(Lassen Pines, CA – July 9, 2005)
I would like to continue the subject we started yesterday regarding companionship. We have had what it is to be a companion of the Lord Jesus, and what it means to be a companion of Paul the apostle; we’ve also had the importance being a companion of all them that fear God and keep His precepts. Now I’d like to change gears a little bit and speak about companionship in marriage. I realize that I am not the most qualified person to speak on this subject; perhaps brothers older than myself would be better suited to it, but it does fit with the subject that we have had before us. Most of the things that I’m going to speak about here have been passed down to me from others (particularly from brother Gordon Hayhoe), and my exercise is to pass these guiding principles on to you.
Now, some of you here might be saying, “This doesn’t apply to me, because I’m not getting married.” You know there was a young man who once said that. He made a declaration that he wasn’t going to get married. He had devoted himself to the Lord and was going to keep himself free to wholly serve the Lord without distraction. He made quite a boast of it. Well, what happened was that he met a young sister that changed his mind! And that presented a problem, because he had been saying for quite awhile that he was not going to get married. So he went to a couple of his wise older brethren and asked them what they thought he should do. He said, “Everybody knows that I’ve said that I’d never get married; what should I do?” They thought about it for a moment, and then said, “Confess your boast to the Lord as a sin and go and marry the girl!” So if there are any young brothers here that are talking that way, don’t speak too fast; you don’t know what’s ahead in your life. I want to tell you that girls have a way of changing your mind—even after you’re married!
Most of you, I suspect, are looking for a mate, so I will address my remarks to such, though God may call some of you to be single, and that is a higher path yet, as Scripture states it (1 Cor. 7:37-3837Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. 38So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better. (1 Corinthians 7:37‑38)).