he's like 40 and he decides, you know what, I'm gonna downgrade to the 19-year-old version of what I had before. This is adamantly talked about in scripture. Do not, you may not do that. You can't do that. And why? Well, the first word was complimentary. The second word I'm gonna give you is children. I know they all have C's at the beginning. I had to kinda keep them all looking together. The Bible teaches that a woman is complimentary to a man which means that they are created with complimentary sex parts that allow them to create and procreate. Right, it allows them to procreate. So two guys can't procreate.

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I know, I know, I know it's hard. Two women can't procreate. God created man and woman to be fruitful and multiply. That's why he created them. He created them to do that. When we get to the flood, what happens in the flood? We gotta have two of each animal, right? Well, what if we decided, you know what, you know what, we're gonna allow the animals to decide which two. And we're just gonna allow the cow, this cow identifies as a female, and we'll put that with the female here also. And so, well then there's just no more cows, right? Cause sex isn't about what you identify as, it's about what you were created as. God creates us a certain way, okay? And we were created to be complimentary so that we could have children. Now that doesn't mean that you can't be married if you can't have children. That's not the point. But the types of beings that God created to be married are the types of being male and female that create and procreate children. Turn to Malachi, this is another great passage. How many of you read a lot of Malachi this week? Malachi chapter two, I do love the book of Malachi.

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It's one of my favorites, I love it. But here's what it says in chapter two of Malachi, verse 13 to 15, follow along with me. It says, another thing you do, you flood the Lord's altar with your tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offspring and accepts them with your love. It's a pleasure from your hands. So that's code for God's not happy with you, okay? You're crying like a big baby, but it's your own fault that God's not happy with you. Well, what do they do? You ask why? It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant has not the one God made you. You belong to him and body and spirit, and what does the one God seek? Godly offspring, godly offspring comes from godly marriage. That's what it's supposed to come from that. So, children is important. So be on your guard and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. So, men, you don't get to like later on in life say, you know what, I'm just not in love with her anymore.

 

I'm gonna, this woman's a little hotter and she's got a gym membership, and so I'm gonna go over this way. Doesn't work that way, right? Because the third word that we have is the word covenant. Marriage is a covenant, okay? Let's go back to that Malachi passage. Marriage is not a feeling. It's not like a preference. It's not a contract. It is according to scripture, a covenant. Look what it said in verse 14. It said, you ask, why is it because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth, you have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. And this is where Christians in their marriage see things differently or should see things differently than those who don't believe in God. Because for Christians, marriage isn't just a contract between me and my wife, it's a covenant. You say, well, what's the difference between a covenant? Well, when you make a contract, that's just between two people, right? So, I'm gonna buy a house from Bob. And Bob and I write a contract and that's between him and I and I can break that if I do then he gets certain amount of money or whatever Right, but it's a contract. It's written out a Covenant is this a covenant is a solemn Committed agreement between two people held together not only by the two people and their commitment to each other But by their individual covenants that they have with God So when you got married if you got married in a church your pastor probably said Before God and these witnesses I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife To have and to hold from this day forward till death to us part, but it's these witnesses and God So there's witnesses to the covenant. There's also that the relationship.

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It's based on the fact. I'm staying with you Woman, I’ll stay with you until the very end. Here's why First of all because I made a commitment to you, but more so as I made a commitment to God and I'm not breaking that covenant Because here's how covenants worked in the Old Testament. I'll just be honest with you. We come together. I might make a covenant with with my You know with Well, I'm gonna make a covenant with Ron. Ron I just say we're gonna make a covenant and so what we would do is we would take an animal like a bull and We would make our covenant Then we would cut the bull in half and I pull the tail over this way And he'd pull the horns over this way and now we got a big gap there in between and then we would make our covenant and Then we would each walk between these dead pieces of animal saying That if I break this covenant before God made what happened to this animal happened to me I am pledging upon death and so why is the marriage till death do us part? Because to break the marriage covenant is death It's a really really serious thing in God's eyes And so you get folks this is the great one.

 

They said well, you know, we don't need a ceremony You know, we've been together and we just like living together and, but we're just as committed to any marriage You know, we're just as and we're we're what's called civilly married, right? You're not you're not married Right because your marriage doesn't have a covenant. You never made a covenant You never made a covenant between each other and you never made a covenant between God true biblical marriage involves being complimentary It involves being Being able to create children though That's just because of the type of relationship doesn't mean you have to but male and female able to create and also Biblical marriage means you make a covenant with each other. Okay Now does that mean that non-Christians can't get married No, it doesn't mean that I Wouldn't go that far when two unbelievers married they may not intend to enter into a covenant before God But they're still participating in the creational covenant They don't know they're entering into the creational covenant But the same covenant that Adam and Eve entered into they don't know that but they entered into that unknowingly Right and they did because they took those vows a lot of times. I'll meet non-Christians. They got married in the church and they made a vow to God and they did up.

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I don't know nothing about that. I really wasn't making a vow to God, but they've entered into that type of a covenant and that's why important that Christians defend this is why it's so important that Christians defend Marriage covenants, okay We defend creational covenant of marriage and now to allow an unbelieving world to recreate it for its own convenience and its own preference See what's happened is the state has decided to get into my business The state has decided well, we're going to redefine marriage. We're going to decide what marriage is We we don't care what you people that actually have studied the Bible says we're gonna tell everybody what the Bible says Well, they're stupid they haven't read it Read the text and you'll see clearly what it is Now there are two things necessary to ratify a covenant The first is you have to have a verbal oath So you stood up here when you got married those of you got married and you made a verbal oath to each other in the presence of witnesses That's part of it. The second thing you need in a covenant is you need to have a ratifying sign So God made the signs for like after the flood.

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What was the sign? It was the rainbow, right and then what's the sign of the mosaic covenant the Sabbath Right that you keep the Sabbath you keep you keep that's the sign of this What is the sign of marriage now? A lot of you are gonna say it's a ring. It's not the ring the sign of the covenant of Marriage is consummation so the next word is consummation There needs to be a covenant that's made a verbal covenant, but then that has to be consummated So here's what happens in a normal wedding It's probably a bad idea for you to consummate the marriage in front of everybody, right when you agree Right because nobody knows what they're doing and it's just kind of creepy, right? But what we do instead is at the we pronounce them husband wife So as a pastor or as a judge we pronounce something into being Okay, so how did God create the world? He spoke it into being he said Let there be light and it existed God does the same thing with people he creates two people to be one flesh He does it through proclamation and so at the end of the wedding I say on behalf of God who has given me authority to say that that's why the pastor always says by the authority vested at me But then they say by the state of Las Vegas and you're like, okay, I don't know what authority that is But by authority vested to be I now pronounce you to be husband and wife.

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I spoke your oneness into being and then what do I say? You may now kiss the bride why? Because that's just a taste, It's supposed show you that we are kissing right now to show you that we will consummate this a little bit later in the afternoon Okay, but the kissing is just a sign in the ceremony that that will happen later and that this marriage Covenant will be consummated I got off track Why do I do that? So that's the first quarter of the consummation Marriage requires also two people to consummate a marriage How do you consummate a marriage I think you can figure that out you need two people of Opposite sex to truly consummate that marriage has to be a consummation that could bring forth children in the type of sex that's involved I've two more words and we'll finish with this Christ and Church Christ and church if you turn to *Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21* it says this says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ Wives submit yourself to your own husbands as you do the Lord For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Look at all this Christ and church stuff involved with husband and wife stuff. They're being compared They're being put together one is a model for the other says now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit to their husbands and everything So just the way the church of the body is considered like the wife.

 

The sign of that is women submitting to their husband. Okay now there we can get into deeper what that means but for right now, we're just making the connection between Christ and the church It says husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church So, did Christ decide you know that I'm kind of done with that church kind of done with them. They're not as hot as they were before. They're not as obedient to me. They don't submit to me the way they were, so you know what, I'm done with them. You know what I'm gonna go find the Amorites or I'm gonna go find the whoever. No no no no no We're supposed to love our wife the way Christ loves the church. How long does that last forever it lasts until death do us part of forwarding to the covenant. So it says look at this and make her holy cleansing her by the by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless Jesus is saying I'm gonna make my church so holy by my own blood that when the church walks down the aisle It'll be the purest holiest whitest cleanest virgin you ever saw coming holy to me.  And not because they're good, but because I made the church that way!  By my blood, I redeemed them.

 

I made them the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies He loves His wife loves himself look like your own body Right like your own life Like be willing to die for your spouse like Christ is willing to die for the church This is biblical marriage after all no one ever hated their own body But they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother.

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Doesn't that sound like way back in the Old Testament back in the second chapter? It's the exact same word. It's quoting it for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh This is a profound mystery Yeah, it's a mystery because we don't look like one flesh, but we are there's something mysterious about it God created something out of nothing. But I am talking about Christ in the church However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect your husband

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Here's the point the relationship between a husband and a wife is meant to point to the relationship between Christ and the church So why is it that we're not married in heaven? Why is it the marriage covenant says till death do us part as soon as I die? Julie and I aren't married Why is that? Because there's no need for me to have that sign because I am already with Christ The marriage was meant to point to the church being with Christ But once we are the church is with Christ, we don't need the picture because we have the real thing Right, so there's no marriage there's So what's this mean man loves and leads and sacrifices for his wife as Jesus does the church wives submit respect and defend and Depend on their husbands as Christ or as the church does on Christ, right?

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So, what's that mean? It means that Paul has linked the expression of the Christian marriage to the gospel of Christ He has linked the gospel to marriage.  Okay, because Christ redeemed the church? Which is his wife? Salvation was redeeming the church The church is like his wife. You see what Paul has done in this passage. He has linked biblical marriage to the gospel and that is why if you go to a rainbow church, they are completely confused about marriage. But when you ever have a church that's completely confused about marriage, they have no clue about the gospel. Let me say that again. So when you go to a church that doesn't understand that marriage is between a man and a woman, that's a biblical covenant, that is consummated, that it can produce children, that it’s complimentary, that is a picture of Christ and the church;  when you have a church that doesn't understand that I guarantee you they will not understand the gospel.  Because they go together, they're integral. Here's what Ephesians 5:25

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Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her Holy cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present to himself a radiant church

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Right, that's the gospel That's the gospel without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless the only way that we can be as people in a relationship with God this this groom who wants us for his wedding night. The only way He will accept us on that wedding night Is if we are holy and pure and virgins and clean. He won't accept us any other way and so He says I'll make you that way, though you're not that way now.  If you put your faith in what I did on the cross, I'll make you that way.

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Marriage Six things remember these as you go out as people try to tell you what marriage is. I'm telling you this is what biblical marriage is. Let’s take a look at these real quick. It is complimentary. It's the type of union that can create children. okay type of marriage that can make children. It is covenantal which means that you're entering into a covenant. It's not just between each other but with God. It also involves a consummation. There needs to be some consummation of it as a sign that we have made this commitment and covenant.  And finally, that whole thing is a picture of Christ and the church

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So if somebody tells you something about marriage and they're trying to convince you and it's not pointing to the relationship between Christ and the church it’s not biblical marriage.  If it's not covenantal, it's not biblical marriage. If it's not between a man and a woman not biblical marriage. Right?, We can take scripture and we can define it. I went over by a couple of minutes and we won't get to the last song I'm sorry about that.

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Let's pray God, I thank you for giving us biblical marriage. Other than your salvation, it's the best thing that's ever happened in my life. Having someone that you created just for me, that complements me, someone that helps us to hopefully in our lives in our marriage we can point people to Christ Marriage, that is built on covenant, that's allowed us to bring forth My son Cooper, a child through our consummation. God, I just thank you for marriage.  And God, now in the midst of this we see how critically important marriage is.  And so, the seventh commandment as we come back next week and we see the seventh commandment, that it is about the ripping apart of marriage. It's about the tearing apart of this sacred thing you call marriage. God, I pray that you would bring us back that we wouldn't be afraid to come and hear from your word, God.  That we'd be bold and we would confront all this together in Jesus name, Amen