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Riverside Apostolic Church.
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One Plus One = One

 

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Genesis 2
[18] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
[21] 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;
[22] And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
[23] 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.
[24] Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. KJV

Genesis 2
[18] And the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him."
[ 21] So the LORD God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of Adam's ribs[1] and closed up the place from which he had taken it.
[ 22] Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib and brought her to Adam.
[23] "At last!" Adam exclaimed. "She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called `woman,' because she was taken out of a man."
[ 24] This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. NLT

Genesis 2
[18] The LORD God said, "It isn't good for the man to live alone. I need to make a suitable partner for him."
[ 21] So the LORD God made him fall into a deep sleep, and he took out one of the man's ribs. Then after closing the man's side,
[ 22] the LORD made a woman out of the rib. The LORD God brought her to the man,
[ 23] and the man exclaimed,
"Here is someone like me!
She is part of my body,
my own flesh and bones.
She came from me, a man.
So I will name her Woman!"
[ 24] That's why a man will leave his own father and mother. He marries a woman, and the two of them become like one person. Contemporary English Version

The message title sounds like today's new math but actually this is old math from man's beginning and it was God's math in describing the union of:

ONE MAN + ONE WOMAN = ONE UNION

God said these two, one man and one woman shall be one flesh!

ONE + ONE = ONE

Four Key Points:
  1. Same-sex families always deny children either their mother or father.
  2. Same-sex family is a vast, untested social experiment with children.
  3. Where does it stop? How do we say "no" to group marriage?
  4. Schools will be forced to teach that the homosexual family is normal. Churches will be legally forced to perform same-sex ceremonies.
 
Marriage Is Always About the Next Generation...
  A loving and compassionate society always comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless families.
  A loving and compassionate society never intentionally creates motherless or fatherless families, which is exactly what every same-sex home does.
  The same-sex family is not driven by the needs of children, but rather by the radical wishes of a small group of adults.
  No child development theory says children need two parents of the same gender, but rather that children need their mothers and fathers.
 
A Vast Social Experiment Inflicted Upon Children...
  No society, at any time, has ever raised a generation of children in same-sex families.
  Same-sex "marriage" will subject generations of children to the status of lab rats in a vast, untested social experiment.
 
But we know how the experiment will turn out…
  America has raised millions of children in fatherless families for three decades and that experiment was a stunning failure by every measure! We know how damaging it is to raise children in intentionally fatherless families. Let's not create more child-suffering to satisfy adult desire.
   
(Thousands of published social science, psychological and medical studies show that children living in fatherless families, on average, suffer dramatically in every important measure of well-being. These children suffer from much higher levels of physical and mental illness, educational failure, poverty, substance abuse, criminal behavior, loneliness, as well as physical and sexual abuse. Children living apart from both biological parents are 8 times more likely to die of maltreatment than children living with their mother and father. )
 
How Your Same-sex Family Will Harm My Family...
  If this were just about your family, there would be no real danger. But same-sex "marriage" advocates are not seeking marriage for you alone, but rather demanding me -- and all of us -- to radically change our understanding of family. And that will do great damage.

Your same-sex family will teach my little boys and girls that husband/wife and mother/father are merely optional for the family and therefore, meaningless.
  And I will never allow my (grand) children to be taught that their gender doesn't matter for the family. Their masculinity and femininity matter far too much, as does everyone's .
 
Full Acceptance Will Be Mandatory...
  My civil rights to object to homosexuality as an idea will be gone.
Same-sex relationships and homes are tolerated in society today. Our nation has no existing problem where same-sex couples are evicted from their neighborhoods because of how they live. Americans tolerate such relationships.
  But this is not about mere tolerance. Instead it is about forcing everyone to fully accept these unnatural families.
  Only months after legalizing same-sex "marriage" in Canada, activists there successfully passed C-250, a bill criminalizing public statements against homosexuality, punishable by up to two years in prison! Say the wrong thing; go to jail. The same will happen here.
  Every public school in the nation would be forced to teach that same-sex "marriage" and homosexuality are perfectly normal -- Heather has Two Mommies in K-12. Pictures in text books will be changed to show same-sex couples as normal.
  Our church will be legally pressured to perform same-sex weddings. When courts -- as happened in Massachusetts -- find same-sex "marriage" to be a constitutional and fundamental human right, the ACLU will successfully argue that the government is underwriting discrimination by offering tax exemptions to churches and synagogues that only honor natural marriage.
  Gay and lesbian people have a right to form meaningful relationships. They don't have a right to redefine marriage for all of us.
 
The Public Purpose of Marriage…
  Marriage is a common good, not a special interest.
Every society needs natural marriage -- as many men as possible each finding a woman, caring for and committing himself exclusively to her - working together to create and raise the next generation.
  No society needs homosexual coupling. In fact, too much of it would be harmful to society and that is why natural marriage and same-sex coupling cannot be considered socially equal.

The concept of marriage has been around since the beginning. God created it and He ordained it. The book of Genesis tells us that "a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

His word is very clear - marriage involves one man and one woman.
But these days, many people in our society don't believe that the Bible is God's Word. When we're talking to them about marriage, we can't simply quote Scripture verses, because they may respond, "Well, that's fine for you, but I don't believe the Bible is true." When debating the issue of same-sex marriage, we need to have persuasive arguments that are based on the truth that God reveals to us in nature, His creation.

So what does the social science research tell us about marriage? Some pretty amazing things.

Married adults do better on virtually every measure of well-being than unmarried adults:
  They're more emotionally and physically healthy.
  They have lower rates of alcoholism, suicide and mental health problems.
  They're more likely to describe themselves as "happy and contented with life."
  And on average, married people live significantly longer than unmarried people.
 
Kids who live with their married, biological parents also do better on every measure of well-being:
  They do better in school and are less likely to drop out.
  Boys living with both parents are much less likely to be convicted of a crime.
  And they're 30 percent less likely to have health problems and much less likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems.

The fact is that married men and women actually improve each other. That's because the two genders each make a unique contribution to the relationship, which is something that same-sex marriage just can't provide.

Marriage, one of the most fundamental human institutions, is dying in many nations due to three developments.

In a cultural change without historical precedent, marriage is increasingly seen as optional, disposable and re-definable.

1. Optional
Marriage is no longer an assumed requirement for setting up a household or having children. Cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing are two of our fastest growing family configurations. These trends indicate that marriage is increasingly seen as superfluous.

2. Disposable
For those who do marry, we have lost the ideal of marital permanence. The skyrocketing divorce rate indicates we have lost the ideal of "til death do us part." Instead, if marriage doesn't work, we trade it in on a new one and hope for the best.

Interestingly, recent research indicates two things: most divorce stems from low-conflict marriages and divorce doesn't lead to a happier life, but hanging in there and making your marriage work is much more likely to lead to happier life.(1)

3. Redefinable
We are entertaining a discussion in our culture that no other age or civilization has undertaken: that is to redefine marriage as a union between members of the same sex. We act as if marriage is simply a human invention, rather than something rooted in nature. The continuity and regularity of marriage that we observe throughout the course of human history and its various cultural and religious expressions reveal how natural and basic marriage is to humanity.

These three developments have all weakened marriage in unique, but significant ways.

Good News

There is, however, a vibrant movement to recover marriage as an ideal, led by sociologist and academics who are recognizing the large body of professional literature indicating that marriage provides rich health benefits for women, men and children. These scholars are joined by religious leaders, family therapists and political and community leaders who are working at national and local levels to recover the ideal of life-long, happy marriage as the foundation of family life in our nation.

Bush calls for amendment to 'defend marriage'
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says legalizing gay marriage would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect it.

A few activist judges and local officials have taken it on themselves to change the meaning of marriage, Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

Leading the chorus of support for an amendment, Bush said, "If courts create their own arbitrary definition of marriage as a mere legal contract, and cut marriage off from its cultural, religious and natural roots, then the meaning of marriage is lost and the institution is weakened."

His remarks follow the opening of Senate debate Friday on a constitutional amendment effectively banning gay marriage.

Reflecting the election-year sensitivity of the issue, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Republicans are using the constitutional amendment as a bulletin board for campaign sloganeering.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, accused Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of holding inconsistent positions.

Kerry and running mate Sen. John Edwards oppose gay marriage, but support civil unions.

Bush singled out Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court, which called marriage an evolving paradigm. "That sends a message to the next generation that marriage has no enduring meaning, and that ages of moral teaching and human experience have nothing to teach us about this institution," he said.

The president urged the House and Senate to send to the states for ratification an amendment that defines marriage in the United States as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife.

Senate Democrats signaled they will not throw barriers in front of the resolution, paving the way for a vote on the amendment as early as next Wednesday.

A constitutional amendment should never be undertaken lightly, Bush said, "yet to defend marriage, our nation has no other choice."

The vote puts some Democrats and Republicans in a difficult position. One senator acknowledged the political risk in trying to walk a line supporting both traditional marriage and gay rights.

CONCLUSION:
Theologically, marriage is the first human institution. Sociologically, marriage is the glue that holds communities together, regulates sexuality, civilizes the home and provides for the proper development of the next generation. Anthropologists tell us marriage, a permanent linking of men and women, is found in every civilized and uncivilized society throughout human history. However, as Professor Don Browning of the University of Chicago explains, "the idea of marriage as an institution has lost favor." In the past 3 decades we have seen a dramatic increase in rates of cohabitation, divorce, and single-parenting by choice. At the same time, marriage rates have significantly declined over this same period. And this is not just an American problem. Marriage has been declining in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many European and Central American nations. It is critical that we recover the idea of marriage for it is the bedrock of a healthy, productive, safe society.