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.
The Value system inside The American Sitcoms
The sweet covered poison capsules, that come to us through TV sitcoms and dramas have become the playbook of life for a lot of singles. Sure, some of these programs are hilarious and they may even have some redeeming qualities but they chip away at the foundational principles that ought to be revered by everyone. The enduring success of sitcoms based on a married couple like 'Raymond' prove that 'the funnies' don't have to come at the expense of morality. However, the current slew of sitcoms and dramas, like for example, Charlie Sheen’s “Two and a half men” go even further in flaunting a hedonistic portrayal of relationships. What we as a people find funny can serve as rough barometer as to where we are in the history of western culture, where for a long while Christianity had held sway. Now, seemingly and apparently, people want their fill of selfish indulgence as a right of passage before 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 in one of the earlier episodes where they make a pact to sleep together without having to do the 'cumbersome' things that come with a real relationship. 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 the characters 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. Sure, Joey from friends might be a nice guy but does he have to bag a new lady every other episode? Perhaps the character was being portrayed as having to compensate for other problems. In any case, 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 such selfish lifestyles are being embraced except for among certain 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 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).
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*. Due to the moral relativism that we live in today, we are left to fight our moral failures by confronting insurrections on public television shows like Maury, Cheaters or The Steven Wilcox shows, way after they have become full blown and when only little or nothing can be to save them. These venues have little power to effect change or bring about a solution as no one is able to invoke the divine moral code, The Ten Commandments. How can someone be told that they have sinned when there are no clear defined laws that tell them what sin is? If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
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.
Our dangling economy and our dwindling livelihoods are never the main issue; they are a justly deserved judgment on our hedonistic and irreverent lifestyles. The thieves have come in and stolen our whole moral 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?"
God’s patience and mercy
“The one with you now is not your husband”(John 4:18)
What would Jesus say? 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.
It’s apparent from Jesus’ life and words that Our Lord is more tolerant of sexual sin than he is of religious hypocrisy and wicked unbelief in the presence of a clear testimony. This should give hope to all those who are bound to such besting sins that they can be extricated from them through God’s compassionate mercy, patient grace and cleansing power.
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 and 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 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. Acoording to Tv Land, 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.
All things were made through him... The Word became flesh
He said… “he who eats my flesh has eternal life...
the flesh profits nothing, the Words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life (John 1:1,3,14; 6:54, 63)
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? Live in North Dakota News Max Mag. April, 2010 p.22
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Subjects addressed include RELATIONSHIPS, Loneliness, LOVE, SEX, SINGLENESS, MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, spirituality, intimacy, Loneliness, ASB etc,
A sweeping look at the issue of marriage, singleness, loneliness and the Bible's council on such issues
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