III. Assaults on the Home as ordained by God in Jesus Christ
-- Do animals wear clothes? If we are animals, why do we wear clothes?
-- Many of God’s laws in both testaments, old and new, directly protected the home and family. (against adultery, fornication, coveting neighbor’s wife, nakedness, impurity, sensuality, orgies, dishonorable passions contrary to nature, lesbian and gay sins, … Exodus 20, Galatians 5:19-21, Romans 1:26-32)
A. Blatant Nakedness
1. Beaches, Sports events, Advertisements, Weight loss/Exercise/Health efforts, Fashions.
2. Genesis 3:8-11. “I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (2:25 both naked and were not ashamed) 3:21, “LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments (tunics) of skins and clothed them.”
3. Leviticus 18:6-19 not uncover the nakedness…
4. Leviticus 20:11-20 nakedness
5. Lev. 18:6: “None of you shall approach any one his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD.”
6. Implied: Nakedness is uncovered for Sensual Purposes.
7. Implied: Clothing covered the body to minimize the sensuality (not to enhance)
8. Jeremiah 5:8 “neighed after neighbor’s wife”
9. Public nakedness is an expression of rebellion or insanity. (Mark 5:15 when the demons had been cast out of the man with the Legion, he was found clothed and in his right mind.)
a. Women remove their tops to call attention and to shock those with a sense of decency and the shame of nakedness.
b. Women uncover private parts to have power over men, the power of seduction and distraction. Men are weakened by their own carnal desires and their judgement is impaired. They use their nakedness to sell a product or themselves in the market place.
c. Men enjoy the nakedness of other men’s wives because it adds the extra element of danger and immorality to their attraction and desires. What kind of a man would be happy for other men to be looking his own wife’s nakedness thinking adulterous thoughts? What kind of woman would be happy seeing her husband drawn to another woman’s beauty and nakedness? What kind of father would allow his daughter to dress in public so as to appear cheap?
B. Gender Roles: Language has been changed to alter the respect and order that God ordered in what they call a “patriarchal society”. God is presented as UNJUST! God is accused of treating women as inferior or second-class citizens, down-trodden, abused. The Feminist Movement is basically a front for atheistic humanism, a form of neo-paganism. More in harmony with the Wiccan Movement in which women are the matriarchs and men are the “drones.” Their religion is utopianism or socialism in which the civil government is god and the hope for peace on earth in an egalitarian society.
-- Genesis is called the Patriarchal Age: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, the twelve sons of Israel. The patriarchs were the fathers who ruled their families with authority, dignity, and manly security.
-- The kings, the priests, the prophets, ….. Jesus, the apostles, the elders – they were all men.
1. Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9 “Our Father in heaven…”
a. Why not “Our Mother in heaven”?
b. Not physically male or female, but Creator and LORD!
2. 1 Timothy 2:8-15 Men must lead in prayer, women must not exercise authority over a man. Adam was formed first….
3. 1 Timothy 3:2 Overseer must be “Husband of one wife…” v. 12 Deacons also
4. Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2; Hebrews 13:17: must give an account.
C. The Justification of Fornication and sensuality as an aid to marriage.
1. Some argue that it is better to “Live together, sleep together, etc. to determine compatibility.”
a. Deuteronomy 22:13-21 Issue of virginity and marriage. Fornication punishable by death as evil in the midst of the people of Israel.
b. Deuteronomy 22:23 stone both the man and the woman (betrothed virgin) guilty of fornication. Purge the evil from your midst.
2. Some argue that it is “Better to fornicate than to marry too young and begin a family.”
a. Material and professional goals, money and higher standard of living considered as undeniable good. Matthew 6:19-33
b. Cost of raising children is too high. With birth control pills and abortion, one can remain unmarried but sleep with whom you please with small risk of conception.
1. Cost of health care, insurance, school, dentistry, karate, sports, music lessons, college education, Cost of hotels, restaurants, vacations (Disney World, multiply the admission by the number of children that you are taking) … Children are priced out of the market. Only the rich can afford.
2. But if you lower your demands of normal child rearing expense, eliminate or maneuver around the big ticket items, learn what is necessary and what is luxury, you can enrich yourself with the joys of people over things. … If you are married!
c. The popular lie is that women can conceive children whenever they like – even after ten or even after twenty years of fornication, taking birth control medicine, and perhaps even a few abortions. Ignores the fact that children are a gift of God. Ignores the possible damage done by the medicines to the reproductive systems, or even the damage done by the abortions themselves.
1. God may not be ready when you are ready. Genesis 21:1; 25:21; 29:31; 30:22; God gives conception to men at His own discretion.
2. You may have lost your only chance to become a parent by wasting your youth. Psalm 127:4, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.”
D. Myth of Global Over-Population has discouraged childbirth
1. Scarcity of children in marriages causes disintegration of marriages and homes and the Divine Social Security system. The elderly become a burden on society and on their few children that were chosen so that they might prosper. But they will not want to share their prosperity because they want to use it for their own selfish pleasures – as the spoiled children that they are.
a. Eclipse of the value of the elderly sage. Rejection of their counsel and wisdom.
b. Worship of youth and youthful ideas as age is despised and dishonored.
c. Ephesians 6:2-3 Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Jesus rebuked the Pharisee tradition called “Corban” which justified the neglect of the duty of honoring them with support in their years of declining strength.