Marriage

Many have rhapsodized it's many obvious advantages, including the very Creator:  "And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Genesis 2:18

For this reason, I do not need to deal with the created benefits of marriage, even though the fall made this entirely wholesome arrangement into quite a mixed bag. Preachers often deal with these positive aspects to the exclusion of the negative, so I will mostly deal with the neglected negatives. Few scriptures deal with the disadvantages for the believer, other than Paul. He dwelt in the holy hush of His Rest as I do, and so he is universally  misunderstood on this topic, since few indeed even know about the benefits of His Rest. Paul considered walking in His Rest to be normative Christianity, and so he was constantly exhorting those outside of it to move into it.  And those in it he exhorted to make best use of it.

Paul was never married as far as we know.  I was happily married for eighteen years until illness and her backsliding brought it to a painful conclusion in 1996. I will write only very briefly and tentatively, because it is such a complex and controversial topic.

But I have some observations for you:
As I said: marriage is very definitely a mixed bag -as has been everything else since the fall.  Pastors today, make everybody feel good by omitting these facts, and frankly few know these facts in order to present them to earnest young believers who are trying to make a proper decision about their future lifestyle.  And no!! -two cannot live nearly as cheaply as one!!!  For soon the two are three, and four, and five, and....  Not only that, but it is in your heart to please your spouse.  That means even more EXTRA money.  Good spouses are very hard workers... for they require real results from one another.

But it must be mentioned that marriage is a very different animal these days than it has been throughout all the rest of history.  Since the advent of serious birth control is has become a very self-centred instituation dedicated mostly to the happiness of the couple and the decoration of two "trophy children".  Throughout history women often embraced a dozen, and if times were good enough to feed more mouths, they too were welcomed with joy.  Each child served as a strong nail binding the couple together, making divorce virtually unthinkable, since the consequences would be so very dire.  It was not just a marriage, but a whole sub-tribe where everybody had his or her own valued place and task.  Old age was a time to reap thanks and honour from your rapidly multiplying army of descendants.

Young people when considering marriage were forced to be far more practical, since they were quite aware of the hungry troupe that would march clamouring out of their loins as soon as they said, "I do".  It was such serious business that poorly equipped young people were far more likely to remain single in fear, knowing they were just not up to such an immense challenge.  Marriage was not so much viewed as a refuge for every man, but for those men who were strong and prosperous enough to "support a wife", and the obvious immense consequences that soon followed.

And with all this, labour saving devices were few and far between.  Kids meant work from dawn until long past dusk.  Working moms?  They were already fully employed, thank you.  A scrub board is hard work.  Ironing wrinkled clothing with a flat iron heated on the stove takes a lot of time.  Salting down meat in jars was slow work that had to be done just right.  Supermarkets?  Freezers?  Freshly picked fruits and vegetables in winter?  Forget it.  A musty root cellar was the best there was.

But at least much of this constant labour occurred within the bosom of the home.  Today most are supported by the wages of hirelings.  This means endless hours are sold outside of the home, while relationships shrivel for want of use....  Being surrounded constantly by other men and women, brings temptations...  A medieval serf may have been poor, and sometimes oppressed, but he was ussually close to home.

Few young people are prepared for this strange world we inhabit today.  Most church leaders have not put enough thought into the subject, but have just taken it all for granted.  It is not granted at all.  These are extraordinary times in every way.  Times of both great knowledge and great deception.  Times of great opportunity, and times of profound loss for both the family and those stalwart souls who would follow Him without distraction.

A Time Warp

How would a family man of a hundred years ago react if he came through a time machine and found how Christian families lived today?

 He would laugh and weep in astonishment for a people that willingly embrace the curse of barrenness.  When told of the infidelity and divorce of our day, he would explain that children are a blessing of the Lord and how each child is a strong cord of love and duty binding parents together before the Lord.  Those without many such cords are not properly married at all.

To the labour-saving devices and liesure time; he would point out firmly that idleness is the devil's workshop in which sin every flourishes.....  To working outside of the home in places of mixed gender,  he would shake his head and point out the weaknesses of the flesh we are heir to.  "living together"? "sex before marriage"? "adultery"? "deliberate divorce and re-marriage"? He would instantly exclaim that all such clearly demonstrate themselves to be scornful for His Commandments and lost souls outside of the Lord. Regardless of what they profess, they are lost and/or backslidden to the very edge of the pit and must soon cry out in fear for deliverance while there is yet time to escape their sure judgment.

"Nature abhors a vaccuum."  So it is natural that a busy wife abhors a husband who takes his leisure if she is not sharing it.  While sharing leisure, small talk seems to be incessant.  How then, can the Lord be sought in peace?  Therefore there must be a closet, and those in it considered occupied in productive work.

Tom Plumb


"Those who are intimately ‘His portion’, with no divided allegiances, He will exalt in wisdom and authority."

Matthew 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

Luke 11:34  The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single*, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.  *  simple, single, whole, good, fulfilling its office, sound


The Virginal Life
METHODIUS, THE LAST MARTYR OF THE PERSECUTIONS
We do not know the date of his birth, but he suffered martyrdom about the year A.D. 312, at Chalcis, Greece. Some think it was a city of the same name in Syria. He was bishop of Olympus, but afterwards moved to Tyre in Phoenecia according to Jerome. He was a contemporary with Porphyry, the heathen philosopher whom he opposed. He is known chiefly for his antagonism to Origen; yet he was greatly influenced by Origen’s method of allegorical interpretation of scripture.
Epiphanius calls him “a very learned man and a strenuous asserter of the truth.” The only complete work of his that has come down to us is his Banquet of the Ten Virgins. This is a dialogue praising the virginal life. We have parts of his treatise On the Resurrection, and On Things Created, and On Free Will.

METHODIUS ON HOLINESS
At the close of his dialogue, The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse II, chapter two, we have Thekla singing a hymn with the rest of the ten virgins, the Church, the spouse of God, pure and virgins. In the hymn are twenty-four stanzas, each followed by the same chorus.
Stanzas two, three, and four with the chorus read as follows:

Thekla. 2. Fleeing from the sorrowful happiness of mortals, and having despised the luxuriant delight of life and its love, I desire to be protected under thy life-giving arms, and to behold thy beauty for ever, O blessed one.
Chorus. I keep myself pure for thee, O bridegroom, and holding a lighted torch I go to meet thee.

Thekla. 3. Leaving marriage and the life of mortals and my golden home for thee, O King, I have come in undefiled robes, in order that I may enter with thee within thy happy bridal chamber.
Chorus. I keep myself pure for thee, O bridegroom, and holding a lighted torch I go to meet thee.

Thekla. 4. Having escaped, O Blessed One, from the innumerable enchanting wiles of the serpent, and, moreover, from the flames of fire, and from the mortal destroying assaults of wild beasts, I await thee from heaven.
Chorus. I keep myself pure for thee, O bridegroom, and holding a lighted torch I go to meet thee.

From: "A Study of Holiness From The Early Church Fathers" by J. B. Galloway  ("Testimonies") page 33


The Importance of Sexual Purity

Q.  Why does God make such a big deal out of avoiding all sex outside of marriage?

A. Negatively: Because He wants His best for you, and such acts of profound intimacy bind you tightly into agreement with the world and the spirit of LUST which is one of it's controlling demonic principalities.  These are sins that a believer cannot tolerate since God is a jealous God. For this reason both modern Satanists and the ancient demon religions make liberal use of sexual acts in their rites.
If you have any kind of unrepented sexual sin in your life, you have placed yourself outside of  the covenant of salvation. Your "backsliding" has borne it's bitter fruit.  You are spiritually dead again.  Repentance in this case requires far more than a mere "I'm sorry, God".  It requires virtual tears of blood, that can be seen and accepted by Him... on the other side of "the skies of brass" which are the lot of those under the frowning cloud of His judgment.  This is true even though some such may efficiently ignore their condition and go through their former religious motions without much apparent difference.  He will say "I never knew you" to these.

Positively: Because His greatest purpose in your life is to work to bring you ever closer to Him, and when you become One with another, even when starting a new marriage under His blessing, He must start much of His dealings with you from the beginning.  Since the "two" become so profoundly, "one", in His dealings with you He must deal with the pair of you as one unit from that point on.    
So if you marry a spouse with a strong call on their life, you can expect extra trials, because you are sharing the dealings meant for your spouse, even though you personally may not especailly need that dealing!  This is not very very efficient.  A single person, for this reason may progress more swiftly since he or she receives all the dealings that are needed without Him having to be mindful of the limits of the spouse.

But sexual sins are everywhere today, to such a degree that they have become no big deal in many circles. Do you think some my statements are rather strong?  Consider your spiritual situation seriously:

JUSTIFICATION IS A HELLWARD AND SANCTIFICATION A HEAVENWARD BLESSING
"Justification has reference to hell, God’s penitentiary for the retribution of the violated law. It puts you where you can’t go to hell unless you forfeit it. Sanctification is strictly a heavenward blessing, in the fact that it takes out of you everything out of harmony with God and Heaven, and robes you to meet the King in his beauty. The covenant you enter in justification induces sanctification. If you fail to go on to perfection, you simply forfeit your covenant and lose your soul. This position the whole Bible vindicates and corroborates. Heb. 6 exhorts you promptly to go on to perfection and vociferates with all emphasis the inevitable alternative that, in case of failure to go on to perfection, “you will become a hopeless apostate, never be reclaimed, and make your bed in hell.” Heb. 12 gives the same kind of an argument with the same conclusion. It positively declares that without holiness, R. V., without the sanctification, no one shall see the Lord. Then it follows immediately with the appalling revelation that if you don’t get this holiness you will become a hopeless reprobate, like Esau, die without hope and be forever lost.

IS A CHRISTIAN IN DANGER OF HELL?
No, but he is in danger of apostasy and then of hell. As long as he is a Christian he is in no danger of hell, because hell was not made for Christians. They can’t go there till they become sinners. But the above scriptures, and floods of others like them, settle the fact that God requires all Christians to be sanctified. If they disobey God by refusing to go on into holiness, they grieve the Holy Spirit, fall into condemnation and become backsliders. Then they are ready for the backslider’s hell. It is not necessary that they become immoral and leave the church. All they have to do is to lose the life and power of Holy Ghost religion out of their hearts. This millions do, live and die honorable members in their churches, and lose their souls in hell."  From: “Holiness or Hell?”  by W. B. Godbey P.43 ("Wisdom for Ministers" page)