Save America Ministries

Chuck Crismier: Believe it or not, America was founded on a marriage. That's right, you might be surprised to hear that, but America was founded on a marriage: the marriage of the people to the Creator, the marriage of the people to Jesus Christ. The majority of those who were early founders to this country actually had committed their hearts and their lives to Jesus Christ as they understood it.

And yet that covenant with the Lord has largely vanished in our country. Whatever happened to marriage? Whatever happened to God's master plan for America? Could it be that marriage was not only God's master plan for the universe, but for marriage? And if America reneges on marriage, what is the hope for America?

At its 250th anniversary, that is political anniversary, but how about going all the way 406 years ago to a group called the Pilgrims? The 250th anniversary is only for the political foundation of the country. But the spiritual and covenantal foundation of the country goes all the way back 406 years to the Mayflower Compact.

It was originally signed on board the boat called the Mayflower on November 21st, 1620, before the passengers disembarked to begin their new settlement in what was called New Plymouth in what is now Massachusetts. This was the first attempt at self-government in the English-speaking New World. It was done by Pilgrims as refugees of severe religious persecution under King James I in England, and they said, "You know what? We can't live like this. We can only live under God's guidance. Our marriage to Him, not our marriage to King James and his authority."

Well, these were freeborn Englishmen who arrived while escaping religious persecution, and they set up self-government in the Western world. And these refugees set out consciously to have what President Abraham Lincoln would later call government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Those Pilgrims who had braved the North Atlantic in the middle of the stormy gale season to arrive on shores that they had never seen before and begin to carve out a new nation on a new continent would say to us, the recipients of this priceless heritage, "Embrace this freedom, exercise it, and zealously protect it." I think they would also say zealously protect even the more so the marriage covenant which is at the foundation: our relationship with Jesus Christ and our marriage to Him and then to one another. You lose that, and you lose it all.

When the Pilgrims arrived on the shores of what is now Massachusetts, some passengers who were not religious said they would not abide by others' authority once they landed. So before they disembarked, the Pilgrims drafted and signed the Mayflower Compact, and all the adult males aboard the Mayflower agreed to abide by the laws enacted under the Compact.

But marriage is not a compact. Marriage is a covenant, and there is a difference. The compact was made between individuals to protect freedom and to provide civil government. But the covenant of marriage is to provide the security of our relationship with the Lord as evidenced by the metaphor of our marital hope here on these shores.

The Mayflower Compact is indeed America's Magna Carta. It was democratic, an acknowledgment of liberty under law and order, and the giving to each person the right to participate in the government, while they promised to be obedient to the laws. Here we are under God's covenant, the covenant of marriage which He ordained in Genesis Chapter 2 to reflect as a heavenly metaphor the marital hope that we would have on this planet: marriage and God's master plan. And yet we have defected from it, we have defaulted from it, and we're the worse for it in this country.

So today on Viewpoint, we're going to take a look at that: marital hope, heavenly metaphor, marriage and God's master plan, and what is the future of America if we lose marriage? It's interesting because a number of years ago, a commentator, Don Feder, said, "We lose marriage, we lose everything." You lose marriage, and you lose everything. Well, whether you agree with him or not, I tend to think there's a lot of truth in what he said. If marriage is lost, we lose everything.

Well, let's take a little journey here on Viewpoint today down the time going back about 20 years. Actually going back about 15, 16 years, actually. I have in my hands a series of articles that came out, and the first one is from Charisma Magazine that came out in 2011. In 2011, the title of the article is "Marriage Under Siege." "Marriage Under Siege." And the subtitle was "How our long-held definition is being threatened by two unlikely partners: gay marriage and Christian infidelity."

Christian infidelity. That's the lack of faithfulness, the lack of fidelity. Is it possible then that the Christian infidelity in our marriages is also reflected and a reflection of our infidelity to the God who formed this first marriage? And who said, "What I have joined together, man must not put asunder"? It's an interesting question, isn't it?

Then we have before us Time magazine, November 29th, 2010. The title of this on the front page is "Who Needs Marriage?" In other words, the implication of this question is nobody really needs marriage anymore. We're going to do it our way. Well, what is the way that we're doing it? Well, we're not getting married. We're living alone, or we're cohabiting. That's what's happened.

Then Christianity Today joined in on the matter in this July/August 2020 issue called "Vanishing Vows." "Can the church save what's left of marriage?" Now, that's a pretty serious question. Can the church save what's left of marriage? Which is implying underlying that indeed the church has become a major part of the problem why marriage is disintegrating.

If we were to look back in 2014, people ages 20 to 39 who were married of Evangelicals: 56%; the total population: 42%. In 2018, Evangelicals: 51%; total population: 40%. In other words, in just four years, marriage was falling on increasingly hard times, yes, even in the church.

The falling away or collapse of marriage in America is reflecting and portending some very unpleasant futures for this country. Very unpleasant futures. Not only are the number of children being born in America insufficient to maintain the country, particularly in light of all the abortions that are taking place, but also the very spirit of the country, the very commitment of one another is dissolving in America.

And it's reflected, you can sense it, you can feel it, you can watch it in the dependency, the character of the various people, our politicians, and so on. Even today as one politician is falling under very hard times and scrutiny because of his radical, blatant disregard of his marital commitment.

Today we talk about marital hope, the heavenly metaphor. You say, "What do you mean the heavenly metaphor?" Well, the reality is that marriage was intended by God to be an earthly expression of His heavenly purpose for all time. It is a prophetic message that God designed from the very beginning in Genesis chapter 2.

And because it was so serious and so important in God's eyes, Satan made it his number one attack in Genesis chapter 3. No sooner had God formed the first marriage and put Adam and Eve together and said, "What I have joined together, man must not put asunder," then the Scripture says then the serpent. Then the serpent came and attacked that which God had prescribed for all time.

All time? Yes, all time. Not just on this planet, friends. The marriage concept from God's viewpoint is a heavenly metaphor, not just an earthly practice but a heavenly metaphor. In other words, it's designed to show something, to explain something, to help us to understand the greater picture of God's purposes and His expectations not only on the planet, not only in our country, but also for all eternity.

And that's why from Genesis to Revelation, marriage are the bookends of the Bible. Right there in Genesis chapter 2 and then in the book of Revelation, about chapter 20 and so on, where the bride of Christ comes and Jesus meets with His bride and completes the entire picture of God's intention under the marriage covenant.

That's why, friends, it's important that we be faithful in our marriages. It's important that we be faithful to the Lord. If you're not faithful to your spouse, how can you say you're going to be faithful to the Lord? This is our problem, and this is one of the reasons why the homosexual community was able to gain tremendous a grip to explain away why they should not have to comport to Christians' viewpoint concerning homosexuality and homosexual marriage.

They said, "You Christians don't believe the Bible anyway concerning marriage. Look at you. You divorce your spouses. You're not faithful to your spouses. You don't believe in what God has said." In fact, God in Malachi chapter 2 made it very clear that the religious leaders of that day were perverting God's intended purpose and plan for marriage.

And so He said to the religious leaders of the day, "Why are you putting away your spouses? Why are you divorcing your spouses?" He said, "You are dealing treacherously against your spouses." Now, the word treacherous is related to the word treason. They come from the same root.

So from God's viewpoint, dealing cavalierly with marriages and divorcing your spouse was tantamount to an action of treason against His kingdom. I hate to put it so bluntly, but it's actually true. And that's why when we don't treat marriage and sanctify it in our lives and in our country, we are actually dealing treacherously toward the kingdom of God and God's rulership in our country. So I ask the question: what's the future of America if we continue and do not repent of this situation?

So that is laying the foundation of why this is critically important. But we're not going to spend all of our time focusing on the negative here. What we want to do is spend the bulk of our time focusing on the positive. Okay, what are we going to do in response?

You say all of that sounds so negative. Well, it is. It's very negative from God's viewpoint. And God's viewpoint is the only one that really counts. Not my viewpoint. I'm only expressing what God's viewpoint is. So if you want to find out what that is, go to Malachi chapter 2. You can read it for yourself.

Three times God calls divorce treachery. That's what He calls it: treachery. Which is related to treason, which is against His kingdom and His ordinance for life on this planet, which is to reflect our earthly lives as testimonies of His kingdom. So when we say, "May His kingdom come, may His will be done on Earth as it is in heaven," let's put it this way: may His kingdom come, may His will be done in America as it is in heaven.

Well, what would that will be? That will would be to be faithful in our marriages. First of all, we would marry, we wouldn't cohabit. We would marry. And then we would marry for the purposes for which God calls us to marry. What were those purposes? Well, we want to talk about those purposes because it'll help us quite a bit to understand the greater picture of this metaphor that God has set forth for us.

It really is quite a beautiful thing. A beautiful thing if we understand the greatness of it. It's not just about us feeling good on this planet. It's about us fitting in with God's plan and purpose. It's a prophetic statement. Marriage is a prophetic manifestation of God's purposes not only on Earth but also in eternity.

So the first thing that we need to understand, and we think we do, but maybe we don't because we don't live it out quite the way we think we understand it. And that is that marriage is not a compact, it's not an agreement, it's not a contract, it's a covenant. In other words, when God entered into something seriously important, He entered into a covenant. He called Abraham to enter into a covenant with Him. And it required the shedding of blood.

So when a marriage enters into covenant, there is a shedding of blood as husband and wife come together on their honeymoon and engage in sexual intercourse for the first time. It's the shedding of blood and, quite frankly, the proof that they actually were married and that there was the capability of being married was the special cloth that was placed under the bride to demonstrate that there had indeed been this covenant entered into, the blood covenant.

Because of that, marriage reflects the word commitment. Commitment has nothing to do with feelings. It has to do with decision over feelings. So marriage is the way we live out faith. Faith is a long obedience in the same direction. So marriage is the way we live out our faith.

If we can't live out our faith faithfully with our marriages, then what other evidence is there that is superior to prove that we can live out our faith in any other way? That's why a broken marriage, that's why marital infidelity is so serious. God considered marital infidelity to be the most serious thing. Did you know that?

And so over and over again in the Old Testament, He relates the behavior of Israel toward His covenant and His expectations of the marital covenant that they entered into at Mount Sinai. God said, "If you will do this, then this is what's going to happen. Will you do this?" And they said, "I do." They entered into a marriage covenant for all time there at Mount Sinai. But they said we would, but then they did not.

So God called it adultery. Over and over again in the Old Testament, He says you're committing adultery under every high tree, under every green bush, and whatever. You're committing adultery. You're fornicating with high and low. All you're doing is dealing in sexual immorality. He related their spiritual attitudes and behavior to sexual relationship or the breaking of a marital relationship.

So first we enter into a covenant which you cannot break. It's a blood covenant. Then you have commitment that flows from that covenant that you're going to live out by faith regardless of how you feel at any given time, right? Because we don't all have, the song said, "I've got those loving feelings." Well, you don't necessarily always have those loving feelings. You don't even necessarily always have those loving feelings with regard to the Lord, do you? No. And that's why so many people fall away. They say, "Well, I don't have that loving feeling." It's not about your feelings. It's about faith. It's about trust. It's about a commitment of life.

Then comes the matter of companionship. If we're walking together with the Lord, we have companionship. If we're walking together with Him in our marriage covenant with Him, we have companionship. If we don't walk with Him in the light of His Word, we don't have companionship. As the song says, "And we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way." When we do His good will, He abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey. So trust and obey.

So companionship is one of the main purposes of marriage. Companionship with a wife or as husband on the planet, on terra firma, is a metaphor for the relationship between us and Christ. If the metaphor breaks down on Earth, it we can be well assured that it's broken between us and the Lord. That's why this is so serious, so important, and we tend to disregard the connection here, the marital hope on this planet with the heavenly metaphor for eternity.

Marriage is God's master plan that links our attitudes, our behavior, our life here on Earth with His plan and purposes for eternity. So then we have companionship. God said it's not good for man to be alone. Apparently He knew what He meant, knew what He said, because He was the Creator. It's not good for man to be alone.

And so God there in the heavenlies said, "Let Us make man in Our image." There was an Usness to God Himself. Let Us make man in Our image. A fellowship and so on. So He says, "Now we're going to make man in our image." And then He said, "It's not good for the man to be alone. We've created a companionship for all the other animals. Now for man made in our image, we need to create a woman." And so He did.

God wed them and said, "What I have joined together, man must not put asunder." Companionship. One of the things that my wife and I enjoy the most after 60 years is companionship. But if you're not walking together, if you're not sounding together, if you're not thinking together, if you're arguing all the time, if you're in disagreement, then the companionship loses its companionship.

If you're out of sync with God, if you're out of sync with His Word, if you're disagreeing with what He says about this, that, or the other, you're out of sync with Him and that companionship is seriously diminished, if not broken. Then again, there's compassion. In a marriage, you have compassion. You have compassion for one another. If you don't have compassion for one another, you really don't love one another.

So what we're doing is not using the word love but using other words that describe the love that God has for us in marriage. It's not about that loving feeling. There's nothing wrong with that. But it's about these other things: companionship, compassion, caring.

To help us establish the kind of marriages, the kind of loving marriages that God would have for us so that we fit in with his greater plan and his greater purpose, his master plan, my wife and I put together a book called "Lasting Love: Enduring Secrets for Marital Success". This was a book to commemorate and celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. This year we will celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary. 60. We've known each other for 62 years, and we've been married for 60 years as of July 29th, 2026.

So we want to make this book available to you because it has had such a profound impact upon our own lives. It contains a motto that transformed our marriage after many, many years and helped to solidify it even stronger than ever before. "Lasting Love". It's a small book. It's a beautiful small padded book, gold in cover. It's just beautiful. One you'd want to keep on your nightstand, on your coffee table, somewhere where you could just grab it and read it in small passages and kind of meditate on it and allow it to seep into the membranes of your mind and heart. You might even want to read it together. That wouldn't be a bad idea either.

"Lasting Love". It's a $15 hardbound book, yours for $10 on our website saveus.org. You can give us a call at 1-800-SAVE-USA or write to us at Save America Ministries, PO Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia, 23255, writing a check. Now let me just mention this insert a thought in your mind because June is busting out all over, see? The feeling is getting more intense as the song said, for the young Virginia keepers are bugging the bejeepers out of all the morning glories on the fence because it's June.

Well, what is June? June is the marriage month. That's right. June is the marriage month, the most preeminent marriage month. And a lot of people are thinking, young people and others are thinking about marriage. Well, what an incredible gift that would be for them. You might want to think about that. "Lasting Love: Enduring Secrets for Marital Success". Tremendous gift. You may have a relative, you may have a daughter or a son, you may have a friend who is contemplating getting married or planning to get married this month or in the next several months. This would be a tremendous gift of love to them. Only $10. We'll put this $14 book in your hands.

Okay, now I want to go on. There are seven of these C-words that I have been sharing with you concerning God's view of marriage, what it does. We're not using the word love because love has all different kinds of feelings about it. Some think it's all about sex, eros love. Some think it's about phileo, brotherly love. Some think it's about agape love, unselfish love. Well, it's all of the above, not just one but all of the above.

So we have the covenant. We have our commitment to one another. We have compassion and companionship that we have from our marriages. And because of that, we care for one another. Even the church is supposed to care for one another. See, the church is supposed to emulate God's model for marriage even in the congregation of the church.

Then there are two other items that you might not think of in terms of marriage and its value. One is correction: correction in righteousness. Now, just the other day, my wife spoke to me in a very kindly way and pointed out something that she thought I needed to attend to in my own thoughts, attitude, behavior, whatever, choices. Choices, that would be the better way.

And so she pointed that out. I wasn't all that excited to hear it, but on the other hand, I had a witness in my spirit that indeed her viewpoint was correct, and I've already taken some steps to respond to it. Correction in righteousness. Well, interestingly, the body of Christ is to gather together for that purpose, isn't it?

That we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together but the more so as we see the day of the Lord returning closer and closer. What for? Because of the exceeding deceitfulness of sin, that we might be corrected in righteousness. That's right. So marriage affords a proper correction in righteousness when we're under the spirit of the Holy Spirit, we're walking in the light of His Word, then the Lord will speak through a wife to her husband, through a husband to his wife.

This morning, my wife gave profuse thanks to me because her feelings were very troubled by things that she saw in the book of Revelation. It wasn't so much convicting to her, it was just very troubled, and she didn't quite understand why all of this stuff going on that was so weird as she said. And so I helped her to understand that, and she thanked me for that.

Well, what would you call that? Well, you could call it correction, you could call it inspiration. Husbands are supposed to provide leadership and protection for their wives spiritually, a kind of spiritual oversight. That's the reason why the Apostle Paul said that in the congregation, wives should not try to upstage their husbands in the open congregation and start asking all kinds of questions and so on, they should go to their husbands at home and have their husbands explain those things to them. You may not like what the Apostle Paul said, but that is what he said.

And the following is conviction. You can have a correction without the conviction. Because if you don't receive the correction, there's not going to be any conviction in your heart. So there are two kinds of conviction that marriage brings about. One is conviction of the Holy Spirit to walk more effectively, more honestly on this earth in accordance with the Lord as your shepherd and your spouse as shall we say your companion.

There's conviction that comes with that. How we respond to that conviction is another matter. If you resist it, you'll not get the benefit. So if I resisted what my wife said yesterday, then I wouldn't get the benefit of it. But I chose to see that there was correction there, and so it gripped my own mind and heart that I needed to do something about it. That's called conviction.

So we have a covenant, a commitment, companionship, compassion, caring, correction, and conviction. All of these are part of the heavenly metaphor of God's message for marriage. All right, now I want to break from that just briefly because there are those who would say and after 20 years of law practice in the largest family law court in the nation, the Los Angeles Superior Court system, where 80% of my clients came for the broader body of Christ, I know what I'm talking about with regard to marriage and divorce and all of those problems and the problems that so easily beset us.

I know you don't have any marital problems that easily beset you, but most Christians do. Most people do, at one level or another. So why is it that Americans are changing and favoring cohabitation over marriage? Well, they don't want the commitment. They want the companionship without the commitment.

They don't want to have anybody that can speak authoritatively into their lives, so you're not going to get the correction. You might get compassion, you might get caring, you might get companionship, but you're certainly not going to get commitment, and you're certainly not going to be in covenant, and you're certainly not going to get the kind of correction and conviction under the Holy Spirit that would be available to you if you were living in a covenantal marriage relationship.

Marriage is not a contract, it's a covenant. So cohabitation rates have increased so heavily, friends, that it's now become virtually the most common form of so-called family in America today. And if that be true, what's the future of America at our 250th anniversary? Just thinking about it.

And by the way, married people, even impoverished married people, typically live longer than divorced or never married peers. That was in a study in the American Journal of Public Health. And then another says that couples who stay in an unhappy marriage and tough it out until things turn around are more likely to be happy five years later than those who decide to divorce. That came from a study from the University of Chicago.

So marital endurance. See, if we're not willing to endure, then we're not participants in God's holy sacred metaphor of marriage. And that's why Jesus said, "Only he that endures to the end shall be saved." What's he talking about? He's talking about your alleged marriage relationship to the Lord. But if you don't endure, you don't have it anymore.

Are you listening? I didn't say that, that's what Jesus said. He that endures to the end shall be saved. Endures what? Endures all the assaults against your relationship, your marital relationship with the Lord, which would include by the way your marital relationship on this planet with your spouse.

No wonder Jesus took it so seriously. No wonder he said whoever divorces his spouse commits adultery, and whoever marries the one so divorced commits adultery. No wonder the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7 that if you end up divorced, you must stay unmarried or be reconciled to your spouse. Interesting.

Tom Mullen said a happy marriage begins when we marry the ones we love, but they blossom when we love the ones we marry. As we wrap up here today on Viewpoint, I want to share things in a little different way with you because we're talking about something that is so serious not only for the future of our country. If we expect our country to be blessed by God, we have to bless God by the way we live.

And if we don't bless God by the way we live in our marriages, we have actually missed the most foundational and essential element that God designed in His complete salvation plan. It's amazing, but we've missed it. Somehow we rationalize it as if it doesn't really matter, that it's just something for Earth. No, it's not just something for Earth. It's a heavenly issue. It's an eternal issue.

Unfortunately, it's painfully clear that the prevailing winds of our time globally, yet more pervasively in so-called Christian Western world in America, are not favorable to sailing the good ship marriage. A tsunami of relational brokenness swept across the North American continent precipitated you may remember back the unprecedented moral and spiritual truthquake in the 1960s, the sexual revolution, the rebellion against authority, that decoupled marriage and family from their moral and spiritual foundations.

But the unrelenting aftershocks for two generations have devastatingly fractured not only the family but the faith itself, making a mockery almost to the very faith we claim to possess. So the battle to preserve, protect, and prosper the miracle of marriage, which it is, as the divine design is raging, ripping to shreds the relational and social fabric of entire nations, preparing the way for godless governments to progressively usurp the role of father and family, promising to be the mother of us all. That's what's happening, friends.

In the midst of this fray, marriage remains a miracle of God's divine design, not just for the planet but for all eternity. It's a metaphor on Earth for the eternal spiritual relationship that God intended between Him and us. And that's why my wife and I felt compelled to present to folk the motto to reinforce our marital foundation so that lasting love becomes a life message. Because marriage matters. It matters to God, and it should matter to us.

But how deeply does and should marriage matter to us in this broken and fallen world where self seems to increasingly reign supreme? Well, God calls marriage a mystery. The Apostle Paul wrote about that in Ephesians chapter 5. He says, "I'm speaking of a great mystery, the relationship between Christ and His church." A great mystery. Almost everyone loves a mystery, right?

But mysteries are intended to be solved, to be discovered, to be revealed. And that's God's heart and desire for you and for me, for every one of us. He desires and intends that our marriages here on Earth reflect and reveal His plan, His purposes, in fact, His very glory. So your marriage and ours is intended to be and is the smallest unit of the church.

Have you ever thought about that? Your marriage is the smallest unit of the church. A husband and a wife and the Holy Spirit. The threesome. And a threefold cord is not easily broken, but we're allowing it to be broken. That's why marriage is referred to as holy matrimony. Holy matrimony.

Now, I want to make available to you our book because it's going to be so helpful to you. "Lasting Love: Enduring Secrets for Marital Success". Woven into this book are revelations from our own life of at that time 50 years of marriage, and how we responded to this motto of seven points. At the back of the book, we have that motto printed for you so that you can take that motto and you can put it on notepads, you can have it printed out, you can put it in your bathroom, you can put it in your bedroom, you can put it in your office.

With an attitude of gratitude, we will consider one another purposing daily to prefer one another, to pursue one another, to praise one another, to protect one another, and to pray for one another. And believe it or not, those are the things that God expects us to do in our marriages and then by implication within the body of Christ. Since we're married to Him, those things are also stated in the Scriptures to be carried out among us.

With an attitude of gratitude, we will consider one another purposing daily to prefer one another, to pursue one another, to praise one another, to protect one another, and to pray for one another. But then the question is: what does that look like? And that's what this book helps to flesh out. It's a small book. At the end are what we call lingering love notes.

Lingering love notes. You make the marital choice and God will help you make the change. A good marriage is a contest of generosity. Marriage should be a duet; when one sings, the other claps. Love requires a willingness to die, marriage a willingness to live. And so on.

So it was 50 years ago that my wife walked down the aisle, she made her processional gowned and veiled to the moment of marital promise. And I sang to her my rendition of a very classical music piece called "Because". And the words remain very precious to us, to me, and they filtered through the last six decades of memories to this moment of recommitment even now as I share with you.

And here are the introductory words of that song: "Because God made you mine, I'll cherish you throughout our lives and for all eternity. A brighter world of peace and joy I see because you come to me." It's interesting at our 25th anniversary, we were out to dinner at a restaurant, I can't even remember where that restaurant was. And there was a gentleman playing the piano. And I walked up to him and I said, "Do you mind playing this song and let me sing it here among all the people gathered?" And I did. "Because God made thee mine, I'll cherish thee throughout our lives and for all eternity."

I think, friend, you're going to be so encouraged by this book. "Lasting Love: Enduring Secrets for Marital Success". Again, it's a $14 hardbound book, beautiful packaged. It'll be available to you on our website saveus.org. Give us a call 1-800-SAVE-USA, write to us at Save America Ministries, PO Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia, 23255, writing a check.

A strong faith helps you love selflessly and be the husband or wife you were meant to be. It really does. There's hope, friends. The future of our country at 250 years is dependent on whether or not we can restore marriage at the heart of our homes, that Christian marriage will truly be Christian and that we'll remain married.

When we marry, God by His Holy Spirit unites us as one before Him. Yet in reality, we're two in one. So when Kathy and I became one in Christ by the Holy Spirit, a holy trinity was created on Earth to display or reflect on Earth His love, His image, however diminished, of the glory of the Triune God in heaven.

So we realize then that our marriage together has immeasurably greater import from God's viewpoint than just serving as the foundation for a civilized society. Our marriage is to make a holy declaration for eternity. For we're married not only to each other but betrothed to the Master of all creation.

Are you able to somehow grasp the significance of this? It's significant beyond anything really that we can probably even ask or think. It's very significant. Unfortunately, friends, pornography has become the digital assault on marriages both for men and for women. When over 70% of Christian men claim to be involved in pornography and about 34% of Christian women are involved in their version of pornography and over 30% of Christian pastors claim to be troubled by pornography in their own lives, you know that sacred marriage has been seriously tampered with by us yielding to the temptation to be seduced to become adulterous in our minds.

Pornography seduces us to become spiritual adulterers. Jesus put it this way: He said, "You've heard it said of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart already." From God's viewpoint, and the only God's viewpoint is the only one that matters. Do we have to wage war against this? Absolutely, friends.

The internet will seduce you over and over again if you yield in one little area. You allow your inquisitive mind to find out what this little alluring thing is over here, you're going to be in deep trouble. Don't go there. Don't allow yourself to go there. And the more you resist, the greater your strength and the easier it will be to resist the temptation.

One man came to me with his laptop a few years ago and he said, "Chuck, I can't seem to beat it. Will you take my laptop? I just can't seem to beat it." That is pornography. "Will you take my laptop?" Which I did. I didn't go through it, I just kept it until he decided he wanted it back. Where he went from there I cannot tell you. But this is war. We ought to win the war, friends.

Marriage itself should not be a war, though. It should be a duet where we sing together, we sing in harmony together. Sometimes you're not always in direct harmony, but you're seeking to walk together in harmony. And friends, when we sound together, it's very pleasing to the Lord.

The Scripture asks the question: can two walk together unless they be agreed? The answer is no. You can't walk together with the Lord, not really. You could pretend to. But if you're not agreeing with Him with regard to marriage, you're not walking with Him in truth or in spirit. It's a pretense. It's all about your feelings. It's not about spiritual reality. This in our marriage that is intended to be the microcosm of the church, that is intended to be the place where we actually do live out and manifest the kingdom of God.

So seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, and all the other things will be added unto you. Thanks for joining us here on Viewpoint today. I hope it's been helpful, encouraging, maybe a little convicting in heart. That's okay, that's a good thing.

"Lasting Love: Enduring Secrets for Marital Success". Don't pass up this book, so encouraging and you may know someone that really is going to need this: somebody getting married, somebody that's in trouble already. This book will be a blessing, only $10. We'll put this $14 book in your hands. On the website saveus.org. Thanks for joining us. Become a partner, friends. Don't wait for the other guy to do it. It's getting more and more difficult. Help us. Send those gifts by faith to Save America Ministries. God bless and be a blessing.