Chapter 9, Part 20

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
and shall obtain favor from the Lord.”
Proverbs 18:22

According to the Word, a wife is a good thing and brings favor from God. I have researched and I have found no such verse for a “baby’s momma”, girlfriend, or life partner. This bond is so complete to God that it is described as two people becoming one person in heart, mind, and spirit.[1] Two separate entities being brought together and made one. Marriage was provided from God to give a stable environment to raise children, so that children would know security and be given the knowledge of God. One of the main ingredients missing in the lives of our children today is security. Ask any child today what they fear and they will tell you they live in fear of the unknown. Children are afraid that their homes are going to be destroyed not by terrorist, but by divorce. A large part of that is the relative ease that homes are disintegrated today, we are living in a transient society. There is no longer a commitment to anything or anyone. Many today do not even bother to get married to raise children and those that do seem to have little commitment to the family. For those that do not know; God hates divorce![2] God has never desired for us to be divorced. If it were not for the hardness of man’s heart, God would have never allowed it.[3] We have turned divorce into a cottage industry. The animosity of many divorces today should convince anyone of why God has such a hatred for divorce. Children being torn from parents, turned against parents, and sometimes kidnapped from parents. You have parents using the custody of children as a weapon.

Why is divorce so common today? I believe one of the reasons is that we no longer go to God for our mates. Today so many of our young women are going out into the world (clubs, hangouts, etc.) looking for mates instead of going to God. In the black community, it is particularly disturbing because most mothers were not very successful in their choice of men and they pass that on to their daughters. Instead of teaching them to look for a man that will cherish, love, and provide for them, they are being shown to go for the man with the flashy smile, clothes, and the smooth line. Most, black women today claim to want a godly man, but when given the opportunity continue to pick the worldly man. He is more exciting, as if life were nothing more than an amusement park ride. People are choosing worldly qualities over Godly qualities. They are choosing the superficial over the deeper elements of a person’s character. Many would not know a good man if he were to walk up and slap them in the face.[4][5] There are many who marry and do not even know the religion of their mate or even if their mate is saved. The Bible is very clear on believers marrying unbelievers it is to be avoided.

“Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers,
But a prudent wife is from the Lord.”
Proverbs 19:14

I find it disturbing how many people will meet and marry people from the club, the streets, or now the internet and know absolutely nothing about the person. It is like the guy who marries a stripper and then gets mad when she takes her clothes off in front of other men. Hello, remember you were her favorite customer. Or, the woman who cheats with a man that she knows is with someone else and then can not believe when he cheats on her. What are people thinking these days?

Today, there is a growing and common attitude that it is better to be with anybody than to be alone. Due to our society promoting these self-gratification values, people no longer can wait on God. If you want a loving, perfect mate, pray to God and wait for God to give you him or her. Sometimes it takes so long for God to respond because you are not ready for what you are praying for. Sometimes we are not ready for the blessing that God has waiting to give us and God would not send us a blessing that will make our lives worse. He would rather you do without until you are ready to receive it. When was the promise land given to Israel? It was given to them before the beginning of time. So why did they have to spend forty years in the wilderness? Because they were not ready to receive the gift that God had already given them, their faith was weak. So, it is with many of us, we would not be able to love and cherish the blessing God has for us, because we have too much “worldliness” on us. For many of us we are just too selfish to be with anyone from God. Many of us only need to look at the gifts God has already bestowed on us; what have we done with those? God may be in the process of burning some of that worldliness off of you and preparing you for His blessing. Be patient, it is always to God’s glory that we are blessed. To show the world how awesome, powerful, and good the God we serve is.

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[1] Ibid.

[2] Malachi 2:16

[3] Matthew 19:9

[4] Figure of speech, I would never condone the use of violence against any woman.

[5] 1 Corinthians

This is the last post from my book. I want to thank all of the people who have come by and supported my efforts in getting out God's Word to those who are lost. I will continue to post to this blog with other information related to our fight. If this blog has helped anyone, please contact me at rodney.knott@gmail.com and give me your feedback. Thank you and may God get the glory...Glory to God.

Chapter 9, Part 19

Marriage

“Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each
man have his own wife, and let each woman have
her own husband.”
1 Corinthians 7:2

How do we break this cycle of fornication and sexual sinfulness? According to the Apostle Paul, we must marry. The answer to fornication is marriage. What a novel concept. As it was in the beginning, the way that God originally designed it in His perfect plan for us. Among its many benefits, marriage raises the earnings of men and motivates them to work more hours. It also reduces by two-thirds the likelihood that a family will live in poverty, researchers have learned. Could this be why so many single mothers and children live in poverty? Thousands of years later, how God designed it is still the right way. Man has continually tried to improve on God’s concept of marriage by instituting this “try it before you by it” idea. In other words let’s go out, sleep with a bunch of different people, and then decide whom we want to marry. There is only one small problem; it assumes that marriage is all about sexual gratification. We think that a good sex partner will make a good marriage or lifetime partner. And of course, this is foolishness, marriage is more than sex. In fact, sex plays such a small part of the overall relationship. Any marriage based on sex will not last very long.

Some may say that marriage cannot be the answer. Look at all the marriages that are ending today in divorce. However, the problem is not marriage, it is divorce. Divorce is causing so much pain in our society today. If we were to follow the teachings of our Lord, the only reason for divorce permitted by God is adultery.[1] We are not to divorce for any and every reason that we grant divorces for today. I can recall one celebrity who divorced his wife for irreconcilable differences; it appears she was taller than he was. I checked and she had not grown an inch in the marriage so she was that height when he married her. The teachings of Christ on marriage and divorce are pretty simple and straightforward. Marriage is until death do you part. We should take marriage very seriously; it appears that God does. Christ said that, “What God has joined together let no man pull apart.”[2]

What we have forgotten is that marriage is not an earthly or man-made institution it was created by God for man. Marriage was created and ordained by God to avoid the problems we are currently facing as a people and to a greater extent as a nation. We have become a community of fornicators. Man has so perverted the institution of marriage it should come as no surprise to anyone that it is no longer working. Marriage today is treated like some sort of business deal, a contract that can be broken or breached at anytime. This is not how God intended marriage to be practiced. God said that when a man and a woman are joined together they are no longer two, but become one flesh.[3] Marriage is not an external bond, it was designed to be an internal bond until death. Marriage has no power today due in large part to the fornication that is taking place prior to the marriage. As soon as the marriage becomes a little difficult, it’s over and on to the next one.

The world continues to display through the media the farce that marriage has become. All those role models and idols are shown with those huge weddings with all the trappings, the envy of all who see them. Yet, within less than a year for most of them they are separated or divorced. Again, the following year they show up “in love” with some new heartthrob or actress/model and the process begins all over again. I wish I could say that this only occurs in “sinful Hollywood” or the entertainment business but that would not be true. Unfortunately, in the “evangelical Christian” community divorce rates are just as high if not higher than in the “worldly” community. In fact, the “Bible belt” has a divorce rate that is higher than the supposedly liberal northeast. If the people of God are not upholding the teachings of Christ how can we expect the world to follow the example we are suppose to be setting. Why are so many “born again” Christians divorcing and remarrying? Maybe those claiming to have the in-dwelling Holy Spirit in them do not. The numbers on the divorce rates of “evangelicals” is staggering and I would ask anyone to check the figures for yourself. Do the research and I know the numbers will bear me out.

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[1] Matthew 5:32

[2] Matthew 19:6

[3] Ibid

Chapter 9, Part 18

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as
is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and
so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:25

To exhort one another, that means to urge or advise strongly. We as a body of believers need to exhort each other more to follow the Lord. In our assemblies we spend more time worrying about who is sleeping with whom than uplifting one another. Our bodies of believers have turned into a body of gossipers and backbiters. It is no wonder our church bodies have no power to stem this epidemic. Instead of gossiping about each other we should be praying for each other and lifting our fallen members up. We want to just sit and talk behind each others backs. As the day of judgment approaches with all of its trials and tribulations for believers we need more than ever to exhort one another. We will all come under extreme pressure to compromise and adopt the ways of the world. It will take all of our faiths to be able to stand in those times.

We must remember that this body is all about relationships. From the relationship the Father has with the Son, to our relationship with the Trinity, to our relationship to each other. Our relationship with each other is suppose to be a mirror of the relationship we have with our heavenly Father. If we build better relationships inside the body of believers, the more likely we will follow the teachings of the Lord. As our relationships get stronger with our brothers and sisters in Christ, the stronger our resolve to do the right thing will be. We strengthen each other through our unity of purpose and faith. Let us begin to work on our relationships to affect change on the world. Our Lord said, “If we have something against our brothers we are to leave our gift at the altar and go and be reconciled to our brothers, then come back to the altar.[1] Let our church bodies be strongholds of righteousness that believers can run to and find sanctuary. Let them find exhortation and not fornication.

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[1] Matthew 5:23