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"Let thy fountain be blessed: and
rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving
hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all
times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt
thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the
bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of
the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings." (Proverbs 5:18-21).
The foundation of the home is the
intimacy between mom and dad. When a man and a woman are joined
together so as to become one flesh, the union produces
incredible life and joy. The writer Solomon, inspired by the
Holy Ghost, was establishing the source of all family happiness.
The fountain of marital bliss is like a great underground well
that bursts forth to give life to the entire household. There is
no alternative source. (There are extremely dedicated single
parents who are to be applauded for doing their best. Christian
single parents are quick to admit the weakness of the missing
link.)
Our Heavenly Father clearly places
this responsibility first on the husband. It is the wise man who
chooses a wife that he can cherish all the days of his and her
life. His love and rejoicing in her is God's method for her
blossoming into the best she is capable of being. There is an
incredible ability in a woman to become everything her husband
needs if he will first make her his rejoicing. The feminine
movement is mainly composed of women who never experienced the
beauty of womanhood that flourished from marital intimacy. Man
was created first by the Father, but immediately was seen as
being incomplete. Something was missing; the Creator took a rib
from man and from that portion of man's body near his heart, God
created woman.
"And Adam gave names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but
for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 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;
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a
woman, and brought her unto the man. 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. Therefore shall a man
leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man
and his wife, and were not ashamed." (Genesis 2:20-25).
You cannot read those perfect words
describing exactly what God did and how He did it without seeing
an incredible picture. Man and woman are both incomplete without
the other. Yet, it was in man that this imperfection was first
seen. It was a marvelous array of creatures that Adam named, but
none of these were fit to be his companion. Such a void was
visible in Adam's person that God took special action to create
for him another person like himself, except she was his
opposite. Together, they would be perfect, each fulfilling the
need of the other. Adam was the caretaker and named her after
himself as woman.
Henry Morris explained it in this fashion, "The way in which God
made the first woman is certainly not what one would naturally
expect. It would seem rather that He would form her body in the
same way He did Adam's, directly out of the earth itself. But,
instead He "built" her out of the body of Adam! Adam's life
would become her life. God must have had a good reason for
"building up" Eve in this peculiar way. From the New Testament
we infer that there were certain great spiritual truths which
were being pictured in this symbolic action, as well as the more
immediately meaningful truth that Adam and Eve were truly "one
flesh" and should serve their Creator together in unity and
singleness of heart." (The Genesis Record, Henry M. Morris, p.
99.)
The result of God creating Eve from
the very flesh of Adam is that Adam could say, "This is now bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh." (Genesis 2:23). The union of
Adam and Eve and every united man and woman since that day is a
literal bonding of flesh to flesh and bone to bone, so that two
people become one. It is right here in this eternal oneness that
the fountain of life, which sustains the family, must issue. The
family is God's primary institution. When the family life is
drawn from the perfect union of a father and mother, no power on
earth can mar the beauty that results.
"Let thy fountain be blessed",
(Proverbs 5:18) becomes more than beautiful words dictated by
the Holy Spirit. A godly man that finds his ultimate fleshly
fullness in his sweetheart wife established for himself and for
her a source (fountain) of great life. That life cannot,
absolutely must not, see the intimate sex act as the primary end
result, but rather as the spring board of all their love. Out of
the beauty of total surrender and complete abandonment to each
other they build a life in the broader sense and establish their
family. The community, the extended family, the church, and the
entire sphere of influence from such a marriage is grand.
Destroy the family and marital faithfulness and the entire
culture will begin a free fall to disaster.
Growing Unto Perfection
The ultimate beauty planned for a husband and his wife is not an
automatic accomplishment. Adam and Eve were created mature and
without the sin nature; yet, they miserably failed. We must
experience maturity out of our experiences and, also, deal with
a sin nature, which opposes the perfect planned results. A man's
task of building a godly relationship and home promises to be
tough. Like every aspect of Christian maturity the victory is a
spiritual one. The authority for this triumph is the same as all
else we witness in our Christian walk. The Word of God
sanctifies, the blood atones over every expression of our sin
nature, and the Holy Spirit is our helper. There is no excuse if
we fail to reach the goal.
Again, the first line of duty
belongs to the husband. The Bible is filled with men that
succeeded, but also offers the true story of those that failed.
When men refused to carry that responsibility the results were
disastrous. Eli was a heartbreaking example. Other men such as
Joshua could boast honestly, "As for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15). The Bible shows nothing but
proof of that declaration.
A honest man will understand the
facts of his flesh and its weaknesses, and he will quickly
repent when he misses the goal and simply work harder at the
challenge. It is the dedicated man who goes from strength to
greater strength and builds a great house and a great family.
The end results are worth everything it takes to be successful.
Sex Education in the Home
It is impossible to educate children and youth concerning our
physical body and its natural sexual appetites except in the
home. Remove this kind of education or learning one step from
the beauty of the happy home and you have nothing but trouble.
The father is the primary source of such learning both for his
sons and his daughters. As the children witness the dad's
abandonment to their mother, they are literally brainwashed with
the moral value and superiority of such love. No amount of love
by mom towards dad will compensate for the lack of love from dad
to mom. The biblical order is for this rejoicing of love to be a
masculine power that enfolds the wife in perfect security. That
security immediately translates into perfect security for the
entire household.
Sex education has absolutely nothing
to do with body anatomy. Children and youth are desensitized to
the sacredness of our body by the modern and humanistic sex
curriculum. The humanists know this and are using such education
to undermine biblical truth and family values. Our body, created
by our Supreme God, is a temple, not just a flesh tent. It bears
the signature of God's creative ingenuousness and has a built-in
capacity for intimacy between sexes. This incredible ability for
a man and woman to become one flesh has to be destroyed, not
learned. Modern sex education (along with modern entertainment)
destroys what would be natural without the intrusion of secular
humanism.
Those little giggles that flourish
in Johnny and Susan when they catch dad sneaking a kiss or hug
reflects the natural development of children. Raised in a home
environment of such constant marital bliss will totally prepare
the son and daughter to naturally anticipate their turn to be
moms and dads. The values of such beautiful love grows year by
year until the young adults are ready for the plain language of
the parents when the wedding date has been set.
Burdening children between
kindergarten and puberty with public body education and sex
orientation is destruction. To rob them of the innocence of
childhood and to burden them with such emotionally laden
information has no place. Sure, there are children in our
society that have been deprived of the family love and they need
help, but to give the same medicine to everyone is wrong. Even
those children who missed the beautiful biblical home will cope
better with their sexuality if they are not taught the
humanistic model. Remember, every human person has his or her
built-in code of moral consciousness as endowed by the Creator.
A Dad's Greatest Sin
Nothing that a dad can ever do is more destructive than to
violate his relationship with mom. Many has been the man who
spent the rest of his life weeping over a careless moment with
another woman. The Holy Spirit has filled the Word of God with
many warnings. By Apostle Paul, the Spirit said, "Know ye not
that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take
the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot?
God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an
harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh."
"Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the
body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own
body." (1Corinthians 6:15-16, 6:18).
A dad who commits fornication
violates his own body, his wife's body, and his family. He
actually allows himself to be joined to a fornicator or a harlot
and by such an act brings the seed of that sin into his family.
It is like sowing wild seed of some utterly destructive weed
into your garden. Getting that seed out becomes almost
impossible. The garden will never be the same and that home will
never, never, never be the same. It is clearly evident in this
great revelation from God that no man that commits this
violation against his wife will escape. He has sinned against
his own physical body and opened the door for evil to intrude.
Wisdom answers this subject with
strong warning. In every passage where this subject is discussed
the man is made responsible. Listen carefully! "To keep thee
from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a
strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither
let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish
woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress
will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his
bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals,
and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his
neighbor's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent."
(Proverbs 6:24-29). "But whoso committeth adultery with a woman
lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not
be wiped away." (Proverbs 6:32-33).
Something that is in man by his sin
nature demands a constant watch over his eyes. Men are normally
moved by their sexual appetite that appears to spark by sight.
The passage above warns of this tendency to be aroused by the
beauty of another woman. Nothing in God's universe is more
beautiful to a man than a beautiful woman. This demands that
every man be so full of rejoicing in his wife that the joy and
satisfaction of "her" meets his every need. No man can love his
wife and find constant rejoicing in her intimacy without the
ability to quickly turn his head when temptation comes. I doubt
any man has ever fallen to this horrible vice that practiced
"rejoicing in the wife of his youth."
The Practice of Love
True love is not a thunderbolt, but a sure and constant stream.
Lust out of control will swallow up a man when the thunderbolt
strikes. A godly husband who literally practices his thoughts,
anticipations, and love for his sweetheart wife will find her a
constant joy. Every husband has the responsibility to "rejoice"
in his wife. She will be his rejoicing and he will be her
rejoicing as they enjoy each other.
Where on this earth can you find
anything more beautiful than a man and woman who reflect this
biblical miracle of merged personalities? As "flesh of flesh and
bone of bone", they live out the incredible oneness of the
"marriage" institution. The sons and daughters glory in their
memories long after this mom and dad are with the Lord. The
"fountain" of such "rejoicing" will flow from generation to
generation. "The just man walketh in his integrity: his children
are blessed after him." (Proverbs 20:7 |