This is a photo of a sunset (and the pictures will change soon: I have finished processing around 170 electronic photos. It’s time to send some film away. and start processing the stuff from the last month). However, yesterday I sat with a couple in student ministry for a coffee and to wish them well as they wed.

She was a member of my church — and can see the growth in my kirk, as easily as she can see that in my sons over the last two or three years — as they have bcome tall trees, over six feet (which is tall in my parts — your mileage may vary). The church fills the hall most Sundays. And they talked of their church, and their ministry is to university students that is leading people to faith, and the church is growing — despite the various liberal clerics who seem to enjoy making everyone blush. For the gospel is beyond price.

1 Peter 1:1-12

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, ⁷so that the genuineness of your faith — being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, ⁹for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

¹⁰Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, ¹¹inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. ¹²It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven — things into which angels long to look!

Part of me remembers being that age: but at that stage of my life I was dealing with the consequences of a nasty road crash, that led to my fiance (at that time) being seriously injured and choosing to leave me and go to Canada. I had lost much of the hope I once had. I felt broken, shamed. It took me a few years to get my head together and find a niche where I as competent and could train. It took me then almost a decade to qualify (the New Zealand system is different from that in the USA and Canada — you are a registrar (resident) until you have your exams, and getting your exams is not automatic. Almost everyone fails at least one of them, if not repeatedly).

And by then I was no longer young. But in that process I learned that bad times end. That each morning is a new start. That sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other is what we have to do: that not every day is a peak. And that the bulk of a life is the habits of the day, the week, the month that keep us loving each other, and urging each other to do good and not ill.

I also realized that your age matters not. I saw my father start a ministry counselling people with Same Sex Attraction. In his 70s he begain to lead this — for the younger generation had fallen. And I began to again see not only the depths of my depravity, but the deeper depths of Grace. And that if we teach the truth, if we teach the word of God, we will make enemies. I’m not sure if I would support Col. West (besides, I’m not of his country nor of his state, so my opinion is moot, but the message is true)

“Truth is an obstacle for LIBERALS.” Allen West #tcot #lnyhbt #teaparty #tlot #tgdn #truth #Obamacare pic.twitter.com/4OSpEG5bfi

— Michael A Nöthem (@mikandynothem) November 24, 2013

 

If you hate the truth, for it offends your sensibilities, you will really hate the gospel. For the first bit of the gospel is the law. And we should not pretend that it has gone away: if anything Christ was more rigorous than the rabbis.

Matthew 19:1-12

¹When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. ²Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there.

³Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” ⁴He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” ⁷They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” ⁸He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.”

¹⁰His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” ¹¹But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. ¹²For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.

As most of you know, I’m divorced. I married my wife about three years after the road crash that I mentioned at the top of this post, and I was married for about 20 years — through both of us struggling with our postgraduate examinations and until my boys were around eight and ten. And I will say, right now, that I hated divorce before I had one, and now I hate it even more.

This has led to me realizing just how important the teaching of Christ is now. For the current situation is such that you may find yourself getting a divorce, if you want one or not. This comment relates to Jenny Erikson, who has blogged on her anger that her pastor told her ex-husband she was about to pull the trigger.

Nah, her husband wasn’t an abuser and he wasn’t a cheater. He obviously didn’t have enough game and was too beta. He obviously tried to choose a Church that was more traditional in its actions but, as can be seen by everyone now, that won’t work at all. When a woman no longer feels attraction for you, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. You will be getting a divorce. She will destroy absolutely everything in her path, including you and your children. She will do whatever it takes to divorce you, including making a scandal out of the whole thing.

We live in a culture where divorce is common, and being excommunicated for going ahead and doing it (which is implied in the Westminster confession — the abandoning spouse is to be seen as dead) is seen as abusive.

This means that I have modified the advice I give my sons and my daughter.

To the daughter (who is married) I say simply that divorce sucks and will damage your kids. Make your marriage work. Hang in there when it is difficult — and it has been very difficult for them, they have been challenged in many ways.

To the sons I say the following.

• If you sleep with your GF (and you will want to) you have to take responsibility for any kids who come from that and you will have no power on the choice. So don’t.
• If you sleep with her you lose discernment. Sex googles exist. (So do married googles). So you have to test her and check her out and decide that she is the one for life first. Better still, obey God and put a ring on her finger.
• Use your parents and friends to test them out.
• She can change over time. If you go weak and don’t lead, she will change.
• Be aware of your type and the difficulties in it. If you like them bad, change that. You want sane, and you want feminine, not crazy, not androgynous. and those are independent variables: there are plenty of feminine psychopaths. Psychopaths can lie — which is why you don’t want sex goggles and why you need friends and family who can tell you when you are being a total idiot because of boobies.
• There is no innocent party in a divorce. When you look back, you realize there are decisions you made that could have changed it, but they cannot be undone.

But it also worth saying that our God is a god of hope, and of second chances. If we discipline anyone within the church, we must not shut the door to their repentance, but instead pray that they will change, and return. (I have redacted the comments of Ms Erikson from the form of excommunication here]

But to our great sorrow no one has yet appeared before us who has caused us to understand that, by the frequent admonitions given her (in private, before witnesses, and in the presence of many), she has come to any sorrow for her sin or has shown the least evidence of true repentance. Since, then, by her stubbornness she daily aggravates her transgression, which in itself is not small, and since we have made known to you the last time that in case she did not repent, after such patience shown her by the church we should be constrained further to grieve for her and to come to the extreme remedy, we are therefore at the present time compelled to proceed to her excommunication. We do this according to the command and charge given us in God’s holy Word. Our purpose is that she may be ashamed of her sins, that by this corrupt and as yet unrepentant member we may not put the whole body of the church in danger, and that God’s Name may not be blasphemed but reverenced.

So to those, who like me, have been broken, have had seen their marriage end up in dust and ashes, who are left with dealing with the damage… we need to recall that Christ gives us hope. Today is a new day. And today we can choose to do good. Doing that, habitually, will have consequences. You cannot undo what was done in the past, for good or ill. But Christ gives us mercies, new every morning.