John F MacArthurA John MacArthur sermon I cited yesterday has a lovely explanation of marriage.

Excerpts follow from his exposition of Matthew 19:10-12, ‘Jesus’ Teaching on Divorce, Part 4′. Emphases mine below.

Leaders of every youth group from secondary school through university would do well to borrow from this sermon. Too many of us do not fully appreciate matrimony.

MacArthur sets out the main points of marriage. Each begins with a ‘P’.

Procreation

Children are an heritage from the Lord, so there is marriage to have children.  Procreation … Nothing is more clear than you two are one when you see your selves in that one that is born of your union. 

Pleasure

It’s for pleasure.  Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable in all and the bed is undefiled.”  The bed is undefiled, you can’t do anything in that place that is defiling.  Great liberation, 1 Corinthians 7 says, your body is not yours, and her body is not hers they belong to each other and the Old Testament … from Proverbs, talks about the satisfaction of the physical relationship, the pleasure.

Purity

It’s for purity.  In 1 Corinthians 7:2, the Bible says, that for fornication let every man have his own wife.

This is the verse (ESV):

2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Provision

I love this.  Ephesians 5 says that the man is to nourish, cherish, provide for, care for, be like a savior to his wife. 

… marriage is a provision of security, it’s a provision of carrying and nourishing and cherishing.  Providing for[;] in fact, it says, if a man doesn’t provide for his own household, he’s worse than an unbeliever. 

Partnership

It’s for partnership.  When God made Eve, he said he made Adam a what?  A helper.  A helper. Somebody to come along side and help so you don’t do things alone, you do them together.  There is strength in that fellowship, isn’t there.  And I confess to you that my wife is strong where I am weak and that I tend to be strong where she is weak and that’s the way it ought to be.  She tells me when I need to be told and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be strength to my weakness.  She has wonderful ways of reminding me of my weaknesses.  In fact, I can hear the speech coming before she gives it.  I know, speech number 8, you don’t have to give it.  But there is real partnership isn’t there, real partnership.  I mean, I go here and I work here and I study and I do the things I need to do and she’s home providing all the home needs all that the children need, all that I need to be free to do what I do.  It’s real partnership.  And I provide all the resources that she needs to do what God has ordained for her to do and so that’s partnership.

Picture

And then finally, marriage is picture.  It’s picture and what is it picture of?  It is picture of Christ and his what?  Church.  Ephesians 5, it is a graphic demonstration in the face of the world that God loves and has an ongoing unending relationship with the bride whom he loves.  And for whom he lives and dies and I dare say that the whole metaphor of marriage of a symbol of Christ and his church has lost its punch because the church is so rife with divorce and fouled up marriages. 

Conclusion

Some psychologists did a study and came up with a theory that you are what you are because you are adjusting to the most important person in your life.  Whoever the most important person is in your life, that’s the person you are trying to please.  Very simple for the Christian, isn’t it?  Who is the most important person in our life?  Christ.  That settles the issue, really, because now we can say, I receive it, if you say it.  It’s God’s order. 

If more of us heard, read and heeded those succinct yet necessary messages about marriage, we would have fewer divorces and many more happy unions.