Marriage Covenant by Prince Derek

Author:Prince, Derek [Prince, Derek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Whitaker House
Published: 2006-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Finding Your Mate

There are three choices of very great importance that usually face young people as they grow up: the choice of a Savior; the choice of a work in life (a career); and the choice of a partner in life (a wife or husband). If we have chosen Christ as our Savior, we should ask Him to guide us in the other two choices; and these other two choices are closely connected with each other because a husband and wife should be partners—workers together—in life. (See Genesis 2:18–25.)

Importance of Marriage

God attaches much greater importance to marriage than most Christians do today. Some of us from religious backgrounds have formed the idea that marriage is a sort of fortunate necessity because we are sexual beings and believe that we must be married before engaging in sexual relations. The majority of Christians really don’t have any grasp on how valuable marriage is in the sight of God.

Another problem is that younger Christians, partly because they’ve seen so little to impress them in the lives of older Christians who are married, have completely failed to see the tremendous sanctity and importance of marriage. I really don’t blame them. It’s a tragic fact that we have millions of young people growing up today who have never seen a happy marriage.

Given the rising divorce rates, it’s evident that couples do not take their wedding vows as seriously as they should. The marriage relationship, which should be the most stable, constant thing in a married person’s life, can now be dissolved almost as quickly as it was formed. We are not giving marriage its fair due. We have not recognized its value and importance.

One of the things that awakened me to the value of marriage was the wedding ceremony in which I married my second wife, Ruth. Brother Charles Simpson brought a short but extremely penetrating message as the officiator of the ceremony. He pointed out that human history began with a marriage between Adam and Eve.

As I meditated on what Charles said, it began to grow in my heart and produce a new understanding. I realized that the revelation of Scripture begins with a marriage in Genesis. Jesus performed His first miracle at a marriage. The great climax of human history that God has foreordained is, once again, a marriage—the marriage supper of the Lamb.

I was interested recently to discover that rabbis, in commenting on the Old Testament book Song of Solomon, considered it, in some sense, the holiest book in the Bible. Yet, frankly, it’s a picture of a very passionate love relationship between a man and a woman.

I remember also a quotation from The Marechale by James Strahan. In the book, he quoted one of William Booth’s (the man who pioneered the Salvation Army) daughters as saying, “Christ loves us passionately, and He wants to be loved passionately.” I don’t believe we can ever speak of New Testament Christianity in any form without passion. This passion is supposed to be reflected in our marriage relationships.

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