Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Learning that Psalm is so that this Wednesday at our Ash Wednesday service, we can actually in addition to reciting each of the seven penitential psalms responsively can sing a version of each of them. And so this coming Ash Wednesday service here at RCC on Wednesday evening at 7:00 marks the first time when we’re actually going to be able to sing versions of all the seven penitential psalms. That’s the result of work led by Joseph and Brad and John and younger to get us to work through the Psalter comprehensively and learn versions of all the psalms and particularly here now so that we can sing versions of all seven penitential psalms.

This Lord’s day we’re going to be looking at courtship and specifically we’re returning finally to Jeremiah 29:4-7, sort of this interrupted series of living in exile although everything sort of pertains to that. We are certainly well acquainted with the difficulties of our current situation in which Christian values, laws, etc. seem to be being washed away faster than we can even watch it happen. And we know the implications of that for many of the families here at RCC.

We are regularly praying for the unemployed, but there are all kinds of people here whose wages have been cut, who are suffering in other ways as a direct result of what this country has done in terms of ignoring the truths of God’s word. So increasingly we see ourselves in a situation of living in exile and we have this wonderful section of Jeremiah 29 as well as many other of the prophetic books that tell us both why this has happened but also give us great hope for the future for those who live in exile.

And so Jeremiah 29:4-7 we return to today. This is the letter that was sent back to the exiles in Babylon who had been taken away from Judah and Jerusalem. We’re now in exile. And so there is, I think, a growing comprehension that the church in America is sort of this exile church now. And so these words are instructive for us. And I’m going to focus on one particular aspect of these words dealing with marriage.

So please stand for the reading of God’s word. Jeremiah 29:4-7. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon. Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters, that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city, wherein I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it. For in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for this wonderful instruction to people that had no hope, encouraging them to hope in the future, to hope in you, Lord God, and your corrective judgments. We thank you that though Nebuchadnezzar carried them to this place, yet you said that you carried them there. And we acknowledge, Lord God, your sovereign providence, your sovereignty over what’s happening in the context of our country as well. And we recognize your judgments are in the earth and you’ve taken us into exile, so to speak, for your purposes and reasons.

Help us, Lord God, as a congregation, not to be depressed, discouraged. Help us to see here that there’s a command to be optimistic as we go about doing these simple things well for you. Optimistic for our own lives and community, but optimistic for the place you have us as well, this country. Bless us Lord God with understanding now the importance of this text in terms of marriage in Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. So courtship—blank slate. People are wondering what’s he going to say about courtship. It wasn’t intentional to keep you guessing. What we’re going to do today is I’m going to give some introductory comments about courtship at this church.

This was a big deal at our church and has been throughout our 20 or 25 whatever it is years of existence. And I want to talk a little bit about the past. I was sort of having fun—Angie pulled out the big old file on courtship materials that I’ve done over the years. And I’d forgotten that we used to have a courtship support group here 10, 11 years ago or something. I know, it sounds weird, support group, but the idea was to get together, you know, with young people and their parents to talk about what the scriptures say about how you get married and stuff, to have discussion over particular things that are going on and then to share resources. And so we used to do this kind of thing and it’s been a while.

I want to say at the outset today, this sermon is not being preached at anybody or because of any specific situation going on. When I got into Jeremiah 29:4-7 back whenever it was, back before Advent season, I always wanted to return back here and pick up some more things from it, including a specific sermon on this text that we just read about how children enter into marriage and how parents are so instructive in that and overseeing of it.

I mean, what does it say? You know, it says that, you know, it doesn’t—while you’re in exile, it repeats the admonition here. What’s supposed to happen with kids? Verse six, take ye wives, beget sons and daughters. Okay, so we’ve got sons and daughters of this church. Take wives for your sons. Give your daughters to husbands. Now, that’s part of how we get out of the mess we’re in. That’s part of the culmination of which is seeking the peace of the city.

Very important in the context of the culture we’re at. Marriage, Christian marriage, the right kind of marriage. And this text says that you know, God commands us not to be depressed, discouraged, you know, pessimistic, doom and gloom. We’re men who discern the times. We know what’s going on. We know the judgments that are filling the earth. We understand that. But God wants us to underneath it all recognize that our biggest response to all the problems with political legislation and stuff that’s going on today when people have replaced the word of God with the word of man in terms of politics and economics and so many things is that the most important thing we can do is the simple stuff of working, building homes, having families, getting our children married in a faithful way in submission to their parents, overseeing the process, and then seeking the peace of the city, actively seeking it through prayer and doing things.

So, this is what we’re supposed to do. This is the set of priorities for us. It’s important to remind us of that. Other things we do as well, but this is a nice summary statement of our present obligations in a time of great distress. And so, you know, this courtship thing, whatever that means, is kind of a big deal. And so, I intended to return here anyway. This is not being preached in response to anything contemporary going on at RCC in the last 6 months. It just isn’t. I say that because already people are saying, “Well, is it because of this? Is it because of that?” No, it’s because that’s what the word of God says here in seeking the peace. And so, we’re preaching the word of God today. And I think it’s germane for a lot of situations and it’s important for our church.

We recognized early on when we formed up as a church the importance of this issue. Our church covenant includes the obligation of members to who assert this: I will neither marry nor give in marriage outside of the Christian faith. Hey, very simple statement and yet very important. And that’s what’s going on here. Parents are giving in marriage or taking daughters, but the idea is giving in marriage at a marriage ceremony. And we’re not going to do that apart from Christian faith. In other words, you don’t marry outside of the faith. And implied in that as well is your giving in marriage. So kids just don’t decide who they’re going to marry apart from parental involvement. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

So courtship, what does it mean? In 1998, Chalcedon published a report. Well, they always have this Chalcedon report that comes out. It’s different now. It’s called something different now. Life, faith for all of life or something. Used to be called the Chalcedon Report. And the entire issue in 1998 was focused on courtship and there was this wonderful article that I read at the time and it stuck with me more than any other article in the whole publication was by a guy named Walter Lindsay and I think he was a programmer sort of fellow maybe single and the name of the article was “Leapfrogging Courtship Version 1.0” and he said, “Well, you know in computer programming you know you never buy version 1.0 of a software program because it’s going to be buggy, it’s not going to work quite right. You wait for refinement to be made.”

Now, you got to do 1.0 before you can get to 2.0, right? So, you know, that’s what you got to do. But what he was saying was, you know, in the rush to courtship in Christian primarily homeschooling circles, you know, we should be careful what we’re talking about here and what we should do here. We don’t want to get stuck in doing a version. I think probably some of our young people, I would guess, have the perception that they did get sort of stuck 10, 15 years ago by us as a church encouraging their parents to run version 1.0 of the software and with some buggy effects in their lives. And some of that perception may be accurate.

After all, as you pick things up, we’re having a discussion in the CRC list right now about liturgy, church calendar, Lent, feast days, robes, alms, wearing crosses around your neck, setting up the church keys around your neck rather—keys of the kingdom, setting up, you know, church architecture in cruciform ways. And we’re sort of just sort of willy-nilly doing this stuff. And in a way, that’s sort of what happens, right? But you want to be careful. You want to think through what you’re doing as best you can.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. In other words, it’s just worth doing, as Chesterton said. And he said that specifically about marriage and who should give away kids in marriage. So, you know, it’s important that we apply ourselves to the basic truth of scripture relative to courtship. But what is that basic truth? On the front of your order of worship, there’s a couple of pictures there. We’re in a couple of minutes going to look at seven different little snapshots of how godly people went about or maybe ungodly people, but covenant members went about obtaining wives, you know. So, you got, you know, the whole Boaz gleaning thing here and Ruth and then you got, you know, Abraham sending off his servant Eleazar to find a wife for Jacob. And the second illustration. And so, you know, this is what we’ll be talking about in a couple of minutes.

Looking back over the historical information we used to use at this church, it was pretty interesting. You know, I remember now that, you know, there was a wing—I don’t know, maybe there still is in homeschooling circles. Well, courtship’s no good. What you really want is betrothal. And so, you got dating over here, courtship here, and betrothal here. And the really cool, most committed Christians, marine Christians are doing betrothal and that’s courtship somehow, some sort of bad diversion from betrothal and dating is a bad diversion from courtship and you have these little charts you know comparing courtship and dating or courtship and dating and betrothal and these things that are written down and so we ended up with kind of this view of things where we court at this church, we don’t date. What does it mean? I don’t know—means lots of things to lots of people.

Dating—I think you know if now you could say the cultural model of dating today is X. Okay, but the word dating I think just means you set a date or a time to get together, right? Now it has implications for people who are dating. But I guess what I’m saying is really dating is just a subset of courtship. If you are going to have your parents oversee a relationship that leads to marriage, you will schedule dates on the calendar. That’s all it means, right? Uh so you know it’s sort of interesting how we get hung up on these various models.

Now there’s family rules and then there’s God’s rules, right? And family rules should reflect God’s rules, but in particular circumstances, we’re allowed to do certain things. What is mom and dad supposed to do in terms of obtaining, you know, wives or husbands for their kids? They have a responsibility. Jeremiah 29 tells us that. What is it? Well, it looks different to a lot of people. There is no RCC courtship model. There never was. And we used to hear this. I used to hear this, you know, “Well, this is not what we do here at RCC.” I’d hear this from, you know, pretty influential guys in the church. “No, it’s not what we do here at RCC. That may be what you do, and I’m not going to get in the way of that. I might give you some advice or counsel about it, but there’s no RCC deal about what courtship looks like, whether it’s formal, announced, yada yada.”

Isaac Mayh wrote a paper years ago about courtship, rethinking courtship. And one of the things about courtship is single guy, single gal. And Isaac said, “Well, that’s pretty convenient for the guy to lock up a gal for 6 months in terms of attention and focus and not have any other guys around courting her.” So Isaac wrote a paper saying, “Well, what’s wrong with multiple guys courting the same girl?” All courtship means is trying to win the affections of a girl moving toward marriage. I mean, in its simplest form. So, what’s the deal with this exclusivity where the guy gets to, you know, kind of lock out all the competition while he’s trying his best to secure the girl? It is kind of an odd way of looking at it.

So there are no RCC models. Walter Lindsay in his conclusion to his article on leapfrogging courtship version 1.0 says this: “Scripture includes many courtships in times where believers were surrounded by apostates. And in a way that’s what we’re talking about here. Whether it’s you know Armenian Christians who really have kind of brought all this to pass and that’s my view or it’s just outright pagans. The scriptures give us a lot of examples of that.” As he says, and they’re pertinent to us in which they traveled to find a mate.

Rebecca chose to travel to Isaac after Isaac Abraham’s servant had traveled to find a suitable godly mate for his master’s son. Isaac instructed his sons not to marry women from the surrounding people. When living in captivity, Israelites at times were given to pagans. Both Esther and Joseph were given to pagans but served their save their people. Now, I don’t know what he means by Joseph being given to a pagan, but Esther, you know, marries a king who is not a believer. Othniel won Caleb’s daughter Achsah by overthrowing a Canaanite city. We’ll look at that in a couple of minutes.

Israelite men were allowed to capture heathen women during a war. Numbers 31. And in one case, the Hebrews decided to let the men of Benjamin take wives by kidnapping maidens from Shiloh. Judges 21. David and Abigail married because she kept him from killing Nabal her husband. Samson saw a Philistine woman and told his parents to arrange for a marriage and it was of the Lord. Judges 14:1-4. Michal, Saul’s daughter, fell in love with David and Saul’s requirement was that David kill 100 Philistines and bring back their foreskins. David decided to become the king’s son-in-law and with a flourish he brought back 200 Philistines’ foreskins. 1 Samuel 18.

Masters could give their slaves a type of marriage. Exodus 21. Ruth slept at Boaz’s feet and invoked the levirate. Ruth chapter 3. The scriptural examples do not illustrate any single model of courtship. That’s the important point here. We’re going to look at most of these and most of the things he says, not all of them, there’s no negative statements made by God. And in some of them where we would expect it, like Samson, you know, desire this woman and getting his parents to get her for him. It says it’s of the Lord. Now, “of the Lord” can mean lots of different things, but in some of these cases, there’s no negativity attached to it.

So, you know, what we’re arguing for today, and what I’m going to want to make a commitment, try to draw your commitment to at the end of this sermon, is that parents are involved overseeing the process. Okay? So, children should look to their parents to help them discern who a good mate and a bad mate and move toward marriage. And parents should actively pray for their children, work to whatever degree they can to help their children find mates, find potential people that they might want to—that their son or daughter might want to marry.

That’s all I’m working at here. We’ll look at all these examples and we’ll see in basically the basic theme of biblical courtship is parental supervision and giving and taking or giving we would say today, their children in Christian marriage. That’s the whole gig. There’s all kinds of things we could bring up, you know, in an ancillary way as we go through some of these texts and we’ll point them out.

But, you know, we’ve talked about dowry before and there’s something about that in one of these texts. There’s, you know, qualifications of the person. I told the Sunday school class of young adults this morning, if you want to talk about qualifications for a mate, well, parents ought to know about Psalm 15. That’s an entrance requirement to get to worship. Psalm 15. They don’t know about 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1. These are descriptions of qualifications for office, but most of those qualifications are just evidences of a spirit-filled life. So, if you want to look at qualifications for potential suitors, there’s things right there that you ought to be thinking about.

I think last week’s sermon on glory, knowledge, and life, it’s essential to doing this thing. Are you—is your potential person that your daughter or son might be interested in—are they the kind of people that will respect, bring honor and weight to the other or is there messed things messed up? And how do you evaluate that? Well, you can evaluate by looking if they honor their parents or not, right? Glory, honor, respect, knowledge. You know, the way that we knew that Mike and Lana should get married is because they were able to talk. Mike highly respected Lana’s respect for her father and mother, but they just, you know, Lana didn’t open up to anybody else. There was communication. One of the worst things, you know, if you don’t have communication in a marriage, you know, so many problems can be dealt with. If you don’t have communication, so many problems can’t be dealt with.

And somehow the Lord seems to make obvious that in some cases that this guy and this gal, they can talk for the first time. They can really talk to someone other than themselves. Glory, knowledge, and this will lead to celebration life together in marriage. So there’s that kind of stuff too. But I don’t want to get sidetracked by all of that. All I want to talk about today is the importance of getting commitment from everyone in this room.

If you think this is what the scriptures teach on the part of kids to not, you know, in any way cut parents out of the process and on the part of parents, step up to your responsibilities to be involved in overseeing the process of who your children are going to marry, in my way of thinking, you know, that much I really know the scriptures teach. Beyond that, I know a lot of things that the scriptures may imply or it may be useful for us to do, but these are, as Lindsay says, you know, there’s no single model. There’s all kinds of strange things going on in terms of godly men and women coming into a marriage relationship. Okay, so let’s what we’re going to do is look at Genesis. We’re going to look at seven different snapshots from the scriptures of biblical courtships, I guess we could say.

And the first is Genesis 2. This is foundational, right? This is the creation account. Verse 18 of Genesis 2: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an help for him.’” And 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. And Adam gave names for all the cattle, to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found an help for him, a helper suitable for him.

Now, it’s really interesting here. This first marriage that’s going to take place here shortly is overseen by the father, right? Adam is referred to in the New Testament genealogy as the son of God. So, his father is overseeing the process of Adam getting a mate and what does he do? You know, he says, “Well, it’s not good to be alone.” Then he gives him this job and the end result of the job is Adam realizes, “I need a helpmate.” So, what he does is he helps his son to discern his own need for someone to be with him to exercise dominion in the world.

So, the father oversees the relationship. And in this particular case, the first thing the father does is he helps the young man recognize his need for a godly wife. And so the wife is being given to accomplish ministry that Adam has been given by the father, right? Father’s calling him to exercise dominion. Part of that is the name thing. So Adam has a vocation going on that helps him to realize his need for a woman. Okay? And then the father meets that need, right?

It goes on and so now Adam knows just like God already knew. Adam knows. And then verse 24: “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and opened up the flesh instead thereof and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man and made he a woman and brought her unto the man.” So the father is getting the bride for the young man. Now he actually does in a way that’s not repeatable but the point is he oversees the relationship. He makes the son see the need and then he helps provide the proper mate for the son.

And Adam said, so Adam, great. This is wonderful. Adam then says, “This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” And really in the Hebrew, this is a song. This is a poem. This is the first love song that’s sung. And it’s in relationship to the father overseeing marriage and giving in marriage between two people for the purposes of man advancing his dominion or actually them doing it together.

And then it goes on to say that this isn’t just a one-off sort of thing. There’s some truths here that pertain to us. Verse 24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.” So the father has oversight. The purpose of marriage is the exercise of dominion. That stays the same. That’s why young men and women get married. And as God brings Adam and Eve together, as parents oversee a relationship, whether you call it dating or whatever you call it, understand that relationship is intended at some point in time to produce sexual response, right?

So, the idea here is that they’re going to want to be, you know, man and wife. And so, parents oversee a process. They help kind of things move along. And in this sense, God the Father oversees it. And we recognize from this that part of the whole courtship thing or dating thing is getting mates who will help the other person exercise godly dominion and man and wife both exercise dominion. So there’s a proper purpose in mind. There’s a goal in mind and as a recognition that you know as this process begins to work out that sexual response is part of it. This is what’s going to happen.

You know so often young people—you know, part of we’ll see this in the story of Dinah. She goes off to, you know, hang out with the women of the land and bad things happen. You know, young people don’t understand, they’re not equipped to know what the temptations of sexuality will be for them when left alone. So, you know, we could add on to this courtship model that parents should be very careful allowing their children to be in places and to engage in activities that are improper.

Now, Paul says it’s not good for a man to touch a woman. It doesn’t mean touch. It means cling to in this—in the Septuagint the only place that it’s used—I think it’s the only place that it’s used—but it means to cling to, not just to touch. So you know there are certain kinds of touching, sexual contact that develops bonds, covenantal bonds and that’s the sort of stuff kids are not ready for. Usually it’s parents’ responsibility to not put kids in a situation that is difficult or dangerous or beyond their capability.

You know the old adage is unless you’re stronger than Samson, more devoted to God than David or wiser than Solomon, don’t trust yourself not to sin sexually because they all did. The strongest guy, the most wise guy, the guy most after God’s heart. So, it’s a warning to us.

So, this initial creation story is kind of a courtship story with the father overseeing things and it’s intended to result in some kind of response of marriage. Okay.

Genesis 24. Turn to Genesis 24 if you will. And this is the story of Abraham providing. This is what’s illustrated on the cover of your order of worship today. Abraham was old, well-stricken in age, and the Lord blessed Abraham in all things. Verse one: “Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house that ruled over all that he had, ‘Put, I pray thee, thy hand upon my thigh, and I will make thee swear by the Lord the God of heaven and the God of the earth that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell but thou shalt go unto my country to my kindred and take a wife unto my son Isaac.’”

Now so here again—so what’s going on? The father is overseeing the provision of a wife, the marriage of his son. Now he’s not doing it directly; he’s sending a servant off to do it. Now, in each of these stories, by the way, you know, what we have are some beautiful imagery of the gospel, right? I mean, the father sends the servant, sends the Holy Spirit to procure a bride for his son. And so, in your life, the Holy Spirit has worked in various ways to bring you as part of the bride of Christ to Jesus. So, it’s kind of like this story. And these stories all sort of inform us about our relationship to God as part of the bride of Christ.

So, they’re beautiful pictures of the gospel, but they’re also, you know, real things going on and they’re real examples to us of godly men exercising their care and authority for their sons. So, you know, his servant goes off and he says, “Okay, well, you know, discussion happens. What about this? What about that?” And God says, or Abraham says, you know, it’s she’s got to come back with them and she won’t come back. Well, then you’re released from your obligations. So, the woman has to return. He in other words the servant has to be convinced and the woman has to be convinced that she should enter into marriage with Abraham’s son Isaac.

So his servant comes and in verse 11 he goes to this far land and he made his camels to kneel down without the city, outside of the city by a well of water at the time of the evening and the time the women go out to draw water. And he said, “Oh Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day and show kindness unto my servant my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water. And let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, ‘Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink,’ and she shall say, ‘Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also.’ Let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac, and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master.”

And it came to pass before he had done speaking that behold Rebecca came out. So the thing that he just prayed about happens, right? He says, “Well, give me a drink.” She says, “Okay, let me water your camels also.” And so he thinks, “Wow, this is really great. What’s going on?” Well, in terms of the obligation we have in captivity of Jeremiah 29 verse 6 to have oversee our children’s marriage arrangements in faith, in terms of that, we see that prayer is an essential part of what’s going to happen here.

So, here we don’t have the father directly doing it as we did in Genesis 2, but we’ve got the father working through a servant and we’ve got prayer involved in securing this wife. So prayer. Dads and moms should be regularly praying for their kids. I don’t know about you, but in my case, I tend to worry more than I pray about these kind of things whether it’s vocation or marriage. I worry about it more than I pray about it. Now that’s sin. “Be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God” and so regular prayer by parents for the spouses of their children is a wonderful thing to do and for the kids to know you take this obligation seriously you’re going to be involved and they see you and hear you praying for them.

So it says that you know she comes and she draws waters for the camel and then it says that she actually goes with him now to the place where he’s going to go. So she agrees to go with him. And now he knows, “Yeah, this is the one. This is the one that my master has sent me to receive for his son.” She’s willing to go with me. She did this thing that I prayed about. And as a result of that, he immediately then it says he bows down and worships God. So when God answers our prayers, our prayers should continue. Prayers of thankfulness and worship to God and he does that.

So he worships the Lord in verse 26. Now the end of the story is that Isaac sees them coming. Now it sounds strange right to us. I mean they’ve never seen each other but let me just read verses 62 to 67. “Isaac came from the way of the well Lahorai and he dwelt in the some in the south country and Isaac went out by to meditate in the field at the eventime and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, the camels were coming. And Rebecca lifted up her eyes. And when she saw Isaac, she lied off the camel, for she had said unto the servant, ‘What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?’ And the servant had said, ‘It is my master.’ Therefore, she took a veil and covered herself.”

And the servant told Isaac all things that had happened. This is the providence of God at work, right? He tells him the prayers had been done. Prayers have been answered. “And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent and took Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”

You have this beautiful, very romantic evening scene in a desert where, you know, it’s midnight at the oasis and the bride has come and he is just happy as can be and she’s happy as can be and they end up married and everything’s great. And so, you know, it’s not the same sort of story as we would think of in terms of a romantic marriage, but that’s the end result. The end result of trusting your parents to help you in this process—children—and the end result of parents trying to be actively involved in the selection of their children’s mates is a beautiful wonderful wedding one that is filled with love and romance at the end of it.

So in this situation we have the father again working through somebody else and we have the use of prayer in the process. Okay.

The next story is in Genesis 29:1-12. So turn there if you would and I’m going to take a little break here for a moment. Read Genesis 29:1-2 and maybe somebody can play the piano a little while you look at that text and then we’ll deal with it very quickly when I get back.

[Music]

Okay. Genesis 29, we read the story of Jacob. Now, all of these stories, by the way, or several of them are sort of wrapped up together in the New Testament in John chapter 4, which is what we’ll talk about at the Lord’s Supper here in a little bit. Sort of put these images in the back of your mind of the wonderful arrangements for weddings that take place.

One other thing I wanted to point out here as we’re going to go through this. So, you know, if you are married, if you’ve been brought into relationship with a husband or a wife, recognize that these stories are your story. Well, even if you’re just a Christian without being married, these are your stories. You’re part of the bride that’s been brought to the son, etc. But this is the story of your marriage as well. Whatever men might do and whatever you did, the Lord God was overseeing these activities to bring blessing to you in relationship to your spouse.

So the beginning thing of working out any difficulties you might have in your relationship is to give thanks for a thing and to recognize this is God’s intended purpose. This is what your marriage is. These beautiful scenes of Isaac seeing the girl coming at night. Beautiful. And this story with Jacob that starts so beautifully has goes through lots of twists and turns afterwards. But here in the beginning it’s a wonderful story as well.

Now here we don’t have the father do we? We read in verse one: “Jacob went on his journey and came into the land of the people of the east. And he looked, and behold, a well in the field, and lo, there were flocks of sheep lying by it. For out of that well they watered the flocks, and a great stone was upon the well’s mouth.” And so, you know, as the story proceeds, there’s this well, there’s a big stone on the well, and the women that would come with the sheep would have to wait for someone to roll that stone off the well to water their sheep.

And so, in verse six, he said unto them, “Is he well?” And they said, “He is well.” He’s talking about his relatives. He’s asking about one of his relatives, Laban. “Behold, Rachel, his daughter, is coming now with the sheep.” So, he’s having a discussion at this well, and they say, “Yeah, Laban. Yeah, well, there’s his daughter. And Rachel, she’s coming with the sheep now.” And he said, “Lo, it’s yet high day. Neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together. Water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.” And they said, “We cannot until all the flocks be gathered together and until they rolled the stone from the water from the well’s mouth, then we watered the sheep.”

And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she kept them. See, notice that, you know, these people, you know, Rachel’s doing her father’s business, right? The exercise of dominion again is what’s behind each and every one of these wonderful scenes. So Rachel is taking care of her father’s flocks.

“And Rachel saw, when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother, that Jacob went near. And he rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban, his mother’s brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that he was Rebecca’s son. And she ran and told her father.”

So, you know, later the woman at the well, at Jacob’s well running in telling her kinsman. You see, there’s a lot of analogies here, but there’s this wonderful story. This is how Jacob meets his bride. Now, it gets twists and turns and it’s a while before he can, you know, have her as his bride, etc. But the imagery here is different, isn’t it? Because we don’t have the father directly involved.

Now, Isaac had advised his sons to get wives from afar, back to go back home. But, you know, at this point, Jacob is kind of on his own. He’s got to do it himself. Why? Because Isaac wasn’t a real good dad. Had in his old age, he’d become tyrannical. He liked Esau instead of Jacob. He wanted to give the blessing to the wrong guy, even though he knew it belonged with Jacob. And because of Isaac’s mishandling of the sibling relationship, at least in large part, that’s what’s going on. You know, Esau wants to kill Jacob and Jacob has to run for his life. And that’s where we find him now as he’s run for his life and he’s gone to get a wife.

So, the father has kind of taught him this, but the father’s not actively involved. So, what does this tell us? Well, it means that if dads won’t do Jeremiah 29:6 or at least actively be involved in that, that’s no reason why kids can’t also go about seeking marriage in a godly way, right? And so he’s doing it in a godly way and he’s trying to fulfill God’s requirements as he learned at least from his father. Even if his father didn’t put him into practice, he remembered what his father had taught him.

And the beautiful picture here of course is as you know the father sends the servant, the Spirit to obtain a wife for Isaac. So now Jacob is a picture of the greater Jacob who will come and he will roll back the curse, the thing that’s stopping up the blessings of water for humanity, for the bride. And so Jesus comes as the greater Jacob. He comes to release and to water his bride and to find her. And he does this through his task at the cross, the definitive rolling back of the rock at the mouth of the tomb, the rock at the front top of the well, whatever imagery you want to bring into this thing.

The Lord Jesus Christ accomplishes redemption, salvation, the giving of water to the woman and to her flock. Very interestingly, so we have this picture. Now we, this is a courtship deal and now the father’s not directly involved even through a servant. So it’s different.

Genesis 34:11-13 is still another story. Now you know this story. Jacob and his brothers are in this land where there aren’t many—it’s not, you know, godly land. They’re apostates. And Dinah goes out to see the women of the area. She goes down to Portland to hang out with the gals down there. And she ends up in trouble. She ends up sexually involved with a young man named Shechem. And what I want to point out here is, well, number one, there is this admonition to be careful about the situations young women find themselves in. Everybody thinks, “Yeah, I’m fine. I know what I’m doing.” She didn’t know what she was doing. She wasn’t prepared to be out there on her own without any kind of covenantal headship involved and she got into trouble.

But how is the trouble handled? Well, in verse 11, Shechem, that’s the guy who loves her. They apparently, you know, it’s not—So, he loves her and he wants to be her husband. “Shechem said unto her father and unto her brothers, ‘Let me find grace in your eyes, and what you shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me ever so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me. But give me the damsel to wife.’”

And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor the father deceitfully and said because he has defiled our sister they hatched this plot to administer the circumcision to him and his men and then kill them all. Now we want to think of Jacob in evangelical circles as kind of not a very good guy but hopefully we’ve corrected that impression here at RCC over the years. The Bible has high commendations for Jacob in his life. He’s a you know, he is the type of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what we find here is that the brothers are doing the negotiating with the perspective suitor for the hand of the young girl. And I think if we looked at the Song of Solomon, we’d see some of the same sort of stuff. Nothing wrong with this. One courtship model is for the dad to use adult brothers as part of the process of seeking a godly mate for his daughter. Jacob has assigned this task not to a servant now but to his sons—the brothers of the girl and brothers of women. Righteous brothers they do have this protective thing going on and they’re going to do a good job of protecting the gal. Now these guys sin but we don’t want their sin to say that somehow what was going on—Jacob using his sons instead of Abraham using his servant—to try to oversee this marriage was a bad thing. The Bible doesn’t say that for us.

So here the model is the use of brothers. By the way, notice that when he marries her, “I’ll give you dowry and gift.” So, there’s this idea and we don’t want to talk about it today. It would take too much time, but the idea of endowing the wife is part of what’s happening. The money would be given to the father or to the brothers to hold, but it would essentially be her money and she could use that money in the marriage to protect against the death of the spouse, divorce, yada yada.

So, this idea of dowry being part of the process. Now, again, that is not a legal biblical law that you have to have dowry. It is the normal custom. And unendowed wives in the Bible in the Old Testament were described as concubines. They weren’t full wives with full privileges because they didn’t have money that was their own. So I think it’s a really good thing the dowry, but it’s not as if this is part of a courtship model that we insist on at RCC because it’s one of those things that’s described for us in places. It’s described in different ways, different kinds of dowry. We’ll see that in a couple of minutes here. But you know, so it’s important, but all I’m trying to get at today is this oversight of the relationship of these adults by members of the household. And here that oversight of the father is exercised through the sons.

Okay. Next, Judges 1. This is Othniel and Achsah. So what’s going on is the conquest of the land in Judges, right? And so in verse 9, they fight against Jerusalem and they take it. So they’re doing well. Verse 11: “And from thence he went against the inhabitants of Debir, and the name of Debir before was Kirjath Sepher. And Caleb said, ‘He that smiteth Kirjath Sepher, and taketh it to him, will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.’ And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it, and he gave him Achsah, his daughter, to wife.”

“And it came to pass when she came to him that she moved him to ask of her father a field. And she lighted from off her ass. And Caleb said unto her, ‘What wilt thou?’ And she said unto him, ‘Give me a blessing, for thou hast given me a southland. Give me also springs of water.’ And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.”

Okay. So, here we’ve got the father deciding that he’s going to marry his daughter off to whoever will conquer this stronghold of giant Philistines. Giants were there called Debir which means word. So, Othniel whose name means “Lion of God” is this picture of someone who will conquer the word—the false word of the pagan culture in which they were found. Okay. And Achsah’s father says, “Whoever can do that can take this city is the one I’ll give my daughter to.” Now, we don’t know what else went on. Maybe the daughter knew there were several fighting guys that could do it and she was okay with it. Don’t, you know, don’t fill in the blanks here with your own thoughts. Just stay with the story as it’s presented to us.

The father oversees the relationship and instead of dowry from the guy, his dowry is can you conquer the enemy or not. And if you conquer a really big stronghold of the enemy, I’ll let you marry my daughter. And Othniel does that. He conquers the stronghold. Now, she right away they’ve got a good relationship. It tells us that right away because she says to Othniel, “Well, ask my dad for a field.” And apparently it happens and they’ve got a field. And then she goes to her dad and gets off of her donkey she’s riding on and says, “Well, it’s it’s in the south, which means it’s probably dry. Give me some springs, too. Give me land nearby that has springs on them.” So he gives her the springs. And not only does he give her a spring, he gives her two locations of springs.

So there’s this picture here of conquest and then occupation in the context of the promised land. Right? And this wedding story is set in the context of that conquest and occupation. Again, the big picture is it’s being overseen by dad.

Once more, we have a wonderful imagery given to us here, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the lion of Judah, right? Othniel is the lion of God. Jesus is the lion of Judah. Othniel is going to, you know, take the city of Debir, the word and the giants who live there with the word of the pagans. Jesus comes to conquer the false word of the fallen world, pagan men, to conquer them, to conquer, you know, our enemies. And as a result of him doing that, the father gives him the church, right?

So the father of the church says, “Jesus, lion of Judah, conquer and I’ll give you the bride.” And Jesus conquers through his death and resurrection. And God gives him the church, the bride. And the bride then asks her father for the ability to prosper in the place she is. She’s not saved and just going to wait around till heaven. By way of imagery, she wants to conquer, you know, increasingly the Gentiles or the unbelievers around her. She wants to exercise dominion over the donkey. Animals in the Bible, unclean animals are representations of the gentile nations and she wants to conquer them in a proper sense.

This imagery of her riding on them is the picture of that. And in order to carry out the occupation now and continuing victory to go on, she asked for sustenance. She asked for water, right? Water’s an image of the spirit. And so the church of Jesus Christ as ask for the spirit of God to empower them. We’re the bride been given by the father to the son and the father grants us the gift of the Holy Spirit sent by both the father and the son to his church for the purposes of occupying and then in that occupation to expand the once-for-all victory of the lion of Judah who rolled back the stone who conquered the city and did all that stuff at the cross.

So there’s wonderful imagery here to just delight in terms of our salvation, what it’s all about. It’s not just about conquering, it’s about occupying, and then the extension of dominion through the gift of the springs of the Holy Spirit. There’s wonderful imagery in all these courtship stories, but here again, it’s a different model of courtship. Now, it’s not the father of the guy. Now, it’s the father of the girl that basically is seen overseeing the relationship, right?

I mean, it was Isaac’s dad, Jacob’s father who gave him the advice at least and in both the story of Dinah and now in the story of Achsah it’s the father of the girl who is seen overseeing the relationship here and being the active participant in Jeremiah 29:4-7 sort of work where he’s doing this thing of making sure that people are married off in the context of the faith. He’s giving his daughter. Okay.

So, it’s a little different model, a wonderful, beautiful model. And it’s a model that ends up in great blessing and is a wonderful picture of the gospel, but again, it’s a reminder to us.

The next story is in Ruth 3. And you know this—it’s kind of long, but in Ruth chapter 3, you know, Ruth has come back to Moab—wait, she comes back with Naomi to the promised land, and she’s with her mother all the time. She’s kind of a picture of a gentile convert, I guess we say, and her mother is working with her. When they come back, they glean in the field of Boaz. And so Ruth has this relationship with Boaz begin.

In Ruth 3:1, we read that “Naomi her mother-in-law said unto her, ‘My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee that it may be well with thee?’” “Shall I not seek rest for thee that it may be well with thee?” She’s concerned to provide a godly husband for her daughter, daughter-in-law, daughter of in faith, whatever it is, right? She wants to provide rest for her. Moms, this is your story. This is now mother who’s overseeing the relationship and who tells Ruth what to do to find rest.

And she tells her, you know, well, he’s going to be down there, you know, threshing out the wheat. And, you know, after all the threshing is done, he’s going to probably going to have a good nice meal, have some wine, relax, and he’s going to lay down there and take a nap, sleep through night so the next day they can continue to work there, whatever it is. And when you see this Ruth, you go there, put on really nice stuff, look good, and go down there and put yourself at his feet while he’s sleeping as a picture of submission to him.

And so she does this and you know, he wakes up. What’s going on? Oh, you know, I’m here. You know, I this is her I’m just not doing anything weird, but I’m here. You know, and he doesn’t do anything weird. It’s a godly relationship. And the text actually tells us that everybody knew that Ruth was virtuous. So, they knew that she wasn’t doing anything weird.

Now, this is a strange courtship. I’m not necessarily recommending it as a step-by-step plan or motto, but the Lord God blessed it, did he not? She becomes part of the line now that gives birth to David. So, the picture of Christ coming now comes as a result of the woman committing herself to follow her mother and to take advice of her mother even though it might seem quite odd to her and the mother’s concern for her daughter that she find rest—meaning to get married to a godly guy—and they know by now that Boaz is a real godly guy and so it works out. You know they end up married together and that’s the way it works.

So here we have a different kind of courtship story. I didn’t choose these because they’re all different. It’s just a fact that if you look through the Bible and how this stuff happens, you got dad of son, dad of son, you got dad of girl, you got servants being used, you got sons being used, and now you got the mother overseeing the thing.

Of course, dad is not in the picture. But sometimes that’s the way it is in Christian homes too. You know, dads aren’t in the picture. They should be, but you know, if they’re not, then you know, mom, well, even if they are, mom should be quite involved in the context of the process.

So here in this picture, we have parental authority being exercised by the mother and again it’s the end of marriage.

One more picture and this is a little more difficult. The last one I’ll give here and this is Exodus 22:16-17 and this is not given as a model for courtship but it ends up being very instructive for us.

“Exodus 22:16-17: If a man entices a maid that is not betrothed so it becomes clear the parallel text to this in Deuteronomy that if a man and woman have sex and one of them’s married, death to both of them. If a man and woman have sex and one of them is betrothed, death to them if they both are consenting to the act because betrothal is seen you know with having the same kind of covenantal nature as marriage. So this is a virgin or a woman who’s not betrothed and they lie together, right? He lies with her. ‘He shall surely endow her to be his wife if her father utterly refused to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.’”

So, you know, covenant kids have sex together. And in the parallel text, we find out that she’s a virgin. We find out, you know, other things about it. But in this Exodus 22 text, we’re told that the father is still the one determining whether he’s going to give his daughter to this guy or not. So, even in the worst case, of kids who are going off completely on their own and falling into sin that they probably didn’t intend, still, parental authority is part of that courtship we could say process.

If courtship is simply the assertion of the parents’ responsibility to find, procure, and cause their kids to be given or taken in marriage in a godly way, then that’s what’s going on here. It’s a weird thing that’s happened. It’s, you know, unfortunate and all that stuff, but the obvious thing that’s going on that is in case of seduction: he’s got to make offer of marriage and the girl’s father has the right to either accept or refuse.

Now in the parallel text in Deuteronomy 22 in the seventh commandment section of Deuteronomy, we find out more information. It says there that the man has humbled the woman. So in these cases in covenant kids who enter into this stuff, you know, the man is held primarily responsible for the sexual sin that’s been engaged in, right? So, he’s shamed her, which is the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. What you’re supposed to do in relationship is honor each other, give each other glory, and he’s done the reverse. But in the providence of God, it’s redeemable, right? Sin is forgiven and sin can be left behind.

And he then what does he have to do? He has to honor her by giving money to her through her father. He’s got to pay her the price of virgins. She was virgin before. She’s not a virgin. None of this really very direct applies, but assuming she’s virgin, they just goofed up. He has to, you know, in response to his shaming of her, he’s got to bring her honor now and glory at the at the first thing he’s got to do.

So, you know, from one perspective, deception has this resultant punishment for it, but the punishments very much fit the crime. He’s shamed her. Deuteronomy 22 says. So, he’s got to honor her. And the other thing he’s done, he’s engaged what probably—I think I actually preached in this 10 years ago and called it—he’s engaged the man has in a satanic usurpation of the father’s authority over giving and taking spouse. Okay, he’s gone around the dad. Okay, now she has too, but the emphasis is on him as covenantal head. Men lead, women follow. And so he’s gone around the head.

And what does he got to do then? He shamed the daughter. He’s got to honor her with money. He went around the authority of the dad. What has he got to do? He’s got to involve now submit to the authority of the dad one way or the other.

Now, I say almost a satanic usurpation because in a way we can sort of see in this story, you know, a little bit of what happens with Eve and the serpent in the garden. The serpent’s whole gig is getting Eve to go around her covenantal headship of her husband. He wants her, and this is the sin that happens. She follows and Adam or she leads rather in the wrong direction and Adam follows. It’s a reversal of authority and order that’s going on in the very fall of humanity. This is what we’re tempted to do in our sinful nature as a usurpation of authority. And this is what happened there. And she hasn’t, you know, honored her father in heaven and she’s actually entered into this deception by Satan to follow him.

And the young man who seduces a young woman in the context of a covenantal community—that’s sort of what he’s done. He’s sort of done this satanic reversal thing of getting around authority and usurping authority. But even here then, you know, sin is forgiven. But in the forgiveness of the sin and the restitution that is involved with it, the son who has sinned, the man is brought to correction to both honor the girl and to submit now to the authority of the father.

So, you know, this is another courtship we could say that happens and the father is involved but after the fact but still the father is involved. I mean there could have been a lot of other ways to remedy the situation. God says the remedy is to get the father involved even after the fact of the sexual act. So that’s the high priority I think we can see in this last one we just looked at the high priority of doing what Jeremiah 29:6 says—that parents are the ones give or take in the context of marriage. It’s our responsibility to seek out godly mates for our children. It’s our responsibility to pray and to pray diligently for our kids and to let them know we’re seeking to bring them to rest in the context of the establishment of their home. That’s what God has done for us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what we do for our young people as well. And it’s the responsibility of children to submit to that.

What’s courtship? Courtship is just kids being willing to say, “Mom and dad, you’re in charge.” And mom and dad may come up with all kinds of rules or this that or the other thing. And for the most part, you just follow them. Now, some could be wrong and you want to get other people involved, but for the most they’re not autonomous. Mom and dad, they’re under authority, too, in terms of the state or the church, whatever it is, but for the most part, kids, you need to commit yourselves to not seeking out marriage apart from the oversight and the giving and taking, the permission of your parents. You should seek for that kind of direction from them. You should ask them for that if they’re having trouble stepping up and doing it.

And parents, you should commit to doing this very thing. All kinds of different weird models. Dad directly doing it, dad doing it through servants, dad doing it through brothers, dad of daughter doing it through various ways, you know, strange tasks that are required for it to happen. Mother of you know daughter doing it and, you know, dad involved in the context of when the kids have absolutely subverted the authority that’s supposed to be his.

Anyway, the Old Testament ends, the prophetic word ends in Malachi 4:5-6: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

And as we look at the New Testament, when the angel comes to say what’s going to happen now at the coming of John the Baptist and then Jesus, this is what is picked up. So the closing of the prophetic word in the Old Testament and the opening of the revelation, the prophetic word of the New Testament is this theme. Now surely it’s broader than families. Surely it’s about Israel returning to her father, so to speak, and her sinfulness in departing from him. Surely there’s bigger themes than just the family, but surely as well, the family is a vital part of this and very specifically if you believe these models that I’ve sketched out and what Jeremiah 29 says to do then you know what I want you to do today to pray about and to commit yourselves to as you come up and bring your tithes and offerings.

If you’re a parent of children, to commit to turning your heart to your children afresh and praying for, seeking for rest for them in godly marriage and if you’re a young person who’s not married yet, I what I want you to do is to commit that God would turn your heart to the heart of your father and your mother, that you would actively look for them to help be part of the mechanism that the Lord God uses to guide and direct your feet. You may not think it at the time, but what they’re doing is they’re seeking rest for you. They’re seeking blessings. They’re seeking springs of water. They’re seeking occupation. They’re seeking your dominion work in the world.

So, children today as you bring your offerings or if you just sit there, pray about it and tell God, I want to commit afresh to getting my parents’ oversight in terms of when I get married. First, Titus 2:11-15 says, “The grace of God has brought salvation and it’s appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world.” That’s what I’m urging you to do.

Two, avoid the lust not just of physical attraction, but avoid the even stronger lust of subversion of parental authority in terms of this most important area of setting up your next household. You’re going to be tempted by this world. People are going to think you’re nuts for looking for your parents to oversee, seek out, and help provide for a godly mate for you. Don’t be tempted by the world. Don’t give into that stuff that you see and hear about in the movies and on your iPods and everything else. God says salvation has appeared. And you can resist those temptations through the power of the Holy Spirit. And you can do that very specifically by looking to mom and dad for them to be involved actively in the process of you both seeking out and then entering into Christian marriage. God says that’s one of the most important things you can do.

Young people, you don’t like the world that’s falling apart. You don’t like what your parents are giving to you. You’re right not to like it much. Things are going bad. The way they’re going to get better is proper submission to authority, looking for the blessings of God to come about as we all engage in what the Bible lays out is the basic model of courtship: parents oversee the process.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful simple stuff that we can do that will have tremendous effect on the world about us. Help us, Lord God, not to abandon the city where you’ve placed us, but help us to seek its peace and help us to see that we do that as we turn the hearts of the fathers to the kids again looking to oversee and help them find Christian mates and to turn the hearts rather of the children to the fathers in asking for help and submitting voluntarily to that oversight.

Bless us Lord God as a church in this community to make that commitment afresh today. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.