For those who guide this people are leading them astray; And those who are guided by them are brought to confusion (Is 9:16).

John Senior in his book, The Death of Christian Culture challenged the rejection of ‘the Christian idea of an orderly, intelligible universe created by God.’ One of the spiritual ideas of an orderly gift of God is marriage which is under serious attack today. God intended that well-ordered families would transmit truth and holiness from one generation to another through the means of marriage (Deut 6:6-7). The good news is that, God’s decree concerning marriage that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife was given long before other laws of God. National Marriage Week reminds us that ‘the decree concerning marriage lies at the base of all human legislation and civil government.’ Using the words of Theodore Epp, ‘the peace and well-being of the nation depends on the purity of the home.’ The sad news according to Senior is that, modern man as having lost his faith, ‘and now he is losing his mind.’ When we loose our mind, we loose our movement and reason for living as a church or as a nation. We are in a post-truth age, following after its gods and practices thereby adulterating the Christian faith hence, increasing rate of family breakdown and decline of Christian marriage.

The Time Magazine has recognised the decline of marriage as our most ignored national crisis. Indeed, the decline of marriage is now a global crisis hence, ‘National Marriage Week presents a chance to focus on rebuilding a culture of marriage for this generation.’ The sin of this post-truth generation is the belief in today’s Big Lie as it was in the Garden of Eden. National Marriage Week (NMW), a celebration of marriage that takes place each year run by the Marriage Foundation, a charity established in 2012 by Sir Paul Coleridge is to tackle the problem of family breakdown by championing marriage. To champion marriage is to remember that marriage is based on the holiest precepts of God and must remain under the same sacred foundational principle of operation (Gen 1:27). The current shift and the drift based on the Big Lie against the Christian view of marriage challenges the pattern of God’s gift of one man one woman marriage.

That marriage is on trial, devaluation, and in decline today is undeniable. Before Adam and Eve fell for Satan’s Big Lie, their position was one of royalty until Serpent entered. Eve, settled for Satan’s lure – You can be like God. This enticement to be like God proved to be a fatal decision for the whole human race. Today, rather than willingly submitting to God, marriage is on the same lure; Why is that? The Serpent’s post-truth megaphone ‘promises that everybody can be (is) God. And as ‘God’ there is nothing that one cannot be or have.’ This is the crux of all deception in the church today, the self-exaltation of man, thereby creating one’s own reality against God’s commands.

The God of the Bible instituted marriage as a gift with a vision and design for world mission and evangelism (Gen 2:24). In Christianity, sexuality is not loose, women are not reproach to men and neither are men reproach to women in contrast to the seductions in today’s culture, clothing and mannerisms. In a post-truth culture with practices camouflaged in religious terms, it violates the sanctity of our sexuality and marriage. Today, Satan through deceptions is taking advantage of our need for love ‘much more like a kaleidoscope; as the tube is rotated, exactly the same bits of coloured glass form each new design.’ The reflection on this National Marriage Week is that, rebuilding a culture of marriage entail much more, though, than simply steering clear of Satan’s enticing doctrines. We are in a time when various government and church authorities are taking ‘it upon themselves to ‘legitimise’ the work of the Holy Spirit in an effort to keep their sheep in the home pasture, the downward slide began.’

National Marriage Week summons the church to awake from the pretence that all is well. God cannot be deceived. He is able ‘to topple man-made edifices and expose sin; the lust of the flesh, and the lust of power.’  In Nahum chapter 3, the prophet Nahum foretold the doom of Assyria. Nineveh in her pride and idolatry considered herself invincible but God said, ‘I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame … I will make you a spectacle’ (Nah 3: 5-6). Bulle rightly said, “… in the present, God is exposing sin in the Church. And the world looks on with contempt.” National Marriage Week invites the church to repent and return to God’s idea of marriage as the basis for an orderly intelligible world. Israel’s history is very helpful to understand the present condition and the lifeline of the church. Israel was found ‘slogging around in a morass of moral debauchery; priests and people are embroiled in false religions, her leaders are thoroughly corrupt, and spiritual blindness and deafness are epidemic.’ National Marriage Week in a world gone really mad is calling for ‘a remnant in the land who has never bowed the knee to the gods of pleasure, lust, greed and injustice. National Marriage Week reminds the church not to ‘just parrot the words’ but to ‘think what might happen if every single person praying the Lord’s Prayer truly meant, ‘Thy Kingdom Come. Thy will be done on earth.’ From the spiritual perspective, there is both the future and present aspect of the kingdom. National Marriage Week in preparation for Thy Kingdom Come prayer network summons the church ‘to abdicate self-rule, enthrone Jesus Christ, and bring every aspect of life under His rule.’

Prayer: O Lord, help me, Your church, and our nations to recognise error camouflaged by a preponderance of truth in Jesus name.

O Lord, deliver Your church and our nations from wandering off on bypaths of deception because we fail to discern the danger. Let Your church and our nations see with crystal clear vision the revealed truth of God especially about marriage.