There are far too many evil things happening in our world and lives every day. We, Moms and Dads, cling to the hope that our children and grandchildren will slip through the years of their development without being caught in the crossfire of Heaven and Hell and everything between. Sadly, that seems to be less and less what happens to the youth of today.
This past weekend in our city, a former standout high school football player’s life was snuffed out instantly. The circumstances of his death are far too familiar to us all. He was killed in a gang war. He was an amazing high school football player on a team that won a state championship just a few years ago in Louisiana.
There ARE no guarantees of a free pass for any of us. The pass we endeavor to make comes with diligence and patience, wisdom, and an acceptance of a higher power and the life processes that come from that power: God.
Yes, I am one of those Christian zealots who believe in the Bible, in prayer, in God, and in “reap and sow.” If you’re unacquainted with that phrase, it comes from a promise God made to Noah after the flood. That promise included several things, but the one that sticks out to me is God’s promise that for all time, every seed we plant in our lives will always grow. And that seed will ALWAYS be the fruit of what we planted. If we sow seeds of anger, hatred, lying, cheating, and law-breaking, we will ALWAYS be subject to the fruit of each of those. Even though we often feel we can get away with such things, we will always pay the appropriate price. And we know that going in!
Orlando paid that price this weekend. Unfortunately, the fruit he bore was losing his life in a gunfight.
Today, we at TruthNewsNetwork are excited to introduce to you a new guest contributor who brings a timely message to us all — all of us who ask, “How did our society turn into this?” And we’re looking for answers to many questions, chief among which is “Can a marriage work? Can we stop the carnage on our streets if we return to Moms and Dads raising their children together?”
Please welcome Bud Hancock to the TruthNewsNetwork of contributing guests as he addresses these questions.
Dan Newman
Introduction
Every responsible adult in this country who reads a newspaper, watches a TV news program or surfs the internet knows that we are experiencing a serious breakdown of the foundation of our culture. That foundation has long been considered the Judeo-Christian values that were so prevalent when our Founding Fathers gathered together to form what is now the United States of America.
At that time, for the most part, there was an accepted moral standard that provided guidance throughout a person’s life. And no, that guidance did not begin at the schoolhouse doors, nor was it completely given through sermons from the local pulpits. It was in the family home, listening to the words and prayers of a loving father and mother, where children received most of this guidance. The Holy Bible was the ‘primer’ used by families to give direction and purpose to their children. This dispensation of guidance was the most basic tenet of family life, and it produced some of the most courageous, honest, and trustworthy men and women who then guided our nation to become the greatest in world history.
Fast forward to today; what was considered immoral, unethical, illegal, or sinful then is now accepted as the norm in a society that has seemingly lost its moral compass. What could possibly have happened to change our national culture to this extreme in only a few hundred years? It’s easy to simply blame the devil, but the truth is much more frightening. We have seen, and are still seeing, a breakdown in the American family that can be blamed on a lack of understanding of and respect for marriage.
The divorce statistics in the United States are staggering; in fact, one source indicates that the rate of divorce for first marriages is somewhere between 41% and 50%. Even more disturbing is the divorce rate among couples claiming to be Christian. While slightly lower than the divorce rate for non-Christians, the figures are still very high and indicate serious problems that should be addressed by the Body of Christ.
The Origin of Marriage
Marriage is much more than a legal means for having a sexual relationship. The sexual part of marriage is very important and is a crucial part of God’s plan, but there is much more to a marriage than a sexual relationship. For Christian couples, there should be a much better understanding of the totality of marriage, how it began and why it exists. What does God have to say about marriage? Since He is the creator of marriage, let’s go to His Word on the subject. In Genesis 1:27 (KJV), we read: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” What clearer explanation for why there are only two genders on this planet: God wanted it that way! But wait, it also says in Genesis 2:18 (KJV): “And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate (or, suitable) for him.” Originally, Adam, the man, was created without the woman. After God created all the animals and brought them to Adam for him to name, God then saw that Adam was still alone since none of the animals was suitable as a mate. Some people, in error, have stated that if God saw the woman as an afterthought, He must have made a mistake creating Adam alone. But, since God is perfect and cannot make a mistake, they must be wrong who think this way. Before God created Adam, did He know that Adam would be incomplete without a mate? Of course, He did. But He was about to demonstrate His amazing love and awesome wisdom in solving the problem of Adam not having a mate.
For most Christian couples who were married in a church ceremony by a minister of the gospel, the words “what therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” should be very familiar. These are very common words used at the end of many, if not most, church weddings. But how many new husbands and wives listen to those words and consider what they mean and how important they are in a marriage?
Let’s continue the historical account of what happened in Genesis:
“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate for him. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helpmate for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man. Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh (Genesis 2:18-24 KJV)”. In God’s eyes, when Adam and Eve were married, He saw them as one flesh or one body. This is the beginning of the mystery of marriage-the joining together of a man and a woman, which, in the eyes of God, forms one body from the joining of two. This passage of scripture is the first mention of marriage in the Bible, and it was the act of a loving God, joining together a man and a woman for life. God himself originated, ordained, and approved marriage.
God’s Plan for Adam – a Perfect Mate
Though the animals God created were magnificent and perfect, they were not created in God’s image, and they were not what Adam needed to make him complete. However, God knew exactly what He was doing; He always does. His plan was to take a part of Adam, from his flesh and from his bone, and skillfully craft an exquisite being who would augment and complete every part of Adam’s existence, spiritually, physically, and mentally.
I once heard a Christian woman say to her congregation that God is spontaneous, and she stated that Christians should also be spontaneous, like God. While that may be partly true, especially in our worship of God, I disagree with most of what she said. The very creation we are a part of, the universe and everything in it, proves that a being with supernatural intelligence and wisdom planned the entire creation down to the most minute detail. He left nothing to chance or evolution.
The act of God’s creativity in removing a piece of Adam’s own body and transforming it into the very element that was originally missing from Adam is, to me, proof that God plans everything well in advance. It is also possibly the greatest act of Love, other than the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, ever recorded in the Bible. How much more perfect could Eve have been than to have come directly from the body of her husband? Please understand, in the same way, that the animals were created from the dirt, Adam was also made from the dust of the earth, from actual dirt. God took that dirt and changed it into the marvelous creation known as man, the human body, then he breathed into it His own life.
But, unlike Adam, the first human being created, Eve was made using flesh and bone that had already undergone the miraculous transformation God exhibited in creating Adam when He changed dirt into a flesh and blood body. Eve was made using material from Adam’s physical body that had already been transformed and perfected by God’s touch! But, as perfect and unique as she was, Eve, just like Adam, was incomplete on her own. It was only when God joined them back together that they completed each other. And what is just as wonderful and amazing is this: every living human being after this came from the body of the woman whom God made using the flesh and bone of Adam. Wow! God is the ultimate planner!
In God’s eyes, when Adam and Eve were joined in marriage, the two fleshes that came from one were perfectly joined back into one flesh again; only this time, they perfectly complemented and completed each other! God’s plan was for Adam and Eve to remain in a perfect married state, perfectly joined together forever, since they were created not to die but to live eternally. Had sin not entered the world, every man born of this perfect union should also have sought out and found the perfect woman, the one who would complete his life before God.
The Corruption of Sin
Up to this time, Adam and Eve had neither needed nor worn clothes because they were unaware of their nakedness: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed “ (Genesis 2:25 KJV). But we all know that sin did enter and that changed everything. Instantly sin opened their eyes, and they saw themselves as God did; for the first time, Adam and Eve saw each other’s naked physical bodies and were ashamed: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Genesis 3:7 KJV). Up until that time, only God knew they were naked. The shame of seeing their naked bodies caused them to hide from God, as sin and shame always do.
I have often wondered why Adam and Eve didn’t know they were naked until they sinned. I personally believe that they were both covered, or crowned, with God’s own glory when He created them, and they were totally unaware of their physical bodies until their eyes were opened after they sinned, and God’s glory departed from them. When sin entered through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and their eyes were opened to know good and evil, God’s perfect plan for marriage became corrupted.
Eventually, having seen that women were beautiful to behold and physically desirable, many men began to look more for the physical beauty of a woman for completion. However, this only provided the physical completion rather than the total completion God had planned due to Eve’s creation. Anytime man’s actions contradict God’s perfect plan, man loses some of what God originally intended for him. God desired and expected to have Adam and Eve multiply and replenish the earth with beings just like themselves. God wanted the original perfect union between one man and one woman to create a worldwide family that He could fellowship and commune with on a daily basis.
The Deception of Physical Beauty
Because of the corrupting influence of sin, men began to place a higher priority on the physical attributes of women, and many eventually chose their mates based on those attributes that were pleasing to the eye. Sin caused men to relate to women more physically based on their appearance rather than their spiritual and/or intellectual makeup. However, this was a very short-sighted means of choosing a mate since another result of sin was the aging process, which is essentially the death process whereby all human beings begin to gradually lose that which keeps them young and physically attractive. Physical beauty, which soon fades, is a poor means of determining the suitability of a mate, but it now seems to be the highest priority used by both men and women in the “mate selection” process.
Physical beauty, without a corresponding spiritual beauty or purity, is a means of deception Satan uses to deceive men and women into making poor choices for marriage. When the aging process, or any other circumstance, such as accident or illness, causes the loss of physical beauty, the basic reason for the marriage based on appearance alone vanishes, and divorce is considered a viable alternative to staying with a person who is no longer physically attractive. Based on the divorce rate statistics, this option is used nearly as often by Christian couples as those who are non-Christian. Just because it is considered a legitimate way of dissolving a marriage does not make it acceptable in God’s sight.
(Part Two of this story will be published tomorrow)
In today’s “TNN Live!” we talked about the federal government’s decades-long intrusion into Americans’ lives by gaining control of the Media. It’s been happening since the 50s! That story with complete details and a massive number of references that prove these things can be obtained by accessing this link: 
