How should you be thinking about your unmarried life? God’s will for many since time began is singleness. Joel Beeke explains seven propositions for the unmarried life. In addition, he explains many practical matters for the single life.
Well, it's great to be with you. And I want to tell you from the outset that this is a wonderful conference, and if you're staying for the larger conference that follows, you'll enjoy it thoroughly. Let's see God's face. Great God of Heaven, I ask Thy benediction upon this address as we seek to give practical advice and biblical principles for living the single life. We pray, Lord, that every single here would benefit from this address and have golden nuggets to take away, to meditate on, to think about, and to profit from.
Please be with us and help us in this address and let it bear fruit, meat unto godliness. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. While you're certainly not alone, do you know that the majority of adults in America are now single, slightly over 50%. 6% are widowed, 10% divorced and presently not remarried.
The average age which men and women got married, when I was born, was 23 for the man and 20 for the woman. It is now 30 for the man and 28 for the woman, average age. So, nearly half of childbearing years are spent before women today get married. Now, these statistics mean that most Americans experience a single life for at least the first decade of their adult life, if not later as well. Margaret Clarkson notes that singleness has a cumulative effect on the human spirit, which is entirely different at 50 than at 30.
Singleness has become the new norm and the majority status in our nation. So how are we to live the single life? What I'm going to do in this address is lay out seven biblical propositions for you. The first three are in relationship to your Creator, and the next four in relationship to Jesus. And then I want to give you several areas of practical advice.
So we'll be moving around, moving forward at a fairly fast pace to get these biblical advices in. So number one, the Lord reigns over marriage and singleness. Biblical principle is that we're not in control. God is. Paul says that God works all things, Ephesians 1-11, after the counsel of His own will.
God created marriage in the Garden of Eden. He is the first matchmaker. He ordains each marriage. He is in control over our life, over our death, over every hair of our head. And sometimes that means that God chooses sovereignly to take away our desires or to not give us what we desire.
Ezekiel 24, 16, Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thy eyes. God may prevent marriage for years to serve divine purposes that you don't even know what they are. That's his sovereignty. Joseph was sold into slavery at age 17. It wasn't until he was 30 that he was free to get married.
But that was God's will for him. So, we neither control our marital state nor fully understand why God ordains it to be so. One person will spend 70 years married. Another marries young, but suffers greatly in a bad marriage. Yet another experiences a spouse tragically dying young.
God calls us to deep ways in life, deep ways of submission. And submission really involves four steps biblically. I don't have time to detail this for you, but let me give it to you in a nutshell. Number one, whatever happens to us, we acknowledge the Lord. It's the Lord.
It's the Lord. That's what Eli said when his sons were killed. It's the Lord. If the Lord's hand is not in something, there's no comfort anywhere. Number two, step deeper in submission is to justify the Lord.
It is right. It is right. I'm a sinner. I deserve Nothing but hell and death. That's what we need to say.
And then no matter what comes our way, we say, better than what I deserve. I have a friend, every time you ask him, how are you doing, he says, better than what I deserve. That is Always true. Always true. No matter what burdens you're carrying.
I once went on the first floor of an elevator in my hometown of Grand Rapids and a lady came on and we Went up to floor 7 and I thought, well, I've got about 45 seconds to evangelize her. Asked her how the weather was. And she said it was good. And I said, well, isn't it great that God is in charge of the weather? And she was talking.
She said yes. And I said, Well, you know, a lot of people complain about the weather. Yeah, she said, my mother brought me up always saying anything above ground is the mercy of the Lord. I thought about, well, she's evangelizing me. You realize what she's saying.
We deserve death and hell. We believe we deserve stuff below ground. But God says, I'll be merciful to you even though I don't give you all that you desire. And we then are to justify Him. It is right, Lord.
I don't deserve what I'm longing for. Third, we don't only acknowledge God and justify God in true submission. We approve of God. It's one thing to say it's right. It's another thing to say it's well.
I trust You, Lord, more than I trust myself. I put the reins of my life into Your hands because I believe that You are more trustworthy to run my life than I am. See, that's a pretty deep step of submission. But it's a sweet step of submission. And then fourth, in true submission, the deepest step really is to cling to God as my greatest friend when He seems to come against me as my greatest enemy.
To say with Job, though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. So there you have it. God is the Lord of every area of your life, and you're to bow under that by acknowledging Him, justifying Him, approving of Him, and clinging to Him. That's principle number one. Principle number two.
The law of God limits sexual activity to husband and wife. The moral law says thou shalt not commit adultery. The Heidelberg Catechism says in expounding that law, we must live chastely and temperately whether in holy wedlock or in single life." In other words, God's law also forbids fornication among single people. Sexual, all sexual activity between people not married to each other. And Paul says, 1 Thessalonians 4-3, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.
That's not only talking about the consummate marriage act of love, it's talking also about intimate touching or kissing prior to marriage. The Law even regulates the very thoughts and desires of our hearts and the words of our mouths, requiring inner purity, holiness of speech, in contrast to the lustful and lascivious ways of this world. John Calvin put it well. Whenever they are assailed by their fleshly inclinations, they, meaning you and I, should place the fear of God in opposition to temptation of this sort, cut off all inlets to unchaste thoughts, and treat the Lord to give them strength to resist and set themselves with all their might to extinguish the flames of lust. That's principle number two.
No sexual activity outside of the husband-wife relationship. Principle number 3. Singleness exists in tension with God's creation ordinance of marriage. God said it's not good for man to be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.
So marriage is not just a human idea, it's a creation ordinance instituted by God, Woven into the very fabric of human life in this world as foundational to all other societies in this world. So Paul says, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, every woman her own husband. Now people may sometimes find themselves in a position where They cannot be married, at least not in the boundaries of wisdom and righteousness. Yet they cannot escape the tension of singleness, which can include loneliness, sexual frustration, financial difficulties, pressure or criticism from family, fear and insecurity, and the grief of unfulfilled dreams. So this tension makes us vulnerable to temptation, but The tension itself is not sinful.
Often tension is the opportunity to work out obedience to God's will and become more like Christ. And that works together for our very greatest good. Principle number 4. I'm moving now to principles that talk about singleness in relationship to Christ. Principle number 4.
Jesus Christ remained a single man to begin a new creation. Isn't it interesting that the singleness of God the Son incarnate signals a remarkable change in God's order of humanity, A shift from creation to the new creation. Jesus never married. Father, no children. But he rose from the dead as the last Adam, the beginning of the new humanity.
First Corinthians 15, 45. So how does the new Adam beget offspring if it remains single? Well, he does so by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. The risen Lord Jesus and those in union with him are the new creation, the spiritual creation, the first fruits of a new world. And this new creation is not without its marriage, for Christ is the perfect bridegroom for his church who loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle." And so we might say, reverendly speaking, there is Neither married nor single in Christ, for Christ is all and in all.
Principle number five. Singleness offers the opportunity for undivided devotion and service to the Lord. Like their master, some of Christ's greatest servants have been single people. I would argue that Paul probably was single his entire life. Scott Brown notwithstanding.
But it's debatable. No one knows for sure. And no one can give an authoritative answer. But certainly Augustine, The bishop of Hippo in North Africa whose leadership and writings have influenced the church for centuries, or the Puritan preacher Richard Sibbes, or female missionaries such as Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael, people who've done a lot of good in this life have often been single. Paul says, He that is unmarried cares for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.
But he that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. This I speak for your own profit, that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction." Marriage can bring many distractions. Singleness allows people to serve God with great liberty. That's a gift of singleness. Number six, in Christ, singleness is a gift and a calling.
A gift and a calling. 1 Corinthians 7, 7. When Paul refers to singleness here as a gift, he's not talking about spiritual gifts. He's saying that each Christian's marital status at each point in life is a gift of God's sovereign and undeserved grace. Singleness, so long as you are single, said Rena Taylor, is what is best for me at this point in my life.
And it also implies that with singleness, God provides the grace to live in celibate sexual holiness. Paul goes on to say, neither let us commit fornication, 1 Corinthians 10, and promises there's no temptation that's taken hold of you, but such is as common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able to bear, but will with a temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." So, either status, marriage or singleness, brings with it a calling. A calling to fulfill, a stewardship. Life is all about stewardship, by the way.
To use one's time and talents for God's kingdom and according to the relationships one does not have, as well as the relationships and responsibilities we do have. So you're called to singleness at this point in your life, because that's God's calling and choice for you at this time. And on the judgment day, as a steward of God, God will ask you how you've spent your singleness time and He'll ask you how you spent your married time. And you'll be accountable, you see. For both, because both are your calling.
Principle number 7. All in Christ ultimately will be single, and yet none will be single. What do I mean by that? All in Christ ultimately will be single, and yet none will be single. Well, God's new creation has begun in individual lives as Christ converts and sanctifies each of God's elect.
And this new creation will one day blossom forth into the renewal of all things in the new heavens and the new earth. And at that time, you see, the Lord Jesus will raise his people from the dead, bring them into a new order of life in which they will marinate and dwell in the glory, the pure undiluted glory of God. And Jesus said that that time no one will be married. In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven. Think about that.
In this life, This life is less than one grain of sand compared to all the sand of this world compared to eternity. Thomas Watson said if you put all the sand in the world on one huge pile that went on for thousands of miles, think United States. Mountains high reaching to the heavens. If you put all the sand in the world, it probably would cross our whole nation. And Watson said if a bird came by every 1, 000 years, and took one grain of sand and moved it to a new pile.
After the billions, trillions, zillions of years would go by and the whole same pile would be moved, eternity would scarcely have begun. This life is so short. If God chooses that you'll be single for this short life, remember everyone will be single forever and ever in terms of the marriage state in heaven with regard to horizontal relationships. And yet, no one will be single in heaven because every single redeemed of the Lord will be married in the spiritual, ultimate, beatific, glorious, utopian marriage with the Lord Jesus Christ. I read a story once of a young lady who always wanted to be married.
She got cancer when She was 42. Died when she was 43. And as she was dying, she said to her father, Dad, she said, I always wanted to be married, but I'm finally going to get the desire of my heart. His dad thought something was wrong with her mind at the end. And she said, well, tried to tone it down.
And she said, no, Dad, you don't understand. I'm going now to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the perfect, the utopian marriage. Let us be glad and rejoice. Revelation 19.
And give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife hath made herself ready." You see, that's the key thing. Ready. Be ready for the eternal marriage with the Lamb. Be ready for that place where everyone in Christ will be single and yet none will be single. And that marriage knows no flaws.
That marriage never needs therapy. That marriage never has an argument. That marriage is absolutely perfect. You'll be delighting in Christ as your heavenly spouse who alone possesses infinite glory and Infinite happiness. Well, those are the seven biblical principles that I see.
No doubt there's many more, but that's a framework for living a single life here in this world. Now, for some practical advice. I want to give you practical advice under four headings. The first, and all of them relate to glorifying God because that's always the purpose of all things in life, right? You must live for the glory of God.
What's the purpose of man? To live for the glory of God. So four categories. Number one, practical advice for a God-glorifying good life. A good life.
Everyone wants to live a good life, don't you? Well, how can you as singles cultivate a life that is truly good? Let me give you a few thoughts. Number one, betroth yourself to Jesus Christ by the grace of His Holy Spirit. Betrothal in Bible terms was something like engagement today, only even stronger.
If you were betrothed to someone and you broke off that relationship, you actually had to go out and get a divorce. It was almost like a marriage, but it wasn't a consummated marriage. Betroth yourself to Jesus Christ. The other biblical word that is a synonym of betrothal in the King James is espoused. Espoused to Christ.
You see, God the Son incarnate is the main character in the greatest love story ever told. He did not risk his life to rescue a beautiful bride who loved him, but far more wonderful. He gave his life to redeem his ugly enemies who hated him and transformed them into the most glorious bride ever known. And that's you and me by nature. Sinners.
Hell worthy sinners. You see, if you have Christ, ultimately you're never alone. Never forsaken. Never unloved. Never rejected.
He's loved you with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31. Nothing can separate you from that love. Romans 8. But trough yourself to Jesus Christ.
It's the only way to live a good life. Secondly, flee the vices of worldly singleness. We might think here, first of all, of sexual immorality. And understandably so. Single men and women, as well as married men and women, can face many sexual snares.
But in single life, some of those snares are even more intense. One of them, of course, in our day, a nasty one, is the magnetic pull of pornography, which promises liberty and pleasures, but delivers enslavement and addiction and death. Flee any semblance of pornography. Flee that one click on the computer that will even bring you to sites maybe that is not pornographic explicitly, but is borderline so. Stay as far away as you can from this evil and keep yourself as pure as you can by the grace of God.
But there's another infirmity that can plague single people. More subtle perhaps, but not less dangerous. That is, a life of just living for yourself. Without the responsibilities of serving a spouse, caring for children, It's easy to slip, especially as years go by, into the mode of thinking life is about me. When life was never intended to be about you.
Paul says, Christ died so that they which lived should henceforth live not unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again." So whether single or married, life is all about not belonging to myself, but belonging to Jesus Christ. It's all about that. And that's the only way to live the good life. You're not your own, but you're bought with a price, Paul says. 1 Corinthians 6.
Therefore, flee from using what God has given you, whether it's your body, your mind, your will, your skills, your wealth, your friends, your fame, as a means to get glory for yourself, pleasure for yourself, ease for yourself, all the selfish things that the church father Augustine called a cauldron of unholy loves. Augustine confessed in his famous confessions, living in a world that is a cauldron of unholy loves, I loved not as yet, yet I loved to love. I searched about for something to love because I was in love with loving rather than actually loving." You see, Augustine concluded this was really ultimately all self-love, which then, if not satisfied, leads to self-pity. Instead, you want to learn what Calvin said. This is a famous quote by Calvin, a powerful one.
We are not our own. Let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own. Therefore, now set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own.
Insofar as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are gods. That is G-O-D-A-P-S. We belong to God. Let us therefore live for Him and die for Him.
We are gods. Let us therefore have His wisdom and will rule all our actions. We are gods. Therefore let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward Him as our only lawful goal." You want to live the good life? Be triune-centered.
And not self-centered. Say with Samuel Rutherford, and may you experience it as well, I know not which divine person I love the most, but this I know. I love each of them. And I need them all. And I want to reflect their glory in my life That's your life.
That's your passion. That's your goal if you're living a God glorifying good life and three Regard Christ not marriage Christ not marriage is your completion. Your completion. Our over-sexualized culture insists that without sexual activity, a person is incomplete. The evangelical subculture modifies that thought slightly to say that without a marriage, a person is incomplete, only half a person.
But marriage can never complete anyone. It never claimed to do that. Nor can anything in this world. Though men make idols out of everything desirable. Calvin reminded us we ought to form a different estimate of what happiness consists in from that formed by the world.
True joy is to live Christ. Paul said, for me to live is Christ. To die is gain. Gain because I'm in Christ. You see?
How do you live Christ? Well, four quick thoughts. You're linked to Christ. That's what we call justification. You're in sacred union with Him.
By faith. Justified by faith. That's number one. Number two, you find your life in Christ. That's your sanctification.
You live out of him. You seek to know him better all the time. Number three, You love. You have love for Christ. His love is what makes you tick.
His love is your life. It's your heartbeat. You love Him because He first loved you. And Number four, likeness to Christ. You want to be more and more like Him.
Let me throw a fifth one in for good measure. Longing for Christ. You long to be with Him forever. You see, when you live Christ, you're linked to Him, your life is in him, you love him, you grow in likeness to him, and you long for him. That is living the good life.
Paul says you are complete in him, not in earthly marriage. You are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power. Only the fullness of God in Christ can fill you completely. And only in Christ does the fullness of God come to us in a fully human way through the Son of God incarnate. Therefore, while you long for a godly spouse, which is a good longing, you should hunger and thirst for Christ even more to know Him better, to be deeper into his offices of prophet, priest, and king, his person, his nature, everything who he is.
Seek to know him better. Seek to be more enamored with Jesus Christ. Read Samuel Rutherford's letters. It's one of the most self-centered, sorry, Christ-centered books I've ever read in my life. I kept it by my nightstand for 20 years.
Whenever I fell down or whenever I felt like I was getting too much into myself, I'd just pick it up. And he'd draw me like a magnet back to Christ. Everything is about Christ in Rutherford. Rutherford said, My two greatest joys in life are knowing Christ and preaching Christ. He said, if there were a thousand heavens piled on top of one another, my Lord Jesus Christ would be the centerpiece of them all.
He said to be in heaven without Christ would be hell for me. And to be in hell with Christ would be heaven for me. Don't take that too far. But get the point. Get the point.
Christ is my heaven. Christ is my joy. You see, Christ is everything to me. Let your greatest sorrow be that you cannot yet see the open glory of your Savior face to face. And let your strongest desire be to dwell forever with Him, gazing on His beauty.
That's how to live the good life. God glorifying good life. Secondly then, practically, how do I live a God-glorifying, productive life? Productive life. Well, a Couple thoughts here.
Number one, use your liberty well. Use your liberty well for Christ and his kingdom. Use your talents well to serve the Lord and to advance his kingdom. Don't just try to accumulate things or wealth or an abundance of leisure, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things shall be added to you. True freedom is born out of obedience and holiness and not self-indulgence.
Number two, avoid unrealistic expectations. Avoid unrealistic expectations about your resources and your service. Some people think that singles just have all the time in the world on their hands. And they should volunteer for everything in the church. And that They forget, of course, that single people must do nearly everything that a married couple would ordinarily divide between the two of them.
So you must work to support yourself. You clean your own house or place where you live. You cook your own meals. You manage your own finances. You pay your own bills.
You arrange repairs to your own home and your car and so on. Or maybe you're living with your parents and you're busy taking classes toward a degree. So, have a realistic assessment. A humble, realistic assessment of what you can do, and don't allow other people to commit you beyond your limits. Don't allow them to pressure you to say yes just because you're single.
You need to learn to say no as you seek to balance your life between all your responsibilities. Number three, serve the family God has given you. Serve the family God has given you. God is sovereign in all his ways. Up to this point, he hasn't.
It hasn't pleased him to give you a spouse, or maybe You have been married and your spouse has died and you're here as a widow or a widower, that could be as well. But, you see, what you need to understand in all of life's trials is We do have a family. We do have a family when we're Christians. We belong to an earthly family. You have some relatives, don't you?
In a natural way. But you also belong to the family of God. The largest family on earth. And you're traveling to a family, an eternity of millions upon millions upon millions. I preached once in Spurgeon's Church in London.
And a young lady came down from the balcony and she was very weepy when she got to me, and she said, you know, my parents are dead, I'm single, I'm an orphan, I'm an only child, I've got no brothers, sisters, all I have is one uncle, and he's a drunk, and he lives in Australia. I have no family here on earth and I'm feeling sorry for myself. But she said, today I realized for the first time while you were preaching that I actually belong to the largest family on earth. So, serve the family, the Christian family God has given you, but also serve your immediate family. Do you have nieces?
Do you have nephews? What great joy you can get in serving them. Honor your father and your mother. Don't underestimate the profound impact that you might have on your own biological relatives, especially when you're young. And don't forget the gift of prayer, to pray for your immediate family, to pray for the Christian family.
You have wonderful opportunities to be an intercessor for your families at both levels. We can all forget the value of that. I was in the hospital one time visiting one of my parishioners. She's a feisty lady, sweet lady, very God-fearing. And she's been out of the hospital 30, 40 times.
And so she's, we're very familiar with each other. She's very open and honest with me. She's like a mother in a way. She's 94, I think, right now. And one time I'm visiting her and she's in a lot of pain.
And I prayed earnestly for her. And when I said, Amen, I just saw her face grimace with pain. And I said, I'm so sorry. I wish there was something I could do for you. She said, Pastor, I must rebuke you.
God, rebuke you? I just prayed for you. She goes, you just did something for me that's more important than any earthly physician could do for me. You lifted up my name to our Father which is in heaven. What a friend you can be to your family, your earthly family, the Christian family, when you pray for them.
John Newton said, my best friends in this world are those who lift up my worthless name Elisptit in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. I feel that same way. When I know that people are genuinely praying for me on a daily basis, I count them my best friends. What a gift of God! Now, it's also possible, of course, that you are single, but have children.
There are few callings more difficult than being a single parent. But Remember, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. He will enable you to serve your children. And you'll look back one day and say, I don't know how I made it through those years, but I just know I couldn't have done it without Jesus. You're not just a survivor.
You're an overcomer when you're a Christian. In every area of life, Christ will work to make you complete. So don't aim to be a super-parent who does it all. But aim to be a loving parent who faithfully does what is most important for your children. And invite others to take a role.
We have a young widow in our congregation. Her husband was killed in a car accident. Several children. And She turned to the congregation. She asked for fatherly figures, especially for her sons, big brothers, as it were.
See if you can reach out to somebody like that. Or, if you're in that position, you can Find others who can reach out to your children like that. Seek to lead a productive life. You can fill in other things here that you can do that providence sends your way, but do lead a productive, God-glorifying life. When you look for things to do that can glorify God, when that's really your intentional way of living, there will always be more things than you can possibly do.
Then the third area of practical advice for God-glorifying life is not only to live a good life and a productive life, but a presently, presently God-glorifying single life. I stress the word presently here. A couple thoughts here. First, accept the temporary afflictions of single life about that submission already. Whatever God has for your future, whatever God has for your future, His program for you right now is singleness.
So embrace the pain, Embrace your heavenly Father's training program as He leads you in His ways. Hebrews 12 and 11 puts it this way, no affliction for the present seems to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yields the profitable fruit of righteousness unto them who are what? Exercised thereby." Exercised Greek is gymnasium from which we get gymnasium. And it refers to a sport much like boxing where you have a sparring partner in Grecian times, and the sparring partner would look at any spot in your body that had a little bit of flab on it, and he would pummel that part.
And in that sport, you'd never get good if you ran away from that sparring partner and fled to gymnasium and went your own way. And God is saying to us, we need to embrace His sovereignly ordained afflictions, allow Him to pummel us, as it were, to firm and fit us to be more use in his kingdom. So don't run away from God's gymnasium. Rather receive the pain as his gift, trust it will not last forever and that It will lead to an even greater eternal weight of glory, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 4. Number two, even as you embrace that pain, do not be afraid or embarrassed to pursue marriage.
Do not be afraid or embarrassed to pursue marriage. It's God's good creation. There's nothing wrong with actively pursuing it. Now, that means that if you seek to be married, it is prudent to put yourself in situations where you can meet godly Christian people of the opposite sex and develop healthy, non-risk, non-sexual friendships with them waiting on the Lord for future guidance. So just as a wife's submission to her husband does not make her passive, so a single woman need not be passive toward single men even though a man should be taking the initiative, but a woman may encourage a potential godly suitor in an edifying biblical way.
There's nothing carnal or shameful about men and women seeking Marriage. It's good. It's natural. It's even necessary for the continuance of the human race and for the perpetuation of the church to future generations. And three, consider intentional singleness to serve God's Kingdom.
When you're single for a number of years, you say you're pushing the upper 20's, and obviously you ask yourself the question at some point, don't you? Is this God's will for me to live a single life. Jesus uses a surprising, somewhat surprising image of eunuchs here. Speaking of people who choose a lifestyle of celibate singleness for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. Eunuchs were men devoted to the service of a king.
So the image is not merely one of celibacy here, but a voluntary celibacy for the sake of serving God and extending His Kingdom. Now, that won't be the lot of most of you, I trust, but God can call certain people to that kind of calling. David Brainerd was one of them. He said, I cared not where or how I lived or what hardships I went through so that I could but gain souls to Christ. And he said that was his entire passion in life.
And so, even though he was being attracted to Edward's daughter, and maybe that was going to change at a different period of his life, but then that never came to pass. But you see, at that point in his life, he was intentionally living as a eunuch for Eunuch's sake when he was in his early to mid-twenties. Now, that can change. But this is a unique calling for those who don't have a battle against sexual sin. Paul says, if it is better to marry than to burn.
So if you do find the sexual frustrations to be fairly intense, and you are inflamed with consuming sexual desire, you see, then you're not called to be a eunuch. You're called to continue to wait on God for a spouse. A God glorifying spouse. Marriage, Paul says, is God's ordinary means of protecting people from fornication. So there's nothing wrong with using the natural means that God provides.
Number four, remain open to marriage throughout your life. Be careful as you move into 30s and maybe even 40s and you're not married, be careful not to say, well I'm going to take a vow to be a eunuch and deny myself. No, don't make vows. You don't know how God's going to lead you. There's been people who got married for the first time and had God-fearing marriages.
Think of John Murray, the great professor of Westminster. I think he was 67 when he got married for the first time. Had his first and only child at 69. His wife was in her 30s. And they had a wonderful, wonderful marriage for a number of years.
So you never know what God is going to do. It was already mentioned that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah. So, maintain a posture of openness to marriage as a possible gift from God without hankering after it in such a way that it spoils the rest of your life of usefulness toward the Lord. Finally, some practical advice not only now for living a God-glorifying good life, a God-glorifying practical life, and a God-glorifying presently single life, but God-glorifying practical, everlasting life. Everlasting life.
Just two closing thoughts. Number one, remember that marriage is no one's final state. All of our marriages are going to be dissolved by death or by the Lord's return. It doesn't mean that in heaven we won't recognize one another, we obviously will, but we'll no longer be married to one individual because we'll be married to Jesus. And in Heaven, husband and wife who are close in this life, yes, they will know each other, and yes, their marriage will be better than ever without being in earthly marriage because their relationship...
I should say their relationship will be better than ever because they'll both be centered entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And our best relationships on earth are those that are most Christ-centered. You see, in heaven, anything good in this life will be better there. And anything bad in this life will be gone there. And everything will be Better in glory.
A man came to me one time and said, I'm going to really miss my wife in Heaven. I said, no, you won't miss her. You'll both be so focused on Jesus, you'll love her better. You'll love her with a perfect love. Heaven is a world of perfect Love.
Absolutely perfect love. So remember, marriage, earthly marriage, is no one's final state. And finally, live in hope. Live in hope, number two. Not of marriage, but of the glory of God.
Though there's nothing wrong with desiring, earnestly desiring to be married, do not put your hope, your everlasting hope in a spouse. The best of spouses is limited, sinful, and mortal. When I speak to couples as I perform their wedding ceremonies, I always stick it in there somewhere, somehow, in the text I'm expounding. I always say to them, remember today you're marrying a sinner. Some unchurched people often gasp at that.
But there's no one else to marry in this world but a sinner. So don't expect too much of earthly marriage, but do put all your hope in the glory of God in that heavenly marriage. You see, whatever God's will is for you, whether it's marriage or singleness, it's a means to glorify and enjoy Him forever. Your best day will not be your wedding day here on earth, but it will be the official wedding day in heaven when you enter to be with the Lord Jesus face to face and will see Him as He is. There's no better day than that.
And so learn to live for that day. Learn to say with the psalmist, whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My heart and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." So keep your hand on the plow and live solely Deo Gloria for God's glory alone. Amen.
Let's pray. Great God of Heaven, we ask Thy benediction upon this time together and upon the Q&A now to follow. And we pray, Lord, that Thou wilt work mightily in every one of the hearts of these dear young people and somewhat older adults. We pray that each one and all of us may live for Thy glory, whether in married or single state. And help us so to do, to find in Christ our crowning joy, our supreme purpose, and our first love.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You