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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Phil Mills: Preparation for a Happy Marriage

Phil Mills

God’s Purpose in Marriage

God’s Ideal in Courtship

The Essentials of Happiness

Key Questions Before Marriage

Courtship Question and Answer Session

In our first study at noon yesterday, we looked at God's purpose in marriage, which is to strengthen us to resist temptation to evil and to reproduce godly families all over the earth.

Now this is done by biological children and by our evangelistic children.

You remember Paul called those that he had brought in his children in the Lord.

God wants us as husbands and wives, and even in dating, He wants us to be able to do what we couldn't do by ourselves.

In our study last night, we looked at 2 broad topics.

The first is how God guides and what it means to follow Christ.

If anyone, Jesus says, desires to follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

We deny ourselves the pleasure of sin and take up the pain of duty.

Let me share a quote that may help us understand this better.

The reason many in this age of the world make no greater advancement in the divine life is because, you wanna read it with me?

They interpret the will of God to be just what they will to do.

They think that what they want to do is clearly what God wants them to do.

Sometimes if I would tell my children when they were young that they shouldn't do something, they would say, oh, mother doesn't care.

Or if mother told them to do something, guess what they'd say?

When in fact, they had never bothered to ask either daddy or mother because they wanted it to do it so evident you know certainly I wouldn't care or they wanted to do it certainly mother wouldn't care.

Now notice the next sentence, while following their own desires they flatter themselves that they are conforming to God's will.

You see in the choice of a life's partner, even in how we conduct our dating practices, there are many, many people who think that if they want that person, it must be God's will for them.

These have no, what does it say, conflicts with self.

There are others, so there are 2 groups, there are others who for a time are successful in the struggle against their selfish desires for pleasure and ease.

I remember friends of mine in medical school years ago and they were earnest Christians but today they don't attend church.

For a time they are successful in the struggle against their selfish desire for pleasure and ease.

They are sincere and earnest but grow weary of protracted effort, of daily death, of ceaseless toil.

Indolence seems inviting, death the self repulsive.

So they discover the gospel and grace doesn't take all this.

They close their drowsy eyes and fall under the power of temptation instead of resisting it.

You see the first group don't deny themselves even though they profess to be following Christ.

The second group don't take up the cross daily and continue to follow Jesus.

The last point last evening then was the broad topic of God's ideal in dating.

Before marriage, there were 3 requirements.

And then the second 1 was self-control had to be acquired.

And then the third 1 was there needed to be a period of sleep, deep sleep in the case of Adam.

And we remember that the Bible uses sleep to illustrate complete trust in God.

When we're able to support family, we have self-control.

Now we continue our study this morning because we'd like to look at predictors of success in marriage.

Dear Father, who of us is sufficient for the task we have?

Sharing Christ and his desire for us in our dating and in our courtship and in our marriage and in our singleness.

We wouldn't understand an angel And an angel wouldn't really understand us.

Jesus alone must speak to us this morning.

We ask that he come here through the power of his Holy Spirit, infilling us.

That His Word may live, breathe, come as a new revelation, newly bathed in power.

We thank you for hearing and answering this prayer in Christ's name.

In 2005, CNN reported the average cost of a wedding was nearly $30, 000.

That is more than 3 semesters of private college.

And if the price of gas continues to climb, that will be a tank for an SUV.

Before making that kind of investment, You ought to know how marriage is going to turn out because it turns out that hatred is even more expensive.

In 2004, John Crouch, divorce attorney, estimated that a contested divorce with a child custody battle costs $40, 000 or more.

Are there any reliable ways to predict whether this investment in marriage is going to turn out to be a good investment or a bad investment, a happy 1 or a miserable 1.

You don't have to go to the Witch of Endor, you don't need a crystal ball, you don't have to look at astrological tables or read your horoscope in the newspaper every day.

You don't need a palm reader because the Bible gives us 2 reliable ways to predict the future.

The first is found in Galatians 6 7 Whatsoever a man soweth That shall he also reap The God has made it possible for us to peer into our future.

We only need to recognize the seed we've sown to know the crop we're going to reap.

And if we have studied the life history of the seed, we can know how many steps before the crop is harvested.

If corn is planted in a field, the farmer knows with absolute certainty that only corn will grow from the seeds that he planted.

And depending on the variety and certain conditions, if it's a very short, fast variety, he knows that he'll have a crop of corn in 80 days.

If it's a long variety, He knows that he'll have a crop of corn up to 140 days.

And he can plan his life because he can predict that future.

Day by day, as he works with the soil, cultivating the seeds, putting on the fertilizer, killing the bugs, watering the roots, he can know what the results will be as he weeds as well.

And the knowledgeable farmer as he watches the season unfold with drought perhaps or flood perhaps or infestations of pests can know with certainty the effect these will have on the yield.

Or even if there will be a harvest at all.

But he can know for certain when he plants a corn seed that only corn will grow from that seed.

And if he wants to harvest apples, he must plant apple seeds.

He can decide what he wants to harvest and then plant what he wants to harvest.

It's never a guesswork, it's completely reliable.

And there's another glimpse of the future that's given in the Bible.

This is found in Ecclesiastes 1.9, the thing that hath been it is that which shall be.

Our past is the best predictor of our future.

This is the basic rationale that God gives for who is saved and who is lost and what assignments are given to the saved in heaven.

Luke 16 10, he that is faithful in that which is what?

And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

You see, God tells you what your future is and tells heaven what your future is, but you do too.

If you have not been faithful in that which is another man's, verse 12 of Luke 16, who shall give you that which is your own?

It is this biblical principle, sowing and reaping, and the past tells the future, that must form the basis of our decision making in courtship, in dating, and in marriage.

Without this you have no guidance whatsoever.

Choosing this person or that person is just throwing the dice.

How is it that Loma Linda University selects students for dentistry or for nursing or physical therapy?

Not your peaks of bad or your peaks of good, but what's the trend of the life.

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Series

Phil Mills: Preparation for a Happy Marriage

The Essentials of Happiness

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Relationships Week 2006

The Essentials of Happiness

45m

The Good Seed

28m

Can Christ’s Coming Be Hastened?

1h 6m

Purified and Preserved

1h

Christ and His Righteousness

49m

Hope in the Seed Grower

42m

Waters Family Weekend 2005

My Need of a Savior

38m

Plenary

Sabbath School

27m

A Seedless Field

52m

Life Lessons from a Seed

50m

Sound Doctrine