Host Alan J. Reinach, Esq., looks at why marriage is so important from a biblical perspective.

<p>Host Alan J. Reinach, Esq., looks at why marriage is so important from a biblical perspective.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Church State Council

Alan Reinach

Marriage


Ah, sweet land of liberty. Our founding fathers not only pledged, but gave their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to obtain our God-given liberty. Now it's our turn. Liberty can only thrive if it's alive in the hearts of a freedom-loving people. I'm Dan Matthews, and I'm pleased to welcome you to Freedom's Ring.

Here's our host and constitutional lawyer and minister, Alan Reinoch. Well, Dan, the subject of marriage has become such a political football that I think it's time we take a step back from the partisan political arena and take another look at what the Bible says about marriage. Why is it so important? And so I want to go back to the beginning, to Genesis, and where it talks about man being made in the image of God. Now I don't mean to disappoint you listeners.

Men, yeah, you're made in the image of God. Women, you are too, but not as fully and completely as when you are in an intimate heterosexual marriage relationship. Genesis 1, chapter 26, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So far so good. God's intent to make man in his own image.

But what does that mean? Verse 27. So God created man in his own image. So far so good. In the image of God he created him male and female.

He created them. So it's male and female together that are in the image of God and he continues, and God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth, etc. And of course God saw everything he had made and it was very good. On the other days it was good, but now it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

So we see at the very beginning that God created man in his image to live in relationship, and that it's especially in this relationship between man and woman that we see the image of God reflected. And that's really what this whole subject of marriage is all about. If you think about it, the traditional Christian view of God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, God is love and God has eternally been in intimate relationship. Now it may be difficult for us to wrap our brains around the concept of the Trinity or exactly how that functions or what that's like, after all God is God and we're created, we're dust, we're peons. So it's understandable that it's hard for us to wrap our brains around that.

But we can perceive that God has always been a relational being, and the whole point of the gospel is God's desire and the lengths that God has gone to restore our relationship, the relationship of fallen human beings, to our infinite, wonderful Creator. So love must exist in relationship. God is love, he's always existed in relationship, and it's in the marriage relationship, man and a woman, that humanity most perfectly reflects the image of God, because God is love. Now, the significance of this is not lost when we turn to the last book of the Bible, when we turn to the book of Revelation. In Revelation in chapter 14, right after the Mark of the Beast chapter, we see a passage that in context is really the final proclamation of the gospel around planet Earth prior to the return, the second coming of Christ.

And the final proclamation of the gospel is expressed in very interesting terms. Beginning in verse 6 of Revelation 14, Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, language, and people. And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water." So why is it in the last days, in the time just prior to the coming of Christ, when it's urgent that all take their stand and learn to worship the true God. When idolatry is rampant and all the world has become Babylon, the call to worship is to worship the Creator, to worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water." A return to the worship of the Creator. Marriage reflects the reality of the Creator.

It's 1 of 2 institutions that God ordained in Eden before sin. Any guesses what the second institution is? It was the Sabbath, wasn't it? Because Adam and Eve came together in marriage and enjoyed the first Sabbath in Eden before they ate the apple. A Sabbath is not a Jewish institution, although the Jews have preserved it for so long.

The rabbis actually have a saying that the Jews have not so much kept the Sabbath as the Sabbath has kept the Jews. And I think that reflects something basic about what Sabbath was always intended to be. It's a time for the community to come together to worship the Creator. And community worship is very important. Worship as part of a community, as part of in relation to other people and encouraging 1 another and learning from 1 another and learning how to love 1 another and dealing as a society, as a community, rather than just individually.

Here in the United States, we're rugged individualists and we do our own thing, but that's not the Eastern mindset and the mindset of Scripture is very much community-oriented. So you have these 2 institutions, marriage and the Sabbath, that both were established in Eden before sin, and I suggest to you both are going to be under severe attack prior to the coming of Christ because both point us to who God is, that God is creator. And that's the essential attribute of God. In Romans chapter 1, Paul says that from the creation of the world, the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen so that all are without excuse. Creation itself reveals the essential attributes of God.

David proclaimed in the Psalms, The heavens declare the glory of God, The firmament showeth his handiwork, Day by day uttereth speech. There is no place in the world that his voice is not heard. David in the Psalms, Paul in his writings in the New Testament, they all agree. The essential attributes of God as the omnipotent creator are clearly seen through creation. And yet, Paul writes in Romans about the descent into idolatry.

And Revelation 13, the chapter preceding our final call to worship that we just read in chapter 14, Revelation 13, the Mark of the Beast chapter, describes the descent into idolatry. It is a worship that is commanded and enforced by law. All are excluded from buying or selling unless they receive the mark of the beast, unless they worship the beast and its image. So there's a form of worship that is compulsory worship. It's enforced by law.

There's a reuniting of church and state. And at the risk of making myself too plain, Jesus made it plain to us that this final deception, this final reuniting of church and state, of religion and government, it would not be a non-Christian religion. Jesus didn't warn us about radical Islam or Buddhism or secularism or Hinduism or any other ism or any of the, you know, the new religions, you know, the Moonies or the Scientologists or anybody else, Jesus didn't warn us about cults or anything. He said, many will come in my name and deceive many so as to deceive, if possible, even the very elect. Who are the very elect?

Those who have faith in Christ, those who are walking in the Spirit, who love Jesus, these are the very elect. And we're capable of being deceived, not by a union of religion and government such as, say, Sharia law, but by a union of religion and government that is in the name and in the form of Christianity, in the name of Jesus. Now when I was a kid coming up in the late 60s and the 70s, and I guess I'm giving my age away here. There were 2 Jesuses that I remember. 1 was black, he wore an afro, we had the black Jesus, and we had the white Jesus.

The white Jesus, he had long flowing hair, he wore long flowing white robes, and he wore sandals. He was a hippie. He was 1 of us. And I've thought about this often through the years. We all have a tendency to recreate Jesus in our own image.

But Jesus wants to recreate us in his image. We were created in the image of God, and he wants to restore us to the image of God. And what's at stake in this whole issue of marriage is far more than what you read about in the newspaper. And it's not about taking rights away from somebody else or whether somebody else should have rights. It's really about, can we as Christians witness to the world what it means to be created in the image of God?

I don't want us to get so caught up in the culture war issues of the day that we lose sight of the prize of our first priority as Christians, which is to live out the life and the love of Christ in our lives, to show his love to others. And you know, marriage has taken a lot of hits over the last several decades Many issues no fault divorce has taken a hit marriage has suffered and you can't blame that suffering on the LGBT community We heterosexuals have made a mess of marriage all by ourselves without any help from anybody else So, you know, there's there's lots of reasons We can't go into all of them But I guess my point my point of emphasis in doing this show today is to remind our listeners the spiritual issues are far more important than the social ones. And let's recover God's ideal of marriage. Let's start by cleaning house ourselves and let's build strong marriages within our church. Let's recover the biblical concept of marriage, and let's see the importance of marriage as a couple coming together in intimacy, and in that intimacy experiencing what it means to be made in the image of God.

That's a very profound and deeply important concept, especially for these last days when the reality of the Creator is so heavily attacked. The doctrine of creation itself is under attack. Well, I've said my piece about marriage. I pray for our marriages. Let's pray for 1 another.

And as we close, we want to remind our listeners here at Freedom's Ring, we don't just talk about religious freedom. We offer help to those suffering religious discrimination. Check out our legal resources page at churchstate.org. And now you can listen to Freedom's Ring on the web at SoundCloud as well. SoundCloud radio station.

Just search for Freedom's Ring and all our shows are up there. And don't forget friends, freedom is not free. Be informed, get involved. This has been Freedom's Ring. I'm your host, Alan Rynok.

Until next week, Let freedom ring.

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Marriage

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