God's provision and protection though marriage I. Provision

The other day I was complaining to the Good Lord that I feel misunderstood. His tongue in cheek reply to me boiled down to “You think that you are misunderstood. Buddy you ain't seen nothing yet. What about all those religious types who say they represent me, but don't? What about all the self righteous hypocrites who claim to speak for me, but don't even know me? What about all the blame, all the bad mouthing, all the false accusations, all the nasty things people say and think about Me? You think you have a problem. My son, you ain't seen nothing yet”.

Some people have this picture of God that He is some kind of celestial Scrooge who, whenever He sees someone having fun, He leans over the balcony of heaven and yells down “Cut that out”. If this is you, you have it all wrong, for “At His right hand there are pleasures for evermore”. God's rep is nowhere more twisted than in the area of sex. After all He invented it! I also think that it says something about His sense of humour. I mean if you think about it, it's really weird. “My dear you are so beautiful, I have this almost irresistible desire to put my finger in your ear!”

In the coarser days of my youth the we jested (in song) about the mating habits of a certain bird, which mated just once a year. “What's it so happy about?” we asked each other.“Tonight's the night” was the reply. In ancient Israel, the couple soon to be married would be separated for a year, while the groom built and prepared a home. At the end of this time, they would come together in the bridal chamber and not emerge for a week. On top of this, the exact timing of the wedding would be known only to the groom, who could come any time day or night, for his bride (Matthew 25). Imagine the excitement as the day approached, imagine the anticipation, the longing, the joy. Talk about romantic. The law then excused the young man from war for a year!

Contrast this with the cheep quick fix of the one night stand, or the soon fading passion of relationships built only on physical attraction, on biological need. In his book “Four loves”, C.S. Lewis (or Narnia fame) contrasts two of these loves, eros love (erotic love) and phileo love (friendship love). He makes the point that timing is all important in the healthy interrelationship of these two types of love. The friendship love, says Lewis, is stunted when we rush into the eros love before it is time. When yielded to too early, the eros love with its powerful biological imperative, far too easily takes over, and becomes all consuming. The point that Lewis wants to make, is that a relationship that has as its basis only the erotic component of love will, sooner or later fade. When, in a relationship friendship love was either never really developed, or stunted, then there is nothing for the couple to fall back on when the physical side fades. Is it any wonder the divorce rates are so high in our "I want what I want, and I want it now" society.

If the Biblical standards seems impossibly high, impractical, improbable, ivory-tower, nonrealistic, and pie like in the sky, let me suggest that it is only because we have made it so. In fact there have always been societies where the expectation (and hence the substantial reality) of sex between one man and one woman only within the confines of life long marriage, has been the standard practice. And this not only within the Judeo Christian contexts. The Zulu tribe held strongly to this morality. I mean if puffins can manage it, surely it should not be impossible for humankind!

Perhaps (it is not outside the realm of possibility) that you who are reading this, have failed to achieve the high calling of this level of fidelity. Welcome to the club. I failed and failed miserably. The difference might be, that in the excesses of my youth, I never believed that what I was doing was right. I didn't care, no-one warned me of the consequences (broken marriages, life long trauma for my offspring etc.). No one shared with me that the appetites we develop demand to be satisfied, long after we no longer want them. Nor was I told that signing my name to a marriage certificate would not change any of it. I had to learn all this from the school of hard knocks. No indeed God is not some celestial Scrooge determined to spoil our fun, He is a loving Father who wants to spare His children form the pain of poor choices. This is why he calls wrong, the things that He calls wrong. In the same way that most parents say “no”, when they want to prevent their child from burning themselves on the hot stove, it is out of love for us that He sets rules designed to keep us from harm. We break the rules because we want to become free, but what we get is not freedom, but bondage. How true it is what He says when He says “He who sins is the slave of sin”.

But He is not just into setting rules, He is into an incredibly costly rescue and restoration mission. “If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed”. The cost to Him was the Cross of Christ, the gift to us was life, life in all its fullness to those who will unreservedly follow Him. Why, oh why do we resist such love?