The "End of Marriage"

Sometimes we give the enemy more power than he has. (Yeah, I'm referring to the Devil, Satan, Beelzebub or whatever you want to call him. I do believe he exists, but anyway, back to the point...)

For example I received an e-mail a few weeks ago about some new legislation trying to be pushed through in California (they're going bankrupt due to excessive spending and are trying to take everything decent down with them). I'm not really so concerned about the legislation in this blog post as I am about something the e-mail said:

"A shocking and very disturbing report has just crossed my desk that could fundamentally shift the marriage debate in America. In fact, if this new strategy works, it could literally mean the 'End of Marriage.'"

Now certainly those two sentences that begin the e-mail are probably there to catch the attention of a reader, like me, who is probably going to delete that e-mail in 5 seconds or less unless it captures the interest of the reader; therefore, the purpose is probably an "attention getter."

However I want to, if I may, evaluate those two sentences as claims about marriage. May I just say that there is no governmental body that will ever be able to abolish the concept of marriage. Primarily because marriage was not invented by a human institution (including the church), but created by God.

The church in the United States has seceded the sacredness of the covenant called marriage to the secular idea of a sort of contractual business agreement between two people. If that is all it is, then why not allow two people of the same gender to enter such an agreement?

I propose a few things that would in a host of incidents be a change in the way the church in the United States deals with marriage...

(1) Preachers need to learn to say 'No.' The responsibility of a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not to oversee a ceremony between two people. The minister is God's representative to the individuals entering the covenant of marriage. So if God, in His Word, says "what fellowship has light with darkness" or "do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers' and a Christian wants to marry a non-Christian; the preacher should say 'No!' In matters of divorce the situation should be evaluated with the Bible as the standard (God does not believe in annulments or no-fault divorce).

(2) The church should refuse to recognize marriages performed by a 'justice of the peace' or other 'governmental official.' Already in some areas of our nation the state will join together either in a 'civil union' or 'marriage' people of the same gender. The state, like most ministers, also does not have any biblical inclinations about performing marriages that God will not bless or does not desire (such as a the marriage of a believer & a non-believer or those married multiple times without biblical reasons for divorce.)

(3) The church should begin to view marriage as a blessing rather than a right. I get so tired of people talking about "their rights." What right do you have if you are a living sacrifice? What right do you have if you have denied yourself, taken up your cross, and followed Jesus? Let me answer for you... NONE! Marriage is not something you are owed or deserve, it is something God blesses us with.

(4) The church should usher the sacred back into the wedding ceremony. For some people a wedding is just another opportunity to get drunk, go to a strip club the night before, or dance like a fool in front of everyone at the reception. I know of someone who "wrote their own vows" and made reference to the husband being superman and the wife being a dazzling princess. Please don't denigrate something as sacred as marriage by acting like a middle school teenager writing a love letter to the third girl that day! (Stop singing Britney Spear songs at weddings or using language that you might hear on some stupid reality show!)

(5) The church should raise expectations away from divorce. Most ministers, when they find out someone may be getting a divorce, simply ignore the couple (they wash their hands and deny any responsibility). Why don't we preach "against" divorce? Certainly we need to care and love for those who are experiencing the devestating effects of divorce, but that does not mean we look the other way while more and more, even in the church go through divorces! We sure can talk about promoting marriage in the church, but when it comes to salvaging a marriage being attacked by the Devil it becomes a "more difficult situation" that we simply refuse to deal with in reality.

(6) Re-draw the "battle lines." The fight for Biblical Marriage (which is the only kind) isn't with the state of California and proposition 8 (although we should certainly support such things), but within the church! Christians today don't seem to have a firm grasp on what marriage is anymore. I think that the greatest enemy to marriage is not the liberals, not the homosexuals, or even the politicians in Washington DC. The greatest enemies of marriage are the very people that claim to be defending it.

Hmmm.

Quoting a Quote #5

"An almost Christian, if we consider him in respect to his duty to God, is one that halts between two opinions; that wavers between Christ and the world; that would reconcile God and Mammon, light and darkness, Christ and Belial. It is true, he has an inclination to religion, but then he is very cautious how he goes too far in it."

George Whitefield

Funny Satire on Youth Ministry!

I sure can say 'amen' to that!


Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote #2

In this quote Bonhoeffer is making the point that the Church at one point had become so secularized, in his words, that it reacted by implementing the monastic movement to offset the "worldliness" (my word).

Thus, he says...

"...the Church evolved the fatal conception of the double standard-- a maximum and a minimum standard of Christian obedience. Whenever the Church was accused of being too secularized, it could always point to monasticism as an opportunity of living a higher life within the fold, and thus justify the other possibility of a lower standard of life for others. And so we get the paradoxical result that monasticism, whose mission was to preserve in the Church of Rome the primitive Christian realization of the costliness of grace, afforded conclusive justification for the secularization of the Church. By and large, the fatal error of monasticism lay not so much in its rigorism (though even here there was a good deal of misunderstanding of the precise content of the will of Jesus) as in the extent to which it departed from genuine Christianity by setting up itself as the individual achievement of a select few, and so claiming a special merit of its own."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote #1

I've been re-reading "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I would certainly recommend it (especially along with a little study into the life of the author), but I wanted to post a few good quotes.

The quote below is from the very beginning of the book where he summarizes the rest of the book. It all deals with a proper definition of grace (costly vs. cheap) and the cost of discipleship.

"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living incarnate.

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

"Costly grace it the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock."

A Real Life Musical!

This is very funny.

(*Warning: There is some inappropriate language used in this following video.*)

Nursery Babies...

Here are some pictures of some of the nursery babies & toddlers from the church we minister in(including my two kids).

Revival Messages...

I do like to listen to other preachers. Here is a brief summary of the messages that were preached during our last revival.

Sunday Morning: Do you want to know God more?
Sunday Evening: The heart is deceitful above all things (even to the self).
Monday Evening: Have you lost your sanctification?
Tuesday Evening: Why are Bad things happening to me? (Rom. 8)
Wednesday Evening: The Atonement (There is Power in the Blood).