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Transcript 440A — Choosing a Partner
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: How can one be sure that the mate he has chosen is God's will for him?
HC: The question is raised concerning the one that we finally choose to marry. How can we know that this is of God? Well, God does not have a list in the Bible where He says, "Mary Jones is going to marry Tom Smith." That just isn't found in the Bible.
But God does lay down some basic rules as to how we are to marry. First of all, God dictates that it isn't necessarily God's will that we all marry. It is a very blessed thing to remain single. You read about this particularly in I Corinthians 7. Secondly, God does indicate that it is also a blessing of God to marry. There are certain blessings that come from marriage. There's nothing sinful or wrong about marriage.
More than that, the Bible indicates the kind of person we are to marry. And the big rule that is laid down, in II Corinthians 6:14, is don't be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. The one big question that we must face if we love God, if we want to be obedient to Him, is to make certain that the person we are dating is a born again believer. This is so important. And there are so many marriages that go haywire because this question has not been thoroughly investigated.
Two people, old people or young people, fall in love, there's an infatuation: "You make me feel so good. I'm so happy when you're in my presence," and so on, and so on. And they have so much fun together, doing this and doing that. They never really get to the real issues of life, the matter of personal relationships with Christ, carefully investigating each other's lives to make certain that they are safe in the arms of Jesus in each case.
And because they haven't made a thorough investigation, and because they blindly fall in love, and at least on the outside it looks like both are saved, they become married. And then after the honeymoon, one discovers that after all the other is not a child of God. He was coming to church just because this was a way of looking good in her eyes. He was coming to church because he had a friend who kept inviting him, or whatever. Now he doesn't have this pressure on him, so he doesn't go any longer. And she discovers that she's married to someone who is unsaved. That was a sinful marriage.
The fact that they got married indicates it's a marriage in God's sight. It is a marriage that is not to be separated except by death. But it began as a sinful marriage. A Christian married someone who was not saved.
You can absolutely know you're in the will of God in marrying someone if you know that he is a child of God. Now there are some practical considerations that the Bible doesn't even talk about. But certainly you want to marry someone whom you feel comfortable with. If you know someone who is a child of God, and therefore, because you also are a child of God, you theoretically could get married, and she wants to marry you. But you just find that you can't stand certain idiosyncrasies about her, and it just makes you very uncomfortable to be in her presence. Then there's no point in proceeding toward marriage, because these things are still going to exist in marriage.
Now if you should get married, then it is your business to love your wife, regardless of her idiosyncrasies or peculiarities, or your own peculiarities. You have to love one another. You have to make it your business to make that marriage work. True love has nothing to do with infatuation, this superficial idea, "You make me feel so good." That is not true love; True love is to be obedient to God, to make it my business to care for my wife and want the very best for her, and to guide her in the righteous paths of life.
True love on her part is to be obedient to God in being submissive and to be a mother to the children God might give us and to care for her husband in every way. This is the business of believers.
In a nutshell, God particularly emphasizes that we are to marry someone who is a child of God. If we do this, and we find we are attracted to each other, and mysteriously, it's very mysterious, really. As I walk down the street and I look at people, I see some people that have happy faces, some that look sad, some that look naive, some who have a very wise look about them, every individual looks different. And I've often thought as I walk down the street looking at all these faces, "Now that young man, there's a girl somewhere that was attracted to that young man and really wanted to marry him. Now why did she pick on him? What particularly did she see in him?" I don't know that young man from Adam, but I just raise the hypothetical question. Why did she pick on him? And why did he pick on her?
Well, that's the mystery of marriage. God brings two people together very mysteriously this way. But we want to make sure that the one we're attracted to is a child of God. Then we know that we're definitely in God's will. And that is the way a marriage ought to go.