A Holy Wedding
August 20, 2014
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143,
fbns@wayoflife.org

zz_wedding_rings_082014
We live in a day when many professing Bible-believing Christians follow the world rather than God’s Word. They profess to know and love Christ and they attend church (when it is convenient), but they live according to the dictates of society. They love the world’s fashions, cool attitude, music, movies, and video games. The worldliness is reflected on social media such as Facebook pages. And the worldliness is reflected in weddings.

Following are some simple biblical truths about weddings that are widely ignored today.

1. A believer’s wedding should be a holy occasion.

“Marriage
is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).

A marriage is called holy matrimony because it is a divine ordinance. It was established by God at the dawn of man’s history. His plan is for one man and one woman to make a lifelong covenant together. When Jesus taught on marriage, He pointed back to the beginning:

“And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made
them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4-6).

We live in a brash society that thinks life is for self and that the individual has the right to determine his or her own way. But this is rebellion. No one has the right to change God’s laws, and every individual will ultimately be judged by God’s laws and God’s thinking.

The holiness of the wedding occasion should be reflected in the place. I know professing Christians who have been married at Las Vegas wedding chapels. That is far from a holy place. It doesn’t show respect for God and His holy laws. A believer in Jesus Christ should be married in a church in the midst of a holy congregation of saints.
The holiness of the occasion should be reflected in the dress. The bride should be properly adorned. The Bible speaks of the “bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). She should not be adorned like a harlot (Prov. 7:10). She should be adorned, rather, in modest attire fitting to such a holy occasion (1 Tim. 2:9). The traditional white wedding gown signifies holiness and moral purity, which reminds us that it is God’s will for the bride to save herself for her wedding day. And the bride’s dress should be holy not only in color but also in style. Revealing (e.g., low-cut, short, sleeveless), skin tight dresses are not modest and turn the attention of the witnesses to sensual thoughts rather than to the glory of God. A wedding dress can be both beautiful and feminine and modest. God made the woman to be the glory of the man. He made feminine beauty, and her beauty can be displayed without being immodest and sexually enticing.

And what is true for the bride’s dress is also true for all other participants in the wedding. They should be adorned modestly.

God’s people are pilgrims. They are citizens of a holy country, and they should reflect the values of their Home and of their Father and not the values of this present foolish world that is in rebellion to their God and Saviour.

The holiness of the occasion of the wedding should also be reflected in the music. The believer marches to a different sound. We have a new song (Psa. 40:3). The world’s sensual pop music is not our music. The contemporary songs of the one-world church is not our music. Churches that change their music standards for a wedding do not honor the holy God.

The holiness of the occasion should also be reflected in the fellowship and entertainment. A believer’s wedding is not a sensual rock party. It is a time of joy, but it is joy in the midst of sobriety and godliness.

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:18-19).

2. A believer’s wedding should be a public occasion.

Marriage is a covenant before God and man. It is a public thing. The wedding is not only for the bride and groom. It is a public testimony before God and man. Except under unusual circumstances, family and friends and brethren in the Lord should not be shut out. That is both unscriptural and selfish. The believer’s life is not just about him or her. It is to be lived in community with others.

3. A believer’s wedding should be an occasion for the preaching of God’s Word.

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (Joh 17:17).

The only wise foundation for a marriage is God’s Word, and God’s Word should be at the heart and soul of any believer’s wedding. The vows should be Scriptural vows. The Word of God should be preached, and it should be a message fitting to the occasion. It should contain instruction and challenge to the bride and groom, and it should contain brief exhortation to the witnesses.



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