Planning the Wedding
- First, understand that courtship and falling love is not to be found any place in Scripture as a basis for marriage. It will not be love that will hold the marriage together: it will be the marriage that will put love into the relationship as each commit themselves, one to the other. Unlike courtship, the marriage is quiet another thing. We have become big on weddings, but fall terribly short on marriages, and the Church has supported it by ministers becoming merchants for weddings, that never should have taken place at all. For a minister of the Gospel, to conduct a Church wedding, giving God’s blessing, to a man and a woman, that does not meet scriptural requirements, is abominable to the persons, to the Church they represent, to God, and the office they hold. God will hold them accountable. Also, for a minister of the Gospel to allow them selves to become pawns in the hands of a couple seeking to be united in marriage in the Church; and then allow them or their family to dictate the rules that will govern the wedding: place, time, words to be spoken, attire to be worn, and whether they will comply to accepting counseling prior to the wedding; is shameful at best and sinful at worst. So be warned, that when planning the wedding, select carefully the person that will perform it and make sure he has both God’s guidance, and your interests at heart. If not, he is a charlatan; and a pretender: shun him.
- Second, Planning the Wedding
- First: When planning the wedding, it should be done with an eye on the effect it will have on the marriage, not on the effect it may have on your friends.
- Ask yourselves, what can you: YOU, not your parents, afford for a wedding. To expect your parents to provide you with an outlandish and extravagant wedding at no cost to you is boorish and greedy. Look carefully at the party in the wedding that takes no thought as to who pays, as long as you both have it. It will tell you much about the person’s priorities: and their interests may not be yours. The wedding should be designed to glorify God, not the participants: so be careful that the party which has little concern who pays and how much may pose a danger to your future financial prospects, and the problems that lie ahead.
- The honeymoon for the most part is an extravagance that most young people cannot afford financially. Take serious thought as to your outlay on this and keep it simple. The ruin of many marriages is when the couple come home from the honeymoon to find they are head over heels in debt and no way out. Hide away, spend the honeymoon in an place unknown by your friends, even the family. The experience is to be with each other, not where you spend it.
- The Content of the Wedding:
- The wedding ceremony is to be a worship service: It is to be a service of adoration; to God first, and for each other second. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”[Psalm 127:1]. The foundation of this house of marriage that is being built must begin with the selection of a proper mate. This begins with your conduct in the courtship, and extends to the wedding and afterward. Lay well these foundations on the rock of moral purity and respect for each other, and the house will stand. If you build them on the fickle sand of; sensuality, and lust, and it will not withstand the onslaught of the storms life will bring, and they will surely come.
- In planning the wedding, if it is to be a Church wedding: Or, is to be conducted by a Minister of the Gospel, then he should be consulted first as to the content and conduct of it. It is very un-thoughtful to secure a secular wedding planner for a Christian service, without first seeking the counsel of the Minister. It is well to use one to assist, but they should always be under the guidance and control of the Minister. The Church and all that happens within it is his responsibility to you and to God. Of course the wedding planner, or person to assist the bride, should oversee the wedding once it is
Some Ministers have an ethical standard they will not violateplanned and agreed upon: However, that persons authority must never supercede that of the Minister. - Some Ministers have an ethical standard they will not violate, such as performing weddings for divorcees, unchristian couples, couples where one is lost and the other is a Christian, and couples living together out of wedlock. He should not be faulted for this; his authority is and always must be God’s Word. He would not expect you to violate your code of ethical standards, why should he violate his. If the couple cannot meet these requirements, and accept pre-marital counseling: then they need to move on to someone who will, not insist that because he is their Minister, he lower his standards to meet their expectations. If the marriage is to be sanctioned by the Church, and God’s blessings are to be sought; then do not bring the secular into it, keep it holy, or get it out of the Church.
- Some advice for a few, and some thoughts for others.
I know that some will say, but what about divorcees, and about Christians marrying the unsaved, and people who are living together in adultery at the time? For those living in adultery: for the true minister of the Gospel to put the seal of God’s approval on such a wedding, is an abomination to God, and to the office he holds. To join together two people who are living a lifestyle God has called “adultery”; is a disgrace to the ministry, God will hold him accountable. For a minister to do that: he is saying to the youth and unlearned in attendance, and those souls for whom he is accountable, “God was wrong children, adultery is OK as long as you end with the proper act. No wonder so many youth have no regard for ministers, or the Church, or God’s Word. If it can be so lowly regarded by the preacher, and for special occasions, then, to them it has no real meaning in the first place.
God said, man and woman are to become one flesh; and that means; “till death us do part”; No exceptions. Oh, He allows for separation when two cannot dwell together in Christian fellowship: when one is saved after they are married, and the unsaved party will not allow that person to be obedient to God, and Christ Jesus. But, God said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” [Exod. 20:14]. Jesus said that “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave [KOLLAO, Grk. Meaning to join fast together, to glue, cement..] to his wife; And they shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
...and shall marry another committeth adulteryWhat therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” [MARK 10:6-9]. Having become one, they can never again be two. Scripturally man cannot separate what God has joined. Only God can do that. Jesus said in Matthew 19:9 “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another committeth adultery, And whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.” Now the word fornication must not be construed to be adultery. Fornication, in the Hebrew, that which Jesus was speaking, at the time He made this statement, is ZANAH; meaning, “Unlawful intercourse of an unwed person”. Adulturous wives were to be stoned to death, not given again in marriage. Women, or wives to whom one was betrothed,[not yet having come together] upon finding that she could not prove her virginity, was said to be guilty of fornication. Then, if she could not prove her innocence, prior to consummation of the marriage [IE, intercourse], the husband to be could then be freed from her:[note: Mary, when she was found to be with child, Joseph was “minded to put her away privly.”] The only way a girl on such an occasion could then be proven innocent was to spend three months under the control of the priest to determine if she were fit or not. Mary went to the house of Elizabeth, her cousin. It was also the house Zacharias, the priest. After the three months, having proven her virginity to the priest, she was then free wed to Joseph: her virginity had been verified. So, then it behooves all persons, both Ministers, and individuals; that they be very careful about what constitutes fornication, what constitutes adultery. - The Wedding Day.
The wedding day is the most trying day in a woman’s life; and especially to a virgin woman. She will spend every waking moment under extreme pressure. It will culminate, not at the ceremony; but in the first hours in a room with a man for the first time. For the first time she will be in his passionate embrace in a moment from which she now has no escape as in the past. How shall she be expected to respond? What will her first sexual experience be like? Will he love her still? Will she make him happy? Will it be a bad experience and he will scorn her? What is she to do, she knows not, having had no experience.
Some advice to the husband; that just may save your marriage, her respect for you in her eyes, and your future. Remember, on this day she has been under intense pressure, all day. You, on the other hand, have merely been an observer, one of the audience, as it were a bystander. You can’t wait for the intercourse to begin. You are in a state of passionate desire, she, on the other hand is in a state of near terror. LISTEN, AND LISTEN WELL. If you love her more than just as a sex object, do not press her into having to succumb to your desires suddenly, or even that same night. She needs tenderness now, not a rape job. She needs patience, gentleness, time and understanding on your part. To demand, or expect her to be comfortable at being undressed before you, to be naked and exposed in the room or in bed, with a man for the first time, is a frightening experience. Do not complicate things by forcing yourself upon her to satisfy your desires.
Allow me to share a story. At the close of a graduation exercise for the last of three children: the wife, a mother in her late forties turned to her husband and said. “Tom, now the children are all grown and gone, you will not see me anymore. If you have any communication for me, contact me through my lawyer”. Shocked beyond belief, he asked, why? What have I done? She replied, “You raped me on our wedding night, when I was innocent, scared, and did not know what to do. I have never forgiven you for that, and it is to late now.” With that she walked away and a lifetime of being together was over: all because of a man who only had regard for his satisfaction, without considering her feelings. It could happen to you.
Forget sex that first night, you have a lifetime to take care of that. Enjoy each other in the intimacy of embracing, touching, and the fun of being together in this new experience. Man, let her lead and you follow. Do not be the aggressor, but the tender, loving, and considerate companion she needs at this time. When you have both rested, and she has overcome her fright and worst expectations; she will cherish that day and night the rest of her life with fond remembrance, not with bitter recollection. The next day you have all the time you need for her to become at ease with the touching, and exposure: Then in love she will submit willingly: and all her sexual fantasies will not have forever been ruined, or at least tainted with subdued anger at the remembrance of passion out of control.
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