WORLD NEWS & PROPHECY
Sex, Marriage and Family:
The Spiritual Significance God created human beings male and female so that we might enjoy a loving sexual relationship in marriage leading to families. But what is the spiritual significance and purpose God has in mind?
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he hope for a happy, fulfilling marriage to the person we most deeply love is one of the most entrenched desires of men and women. Happily sharing our hopes, dreams, fortune and the breadth of life’s experiences in the most intimate way is one of the most fulfilling endeavors of all. A good marriage further blessed with happy, respectful, successful children who provide the same kind of grandchildren is the crowning touch of a good life. And what a life this is! We’d all love to have this story be our story. Everyone wants the results. But not everyone wants to live the life that produces them. From the beginning God revealed that marriage was a special union between a man and woman because, to put it bluntly, that was the way to have children. Sexual intercourse between a male and female united in marriage produced children within that family. Yet the benefits of traditional marriage extend beyond reproduction. Studies continue to show that men and women generally live longer and happier lives when they are married to someone of the opposite sex. In these traditional unions, children likewise generally grow up more socially adept and financially successful than children who grow up in alternative arrangements. There is definitely a strong social case to be made for traditional monogamous marriage between one man and one woman. There is an incontrovertible biblical case for 20 Beyond Today
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traditional unions. Experience has Were we designed for marriage shown time and again that these bib- and family? lical guidelines for relationships and Yet with all the sexual experimentaparenting are the ones that work best. tion, almost everyone wants the same good life, including children. It seems Are there any rules? as though people were psychologically However, many people aren’t sure wired to desire marriage and family. whether God really exists or whether But why are we like this? Is it posHis instructions are relevant today. sible that we were designed this way Some believe that human beings came from the beginning by a Creator? into existence by evolutionary forces, What would have happened to the following blind natural selection and human race had men and women not the survival of the fittest. This theory been created with a desire for sexual postulates that people are simply activity that would ensure procreation, higher-level animals and that there a longing for intimacy both emotionalare no spiritual laws to guide human ly and physically with another person conduct, no requirement that sexual and a desire for offspring? relations be solely within marriage. Was it pure chance that things Experimenting from this perspec- worked out this way? For those who tive, or because they simply didn’t have eyes to see, these inborn traits want to follow the biblical instrucare simply additional indicators tions, men and women through the among many that all point to the ages have tried many different sexual inescapable fact that humanity was relationships, including premarital designed and crafted by God. The sex, adultery, polygamy (one man Bible explains that we were made in with multiple wives), polyandry (one God’s own image (Genesis 1:27)— woman with multiple husbands), meaning in our general appearance homosexuality and group marriages. as well as with minds to think. Today premarital sex, adultery An important principle is also and homosexual relationships have revealed here that is continued in all gained greater acceptance—chal- marriage and family—that human lenging and undermining traditional life is patterned after spiritual, marriage. The assumption among nonphysical, unseen realities. Just many, including governments and as human beings were made in the judges legislating acceptance of all image of God, marriage and family views and people regardless of their are patterned after spiritual concepts. practices and lifestyles, is that all God, the Designer of sex, choices are equal—so people can marriage and family do whatever they want. Sadly, this To understand the spiritual signifiapproach is presumed to be morally cance of sex, marriage and family, superior to all others.
B Tm a g a z i n e . o r g
