Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we're going to talk about finding a marriage partner from our book, Theology of the Family, and we have a book out, brand new book out, How to have a Christian wedding. Hope you enjoy the podcast. We have a great interest in the marriages of our sons and daughters and the young people especially. So we just want to talk about the principles that are necessary for finding a marriage partner.

And you know, I pray that God uses this time both for for young people and their parents to make this through. And it turns out we're not the first people to think about this. We are not. In fact, in this book, Theology of the Family, Five Centuries of Biblical Wisdom from the Past is an article that we published by John Angel James, who was ministering in the 1700s and 1800s. And we have in this book a section, thoughts on finding a marriage partner.

And it's in the section, a help to domestic happiness. And so let's talk about the importance of this decision. And I just want to quote from from the article in Theology of the Family, No decision is more important. Our whole earthly existence require the exercise of calm judgment. And then he says, a very great portion of the misery and the crime with which society is depraved and afflicted is the result of ill-formed marriages.

Scary. So can I give you the end of that paragraph? Because I just thought I just can't say this better. He says, Perhaps there is no advice, generally speaking, more thrown away than that which is offered on the subject of marriage. Most persons, especially if they are already attached to a selected person, although they have not committed themselves by a promise or even a declaration, will go on in the pursuit, blinded by love to the indiscretion of their choice.

Upon such individuals, reasoning is wasted. They must be left to gain wisdom in the only way by which some will acquire it by painful experience." Wow, advice is often ignored. Yeah. Yes it is. You know, he starts out this, this article that marriage is a step of incalculable importance and all never to be taken without the greatest consideration and utmost caution, just like what you were saying about a house or whatever that we purchase.

We often spend a lot of time. We even hire people to look into the history of it. You hire an inspector. We hire an inspector. We do title searches.

We do all kinds of things, but oftentimes we just, we turn our children over. Our children are just turned over to their whims and passions and, you know, something that's going to affect not only the rest of your life, but it will actually affect generations to come. And that must be considered, because what you do now not only affects the rest of your life, but even eternity. And you really want to know that you are walking in the ways of the Lord and seeking his ways. Apart from salvation, it is the most important decision that we make.

The devil is smart in this sense. He attacks at the heart of a matter. And if he can wreck the power of the gospel being communicated from one generation to another with a young person who's getting ready to get married, he will have affected thousands, maybe millions of downstream offspring. The devil hates marriage because he hates the idea that somebody is going to bring children up in the training, the admonition of the Lord, and he hates the idea that a wife would be loved and a husband would be respected. So he's going to do everything he can to throw the book at young people when they're getting married.

But advice is often ignored. Here's the ranking. Falling in love? Easy. Quote-unquote falling in love.

Easy. Marrying well? Not so easy. And it needs thought, counsel, prayer, and it needs to be done in a state that's not overwhelmed by passions and hormones and all of that needs to be done with a clear mind, which is hard to do, and you need people who can help you do it. He sets up that contrast there throughout this entire thing between calm judgment or sound judgment and prudence and passions.

And that's really what we need to instruct our children. Before those passions take place, let's sit down calmly and just look at godly reasoning and prudence in these most important circumstances. Yeah, passion can make you go blind. Yeah, very quickly. It happens all the time.

Let's talk about marrying for the wrong reasons. Now, of course, passion is one of them. You brought that up. But it's easy to marry for the wrong reasons. What are some of the wrong reasons?

Yeah. Financial. Yeah. Married for money. Married for money.

You'll earn every dime. Yeah. Right. Beauty. You know, just natural attraction.

Natural attraction is good, but wow, if it's the whole picture. John Angel James says one year of illness can really change that equation forever. You don't know what the future holds. Nothing is more fleeting than beauty. Yeah, that's a fleeting flower.

He says this, let us ask how they will look in a few years. And then the exact quote, nothing fades so soon as beauty, quote unquote. Yeah. You know, if you love for much more than beauty, You'll think they look terrific in a couple of years. When the natural beauty fades, you won't hardly notice because of all the other things you love about the person.

If you marry just for beauty, wow, that goes away in a hurry. You know, JR Miller has a book, Home Making, and he talks about the vulnerability of a wife. It's a very long section. It's an incredibly touching, convicting section. And he makes the case that a wife leaves father and mother, she has to submit to her husband, she leaves all the ties of her old life, and she entrusts herself to him.

And the question he's saying, will he cherish her? She's giving up everything. And so it's really, it's a loving thing to consider carefully why you're marrying someone. And do you have, do you have, you have fleeting thoughts about, that would actually harm your marriage? Marrying for the wrong reasons is, is really any other thoughts on marriage?

Oh, yeah. Here's another one. Hey, this might be my last chance, so I'll settle. You know, how many people have married because they were in a panic because they think that your late twenties means that if you don't get married now, you may never get married. And so you think, this isn't what I was hoping for, but it's better than nothing.

That's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. Yeah, that's dangerous. Let's talk about parents. Sometimes parents have questions.

Are they right? Are they wrong? What do the parents do when they have questions and what do the children do? Let me back up. Yeah.

Parents better have questions. Lots of them. Lots of questions. The questions of an attorney, right? Yes, because, you know, the parent God has gifted us, these precious children, and hey, they're at the marriageable age, you know, they're coming of age and they're making huge decisions, and the decision will affect the rest of their life.

You know, if a young person was getting ready to make a huge financial decision, we would want to ask a few questions to see if this is wise and whether to how much more in bringing two people together. Hey, the questions Janet and I have are not because we want to live our children's lives for them. It's because we've seen through decades of experience how important this decision is, and we want them to marry well. Hey, we've tried to communicate as repeatedly and clearly as we can. We can't wait for you to be married, but just to the right person at the right time, it'll be wonderful.

And it will be wonderful for decades if it's the right person at the right time. But if you marry wrong, there are so many sorrows that extend out into time. And so we want to see you married well. That's why we have questions. Yeah.

And one of the things too, there's so many pitfalls in marriage and many of those, you know, I described it to some of my children, It's almost like a minefield and they're all covered and you don't really see them from where you're standing. But guess what? Your mom and dad have walked through that field. We've marked them. We know where they are.

And I just want to use that opportunity to point out minefields to say, hey, any of these things that we can show you now that will help you, That's that much more that you don't have to deal with once you're in marriage. He said this in the article. I thought it was very helpful. Parents have no right to select for you, nor are you to select for yourself without consulting them. I think it's just a healthy, healthy way to say it.

Right. And I'll just add, if parents have significant objections, or if siblings do, or people who know you the best, your pastors, if they have significant questions, you should probably delay. You should probably take their advice. You don't have to get married today or tomorrow. Take a little bit of time and let their counsel sink in.

If your parents are very against it, I would just say only in the most extreme circumstances should you defy your parents. You do have wicked parents. You have greedy parents. You have parents who are flighty and worldly. And their counsel might actually arise out of worldliness and actually lack of love.

So it might take time to determine whether that's where their counsel was coming from. But generally I would say if your parents are against it, it's time to delay. Yeah, I like what he says here. He says, a union formed in opposition to the reasonable objection of a discreet father or mother is very rarely a happy one. And then the bitter cup is rendered additionally bitter in such a case by the wormwood and the gall of self-reproach." Wow.

Soaring thoughts. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about mutual love. He addresses that. He talks about people getting married and they're cool toward one another.

What is marriage? It's designed by God to be a reflection of Christ in the church. So a marriage without affection in both directions is really an assault on what God designed marriage to be. Jesus passionately loves his people. His people love Christ.

And how could you reflect that when you take a marriage partner when there's not mutual effects? You know, to take that illustration from the Christ and the church into, or from the marriage into Christ and this church, who enjoys being in a worship service that is cold and dead? I mean, you want zeal, you want passion there, you want great love, singing the songs of just the glory of our Savior, and that reflects back into a marriage. There should be passion there, But passion shouldn't lead our judgment. Passion should always follow sound judgment.

Over the years, I've determined not to do a wedding if I don't see that passion and that love for one another. And I've seen the coldness a couple of times and I encouraged them to keep working at it until such a time as they really did love one another. And I wasn't going to do the wedding until I was convinced that they really, they just couldn't live without each other. Usually that's not the problem. Usually the opposite.

Sometimes it is the problem. Yeah, mutual love. Okay, let's talk about money, invisible means of support. Oh, we'll live on love. We'll live on love.

We'll see if our landlord will take love. He won't, by the way. These gentlemen are landlords. They will not accept love. You know, I think it is an important point.

We want to see, that a man can provide for his new bride. But in my experience, anyway, with, I've got two children who are married, it wasn't just the size of the bank account. It was really more of the character of the man was that young man willing to do whatever it takes. You know, that, that's really the, the underlying thing at least in our family. Is he willing to work and to do the hard things in order to provide?

And is he doing it now? And is he doing it now? Absolutely. Not that he might do it someday. I promise to do it later.

If financial pressures are marriage pressures. Yes, they are. They are. Right. And try to function well in a marriage without the means to support the costs that are involved.

It's going to put a lot of pressure on the relationship. Yeah. I would just say it like this. That man, that young man needs to have the cash flow that'll support the life. That'll be a blessing to his wife.

There it is. I don't know how much that is. It might be different for different people, but he's got to have cashflow. Hey, young couples, the other side of that is young couples can live frugally. Oh, absolutely.

So, you know, You don't have to have a huge bank account and a huge income. We're not saying that. I'm not in favor of delaying marriage indefinitely for that. There's a whole other set of risks associated there. You have to be able to afford life, you know, at least a frugal one.

Just the other day I was talking to my father-in-law and, Deborah and I have been married for 43 years. I said, why did you let me marry her? I had $800. That was a lot, man. It was like $50, 000.

I went much better off. But I did have a job. I was willing to work. That's the big deal. And you don't, you don't need a lavish lifestyle to be happy.

So our happiest times were just when we had nothing scraping. I've, Deborah teases me all the time. She went to a garage sale one time. This is like the second year of our marriage and I was making almost nothing, but I did have a little bit of cashflow and she bought it. She bought a hand crank ice maker for $3.

And I said, Deborah, what are you doing? She throws that back at me. All of them. Okay. So that's visible means of support.

Let's talk about equal yoking and spiritual things, because it goes deeper than, well, you just need to marry a Christian. But that's an excellent starting point. You need to be thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly convinced that you're married a Christian, that they really have a warm heart toward the Lord. Not just because they like you. And proven through a general pattern of obeying him.

Yeah, that's, he makes a really remarkable statement though. I'm going to quote it. A difference in taste in minor matters is an impediment in the way of domestic comfort. I thought that was interesting he said minor matters. I mean, this is about equal yoking.

And this isn't necessarily spiritual, but it can include that. But if there are really major differences, and he says even minor differences, you should just really weigh those things. He even addresses dispositions. Listen to what he says here. He says, Will that temper patiently bear with my weaknesses?

Oh boy. Kindly consult my tastes, affectionately study my comfort." So equal yoking is more than just, are you marrying a Christian? You're marrying a person with a certain temperament, And you need to understand whether their temperament will bear with your imperfections, because you're going to be displaying imperfections. And you need to know whether they have a temperament that is compatible with yours. Marriage is the microscope to show us all of our imperfections.

You know, he mentions here something that's almost unusual, but I actually experienced that in an early pastorate. He mentions here about two people going to two different churches. Oh, yes. I actually had that happen in one of my first pastorate. There was a lady who came to our church and at first I thought she was not married or maybe a widow.

And come to find out, her husband went to the Methodist church up on the hill and she went to the Baptist church at the bottom of the hill. So, wow, you know, they had a division there. And obviously it was something that was strong enough belief that it sent them two different directions on the Lord's Day and they didn't even worship God together. It's really sad. But it's definitely something needs to be considered.

Yeah, spiritual unity, because the engine of a marriage is the Spirit of God. And it's so critical that you marry a godly person. Let's take the last one, prayer, eighth prayer. The reason I put prayer in here, he has a statement in here where he says, they make up their minds and then ask to be directed in prayer. Okay.

Oh yes, Lord, bless this thing that I've already determined. Let me give you the direct quote here. I thought it was fantastic. Many, I believe, act towards the deity, towards God, as they do towards their friends. They make up their minds and then ask to be directed.

They have some doubts, and very often strong ones, of the propriety of the step they are about to take, which are gradually dissipated by their supplications until they have prayed themselves into a conviction that they are quite right in the decision, which they have in fact already made to pray for direction in an affair that we know to be in opposition to God's word and on which we have already resolved to act is adding hypocrisy to rebellion. Boy. Okay. Yeah. Prayer.

Okay. We've just brought eight things, eight things you need to consider about the person you're going to marry. I'm just going to repeat them real quick And maybe each one of you will just give us a quick last shot if you have one. First, the importance of the decision. Second, advice is often ignored.

Third, marrying for the wrong reasons. Fourth, What about parents? Fifth, what about mutual love? Sixth, what about visible means of support? Seventh, equal yoking and spiritual things.

And then eighth, prayer. Those are just golden right out of Theology of the family. I really encourage you to read that article. Okay, final shots. Jason, you first and then Trent.

So Ephesians 5 and 6 is the key. Ephesians 5 is marriage is a reflection of the gospel. Can you do that with this person? Ephesians 6 is the duty of parents to bring up their children in the training and admonition of the Lord. Can you do this with this person?

John Angel James says this, Christians should make everything bend to religion, but allow religion to bend to nothing. This is the one thing needful to which everything should be subordinate." Amen. I just want, you know, the last words will be his last words in this article here. He says, study, says an old author, the duties of marriage before you enter into it. There are crosses to be born, there are snares to be avoided, and manifold obligations to be discharged, as well as great felicity to be enjoyed.

Amen. Forewarned is forearmed. Yes, yes. Okay, there you have it. Thank you guys.

Appreciate it. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast, and we hope you can be with this next time.