Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
Marriage is honorable because God Himself established it as a gift to humanity, a sacred ordinance guarded by His command, and one of the two institutions that Adam carried with him beyond Eden after the Fall. God has a high, noble, lofty design in this institution that must be discerned. When its divine principles are recognized and obeyed, marriage blesses people, guards the purity and happiness of the race, meets social needs, and elevates physical, intellectual, and moral life.
Marriage is holy and honorable in the sight of a pure and holy God only when it is after the exalted scriptural principle. That requires pure, sanctified, heavenly affection worthy of followers of Jesus, exalted in its nature and more heavenly than earthly, with an eye single to the glory of God. No word should be spoken and no action performed that one would not be willing for holy angels to look upon and register in the books above. Courtship founded on erroneous ideas concerning marriage, following impulse and blind passion in a spirit of flirtation, violating the rules of modesty and reserve, guilty of indiscretion, living an unreal life of high romantic visions of bliss, seeking only to please each other, becomes unfaithful and unfitted for duty. Anything different from that pure heavenly affection is debasing and degrading and leaves the purest affections of the heart and the noblest traits of character undeveloped.
The marriage relationship and its intimacy, including the marriage chamber and the marriage bed, are to remain pure, holy, and honored. When Christ reigns in the home the chamber is hallowed, the spouses are joined in unselfish love, degrading sensuality is banished, and their thoughts and devotion are directed toward God. Flirting and sexual misconduct violate that holiness and dishonor God and cannot be excused as thoughtlessness or harmless behavior. Marriage entered without seeking God's guidance, with human desire and passion ruling, is not sanctified and can bring great misery.
Marriage and its vows and covenant do not make lustful or excessive sexual indulgence sinless or pure. Indulgence that degrades husband and wife and the body, damages health, sacrifices life to corrupt passion, harms religion, and stains heart and life defiles the marriage bed and is defiling sin that God will bring to judgment. Marriage is honorable only when married life is controlled and kept from excess, so governing the passions is a religious duty. Even men and women professing godliness who give loose rein to lust are held accountable by God for the expenditure of vital energy, which weakens the hold on life and enervates the entire system, while lack of this knowledge and self-control leaves minds and lives open for Satan to take advantage and control them. Respect for marriage as thus guarded leads people to consider carefully the consequences of the privileges it grants and to treat children as precious trusts, disciplining and shaping their characters so they can bless others and be prepared for eternal life in God's presence.
Marriage is honorable because God Himself established it as a gift to humanity, a sacred ordinance guarded by His command, and one of the two institutions that Adam carried with him beyond Eden after the Fall. God has a high, noble, lofty design in this institution that must be discerned. When its divine principles are recognized and obeyed, marriage blesses people, guards the purity and happiness of the race, meets social needs, and elevates physical, intellectual, and moral life.
Marriage is holy and honorable in the sight of a pure and holy God only when it is after the exalted scriptural principle. That requires pure, sanctified, heavenly affection worthy of followers of Jesus, exalted in its nature and more heavenly than earthly, with an eye single to the glory of God. No word should be spoken and no action performed that one would not be willing for holy angels to look upon and register in the books above. Courtship founded on erroneous ideas concerning marriage, following impulse and blind passion in a spirit of flirtation, violating the rules of modesty and reserve, guilty of indiscretion, living an unreal life of high romantic visions of bliss, seeking only to please each other, becomes unfaithful and unfitted for duty. Anything different from that pure heavenly affection is debasing and degrading and leaves the purest affections of the heart and the noblest traits of character undeveloped.
The marriage relationship and its intimacy, including the marriage chamber and the marriage bed, are to remain pure, holy, and honored. When Christ reigns in the home the chamber is hallowed, the spouses are joined in unselfish love, degrading sensuality is banished, and their thoughts and devotion are directed toward God. Flirting and sexual misconduct violate that holiness and dishonor God and cannot be excused as thoughtlessness or harmless behavior. Marriage entered without seeking God's guidance, with human desire and passion ruling, is not sanctified and can bring great misery.
Marriage and its vows and covenant do not make lustful or excessive sexual indulgence sinless or pure. Indulgence that degrades husband and wife and the body, damages health, sacrifices life to corrupt passion, harms religion, and stains heart and life defiles the marriage bed and is defiling sin that God will bring to judgment. Marriage is honorable only when married life is controlled and kept from excess, so governing the passions is a religious duty. Even men and women professing godliness who give loose rein to lust are held accountable by God for the expenditure of vital energy, which weakens the hold on life and enervates the entire system, while lack of this knowledge and self-control leaves minds and lives open for Satan to take advantage and control them. Respect for marriage as thus guarded leads people to consider carefully the consequences of the privileges it grants and to treat children as precious trusts, disciplining and shaping their characters so they can bless others and be prepared for eternal life in God's presence.