Humanity’s depraved motive to manipulate truth for selfish gain has been a violent, insane, treacherous road of desperation, full of switchbacks, deadfalls, and detours through rivers of blood.  Even a cynical agent of Rome (an empire built on violence), Pontius Pilate, asked the very essence of truth himself, Jesus Christ, “What is truth?”  (John 18:38), but received no reply.

Why?  Because simple reality is the long and short of truths definition.  But the bitter irony is that as depraved humanity throws itself into this rabid misuse, truth’s reality crowds us like a hungry lion seeking us as prey.  Pilate’s ill motive toyed with truth, even as divine eyes of its reality burned his soul with a desire to be known by him.  Ironically, God’s sublime truth was not Pilate’s prisoner at all.  No, Pilate used what he required for selfish gain, then literally attempted to wash his guilty hands of the rest of it.  But as he would come to learn, truth evilly entreated is coiled with the deadly strike of a rattlesnake.

Pilate was not alone in his crisp question.  The builders of the Tower of Babel, the ancient Persian astronomers, the Greek philosophers, even the Mayan priests and other seekers the world over, including those of modern times, were, and are, motivated toward a blind thirst for facts to be used as tools of power whereby their own hand can unify and satisfy the search for humanity’s origin, purpose, and destiny. As Mark Twain once observed, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them any way you please.” Although couched humorously, he spoke true words. But as Solomon said of such selfish aims, “all is vanity…” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Regardless of our tumultuous history, our daring explorations, and our fantastic discoveries, today’s human condition shouts to us that our selfish hands are yet empty.  Truth’s essence of humility yet runs through our misguided fingers like quicksilver slipping through sand, and disappears.

Probably the most faithful metaphor for truth is light and perhaps the best Scripture verse describing it is, “Whatsoever maketh manifest is light” (Ephesians 5:13).  Simply translated, it means, Whatever reveals reality is truth.  The best illustration of it is to enter a pitch dark room and then turn on the light.  Everything suddenly lights up in plain sight, in full reality for every normal eye to behold in true perspective.  But a self-made blind man who enters and turns on the light is yet blind and misses reality because it doesn’t match his preconceived imagination.

Again, simple reality is truths definition.  Truth is factual and real.  It is not a product of human intellect; instead, human intelligence is a product of truth.  Truth is ahead of us, not something we have in tow.  The wise do not own it; rather, it owns them, and wisdom’s rightful definition is that a man is possessed of it, not its dictator.  The very nature of reality is that it has fixed laws, and these may be regarded as the White Stallion of Truth.  For example, the law of gravity may be foolishly violated, but such foolishness falls to the ground to be trampled by the razored hooves of truth.

We should learn that truth never progresses, for it is an eternal essence; we either progress, digress, or regress in knowing it. Never the deceiver, it always tells the truth.  It never changes, is never new, never old, never evolves, it just is, ever present, never compromising.  It laughs hard at so-called “Situation Ethics,” but sits rather as a lead weight in the pit of every stomach who fantasizes, philosophizes, doctrinizes, or compromises.  Truth demands respect, and has a sharp presence equally in slums or mansions, churches or brothels, on death row or the Supreme Court, in the seat of a garbage truck or the one in the Oval Office.  It is always simple reality, the nose on our own faces regardless of who looks down it, be it Joe Stalin, Genghis Khan, Geronimo, or the Pope; whether we be farsighted, nearsighted, ego-sighted, or stone blind. Truth always wins every debate because it is in essence its own proof of what winning is.  Though all humanity should call it false, it yet looms before us because it cannot not exist.  It is never the captive, but itself either sets free or imprisons.  It never bounces because it is the bouncer.  It is unmoved if missed, if stumbled over, or even if it kills you.  Although humanity’s recklessness to ignore it should turn the landscape into a chaotic nightmare of confusion at the cost of millions of lives and human suffering, there it yet looms as an unmarred granite monolith amid utter human chaos saying, “I was right here all along; how could you possibly have missed me?”

By observing humanity’s sordid past (and present), one might reason that no honorable search for truth exists.  Oh, but it does!  You see, the facts contained by reality are actually for the pleasure and benefit of those who seek truth in humility, not for selfish gain.  “The meek will he guide in judgment: And the meek will he teach his way,” (Psalm 25:9). He who truly finds it embraces its very embodiment.  He does not crucify it as a subservient to a perceived higher power, as did Pilate.  Rather, he discovers that truth itself is a higher power to be embraced in broken humility.  Those grounds are not for Neros or Hitlers, nor are they for intellectual stiff necks.  Such as these will be ground to powder, but “the meek… shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).  Who are the meek?  These are they who found that life worth living never came from tyranny, but from following Him whose very name is Truth (John 14:6; John 17:17; and 1st John 5:6).  Such passages declare truth to actually be a person, even though secular minds tossed that idea aside long ago as useless nonsense.  Nevertheless, the moral principle of perfect goodness, intuitively known among depraved humanity, demands the existence of a Perfect Person to judge the validity of right or wrong.

It is in fact the driving force in the natural law of cause and effect, a process Jesus Christ aptly called sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7, 8).  Our bad moral choices in the very face of truth’s reality renders us victims, much like the insanity of beating our own faces bloody against a stone wall.  The truth Himself declares with omnipotent authority, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6), but our dull ears and scaled eyes, swollen with inflated egos, are why our guilty hands are yet empty.  Even though “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and although the very firmament above us, and the world of wonders engulfing us below, shows his power (Psalm 19:1), we vainly ignore truth’s guarantee that, “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

Until we come humbly to know truth personally, intimately, and until all our ego, genius, pride, and debate, dissolves into God’s personal presence and fellowship, until that day, our grasping, clutching hands are yet empty.  What great eternal loss is that when his resounding voice echoes through the chambers of our souls, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

DA

Wherever we find humans, freedom is always so very precious to us because it is who we are.  Nothing phases that love, no matter what comes against it.  Liberty and America are synonymous terms in today’s world, but everyone knows instinctively that communism, fascism, socialism, and all such isms are bed partners with slavery, bondage, torture, and suffering.  What an amazing irony that such things even exist at all among our freedom loving human race!

But depravity and evil are bound up in our human identity, and so out leaps from all too many of us an aggressive urge to fulfill our lusts.  It is an exercise in utter foolishness to think any human society of such nature, past, present, or future, will not act in such a destructive way.  Evolution will never cure it, because we just keep getting worse and worse, not better and better.

America, the grand experiment of a free people, is no different.  Think of it this way: we can bake the most delicious bread possible until its wonderful aroma fills the air, but if the baking process does not go on replacing the previous batch, then one day we will slice into it and discover it to be shot through with mold.

Before mold is visible, it begins smelling bad.  You don’t see anything, but you sniff it and say, “Hmmm…something doesn’t smell right about this.”  Sure enough, one day the smell bad becomes visibly bad, and if you eat it, it tastes bad, and then in your stomach you finally realize just how bad!  B.O.  becomes oh, me!

Too often we forget the formula for American liberty.  We must keep baking new batches, one after another, until it is infused with the very same freedom that made us a great free society from the start.  We need only visit our public institutions and read what is chiseled into granite, shown in our paintings, and shouts from our preserved documents to know what we must pass on if our new generations are going to be free of mold.

One of the visible spots of mold was the B.O. of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.  It was passed on, leaped the fence, slammed into our public schools and universities, and attacked our greatest asset to freedom, Christianity, with an aggressive vengeance.  Today, it eats like termites into our very superstructure of liberty, and threatens to crumble it into a heap of godless atheism.  There cannot be a more deadly enemy to the liberty of Christian America.

That brings our subject to a deadly mold that has become the greatest threat to the very existence of our American experiment.  It comes down to the familiar adage, “wolf in sheep’s clothing” (Acts 20:29), which American Christians do not seem ready to hear.  This wolf is so very well disguised, so subtle in his methods, so self-effacing, so full of a false humility, so believable and seeming trustworthy, that even Christianity itself goes bleating in train behind it.  In fact it is a vital part of our very American identity as a free people.  It is our constitutional guarantee of free speech, especially  our precious constitutional freedom of the press.

Early in our history, the enemy of Christianity saw that soft underbelly, and set it as his main target of infiltration against what God had inspired in our founding fathers — Christian freedom.  America was to become the world’s bastion of freedom, a protected haven whereby the gospel of Christ would be preached to the ends of the earth.  It came from God’s inspiration that energized them, knowingly or not, and became the thread of gold running through American liberty.

The problem connected to the free press was just that — free to anybody, Christian or not, and not everyone with money to found a press was a Christian, or perhaps was a liberal one.  American printed materials quickly became it’s loyal citizen’s source of trusted information, simply because it was produced by an American press, not British or French.  In those early times when high moral standards ran through society, and because patriotism was at peak, the press was forced to follow such standards or else go broke for lack of readership.  Besides, if they failed to please the people, another enterprising publisher was waiting to give the people what they demanded: truth.

Moving forward then, American prosperity and freedom affected Americans the same as it has affected all people of the past who experienced it: they grew cold in their spiritual morality and turned to self sufficiency.  And this process became an evolution before Charles Darwin’s curse of The Origin of the Species claimed the word.  And, quite naturally, when Darwin’s curse dawned, the evolving American press embraced it with great enthusiasm.  Since the press was their trusted source of truth, the American people came to Darwin’s view as well.  It’s poison shot through society with a vengeance, especially the institutions of higher learning.  The result was phenomenal.  What was once a press governed by a people at large with moral convictions, it evolved into a press which became more and more dictatorial of what is truth, than a mere reporting of the truth– a vital difference indeed!

But a worse thing happened: Christian pulpits across the land, once flaming arrows of truth into American hearts, became somewhat confused.  You see, as I said, the entire governing principle of the American press was to provide the American people with facts, not propaganda from England or France.  In short, the press itself was meant to be a pulpit of truth which complemented the Christian pulpits, the original source and inspiration of American freedom.  The American press was never designed to insult the integrity of the free people of America, whose chosen guiding moral principle was kept fresh by faithful Christian pulpits.

However, because the Christian zeal of the people cooled, they found themselves faced with a double-image source for factual information, the pulpit and the press.  Sadly, the people’s mental focus gradually shifted away from the Christian pulpits, and slipped rather into judging the pulpit by the “factual” reporting of the press-pulpit instead.  In a word, the press-pulpit very slowly stole the limelight of public trust.  If the so-called truths of Scripture coming from compromising pulpits could not stand up to the dictatorial scrutiny of the press, the Christian pulpit appeared to be a dispenser of fairy tales, while the press took on the image of an everyday source of factual, reliable, reality.  In fact, a noted newscaster of the past always closed with, “And that’s the way it is.”

As a result of that progress, elements were set in motion for the erosion of whom God intended us to be as a Christian nation.  What started as our friend, became our deadly enemy.  We were fooled into thinking our enemy was abroad, when in fact it became part of our furniture, right there in every American living room!  And, I’m sorry, but  that’s the way it is!

How did that happen?  Here’s how: silent pulpits.  That’s how!  Ministers behind pulpits, through lack of perception, became suckers to this covert strategy.  It was an imperception molded by compromise, lack of New Testament vision, a doubting the veracity of God’s word as the final authority of any issue, not to mention a plethora of new translations by questionable scholars with a bent to soften the edges into something more in keeping with modern accepted views.  Besides the feminist Bible, the Reader’s Digest had the foolish notion of printing a condensed Bible, leaving out much of God’s vital message!

This multistage missile passed through many stages over the last 200 years to reach what appears to be the final stage before it explodes among us.  With each stage it gathered more power for greater altitude and accuracy toward its target.  It passed through such stages as the Scopes monkey trial, the FDR stage, the Vietnam stage, the hippie stage, the rock ‘n roll stage, the Nixon stage, the Clinton stage, the hanging Chad stage, the terrorist stage, and many other smaller ones, until the dangerous one now facing us.  Today the liberal press could well be called the fourth arm of the government, and seems to have positioned itself into the most powerful arm of the government!  It’s readership and viewership is so vast and so relied on by so many, that it holds the entire nation captive to its dictated “truth.”  Reality has become what the wolf says it is.

Taking advantage of the human psyche, these deceivers have developed great skill over the many decades, and have honed their message to a razor edge.  They have great skill at maneuvering of emotion, directing human affections, of winning confidence, believability, and trust.  They use degreed personnel to their advantage, especially those skilled in the fine art of moving people in a desired direction.  It works wonders simply because through many decades they firmly hold an envious position where all eyes and ears are on them.  With such power, something becomes fact simply because they say it is, a tactic proven again and again for thousands of years. “It has to be true, I read it in the newspapers and saw it on television.”

Unguarded pulpits themselves have fallen victim to this deadly assumption, but it is a colossal mistake for any pulpit to assume that just because it is a network newscast it will be any different than a soap opera shown daily by the same network.  Such a naive pulpit is taking a bath in false reality.  One cannot drink a sip of hemlock tea and expect not to be sick the same as everyone else who sipped it.  A free people are not advantage if 90% of the press is a thundering pulpit into American living rooms preaching the glowing wonders of a socialist state, such as we are seeing today.

But it should be clearly understood that a wolf in sheep’s clothing is not going to bark or growl.  No, he will only give a lowly bleat.  He will carefully blend with the real sheep and seem very much to be a part of the flock.  Only in the influence he gives to others can he be detected.  The most subtle trick they have found to date works like a witch’s brew.  Probably the best description for it would be the old bait and switch deception.  Here’s how it works: first, it takes a handsome or beautiful face, carefully and professionally dressed and made up in the latest hairdo and fashionable attire.  They must be very personable, but of a matter-of-fact expression, well spoken, with a smooth voice.  Then it takes a very carefully screened editorial staff, one honed to a philosophy and harmony to the purpose behind the political aim of the network.  It must be of an overwhelming liberal mindset, except for a token moderate voice, but never a true conservative.

Now comes the gathering of information for the sheep-like staff to present to a waiting audience, who have complete confidence in hearing truth, “the way it is.”   Out goes a film crew and reporters to gather what will make excellent material for such a setup.

Once a full stock of materials are gathered, it is then put in the hands of an editorial staff for tailoring to fit the foregone agenda of the network.  Now, here’s where the entire process becomes extremely subtle.  Bear in mind that the reporting agency is heavily ensconced in an adopted political base, and has staffed virtually the entire organization, through interview, with only those of the same persuasion as the base.  The base, however, is never stated.  Instead, it is always presented as honest, factual, unbiased, and completely reliable for truth.  The agenda is always followed, even if it fits the political views of only a minority of the American people.  This ploy is extremely effective if one has a “captive audience,” such as currently exists in America where the majority of the American people hear the news from several dominant networks which, over the decades, have become trusted household news sources. Only one comparable news source conflicts with the others, but the majority heavyweights have successfully reduced them to only a novelty where one goes for humor, not hard facts.

So that’s the bait, the smooth anchorperson, the subtle editorial staff, the majority voice.  Now comes the magic of the switch.  The suave anchor, with a smooth, calm voice, reads a prepared script.  Now watch: they show pictures and videos of a reporter on location proving what the  anchor just said.  The viewers see and hear these hard “facts” and come away thinking they have been factually informed of the actual truth of an event.  After all, there’s the proof for the whole world to see and hear for themselves.  Seeing and hearing is believing.  Now how slick and subtle is that?  Well, here are a couple of examples of how slick it is:

A few years ago I saw on the local news that a recent storm had completely demolished an auto parts store.  My ears perked because it was where I’d shopped for auto parts for years.  I knew the owner.  The news item showed the damage, and even an interview with the owner’s wife.  A few days later I was near there, so I decided to drive by and view the damage.  To my great surprise, there it was, completely intact, doing the usual booming business!  I stopped and went in.  Absolutely nothing had changed!  I asked the owner about the report.  He said it was nonsense.  I said, but they showed pictures.  He said that too was nonsense, that it was an adjoining empty room where one piece of tin roofing lifted and let a little water in on a concrete floor.  He showed me.  It was virtually nothing!  I said, but they interviewed your wife and she said you didn’t know what you were going to do.  Again, he said nonsense, that he told her not to talk to them.  Here, then, was a news report that was viewed all over central Texas, made perfectly believable to those viewers by a story “proven” with undeniable  pictures and even a testimony of the man’s wife!  And yet, it was almost entirely a fabrication!  Those who knew the truth were not fooled, but well over 90% of the viewing audience, even to this day, believed a lie.  The only reason for it was a desperation to show some news, any news, so they could make money. Mind you now, this is the testimony of only one person, myself, of an incident that my own eyes and ears know for sure that this was a false report.  Imagine how many other similar false reports have taken place across the nation and deceived multitudes of people into thinking they were actually seeing and hearing reliable facts.

But here is another one viewed and heard by my own ears, which was a pure fabrication: we were victims of the great Bastrop, Texas wildfire, although it narrowly missed us and was just across the street as it went by.  We lost power, and the outage lasted nine days during one of the hottest summers on record.  After the burning was well underway, I received a cell phone call from someone 250 miles away saying the news report they heard said a corner gas station and minute-market (name withheld) only a short distance from us had burned to the ground and all the underground tanks had exploded!  It was perfectly believable, because this whole area looks very much like a war zone.  We even heard many explosions. But several days later, the highway barricades came down and we were able to drive into Bastrop for groceries.  To our astonishment, there stood our so-called “demolished” minute-market completely untouched!  In fact, the emergency personnel were using it as a way station for supplies.  The news report was a complete fabrication, with not an ounce of truth in it.  One wonders how many other false stories went out around the world about this devastating fire, and floats around out there even yet as truth.

Now let’s swing that focus around to politics. It is easy to see that the same liberties are taken, but more so, when the stakes are infinitely higher.  It can easily be seen that in extremely subtle ways, a “free” press can easily be a propaganda tool the same as any communist nation where the press is state owned.  Quite frankly, when a nation ceases to be a Christian-based nation such as America has been, the  greatest danger to its liberty is a rebel press, whose daily fare is the art of brainwash.  When Christian morality is not the ruling principle in our society, it cannot be self-governing, because self control with a worthy principle is the only way a society can get along with itself.  To quote an adage of recent years, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”  And when a free press is not self-governed, it becomes a heavy weapon in the hands of tyranny and barbarians. Mark Twain once observed to another writer, “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”  In short he was observing that if you make the facts your base, you can easily make distortion believable with some slick maneuvering.  Joy Lucius, continuing the thought, observes in the AFA Journal, “How can Christian consumers distinguish the truth amid the whirling, spinning facts disseminated by creative marketing and a politically correct cultural bent?”

Few Americans seem aware that the political stakes are as high as they actually are.  The stakes being gambled for is the overthrow of a powerful Christian nation whose history was to stand like a monolith against tyranny, barbarism, cruelty, hedonism, slavery, perversion, human suffering, and the stealing of innocence.  America has been a bastion of Christian freedom, a base from which the good news of the Gospel has been a lighthouse to the world.  The enemy of such greatness is using every available means to dynamite our base, and to see “The Establishment,” as the hippies called it, come crashing down in a heap of rubble, plunging the planet itself into an unbelievable darkness called socialism, a way station on the road to Communism.  If it happens, woe to those who assisted even in a small measure in that fall!  Especially Christian pulpits whom God has charged to be vigilant, discerning, resilient, strong, and faithful to God’s holy Word.  –DA

Of all the people of the planet who ought to be feasting on the good Earth’s abundance, it should be God’s people, the Christians!  Isn’t that the most wonderful news?  At that news many will get up and dance, clap hands, and shout “praise the Lord!”

After all, how does Genesis describe Adam’s and Eve’s Eden?  Why, it says it was a garden!  (Genesis 2:8).  In fact, it even mentions “herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind,” all of which God created in preparation for humanity (Genesis 1:11, 12), until life in Eden surely was a continual feast.

Look at this marvelous scene: God decided to make mankind in his own image, but he gave him a body in which to enjoy fellowshipping with his Maker.  In anticipation of the physical body, God began preparations for a place tailor-made for his domain.  It started with light. Then he put up a firmament in the sky, he rose up some dry land, he put a sun and a moon in the sky, he put fish in the waters, birds in the air, he strewed the land with animals, and finally, “whish!”  he created Adam and Eve to live in God’s paradise.  What an astonishing story!  It even says God himself “planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed” (2:8), a place God says was “good for food” (v.9).

Now let us draw near and peer into this divine setup more closely.  Here is all this edible stuff, herbs and fruit, and a whopping variety of all of it, no doubt salad greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, beans, radishes, and much more; there were apples, oranges, pears, pomegranates, plums, peaches, cantaloupes, watermelons, honeydews, and don’t forget grapes, berries of all kinds, persimmons, figs, not to mention honey, milk, pineapples, and bananas.  Obviously, we fool ourselves if we think all of that and infinitely more were not there for the eating.

But then came the fish of every sort.  After the fall there were even animal meats to feast on, as well as a host of fowls.  All of these things, until it staggers us to imagine the fantastic menu to choose from in God’s provision!  There God is, smiling down on humanity’s partaking of all of this delicious variety he furnished for the pleasure of our physical bodies.  Oh, he weeps at our sin, and he also weeps at some of the poisons we put into ourselves, but it pleases him when we treat our physical bodies in harmony with his magnificent design.  Blessings for this comes to the just and the unjust.

But watch it — here comes the downside to this picture.  The holy Scriptures came up with a word which Christian people do not want to hear.  It falls under a definition that can damn our souls, and appears in context with words like, drunken, stubborn, rebellious, riotous, winebibber, “friend off publicans and sinners” (Deut. 21:20; Prov. 23:21; 28:7; Matt. 11:19; Like 7:34).  It is the word “glutton,” or the sin of gluttony.  Noah Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1852, defines a glutton as, “One who indulges to excess in eating.”  Glut means, “That which is swallowed,” putting the definition in the same category as drunkenness.

Bringing the downside of it closer to home, church bodies of believers have brought us to a very fine line between fellowshipping around tables with rich foods, and the sin of gluttony, especially in America where every food imaginable is in bewildering abundance. If that were not enough, between those church tables of fellowship, a plethora of believers gather after church services at restaurants, hamburger joints, taco houses, ice cream parlors, barbecue pits, and much more, to feast like kings.  Many in the congregation are culled out by slim pocketbooks and cannot partake, sidelined by their brothers and sisters who can.  Such a practice amounts to division within Christian Fellowship, and acts as a wrecking ball to the oneness of believers which the Lord intended.  In fact, some of the believers who cannot afford it go out anyway to join them, even if it runs them short, to save face and embarrassment.  It amounts to a 1st Corinthians chapter 12 and 14, without 13.  Yes, God wants his children to partake of his plenty, but he also expects us to do it in careful moderation.  Being human, our appetites have a way of getting out of hand, but God expects us to exercise control, especially in our churches, and most especially in our pulpits!  Paul declared that if what he eats is offensive to his brother he would “eat no flesh while the world standeth” (1^st Corinthians 8:13). That philosophy should also be that of our leadership.

Okay, now let us look at another side of God’s abundance.  This one is extremely important to the whole of humanity. Think carefully about God’s order of creation.  It is crystal clear in Scripture that God did not create Adam and Eve as a divine afterthought, but as a crowning act without which all his previous creative acts would be meaningless. The light, the firmament, the earth, and all life were created for Adam, not the other way around! What is the point?  Just this: God made the physical body of Adam to enjoy all, repeat ALL, of the edible things he created for it. If that were not true, then Adam and Eve could have been perfectly healthy in eating nothing but bananas! Or, how about nothing but radishes? Maybe you could have been in perfect shape on nothing but turnip greens. I’d be a peanut butter man. How silly is that?

What am I saying?  Mister, if you are a meat and potatoes kind of guy, you’ve got God’s order for the provision of your good health in reverse!  You cannot remain in the good health God expects of you if you refuse to partake of what even science has proven many times over to be a healthy lifestyle!  All you’re doing is cheating God out of the man he meant for you to be!  Eating with your mouth and not your brain is to eat strictly for taste, not using your brain to eat for God. An unhealthy body makes for unhealthy metabolism where your juices, hormones, blood, stamina, endurance, meditation, prayer, judgment, concentration and much more are weakened from what God expected of you if you ate properly.  You might live to be old, but your quality of life is likely to take you out of the race, and kill the joy you would find in God’s best, to say nothing of being cut off before being a blessing to your heritage.

One other point concerning Christian nutrition begs to be mentioned.  Let me begin this way: since the entry of sin into the human condition, the physical delights of the flesh have found it far too easy to bring down our spiritual highs.  Believe it or not, food has invariably been one of the most subtle points leading an incursion into questionable territory.  That amounts to a tempting foot in the door. With that beginning, momentum is slowly gathered.  Comes then tiny rivulets of justification for indulgence, the most common being Christian fellowship. Slowly, but eventually, the indulgers begin to appear little different than the worldly brand of partying, including drunkenness.  It is an amazing story to watch.  If you are elderly, as I am, you have seen this pattern over and over again.  Believe it or not, it can lead to extravagant things such as church splits, vicious gossip, unforgiveness, despite, hatred, lost souls, and more.  It really does happen! I have seen such things develop.  Too often, food seems to be the catalyst that begins the synthesis, because the discipline of separation begins well but ends sadly.  The flesh does it, not the spiritually strong.  We don’t want to think such things can happen from such an innocent beginning, but because the subtle process is usually very slow in building, perhaps decades,  the day finally comes when we cannot believe the difference in what we used to be, and what we have become.  Prayer and party are both six letter words, but we have foolishly associated them so closely that the heart of prayer morphs into the cold, prayerless stone off party.

Scriptural proof of this point is overwhelming.  Space prohibits enumerating all the passages, such as Jesus said of the days of Noah, that they were “eating and drinking… until the flood came and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39).  They partied at the Tower of Babel.  They partied around the golden calf.  The sons of Job partied, along with many other such passages where both food and fermented wine played the major part.  Think of it: when the people of God in Scripture would draw near to God, where did they start?  They fasted!  Whether it was one or the whole assembly, they fasted.  Jesus made the point that God’s answer often came only by prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29).  The subtle point in all of this is that food must be seen as a delightful necessity in serving God, not a delightful serving of ourselves!  There is an eternity of difference.  “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24), mammon meaning the selfish indulgences of the flesh.

Our church leaders have surely failed in commanding discipline in these matters.  Do I think this little article will change that?  Don’t make me laugh!  But what I bring to the readers attention here does not seem to be in print anywhere, so perhaps it will benefit a few.  One can try to dodge the truth in it, but dodging truth is eventually humanly impossible.   Once that arrow buries itself in your chest, the only thing left is what you will do about it, live or die.

A good place to start to correct the perspective is to teach God’s people the vital difference between praying and partying.  The designated purpose of a sanctuary has always been preaching and prayer.  That is the place set aside where our faces look into God’s face.  The fellowship of God’s people is where we all as Christians look into one another’s faces, an eternity of difference.  If those get mixed we are in serious trouble!

God’s sanctuary must be kept sanctified as a tangible reality of our relationship to our awesome God.  It is not a place to party.  It should be seen as a real battleground between the forces of good and evil, an arena where God’s Spirit and evil forces do battle for eternal outcomes.  Any other vision of it is simply a truce.  It is not the place for earsplitting drums and amplifiers, nor for exhibitions of entertainment such as bodily swaying to the beat of music.  It must not be where screaming voices nor staccato rapping shatters an atmosphere belonging to God’s sanctity.  All of such disturbances belong to partying elsewhere, but not here.  No, this is where the thunder of God’s eternal words of truth should be preached into the very souls of those in attendance.  Anything leading up to such an awesome purpose should be in character with softness, sweetness, and what causes one’s soul to reflect with reverence upon God, and nothing else.  God’s holy presence in his designated place of sanctity is not the place to eat and drink nor even to bring food therein.

The effort to keep a correct perspective on God’s provision for our physical bodies should not be taken lightly by one or all people.  Nor should it be by just dropping a word once in a while.  No, it is of such importance as to command an ongoing work of discipline to keep priorities straight.

In closing this, please allow me to repeat an earlier sentence: food must be seen as a delightful necessity in serving God, not a delightful serving of ourselves. Food is never an acceptable substitute for God’s holy business.

–DA

The backslidden Western societies have taken a sledgehammer to the beauty of traditional Judeo-Christian marriage, the very building blocks of any successful society.  Every society of history with any success had as their most guarded aim the touchstone of marriage.  Any time any society degrades themselves by disrespecting it, they became slaves to those who did respect it.  The sanctity of marriage between the sexes is simply built into who we were created to be, and violating our very image is no way to social peace and rest.

Western society once stood stalwart and strong on that issue, but as decline set in through the temptations of prosperity and the appetites of the flesh, spiritual barricades were blown through on our way to feast in the pig sties of sin.  So here we are.  The divorce rate soars to a bewildering height between sinners and saints alike.  Who suffers the consequences?  The children.  More than 50 million babies have been aborted since Roe V. Wade, and most of those who were not, have been, and still are, being carefully brainwashed in the fine art of barbarism in state training camps called public schools!  These have grown up, and are still growing up, they shack up, marry up, give up, break up, then shack up, marry up, give up, then break up over and over.  It’s enough to make one want to throw up!

Our society, through liberal media, liberal Hollywood, liberal rag magazines, and liberal legislators have made no-fault divorce quick and clean-as-a-whistle to any couple for any reason at any time.  So they marry on a one night stand to see if they fit together, and if not they smile and sign divorce papers and part as good friends.  The children born of such lunitickery find solace with peers of the same experience, and grow up not knowing there is a better way, and many times not knowing who their real father was.

So goes Western society today.

But here’s my point.  There are innumerable couples out there sitting on the naked edge of divorce.  It hurts them that it has come to this, but they are convinced that nothing is left but the doom of a marriage shipwreck.  Innumerable couples preceding them took the plunge into those raging waters and have suffered its consequences, especially their offspring.  So I direct the remainder of this article to those couples who are poised on the diving board, crouched and ready to take that fateful leap.  But wait! Maybe there is hope.

First, I direct this to men.  The very first truth to be considered is this: any woman who looks at a man for marriage because his conduct won her affections, becomes his to lose!  If he won her, he loses her.  It is that simple.  Try that on any way you like, it always comes down to that truth.  If you married her just for sex, it will be found out.  If you married her just for money, it will also be found out.  If you hid the real you during courtship, that skeleton will come rattling out of the closet, simply because you cannot hide you very long once you marry.  If she deceived you and you find that out later, well, tough luck — she is still yours to lose because you won her hand, not another guy!  If she was the aggressor and chased you until you caught her, and you suddenly woke up to the fact that she won you instead, and now you want a divorce, well, that won’t wash either.  You’ve got her, and if you’re the man you ought to be you’ll give yourself the brush off and make this marriage work.  It won’t be easy, but she is still yours to lose!

Now, to the real men reading this, I offer a surefire solution that works perfectly every time.  But any of those readers who are not willing to sacrifice yourself to save the marriage, then goodbye, it’s been nice having you until now; I hope there are some survivors.  But those men who dare to continue, please get before a mirror, pull off your shirt and look at your back.  Be sure you have a good strong backbone.  If all you see is a twine string or a streak of jelly, put your shirt back on and forget the whole idea.  I hope there will be some survivors.

To the real men with backbone, please gaze long and hard at that picture of New Mexico’s Shiprock.  That is what you must become in the eyes of the woman you married.  But listen to me, men.  You must decide on a location where your Shiprock will sit as an immovable monolith.  Get the location wrong and you will lose her.  That is exactly how it is in real estate: success is in “location, location, location.”  So here is the foolproof location: turn to Genesis, chapters one and two in the Bible, and look very carefully at the creation of Adam and Eve and particularly how they relate to one another.  I have commented on that in other related articles posted on this blog.  Compare that with Ephesians 5:25-29, and you will have a flashing neon sign telling you exactly where to park your Shiprock.  In that location, and if you will become an immovable Shiprock sitting in it, your wife, being the woman God created, will find shelter, that she is truly loved and treasured by you, that she is secure in your arms, that you are proud of her for who she is, and that her children are also safe and secure in your care.  No woman alive can resist that in a man she has given herself to.  If you will be a Shiprock in these Scriptures and in your marriage vows, your chance of losing her is very slim indeed.

Sadly, in contrast, most men are immovable blocks of cold granite sitting on the wide plains of ego.  They would rather lose everything than be pulled up roots and all from those lifeless plains.  Really, such men are out of place in this article.  We should have lost them two paragraphs ago when they looked at their spines in the mirror.  At this point we should only be talking to men with enough backbone to be daredevils.

Does my solution work?  Yes!  I can cite two cases I am aware of.  One is my own marriage.  At one point after my wife and I had been married for more than a decade, we were at the point of near breakup, with two children to consider.  The change that came which saved it was not sudden, but it was saved because I, myself, decided to have the backbone to be a Shiprock on the plains of Scripture. It was hard, but it worked.  We just celebrated our 56th happy anniversary, and many admirers say we are an ideal couple. Really!

The other one I am aware of was almost miraculous.  The very next step in their marriage was a breakup.  She had her bags packed, preparing to leave.  Suddenly, right out of the blue, and in one day, he became a different person!  In a flash, he seemed to “come to himself,” as Scrooge put it, and jerked himself up roots and all, out of the plains of ego, and planted himself on God’s plains of Scripture.  His wife, in unbelief, almost fainted!  Things turned around in their marriage quite suddenly.  That was not long ago.  Today he is being a Shiprock.  His was the difference between an ego driven husband, and the Incredible Hulk who broke out of his old mold, leaving his former clothes in rags because they didn’t fit anymore.  It was the most incredible transformation in a marriage I ever heard of! I’m sure there have been others, but it is not the usual.  It is enough to conclude that it can be done if a man has the daring and backbone to be a Shiprock instead of a shipwreck.

To the women, I offer the following rules:

– pray as my wife did about marrying me: “Lord, I need to know if it is your will for me to marry this boy.  I’d rather just die than to marry the wrong man.”

– Learn what you can about male nature.

– Find out what men are hiding before marrying one.

– Conclude this: if a man has to bite his tongue or won’t look at you when he compliments you, he will never do it once you marry him.

– Live for God no matter what he does.

– Conclude this: if you don’t marry God’s man, you will be very sorry.

– Don’t fool yourself by telling yourself that he is God’s man.  If he is, God will tell you himself.  You will know.

– Never chase a man.  If a man won’t chase you, he is not worth you chasing him.

Finally, to those poised on the diving board, my daily advice is, wait until tomorrow.

–DA

______________________________________

Today a familiar excuse echoes from the new generations about romantic interests between the sexes. It is seen in such quotes as, “Us? Oh, we’re just taking it slow.”

The origin of such evasive philosophy gives itself away in the word “slow.” It truly characterized those multitudes of youth who were the “New Age Movement” during the ‘60s and ‘70s era, and today continues to contaminate young Christian minds. In it’s early stages, aggression was not their forte’. Even their walk was a lazy shuffle. Long, tangled hair marked them, together with brush piles for beards. Ragged was in, clean was out, slumped shoulders matched a forced facial droop, with sad eyes, sloped eyebrows, upside-down lips, and a protruding turtle neck. They shacked up together in communal dumps, smoked pot, and danced lazily in smoke-filled drug dungeons. They sewed the American flag upside down to the seat of their ragged jeans, cursed the military who protected them, and turned traditional American Rock music into what sounded more like a force 10 hurricane going through New York City!  Even the rich kids looked the same part, and shot their clothes with shotguns to make them ragged! Anything to fit in with the social drags. Their later generations of today are still at it: You can yet buy “distressed” jeans, shot to pieces with guns of all sorts. Yes, “slow” characterized them. Unfortunately, the smog of their culture slowly drifted forward with the winds of time and filtered into today’s Christian culture by way of “music,” television, public schools, and the Internet.

In that culture, the idea of “hanging out,” or such terms, meant two disinterested deadbeats doing nothing as “just friends” to see if both felt any “vibes” mutually strong enough to gravitate into more than just friends. Nobody pursued anybody.

The mentality behind such ‘hang outs’ was rooted in the New Age’s purpose of the destruction of what they termed “The Establishment,” meaning the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic around which all free societies had been structured for almost two millennia. The New Age idea was born of atheistic evolution’s notion that we were just animals running wild, and there’s no such thing as a divine order for what might be called the divine dance of romance, but rather simply an urge to merge, and then go on to the next one, much like the wild nature of wolves or hyenas.

Unfortunately, American society caved in to this cultural steam roller. And, sadly, too much of today’s Christian youth runs around slouchy and “hangs out,” walks with a shuffle, and even takes pride in the gun-shot ragged look. They are well on their way to hearing aids from living most of their days being assaulted with so-called “Christian” chaos, calling it music. One would think that today’s American Christian generations would refuse to borrow anything at all invented by such enemies of Christian-founded America! But they surely did, and America today is paying dearly for it. All of that is actually the real, documented history we older Christians visibly watched with our eyes and heard with our ears as it was born and grew up to contaminate our landscapes, invade our churches, steal our children, demolish our sweet Gospel music, desecrate our precious flag and sacred monuments, and bathe our sacred institutions of romance and marriage in a tide of cultural sewage.

God’s truth about romance was largely lost in that tsunami, so here, from God’s own point of view, is a restatement of the cold facts about this whole subject of romance. All the details in the paragraphs above are nothing but a cowardly cop-out of the God-given purpose which he created in males and females. That truth simply cannot be escaped, because it is as much a part of our physical beings as an arm or a leg. To exercise it outside of God’s parameters of reality is extremely destructive to human existence, ending in the charred remains of a raging wildfire.

You see, God endowed both male and female youth with complementary hormones to draw them into mutual attractions. The word, complementary, means the hormonal activity in each of the sexes as divinely formulated to fulfill the Adamic mandate clearly stated in Genesis 1:27, 28, to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion…” (KJV). But, as we can plainly see in ourselves, Adam and Eve were not charged to do this alone, but were carefully and perfectly designed to “multiply” and populate the Earth by what may be termed chain reaction.

Consequently, God-given hormones excited the resulting children with, shall we say, the dance of romance, with a divine purpose to fulfill God’s master plan. Mind you, not the insanity of merely satisfying one’s own selfish cravings like brute beasts. Hear me, young Christians, sex has a divine purpose without which God’s pleasure becomes God’s wrath! Whether to consider God first in your sex drive or not, is not an option! He must be considered in sexual unions, or else it becomes a sexual curse. We should all think that over carefully, because it vitally concerns innocent children. When Jesus walked the Earth, if anyone wanted to touch off his temper, they needed only to hurt the little children.

But there is far more to this so-called dance of romance than Christian society seems to understand. It involves a truth blossoming out of the meticulous order and purpose God exercised in the creation of Adam and Eve. That order and purpose ought to be looked at with great care by every youth today. It is so carefully stated in Scripture (KJV) that even the children can understand it, and yet it seems all of Christian society, including pulpits and church schools, either miss it or ignore it altogether so as to fit in with whatever cultural rage is in fashion.

God created Adam first (Genesis 2:7), then divine foresight prepared him to have a driving need. There stood Adam, freshly created, filled out physically in detail, equipped with everything he needed except a reflected companion physically designed to receive his own design. Here we all are today, still designed exactly that way! That “need” is carefully detailed in Genesis 2:18 through 25. Take special note of the detailed order, for this is vitally important to who we all are: Adam’s being first in order is a vital truth, although it seems society wants to ignore it. Now, to complete Adam’s design which God gave him, God took what he had already created in Adam, a rib, and created a receiver, whom Adam named Eve. They two, as joined together by God’s hand, became “one flesh” by God’s hand. Eve was created to be Adam’s “help meet,” that is, a helper, an assistant, an aide to God’s purpose in designing them both. She was literally bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. Why? Because, as it plainly says, God took her out of Adam (v. 23). She was not directly made of the dust of the ground, as was Adam, but from the flesh and bone of Adam himself. We overlook this meticulous fact at our own peril! Far too many of us do. We say, “Duh! Everybody knows that!” The problem is, we don’t act like it because acting like it puts us at odds with today’s politically correct notions pouring into our living rooms, public and private schools, on the job, and even at church! Radical feminism has educated the masses along that line. But let me tell you, the truth here is plain, and there are dire consequences if we ignore it.

Now lets use the previous paragraph as the loam out of which the facts of romance blossom. Look carefully: God designed Adam to plant the seed of multiplication, but Eve, being one flesh with Adam, received it and joined it with her own, upon which their seed of one flesh began a cycle of growth to become a separate person to increase Earth’s population, exactly as God intended. This harmonious arrangement of hormones required complementary consistencies, not just in brain and body structures, but in hormonal processes to fit and govern the created purpose in how they behaved toward one another. Their different human profiles simply and naturally acted as magnets in attracting the sexes to one another toward God’s glorious intent in creation, that is, a vast multitude of God’s family of people to walk with him in infinite fellowship, to serve him, and to worship him as their God. All of these perfectly designed harmonics is truly God’s dance of romance between a man and a woman. Yes, there is far more to romance than fallen humanity has allowed themselves to believe. That dance is a sacred dance, and should be kept pure and holy.

But it behooves us to be extremely careful in how we interpret that vital dance. Get it wrong and the hormonal signals become a snarled semaphore of ambiguous nonsense. Women find themselves stooping to a driven behavior of pursuit which men alone are hormonally equipped to handle, and we find men parking themselves against nature in an attitude of female passive neutrality, waiting to be found by the perfect female instead of going out to find one to pursue. Familiar words from such mish-mash go something like: “Oh, we’re just friends,” or, “We’re just taking it slow,” or, “we’re just hanging out,” or, “What’s wrong with the guys these days?” or, “Why are guys such deadbeats?” or, “It’s hard to find a decent guy these days.” (Note the word “find.” It means they’re beating the bushes in pursuit to “find” one). “Guys are such party animals.” He’s slow as Christmas, and that turns me off!”  On the other hand, guys say, “She’s too eager, and turns me off,” or, “All she wants to do is giggle and party,” or, “She’s smothering me.” But if she is well behaved and keeps her place, deadbeat guys say, “Why is she so distant?” or, “She doesn’t seem interested in me,” or, “She’s Miss Untouchable,” or, “She’s got that holier-than-thou attitude.” (Usually, only a guy looking for a party girl makes such uninformedcomments). Or, one common comment, “She’s still trying to get over a previous romance.” (It seems to have escaped the mind of a guy who makes such comments, that the most natural thing for him to do is to convince her that he is better man than the guy who broke her heart!).

All such comments are like the smog rising from a polluted landscape. The sordid atmosphere ought to be swept out to sea by the strong winds of God’s priorities in romance. Both sexes need to assume a hormonal balance, and forsake the atheistic notion that we are soul-less animals running around like crazed canines after each other’s body. Both sexes should put God first in their priorities, and rediscover the lost art of the divine dance of romance.

Now let’s dance! Here is the Scriptural order for God’s inspired romance between the sexes.

First, it should be understood that God equipped Adam for pursuit, not only to dominate God’s Earth, but to take to himself and provide for his “help meet.” I repeat, the unique hormone system God created in Adam and his male offspring was divinely aimed to the dominant purpose of pursuit and domination of the Earth. That is simply who and what he is in his core being. To achieve God’s purpose in his design, he must pursue, pursue, pursue! But it must be for God that he pursues, even if it is for a mate. Anything else defined as romance today is simply Scripturally abnormal and will not produce what God intended in humanity’s design. It will rather only add to the warped confusion already existing in the homes and divorce courts, Christians or not, with all the attending consequences. Hear me! Scripturally, men must pursue, or else they are assuming the role God created for Eve!

The female of Adam’s rib is divinely designed to the role of a helper. Mind you, not a doormat as some men seem to think, but designed to do a job Adam is not even equipped to undertake, even if he tried. He just cannot do it. The ability to give birth is only one of Eve’s marvelous functions that Adam finds impossible. It is an indelible fact that Adam without an Eve cannot endure. He is “Alone” (Genesis 2:18). There could be no humanity without Eve, and dominion would be impossible. But Eve without an Adam is without the needed strength and pursuit abilities she needs from Adam to even exist.  No, both Adam and Eve are themselves divinely unfulfilled without each other, unless God specifically calls them to celibacy, which is extremely rare. The very moment the female steps out of her divine role, she goes against who she really is by design in her core being. Such a misdirection, and the frustration that drives her to it, is simply a manifesting of her lack of faith in God to provide her with the male to fulfill the divine design she plainly sees and feels within her being. Her role is patience in waiting, faith in God for her needs, and a readiness to receive God’s provision for her. Should she jump ahead of that requirement, she will almost always end up with a great deal of unhappiness and disappointment, and even unintentionally pass it on to her offspring. That is a picture of the mistakes so frequently carried out today in most females. Every woman would be benefited by studying the great women of the Bible, but few will even crack their Bibles to do it, and so choose the world’s back alley as her path of life, instead of the thrilling scenery of God’s mountain pass. Such a mistake defies explanation, unless it is seen as simply lust of the carnal flesh.

Men, your role in God’s design for romance is to go out and diligently search all the right places for a female whose priority is to love God first. Study her to see if she is what you personally need to fulfill your divine purpose to even exist in God’s scheme of creation. Here are the rules to follow:

If she is single, she is fair game, even if she is wearing an engagement ring! All you must do is make your play, then study her reaction. If she shows interest in you, that is an open door for you to test further. If she sternly and flatly rejects your advance, simply erase her from your list of possibles. Maybe later. Note: Many will oppose the idea of approaching if she is wearing an engagement ring. Nonsense! Until she wears a wedding ring showing that she is bound to that man before God, she is still not married and is available to any man who tests the waters. But if she rejects you, you must respect that romance. Remember, she must show interest in you, or it is a dead-end. But also remember, that if she wears your engagement ring, she is also fair game to any guy who makes a better offer. After all, how can you know but that perhaps she is the one God has picked for you, or maybe that he meant for her to marry the other guy who stole her from you?  But I warn you, men, you’d be wise in courting her to not start up anything to win her, which you are not dedicated to keep doing after the wedding. WARNING: Give that one very special attention!

Women, your Scriptural role is a simple one. Assume the role of the prey, not the predator. Be a catch, not a catcher; the chased, not the chaser. Be desirable, not the desirer; the attractive, not the attracted. Do you get the picture? It might seem obvious, but the radical feminists have to a large degree switched those separate roles between men and women. They have made them fashionable, even though it is a formula with a guarantee in neon red that it will end in unhappiness. The Hollywood set shouts it like a bullhorn in every American living room! The Scriptural order is to attract a suitor, not insult his male nature as your pursuer. Please hear this truth: female violation of male nature attracts society’s dregs in the form of male predators prowling at parties, social gatherings, the Internet, at malls, parking lots, ball games, Rock concerts, and even at Churches. Their objective is female bodies to exploit, not female persons. They’re as thick as flies in this depraved world we live in. Some of them are extremely skilled in their methods, and very convincing, but if you’re a Christian girl entertaining such social scum, you are flirting with a lifetime of unhappiness at the least, and possibly bodily harm. It certainly does happen far too often, especially in modern society. The solution is never to be alone with any man unproven to be a gentleman. The risk is too great. Instead, maintain your Christian integrity at all costs. Real men, men of worth, men who desire a worthy mate, are searching carefully for women of honor and integrity. They will simply pass over any woman whose male companions are known to be nothing but party animals looking for a few laughs and female company.

An additional comment to women is in order here: Girls, it is completely unscriptural and out of natural order, even today, for a single woman to park her own life in order to find a mate for life. The unwise act of giving up personal ambitions, personal talents, job skills, education, and especially God’s special calling upon her, is to effectively sell her soul to a faceless man, making a fictional male her supplier of life. Such an attitude is to forsake the fact that Eve’s Creator was God himself, not Adam! No, when God created Eve, as her creator she was his own before she was Adam’s. Even though she was Adam’s helper, even though she was to be the bearer of children, even though she had a role as a wife and mother to fill, she was first and foremost an individual before God, to whom she owed first allegiance. Adam’s duty was to honor that, to support it, not violate it for his own selfish motives. He owed her dignity, respect, and courtesy. But don’t you see that if she herself failed to respect that order in her existence as an individual, it could only bring trouble to herself, her husband, and her children. Yes, marriage may change her priorities, but until then she must be true to God and herself.

Please hear me: God must take center stage in your life, or you will find yourself in great conflict. You will do well to learn and apply the following indelible rule: If you fail to pursue God first, good men will not pursue you. Ironically, it seems instinctive in all men to know that indelible rule, and yet it seems most modern females have missed it. Even in slimy social circles, men would rather catch an untouched female for themselves, rather than one who lacked self discipline with her body.

Finally, men, a word to the wise among you. Men like straight talk, a getting to the point. So be warned: Unless you are an Elijah, a John the Baptist, or a Paul, then if your choice is to remain unmarried, you are cheating yourself out of who God built you to be. God did not put those hormonal passions in you to waste on your own cravings. Without a “help meet” you will be stunted as a man, unfulfilled, lonely, turned inward toward your own appetites and cravings. You will have no children or grandchildren to “Rise up and call you blessed.”

But men, marriage is no piece of cake. The ceremony itself, for both male and female, is where old “self” is nailed to a cross in self-sacrifice to one another, and to your offspring. You are through with being an individual, because “They two shall be one flesh,” yes, but now two wills vow to die for one another! But never forget, God built the male to be the head sacrificer. He must lead or lose. He must be the guardian, the keeper, the CEO of the home. Because of his design, he cannot be a know-it-all, and so must consult in order to lead. His “help meet” must be his first contact in most matters. In fact, any man who bypasses his wife as though she is a nobody, will have a wife who feels like a nobody. Get ready for a lot of unhappiness; women do not do well with a foot on their necks.

Remember, men, you can be worth a fortune, sport around in a limousine, be knock-down handsome, dressed to the nines, have a physique like Arnold to show off, be a famous person, all of that and more, but if you fail in the very thing God designed you to be, you will always have an empty place in your gut. It’s like building yourself a castle, but spending your life in a cheap motel!  Be warned: If you choose the castle, get ready to sacrifice for the privilege. It seems anything worth having is not easy to keep.

So I close with this word to good, honorable men: Be leery of push-over women. Usually you must fight for the honorable ones. If she is the best, she will want permission from God, as well as her parents, before she will even date you. So you will have to convince all four of them if you’re going to get the very best. And you’d better have something good going on in yourself if you hope to do that. That might mean you will have to make some permanent changes in yourself. I close with this: If she was worth fighting for to win her, then she is worth fighting for to keep her. And if you now have her, your worst enemy is probably yourself.

DA

In today’s world, we know nothing in all of God’s breathtaking universe to match the unbelievable complexity of the human brain.  Probing its dimensions is a veritable trip into infinity!  And if that were not complex enough, an equal to that astonishing truth is the brain’s ability to freely speak its own mind, even to the shocking extent of objectively analyzing and evaluating itself!  In fact, human speech itself is an equal phenomenon, and every word of it is ultimately related to God’s pristine justice.

According to Genesis 2:19, 20, Adam knew the “languages” of all the living creatures, but more than that, he could walk and talk with God himself!  (Genesis 3:8,9).  Why?  Because God created him in his own image for that very purpose (Genesis 1:26).  In fact, the evidence is startling that when God finished creating Adam and Eve, immediately they thought perfect thoughts, talked a perfect language, with perfect words. The language of words pouring from the lips of God’s perfect couple was sweet music to him.  It was a pure language of praise, adoration, and thankfulness to their holy Creator, who took infinite pleasure in hearing its beautiful strains from creatures made in his own image.

But yet another stunning phenomenon attended them: being made in God’s own image carried one of the essences of his own being straight into us: FREEDOM!  Our freedom to choose became who we are in our very essence of being.  We do not have the ability to lay it aside, any more than we could lay our heads aside and continue to live. But we must mention that the essence of God’s bestowed freedom within us cannot be realized unless we make a genuine choice.  Therefore, God planted a tree of choice in perfect Eden with his warning not to partake of its fruit, nor even touch it.  It was not the fruit itself, but God’s personal warning which forced the choice.  As we all know, through Satanic allurement the first couple both touched it and ate it.

Sadly, that free choice to disobey changed the pristine course of all human existence into one of rebellion against our Creator, even one of bloodshed, alienation, and every attending evil against him.  But, thankfully, humanity’s curse was followed by the magnificent story of God’s rescue of fallen humanity, of the divine Savior, and of our full restoration to himself.

That introduction brings us abruptly to our subject: WORDS.  You see, words are vital to the essence of who we are.  We cannot even be alive without, in one way or another, expressing ourselves in words.  They are living concepts and experiences within us, and are the very framework of our conscious selves.  There in the private domain of our eternal souls, God speaks to us, convicts and moves us to himself in a one-on-one free exchange of words.  In that inner chamber we welcome or reject him until death itself ends that free ability, upon which we must give an account for it (Hebrews 9:27).

Pressing forward, we see that out of our mouths human language is actually driven into existence by the process of our living spirits forcing our physical brains to express our inner person.  But then the curse of death and a limited lifespan forced the burning desire to relay our gained knowledge to our future generations lest, at our death, it be forgotten or lost.  The answer was the graphic depiction of words, that is, writing, which very early burst on the scene of human history.

Now, with that short summation begins the vital story of God’s finger in the phenomenon of words.  You see, the circumstance of sin and its consequences also forced God’s own sovereign hand in the matter.  Here was the problem: the death factor demanded the perpetual divine assurance that God’s pristine plan of redemption must be present to every lost generation arising from those who had lived before them.  He could never expect imperfect humanity to pass forward God’s perfect plan without contaminating its truth in some way.  Imperfection in itself could never preserve God’s perfect word.

And so we come point-blank to the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture.  While humanity has imperfectly attempted to pass forward the divine revelation of God’s plan of redemption, God himself sovereignly guarantees it!  He states it this way, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).  The logic of it, and even God’s very own words, declare indelibly that his completed word will never pass away!  The meaning is startling: every generation that arises through history can rest in full assurance and faith that God’s pure, uncontaminated, pristine word of absolute truth will exist and be available to every new generation! Each person must decide for themselves if they care enough about their souls to seek it.  Satanic influence works overtime to contaminate and confuse it in the minds of humanity, and yes, a plethora of many and varied translations flood the landscape with a sordid list of subtractions and additions, but through it all God’s sovereign fiat of divine preservation stands as a guarantee that his pristine words all exist and are in full force and available to anyone who truly seeks them.  God does not leave such a precious requirement into our imperfect hands, but has solemnly promised to oversee it himself!

Of course, this leaves us with a glaring question: “How can I know which translation is the correct one?”  Here is the glaring truth of it: Look at it this way: when God himself is personally at work in the lives of fallen humanity, resulting in the obvious transformation of the human heart, none but himself can possibly take credit for it.  He is, “The God that answered by fire…” (1 Kings 18:24).  Therefore, God’s miraculous work in the human heart is always unmistakable!  So, which translation is the correct one?  It is so simple: Just look for God’s own fingerprints and footprints.  It is obviously the one he has personally used the most for the longest, and is still at it.  That’s the one!  Flirting with anything else is extremely risky business for souls with so very much to lose. Error is afoot!

Consider this: perfection itself does not get better nor worse.  It just is.  You cannot modernize its truth, add to it, subtract from it, improve it, nor alter it in any way.  If we will only humbly and sincerely exposed ourselves to it, his truth will always break the human mold we may have cast around it, and leap into our deep convictions.  There lies the truth.  We might clothe a king in dirty rags and tatters, but under it all is royalty in the flesh. Pity the deceiver who cloaks it with error to the destruction of those who follow them.  Such did the followers of Jim Jones.

We come, then, to the point of this article.  If it is truly God’s word, it is verbally pure even down to every “jot and tittle,” (Punctuation marks, Matthew 5:18), of the original manuscripts, which in different form become part of future inspired translations.  Theologians call it “Plenary Inspiration,” meaning full in all respects, entire and absolute, embracing all parts thereof.  As such, the Holy Bible is not just another book one uses to argue one’s pride of doctrinal position.  No, this book has its own life!  As one minister put it, “You don’t read this book, it reads you!”  The message bound up in every word of it is infinitely important to every soul, because it is literally God speaking to each of us.  Every word counts!  There is no excess or lack in God’s inspired word.

An incident occurred in my own life which literally transformed my approach to God’s holy Word.  I am a retired tax examiner for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  Early in my employment there, I struggled with how to solve some of the more complicated tax returns. Frustrated, one day I asked my young manager, Mark, for help on a particular case.  His very first question was, “What does the IRS tax code say about it?”  Embarrassed, I said I hadn’t consulted it.  He reached past me, took my tax code book, and turned quickly to the subject at hand.  He asked me to read it back to him, which I did.  Then he asked, “What do you think it says about your case?”  I looked it over again and told him how I thought it applied.  He responded, “But that isn’t what the tax code says.  Read it again.”  I did, but still didn’t make the connection. Then he carefully pointed to the little word “and” in the middle of the code and said, “You are overlooking the meaning in that one little word.”  With that, he picked up the code book, showed it to me, and said, “This is the law as legislated by the United States Congress and signed by the President.  You have to read every word and understand it because, being American law, every word counts!  That tax return must agree with this law, or else it is wrong and that taxpayer must pay more tax than he has claimed, including any applicable penalties and interest that apply, even if he had his tax figured by the most trusted professional tax preparer in the country.  Always remember, every word of the tax code counts!”

Boing!  From then on that tax code book was always at my elbow, and I paid very special attention to every word of it.  But more than that, I was so jolted by the incident that the very next time I picked up my Bible,….BOING!  I began reading God’s word the same way.  I paid special attention to every word because this is God’s word, his law, and every single word of it counts in my search for God’s truth.  I had better be dead certain about it, or else I, myself, must give an answer to him personally when I meet him after death.  Nothing else matters in my life if I fail in this one thing because of the “penalty and interest” that go with it.  The question will not be if my parents were right, if my teacher or preacher was right, if my husband or wife was right, or anyone else.  None of those!  Rather, am I myself dead right about it?  That is the question on which my soul — and every soul — hangs in God’s balances of eternal justice.  Literally billions of souls are on that balance, but only individuals are weighed, just one at a time. It is a very personal matter between one’s own soul and God himself. Seeking final confirmation and assurance from any other source for what one believes other than from God himself, is a dead-end street! God alone confirms his own word of truth, so if we would know the truth of his word, then the pursuit of God himself is the path of personal assurance. There, and there alone, is a deep confidence, a peace of mind in the midst of storms, and especially when we must finally go through the valley of the shadow of death.

Every word!  Every responsible individual should be sobered by that sterling truth!  Readers be warned!  Even though every dispenser of truth, be they parent, preacher, or teacher, must themselves stand in God’s presence and be fairly judged for every word they conveyed to others — hear me!  — Regardless of them all, every individual hearer of the word will be held personally accountable for every word of God’s eternal message to every soul.  Other than the story of redemption itself, this truth is most important to every single human soul created by the finger of God. Look in the mirror. There stands the one and only person in your life that will stand alone before God in judgment and be held eternally accountable for every word he sent your way. Of all we have heard and read in the years of our life, there at God’s personal judgment is the moment of truth. That is not the time nor place for guessing or hoping we were right. There is the final occasion when we fully realize that, sure enough, every word counts. Every word!

DA

______________________________________________________________________________________

A grizzled shadow stretched itself over my office floor. Silhouetted against outside light, its threatening form convinced me that the zoo had certainly lost a dangerous inmate. And then, to my horror, it stepped inside! Two glaring eyes, almost lost in facial brush, peered at me. I darted into a darkened corner. We eyed one another silently. Gradually it became clear that whatever it was, it was human. A beerbelly under a skin-tight undershirt struck a profile similar to an ape forced to stand erect. His trousers bagged until it seemed certain that an entire family had vacated them. Emblazoned across his chest appeared the word:

Shocked and still reeling, I ventured from my dark corner and asked, “Wh … what can I d-do for you, mister… mister… ?

“Just call me Otto, maaaan.”

His speech articulate, the voice was as one who had doused his vocal cords with thousands of gallons of alcohol; clouded and barely audible.

“Uh-huh, okay, ah…Otto, is there a problem? Your child is one of our bus riders?”

“Jimmy Johnson’s my kid”, he said. (Ah yes, Jimmy. Not a violent kid; just infused with the spirit of a orangutan.) “Whatever your mode of therapy is for resolving juvenile rowdyism, it is quite effective, maaan. It has transformed my boy. Why, he thinks the bus ride home is better than home itself. I must say that you are an excellent pupil transportation manager. Our School district is fortunate to have you on its staff. But that’s not the purpose of my visit. Actually, my colleagues would laugh me to scorn if they knew my reason for consulting you, but, well, your successful method of counsel might assist me in resolving a personal physical problem.”

(Hah! My “method” was simply an exercise in practicality. All I did was wipe snotty noses, clean up vomit, root like a neurotic for the team, snatch heads bald, and astutely place my foot on deserving seats. The kids loved it. Besides, I was backed by an old fashioned school principal who brandished a three-foot paddle with holes bored in it. His graduates knew the exact size of their playground and where the gate was. I was Otto’s senior by a number of years, but I couldn’t recall Otto ever attending our school.)

“Okay,” I said, stunned, “this is most unusual, but I’ll help if I can. What is the problem?”

He glanced around the room furtively. “I lost track of which hand is which and up and down.”

If allowed, a grin would have crowded my jaws. “I see, Otto. Ah … lessee…you, ah, where … I mean … what do you do? For a living, I mean?”

Again, the glance around. “I’m a psychology professor over at the university.”

Hilarity whistled past my ribcage and burst out as a fit of coughing. (Surprise should not have taken me–this was the mid-seventies.)

” You should see a doctor, maaan!”

“I’m okay. You lost track of what?”

“Up and down and which hand is which.”

Momentary silence. “Uh-huh. Up and down and left and right.”

“Right, maaan, left, right, up, down.”

“Left, right, up, down.” (Isn’t that a psychiatrist’s trick or something? Parroting your client is supposed to keep him spilling his guts.)

“Why are you repeating me, maaan?”

“Ah, never mind, Otto. Why do you think you can’t tell up from down and one hand from the other?”

He shuffled further into my office, (Converted utility room) and stood before my full-length mirror. (It allowed student offenders to watch themselves lie).

Slowly lifting his right arm, he waved to me in the mirror. “Which arm did I raise, maaan?”

I chuckled. “Your right, Otto; so what?”

He stepped forward with his back against the mirror and waved again, but this time with his left.

“See, maaan? First time I waved, it was my right, but you can plainly see that from the plane of the mirror both arms were on the same side of my body.”

More silence. I scratched my head. Suddenly I wasn’t sure which hand I did it with.

He scuffled with two chairs. By the time I switched hands and scratched again, he was prostrate across the chairs facing the mirror, left arm down, right up.

“Now which hand is waving?”

“Your hand or the one in the mirror?”

“In the mirror.”

“Uhhh…right”, I said hesitantly.

“Okay,” he said, “but if I move over there with my back against the plane of the mirror, my…

“Uh, left would be waving. Look, I realize it’s a little confusing, Otto, but…”

“A little confusing! Man, here I am with my right up and my left down, but you just said that from a different perspective my left was up and my right down all at the same time. Don’t you see that down is up one way, up is down the other and left and right are easily switched? The question is which one is correct?”

Stunned silence.

Surely there was a simple explanation for this cockeyed scramble of reversals. Let’s see: If I had my…

Suddenly he was standing on his head in the chair, his trousers bagged in reverse!

“Now, maaan. My undershirt–is it right side up or upside down?”

“Ah… the one on you, or…”

“Either!”

“Upside down!” (Confidence mounted. It was upside down either way).

He flipped to his feet, caught the tail of his undershirt with both hands and, in one swoop, peeled it off and held it before me inside out, upside down.

“Which is it now, maaan? Right side up ? Upside down?”

“Hah! Upside down, of course!”

“Wrong! I changed the state of it when I turned it inside out. You’re thinking of it in its former state. If I turned it to what you call right side up I must either switch the left to right or the back to the front. The only way I can maintain its new state of inside out is to keep the left left, the right right, the front front, the back back, the tail up, the neck down. What’s more, I’m sure you’ll agree that simply because an undershirt is inside out shouldn’t mean you can’t wear it. But in its new state of inside out, the only way I can wear it right side up, which you say is not, is if I walk around upside down.”

“Wh …! Uh, well, I…yeah but…”

“But look in the mirror, maaan. There it changes state again. The left is right, right left. Even though it’s inside out I can turn it neck-up so right is right, left left. But notice: the only way I can wear it inside out and walk on my feet is if I got into the mirror with it where I’ve turned the neck up so my right arm will go into the right sleeve.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s jus…

“So you see, maaan, my left is left on me and my right right, but the mirror says my right is my left, my left right. If my right is up, in the mirror my left is up, right down. Inside out my undershirt reverses right side up and upside down, thereby switching right and left to left and right. I should be able to walk normally with my undershirt on inside out, but the only way is in the mirror where upside down has been switched to right side up.”

Agonizing silence.

Even more silence.

“Any comments, maaan?”

“Iyahhhhh…”

“I can tell, maaan, your method of counsel isn’t working for me.”

Otto left, his sandals slapping his heels down the walkway.

A sudden fear came over me.  Loose in society, this man might multiply and confuse an entire generation! He might collapse everything from law and order, to churches, families, nations, even a whole world! I rushed to the door and raised my arm to hail him back–and that confounded mirror caught me in the act. Now, which arm…no, I must do this with the other … but, no, I’m right handed … no no, in the mirror…

I visited Fourth street last week where the protesters, gurus, chowder-heads, whiz-bangs, dope addicts and draft dodgers used to gather back in the seventies to encourage one another. Suddenly a slick-faced, baldheaded fellow in a white robe stopped me and said he was Otto. He finally found contentment, he said, in a personal mixture of eastern mysticism, transcendental meditation, voodoo,  environmentalism, aquarianism, and something to do with hoot owls, dinosaurs, bird beaks, yak’s feet, platypus’s, Egyptian mummies, and many other such figments.

We talked a bit, and when we parted I glanced back. Ceremoniously standing on his head, his robe had fallen into a little pile surrounding it, exposing his beerbelly and two gangly legs rod-straight through his loin cloth. If he was wearing his undershirt, I thought, it would read:

I grinned. Hah! All along down was down, left was left, up was up, and right was right. And I’ll bet nobody ever noticed that when I wore my undershirt inside out it was actually upside down………I think..

DA

Everyone enjoys hearing words that warm the heart and stretches the lips.  Who does not disdain boring speeches or an oratory that offends?  Anyone with the gift of oral communication knows good words and fair speeches can open pocketbooks and gets backslaps of praise.  No matter who skillfully employs their talent toward taking advantage of humanity’s bent toward rosy words and fair speeches, whether politician, teacher, preacher, or parent, is not into communicating truth, but is rather serving their own appetites.  Such an appetite feeds on a hunger for power, prestige, a receiving of praise, money, and security.  A politician seeks power, the greedy seeks money and security, a teacher looks for prestige behind his degrees, a parent wants to fit in socially, and a preacher may thirst for them all behind a show of false humility.

It would surely benefit every artisan employing good words and fair speeches to visit with the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:17-19).  Written by one of the most informed and brilliant minds of his time, he nevertheless said to the Corinthian church, “And I, brethren,… came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.  For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.  And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.  And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit of Power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

The reverse reality, however, is that evil intent’s pleasant words and brilliant speeches can be divisive and treacherous, even as false humility drips honey from its words.  The only telling sign of such intent will be their content of doctrine–or perhaps their lack of it.  What are they not saying?  What are politicians, teachers, parents, books, news media, and preachers not telling us?  Does your senator say abortion traumatizes a mother?  Does your professor tell you evolution is only a theory and the creationists are winning the debates about it?  Does your parents tell you your peers are just as ignorant as you are about the issues of life?  Does your preacher frequently tell you plainly that Hell is a real place of eternal torment were God sends people who sin against his only begotten son?  Is your spiritual leader on backslapping terms with false doctrinaires and never tells you such falsehood can lead your soul to Hell?  Does he claim to be a minister of the Gospel but only tells you half of it? Such half truths become a door ajar, a window cracked, a covert passage where an enemy can slip in with a surprise.

Bearers of enchanting words and captivating oratory is not new.  Paul had to contend with them wherever he traveled and in every church he founded or visited.  In the very passage where he mentioned words and speeches, he admonished the Roman church to “Mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary” to true doctrine (Romans 16:17).  They were to “avoid” them.  Far from unifying God’s true children, these “positive preachers,” these “I’m okay, you’re okay” charmers, these non-offensive, not to worry, sweet talkers were actually church splitters and truth killers on the hunt for self-aggrandizement; leeches, if you will, sucking the lifeblood from the innocents.  Paul and the other apostles showed little mercy for these predators, and straightly excommunicated them from their churches.

Verse 19 of Romans 16 reveals a stunning statement by Paul.  He says to these Roman believers, “I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”  This brilliant man of God is telling these innocents that they should dwell on the truth of spiritual matters and be “simple,” that is, “pure” in their encounter with evil, so that “We henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Ephesians 4:14). In brief, they should use their time to know of the goodness in God’s salvation, and keep in mind the simple fact that evil will damn one’s soul!  That, in a nutshell, is the Gospel.  Preachers who dwell only on the roses in their ministry, are misleading their hearers away from the acute fact that God is a God of pure justice and never tolerates willful sin, and that Hell awaits those who ignore it.  Judgment day will probably hold a shocking irony: some who were saved under such a ministry may be shocked to learn that the preacher who led them to God’s saving grace might miss heaven himself, because he preached a “feel good” substitute for his own comfort.  I heard a Godly pastor say, “Folks, in this church every service is a battleground between the forces of good and evil, where every soul hangs in the balance.”  That church found no place for feel-good sermons nor ear tickling speeches.  It was a place where sinners found it very hard to sit still; they usually either ran for the altar or the door.  Come to think of it, that description fits the early New Testament church perfectly!

The Gospel of Christ is so unutterably sample, so sweet and satisfying to the soul, that the beauty of it can be overlooked in our search for what we’re missing deep within ourselves.  Billy Graham described it best, “Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he can find bread.”  You see, a system of theology has its place, but the lost at large have a deep hunger for simple peace and contentment of soul and body, not a tangled maze of theological analysis.  They are like sheep looking for a shepherd to lead them to luscious green pastures.  The simple seek the simplicity even a child can understand.  Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 19:14).  Just so, every pastor has a flock gathered round him innocently believing his good words and fair speeches.  They are trusting that he is telling them the whole truth, leaving nothing out, withholding no solemn warnings.  As the saying goes, they are “putty in his hands,” and God will hold such pastors fully accountable in judgment. Ministers should be reminded of the horrible end of the Jim Jones cult. He led them to a mass suicide of more than 900 followers!  Ministers had best preach the simple truth of the Gospel, all of it, leaving nothing out, service after service, and all for the right reason, in a spirit of humility, but with and by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

Paul told the Galatian churches, which had grown cold and drifted from his original message, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8 ).  Admonitions to preach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth do not come any stronger than that razored thrust from the Holy Spirit’s sword in Paul’s hand.  One need only to read Paul’s epistles to see the whole of what he had preached to these Galatians.  It is all there!  In brief, he preached Christ’s life, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, the sending back the Comforter on the day of Pentecost, the Pentecostal order of the church, bodily healing, miracles, deliverance from demons, the return of Christ, the final judgment, purity of living, and the horror of Hell.  He left nothing out!

That, friends, is the whole Gospel truth.  Therefore, any preacher or teacher who claims to be a minister of the Gospel but fails to preach it all virtually every time he steps behind a pulpit or Bible class is indeed guilty of “Good words and fair speeches,” and is in grave danger of Paul’s “accursed.” No, the genuine ministry of the Gospel is not for sissies, the fearful, or the cautious.  It can get one burned at the stake or decapitated.  It can get one thrown out of a church, reduced to poverty, or deprive one of friends and even family.  Ask Jeremiah.

But there is yet more here than we want to think: we just finished quoting Galatians 1:8 above, but look at verse nine.  Paul is not kidding in verse eight about the “accursed” part, for he says the same thing again.  He fully intended that any “other” gospel than his is “accursed.”  We tend to think “erroneous gospel” is meant, and it is included, but to preach only a part of Paul’s Gospel is indeed “another gospel” because it is theft of the whole truth!  To preach Christ but not his resurrection is “another gospel.”  Preaching only the grace of Christ but ignoring the wrath of God’s Hell-fire judgment for those who reject him, is only half the truth, better described as a “feel-good” gospel.  To focus on going to heaven while ignoring the vital peculiarity of living a holy life above sin is to lead innocent Christians to Satan’ s slaughterhouse.  God said flatly, “Be ye holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).  Pushing the idea of Gospel evangelism while stealing the  infilling of the Comforter of Acts 2 is like sending innocent children into battle alone.  Such peanut gospels Paul pronounced “accursed,” and pulpiteers would do well to remember that.  Hell’s fires will be hottest for those who for selfish reasons won’t enter themselves, but who stand in the way of those who would enter, but can’t because of wolves in sheep’s clothing standing squarely in the way to the whole truth of the Gospel (Acts 20:27-30).

DA

This article is bound to make a lot of saints and sinners bristle like porcupines! It is really politically incorrect across the board. Like so many Scriptural truths, liberals love to warp this one and use it as a bat to bloody conservative Christians. The following quotes are constantly on the lips of Christ’s enemies, as well as loose Christians trying to justify their indulgent lifestyles. It is favored by youth, but it is also common to hear it from pulpits.

“I’m not trying to be judgmental, but…”
“Hey! Who are you to judge?”
“It isn’t my place to judge others!”
“Just who does he think he is, judging others?”
“Look at him. He’s one of those Christians who looks down his nose at others.”
“She’s one of those goody‑goody two-shoes in her self­-righteous robes.”

A lot of Christians, who are prone to embracing anyone and anything from any organization having a shingle outside claiming Christian leanings are apt to say, “well, they are all part of the body of Christ; I’m supposed to love and embrace them, not judge them. That’s God’s business, not mine.”

We love to cite Jesus’ famous words, “Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matt. 7:1,2). And so we abuse those words as an excuse to be on backslapping terms with error. Such practice is far better known as compromise. As Rodney King said, “Can’t we just all get along?”

Friends, we need a vigorous shaking back to reality! The human act of judging is actually a vital function of the free will God saw fit to install in all of us. That’s right, He created as to be judgmental! Our free wills, for instance, have the power to simply quit eating, but good judgment tells us to stop such lunacy before we starve to death. The raw nature in us forces the making of judgment calls about everything around us, and we do it all our lives. That’s one thing we have no choice about – every choice is a judgment call simply because the base nature of choice is evaluation which by definition means judgment, and we are stuck with doing it constantly to survive.

That truth is so simple to demonstrate it borders on the absurd: try being in a room where someone suddenly whips out a stick of dynamite and lights the fuse. Quite suddenly judgment will flood the room! Nary a soul will find themselves saying, “now let’s not be judgmental about this.” How stupid is that! No! Nobody is going to run over and embrace this nut and look pitiful and say, “now, let’s all be patient with him and give him time to think carefully about what he’s doing.” Not a chance! Jesus said, “judge righteous judgment” ( John 7:24), and here’s a case where it had better be a fanatical righteous! I have a hunch human sanity would flood that room. And when everyone but the bomber had fled the scene and the whole house blows to smithereens, there’s hardly a question that everyone will be glad they exercised good judgment and nearly got trampled getting out of there!

Friends, Christian sanity dictates that we had better learn the fine art of being judgmental, because that is exactly what Judgment Day is all about! That’s where accounts will be settled as to whether or not we were obedient to Jesus’ command of, “judge righteous judgment.” We all know this by sheer instinct because every time we say such things as, “I misjudged him,” or “I made an error in judgment” we are admitting that without the error we would have “judged righteous judgment.”

The church has foolishly misconstrued Matt. 7:1,2 to say that Christians are not supposed to judge the behavior of others. It’s a typical case of ripping a passage out of its context to justify keeping our mouths shut at evil. Instead, what this passage teaches God’s people is to live a holy life before our holy God. Simply put, if you’re living like the Devil yourself, then stop running around accusing others of it. Verse 3 of Matt. 7 says exactly that. If our lives are laced with sinful behavior while we point a crooked finger of accusation at somebody else, then Jesus starkly characterizes us: He calls us hypocrites! (v.5). That’s the pure essence of verses one and two. The inferred truth here is that we should live holy lives before God so that no grounds of accusation exists. It should be said of God’s people in fair judicial proceedings that no fault is found in us. Paul could say, “Be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ” (I Cor 11:1), not that he was perfect, but that he willfully lived a life above reproach. In that capacity Paul ‑‑ and we ‑‑ are in a position qualifying us to exercise “righteous judgment.”

Passages in the New Testament where God’s people exercised judgment of others are so numerous it is monotony to dwell on them! Paul judged Peter’s behavior, (Gal. 2:11); he also judged Mark’s (Acts 15:38); Paul and Barnabas judged each other in a dispute (Acts 15:39); Paul judged the behavior of the Corinthians (I Cor 5). Peter came down on false doctrine; so did James; Peter, Paul, James, and John. In fact, every New Testament writer exercised judgmentalism upon each other, against erroneous doctrine, against troublemakers, against churches, and a lot more. It came natural with them in order to achieve righteous outcomes. Sometimes they were right, sometimes they were wrong, but judge they did because it was necessary.

In first Corinthians 5 and 6 Paul deals with a troublemaker in the Corinthian church. He called upon the church to exercise righteous judgment against this troublemaker,  to cast him out from among them, if you please! But what if they had assumed the role of some of today’s Christians? Hear the empty-headed excuse, “Oh, but who am I to judge? It’s not my place to judge him!” The result would have been a lowdown rascal, right there rubbing shoulders with them, who was sleeping with “His father’s wife!”

Paul says in chapter 6 verse 2 that the “Saints shall judge the world,” and so, his logic goes, “Are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?” Friends, Paul blatantly taught that upright Christians are actually to be judgmental against bad behavior. That is our job! This old business of letting evil alone to do it’s thing among us is bad ‑really bad! And until God’s people rise up out of our own unholy behavior and call sin, sin and take firm action against it, sin will be the leaven that finally permeates the whole batter, turning the church into a social club instead of a righteous billyclub with which God’s purpose can be achieved. That billyclub is the uncontaminated, uncompromising, all powerful, Devil driving, life changing, pristine Word of the living God!

Now let’s put all of this into perspective. A lot has been said by saint and sinner about a “holier than thou” attitude. In fact, God had to chide Israel for that very thing, as shown in Isaiah 65:2‑5. James warned the church about arrogance and favoritism, as seen in James 2:2‑4. Proverbs names “a proud look” as the list‑topper of what God hates (Proverbs 6:17). Paul wrote the Corinthians, “They measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (11 Cor. 10:12). The context of all of these is the subject of judging others. The thing we seem bent on missing, however, is the plethora of passages assigning judgment to the saints. We cited a few of them earlier.

Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5: 5). He also said, “be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16: 33). In view of such statements, He didn’t mince words about what he expected of his church in the world he had overcome: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you  alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matt. 28: 199 20).  But we should take special note of verse 18: “… all power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth.” There it is: The saints are commissioned to take the planet for Christ.

Are we so blind that we cannot see that the mission commanded of the church is to Christianize the whole planet? The begging question then is this: if the church should obey and accomplish that task, who would then be in authority on the earth? That is, who would be occupying seats of judgment? The saints, of course, under the headship of Christ!

But let’s be clear: the meek shall inherit the earth. The haughty and proud will not “judge righteous judgment” now or later. Jesus went out of his way to demonstrate humility. God’s very Son even washed dirty feet! He said we should sit at the lowest seat and allow the host to seat us where he would have us sit, according to his estimation of our importance. (Luke 14: 8‑11). And there was the story of the lowly widow’s two mites. Jesus said this humble servant cast in more than all the others (Luke 21: 2, 3). Yes, the meek shall wind up in charge under Christ’s headship.

So these are the rules if we would judge, but never let it be said that Christians should not be judgmental in matters of right and wrong. But we had better judge our own hearts to see if we have any beams in our own eyes that need casting out first. The question is therefore not should we judge others; rather, it is who among us is worthy to do it? Are you? Look at your own life, and then cast the first stone. You can be a judge of others if you meet the qualifications. Trouble is, if God’s people fail to live above reproach themselves, then who is going to collar the sin and error that paralyzes God’s intentions? If you do qualify but you hold your tongue from judging righteous judgment, then you are yourself a partner and propagator of the sins that run like septic in the streets! God’s judgment will not go well with you.
DA

No other subject in Christianity today sparks more controversy than this one.  Dealing with the facts of it is no way to win friends and influence people.  Today the subject is so explosive that pastors, counselors, teachers, and even families are afraid to approach it.  Police exercise great caution when dealing with domestic violence from it, and one could seek no better formula for splitting a church, a society, or even a nation. History proves that all have happened, some of them many times.

Be that as it may, the cold truth of it sits there on the pages of Holy Writ in words so clear they have to be simply ignored to get around them.  As such, its only option is to give birth to convenience.  Isn’t that just like fallen humanity?  If anything in Scripture fails to fit what our flesh craves, then, like a screaming baby in wet diapers, we squeal for anything convenient to comfort us.

So if you don’t want to hear this inconvenient truth, I suggest you stop here, but with this reminder: marriage predates all human history, starting with the creation of Adam and Eve.  It belongs to humanity itself, not just Christianity.  God laid down the indelible rules to govern them when he created the first male and female, with not one shred of evidence in Scripture that he changed the principles that govern them, except only one because of the sin factor.  The reason for today’s confusion in the matter is that those principles simply got buried in human convenience.

—  PART 1  —

Marriage between a man and a woman is infinitely more than a legal bond; it is a sacred bond in God’s sight, broken only by sin.  Before sin entered God’s creation, “marriage” as we call it, was an indissoluble fusion of a male and a female into what God termed “one flesh.”  It is vital to the subject that we understand the chronological sequence of this establishment of human existence on the earth.  The sequence is this: immediately after the orderly setting up of a place for humanity to exist, God created Adam, and then provided a crowning touch by forming Eve from Adam’s body to be his “help meet,” a soul mate and partner in the divine task of occupying the earth.  He fused them together into “one flesh” made of two complementary persons, perfectly equipped in spirit and body to fulfill God’s purpose for humanity’s very existence, “To fear God and to keep his commandments,” because “that is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).  What was that duty?  They were to “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion…” (Genesis 1:28).

So here in a single paragraph is the unvarnished essence of exactly why God sees the binding of a male and a female into “one flesh,” that is, the marriage bed, as being very sacred to his own person and plan. Please read with great care! This was, and yet is, what God expects of all humanity, none excluded, and to which all humanity will be held accountable in judgment.

God’s divine order assigned to all humanity in the first couple is very explicit. Read it again: Be fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue, and have dominion. Male and female were each fitted in soul and body to compliment one another into a oneness of flesh toward that task. It cannot be accomplished any other way. Little wonder that ancient Jewish women saw barrenness as a curse. Notice the logical flow: all of the domination must flow from replenishment, which must flow from multiplying, which follows the command of fruitfulness. Here then is the core truth of marriage:

One flesh multiplying itself toward becoming a multitude of God’s faithful subjects, continuing to multiply and glorifying the Divine Creator of life, toward eternal ends which humanity has yet to fully realize.

The marriage bed is therefore a sacred place in God’s sight.  I repeat, the marriage bed is a sacred place in God’s sight.  If we lose sight of that first truth of marriage, we have lost sight of what God says marriage is all about! A violation of that oneness of flesh is, to God, a very serious offense.  By his standard it is not so easily dissolved. In fact, as we will see later, God allows only one reason, and only one, as grounds to dissolve it.

In perfect Eden, there were no such things as unfaithfulness, sin, adultery, bad marriages, and divorce.  Only after sin entered did those imperfections come to bear on the sacred institution of marriage.  But it is vital to the study of it to settle in our minds that the sacred institution of marriage precedes the entrance of sin into humanity.  To miss that basic principle of marital truth is to wander in endless confusion in the subject.  To maintain that perspective brings order to the subject; without it is to splinter it into millions of opinions; one, in fact, for each and every situation.  One might use today’s familiar term to describe it, “situational ethic’s,” that is, “if it feels good, do it.”  To focus on its institution prior to sin throws the spotlight upon God’s simplicity of it; the focus after sin carries an endless baggage of utter confusion born of convenience.

This brings our focus to Jesus’ plain and simple statement of Matthew 19:8.  The Pharisees thought to trap Jesus in his words with the thorny subject of marriage and divorce.  Jesus brushed it aside by saying Moses allowed a writing of divorcement because of “the hardness of their hearts,” and then he blew away all their arguments with the simple phrase, “but from the beginning it was not so.”  The word “beginning” here can only refer to God’s original Edenic institution of marriage, which God called “one flesh.”

Then Jesus continued on the subject, and what he spoke then and there should end all speculations on the subject.  For the first time since Eden, God added to the subject of “one flesh” a principal truth to accommodate the sin factor.  The Lord is the champion of innocence.  What he said guards the innocent party in a marriage where willful sin is introduced.  We should read very, very carefully what he said here, and then carry that principal truth close to our bosoms as we study the subject of marriage and divorce. He said:

“And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery” (Matthew 19:9).

Think carefully: Jesus would not have said those words to Adam and Eve before they sinned, and yet they were indeed married into “one flesh.”  Yet here he does say them, but with one added phrase to make saying it meaningful to depraved humanity, “except it be for fornication.”  That short verse containing that short phrase is filled with bewildering complexity unless one centers on the principal truth and all the truth it infers.  (We should observe that Scripture’s inferred truth is equally valid in inspiration.  For example, when Jesus invited Peter to come to him walking on the water, the inference is that Peter could have indeed walked all the way to Jesus on the water, or else Jesus would not have asked why he doubted (Matt. 14:25-31).  To think otherwise is to accuse the Lord of an insincere invitation).

In order to see the inferred truths of Matthew 19:9 quoted above, let us give inferred proposals of the verse in two ways.  Keep in mind that the results of the divorce are what immediately follow it, because as time passes after it, many complications can take place to change the original results.  These proposed inferred truths are the results before the complications (such as remarriage) takes place.

Also, bear in mind that Jesus is teaching a principal for all time, which includes the universal freedom inherent in his Gospel across the lines of both sexes.  So in this verse he addresses the male’s side, but the inference introduced by his Gospel includes females.  The truth of it applies even if we switch the male and female roles in Jesus’ principal.  For instance, instead of “put away his wife” it is equally true to say “put away her husband,” and so on through the verse.

In our first proposal, the wife has indeed committed fornication.  Follow the inferred truth through the proposed verse:

“Whoever shall divorce his wife who has indeed committed fornication against him, and remarries, does not commit adultery.  And whoever marries his divorced wife does not commit adultery because God recognized the divorce from her first Husband because she committed fornication against him.”

Now look at the inferred complications: the Lord only gives the offended husband permission to remarry.  He might opt to stay single.  Thus the possibility is there, if he is of a mind, to later remarry the same wife whom he divorced.  But what if she is now divorced again so as to leave her second husband to remarry her first one?  Such complications seem endless, and that is only a minor one. To unravel such a problem, keep your eye on the only exception Jesus gave. For brevity’s sake we will not do that here.

Our second proposal is based on the wife being innocent of the sin of fornication:

“Whoever shall divorce his wife who has not committed fornication against him and remarries, is himself guilty of committing fornication against her.  And whoever marries his divorced wife is not guilty of committing adultery with her because God recognized the divorce the instant her first husband remarried and fornicated against his innocent wife.”

But look at the inferred complications: until her divorced husband remarries, or otherwise defiles their marriage bed, God does not recognize the divorce, even if the civil law does.  If she remarries before her first husband defiles the bed, God will not recognize her remarriage, but rather sees it as fornication against her real husband, thus legalizing their divorce in God’s sight.  On the other hand, as soon as her first husband remarries, her remarriage becomes acceptable, but she must genuinely seek God’s forgiveness for remarrying before her first husband remarried. If she doesn’t, it remains unforgiven sin, even though she is legitimately remarried. Again we can see how the ongoing complexity seems endless.

The one thing on which to focus as the key to sorting out right and wrong in any given circumstance, is the one principal truth that there is only one exception by which God will recognize a divorce and remarriage: fornication. It always comes down to that.

These indelible truths, then, present a timeless, immoveable base to which all arguments must be firmly attached, or else they will eventually utterly destroy the very foundation of marriage.  That immovable base is simply God’s holiness, that is, an act that violates God’s pristine character.  If any of our arguments are not firmly nailed to that source, they will be flawed at the root.  Always, the question must be, does it violate God’s immutable holiness?  Will God be pleased, regardless of how the husband or wife feels about it?  If both parties dedicate themselves to honor God in their troubled marriage, things can be worked out.  If not, they can’t.  It is just that simple. It all comes down to God’s view of that marriage bed. Unless the marriage bed has been defiled, according to Jesus’ precise words, there are no grounds for divorce no matter what anyone thinks, or what any man-made law might dictate.  God’s sacred, personal holiness will not be violated without bitter consequence. If we are to realize true perspective regarding marriage and divorce, it behooves all humanity to understand who God is in his person and character.  The ignorance or violation of that timeless truth about God is the true culprit in the runaway divorce rate among Christians.

An in-depth study of God’s holiness, his chief attribute toward humanity, would fill a large volume. Such a study would not find room in this article. We will only mention that God’s mandate of Genesis was vitally tied to his integrity of purpose in creating humanity. God’s divine integrity is itself his character of utter purity, that is, his holiness. To violate what he deems sacred to his purpose in humanity is a personal affront to his revealed character. Insulting God is no way to win his favor, the only road to happiness.

Here, then, is the best approach to gaining insight into God’s mind concerning marriage.

The generations of humanity have passed through many unique complications because of the complexity of depravity, leaving church leaders, politicians and counselors of every sort, searching Scripture for direct application.  But society’s rules and laws change drastically, and so we must seek for principles of truth, which were underlying the direct application, and then apply those principles to our own unique situation today.  Those principles are perpetual through all time and are divine principles that always apply.

Again, the first principle of truth toward any solution to solving any problem issuing from human depravity is always, first and foremost, God’s divine attribute of absolute holiness. That is, his integral being, focused upon his purpose in creation.

If it crosses swords with God’s character of utter purity, it is no solution worth considering.  It behooves us all to be true to God’s revealed mind on the matter, not one’s own mind, not that of a friend, a counselor, a pastor, or any other, but God’s mind, as he has clearly revealed in Scripture. Look at it this way: Since God’s holiness is the purity of his very person, it is a divine, irrevocable, eternal standard, an immutable law for all time and eternity, both spiritually and naturally.  That law is what makes the whole of existence itself a reality. God always operates toward humanity in that framework, and the better we understand that and adhere to it, the happier we will be as humans.  Therefore, look again at the core truth of the divine purpose in marriage. Tampering with God’s divine multiplier the “one flesh” factor, the marriage bed, is to tamper with his integral purpose of humanity’s existence in the first place”

One flesh multiplying itself toward becoming a multitude of God’s faithful subjects, continuing to multiply and glorifying the Divine Creator of life, toward eternal ends which humanity has yet to fully realize.

—   PART 2   —

Now in regard to fornication being the only grounds God recognizes as justification for divorce, since nothing is hidden from God, it suddenly becomes vital to the grounds that whoever opts for divorce must also know what God knows about it. Strong suspicion is not enough.  Look at it this way: the stakes here are eternal salvation.  If the grounds for filing for a divorce are not proven beyond doubt, the divorce might not be valid in God’s sight, and so whoever remarries on the strength of it is guilty of adultery and could die in sin.  Given the right circumstances, until death it could be said that they are dead while they live. Sadly, many people, Christians included, stand guilty before God today, and are dead while they think they live.  They might even be happier with their new wife or husband, but in God’s mind he might see them as yet “one flesh” with a previous mate.

So it is with God in declaring a husband and wife to be “one flesh.”  It is wrapped up in his divine purpose of creating humanity.  His mind in that matter is resolved and has been “from the beginning,” as Jesus put it in Matthew 19:8.  That one and only reason for divorce in verse nine is God’s mind and indelibly stated for all humanity, saved or lost, and so is a divine principle through all time in which all judgments in the matter must be attached in order to have any worth.  Regardless of all the complexities the human tragedy presents, when we string that principle of truth through it, other truths assemble themselves into a meaningful pattern, which respect God’s mind in the matter.

Some will surely bring Romans 7:1-3 to bear on the subject to prove that the Christian wife can never remarry until her husband dies, regardless of how he treated her.  But look more carefully at this passage. Notice the parenthetical statement, “for I speak to them that know the Law.”  Note this in conjunction with Paul’s subject: he is speaking to these Roman Jews concerning their deliverance from the Law to the Gospel of Christ. Chapter 6, verses 28-33, describes their deliverance.  Then he illustrates what has happened to them in this transition.  The “Law” referenced in 7:1 is the Mosaic Law.  Paul is saying with great clarity that the symbolic “husband” of verse two is the “Law” of verse one, and the wife of the same verse is the Christian who has been set free from bondage to her husband, the “Law” of Moses, and now lives free in Christ.

Looking more closely,  Paul was a former Pharisee, and a very successful one.  No one knew the “Law” better than himself.  We see then that Paul assumes a position exactly like the Pharisees of Matthew 19:3, 7, but makes the transition in his illustration to the Gospel in the Christ of 19:9.  We are forced to consider Jesus’ words of 19:8, and adopt instead his stated exception of 19:9.  In the Gospel, then, the wife is not bound to her husband until he dies.  It depends on how he treated her. We can truly say of this, “freedom is not free,” simply because we have to make moral decisions, and sometimes this is very costly.  All of this is compacted into Jesus’ amazing statement of 19:9.  He cut away all the slackness the Jewish priesthood had added to favor the man, but at the same time provided one exception to guard the victim of unfairness.  That one exception is all there is.  That is God’s mind in the matter, and, according to Scripture, he has not changed it.

FIRST CORINTHIANS 7. Many Gospel truths crowd this chapter, but we will cover only what is relative to our topic of separation and divorce.  It is vital to the study that we grasp the setting and times of its writing; otherwise, interpretation of it can lead to legalism.  This is always a challenging subject in any age of humanity for the simple reason of changing societies, cultures, knowledge, traditions, and more.  A great many things can be brought to bear on it, causing much confusion as to what is right or wrong in the matter.

Such is what Paul faced when he wrote to the Corinthians.  That city was steeped in great sexual depravity, with many gods of sex, and temples dedicated to it.  Society had been born and raised in it, practiced it, and worshiped its pagan gods.  And so it was throughout the Roman Empire, but especially in the Macedonian area.  It was literally who they were, but their lives radically changed when the Lord entered.  Suddenly they were faced with great changes, all marking them as peculiar among their neighbors.  Paul, then, was breaking new ground, as we can easily see by such verses as 6, 10, 12, 17, 25, and 26.  Verses 26 and 29 are noteworthy: persecution of Christians was either happening or imminent, but Paul and the other apostles also believed the coming of the Lord was near.

Such were the times and issues behind Paul’s every word.  But one other vital point must not be overlooked: there were only Pentecostal churches in existence at this early date.  Later in the same letter Paul would be writing about this in chapters 12, 13, and 14.  It was crucial that the Holy Spirit dwelt among them in Pentecostal fashion to exercise his gifts if they were to endure these times of molten persecution.  The 13th chapter describes the catalyst that was to bind them together into Pentecostal oneness, namely, agape love.  Paul’s only aim here in chapters 1 through 11 was sharpened to preserve the bond of love among them so that God’s Holy Spirit could live and work in them to direct his churches.  That, friends, is an enduring principle of truth, transcending all the ages of the Church.  Of all the areas of life, marriage is one of Satan’s favorite targets for the destruction of the local church.  Why?  Simply because of all areas of church life, marriage, the Christian home, is where agape love (that is, the sacrificing of oneself to benefit our mates and children), is an absolute must, or else unhappiness will make the union virtually unbearable.  If we set chapter 7 squarely on that foundation, we will not have near the struggle to understand it.

The very first principle we must bear in mind is the principal Paul considered as he wrote.  You see, Paul’s ministry was downstream in time since Jesus spoke specifically about the subject of divorce (Matthew 19:1-9).  No matter what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, we can be perfectly assured that Jesus’ words would have been his guiding principle and assumption.  Verse 39, for instance, must be read with Matthew 19:9 in mind, together with Jesus’ stated exceptions.  Paul believed, according to verse 40, that he had the mind of God’s Spirit in his opinions concerning marriage, separation, and divorce, but we must remember with care that the mind in Paul was filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus when he spoke Matthew 19:9.

Our subject of separation and divorce begins at verses 10 and 11.  Paul does not speculate here, but he says this is what the Lord himself commands (verse 10).  Be careful: These two verses are dealing with Christian couples.  If the husband of verse 11 had been an unbeliever, Paul would not have admonished him to not divorce her.  He covers the situation of mixed marriages later in verse 15, not here.  Therefore, Paul is telling Christian couples that it isn’t God’s will that they separate, but if they do because their unhappiness cannot be reconciled, then they are not to remarry, either of them!  But again, we must consider Jesus’ exception of Matthew 19:9, because If either of the separated couple commits adultery against their separated spouse, the innocent spouse then has a Scriptural right to a divorce, according to Matthew 19:9.  If a separated spouse should decide to remarry, they would first have to divorce their separated spouse without cause, in which case such a marriage is not recognized by God, and the sexual encounter from such a “marriage” is then, in Jesus’ words, “adultery” or “fornication” against their innocent spouse.  Such adultery then falls back on the head of the adulterous spouse, and is now grounds for the innocent spouse to remarry.  Guilt, innocence, and license works both ways, depending on which one commits adultery, and which one is innocent.  Again, Paul’s grand point in all of this is peace, harmony, and agape love in the church body, with a view to releasing the Spirit of God to freely work his will among them.

Beginning with verse 12, Paul now addresses yet another aspect of separation and divorce, that is, mixed marriages.  This is what “the rest” means in verse 12.  But note very carefully the grounds from which he directs his remarks: “…speak I, not the Lord.”  That remark should be coupled with verse 40, “… I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”  We should realize that what Paul said in verses 10 and 11 was an imposed rule regardless of circumstances; while these “speak I” verses are Paul’s own spirit-inspired wisdom for “the present distress,” verse 26.  I suppose we could say this passage is Paul’s “situational ethics” on the topic of mixed marriage.

As already mentioned, at that time sexual freedom of every sort was ordinary and worshiped through gods of sex.  Now Paul must deal with these new believers who had many and difficult questions requiring guidance and a code of ethics in many matters, including marriage, child rearing, the operation of the gifts of the Spirit, and many more.

One of the first trouble spots was the problem of unbalanced homes, where only one spouse surrendered their life to the Lord.  Paul was in the uncomfortable position of establishing ethical rules for their unique problems during times when laws, threats, and opportunities were imposed upon the Christians, so that their coming together for worship and fellowship did not hinder the work of the Comforter among them.  His work was uniquely important to their divine purpose, and still is today.  We can therefore rest assured that whatever rules Paul imposed on “all the churches” (verse 17), none of them superseded the creative principle of Genesis 1:28, and reiterated by Jesus in Matthew 19:9.

Verses 12 and 13 deals with a peaceful but unbalanced marriage.  Paul says just because their spouse is an unbeliever, it is not a valid reason to end the marriage, and that an unbalanced marriage is still a marriage in God’s sight (v. 14).  The unbeliever comes under the umbrella of God’s will, and the children from it are considered by him to be from a union above reproach.

But the rub comes in verse 15.  There are questions by many as to what is meant by “Not under bondage.”  Some believe it means the marriage bond is broken, and the Christian is then free to remarry.  The temptation to think that way is quite natural; those whose unbelieving spouse departed will find it most convenient to agree with those who say they now have a Scriptural right to remarry.  But do they?  No, the Scriptures do not support that view.  The overriding principle truth running through all of these verses is expressed by Jesus in Matthew 19:9.  Whether or not the Christian spouse is released from the marriage depends on whether the unbeliever was guilty or not of fornicating before or after they left.

Furthermore, It is a mistake to consider Paul’s words “not under bondage” to mean an additional exception besides fornication as Scriptural grounds for divorce, because this is under Paul’s heading of “speak I, not the Lord” (verse 12).  Rather, Paul, in keeping with Jesus’ exception, would be compelled to assume the rule of verse 11 where divorce is the subject.  Paul’s inferred truth in verses 12 through 16 is that a mixed marriage in itself is not a good enough reason to divorce one’s unbelieving mate.  He means if the unbeliever refuses to live with a believer, the believer should not make a spectacle of it in the church and community, but rather to let them go in “peace” (verse 15), meaning that the peace of Christian fellowship and love should not be disturbed, giving room for God’s Spirit to work freely among them.  The “peace” of such an atmosphere could even lead to the salvation of the unbelieving spouse (verse 16). In most cases, however, the unbelieving spouse will immediately plunge into another sexual relationship, which is a Scriptural ground for the believing spouse to be released from the marriage bond.

It is important to also mention that there are some who use verses 17, 20, and 24 to believe the “one flesh” marriage bond existing before salvation is effectively dissolved at the point of salvation. That is, no matter what tangled marriage webs a couple bring into their salvation, they are to simply forget the former marital status and go forward in their current status. But this is not necessarily the “fix-all” some would have it to be. In the first place, the verses cited are not about dissolving a previous marital status, but about preserving the former work of God. This is the meaning of “as God hath distributed” of verse 17, and of “abide with God” of verse 24. Paul is saying the work of God that brought salvation is no excuse in itself to undo God’s sacred work of the past. That is the meaning in verse 18. Again, according to Genesis 1:28 marriage is truly “made in Heaven.” “One flesh” was not just for Judaism and Christianity, nor any other religion or no religion, but for all of humanity! The plain and natural truth of it is being acted out as we write in a world of males and females dancing the mating instinct.

Think carefully about this. Jesus told the Samarian woman at the well (a sect hated by the Jews), that her current mate was not her husband because she had had five husbands! The inferred truth would have to be that her real husband yet lived, and in God’s sight she was still married to him, not the man she was sleeping with. The point, you see, is that God’s attention was fixed on the ‘one flesh” factor, not any civil law allowing her to live with another man (John 4:15-18).

Tangled and difficult though it may seem, God expects repentant sinners who give their lives to him, to diligently seek his will toward readjusting their lives to please him. But this is not as complex as we may think, because in most cases the unsaved life is filled with relationships that, in themselves, dissolves the “one flesh” factor. In such cases perhaps it is perfectly in order for a newly saved couple to go through a re-enactment of the marriage ceremony before a minister of the Gospel, thereby dedicating themselves that way to God. But again, God’s will should be carefully sought beforehand so as to be certain that the mating is within God’s will of “one flesh.”

We should be reminded that God is not the hardened taskmaster many think him to be. He gets no pleasure in laying grievous yokes upon us, but is full of intentions toward our pleasure and happiness. It is never a waste of time to diligently seek his will in all things for our lives, including marriage. But that is just the point:  We must seek God’s will, not a so-called divine will carefully crafted to suit our own.

—  PART 3  —

SEPARATION. First Corinthians 7:10, 11 speaks of Christian marriage as commanded by the Lord.  Verse 11 says, “but if she depart…” Obviously the meaning is that under some conditions it is permissible for her to “depart,” in effect separate, so long as she “remains unmarried.”  She has two choices then: “remain unmarried,” or, “be reconciled to her husband.”  Meanwhile, the Christian husband also has strict orders: he is forbidden to “put away his wife,” Scriptural language for “divorce.”  With that we should be reminded that what is true of the male is also true of the female. Paul could just as easily have began, “Let not the husband depart from his wife,” and so on through both verses.

It seems today when the subject of marriage and divorce is discussed, separation itself gets ignored.  It shouldn’t, because it figures heavily into the depraved human condition, including imperfect Christians.  There is no such thing yet as perfect Christians, since our corrupted flesh must yet put on incorruption (I Corinth. 15:50-54).  But it should never be assumed that separation means a divorce, although it can certainly contribute to it.  Nor should separation be seen as a sin, but only as an arrangement of convenience within marriage.  In fact, many reasons may exist for such an arrangement; one being incompatibility, but other reasons can be health, employment, children, and the care of parents or offspring. Other Scriptures might be cited to support this, but we need not travel beyond the seventh chapter of 1st Corinthians.

“Incompatibility” is certainly a possibility in all too many marriages.  Really now, doesn’t It seem silly to say a man and a woman who couldn’t get along during courtship ever chose marriage in the first place?  But after all, the dance of courtship is always the art of showing one’s best side to impress a prospective mate. That’s why the one word that most characterizes that first week of every marriage is, “Surprise!”  No, people marry because they truly believe Mister/Miss Perfect will make them happy.  It can easily be said of this that incompatibility arrives on the scene after marriage.  It may be that skeletons in personal closets come rattling out after the honeymoon, in which case “for better or worse” go rattling into them instead.  In virtually every case of incompatibility, it arises because one or both partners develop rigormortis of the spine and flat refuse to make the needed changes for the sake of the marriage.  Both parties may indeed love God, yet one or both might not find it in themselves to change for the sake of the marriage.  The outcome will quite naturally be a stormy Christian home, one, in fact, where one or both are distracted from their personal Christianity.

The essence of what Paul is telling the Corinthians is that such a stormy marriage might fit the need for a separation for their souls’ sake, especially that of the children, but only for the Lord’s sake, so that they might give themselves to him.  It may be that later they can have a better mind on the matter and be reconciled into a peaceful union and serve God together.  At any rate it must be understood that neither should seek a divorce.  If they do, fornication might enter the picture, giving the innocent party the spiritual right to a divorce, thus ending the marriage. Sadly, the children are the big losers in that case, besides the precedence set to trouble coming generations of the family.

With this observation, let us be reminded again of Paul’s whole purpose in writing these things: it was to bring a peaceful, loving atmosphere to the Corinthian church so that God’s Holy Spirit, “the Comforter” might operate his Divine will among them toward evangelizing planet Earth with “The whole Gospel for the whole world.”

While verses 10 and 11 were for Christian couples, verses 12 through 16 are for mixed marriages.  But as seen previously, the subject of divorce is not the main topic.  Rather, it is separation.  Verse 12 rules out divorce (“put her away”).  We have previously noted that verse 15 does not mean divorce, (“not under bondage”), but rather, not under an obligation to create unrest in the church by resisting a separation. No, they were to, shall we say, “hold them with an open palm,” to do as they please. Why?  Because God has not called us to unrest and friction among us, “but God hath called us to peace.”  Perhaps, Paul adds, the loving treatment will save the departing unsaved husband or wife (verse 16).

No, separation is not God’s best for us, but it can be a way to bring some peace.  In some cases, the imbalance in a marriage can be due to one party’s refusal to serve God, and whose attitude is such as to jeopardize the soul of their mate before God.  Such a condition can be severe enough to merit a separation for one’s own soul’s sake.  It can never be God’s will that we lose our souls for the sake of the marriage.  But such a reason is cause for careful soul searching to make certain we’re not using it dishonestly to justify a separation, possibly a divorce.

PHYSICAL ABUSE. Certainly the battered spouse should be protected, and should certainly leave such a condition.  One might even rightly seek a legal bill of divorce from a civil court for protection.  Nevertheless, be very careful here if fornication is not a factor, God will not recognize such a divorce, even though his mercy will allow a separation.  God is not a tyrant, but is the very source of mercy, compassion, understanding, and protection.  As complicated as it may seem, however, without fornication in the picture, the sacred marriage bond between a man and a woman, once made, can never be broken.  It supersedes depravity because it was a creative act of divine holiness upon the very institution of humanity itself before man’s birth of depravity.  It is who we are.  Nobody can change it simply because the creature cannot undo what our Creator did by fiat.  It is eternally distant from us.  Without sin, there wasn’t even the possibility of breaking it.  With sin, there can be only one reason for it: fornication.

ABANDONMENT. Civil law has many provisions to divorce the guilty party, but God’s law gives only two: death and fornication.  This makes it a problem for Christians who care what God says about it.  But abandonment does not necessarily mean such an offending spouse completely disappears.  In most cases information can be acquired concerning the status of the missing spouse, whether they are dead or remarried.  In some cases, however, they might disappear without a trace and cannot be found.  This, of course, can be a serious problem for the abandoned spouse, even one in which there seems to be no solution.  Only God knows the solution, so in this case it is perfectly in order to go straight to him and present our dilemma, and then wait for an answer.  Of course, the civil courts will grant a divorce, freeing the abandoned spouse to remarry, but conscientious Christians must be careful to seek God’s will in the matter.

Finally, in regard to all the difficulties divorce and separation bring to us, it behooves us to bear in mind that, contrary to some Christian teachings, God did not foreordain the nightmarish bowl of spaghetti known as separation and divorce.  No, we brought it down on ourselves!  It isn’t God’s fault that marriage can turn into a nightmare; it is ours.  He never intended any married couple of “one flesh” to peel off and go their separate ways.  He even went the second mile to prevent it by having his New Testament scribes to record his mind of how each spouse should treat their mate, as well as their offspring (Eph. 5:21-36; 6:1-4).  No, we brought these nightmares down on ourselves through our own devices, and it is only by falling at his feet in humble repentance that we will find workable solutions.

We say that with this last warning: Young people can save themselves from life’s most painful hurts if they simply look before leaping into marriage.  It is of vital importance that they first be filled with an avid pursuit of God for fulfillment of his will in themselves (instead of a rabid pursuit of a wife or husband), and so allow God himself to send a mate of his choice, and in his own good time.  After all, it seems safe to say that virtually every mate in a broken marriage will agree that it would be better to never marry than to marry the wrong mate. You must have a life of your own in God before God can send you a soulmate to complement what he has already started in you.  If we miss that in our reckless courtships, then get ready to reap what is sown, for God’s law of sowing and reaping works every time!  Meanwhile, it is a true saying, “Oh what tangled webs we weave!”

DA