Holy Matrimony

Holy Matrimony

By D.E.T. Evenhuis

Table of Contents

Preface

Dedication

Introduction

1 In the Beginning

2 They Shall Be One Flesh

3 And God Said

4 Fundamental to Bible Typology

5 Is Every Marriage Governed by God?

6 Amazing Grace

7 The Law of Moses

8 God’s Love of Restoration

9 What about David

10 God Hates Divorce

11 "Except it Be for Fornication

12 The Lord Calls It Adultery

13 The Great Temptation

14 The Unjust Steward

15 The Virgin Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ

16 So Long as He Liveth

17 I Command, Yet Not I But the Lord

18 Not Under Bondage

19 Now Concerning Virgins

20 Because of the Angels

21 God’s Purpose Fulfilled

Preface

Between Abraham and the coming of the Messiah, there stretched an age spanning two thousand years. Sadly, by the time Israel had realised this prophetic fulfilment, she had degenerated to an all-time spiritual low. As a consequence, the Lord Jesus Christ was provoked into a scathing condemnation of Israel's leaders, labelling them, among other things, white sepulchres and wolves in sheep's clothing. They had no room for God's blessed Son and despised His narrow way.

Nowhere was He further estranged from that generation than was He in His stand upon the holiness of matrimony. His strict adherence to His Father's word, from the beginning shocked His hearers who had long since strayed from the holy commandment. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men (Matthew 15:9).

Since then, another age has all but passed by. This time, the church has had two thousand years, but is the church any better prepared for His imminent second coming than was Israel for His first? The Lord Himself asked: when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith upon the earth? (Luke 18:8)

The reading of this little book will shock you, for you shall discover that the church in general is today under an even greater blindness than was Israel.

Nothing upon Earth typifies Christ and His church as does Holy Matrimony, and nothing is under greater attack.

Dedication

House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD (Proverbs 19:14).

God showed me the girl that was to be my bride on the day that He heard my prayer and gave me the above verse. Phyllis Ruth Tuxworth, a beautiful eighteen year old with long hair that flowed gloriously below her waist.

These past twenty five years she has been my wife, my true love and my best friend; a woman who has poured out her life and her love for God, her husband and her children. I am so grateful to God.

She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. (Proverbs 31:26).

Her children rise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. (Proverbs 31:28).

God bless you, my dearest. I lovingly dedicate this book to you.

P.S The author and his late wife.

Dirk and Phyllis Evenhuis on the occasion of their 25th Wedding Anniversary, February 1996.

Introduction

I was born in post-war Holland in 1949, the younger son of Reinder and Hermina Evenhuis. A few years prior to my birth, my parents had been in the Dutch underground, a dangerous vocation indeed. They had further jeopardised their lives by hiding a man for years in a wall cavity of their home. My father also experienced a Nazi prison while our nation reeled under the massive destruction of life and property. Yet there was one particular matter that disturbed my father more than any other: the brutal and senseless murder of almost all of Europe’s Jews. Holland and other nations lost up to 98% of their Jewish communities. My father’s search for answers as to why this heinous Holocaust had taken place was fruitless until he attended a birthday party in 1947. There, two men startled him by insisting that the Jewish people were still in a covenant relationship with God. Since childhood, my parents had been taught that because the Jews had rejected Jesus, God had in turn rejected them and had replaced them with the church. Carefully, these two men showed further just how flawed this replacement theology was. They revealed to him from the Bible that God fully intended bringing the Jews back to their land and back to Himself. Father went home armed with a list of Scriptures, which after careful study, fully persuaded him as to the rightness of the testimony of these two brethren. Now he understood that Hitler, Pharaoh, Haman and Herod were all instruments under satanic control in the devil’s on-going but vain attempt to thwart God’s plans. Now for the first time, my father realised the error of teaching that God’s covenant with Israel was subject to sin or circumstance. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD (Jeremiah 31:35-37).

When I was a toddler my parents immigrated to Tasmania, Australia. My earliest memories take me back to the family altar, where upon my father’s knees I was taught to love and trust God. My father’s love for God shone out in his love for my mother and the family. Every meal time was accompanied with a reading from God’s word. He always maintained a loving care for the Jewish people and prayed steadfastly for their salvation and for the peace of Jerusalem. After finishing my schooling, my father, who was an excellent smallgoods-maker, taught me his trade. My brother and sister, fourteen and eleven years my senior, had long since married and moved to the south of our island. In 1969 I met my true love Phyllis, and we were married in 1971. We were soon blessed with five precious children: Maria, Lazlo, Daniel, Jared and Samuel. We were also blessed with good business opportunities and were in full swing when our lives took a sudden turn. Only three days after Samuel’s birth and upon my thirtieth birthday, the Lord called us. We immediately sold our home and business and moved to Melbourne. In 1980, we began our work in the Jewish community. I also travelled extensively, nationally and internationally. Our ministry was threefold. We sought the good for Israel, shared the gospel with Jewish people and taught about Bible prophecy in churches. These were years of great opportunity; we saw, heard and learned so much through experiences as diverse as sitting with remote Aboriginal tribal leaders and sitting down with the president of Israel in his home. In 1988 we were called back home. I was now able to return to my work as a grazier of a property we purchased as an investment before leaving in 1980. After Samuel’s birth, Phyllis began to have trouble with her voice. This puzzled us and the doctors, but a decade and many symptoms later, Phyllis was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis. We were daily proving the blessedness of trusting in God in every situation. It was so good that after a very busy eight years in Melbourne, we could now return to the quietness of our country home. We were also much blessed in being able to care for my ageing parents. By 1990, they had both passed away. After fifty-four years of marriage, father survived mother by only ten weeks. That same year we published a book dedicated to the memory of my father entitled ‘Israel’s Destiny’. The quieter lifestyle also afforded us far more time with our growing family as we saw them through school, college and university and into their vocations. These were wonderful times when the whole family came home. As it was in my father’s house, the family altar still stands. Here too, the Jewish people are remembered as we earnestly pray for them and the peace of Jerusalem. We just love being grandparents.

I was led to write ‘Holy Matrimony’ by events that took place in 1984. Beginning in August that year and in the space of twenty-one days, I experienced three separate encounters of a spiritual nature. The first came in our bedroom, while my Bible lay open upon my lap and Phyllis lay beside me asleep. The second was in a hotel room in Athens, and the third in the Judean hills. We could say a great deal about these experiences, but it is our earnest desire to build upon God’s word and not upon the personal experience of a man. It will suffice to say that even as my father learned that Israel’s adulteries could in no way dissolve the covenant between God and them, so too have we learned that a man’s marriage covenant with his wife is not subject to sin. Death and death alone can dissolve that oneness spoken into being by Almighty God. The two shall be one, they shall no more be two, the wife is bound to her husband as long as her husband shall live. In a previous quotation from the Scripture, we heard God calling upon the sun, moon, stars and earth to bear witness to the immutability of His covenant with the house of Israel. In the same way, the Son calls upon heaven and earth to witness to the fact that the marriage of whosoever is governed by the same eternal principle. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery (Luke 16:17-18).

Recently, a team of men and I felt that these principles should be committed to record. We asked the Lord to confirm to us His will in the matter by giving us fifty believers to stand with us in this most sensitive of ministries. We then reverently set before the Lord a deadline, and with only one day to go, we only had forty-nine names. On the final day, one more letter arrived, making the number exactly fifty. Thus this book was written and scrutinised by God-fearing people.

We give our special thanks to all involved. We now humbly present this work to you and wish you the rich blessing of Israel’s covenant-keeping God.

For this God is our God for ever and ever (Psalm 48:14).

Chapter 1 - In the Beginning

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

If we have faith to accept this fact in the Bible's opening verse then nothing found upon its pages will pose any problem. However should one be plagued with doubts and fears there will be many and often insurmountable obstacles which will hinder such troubled souls from entering into the rest of faith.

Four thousand years after creation, One was born of a virgin, of whom it was written: without him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3). He, the Lord and Master, delivered to us the key which could open the door to the Kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein (Luke 18:17). Without the key of childlike faith, no man could open the door that separated man from God. If God Almighty is indeed our Father in heaven, then it is only fitting that we should be childlike. A little child does not question the validity of what his father tells him. However, earthly fathers are fallible, and often inadvertently and sometimes purposely do not relay truth to their children. The Heavenly Father is infallible; it is impossible that He should lie or mislead in any way. A little child is totally dependent upon his parents for all his material needs, so too are we totally dependent upon our Heavenly Father for all our spiritual needs. A little child trusts his parents to provide all that he needs; so too should we trust God to provide all that is needed.

If God has not breathed into being and constantly preserved His word for each successive generation, then He is not the loving, all-providing God He declares Himself to be. We are promised better things than this from God. Not almost persuaded, but totally. God's children rest in their childlike faith. Please note that we are not promoting a childish attitude. Childlike faith is a mark of a man's maturity and wisdom, and stems from putting trust in what God has said.

The fool says in his heart there is no God. It is just as foolish to agree that God exists, but then not believe Him or trust what He says. Again it is a fool who says in his heart, The universe came into being by chance through a big bang. What child would believe that a watch came into being by putting a cracker into a tin of minerals? Even a little child knows that a watch is made by a watchmaker. By the way, this universe keeps much better time than any man-made watch! Even a little child could tell you that a universe must have a universe maker.

These facts are simple, elementary and upheld by every science truly so called. If you do not agree that all order and life proceeds from a Creator's hand, there is little point in you continuing