Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Hey, we're going to we're going to talk about a really critical issue that William Gouge brings up in his book on raising kids and particularly honoring your parents at the time of marriage. Hope you enjoy the discussion. Hope you enjoy the discussion. You know, it's really clear from scripture that children as they're being raised need their parents guiding hands.

The parents are more mature, they've seen a lot more, they understand a lot more than kids, and so God places that authority in the hands of the parents. And there's really a remarkable picture of this in Numbers chapter 30 and I'm just gonna read it Numbers 30 verse 3 if a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth. So this really assumes an adult child. And her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself and her father holds his peace then all her vows shall stand. In other words if he's pleased with it fine And every agreement with which she is bound herself shall stand.

But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows, her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand, and the Lord will release her because her father overruled her." So what are your thoughts on that? Well that's the Old Testament so it doesn't count. Not so fast, say the Confessions. Even in these Old Testament laws, there are general equities or timeless undergirding truths and principles that made those things true in the Old Testament, so the timeless principles always true. What's the fourth commandment?

Honor your father and mother. Yeah, it really is just an extension of that. This has to do with honor and obedience towards parents. It gets tricky as children get older. They're 20, they're 25, they're late 20s, they're 30 years old.

So it's going to take some wisdom to parse that. But the general principle is helpful and despised today, meaning nobody thinks like this anymore. What, like you made a promise and your dad kind of know that promise? Are you serious? Yes, the Bible is serious about that.

Yeah, children obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right, honor your father and mother. You know, it's communicated, you know, all over the Bible. That's the reason. And you just have this example in numbers 30. So Gouge actually takes opportunity to talk about people who don't think this is so.

On page 17 says, contrary is the opinion and practice of many who believe parents consent at the most is just a matter of convenience. If they do not have it, it is not a significant matter. If this were so, how is the authority of a parent more than that of a wise, experienced friend?" So here's what Gouge wants to know. Do parents have real authority in the lives of their children, or are they just a wise, experienced friend that you can get advice from that is suitable to take it or leave it? And he's saying some people believe one thing and some people believe the other, but the Bible teaches this thing that parents have real authority.

Your parents are not your friends, primarily. Okay? They are parents. Someday you'll become friends. Yeah, yeah, that really is true.

And of course, you know, he's talking about, you know, children in their parents' house. So William Goose elaborates on this, and he talks about children should have their parents' consent in their marriages. This is a really important thing. So let's talk about that. What are some of the reasons that children should have their parents consent when it comes time for marriage?

Well, you know, the ultimate reason is this is what the Word of God calls for. So I'll just back up to more general for a second and give you a scripture on that, and then come back into the specific instance of marriage. So in Luke 51 says this, then Jesus went down with them, with his parents, and came to Nazareth and was subject to them, but his mother kept all these things in her heart. So Jesus Christ was subject to his parents. Now this is Jesus as a 12-year-old, but even the Son of God was subject to his human father or mother.

Just think through the implications of that. It's really striking. Talking specifically of marriage, the language of the Old Testament over and over and over again, is the giving of daughters to husbands. Parents give daughters to husbands and the taking of wives for sons. And so, the notion that this is two consenting adults, they can do whatever they want, whatever their parents think about it, if you hold that position, you have to change the language of the Old Testament.

It's not give, give me, it's may I, may I have this woman. Yeah, and as with many places in scripture, Is that universally so? Can you not find any exceptions to that? Any reasons where that might not be the overruling principle? Well, no, but like with every other category, should we go running to the corner cases?

Absolutely not. To actually invalidate what the overriding principle is, which is that parents should have so much involvement in this. This is good for children that parents have so much involvement. Let's enumerate some reasons. Yeah.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the fact that parents know their children better than they know themselves. They really do. They should. Let me just say that. Parents should know their children.

That's super helpful when coming to making a decision for a life partner. Hey, when we're 20, we think we know all about ourselves, but people who have been observing from the outside, That's the whole thing about blind spots, is you're blind to them. If you knew what your blind spots were, they wouldn't be blind spots. And 20-year-olds have a lot, and 30-year-olds have less, and 40-year-olds have less. And so I think what you're saying, Deborah is exactly right.

The 20 year old has a bias to think, Oh, I'm an insider here because I know myself better than anyone. And that's simply not true. Other people have character smellers too and parents can often smell a rat or smell some reason for caution and so when children turn their ears off to that, they're actually placing themselves in danger. For a long time, like for the rest of their life, this is a really big deal. So you have a wedding, the bride comes down, she's holding on to the elbow of her father, then what does the pastor say?

Who gives this woman to be married to this man? Now, that has just become a quaint formality, but the Bible would say, yeah, we shouldn't hold that as a quaint formality. That dad should actually be full-throatedly giving this daughter to this man with confidence, with joy. This is really what we want when a man and a woman are at the altar is mom and dad cheering for this thing that's going on. That's actually best for the couple.

And couples should be willing to do virtually anything to get that. Not actually anything, but almost anything to get that. It's worth a lot of sacrifice and a lot of patience and a lot of time to get that because the long-term implications are significant. So the, you know, the biblical discipleship scheme is that the more mature lead the less mature. The older women teach the younger women.

The older men teach the younger men So that's the way that God has designed it. But here's here's the reality Often your 20 year old may have actually a foolish idea in his head Okay, and it comes in different forms, You know, I've seen this in different times. I want to move out and I want to go move out over here because of this. Well, it might be actually just driven by a foolish idea, a dumb idea. And parents, you know, should stand in the way of dumb ideas and try to steer their children into something that's mature, well thought out, and something that actually is reflective of advanced maturity.

So sometimes kids need to be told, look at, you have a foolish and rash desire going on in your head. That's what it is, okay? And I'm here to talk you off the ledge. And so, you know, parents are actually designed and they've, you know, all through the child raising cycle, they've been appointed to stand in the way of immaturity and to help their children become mature. And sometimes that means you should not marry that person.

And I would hope that there have been things in their growing up that have happened like that already. There have been some numbers, 30 instances where you stood in the way of a 10-year-old who wanted to do something rash. And it's a place where you can explain why I'm not letting you do this before the stakes are so high in like his marriage. That's the first time you kind of stand in the way of your and teach them about it. There's a teaching part that comes up so that they can connect the dots.

Oh yeah, this is like that. So if they can start learning that, the earlier they can learn that, the better off that things have gone well because I listened to my dad and didn't buy that, you know, clunker car, but I wanted a car so bad. So I know we'll return to children and the necessity that they work hard to get the blessing from their parents that get married, but let's talk to parents for a minute. Guj does, He says, if you're withholding marriage from your children, you should have quote unquote, just cause. And I think we've all seen parents who probably didn't have just cause withholding from their children and boy does that create situations too.

So a parents need to understand that the spouse of their there is no perfect spouse for your child. There are better and worse but be careful where you put that line when they're seeking your permission. And we should really be asking ourselves, am I looking for something that is very unrealistic and I'm actually in an ungodly way withholding something that would be good for my child. Yeah, immaturity goes all around, right? And some parents are immature.

And one of the manifestations of that is that you have parents who expect, you know, that 22-year-old young man, you know, to have the maturity of a 50-year-old. And all you have to do to dispel that is to think about what were you thinking when you were 22? Oh my, I should have heard that. And you got married, you know? And look, you know, if a child loves the Lord, guess what?

They're going to be okay. They're going to keep growing. They're going to keep repenting. And they're going to progressively throw off their foolishness. And so we, you don't want to have a parent that's so foolish that he doesn't really understand that real believers can grow.

And of course, I don't wanna dispel any of this from William Gooch, the warning, and particularly number 30. Parents have the authority, but they should exercise that authority with wisdom. You know, my general practice is I'm probably not going to be involved in a wedding where the parents have not given their consent. Now, I know there can be exceptions to that, where if you have evil parents or different conditions. But generally, I'm not gonna participate in officiating in a wedding where the parents aren't for the wedding.

And often, the wedding ends up happening because that child waited, the child was patient, the child continued to work through the concerns that the other parent had. And I've seen children wait for months and even years. And then actually end up with the blessing, the happy consent of parents. So, you know, sometimes, you know, young people, you know, have ants in their pants and They ought to just slow down if they don't have their parents consent at least they should slow down and Try to figure out what's really going on and see if they can repair the relationship And and and and bring everybody together so you we can have a happy wedding, You know, it's so heartbreaking when you have these weddings and people are all busted up. The kids blew the family up, right?

And it happens. We've seen it. And that's a tragedy. It's a tragedy when kids blow up. They're willing to blow up a family by marrying somebody that nobody's for, like none of the siblings are for it, the parents aren't for it.

They don't care. They're wise in their own eyes. That is a disaster. Young people, your parents got the message when you went on a loan, we don't care what you think. You invested in us, you brought us up, but now we're gonna do what we wanna do.

You cannot ask your parents to unsee that, so they can forgive you, but they're not going to forget that at the most critical decision, humanly speaking, in your life, you said by your actions, I don't care what you think. So hey, that's gonna leave a mark, and that's gonna last a while. And hey, And the ripples go out a lot further than that. Many a local church has been laid low by a son and a daughter who decided to go it alone. We've seen it with our own two eyes in our own churches and other churches.

And within families then, you're forcing people to take sides. So you go into the wedding or you're not going to the wedding. And this ends up being a big deal. Most people who go it alone haven't thought through these, where the tentacles go, and they go a long ways. All four people involved need to be so careful with their words because just one, honestly one sharp word, one flashing eye, It can all explode.

So parents, be mature, lead the way. Be careful to only say what you're really willing to stand behind. Don't say extra stuff once you get going. It's really hard not to keep rolling. You should have an agenda of what you want to talk about when you're together.

Be short with your words so you don't say something. It's tough in the middle of those kind of very tense situations And you're looking, I know as I think about giving my daughters away, I can get really uptight about who gets my girls. You know, they better be top of the line. So bring it on peeps. You better be good.

But it, you know, we know as parents, I know as a mom, I've given my life to Jason. And I know what that means. And it's, I'm not giving my daughter, we're not giving our daughters to someone that we don't think is really top notch. So in those conversations, it's hard not to become heated and say something about that daughter's suitor, that you never can get back. Remember, everything you say, you can never get back.

Hey, when young people have fallen in love, like the passions are running high all the way around. And when parents think that their son or daughter are about to marry a person and it's likely to end in disaster, things are running hot on that side too. So you're gonna have to be prepared to be patient and gracious and like everybody, parents to children. Yeah, you don't want an infatuated drunk with a gas pedal. Okay, and that's what happens often.

Well, okay, William Gooch has a heading in his book called The Sin of Marrying Without Parents' Consent. I think that's what we want to leave everybody with here. Now, and I think we've already said it, there can be occasions where it's not a sin. Those were probably gonna be pretty rare occasions. But God has ordained that parents would have a very significant voice in the marriages of their sons and their daughters.

And we're just praying for a lot of happy weddings all along. Hear, hear. Hear, hear. With parents standing up and cheering. And all the kids.

Yeah, what a blessing, what a joy. Okay, there you have it. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hey, hope you can be with us at next time and at Ridgecrest, where we're gonna talk about manhood and womanhood, and we're gonna unpack God's beautiful design for manhood and womanhood. Hope to see you there.

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