And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept;
and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof:
and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.
And the man 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.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall become one flesh.
Lord, we want to thank Thee that, on the first day of the new year, we can come together to remember Thee at Thy table.
Lord, we know that Thou art here. Thou art with us. We commit our time into Thy hands and pray that Thy word will come forth from Thee to each and every one of us. Open our hearts, that we may be able to hear what Thou dost desire to say to us.
Lord, we commit this time into Thy hands. Glorify Thy Son. We ask in Thy name. Amen.
I am going to speak of marriage this morning, but it is not marriage in the world. We are going to see marriage in the word of God.
When you open the Bible, and if you have read through the Bible, you will realize that the Bible begins with marriage and ends with marriage. So marriage is a great topic in the Scriptures. But, of course, it is not a marriage of this world; it is the marriage between Christ and His church.
Even before time, if we may say there was a council among the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father loved His Son so much that He wanted to do something special for His Son. He wanted to create the universe, create man, and give man to His beloved Son.
But, of course, God, being omniscient, knew what would happen. So, while He was considering what He wanted to do—if we may use human words—the Son stepped forward and said, “Father, if this is Thy will, go ahead. I am willing to come to this world and save man, so that man can be united with Me.”
It was on that basis that God began to create.
Genesis 1:1 says:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
This was the beginning of creation. But this is not the world that we know today. May we say that this was the former world? When God created in the beginning, He did not create man. The highest of His creation were angels.
But unfortunately, an archangel, Lucifer, rebelled against God. He wanted to be equal with God; or, to put it another way, he wanted to take the place of the Son of God. Because of his sin, he was dismissed from heaven.
Most likely, at that time the earth was under his control. That is the reason why the earth entered into judgment. It was covered with water.
We do not know how long the former earth was covered with water. But we know that in human history there was an ice age. During that ice age, our earth was covered with water. In other words, it was under the judgment of God.
Then, we do not know after how long, the Spirit of God began to brood over the earth. In other words, God was about to restore the earth so that it might be habitable.
So, in Genesis 1, during the six days, God restored the earth to be habitable. It was on the last day, the sixth day, that God began to create man.
From the Bible, we know that man was created as a tripartite being. God is triune, so He created man as a tripartite being: spirit, soul, and body.
God made of the earth a body. So our body is related to the earth around us; it gives us world-consciousness. Into that body, God breathed the breath of life.
As this breath of life came into the nostrils of man, man was given a spirit. Because God is Spirit, He made man with a spirit. As the spirit came into contact with the body, there came forth the soul.
So man is a tripartite being: spirit, soul, and body. God is Spirit, and God gave man a spirit so that man can communicate with God. It is with man’s spirit that he can contact God; it gives him God-consciousness.
When the spirit entered that body, not only did that body become alive, but a third element came into being: the human soul.
With our spirit, we can contact God. With our body, we can contact the world around us. And with the soul, we can contact ourselves. This is the making of man.
After God created man, He brought all the animals of the land and the fowls of the air to man. The Bible says that man gave all these animals and all these fowls their names. But he could not find his counterpart, his like.
For this reason, God put man to sleep. God gave an operation. This is the first recorded operation in the Bible, but it was a painless operation. God put man to sleep, and then God took something out of man.
Now, in the Scriptures today we find that God took a rib out of man. But actually, in the original, it simply says that God took something out of man. With that something, God built a woman. Then He led the woman to the man.
As the man saw the woman, he said, “This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” You know, this is me. This is I myself. So man was united to woman as one. This is the story of the first couple.
Our emphasis is not on the making of man and woman. Our emphasis is the typology, because here we find man as a type of Christ, and woman as a type of the church.
So, in God’s purpose, the church is to be united to Christ. She comes out of Christ, and she goes back to Christ.
There is a principle that we find in the Scriptures: only that which comes out of Christ can return to Christ and join with Him as one.
If it does not come out of Christ, however good it may be, it cannot return and be joined together with Christ.
So, brothers and sisters, here we find a spiritual principle. God’s purpose for us is to be joined with Christ as one. But whatever can be joined to Christ as one has to be that which comes out of Christ.
Anything that is in us which is natural, which is of ourselves, is not fit to be joined back to Christ. Only that which God has done, which has come out of Christ in our lives, can go back and be united with Christ.
This is one of the basic principles we find in the Scriptures. It is an important principle. It is a basic principle that each one of us must understand.
Only that which comes of Christ can return and be united with Christ.
Brothers and sisters, do you see this principle? To put it another way, anything, however good it may be, if it is not out of Christ, is not fit to go back and be united with Christ.
As we look at man, of course, we can see many things—many faults in man. But that does not mean that man does not have anything good. Man does have something good in his life.
But not because he has something good in himself does it mean that this good thing can be united with Christ. Whether good or bad, whatever does not come out of Christ in our lives cannot go back and be joined together with Christ.
I am afraid that in Christianity today we do not see this basic principle. We think that whatever is good in man can go back and return and join together with Christ.
But I think the Bible is very clear from the very beginning: only that which comes of Christ can go back and be united with Christ. This applies to each and every one of us.
How, in Christianity today, we substitute ourselves! We think that which is bad, of course, cannot be joined to Christ, but that which is good in us should be preserved and could be reunited with Christ. That is a basic thought.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the first principle we find in the Scriptures is simply this: only that which comes of Christ can return and be united with Christ. The application is very broad.
Take yourself. Only that which is Christ in you can return and be united with Christ in eternity. All that which you consider good in yourself cannot be reunited with Christ.
I am afraid that this principle has not been accepted, believed, and worked out in the lives of Christians.
Brothers and sisters, it is not only sins that cannot be united with Christ. It is not only the bad things of our life that cannot be united with Christ. Everything that does not come out of Christ in our lives cannot be united with Christ.
You know, oftentimes in Christianity today, we think that only that which is bad has to be rejected, but whatever is good can be returned to God. But the Scripture, from the very beginning, tells us that this is not so.
Everything out of ourselves, whether good or bad, cannot return and be united with Christ. Only that which we have received from Christ, only that, can go back and be joined to Christ.
We all know that our sins cannot be joined with Christ, and therefore we confess our sins before the Lord and take the redemption of our Lord Jesus on the cross, Who bore our sins in His own body, and have our sins forgiven.
But unfortunately, we do not see clearly the other basic principle: that nothing out of ourselves, even if it is good, can be reunited to God. Everything that is of us has to go. This is the basic principle in the Bible.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we find, as we read the Scriptures, that when we first believe in the Lord Jesus, what do we do? We do not confess our good to God. We confess our sins to God, because we believe that those things cannot be united with Christ.
But as you continue on in your Christian life, you will begin to see that not only do our sins have to be rejected, but even ourselves have to be rejected.
When you come to the experience of Paul, you find that he was a good man, so far as human beings are concerned. He was one of the best of men, because he was brought up in strict Judaism. He tried his best to keep the law.
He studied under Gamaliel, the greatest rabbi during that time. He was a Pharisee.
Today we have a very bad impression of Pharisees because our Lord Jesus said, “You hypocrites.” So our concept of a Pharisee is that a Pharisee is a hypocrite. But it was not so with Saul. He was a true Pharisee.
In Philippians, he said, “I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.” He was a true one. He tried his best to keep the law, all the letters of the law, and he was zealous for the law.
Yet he discovered that this was far from God.
Thank God, because God knows the heart. What Saul did was terrible, because he persecuted the Christians. He took men and women, even children, from the synagogue, put them in jail, and judged them.
When Stephen was martyred, he was there, watching the clothes of those who threw stones at Stephen. In other words, he justified them.
But thank God, on the way to Damascus, to persecute the Christians there, the Lord met him.
We find that he went to the Arabian desert, and there he spent three years in loneliness. He reread the Bible in a new light.
Now, I wonder whether Romans 6, 7, and 8 were his experience during his time in the desert.
He believed in the Lord Jesus as his Savior, and he had his sins forgiven. Then he began to realize his own self. So Romans 6, 7, and 8 are Paul’s own experience.
He knew the law, and he wanted to follow the law. But he discovered that in him there was something that rebelled against God. It was his own self.
Here we find Romans 7. He said, “I know the law. The law is good, and I wanted to keep the law. But when I wanted to keep the law, I found another power within me that drew me the other way.” It is self in him.
So, dear brothers and sisters, in our spiritual experience, we have to go through this.
If you read the Scriptures, you find that our salvation may be viewed in three parts.
When we first repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, we have our spirit saved. In other words, our spirit was dead in sins and transgressions. But when we believed in the Lord Jesus, He quickened our spirit into life.
We have a new spirit, and into that spirit God’s Spirit dwells. Why? Because He is there in our new spirit, seeing that the life of Christ in our spirit will grow accordingly. That is the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
In this sense, we who have believed in the Lord Jesus, the salvation of our spirit is in the past. We have experienced it.
But then you find in 2 Corinthians that there is the salvation of the soul. Our soul also needs to be saved.
The saving of the soul is in the present. That is to say, after we have believed in the Lord Jesus until the time when we shall be raptured to the presence of God, it is during that period—our present time—that the saving of the soul takes place.
Salvation is going on in our lives. Daily, we are experiencing the saving of our soul. How?
We discover that in the spirit Christ dwells, but in our soul self dwells.
So there is a constant conflict between our spirit and our soul, a constant conflict between Christ in our spirit and the self in our soul.
We need to learn how to deny ourselves. So the Lord Jesus said, “You have to deny yourself to follow Me.”
If we love our self-life and keep it, we shall lose it. But if, for His sake, we are willing to lose our self-life, we will gain it unto eternity.
Dear brothers and sisters, salvation is going on. It is not that, because you have been saved, that is it.
Some people say, “If my two legs could be in heaven, I am satisfied.” But you may be satisfied, but will Christ be satisfied? God is not satisfied unless you learn to deny yourself and follow the Lord.
This is the present salvation. Dear brothers and sisters, we all are going through this process today.
You can find in your own life experience that there has been a constant conflict between yourself and Christ in you.
Unless we learn to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow the Lord, we will not be able to save our soul.
Brothers and sisters, when the Lord shall come, we shall all appear before Him at His judgment seat. Those who are willing to lose their own soul will be rewarded with the kingdom during the thousand years with Christ.
But if we love our soul today and do our own way instead of following the way of the cross, we will lose our soul. That is to say, during the millennial kingdom, we will be outside of that kingdom.
The Bible says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That is an expression of repentance. We will repent because we have not listened to the Lord.
But thank God, eventually we all will be saved—spirit, soul, and body.
Brothers and sisters, today we are still in our mortal body. We have weakness. But one day this mortal body will put on immortality.
There will be no sickness, no weakness of any kind. Our body will be transformed into a spiritual body, and it is with a spiritual body that we are able to enjoy eternity.
But the Bible tells us, as we find in the ten virgins and as you read Matthew 24, that at the coming of the Lord, two women will be grinding at the mill—that is the morning. Two men will be working in the field—that is daytime. And two will be in bed—that is nighttime.
It is because the earth is round. So, at the coming of the Lord, some people are sleeping, some people are working, and some people are grinding.
I often tell people, “Do not be afraid to go to sleep, because the Lord knows who is to be taken and who is to be left. If you do not go to sleep, it does not guarantee that you will be taken. So go to bed and have a good night’s sleep.”
The Lord knows who is ready for Him. He will take one and leave the other. The one who is taken is the one who has pleased Him, who has satisfied His heart, who has been waiting for Him. The one who is left is one who still lives for himself.
The Lord is coming, brothers and sisters. He may come at any time now.
When you study prophecies, you try to figure out which prophecy will be fulfilled first, and then other prophecies will follow. But let me tell you: all the prophecies before the coming of the Lord have been fulfilled.
There are still other prophecies to be fulfilled, but they will be fulfilled at the time of the coming of the Lord and afterwards, not before.
Any time now, dear brothers and sisters, the Lord can come. Are you ready? Will we be taken, or will we be left?
Those who will be taken will reign with Christ during the millennial kingdom. But those who will be left will be outside the kingdom, weeping and gnashing their teeth—that is to say, repenting.
But thank God, whatever He has begun, He will never leave undone. He will always finish His work.
So, in other words, eventually, in eternity, every believer will be completed, and we will reign with Him in eternity.
But, brothers and sisters, a thousand years is a long time. For the sake of a few hours, a few days, a few years of living for yourself, it cannot be compared to the thousand years and the coming of the Lord.
So, brothers and sisters, let us be ready. The Lord will come at any moment. Do not expect any prophecy to be fulfilled before His coming. He is coming at any moment. Are we ready? That is the problem.
May the Lord have mercy upon each and every one of us.
Oftentimes, when I am in a conference, I tell the people, “Should the Lord come at this moment, I hope this place will be emptied. None will be left behind.”
This is the same hope for us today. Should the Lord be coming now, brothers and sisters, this place, hopefully, will be emptied. This is our blessing.
May the Lord help us, and not allow us to continue in self until we see Him face to face.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee, for Thou art coming, and Thou art coming for Thine own.
O dear Lord, by Thy grace, we hope that each and every one of us will be daily, hourly prepared, that when Thou shalt come, Thou wilt take us to Thyself.
Do not allow any of us to be so self-centered and live for ourselves that, when Thou shalt come, we will be left behind.
O brothers and sisters, may the Lord have mercy upon every one of us. And to Thee be the glory. In Thy name.