Category: Marriage

Keeping Your Oath

I was listening to the news the other day and heard a very interesting question. Should a person’s faithfulness in marriage be counted toward or against their ability to serve the public? We’ve seen how infidelity in the oval office has been explained away as a “private matter.” But is it really private? I remember a Saturday about years ago when I stood before a body of witnesses, and publicly confessed my faithfulness to a woman that I am still married to. That day really frightened me because I had to confess to private feelings and make public, lasting commitments in front about 200 of my closest family and friends, and before God. It sure didn’t feel like a “private matter” at the time.

Marriages are not private affairs. They are licensed by the state, and performed by a state representative, whether it be the justice of the peace, or a minister permitted to do so by law. If a man makes a public commitment to a woman before the state and a body of witnesses, doesn’t that have some effect when that man then swears an oath to office? If a man will not be faithful to a woman in marriage which he has sworn “till death do us part” before the state, how can he be trusted when he swears an oath to a public office.

In a marriage, it is much harder to be faithful than as a public servant. A marriage is built upon the thousand tiny decisions to be faithful; not to look after other women, not to imagine being with them, and so on. Marriages require far more diligence, more work to communicate, tolerate, and even love one another. Marriage doesn’t happen by chance, but by the thousand careful decisions to make it work that take place everyday. Stopping by to pick up a flower, just to say, “I love you.” Picking up the dirty laundry and doing it without being asked. Offering to take the kids out for a while so your wife can get some time alone. Marriage is built on selflessness, the thousand little decisions like these to make it work and be successful. It is much easier to be unfaithful in marriage than in public office. It is much easier to make a mess of a marriage than it is the governor’s office, because no one is watching, and few people care if a marriage breaks up. It happens all the time.

Public Service on the other hand is constantly monitored by the media and those after your job. It calls for greater scrutiny and accountability. You pay much closer attention to it because you have to make it work, or you lose your job. If marriages had that much scrutiny, there would probably be less divorces. If Marriage called for that much accountability, like some celebrity marriages have, then they would last longer.

Most importantly, the commitment you make in your marriage is made not just before the state, but before God. The commitment to public office may require a Bible to make the oath, but it is not made before God, but before Men. If a man can’t be trusted to honor his commitment he made to one human being, his wife, how on earth can he be expected to honor his commitment to a thousand, or three-hundred million? Can I trust a man to honor his commitment to me if he’s been unfaithful to his wife? In the end, we are measured not by our great decisions, but by our small ones.

You know what the secret to success is, in anything? It is embodied in Matthew 25:21, “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.” The one who gets the brass ring in God’s eyes is the one who has been faithful and a good steward of the things he has already been given.

Do you want to be successful in the new year? Faithfulness is its key. What commitments and responsibilities have you been given already that you need to work on? How can you demonstrate that you are “faithful with a few things”? When God sees He can count on you to manage a few things, he will give you more responsibility, and if you are faithful, more success.

Something to think about for your voting decisions.

Calling a Spade a Spade

Several years ago, I used to listen faithfully to Dr. Laura Schlesinger on the radio, who had a unique way of describing the situation of a couple who chose to “live together.” What a nice and sanitized way to put it, “live together.” Taken on its own, it lends itself to an understanding of two individuals who have chosen to “live” only to do it “together.” There is an implied bond of mutual respect and admiration. We are “living together,” as two oxen might be “yoked together,” or two co-workers “working together.” There is no longer any moral sting with “living together.” Dr. Laura had it right. There is nothing holy or sacred or even special about “living together.” Call it what she called it, “shackin’ up.” Or call it what the Bible calls it, “fornication,” or worse, “adultery.”

You shall not commit adultery. (Ex. 20:14)

If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. (Ex 22:16)

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality [in some trans., “fornication”], that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God. (1 Th 4:3)

Sexual immorality (defined simply as any sexually pleasurable activity outside the context of marriage, Clinton was no exception) is not the will of God and earmarked for certain judgment (Jude 1:7). I am aghast at the number of people who feel no shame, and even feel comfortable taking this particular fire into their bosom, imagining it will not burn them. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” (Gal 6:7) What is the deception? That they know better than God. Did God, as a cosmic killjoy, decide one day that he wanted to take away fun and made it a rule to only have sex with one woman for a lifetime, and only then when you have made a formal commitment to one another? Do you honestly think God is like that? This from the same God who made the sunsets, the starlight, sex, and a host of other fun things. Can God be both the maker of fun things and the cosmic killjoy?

Oh I know the arguments. There’s the “let’s see if we like each other well enough to get married” argument. What a load of bull****. If you didn’t like each other, you wouldn’t have decided to fornicate in the first place. And the question isn’t, “Can I live with her the rest of my life?”, but “Can I live without her the rest of my life?” Couples who fornicate are statistically much more likely to split up or divorce than a couple that first marries and then lives together because marriage is the safety net. It is the commitment that is the fall-back position. When people get to a point where they can’t stand each other, marriage says, “work it out.” People who are not married don’t “work it out,” or at the least don’t feel compelled to, and kids or not, they will split. Married people do, and they draw deeper together for their labor. Marriage is work, don’t let anyone fool you. But the work is what makes marriage stronger, and it will always be stronger than fornication. In marriage, you don’t have to pretend, so the other person “won’t leave.” Marriage allows for openness and honesty in a way fornication never can for its nature. Fornication just can’t compete with real marriage.

Then there is argument that “Mom and Dad never got along. I don’t want to live like that” argument. Live like what? If your parent’s marriage was so poor, answer the following questions: Did you ever see them in love? Did you ever see them spend time together just talking? Did you ever see them struggle together, rather than apart? Did your parents solve their problems together, or use things like alcohol to get them through? Your parents’ marriage broke down because of them, not because of you. Your marriage will work because you will avoid their mistakes. You will work on marriage, because you will have a church in your community that will support you. You will have a God that promises to support you and uphold you when times are tough. You will have a great marriage if you care for your spouse like you say you do.

Then some might say, “I just want to have sex, (sow my wild oats) before I settle down.” Those oats have a way of sprouting inconveniently. Sex without responsibility? Yeah right! People who just want to “have sex” end up being parents. You have to ask yourself the question, is the person I want to have sex with the same person I want to look across the courtroom at when we are in a custody hearing? TV and Movies depict sex without consequences. That’s a lie. Even married people will tell you that. Sex always has consequences. It brings children into a world that is either not prepared for them (unwed mother) or doesn’t want them (ending in either abortion (child murder), or regular child abuse). Unmarried sex does hurt other people. God weeps for those children. These precious innocents that by His miraculous power have been brought into the world enter a world of heartache, of grandparents fighting over custody, or parents who pass off their kids to anyone who wants them (even child molesters). Drug-addicted moms selling their five-year olds over the internet for drug money???!!! THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!!!!!

This isn’t a problem of other people. Our neighbors have this problem. There are households in our community of people dwelling in the same house without the benefit of marriage. I place the offer before you, since I am empowered to do something about it. Stop the fornication. Stop the Sin. I will happily perform a ceremony of marriage for any unmarried couple in this community, and I will even do it for FREE if money is the problem. But you must have the marriage license in hand. Either that, or MOVE OUT!

Let us end this problem in our community. Let us return the stigma to fornication that it deserves. “Living together” is not acceptable in decent society. “Living together” is fornication. It is sexual immorality. It is certain pain and confusion for the innocents born into them and the grandparents who must stand by and watch, like watching a train wreck. It is a challenge against God and His Word, and God will not stand for it. “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.”

The Present Crisis

Not to be alarmist or anything, but we do have a crisis of family in our community. This is the gift of modern “civilization.” Let me tell you what I see. Because I am sure you see it too. Everyday, after school, kids get off of the bus. Perfectly normal, yes. But where do those kids go? Do they go home? Some do. Some stay out, go down to the park, to friends’ houses, or they simply roam the streets, looking for something to do. Where are the parents? Not at home. They are working. They are out, often with no option but to leave their kids to fend for themselves. These kids, roaming unsupervised, are allowed to do anything they want, to go through backyards, church lots, and responsible to no one. Will there be any discipline of these kids? Not if the parents are too tired to give it.

Is this the parents’ fault? Not entirely. Many of these are single parents, who must work these long hours to support the household, to pay the bills, to make ends meet. Why are they single? They are single because a husband, a wife, a boyfriend, or even a girlfriend have walked out and abandoned them because. Life with them was too “difficult” too “stressful” and “they just couldn’t take it anymore.” Everyone has heard these words at one time or another. But somehow some couples manage to stick it out, while others fall apart.

The reasons for this abandonment are legion. When all is said and done, we have single parents trying to help their families survive with what Minimum Wage is willing to pay them. It’s not that these parents don’t care, it’s that they have no energy left-over to care. What energy they do have is making supper, ordering the kids to be quiet, and off to bed. I’m a parent. I know how much energy is required, even demanded to “raise up a child in the way he should go.” A single parent doesn’t have anyone to talk to. They have no one to lean back on. So, yes, many will take up the next boyfriend or girlfriend willing to give him or her an ounce of concern. We have adults in our community so starved for affection that they will take up with anybody, settle for anyone to give them that affection. Have they lost their senses? No.

As adults, we are hungry, and this is the necessary stuff of life that we need. Marriage was designed by God to fill that niche, to satisfy that need for intimacy and affection in a healthy and loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex. When marriage ends in divorce, when marriage is avoided altogether, parents suffer, and children, just as we see it today, roam the streets looking for affection, attention, from anybody. This is the reason for nearly every problem we have in our community. The Breakdown of the Family. If our families don’t function, our community doesn’t function.

Is there hope?

I believe so, or I wouldn’t be in the ministry that I’m in. Obviously, the correct Sunday School answer is Jesus. But what does that mean for hurting families? That means a community of faith like the church that will reach out and will embrace these hurting parents, will support them and strengthen them. That will give them hope for tomorrow through our Savior Jesus Christ. That means reaching out to the kids of your community and giving them guidance, leadership through the rocky years of adolescence and beyond. It will require the members of your community that are Christian to reach out to the families that aren’t. And that begins with you.

In order to avert this crisis, we’ve got to begin where we can do the most good for the moment, at home.

Love Is In the Air – Put on your facemasks!

IMG20022Love is again on the collective mind. In TV ads, magazines, the newspapers, they are all in on the fun! This is the time of year when jewelry sales are up, flower sales are up, card sales resurge from their New Year lull. Heart-shaped candy and chocolates make their appearance. Men and women start to look at one another fondly again, even if their married. We’ve come a long way from the feast of St. Valentinus, second-century Christian martyr. His greatest connection to the modern “holiday” is that he helped poor girls get married by tossing a dowry through their window. His greatest act of love was dying for his faith in Jesus.

Of course, that doesn’t stop the modern world from taking full advantage of yet another Christian memorial. Oh we try and put a good spin on it, turning it into a day to celebrate marriage and real, authentic love between married couples, but we end up making it another Christmas, the one day a year we celebrate a Christian virtue when we ought to practice it every day. Is Valentine’s Day the only day you buy flowers for your wife, or make that special meal for your husband? Can you count on one hand the number of times a year you make your mate feel special?

God thinks a lot of the gift he has given to married couples. In fact, one whole book of the Bible is dedicated to the relationship a husband has with his wife, written by the second wisest person who ever lived. It is also the one book in the Bible some believe is written like a drama, an art form made popular in Greece at the time. It is the Song of Solomon. Even a casual reader will notice that this is not your average holy book. It is at times sexually explicit, but always God-honoring. (Take for example the husbands’ description of his wife in Song of Solomon 4:1-7 and then the wife’s description of her husband Song of Solomon 5:10-16 – try these for romance) God intended for the intimate relationship between men and women to be kept sacred, holy, and honorable. He says in Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage must be respected by all, and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge immoral people and adulterers.” It is only in the “marriage bed” where intimacy is permitted, hence God’s judgment on everyone else.

God takes sex seriously, and for God’s holy people, this gets more difficult every day. The media gets it. Sex sells. And they attempt to associate sex with practically everything they can get away with to sell their products. It’s harder for men today because men are attracted much more to images of women. It’s getting more difficult for wives to compete against the retouched photos of supermodels hawking the latest sets of tools, sports cars, or “free” sex online. Because of a man’s visual proclivity, he must work to relate to the real woman in his life, who thrives on communication and relationship. She needs him to talk to her, which he can’t do when his thoughts are enslaved with images.

We live in an age where true, lasting marriage is the exception, rather than the rule, and though thousands of dollars are spent on marriages, marriage itself is harder and harder to afford. Now more than ever we need the “old hands” at the marriage game to mentor the young couples, to teach them how to keep their marriages from falling apart. Our society stands or falls on our ability to keep marriages thriving. Divorces cause irrevocable damage in the hearts of children and families. Even our President is a child of divorce. Would life have been different for him if his parents stayed married? Marriage is easy, but divorce is easier. God hates it (Malachi 2:16) because it destroys his intention for the marriage: godly offspring (Malachi 2:15). If the children of each succeeding generation are less godly than the last, what will happen to a nation as a whole?

We need to restore the biblical definition of love, for our marriages’ sakes, and for our children. We need to restore the place of Love, because it has been usurped by a poor substitute, Lust, or what the Bible calls “envy”. And, with the Scriptures in hand, we will discover those answers.