Singleness: Is God Punishing Me with Singleness?

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Bible, sissies, sodomites, men with man buns, those who approve of men with man buns, man bun enablers, white knights for men with man buns, homemakers who have finished

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

God is hanging over our heads. They will hear

His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear

His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come, in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

Listen and enjoy this latest episode as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions. Here's Pastor Tim.

On this episode of Bible Bash, we'll be answering the question, Is God punishing me with singleness? Now, as a result of our first father

Adam's transgression, sin has entered into the world, and as a consequence of sin, the entire human race experiences pain, suffering, and death.

Every single act of suffering that human beings experience will, in some sense, be tied back to the sin of our first father

Adam. If Adam had not fallen into sin, the entire human race would not experience sin, death, suffering, and pain in the way that we do.

And so, in some sense, every single act of suffering, singleness included, is going to be, in some sense, tied to sin, meaning it's going to be tied to the first sin of our father

Adam as a punishment for that. Now, at the same time, you can't look at any one particular act of suffering and uniquely tie it in some simplistic way to any particular act of sinfulness on the part of an individual, apart from some sort of direct divine revelation to identify it in that sort of way.

So there are times in the Bible where God punishes people with suffering as a direct result of their specific personal sin.

I'm thinking in particular of God punishing Miriam with leprosy as a result of her rejection of Moses, or Zechariah being unable to speak for a period of time because he refused to believe the messenger's word.

Now, there are times in the Bible where an individual sees that sometimes God will respond to an individual's particular sinful actions with direct forms of suffering or punishments or forms of discipline.

And at the same time, you can't, on the other end, look at every single act of suffering and tie it uniquely to some sort of specific known sin.

So the man who was born blind, Jesus tells us, was not born blind because of any specific sin on his part or on the part of his parents.

So when we're looking at any particular act of suffering, it may be that God has inflicted that suffering upon an individual as a direct response to their own specific sin, and it may be that he hasn't, but then the

Bible tells us the secret things belong to the Lord and the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do the whole words of God's law.

So whether or not a particular act of suffering is directly tied to sinfulness, to our own unique specific sinfulness, we don't know.

However, we would do well in those moments when we are experiencing prolonged suffering to examine our own hearts and see if there are areas of sinfulness in our life that we are unrepentant of, which could be giving

God a cause to give us specific trials of suffering and pain in order to get our attention and purify our allegiance to him.

There is a type of individual who is engaged in sin in a high -handed way whom

God might be giving singleness to and withholding the blessings of marriage from in order to get their attention.

So you might consider the situation of a man who is addicted to porn. With a man who is addicted to porn, it might be that God's withholding from him the blessing of marriage until he purifies his heart and purifies his allegiance to God.

And that would be actually an act of mercy on that individual in order to keep him from taking this egregious kind of sin into his marriage that God might have planned for him.

And so in a situation like that, there could be plenty of situations where an individual is refusing to follow

God with a whole heart and God is testing them and he's refining them and preparing them for a future marriage that he may or may not have planned for them.

There are plenty of situations where an individual who is unwillingly single refuses to read the

Bible, refuses to play, refuses to go to church anymore because God refuses to hear their prayers and refuses to answer them in the way that they want.

And there could be plenty of situations like that where God looks at an individual who is engaged in that kind of rebelliousness and he is essentially going to withhold the blessing of marriage from them until they learn to follow him with a whole heart as a way of purifying their own hearts and desires.

Whenever suffering enters into our life, whenever trials enter into our life, we should consider, is this

God trying to get our attention and help us to follow him better? And if there are areas in your own life where you consider this question, is

God inflicting singleness upon me as a trial, as a result of my own personal sin, there might be plenty of areas of sin that come to your mind instantaneously that the

Holy Spirit is bringing to your mind that you ought to deal with. Now, in dealing with those areas, there is no guarantee that God will give you a spouse, but you should want to serve the

Lord no matter what he does for you, no matter whether or not he gives you the blessings that you desire.

So it could very well be that God is disciplining a Christian with singleness as a result of their sin.

He refuses to give them a blessing of marriage until they repent. It also might be the case that this has nothing to do with specific personal sin on their part, that this is just general suffering that's entered into the world as a result of Adam's sin that is going to, in a similar way, be a test to them to determine whether or not they will be faithful to the

Lord in the absence of these desires which are so near to the core of who they actually are.

Regardless, to live is Christ and to die is gain, and in every situation, in better or worse, whatever situation we find ourselves in, we know that to live is

Christ, to die is gain, and the goal of Christian life should be not just to seek our own personal happiness but to live to the glory of God.

We can live to the glory of God no matter whether or not we're single or whether or not we're married.

There's nothing that stops us from pursuing God's glory and living to His purposes and presenting ourselves and offering our lives and offering to Him.

There's nothing that's going to stop us from that, and singleness can be a means of glorifying God. Marriage can be a means of glorifying

God, and often it is the case that if we're faithful over little, then God has given us much to be faithful over, and so if an individual is unwillingly single, they should examine their own heart and their own life to see if there are areas of sinfulness, the life that God is trying to purify and not resist the kind of purification that He actually is trying to do.

And so there are many individuals who are unwillingly single. They refuse to rejoice. They refuse to give thanks.

And, you know, the type of—typically the way the world works, the type of person who refuses to be thankful and always is down and somewhat depressed, typically the way the world works, people don't look at individuals like that and think that they typically want to be around them.

If a person is constantly depressed, constantly complaining, has somewhat of a short temper, is somewhat self -centered, it might be that they are actually also making themselves unattractive to members of the opposite sex.

If they refuse to serve the Lord, if they don't get what they want, engaging in a high -handed rebellion, it might be that they're making themselves less desirable marriage partners.

So if they refuse to keep up with their physical appearance and just let themselves go because they're so discouraged and so distressed, it could be that that is affecting their marriageability.

And so individuals who are single, this is a time for them to purify their own desire, purify their heart, follow the

Lord with a whole heart. And it could be that there might be plenty of sins that they're engaging in which are leading to their single state, whether directly or indirectly.

But at the same time, we just simply don't know. And it's probably unhelpful for us to speculate in any unique individual case, whether for ourself or others, with any kind of dogmatic certainty.

We shouldn't be the kind of individuals who are playing God and declaring with any kind of certainty the reasons why we suspect that this individual might be single or may not be single.

The truth is that if the Lord were to count iniquities, none of us would stand. And the fact remains that there are plenty of people who

God gives the gift of marriage to who have all sorts of sins that they're holding on to.

They refuse to let go. And marriage for them will be a means of either purifying them or it will be a means of being a wake -up call for them when they see how bad their marriage actually goes because they refuse to turn from these kind of things.

And so God doesn't work in the same way with every individual. But we can be confident that if we want to follow the

Lord and serve Him, there's nothing to stop us from doing so. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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