God Doesn’t Swing

This FB status lost me a few FB friends…

If you are married to Jesus (Eph 5:31-32), why are you still having sex with the world (Jam 4:4), God doesn’t swing!!(Heb 10:26-31, Ex 34:14)

So I followed the status with a FB note:

In the Scriptures God refers to Israel as His wife and the Church as the bride of Christ. God first instituted marriage in the beginning. It is the first blood covenant recorded in Scripture. When a man and a woman are joined together as “one flesh” there is in this act the shedding of blood. This act was designed to take place under the marriage covenant, the seal of this covenant being the shedding of blood that occurs at first intercourse.

A covenant is a lifelong binding agreement. That is how God designed marriage. One man, one woman, one flesh, one life. This marriage covenant has and always will be one of God’s illustrations of His relationship with man.

When Israel entered into her covenant with God at Mt Horeb it was inaugurated with blood from that moment on God referred to Israel as His wife. When Christ shed His blood on Calvary it was His blood that inaugurated the new covenant by which we are redeemed, justified, and become from then on His betrothed.

In the Old Testament Scriptures Israel’s unfaithfulness to God is spoken of as harlotry, as adultery. A wife unfaithful to her Husband. You can read the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea so many of the prophets and you see the truth illustrated.

In the New Testament Scriptures the church as the bride of Christ is there in Ephesians, Revelations, and weaved in and out throughout the books of the New Testament. Don’t take my word for it, read it for yourselves.

So therefore if we are married to Jesus why should we be having sex with the world. In other words, bride of Christ, why are we intimately joined, playfully engaged, flirtatiously indulged, sensually entertained, by those things that we sought forgiveness, this world that held us captive, this flesh, this nature, that put our Bridegroom on the cross?

There is a difference between willful and unwillful sin.
God knows the difference, and I believe so do we.

James 4:4 calls those who play with the world adulteresses. You cannot be a friend of this world and a friend of God. You cannot sleep with the enemy and sleep with the Friend that sticks closer than a brother. God will not allow you to continue to hop in and out of His bed. He wrote Israel a writ of divorce. She can only return to Him through a new covenant (Jer 33), the New Covenant, through Christ.

Yet those who claim to be the church, the bride of Christ, if we commit adultery through whom shall we return? Hebrews 10:26 says “if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice of sins…”

First of all ask yourself am I truly married to Christ?
Have I forsaken all others and cleaved only to Him?
Do I love, honor, cherish, and obey Him, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, till death us unite?

If you can say yes to these questions then know that just as our physical marriages have ups and downs, fears and failures, joys and sorrows, so does our marriage with Christ. Just as we seek forgiveness and healing and growth and intimacy in our physical marriage so we do in our marriage with Christ. He is perfect but we are not, but He is also mindful that we are not, and He is a patient, loving, compassionate, and merciful spouse.

He promises to never stop loving His bride and His faithfulness is forever (Psalm 89:19-37). Our physical marriages sometimes fail, but our marriage to Christ will never fail. “Love never fails” (1 Corin 13:8) and “God is love” (1 John 4:16). The question is will you try with all that is within you to be His faithful bride? He would and has died for you. Will you do the same for Him?

Oh do not be one who is a dog that has returned to its vomit (2 Peter 2:17-22)
Oh do not be the virgins who delayed in filling their lamps with oil and missed the Bridegroom (Matt 25:1:13)
Oh do not be those who were too preoccupied with the things of this world to go to the wedding feast or the man who showed up for the wedding feast without being properly clothed (Matt 22:1-14)

Today is the day of salvation (Hebrews 3-4)
Today is the day of repentance and forgiveness (1 John 1:5-10)
Today is the day of reconciliation (Romans 5:1-11)
Today is the day to be clothed in Christ (Romans 13:14)

Casting Crowns has a song “While You Were Sleeping” and these are some of the words:

United States of America
Looks like another silent night
As we’re sung to sleep by philosophies
That save the trees and kill the children
And while we’re lying in the dark
There’s a shout heard ‘cross the eastern sky
For the Bridegroom has returned
And has carried His bride away in the night
America, what will we miss while we are sleeping
Will Jesus come again
And leave us slumbering where we lay
America, will we go down in history
As a nation with no room for its King
Will we be sleeping?

Dear one, are you sleeping? (Song of Solomon 5:2-16)

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