To understand these things better, it helps to go back to the beginning in the garden and look at the fall of man into sin and the effects it has had to the issues we are discussing.
Lets go to the beginning:
A short account of mankind's spiritual history as it relates to marriage
After God created the heavens and the earth, He then created man on the sixth day. This indicates that the world was first created as an environment for him. The Lord made the observation that "Its not good for man to be alone" and followed to make woman from man for his companionship. That is where our need for a mate, for intimacy and closeness comes from. One can only imagine the state of perfection in the garden and the sadness that ensued after the fall of man into sin and the resulting curse. Spurred by a fallen creature, Adam disobeyed an only commandment and lost his right standing and relationship with his creator along with life in paradise; it would take a tremendous work for it to be regained. His progeny, which we are, after him would be born and continue in this same fallen state. The tree of life which was easily within reach for Adam was no more so. We now know that a new environment will be created for mankind redeemed from the curse. Until the time when it's totally consumed, sin will continue to be the order of the day in the affairs of mankind.
Sin made a lot of things to go awry. It was lights out for mankind and spiritual death reigned along with its pal spiritual blindness. Lust, greed, jealousy, and hate quickly entered the picture right after the fall, as man became centered on self instead of the relationship he had with God. Where as the family was supposed to be a godly unit, after the fall, it had itself need for redemption along with the rest of mankind. There is no doubt that divorce is a direct result of man's fall (Mark 10:6-9). The original plan was "Let none separate what God has put together" Whereas the family was meant to be harmonious, it has often times became a war zone. "A man's enemies will be of his own household". Today, women and men's roles have become confused or unclear and therefore we have the "gender wars" along with other wars like "race wars" and other conflicts on this earthly realm.
Sex after The fall of Man
The fall of man also meant that the creator's gift of sex which He had purposed for intimacy and producing offspring could be misused in an infinite number of ways. The misuses began to manifest immediately in the post-fall(en) world with prostitution and homosexuality as notable examples recorded in Genesis. The reason for this was that when man lost the closeness and fellowship he had with God, the boundaries and parameters for right usage of his faculties also got blurred or were lost including that of his sexuality. Sin reigned in his body and mind.
It can be said that, where as human sexuality was among the good trees in the garden, perfectly alright for the first married couple to enjoy, after the fall, perverted forms of it began to fill the earth like 'thorns and thistles'. Also, the nature of sex was such that although initially created by God and meant for good, after the fall, it got slotted in among Satan's arsenal of weaponry, which he uses widely for tempting and destroying mankind.
Sex, among others 'things' could also be made into a god worshiped, vying for fallen man's love and attention over against his creator. This happened numerous times in history and had revivals as sex cults appeared and reappeared in almost every generation since the beginning including our own where we see a wickedly powerful nexus of greed and lust; of money making through media laced with sex.
Sex, sin and mercy in the Bible
It's revival or bust!
14 "My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms In the vineyards of Engedi." 15 "How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves." 16 "How handsome you are, my beloved, And so pleasant ! Indeed, our couch is luxuriant ! 17
The Bible uses the modest verb "know" to talk about marital sex and is ever hardly graphic or gross in it's descriptions of the act of sex. It is however surprisingly candid in certain passages as is to be expected from a book containing God's counsel to man on many issues. In some of the regulatory portions in The Law like Leviticus for example, it lays down 'The rules of the road' by directly banning incest, homosexuality and bestiality. Pedophilia is unthinkable as sex is allowed only between a man and a women who have come of age and who have been properly betrothed. Polygamy however, seems to have been permitted. In a few places it talks about romance, sex and love in poetic terms such as in the song of songs. It also contains teachable stories about the weaknesses and failures of heroes like Samson and David, the judgments incurred and the mercy granted giving us numerous snapshots and reels about redemption sought, granted and secured.
The New Testament continues and perfects the redemption theme that began in the Old, painting incredible portraits of God's love and mercy, such as found in the stories of the woman caught in adultery and the lost son. The one man, one woman marriage is put on a firm scriptural foundation, both by our Lord and his apostles. The New Testament preserves many of the Old Testament's ideas about love, sex and marriage and puts it on a stronger foundation than just law(s) by including grace and power to live according to the same law(s). On the other side, it inculcates a redemptive formula of mercy after repentance during moral failure. It lists and identifies the various 'porneas' and it sets a high standard for holiness and modesty in public.
We find that such Biblical values that were inculcated in many Christian cultures as proper, decent attitude and behavior have been fastly eroding. We have to have revival that takes us back to biblical Christian values or we stand to lose our moral fiber, our families, our heritage, our children and our future!
Grace
If you were born on this planet you will find yourself on the wrong side of God's righteous laws numerous times. The good news is that He promises to forgive, cleanse and and give you grace when you come to him in repentance seeking it. We can illustrate grace this way. If Gods grace extended to you is the size of Moses' staff (about six feet) then our many sex-cursions will only have covered about a hand's grip. This doesn't mean that we won't get a whipping from daddy once in a while when we need it(Hebrews 12:5-11). However, if you are his beloved child you will not be able to exhaust his mercy and grace towards you in a lifetime's career of sinning. His mercy towards us is renewed daily (Lam. 3:2-24). We need to praise God even if just for this and nothing else, because that is how deep, great and wonderful His love and mercy is toward those who come to him in repentance. David's answered prayer asking for mercy after falling into adultery, deception and murder illustrates this point.
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
As king David and others painfully learned, the aftermath to disobedience can be ugly; damage will be done to those around us, to our reputation and testimony. Sex outside the context of marriage is sin; it's not something the Lord winks at (or looks at lightly) even if He is many times very patient and forgiving of our trespasses. We have to realize sin has consequences; if it doesn't kill us immediately, it pulls us behind and can stunt our spiritual growth. We have to therefore earnestly seek after the holy life God desires for us to have through his son Jesus.
When we don't repent, The Lord allows us to reap what we have sown and the things we have done in secret will to come to light. People who didn't pay attention to us in better times will feel compelled to write an expose about us. Even in this there is mercy because it's when put in such precarious situations that many of us will be forced to wake up from the deceptions and stupor of sin to acknowledge our need for repentance. We would otherwise continue to do damage to ourselves and others. Practicing repentance, daily, hourly and minute by minute of any sin we become aware of will stop it's progress(James 1:12-15). In order to have victory over sin, we will also need to be aware of and repel, the enemy's evil plans and devices which he orchestrates to tempt and trap us, in order to make us fall and ultimately to destroy us.
The wrong attitudes about sex, un-repented, can bring contempt and judgment; so we need to be careful that the casual attitudes that prevail in the world don't infect our own thinking and attitudes about sex.
Free Love
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage
2 Peter 2:19 (KJV)
There is no such thing as being free to do what we want with our sexuality. Those who preach free love and sexual freedom do not understand the real moral and spiritual consequences of what they affirm let alone the social, psychological and medical effects, none of us fully do. The Lord in his wisdom however does and He gave us commandments for the reason that we should protect ourselves, our neighbors and communities. Casual sex is not really that casual! The aids epidemic of the eighties and nineties came on the heels of the the sexual revolution of the seventies and put a sobering brake on the euphoria of free love. Famous athletes, personalities along with millions of people around the world were stricken; many would later die. Unlawful sex or sin as it's called in the Bible, is never free or cheap and it can have a steep price tag. The recent shocking death of quarterback Steven McNair at the hand of his young mistress while he was still married with several teenage children is a sad poignant example.
God is not mocked, whatsoever a man sows that he will also reap(Galatians 6:7).
Law and Grace
After miraculously setting Israel free from Egypt, Moses came down from mount Sinai with two tablets on which God himself had written his laws for man. The law had become necessary and was introduced so man could tell what sin was but his fleshly weaknesses prevented him from keeping it. Something else had to be done. Hope and light came in the form of a young Nazarene preacher from Palestine born under mysterious circumstances(by the Holy Ghost). It soon became apparent He was not an ordinary prophet. "No man taught like him" and did the works that he did, confirming that he was indeed the long awaited messiah. Centuries after The Law was given and it's main bearer and promulgator, the Jewish nation had failed, Jesus Christ entered history to help with our human plight.
Through the mystery and power of The Cross the sin problem was dealt a complete and final blow. This made it possible for man to live in harmonious fellowship with his God, his family and his neighbor again. Salvation had come with complete redemption to follow soon. The tree of life which was unavailable after we got booted out from the garden of Eden, is once more accessible to us through Christ. The new life won for us at the cross requires that we not be carnally minded and flee all forms of 'pornea'. We are to put our natural inclinations and desires under subjection to the new nature given to us in Christ. Sin in us is to be 'crucified' by us.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:24
Are You Saved? From what, you ask? Let me tell you.
believe
If you have not had the privilege of knowing that you are saved from sin; we would like to give you an opportunity to do so here. Understanding what we said so far depends on this one terribly vital truth. This is that you can be saved by trusting "He whom God sent"our messiah Jesus. It's that simple; put your trust in him and follow Him and His Word for the rest of your life and You will be saved, so the bible teaches. "Believe upon The Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved; you and your family."
Repent
"Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins ; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit"
NIV Acts 2:38
You will need to repent of the sins in your life and forgive people. You may have to make restitution to those whom you have wronged. The blood of Jesus will then cleanse you from all past and future sins and is able to give you a good conscience with confidence to approach your God(1 John 1:4-10 ; Hebrews 10:19-22) You are also promised to receive the gift of The Holy Spirit. He will come and live in your heart and home.
Obey the gospel
The mini Gospel bellow found in the Book of Titus contains all of the main elements of Gods offer of salvation to fallen mankind,
11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly , righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2: 11-15
Jesus :The God-man
"There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Our lord Jesus Christ, the only GOD-MAN(theo-anthropos) is by his unique nature, the only person capable of standing in our stead and on our behalf in order to reconcile us to the side of God that is holy, righteous and just. That is the reason for his exclusivity as a saving and mediating agent not bigotry or narrow mindedness on the part of his followers. He is the only way by which God has designed for men and women to know him, be free from sin and be ready for the life to come.
The State of things: A continual struggle
Today still, even in Christian marriages the old serpent often slithers in to try to destroy the image that it’s supposed to reflect (that of the relationship between Christ and the church). So when Paul says "I would spare you…and I would even if all were like me" when talking about this otherwise blessed estate, he is delineating the challenges of marriage in our fallen world, particularly in difficult times.
Dissonance
The New world ethic and the reluctance to marry.
The modern sexual ethic does not bother with or require a marriage covenant before engaging in sex. This ethics is formulated by fallen men observing a fallen world and applying, a faulty fallen reasoning. If you go by trend setter TV shows like ‘Friends’ or ‘Seinfeld’ or other relationship dramas, it would seem like people want to experiment and exhaust all their options and tumble in bed with a bunch of people before they marry. Self is God and and it's pleasure is put above everything else, almost as if every last bit of juice has to be sucked out of the sensual entrée before finally giving into the married life. What's left for the eventual fortunate person to be the spouse? We wonder.
Thus, in considerable sections of the post modern world, the traditional marriage has become a relic of a distant past that has been supplanted by something that only vaguely resembles it. The new mantra seems to say, "Be happy until you can't anymore any which way you like and later on if you feel like it you can always get married." We only wish we were making this up but that is the prevailing attitude in a lot of places.
Freedom that doesn't free
These sweet covered poison capsules, introduced to us through TV sitcoms and dramas have become the playbook of life for a lot of singles. People want selfish indulgence as a right of passage without having to commit to any relationships. They form convenient short term agreements for mutual gratification that are supposed to be ‘freeing’ such as the one made between Elaine and Seinfeld. To be fair to the said characters, they only articulated the selfishness and sin smoldering beneath the veneer of a 'respectable' modern society. Of course, as even they eventually found out, it turns our that it’s not really freeing at all but rather a deceptive lie that traps people in a cycle of sinful liaisons, one regrettable affair after another. If we all lived selfish lives like that where would be fidelity, honor and a family with loving parents or children? Yet, it would seem that a lot of people are living this way except for pockets of resistance such as among Mennonites or the Hamish or those evangelical churches that have retained a traditional culture rooted in the faith and religion. If the old prophet Isaiah were alive he would have cried on the streets of New York, London or many of the world's cities that are safe heavens for a lifestyle of fornication "If God had not left us a remnant we would be like Sodom and even as Gomorrah" (Isa 1:9). Babylon is indeed rising.
Without any risk of sounding like an alarmist, we can plainly observe the following. We see the fire burning all around us, families are going under, marriages are failing and children are without their mothers and fathers.* It need not be doom and gloom on our side of the fence if we build our homes on a sure foundation and learn to protect and secure what’s ours before we go out to save the rest of the world. This can be done by filtering our culture’s sewage and outlawing and divesting from its forbidden fruits. The Church needs to stand on the scriptures where our immutable God has always been never to budge from His own eternal Word. We need to put the trumpet to our lips and sound the alarm. The economy and our livelihoods are never the main issue; the thieves have come in and stolen the whole foundation from underneath our feet and we need to get it back. We need to have a spiritual and a scriptural revival accompanied by genuine repentance The main question of life has always been "Now that you know and have heard, what will you do with this Jesus? Will you crucify Him or make Him The lord of your life?" If some sin so they won't feel lonely they need to realize that the ultimate loneliness is to live without The Lord. So Peter warns us by saying,
A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. 23 And it shall come to pass , that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.(Acts 3:22-23).
God’s patience and mercy
“The one with you now is not your husband”(John 4:18)
Even though we know Jesus is capable of anger, Jesus' exchange with the Samaritan woman, who was living with a man out of wedlock, was not angry at all. Instead He invites the lady to a drink from the waters of life, but He still calls her (foul?) on the issue. This is yet another illustration of God’s capacity for love, mercy and grace toward us humans. In other words, He lets us know that He doesn’t like what’s going on but gives us time to get it right. We need to repent and make those things that offend (Him) right while The Lord is still disposed to be patient toward us.
Dissent leading to apostasy
There is now a language form on which this dissonant lifestyle moves and evolves. Terms like “no strings” that define behavior have been invented are becoming common place. The collective language of the people is the software on which it runs its social interactions and be it in a microcosm or in the larger sections of society. The fact that language has been invented to describe sexually free lifestyles shows how prevalent it has become and how it’s growing. The dissonance from the ‘old rule laid by the fathers’ is now apparent, a different ethic is being promulgated and social norms are changing where the old understanding of marriage is ever always put on the defensive and new types of marriages are being discussed.
Marriage also has a bad reputation for trapping its adherent’s into an unhappy place for long periods of time. Even if this is at times true it doesn’t justify the alternative of sinfulness. According to TV land's depictions it would seem, wives are desperate and need to go outside their home and partner to experience relief. Women do sexual exploits and gather to swap stories about them cajoling and urging each other to go on and live 'free'. One can only guess as to how far ahead or behind the reality is in our communities, from such depictions(and whether these shows are purposed to create their own realities).
If the collective conscience is self correcting it’s either slow in doing so or is losing the battle for a return to moral purity. Large sections of the ‘structural’ church have had terrible scandals and the living church has lost her saltiness to be a moral deterrent.
It’s no wonder people are reluctant to marry inside and outside the church.
"In the beginning was The Word and The Word was God.(John 1:1,3,14; 6:54, 63)
All things were made through him... The Word became flesh"
" He said he who eats my flesh has life...
The Words that I speak to you they are life."
In contrast to the renegade and sinful lifestyles that don't work, imagine a software to life exists on which we are to run our lives in order to be whole. It has no bugs or glitches. That software is The Word and Jesus is that word. He is much more than just ‘software’; He is the nourishment of life itself. In one of his riddle laden discourses Jesus invites us to eat "himself"!? (which He explained to be His Word) so we can have life. This Word not only explains the world we live in but tells us how to live in it. It gives us the best available council on the important issues of life. We dare not reject it or replace it with empty philosophy or religion as its promise is life itself, a full life the way it was meant to be lived from the beginning.
The End
**Clayton B. Reid, Want to stay Married...? News Max Mag. April, 2010 p.22
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