Has marriage got a prayer? Not a rhetorical question in 2012!

Today Bible-defined marriage—and therefore family—suffers a greater attack than at any time in at least America's history. As I write this, traditional marriage has just been catapulted into a gigantic campaign issue in this year's U.S. presidential election.

Bible prophecy has always foretold divine punishment for America or any nation persisting in sexual immorality, especially at an institutional level. While gay marriage is considered by many to be a political issue, it is much broader—being in fact a moral and spiritual uissue. Sadly, its rise was only to be expected given society's plummet into godless thinking.

Ultimately, everything in human life comes down to two great questions: Does God exist? And do you believe in God and believe God?

The scientific and spiritual evidence that God exists is abundant for those with the mind's eye to see it, and we feature that knowledge regularly in Vertical Thought. But many people seem concerned that if they did prove that God exists, then they would have to change their way of living or face the guilt for not doing so. We human beings hate to feel guilty.

Yet Jesus Christ clearly stated: "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:4-6).

So marriage is one man and one woman wonderfully bound together before God and community as a new family unit to which children may be born. God gave the divine gift of sexual love to that man and woman who are married to each other—not to be shared with anyone else or it violates God's creation and law.

Divine law defines family as the building block of society. When obeyed, it ensures that the marital bond of love translates into a deep and beautiful parental love for the children born to the marriage. Children blessed with that love, plus a strong relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ, tend to grow up and replicate it all in their own marriages and families.

To help you maintain a clear, spiritual focus, we invite you to savor the twin lessons of prayer and preparation for your future marriage in the pages of this issue of Vertical Thought. May you find peace and blessings!