God’s Word is true when it says: “You turn things upside down!” (Isaiah 29:16 (ESV). So much in our society today is the opposite to God’s original plan. It’s all turned upside down.

Let’s begin with the first institution God ordained—marriage. The average age for marriage is currently 28.6 years for women and 30.5 years for men. Another consensus says that the average age for marriage in 2023 was 32 years old for couples. This is the longest Americans have waited to get married. And yet their desires for the opposite sex are awakened years before this. The average age is about 16 – 18 when this desire arouses. What do they do with this awakened desire which was given to them by God? Unless they are a very godly couple, they lose their virginity! They go into marriage already defiled by another man. It is totally against God’s plan.

And what about their child-bearing years. The late teens and twenties are the most wonderful and best time for women to have babies and they are deprived of this glorious privilege. It is a ploy of Satan to stop the godly seed coming forth into the world.

I know so many beautiful girls in their mid-twenties, late-twenties, and even their thirties who long to be married. They truly are beautiful, inside and out, and long to have children and be the queen of their home which is God’s beautiful plan for them.

But where are the men? Or perhaps I should ask, where are the men who are ready for marriage? Most young people today are not even psychologically geared for marriage. Childhood years are continuing into the twenties today! They are sent to college to train for their careers, but no one inspires them about the most basic of all careers, the career of parenting. It is rare to hear a pastor give a message about getting married and preparing for marriage.

Because fewer couples are marrying at an earlier age, it becomes the vogue. Couples hang out together but don’t take the responsibility of getting married. Many are not truly ready as they are not ready to take on the responsibility of children. And if a couple are not ready for children, they are not mature enough to get married!

It’s not so much the age but the preparation of mind, hard work, saving (rather than flitting their money away on their entertaining lifestyle), and openness to the responsibility of providing for a wife and children that makes a man ready for marriage. I know many couples who have married young. They are happy, providing well, embracing children, and more mature than many in their late twenties who are still too immature to even take on a wife!

Then there are those who just live together! This is a worldly lifestyle, but it is creeping into the church. There are currently 18 million singles living with their partners! Sickening. Opposite to God’s plan. And what does God’s word say? “Know ye not that that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fonicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9, 10).

I think it is time to encourage marriage, don’t you? That’s thinking like God thinks! God loves to see a young couple coming together in a godly union, because He designed marriage and designed it to be wonderful. In Jeremiah 29:6 God tells His people to “Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters.” This is not only hoping it might happen. This is proactive. This is a command. We either believe the Bible or we live according to the humanist mindset of this world.

I love the Scripture in Jeremiah 33:10, 11 where God gives His promise of blessing upon His people. He says: “Thus saith the LORD; Again There shall be heard in this place . . . The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good.”

The joy of weddings is God’s blessing on the land. Conversely, it is God’s judgment when the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride will no more be heard. Read Jeremiah 7:34; 16:9; 25:10; and Revelation 18:23.

Although it may seem counter-culture, whose side are we on? God’s side or the humanistic side?

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Dear Father God, I ask that You will teach me Your ways. I want to be open to listen to Your Word and Your ways. Show me how to raise my children to be ready for a beautiful marriage. Forgive me for so easily giving into the way of our worldly society. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I want to raise daughters who are ready for marriage who know how to cook and manage and home and sons who are mature, ready, and responsible to provide and care for a wife and children.