Why Is God Withholding Marriage from Me?
00:00:00.000 | Why does God withhold good things from us, his children?
00:00:09.000 | It's a perennial question, it's older than Psalm 73 and it comes in today from an anonymous
00:00:14.880 | woman who lives in Brooklyn.
00:00:16.920 | Pastor John, hello, I'm a 26-year-old Christian woman, been saved for 9 years and am single.
00:00:23.160 | I know the Bible says that no good thing does God withhold from those who walk uprightly,
00:00:28.080 | Psalm 84, 11, but I feel like God is withholding marriage from me.
00:00:32.700 | How do I fight for joy and keep my desire for marriage in proper perspective as I wait?
00:00:39.760 | Well, since I wrote a whole book on how to fight for joy, even by that title, let me
00:00:46.120 | focus on the second part of this question, which I really think is the main thing.
00:00:52.080 | How do I keep my desire for marriage as a single person who would like to be married?
00:00:57.960 | How do I keep my desire for marriage in proper perspective?
00:01:02.920 | Because that will then turn around and answer the other part.
00:01:05.960 | And here's my answer.
00:01:07.840 | Number one, the desire for marriage is in proper perspective when it is a desire for
00:01:15.360 | marriage for Christ's sake.
00:01:18.680 | Saint Augustine prayed, "He loves thee too little, O God, who loves anything together
00:01:23.960 | with thee which he loves not for thy sake."
00:01:26.960 | He knew from the Bible that it is not wrong to desire food or drink or clothes or friend
00:01:33.040 | or knowledge or health or safety or marriage.
00:01:36.400 | It's not wrong to desire that.
00:01:39.000 | And he wrestled with the question, "When do these legitimate desires become sin?"
00:01:43.080 | And his answer was, "When they're not for Christ's sake."
00:01:47.200 | And that may sound, I know the kind of person who would say, "That sounds ridiculously
00:01:52.320 | hyper-spiritual to me."
00:01:53.960 | Right.
00:01:54.960 | I want pizza for Christ's sake.
00:01:56.120 | I want a glass of water for Christ's sake.
00:01:58.440 | I want sex for Christ's sake.
00:02:00.400 | I want a friend for Christ's sake, blah, blah, blah.
00:02:03.720 | So, all you hyper-spiritual people.
00:02:08.040 | If you think Augustine sounds hyper-spiritual because you're supposed to do everything for
00:02:14.960 | God's sake, you're not criticizing me or Augustine.
00:02:18.920 | You're criticizing God and the Bible.
00:02:23.280 | Because it was the inspired apostle, not Augustine, who said, "Whatever you do in word or deed,
00:02:30.200 | do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus."
00:02:33.880 | Desire pizza in the name of the Lord Jesus.
00:02:37.200 | Desire a glass of water in the name of the Lord Jesus.
00:02:41.440 | Desire sex in the name of the Lord Jesus.
00:02:45.280 | Desire marriage in the name of the Lord Jesus.
00:02:48.200 | Or he says it this way in 1 Corinthians 10.31, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you
00:02:54.160 | do, do all to the glory of God."
00:02:57.920 | So my first answer is the desire for marriage is in proper perspective when it is a desire
00:03:04.720 | for marriage for Christ's sake.
00:03:08.200 | Number two, the desire for marriage is in proper perspective when it is a desire of
00:03:14.400 | faith, a desire carried and shaped and sustained by faith.
00:03:20.440 | The Bible says we're to walk by faith, 2 Corinthians 5.7.
00:03:24.840 | Live by faith, Galatians 2.20.
00:03:27.080 | Obey by faith, Hebrews 11.8.
00:03:30.320 | Which I take to include all the acts of the heart and the body, let it all be by faith,
00:03:36.960 | because not to is to sin, Romans 14.23.
00:03:40.280 | Whatever's not from faith is sin.
00:03:42.040 | So desiring marriage by faith would mean let the desire be embedded in the confidence that
00:03:50.800 | God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for you and will, according to this rock
00:03:57.640 | solid logic of Romans 8.32, will give you all things with him, all things that you need
00:04:06.720 | to glorify him and to do his will, which is implied in the context because you might get
00:04:11.360 | killed in doing it.
00:04:13.500 | And that's what I think Romans 8.28 means and Matthew 6.33 means and Psalm 84.11 means,
00:04:21.480 | the Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord bestows favor and honor.
00:04:27.280 | No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
00:04:31.920 | Faith lays hold on God's promises and believes them, which keeps all of our desires in proper
00:04:39.280 | perspective.
00:04:41.560 | Number three, the desire for marriage is in proper perspective when the sorrow of not
00:04:47.280 | having it does not sour into cynicism and bitterness.
00:04:52.480 | I think sorrow at the loss of innocent desires is not sin, not unless the sorrow overwhelms
00:04:59.780 | godly joy and sours into cynicism and bitterness and drags a single person to isolation and
00:05:08.020 | sin rather than friendship and service.
00:05:11.160 | Paul spoke of his many sorrows, Romans 9.2, 2 Corinthians 6.10.
00:05:17.440 | It's not wrong to sorrow, but it is wrong not to rejoice and not to live for others
00:05:26.520 | and to become absorbed in cynicism and bitterness and self-pity.
00:05:31.120 | Number four, the desire for marriage is in proper perspective when it does not diminish
00:05:38.180 | zeal to glorify God with the freedom of singleness.
00:05:42.540 | Paul was just as vulnerable to loneliness as anyone.
00:05:45.940 | He said in 1 Thessalonians 3.1, "When I could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left
00:05:52.540 | behind alone in Athens."
00:05:55.540 | And we sent Timothy.
00:05:56.540 | You can hear in that he hated to be alone.
00:05:59.300 | He loved partnership.
00:06:00.820 | He loved friendship.
00:06:01.820 | He loved people, needed people.
00:06:04.700 | But he wished everyone could have the freedom of singleness for ministry that he had.
00:06:09.780 | He knew that that wasn't God's will for everybody, but he does reveal the possibilities of singleness
00:06:16.860 | that he loved.
00:06:19.760 | Number five, I've got two more.
00:06:22.300 | The desire for marriage is in proper perspective when it is not intensified by unrealistic
00:06:31.980 | notions that marriage is the key to happiness.
00:06:36.700 | In other words, it's not wrong to dream about the kinds of happiness a person may have in
00:06:42.780 | marriage, but don't let your desire intensify because you idealize marriage as heaven on
00:06:50.500 | earth.
00:06:51.900 | Not only is marriage not heaven on earth, it's not even heaven in heaven because it
00:06:59.860 | won't be there.
00:07:01.100 | In the resurrection, they are neither marrying nor giving in marriage, Matthew 22, 30.
00:07:06.240 | So let your desire for marriage be tempered and kept in proper perspective by this.
00:07:13.420 | Marriage is a temporary covenant, just as full of sorrows as singleness is, and pointing
00:07:22.580 | to a heavenly covenant, that single and married we enjoy.
00:07:26.940 | And lastly, number six, the desire for marriage will be kept in proper perspective best when
00:07:34.380 | you're part of a loving Bible-preaching church.
00:07:39.260 | That is a family that will last forever.
00:07:42.100 | Amen.
00:07:43.100 | That's a great episode.
00:07:44.100 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:45.100 | And this episode is number 1303 in the archive, which means we've surpassed 1300 total episodes
00:07:50.980 | in the history of this little podcast.
00:07:53.100 | Incredible.
00:07:54.100 | We're now in our seventh year, and in all of those episodes we've produced, you can
00:07:58.060 | search all of those episodes by title, you can read full transcripts, you can send us
00:08:01.740 | a question, you can do all of that at our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:08:05.420 | Well, speaking of brides and marriage and waiting, does Jesus celebrate polygamy in
00:08:13.100 | the parable of the ten virgins?
00:08:15.220 | They all seem to be waiting for the groom and there's no mention of a bride.
00:08:19.320 | Are all ten the brides themselves?
00:08:21.500 | It's an interesting Bible question.
00:08:23.780 | Next up on Friday.
00:08:24.780 | We'll see you then.
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