The passage we're looking at tonight is 1 Corinthians 7, 25 to 40.
You'll see it starts off there now concerning virgins.
It starts off there now concerning virgins,
and therefore all the married people, all the people who have been married immediately switch off.
And then it goes on that he has no commandment from the Lord, so
we don't have to pay too much attention to it, so just about everybody else switches off.
And then he says, well, it's good because of the present distress.
Well, we're not really in a situation of distress, are we?
So if you'll turn with me to the final hymn, we'll get an early mark tonight.
This can often be our attitude to certain passages of scripture.
We come across things as soon as we start reading a passage of scripture
and we think, no application for me.
Well, God's word means something.
Our job is to find out what it means, but more particularly what it means to us and for us.
And I hope that we might just do that tonight.
That's by way of introduction.
I just want to remind you of a few things about the Corinthians for a start.
Consider the Corinthian situation.
We're now up to chapter 7.
We've learned quite a lot about the Corinthian Church up to this point in time.
In chapter 1 verse 10, we saw that they were dividing and having factions.
Now I plead with you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you.
In chapter 3 verses 1 to 2, we find out that these believers at Corinth,
many of them at least, thought they were super spiritual.
They thought they had it made.
They thought they were the absolute answer.
And Paul says, I could not speak to you as spiritual,
but as carnal, put them right in their place.
But they thought they were spiritual.
They thought they'd got the answer and chapter 12 brings that out too.
Chapter 4, we saw there in verse 6, the end of verse 6,
that he has to tell them that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other.
They're trying to score points off each other,
trying to decide who's got the better level of spirituality.
Chapter 5, we saw that they were very lax on church discipline.
They were tolerating the most horrendous of sins in their midst
and they were not taking any action against it and they were still puffed up with pride.
And in chapter 6, we saw that they were even taking their fellow believers to court,
the civil court outside the church situation
and causing trouble for fellow believers in that way.
This is a church with a lot of problems.
Sometimes when we look at our church, we might think a lot of problems,
but I don't think we've got quite as many as the church in Corinth at this point in time.
And I'm glad that we don't have, but nevertheless,
we've got to be careful and we've got to just watch
that we don't get into the same situations that the people at Corinth got into.
When you read this book of 1 Corinthians and possibly 2 Corinthians 2,
you have to read it bearing in mind what Paul is trying to do with these believers.
He's trying to get them back on track, back on a proper path.
And so what he often does, particularly now we get into the section
where he's actually answering questions that they've asked,
what he does is he sort of detects the reason why they've asked this question.
And one reason most likely is that they want to get Paul on their side
so that they can say to the other people in the church,
look, you see, Paul says so, I told you we were right.
So he starts off by agreeing with them and they think, oh, you beauty.
And then he says but, and then he says nevertheless,
then he says but again, and slowly but gently and firmly,
he squeezes all the pride and the boasting out of that position that they've got for themselves.
He just knocks it right out.
There is nothing left for them to hang on to when he's finished with them.
He doesn't just front up against it in general and say,
that's wrong, you've got to get rid of that.
He just slowly but surely nurtures them into this position
where they have to say, yeah, that's it, he's got it right.
So just consider the scene when this letter was first read in the church at Corinth.
If you got to chapter 7 verse 1, they didn't have it in chapters then of course.
Said now concerning the things of which you wrote me,
it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Now there was a group of people in the church at Corinth who said,
singleness is it, they are the special ones.
And they would hear that and they think, yeah, told you so.
Good for a man not to touch a woman.
But in the very next verse Paul says,
nevertheless, and then a couple of verses down he says but,
and there's but, but, but all the way through that chapter.
Knocks the argument right out of their minds.
And we should watch for that as we go through this book of Corinthians
because this approach of Paul occurs quite often.
And we have to be careful how we translate and understand this book of Corinthians
that we don't take things that Paul has said as being his exact position on it
because you take it out of context and then as we often told,
you've got a pretext and you certainly haven't got scripture.
So you've got to take what Paul says and then follow through his argument
and then you can put some reliance on it.
The section we're looking at and the whole book is addressed to brethren in verse 24 of chapter 7.
He says, brethren, that each one remain with God in the calling in which he was called.
He's talking to, he's addressing fellow believers,
Christians in the biblical sense of the word.
Just before we carry on,
I just like to look at the structure of the passage that we're looking at
because I found as I read this over and over again,
and I read it in all different versions, NIV, King James,
and New American Standard and things like that,
just to try and see if I was seeing it right.
And what you find as you read through it is that there's lots of repetition,
lots of parallels coming up
and you find that at the beginning there are certain things which also occur at the end
and then as you go through a bit further,
then that occurs towards the end as well and so on.
And so I concluded, rightly or wrongly,
the experts on these things may want to correct me afterwards,
but I concluded that what we have here as an example,
that's Paul's using, of a particular literary device,
which was very common in Greek
and the Old Testament in the Bible was absolutely full of it.
It's called a chiasmus if you want to get technical,
but what it is, it's a form of writing things
where the end and the beginning look very much the same
and then you come in towards the centre
and the real message is at the centre.
I liken it to an onion.
You know what an onion looks like, it's a fairly common object.
What's the real purpose of that onion?
Is it all those layers of the flesh around the outside which you eat?
No, it's not.
It's the little seed right inside,
the little shoot that starts growing right in the middle of it.
And so I proposed tonight to preach this message from this passage
as it were, as an onion.
I'm going to peel off the layers one by one
and try and get to that little central part,
the little shoot that's supposed to grow and give us a new plant,
the thing that the onion's all about.
And hopefully in that way we'll see what this passage is all about
and be able to learn from it.
So first of all, working from the outside in,
so we'll be starting off at verse 25 and verse 40
and coming backwards and forwards from them.
What we seem to have in these outside sections is what I've called status.
First of all, we have there Paul's status.
In verse 25 he says,
I give judgment as one whom the Lord in his mercy has made trustworthy.
Remember that one of the other problems with the church at Corinth
was they held the question of Paul's apostleship in doubt.
They suggested that perhaps he wasn't an apostle
and he defends himself several times through the book.
So he gives this as word.
It's not a commandment.
The word there used for commandment might have better be given as instruction or command.
It's not the same word as was used in Matthew chapter 19 regarding the commandments.
It's a different word altogether.
But it is an instruction, a sort of strong firm instruction.
And it is in God's word and therefore it's up for us to take notice of.
God in his wisdom gave us this book.
In the form it's in he inspired the writers,
he inspired the church fathers,
I'm sure, to collect this together and present this as his definitive infallible word.
And therefore it's for us to take notice of whether it's a commandment
or just an instruction from one of his chosen apostles.
We don't put apart any part of God's word.
We mustn't brush aside any part of God's word.
The major heresies all through time have been based upon people pushing aside parts of God's word.
Soon as you leave a part out, then the whole bit comes in question and you can't do that.
You take the whole thing as the word of God.
So Paul gives us this commandment as one who has in the Lord's mercy been made trustworthy
and trustworthy he is. You've only got to follow through the books of the writings of Paul
to see that he speaks the same message as the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's good enough for me. In verse 40 at the end there he says,
according to my judgment, the second part of verse 40,
according to my judgment and I think I also have the Spirit of God.
Remember this Corinthian believers thought they were super spiritual
and there's a gentle little bit of irony there with Paul saying,
chosen apostle of the Lord, tremendous conversion story in Acts.
And he says to them, I think I also have the Spirit of God.
He certainly has the Spirit of God. He tells you he has the Spirit of God.
If you look at chapter 2 and verse 4, he says,
and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
When Paul says, I think I have the Spirit of God.
He's just nudging them slightly. They know he's got the Spirit of God.
He knows he's got the Spirit of God.
And therefore this is an authoritative word. His advice is worth taking.
And he gives his advice based on this apostleship.
The other thing we notice in these outer sections of our onion are the status of believers,
or their status if you like. Verse 25a, now concerning virgins,
obviously they'd written to him asking about what he's called here virgins.
Now the word there translated virgins is a difficult one.
It's a word that can be in a masculine or a feminine sense
and the particular form that it occurs in that particular verse is in a plural form,
which is exactly the same in masculine and feminine cases.
So that doesn't really help us to find out what he's talking about,
who he's talking about. But in verse 26,
he does talk about someone remaining as he is,
although he does get back to specific cases of female virgins later on in chapter 7.
In Revelation 14, the same word is used in a strictly masculine sense,
with a masculine article with it.
And it does mean anyone who is unmarried in the sense of having never been married,
by which connotation we have, that they've never had sexual relationships of any sort.
His advice to such is to remain as they are,
presumably unmarried.
He gives a reason for his particular advice.
Remember that the scriptures have marriage as a very special gift of God
and we're told about that right back early in the scriptures,
right back in Genesis chapter 2. A blessed institution of God
and Paul would never willingly go against the scriptures.
And therefore we have to bear that in mind as we consider this,
that he is advising in, as it says in verse 26, the present distress.
And that's a hard one too. Lots of different opinions on what the present distress is.
Some people say that the actual word used there for distress is a word
that is particularly and most generally used in association with shortage of,
such as in a famine, shortage of food.
And although there is no evidence to prove it,
they suspected that the Corinth or that part of Greece was actually
just about to be subjected to a famine or that it was already started,
a drought of some sort perhaps. That's one way of looking at it.
But there's no historical evidence as far as I know to confirm that.
A second one is this book was written in about 56, 57 AD,
somewhere around that figure. Now just prior to this,
a certain gentleman had, well maybe that's the wrong term,
a certain person had become emperor of Rome.
His name was Nero. And Nero wasn't the natural born son of the previous emperor.
He got to be emperor because his mother had married the emperor
and she had persuaded the emperor to make Nero his effective firstborn heir,
instead of his own son by his first marriage.
As soon as Nero came to get the throne, he killed his half brother.
And it was pretty obvious from that sort of action where he was going.
And it's also very interesting reading the history that not much later,
he actually killed his mother too, who got him in that position.
He was not a savory character and it wouldn't be very hard,
I feel, without inspiration even, to see that persecutions
and distresses were likely to come from such an emperor,
from such a ruler. And Paul, with inspiration of course,
would be able to prophesy that perfectly well.
Another opinion would be that it would just relate to general purpose Christian persecution,
the sort of thing that you get every day and everywhere.
Remember in John chapter 16, John chapter 15 first of all,
Jesus said this in his final discourse, verse 18.
If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own.
Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you.
That's what we must expect as soon as we take upon ourselves
the name of Christ, call ourselves a Christian,
we've got to expect hatred from the world.
It's just their natural reaction, they can't do anything else.
And then in chapter 16, he points out to his disciples
that the people will even kill them
and think that they're doing God's service in killing them.
And at the end of chapter 16, he reminds them again,
in the world you will have tribulation.
Not you may have, not there's a chance of, you will have tribulation.
It's like a guarantee almost, because you bear the name of Christ,
you get the hatred that people have for Christ directed at you instead.
But do not fear, he's overcome the world and we're glad of that.
But that's another possibility.
Either way, he does recommend that to be in an unmarried state
would be often preferable.
But nevertheless, he does say that marriage is a lifelong bond.
He says there in verse 27, are you bound to a wife?
Do not seek to be loosed.
Verse 39, he says a wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives.
It is a lifelong bond.
But do bear in mind that it's not an eternal bond.
It's for life on earth, not eternal life, this bond lasts.
And Jesus had something to say about that
when he was provoked by the Sadducees in the case of the seven brothers.
He pointed out that in heaven there is no marriage and giving him marriage.
The point of saying that, are you bound to wife, do not seek to be loosed,
was to prevent the Corinthians from thinking that they could then divorce their wives
so that they would be in the unmarried state
which was preferable in circumstances of distress.
And then it says, are you loosed to a wife, do not seek a wife.
But even if you do marry, you have not sinned.
And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned.
So marriage is good.
He's quite happy with marriage.
In fact, in verse 38, he says, so then he who gives her in marriage does well.
He's even applauding it.
It's a good thing to do, to give someone in marriage.
Marriage is good.
It's a God-given institution.
It is not a sin.
But also he says, are you loosed to a wife, do not seek a wife.
And he recommends for a woman at the end of the chapter there in verse 39 and 40.
If her husband dies, she's at liberty to be married to whom she wishes but only in the Lord.
But in Paul's opinion, she might be happier to remain as she is unmarried now.
Singleness is good.
Marriage is good.
Singleness is good.
In some cases, singleness is to be preferred.
He does say in verse 28, nevertheless, such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you.
When you're married, you are more susceptible to certain troubles which unmarried people will not be susceptible to.
If you recall Paul's previous career before he became an apostle in the book of Acts in chapter 8.
Paul was then serving his pharisaical cause.
And it says there in chapter 8 verse 3, as for Saul, which was his name then,
he made havoc of the church entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.
And in chapter 9, it says, Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus,
so that if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Paul had seen firsthand what it was like to take a wife from a husband, to take a husband from a wife,
what it would do to that person.
One of the principle methods of the inquisitors in the inquisition,
when they tried to get believers to recant and return to the Catholic faith,
they would threaten the wife with death or the husband with death with the other one standing watching,
because they figured that that would be more likely to get a recantation
than if they took them away and killed them separately or killed them both together.
Much more pressure on a married person because of the feelings that you have towards the other person.
It's natural and it's very effective for inquisitors too and probably worked in very many cases.
So Paul knew what it would be like for married people to be in a situation of gross persecution,
of physical violence against the person.
He knew what that would be like and his warning was based on that.
But nevertheless, we've got to remember that both marriage and singleness are gifts from God.
Chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians verse 7.
But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.
So if you've got singleness, that's a gift from God.
If you're married, that's a gift from God.
Both need much grace.
It needs a lot of grace to be married.
It needs a lot of grace to be single.
Usually we're in one position or the other and we think the others have it easy.
We're married, we think the single people have it easy.
They're free agents.
They can just go off and please themselves and have a great time.
Then the married people think, well those, the unmarried people think, well those married people,
they've got someone to go home to every night.
They've got the comforts of a home with a wife and children and they think we've got it easy.
And so it is.
We always think the grass is green on the other side, don't we?
In our section from Matthew 19 that Philip read to us,
if you remember the beginning there, they were,
Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him, asking him about divorce and the disciples said to Jesus,
wow, that's hard being married.
If that's the case, they said, if that's the case, it's better not to marry.
That's too hard to be married.
And Jesus said, yeah, that's true.
Not all can accept it.
So then he spoke about singleness too, just after it, didn't he?
About what they called eunuchs, people who are not married.
And he said, he who is able to accept this, let him accept it.
That's not easy either.
But whatever you get from the Lord, you've got to accept as a gift from the Lord
and use it accordingly and use it in his service and for his glory.
Your status, whether married or unmarried, is not a question in general of right and wrong.
It's not important to God.
We had that reading this morning from Galatians chapter 3 verse 28,
when Paul speaking to the Galatians tells them that in Christ,
that they are neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, they're all one in Christ Jesus.
Before God, whether you're married or whether you're not married is not the main question.
It's not the principal thing.
And on that basis, your status, whether married or unmarried,
should not be the most important thing in your life,
if you consider yourself to be a Christian.
Marriage is important.
I'm not denying the importance of marriage.
But nevertheless, it mustn't be the most important thing in your life.
And so we have to be sure that whether we're married or whether we're single,
we've got the right focus on things.
Here's my second point.
I'm getting this from verses 29 to 31 and verses 36 to 38,
the second layer of the onion as it were.
I'm only doing it in three layers.
I'm not doing it in...
I actually wrote out the full section in the structure that I suggested it was
and there's actually about six or eight layers in it all together.
But to go through each one individually would take far too long.
And I didn't put a note in the bulletin to bring a packed lunch.
So we'd better get on with it.
But the second layer is a question of getting your focus right.
In the verses 29 to 31,
there is a pair of brackets around the section.
It starts off by saying,
but I say this brethren, the time is short.
And at the end of verse 31,
he says for the form of this world is passing away.
That's the brackets around that part of the message.
The time is short, the form of this world is passing away.
The things of the world are not forever.
They're all going to be done away with
and in any case, whenever one of us dies,
everything that we've ever owned or thought we owned stays behind.
We don't take it with us and it's of no relevance to us anymore.
In this section, Paul is not advocating hardness.
He's not saying we should deny our responsibilities
to the various things that he mentions there.
But he is saying don't be consumed with these things.
Don't let these things control your life.
These are things pertaining to the world, pertaining to this life.
And there's a much bigger life to be lived.
And that's what you've got to think about first and foremost.
He starts off talking about marriage and family
so that from now on even those who have wives
should be as though they had none.
He's not saying forget you've got a wife,
don't take any notice of her, pretend she doesn't even exist.
That's not what he's saying at all.
He's saying get your focus right.
Remember, you love your wife, think she's the greatest.
But nevertheless, your love for God has got to be more so.
We mustn't be consumed with family and with marriage.
And it is sad to see.
We see it all too often.
And it's a very great danger for Christian families particularly
because we love our families and our children so much.
It's a very great danger to let them take over,
to have them get too big a share of our lives.
And if they get too big a share of our lives
then the Lord's share of our lives,
the Lord's portion of our life starts to diminish
and then we're losing our focus.
And we've got to keep that right.
He says those who weep as though they did not weep.
He's not saying don't express grief
if you're in a situation where someone near to you has died.
But did you really expect to keep them forever?
If the Lord is gracious enough to give you a partner,
if the Lord is gracious enough to give you a child,
remember it is a gift from the Lord
and you make the best use of it you can while you've got it,
but don't expect to keep it forever.
Nothing in this earthly plane is designed to last forever
and therefore don't be over given to grief,
don't overgrieve as it were,
don't let grief consume you if it's a case of that.
Some people translate this word in relationship to poverty
and the struggle that some people have,
they talk about the weeping because they are poor
and they struggle from day to day with the basic daily needs.
Again, we mustn't be over concerned about daily needs.
Wasn't it the Lord Jesus himself said,
think about the sparrows and the lilies of the field.
Yeah, the sparrows have to work to get their food
but they don't worry about it.
They just go out there and look around
until they find something and then they eat it.
And so it is with us,
we mustn't be over concerned about what we're going to eat every day
whether there's three meals on the table or not.
And in his sermon on part of this passage,
Spurgeon gave a very lovely description of a widow,
a recent widow who found that when she got up in the morning,
there was absolutely no food in the house.
She got three young children to feed
and she didn't know what she was going to do.
So her first action
and it should be the first action of every one of us,
was to pray.
She went straight to her room and prayed.
Now she prayed, it came to her that
they used to own a shop before her husband died
and when the shop closed down,
some of the leftover goods had got stored away somewhere
and she thought, well, maybe they've got some value.
They were a bit grubby.
Before she had a chance to leave the house,
someone came knocking at the door and said,
did you own the shop in such and such street?
Oh yeah.
And I can't get the goods you used to sell anywhere else.
Have you got any left?
And she sold them for a good price
and there was the meal on the table for the next few days
and then back to prayer again to cover the needs after that.
That's the sort of action that we should look for
if we are in a poor situation,
if we struggle with poverty, struggle with meeting our daily needs
and whether we do or we don't,
prayer should be our first resort anyway.
Those who rejoice should be as though they did not rejoice.
Who are those who rejoice?
Well, the general consensus seems to be
that these are the people who have the opposite side of the coin
from poverty, the ones who have wealth and comfort.
If you've got a certain amount of wealth,
whatever that constitutes and a certain amount of comfort,
then just thank God for it and don't misuse it.
Don't be over-devoted to that wealth and that comfort.
Just be thankful and use it for God's glory.
Don't use it for yourself.
Those who buy as though they did not possess.
We mentioned the things you can't take with you.
If you need things, then you buy them in this life.
But don't think that because you've gone out
and paid the money for something
that you actually possess it,
because how did you get the money to pay for it?
It was a gift from God.
If you've got the money to buy something,
that's a gift too and you should treat it as a gift.
Everything you have in this life is a gift from God
and it doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not.
It's still a gift from God
and everything you have is by His mercy and His grace.
And therefore, if you're a Christian
and you have the money to go and buy your needs,
well, don't think that that's something for you to hang on to.
That's just something for your use because you needed it
and that can go just as easily as anything else.
Those who use this world is not misusing it, verse 31.
This seems to refer to business
and jobs and careers and things like that.
Yes, it's good to have a job.
It's good to have a career.
It's good to own a business, I'm sure.
I've never owned one but I imagine it must be good to own a business.
No other employer to worry about, no boss upstairs to worry about.
You've just got yourself and your business to run.
But don't let those things consume you.
Don't let them take over your life.
Don't let them run you ragged
so that you don't feel like going to the prayer meeting,
so that you don't feel like getting up Sunday morning
and coming to church.
Business then takes over the life.
It consumes even believers
and it's one of those subtle snares that creeps up on us
and we have to be very careful and very wary of them.
A little sort of paraphrase, it's not a direct quote
but it's a paraphrase from Calvin.
He says, the gifts of God for helping us through this life
must not become abused
so that they make us want to hold on to this life
rather than to be with the Lord.
And I thought that was an excellent piece of advice.
We've given so many gifts in this life
and don't know whether we're poor or wealthy.
It doesn't matter whether we're married or unmarried.
We've got heaps and heaps of gifts from the Lord.
But let's not get that grip on them
that makes us want to stay here
when there's a far better place for us with our Lord.
That's the best place to be
and all those things don't matter then.
They're all passing away, as Paul says,
with the form of this world.
They have no eternal value.
But nevertheless,
we've still got responsibilities in this world.
You can't buck your responsibilities, verses 36 to 38.
If any man thinks he's behaving improperly towards his virgin.
Now there's two views of how this section should be translated.
The first one and maybe the most likely,
there's not much between them,
but both of them have difficulties anyway.
But the first one and the most likely is to do with,
this is a man and his fiancé,
man and the woman he's betrothed to.
The words translated behaving improperly
are the same words as used in relation to
the less presentable parts of the body
in another section of Paul's writings.
And some think that in the betrothed state,
which in those days was as good as a commitment to marriage,
but without the sexual intimacy,
were in fact getting to sexual intimacy
without the sexual intercourse,
but nevertheless they were getting very intimate with each other
and therefore there was improper behaviour
and that shouldn't occur
and if the passion is that great then they should be married
and not put it off any longer.
That may or may not be the proper approach to that section,
behaving improperly.
The other thought is that in behaving improperly in terms of
if she is past the flower of her youth,
if she's past marriageable age,
the idea is that there is an age for a woman
when she's in the full flower of womanhood
and that's the time to marry
and after that there's a steep decline
in the likelihood of even getting married.
Not so much whether she's desirable or not,
but because if you get a certain age
in childbearing problems and all that
and so there will be a sharp decline
in whether she would be a marriage prospect.
And the question would be
if the man who is engaged, betrothed to this woman
decides and presumably he would consult her as well,
at least I hope he would,
decides whether they should get married or not,
if he decides that he's not going to marry her and she agrees,
then what is to become of her?
That's a responsibility which he's got to acknowledge.
As a betrothed man he has a responsibility towards her
and he has to meet that responsibility
and he has to consider it carefully.
So although it may be perhaps better in the circumstances
not to marry, if you betrothed to a woman
you can't just forget that
and go about it as if you never were.
You've got to take your responsibilities seriously.
Mustn't cling on to things in this life too tightly
but take your responsibilities on.
The other way of looking at it is that
this is a man with his daughter.
Now in those days parents had a lot more to do
with the marriage system than they do today
and a lot more to do with who the partner would be
for the daughter or the son for that matter.
And therefore the idea is that this man has his unmarried daughter
and he's holding on to her,
basically keeping her from marriage,
perhaps the right man hasn't come along
or the man he approves of hasn't come along.
I think if...
None of my children present here tonight.
I think if I'd been in the position...
Oh, there's one here.
If I'd been in the position maybe
I would have still had all my children at home unmarried
because I might not have thought
that the people who came along were good enough for them.
But I'm glad that I don't have to make these choices.
The Lord in his sovereign mercy grants them their spouses
and I'm quite happy with my sons-in-law's and daughters-in-law's.
You'll be glad to know Craig,
particularly when he comes and washes the car.
But in those days the father had a lot more to do
with the marriage situation
and he would have to consider in Paul's advice
that it might be better not to marry
whether he should let his daughter marry or not.
And if she's getting to that age
when she's going to become less of a good marriage prospect,
what's going to become of her?
Initially, he would have to keep her.
He would have to provide all her clothing
and all her expenses
that would normally be taken on by the husband if she married.
And if he dies, then what happens to her?
He's got to think these things through.
He's got to put his mind in gear
and take his responsibilities seriously.
And presumably, he again, hopefully, would consult his daughter.
Whether marriage results from this betrothal
or this father-with-daughter situation or not,
doesn't really matter, does it?
It's not the main issue.
We've got to keep things in focus.
He says there in verse 37,
Nevertheless, he who stands steadfast in his heart,
having no necessity, but has power over his own will
and is so determined in his heart
that he will keep his virgin, does well.
If you don't need something, you shouldn't pursue something.
Remember that quotation that Don gave us this morning
from Alistair Begg's book.
What was it?
The man Mooney at 70-odd years of age
had been going through life rather wanting what he didn't have
rather than having what he didn't want.
And that's a good piece of advice.
Why pursue something that's not going to do you any good
after a short period of time
when you're just going to have it as it were,
a millstone around your neck?
And really, I know I was probably like this
and probably many of you,
if you thought honestly about it, might be the same.
We do, when we're younger,
rush into marriage pretty quickly
and with probably less than a reasonable amount of thought.
I don't think we think these things through properly.
When we're courting,
all we see is that beautiful girl that we're courting
and the whole world sort of just sort of goes into a mist
around the outside, doesn't it?
And we lose all our focus about the real world.
We really do.
And it's just a thought
that we've got to think these issues through.
Going into marriage, that's for life
and you've got to think it out.
And if you don't really need it, maybe you shouldn't follow it.
What a person's focus should be on,
if we call ourselves Christians,
if we're true believers in the biblical sense of the word,
then our focus must be on Christ.
That's what it's got to be firmly focused on
and we cannot do anything outside of that focus.
We've got to keep that firmly before us
in everything we look at, everything we think about,
every aspect of life,
whether it's business, whether it's marriage, whatever it is,
keep your focus on Christ.
If you keep your focus on Christ,
then your purpose will be right
and that's in verses 32 to 35.
And now we've, as it were, got to the centre of the onion.
We've got to the real crux of this message of Paul's.
And again, this section, verses 32 to 35,
is bracketed with most significant statements.
He starts off in verse 32,
but I want you to be without cares, without concerns.
I want them to be burdened with concerns of things of this world
and at the end of verse 35,
that you may serve the Lord without distraction.
Two very significant and central statements in this section.
Really what the whole section's about.
Marriage and that, all important, but not the central issue.
Having said in verse 32 that I want you to be without care,
he then starts talking about care.
That's interesting, isn't it?
Starts talking about what you should care for.
Having said he wants you to be without care.
What he wants you to be without care about
is the things that he's mentioned in the previous verses,
the things of this world.
But he doesn't want you to be without care about the things of Christ.
Now he gives a couple of examples
and he follows on using this example of being married or unmarried
because it's particularly relevant.
Marriage relationships and sexual immorality
and things along those lines were at the top of the list in Corinth.
It was a very sexually aware city, very much like Australia today,
when every place you turn, everything you look at,
is designed to stimulate the whole sexual activity of the society
and Corinth was no different to that.
Now these issues were at the top of their mind in their thinking
and therefore that's why he deals with them so often.
But these examples that he gives about marriage and unmarried,
I think that we shouldn't look at these as a statement from Paul
because I don't think that's his intention.
These are a challenge.
These are a challenge to both the married and to the unmarried.
But let's have a look at them in that light,
a challenge to the Corinthians and a challenge to us today.
The unmarried, he says, he who is unmarried
cares for the things that belong to the Lord,
how he may please the Lord.
The unmarried man is not at liberty.
If he calls himself a Christian, he's not at liberty to pursue worldly things.
His purpose in life is to please the Lord.
And if we go around saying that we are Christians,
that we love the Lord and our lives do not match that,
we're committing blasphemy.
That is taking the name of the Lord in vain
in the most serious sense of the word.
Our lives must reflect what we say.
Our purpose is to please the Lord.
We please the Lord by living how he says we should live.
An unmarried woman in verse 34,
the unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord
that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.
That's her purpose.
How she goes about her everyday life
should reflect holiness both in body and in spirit,
how she dresses, how she carries herself,
what she does, her actions.
And this applies to the man just as much.
They're not exempt how they dress,
how they deal with other people.
All these things are important if you call yourself a Christian.
That's a challenge to unmarried men and unmarried women.
Do you care about the things of the Lord?
Do you pursue holiness in both body and in spirit?
That's the challenge that Paul's giving these people at Corinth.
That's the challenge he's giving us.
Remember the people at Corinth thought they were super spiritual
if they didn't marry.
Well, you unmarried people, is this what your purpose is?
Because if it isn't, you're not matching up.
And so that's his challenge to them.
But then he gives a challenge to the married people too.
He says, verse 33,
He who is married cares about the things of this world,
how he may please his wife.
A married man must care for his wife and his family.
Paul would never deny that.
But he must care for the things of the Lord too.
That's not just for unmarried men.
That's for married men just as much.
A married man's energies obviously are going to be divided a little bit
because he has to deal with things pertaining to his wife and his family.
But if he deals with his wife and his family in the correct manner,
that will be pleasing to the Lord.
He can please the Lord in how he deals with his family.
It's a challenge to the married people.
If both the man and his wife are believers,
then I believe that if the man of the family is pleasing the Lord,
then he'll please his wife too.
I think that's true.
A married woman,
yes, she's got responsibilities for the husband and the family too.
But she must serve them as unto the Lord.
That's her job.
That's her purpose.
And the married woman is not exempt from holiness in both body and spirit.
The married woman is not entitled to dress as she pleases and to do what she pleases.
She's got to behave with decorum
and she's got to be purposefully pursuing holiness,
both in body and spirit, every bit as much as the unmarried woman.
There's no difference in that respect.
This is the challenge.
Married women have a very difficult task.
They have to get the right amount of Martha and the right amount of Mary in their lives.
It's too easy to go too much Martha and forget about Mary.
You know what I'm talking about?
You go too busy doing the things in the house,
getting the meals,
turning to the washing
and you don't spend the time in God's word and in prayer that you should.
Maybe there's the odd one who errs on the other side,
too much Mary and not enough Martha.
But it's a fine balance and it's hard to get.
I'm glad I'm a male, quite frankly.
Maybe too hard for me.
One thing I did find when looking at this business of marriage
and lack of marriage in discovering God's will by Sinclair Ferguson in his section on marriage.
He quoted a little prayer that a man prayed just before his wedding
and I thought it was absolutely marvelous.
He prayed this, that I may come nearer to her.
He's praying to the Lord that I may not come nearer to her,
draw me nearer to thee than to her.
Can you see what he's saying?
That I may know her, make me to know thee more than her.
Because in his pleasing the Lord,
he's going to please his wife.
That I may love her with the perfect love of a perfectly whole heart,
cause me to love thee more than her and most of all.
And I wish I'd prayed that before I married,
but I'm glad that the Lord has been gracious to me anyway.
But isn't that a wonderful prayer to pray?
It really puts marriage right in focus.
It really shows us what marriage is about for believers.
That's the crux of it as far as I can see.
Excellent stuff.
Obviously, there is some difference between the married and the unmarried.
It's impossible for it not to be so.
But we both have this challenge from Paul.
The Lord Jesus Christ died for both married and unmarried people.
If you're married, use the gifts you've got.
If you're unmarried, use the gifts you've got for the glory of Christ
and in love for him first and foremost as that prayer indicated to us.
The Apostle Paul does not want to burden or limit
or put unnecessary temptation before people
and that's why he gives these opinions about marriage and not marriage.
It's not for everybody to be single.
It's not for everybody to be married.
But he does say these things for our purpose, for our benefit.
Sorry, he says that in verse 35.
And I say this for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you,
but for what is proper and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.
The word indestructible.
Don't rush to your Macquarie dictionary or your Oxford concise to look that up.
You won't find it. I only invented it during the week.
The typo in the news sheet was that the two words before it got missed out
because it's a question.
Are you indestructible?
Are you in the business, if you call yourself a Christian,
are you in the business of serving the Lord without distraction?
Are you indestructible?
This is the central point of this message.
The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 2.
I am jealous for you with Godly jealousy
for I have betrothed you to one husband
that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
You see his play on the words there.
That's our true position if we are believers in the Lord Jesus,
if we've committed our all to the Lord Jesus Christ,
that's our true position.
We are betrothed to the Lord Jesus Christ
and these bits about marriage and that very good for down here,
but let's get our focus right.
Let's get our purpose right.
Our status before God is important.
But it's not the most important thing in life.
Sorry, our status before God is the most important thing in life.
Our status on earth, our married status or our unmarried status,
whatever you like, is not the most important thing in life,
whether we're rich or poor, etc.
We've got to get our focus right.
Where should our focus be?
On the Lord Jesus Christ, on the life to come, on heaven if you like.
Get your mind in heaven and then your actions will follow that.
And so our purpose will be to look to Him
and to serve Him to please the Lord.
Why has the Lord saved any believer?
It's so that you'll be indestructible,
so that you will serve the Lord without distraction
and may God give us all the grace to be able to do that.
Amen.
He'll turn with me to the final hymn, which is 768.
A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify,
a never-dying soul to save, and fit it for the sky.
Just what I've been talking about.
Thanks be to God.
To save and fit it for the sky.
To serve the present age, my college will fulfill.
O, may it hold my heart engaged in divine master's will.
I believe in each other's care, as in life's time to live.
And Lord, my servant, Lord, bring him.
Our strength doth come to give.
O, help me to watch and pray, and all my self-reliance.
And with me there my trust being trained,
the grace to melt on high.
Let's pray.
Now, Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace and your mercy
in sending the Lord Jesus Christ to redeem a people for you.
All of those here, Lord, who profess to be your people,
we just pray together that we will keep this charge
that you've entrusted to us,
that we will seek to glorify you all the time in all of our lives.
And we just know, Lord, that we need your strength
and your empowering to do this,
but we know that you have promised that you will give us the grace
and the strength to live lives which are glorifying to you.
But we know, Lord, that we have responsibilities
and that we must live up to those responsibilities.
So we pray now that you will go with us as we leave this place,
that you will help us in this coming week to live lives
that are just that bit more glorifying to you,
just that little bit more pleasing to you than the ones we lived last week.
And we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake and his glory.
Amen.