And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou, therefore, serve me for nought? Tell me, what shall thy wages be? And Laban had two daughters the name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel – Genesis 29:15-16.

God created humans to be joint stewards of His creation; with the creation of Eve, He established monogamous marriage between them for companionship and procreation. After the fall, this divine institution became subject to corruption.

Marriage was ordained by God between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God created Eve from Adam’s rib by placing Adam in a deep sleep, and Adam called her woman (And  Adam said, this is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman [Ishshah] because she was taken out of man [Ish] – Genesis 2:23). There wasn’t a third-party in the garden to interfere with what God had created and ordained.

God gave marriage as a gift to Adam and Eve; marriage wasn’t just for convenience or culture. God instituted it and had three basic aspects for then and now.

1. The man was to leave his parents and, in a public act, promise himself to his wife.
2. The man and woman are joined together by taking responsibility for each other’s welfare and by loving the mate above all others.
3. The two would become one flesh in intimacy and commitment to sexual union, which is reserved for marriage.

After Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience by not following the instructions God had given them not to eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, they gave their authority to Satan. When Satan received the dominion that was given to Adam and Eve, sin was unleashed. As the world was populated, man’s heart became contrary to the instructions of God, and they begin to live life according to their desires rather than the plan God had instituted.

Jacob was the Son of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Ordinarily, a father would give the primary blessing to the firstborn, in this case, Esau. Because of Isaac’s failed vision, it allowed Jacob and his mother to deceive Isaac by pretending he was his brother Esau. Jacob had previously tricked Esau out of his birthright, stealing his blessings from his father. Jacob was known as a trickster. Jacob didn’t realize one day he would be deceived according to the Word of God (Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap – Galatians 6:7). Jacob’s deceitfulness returned to him when he was to marry Rachel, but received Leah. On the evening of the first day of the feast, the bride would be taken to the groom’s tent into a prepared nuptial chamber. There the couple would consummate their physical union.

It was in the chamber Laban brought Leah to Jacob, passing her off as Rachel. The chamber was dark, the bride’s face was covered, and most likely, Jacob had been drinking, celebrating at the feast for his marriage. The next morning, Jacob found out his bride, whom he had worked for, for seven years, wasn’t the woman he was supposed to have married, but her sister Leah, the younger daughter. Although Laban knew he was deceiving Jacob, he used the excuse that according to their custom, the younger wasn’t to marry before the elder, so he gave him his younger daughter.

Jacob had once used Isaac’s blindness to deceive him about his identity; now, Laban used the darkness to deceive Jacob about the identity of his bride. For Jacob to marry Rachel, he would have to work another seven years, and he did because of the love he had for Rachel.  This marriage was before the Mosaic Law. According to the Mosaic Law, the practice of a man marrying two sisters was prohibited (Neither shall thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime – Leviticus 18:18). Because of man’s hardened heart of the instructions of God, the Word of God was rejected and man lived by his self-will. God’s Word is not cultural but must be applied to every nation created by the Creator.

Living according to self-will and rejecting the Word of God can cause misery and pain. It causes hardship to ourselves and others. To live according to God’s written instructions, we have to desire to live by them; if we ask God to help us live according to His written Word, He would give us that desire because then we would live according to His Word, His will.

People are changing marriage partners like they change garments; this should not be so according to the Word of God. God hated divorce in the Old Testament and still hates divorce; this is why it is so important to reverence God before you get married to see if this is the person He wants you to marry.

Non-believers don’t believe or revere God, so this is why this is happening so much in the secular world, but this should not be in the church. Pastors leaving their wives to marry someone else, lying, saying God told them that his wife was not supposed to have been his wife; that’s a lie straight from the mouth of Satan and his imps!

God is holding professing Christians responsible for not following His instructions (Yet, ye say Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against who, thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant – Malachi 2:14). Your bride should always be your bride and the groom should always be the groom in the eyes and heart of the married couple.

Marriage is a symbol of our relationship with God, it should be forever, and we should not bring in a third party to the marriage. We can’t serve God and the world; we can’t have a third person in the marriage and think it’s going to work because it’s not; God did not create marriage to be that way.

Marriage is a gift from God, and it should not be tampered with or not reverence! Christians are the bride of Christ; we should live a lifestyle presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. Our actions should not be that of the world.

Our thoughts are not His thoughts; we should look into the Word of God and see whether or not we’re living according to His instructions. Many don’t read the Word of God because they have allowed Satan to influence them. They don’t have time, or they allow other things to get in the way of them spending time with God in prayer and reading His Word. Some don’t read the Bible because they don’t want to adhere to the instructions.

Christians are the Bridge of Christ; don’t allow the world to influence you not to follow the instructions of God’s written Word. He holds you responsible for following His instructions!