Soul Mate

Soul Mate << Genesis 2 >> King James Version

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18And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 21And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Sermon

So we continue our study of Genesis chapter with the final 8 verses, which talk about relationships.

I am by no means an expert in dating and biblical courtship, having never had any kind of relationship with a woman. So I will not be using any of my own words here today, I will in as much as possible, use only what the Bible says about Biblical courtship.

18And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

“The LORD God said”! If God says something we know that it must be true.

God is saying here that man shouldn’t be alone. You see that to start with God only man one human. He made two of every other creature, that they may reproduce, yet He only made one of the human.

I do not believe that God made a mistake on the sixth day of creation, and now He is going back to right His mistake. I think God deliberately made woman at a later date, so that when it was written in the Bible, there would be a passage completely devoted to her.

Women are important, and that is what it is saying here. Men just literally wouldn’t be able to survive without them. That is why the idea of the homosexual men is such a vile thing, Women and men were created to be together, no man can ever take the woman’s role.

Another thought comes to me: Here God is making a very important distinction between the sexes. Man and woman are indeed very different, both having different missions before the Lord, and yet neither one is more important than the other.

You know, I just hate it when I see women trying to be like men, taking on a full time job, pretending to be preachers, it just kind of degrades the value of the female sex. And another thing I really hate is when men try to be more like women, when they try to become all emotional in public, and they make shows of weakness, you don’t have to pretend to be all weak and emo to make people think that you are a nice person, and believe you me, it really doesn’t help you with the ladies!

19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

This is kind of interesting, God is telling Adam to name the animals, giving him some little part in the creation, perhaps to signify that what we do on this earth effects not just humankind, but the whole of creation. I know that a lot of conservative Christians despise Green Peace and Friends Of The Earth because they think they are kind of hippie and all that, but I really admire them. What they are saying is that all the pollution and all of the cutting down of the Amazon and all that is destroying the environment.

God has made us stewards on this Earth, it is our job the keep the environment clean and everything!

20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

For all the wonderful creatures that God had made, there were so many of them, yet there was only one steward to look after them, only one zookeeper to look after the biggest zoo ever.

21And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

So because it was not good that man should be alone, God makes for him a woman. Notice that Adam didn’t have any choice in who to marry, this was an arranged marriage.

I don’t think that even we have any say in who to marry, I think that that too is prearranged by God, and if you are truly one of God’s children, He will bring your soul mate to you, as long as you pray and trust in Him.

I think that everyone has a soul mate, and that when the two souls are joined in marriage, then they shall never part throughout eternity, that whether they be both in Heaven or both in Hell, they shall both spend eternity as one soul. I do believe that you can have some form of marriage to someone who is not your ordained soul mate, but the two souls will never cleave one to the other. But, needless to say, if you don’t think your spouse is your real soul mate; that is no solid reason for divorce!

23And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

You see the closeness between the man and the woman, definitely soul mates.

It makes me think of Christ and His bride, who is the universal Church. What blessedness if we are so close to the Lord that He should refer to us as bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. And you know that throughout all eternity, we shall never ever be separated from our Heavenly bridegroom.

24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Notice that the father and mother are mentioned here. Adam had no parents, but God definitely more than sufficed as a substitute. I believe that even in one of the Genealogies of Jesus it says that Adam was the son of God. But what I’m really trying to say is that for young people interested in marriage and dating, the parents should definitely be involved if not even arranging the relationship. Remember your parents have been given to you as advisors, they are a gift from God, and gifts that God gives we really should use! It’s an insult to the giver if you do not accept the gift!

25And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Think back to the days when you were a sinner, you thought of sins as such a little matter, like Adam and Eve knew not that they were naked. But when God shows us our sinfulness, even the very little sins seem black as Hell to us, and we try to find something to cover our nakedness. But the only thing that can take away the nakedness of our sins is the sacrifice that Jesus made whn He hung iupon the cross and died for our sins!

The Lord bless His word.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Amen!

God is LOVE

God is LOVE

1 John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is Love.”

There are some quite tragic accounts about in the world, where a man and a woman are in love... the man is a Christian, the woman is an atheist, but the man decides he can’t be with her because it could mar his relationship with God and his religion. They’re both really sad for the rest of their lives following that, wondering all the time what it might have been like had it worked out between them, of if He would just give up his religion, or made some compromise.

There’s another story too... Another man and another woman are in love, the woman is a Christian, and so is the man, but the man is a divorcee, and so the woman decides it would be against the wishes of her God that she should be with this man, and that it would be blatant adultery. So the two live the rest of their lives in misery wondering what it could have been like had everything worked out alright.

These two stories are tragic right?

Or wrong?

You know what I’m going to say right? I’m going to tell you that God is much more important that fulfilling all your selfish lusts. That’s what I’m going to say isn’t it?

No you are wrong!

Now I have shocked you!

In the first story the man should have stayed with the woman, and in the second story the woman should have stayed with the man.

Now you are thinking that Michael Buckingham has gone crazy... maybe he doesn’t even believe the Bible any more... could it be that Michael thinks that sensual love is more important that the love of God.

No. I’m not crazy. I do believe the Bible. And the love of God is far higher than and sensual love could ever be.

So it seems that I have made some kind of logical error?

No.

You see, in both the first and the second stories, neither the man of the woman had the love of God. They would never think back over a sensual marriage, Lot’s wife looked back... looking back is a sure sign that you are not really saved and you are still part of the world from which you have just left.

Before I go on, I would just like to clarify that it is an admirable thing for a sinner to live as a Christian, but to say you love God and you don’t that is a lie.

So let me rewrite those two stories where the spouse really does love God.

There is a man and a woman who think that they are in love... Christians often get mistaken, but this kind of love is no love at all.

The man is a Christian, the woman is an atheist. The choice is extremely heart-rending, but because of the man’s love towards God, he is able to make the right choice and he parts ways with the woman before any kind of immorality occurs.

Time goes by, sure the man thinks about his former lover, but he never regrets his decision, because although, he never married in the end, he found where true love lives, in the bosom of love itself: GOD.

Remember our text? “God is love”

I’ll let you rewrite the second story in your own time.

On my mind for quite some time now, is what it says in Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always”. Always? That’s kind of hard to do isn’t it... don’t you sometimes feel down, and sad? But God said we have to be joyful all of the time. It was actually Paul that wrote the words but as we know all scripture is inspired by God.

SO here’s how we rejoice all the time, how we can be continuously happy: We think about God’s love all the time... love is never a sad thing is it?

How do we think about God all the time? That’s easy! Everything in this world should be able to remind us of God, because it was He who created all things... so right here right now, what can you see? Can you see your fingers? Can you see the sky? Trees? Are you breathing air? Yes it’s all made by God. If you are alive it’s only because of God and his undying love... so we have always something that will remind us of God, and because we are always thinking about God, we cannot but be happy can we?

So there’s 3 aspects of love that I would like to focus on today:

1. God’s love to us

2. Our love to God

3. Our love to other people

So firstly, God’s love to us.

SO how much really does God love us?

Much more than you or I can even imagine... the English language cannot do the love of God justice... the Greek language as I understand had multiple words for love, but yet it could still not do justice to the love of God.

The last part of Romans 8 has a great description of the Love of God, I advise you to read it through some time.

Maybe you have been in a similar situation to me.

There was a girl that I really liked, I wanted to marry her, but the thing is, I wanted to know if she felt the same way about me.

But that was the problem, how can you tell how much someone likes you.

To tell a person’s weight you put them on a weighing scale.

To tell a person’s height, you get a measuring tape.

But there is no such measurement for love.

But you can get some kind of idea about a person’s love for you by how much they would do for you.

Well, needless to say, it didn’t work out between me and this girl, it seemed that she probably wouldn’t go to the end of the world and back for me, and it seems that I wouldn’t for her either.

So let’s have a look at God’s love to us... how far would God go to show his love to us?

We could not begin to imagine... God is God, and God lives in Heaven, God has everything He wants when He wants, He even created the world for His own glory, man was created for His glory. Yet God leaves all that behind, and lives like a humble human being, he is born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn... He has the lowliest birth imaginable.

His earthly father Joseph is a carpenter, so he didn’t have much disposable income... so Jesus is definitely poor.

What a drop from being supreme God of the universes!

That’s real love isn’t it?

You know if someone were to do that for me, I would love them forever and ever and ever!

But that’s not all God did for us... and this part is so unimaginable: God, who is sinless and perfect, took upon Himself all our sins and failings, and bore them all away on the cross, and dying paid the penalty that we should have paid.

And praise be to God! We are free of sin, and God has purchased our souls to reign with Him in glory!

That’s the most beautiful act of love EVER!

Beats bringing flowers home to the wife doesn’t it?

So that’s something of God’s love to us, I don’t think I even touched a drop in the ocean of all that God’s love is about... but if you want to learn more about God’s love, I endure you to read more of your Bible, perhaps you might find a study Bible of some use.

So now we come to the second point of my sermon on LOVE.

The Second point is our love to God.

We are a fallen depraved people we sin as if we are breathing, every breath seems to be dedicated to the devil and our own selfish lusts.

We are utterly incapable of any kind of love.

But if you were listening to the last section of my sermon, you might have noticed that God bore our sins away on the Cross. So now we are saved.

God has made a show of love to us, in taking our sins, and in so doing has given us the means whereby to love Him in return.

So God has given us that initial ability to love Him, but we still have a small part to play... we have to practice loving Him.

Here’s how: we read in our Bible about how God loved us, we meditate upon it day and night, every thought should be on the love of God... and in thus feeling loved, we in return love him.

Have you ever met someone that think you are just so amazing, who dearly loves you, perhaps a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or maybe a son or daughter. They like you so much, and although you don’t “naturally” like them, because they think the world of you, you begin also to think the world of them.

It’s kind of like that with God, but in no way did we deserve to be loved so much... God loved us in spite of all our sins and backslidings.

So now we have looked at the love of God to us, then we looked at our love to God, so now we come to our 3^rd and final point:

Our love to other people.

O wait just 1 sec... just before we look at that, just going back to our love to God, we can show our love to God by obeying His commandments, read 1 John if you have the time.

So back to our love to other people.

What is the greatest commandment? Jesus tells us in the Gospel doesn’t he? The greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy hear and with all thy soul, and the second greatest command is like it, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

SO this is the second greatest command to love other people... if you study the teachings of Jesus you will find that this refers to the love of both Christians and non-Christians.

Now, just to clarify, when it says that we ought to love non-Christians it does not mean that we can intermarry with them... a Christian should only marry a Christian.

But what it does mean is that we should be kind to non-Christians, we should even listen to their point of view even though we do not agree. We listen out of respect, and then we tell them that we disagree, and calmly tell them about Jesus.

We do not have fellowship with Non-Christians, that is not how we show our love. We show our love to a non-Christian when we tell that about what it is that has made our life so much better: Jesus. We love them so much that we want to give them that best of gifts: Jesus!

And then our love to Christians is so important... we could so easily miss out our fellowship with the people of God by spending so much time with non-believers, even if we are always telling them about Christ.

We need that special time when we can just talk to another Christian about how much we love Jesus.

And remember the more time we spend reading the Bible, which is the one book in the world that talks about PURE love. The more time we spend reading this special book, the more we will start loving as we begin to understand what love is.

God changes a man’s heart in a nano-second, but it takes a lifetime to change his lifestyle.

Well we have only briefly touched on the matter of love... but this sermon will not be my only chance to demonstrate to others the greatness of love... I can show love every day, every waking moment, by the way I live. Yes, My lifestyle can be a manifestation of God’s love!

Well, I hope this sermon has been of some edification to someone.

God bless.

Amen!

Dating Sermon

Dating Sermon

This sermon is mostly targeted at young people who are trying to make some headway in the dating world.

I am not really qualified to advise young people on this dating matter, as I am also a young person trying to make my way through the tangled mess which we refer to as the dating world

I am 22 years old, I am not married, and I have very little experience of dating. But I hope it may be of some encouragement to other young people that there is another going through what you are going through.

I would however advise that you talk to older people who have already dated and married, rather than taking my advice and experience as solid truth.

In my experience dating and relationships have played a major part and still are a lot of what I think about.

I’m sure that your own personal experience will be quite different from mine and you will have to rely on what the Lord tells you as regards finding that perfect soul mate, but here follows my own experience:

I was the age of 12 when I passed puberty, and started looking at girls in a different way. I wasn’t aware what was happening to me at the time, I only knew that I thought about girls a lot and desired their company. I sometimes wish I had had some proper sexual education, because I did some very strange and shameful things which were mostly part of ignorance, but I will not tell you about them… I’m sure maybe you have done things that you are too shameful to tell another person.

But that part of my life is of no importance, only suffice it to say, that I was a sinner and I have since then repented of my sins and come to Christ. I came to Christ at the age of 14, I was a Mennonite at the time, and it was quite clear that the girl I was going to marry was a girl I went to school with… she was about the same age as me and we liked each other so that just seemed to be final. And if you know anything about Mennonites they are quite a close community, and they don’t share much in common with the outside world. So I went to an exclusively Mennonite school, and the girl I seemed destined to marry was Christian and very beautiful, sounds like we could have been the ideal couple right?

Well if you are so certain about a girl and if she loves God, talk to your parents about her (girls too talk to your parents about a guy you like), your parents were given to you by God so they might advise you.

I must say though, that my relationship with my parents has become so bad that I have never been able to talk to them about a girl, which may be part of the reason that I am struggling. God can help me and He can help you to talk!

And then with your parents blessing I think that you have the basis for a perfect household. Just remember one thing, God always comes before family, and if that’s understood by all, I’m sure that God will bless your marriage!

Well, it wasn’t in God’s plans that I should marry this Mennonite girl. I God’s providence, my father was offered a job in Oxford in England, which he took, and so we moved away from Canada, and away from the Mennonite church. I didn’t look on it as providence at the time, I kicked up quite a fuss, and I am now ashamed of that. But it is a great blessing if something bad happens in providence and you are given the grace to accept that the Lord is sovereign!

I was at a loss for quite a while not knowing who or which girl I fancied. One day I thought I was madly in love with one girl, next day I was thinking about a different girl.

It seems like I think about girls 90% of the time, and yet how little of Scripture is devoted to teaching how to find the right wife, Is that because it is not so important? Or maybe it’s because it only needs to be mentioned once and clearly?

One girl I was dead certain that I was attracted to had no idea that I was a Christian, in meeting her I never bothered to mention that I was Christian, because I thought if I told her that, I might lose my chance with her. But should Christians really marry a girl who wouldn’t like them if they knew that they were Christians? I think not. And we know that no marriage or relationship should be built upon a lie, even Hollywood recognizes that. So obviously that relationship was doomed to fail.

Don’t make the same mistakes that I did, be truthful and honest with the girl or the guy who you have an attraction to, tell them that you are Christian and that you love God!

I’m still very mixed up at the moment, I have my eye on 5 possible girls, 3 of them are non-Christian, and 2 of them are. Perhaps I should forget about the girls that are not Christian and just pick one of the 2 Christian girls. It doesn’t seem all so clear as all that… I am obviously attracted to these 3 non-Christian girls, and did not God create us? Then did He not give us this attraction to the opposite sex? I don’t know the answer to these questions so there are a few things I am doing so that I can discern what the will of The Lord is. I believe firmly that if God will have me be with a certain girl, He will manipulate providence in such a way that I will not have any choice but to marry that girl.

As I said at the beginning of my sermon, I think that we should look to the older ministers for advice on dating, they have trodden the path, I haven’t! In particular I would recommend Paul Washer and Voddie Baucham, both have sermons available on Sermon Audio, and you will find quite a very dedicated to dating and marriage. They have been a blessing to me, and I hope that God will also bless them to you.

If a relationship is not based with a view to Marriage it is wrong. Premarital sex is wrong. And if you look through history marriage to a non-believer is like torture to a true Christian!

I just sometimes wish that one of these girls I like will come to Christ and become a Christian. I want to live happily ever after, I’m sure you do too, and that really is a possibility if you whole-heartedly serve the Lord!

So I need to listen to the voice of God when He tells me who I should date. So to be able to listen to the voice of God, we must commune with God, and to do that we must often read the Bible and pray, and that is what I do very often, and I recommend that you do that too.

Please learn from my mistakes, be honest, and look to your elders to give you advice, there is so much false teaching on relationships. Stay close to God and He will never fail you!

The Lord bless you.

Amen!