Courtship

Father, we thank Thee for the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of the wonder of that day when we will see Him face to face. We thank Thee for the work that He accomplished at the cross.

We thank Thee, too, for His work still at Thy right hand, sustaining us, keeping us, and preserving us, and guiding us. We thank Thee, too, for the indwelling Spirit who is able to teach us from the scriptures that He inspired. And we thank Thee for this land where we can open Thy word.

We know that times are changing, and there is a rebellion against Christian matters, and so we would pray for the President and for those in Congress and Senate. And we think of the different governors of the different states and local officials and pray Thy blessing upon them. And we pray that we may be able, still always, to have liberty.

Now we thank Thee again for Thy word and for so many ways in which it unfolds to us a life that we can live, and with principles that operate perfectly in the measure that we follow through with them. And so we would pray that Thou would bless our time together and teach us from Thy word, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we're going to read in Galatians for a moment, in chapter 5. There is a box at the back that if any have questions, they are free to put them in.

We had talked about using tomorrow night for questions that you might have, and I will seek to answer them from scripture. And if you don't, I have lots of other material that I certainly will bring with me. The other thing I thought about is if you felt like you didn't have time or haven't done it and would still like to, you could email to me.

I have an email address that I don't care much for, because it's at me.com. That's the tail end of it, but it's easy to remember. It's jimbeadeyatme.com. So if you have a question you could put it there, and I would say to you that I will not disclose where the question comes from. When people ask me questions, no one finds out who asks the question, and I'm very confidential about that, and our children were the same.

We had people come to the house, and in a small town everybody knows who's moving around town. Even when I'm sitting at my study, I can tell a strange car going by out of my peripheral vision, because I'm so used to cars going by. We told the children when someone comes to this house and somebody says, we saw a strange car at your house today, your answer is, yeah, you saw a strange car at our house today.

That's what you say back, and if they ask questions, you just say, daddy says, and as they were older, my dad says, we don't tell who comes to visit us. So you can be sure that no one will know if it's a question that seems sensitive to you. I think you can trust me to keep it confidential and respect your privacy.

Let's read in Galatians chapter 5. I just want to read down at verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, against such there is no law. Now here we have nine-fold aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. When I was a young Christian, they divided them into three threes, and I don't really remember what they said.

Three were Godward, three were selfward, and three were to others around us. The reason I never remember is because it never made sense to me. What does make sense is that love is the foundation.

If you have love, you will have joy. And when a person has joy, they're at peace. And when they're at peace, when people do things that are not, let's say, irritating, they will have long-suffering.

And when then they will treat them with gentleness, and they will seek their blessings so there will be goodness. And faith is the idea of faithfulness. They will not be fickle and say, well, I've had enough of that person, and take off.

And meekness, meekness is restraint in the face of provocation, and so there's a restraint. And then temperance is the idea that they have a level way of dealing with their life. Do you know they talk about a tempered steel? Back way long time ago, they had spring steels in cars.

I can still picture the layers of them, and maybe they still do. I don't know. I never look underneath the car unless I drop my keys.

So, but that was the idea that it was made so that it would spring back. People sometimes say he has a temper. Everybody has temper, but some have bad temper, and then we talk about them being bent out of shape.

That's like as their temper isn't very good, and then we have good temper that you can spring back. And all these are part of the fruit of the Spirit, and I believe one builds on the other. The reason I'm raising that is because I just want to continue for a couple of minutes on parenting from last night.

There were one or two other things I did want to mention, and when it comes to the foundation of the home, whether it's with a husband, wife, or with children, love has to be the foundation, or none of these other things will happen. There are times, there are some days when children certainly will try your patience, and maybe some of you say every day, well that could be true too, but that's where love comes in. If you're seeking their best and looking beyond what makes you irritated to seeing their needs, that will help out of love.

And that really becomes very practical. Let me give you an example of a very practical thing. When I always worked at home, of course, in the study after we were in the work, and one day one of the children came in, and George kind of peeked in a little bit later, and I'm sitting there like this.

I was reading a book, and out of the kindness of my heart, I closed the book, and I hold it like this, and I'm talking to the child. After the whichever one it was is gone, George came back into the study. She said, you know, you putting your finger in the book is telling them you're interrupting me, and when you're done, I'm going to get back at where I left off.

She said, get a bookmark, and put it in the book, and close the book, and set it off to the side, and roll back, and stick your feet up on the desk, and let them know I've got all the time in the world for you. So I've always done that since, even if a visitor comes to see me, I don't sit with my finger in a book. I put it away so that they know that I'm interested in them.

Joyce, again, was raised in a home where, if I can say it with respect, the parents tended not to pay much attention to her, and if I don't give her eye contact, it just really affects her. And she has encouraged me, when I'm talking to people, look at them. She's gone to conferences, and there are these butterflies at conferences.

I mean they're in human form, but they're butterflies, and they're talking to Joyce, and they're looking here, and they're listening to that conversation, and looking over there. She will last about one minute with that person, and she's gone, because that person is saying, really, if there's a better conversation nearby, I'm going to go for that. So, with children, give them your full attention.

Love them, and show them that you love them, that you're interested enough to listen to what they have to say, or pay attention to what they're doing. That's just why I went here, no other reason. Let me take you over to Colossians for a moment.

Colossians chapter 3. I just got this new Bible recently, and some of the pages haven't been opened, and I told somebody, I said, you know, I read through my Bible once a week, and yet I must have missed that page. Well, they thought I meant it, and I had to convince them that, no, I don't go through my Bible once a week. So, Colossians chapter 3, and verse 20.

Well, verse 19, I want to go back one more step. Verse 19, husbands love your wives, and be not bitter against them. It's interesting that husbands, and I speak of myself, we can tend to have expectations for our wives that are unrealistic, in the sense that there are things that they do well that we don't, but we expect them sometimes to do everything that they do well, plus do everything that we do well, and if they did that, all you would need is one person in the marriage.

That's why there are two, and I had to learn that Joyce is different from me, and I think I pointed that out in different ways, and there are other ways, but also it works the other way around, but whatever you do, you don't want to become bitter against one another. I don't know if it's scriptural to say marriage should be a lot of fun, but I think it should be, and I would honestly say, humbly, that Joyce and I laugh together a lot more than we ever did in our lives. We are enjoying one another's company more, but verse 20 is especially what I wanted to look at.

Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Now I take it that when Paul is writing here and in Ephesians, where he talks about children obeying parents, these are adult children, because I take it that he's writing to the assembly, and these are adult children in the assembly. In fact, I haven't checked the word here, but the word in Ephesians chapter six is not the word for little children, it is a word for children, which is in contrast to parents.

In some other languages, like Italian, I understand, maybe Spanish, I think they have an ending on a word that gives it that it's a little one. In the Greek, it's in the middle of the word. The word technon is a child.

Technion, an iota in the middle, is little child. And I'll have to check here, but Ephesians 6 clearly is an adult child, but just a child in contrast to the fact that they're not a parent. And so Paul is writing to these children who are adult children, but they're still in the home.

As I mentioned in Genesis chapter 1, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, because he sets up a new headship, and the man then does no longer obey the parents, but he always respects them. But verse 21, fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. Sometimes parents, especially fathers, can be so demanding that a child just feels like giving up and they're provoked.

I remember being in the library 30 miles away, the main library in our city, and there was this man sitting in the library trying to teach his child some studies of some kind, and I was tempted to go over to him. He was speaking with a foreign accent, sounded European to me, and I felt for the father because I think likely he came to this country, didn't, or to Canada, didn't have much, and he wanted to make sure his son would do well, and that's all understandable, but he was so loud in that quiet library, and he was pushing and pushing and pushing the child, and I'm looking at that boy and thinking he is totally frustrated as much as the father, and the father's provoking him. And we have to be careful that we don't make demands beyond what children are able to handle.

Let me distinguish some things and then we'll have to move on to the next topic. Maybe we'll take one or two more. There's a difference between immaturity, failure, and rebellion.

Rebellion needs some kind of discipline, but immaturity and failure don't. I always think of my father because he was such a gentle man. We came from Ireland to Canada.

I still remember we had two boxes with our stuff in it. They would have been maybe two and a half to three feet long at the most, about two feet deep and maybe two feet wide, and that's what we brought over, two of those. That was all our possessions we brought across.

So we were not well off, and my father also worked at a company that was always laying people off. It was the National Steel Car, and they would get an order for maybe 200 box cars for the railroad, and when they were done, you're out until the next order comes in. Well, we didn't have much for clothes or anything else, and my mother bought us a little jacket to wear in the spring when the weather's still cold, and we were out playing on a vacant lot across from our house, and the railroad tracks went by.

So we're playing baseball or soccer or something, and my brother got hot with a jacket on, and he took it off and he threw it across the railroad track, and the train came along and about a hundred wheels over a cloth jacket means that you've got part of the jacket inside and part of the jacket outside, and I still can picture it. He brought it home and he showed my mother, it's all shredded, and she was really upset because she couldn't afford another one. She said, I'll have to show your father when he comes home.

So my father came home and my mother's rushing to the door, look what Hugh did with his jacket. He said, was his arm inside it? And she says, no. He says, well thank God for that, and that was the end of the story.

Isn't that wonderful? Because he recognized that Hugh didn't put it over there and say, I'm going to show them. It was, you could call it immaturity, he wasn't thinking, or you could call it failure, but that's, that was the end of the story. I still remember that, and we have to learn to make those distinctions because that kind of peacefulness really makes for a happy home, and that's what we want.

We want homes that when our children are adults, maybe parents or grandparents, they will look back and tell the stories of the happiness that they had, and that's what I can do, and I tell our children those stories so that they have something that they can remember about the grand, my grand, my father, their grandfather. Happy times. Same with my grand, my grandmother, which would be their great-grandmother, especially my father's mother.

I can remember happy times. We had these little things that we spun with a whip. Sometimes the whip would get caught, and I can remember sending it flying across to the neighbor's window, which is not a great idea, and you know what my grandmother did? She hid it, but she didn't tell me, and I was so young, she said, you know, we have mice around here, and she says, I think the mouse took it.

She had a few days of peace, not wondering, worrying about the neighbor's windows, but it was just that quiet way of dealing with issues without any particular fuss. Let's talk about a couple of other things. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 6. We'll just do two more here, and we'll move on.

Verse 1 of Ephesians, six children will be your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. Now in verse 2 is where I'm focusing, honor thy father and my mother.

Now that doesn't mean that we believe that they do everything right, and sometimes for the benefit of our own children, I have spoken about my mother-in-law with Joyce there, and her permission, about some things that her mother did wrong, because it affected Joyce, and therefore it affected her relationship with the children. And I'd say, now grandma used to do this, this is why your mom's feeling the way she is. So it's not saying you can't ever criticize or say something wrong about them.

The balance is not to be, to always honor them even in the way we have to speak of failure. And so we always have to obey parents when we are in their home under their headship, but we don't have to do that for a lifetime, but we do have to honor them always. And with that in mind, let's look at 1st Timothy chapter 5. 1st Timothy chapter 5, and a reading at verse 4. Verse 3, honor widows that are widows indeed.

Now what it means by widows indeed, it means widows who have no other supporting family members, because it goes on to say in verse 4, but if any widow have children or nephews, and the idea is other relatives, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents for that is good and acceptable before God. Relatives of older believers, and especially the children of older believers, are responsible for their well-being before God here as they get older to make sure that they are looked after, even if that means total financial responsibility as much as possible. But it does, God is requiring that we do not leave older people destitute, that they are looked after with their needs.

Now a couple of other things that I see that I ought to say, one is that we live in a world where there are divorces, as well as accidents where a father or mother have died, and we should try as much as we can to help them. I think of single moms especially, and they have all this day-by-day full responsibility, financial, and with the children, and choices and decisions to make, that's a tough job. And so if older believers could relieve them from time to time, just say, hey can I come over tomorrow and you take a day and you go out all by yourself, have a day off, you need it, you look a little tired, or even before they get tired, give them the day off, and help out where you can, and that way a person is stronger to be able to look after themselves in their responsibilities as a single parent.

Also couples who have no families, that's an opportunity for them. Sometimes Christians wish they had children and the Lord hasn't given them any, well there's always lots around to share, so you can always help out in some way like that. So keep in mind that in the assembly every kind of family does need help and guidance and encouragement, and we need to keep our eyes open and see where we can relieve others and help all our families to be the very best families possible.

Now leaving that, we're going to go to the subject that I mentioned for Thursday night, and that is courtship, and we're going to start in Amos chapter 3. Amos chapter 3, just a very simple, straightforward question in verse 3 of Amos 3, can two walk together except they be agreed? Now of course this is speaking originally that God and the nation of Israel, they were not getting along because they would not agree with bowing to his word, but the principle is broad, and the first thing when it comes to single people, and by the way carefully I say this, that includes some who've been married previously, that's not our subject and it's not going to be, but I'll tell you at least what I believe that in some cases remarriage is a possibility. What you feel about that and what the elders here feel about that, if you are an assembly here you have to work with them and their convictions. There's no use saying well Jim Beatty thinks this or that because they are responsible for what you do here, but I'm just letting you know that I'm including anybody who at this point doesn't have a partner.

The most important thing is that you agree on things. Now I had a unique situation, I smile when I say it, I went to school of medical technology and the first day I met a Christian brother from St. Vincent in the West Indies and we started having lunch together. About two weeks later Joyce came up to us, she said I understand you two men are Christians, would you mind if I eat lunch with you because I don't like what the girls are talking about and I just don't want to eat lunch with them.

We said fine. So the three of us started eating lunch together and we did that for the rest of the year. So we got to know convictions of one another, in fact it was through Conrad and myself that Joyce came into an assembly fellowship because she said well where do you go, you know that's the first question, well we go to the gospel hall, well what's that and little by little she saw the principle of gathering.

But we were very good friends, real good and we talked about everything, you know you think every lunch hour we were talking about the scriptures, talking about raising families and talking about this conviction and that conviction and I had some pretty, what I say, strong convictions at that time on some things and I can remember one day Joyce said to me, do you really believe that? I said yeah. She said well I pity the girl that married you. But we were such good friends she could say that and we laughed about it and so I had a unique privilege that we both got to know one another in that way and one day she was working at an experiment down in the lab and I went up to her and again you have to understand we're very good friends but that's all but real good friends.

I said you remind me of what my mother said years ago. She said what did she say? I said my mother used to say you've got a face only a mother could love and even then it would take her all our time and we both laughed about it and when she came into assembly fellowship one of the elders said you know often, not often, sometimes person brings someone along because they're interested in the relationship so they get them into the assembly. Well one of the elders said to me are you interested in that girl that's coming out now to the hall? I said no I'll never marry her because there was nothing except friendship but little by little we got to realize we had everything in common and just recently Joyce said to me you know she says I look over almost 48 years of marriage she said there isn't a single serious thing that we've ever disagreed on and that matters and I would say to anyone who's single first of all you want to agree that God's first.

In fact the day we started going together we were in the hospital walking together to go for coffee and we had come to the realization that we cared for one another and I said to Joyce I said I was hurt when I was younger and I will never hurt another person and break their heart because I said I remember when mine was broken. So I said if we go together the girl I go with is a girl I marry. She said that's it.

So I said that's the way it will be and she felt the same. I said but I've got one condition. She said what's that? I said God gets first place and you take second and she looked at me and she said I've got a condition too.

I said what's that? That God gets first place and you get second. I said good that's a good start and that's what we've tried to do and it's good to explore that and I'm still staying with this verse because it really underscores everything about relationships. Can two walk together except they be agreed and so when two people have any interest in one another they want to explore deeply as much as they can what does this person really believe? What are their convictions? Because the warm fuzzies are fine and they're good and I wouldn't want to be in a marriage where there's not warm fuzzies but when they begin to part ways on principles the warm fuzzies will disappear as quick as a wink.

You want to make sure that this person has the same convictions about everything that matters. There will be some differences of course. Joyce likes pink and I don't usually wear it.

I'm not talking about that but the big issues of life, the things that matter to God, those ought to be a unity between two people. Now how do you find that out and this is what I just want again to talk a little bit about. When it comes to getting acquainted with one another the best thing is in group settings not going off individually and that's the wonderful thing about assembly life and I think it's great when the brethren and sisters are arranged to have sings and times together where there's opportunity to talk to one another, get to see one another and how the person reacts and you're not really trying to get a feel for is this the person I want.

You don't go there with a list of ten things but what you have in mind there's something that attracts you to a certain kind of person and I believe the Lord can bring that to pass because what he does is he causes your personality to kind of blend or be attracted to that kind of personality as so that you can work together, enjoy one another together. So it should start in that kind of setting. Now let's go to Philippians chapter 2 for a moment.

Philippians chapter 2 so I want to make sure that I'm not not just giving you what I think I want to make sure that we are talking about what the scriptures really teach and so in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 4 it says look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others and one thing that a person should look for in someone else is a person who is not self-centered and that broadens out to a whole range of things. One thing that we told our daughters you will never marry a man who doesn't open the car door for you. Now our girls are strong enough they could open their own car door but respect and we expected the boys when they came to the house they opened the door for the ladies.

I was always taught that and maybe it's a bit of the British in me from being born in Ireland but and I don't know of all you brethren know this but when you go up the stairs of course you go up behind the lady but when you come down the stairs you go in front of the lady that's so if she falls over she lands on you and doesn't bounce all the way down the stairs and so I go down the stairs before my wife and my wife waits and lets me lead the way and when we go up I make sure I stand back just out of respect and courtesy. Well the boys didn't know this about the car door and they came bounding to the house to the both couples and they head into the house and they're talking to Joyce and me after a while they say where are the girls and I said well looking outside they're sitting in the car so why are they doing that I said well you better go out and find out they wouldn't get out until the boys came back and opened the doors and they got into that habit after that but it's just a matter of respect and that's I know some men don't and if by the way ladies if your husband doesn't don't be mad and don't say Jim Beach says you have to do it all I'm telling you is whatever you do there ought to be respect for one another and this is what it's saying let in fact back at verse 3 it says let each esteem other better than themselves at the end of the verse there ought to be a an esteeming of your partner and I can tell you that if a young man or a young woman doesn't show respect before you're married they'll not likely do it afterward so you look for that I did say this the other night and I'm saying it again because it's so important if you see anything that seems to be abusive in a person that you're interested in my feeling is that's the end of the story right then and there I wouldn't have said that years ago I would have thought oh well just the way he or she is and I say she because I can tell this story because it's so far away and both people are dead I helped a brother who was a lot older than me in a psychiatric ward of a hospital he asked to see me and I went there and his wife was so house proud and he wanted to come in the front door and she said come in the back door and stood there with a knife in her hand so that you go around the back and he was just breaking his heart he put his arms around me and was crying in the hospital because it was unbelievable what he had to live with so it can go both directions more often a man would be abusive and I'm not even talking about physical abuse only there's such a thing as constantly nagging at the other person so that they just are just like I mentioned with the children how they can be discouraged adults can be discouraged too they can think I will never please him I will never please her and they want everything done their way and there is no negotiation as we say it's my way or the highway attitude that some people have and so what you look for in someone who's going to be a life partner is someone who will put you first and put themselves second but that requires both to do that but you look carefully secondly I would suggest strongly very strongly although parents can be wrong at least try to get input from others about someone that you're interested in in fact I have no problem providing that some person that you can trust if the person you're interested in or think the Lord may be leading you to maybe is a better way to put it is in a distant assembly if you know people that you can trust talk to them and find out the kind of person this person is because some people are amazing at deception I was telling someone recently someone recently about a man that I had to deal with lately and I said he could sell a prosthesis to someone who's got four good limbs he could I guarantee and smooth but that's all it is it's an outer smoothness and it's sometimes sometimes people can be fooled I sat in a psychologist office with a person and the client had given permission for me to come and we sat in the office and the psychologist said to him do you know what you are you are a chameleon six months later I talked to the psychologist and the psychologist was convinced by everything this man said and when I used to talk to this man on the phone I never believed anything that I was believing because I got off the phone and I was totally convinced and I gave my mind 24 hours before I even thought again about the conversation because when I got off the phone I thought it was the one most wonderful person in the world that I was talking to and in 24 hours when I'd sifted through all the nonsense and came up with a true story I got the picture but it took that long I had to debrief myself before I could pay attention to what was had been talked about now I don't want to say that so much that scares people to the point they say oh boy whom can you trust I don't want to go that far all I'm saying is it is better to be careful and seek counsel now sometimes parents think there's nobody good enough for their children and if you have parents like that well then of course you may have to not pay so much attention but all I would say is we need to be listen to counsel I can quote a scripture for that it says in the multitude of counselors is safety so elders that you can that have discernment others that you know even some your own age who live around these people because some people you may never see a hot temper but others have seen it and that can be very grieving to live with and on other things some people are so enamored with things and they may put on the godly show that they want to live for God and then you get married and find out that they've got a whole different set of values and so there are quite a number of things that a person needs to consider one other couple of other things one is as time goes by in a relationship that is when it becomes a single couple because you've got past the stage where you're going out in groups it's a single couple once you're convinced before the Lord with prayer and exercise and proper insight that this is the Lord's will it's best to marry as soon as possible because as time goes by you naturally become closer and closer and physical contact will increase and it's okay that it does but we have seen couples where they had to be excommunicated from the assembly because they waited too long to get married and so I would say short courtships are likely the very best within reason and close physical contact should be limited let me say something else here that's really interesting and I had planned to say at some point but this would be a good spot. Genesis chapter 1 or maybe chapter 2, we'll have to have a look, well let's look at the one in chapter 4 because that's where it really is, verse 1, it says in verse 1 Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived in barricade and said I've gotten a man from the Lord.

When I took the Hebrew this last time the professor said that the word new there which is just a simple Hebrew word for new it's not a special word and it's not an unusual word you'll find it in any Hebrew lexicon but he said it was the kind of what would you say quiet way careful way that the Hebrew writers talked about sexual relationship. I don't believe that's so. I would say this that as two people come closer and closer they have more freedom to disclose about themselves for example the first time you talk to somebody you're not going to tell them how much you make in a year even something like finances I mean even between Christians there are some people and I know what they make in a year because we're really good friends and they feel free to tell me that but you don't go around telling that to everybody so the more you know any person the more you disclose.

When it comes to the point where two people are willing to be linked physically it's because there is no more any holding back there's kind of what you would call and I'm trying to be careful how I say it full disclosure that is the meaning behind it like I say it's a simple Hebrew word but behind it is there's nothing anymore that I need to hold back from you that is what is wrong with prostitution because they don't know the individual and all it is is physical gratification that's what we call prostitution because there's nothing more than paying somebody so you can do something so the idea of knowing well the thing is when two people hardly know one another and they get closer and closer and closer there's a normal traveling of closeness and if people wait too long before they're married there is that desire which is God given but the timing is wrong and so again I just emphasize that the best thing is not to have unnecessarily long courtship. I remember Joyce and I went to a conference and an older brother whose son had got into difficulty he was sitting across from us at the dining room table and one of the problems was my mother had just recently lost my father in death and then my older brother got married and I was the only man at home and she wanted me to stay around and I understand that and so this brother we held off a little bit longer than I would do if I did do it over again but he said to me he said do you love this young lady I said yes I do he said then marry her and his idea was don't hold off too long and if I had to do it over again we were married in 1966 I would marry in 1965 and make sure my mother was cared for but not feel that I had to stay in the home because it did put pressure on both of us that was not comfortable so keep that in mind short courtships are best for your own moral well-being and also if it seems clear that it's the will of God then that would be the way to go let me take you to in one more passage in Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5 it's so well known but I want to read it with you trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths now usually we stop there but verse 7 is so vital to that little section it says be not wise in thine own eyes fear the Lord and depart from evil so when it comes to partnership and I think of it some people I mentioned this earlier in the meetings are happy single and that may be for them and that's fine and I've said don't be teasing single people saying we're waiting for you to get somebody have you been looking at the conferences that's a very bad thing because you're putting pressure on someone to maybe even take a step that they ought not to take but if a person's exercised and would like to be married the Lord can direct our paths and he can make it clear as to who that person is one sister told me that she lived in Rhode Island south of Massachusetts she was the only lady in the assembly young lady but she was an exercise sister and she said if God wants me to have someone he can bring that person here well there was a brother and he was transferred to I think the Navy that's down there in Newport Rhode Island and he came to the assembly God brought a man right there and she married him so God can do that one other caution I would say is this and I'll have to stop here if people progress to the point even to the point that it's within days of a wedding and all the plans are made and everything in place invitations out and people coming and the person realizes it's a mistake don't go ahead I know of a couple and they were the ones that told me this about their daughter their daughter was interested in a young man they had always reservations so much so that two weeks before the wedding when all the invitations were already out and plans were made in the place was booked and all that was all done the mother said okay it's going to go ahead I'll go and buy a dress mother's usually like to have lots of time to be even more beautiful than they've ever been but she waited and finally she went out and bought a dress within a couple of days the daughter said I can't go through with this and the mother said fine well but everything's planned we're done and that was the end of it canceled the wedding paid the fees whatever they had to called everybody and said the weddings off and I've seen that young lady since many years later I'm guessing 30 years now and she married someone who's been just a wonderful man for her because she knew she was making a mistake so right up to the point as far as I'm concerned if I I've taken about 45 50 weddings if I was standing with a couple in front of me and one of them said I can't go through with it I don't know just what words I would use but I'd let the audience know it's canceled that would not bother me because it is a lifetime union that's what God intends sometimes that doesn't happen but I want to tell you I can remember trembling a little bit thinking I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with this lady and that's not a short-term commitment I thank God for people I've seen as an example in Saginaw Michigan I was there for a Lord's Day and there was this couple standing just they call it Google eyes looking at one another holding hands you say well does that seem proper well they've been married 70 years so I I'm gonna find fault with that they got a letter from the president and I think she was a girl of about 17 and they lived into their 90s and I think they hit 75 years happily married no children and they even stayed in their own home for a long time and they were both so old that cutting the grass was a big deal so what they did he pushed the lawnmower around once and sat down on the porch steps she got up and took the second round and then she took he took the third round and she took the fourth round and they got the grass cut teaming up together that's a wonderful thing and all I can say is if you wait upon God's will and God gives you someone who loves you and cares for you either way why a woman or man and you work together you will never regret waiting on the will of the Lord let's pray father we thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ we thank you for the day coming when he himself will take his bride and we will live forever with him in happy union what a day that will be now we just pray that as we consider these practical things from thy word that thou will bless them to us and that we will not only help not only will we take this advice to ourselves where we need it but help others and their path in relationship with others so that we may bless them and preserve them and help them to have a wholesome life now we commend ourselves to thee as we part in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen