What Marriage Bed?

Sermon: “What Marriage Bed?” Rev. David Anderson

Hebrews 13:4

I want you to take a walk with me. The day is warm, but not heavy as we walk down a small path in a flowered meadow. The grass is still wet with dew. We hear birds singing, sometimes near, and sometimes at a distance. The distinctive cooing of the turtle dove comes from a perch on the chimney of a small country cabin. We are walking toward the cabin.

We walk up the front stairs and unto a large porch where a white swing hangs from iron chains. The sun continues to shine brightly, the birds are still singing, and the day remains enchanting. We open up the french glass doors hung with lace curtains, and enter the country cabin. Inside the sun breaks through a large series of windows and lands on a bed with overstuffed pillows and comforters of silk and floral designs.

Across the room we see several other beds–smaller,

intended for children. They are also covered by pillows and soft comforters. The sunlight plays with the dolls and small toys lying on and around the little beds.

We sense a divine harmony here. A home bathed in the

light of nature, beauty, and life. A serendipity that God has created within His divine order. One home, one marriage bed, and all the little beds that come from that one home and one marriage bed.

This is how God intended it to be. A man and women united for a lifetime and in the strength and commitment of their relationship, providing a secure foundation for their children.

This picture, however, is becoming more and more like a

fairy tale. Oh we have always had divorces and the like, because we are not perfect. We sin. Sometimes we are sinned against. So our business today is not to throw stones at anyone’s past, but to once again set our aim to the target, even if we not everyone is willing or able to hit the target.

I say "NOT WILLING to hit the target of God’s design for marriage" because some live in brazen sin against God and His will.

I say "NOT ABLE" because some, who love God and seek to

do His will, are still overcome by their sin, or the sin of others against them, and so marriage fails.

Generally speaking, marriage is a failing institution.... a failing institution of God’s design. I believe that I mentioned in a previous sermon that most young people do not see the

need to get married, or downright distrust it! The majority of the girls interviewed said they thought that it would be better to have children outside of marriage.

The percentage of single people is growing. Sometimes I hesitate to devote a whole sermon to the topic of marriage because so many people in the congregation are not married. Single people--children, teens, adults who have been widowed, divorced or never married--make up the majority of people in our country. In fact, 40% of the adults in the United States are not currently married.

So why have a sermon on marriage? Why teach math if

students don’t always get the right sum? Because math

is something real the effects our lives. Its correct application makes the difference between life and death in the design of cars, airplanes, spacecrafts, and so many other items of our modern life. People will die, or have a poorer quality of life, if we don’t continue to set our aim on teaching children the right model of mathematics.

We teach God’s model for family in marriage because it

works. Those who have been empowered to live successfully within this institution created by God, know the blessings that it brings. But beyond all this, we honor the institution of marriage because God has told us to do so.

Listen again to Hebrews 13:4 “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

"Marriage is to be honored by all." By everyone -- male, female, young, old, married, and single. Let’s take a look at the institution of marriage by exploring some important considerations.

First off, why is marriage to be honored by all?

Now, not everyone agrees that marriage should be a valued institution. Radical feminists seriously equate marriage with slavery, and maybe some people in this room refer to "the good old days before I was married," but the Bible clearly tells us that marriage is good and important.

Why is marriage good and important? There are at least five reasons, and likely a whole lot more, why marriage is important: First, it is God’s plan for human beings. We were never meant to be the "rocks" or "islands" that Paul Simon used to sing about. God made us with an innate need for companionship.