The First Shattered Home!
Yet, in just a SHORT TIME, this man lost his home. He lost his job! He lost his security, and with it, his self-respect! He failed in his marriage, he failed his Employer, and he failed his wife.
Instead of obeying the LAWS Almighty God had established and revealed to Adam which would have guaranteed success and long life, and a happy marriage, Adam allowed his wife to disobey — and then followed meekly along in her disobedience.
Think of it! He lost everything!
His wife was a failure, too. She failed her husband, hindering him in his job, instead of helping. She was an influence in the wrong direction!
The two were driven from their place of absolute security — their beautiful and fabulous environment which was their home.
Almighty God reveals they became miserable failures at child rearing!
They obviously fought. They argued. Each blamed the other for his failures. Their children grew up in a perfectly horrible atmosphere of struggle, hard work, frustration and bitter disappointments.
Here was a man who was almost overnight stripped of his wealth and security, removed from his job in a high executive position, and driven out to become a hard-scrabble farmer, eking out a bare living in the fields. Nature became his enemy instead of his ally. The ground yielded thorns and thistles to him — he had difficulty making a good crop — and life became a miserable, tedious struggle!
The children undoubtedly grew up hearing recriminations and family arguments — witnessing squabbles and brawls between their own parents!
And Look at Their Children
Then, as if life wasn't miserable enough — these parents finally lived to see one of their own dearly beloved boys brutally MURDERED by the other! They had reared the world's first delinquent — a hardened, selfish, BRUTE of a youngster, who grew up to KILL his own brother!
And yet — they had EVERYTHING to begin with. Everything, that is, except one thing.
Marriage, you see, is ALL GIVE! But these two, by their very natures (Rom. 8:7) were ALL GET!
The one BIG thing they both lacked was the Holy Spirit of Almighty God!
SIN made an absolute shambles of their lives. Adam had to live to see his progeny involved in every filthy evil imaginable. They turned to perversion, blood-lust, rape and murder. They cheated, fought and stole! They killed each other wholesale, and even turned to CANNIBALISM! Yes, what a pure, unadulterated mess of a marriage!
This was the world's first marriage. And it was the world's first marital failure!
The Basic CAUSE for Marital Failure
Like a great, black pall settling down over the entire world, SEX has come to influence everything!
It seems books and magazines cannot be sold without openly advertising sex on their covers! "Hollywood," American advertising, the novels and most entertainment media have snatched love from its high pinnacle of ecstatic beauty, to dash it into the slime of sheer human sensuality!
Love is outgoing concern.
Love is a great desire to SHARE, to SERVE, to help and GIVE TO the beloved!
Love is basically out going, while lust is directed IN, toward the self!
Today, teenagers are swept away via the movies on the blissful fantasies of ready-made daydreams into the pink clouds of Hollywood "romance!"
Marriage, to them, is a new party dress, a gala departure amidst rice and tin cans, a merry-go-round of sensual thrills and pleasures, a write-up in the local newspaper.
People talk about "falling" in love! But actually, when it is thoroughly understood from God's Word, it is a total IMPOSSIBILITY to "fall in love" at first sight!
This is at the very BASIS for all failure in marriage. Remember, human nature is basically all get. But marriage is a partnership wherein each partner contracts with the other to GIVE.
Almighty God has laid down basic laws in His Word which regulate marriage. It is God who invented marriage — and it is HE who has given the laws regulating marriage — laws insuring marriage will be a success!
When those basic laws are violated, they exact an immediate penalty!
As one marital counselor said recently, "You don't fall in love — you climb up to it!" How could a person "fall in love" with another individual merely upon sight alone?
This is obviously nothing more than base, human, physical lust — which is directed totally toward the self — and is not LOVE!
Sex as the Expression of Love
Actual statistics collected from many studies have PROVED that an overwhelming majority of unsuccessful marriages are directly attributed by the frustrated marital partners themselves to sexual maladjustment.
Dr. R.L. Dickinson, in his book, "Medical Analysis of a Thousand Marriages" states that 40 percent of women never attain satisfactory marital relationships.
And is it any wonder?
My father, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, hopes at some future time to begin work on his forthcoming book on this gigantic problem — explaining it — making plain what God says about sex. This is a subject which very urgently needs to be thoroughly understood, NOT from a purely biological point of view, but from the spiritual point of view of the Word of God — and should be taught by an ordained minister of God!
Since the normal marital relationship is merely the highest form of the expression of the outgoing LOVE of one marital partner toward another, is it any wonder so many marriages fail today? When this relationship — designed by an all-wise Creator as an outgoing expression of love becomes a selfish, purely physical, carnal desire to get — it becomes a major reason for failure in marriage, instead of a basic reason for happy married life!
The basic, underlying CAUSE of all marital failure is failure to observe God's law of marriage!
It is a part of human nature to be selfish, wanting to GET instead of give!
You need desperately to understand the laws Almighty God has established for marital happiness! Space does not permit a thorough coverage of the subject in this one brief article, and so we invite you to write immediately for our free article, "How To Have a Happy Marriage." This article contains vital facts, from the Bible, on how a home should be regulated — and gives the real basic KEYS for marital happiness.
Divorce is one of the great CURSES Almighty God promised would come upon us because of BROKEN LAWS!
How many of you have even remotely realized it is GOD who really "invented" marriage — who AUTHORIZES marriage, who literally BINDS husband and wife together as one flesh? How many of you have really known, and been taught the practical, workable LAWS that will GUARANTEE happy marriages? How many of you have really heard, and known the God-revealed SPIRITUAL principles of sex in marriage?
What a shame it is, and what a terrible indictment against those in whose province it was to do the teaching, that our people's homes are being destroyed — SHATTERED — because of IGNORANCE of these vitally important laws!
What about your home?
Is your marriage REALLY happy? Do you literally, fully, sincerely LOVE your mate? Do you have a deep desire to SHARE, to GIVE, to SERVE, to HELP your mate? Do you sincerely try to WORK at marriage, making it more exciting, more fulfilling, more deeply rewarding in every way?
Are your children as happy and obedient as you want them to be?
If YOUR marriage needs some real CHANGING, then WRITE for our free article on HAPPY MARRIAGE! Request the article on HOW TO SOLVE FAMILY ARGUMENTS, too! And, also vitally important, be sure to get the free booklet, "DIVORCE and RE-MARRIAGE."
Never be afraid to ask for help if you know you really need it!
Make sure YOUR home is not going to become just another disappointing statistic!