And God Made Woman

Once upon a time there was an old southern preacher who happened to be moderator of the state association. He was a pretty conservative old coot, and he didn’t believe in women being allowed to speak in the church. Well, it so happened that a woman got up and wanted to address the meeting. The old preacher pounded his gavel and said “Sister, you’re out of order - the Apostle Paul forbade women to speak in the church, so I must ask you to please sit down.”

“Why of all the nerve!” the woman cried indignantly, “Where would you men be if weren’t for us women?”

The preacher replied, “We’d still be in the Garden of Eden, sister.”

(If you believe that, there’s a well-known bridge for sale that you might be interested in.)

When last we saw Adam, he was in the Garden - alone.

Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Have you ever stopped to realize that woman owes her origin to the first situation in history that was “not good”? God made woman in order to right something that was wrong. Up until this point in the book of Genesis, creation is described no less than nine times as being good. Over and over again, we read that God looked at what he had made and saw that it was good. Until he saw that Adam was alone and said “Here is something that is not good.”

Adam was not complete in and of himself. He was alone. He had no one of his own kind to share his life with. And remember God’s character - God so loved that He gave. So God resolved to do something about this situation for Adam’s benefit. He created Eve.

Now I want you to notice several things about this.

First, God didn’t create another man to be Adam’s companion. He created a woman. The reason that I mention this is that we are hearing a lot today from the militant homosexual movement. We have Gay Pride Week. We have a powerful gay lobby in Washington. We have a media that positively promotes homosexuality to the point where a man like Andy Rooney is instantly suspended by a major network for remarks that he made that were mildly disapproving of the gay lifestyle.

But the Bible tells us that a man can never find completion in a relationship with another man. It goes against the grain of God’s creation. It is not only contrary to God’s will, it is contrary to God’s basic design. The world today would have us believe that homosexuality is a valid alternative, that it is simply a matter of preference. They say that if you are attracted to the same sex, there is nothing you can do about that attraction - it’s just the way you are. And they say that there is no harm in following that attraction.

More and more, we are seeing homosexuals demanding legitimacy for their lifestyle. They are demanding that our courts and our laws recognize homosexual marriages. They are demanding the right to adopt children. They are demanding the right to be called families, and be accorded all the privileges that society affords to families. They have even gone as far as to demand the approval of the Church for what they are doing, and some churches, in their ignorance and blindness, have given that approval.

But the Bible says very simply that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible says that homosexuality is a sign of how far we have turned our backs on God, that we would even reject his basic design of male and female and the relationship between the sexes. Furthermore, the Bible and history both indicate quite clearly that a society that actively espouses homosexuality is a society on the verge of collapse, because it is under the wrath and judgement of God.

When man was alone and incomplete, God created a woman to address those needs.

Second, God created the woman to be a companion to the man. She wasn’t created to be his servant, or his slave, or his cook. She wasn’t created to be a babymaker. She wasn’t created to be a sexual toy to be used and disposed of. She wasn’t created to be his rival, or his competitor. She wasn’t created to be his mother.

When we read in v. 18 I will make a helper suitable for him. the Hebrew literally means, I will make a helper who is the counterpart of him. She is like a mirror image of man. She is strong where he is weak. She is his counterpart.

The Hebrew word for helper literally means “to surround and protect.” This certainly seems to be one of the strengths of women - they have a desire to shield and to protect their husband and their children. C.S. Lewis has aptly said “If your dog has bitten a neighbor’s child, would you rather face the mother or the father to discuss the issue?”

Companionship is why God made woman. God’s design for the relationship between the sexes is built on companionship. You ask any woman what she wants most out of marriage and she will tell you that she wants to be her husband’s best friend. It is in that role that she finds her fulfilment. The glue of any successful marriage is companionship. Sure, God has made us different, but those differences are what make companionship work.

The third thing that I want you to notice is how God created woman.

Genesis 2:21-22 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man

Someone has said that woman was the last thing that God made, and she’s been trying to have the last word ever since. Someone else has said that God created Adam and then he looked at him and said “I think I can do better.” so he created Eve. Seriously, if Adam was dust refined, Eve was dust double-refined. She was one step removed from the dust of the earth. She was the crowning act of God’s creation.

Why did God do it this way? Why didn’t God just go and get some more dust and form it into a woman and breathe into it the breath of life?

Well, he did it this way to show us that woman is of the very same essence as man. They are really of one substance - they don’t have two separate origins. Adam recognized this immediately when God brought Eve to him. He said

Genesis 2:23 “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

By the way, that’s the first poetry in human history. Adam recognized that Eve was part of himself. She shared his body, his soul, his spirit. The breath of life that was in her was the breath of life that was in him.

Have you ever wondered why God used a rib to make Eve? I think that no one has explained this better than Matthew Henry, a great Welsh man of God who lived in the eighteenth century. He said…

Eve was not made out of Adam’s head to rule over him,

nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him,

but out of his side to be equal with him,

under his arm to be protected,

and near to his heart to be beloved.

We don’t need the radical feminists to tell us that women are equal to men - we already know that. The Bible tells us that on the second page. Adam and Eve are of one essence and one substance.

Notice fourthly that God brought Eve to Adam. Adam didn’t seek her out. He didn’t roam far and wide around the world to find a someone to share his life with. He was alone, he knew he was alone, and God knew he was alone.

So God put him to sleep. While Adam slept, God solved his problem of aloneness. There is a tremendous lesson there for those of you who are single and thinking about marriage. God knows that you are alone. God knows that you desire to have a companion. The question is: Will you wait on God to bring that special someone into your life? Or will you impatiently go about trying to find that someone on your own?

There are a lot of Christian singles who are bouncing around from singles bar to singles bar, or from church to church, hunting for a mate. How much better it is to wait on God to bring someone to you! You might say, well if I don’t get out there and look, there’s no possibility that I’m ever going to meet Mr. Wonderful or Miss Wonderful. You look around your church, and you don’t like what you see, if you see anyone at all. You say “Well, the fishing doesn’t look too good here.” Listen, if you want to talk about an unpromising situation for finding a mate, think about Adam. There wasn’t even such a thing as a woman in existence when he was in the market for marriage!

You need to just go to sleep in God’s arms, figuratively speaking, and he’ll take care of your needs. Be at peace and wait for the one of his choosing. And remember that proximity is not a factor to God. I waited for God’s choice and He brought a special woman into my life from 300 miles away from where I lived. I’m sure glad I waited on God to bring her to me, because I got a partner from the Lord far better than anyone that I could ever have chosen for myself.

One more thing I’d like you to notice.

Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

This is the very basis of marriage. When I conduct a marriage ceremony, I always read that verse. I want you to notice the order of events presented in that verse. The leaving of parents precedes the uniting in a one flesh relationship. In other words, the marriage ceremony takes place before the man and woman enter into the one flesh relationship. A lot of couples want to do it the other way around these days. They want the sex before the marriage commitment. But sex that occurs outside of marital commitment is a very dangerous and damaging thing. Sex is a lot like fire. In its proper place, fire is good - it warms our homes, it cooks our food. But if fire gets out of its proper place, it destroys us. The same is true of sex. God designed sex for marriage. In that context, sex is good. Outside of that context, sex is very harmful.

Statistics show that couples who engage in sex before marriage have a much greater probability of divorcing in marriage.

The old KJV uses the word “cleaving” in the verse, which is nice because it rhymes with leaving. In order to have a marriage, you first must leave your parents and then you must cleave to your partner. That word in Hebrew means to stick like glue.

In the early days of Henry Ford and the Model T, somebody asked him what was the formula for a successful marriage. He said “The same formula as for the making of a successful car: stick to one model.”

There are books in the marketplace and talk show guests who tell us that adultery is harmless, and that it can even be good for us, that it can breathe some excitement into a ho-hum relationship. Don’t you believe it. Adultery, or as the world likes to call it “having an affair” is a fundamental betrayal of trust between marriage partners that will sow seeds of the eventual destruction of that marriage. It is tragic that we live in a culture which actively promotes and approves of such behavior.

God created woman to be man’s life companion. He created the woman in such a way as to show that she was every bit the man’s equal. God brought Eve to Adam as His answer to Adam’s problem - a gift of His grace and His love. And God established the institution of marriage to be a secure place of love and trust in which Adam and Eve could express their companionship on the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level.

I wish that I could say that the story ended there, but you know that it doesn’t. For in a very short time, this beautiful relationship between God and Adam and Eve was to be torn apart by sin. We’ve been feeling the pain and heartbreak of that ever since. But even there, we’ve also felt the goodness and love of God our Father who had the solution to that disaster.