Holding Fast -- A Man Shall Hold Fast To His Wife

Holding Fast -- some similarities between the covenant of marriage and the covenants the Most High makes with His people.

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Transcript

Sermon Gen 2:24

Holding Fast

A sermon about the design of marriage and other agreements.

I recently received an assignment to preach on 

Genesis 2:24 – 

It's in the early part of the Law.

Here's the Scripture: “Therefore a man shall leave his mother and father and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

NOTE: There was only one Eve for Adam.

There was only one Adam for Eve.

Holding fast can also be translated as cleave. 

The Hebrew verb sounds something like "dabaq". "Holding Fast" is the theme for the rest of this sermon.

Here are other Scriptures that reference the command to "hold fast".

Moses was sent from Mount Sinai because the Most High had heard the voice of His people in Egypt and had come down to set them free. The Most High held fast to the descendants of Jacob. Years later, Moses recalled Mount Sinai while speaking in Deuteronomy. That's where Moses gave command to hold fast to God’s Covenant:

Deuteronomy 10:20: “You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him.”

Deuteronomy 11:22: “For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do — …to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to hold fast (dābaq) to him.” -- I'm summarizing -- (You will fulfill God's purpose)

In this last verse, dābaq describes how Israel responds to God’s covenant love — by holding fast to Him.

3. Joshua – Holding Fast as faithfulness

Joshua 23:8: “…but you shall cling to the LORD your God just as you have done to this day.”

NOTE: Just as in marriage someone clings faithfully, Israel had to hold fast to God. This faithful power was sustained by God’s love.

Love and Holding Fast together in the book of Ruth

(This is late in the time of the Judges and before King David.

In Ruth 1:14–17: Ruth “clung to Naomi” and pledged loyalty: 

“Where you go I will go… your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

"Where you die, I will die,

And there will I be buried.

The Lord do so to me, and more also,

If anything but death parts you and me.”

Note: One Jewish translation says something more like, "The Lord do so to me, and more also, if even death parts you and me"

In that translation, Ruth talked about something more powerful than death to keep her dedication to her mother-in-law.

Finally, I want to go to the New Testament and show another kind of mutual cleaving that's in the same pattern as the institution of marriage. 

Philippians 3:12 (ESV):

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me.”

The mutual cleaving is this: Paul pushed himself to cleave to Christ because Christ had already begun to cleave to him.

That ends my introduction to "holding fast". God gives us grace in Christ to hold fast the way He holds fast to us.

Now might be time to get humble. The next part is where I talk about

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG:

When things went wrong in the next chapter, one of the things God did was change what was in Adam's mouth.

The story goes like this:

Chapter 3 Verse 1: Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

NOTE: We need to be humble when we deal with the serpent -- the devil. The serpent is trying to make the woman look like a victim. Her response makes her look too much like a hero.

Verse 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, *nor shall you touch it*, lest you die.’ ”

NOTE: She's confusing her own devotion with God's command. God said, "don't eat it", Eve added, "don't touch it." There's a little bit of forgetfulness here. She's experimenting with God's command.

Verse 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

NOTE: There's a temptation at some jealousy here. This conversation should be over. If she was confident in what she was commanded and she wanted to respond with authority, she could have put her experimentation with reality on hold. She could have left the conversation and fled from evil.

She could have asked her husband, "What was the command about that tree of Knowledge of good and evil?"

She could have said, "Freeze right there. Let's wait til the Lord comes by and clears this up..."

We'll learn that Adam was right there. I assume he heard the snake, and could have spoken up himself. 

Verse 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, 

NOTE: At any rate, the woman now sees a fantasy that isn't true. God's command was to help her see the truth and the reality of her situation. She bypassed it with the complicit help of her husband.

Verse 6 continued: 

she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband *with her*, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

NOTE: A big failure here, and the man and woman can't fix it. 

Skipping to

Verse 12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”

13 And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,

You are cursed more than all cattle,

And more than every beast of the field;

On your belly you shall go,

And you shall eat dust

All the days of your life.

15 And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her Seed;

He shall bruise your head,

And you shall bruise His heel.”

NOTE: God promised a seed to the woman that would beat the seed of the serpent.

Let me illustrate how God changed what was in Adam's mouth. How would you reference someone who helped get you kicked out of your job, your home, and drastically shortened your life span? Whatever comes to mind, here are the words that Adam had in his mouth after hearing the gospel preached to the snake:

Verse 20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

NOTE: God's nature when things go wrong is to inject his very nature through Christ -- the seed of the woman. Eve means "life" or "living". Memory of failure was not how Adam referred to Eve.

God's preaching of the gospel to the snake put faith in Adam to go ahead with life.

Verse 21 Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.

NOTE: The solution was a thought that never entered the minds of Adam and Eve.

God was going to trade a life for humanity. The woman's seed for the serpent's seed.

TO SUMMARIZE THE POINT: God works salvation for us through our holding fast to his nature. God's nature is this: He promises and doesn't flake out.

He holds fast first.