Marriage (as He defines it) is Dear to the Heart of God
Lloyd Gardner
June 11, 2015
Apparently the Supreme Court of the United States is poised to issue this month a decision on the Constitutionality of same-sex marriage. When one reads the purposeless ramblings of the justices, it becomes increasingly clear that they will rule in favor of same-sex marriage. This is true because the country through secular-liberal leaders has moved away from recognition of God and toward humanism, the world view that sees man as the center of the universe. This is accompanied by the rejection of the Bible as a source of truth and the embracing of moral relativism. There is no longer an ultimate standard of right and wrong but morality is based upon we think is right in our own eyes.
Civilizations have made this mistake before and those civilizations no longer exist. The move away from traditional marriage is simply evidence that the United States and western societies have rejected God and all that He stands for. It does not take a prophet to declare that this decision is the straw that will break the back of the once greatest country in the history of the world. One can already smell the smoke of the demise of America.
But Genuine Christianity is the expression of a kingdom within a kingdom and, in this kingdom in which Christ is King, marriage reflects the nature of God. God instituted marriage from the beginning in the Garden of Eden. It reflects who He is and what He wants us to be. He brought Adam his wife and there performed the first wedding ceremony (Gen. 2:22-24). Of course secularized America refuses to accept the Bible any longer so this story has no meaning to them.
Jesus, on the other hand, endorsed the story. At one point He referred to this passage from Genesis saying, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?” (Matt. 19:4, 5). So, if we reject marriage as God designed it we must reject Jesus and the words He uttered on this subject. And, of course, if His words on marriage are not valid that means that He is not who He said He was. Therefore the Bible is nonsense and Christianity is a lie. That’s where this moral relativism is taking us unless there is an unexpected miracle.
To many people that may seem like an oversimplification, but to the people in the same-sex marriage camp it strikes a resounding cord because they recognized the domino effect of their agenda years ago. They knew that if they could break down the barriers about homosexuality, and gender identification they would then press for same-sex marriage based on a non-existent Constitutional right. Once that is granted they would be able to use the assumed Constitutional right to begin the dismantling of Christianity in America. Gay rights people will adamantly deny this but to those with a watchful eye it is not difficult to see where they are headed.
Satan is very crafty. He began an assault on marriage, children and families years ago and has successfully dismantled the family structure in much of America. From that dysfunction gender confusion has permeated society. He then used political correctness of the secular-liberal way of thinking to spread the unproven concept that this gender confusion is normal and even genetic. A person is born that way and so we are dealing with an immutable condition much the same as race. Of course this moved the argument into the civil rights arena where it is winning the day even though no biological evidence of a genetic connection has been found.
The mistake they make is their failure to realize that Christianity is not an organization of men that gets its power from its tax exempt status and the First Amendment. That is the organized, human-regulated form of Christianity. Genuine Christianity is a heavenly organism infused with the life of God. It is people who have given their lives to Christ and live by His life and power. You can frustrate organizations and the schemes of men but you cannot kill the life of God growing in real people. The truth is the First Amendment was inspired by Christianity, not the other way around. Tax exemption was merely the country’s way of honoring it. True Christianity is not a political or religious phenomenon but a spiritual phenomenon by which God has penetrated society with His redeeming life.
Just ask China about its seventy-five year attempt to eradicate Christianity from its society. Yes, they have eradicated the external evidence of much of it but genuine Christianity in China has grown from a very small number to over 163 million. China has more Christians than the United States and this number represents only 12% of the population of the country. When Mao Zedong took control of China in 1949 he began an organized effort to eradicate Christianity. True Christianity, as a spiritual organism infused with the life of God, simply went underground where a secret explosion of life took place.
Real Christianity was birthed in the midst of the brutal Roman Empire and incubated in its underground catacombs. The Empire of Rome in the time of Christ makes Isis look like a junior varsity team. But this great empire could not snuff out a motley crew of twelve men touched by God Himself. The twelve men grew into several thousand within a few days and exploded across the known world in just one generation. Why? Because it is the living expression of God in people changed by a new birth and living a new life in God. A mere religion would have been squashed like a bug in a few weeks. Without lifting a finger or wielding a sword Christianity eventually defeated the great Roman empire.
So, Christians should not be too dismayed at the direction the country is about to move. Yes, it will mean the eventual downfall of our great nation, but same-sex marriage may well be the issue that drives many nominal Christians back to God. It may be the wedge that the enemy uses in a misdirected country to try to divide and conquer the hated Christians who call them to God. They will use it to beat us down but their attempts will only fuel the revival of a sleeping giant of faithful followers of Christ.
Just as Christ is not negotiable, marriage is not a negotiable issue with followers of Christ. Nine men and women in black can cast their votes but it is the vote of God that makes the difference. The followers of Christ know that God chose a bride for His Son before the foundation of the world and that all of earth’s history has been to bring forth that bride. The Bible begins at a wedding, Jesus began His ministry at a wedding in Cana, and all of human history will be brought to a conclusion when Christ comes forth with His bride in the last days (John 2:1-11; Rev. 19:7-16). The honeymoon will last a thousand years. The last thing that the marriage despisers will see is heaven opened and Christ coming forth with His chosen bride. On that soon coming day His bride will be wearing combat boots as she comes forth as a warring remnant to defeat Satan and his followers (Rev. 19:17-21).
Marriage is the basic living cell of human society and of the church Christ is building. It is the means God uses to express the nature of His love. It is the means by which children are taught and trained in righteousness. It is through marriage that righteous morality is learned and passed on to the generations. Marriage stabilizes society by giving children stability that they pass on to their children in their marriage. Married couples and families form the nucleus of church life. The family is a mini-church where all of the principles of ekklesia are practiced and accomplished. When the family breaks up, churches begin to crumble because the building blocks are missing. Husbands and wives reflect the love of God on earth and pass it on to their children who pass it on to theirs. This love grows and produces an environment of forgiveness and healing. Marriage is God’s plan for humanity.
Same-sex marriage is none of this. It robs children of the soul development that comes from a father or a mother. God created them male and female and put within the genders what is morally needed in the next generation. Two men or two women can raise a child but they cannot give to it what the other gender can give. Same-sex proponents, of course, dispute this but eventually they will be proven wrong. When the effects of same-sex marriage begin to be recognized in the future this will become apparent. But then it will be too late because our society will have collapsed.
The strategy of the enemy has been aimed at marriage in general. He and his secular-liberal army have blasted away at marriage because they know how crucial it is to the plan of God. Satan feels that if he can destroy marriage he can destroy a generation of young people. With abortion he has literally and physically destroyed a couple of generations. With same-sex marriage He may destroy emotionally another generation or more if the end of days is delayed.
If you doubt this, look at what the lack of fathers has done to the children in the inner cities of our country. Our major cities are moral cesspools with growing violence, disrespect for authority, racial hostility, unwed and unloved mothers and much more because a generation has been raised without fathers. The secularists argued that a woman can raise a child by herself. Why does she need a husband, the father of her child? That experiment is being played out on the streets of every major city in America and it is not a pretty scene. Children need both mother and father to develop properly.
In some ways the organized church shares much of the blame. Roman Catholicism has become a haven for pedophilia. Well-known pastors have fallen into sexual sin. We are like the world in our divorce rate and growing disrespect for marriage and its value. The world looks on and scowls at our hypocrisy and uses it to avoid coming to Christ.
But genuine Christianity will not accept this nonsense. It is fueled by the revelation that a God of love has revealed Himself in marriage and will continue to bless marriage when it is honored. As with all civilizations of the past, despising the blessing of marriage will doom our culture to failure. Secularists will deny this until they see the sky split with the glory of Christ coming with His glorious bride. Until that day arrives let genuine Christians come quickly to their posts in preparation for the looming battle.
Lloyd Gardner
June 11, 2015
Apparently the Supreme Court of the United States is poised to issue this month a decision on the Constitutionality of same-sex marriage. When one reads the purposeless ramblings of the justices, it becomes increasingly clear that they will rule in favor of same-sex marriage. This is true because the country through secular-liberal leaders has moved away from recognition of God and toward humanism, the world view that sees man as the center of the universe. This is accompanied by the rejection of the Bible as a source of truth and the embracing of moral relativism. There is no longer an ultimate standard of right and wrong but morality is based upon we think is right in our own eyes.
Civilizations have made this mistake before and those civilizations no longer exist. The move away from traditional marriage is simply evidence that the United States and western societies have rejected God and all that He stands for. It does not take a prophet to declare that this decision is the straw that will break the back of the once greatest country in the history of the world. One can already smell the smoke of the demise of America.
But Genuine Christianity is the expression of a kingdom within a kingdom and, in this kingdom in which Christ is King, marriage reflects the nature of God. God instituted marriage from the beginning in the Garden of Eden. It reflects who He is and what He wants us to be. He brought Adam his wife and there performed the first wedding ceremony (Gen. 2:22-24). Of course secularized America refuses to accept the Bible any longer so this story has no meaning to them.
Jesus, on the other hand, endorsed the story. At one point He referred to this passage from Genesis saying, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?” (Matt. 19:4, 5). So, if we reject marriage as God designed it we must reject Jesus and the words He uttered on this subject. And, of course, if His words on marriage are not valid that means that He is not who He said He was. Therefore the Bible is nonsense and Christianity is a lie. That’s where this moral relativism is taking us unless there is an unexpected miracle.
To many people that may seem like an oversimplification, but to the people in the same-sex marriage camp it strikes a resounding cord because they recognized the domino effect of their agenda years ago. They knew that if they could break down the barriers about homosexuality, and gender identification they would then press for same-sex marriage based on a non-existent Constitutional right. Once that is granted they would be able to use the assumed Constitutional right to begin the dismantling of Christianity in America. Gay rights people will adamantly deny this but to those with a watchful eye it is not difficult to see where they are headed.
Satan is very crafty. He began an assault on marriage, children and families years ago and has successfully dismantled the family structure in much of America. From that dysfunction gender confusion has permeated society. He then used political correctness of the secular-liberal way of thinking to spread the unproven concept that this gender confusion is normal and even genetic. A person is born that way and so we are dealing with an immutable condition much the same as race. Of course this moved the argument into the civil rights arena where it is winning the day even though no biological evidence of a genetic connection has been found.
The mistake they make is their failure to realize that Christianity is not an organization of men that gets its power from its tax exempt status and the First Amendment. That is the organized, human-regulated form of Christianity. Genuine Christianity is a heavenly organism infused with the life of God. It is people who have given their lives to Christ and live by His life and power. You can frustrate organizations and the schemes of men but you cannot kill the life of God growing in real people. The truth is the First Amendment was inspired by Christianity, not the other way around. Tax exemption was merely the country’s way of honoring it. True Christianity is not a political or religious phenomenon but a spiritual phenomenon by which God has penetrated society with His redeeming life.
Just ask China about its seventy-five year attempt to eradicate Christianity from its society. Yes, they have eradicated the external evidence of much of it but genuine Christianity in China has grown from a very small number to over 163 million. China has more Christians than the United States and this number represents only 12% of the population of the country. When Mao Zedong took control of China in 1949 he began an organized effort to eradicate Christianity. True Christianity, as a spiritual organism infused with the life of God, simply went underground where a secret explosion of life took place.
Real Christianity was birthed in the midst of the brutal Roman Empire and incubated in its underground catacombs. The Empire of Rome in the time of Christ makes Isis look like a junior varsity team. But this great empire could not snuff out a motley crew of twelve men touched by God Himself. The twelve men grew into several thousand within a few days and exploded across the known world in just one generation. Why? Because it is the living expression of God in people changed by a new birth and living a new life in God. A mere religion would have been squashed like a bug in a few weeks. Without lifting a finger or wielding a sword Christianity eventually defeated the great Roman empire.
So, Christians should not be too dismayed at the direction the country is about to move. Yes, it will mean the eventual downfall of our great nation, but same-sex marriage may well be the issue that drives many nominal Christians back to God. It may be the wedge that the enemy uses in a misdirected country to try to divide and conquer the hated Christians who call them to God. They will use it to beat us down but their attempts will only fuel the revival of a sleeping giant of faithful followers of Christ.
Just as Christ is not negotiable, marriage is not a negotiable issue with followers of Christ. Nine men and women in black can cast their votes but it is the vote of God that makes the difference. The followers of Christ know that God chose a bride for His Son before the foundation of the world and that all of earth’s history has been to bring forth that bride. The Bible begins at a wedding, Jesus began His ministry at a wedding in Cana, and all of human history will be brought to a conclusion when Christ comes forth with His bride in the last days (John 2:1-11; Rev. 19:7-16). The honeymoon will last a thousand years. The last thing that the marriage despisers will see is heaven opened and Christ coming forth with His chosen bride. On that soon coming day His bride will be wearing combat boots as she comes forth as a warring remnant to defeat Satan and his followers (Rev. 19:17-21).
Marriage is the basic living cell of human society and of the church Christ is building. It is the means God uses to express the nature of His love. It is the means by which children are taught and trained in righteousness. It is through marriage that righteous morality is learned and passed on to the generations. Marriage stabilizes society by giving children stability that they pass on to their children in their marriage. Married couples and families form the nucleus of church life. The family is a mini-church where all of the principles of ekklesia are practiced and accomplished. When the family breaks up, churches begin to crumble because the building blocks are missing. Husbands and wives reflect the love of God on earth and pass it on to their children who pass it on to theirs. This love grows and produces an environment of forgiveness and healing. Marriage is God’s plan for humanity.
Same-sex marriage is none of this. It robs children of the soul development that comes from a father or a mother. God created them male and female and put within the genders what is morally needed in the next generation. Two men or two women can raise a child but they cannot give to it what the other gender can give. Same-sex proponents, of course, dispute this but eventually they will be proven wrong. When the effects of same-sex marriage begin to be recognized in the future this will become apparent. But then it will be too late because our society will have collapsed.
The strategy of the enemy has been aimed at marriage in general. He and his secular-liberal army have blasted away at marriage because they know how crucial it is to the plan of God. Satan feels that if he can destroy marriage he can destroy a generation of young people. With abortion he has literally and physically destroyed a couple of generations. With same-sex marriage He may destroy emotionally another generation or more if the end of days is delayed.
If you doubt this, look at what the lack of fathers has done to the children in the inner cities of our country. Our major cities are moral cesspools with growing violence, disrespect for authority, racial hostility, unwed and unloved mothers and much more because a generation has been raised without fathers. The secularists argued that a woman can raise a child by herself. Why does she need a husband, the father of her child? That experiment is being played out on the streets of every major city in America and it is not a pretty scene. Children need both mother and father to develop properly.
In some ways the organized church shares much of the blame. Roman Catholicism has become a haven for pedophilia. Well-known pastors have fallen into sexual sin. We are like the world in our divorce rate and growing disrespect for marriage and its value. The world looks on and scowls at our hypocrisy and uses it to avoid coming to Christ.
But genuine Christianity will not accept this nonsense. It is fueled by the revelation that a God of love has revealed Himself in marriage and will continue to bless marriage when it is honored. As with all civilizations of the past, despising the blessing of marriage will doom our culture to failure. Secularists will deny this until they see the sky split with the glory of Christ coming with His glorious bride. Until that day arrives let genuine Christians come quickly to their posts in preparation for the looming battle.
