The apple of God's eye

THE APPLE OF GOD’S EYE What is the thing that Jesus esteems higher than anything else in the whole universe? According to Ephesians chapter five, the church is the bride of Christ. His love for his bride surpasses everything else and He proved it by dying for her. God himself came to earth (Christmas) became a man so that He could die (Easter) for his beloved, His bride, the church. His reason, so that she could spend eternity with Him in a place called Heaven. The marriage relationship between a man and his bride was designed to mirror the relationship between Christ and his bride. This relationship was designed to endure until “death do they part.” He has promised to never leave or forsake His bride and husbands and wives must never forsake each other as well. In the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter two, the marriage relationship is referred to as a covenant relationship. A covenant is a binding agreement between two parties which cannot be broken. God looks at the marriage covenant as something permanent Man’s solution to what he would call a dysfunctional marriage is divorce. God looks at this solution as wrong. He commands us in Malachi chapter three not to break the covenant, as a matter of His further disapproval, He goes so far as to say that He, “Hates divorce.” Now, let’s take this relationship to another level. After Lucifer rebelled against God he was expelled from Heaven. His demise was pride, which should alert us as to how God views pride and arrogance. Lucifer, or Satan hates God with such passion that he does everything that he can do to discredit God or even hurt Him if he can. To inflict Him with grief he goes after the institution that is closest to God’s heart and that is marriage. Homosexual relationships are the most blatant form of thumbing their noses at God and His perfect design. It’s the antithesis of God’s plan for man. Another target of the devil is to destroy marriage. Since he knows how God feels about divorce, he goes to great lengths to encourage it. Paul gives instructions to a young pastor named Timothy as to how he must set up the government of his new church in first Timothy chapter three. He tells him that the leadership must be comprised of men to whom the church body can look up to as mentors. The first qualification is to be a man who is above reproach, in other words he has never broken his marriage covenant. He is to be married to his first wife. The phrase “one wife” may also be translated “first wife.” In light of the spirit of the issue that we are dealing with here, it is a better translation. Do the fact that half of the people sitting in the average church today have been divorced; some would contend that it is too difficult to find men willing to serve in leadership positions that haven’t been divorced. It is a serious thing indeed to compromise God’s guidelines of leadership in the church. How can we expect Him to bless our lame efforts to govern the church when we put leaders in whose lives are not above reproach? Allow me to give a classic example. Some years ago Ruth and I belonged to a church which had a tight constitution disallowing men who had been divorced to serve in leadership. A contingent of people lobbied the leadership to change the constitution to allow divorced men to serve in leadership. The issue gained momentum and the two pastors were persuaded to join the cause. I voiced my strong opposition citing my reasons as outlined in the scriptures. One day Sunday after church one of the pastors confronted Ruth and I on this issue. He asked me to explain my position. I opened my mouth to speak and here is what I said. “The day that you compromise God’s word and change the constitution you can mark the calendar, because that day will mark the beginning of the demise of this church.” I further added, “If a man loses an arm for one reason or another, he is disqualified from participating in activities which require the use of an arm. In the same way when a man divorces, he is disqualified from serving in leadership in a church.” Well, the church went ahead, or should I say went backwards, and changed the constitution and here is the result. It wasn’t long before the founding pastor left the church and left the ministry. Then the pastor who spoke with me lost his wife. She left him and moved in with another man and subsequently divorced him. He then left the church and left the ministry as well. The church lost members and has never fully recovered. We need to ask ourselves this question. How can we expect God to bless our feeble efforts when we think that we know best by flaunting his standards? God help us if we go against His Word in the spirit of compromise.