The second 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:
“We should not raise our children by remote control from dance floors or the work place through incompetent people. I really believe we have got to raise our own children.”
“There is also barrenness. A barren woman now longs for a child, and those that can have them will abort them, and there are those who choose barrenness by occupation and career, and they waited too long, and they hurt themselves. I know that a twenty-year old mother raising babies seems to be an indulgence upon the totally immature, but it’s not easy to have birth of babies at thirty-five to forty, and then raise them in your fifties. The Bible in the Pauline Epistles actually states that it’s good for young women to bear children when they’re young.”
“Paul is constantly in this chapter saying now, Marry but don’t marry. You may marry if you’re careful but don’t marry if you are not careful. And he begins to set up a series of things, and immediately he has to correct that. He says that we cannot avoid a fornicating, distressful period at Corinth by not getting married. We need to get married. That was his first word. And then he also encourages, do not refrain from being with one another in love. He immediately establishes marriage as a becoming attitude in the face of fornication, and he encourages the manifestation of personal love.”
“Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well. We finally got the secret of that in verse thirty-eight. It’s a father with a virgin daughter. I’ve heard people quote this thing very bad. It’s a father who has a daughter that is a virgin. I’ve heard just this year some of you, my daughter is getting up, growing now—I’ve got to think about this—who is she going to marry. This is before anybody else ever thinks about her marrying. This is a man with his virgin, and I believe that every man that has a daughter, for a while, never wants her to get married. I don’t want her to ever get married. I even have that feeling about my grandchildren. You going to have to really persuade this whole family for it to happen. I had a daughter, my wife and I. I didn’t want her to get married, and I believe we passed through that, and here is what he says now. But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin,—by saying I don’t want you to marry—but if she passes the flower of her age, and begins to get beyond a marriageable age, go ahead and let her get married. Let her marry.”
“By the way, potential mother-in-law, if your daughter ever falls in love with a day by day honest Christian, consider him as a candidate. He’s not bad if he is day by day living right. I know his hair points different and it’s red instead of your black, but let it go. It’s a trait.”
“I want all you young people tonight who are engaged or are contemplating—you don’t have to come with the boy—if you are contemplating in your heart about marriage: I want all you young people who are unmarried, who are contemplating—now we’re probably talking about high school, but you’re not going steady now—but you are truly contemplating marriage before the Lord. I wish you would come and kneel tonight and I wish all parents would come and kneel tonight.”
