God's Purposes for Marriage and Sex
Introduction
What is marriage for? The answer that you'll get from children's stories is, "to live happily ever after." The answer we get from television and movies is, "to make your life miserable ever after." No two people get married in order to make themselves or each other miserable. They marry with optimism that life truly will be more meaningful and emotionally richer.
Before the 1960"s, the divorce rate was a lot lower than it is today and most couples reported being fairly happy together. But then the Sexual Revolution came along and people said, "We don"t need marriage anymore. Anyone can live together for however long they want to for whatever reason they want to and shouldn"t have to be bound together 'till death do us part." We want freedom to express ourselves anyway we choose. We don't need God or the institution of marriage that He created." Then the minority of people who were unhappily married or who grew up in an unhappy home led the rebellion. They took over the legislatures. They took over the judicial system. They took over the entertainment industry and popular culture. They took over the schools. They have told us lie after lie in order to try to convince us that their own immoral behaviors are OK.
Since this war on marriage and family began they dragged our culture down deeper and deeper into the gutter. Even though the average American's lifestyle is not like TV shows and movies make it out to be Hollywood continues to portray us that way. They are constantly pushing their immorality on us. The message is clear: If you aren't sexually promiscuous then shame on you. In addition, Hollywood exports this false view of Americans to the rest of the world. One of the major reasons we have so many enemies in the Muslim and Asian cultures is that they think we are all a bunch of sex addicts and perverts. They don't realize that most Americans are not like that.
I believe one of the gravest mistakes occurred when we lost sight of God's purposes for marriage and sex. As a result, many people see marriage and sex inside of marriage as too limiting. They say things like, "God is against sex" and "God doesn't want us to have any fun." They don't think that their needs can be met through marriage. They use various alternatives to try to meet those needs on their own. But when we gain a correct view of God's purposes for marriage, only then can we realize how God uses marriage to protect us and provide for us better than any way we can devise on our own.
To Reflect God's oneness
In the very beginning of the Bible, God tells us why He created the institution of marriage. God has at least 5 purposes for marriage and sex and they are found in Genesis chapters one and two.
The Trinity is the ultimate example of oneness in relationships
The first purpose for marriage and sex is to reflect God's oneness. Genesis tells us, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.' "
In order to understand the oneness that two people can experience in a relationship together we need to understand the God who makes that possible. To do that, we'll have to dive right in to some pretty heavy theology. You've learned somewhere that God has three persons yet is one God. Does this mean Christians can't count? Does this mean we believe in three Gods or one God? The doctrine of God's trinity can be very confusing but once we begin to understand it we see how God experiences the ultimate oneness in relationship. In order to make any sense of this, we have to distinguish between what the one refers to and what the three refers to.
The one refers to God's essence or nature, in other words, His Godness, His divine essence. No one else in the spiritual or physical universe has the divine essence. Indeed, there can not be any other because there is no room for any more beings with a divine essence. God's divine essence takes up the whole universe. The divine essence can not be divided between more than one god, otherwise it is not truly the divine essence. It is not that God is merely characterized by a divine essence; God is the divine essence and the divine essence is God.
The three refers to three distinct persons. All the persons of the triune God share the divine essence. There is only one divine essence, but there are three persons who share this same nature. The members of the trinity are distinct (The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). Does it sound like I just contradicted myself? I haven't because the difference is this. The gods of mythology are distinct beings that act independently. They each have their own agenda. They are seen scheming against and fighting with each other. In 180 degree contrast, the members of the trinity are perfectly and deeply interrelated. They have an unbreakable unity.
Paul Copan, in his book, That's Just Your Interpretation, describes this remarkable relationship.
For in the divine life there is no isolation, no insulation, no secretiveness, no fear of being transparent to another. So while each of the divine persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) fully possesses the same essence (each one can be called God), they share a common, mutually indwelling life together. Think of a triangle (which necessarily has three angles). We cannot remove one of the angles and still have a triangle. All three angles must coexist. Similarly...We cannot remove one person from this intimate relationship and have the other two remain intact....Because the members of the Trinity share the same essence and mutually indwell one another, they also act as one rather than in isolation from one another. Even though three distinct wills exist within the Trinity, only one will is ultimately expressed, which indicates the deep unity of the Godhead.
So we could answer the question, What is God like? by saying, "a triangle," but a triangle isn't personal. Instead, God answers the question with, "I am giving you a marriage relationship not just to know intellectually what I am like but to experience what I am like." What a teacher!
In a marriage relationship we can experience the wonder and beauty of being two distinct individuals with two distinct wills being united by sharing the essence of humanness.
Maleness and femaleness are both required for humans to express the oneness of God
God wants the marriage relationship to be the earthly, visible, tangible model for this ultimate oneness. God made mankind in such a way that males and females are distinctly different. So when a man and a woman come together they are two distinctly different people with not only personality differences but gender differences as well. When these two distinctly different genders are brought together they begin to reflect God's oneness. Genesis 1:26 - 28 tells us,
"Then God said, 'Let us (the triune God) make man in our image, in our likeness...' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
An individual, while made in the image of God, can not reflect God's oneness. A man and a man or a woman and a woman can not reflect God's oneness. Homosexuality can not reflect God's oneness. Instead, it is a counterfeit because to reflect God's oneness requires a male and a female. Why settle for less than the real thing? We'll talk more about homosexuality later.
The oneness of marriage protects us from the damaging consequences of sex outside of marriage
Now how does this oneness in relationship protect and provide for us? We are emotional and social creatures. We are made to love and to be loved. We are made for oneness with another person. But this oneness can't happen in one night. It takes a commitment to be loyal and faithful to only one person. This commitment is called marriage. This oneness doesn't even happen completely on a honeymoon. It takes years of getting to know each other, working together, living together, fighting together, relating together to experience the true depth of that deep oneness that is possible. So through marriage our needs for deep intimacy and emotional connectedness are met better than any other way.
I'd better say something brief about celibacy here so I'm not misunderstood. Celibacy is a God-given exception. It is a calling and a choice. Because God calls a person to celibacy He will take care of that person's needs for deep intimacy and emotional connectedness through His relationship with that person.
Moving on, tragically, many young people mistakenly assume that just because their parents don't share emotional intimacy then no one, including them, can find it in marriage. It doesn't have to be that way. My wife and I have had our ups and downs but through it all we have come to experience a deep emotional intimacy beyond what we ever thought was possible when we got married.
In Why Marriage Matters, Glenn T. -Stanton writes,
Couples who live together before they marry have divorce rates 50 to 100 percent higher than couples who don't. In a Canadian study of couples married less than 10 years, the divorce rate was 31 percent for those who lived together first, but only 14 percent for those who didn't. Studies also show that couples who lived together before marriage quarrel more, communicate less, separate more often, seek more counseling, and are more likely to have extramarital affairs. They have more problems with drugs and alcohol, and regard marriage as a less important part of their lives.
Cohabiting couples report higher rates of depression and lower rates of sexual satisfaction than married couples. Their rates of violence are twice as high, and their rates of severe violence five times as high. In three out of four live-in-relationships, at least one partner reports having thought the relationship was in trouble over the past year. This is twice the rate for otherwise similar married couples.
By trying to achieve oneness on our own without God whether inside or outside of marriage, we rob ourselves of what we are made for. God designed marriage to protect us and provide for us.
To Procreate
In Genesis we read, "God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth." I think we can check that commandment off the list!
Procreation is a secondary purpose for sex
The second purpose for marriage and sex is to procreate, that is to make babies and thereby keep mankind from becoming extinct. Maybe you didn't notice this, but I didn't treat procreation as the first purpose because that is not the order in which it is treated in the Genesis story. I believe that order is very significant. It is because human sexual reproduction is secondary to experiencing and reflecting God's oneness in relationship. Over the years, a married couple has sex far more often than for the purpose of producing children. If sex was only for procreation, then God wouldn't have had to make it so enjoyable to that we would want to do it more often then just for children.
Procreation multiplies a godly heritage
Procreation multiplies a godly heritage. Part of God's strategic plan is that through this lineage of godly descendants, Satan's evil rebellion would be defeated. You see, according to various passages in the Bible we learn that before the physical universe was created, God created the angels, including Lucifer, whose name meant "bearer of light." He was the most awesome angel there was. He got conceited and led a third of all the angels in a coup attempt to replace God as the ultimate ruler of the universe. If he had really understood God he wouldn't have tried such a foolish and futile act. Instead of locking them up in prison or wiping them out of their very existence, God formulated a plan. Remember, Lucifer, who is now called Satan, meaning the adversary or opponent, isn't like God. He doesn't know the future and can't figure out God's plan. He may not know anymore about God's plan than we know, and that's reassuring to me. Anyway, part of God's strategy for dealing with this rebellion was to create the physical universe and planet earth and particularly mankind. God simply hasn't given us enough information to completely understand how this is important to His strategy but He isn't obligated to inform us or Satan of His battle plans.
One thing is for sure, Satan hates God and anything that reminds him of God. It just so happened that God created mankind in his image, that is, to be finite replicas of the infinite God. So every time a new human being is conceived in its mother's womb there is another replica of God. So God told us to fill the earth with little action figures of Himself. Can you imagine anything else that would drive Satan crazier than to turn every corner and see a reminder of the very God he hates?
Human sexuality has a cosmic significance
God made humans to be uniquely different than all other living things. Angels can not reproduce and make more angels. Someone needs to break the news to Hallmark Greeting Cards Company that there are no baby angels. And while sexual reproduction is important to all living creatures it is given a cosmic significance when it comes to human reproduction. When humans have sex to make babies it takes on the almost mysterious meaning of making other humans that bear God's image. This is why abortion is wrong. It treats a human baby like the flesh of any other animal when instead it is a person that bears God's image. It delights Satan when babies are killed because then he doesn't have to risk the possibly of them growing up to become Christians and joining the fight against him
Sex teaches us to give to one another unselfishly
There is yet another reason God gave us sex, and that is, to teach us to give unselfishly to one another. Think about it. From watching animals mate on the Discovery Channel and public displays by cows and dogs I've come to the profound conclusion that the female doesn't seem to get much enjoyment out of it. To put it in the crude vernacular it's, "Wham, bam, thank you mam." Unfortunately, this is true in a lot of human copulation, as well. But it doesn't have to be. God endowed men and women with certain anatomical parts that produce pleasure but are not necessary for intercourse and procreation. Humans have the ability to prolong sex and to give and receive mutual pleasure. We can express love and affection by giving pleasure to our mate that goes way beyond what is necessary to simply make babies. Both marriage partners enjoy sex more when they learn to give and receive this extra pleasure. Their relationship is enriched and deepened as they learn to give to each other.
This usually doesn't happen during sex outside of marriage. On Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2002, the CNN website reported the results of a study. The article began:
"Forget forbidden flings and passionate one night stands, its married women who enjoy the best sex." A survey by the British health magazine, Top Sante found that "two thirds of married women say the best sex they've had is with their husband, compared to 13 percent who say it was when they were single and just 9 percent when having an affair." Top Sante's editor said, "This survey turns on its head the idea that the best sex is when we are footloose, fancy free and single."
A couple of the lies Hollywood tells us as to why they produce movies that show women enjoying sex with men who aren't their husbands are that it simply reflects how people live and that they are just giving the public what they want to see. Now, do you think Hollywood will look at this survey in light of those reasons and make the appropriate changes?
To Manage God's Creation Together
We are the stewards of God's creation
The third purpose for marriage is to manage God's creation together. Genesis 1:26 tells us,
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Lions are not the king of the beasts, humans are. Even though God built many self-managing checks and balances into nature He put mankind in charge of nature. Instead of managing His creation Himself, God chose to delegate the task to mankind. What a responsibility!
In chapter 2 of Genesis we learn that man was created to be a steward of the land. Even before Adam sinned God put him in the Garden of Eden "to work it and take care of it." (2:15) As wonderful as the description of the Garden sounds it was not self-maintaining. This shows us that work is not the result of Adam's sin. The part of the curse involving work seems to deal with the frustration we feel when we work. Work is something God created us to do in order to manage His creation.
Now, once we understand how special God's creation is and what kind of responsibility we have to be good managers of it, we realize we must work together effectively and constantly depend on God for wisdom and strength. The family unit is uniquely designed to manage God's creation. When we are working together as a family unit we experience God's protection against the hostilities of nature and He provides us with the food and resources we need to live. Inevitably, the picture that comes to my mind is a farming family. The husband is out plowing the fields and doing manly work. The wife is cooking, cleaning, canning fruits and vegetables, knitting clothes and doing things for the children. She's doing the "woman's work."
But most of us don't live on a farm. So how are we to apply this business of managing God's creation together if we don't deal directly with the land? Well, I think the same principles apply. There are more gender differences than just physical strength. And the gender differences run so much deeper than merely who has to do the cooking and cleaning and take out the trash.
Males and females think differently, approach problems differently, feel differently, etc. Radical feminists tried to convince us that there is no difference, but fortunately the majority of people didn't buy it. Even though Linda and I don't live on a farm or lock ourselves into rigid traditional family roles we are still very much aware of our gender differences and how they are needed in order for us to survive and prosper in this world. And even though we are not tending the land in a direct manner we are part of a larger society that uses resources to survive and prosper. A society that protects and promotes marriage and family manages its resources better than the society that doesn't.
To Mutually Complete One Another
"Helper" connotes at least three things:
The fourth purpose for marriage is to mutually complete each other. In Gen 2:18, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone: I will make him a helper suitable for him." This does not mean women were created to be servants to men. A lot of insecure men (and women) hope it means that. The Hebrew word that is translated "helper" or "helpmate," is a very difficult word to translate concisely into English. The Hebrew word connotes at least three things
First, it has the connotation of savior, or deliverer and is even used of God Himself in other scriptures. Psalm 70:5 says, "Yet I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay." So Eve is actually given to Adam because he desperately needs her help. It is far from a demeaning term. It elevates her significance to that of Adam's. She is to be the major expression of God's help to Adam. I surely can relate to this. I can't tell you how many times my wife has saved my butt! One of my seminary professors was a very accomplished and famous Old Testament scholar. When he was introduced at a large conference the Emcee listed his many accomplishments. When he got up to speak he humbly said, "If you think I'm great you should know my wife. It has truly been said that behind every great man there is an even greater woman." Adam was not meant to fight the battle alone. That's why God created Eve.
Second, the word has the connotation of equality. The women's liberation movement did not invent equality for women. God invented it and made women with equal dignity and importance from the very beginning. Sinful men are the ones that oppress women, not God. Jesus treated women with equality and respect. The apostle Paul whom many radical feminists falsely accuse of being a chauvinist pig wrote this to the Corinthians: "neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman." (1Cor 11:11) So the word helper in Genesis also has to do with our equality.
Third, the word has the connotation of correspondence. Do you know why God gave Adam the job of naming all the animals? Among other things, the purpose was to show Adam his need for a companion that corresponded to him. As he was naming the animals he noticed that they came in pairs. There were males and females. Then he looked down at himself and realized he was a male but there was no female human being for him to pair up with. He realized he was all alone.
The whole fashioning Eve out of one of Adam's ribs business is not to be taken literally. It is beautiful poetic language to show that Eve was another human being just like Adam. She corresponded to him.
Now when God created her, Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." Now let me say it like the Hebrew indicates he would have said it, "WOW! THIS IS GREAT! THIS IS NOW BONE OF MY BONES AND FLESH OF MY FLESH;"
The expression in the original Hebrew indicates intense excitement over the fulfillment of a desperate need. She was made like him and with the same human nature. She corresponded to Adam physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and because she was female this correspondence complemented and completed him.
This complementary relationship was so complete that Moses, the writer of Genesis, establishes it as the norm. And we hear it at many weddings. He wrote, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."
Of course, this, too, is poetic language. We don't become joined at the hip when we get married. And it means more than just a physical union of flesh during sex. It means an unseen spiritual unity deep with in them.
What is the reason given for marriage here? It is to be united with another person of the opposite sex in order to be completed.
I need to digress for a moment. This unity is something that can't happen until two people leave their parents, that is, become independent in every way. We have to "leave and cleave." Many marital problems are caused when a child tries to be dependant on both their parents and their marital partner. They wind up trying to serve two masters. The only way two people can be united in marriage is by being independent from their parents. And parents must let their children leave and become independent or they will ruin their children's marriage.
To Model Christ's Relationship with the Church
The right kind of submission is inspired by the right kind of love
The fifth of God's purposes for marriage is to model Christ's relationship with the Church. Let's look at this more by analyzing Ephesians 5:22-33. Paul begins: "Wives, submit to your husbands."
Does this mean that a woman has to submit involuntarily? No, because he goes on to qualify it, "as to the Lord." In other words, a wife's submission to her husband should be voluntary just as her submission to the Lord is to be voluntary.
Paul continues,
"For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is our Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."
So again, the kind of submission he is talking about is a voluntary submission. In addition, it is a complete submission. Just as the church is to submit every area of its life to the involvement and leadership of Christ, wives are to submit every area of their lives to their husband's involvement and leadership. Unfortunately, this has been abused to the point where many wives don't let their husbands be involved in every area of their lives because they don't trust their husbands to truly care and help them in a helpful way. This is tragic because this leads to isolation, loneliness and frustration.
Radical feminists have a hay day with these verses, accusing Paul and Christianity of being chauvinistic. But let's not dismiss it so fast. I just read you 3 verses about how wives are supposed to submit to their husbands. But Paul goes on to spend the next 8 verses admonishing the husbands to love their wives with the same kind of love with which Christ loves the church. Let me read it to you:
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
When a husband loves his wife with the selfless, unconditional, sacrificial and trustworthy love with which Christ loves us and the church, his wife normally should have no problem at all submitting to him. If she can't, she needs to examine her own self to find out why. I suspect it has something to do with the reason why she finds it so difficult to submit voluntarily to the Lord Jesus Christ in every area of her life. Normally, a woman finds comfort and security in that kind of love.
But it goes both directions, as well. When a wife respects her husband the way the Church is to respect Jesus Christ then he will naturally respond by lovingly leading her with the sacrificial love of Christ. But if he can't, then he, too, needs to examine his self to find out why. It may be related to the reason why he has a difficult time respecting Jesus Christ and others.
Finally, it is the husband's mission in their marriage to lead her to more spiritual maturity so that she reflects God's character more and more beautifully.
So the marriage relationship is to serve as a model of the church's relationship with Christ, while the church's relationship with Christ serves as a model for the marriage relationship. This is truly an amazing, beautiful thing and an incredibly powerful weapon against Satan and his rebellious forces. When I think about this I am awestruck by God's wisdom in devising marriage. He's absolutely brilliant!
The Nature of God's Protection and Provision
At this point, I think it would be appropriate to explain a little more about what God's protection and provision is like. Many assume that God made marriage and sex and then made up a list of rules and consequences with which to punish people in order to keep us from breaking His rules. I don't think that is the case. God is not a capricious human dictator.
When you buy a car there are limits on what you can do with it, right? Let's say I throw the owner's manual out the window as I drive away from the car dealer and say, "I know how to operate and maintain a car. How dumb do they think I am? Well, let's find out. I drive a hundred thousand miles and don't change the oil and transmission fluids or brake pads and perform other important maintenance steps. I don't keep adequate air pressure in the tires. I ignore the warning lights, etc. Well, when the car breaks down to beyond the point of repair or worse causes a fatal accident can I rightfully blame the car for failing me? Could I rightfully blame the manufacturer for designing a defective vehicle? Could I say the maker designed the maintenance procedures just to frustrate me, ruin my fun and take away my freedom? Could I say the maker made the car so that if I didn't follow the rules it would break down? Of course not. The consequences weren't created before the car. They are the result of not using the car as it was designed. God designed people to work a certain way and relate a certain way. We can complain about it but we can't change the way we are designed. When we don't follow the rules of operation and maintenance and we break physically and emotionally, we can't blame God. It's not like we are living our lifestyle of sin and all of a sudden out of the blue God strikes us with despair, emptiness, or AIDS. Those are by and large the consequences of not living as we were designed to live. As long as we follow the rules of operation for our car it will provide reliable transportation for us and protect us from injury due to neglect. In a similar way, as long as we follow God's purposes and rules for marriage and sex we will have healthy and reliable relationships and be protected from the emotional and physical injury that results when we ignore them.
What about Homosexuality?
What about homosexuality? Before I answer this question directly I want to make it as clear as I can that the person struggling with homosexual temptations and/or is involved in a homosexual lifestyle is deeply loved by God. I feel a great compassion for this person because he or she is created by God in His image yet is not experiencing the joy and dignity of it. For this reason, they have just as much God-given worth as a person as anyone else. They must be treated with respect, dignity and shown Christ's unconditional love. Many people who struggle with homosexual temptations and sexual addictions come to the Christian Church genuinely seeking God's forgiveness and help from His people. To turn them away as if they were a leper in biblical times is a mockery of Christ's sacrificial love for us. So it is with deeply felt compassion and careful research that I respond to this issue. I am very much against the sin but love the person struggling with it.
Hopefully, after learning about God's 5 purposes for marriage and sex you will see that homosexuality is an incredibly cheap counterfeit. It leaves people outside of God's ways of providing for us and protecting us. To show just how much of a failure it is we can ask what this lifestyle is designed to be an alternative for? It is designed to be a direct alternative to the biblical lifestyle of heterosexual marriage. Therefore, we can analyze it in light of God's 5 purposes for marriage and sex.
Homosexual couples do not experience a deep emotional connectedness
Homosexual relationships do not experience a deep emotional connectedness. I've read countless testimonies and stories of how desperately lonely, disappointing and meaningless homosexual encounters are. In fact, the very thing they are seeking is a sense of connectedness, belonging and intimacy but can't experience it so they go from one person to another to another. Many have homosexual sex with hundreds of others in this desperate attempt. For a man to call himself "gay" is a cruel joke. The lifestyle is one of despair.
Homosexual activities make a mockery of God's purpose for heterosexual intercourse's function of producing children
Homosexual activities make a mockery of God's purpose for heterosexual intercourse's function of producing children. First, homosexual intercourse is an obvious counterfeit of heterosexual intercourse. A man or woman uses homosexual intercourse to try to obtain short term pleasure or try to connect emotionally with another person. But it can never be used to try to make a baby. Second, some gay and lesbian activists want to go to extreme measures to avoid using heterosexual sex to produce babies. For example, some lesbian activists hate men so much they would like to do away with all men all together. Well, without men the human race would be extinct when our daughter's die of old age. That's the ultimate in self-defeating.
Some men even advocate physiological changes which would enable a man to bear a child. This is like trying to make a car grow watermelons. You can fill it with potting soil, plant and water the seeds, but you're not using it the way it was intended to be used. It can't be used as a car and probably won't make good watermelons either. A man attempting to bear a child makes a mockery of God's wisdom in creating the reproductive process the way He did. A woman using artificial insemination for the purpose of avoiding heterosexual intercourse also makes a mockery of God's wisdom. In general, having sexual relations with a person of the same sex is a mockery of God's wisdom in creating males and females for the purposes of procreation.
A homosexual couple can not manage God's creation effectively
A homosexual couple can not manage God's creation as effectively for a couple of reasons: First, if those involved are so dead set against God and His wisdom, what reason would they have for even caring about God's creation. Even most heterosexuals don't care about God's creation for the same reason. They don't care about God or the things of God.
Second, the unique physical, emotional, mental and spiritual qualities of men and women aren't there to form a long lasting team. Homosexual relationships don't last long. I know some claim to and for that reason they adopt and raise children. I don't know the statistics, but I am very skeptical about how long these couples actually stay together. In addition, with that kind of marital relationship, the kids are going to grow up with psychological problems. It is inevitable.
Third, the more a society breaks down the family, the more resources it must shift to things like fighting crime and achieving physical and mental health. As a result, the society becomes less productive and abuses the environment.
A homosexual couple can not complete each other
Because they lack the complementary natures of male and female, a homosexual couple can not complete each other. In fact, men become sexually oriented toward other men when they have learned to reject the female nature, and women become sexually oriented toward other women when they reject the masculine nature. This is not just my opinion. We know this from sound psychological studies.
What about a genetic cause? There is absolutely no evidence of a genetic or biological cause. The few studies that are sited by the activists that suggest the orientation has a genetic cause were done by openly gay men and have been proved to be based on biased research. Homosexuality is caused by unhealthy relationships with family members during childhood. So by the time the person is an adolescent they feel like they have always been that way. But no child is born with a homosexual orientation. It is learned. This is why I try to avoid labeling someone as "a homosexual." No one is truly homosexual by nature. All people were created as heterosexual and some have learned to be sexually oriented toward the same sex. But they are still a heterosexual human being whether they feel that way at the time or not. And for that reason the orientation can be unlearned, as so many people do with professional help.
A homosexual relationship is not a model of Christ's relationship with the church
Needless to say; a homosexual relationship is not a model of Christ's relationship with the church, either. This is because it is based on a purely selfish, self-centered quest to meet a desperate psychological need by a very psychologically damaged person.
The person involved in homosexual relationships can not experience God's provision or protection
Because of all of this a person involved in homosexual relationships can not experience God's provision for their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. In addition, they are not living within the protection of God's plan. HIV AIDS and over 20 venereal diseases attest to this. And as a result, of both homosexual and heterosexual sex outside of marriage millions of people are dying each year from AIDS all around the world. Tragically, many of these are children who never had a choice. They were born with it.
Sexuality has become so politicized that I don't see a solution anytime soon. Often when only one person dies at a traffic crossing they put in a traffic light. When hundreds of thousands of people die each year from smoking cigarettes they ban smoking in public places. When children die in car accidents they pass legislation about car seats. When people get shot by guns they put thousands of laws on the books designed to deter more. But the same agencies and law makers lift deterrent after deterrent on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. I'm not advocating locking people up when they commit homosexual acts or have heterosexual sex outside of marriage. What I do advocate is that the truth be told in the free marketplace of ideas about the emotional and physical damage it does to people. To place gag orders on people via political correctness policies is anti-democratic and downright dangerous to individuals and society.
The Next Worst Thing
The next legal door that is being forced open is adult sex with minors. It's coming folks. I'm not an alarmist. I'm not a sensationalist; and I'm not paranoid. I'm just telling it like it is. Most adult sex with minors is homosexual in nature and they want to legitimize it. Of course, heterosexual perverts want it to be legal, as well.
The whole issue is going to pick up steam like a powerful locomotive. The reason is that the proponents are using the same strategy that has worked in all the other liberal, anti-family causes like abortion and homosexual rights. It starts off with opinions and testimonials from so called "mental health experts." Then biased scientific studies are produced to show that it can be psychologically healthy to practice it. In fact, there are a growing number of scholars who are now jumping onto the sex with minors bandwagon. They then claim that it is psychologically unhealthy to keep people from doing it. Then legal activists drum up more wide based support. Then they start the character assassinations. The reputation and character of anyone who opposes it on whatever grounds is maligned by a careful strategy of lies and distortions about the person. Then under this threat, politicians cave in and pass laws to support and encourage it. Government funding is appropriated for the propaganda needed to overcome the public's ignorance and paranoia. Then schools incorporate it into their health curriculum as a viable alternative lifestyle.
At the rate they plan to go a few decades from now, maybe less, it will be officially sanctioned and protected under political correctness laws and policies unless something very drastic happens to wake up the American people. I'm not unrealistically paranoid. I'm telling you the truth. This game plan has worked so well that these people have it down pat. They know what works and they are doing it as I speak. If I could go back in time to the 1950's or even 60's and tell people that homosexual lifestyles are openly supported by society in the year 2002 and you can get fired from your job or expelled from school for criticizing it they would say, "No way. That could never happen in America!" But then if I described the small, incremental, seemingly insignificant steps and compare them to how sexual mores had changed in their own lifetimes they might agree that it is possible.
What do you think would happen if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water? It will jump out. But if you put that frog in a pot of cold water and very slowly increase the temperature it will stay in it until it is dead. It won't even know what happened. That is a very good analogy to what has happened to our culture. It happened to every other great culture in the history of the world. America is not immune either.
Conclusion
I began by asking the question, "What is marriage for?" Today, we have seen that God designed marriage with at least 5 purposes in mind:
- To reflect God's oneness
- To procreate
- To manage God's creation together
- To mutually complete one another
- To model Christ's relationship with the Church
When we are working toward these purposes in our marriages we experience God's protection and provision for our lives. I believe if Christians would pursue these purposes in the power of the Holy Spirit we could show a lost and hurting world where true fulfillment is found, that is, in a personal relationship with the one, true, incomparably wonderful, living God of the universe.
References
Cohen, Richard A. Coming Out Straight: Understanding and Healing Homosexuality. (Forward by Dr. Laura Schessinger, Oak Hill Press, Winchester, VA, 2000.
Copan, Paul. -That's Just Your Interpretation. Baker Books, 2001.
The Holy Bible, New International Version. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1984 by The American Bible Society).
Rainey, Dennis. Staying Close. Word Publishers, 1992 (May be ordered from Family Life Ministry, PO Box 8220, Little Rock, AR 72224).
http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/11/12/offbeat.sex.marriage.reut/index.html
Copyright 2005. Gary C. Burger and New Media Ministries. This article may be reproduced and distributed freely as long as it is done so in its entirety. If quoted it must be properly cited as a reference.
