Marriage

1. God’s ideal plan for marriage is one man married to one woman for a lifetime (until death parts them).

 

Marriage is to be for as long as you both shall live – not as long as you both shall love.

 

2.     Marriage is to be limited to a man and a woman.  Look at the verses below…

 

Matthew 19:3-6 (NKJV)
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?"
4 And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,'
5 "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'?
6 "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

WHAT God has joined together; not WHOM.  Notice that. Now what does the WHAT refer to?  It refers to men and women.  It was God’s plan from the beginning that men and women marry and be committed to each other.

 

Now this needs to be understood in our day when many in our nation are attempting to redefine marriage as also including men marrying men and women marrying women.  But Jesus Himself clearly teaches that this is not to be.  It is not God’s plan.  Look at v. 4. God created them male and female. Verse 5 says when they marry, they are to leave the nest of their parents and cleave to each other and become one flesh in the sexual relationship.


The male and the female (Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve and not Adam and Eve and Emma and Edna, etc.). God has ordained from the beginning that the two - the male and the female - one man and one woman - become one flesh. And where Jesus says, "What God has joined together, let no man separate" that means that no person, no one - no man, no woman, no politician, no judge - has the authority to change God’s ordinance that marriage be between a man and woman.

 

3. Living together (sexual relationships – fornication) before marriage is prohibited by Scripture and is considered sinful.  See the following verses...

 

1 Corinthians 6:9-10,18 (NKJV)
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God.
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

1 Corinthians 7:1-3, 8-9 (NKJV)
1 Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
8 But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am;
9 but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (NKJV)
1 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;
2 for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

If you are in a relationship where you are living together with someone, please understand that the Bible limits this type of relationship to those who are married.  You need to legitimize your relationship by getting married.  And, if at all possible, you should stop living together until you get married.  If you don’t love the other person enough to commit to them in marriage, then you don’t need to be living together.

 

And if you’re not living with your fiancé yet – good!  Keep it that way.  Don’t get the cart before the horse.

 

It may also be helpful to make sure whether you’re really in love or not.

 

Here’s something to help you see the difference:

 

Love is forever, lust is for now;

Love is giving, lust is getting;

Love is tender, lust is tense;

Love is priceless, lust is cheap;

Love satisfies, lust always demands more;

Love will make you what you want to be;

Lust will make you what you don’t want to be.

 

Perhaps you are reading this information and you consider yourself to be a Christian.  It is very likely that you have never seen or heard this biblical teaching on sex outside of marriage.  It doesn’t get talked about much anymore.  But just because it isn’t popular doesn’t make it untrue.  Whether you’re a Christian or not, this is still the will of God for everyone. 

 

4. Christians are only supposed to marry Christians (“in the Lord”).


2 Corinthians 6:14-17 (NKJV)
14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?
16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people."
17 Therefore "Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you."

I will not perform a wedding ceremony to two people whom I deem biblically incompatible.