By Edward Ridenour
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There are a variety of measures in which to gauge the collective condition of the Christian church, which invariably reveals the condition of most individuals within it, professing Christ as Lord of their life.
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Howbeit, there is only one authority, which provides the revelation and instruction of measurement for all to assess, as to whether one’s declaration of being a Christian is either valid, genuine, or not. That authority is God’s Word, the Bible. It is man’s revelation of his Savior and his Savior’s expectations for living as a believer, as well as the recompense for that life lived.
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Because the Bible’s revelation and instruction is based upon and focused on individuals who are genuinely Spiritually regenerated, being endued with the empowerment to satisfy those Scriptural expectations of living, there will undoubtedly be a distinction between those who are truly regenerated and those who are not (secular). That distinction, through Biblically acquired knowledge, should become more and more definitive the longer one lives on this earth, within that changed state. To live in that state is to live Biblical, holy. To live contrary to that state is to live unbiblical, unholy.
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In my teaching and theology of Biblical marriage, I present Biblical concepts as to what makes a Biblical marriage, as well as what violates it. One violation, defilement that the Bible addresses is adulterous fornication, which only occurs between males and females. This can occur physically, or it can occur mentally (in the heart).
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One very evident unbiblical condition that pervades Christendom, which nourishes this adultery, is how the male Christian sees a female.
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God has granted the male of His creation as the ultimate authority and determiner of whether marriage or adultery will exist or not. Whether it be a physical encounter or a mental one, if the male does not engage the woman there will be no outcome. A perfect example is with Adam and Eve. It was not until Adam ate the apple, given to him by Eve, wherein sin was born and all that they were before became different. Had Adam not eaten, sin would have been defeated and both he and his female would have been preserved.
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Describing God’s construct of marriage in creation, the Bible states, “men marry, and women are given in marriage.” This means, to a large degree, males have complete control over females and their sexual intimacies, i.e., whether they come to know a male sexually or not, as well as determining the form of sexual intimacy she will experience – either accepted by her or forced upon her. All females, even those choosing to be celibate or homosexual can be raped.
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Of course, the Christian female can resort to any degree of sexual provocation toward the male that she may desire. Howbeit, if Christian males, through their Biblical perceptions and obedience, do not facilitate her unauthorized sexual antics, she will have to resort to and depend upon secular non-regenerated males to fulfill those antics.
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Unfortunately, Christian males are not only ignorant to the true concepts of Biblical marriage, but many possess an unbiblical and carnal (secular) perception toward the female, resulting in fornicated adultery, both physically and mentally. This in turn has its ill effects and injuries to the Christian female, as well as non-Christian female.
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Because the male wields great influence over the female and plays such a powerful role in the female’s sexual status, there is the natural reality of her having to compete with other females to attract a male, which produces a pressure for her to conform to whatever character is demanded by the male for acceptance. This expected demand of the female character by the male will either be Biblical, e.g., one of chastity, modesty, meekness and quietness, discretion, and soberness or it will be secular – devoid of Biblical attributes. The Bible clearly describes the character of a female professing godliness (1Timothy 2″10-15).
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It is, therefore, by this natural authority over the female whereby the Christian male has been given a responsibility by God and is accountable to Him for. He will be responsible regarding the standard which he establishes, which will regulate the quality of competition females will engage in, i.e., being holy Biblically or unholy secularly. This Christian male responsibility encompasses all females, Christian or not.
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It is here where there has been a great failure to teach males their Biblical responsibility. Apart from vague lip service, in the church, there is an acquiescence to their lustful and unbiblical gender perceptions and dispositions, which is observed and indicated by the characters, dispositions, and attire of many Christian females in the presence of and/or absent from the assembly of believers.
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Even though the male is responsible, the female is not exempt from her obligation to possess that Biblical character. For some females say, “If he lusts after me, I can’t help that. That is his problem.” Well, this is true. He will answer for viewing a female in an unbiblical way. However, if a female provokes a male, so that he might view her in a lustful unbiblical way, it is as one once said, “men sin, but devils tempt to sin.” Women will answer to God for their ungodly provocations and carelessness toward the male.
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Understanding this truth of responsibility of the Christian male makes it vital and imperative that he have an accurate Biblical perception of how he is to see the female – how he perceives her existence and purpose within creation for him and his duty to nurture her to a holy life before God. After all, she was made for him. The female will still answer to God for her life, regardless, but she does not bear the responsibility for the male and/or the quality of his life. It was to the male and not the female that Jesus declared “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
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This is why the female is to be under the male and not to usurp authority over him, because of him having to answer to God for his responsibility over her. Hence, nothing happened after Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. She was devoid of authority. In Revelation 2:20, Christ, to the church of Thyatira, lays responsibility at the feet of the males for allowing a falsely declared prophetess, a Jezebelish woman to teach, while seducing congregants to commit ungodly deeds.
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In the beginning, after the fall, God said that the female’s “desire shall be to her male, and he shall rule over her.” She will not only desire him to want her, but she will have the requirement of a submissive heart to his will and not, as some teach, “a desire to rule over him.”
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The female was not created as an object of or entity for a male’s lust. Nowhere is this Biblically conveyed as the purpose of her design or an acceptable perception. In fact, where this lustful perception is Biblically noted and exemplified was always among the ungodly, idolaters, and fornicators. All idolatry is associated with a failure to accurately acknowledge God’s existence, as well as attend to His creation within its proper design. To see any female as an object of his lust is exposing a huge fallacy in a Christian male’s walk and character.
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All idolatry caters to the satisfaction and worship of self, hence why fornication is labeled idolatry. Godliness does not worship self, rather just the opposite. Lust is carnality and wars against the Spirit. When the Christian male fails to see females in their true created design, they tend to gravitate to their carnal disposition of lust, whether for the female or other flesh, and will be under bondage to it, which ultimately brings death and destruction. Lust will be what navigates his lifestyle, instead of the truth of the female’s design for the male. And all acts of fornication, besides and including adultery, can be the result. This is realized in what Paul said in Romans chapter one “the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another…”
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In Genesis 6:2 the Holy Spirit teaches the Christian male his responsibility of having a right perception toward the female and that when it is abandoned it leads to wrong dispositions, death, and destruction for all. It states, “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose.” By women dressing as they do to reveal their bodies as they do, provides the temptation and stimulus for men to surrender to the false perception that they are objects to be lusted after, as happened in Genesis.
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This declaration gives insight to the beginning of the downfall, if you will, of the church at that time, leading God to destroy the world by a flood. The “sons of God” referenced not “fallen angels” as some purport, but righteous men who lived holy lives before God as Abel. Howbeit, though, these righteous males began to “see” females (“daughters of men”) in a different capacity than they had been. They began to see them as “fair” (objects of fleshly lust) “and took them wives [not as the church presently believes a female becomes a wife] of all that they chose [more than one].”
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What this declares is that when Godly males began to see females as objects of fleshly lust, they began to be sexually intimate with more than one female (prostitution, harlotry, adultery). Fornication, then, began to creep into the church and became saturated with it. And its origination was from the changed perception of females by Godly males. As this ungodly perception proceeded, it affected all, to where their imaginations toward it and other things became “evil continually”. Only Noah and his sons, each of whom had their individual legitimate wife, were unaffected by that false lustful perception when God concluded to destroy the world, whereby they being saved. The others became reprobate and could not discern their condition, neither was found worthy to hear the voice of God or Noah “a preacher of righteousness” and perished.
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As it was with Sodom and Gomorrah and Noah’s day, fornication with women was a main ingredient to the downfall of men and their ultimate destruction, which originates from a failed perception of a female by males. This failed perception is rampant in the church today.
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A godly Biblical female needs to be admired by the male for what she was created for, and inspired by him to live accordingly, which is what many Christian men do not do. She is a helpmate to a male and his womb for his posterity for the fulfilling of God’s plan, as well as God’s command.
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Separate from her other capabilities and motherly design, she as a helpmate is to satisfy a male’s created nature to be sexually intimate, which enhances procreation, but never as an instrument to satisfy his lust.
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Males expecting and/or demanding their wives to emulate prostitutes engaging in erotic sexual fantasies between them for their sexual lusts, as some in the church promote, are exploiting their female helpmate and are unjust in those expectations and/or demands. The disposition and antics of a prostitute within Biblical marriage are not Biblically endorsed, have no correlation with Biblical marriage, and should never be expected of a wife to emulate. A prostitute is a fornicator, by fulfilling lustful sexual fantasies of ungodly males. Christian male’s, who labor to foster this in their helpmate are secular minded as well and reveal their wrong perception of the female. Just where are these Christian females supposed to learn these sexual fantasies? From Scripture? Is this what Paul said that “the older women were to teach the younger women?” How is the Proverbs 31 woman depicted?
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The minds of ungodly men, “filthy dreamers of this world,” imagine in every way they can how to exploit the female sexually, using her to satisfy the extremes of their lust, which, by the way, is never satisfied for very long.
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The female, who’s character is Biblically founded, will not want to act out the role of a prostitute in the bedroom for her husband, as is expected by many Christian husbands, being encouraged by certain Christian leaders. This expectation is a wrong and lustful perception of a wife and is contrary to a Biblical woman’s discreet character. There is nothing Biblically that will support such an expectation. It is carnal and secular.
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Men seeing females in lust encourages women to not want to have children. She knows that the man will not want her anymore if it is all about the lust for her body. In seeing them correctly causes women to want to have your children. So then all the way around, no one wants to have children.
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As is so evident in the church, the wrong perceptions of how the Christian male sees a female is overwhelming and pervasive, and a transformation from this worldly mindset, by the renewing of the male mind, is needed. Men feel there is no hope in God and women feel there is no hope in men, which brings confusion and chaos. A fog choking out the church’s exemplifying life of Christ. Unable to see our way.
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“And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?