'Solving' Physcial Purity

In short, much of what I read in your arguments seems to be based on a need for physical purity. While that is important, and marriage is definitely a safeguard against it, marriage doesn't solve it.

You have the issue backwards. The question isn't 'how so I solve the problem of physical purity' but 'what does God command?' What does God command in the area of, as you put it, physical purity?

I Cor 7 1-2 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

I Cor 7:3-5 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

I Cor 7:8-9 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

Prov 5:1-20 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

Those are God's words, by the way, not mine.

Marriage for reasons other than purity

Please address, as well, my thoughts about you possibly assuming marriage is a safeguard against sexual rebellion and not much else. What is the point of marriage, then, in your mind, Biblically, other than sexual purity, if my summary assumptions are correct?

Wow. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is hard when I write in so many different areas and so many different ways, to keep track of how 'balanced' my message is in any one thread.

There are dozens of reasons for marriage. All of these are better when the spouses involved are young. Let's examine the various reasons:

1) And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;. And this was said, in paradise, in Eden, before there was any question of fornication.

2)Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Obviously the later we marry our children the less they can do this.

3) Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Why would we want our sons to wait for this favor? Or our daughters from providing it?

4) A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife...One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; ...(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Marriage and family are the training ground for eldership (and deacons). At what point do we want to start that training?

5) And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. God desires marriage in the youth in order to seek a Godly seed.

6)But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; 12Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. 13And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. 14I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. 15For some are already turned aside after Satan. God commands younger women to marry, bear children, and guide the house... that they may give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Paul says unmarried women had already turned aside after Satan.

7) they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. The older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands. Which implies they have husbands

8) Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel. The one who fears the LORD and walks in his ways will have a fruitful wife, and see his children's children.

9) Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Children are an heritage of the lord, the fruit of the womb is his reward.

10) Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. Sexual satisfaction, in and of itself, is seen, in Scripture, as a good thing.

You say that you waited seven years to get married 'to be sure it wasn't a crush'. Which of the reasons above, or what other Biblical reason, was served by that seven year wait? Do you have more children as a result? Is your husband better prepared to be an elder because of his seven year wait for you? Was he more satisfied, sexually, because of his wait?

Scripture says that our lack of marriages, lack of Godly families, lack of submissive wives and Godly, leading husbands, cause the Word of God to be blasphemed, women to turn aside to Satan. I believe that you, your husband, and the world would have been massively blessed if you had married (at least) seven year earlier, had seven more years of sexually pleasing your husband, having and loving your children, guiding the house, producing a Godly seed...

So no, it is not just an issue of sexual purity. Sexual purity is the area that is massively under attack right now, so I spend a lot of time in those trenches.

On Being Desperate

I heard a message on Sunday in which an imaginary father, on meeting a young man who stated his readiness to marry his daughter, castigated the young man, in a speech which was of equal part funny and tragic, for being 'desperate'.

We laughed, as, I assume, we were meant to. But, all kidding aside, desperation is a good thing.

The word 'desperate' has a bad name, I'll grant you. It has a kind of physical background. One thinks of the drowning victim as being 'desperate' to get air, or the parent as searching 'desperately' for their lost child.

This makes it seem odd, for us, growing up as we did, to think of a young man searching 'desperately' for a wife. We see him as running around, gasping for air, 'desperately' talking to father after father, hoping against hope that one of them will give him a wife. Funny, eh?

But, wait a minute. Why are we laughing? Air is a good thing, a necessary thing. Sure, one could make a comedy sketch about it, but a real drowning should not be, must not be, funny.

Is marriage an equally good thing? Is the young man without a wife actually missing a vital part of his life? Surely, as Christians, we know the actual answer to that. Did not God, Himself, say, "It is not good for man to be alone."?

Surely it is the young man who is not desperately searching for a wife that we should be... not laughing at, but accusing of failing to seek for his own good with appropriate emotion. "He who finds a wife has found a good thing", no? "And obtains favor from the Lord". The man who is blessed by the Lord will have a wife, like a fruitful vine, and children, like olive plants, surrounding their table. So let's stop laughing at that 'desperate' young man and, instead, start chiding his church, and his father, and the father's of the young women, who are not 'letting him marry'.