The first message of two dealing with the Christian view of marriage in times of trouble with a balanced setting forth of the blessing of marriage and its need even in distressful times.
Excerpts from the sermon:
“For what God has joined together, let no man put asunder, and that includes our relatives. We as in-law people have to be very careful we don`t just side on our own blood....And I tell you that it is a distressful time when perverted sex, perverted relatives, domineering mother-in-laws, father-in-laws, granddaddy-in-laws, and mama-in-laws—it`s a distress. You have to let a married couple—you need to take your hands off of your daughter, mama. You hear that? You need to take your hands off of your daughter, mama. You need to take your hands off of your son, papa. When two people get married, they are under a new head. They are neither under an old head or old bonnet. And I pity the woman, I pity the man, who keeps dabbling. I tell you it will be a miracle if the judgment of God doesn`t give you a headache when you get old, because there is not only sodomy in the extreme, but there are people right near by that bring distress to marriage.”
“Paul is not giving a full presentation of everything there is about marriage. He is only talking about the present distress in Corinth, and in the very first verse it said, ‘Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.’ They were writing him saying, ‘Should we adopt this as our motto in this church, that no man should ever touch a woman?’ Now that`s an idiomatic expression in the Greek. You do not court and you do not marry. You don`t touch. You don`t court them, and you don`t marry them. And that is what they were asking him. Things were so bad that they themselves believed that. Should we tell all our unmarried people, don`t even hold hands? Well, Paul took that and quickly said, ‘Let every man have his own wife. Let every woman have her own husband.’ He did not want them to go that way. He first says, every man ought to have a wife, and every wife ought to have a husband. That is what he first said.”
“Some women preach too much to their husbands, and they are wrong two ways. They`re wrong in that they can`t usurp authority, not even spiritual authority on a man, and they`re nagging him.”
“He talks about hair—I know some of it he condemns—but I`m glad he talked about hair. A woman needs to think about her hair for a man who is a sinner. You know you can win people. You can win a husband. I have met a few people when I was a child that was so holy that they almost wore flower sacks to show they were humble, and they wore a greased face and stringy hair—‘I`m holy.’ I`m telling you that I would not delight in living with a woman like that. I wouldn`t delight in it, and Heaven would be sending a lot of grace. Why a Christian lady ought to outdo the world`s fashion (I know I`m in trouble on that one). They ought to outdo adorning.”
“My father (only in the presence of my mother), if a woman was having a hard time with a sinner, my father would actually say (not without my mother now: did you hear that?)—he would say, I would first ask you to go buy a new hat. She would look at my mother, my father, ‘What, what is this? I thought he was going to be a holy man—going to talk about spiritual.’ Well, get a hat. I never knew whether there was something to the new hat or to hide the old hair. We have no basis for getting rid of a mate we`ve lived with, had children by. We only have one reason, only one exception clause, and I tell you that you enter that very prayerfully.”
