Monday, June 22, 2009

A Wedding is Worship: Part 2

Okay, I have settled down a bit and wanted to continue my discussion with you on the newsweek.com article, which you have a link to in the blog below. I am not going to review what I have said previously, trusting you can read the previous blog. I will just jump right into the subject matter. The Bible makes clear that in all we do, whether it is eating or drinking or getting married, we do all for the glory of God. We must teach our children, regardless if they are male or female, that as believers we must value holiness - this would obviously include modesty. On with the article:

At the actual ceremony, however, brides were nearly as reserved in the 1990s as they'd been in the 1950s. But then the numbers of women who got married in churches started to drop, and so did the strictures on what was appropriate to wear. (According to a survey by Condé Nast bridal media, only 46 percent of brides were married in a church or synagogue in 2006, down from 55 percent the year before.)… But now it's perfectly clear that white no longer symbolizes virginity. It's become a symbol of merely being a bride. SO ONCE VIRGINITY GOES OUT THE WINDOW, WHY WOULDN'T YOU SHOW MORE OF YOUR BREASTS OR HAVE A BACK CUT DOWN TO YOUR WAIST?"

Wow! What a statement - how much clearer can one be? I mean once there is no value on purity, once there is no expectation of holiness it shows in our dress. Once we remove the wedding from being about Christ, from being worship, and it becomes about us and we have no value of holiness - why wouldn’t I show my body to the whole world as a bride? I mean the man at the alter…he is just one of forty men who has groped me, one of five whom I have shacked up with, one of twenty whom I have given my heart to - and the same is true of him! So, what is the big deal if my grandparents and nephews see me in my wedding the way my soon to be husband will see me tonight? After all we are just headed back to our apartment where we got dressed together moments ago anyway! When we remove God from our standards, when we only have what the world calls sexy or beautiful, we shouldn’t be shocked when Madonna walks down the isle.

"When a girl left her parents' house to be married, she was making an enormous transition," Wallace says. "The wedding celebration was to help her negotiate the change. Now very often there is no functional difference between marriage and living together."

Do we really wonder why marriage is under attack? There is a tendency to blame the sinful homosexual agenda on the decline of marriage, but much of the attack on marriage happens in our churches! We have couples that get divorced and churches will not confront the couple nor help the couple by intervening in their lives. We have singles that are living together and the church remains silent…but then we must sign petitions when two men want to get married. Let me be clear, I am adamantly against homosexual marriages, but we are at best naïve and at worse sinfully ignorant if we do not notice the fact that we, as God’s people, have done as much damage to the sacred institution of marriage as any group in the world! When we use that day to make more out of the bride than we do out of our Savior, the problem sits at our door. I am reminded of what the Prophet Jeremiah said: Jer. 6:15 “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord.” We in the church, with what is worn in the average Sunday Service, what is worn by the average “Christian” woman and teen at the pool or beach… we have lost our “voice” when we try to have a discussion about modesty or about purity…we are as guilty as the world because we would rather be fashionable than holy! We have lost our ability to blush… We have lost our voice not because the world out shouts us, but because the world can’t distinguish us! Lord, give us godly ladies who will train their girls in Biblical feminity - teach us to value holiness above popularity!