{"id":51200,"date":"2017-08-27T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=51200"},"modified":"2022-08-04T20:37:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T01:37:51","slug":"the-government-wont-acknowledge-we-are-married","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-government-wont-acknowledge-we-are-married\/","title":{"rendered":"The government won’t acknowledge we are married"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

Good day,<\/p>\n

I have been trying to be recognized as my late spouse’s wife, as we had married each other, and promised to love each other “until death do us part,” but our plans to remarry under the law were interrupted after my husband became very ill. His family’s plan to stop us was to the point that they requested doctors to not treat him for his illness without my knowing. Although he pleaded with his doctor to speak to me while we were both on the phone, the doctor refused, which goes against the code of ethics. I feel I cannot live with this injustice and our governments attempt to record us as not being married.<\/p>\n

Can you help me?<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

Let me see. You wanted to have a marriage that wasn’t recognized by the government, probably because you thought you could get more money from the government that way. Thus, you had an unrecorded and unwitnessed “marriage.” This worked until he got ill. Now you find out that since the marriage wasn’t official and there is no proof that the marriage took place, no one is recognizing you as married.<\/p>\n

You just can’t have it both ways. Christians are to obey the government (Romans 13:1-7) and you chose to disobey. You wanted to be married while pretending you weren’t married and it backfired as most lies do. There is nothing I can do to help in this matter.<\/p>\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

[Unedited]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you for the assumption and judging or my family. Now I shall make my own assumption…. let me see, you think the government (controlling evil empire) has something to do with good and god, you hold hands with this system of evil, constructed to use and keep poor families as slaves for their profit, AND you believe that god will forgive you for your sins? Who gave you the right to marry two people? God? I don’t think so. Who gave the courts the right to marry? God? Definitely not. I have as much right to marry whom I please without false prophets. As for your comment “get more money from the government”; wrong again. You have that confused. It is the government who makes money off our land. You are all nothing but scavangers in the land of the chosen ones, and your time is coming. Keep living in your world of delusion, after all, it must be difficult to face the truth about what you really are. Witch god do you really pray to? You are the children of Satan, and nothing good is coming to you. I see your evil on the news every day. Why do you call him god? Are you a lost soul? I married my man already. I am married in the eyes of god. There are other “Christians” as you like to call yourself, who understand this and have quoted it from the bible, so are you really a minister or are you having trouble with your understanding of the bible? Do you sleep well at night knowing that you are on stolen land god gave to the Native people? Do you think you will be forgiven for your greed? False prophets. Read up on what happens to you.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

I decided to leave the reply unedited.<\/p>\n

She is upset because she did not get the answer she wanted, nor was I able to offer her sympathy because her plight was of her own making. As many people do, she seeks to soothe her conscience by deciding the messenger is a bad person, so she rails with ridiculous claims.<\/p>\n

She knows her “marriage” is unprovable, which is contrary to the teachings of the Bible (see:\u00a0Marriage Covenants<\/a>), so she tries to justify herself by claiming the government is corrupt. The problem is that all human governments contain corruption. “If you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be shocked at the sight; for one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them<\/em>” (Ecclesiastes 5:8). God did not say to only obey governments that you like. He said, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves<\/em>” (Romans 13:1-2). The only time Christians disobey governments is when the government issues orders contrary to God’s law, and even then it is only about the bad laws, not all laws.<\/p>\n

She says her choice not to have a recognized marriage was not due to money, but she goes on to say she has a right to take money from the government because she believes that she and her relations are the true owners of the land occupied by the United States. This appears to be a contradiction.<\/p>\n

This has nothing to do with her problem that the government doesn’t recognize an unwitnessed and unrecorded marriage. But the problem is that she and her relatives do not own the land. Her ancestors may have held the pieces of the land, but they lost wars and possession of those territories. Regardless of what you might think about the rightness of it, it has happened many times in the world’s history, including Israel dispossessing the Canaanites from their land because God ruled that the Canaanites were too sinful. Yes, 300+ years ago Europeans pushed into the lands once occupied by Native Americans, just as the Native Americans moved into territories once occupied by nations prior to them. It wasn’t a single, unified nation that occupied the area but many diverse and conflicting nations. The current situation is that she and her relatives don’t form the government in this area, but Christians are obedient to the government that is in control of where they live.<\/p>\n

It remains that she disobeyed God by disobeying the local government and now that it matters, she wants the government to obey her desire. It just won’t happen.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: Good day, I have been trying to be recognized as my late spouse’s wife, as we had married each other, and promised to love each other “until death do us part,” but our plans to remarry under the law were interrupted after my husband became very ill. His family’s plan to stop us was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[310,64],"class_list":["post-51200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-government","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39618,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-we-handle-getting-married-when-we-are-from-two-different-countries\/","url_meta":{"origin":51200,"position":0},"title":"How do we handle getting married when we are from two different countries?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, God bless you! My girlfriend and I are Christians. We have been together for two years now, and everything is going great so far. We have never had any time of sexual intercourse or anything related to it. We are planning on getting married right after graduating from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21761,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/doesnt-a-marriage-license-mean-the-government-controls-marriages\/","url_meta":{"origin":51200,"position":1},"title":"Doesn’t a marriage license mean the government controls marriages?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You said: \"They imagine all sorts of nonsense regarding giving up rights, but the reality is that the government is serving as a repository of the covenant.\" License is a prior restraint. It presumes that the activity is not a right but stems from the licensor (government in this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49490,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-a-marriage-performed-by-a-witch-doctor-legitimate\/","url_meta":{"origin":51200,"position":2},"title":"Is a marriage performed by a witch doctor legitimate?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Here in Africa people go to witch doctors in order to get married, which is a sin. Now can you please tell me if people, who are married by a witch doctor, are allowed to have sex with each other because that for me is a sin? Marriage is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21600,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-know-someone-who-will-marry-us-without-a-state-marriage-license\/","url_meta":{"origin":51200,"position":3},"title":"Do you know someone who will marry us without a state marriage license?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I would like to get married without the state's license and with a preacher, of course. Could you please help me find a preacher that would marry in my state?\u00a0 I would also like to obtain more information on this subject.\u00a0 Could I get some more information on how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7556,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-tell-you-about-a-way-to-get-married-without-government-involvement\/","url_meta":{"origin":51200,"position":4},"title":"Can I tell you about a way to get married without government involvement?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I noticed a guy wrote\u00a0a piece about marriage claiming he didn't need a piece of paper. He is right by all means; all you need is two witnesses and you can be married by American law. But if you do get a marriage license, you put your kids under\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20146,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/weve-been-living-together-for-five-years-and-dont-need-a-paper-to-prove-our-love-but-i-want-to-make-it-right-with-god-what-should-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":51200,"position":5},"title":"We’ve been living together for five years and don’t need a paper to prove our love, but I want to make it right with God. What should I do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 7 years. We have lived together for 5. We are not ready for marriage. He and I think we don't need a piece of paper to prove our love, but I want to make it right with God. 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