ECUMENICAL ORGANIZATIONS ESTABLISH FAMILY-ORIENTED PROMISE KEEPERS

ECUMENICAL ORGANIZATIONS ESTABLISH COVENANT MARRIAGE MOVEMENT

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites without express permission from the author. The articles cannot be sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic format for sale, but may be distributed for free by e-mail or by print. They must be left intact and nothing removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our goal is not devotional. OUR PRIMARY PURPOSE IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, tell us who you are and where you are located, and request to be placed on the list. Also include your postal address and the name of the church of which you are a member. Please note that we take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and you will be expected to participate. To unsubscribe send your name and the request to fbns@wayoflife.org. Please note that this is not an automated list. Changes in the database often require two to four days. Some of these articles are from O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 16th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. The Way of Life web site is http://www.wayoflife.org. The End Times Apostasy Online Database is located at this web site.]

May 28, 1999 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Twenty-four groups with a total membership of 31 million have formed a new organization similar to Promise Keepers, but it is for couples rather than just for men. It is called Covenant Marriage Movement. The founding organizations include Promise Keepers, Moody Bible Institute, Campus Crusade for Christ, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Men’s Network.

Day-long conferences are scheduled this year for San Diego, San Jose, Calif., Washington, D.C., and Houston, Texas.

The Covenant Marriage Movement is described as "a grass-roots movement of couples coming together to affirm a marriage covenant for a lifetime." Couples attending the conferences will be asked to sign a covenant marriage document pledging steadfast love and sexual purity.

By no means are we opposed to the strengthening of marriages in this sin-blighted, divorce-stricken nation, but we know by long experience that the above-named organizations also have a high-priority ecumenical agenda. We have documented this in our new book Evangelicals and Rome. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Covenant Marriage Movement will result in an increase in the ecumenical frenzy that is assisting in the creation of an end-times apostate "church."

Further evidence of this is visible in the Covenant Marriage Movement in Washington State. The main promoter there is the Washington Family Council, which is the state affiliate of Focus on the Family. One of the workers is Doug Engberg, who headed the Promise Keepers office in Washington until it closed. "The Washington Family Council has traveled to several communities in our state to gather pastors of various denominations together [ecumenically] to sign the Community Marriage Contract. Sometimes these are stadium events [Spokane], as in Promise Keepers" (Dana Hoard, Issaquah, Washington, May 29, 1999).

Ecumenists are not content with God’s plan and program, which is the New Testament assembly. It is the church which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), not some parachurch organization or transdenominational movement. Christian marriages are to be built up within the churches under the sound preaching of God’s Word and through the fellowship of the saints. Churches that are obeying the Word of God already have the ability to establish strong marriages. Churches that are not obeying the Word of God are the root problem of America’s ills, and no amount of effort on the part of unscriptural parachurch organizations will solve this problem.