Covenant Marriage

 I received a phone call from a friend we first met in east Texas 25 years ago. Her and her husband have been dear to us ever since. We had four sons and they had three daughters. We fellowshipped together often, and our children played together. We don't talk frequently but the bond is still there. It has been 18 years since we moved from east Texas. 

Her call was shocking. The news she shared was even more shocking. She reported that some mutual friends' marriage was ending in divorce. The wife said she had had enough, walked out, and filed for divorce. This after 26 years. The wife gave no reasons other than she had enough. The husband is devastated, broken, repentant, and willing to do anything to save the marriage. The wife is resolved, hardened, and resistant to biblical counsel. 

This is a story Brenda and I have heard way to many times. Our hearts have broken over multiple couples ending lengthy marriages. Usually there is another woman, or another man involved. In the age of social media, it is easier for the boundary lines to be crossed and for people to form emotional attachments to people other their spouses. There are predators out there ready and willing to pounce on disillusioned and disgruntled married people looking for love in all the wrong places. 

Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman, I do not recognize homosexual marriages, and God. God instituted the institution of marriage. It was His idea. He created them male and female. He said they would be joined together and the two should become one. All of it was founded by God. 

Marriage has been defiled. Preachers no longer talk about covenant marriage. Destination weddings without biblical counsel and explanation end in no fault divorces. People go to court to get divorces. A judge may decide to have the marriage ended. What about the covenant? Jesus gave adultery as justification for divorce. Not for irreconcilable differences. In the eyes of God covenants are not so easily broken as in the courts. 

I have offended many people over the years. I will not perform a wedding ceremony without counseling with the people up front. This included my own sister. Her and her husband would not counsel with me, and I refused to perform their wedding, much to the chagrin of many in my family. Turns out the guy was physically abusive to my sister, a drunk, and unfaithful to her. The marriage did not last long. 

Covenant means something to God. It is a contract, a promise, a commitment. Couples stand before the preacher or justice of the peace and recite vows such as, "until death do us part." That means something. It is more than just words. It is more than staring at a pretty face and being caught up in lust. It is covenant. I keep going back to that. 

Covenant means staying in the marriage when the youthful romantic flames have dimmed. Covenant means staying committed when youthful beauty fades into old age health problems. Covenant means exclusivity in the bedroom. Covenant means one man with one man to death parts. Covenant means one sinful spouse learning to forgive the other sinful spouse over decades of heated disagreements, irritability, sharp short cutting remarks, and taking one another for granted. Covenant means working at love. It means staying committed when body shapes change, hair falls out and greys, and youthful vigor and passion fade like the setting sun. Covenant means something. It is playing for keeps. It means staying joined together. Even in the case of adultery, there is the testimony of spouses forgiving one another and being restored. 

I recently talked to a man who had been married for 66 years. His wife recently died. She had Alzheimer's. He dutifully stayed by her side. Even when she had to be put in a care facility. He went up every day to feed her, wash her clothes, and sit with her. His only break came on Sunday mornings when he went to worship. I sat across the room from him the day after she died. 66 years. He could not hold back the tears. This man understands the meaning of covenant. 

So many marriages do not make it. The first question I ask young couples in premarital counseling is why they want to get married. Before they answer I say, "You cannot say because we love each other. All couples say that in the beginning and yet half still end in divorce." Many will say things like they are my best friend, my soul mate, they make me happy, and they make me better. I have actually had people not be able to respond to that question. They had no answer. It was awkward silence. I explain the whole idea of covenant. There have been times when I talked people out of getting married.

I will make an honest confession about my own marriage. When I stood down front at the First Baptist Church of Hurst, TX and Brenda walked through the back doors of the sanctuary in her white wedding dress, I was stunned by her beauty. Then another thought hit me. A very sobering thought as she strolled down the aisle toward me. I knew in that moment the seriousness of the occasion. We were not just dating anymore. There would be no easy breakups. This was for keeps. The weight of all that hit me like a ton of bricks. We were making a covenant with one another before God, our family and friends until death parted us. That was 32 years ago. I am more madly in love with that woman today than I was back then. With God's help I pray I always will be until death parts us. May the marriage covenant not be broken.