Monthly Archives: August 2015

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Ashley Madison Fallout May Go Far Beyond Those “Outed”

HaveYourAffairby Standerinfamilycourt

Just as it seemed we were finally seeing the last of those endless versions of Kevin DeYoung’s 40 Questions (For Christians Now Waving Rainbow Flags), we are presented with a new culture war story-of-the-month where everyone who is anyone must weigh in.   The evangelical “establishment” seems to have taken another hesitating step toward graphic understanding that fearing men more than God carries real consequences – a reckoning we can all praise and thank God for!     These leaders have said they must rebuild “a culture of marriage”.    Perhaps the Lord is going to see to it that the rebuilding cannot proceed, as initially hoped, on its current shoddy and cracked foundation of systemic adultery atop flippant hypergrace.

Mag-pies outside the church are casting “righteous indignation” (not to mention unsolicited advice) on both a devastated Anna Duggar, and the chastened church, both of whom are no doubt struggling to sort things out while still reeling.    The world’s way of dealing with infidelity is to put self first, and discard the souls involved, as though this world were all there is, and as if God were powerless to transform hearts.  Meanwhile, there have been several reports that some 400 pastors were on the hacked and leaked Ashley Madison list, and will be resigning their pulpits, as they should.   While many are shocked by this number, “standerinfamilycourt” is actually amazed that it’s not far more, given the anonymous self-reported survey rates of confession among pastors polled about pornography use.

We stand with Anna Duggar’s decision to stand for her covenant marriage.   Were she to take the world’s, or her own brother’s advice, and obtain a civil divorce, she would join millions in holding a civil piece of paper while her marriage covenant remains undissolved in God’s eyes by anything a county judge or one-flesh husband can do.    We pray she is doing it with godly counsel and with sustainable motivation.   We are thankful that Josh Duggar has checked himself into a long term treatment program for sexual addiction, and that she will have the support of her husband’s family during the separation.     Anna has chosen God’s way to deal with the devastation.   She deserves our prayers because the too-common situation most of us get to deal with in our privacy,  she must walk out in a fish bowl setting.    We pray that God is glorified in the outcome, and Anna’s whole family is rewarded by her obedience.

We must keep in mind that Christ’s definition of adultery begins with the lust of the eyes, to the extent that He advised that an offending organ be severed and cast away (Matt. 5:27).   Adultery in Christ’s estimation is not only of the sort committed by Josh Duggar and his million list-mates.    Adultery in the sight of Jesus also comes dressed in man’s civil and ecclesiastical paper, which does not change the immoral character of the relationship (Luke 16:18; Matt. 5:32(b); Matt. 19:9(b)), despite the pastoral pretense that God does that sort of joining.   Both types of adultery must be physically repented in order to recover any inheritance in the kingdom of God.    The flock has not heard any such preaching for the past 50 years, and only a handful of Christ’s shepherds are starting to speak out on this.

 

While Christendom was riveted on Planned Parenthood barbarism, presidential politics, and Duggar-overload, there was rather meager reporting on a significant development related to the Ashley Madison hack, which should trouble all of us.    The American Family Association reported this past week that the Obama Administration decided to make a pre-emptive raid on the homosexual counterpart of Ashley Madison, an online hook-up matchmaker called Rentboy.    Given more than 1,000 U.S. government officials employees listed in the clientele of Ashley Madison, our POTUS was hoping his ordered raid has come before that sodomous site suffered a similar hack.

Cynically, some also see this as an opportunistic bid to trigger lawsuits that might give his Leftist judicial appointees an opportunity to legalize prostitution in all 50 states without the consent of the voters.     This would be the ultimate in the libertarian cry to “get the government out of the bedroom”,  at the further expense of the traditional family.    Prostitution has been legal for many years in various European countries including the UK and the Netherlands, where visitors to London know that one can walk past doors that actually say “Licenced Brothel”,  while visitors to Amsterdam pass bay windows with live, scantily-dressed “mannequins” for rent.

In the Kennedy-wrought brave new world of defining Constitutionally-protected “liberty” as the fundamental right to boundless sexual expression,  the presumption, will no doubt be that it’s not the clients or the service that caused the problem, but the “meddlesome and outdated” laws that restrict the freedoms of consenting adults.   Once again, the current U.S.  church would helplessly watch from the sidelines because this battle is inherently spiritual, requiring the intervening hand of the Most High, yet the moral authority she once had to put a stop to such distortion has been dissipated on her own widespread disrespect for God’s law of sexual purity and the sanctity (indissolubility) of covenant marriage.

 

DCEvangelicalSlipSlope

(IMAGES OF THE HARLOT CHURCH)

All the defining evils in Corinthian society such as the Apostle Paul spoke into would be at this point fully established in the U.S.,  adding to it a layer of legalized sodomy, polygamy and incest that was not known by that society.  1st century Corinth, where the local church established by Paul struggled mightily against a pervasively immoral culture, was the center of temple worship to Aphrodite and was reputed to have some 1,000 prostitutes at the time of Paul’s ministry there.   According to some scholars, prostitution was seen in that culture as an ironic and perverse means of “safeguarding” marriage and family.   Expect to hear a similar contemporary argument, especially on the homosexual side.

Even with nothing but moral and cultural adversity to contend with, the heavily-persecuted 1st through 4th century church proved that the only antidote was Spirit-led monogamous, permanent covenant marriage with which they also proved that obedient, faithful believers, who reverence God’s holy ordinance at all costs, can transform a hostile and thoroughly immoral society through perseverance in mere example.   Quoting bible historians Kenneth E. Kirk and Felix L. Ciriot,  author Milton T. Wells describes this history-and-culture transforming feat as follows:

““What is more astounding than the mere fact that the early Church taught and practiced the complete indissolubility of marriage for so long, is the fact that the Church chose to take its stand against the strong contemporary lax social and legal attitudes toward divorce which prevailed so universally all about them. The Church, today, feels that it is on the horns of a dilemma, because so many divorcees are coming to her for help and encouragement. Shall she accommodate the Scriptures to the apparent need of the unfortunate divorcees, or shall she uphold the Biblical standard of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause while faithfully discharging her duty to such distressed individuals?  Every church of today which considers the lowering of its divorce standards should remember that the early Church stood true to the Biblical doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage in a world that was pagan and strongly opposed to the moral and marriage standards of the New Testament.

Not only did the Church maintain her stand on the indissolubility in the early centuries, she changed the attitude and standards of the whole world toward it. Even today the whole Church of Christ and the entire western world is still reaping the rich benefits of that heritage.….“There were other grievous social evils in the early Christian centuries. Slavery enveloped the Roman Empire of that age, yet the Christians did not set themselves to change the thinking of the masses against it, but they did set themselves to change the thinking of the masses toward marriage and divorce. Why did they not attack slavery with the same vehemence? The reason was that the Apostles had not received a “thus saith the Lord” from Christ respecting it. They had, however, received such in the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. No sect or school of philosophy is known to have influenced the early Church in this teaching. From whence, then, did she get the teaching? Certainly she received it from the teaching of the Gospels and from the teaching of the Apostles, who had earlier conveyed the same orally (as well as in writing) to the leaders of the early Church who succeeded them.”  

Rev. Milton T.  Wells, “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” (1957), Chapter VIII.

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |   Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

IT’S “ALL ABOUT” PORNEIA!

TGC1

by Standerinfamilycourt

“There are some Christians who believe very vigorously that Matthew did not grant an adultery-exception for Jesus’ prohibition of divorce. Even though one would be hard pressed to find a professor teaching at a mainline seminary more strongly opposed to divorce and remarriage-after-divorce than me (not bragging, just stating it as a fact), I am apparently too soft for some. Doesn’t mean I’m right (it is the evidence that counts, not some apparent position in a self-contrived middle); just an observation.” – Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon, 7/30/2015

 

On July 20, The Gospel Coalition published a very good piece from John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell called “6 Things Christians Can Do About Same-Sex Marriage”.   Dr. Gagnon took exception to one of their points: “We can stop implying in our words and actions that homosexual sin is worse than all other sexual sins…” which runs counter to one of the chief tenets of his writings, i.e. that homosexuality is one of the worst of all sexual sins, and (specifically) worse than adultery. Wrote the authors: “Too often, homosexuality is singled out as “what’s wrong with America” while other sexual sins get a wink and a nod. This is wrong.”

The professor responded by commenting at length on the post on TGC’s Facebook page.   It seems rare for Dr. Gagnon to comment on public Facebook pages, as opposed to private ones.   This occasion, therefore, opened up an uncommon opportunity for some marriage-permanence warriors, who agree with him in far more respects than  disagree, to politely engage him on a few points where we do disagree.   In all, four of us weighed in on that particular thread.
After a few more general exchanges with “standerinfamilycourt” and a couple of others, Sharon Henry challenged Dr. Gagnon on his favored view of the expansion of the definition of the Greek “porneia” by contemporary scholars, lexiconographers and bible translators, to include all forms of sexual immorality, and specifically adultery, (despite the Greek “moicheia” being separately mentioned by both Paul and Jesus in several scriptures alongside “porneia”).  Sharon, though certainly not as learned as the professor, has extensively studied many lexicons from over various centuries, has extensively studied Jewish betrothal and marriage custom, and has engaged other scholars and linguists in her work to harmonize Matt. 5:32 and Matt. 19:9 with the vast bulk of OT and NT scripture which those two verses seem to contradict.   That is, these verses are contradictory if they are interpreted as providing an “exception” for adultery committed after vows have been exchanged, and after God’s supernatural act of joining of a covenant bride and groom as no longer two but one-flesh, and the marriage has been consummated.

Lacking any support for such a marriage bond ever being dissoluble (by men) in the context of the direct symbolism of marriage covenant in almost every book of the bible, nor in the history of what the early church fathers, without exception, taught to the contrary–from the cross all the way up to the days of polygamous Emperor Constantine, nor in the personal integrity of 16th and 17th century “Reformers” (documented anti-Semites and on-record condoners of concurrent polygamy) who gave rise to so-called biblical grounds for civil divorce and remarriage, there are only two basic pieces of alleged evidence on which proponents of the “exception clause” can possibly attempt to hang their hat:
(1) an expansive literary and mixed-biblical usage of “porneia” that suggests it extends beyond the wedding night to adultery, incest, sodomy, and the like, and
(2) looking wistfully back at that which Jesus utterly abrogated in Matt. 5: 27-32 — to the old Mosaic accommodations of “putting away” described in Deuteronomy 22 and 24.

The exchange between the professor and  Sharon continued in fascinating range and depth from July 26 through August 5, and we believe, has been enlightening to anybody following it over those many days.   At best, however, we believe this word debate can only conclude in a “draw”, because the wisdom of man ultimately falls short of the inspiration of God.   One of Sharon’s sources in this exchange, Kyle Harper of the University of Oklahoma (Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 2, 2012)  suggests a similar result is all that is possible concerning the etymology of porneia.

“If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself

Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.  Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”   –  2 Timothy 2: 13-15

 

Writing in 1957, Rev. Milton T. Wells, an Assemblies of God bible college president said of debates of this sort over word translations: “Fortunately, Christ did not leave the Christian Church in ignorance respecting the meaning of His statement in Matt. 19:9, whichever reading of the original Greek one accepts. The harmony of the parallel accounts of Matt.19:1-12 and Mark 10:1-12 provides the context which clarifies the matter completely. “Etymology will kill you, but context   will save you.”  The statements of the Epistles respecting the same subject confirms the testimony of the two integrated Gospel accounts and the testimony of the early Church.” – “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?”, Chapter VIII– A STUDY OF THE VARIANT READING OF MATT.19:9

 

It should be noted that Dr. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a well-regarded media authority on biblical sexual ethics.   Just as he asserts, his defense of the permanence of marriage, in the sense that remarriage while a covenant spouse is still living constituted adultery in Jesus’ view, is as vigorous and firm as it can possibly be without running completely afoul of the Westminster Confession, the Calvinist-based doctrine which asserts that (in direct contradiction to Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:9, Romans 7:2 and 1 Cor. 7:39) the marriage bond can be dissolved by human action, and asserts a further “exception”, “allowing” remarriage not only due to adultery, but also due to marital abandonment.

 

Sharon, on the other hand, was formerly the non-covenant wife of another woman’s covenant husband.   The Lord began to convict her that her church-blessed civil marriage of more than 15 years, happy and prosperous in every other respect, was not lawful in God’s eyes.   Her testimony is available here.    She was grieved to learn that in God’s eyes she was an adulteress, and the adultery she was committing was against that covenant wife.   She also realized what repentance from her remarriage-adultery must entail.  To Sharon, this was no theoretical or abstract theological exercise.   In her circumstances, she needed to be certain that the word of God, rightly divided, backed up what the Holy Spirit was telling her.  So she embarked on her lengthy study for two or three years before taking civil action, and she separated from her husband within their house in the meantime.   Online resources have become increasingly available at low or no cost to the lay person with critical thinking abilities, enabling the general public to study as deeply as any seminary student might.   Indeed, at one point in her exchange with Dr. Gagnon, he remarked, “Sharon, thank you. Interacting with you has strengthened my knowledge of the meaning of porneia, reinforcing my previous position and adding more nuance to it.  But you probed harder than even most seminary students could probe and forced me to dig deeper.” July 30 at 7:40pm

Sharon’s life experience, so common in this age of church / state institutionalized adultery, is only one of dozens of such testimonies available online and in our permanence-of-marriage fellowship, as the Lord is moving to cleanse and prepare His bride for His return.   Sharon has engaged other prominent scholars, such as Dr. Leslie McFall, in similar fashion on the etymology of porneia, though his views are even less  supportive  of the “Matthean exception” in the Westminster Confession than are Dr. Gagnon’s.     (Like Dr. Gagnon, Dr. McFall believes that the etymology of porneia  encompasses a range of sexual sins, but, unlike Dr. Gagnon, he does not believe this justifies the Matthean exception, nor does it justify remaining in an adulterous civil remarriage   Dr. McFall has exposed some critical evidence on page 2 of his paper [linked below] that the Greek texts transcribed by Erasmus originally stated there was no exception for porneia until he himself tampered with it – which would render this entire debate moot with regard to today’s pervasive sequential polygamy, and perhaps still valid with regard to other sexual sins that exclude, if unrepented, from heaven.)

With the utmost deference, we’d like to respond to a couple of Dr. Gagnon’s reactions, as he states them above.   We applaud while we fully agree that we would indeed be hard-pressed to find a professor teaching at a mainline seminary more strongly opposed to divorce and remarriage-after-divorce than Dr. Gagnon.   However, we find the next remark, “I am apparently too soft for some”, a bit odd.   That characterization seems to imply that we see him, or that he sees himself, as some sort of appointed arbiter of “biblical grounds”, gavel-in-hand.   On the contrary, we see him as an anointed discipler of some of this nation’s “shepherds” at a very critical point in history, exactly as Paul was, and we are puzzled why his comparison of himself with other fallible seminarians of mainline denominations is even relevant.  Is Jesus Christ not the measuring stick for truth, doctrine and conduct? If Dr. Gagnon must compare himself with a man, why would he choose these men over Paul, whose kindred passion was to teach shepherds to contend for the faith, and whose revelation came from the baptism in the Holy Spirit?   Would either Jesus or Paul even remotely agree with these mainline seminarians with whom Dr. Gagnon is comparing himself?   We think not!   Given where their Westminster Confession-based system of “sanctified” adultery has taken our society, and has seriously endangered our very democracy, we think Jesus wouldn’t flinch in calling these mainline (or evangelical) seminarians “whited sepulchres full of dead men’s bones”.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
 – The Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 1:20.

 

Lastly, we doubt we are the only Christians (though we may be the few largely Protestant Christians) who believe very vigorously that Matthew did not grant an adultery exception for Jesus’ prohibition of divorce.   Matthew, after all, was simply a scribe to a Jewish audience, and an eyewitness narrator of what Jesus taught.   He was the only one of the 12 apostles whose gospel was written primarily to Jews in their cultural context, including the marriage-related elements of Mosaic law and Hebrew betrothal custom.   He was not, however, an authority figure in the Jerusalem church who wrote separate commandments.   That role was undertaken primarily by Peter and by James, neither of whom spoke of any exception or permission to remarry.  Mark, who travelled and ministered primarily with Peter, and Luke, who was Paul’s missionary companion, both address their gospel accounts to Gentiles in their very different Greco-Roman culture.   Hence Luke’s gospel reflects strict marriage commandments from Jesus (likely taught to him by Paul) that perfectly complement what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7, once the Greek term for “bound” is correctly translated in verse 15. In similar fashion, Mark’s gospel reflects an exceptionless view of the indissolubility of what God has joined, probably taught to him by both Peter and Paul.

  • With regard to Matthew, his gospel and Mark’s together describe the scene in the house (Matthew 19:10-12; Mark 10:10-12) where the disciples are crestfallen that Jesus has just countermanded their Mosaic permission to divorce from a consummated marriage at all, (perhaps the only positive instance of marriage redefinition in all of recorded history) so that they say in effect, “well, we probably should stop getting married then!”   It does not make sense that the Jewish disciples would have had this extreme reaction if Jesus had simply affirmed the Mosaic law, or only slightly narrowed it.   What we also know is that they came out of that house, and after Pentecost some weeks later, they discipled the early church fathers who unanimously taught for four centuries that there was no exception which dissolved the marriage bond, short of physical death of one of the spouses.
  • various sources attribute some non-canonical works to Matthew, and say that he traveled to various countries as an evangelist, including Ethiopia, where he may have been martyred.   It is possible that he may have written something in those deuterocanonical works that reinforces the idea that he personally granted some exception to dissolve what God otherwise said cannot be dissolved.   However, several of the same church fathers who were very staunch expositors of the indissolubility of the marriage covenant except by death, make other mentions of Matthew and his works.   These include Origen, Ignatius and Jerome, all of whom made very forceful statements that remarriage in all cases was sequential polygamy that imperiled souls.

 

This is the truth we are trying to point the church back to, before the Lord simply abandons our society to its apostate ways in final judgment.   We feel that many Catholics would heartily agree with us in this.

 

FB profile 7xtjw Notes:   (1) Sharon Henry’s book,  JEWISH MARRIAGE, BIBLICAL DIVORCE, AND REMARRIAGE.July 2015.pdf  is  available for download.

(2) Many of Dr. Gagnon’s extensive writings are available for download on www.robgagnon.net.     His paper, “Divorce and Remarriage-After-Divorce in Jesus and Paul” is downloadable here.

(3) Dr. Leslie McFall’s definitive work on the indissolubility of the original marriage covenant, “Biblical Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage” is nearly 600 pages in length.   A link to one of his shorter pieces is provided here.

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, marriage, morality, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

An Encouragement to Covenant Marriage Standers

13.2.2

by Standerinfamilycourt

SIFC was privileged to attend a recent live lecture this past week with bible teacher / historian Ray Vander Laan.   This evening was eagerly anticipated because it was the series of episodes, That the World May Know, around Holy Land history and archaelogy tours hosted by Vander Laan that electrified the word of God in my well-worn bible some 10 years ago.   I had known deep in my spirit from the earliest days of walking with the Lord that His covenants were indissoluble and that He fiercely guarded their integrity, but this was basically the extent of my understanding until Vander Laan’s “Come! Let’s go see…” [that week’s episode] took me deeper and deeper into the context of what the Lord was doing in Israel, in prophecy, and in His broad purposes.  It was, in fact, all cast against a background of faithful covenant.   I started to gain some very rich depth of understanding of the textures that our indissoluble marriage covenant was to represent to the world, even under siege as it was, and even in its violated and tattered condition.   Vander Laan’s previous series on the 7 churches of the Revelation is, in my opinion, a “must-watch” in these days of explosive culture war and Christ’s imminent return.

The purpose of the live presentation was to introduce and preview the newest series called “Becoming A Kingdom of Priests in a Prodigal World”,  a series very much about engaging the culture we face.   The producers see this as a new undertaking in light of the rise of LGBT totalitarianism and the resulting defilement of marriage.    Astute standers would say that the prior series begun in 1993 were massively important in rebuking the culture of divorce and immoral remarriage that long preceded the current wave of marriage redefinition.

 

This preview episode places the tour group at the top of a mountain in the general vicinity of Mount Sinai where Moses received the 10 Commandments:

“Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” – Exodus 19:5-6

What did the Lord mean by “keep My covenant”?   Vander Laan pointed out that the 10 Commandments were actually a marriage vow between the Most High and His people Israel.   It struck me that the “grafted-in” (Gentile) body of Christ has institutionalized serial monogamy / sequential polygamy in the last 50 years by embracing the pretense of covenant dissolution because it has “irreconcilable differences” with the 1st, 7th and 10th commandments in that marriage vow on stone tablets.   Additionally, its shepherds have “irreconcilable differences” with the 4th commandment as they misuse the Lord’s name in pronouncing holy matrimony over unions that Christ would call adulterous.   In that sense, the bride of Christ is herself a prodigal in these last days.   The word “prodigal” literally means “wasteful”, though prodigals are the last to see what is squandered in undermining covenant families while giving unrighteous preference to “blended” ones.

 

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. – 1 Peter 2:9-12

 

I’d like to share a few additional highlights of the lecture before directing you to click here to view a 30-minute full-length episode:

    • Vander Laan points out that the mission of a priest is to put the full glory of the Lord on display for all to see, and that the biblical kingdom is where the King is obeyed.   The kingdom of God expands in proportion to that obedience.
  • He next points out that context is everything when it comes to reading bible text, he quoted Acts 16:12 (Luke’s narrative with Paul): “…and from there to Philippi which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony, and we were staying in this city for some days…”  What was the significance of the Roman colony?   Romans set these remote cities up where all features of Roman life were to be on display, and all inhabitants would be bestowed all the benefits of Roman citizenship.   Luke was likening the kingdom of God to this model Roman colony in how we live, already being citizens of heaven, before others. This was evidenced in the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his family, verses 31-34 after the Lord responded supernaturally to Paul’s and Silas’ singing of hymns and praises to God. Our culture will be strange to the aliens we live among.   We are a “peculiar people”.
  • It’s OK to wrestle with God, for He favors “chutzpah” – intense persistence and a passionate refusal to give up, such as that which characterizes long-standing covenant keepers.   According to Vander Laan, there is a saying, “when life becomes a desert, the Greeks question whether there is a god, but Jews question God.”
  • Most of us know the account in Genesis 15:9-17 of the blood covenant God made with Abraham in the splitting of cow, goat, and ram, where the custom was to walk through the blood implying “so may you do to me, if I do not keep my covenant”, yet something unique happened in this situation. Abraham knew the minute he passed through he was a dead man, because his end of the covenant was to walk blamelessly before his God, yet the Lord had it covered for him:

“Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds….Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him…It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.”

The Most High not only made the covenant unconditional, He took up Abraham’s part in passing through the blood.   God’s end of the covenant?   Land, descendants and the Messiah, the means of covenant fulfillment.

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note: In a covenant marriage, the covenant is between God and the one-flesh entity He has supernaturally joined. (In a non-covenant union that Jesus calls adulterous due to the unbroken prior covenant, there is merely a contract between two people without God’s participation). God’s participation in the same manner as with Abraham also makes a way for the fulfillment of that covenant despite circumstances or human faithfulness.   All covenant marriage standers should read the account of Abraham’s faith in Romans 4 for encouragement.  

  • Priests were instructed through Moses to sew long tassels on their garments, with one blue thread which was the color of the priesthood.   The significance to today’s covenant standers is that the tassels were a reminder as follows (Numbers 15:37-40):

The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.”  

Are we remembering our role in His priesthood every day?   Are we sewing those tassels to the garments of our prodigals, as our privilege as their one-flesh enables?   Non-covenants lack this privilege and are acting as a counter-witness to the kingdom of God.  The rebellion of remarriage adultery shrinks the kingdom, rather than expands it.   Their “colony” represents temporal life in this world only.

 

Wrapping up, I will mention that since 1993, the producer of That the World May Know is Focus on the Family.   I can say that apart from FOTF’s Adventures in Odyssey, this is the best of all that they sponsor, and probably their only adult programming that builds up covenant families rather than undermining them through their support of adulterous remarriage.   I hope other standers gain rich encouragement from all of these series and episodes from the Holy Land.

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note:  When Ray is not producing a new episode on location, he returns to his life as the teacher of a discipleship class in Michigan for high school seniors.

 

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com