Monday, October 31, 2011

And They Shall Become One Flesh

At the beginning of recorded history, God created Adam, but He knew that it was not good for Adam to be alone, so He created Eve.  At this point, God instituted marriage, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).

The culture we live in today and many other cultures in the past have looked upon this holy institution as a contract between people.  It has become almost laughable when some people go to the altar and promise before God that they will bind themselves together until death.  Many of them do not believe in God at all.  What weight does a promise hold when they do not believe in the one to whom they are promising?  So they promise to each other.  Do they really mean it?  Will they go through sickness, poverty, and worse?  Our divorce rate says they won't.  Even within the church, the divorce rate in comparable to the divorce rate outside.  I spoke last night about how Christians are to live a life that honors God before an unbelieving world, and we cannot even keep a promise to God or the one we say we love!  Pathetic!  It makes me wonder if I ever want to get married.

What is the main reason for divorce in this country?  Money.  Money!  Did the vows not say "for richer or for poorer?"  God gives one acceptable excuse for divorce, infidelity.  Even in this case, the desire is that there would be reconciliation, forgiveness, and preservation of the marriage rather than divorce.  If there is no repentance or continuation of the infidelity, then it can be grounds for divorce.  Ultimately, the goal is to be like Jesus.  Through Him we have been forgiven of our infidelity to God, "When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, 'Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD'" (Hosea 1:2).  We need to be seeking to love and forgive, even in cases of infidelity.  If you desire to see how much God loves and forgives, read chapters one through three in Hosea.

Marriage is a covenant, not a contract.  It is not meant to be dissolved when either party is dissatisfied with the arrangement.  It is meant to persist as long as both parties are still living.  This is what Jesus said about divorce, "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'  But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (Matthew 5:31-32).


What about those famous kings in the Old Testament who had a ton of wives?  I'm thinking specifically of Solomon who had many, "He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines" (1 Kings 11:3a).  Dude!  Seriously?!?  How on earth do you deal with that many?  Why was God fine with that if marriage is supposed to be only one man and one woman?  Even David, who is referred to as "a man after His [God's] own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14) had many wives and concubines, "And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David" (2 Samuel 5:13).  The answer is that God is not fine with it. 

The Bible is not a list of people without flaws from whom we can model our lives.  The Bible shows us people, men and women with faults.  It is history.  Abraham, David, and Solomon lived and breathed just like we do today, and they sinned just like we do today.  Their actions are not somehow acceptable to God merely because they were written down in the Bible.  The verse that speaks of Solomon's many wives and the following verse tell us that, "His wives turned away his heart.  For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father" (1 Kings 11:3b-4).  David desired God and wanted Him, but he made mistakes, too.  The most famous of these mistakes has to be with Uriah and Bathsheba.  David murdered him in order to have her.  That is all kinds of evil!  In fact, how would you view even your best friend if you suddenly found out that they murdered someone in order to marry that person's spouse?  It would be hard to continue that friendship in exactly the same way, right?  You might wonder what they would be capable of doing to you if they suddenly decided your spouse was looking particularly nice one day.

I do not know of any "thou shalt not" verse in Scripture that specifically prohibits polygamy (either polygyny or polyandry), but Scripture as a whole has a negative view of the practice.  The original establishment of the institution was one man and one woman.  In Genesis 16, the marriage between Abram and Sarai is defiled when Sarai brings Abram to Hagar to conceive a child, "But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise" (Galatians 4:23).  It was not God's will for Hagar to be brought into the marriage bed, and we feel the repercussions of that mistake even today as the children of Ishmael spread their beliefs by oppression and murder.  Men with more than one wife are prohibited from holding the office of pastor or deacon in the church, "This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.  For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach" (Titus 1:5-7a), and "The saying is trustworthy:  If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.  Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach" (1 Timothy 3:1-2).  If God was fine with multiple wives, this prohibition would not have been one of the first prohibitions on both of these lists.  God is not fine with polygamy.  He never has been.  Chalk another one up to the freewill of sinful people.


The Scripture only gives us one person to model our behavior after in all ways, and that person is Jesus, God Himself.  He is the only one who is good.  Men and women throughout Scripture can be looked at as "heroes of the faith," but they all fall short somewhere.  Having multiple spouses is where several of them did sin.  Having multiple spouses even drew Solomon away from God and damaged that relationship.  God is not for that.  He loves us and wants the best for us, that includes any marriage to be only one man and one woman.  That is how He set it up, and that is how it should remain.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Tools in the Hands of the Master Craftsman

It was just a normal, run-of-the-mill type of day.  There was nothing particularly interesting of fantastic going on.  It was Thursday, so we had homegroup that night.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, homegroup is similar to a Bible study, but it is more than just a Bible study.  There is fellowship, accountability, smaller group discussions, and homegroups do not have an end date like some Bible studies.  This particular homegroup was going to be different, though.  Even as the leader, I had no idea about this, but God certainly did.  This just goes to prove who the real leader is, and in every successful homegroup, Bible study, church, or otherwise, God is the leader.  Farah was one of the members of the homegroup, and she had recently fractured her spine.  She was in a back brace, and by God's grace, still had full use of her legs because her spinal chord was not severed.  Near the end of the night, she asked for use to pray for her.  The bones in her back were not regrowing.  She was not healing.  We gathered around her, laid hands on her, and began to pray.  We prayed that God would heal her.  We asked for healing in the name and Jesus, and proclaimed His power to do so.  We left that night, and I honestly do not remember if I continued to pray for Farah or not for the next week.  I would hope that I did.  During homegroup the following week, Farah let us know what God had done in her after we prayed last week.  She had an appointment with her doctor, and the doctor had taken ex-rays of her spine.  To his amazement, 2/3 of the bone mass in her back had regrown!  God had answered our prayer, and He healed Farah!  The final 1/3 regrew, and she was fully healed.  I was very happy to see her able to walk around without a back brace after that.  Praise our God who lives and allows us the privilege to be used by Him!

Sometimes, we have problems remembering our place as tools in His hands.  On Sunday we yell, "Here I am Lord!  Send me!" and on Monday we moan, "I don't want to do that!"  God has the right to use us as He sees fit to use us.  It is only by His mercy that He allows us to even ask to be used, or that He does not immediately smite us dead when we complain about being used in a way we do not want to be used, "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:21).  I know the context of this verse shows us that Paul is speaking of those who are saved being used to show God's mercy and those who are condemned being used to show His justice, but cannot one vessel who is being saved be used to glorify God in small, menial tasks for which they are given no recognition by others while another is used for large, grand tasks that only one hidden under a rock would not be aware of?  Is either one better than the other?  No!  Each is used to glorify God, and each one, being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, will receive their due reward from the One who's recognition does matter.  So, the janitor and the CEO both glorify God...  and remember that "many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Matthew 19:30).


If we are not careful, pride has a nasty habit of sneaking in when we are not aware of it.  It is not so easy when God, through us, heals broken or fractured bones in a week to get prideful and think we actually had something to do with it, although that has happened before.  It is much easier to fall to pride when we have a conversation with someone, God speaks through us to them on an issue they are struggling with, and then suddenly we think we're awesome counselors because we've given some great advice.  We haven't.  God used us to glorify Himself, and we go off thinking we've done something great and steal from God the glory due to Him!


"Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
   or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,
   or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!" (Isaiah 10:15).

Today, when God uses you.  Give the glory to the One who deserves the glory, and allow yourself to be content in what you are:  a tool in the hand of the Master Craftsman.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Tension

"The tension is so thick I could cut it with a knife!"

How many of us have heard this statement or something like it in a situation that became very uncomfortable, sometimes so quickly we do not even know quite how or why it became that way?  It has a certain physiological effect on us, and everyone in the room can feel it.  It happened not too long ago for me.  Two members of the youth group had just broken up.  It was bound to be an uncomfortable situation to begin with.  The guy was there, and I could already tell that the tension was mounting.  It became that very uncomfortable situation when the girl walked in...  with her new boyfriend.  Tense was the exact word for the predicament.  High school relationships can be like that, unfortunately.  I was very proud of one of my youth who recently said that dating in high school just was not worth it.  I could not agree more.  Dating should be looking toward marriage, and very few high school students have the maturity for that kind of commitment.  I can think of only one couple, and they are certainly the exception to the rule.  All dating in high school tends to do is break hearts and lead to uncomfortable situations like the one above.  Besides, we have enough tension in our lives as it is.

Every Christian deals with tension.  There is tension within our very nature, a tension that does not exist for the unbeliever.  For tension to exist, there has to be disagreement, a collision of opposing wills.  Within the darkness, there is no dissension.  There is no disagreement because they are all dead to the spiritual life and closed off to God, "I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.  The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.  For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me" (Romans 7:9-11).  Have you ever been told not to do something?  Has being told not to do something made you want to do it all the more?  That is a perfect example of sin working within you, and that is exactly the opportunity it took with the Law to trap, chain, and kill us.  This has been the case for all people since the Fall of Man, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).  So, sin has taken this opportunity within each of us, and we have all died.  Therefore, in death there was no tension.  We were all slaves to sin, and our minds were blind to the things of the Spirit.  This is what the essence of an unbeliever diagrammed:
They are dead spiritually.  They are closed off from God.  Satan, as god of this world, has taken the opportunity to blind their minds to Him, and they do not understand Him or His Word, "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.  In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

So, if it was by the Law that sin took hold of us, does that make the Law wicked?  No!  That makes sin all that more wicked and deceitful.  The Law is perfect and holy.  We are the ones who are messed up until we turn to Jesus.  In Jesus, we are transformed and remade.  We are no longer blind to the spiritual life; we are made alive to it!  Our inner being is different from what it used to be:
Instead of our dead spirit, we are given the living Holy Spirit to live within us and guide us.  Jesus said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63).  Jesus later promises the Spirit to those who believe in Him, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (John 14:26).


The problem that still exists is the fact that we still have the flesh.  We still have the influence of darkness upon us because Satan still exists and he is still in this world.  As we work out our salvation, we strive to close the open door of Satan's influence on us.  This will be a struggle as long as we are in this world.  Ultimately, God has already won.  He is already victorious!  Sin has no power over us and death has no sting!  When we, as believers in Jesus, physically die, we enter into eternal life.  

Believer                                                                                         

Spiritual  Life (Eph 2:4-7)  + Physical Death => Eternal Life with Christ in heaven (Rev 22:1-5)                  

Unbeliever

Spiritual Death (Eph 2:1-3) + Physical Death => Eternal Death --hell-- (2 Thes 1:8-9)

Physical death is merely the transition into what you already have for eternity.

At that point we are not only rescued from the penalty of sin, we are rescued from the very presence of sin.  We lose the ability to sin altogether, and I don't know about you but I long for this day in a way I cannot put into words.
Until then we are as Paul was when he spoke to the believers in Rome, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.  For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me"  (Romans 7:14-20).  This is not an excuse.  We are responsible for every single action we do and everything we do not do.  We are given the free will by God to choose, and He has broken the chains of our slavery (see Slaves) to allow us the freedom to choose what is right.  What Paul is saying is that the influence of the flesh still exists.  However, it does not exist for him any longer, and we are being made free just as he has been made free!  Praise God and His Son, Jesus that we are free and will be made free!