Word of Salvation – Vol. 23 No. 38 – June 1977

 

How To Stay Married…. Happily

 

Sermon by Rev. A.I. de Graaf,B.D. on Eccles.9:9 & Prov.5:18

Scripture Reading: Eph. 5:14(b)-33

Psalter Hymnal: 89; 481; 408; 175; 316:3

 

Brothers & Sisters, Boys & Girls, Young People, Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Enjoy life!

This is your God speaking.

Not the devil.

When the devil says “Enjoy life!” watch it, he’s out to spoil it.

But when God says: “Enjoy life!” you can almost hear laughter in His Voice but you hear tears, too.

Because God paid dearly to say this to His rebellious children.  It cost the Prince of life the cross and the agony of hell to say it.

But therefore He can say it to you, in a world like ours.  And therefore GOD never says this with tongue-in-cheek.  “Enjoy life!”

And then, even though it is – as the preacher must add: “a FLEETING life”, yet then we see it under the light of eternity: fleeting here…… but not fleeting forever.  The beginning of eternity, life as a gift of grace. – – Only then, you see, you can enjoy.

Outside of God – life is ONLY fleeting, full of uncertainty and threat.

Outside of this expectation of new heavens and a new earth life is a constant death.

Only God in Jesus can say it and make you do it: Enjoy life.

He makes it new – like that of the eagle, as Psa.103 says.

Mind you, this Lord KNOWS ONLY TOO WELL that this world, NOW, where He says this to you, where even – as we shall see, He COMMANDS you – to enjoy life,

is still a world sighing in bondage,

  a world suffering under sin,

    a creation groaning.

And even we who already know we are God’s children forever – even we groan when we look forward to the completion of beauty for which Jesus died and rose again.

But we know that shall come.

God put the white garment on us and says: wear that,

 – yes wear it even at the graveside.

Wear it because as I live says the Lord,

I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner

but rather that he shall come back to me…. and live.

It’s coming says the Lord and I am as good as my word, my Word (Jn.1) and therefore

  eat your bread and drink your wine and let not oil be lacking from your head.

Enjoy life…….

  and then He adds what we will think of today:-

  enjoy life TOGETHER WITH THE WIFE YOU LOVE

   WITH THE HUSBAND YOU LOVE.

(We may add that: The Preacher only talks to the men – as was usual in those days, but it goes the other way around just as well, as we learn in the New Testament).

— Mind you, let us begin by saying — (We will come back to it later at the end of the sermon)

   God says this in a world where He KNOWS that not all His children can do this.

He knows that there are people who have lost their wife, or their husband.

He knows, too, that there are people in our world who somehow, are called to a life without a wife, without a partner.  These He calls to a life which is NO LESS than the life that others have…. but yet it’s not the normal way.  That is a special road that He calls some of us to walk.  It used to be regarded as a path of barrenness and bitterness.

The people in Corinth asked Paul questions about that.

MUST we marry, even when we do not want to?

MUST we give our children in marriage even when they have NOT found the love of their life that way?

Is such a life liveable?  Such an abnormal life?

Yes, says God.

Yes, says Jesus through His servant Paul: such a life, like Jesus Himself lived it, is also a life God can renew and make fruitful.  It is abnormal because it is NOT GOOD said the Creator that man should be alone.  But as Jesus came to restore the normal life by bearing the cross of being alone, so now, too, God can call people onto this – in a way ABnormal road – and turn it into service, into blessing, into a giving of love to MORE THAN ONE, so that – as Jesus did it – your life too can become a great blessing.  The Greeks in Corinth thought that was impossible, but the bachelor showed it also in his own life, and yet HE was the man who wrote about the NORMAL life, the Married life, as we read in Ephesians 5.

That is a battle, but where the good fight is fought there ENJOYMENT of life is then still the gift of God.

For – you see – THAT IS ALSO THE CASE IN THE NORMAL LIFE to which husbands and wives are called.

Enjoy life… with the wife – the husband – WHOM YOU LOVE, says God.  And no such enjoyment is possible….. without struggle.  This enjoyment is never lazy.

It always has – as our text also says – to do with toil.  That is because we still are part of a creation IN LABOUR.  Labour mind you!  Not terminal cancer that ends in death.  But LABOUR that ends in new life.

That – says God – is our life after Jesus died and rose again.  Ok then, let us talk about that, that NORMAL life for most of God’s children: the life of GETTING MARRIED, AND THEN STAYING MARRIED.

You see, Proverbs talks here about your FOUNTAIN.  The fountain from which you drink water, the water of the delight of living.  The fountain of delight which God gave in two people made for one another, two people desiring one another, and fulfilling one another’s desire.

Proverbs then also talks about THE WIFE (or husband) OF YOUR YOUTH.

The whole background of Proverbs 5 is that of FAITHFULNESS in marriage.  It speaks about the deadliness of adultery, the lie, the utter unhappiness, of seeking fulfilment from A STRANGER.

That will not satisfy, says that chapter.  When God tells you “Thou shalt not commit adultery” – but stick to the partner OF YOUR YOUTH…

   it is not that He wants your life to be dull, dreary and without enjoyment and adventure, but because He KNOWS along which road alone ENJOYMENT WILL COME, Ah yes – there was the man – the woman – of your youth.

And then of course there was delight, you were both young and you were both full of passion.

The passion for a woman God put into a man, and how desirable he made her!

The passion for a man God put into a woman and how beautiful to discover what it is… to give yourself and be aroused to feelings you never knew you could have.  Scripture mentions these things quite openly, the delight there is in the difference of the sexes, the wonderful song a body – two bodies – can learn to sing.  Yet – we do not stay young, do we?

We are getting older.  And then we see other things than the desirability of the partner.  Then we bump up against faults of character, selfish streaks, then we also…… may meet someone else who would suit us better.

Yes, let us say this quite openly – it can easily happen – only weeks after you got married, or perhaps years – maybe many years after you married when things between you got humdrum and when you can feel unfulfilled and misunderstood, when you can feel taken for granted and used, just used….!

Then you may meet what would have been in every way…. a better partner.  It is almost certain we will, some day.

But says the Bible: that will not then be the man of your youth, who did what only one man could: make a woman out of a girl and a mother out of a somewhat self-centred young woman.  Only one did that, and the Bible calls him the husband of your youth.

And so it is only one woman who made the young man into a full man.  Only one.  That is the way the Bible talks about it.  She is the wife of your youth.

The fountain ordained by God that you should drink from.  And now our text gives you an order.  ENJOY LIFE WITH THAT ONE.  Enjoy life with the woman, the man WHOM YOU LOVE.

And there we get at the heart of the matter.  Love!  Love, what is that?

The romantics tell us that love is a mysterious arrow shot at random and when it hits you you’re a goner.  They say love is something you fall into.  Well, there is an element of this in love.  A first and basic attraction that draws a certain man to a certain woman…… or a certain TYPE of woman.  Not bad for a starting shot.  But then, is it still that kind of thing?

Love….. something you can fall into?

Because then it also will or might well!  – be something you can again FALL OUT OF.

And that is of course quite on the cards.  To enjoy a moment of passion with someone is one thing.  Thank God for that beautiful gift.  But….. TO LIVE WITH THAT SOMEONE… in a broken world?  Well….. that can be an entirely different matter.

Then not just passion, but true love must keep you going.  Then LOVE ONLY can make you do that first thing the text calls you to: enjoy life!

Life you see is not only those peaks you have together in the passion of the body.  Life is much wider, much larger.

Life is not only a bedroom, it is also a lounge, a kitchen and a workshop.

And love is not just something you fall into – or out of.  Love is – let us put it bluntly…
  a cross you take upon you and carry after Jesus.

Jesus’ love for us was the cross He bore.

We did not want Him, we betrayed and forsook Him.

But He loved to the end, says John 13.

Love is cross-bearing and foot-washing.  Love is to face the beloved – never mind how ugly he is – and to say: I want you, and I give myself to you no matter what.  That is the love we learned from our God….

   God, Who loved us when we were enemies and Who hung on to us even when we all turned our back upon Him.

The Bible knows no other kind of love.

So when Proverbs talks to old men and old women

  or men and women around 40
    who get bored a little and wonder if this is all they have till their dying day…

  it talks of the man – the woman – of our youth.

Yes, that one!

And The Preacher (Ecclesiastes) says: now love that one and you will enjoy life all right.  Otherwise all you will taste is ashes.

Enjoy…… and the way to do it is love.

Which – each day again – is to deliberately face that partner and say:
    it’s you.  You’re for me and I’m for you.

In a still broken world this cannot be done without the will.  The kind of will-power that the Bridegroom of His Church, Jesus, had to have to carry on with it…. carry on with loving us even when we did not want Him – even when we hurt Him so!  Hurt Him, yes killed Him.

But He kept on loving….. and that is what the Bible calls love.

  Love is not just feelings.

  Love is not just Cloud No.  9.

  Love is commitment, the assuming of responsibility,

  Yes until Jesus comes back it is TOIL… Labour.

But says Jesus :THAT LABOUR SHALL NOT BE VAIN IN THE LORD.  Then – and then only – that way AND THAT WAY ONLY – shall we yet enjoy life.

That way the man of your youth will be your man but you have matured and he has matured, and you get each other from the Lord.  A new gift of grace.

That way also she will remain the woman of your youth for this is the way to stay young, strangely, beautifully.  It is hard working at your love but it keeps that love fit…able… young.

Then at a wedding anniversary you look back not only upon years of cross-bearing – for yes, darling, you were my cross – and I was yours.  But then you also look back on the way God allowed you to bear your cross CHEERFULLY.

To enjoy – enjoy not just a lazy man’s paradise but life.  Grabbing sweets and candy whenever a child likes is not life.

Just lolling in front of TV all the time is not life.

Life is hard work and then the rest is sweet.

Life is sweat but then the bread tastes good.

The Bible says that the Lord rejoices over Jerusalem His Bride.  But He toils and works to win and nurture her, all the time.  Day and night He does that – there is no other way.

That is the way to be married and to stay married and enjoy – enjoy life, for the fleeting days you have here.

For these days will end.

And the days we have here ARE only short, make no mistake about that.  Too short to waste away.  Too short NOT TO WORK HARD at love.  The moment will come when your Lord will say: now I take you for myself… or what is harder still: now I will take my child, your partner – into my glory.  And then this portion of your life will be over.

Not on your life.

THAT will never end, says God.

But THIS task, THIS cross, THIS love, that’s for this life, which is fleeting.

But when the Lord then says: this is it, my child, then there are no ashes left, but there is – EVEN THERE! – the task fulfilled about which the Lord one day will say:

  Well done my faithful servant!

You have looked after this human being FOR ME.

You have been faithful over JUST THAT ONE… just that bit – now I will put you over much!

And also because of this faithfulness too, I will call you to the joy of your Lord.  We are stewards, in our marriage too.  And the Lord will ask us to give account one day of our stewardship.  He is the One who keeps us going, in that as well.

He is the one who ordained it that THUS we….. could ENJOY LIFE.  He enjoys life, you know – could you believe it? – WITH HIS BRIDE.  And if you know yourself a bit then you wonder: with ME?  It’s already quite something if He BEARS with me, but HE? ENJOYING His everlasting life… WITH ME?  The Lord?  Delight?  In me?  I too – part of His Bride?

You think a bit about that and you will catch the secret that keeps a Christian marriage between two sinners going.

You think a bit about this and you can bear that OTHER cross too, if that’s what the Lord lays on you: No more to be married, or — not at all.  For you are still part of the Bride of Christ.

And God gives joy and vibrant life even to people who thought they were truncated stumps.  Our married life here is but a prelude to the real symphony.  Our love here is but a shadow to the never-ending love of Him Who created that He might redeem forever.

Our love here is cross-bearing because it was that for Him, but the crown shall come for all of us.  And those from whom the Lord withheld joys here may well be the ones He will let make up for that when we shall all enter the joy of our Lord.

Let us conclude this sermon by once more reading the love-song of your Lord.  The love-song Jesus, God’s Son, our heavenly bridegroom, paid for that we all might learn to wear the white garment: the garment of the bride, the blood- bought bride of the Lamb.  This is what God says to you who now bear the cross of love – the cross also of a love He took away:

Do not be afraid, you will not be put to shame,
do not be dismayed, you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth
and no longer remember the curse of your widowhood.

For now your Creator will be your Husband,
His Name is: The LORD of hosts!
Your Redeemer will be the Holy One of Israel,
He is called the God of the whole earth.

Yes, like a forsaken wife, distressed in spirit,
The Lord YAHWEH calls you back!
Does a MAN cast off the wife of his youth?
Yet I never will, says the LORD!

I did forsake you for a brief moment,
but with great love I will take you back.
In excess of anger, just for a while I hid my face from you.
But with everlasting love I have taken pity on you,
            says Yahweh, your Redeemer.

For the mountains may depart and the hills be shaken,
but my love for you will never leave you
and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken,
 says the LORD Who takes pity on you.  (Isa.54:4-10)

Amen.