We live in a post-fall world, a reality which affects everything we do, including marriage. It’s the union of two people who both love each other very much, but who both have a very serious and chronic problem: sin. Marriage means that two selfish ‘me’s’ have to start learning to think like one unified ‘us.’ They seek to build a new life together. And that is hard work!

When we’re young and on the cusp of so many important life decisions, we are filled with this crazy blend of courage, self-confidence, idealism, and naivete.
Take having children, for example: Did my wife and I know what to do with this seven pound human being that we took home from the hospital? Where was the instruction manual? How could we teach this child to know and love and serve the Lord?
Another example of a massive commitment that I made long ago is marriage. One fine summer’s day in 2001, Rebecca and I made our commitment to each other. I promised to love and guide her, to care for her and live with her in holiness. She promised to love and obey me, to assist me, and to live with me in holiness.
Then toward the end of those marriage vows, we both agreed to do all these important things, “for as long as we both shall live.”
Had we really thought about that line, reflected on what it actually meant?
We knew, of course, that marriage is for life, that God designed it to be a permanent bond between us. But what did we know about all the implications for the coming years? We were young, confident, idealistic, naïve.
Facing the Future
Maybe it’s just me who did these things without a firm grasp on what it all meant. Or perhaps not. If you’re married, then one fine day, ten or forty years ago, you too, made your commitment to each other, saying you’d be a faithful husband or a faithful wife, “for as long as you both shall live.”
It’s a promise that we make in a passing moment, but then we have to work with that commitment every single day, for the rest of our life. Once all the guests have gone home, you and your spouse will be living with the consequences of what you’ve done for perhaps the next 50 years.
Now, perhaps it’s good that we don’t really know what we’re getting into when we get married. When we overthink something, we get worried about all the potential outcomes and disasters. There’s a good reason that Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 not to worry.
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If you believe that Jesus is the Mighty Savior, who overthrew the devil’s war machines (3:8), then you are born of God, and the God-born are swept up into the conquering train of Christ the Victorious. But this victory is obtained by faith. Not by our own striving, for as Luther put it, “our striving would be losing.” Rather, the Right Man is on our side. This is how the saint should approach their individual battle with indwelling sin, and how they should view the end of the world.

1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves Him that begat also loves him that is begotten of Him. 2 In this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not grievous. 4 For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory which overcomes the world: our faith. 5 Who is he that overcomes the world? He that believes that Jesus is the son of God. 1 John 5:1-5
One way of thinking about this epistle is that it is a continuation of Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees in John 8. The ultimate question is always, “Who is your father?” The Pharisees insisted that their paternity could be traced by to Abraham. While Jesus rebuked them for rejecting Him as their Messiah, and that this rejection proved that the devil was their father. You might even call this the spiritual paternity test: what do you believe about Jesus? This first section of 1 John 5 goes over this same territory.
Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised deliverer of fallen man, are born of God. This salvation, of course, brings forth in us love for the God who first loved us (4:19), and lavished His love upon us (3:1). We are His children, we bear His likeness, and all who bear His likeness will likewise be beloved (5:1). He who believe that Jesus is the Christ, is God-born.
John then answers the question, “Well, how do I love the brethren?” You love God, and keep His commandments (5:2). The New Covenant, as described in Ezekiel’s prophecy, also notes that this new birth, this new life, this new heart will impart to us the ability to keep God’s Law (Eze. 36:25-27). Once more, this isn’t a new commandment (2:7). Rather, this is new life in the old commandment. The husk has broken open, and the tree of life has sprouted in the world.
Loving God means obeying His Word (5:3). And so that we don’t sigh like a teenage boy asked to clean his room, John reminds us that these commands aren’t heavy.
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The religion of death is awake and active. If it could, it would even swallow up the Christian. But our God is more powerful and provides the remedy to such folly. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ. It is, was, and always will be the power of God unto salvation. It must be preached, proclaimed, and protected. God will give His Word success and bring those in the clutches of death and darkness to the glorious light of the Kingdom of His dear Son our Lord.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live: that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
The world, the devil, and all the powers of the flesh and darkness are joined together for this reason – to shed the innocent blood of children.
The recent leaking of Supreme Court draft documents has again brought to light the abomination of the world’s religion of death.  Couched in the euphemisms of “a woman’s right to choose,” “human rights,” “healthcare,” and other similar terms, the demonic practice of child murder is being promoted like never before by the Roman Catholic president of the United States, his vice president, and governors, senators, and countless groups across the country. This again begs the question, why? Why are there riots in the streets to promote murder? Why are the highest officials of the land promoting murder?
The answer lies in the spiritual realm.
Two Spiritual Conditions
Throughout the Bible the Lord presents just two spiritual conditions into which all people fall: Each person is either saved or unsaved; walking in light or walking in darkness; on the highway to hell or the pathway to life; lovers of life or lovers of death; haters of God or servants of God. Myriad descriptors present only two options for man, life or death.
Life
In order to live, God tells us we must choose life (Deut. 30:19). These two words have  been used as a rallying cry for the so called “Pro-Life” movement. In its Scriptural context, it has little to do with abortion and everything to do with faith in Jesus Christ. The life we are called to choose is the life of blessing, the narrow way through the narrow gate, the truth, the solid foundation. Life is not an idea or an action; the life of Deut. 30:19 is a person. “Therefore choose life… that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life.”
This is just what Jesus says in John 14:6: “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.”
As the LORD calls us to choose life He calls us to believe, have faith, and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation so that we might have everlasting life through Him. The Jesus Christ we are called to trust is the God Man in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He shed His own blood and died, so that His children might have life and live. Choose life means simply this – repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation and you shall be saved.
The preacher of Proverbs sums it up this way, “For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD” (8:35). This is one spiritual state of man – the man that has found Christ and eternal life in Him. In this state, as a servant of the living and true God, this man sets himself to serve and glorify his King. The result is that [both he and his] descendants may live.
Death
There is the second condition – it is the condition of those who hate life, light, and truth. They are those who love death, darkness, and lies.
The preacher said, “All they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36).
Many have foolishly believed that through reason, science, speeches, and laws, they can persuade the followers of death that life is good. What they fail to grasp is that those outside of Christ are not just prone to sin and evil, they love it. Those that hate Christ love death.
The apostle puts it this way, they not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them (Romans 1:32). The wicked glory in your flesh (Galatians 6:13). They love the shedding of innocent blood. They delight in sending their children and, if they could, your children to the slaughter. As the Christian delights in serving the living and true Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind, so the wicked delights to serve sin and death with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind.
Why are the wicked rioting, threatening, enraged by a draft ruling from the Supreme Court that does not prohibit abortion but turns it over to the states to regulate murder? Because they perceive their religion and way of life is being somehow attacked.
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