Who is leading them astray?

 I firmly believe the Lord planned my life before I was born.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jeremiah 1:5

He knew the paths I would take, the places He wanted me to be.

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. Proverbs 19:21

I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23

 

I know that the lord planned my path before I was born. I also know he planned every person’s path through all eternity and yet sometimes, when I think of the things being taught in the ‘churches’ today…I can’t help wonder how many people are being lost, how many are following a false Jesus, because of what they’ve learned in ‘church?’ How many have learned to freely choose to follow Jesus or not? How many think they can say a prayer and be assured of their salvation no matter how they live their life?

            How many preachers are leading hundreds, thousands, astray, one sermon at a time? How many preachers and teachers ‘know’ the Bible and blindly lead their flock day after day, year after year?

            My faith grew the most when I was out of ‘church.’ I began to see Scripture the way it’s written when I wasn’t being led by a preacher or teacher.

These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. 1 John 2:26-27

I know the Lord is calling His elect, that He’s saving them where they are…in ‘church’, out of ‘church’, but still…sometimes I wonder how many preachers are the reason some people will not see the Truth? It is God’s plan. There will be none lost that He doesn’t choose not to save. I know this…but how many of those that won’t be saved will be left unsaved because the method the Lord used to blind them is the ‘church?’

There is no answer to that question because the Lord works His plan out the way He wants to. These people are lost; they were lost before they were born.

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, Romans 9:22-23

If it is the ‘church’ that is keeping them lost it is only because it is the method the Lord is using to make it happen. But sometimes I still think about these things, still wonder…how many will never see because they’re being led down the wrong path by someone promising them salvation?

With that question still floating in my mind, I take us all to 2 Peter 2…

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials,4 and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge5 in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

 

Crazy

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  Matthew 10:34-39

 

You think you know more about the Bible than anyone else.

Do you think you’re the only ones going to Heaven?

You’re crazy!

Those questions and statements are things I’ve heard from family members. Every last one of them was stated in connection with my faith in Christ and the way I see Scriptures. But the one that actually hurts is when my daughter says “I never want to see things the way you do.”

It would be nice if all our family members, if all people, could see and believe the way we do but Scripture tells us that can’t be.

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.  For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. Luke 12:51-52

When asked if I think we’re (meaning my husband and I) are the only one’s going to Heaven my answer was a definite no. Even when I can look at a person and feel like I can make an accurate assumption that they aren’t born again, when the language they’re using, their choice in entertainment, the clothes they’re wearing, all point to someone that isn’t following Christ…even then…I try not to assume that they aren’t going to Heaven. I can’t know what’s in their hearts, what’s between them and Christ. And I can’t know if the Lord will save them today.

I’ll be the first person to admit I know very little when it comes to Scripture. Yes, I know a lot. Yes, I know more than some. But I will never know enough. And there will always be someone that knows more than me. But as my heart, my very soul, seeks for more and more from Scripture I would never claim to know more than anyone else. This accusation comes my way mostly because I see Scripture different than most ‘Christians’. I see it for what it is. I see it in black and white.

I see it as a monergist.

And most people can’t see that and they can’t understand what it is I see. So when I discuss even the basics of Scripture…I must think I know more than anyone else. And I would never think that.

I let the accusation of being crazy pass without much if any comment. After all, I’d rather be crazy for Christ than sane and lost.

 

Be seperate

Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,

2 Corinthians 6:17

Life in a fallen world makes everything harder than we’d like it to be. A trip to the grocery store leaves us surrounded by people we understand and yet can’t understand at the same time. Because of Scripture we are able to look at the people, and the chaos, around us and see that they’re unregenerate, doing what unregenerate people do. They talk about things we know nothing about, prattle on and on about the latest movie or a pair of 100.00 shoes. And our heads spin.

At least mine does.

I can talk about expensive jeans and kids clothes, discuss healthy diets, immunizations and a multitude of other things because I am a mom and as a mom I get bombarded with all these things. From my children. From the community. People want to know what grade my children are in, if they’ve had the latest immunization. If I’m concerned about the latest illness that’s running rampant among kids. I can carry on complete conversations about any of those things. But I can’t tell you what was on TV last night. I have no idea who stared in the latest box office hit. And I wouldn’t recognize a popular song if I heard it.

And I don’t want to know any of that.

I don’t want to be able to recognize those people on the covers of all those magazines at the checkout. I don’t want to know what the name of that song I’d rather not be hearing is. The latest news? I don’t want to know what that is either.

As a Christian I’m called to be separate from the world and that’s what I’d prefer to be. If I could do all my shopping online, go out only when I want to; visit only the places that I don’t have to encounter those things, I would.

What I’ve noticed in the few other people that see Scripture as I do is that they try and stay separate from the world too. It doesn’t seem to be something we strive to do it just happens. And we’re happy with that separation, seek it out even. It seems to be a part of the journey that Christ takes us on. As we grow closer to Him we are growing further from the world.

What makes you who you are?

What makes you who you are? Deep down inside, the very essence of your being…what is it? It is the heartbeat of your soul, the lifes blood of your spirit…what is it? What do you think about when you wake up in the morning? What makes you happy as you go through your day? What do you seek in your free time? What do you want in your life?

What makes you who you are?

It’s what you believe in that space so deep inside that it changes the very core of who you are. It’s what effects the way you see life, the way you think, the things you seek every day.

Who or what lives in that innermost place that is you and you alone?

Who fills your cup when you run dry?

Who holds you up when you can’t stand?

Who does your soul talk to when your mind is silent?

Where have all the Christians gone?

And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word,  but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” Mark 4:2-20

I used to be a member of a big Baptist ‘Church’. At one point I was going every time the doors were open, or so it seemed. I spent five years as a regular attender and later as a member of that ‘church’. During that time I made a few friends, learned a few things, but I didn’t come close to learning or growing near as much as one should when spending at least five hours a week being ‘taught’ and ‘instructed’ in the ways of the Lord.

Then things shifted at the ‘church’. Tithing became almost mandatory. I got envelopes in the mail, each one printed with a date and my name. I threw them away. Tithing is something I’m not getting into here except to say that it isn’t Scriptural either, not unless you live under the old covenant. A few weeks after those envelopes arrived I was approached by the music leader, who happened to be the real leader of this ‘church’. He wanted to know why I hadn’t been turning in my tithes. I don’t remember what I replied but it wasn’t long before I got another packet of envelopes in the mail, each one printed with my name and the date-one for each week.

I threw those away too.

If anyone approached me over them again I don’t remember it. What I do remember is how the leaders of the ‘church’ and many of the higher standing members turned against my entire family, including my mother and sisters. This was a place where I thought believers gathered. It wasn’t long before we quit going there.

That experience turned me against ‘church’. I no longer had any desire to go. A couple of years later I started attending my grandmothers ‘church’, which happened to be a Baptist ‘church’ also. I went for the chance to spend time with my grandmother and nothing else. If I got anything out of the sermons I don’t remember it. What I do remember is that everytime I stepped through the door I was greeted with the site of teenage girls and women wearing dresses that shouldn’t have met the definition for slips. I saw see through tops and bare legs. I heard plenty of gossip, I saw people coming in with the newest gadgets, shoes, and vehicles. I saw no one helping widows, single mothers, the handicapped.

Where were the believers in that group? These were people that professed Christ but I couldn’t see it in their lives, couldn’t hear it in their speech. They were friendly to each other, looked forward to their luncheons and weekly get togethers, had Bible study.

But something was missing.

I figured it was just me. I was still jaded over my experience with my last ‘church’ and couldn’t see the proof of the congregations belief. What I didn’t know then was that I was on a path that was opening my eyes to the truths of Scripture.

The majority of my family members profess a belief in Christ. I had friends that professed the same. Met strangers that would eagerly give God the glory for all the good in their lives.

But something was missing.

I tried to talk about Scripture as I was seeing it. All I got was arguments. The people I’d known and loved my whole life argued with me and told me I was wrong. Was I? At that time I just didn’t know but something inside me wouldn’t let me back away from what I was believing. I listened to their side of things, tried to see what they were seeing. But I couldn’t. My eyes were slowly opening, my heart was changing, I was changing. I was on a journey I had no control over.

And I desperately wanted someone to discuss Scripture with. One day I met a woman online. From the beginning she and I were drawn together. We saw a lot of life the same way. We were able to discuss Scripture. And we were able to discuss Scripture and life together. I grabbed onto that friendship like a lifeline. She was the only person I was free to really be me with.

But I still didn’t understand. I couldn’t see the way things really were. I was still looking for a deeper faith as I called it among the many professing Christians I encountered on a near daily basis. In ‘churches’, in stores, on the street. Where was the proof that these people who claimed to know Christ really knew Him?

Something was missing.

I looked at them, heard them say ‘I’m a Christian’ and wondered what the difference was. If they were Christians…what was I?

I was alone in a world of people I should have been able to find fellowship with. Alone with beliefs no one I knew understood. I held tighter to the one friend I had that did understand and I gave up on finding anyone else.

Because there weren’t any. I eventually got past my resistance to attending ‘church’ and I started going again. I found true enjoyment there and learned to take from the services what I got out of them, cringed when Scripture was misused or when they gave an alter call. I made friends among the members, came to love some of them.

But something was missing.

I didn’t see it at first. Because unlike the Baptist ‘church’ I had gone to before, unlike my grandmothers ‘church’, the members at this ‘church’ seemed to truly care about people. They helped one another, went into the community to help others. They as a whole seemed to live the commandment to love. And that combined with the deeper truths that came up in most sermons were enough to keep me going back. What I didn’t see for a long time was that although they were able to love, despite some of them having much deeper faith than I’d found in most, despite the deeper truths that were feeding my soul in bits and pieces, they weren’t seeing things the way I was either.

Then the Lord brought another true believer into my life, once again through the internet. This one He used to open my eyes to exactly what I was seeing. It was like the lights were turned on in a room that had been pitch black. All of a sudden I knew what I was seeing, I knew why I was different.

I knew what was missing.

And I knew what I’d been given in the two people the Lord had brought to me when I was all alone with my beliefs.

These two people out of thousands in my life understood. They believed. They didn’t just profess to know Christ, they were seeking Him as I was, they felt Him in their being as I do. One of them walked into a ‘church’ after coming to Christ, expecting to find a building full of believers that loved the Lord, that saw things as he did. Only to be greeted with a building full of people that wanted to sit through the sermons then stand and talk about what was happening in their lives, in the world. They didn’t want to discuss Christ or Scripture.

The same thing happens at the ‘church’ I sometimes attend now. They come together happy to see each other, happy to be at ‘church’. They enjoy their time together, most seem to enjoy the sermon. But when it’s over they stand around discussing their pets, their jobs, the latest movies. Even as they love others and profess Christ. And yes, when I’m there…I am one of them. I talk their language, play by their rules.

But now I understand.

But understanding doesn’t stop me from standing in a crowd of hundreds and feeling like I live with a secret. One I don’t want to keep, one I’d like to share with them all. A secret that I could shout from the rooftops and they wouldn’t understand. Because they aren’t able to see.

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 4:4

Because they are professing ‘Christians’ not true believers. They think they have found salvation by saying a prayer, by attending ‘church’. And when they’ve spent their time recharging their batteries they go back into the world where they may give God glory for the good things in their lives, where they may grab hold of Him when times get tough but they cannot see.

And even though I now know the answer, I’m left to wonder…

Where have all the Christians gone?

 

Jesus just wants to love us...

“God loves us all so much. He just wants to love us.”

I had the…privilege…of being drawn into a conversation where the other person not only told me that but firmly believed it. This was the basis of this person’s faith; it was how they related all things to Scripture, to ‘church’, to their faith, to life. Jesus loves us. He wants us all to be loved. This same person told me a few days ago that Jesus is waiting for us to turn to Him in times of trouble, that when anyone is feeling lost and alone all they need to do is pray to Him and He will be there to comfort them.

That is the place where loving our neighbors comes up against the need for pointing out the truths in Scripture.

God just wants to love us. Jesus is just waiting for us to come to Him so that He can comfort them.

Really?!

Are you sure?

Because I don’t see it that way. I can’t see it that way.

Yes, He does love us. Yes, He’s there to comfort us in times of trouble. Yes, we can and should turn to Him. But who is the us that He loves? Who are the one’s He wants to comfort?

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. John 17:6-9

Those words came straight from Christ as He prayed on behalf of ‘those whom you have given me’. He wasn’t praying for the world, for everyone in the world but for those that had been given to Him.

Who, then, was he praying for? If not for the world? If not for every person through all time, who exactly was He praying for?

Paul sums it up well in Ephesians 1:3-14

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known^[c] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
¹¹ In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
And again in Romans 9: 1-13

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,1 my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Was God waiting for the people to cry out to Him, to tell Him how bad their lives were, so He could save them when He was sending a flood on the whole world?

Genesis 6:5-8 tells us He wasn’t…

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Out of all the world, all the people on earth-people that were filled with great wickedness- only Noah found favor with the Lord.

Was He waiting for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to turn to Him so He could love on them and make them feel better? Genesis 18:20-32…

Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether7 according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Here there is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked (those whose sin was ‘very grave’).

24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

27 Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” 29 Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” 30 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” 31 He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” 32 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”
The distinction continues as Abraham keeps questioning…will you destroy the righteous with the wicked? In the end only one was found righteous.
So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. Genesis 19:29

God wasn’t sitting around waiting to ‘fix’ the pain of the sinful. He wasn’t waiting to love on them and tell them all was well. Is He a genie in a bottle? Is He there to be on your beck and call? Does He look at people living in their own desires, idolizing everything but Him and simply say…oh how I wish they’d just ask me to put a band aid on the hurts this world has caused them. I just want to hug and love on them and make them feel better so they can go back to doing what they want to do, so they can choose sin over me?

Is that the God of Scripture? Is it the Jesus that said…

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.  For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. Luke 12:51-52

or

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. sI have not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

Is it the God that said…

Yet I have loved Jacob ³ but Esau I have hated. Malachi 1:2-3

As this person whom I’m very close to kept telling me how Jesus is love, how he came to love us, how he only wants to love on us if we’ll let Him…as they kept saying things like that…I struggled.

We’re commanded to love others as ourselves. To be kind, gentle. As I sat there listening to that and wondering what now? I didn’t feel equipped to tackle the subject the first time it came up. And I’ll admit that I really didn’t want to. I didn’t share this person’s belief but I didn’t want to point out the errors I saw in that belief either. That first time I asked what this person thought God was doing when He sent the flood, asked if they thought He loved all those people and if so then why did He only save Noah and His family? I asked what they thought all the verses about God’s wrath were about. And as the conversation took a different turn I left it at that. I’d planted a seed…and I’d saved myself from having to get into things that I knew wouldn’t be appreciated.

But when that same subject came up again a few days ago I had no choice but to tackle it. I was put on the spot, being asked to do something that my conscience and my beliefs wouldn’t let me do. And I had to explain why I couldn’t.  Thankfully by then I felt better equipped to handle the subject. I had a better idea of how to explain my view without going too deep into things I didn’t think this other person would understand or appreciate. And I kept it simple and put the blame on myself. “I don’t see Scripture the way most do,” “I don’t believe that way.” It worked and I was able to keep love at the forefront of that discussion, I was able to help that person as they’d asked, and I was able to share a little more of what I see in Scripture and why. I watered the seed I had planted months back but this person and I walked away from the encounter still seeing things from different perspectives.

Biblical marriage

Bible study amazes me in that not only do we learn more and more of our Lord every time but that certain things catch our attention on any given day. Something that may not have earned so much as a pause in our reading yesterday may stick out above all else today. Christ telling people to sell everything to follow Him was one of those things that popped out at me just last month.

This month it’s something completely different. Last month I watched a movie on the book of Ruth. It held pretty close to Scripture and was enjoyable to watch. But something in it stood out to me. I don’t remember exactly what was said it but it was something to the effect of God preparing Ruth for Boaz. That got me thinking but it wasn’t until I switched from the New Testament to the Old that I really started seeing the verses, the stories, about marriage. I wasn’t looking for them but there they were.

From the very beginning we see God’s hand and plan in marriage.

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.  So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:18-24

There isn’t much said about their marriage. We’re left with only our own thoughts and speculations on what life was like for them. Adam was created not in the Garden of Eden but out of it and placed inside it later. At some point after that God put him to sleep and used his body to create Eve.

This wasn’t just any woman. This was a woman made from his body and created just for him. She was designed by God to belong to Adam. When Adam awoke and was presented with his new wife. Adams response… “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. He didn’t look at her and say ‘hmm, there’s a woman’ or ‘that one will do’ or ‘why God? I’d have rather lain around and not have to put up with her.’ No. He said ‘at last.’ The implication there is that he waited for her. He wanted a wife. A helper. A partner.

Now instead of being alone he had a wife. They were two people joined in marriage so that they were one flesh. This is a joining of mind, body, and soul. And they were dependent on each other. Where he was weak she was strong. Where she was weak he was strong. They were two and yet…one.

There they were in what amounted to paradise. They had everything and yet by our standards today…they had nothing but each other. They had no house, no car, no instant entertainment. They didn’t even have clothes. How much would they have bonded and clung to each other when they had nothing else? Can you imagine being the only two people in the world? How attached and dependent would you be on that other person?

Adam and Eve had each other and they had God. Not just in thought and Spirit but walking and talking with them. He was there to give them instruction, to show them what He expected from them but when He left them alone…they had each other.

That was the first marriage God created. And He did create it. He didn’t just bring them together. He made them for each other.

That is the first marriage He made. It is the example we should look to.

Scripture brings us many more marriages. Genesis alone shows us Abraham and Sarah, Noah and his wife, Noah’s sons and their wives, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael. We don’t get very much insight into what their marriages were like. We know that Sarah called Abraham Lord and that they were still close enough to conceive a child in their old age. We know the world was repopulated from the eight people, four married couples, that were on the ark during the flood.  We know Isaac was willing to work for fourteen years to claim the woman he loved as his wife.

These are only a handful of marriages scattered throughout Scripture. There are so many more. The very fact that there are so many marriages in Scripture should tell us the Lord puts importance on it.

Over and over in Scripture marriage is mentioned. Couples are referenced.  An internet search turns up the fact that marriage is mentioned 19 times in the Bible. A search on the word wife shows that it appears either 396 times or 407 times. I couldn’t find a number count for the word husband. Even allowing for errors in counting, different translations and anything else that might affect the word counts the number of times wife is mentioned is pretty impressive.

But what were these marriages like? Our minds tend to see them as we see marriage today. Some good, some bad, some awful. And I’m sure they were. People were people no matter when they lived. Sin takes hold of all of us no matter how hard we try not to let it. We’re human. We fail. We say things we shouldn’t. Do things we shouldn’t. Hurt those we love. That wasn’t any different just because the times were different.

But what did those marriages look like?

Have you ever noticed that marriages lasted for centuries in ways they don’t today? Part of that is the social stigma of being divorced. Even well into the 1900’s saying you were divorced carried a burden of shame with it. But there was another side to it. The simple fact was there was a time when men needed women and women needed men.

In times past a woman had no way of supporting herself or providing for her children if she wasn’t married. There were few opportunities for employment available to women, and when they were…if she had children what was she supposed to do with them if she worked outside the home? Who would care for them?

Men had few if any domestic skills and less time for doing things like cooking and cleaning even if they had the ability to do them. If they had children, especially small children, they were ill equipped to care for them. It was hard to work a field, or tend animals with a baby in their arms.

Life was separated into men’s work and women’s work. Husbands had a role, wives had a role. And marriages happened as often out of sheer need as they did out of love. Life was just harder alone than it was when you were married.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Genesis 2:18

Our modern society has taken the need for marriage away. Women can and do support themselves and their children. Men can cook and clean or they can throw something in the microwave. A single parent of either sex can drop their children off at daycare and not need to worry about them while they work. The need that held husbands and wives together has disappeared.

We can’t know what Biblical marriages looked like but we can know that the Lord had a plan for it in the beginning and He has a plan for it today. We know He gave certain roles to women and certain roles to men. He is the provider. She the caretaker. He is the protector. She the nurturer.

What if we simply stayed in the roles the Lord created us for? What if we realized that the Biblical model of marriage is good and tried to follow it? What if when we started questioning whether marriage was good we turned to Scripture? What if we looked at examples like Adam and Eve and saw that they stuck together through everything? What if we looked at marriages like Hosea and saw that they stuck it out when most would have walked away?

What if we looked at our husband and asked ‘what if God created me for him? What if I’m made ‘bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh’?

There is a secular movie that I saw years ago. It centers around a married couple as they work (and fight) together. A scene at the end of the movie shows a tornado heading their way. They take refuge in the only place that seems safe and is close enough to get to: a well house. With the tornado headed their way they lash themselves to the piping and hang on to it and each other. The tornado rips everything away and leaves them in the midst of a swirling mass that is churning angrily around them. As they’re bombarded with wind and debris swirls around them, you can see the churning tornado that is trying to suck them into it. But the pipes they’re anchored to hold fast and they’re swept into the air, hanging from their anchor, alone in a swirling storm that is surrounding them with trouble.

The Lord was kind enough to give me a Christian husband. Not just one that professes to know Christ but one that truly believes and follows the Lord, a man that denies himself for Christ, who puts others first, who is kind and humble. A man that I can see lives out Scripture every day. A man that is my safe place. Since our marriage we have been hit with many trials both big and small but with every one of them I have noticed that they’re easier to bear because we have each other. It’s easier to find a solution when we look for it together. It’s easier to bear the trials when we don’t have to bear them alone.

I haven’t watched that movie in years but the more trials that come our way the more I see my husband and I in the center of that tornado. We are the couple being blown and tossed about, Christ is the pipes that keep us anchored, that give us hope and strength to hang on, life is the tornado that swirls around us. But there in the middle of the tornado, my husband and I are anchored to the pipes, we have a firm foundation that keeps us rooted. We may be battered by the storms (trials) while the tornado of life surrounds us but we have each other in the midst of it.

And we have Christ.

Could that be what God had in mind when he created the first marriage?

 

The church

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?

Acts 7:48-49

Baptist Church. Methodist Church. Catholic Church. Lutheran Church. Non-denominational Church. Every time I go to into town, or just down the road I see church building after church building. Some I think to myself ‘I might could go there’, most I want no part of. Even the few I think I wouldn’t mind attending I know have little chance of holding the treasure I’m seeking.

            Because the treasure can’t be held inside a building. It’s held inside true believers, inside me, inside Scripture. And most churches contain very little of that true treasure. The real believers, those that the Lord has saved, are as hard to find in a church building as are the deeper truths of Scripture.

America today labels any place of worship as a church. Those that know the Scriptures know that the Lord’s church isn’t made of brick and wood, it doesn’t have walls and a steeple. Scripture after Scripture tell us that the true church is the believers, the saints. It is Christ’s people.

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.  Acts 20:28

So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Romans 12:5 esv

For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. 1 Corinthians 3:9

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.  1 Corinthians 3:17 esv

But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.  Hebrews 3:6

A minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. Hebrews 8:2

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.  Ephesians 2:19-22

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.  1 Timothy 3:15

These are only a handful of verses that tell us the church is the believers of Christ, it is the saints. Yet, today it’s nearly impossible to speak of a building where people gather without calling it a church. I’ve heard them referred to in a few places, usually from times long past, as meeting houses, gathering places and the like but today they are simply called churches.

This isn’t Scriptural. But like most things with American Christianity Scripture is barely considered when the ‘church’ is involved.