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Genesis

24:48-61


 

I bowed my head and worshiped the LORD and blessed the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son. Now then, if you are going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left." Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, "The thing has come from the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master's son, as the LORD has spoken."

 

When Abraham's servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the LORD. And the servant brought out jewelry of silver and of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments. And he and the men who were with him ate and drank, and they spent the night there. When they arose in the morning, he said, "Send me away to my master."

 

Her brother and her mother said, "Let the young woman remain with us a while, at least ten days; after that she may go." But he said to them, "Do not delay me, since the LORD has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master." They said, "Let us call the young woman and ask her." And they called Rebekah and said to her, "Will you go with this man?" She said, "I will go." So they sent away Rebekah their sister and her nurse, and Abraham's servant and his men.

 

And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, "Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them!" Then Rebekah and her young women arose and rode on the camels and followed the man. Thus the servant took Rebekah and went his way. (ESV)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marriage Best and Worst

Friday of Pentecost 20

19 October 2012

Population is not exploding as Paul and Anne Ehrlich argued in their alarmist 1990 book, The Population Bomb, but it is declining in the western world. Part of the reason that population is declining is that westerners are beginning to reject wholesale the institution of marriage. The cultural elites, of course, are delighted to dance upon its grave. However, this dance is the dance of cultural death for the west. Marriage is the fundamental building block of the community, government, and nation. Without the safe haven of marriage and family in which to pass on faith and morals the socialization of the community will be stunted at best.

 

To reject marriage and family is to reject who we are and who the Lord created us to be. He created us to be in family. Marriage is a perfect institution because it was created by God; given to our first parents before the fall. I know you have a hard time seeing the perfection of marriage because you are in one. I sympathize. To abuse Winston Churchill, I might say that marriage "is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

 

Our human weakness and depravity makes such a mess of marriage. It remains the divinely instituted form of human government; one man and one woman until death parts them. But our fallen nature can not just take God's wonderful gift and live quietly in it to His honor and to the benefit of future generations. In marriage there is a haven for children, husband and wife, where fallen sinners can abide in harmony and peace in an institution created by God for their support and mutual welfare. 

 

Martin Luther

 

"In order to fill a city with children and citizens, it will be necessary for people to contract marriage. This is in excellent agreement with that one name given by our first parent: the name by which he called Eve the "mother of the living" (Gn 3:20). She was the mother who would bear children who later on would guide the state, the church, and the home, who would know God and would be saved in eternal life.

 

"Even the patriarchs experienced the struggles and difficulties of marriage. Abraham, Lot, and the others were strangers in the land. They were tossed about by many great hardships and misfortunes; but they bore and swallowed all this calmly, mindful of that very great comfort that Eve is the mother of the living who bears and educates children.

 

"Therefore we must wrestle with these difficulties, because the present evils strike our eyes and senses too much. For we are not yet in that blessed life for which we are looking. We are in the life in which we wrestle and contend with many evils. But we should learn to overcome these through our knowledge of God, His creation, and His good and divine ordinance. And young people should become accustomed to true and godly opinions about the female sex and marriage.

 

"'But,' you will say, 'the entire world and many wise people detest this kind of life.' I answer that by that very attitude they betray their foolishness, for they direct their attention only to the faults and do not open their eyes to take motherhood into consideration. Motherhood reduces all evils to nothing. Besides, in the fourth commandment God Himself bestows praise and honor on marriage. 'Honor your father and mother,' He says (Ex 20:12). But whatever He has established and ordained in His commandments should in no way be disparaged or spoken of irreverently.

 

Let him who is able to be continent, be continent. Nevertheless, let him think and speak respectfully about marriage and about motherhood, which is a divine blessing and ordinance by which God preserves the entire human race in this life. I wanted to repeat these statements about the praises of marriage because Rebecca gives the Holy Spirit occasion to say so much about marriage and betrothal in doctrine and example, evidently for us (Gn 24)."
 

Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, 24.44 

 

Prayer

Dear Father, we pray for home and family. Be with our loved ones watching over them at all times. Help us to extol marriage to our children that they might honor it and delight in it for the good of our community, Church, and posterity; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

For Michelle Kleb, in thanksgiving for being brought safely through a diagnostic heart catheterization

 

For those who are disabled, that God our heavenly Father would send the holy angels to watch over them and strengthen them

 

For the men's retreat of Memorial Lutheran Church, meeting at Camp Lone Star, Texas, that those who attend would be built up in our holy faith

Art: D�RER, Albrecht  The Adoration of the Trinity (1511)

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