DUNCAN/Honor marriage

Please turn to Hebrews 13:4. In this passage, the author of Hebrews is saying to these Christians and to you and me, "I want you to have a view of how to live life that is derived not from your culture, not from the society, not from the prevailing cultural mores and norms, but what is drawn right out of Scripture. I want you to get your values, priorities, ethics, and morals not from the world but from the Word." That is hugely helpful in our materialistic, secularized, and relativistic culture. In verse 4, the author says, "let marriage be held in honor among all." Then, in verse 5, he says, "Keep your life free from love of money." Thus, the author is saying, "Be out of sync with the world. Be in sync with the Word." The world values money. Christians value marriage. As we look at how we should live the Christian life and view Christian marriage, there is one specific exhortation from the author of Hebrews that we are going to zero in on in verse 4. Specifically, there are three important parts to this verse. First, the author of Hebrews says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all." Then, he says, "Let the marriage bed be undefiled." Finally, he says, "for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."

I. Honor Marriage.

First, the author of Hebrews tells us to honor marriage. We live in a world that does not honor marriage. For the foreseeable future, we are going to live in a world that does not honor marriage. And God is saying to us, "I do not want you to get your attitude or your practice of marriage from the world or from the culture. I want you to get it from the Word." David Wells once said, "Worldliness makes sin look normal and righteousness look odd." However, it is our job as Christians to reject worldliness and to understand that it is righteousness that is normal and that it is sin that is not only odd but offensive to God. And that is the battle that we face in this issue of marriage. God invented marriage. In Genesis 2:24, Moses says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Jesus also reminded his hearers of this truth in Matthew 19:5. According to the Bible, marriage is the permanent union of one man and one woman. That is what it always has been. That is what it always will be. It cannot be redefined by society. So one of the ways that we honor marriage is by accepting what Scripture says about the union between one man and one woman. Another way that we honor marriage is with our words. We want to honor marriage in the way we speak about it. Wives should know that even when their husbands are not around that their husbands are speaking words of respect and esteem about them. And the husbands should know that about their wives as well. There ought to be a culture in which we magnify the meaning of marriage in which we show that even in our words we uphold its preciousness.

II. Honor Purity.

Secondly, the author of Hebrews tells us to honor the marriage bed. In other words, he is saying, "Do not get your ideas about purity from the culture around you. God has a different set of orders. Keep the marriage bed pure." How can we do that? There are two ways. You can do this before and apart from marriage. If you are single you can help honor the marriage bed by the way that you relate to your friends, especially to friends of the opposite sex, and especially to those friends who are married. Many people think that they married the wrong person. And they think, "If I had just married the right person it would be great." And while you are just comforting and encouraging them, the thought enters their mind, "You are so understanding. You understand my problems. I wish my husband understood my problems like you understand my problems. I wish my wife understood my problems like you understand my problems. Maybe you are the one." You can honor the marriage bed and keep it pure and undefiled by not allowing that fantasy to begin. You can also keep the marriage bed pure before marriage by being committed to purity yourself. In our culture, it is expected that immorality will happen before marriage and it is even condoned in some Christian settings. But you can honor the marriage bed before and apart from ever being married and you can honor the marriage bed in marriage by keeping it pure and undefiled.



III. Heed the Message.

Thirdly, the author of Hebrews tells us to heed God's warning. The author of Hebrews is not saying that adultery and fornication are unpardonable sins. In fact, the apostle Paul says, as he writes to the Corinthians, "Some of you were adulterers, but you were washed and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). There are men and women who have committed adultery and through grievous tears have come to repentance. And God, in His kindness, has restored their marriages. But none of them would counsel you to take this word of warning lightly. They can show the scars of their hearts to you. And so the author of Hebrews is saying heed God's warning. Specifically, he says, "God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous." That does not mean that there is no forgiveness for the repentant. What it means is there is certain and terrifying judgment for those who persist in that sin. And it means that there are consequences for all involved. So the author of Hebrews is telling us to heed the warning in Scripture.

The world is not going to help us honor marriage so we have to decide - are we going to be in sync with the world or are we going to be in sync with the Word? I was once told by a wife that she had been married to her husband for sixty-nine years. She never dated anybody but him. They fell in love in high school. And she said to me, "I'm still in love with him." In relation, a husband once stopped me and he said, "I have never dated anyone but my wife" and even when she had forgotten who he was, he loved her with tears. It is a great encouragement to us that there are those who say, "I do" and they "I do" until they die. As Christians, we want to cultivate a culture that honors marriage. May we glorify God and encourage others by honoring marriage, honoring purity, and heeding God's warning.