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The marriage in its actual implementation is usually different from its theory and its first blush. Initially, two parties are supposedly in love, but often there is more heat than light, more lust than love, more emotions than concern for each other's significant well-being. What many church people call love is not love at all; it is love according to this world's definition of love.

Love in its bloom is beautiful and symbolic of the verve of youth, but it should be understand that it takes more than youthful love to carry a marriage. Second, marriage is a totally different relationship and arrangement than is a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. A marriage in Christ is a marriage that is supposed to be holy and according to God's Word. That marriage is a long-term commitment that must be nourished and perfected by both parties. It is a marriage that is not an equal partnership, as is touted in America as the ideal marriage, but a biblical arrangement that represents the relationship of the church to Christ. [An idea I will discuss in another installment]

When the Bible says be not unequally yoked with unbelievers, there is an implication that goes beyond both parties merely being saved in Christ. And it should be understood that not everyone who says he/she is saved is, in fact, saved. Second, many who are saved according to the Word of God have a difficult time submitting themselves to the Word in a marriage because of the strong influence of American culture and TV bred models of marriage that are antithetical to the Word of God. [2 Cor. 6:14]

Not only is it enough to be joined together with a believer in Christ, but a person should be joined with another who is compatible in personality, psychology, social perspective, and educational status. These are important aspects that are often overlooked in saved marriages, to the harm of that marriage and the children of that marriage.

Beauty and auditioning
It is fools' gold to marry a person because of his/her looks. While it is true human beings have a prescribed symmetry of an individual that is pleasure to look upon, looks do often fade and morph greatly, especially when other important aspects are not attended to before that marriage. This is especially true after a wife has babies in that marriage. But too often when looking for a mate, looks rule the day as concerning a wife or a husband's beauty. Youthful love, and often older love as well, is beside itself with looks as beauty in this American society.

But beauty that is sustainable is not embodied in one's physical dimensions, which are flexible with age and a lack of concern and discipline for the maintenance of the body. And among holiness church members that lack of concern and discipline is often epidemic and very troubling to a many marriages. The beauty that a Christian should seek is the inner beauty of meekness and a true will that is subjected to the Word of God. But be aware that during the ritual of courtship that goes on inside and outside of the church, the two are in auditions, hence they are showing their best sides. This auditioning is more pronounced in the sisters seeking to be found by the brothers who are trying to find wives. Auditions are only one side of a person-the best side he/she can put forth. We are, whether Christians or non-Christians, multifaceted creatures that have many sides. It would behoove anyone to get to know as many sides of that person as possible before partaking of the long commitment of marriage. Parties need to be equally yoked if a marriage is to survive to the return of Christ or the death of one of the parties.

Nonviable Marriage and Unions of Pain
Many holiness marriages, let's face this fact, do not survive either the return of Christ or death. They go the way of the world-divorce, separation, and unions of pain, which are marriages of hatred disguised for the outside world by words of love. Many of the marriages that survive and limp along become institutions of torture for both parties. The parties have said to each other and vowed before God to stay together until death separates them, but after the five-year honeymoon, and sometimes before that, a change sets in, and they see things differently. So differently that they realize the incompatibility they should have seen before their vows to each other before God.

After a while, because of incompatibility and a loss of that youthful hue that once rested upon each other, they lose the joy of their marriage. And when the joy is gone, the marriage will fall apart.

The first joy that is lost is the joy of their bed together. [Heb. 13:4] And this is the most dangerous of the joys to lose in a marriage. When the martial act is not a joyous celebration of their union in love and in Christ, they will shy away from each other in that act and in other activities together as well. The diminution of the martial act often happens after children are born and the morphing of the body occurs without a return to acceptable and amorous curvatures; then desire is loss and many marriage partners fail to rekindle it, as they focus on the children. That is a grave mistake!

Marriage the most important aspect of a home
It is a grave mistake for the marriage parties not to rekindle the martial act when it slacks off because of a child is born into the household. This act says to each other that they share themselves with each other because they love each other, and as Christ does inhabit and shall more abundantly inhabit his church as his tabernacle, the man inhabits/indwells his wife also.

The wife was made for the man, to help him in those areas he prescribes her help. That is the specific reason God made the woman--a concept overlooked by many Christians. From the side of Adam (man) God took a rib, and from that rib was she made. God gave her back to Adam as his helpmate. Note, God gave the woman back to Adam as his helper; she was not given a helper. God commanded man to love her, and her to help him by obedience his needs so she could be his help. The martial act is one aspect that man needs help in. There are many more, but this aspect is the most crucial of all. And when the man is in her, he and she are complete as God intended them to be. [Gen. 2; Col. 3:19]

When a husband and a wife have bed troubles, other troubles and frustrations set in; when those frustrations are multiplied, as they will, the house is troubled, and the children within that house will suffer. A father is not the same father he would be were things going well in the marriage or were he receiving the God-appointed help he is given a helpmate for. When frustration is magnified, that husband cannot function well on his job or in society as he should, and coming home he is estranged from his wife and eventually from his children. And remember, Satan will always have his ram of sin in the bush waiting for the right moment and opportunity. If the husband looks outside the house for those joys that are to be a part of that marriage, Satan will make available his ram of sin. The husband then joins himself to a harlot and hence the body of Christ is joined to that harlot. And both the wife and the husband may be party to that wickedness and the shaming of Christ.

Then the marriage is frayed and it no longer is a union and pool of resources for its members. Indeed, that is what marriage is supposed to be about also-a pool of resources to supply the needs of the husband, the wife, and the children of that union. That is why the marriage is the most important aspect of a house, and it must be attended to by the husband and wife above the attention to the children. If the marriage is not secured, the children are not secured in that home.

This concept is very important because many Christians/saved congregants' children have been so harmed by parents' misbehavior in their marriages that the children have demonstrated their pain in public. Some are now dead and others are in prison. Many, if not most, of these children have been lost in supposedly saved homes. Their parents have not seen what harm they were doing to their children through bad, unattended to marriages. But the children have responded to what they have seen afoul in the homes.

I am not merely talking hopes, ambitions, speculations, and guesses; I have headed the Juvenile Court of a large California County, and I have administered two treatment centers for boys. While spending six years in each, I saw case after case of bad Christian marriages and the children of failed marriages in the courts I headed and in group-homes I also headed. Furthermore, I have a Ph.D., in educational psychology; therefore, I have theoretical and academic credentials and a dozen years of experience in the workings of the mind, the families, and children. And more than that, I have the Word of God inside of me and have successfully raised my own children who are doctors and lawyers. And I have raised other people's children who came to our group homes very troubled indeed.

What I know and have seen is that many Christians are unwittingly killing their children through marriages of hatred disguised in words of love.

I will continue these words of common sense in our next installation.

Part Four

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