This morning, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we are going to be looking at the mandate of marriage. But we are going to start by looking at the meaning of mandate. When we hear the word mandate, what does it mean? I am sure many of us would quickly see it from the mandate form we receive from the bank. What happens when you receive a mandate form? It is for you to sign to give authority to something. So that is one of the principal meanings of mandate. But there are two definitions that I came across that I will love us to use as our working definition this morning. It say "mandate is an official order." So it's something formal when you are given a mandate, its formal, it's an official order, it's not something that is unofficial, it is not something that is informal, it is a formal order, and also it is the kind of order that commission you to do something.
Number one it is a formal order, but it is not just an order as it were, but it is an order that commissions you to do something. So, until you receive a mandate, you are not commissioned officially to do something. And another definition puts "mandate as the authority to carry out or act in a certain way." The first definition is that mandate is an official order that commissions you to do something. And the second one like it is that mandate is the authority to carry out something or act in a certain way. So, more or less when you are given mandate to do something, it is usually described, you are not given mandate to do anything anyhow. You given a mandate to act in a certain way.
So in the light of this definition of mandate, we want to look at The Mandate of Marriage. We are looking at the official order that commissions you to do anything in marriage. We want to look at the authority that is given to you to carry out something or to act in a certain way in marriage. So, part of what we would be looking at today is that; in marriage, there is an authority, we want to establish that, and there is an official order and we would see where that official order starts from.
We would be going through the book of Genesis and we would be starting our observation from there and also look at other Scriptures as the Lord wills this morning. Genesis chapter 1 first we will read from verse 26 down to verse 28. Genesis1:26-28, the Bible says: "Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
So, it is sufficient to say here that when God created man from the beginning, God had created them dual. He had created them male and female, He had created them in unison, it says "in the image of God He created him, male and female he created them."
So, the expression of man that we first read, is an expression of a male and a female, man that God created in the beginning. And in verse 28 it says; Then God blessed them, and God said to them," not to him, God said to them "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." God blessed them, and this is the statement of the blessing, this is the authority of the blessing, this is the official order that God placed on the product, on the man that He created.
Male and female He blessed them and put a mandate upon their lives. And the statement of the mandate is five fold in dimension. The official order proclaimed by God, is not for them to take over the garden of Eden, God did not say come and stay here with me and abide forever, God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful, I want you to multiply fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion. Those are the five mandates that God gave to them. But that might not be sufficient for some of us, let us go Genesis 2 I will read verse 20-25. So that we can see where it was institutionalized and we will see something there that takes us all back to Genesis 1:28.
"So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And 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."
Which was the man that God created in Genesis 1:26 let us make man, and God created man, male and female He created them, and God blessed them. So, whatever God did that we are reading here is still the same thing that He did in Genesis 1:26-28 that we read. So the blessing that God gave in Genesis 1:28, was still on them, even though they had not been separated into two individual entities. But see what God did in verse 24. It says; "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Just like in Genesis 1:26-28. They shall become one flesh and verse 25 says; "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." This is the background that the Holy Spirit will be building on this morning, please let us not forget the Scriptures we have read.
Now what happened in Genesis 1:26-28 is that God initiated a process. God created man in His image and likeness, God created that man according to His nature. When God created man, He said "let us." After God made that statement, and God created man. When God created man, He did not stop there, it says male and female He created them. So, the man that He created was actually a "them" male and female. In verse 28 and God blessed them. The blessing of God confers authority. The blessing of God is an official order, when God blesses you and says go and prosper, it is a mandate.
That mandate is upon your life to go and do something in the way that God has proscribe it in His statement. So when God gives a blessing it is a mandate. So God placed a mandate on them, God said to them, because you will think God blessed them, like in our contemporary time, when you want to bless somebody, you just place your hand on the persons head and say God bless you. When God blesses anyone, God puts a mandate upon His life, the Bible makes us to understand with the story of Abraham. God blessed Abraham by saying to him, you will be the father of nations.
So the mandate upon the life of Abraham was to father nations. That's the nature of God's blessing. So when God blesses you and say "go and multiply", there is a mandate of multiplication on your life. So in the same vein God blessed them and puts a mandate on them. And this is the nature and way I want you to operate. This is the way I want you to act, I am commissioning you to do something and that is to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, fill it and have dominion.
So when God gave that authority, when God pronounced and commissioned them, this is the nature of their commissioning. Now when we went to Genesis 2 and we read from verse 20 to 25, we realize that the same man, another process was initiated, God had blessed them but God now introduced a way for them to operate. There was an Adam, that was the man that came first, and the male was doing certain things for God and God said, it is not enough, what this man is doing is not enough to do what I have commissioned him to do. And God caused a deep sleep to come upon the man and God took of his bone and made a woman the female man, and introduced her to the scene, and when Adam saw her, Adam recognized her.
Because one of the things that are very crucial and important in marriage is this; until you become one flesh you can't actually carry out this authority. This mandates of God does not come into full expression in the life of a man and a woman that have not become one flesh.
I want us to see very carefully And Adam said: "This is now." Before I was alone, before I was doing my things the way I love to do them but this is now, there has been a change, there's been a transition. This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." then verse 24 led us into the process, it says "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother."
Listen to Podcast: The Mandate of Marriage
So the question is; that man that has left his father and mother, what will happen to him that will cause this mandate to fall upon him is that he will be joined to his wife, not to a woman. He will be joined to his wife. So, there are people that cohabit together, a man and a woman living in the same house, this mandate is not upon them. A man will leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife. So until a woman becomes his wife, this mandate cannot be activated. So he be joined and they shall become, so it is a process. And they shall become one flesh, because until they become one flesh that this Mandate can be activated. It says "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."
I love the way the Scripture puts it "the man and his wife" not the man and a woman. And they were not ashamed. So, this mandate becomes activated on the man, and his wife. So the mandate of marriage like we said is such that falls on a man and a woman that have become one flesh. But that's not where we are going this morning. I want to read that Genesis 1:28 in the amplified version, it says; And God blessed them [granting them certain authority] and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subjugate it [putting it under your power]; and rule over (dominate) the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
And another Scripture validates this point. Because you will see that until this two become one flesh, they cannot make this happen. They are not commissioned to make things happen. Ecclesiastics 4, I want us to see it, I'm sure many of us are familiar with it. But I want us to see what that verse says in verse 9. It said; "Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor." God blessed them, did the Bible say did God bless each of them? It means a lot. Two are better than one because they have a good reward. So when God is concerned about marriage, it is not accidental, it is intentional because that's how He has created it from the beginning. That is the process, that is the framework that God instituted from the beginning. I want us to see verse 12. "Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
So, you will see that this Ecclesiastics that we read validates what we read in Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2. The both chapters made us to understand that God from the beginning is interested in marriage. God from the beginning instituted marriage as a framework for dominion on the earth. The Bible could have said God blessed him, or God bless her. But the Bible says "God blessed them." There is a blessing that comes on a Union. And that blessing is what we would be looking at this morning.
THE FIVE FOLD MANDATE OF GOD FOR EVERY MARRIAGE.
1. BE FRUITFUL
What does it mean? When God blessed them and said to them, "be fruitful" what was God saying? Was He saying have so many children? Was He saying become a baby factory? What was God saying here? God said be fruitful. Fruitfulness talks about fertility, it talks about prosperity. So, God commissioned them to be prosperous. God commissioned the man and his wife to be prosperous, to be fertile. And this has a holistic meaning. Be fruitful means go and prosper. So when you are married, the mandate is that you are commissioned for prosperity.
If what you have before was one trouser as a man, when you get married, that one trouser will prosper, it will be fruitful. It will multiply. Meaning that it will prosper. That one trouser will birth others. I'm just using that as an example. But you will start doing more. Being fertile means that you have the potential, you have the capacity, you have the ability to produce more than one. So God's mandate commissions marriages to be fruitful. If you have been winning one soul before, when you get married, it is supposed to prosper, your soul winning should prosper, it should be more fertile.
So, God uses marriage as a ground for fruitfulness. Everything that God wanted to do on the earth is put as a mandate in marriage. Let us look at it this way, how will a nation multiply if marriages are not fruitful? So God wanted the whole earth to be filled, so God blessed the marriages and the first thing He put on marriage as a commission is "go and be fruitful." And this morning we don't just want to receive this word and throw it away. Since you got married how fruitful are you in your mind? How fruitful are you spiritually. It is holistic.
I want us to see Ephesians 5, I will read from verse 22 down to verse 32.
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church."
Did you see the correlation between this and what we read in Genesis chapter 2 when Adam was saying "now this is the bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Now see the comparison it says "for we are members of His body talking about Jesus and the church. For of His flesh and of His bones, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ. And the church. Let us now look closely at Christ and the Church."
The Bible makes us to understand that the church is the bride of Christ, that means the church is the wife of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom. He is the husband. Now for Christ to be fruitful, the church has to be fruitful, for there to be a prosperity of Christ on the earth there has to be a prosperity of the church. In the same way in marriage, the prosperity of the wife is the prosperity of the husband. The prosperity of the husband is the prosperity of the wife. How powerful, how rich, how great, Christ is, that is how rich and great the church is. So the two shall become one flesh, talking about unity. Unity of purpose, focus and assignment. That is why I said until a marriage transits from just being a man and woman to becoming a man and his wife i.e. the two coming together to become one flesh, this mandate cannot be truly active in that marriage. And the mandate of God is to be fruitful. Go and prosper, but this is how. The Bible makes us to understand that Christ is the head of the church and the savior of the body.
So, there is a placement for this mandate to be active. The church must take a position and Christ must take a position. So the husband must take a position and the wife must take a position. And what is the position that is recommended? What is the official order or positioning for this commission? That the husband is the head as Christ is the head of the church. And the wife submits to the husband just like the church submits to Christ. That is the only way in which if you are not properly positioned you cannot be commissioned. It is not enough to boast of how long you are married, are you properly positioned? Because until you are properly positioned you can't be commissioned. For the church to enjoy all of Christ, the church must position herself under Christ, submitting to Christ, and receiving the love of Christ. So the same way the wife must position herself under her husband, submitting to her husband and receiving the love of her husband. That is the positioning that gives authority to this mandate.
That is why verse 22 says wives submit to your own husband, as to the Lord. You are doing it because it is a necessary positioning for the commission. You are doing it because it is a necessary positioning for the commission. God is a God of order, God is not haphazard in doing things, the woman was made for the man, and in the same vein the Bible says in the positioning as wife submit to your husband's as to the Lord, just like the church submits to Christ. If the church will be relevant on the earth, if the church will walk in all her authority on the earth, the church must take her positioning under Christ. The church must submit herself to Christ, receive of the love of Christ and summit to the leadership of Christ or else there's no commissioning. The same way this mandate that God has given us, until that positioning is correct, this fivefold mandates cannot find expression.
2. MULTIPLY
Multiply reproduce, increase in number, Jesus said to His disciples go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Go and multiply but that multiplication does not come, you know that is a commissioning, until the apostles are commissioned, that is why you will see Peter and John going to the beautiful gate and they could say that man that laid there, silver gold we don't have but such as we have that we have received from the bridegroom for we are the bride, we give the same to you, arise and walk, and you will see, that the multiplication that came to the church was as a result of her positioning.
Until we position ourselves that no longer do we have irresponsible men that do not provide leadership that do not offer love and do not have irresponsible wives that do not submit and follow, that's when you will walk in all of this. So all of this is tied to your positioning. Your fruitfulness, your multiplication, they are all tied, and this is the sequence, just like Christ and the church. I don't see anything the church can do outside Christ. No influence, no greatness, no authority, no wisdom, no power, it's all in Christ, that is why the Bible says in Him we live, move and have our being.
So the same way God has institutionalized it in marriage. That in him your husband, you have to submit allowing him to lead and be the head. But remember the Bible says that the head of that man is Christ. So a man whose head is not Christ is also not properly positioned, because all this is about positioning, God blessed them because God created them. God blessed them because God made them, God blessed them because God owned them. So a man that God does not own, even though you submits to him is not properly positioned to activate this commission.
3. FILL THE EARTH
This is the third sequence of what we are looking at, Jesus said to His disciples, tarry here in Jerusalem until you are endue with power then you will be witnesses of me, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth. What was He saying? In Jerusalem you will be fruitful, in Judea and Samaria you will multiply and you will start filling the earth to the uttermost. Because you have submitted yourself to Me. The same way, wives when you submit yourself to your husband whose head is Christ, you are commissioned to be fruitful, to multiply and fill the earth. In filling the earth you have influence.
4. SUBDUE IT
This fourth and fifth sequence are important matters, they are like the crux of the matter. I don't just want you to be fruitful, I don't just want you to multiply, I don't want you to fill the earth, I want you to subdue it. Be the master of the earth, take charge of the earth. Put the earth under you, subjugate the earth. That's what I want you to do, and the same way Christ has given the church this mandate. Because the church is married to Christ. So this fivefold mandate is on every marriage. So for our marriage to Christ this is our fivefold mandate, in our marriage to our spouses this is our mandate.
Because whenever we talk about our earthly marriage we also remember our heavenly marriage. It is the same mandate, subdue it, if these things are missing, what should we check, our positioning. What is your positioning? How are you positioned? Because until we are properly positioned you can't be commissioned. How have you positioned yourself? When God puts you order in place, there is always this temptation, when you are used to something, you take it for granted, that's what happens in many marriages.
Many marriages have been halted on the this commissioning, many marriages have been stalled because we started taking things for granted, we started taking our positioning for granted as a man, Christ being your head you are taking it for granted, as a woman you are taking it for granted. There is that slim chance that our positioning is not accurate. That our positioning is not secured and we are wondering, how come our commission has been stalled or put on hold. You are not experiencing the things that God has given us the authority over. And God has said it and His word will not return back to Him void, we must make ourselves properly positioned so that He can flow to us.
5. HAVE DOMINION
This is the fifth and the final fivefold blessing. Have dominion, be responsible, rule over the earth, that is the mandate. For the church and for us as spouses. God has given us the mandate to rule, to dominate. Have dominion, possess the land, own it. When you rule over something, you own it, own that marriage. Nothing happens in your marriage without your permission, nothing happens as husband to your wife without your permission, nothing happens to your children as a woman without your permission, own it, possess it, have dominion. What you say is what you are seeing, that is the people that are properly positioned. So, this is the mandate of God for marriage.
It is time for us to stand up and take our place, position yourself correctly so that this commission, you can see it, you can walk in it, you can be all that God wants you to be. This is the time. And as a church, this is a charge to us as a people who are married to Christ. We must take our place and I pray the Lord will help us in Jesus name.
Amen!
