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Msg #540                Wed, January 07, 2009

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 And He answered and said to them,

“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning

‘made them male and female,’ (Mt 19:4)

We have really messed things up.   It is true in almost everything that mankind touches – we, because of sin, bring in confusion, chaos and distortion.  Sin has messed up what God has made.

In Matthew 19, the Pharisees bring just such confusion and distortion to Jesus.  The issue for them: Marriage and consequently divorce.   The sins of mankind over 4,000 years had brought in tremendous chaos.   Notice how Jesus answers their questions…

Jesus took them back to the Bible….Jesus took them back to beginning.   If you want to know about marriage, you don’t look at the messed up models of today.  You don’t ask the “experts” of the day who often only add to the confusion.  No, to understand what marriage is meant to be – you go back to the beginning, back to the Bible and see what God originally intended…before sin messed it up. 

The Bible is the key to understanding life.   This key of going back to the Bible, back to the beginning is true about marriage, about the purpose of mankind and more.  It is true, for example, even in understanding what God intends for the church to be. 

Today we have movements that either say on one hand that we need to listen to the modern experts on what a church should be and that we need to copy the way the world does business or marking.   Others tell us that on the other hand, we need to go back to the third and fourth century of church history to understand the church.  

Can I tell you that the answer to both of these approaches is wrong.  Both are looking at the confusion that sin brings in, the chaos that men produce.   It is clear from reading the letters of the New Testament that chaos and confusion were already beginning to be present in the first century…so it is much more so three or four hundred years later.  No, the answer is the same as Jesus gave – “have you never read” – go back to your Bibles, go back to the beginning of what God created and intended it to be.

Today – I just want to call you back to the Bible.   I plead with you that you would let the Bible be your guide in every area of life.   If you want to understand God’s intention for mankind, what it is to be a man or a woman, what marriage is, what work is, what life is about, what the church is about – go back to your Bibles.  Hear Jesus saying so simply…. “have you never read”.

May we be a people who search the scriptures and allow them to be what God says they are – a light to our path  – guidance in a confusing world that sin has made dark.

And He answered and said to them,

“Have you not read…  (Mt 19:4)

Your word is a lamp to my feet

And a light to my path. (Ps 119:105)

Jim

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