TODAY’S SCRIPTURE Hebrews 13:4
The good news is that the divorce rate is the lowest that it has been since 1979. The bad news is that fewer people are getting married and more people are living together, or cohabiting, outside of the bond of marriage. Some states are considering putting warning labels on marriage licenses like the Surgeon General puts warning labels on cigarettes. Hollywood is painting marriage with an ugly brush and the beautiful picture God designed looks like a dust-covered painting at a yard sale valued at ten cents.
How do we honor marriage? We honor marriage by pointing to all the couples in our congregations who have been married for over fifty years and are still together. If you are married, you honor marriage by loving your spouse and sticking with them through thick and thin. We all honor marriage when we stand up for God’s plan for the family: one man, one woman, for life.
How do we dishonor marriage and defile the marriage bed? The marriage bed can be defiled by fornication. Fornication is an umbrella word; several sins fit under that heading. Of course, adultery is fornication, as is bestiality, and of course sodomy or homosexuality. However, many people fail to recognize that premarital sex is also fornication. Once, a married couple complained to their preacher that their sex life was substandard. They said, “Our sex is not like the movies.” They had watched porn in an attempt to “spice up” their sex life. The preacher wisely told the couple that life is not like the movies. The producers of porn had taken four days and three bottles of Viagra to produce a 20-minute movie.
The marriage bed is to be honored; it is a special place reserved for a husband and wife to express their God-given, exclusive privilege. How dare we take something so precious and cheapen it with filth and degradation! Honor marriage even when the worldly culture is tearing it apart.
Today, I will…reflect on marriage vows taken by Christian couples when they marry.