It was one of the lead stories on Yahoo’s Entertainment page recently.
Matthew McConaughey marries longtime girlfriend Camila Alves!
To be honest with you, I know nothing about either of these individuals because I am a hermit when it comes to television and movies. If neither of them has been on HGTV, then I probably don’t know them. I am, however, a sucker for beautiful wedding pictures and so I clicked on the link hoping to find pictures. What I found was not pictures, but instead words that saddened and disturbed me.
On the topic of her recent nuptials, Camila Alves said: “We’ve been living a married life for over six years now. We have homes together, we have family together, we have kids, we’ve built a life together. So we’ve been living a married life this whole time.”
Added the Shear Genius host (again, I have no idea if this is a television program or a statement about her intellectual abilities), “A lot of people, sometimes they’re so stuck on ‘I gotta get married, I gotta get married,’ that they forget that the really important thing is to have a healthy home, a healthy family, a healthy family for your kids and to have everything going in a good, peaceful way.”
Ok, where do I start? There is just so much to talk about here.
In the biography of the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, entitled Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, there were three words used over and over to describe a major modus operandi of Jobs. In many situations in life, Jobs operated in a reality distortion field. Jobs decided that if something should happen or if he wanted it to happen, then it would happen. To Jobs, reality was malleable. He had the ability to convince almost anyone of almost anything. Sometimes this was beneficial to Jobs and those who surrounded him. By utilizing his reality distortion field he inspired Apple employees to accomplish things that changed the course of history when those employees were certain those things could not be done.
Isaacson says in the Jobs biography that “at the root of the reality distortion was Jobs’s belief that the rules didn’t apply to him.” (p. 138) If he wanted something badly enough, then it should be the way he desired it, regardless of the method of obtaining it. Period.
Camila Alves, and millions of other Americans, are living in a reality distortion field created by none other than the master of lies and distortion himself, Satan. Deciding to live in a garage and make ‘va-room va-room’ noises does not make you a car. In the same vein, simply because you like you are married, does not mean you are married.
God created and ordained marriage in the moments after he created woman from the body of man in Genesis 2: 22-24 (HCSB).
Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman’, for she was taken from man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.
The bonding spoken of here is literally a ‘stickiness’ or ‘holy glue’ applied by God Himself to the marriage relationship. There is permanence to a marriage relationship in God’s eyes, regardless of whether that permanence exists in man’s eyes. The joining of a husband and a wife is more than a marriage ceremony performed by a minister or judge. It is the making of a covenant between two people. Living together does not involve a covenant.
Covenants involve three key elements.
Signs/symbols.
Sacrifices.
Solemn oaths.
Let’s glance at each of these in reverse order.
The marriage ceremony is replete with solemn oaths. Do you promise to love and cherish this man as long as you both shall live? I do. For better, for worse, in sickness, in health, for richer, for poorer? I do. Forsaking all others? I do. Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? I do. Solemn oaths should be taken seriously and in the fear of a holy God. Living together and bypassing the taking of the solemn oaths in a marriage ceremony effectively mocks God and says, “I have a better way than your way.”
Speaking of forsaking all others….therein lies one of the sacrifices a husband or wife makes when they enter marriage. They must exhibit faithfulness (emotional, sexual, and mental) to their spouse; choosing to make that man or women their only partner for the rest of their lives, regardless of what goes on in their lives. Other sacrifices include, but are not limited to, putting the other person’s needs before your own, living within the budget of the household, and so much else.
What about signs or symbols? Ah, this is where God made it very interesting. I had never considered the act of sexual intercourse to be a covenant symbol until I did Kay Arthur’s Bible study entitled Covenant. In Covenant, Arthur likens the sex act to the ceremony God and Abraham entered into when God made the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15.
God instructed Abraham to prepare several animals for sacrifice by cutting them in two and laying them on the ground, each piece opposite the other. Ratification of covenants nearly always involves blood and so when the animals were cut in two, blood was spilled. God gave Abraham a nap and proceeded to ratify the Abrahamic Covenant, symbolizing that the covenant was dependent only on God. A smoking oven and a burning torch, representing the presence of God, passed between the pieces of the animal sacrifice and God verbalized the covenant (a solemn oath) to a sleeping Abraham.
Now turn the page and let’s look at sex. The first act of sex between a husband and wife, on their wedding night, is the ratification of the covenant of marriage into which they have entered. The husband, who is representative of God in the marriage relationship, passes between the pieces of flesh of the wife, who symbolizes Christ, the perfect sacrifice. When the husband’s penis penetrates the hymen of the wife, in a woman who is a virgin, blood is spilled and the covenant marriage is ratified. This is so beautifully thought out by God, yet we have distorted and destroyed this symbol of covenant marriage by having sex outside of and before marriage.
Unfortunately, our society has little concept of this issue of covenant relationship. Satan has enacted a reality distortion field upon us and caused us to see things as acceptable that are not, simply because we do not have the patience and integrity to WAIT. We think that living together will help us decided if we are right for each other. Sex outside of marriage and living together when not married pervert the beauty of the institution of marriage and the act of sexual union as they were intended to be by God.
Remember the old rhyme we so often chanted as young girls? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Camila with a baby carriage. We had no idea we were chanting biblical truth when we said it, did we? You’ve got it all backward Mrs. McConaughey. Getting married helps you have a healthy home and healthy family. Oh, there can, and may still, be problems in a marriage. However God cannot; He will not bless two people who are living like they are married when, in reality, what they are doing is rebelling against God’s plan for the family.
The ‘really important thing’, Camila and Matthew, is to seek to live in a way that pleases God and brings blessings to your family rather than a way that perpetuates Satan’s reality distortion field.
MEDITATION MOMENT: Many people have engaged in wrong sexual activity and living together before they were married. The good news is that this is not the unforgivable sin. God is willing to forgive our actions if we will simply ask Him and turn away from that behavior. Do you need to do business with God today? He longs to hear from you.
