"The Institution of Marriage"

I was recently watching one of my favorite westerns staring one of the most popular actors that have graced the motion picture screens. He has been one of my all-time favorite actors for as long as I can remember. However, the heroic roles he plays in Hollywood and the character he possesses in real life are quite the contrary.

Now 90 years old his family status goes something like this,  married twice with numerous live-ins and lovers. It is not known how many children he really has as the actual number has never been released. It is known that he has at least 8 children by 6 different women, none of which were his wives.

One might say, "well, that's Hollywood". However, in our everyday Southern country life, who among us can say that somewhere in our family or friends, the Institution of Marriage has not been honored? Even in the scope of my life-time the value of Marriage has declined greatly. Our understanding of its purpose, its value, and its effect on our society go without much thought. The idea of simply finding a partner and living together with the understanding if all things go well, marriage might find its way sometime in the future, has replaced the idea of traditional Marriage. Thus the value and purpose of Marriage are uprooted and laid aside.

After all, the try before you buy attitude does sound reasonable. The commitment that Marriage demands are very profound, it only makes sense to try it on a trial basis and be really sure before you enter into such a contract. This approach has even found its way into the thinking of many who would profess to have faith in Christ. Professing Christians who consider such reasoning, obviously never consider Paul's statement concerning the Church and Marriage. (Eph 5:31  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
Eph 5:32  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.) 

This relationship between a man and his wife is compared in scripture to the union of Christ and His church. Consider the aspect of this thinking in such a context, Christ saving us on a trial period to see if it was going to work out ok before really committing Himself to save us. Really! How would that work out for us?

The value and esteem of Marriage have always been held high in scripture. The Rev. H. H. Norris preaching on Marriage Sunday, July 2, 1837, stated: "He works upon it with the skill of a profound and exquisite artificer; and having framed and modeled out of it, after man’s own image, yet retaining its Divine similitude, but softened and refined, the grace of social life, He brings her to him, to be his bosom counselor and partner of his joys (for cares and sorrows he then had none), and knitting them together, pours out upon them precious benedictions; and ordains, with obvious respect to all future generations, that in every instance the strongest tie of nature, at the time existing, should be in great part dissolved, that the tie of matrimony might be adequately cemented; and that it should be of the very essence of the alliance thus contracted, that the parties should become “one flesh,” and, therefore, that our first mother’s marvelous formation should be in some sort influentially repeated, that this mutual tendency to cleave together might be produced."

Not only the churches but the civil authorities that have governed our nation have also held Marriage in the highest regard and importance. Americas 2nd President John Adams writes: "The foundations of national morality must be laid in private Families. In vain are Schools, and Universities instituted, if loose Principles and licentious habits are impressed upon Children in their earliest years…. How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion, if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn that their mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers."

In the American Experiment, our founders were wise in their understanding of the depravity of man. They understood that freedom if maintained, must have supports, religion being one of its greatest supports, another closely linked is Marriage. They understood a strong family unit would make a strong community, and strong communities would make for a strong society. A free self-governing society is not easily maintained and it is impossible to maintain without strong supports. The passions of the depraved human nature must be restrained, that is done either by law and the threat of punishment, by social pressures and expectations, or properly trained conscience. A society without restraints and complete freedom is anarchy.

Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, articulated this understanding stating: "Marriage is an institution, which may properly be deemed to arise from the law of nature. It promotes the private comfort of both parties, and especially of the female sex. It tends to the procreation of the greatest number of healthy citizens, and to their proper maintenance and education. 

It secures the peace of society, by cutting off a great source of contention, by assigning to one man the exclusive right to one woman. It promotes the cause of sound morals, by cultivating domestic affections and virtues. It distributes the whole of society into families and creates a permanent union of interests and a mutual guardianship of the same. 

It binds children by indissoluble ties, and adds new securities to the good order of society, by connecting the happiness of the whole family with the good behavior of all. It furnishes additional motives for honest industry and economy in private life, and for a deeper love of the country of our birth."

Today people see marriage as a strictly private relationship, created by and for the individuals in the couple without any larger social or public purpose. Marriage is understood as a commitment to live up to the rigorous demands of love, to care for each other as best you humanly can. The purpose of Marriage today is mostly considered the exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other; the purposes of that commitment include love, mutual support, and a way of living that brings stability to our society. This understanding sounds reasonable, even romantic on its surface, however, its soul support and purpose rest upon the depraved human nature which is selfish and unreliable.

In co-habitation without the institution of Marriage, the passions of the human heart are released without its constraints. If Marriage is eventually entered into at some later point, its value and meaning have already been degraded. It's purpose and support disregarded, and therefore the main strength and support of the family unit greatly weakened. If it is deemed an unworkable relationship, many times Children have already been brought into the relationship and are now exposed to the effects of separated parents, mixed family units, and all the social ills that come with it.  

   

Might you not say, Marriages fail too, and when they fail, they fail with greater consequences? This writer understands that fully, I know the hurt of divorce and the challenges of a mixed family. Marriages do fail, people are sinful and we live in a fallen world. Never the less, to value and to honor the institution of Marriage even with our weaknesses is the life of our society. 

Our nation felt Marriage so important, knowing the weakness of the human nature, what is called "Common Law Marriage" agreements were instituted and recognized as an attempt to bring the benefits and supports of Marriage into a broken society. Many states still recognize such agreements even today. These agreements are not to be confused with co-habitation, for the couples must agree to certain requirements that vary with each state. Such things as they must be committed to Marriage at some point in the future and the female must take on her spouse's name. This of course is not Marriage, but it is society's attempt to achieve some of the supports of Marriage and apply it to the weaknesses in our communities. 

One must now ask, why are Marriage ceremonies and legal commitments so important? Because Pro 16:25  There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.      

The institution of marriage is important and its value rests upon the fact it is instituted by God. No man has the right to change its definition nor its purpose. Its purpose is to model the relationship between Christ and his church and Glorify God. 

When a young man or woman finds a person to whom they are attracted and mutual love and relationship develop, that emotion is very much a part of them seeking a union. However, the ultimate end and purpose for their union must be in their love for God and the desire to Glorify Him. When a young man or woman places their love and hope in God, they will not dishonor Him by dishonoring what He has instituted. Society may achieve some benefits by its common-law marriages, but they cannot honor God with them. It is by His grace and blessing upon our lives that we are able to secure our Marriages in love and devotion to Him first and then to each other.  

Yes, it behooves society to do what it can to strengthen our communities by whatever means it can to suppress our depravity. It behooves the Christian to love and obey God's commands and seek His glory and his purpose in our families. To profess to be Christian and to despise His ways is not reconcilable. Sexual commitments outside the confines of Marriage finds itself in the confines of sexual immorality. 

1Co 7:9  But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 

1Co 7:39  A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. 

Heb 13:4  Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 

Eph 5:3  But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 

1Co 6:18  Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

1Co 7:2  But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 

Gen 2:24  Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 

"American Liberty"

"Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty and in such a country as that which we possess are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. 

There is a just God Who presides over the destinies of nations, and Who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. . . .Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace — but there is no peace. 

The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! . . . . 

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" - Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

During the events of this recent Covid-19 virus, much has been said here in America concerning Liberty. Some have seen the restrictions imposed to combat the virus as an infringement upon that Liberty. Others sight Constitutional rights that are being infringed upon as a reaction to the changes in our society. Wither these concerns are warranted, are not clear to me, I don't have the information to make that judgment.

I do want however to make three points in this post. The first being a reflection upon what American Liberty is and its value. Second, the real threat to that Liberty and finally an aspect of our lives that is of far greater value than that of Liberty itself.

Simply reading over the words above spoken by Henry stirs the emotions. Such noble words embody the essence of courage and bravery. The first book I read that introduced me to the uniqueness of American Liberty was a book titled “Never Before In History”, by Gary Amos and Richard Gardiner. It brilliantly details the unique period of time in which those of us here in America live.

In the Preface of that book Harry V. Jaffa comments, “There are rare times and places, in the long human story, when outburst of human genius supply human civilization with the supreme wonders of human greatness. It is the contemplation of these that raises the mass of mankind to levels not unworthy of the divine image in which we were created.

Such moments of supreme achievement are to be found in Periclean Athens, in the Florence of the Medecis, and in the London of Elizabeth and Shakespeare.

However, never before or since has political genius burst in such profusion on the human scene, as in the British colonies in America, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The period of the American Founding, from the Revolution to the Framing, Ratification, and Inauguration of the Constitution, saw political thought and action in the service of human freedom, of a wisdom and power unsurpassed even by the glory of Greece or the grandeur of Rome. Every human good we enjoy today is, directly or indirectly, a legacy from what the Founders wrought, and Lincoln preserved.”

This Liberty is so unique that President Reagan was prompted to speak saying, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.”

To those of you in other nations, it may be hard for you to understand these things, however, for us who live here, these words ring precious to our ears. So, one can understand even in the midst of the Covid-19 scare there were some who react to the slightest threat of that Liberty.

We may have recognized a slight threat during the Covid-19 scare, but we have missed the quietly ever-encroaching threat that is the greatest of all. It has been eroding our lives and Liberty for decades, and like the frog slowly being boiled in water without notice, so is our demise. It is a most difficult enemy, and it will never be eradicated this side of Heaven. It is the sickness that plagues all of mankind, the sickness of an un-regenerated sinful nature.

Jaffa speaks of “human genius” and the “supreme wonders of human greatness.” Reagan speaks of “ no other source of power except to sovereign people”. Yet of all this human greatest, man at his best is still but man. Of all his power, it is only the power of a fallen sinful corrupted human will and wisdom.

Of all the greatness and genius of this grand achievement in American Liberty, there is one great weakness. John Adams Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Second President of the United States identified it understanding that: 

“It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.” (Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 401, to Zabdiel Adams on June 21, 1776.)

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams,

Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)

The strength of our Liberty rests upon the foundation of Christian principles that not only formed the ideas but gave us the strength to live by them. Religious people, who may or may not be true Christians, by their religious beliefs are restrained from their depravity and enabled to be peaceful citizens. Even none believers who are raised in a culture of morality are restrained in their sinfulness by a conscious understanding of right and wrong. The slow eroding of these principles has been the weakening of our political system and our greatest threat to our Liberty.

“There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul, and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy." (Source: John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), pp. 22-23.)

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." - (Source: William V. Wells, The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1865), Vol. I, p. 22, quoting from a political essay by Samuel Adams published in The Public Advertiser, 1749.)

“Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses,

and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.” - James McHenry (Source: Bernard C. Steiner, One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Maryland Bible Society,

1921), p. 14.)

“The primary objects of government are the peace, order, and prosperity of society. . . . To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support: and among these . . . religious institutions are eminently useful and important. . . . [T]he legislature, charged with the great interests of the community, may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions—institutions wisely calculated to direct men to the performance of all the duties arising from their connection with each other, and to prevent or repress those evils which flow from unrestrained passion.” - (Source: Connecticut Courant, June 7, 1802, p. 3, Oliver Ellsworth, to the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut)

There is almost an endless supply of Founding documents readily available to secure the understanding of our Founders concerning the strength and weaknesses of our system. It is a gift to us from God in the course of His Providence. It is a gift few have experienced for a short period of time in human history. It was never promised to men, it is only a gift. If God deems in His Providence it is enough, it will no longer be. It may be in His Providence, that we again prove ourselves unworthy of such a gift as we always do and realize our Liberty was only an extension of His Mercy and Grace.

There is something much greater than Liberty, it is the humbling of ourselves in submission to the Great Providence and Purpose of God in His plan of redemption. There is a story told of two young Moravian missionaries who heard of an island in the West Indies where an atheist British owner had 2000 to 3000 slaves.

And the owner had said, "No preacher, no clergyman, will ever stay on this island. If he's shipwrecked we'll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave, but he's never going to talk to any of us about God, I'm through with all that nonsense." Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ.

Two young Germans in their 20's from the Moravians sect heard about their plight. They [were willing to sell themselves] to the British planter for the standard price for a male slave [if necessary.] The Moravian community from Herrenhut came to see the two lads off, who would never return again, having freely sold themselves into a lifetime of slavery. As a member of the slave community, they would witness as Christians the love of God.

Family members were emotional, weeping. Was their extreme sacrifice wise? Was it necessary? The housings had been cast off and were curled up on the pier. As the ship slipped away with the tide and the gap widened, the young men linked arms, raised their hands and shouted across the spreading gap, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering."

This became the call of Moravian missions. And this is our only reason for being...that the Lamb that was slain may receive the reward of His suffering! Yes, we love our Liberty, in His Providence, we have been afforded much. Though our Liberty is lost, the great love of God prevails above all! Our life here is but a moment, time passes, so also nations and kingdoms. Yet, the Purpose of God rules from eternity, our lives are nothing, except they abide to fulfill his purpose. Let s be reminded of the understanding of our Founding Fathers, the strength and weaknesses of our nation, and commit ourselves wholly to the purpose of God. I am not yet as free as those Moravian Missionaries, but I press on.

May the Grace of God be with each of you,

David