Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path. —Ps. 119, 105.
IF it were possible to peer into the hearts of our fellowmen and find
there in those hidden recesses the great impulses and ambitions that
drive human beings on and on, I think we should discover among the
outstanding interests and concerns of our human activities two
preeminent objectives to which most of human thought and endeavor,
rightly or wrongly, dedicates itself — money and love. If we could
continue this investigation and focus it upon modern young men or young
women (and I pause to remind you that this youth message comes to you
tonight as a contribution of the young people of the Church banded
together in the International Walther League), I think you will agree
with me once more when I say that their affections, the affairs of the
heart, the questions of courtship and marriage, probably loom up on the
horizon of all normal young people in a way that quite overtowers every
other merely human issue.
It is well that it is thus; because of all the
impulses with which the divine Creator endowed our human existence,
there is none deeper and more unselfish than these. Of all the
relations that exist on earth there is none that is more intimate,
endearing, and mutually beneficial than the relation between husband
and wife; of all human institutions there is none that is more
fundamental and imperative to every phase of human welfare than the
home and family.
The tragedy of it all is that much of the beauty and
happiness with which God endowed the estate of matrimony has been
sacrificed and that in many instances marriage has degenerated into a
veritable caricature of real happiness and peaceful contentment. Yet we
who still believe in the effectiveness of the Christian religion in
this modem day are also confident enough to declare that the situation
is not so hopeless as many would regard it and that there are still
ways of attaining to happiness in marriage and to family felicity. We
do not base this conviction upon the array of modern suggestions that
have been made to pave the way to such home happiness; we do not
believe that uniform divorce laws, stricter marriage regulations,
vacations from married life, courses in eugenics, trial marriages,
blood tests, and similar suggestions will lead to the desired results;
but we do believe that the truth and power which God has given humanity
in His revealed Word can solve all difficulties and will help Christian
young men and women to meet the emergencies of the present situation.
We confidently accept the truth of our text as we apply it to the
problems of modem matrimony, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a
light unto my path.”
DIVINE LIGHT ON MATRIMONIAL
UNHAPPINESS.
Now, what are the fundamentals for happy marriage as
they are revealed by the lamp of divine Wisdom on the pages of the
Bible? First of all the Bible tells us that we must recognize the
blighting effect of sin. If it were not for its stern and stark
reality, we should need no divorce courts; for there would be no cases
of marital inconstancy and unfaithfulness. If it were not for the crass
and ugly power of human depravity, we should not need to maintain
juvenile courts and societies for the prevention of cruelty to
children; for parents and children would live together in a bond of
perfect harmony and love. If it were not for the cancerous power of
corruption that has eaten its way into the human make-up, we should not
have such tragedies as all too frequently mar the lives of young people
and leave a scar which a lifetime of remorse cannot remove completely.
If it were not for the bias of evil in the lives of every one of us,
there would be no shadows and tears, none of the selfish
misunderstandings that frequently mar wedded bliss.
It hardly need be said that it is not a pleasant
task to stand here in St. Louis and to tell uncounted thousands of
young people throughout our country tonight who live on day after day
without any thought of God or Christ or the Bible that the most
disastrous thing in their lives is the power of sin, especially this
power of impurity. I should much rather talk to you on the achievements
of youth or on the contributions which young people are making to
modern life or on some other similar pleasant, popular, and appealing
subject. But I am tired of hearing these blind leaders of the blind
crying “Peace!” when the very fundamentals of spiritual and moral peace
have been overthrown by the radical revolution to which many modem
young people have subjected their souls and bodies. I am tired of
back-patting writers who close their eyes and ears to the obtruding,
screaming evidence that surrounds us on all sides, crying to the
highest heaven as it does — these fantastic fiddlers, who scrape and
scratch at their music of death while the hopes of youth are consumed
by the greedy flames of unbridled passion — these apostles of freedom
who in the moral crisis confronting the human race are perpetuating a
servitude which drags human love down to animal lust and will
eventually wreck man biologically. And because you cannot understand
grace without understanding sin, I am here tonight to say that, when
the guiding light of the Bible tells us individually, “Keep thyself
pure,” we must admit that we have not kept ourselves pure, that at
least our thoughts and desires have often strayed into the path of the
forbidden. I ask you to put this drastic question to yourself: “What
would happen to me if the holy God were to stand before me this moment
and demand an accounting of all that I have done in my life?” I tell
you that you must recognize now, if you have never recognized it
before, the force of evil in your life; that you must learn that you
cannot solve any problem before you have solved the big problem of sin.
But to counteract this, we have the supremely sacred
message of the solution of sin, the Scriptural remedy, that gives you
what all the modern philosophies and theories, changing from year to
year, cannot offer, and that is the loving, merciful, forgiving,
world-redeeming Christ on the cross. I do not preach that tarnished,
tawdry, man-made Christ so frequently held up to the youth of our
country by men who speak loudly and lengthily in these days before
Christmas on the supremacy of Christ and on His nobility, but who
refuse to acknowledge Him as the incarnate Son of God; not the Christ
whom the camouflage of oratory and rhetoric would picture to our young
men and young women, a ghastly counterfeit of the world-conquering,
world-saving Son of God; but the Christ who from the lowliness of
Bethlehem until the bitter, heart-breaking despair on Calvary comes to
our young people to-day with a definite and positive message of
forgiveness of sin and a newness of life. That Christ whose advent into
the world we behold during these weeks (and remember that our Lord was
a relatively young man and that in His ministry in the early thirties
of His divine manhood He showed a very sympathetic and personal
understanding and appreciation of youth) comes tonight to every young
man and young woman who hears these words, just as in the days of His
flesh He came both to the rich young man and to the publican; and
sweeping out of existence the past with all its failures and
concessions to the baser impulses of human nature, He offers to every
soul that penitently pleads guilty to the charges raised by God’s Word
the full, free, everlasting, unconditioned forgiveness of every wrong
that we inflict upon ourselves and upon others.
DIVINE LIGHT ON MATRIMONIAL
HAPPINESS.
Now, with this basis He gives us on the pages of
Holy Scripture an illuminating light by which our feet can take the
path to the proper appreciation of matrimony. First of all, in the most
direct and unmistakable language the Word of God sets down the definite
proposition that marriage is the natural, divinely appointed state and
condition for all normal human beings. Let all who rise up to gain-say
this truth declare that the unmarried state is a holier condition or
that single blessedness, as it is miscalled, gives a greater
opportunity for personal development and progress or that from the
point of religion or of human accomplishment the unmarried man or woman
has an advantage over the husband or wife or the father or mother; here
are words, not of human, fallible wisdom, but of divine, superhuman,
omniscient Wisdom, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” This
implies that it is not compatible with our highest happiness and our
fullest development and usefulness wilfully to remain in the unmarried
state. And to emphasize the truth of God’s declaration, there is the
striking testimony of statistical research, which shows, for example,
that married men live longer, that they commit fewer crimes, that they
are more productive and of greater use to their communities and to the
world at large. To regard matrimony as a man-made institution, belittle
the sacred nature of its intimacies, and to speak in disdainful humor
of its privileges and duties, all this (and you know how common such
procedure is in our day) is a blasphemous insult to God.
Then the guiding light of the Bible leads us to
regard marriage as a lifelong union. When a young man and a young woman
promise to remain faithful “until death do them part,” this is in
direct harmony with the divine ideal, according to which husbands and
wives are to “cleave” to each other through sickness and adversity and
misfortunes of all kinds and degrees and to emerge more closely welded
together by the fire of affliction. In our day of easy and increasing
divorce, when even educated Hindus point to the number of legal
separations in Christian countries and ask, “What has Christianity done
for you?” or when, as it seems, so much of our modern legislation is
aimed at making divorce easier, it will certainly sound prudish and
passé to insist on the indissolubility of the marriage tie. But
I want to remind you that, as no stream can rise above its head, no
nation can rise above its homes. And if this cancerous growth continues
to eat into the very vitals of our national life, we have no reason to
assume that the destiny of our country will be different from that of
pagan Babylon, Athens, Rome, or other centers of prosperity and culture
where the requirements of marital constancy were so ruthlessly
disregarded.
Then, viewed in the illumination of our divine lamp,
we see that one of the divine purposes in the institution of matrimony
is the propagation of the human race. Let insistent feminists and
advocates of unrestricted birth control elaborate on the benefits of
childless families; let misguided students of sociology declare that
parenthood is only a secondary consideration, — here, again, is the
clear, convincing, and conclusive statement of God, “Be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth.” Wherever this command is
intentionally disregarded; wherever parents willfully shrink from
responsibilities of parenthood because of the restrictions which it
places upon them; wherever by evasion of God’s command there is no
patter of little feet, no lisping of little lips, no effervescent joy
of little children, there something essential is missing and nothing
that man knows or can devise will fill this void.
But the Bible is a complete guide and an efficient
lamp; for it answers even such practical and detailed questions as
those that are involved in the relations of husband and wife. In this
age of extremes there is, on the one hand, the self-centered,
domineering, inconsiderate husband, who ruthlessly rules everything
according to the brutal dictates of his selfish impulses; and, on the
other hand, there is the self-asserting, overbearing wife, who views
marriage as just another means of gratifying her whims and wishes and
who has no time and less thought for the fulfillment of those womanly
duties which are involved in a happy marriage. But the Bible protests
in no uncertain terms against all such extremes. It gives to husbands
the highest possible standard of love and consideration when it says,
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave
Himself for it.” While Hinduism considers the birth of a daughter a
grievous calamity, while Mohammedanism calls its women “cows,” and
while Confucianism and Shintoism and the other forms of pagan
absurdities regard women as very inferior beings, exalted only a degree
or two above the brute animals, the glory of the Word of God is
revealed in the fact that the Christian husband will contribute to the
happiness and well-being of his home by loving his wife with devoted
affection, by overlooking any frailties and inconsistencies, by
providing for her, and by defending her, if necessary, even with his
life. And the wife, similarly, must offer her contribution to the
maintenance of family felicity. She must realize that in the divinely
arranged order of things in this world the husband is to be the head of
the house, the responsible representative to God and to the nation. The
apostle admonishes: “As the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the
wives be to their own husbands in everything.” With this guide, the
conduct of a Christian wife must be a continued protest against that
caricature of Christian womanhood which modern society so often
pictures to us when it shows us the pampered, spoiled, self-indulgent
wife, whose arduous day has room for everything but the humble, yet
necessary, domestic arts. Not long ago a British society mailed a copy
of the Book of Proverbs to its members; and some public-minded citizen
who wishes to promote the happiness of the American home can emulate
this example by sending to every woman’s organization in the country a
copy of the last chapter of the same remarkable book, a chapter which
every woman should study carefully and which prospective brides can
memorize with profit; for it is God’s guide to marital happiness, the
golden scroll of woman’s highest achievements in the establishment of
wedded contentment.
LIGHT ON THE ATTAINMENT OF
MATRIMONIAL HAPPINESS.
But finally the guiding Word of God also gives us
the power to put these holy principles into operation in our own lives.
It not only points us to a Savior who removes the wrongs of our lives,
but it also gives us His Holy Spirit to enlighten and sanctify us and
guide our feet to earth’s highest happiness. We are told that our
hearts are “purified by faith”; Christ Himself tells us, “All things
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” For
this reason and with this divine impulse, light, and direction the
Church views the situation hopefully. It tells all twentieth-century
young people that there may still be a “home, sweet home” for them
under the gracious guidance of their God if they say with Joshua of
old, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” If, on the happy
day when they kneel before the altar (and the church is absolutely the
best place to begin married life), they take Christ with them as the
Third in their union and pledge themselves to establish the family
altar, to permit the Word of God to be their guiding beacon light
through the besetting darkness that may enshroud their married life,
they will have a home that may not enjoy all the appointments and
refinements which men are prone to prize so highly, a home that may
have no well-beaten path to its door, such as lead to the habitations
of the world’s celebrities; but above all this, and better, it will
have the gracious answer to the search for human happiness; it will be
a haven of refuge and a place of spiritual regeneration; it will, in
short, be a temple of Christ; and they who live therein will be
blessed, ineffably blessed, by His royal, redeeming presence. Amen.