325 Sermon Illustrations on Marriage

There is no greater blessing on earth than a good marriage. A young couple was visiting with an older couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. "Fifty years!" the young husband exclaimed, "That is a long time to be married to one person." The old gentleman looked over at his wife with love in his eyes and said, "It would have been a lot longer without her." In Christian marriage, two people grow more and more one with every passing year. They are "fellow heirs of the grace of life" and they are more than happy to share. Each is helping the other on the way to eternity. Someone asked, "Is there anything more beautiful than a boy and girl clasping clean hands and pure hearts in the path of marriage?" The answer is "Yes, there is a more beautiful thing: it is the spectacle of an old man and an old woman finishing their journey on that path. Their hands are gnarled, but still clasped; their faces are seamed but still radiant; their hearts are tired and bowed down but still strong. They have proved the happiness of marriage and vindicated it from the jeers of cynics."

Amid the cares of married life, In spite of toil and business strife, If you value your sweet wife, Tell her so! There was a time you thought it bliss To get the favor of a kiss; A dozen now won't come amiss- Tell her so! Do not act as if she has passed her prime, As though to please her were a crime- If e'er you loved her, now is the time; Tell her so! Never let her heart grow cold; Richer beauties will unfold. She is worth her weight in gold; Tell her so!

Never consider divorce an option. It is not a solution to your problem. Divorce is not an acceptable alternative because God says it is not. Do not compare your mate or your marriage to others. There is not another person on earth like you. Your mate is also unique. This means that your marriage is unique. Let God make it what He wants it to be. He will make it perfect! Forgive your mate. You are to forgive as Christ has forgiven you. You are a sinner. He or she is a sinner. You are not perfect-so be willing to forgive one another. And do it right away before any bitterness can build up. Stop all criticism. Love does not criticize and find fault. Therefore, if you are critical of your mate, you do not have a heart of love. Stop all criticism. Instead, try a little praise. It works like magic! Start communicating with your mate. Communication is completely broken down in many homes and marriages. Start listening to what your mate is saying as well as to what he or she is not saying. Break down the barriers by being vulnerable. Try saying, "Honey, what is the biggest fault I have?" Then say, "Would you please help me, by the grace of God, to gain victory over that fault?" Refuse any relationship outside your marriage in which affection is sought or given. This substitute could even be a relative, a friend, or a neighbor. Do not seek to make someone else a substitute for what you are not getting in your marriage. You will never solve your problem doing this. Trust your mate. Trust your spouse, even if he or she is wrong -you are right in trusting. A marriage must be based on trust. It cannot survive without it. Do something every day to please your mate-something that you know will bring your partner joy and happiness. This is not asking much-to do one thing-but it pays big dividends. Thank God every day for the 25 best qualities in your mate. Write them down. Concentrate on them and the positive will soon outshine the negative.

Although one in every two married couples ends up divorced, certain categories of marriages have a much higher success rate. A national survey revealed that when two criteria are present-the couple attends church, and they pray together at home-there was only one divorce in one thousand marriages!

Dr. Joseph Henry said that during the Second World War, two physics graduate students heard their professor say that someday a method would be devised for polishing glass that would replace steel as the flattest surface known to man. When this was done, he said, a revolution in technology would take place. After graduation, these two young physicists formed a partnership and set out to prove their professor's theory. They established a laboratory and went to work. Several years later, after a very complicated process, they had a great breakthrough. They produced such a flat surface that it could be used to measure objects within two-millionths of an inch-a great improvement over anything previously developed. When Dr. Henry visited their plant, one of the owners said to him, "See these two squares of glass? They have been put through this new process, and I want to show you something." Then he simply placed the two pieces together, handed them to Dr. Henry, and said, "Now take them apart." After he pulled, pushed, twisted, turned and exerted all of his strength, Dr. Henry still could not budge them. The young physicist explained, "Two surfaces are held together by a certain number of points of contact, but ordinarily there are so few they easily come apart. The points on these two pieces of glass, however, have been ground down until they are almost completely flat surfaces. They are held together by so many points of contact that it is almost impossible to get them apart." If you let God rub down the rough edges in you and your spouse, nothing will be able to tear you apart.

The wife of a pious man told him, one day, that, if he did not give over running after the missionaries, she would certainly leave him. Finding that he continued obstinate, she one day sent for him from the harvest-field, and informed him that she was about to go; and that, before she left the house, she wished some articles to be divided. "No, no!" said the husband. "You have been, upon the whole, a good wife to me. If you will leave me, though the thought greatly distresses me, you must take the whole with you: you well deserve it all." The same answer was given to a similar proposal respecting some other articles. At last the wife said, "So you wish me to leave you?"—"Far from that," said the husband. "I will do any thing but sin, to make you stay; but, if you will go, I wish you to go in comfort."—"Then," said she, "you have overcome me by your kindness: I will never leave you."

It means literally "the band of the house," the support of it, the person who keeps it together, as a band keeps together a sheaf of corn. There are many married men who are not husbands, because they are not the band of the house. Truly, in many cases, the wife is the husband; for oftentimes it is she, who, by her prudence and thrift and economy, keeps the house together. The married man who by his dissolute habits strips his house of all comfort is not a husband. In a legal sense, he is, but in no other: for he is not a house-band: instead of keeping them together, he scatters them among the pawnbrokers.

A man, asking how it happened that many beautiful ladies took up with but indifferent husbands after many fine offers, was thus answered by a young lady. A young friend of hers, during a walk, requested her to go into a canebrake, and there get him the handsomest reed: she must get it in once going through, without turning. She went, and, in coming out, brought him quite a mean reed. When he asked if that was the handsomest one she saw, "Oh, no!" replied she: "I saw many finer as I went along; but I kept on in hopes of a much better, until I had gotten nearly through; and then was obliged to select the best that was left."

Marriage is the best state for man in general; and every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state. Johnson.

Take the daughter of a good mother. — Fuller. — Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely. — William Penn. — If you wish to marry suitably, marry your equal. — Ovid. — Hasty marriage seldom proveth well. — Shakspeare. — The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages. — Swift.

Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, is reported to have sprung from the foam of the sea. When she appeared among the gods, all were charmed with her beauty, and each demanded her for his wife. Jupiter, the father of gods and men, gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for the thunderbolts he had forged for him. Thus the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the most ill-favored of the gods; an illustration of the usual fate of beauty.

Rev. Robert Newton, the Wesleyan pulpit orator, and his bride, began their married life by retiring twice each day to pray with and for each other. This practice they kept up, when opportunity served, to the end of life. When an old man, Mr. Newton remarked, "In the course of a short time, my wife and I shall celebrate the jubilee of our marriage; and I know not, that, during the fifty years of our union, an unkind look or an unkind word has ever passed between us."

Jars concealed are half reconciled; which if generally known, 'tis a double task to stop the breach at home, and men's mouths abroad. Fuller.

You have tied a knot with your tongue you cannot undo with your teeth. A man's best fortune or his worst is his wife. — English. — He that goes far to marry goes to be deceived or to deceive. The day you marry you kill or cure yourself. — Spanish. — Before you marry, have where to tarry. — Italian. — It is easier to build two hearths than always to have a fire on one. — German.

It is a solemn thing to be married; to have to preach to a congregation from your own loins; to have God put the hand of ordination on you in the birth of your children, and say to you, "Now art thou a priest unto those whom I have given thee." If ever the stream of life should flow like crystal water over shining stones, it should be the stream of daily life in the family. Beecher.

As the Lord commanded that an ox and an ass should not be yoked together, because the match is unequal; even so it is an unlawful thing for the faithful to marry with infidels, or to have any thing else to do with them. Caudray.

The Cherokee marriage-ceremony is very expressive. The man and woman join hands over running water, to indicate that their lives are thenceforth to flow on in one stream.

A man once asked a cadi whether a husband ought to obey his wife; and the cadi answered that he need not do so. Then the man continued, "My wife pressed me this morning to bring thee a pot of beef-suet. So I have done well in not obeying her." Then said the cadi, "Verily it is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife."

— Kelly

Guelph, Duke of Bavaria, was besieged in his castle, and compelled to capitulate to the Emperor Conrad III. His lady demanded for herself and the other ladies of the castle safe conduct to a place of safety, with whatever they could carry; which was granted. To the astonishment of all, these ladies of quality appeared, bearing their husbands on their backs. The emperor was so much pleased with the conjugal devotion of the wives, that he pardoned the husbands for their sakes.

The Rev. S. Kilpin, of Exeter, had witnessed the awful consequences produced in the church of Christ, and in families, from those who professed to be the disciples of Jesus, forming marriages contrary to the command,—"Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers,"—"only in the Lord," etc. As he never shunned to declare the whole counsel of God, this subject was presented to his congregation. The next day, a gentleman, whose name or residence he never knew, called to thank him for the discourse, adding, that his state of mind when he entered Exeter was most distressing, as he was on the very point of complying with a dreadful temptation, which would have embittered his future life. He had been a disciple of Christ, was anxious to consecrate his life to the per as well as usual—soon after, her speech faltered, her eyes closed, and before seven she was a breathless corpse, without any apparent cause.

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service of his adorable Master, and had sought a helpmate to strengthen his hands in serving God. A lady, whom he deemed pious, had accepted his addresses; but when every customary arrangement was made, she had dishonorably discarded him. His mind was so exceedingly wounded and disgusted, that he had determined to choose a wife who made no profession of religion, and had fixed on another object for his addresses, with every prospect of success, although he had not as yet mentioned his intention to her. He added, "But the providence of God led me, an entire stranger in this city, to your meeting-house. You may suppose, that your subject arrested my attention. You appeared to be acquainted with every feeling of my soul. I saw my danger, and perceived the temptation, and the certain ruin of my peace if the dreadful snare had not been broken. You, sir, under God, have been my deliverer. By the next Sabbath I should have been bound in honor to an enemy of that Jesus whom I adore; for although she is moral and externally correct, yet she knows the Savior only in name. I could not leave the city in peace until I had sought to make this communication." They unitedly addressed him who can deliver, and does deliver his people. Thus, while part of his congregation thought it an unfit subject for the pulpit, at least one person received it as a message from God, by whom it was no doubt sent.

The following significant account is condensed from a more detailed statement in one of the publications of the American Tract Society. Mr. R. A., of Maryland, with whom the writer was well acquainted, became hopefully pious at the age of twenty, and joined the church. His life for some time seemed consistent. At length he formed an attachment to a gay young lady, of great personal attractions, but an entire stranger to religion. She was by no means pleased with his religious views, but consented to the marriage in spite of them, thinking that in due time she would be able to cure him of his religious frenzy. She soon commenced the attempt. She urged him to go to places of diversion and amusement—told him that respectable persons would despise and laugh at him for having so much praying and reading in his house. “In fine,” said she, “I married you to be happy, but I utterly despair of happiness unless you give up your religion and be like other people.” He told her that he never found happiness in the way she proposed, and tried, like a Christian, to reason the case. Finding her efforts to change his mind unavailing, she refused to attend family devotion. He wept and prayed for her in secret. She continued to employ every stratagem her wicked imagination could invent. At length, wearied by her opposition, he gave up family prayer, and resolved that he would try to get to heaven alone. His wife pursued him to the closet, and at last succeeded in driving him to abandon every religious duty. And now that he forsook God, God forsook him; and the corruptions of his heart broke out into greater excesses than before. Some time after a powerful sermon roused his conscience, and he determined once more to enter upon the service of God; but he was still in an enemy’s hands, and less able to resist than at first. His wife redoubled her efforts, and gained her point the second time. Now, wholly quitting the company of God’s people, he sinned fearfully. In a few years he was laid on a bed of death. He was in awful anguish of mind—full of remorse and despair. He refused to be prayed with, insisting that his doom was already sealed. Just before his departure, after he had been rolling from side to side for some time, with horror depicted in every feature, he called to his wife to bring him a cup of cold water: "for," said he, "in one hour I shall be where I shall never get another drop." She brought him the water; he drank it with greediness, and reached back the cup with a trembling hand; then staring her in the face, his eyes flashing with terror, he cried out, "Rebecca, Rebecca, you are the cause of my eternal damnation." He turned over, and with an awful groan left the world.

God appointed one woman for one man. He who thinks one not enough will not be satisfied with two. When our love gets set on the things of the flesh we are on the downhill path, and cannot easily get untangled

Look at marriage as a divine plan for mutual compensation--each making up for the deficiencies of the other, somewhat as the two lenses of crown-glass and flint-glass combine in the achromatic lens. What one has the other has not, and so, by association, each gets the advantage of the other’s capacity, and finds relief from conscious lack and incompetency.

— A. T. PIERSON

A writer in the New York _Commercial Advertiser_, describing certain curious marriage customs, says:

In some cases the ceremony takes the form of what is called bride-racing. The girl is given a certain start and the lover is expected to overtake her. An observer among the Calmucks assures us that no Calmuck girl is ever caught “unless she have a partiality for her pursuer.” _Per contra_, Mr. Kennan tells us of a bride-race among the Koriacks (northern Asia) which he witnest, where the girl went scampering, pursued by her lover, through a succession of compartments, called pologs, in a large tent. So nimble was the maid that she distanced her pursuer, but--she waited for him in the last polog! All of which goes to prove that the wise men of old knew what they were talking about when they said that the race is not always to the swift.

In the name of liberation and personal careers, too many young adults are living empty lives.

I know I'm on dangerous ground; my own children say I'm a victim of my consuming desire to be a grandparent. But I think American men and women are waiting too long to get married. Instead of waiting until all the graduate degrees are earned, the BMW is parked in front of the condo, the invitation to become a partner has arrived and foreign lands have been explored, young people should be going for the gold - ring, that is - at a younger age.

How can I suggest something so obviously retrogressive? How can I dismiss all the liberating changes of the last 25 years? The answer lies in what I see when I look at young people today: too often unhappy creatures who seem, in spite of all their liberty and all their achievements, to be desperately searching for meaning in their lives.

Having reached adulthood at the very last moment before the youth revolution of the 1960s, I have watched the erasure of old rules and their replacement by unsettling new ones. And I have tried to be open-minded about the results. Would life be better in this brave new world? Although these changes took place after I myself was already married, I watched as the effects washed over the younger siblings of my friends and then held my breath as my own children threaded their way through the forest of new mores. As parents, those of us in my peer group HAD to pay attention; we were completely unprepared for these challenges because society was operating by a totally new set of rules. We were confused and not a little frightened, but we struggled to help our children learn what they needed to know to be happy adults.

The changes weren't all for the worse. The political demonstrations of the '60s and '70s awakened our youth to the need to be involved in the shaping of local and national policy. Feminism opened doors for our daughters and helped our sons to re-evaluate some pretty firmly held notions about the roles of both men and women. And the sexual revolution - really the toughest one for us parents to deal with - did mean that fewer adolescents took on marriage when all they really wanted was sex.

Unfortunately, our young people didn't always know how to handle all this freedom. Like many new Russian émigrés, they often found it confusing and difficult to suddenly have control over their lives. When decisions concerning LIMITS arose, they had no guidelines to help them. In some cases feminism produced young women who - free to “have it all” - nearly killed themselves trying to do just that. Dramatically higher abortion and teenage pregnancy rates, as well as enormous increases in social diseases (and now AIDS) resulted from the inability to set limits on sexual freedom. And now we have a generation so committed to success in the marketplace, or to “fun,” that it puts off for years the commitment to marriage.

As parents, however, we can see that many of our children are not, in fact, happier. What is often missing in their lives, it seems, is a sense of values - and here we parents must share the responsibility. Acquiescing in their demands for a less rule-oriented society, we somehow neglected to hand down the fundamental values we had learned in an earlier time. Now they have plenty of freedom but too little meaning in their lives.

Well, then, how does one go about this business of finding meaning in life? The basic tenet is what it has been since civilization began: “think of others.” That means avoiding actions that could harm another (ponder the ramifications of THAT in your professional and private lives). It means thinking of your work as something that makes a contribution to society, not just as the way to pay the bills. It means doing things that make other people's lives better.

CHALLENGES OF LIFE: Marriage both illustrates and reinforces the importance of thinking of others. For as long as there has been human society, men and women have recognized their need to mate - to establish a lifelong bond that provides the essence of the support that each human being needs as he struggles to face the challenges of life. Throughout history, it has been this union - in which each partner is concerned with the good of the other - which above all other forces has made it possible for men and women to experience their greatest joy. It is this built-in support system that enables them to be the best that they can be. It is this sharing of life's best AND WORST times that exponentially increases our ability to find meaning in life. A sunset watched in solitude on a foreign shore only increases your loneliness; the same sight shared with a loved one is a special moment. When we think back on our sorrows and our joys, we realize that in both cases the first thing we do is reach out for the person we are closest to. As happy as we feel when the baby is born or the promotion arrives, our true joy comes from watching that person's face when we share the news. When our twins were born, my husband was in Vietnam. He didn't see them or hold them until they were seven months old. It wasn't easy to care for them and their three-year-old sister by myself during those long months. But the truth is that the most difficult part was not being able to share them with their father. Until his return, my experience of childbirth was never quite complete.

Those who fear the commitment of marriage, who avoid the trouble and the responsibility in the name of more time, more money or more pleasure, cheat only themselves. Those who wait until they reach all their other goals before presenting themselves to a deserving mate often find their success empty. How much better to struggle WITH someone to reach a common goal, to be able to say, “We did it together,” than to strive for one's own good.

Several caveats here: first, I am not speaking about teenagers or those just out of college. Second, I am aware that some people are single through no choice of their own - though I think that the mind-set of the times has something to do with that, too. But the rest of you should take heed. And now that we've got THAT settled, can we talk about grandchildren?

________

McFarlane teaches English at Bethesda-Chevy Chase (Md.) High School. Her husband is former national-security adviser Robert C. McFarlane.

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