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Transcript 349C — Staying Single and Artificial Insemination
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Hello. I have a question. Do you think there is anything wrong with artificial insemination for the single female? And the second question is, as far as a Christian single woman living the single life, if she has a desire to marry, do you think that God would keep her single? How does she know that indeed the single life is what God wants for her?
HC: All right. Let me see if we can look at these two questions which are interrelated.
Let's answer the second question first. What does a single person do, as they begin to grow a little older, and they begin to have a desire, a natural desire, to become married? How can they know what God's will is in this kind of a situation?
First of all, we read in the Bible that God, of course, has created us. He put all of these desires within us. He is the one who designed us. God knows all about us. God indicates in the Bible that there are certain blessings that come with marriage. And one of those blessings, and maybe one of the major blessings is the matter of procreation, the matter of bearing children. The husband and wife are blessed by this.
But the Bible also indicates that there is blessing in being single. Read particularly I Corinthians 7. You will find there that God indicates that there are certain definite blessings in remaining single.
Now how can I know what God's will is for my life? The first thing I know is that if I'm going to marry, I must marry someone who is a born again believer. God has laid down the rules in II Corinthians 6, that we are not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. So that immediately means that under no circumstance am I to look in the direction of unsaved people, in thinking about a future husband.
Secondly, I must realize that for me to be married it means that someone has to be interested in me, even as I am interested in them. Marriage is not unilateral. It's a matter of mutual desire for each other. Now there may be a young man who would love to marry me, but I wouldn't want to marry him, for whatever reason. That's perfectly normal. That's my prerogative. Just because he wants to marry me, I don't have to marry him. There may be a whole host of reasons why I don't believe that he is the one that I would want to live the rest of my life with.
On the other hand, there may be somebody that I would like to marry, but he doesn't want to marry me. And so then we know that the mutual relationship that is required for marriage has not occurred as yet. So we continue then to be available. That is, to move in circles. We don't want to go into a room and shut the door and hide away from society. No one's going to know about us there. We're going to move in circles where there may be those whom we can meet out of which we may find a marriage partner. And if no one shows up, wonderful, wonderful. We know that at least to this point in time it is not God's provision that I marry somebody.
If, on the other hand, someone does become interested in me, and I in him, and if he is a born again believer, and he's convinced that I am a born again believer, we date together, we find mutual compatibility in many things, then we know that we have God's blessing upon a marriage. Then we know that it is God who is bringing us together.
CALLER: Until that time period then, there's nothing wrong with praying for a marriage partner, if indeed it's God's will?
HC: We must, in this kind of an instance, of course, pray, "Father, if it is Thy will." We never want our desires in any sense to be superimposed upon the will of God. Now God has a perfect will. God knows exactly what is best for us. We express our desires to Him, but we realize that our desires are tainted by our own sinful thoughts, and so on, realizing that we cannot be perfect in our desires. We therefore entrust this matter altogether to God, by saying, "But Father, Thy will be done."
Now I believe that every marriage, even the marriage of unsaved people, even marriages that are wrong marriages, ultimately were known by God. And God worked out His plan for the human race through our sins, or in spite of our sins, or whatever. I say this because the Bible teaches that those who are saved are chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world.
You referred in your question to artificial insemination. That is contrary to the Word of God, I would feel, for a single woman to desire artificial insemination. Effectively, you're trying to engage in a marriage prerogative without marriage. You're trying to circumvent what God has established, that a man and a woman are to come together in marriage.
Now just because two people are married, it doesn't mean that God is going to give them children. There are many parents who don't bear children. On the other hand, there are some that God may give quite a number of children to. But as I started to say, those who are to be born again were chosen by God from before the foundations of the earth. Now that's a mind-boggling idea. I think of myself, for example. I am what I am because I had a certain father and a certain mother. And there were only these two people, out of the whole human race, who could have produced what I am. In other words, every human being is unique, aren't we?
And they in turn could only be precisely what they were because they had a certain father and mother. And you can go all the way back to Adam this way, can't you? So that means that if God knew me from before the foundations of the earth, as He knew every born again believer, He knew exactly who our parents were going to be, He knew exactly who our grandparents were, and our great grandparents, and so on, because otherwise I couldn't be me. I would be somebody else.
So this is a great comfort, you see. This emphasizes that in these matters, of marriage and of the bearing of children, we are to rest altogether in the Lord. It's His program. We are just to be available. We are to seek His will. But we are not to insist on our will in any sense. We're simply to be available, knowing that whether we're single or whether we're married, we can have a joyful life serving the Lord.
CALLER: You really tied that in nicely. OK, fine. Thank you.