Guns and sex. Now there's the lesson.
My husband just brought me morning coffee and saw that I was reading a friend's Facebook post where she was talking about her dad teaching her to handle a .45 at 12 years old, and another friend writing about his memories from high school in the 1950s where gun clubs were the norm and it was a "different world, to be sure." He told me something I had never heard before (why should I?) that he learned while in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base. Instructors told the recruits, "This is your rifle (holding up rifle); this is your gun (pointing to Man Place). One is for fighting, one is for fun."
These days, you can't leave your rifle on the rack in the pickup, and you can't leave your child alone with the TV, with a teacher, with a doctor, with a priest/pastor, with a coach. America's streets run with blood because America's marriages have only two parties, a sinful man and a sinful woman. When husbands and wives look to the Third element, the Perfecter of their union, they eschew temporal temptation for the sake of the greater eternal good: their children. When God's people abandon self-control in the private rooms of their homes, they remove divine protection in the public places.
Consider Balaam. He noticed how the tents of the Hebrews were arranged as a testimony of their modesty -- Numbers 24:5, "How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!" In this case, "fair" did not mean beautiful, but righteous. Balaam, being a wicked man with pagan thoughts, saw that their "front doors" did not face each other. That's a big deal. Men could not "accidentally" get a peek inside of their neighbor's private places -- nor of their neighbor's wives who might not be quite dressed for the day. The prophet knew he could not curse people who clung to God's law, even by the seemingly mundane way they set up their front door. Balaam saw their strength, and also their weakness. By the beginning of Numbers 25 we sadly read, "...the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab." The Hebrews' friendly neighbors invited them to party ("eat and bow down to their gods") and "Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor."
Today? Why does every movie have "those" scenes that take the viewer directly into the holy of holies of the marital union? That's not just for entertainment, my friends. The enemy is conquering you. The reality is that the Man Place is every bit the weapon that the M-16 is, and then some. Perhaps we should be more diligent to protect the First Commandment than the Second Amendment if we want to get back to those good ol' days.
