The Normal Marriage Life (part 1)
簡單蒙福的恩來-102670 04/04 34954.5/2
THE NORMAL MARRIAGE LIFE
(A word given at a wedding on October 2, 1936)
Prayer: Our Lord Jesus, we thank and praise You because all good things come from You. We acknowledge that all grace flows from You. Lord, we are gathered together this afternoon for the wedding of our Brother Yang and Sister Wu. We pray that You would bless this new couple and that they would see that everything is out of Your grace and Your love. May You open their eyes to see the immensity of their responsibility and to see how great a challenge it is to be a husband and how great a challenge it is to be a wife. Show them that the marital relationship can be a happy relationship and that it can also be a difficult relationship. Show them that the flesh cannot help them through such a relationship. Lord, give them the grace to learn how to be a husband and how to be a wife and to learn to glorify Your name daily. May this act today, this union today, glorify Your name. May it not bring shame to Your name or mockery from unbelievers. Lord, may the husband be a real husband, bearing the responsibility of the house, and the head in everything, and may the wife submit as a woman should in everything. Our Lord, may this couple express Your love, Your authority, and Your proper human virtues in their family. May You give them grace and bless them so that they may be blessed persons in their respective positions. Lord, be gracious to them. We commit the two of them into Your hand. May they glorify You daily, may the work of their hands glorify You, and may everything in this family glorify You. Bless them and bless all of us. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.
HUSBANDS LOVING WIVES AND
WIVES BEING SUBJECT TO HUSBANDS
Let us read a very familiar passage: "But as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Eph. 5:24-25). The brothers have been telling me for many days that I have to attend this meeting today and that I have to speak a few words. I prayed and considered what I should speak and how I should speak. God gave me these two very familiar verses.
Needless to say, this is a happy occasion and most people like to say "congratulations." While this, of course, is a fact, we also have to admit that there are troubles ahead. Before a person is married, he or she may have no trouble being a single person. But after a person is married, there is definitely trouble. Troubles for a single person are a possibility, but troubles for a married couple are a certainty. If we are not prepared to face these troubles, we will see one trouble after another. Troubles will perpetuate and propagate themselves. The first thing a Christian should realize is that no trouble within a family can be solved instantaneously.
LEARNING TO BE A GOOD HUSBAND AND A GOOD WIFE
Brother Yang, do not think that you can be a proper husband in an instant. You may need three to five years to learn this. Sister Wu, I will say the same to you; it takes three to five years before you learn how to be a wife. Yet I must say that you have to learn. If you do not learn, you will never be able. Never think that you are born a husband or that you are born a wife. Many brothers and sisters think that they can become husbands and wives without learning. Some think that when a man earns forty to fifty dollars a month, has grown to over five feet in height, and is twenty-four or twenty-five years old, he is qualified to get married. There is no such thing. Unless you are determined to learn to be a wife, you will not succeed in becoming a wife. Unless you are determined to learn to be a husband, you will not succeed in becoming a husband. If a student does not have the heart to be a student, he cannot be a student. If an employee does not have the heart to be a good employee, he cannot be an employee. Similarly, if you do not have the heart to be a husband or a wife, you cannot be a husband or a wife. Many things come by accident; many things can be done mindlessly. But a good husband or good wife does not come by accident. Every good husband and every good wife become so through learning.
I am not preaching a sermon this afternoon. I only want to ask whether our brother and our sister have the heart to be a husband and a wife or whether they are merely trying their luck. There is no such thing as being fortunate by chance in marriage.
