When the Sons of God Marry the Daughter of Men

So, we continue in our gleanings of the word of God for marriages in the Bible that we can learn from. Between the time of Adam to Noah and then to Abraham nothing much was said about marriage other than the fact that the men were having children and we know that these children were conceived by their wives. But nothing definite was said concerning marriage. But just as I am about to jump to the marriage of Abraham, my attention is drawn to Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6:1-3

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

You might wonder why the sons of God marrying the daughters of men became something of an issue to God for Him to declare that His Spirit will not contend with man forever. Before this chapter, we will notice that men were leaving for up to 900 years and more. As a matter of fact, if not for the fall of man at the garden of Eden probably man would never have had any business with death. God did not forbid Adam from eating from the tree of life, so to say, that God’s plan was actually for man to live forever. But now, man not was just having death to deal with, man’s life span was being cut short and you wonder why?

When I began to seek the face of God for a clearer understanding of this matter, the Lord dropped in my spirit that the sons of God should be seeking God for a wife and not choosing wives for themselves. Beyond the beauty of the daughters of men lies hidden virtues and vices that only God knows about. It is only God who owns the ability to choose the appropriate and fitting wife of the daughters of men for the sons of God. This act of inappropriate independence by the sons of God was enough to cause God to make the declaration that His Spirit will not contend with man forever. If man had begun to exhibit independence from God and choose wives for themselves then they are indirectly telling God they don’t need Him any longer.

The interesting thing is that we still have many sons of God in our generation who still see the daughters of men that they are beautiful and they marry any of them they choose to without first seeking the face of God. As we proceed in our study on marriages in the Bible, we will come across the making of a life partner. And I am sure it was discussed earlier in the study of the marriage of Adam and Eve.

When God was to make Eve, He made her to the specification fitting for Adam. He made Eve as a helper suitable (fitting, ideal, comparable) to Adam. So, she was not just any woman, she was made specifically for Adam. In the same way, God has painstakingly made a wife suitable to, fitting to, ideal for every son of God He created. Without God, the sons of God cannot identify the daughters of men that God has created for them as wives. So, in the cause of marrying as they chose, they were mismatching each other. So to say, that they were marrying wrongly and that alone was enough to make God declare that His Spirit cannot contend with man any longer.

I have spoken to men who after marriage have concluded that they married the wrong woman. Some men have even gone the path of getting a divorce. But I dare to say that two wrongs never make a right. If you didn’t seek the face of God before marrying your wife and things aren’t going right, divorce is not the way out. There is no point when you invite God into your marriage that He doesn’t step into it, to right all the wrongs in it. He made that woman you call wife, and He can remake her into the woman fitting for you when you let Him and yield to His intervention.

Marrying wrong is not a death sentence, and seeking a divorce is also not the remedy. At whatever point you call God into the situation and let Him turn around the situation for good, yielding to His leading and following every instruction He gives to you, then you are on the road path to a beautiful marital experience. 

The Husband is Accountable to God

I am really so very sorry for the inconsistency of sharing with you on the marriage blog throughout this year. It’s a big shame on me considering the fact that I know quite a lot of people take the time to read what I write. I could have given the reason of work for this but in truth, that isn’t good enough so I would simply just apologize.

We had started a series of learning from the marriages in the Bible and we will just continue from there. What I shared last was about Eve staying within the confines of the leadership of her husband as the head of the home. The importance of submission in marriage cannot be overemphasized but the wife alone does not make a marriage, so we need to have a look at the second component of marriage which is the husband and the head of the marriage. We will be looking at the husband from the viewpoint of Adam.

Genesis 3:6

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her.

Before going on with our study, I needed to, first of all, check another translation of this passage to have a clear understanding of what it says. Remember that Adam is the husband, he is the leader of the union, and then he was the one to whom God gave the instruction not to eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. And then he was with Eve when she ate of the fruit of which God said they should not eat because the Bible says “she gave some to her husband who was also with her.”

When the serpent was speaking to Eve and he was with her why didn't he stand to her defense? Why didn't he rebuke that serpent and take the lead that he was assigned to take? Why didn’t he stop Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of which God said they should not eat most especially when he was the direct recipient of the instruction? These questions are what is coming up in my mind when it comes to the role of Adam in that marriage.  These for me are the failures of Adam. No matter how we try to blame Eve for her errors, I think Adam share a larger portion of the blame.

Genesis 3:9

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Let’s now see this from the eyes of God. When the Lord was going to seek an account for the wrong that has been done, He didn’t ask Eve, He called out to the man. This is simply because the responsibility of the union rests on the head of the man who is the head of the marriage union and home. He is the one answerable to God over the affairs of the home.

In today’s world there are still so many Adam husbands around. It is so important that the husband and wife work together in agreement but the responsibility of the marriage union rests on the husband. If a marriage fails the world might seek accountability from the wife, but God will seek accountability from the husband. And that is why we read in Malachi 2:16-19 that God warns the husband to be careful and not break faith with the wife of his youth.

The husband is assigned by God to lead his wife, protect his wife, care for her and love her as Christ loves the Church and died for her and he is answerable to God over her life. This is deeper than just as simple as it appears on this blog and I pray the Lord will enlighten the hearts of the husbands and give them a divine revelation of the matter.

Eve Should Have Stayed in Lane

By common knowledge, the first thing that comes to mind when we speak of helpers is that they support, they mostly are the backend support that makes things happen. When you speak of a helper you don't first think of such as a leader. But moving from common knowledge, by virtue of God's arrangement in marriage, the husband leads and the wives follow. But she just doesn't follow blindly, she supports and helps. 

Going back to common knowledge, a leader gives instructions and the followers obey the same. Based on God's principles in marriage, the husband leads, and the wives submit. The dictionary meaning of the word submission means to willingly yield yourself to the authority of another. So as a wife what God expects of you as found in Ephesians 5:22-24 is that you willing yield yourself to the authority of your husband just as in the manner in which you willingly yield yourself to the authority of God. A deviation from this pattern is a road path to chaos in marriage. 

That was what happened when Eve decided to leave the path of following the lead of her husband. But before you go negative on me, just follow me closely. I very well understand that the husband makes mistakes and some husbands seem unworthy to be followed. I am a wife and I am no angel so I feel like every other wife feels and I have experiences too that are not perfect or near perfect. And many years ago I thought just like you might now that my husband was unworthy to be followed. And I began to pray. I knew God's word wouldn't change and if I want peace in my marriage I must obey that word of God that says I must submit to my husband as unto the Lord. So I prayed that God will fill my husband up with Himself such that the words of my husband will come in the form of instructions and will be God's words and instructions for me. And with confidence that what I have prayed for God will answer, I learned to submit to my husband even in the silliest things and it has really paid off because it has fetched me peace of mind in my marriage and helped me build the bond of unity in my marriage. 

I will share a story of my personal experience on the issue of submission. About 20months ago I began a business and my husband got me a shop to sell lace fabrics. He renovated the shop and did it so tastefully. I had assumed that with much beauty built into the shop he will give me a good sum of money to stock up the shop. But to my disappointment, he gave me so little that it was about a fraction of what he used in renovating the shop that he gave me to buy goods in the shop to sell. In fact what I got from him then couldn't even fill a shelf. I was pained but I remembered that notwithstanding I was still supposed to submit to him as my husband. And submit I did. 

But rather than getting hurt, I began to think and pray on how to kick start the business and grow it with the very little I had. To the glory of God, ideas started pouring into my head and I began to implement them. Then I learned to use social media to boost my sales and the sales I made using social media far outweighed what I ever thought of selling in the shop. 

Now the lesson there for me was that if indeed I had gotten the big money I wanted from my husband and stocked the shop with so many goods, the poor sales would have frustrated my business and I would have been perceived as a failure. But because he didn't give me what I wanted and I submitted to him irrespective, I was able to challenge myself, think outside the box and pray and launched my business beyond what I would have been able to do given that I had all the money I wanted. God used my husband to teach me and I am happy I didn't resist the lesson. 

If Eve had just stayed within the limits of following her husband, the serpent would not have had a hold on her. When you feel your husband isn't making sense then turn to God in prayer but never leave the covering of God's commandment for your life, never move off the position of submission to your husband as the Lord has ordained and ordered you to as a wife. Prayer without deed is dead and so prayer without submission is dead and also submission without prayer is powerless.

There was None Found Comparable to Him

So will continue our marriage discussion by continuing our focus on the marriage of Adam and Eve. In the last post, we looked at one of the purposes of God for marriage judging from the first marriage, the marriage of Adam and Eve. We were able to conclude that based on God's design marriage was designed to help the couples in it to develop and grow from the position they were before marriage. 

There are many other lessons I have learned from the marriage of Adam and Eve and I will like to share them with you. So in the next couple of posts, we will be dealing with that marriage and learning from it.

The first interesting thing about the marriage of Adam and Eve is found in the latter part of Genesis 2:20 which says "But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him" (NKJV). The NIV version says "But for Adam no suitable helper was found." What I understand from this single sentence is that no matter how you view your marriage at this moment, for God to sit on His throne and watch your marriage ceremony take place without any disruption, then He knows for sure that you as a wife are the suitable helper that God has found or should I say made that is comparable and suitable for that man. Of all the living things God has made you are the one found comparable to that man who is your husband. 

Now, that does not translate to the fact that your husband is perfect and without fault, it doesn't mean that he is so sweet and husbandly and a dream come true husband, it only means that you are the one God has made to complete him. You are the one found suitable or should I say comparable to him to complete him and perfect him. God made you and place you in his life despite all the shortfalls in the life of your husband because He (God) knows you have what it takes to help him develop from who he was before God brought you into his life

What this tells me about you as a wife is that you are more than what you think you are. God thinks more highly of you than you think of yourself. God knows that you are more capable than you think you are. Your strength in God is beyond what you know. 

If you are in a challenging marriage situation, never think of yourself as the victim, because for God to watch you in that situation, it is because He knows that if you harness the potentials in you with His (God) support, strength and power in you, you are capable of turning the situation around for good and become victorious over that marriage challenge, being a change agent in the hands of God in bringing a glorious renewal in the life of your husband. Of all that God created that is living and moving around, there was none found comparable to him except YOU. Think about it. 

What is Your Marriage Producing?

It's been two months since I last shared a post on the marriage blog and I sincerely feel ashamed of that. But I can either stop making an impact in the lives of people or cover my face and yet start all over again. If any explanation is required for my absence, I will stay I took time off in pursuit of an income-generating venture. But while at it, I shouldn't abandon God impacting venture too. In all, I apologize for my long absence. 

Before I took off we had done a lot of learning from the book of Esther and just like you, I learned a lot. So we will continue into the year learning things from the marriages of the Bible. We will glean from the marriage of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebecca, Jacob and his wives (Leah and Racheal), Lot and his wife, David and his wives, Job and his wife and many other marriages we can glean from and try to relate what we learn from them in to our everyday life. 

So we start from the very beginning, the very first marriage which is the marriage of Adam and Eve. It is common knowledge what the marriage of Adam and Eve was like but the one thing we need to look at and learn from is what the marriage of Adam and Eve should have been as intended by God. 

From what we can see in Genesis 2:18, one of the reasons God created the wife for the husband was for support, as a suitable helper. So we can rightly conclude that the marriage of Adam and Eve was designed for developmental purpose as the wife was placed in the life of her husband to help him succeed in what he has been assigned to do. Noting that this is the first marriage with marriages following after that, we can that say that wives are placed in the life of the husband as a support and a helper and so marriage is designed by God for developmental purpose. 

My question following this conclusion is: Is your marriage fulfilling the developmental purpose for wish God designed it? We learn from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor, and then we read from Genesis 2:24 that "for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and will cleave to his wife and the two shall become one." If two are better than one, then we understand better God's reason for saying that it is not good for the man to be alone. And two who labor together will have a better reward for their labor than when one labors alone then we know for sure that the design of God in bringing a man and woman together in marriage is for developmental purpose. So the man and his wife coming together as one laboring together with the wife as a suitable helper and the husband mandated to love and care for his wife as himself then growth and development are bound to take place in their lives as a single unit and in their individual lives. 

So the question again is this: In your marriage, is growth and development taking place like it should? Is your marriage producing fruits of development in your life and that of your spouse like it should? If yes, I congratulate you and bless God for your life. If otherwise, then it is important that you begin to search out the reason for the shortfall and start to deal with it. 

For your marriage to bring about the development and growth we are learning about, there must be a true cleaving between the husband and the wife in soul and spirit such that it can truly be said that they are no longer two but one. Been married to the world yet separated in mind and spirit does not bring about the development that God designed for marriage. Seeing your spouse as a separate entity from yourself and treating him/her as such does not produce the kind of reward of labor that we read of in the passages we have highlighted in today's post. 

Your battles in marriage are not battles you should target against your spouse, but that you working with your spouse on a common goal in fighting the external enemy. When you see your spouse as your enemy, then you are no longer one but two separate entities and your achievements in that marriage will be limited. On the long run, you short-change yourself ignorantly. For you to enjoy the dividends of marriage, you must make a deliberate effort at keeping and maintaining the unity of your marriage. God's word never lie, your marriage is designed to make you better than you were before it began

It's Brilliant How Esther Did It

Another thing that caught my attention in the book of Esther was the wisdom in which Esther handled her issues. I can tell you for free that no matter how beautiful you can be, it is not enough to hold a marriage. But God’s wisdom embedded in good character and prayers will take anyone to the greatest height attainable in marriage. Proverbs 24:3 says, “Through wisdom, a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches.”

The book of Esther chapter 3 was where Haman began to plot the destruction of the children of Israel and when this got to Esther, the first thing she did was to highlight her restriction, but that was not good enough for her Uncle Mordecai. But what really gave me so much respect for Esther was how she handled the matter.

For some, she should have just walked up to the king, demand her right as the queen and insist that her people be spared, and Haman be destroyed. After all, she was the queen. But Esther took a different route, a more subtle yet technical route. A route that was devised in wisdom and covered with prayers, that she knew could never fail.

So, the first thing Esther did was to pray. You might wonder why a wife would need to pray before approaching her husband for a request that she was entitled to. Well, I learned to use the prayer approach too in my marriage and it works well for me. Building a marriage on an entitlement mentality is not too good. Always have it at the back of your mind that your spouse owes you nothing except what God has laid in his/her heart to deliver to you. With that, you seldom get disappointed and learn to trust God more irrespective of your spouse. 
And after her prayer and fasting which she did along with the whole of the Jewish race on the land, she decided to take the bull by the horn and approach her husband whether tradition allowed it or not. Although the tradition of the land at that time did not permit Esther to approach the king when she was not called on but through prayers she had prepared her path, she knew that she had secured the intervention of God in the matter. And to the glory of God, she got what she wanted.

So many times, there are pressing issues that I want to discuss with my husband and with the emotional weight that I carry in me, I was sure the discussion would most likely lead to a fight. And all the time that I have prayed before speaking up it always ended in praise. You might wonder if I can’t approach my husband on issues without first praying about it, at least he is my husband and not my God. Well like Esther I love to choose the prayer route first so that I get to laugh after all said and done. Sometimes when I pray, I might not even need to discuss with him anymore on the issue no matter how pissed off I may be because the Lord will speak to him on my behalf and the matter is resolved without me venting my anger or airing my views.   

When I need something that I am sure my husband has to give like the case of Esther, I have learned not to trust that my husband will give me because he has it to give. With this approach, I seldom get disappointed because my expectation is little and I have killed totally any form of entitlement mentality that I should have in my marriage. So, when I have a request, I present it to God even when I know my husband has. It is now God’s choice to determine how He chooses to make available my request. He could choose to use my husband as a vessel to answer my prayers or decide to find other means suitable to Him. But one thing is sure He answers me when I call.

Applying God’s wisdom and praying in all situations brought about victory not only for Esther but for all the Jewish race in the 127 provinces. Applying God’s wisdom in your marriage gives you peace, joy, and love in your marriage far more than you can ever achieve in your limited effort. There is absolutely nothing too trivial in marriage to pray about. Disturb God about everything because that is what He wants you to do. When you free yourself of the burden and put it all in the hands of God things begin to happen for your good. Not because you did it, but because you let God do it for you.

What About You

There is no time more appropriate to be mindful of one’s appearance as a woman than when you are married. I do understand the pressure of being a wife and a mother but in the midst of all the various important things that vie for your attention as a woman, the way you look and care for yourself is also very important. And that takes me to the third thing I learned from the book of Esther in the Bible.

After the exit of queen Vashti, there was a need for a replacement and a search began in the 127 provinces under the rulership of king Ahasuerus. In Esther 2:12 we read that each woman gets twelve months of beauty treatment before presenting herself to the king for consideration as queen according to the regulations for the women. So, in the days of Esther, the women were required to undergo twelve months of beauty treatment. I want to believe that this regulation is not only for those vying to be queen but for all women in the land as it was a regulation for the women.

Sometimes I just want to think if such regulation should be reintroduced in our days where it is compulsory for women to pay attention to how they look and smell. One of the things that qualified queen Vashti as a trophy to her husband so much that he wished to display her to the princes and nobles of his province was her beauty. It is so easy for a beautiful woman to relinquish her beauty if she doesn’t take time to care for her beauty. Just as it is easy for a woman who was considered ugly to become a beautiful pride of her husband when she begins to pay more attention to herself and her appearance.
The importance of one's appearance and hygiene cannot be over-emphasized. Your appearance does not just qualify you as a trophy to your husband, it also boosts your self-esteem. The way you dress and carry yourself goes a long way to determine the way you will be addressed. Beauty they say is deceptive but nonetheless, beauty attracts. Being a lover of God does not undermine the need for us as wives to take care of our appearance in a decent and modest manner. 

In as much as "character" is the number one value of a wife, but good-appearance is a value that is a wife must-have. Even if it on a ratio of 8:2, a wife must make efforts to look good for her husband. There is something about you that made your husband decide you fit enough to be his wife; always ensure you maintain the freshness of that one thing. I totally agree that beauty cannot hold a marriage and I preach same. But the way you look is a catalyst in marriage. A good look is required for you to earn the respect of those who see you, your husband being the most important one. So while not overdoing it and keeping your marriage and its health in focus, ensure you pay attention to yourself as a wife. It’s the least you can do for you.