Hearing the story of “Snow White” for the first time, four-year-old Suzie couldn’t wait for her mom to pick her up from Nursery School. In the car, Suzie retold the exciting story. The pace and pitch of her voice rose as she told of Prince Charming arriving on his beautiful white horse and kissing Snow White back to life. Then with wide-eyed excitement, she exploded at her mom and asked, “And do you know what happened then?” “Yes,” her mom answered, “They lived happily ever after.” “N0!” Suzie shot back with a frown, “They got married.”¹

It sounds as though Suzie doesn’t think that “being married” and “living happily ever after” go together. And there may be some statistical pessimists who agree. One study revealed,

40% of first marriages end in divorce
60% of second marriages end in divorce
75% of third marriages end in divorce²

The disbelief that married couples could actually live happily ever after has become so bad that a Hollywood jewelry store put a sign in their window that read,³

WE RENT WEDDING RINGS

When the institution of marriage breaks down, it breaks so much more. Trust is broken because a promise made between a husband and wife is not kept. Security is broken because children see their future through the lenses of Dad and Mom. God’s heart is broken because he intends for husbands and wives to live happily ever after.

It has been God’s nature throughout the Bible to be vocal. When we sin, he speaks. When we rebel, he responds. And one of the recurring lessons God teaches in the Bible is how a husband and wife can live happily ever after. The marriage relationship between a husband and wife is referred to over 750 times in Scripture. Here in Malachi and elsewhere in the Bible, God teaches how a couple can live happily ever after.

Remain Pure Before Marriage

God’s first instruction to living happily ever after actually addresses life before marriage. God says the bride and groom need to remain pure before marriage. By doing so, they will give to each other the gifts of purity.

The Gifts of Purity
I can remember Loree registering tables at select stores for our wedding shower. There was careful excitement as she selected items to set up our house. I am happy to say that after 20 years of marriage, many of the items she chose then we still have today. She identified gifts that have remained a part of our marriage. For both the bride and groom, God registers a table for them at the store of “purity.” The gifts that purity gives to a marriage are gifts that last.

Godliness: The first gift purity gives is godliness. God explains this in
1 Corinthians 6:15-17,

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

God addresses many contradictions among the Christians at Corinth. Some believe that because God had freed them from sin that they were free to sin. Many believe the same today, thinking, “Go ahead and have sex outside marriage, and get God’s forgiveness later.” Other Corinthians thought that since God made sex enjoyable they should enjoy it whenever and with whomever they want. In verse 13, they reason that we eat when we are hungry because the stomach was made for food and food for the stomach. Likewise, because God has given us the ability and appetite for sex, some think we should satisfy it whenever and with whomever we want. Again, this mindset that our sexual appetites
cannot be controlled is why parents give their children instruments for birth control rather than instruction on godly control of their sexual appetites.

Verses 16-18 remind us that our bodies belong to God. God the Father creates us, God the Son redeems us, and God the Holy Spirit indwells us at salvation. Warren Wiersbe insightfully explains that sex outside of marriage is like robbing a bank. It may be exciting at first, but you have taken what was never yours and will eventually pay the consequences for it. On the other hand, our purity with God is like a deposit in a bank. It is secure and over time the benefits, like compounded interest, multiply.⁴ Thus, when you marry you offer your spouse the priceless gift of your godliness because you have kept your body pure with God.

Unselfishness: The second gift purity provides a marriage is unselfishness. In 1 Corinthians 7:2-4, God says that your body not only belongs to Him, but it belongs to your spouse.

2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.

4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

When performing premarital counseling, I charge the couple to protect their purity. I remind them that sex is a gift God has given them and that they should protect it at all costs. For no one else in the world should know them in that manner other than their spouse.

This is the wedding gift that purity gives. Your spouse knows you have not acted selfishly and given what belonged to them to someone else to satisfy yourself. Instead, you unselfishly sacrificed your desires to protect the purity of the body that belonged to them. What a wedding gift!

Oneness: The third gift purity gives is oneness. God states this several times in the Bible. However, He said it first to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24. God said,

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The Jewish understanding of becoming one flesh means more than a physical union. “Flesh” referred to one’s whole being. In marriage, it is as though the two bring everything they have as individuals and create one new person.

Thus, when a couple has remained pure as individuals, they bring their individual godliness and unselfishness to their marriage. Furthermore, their individual godliness
and unselfishness doubles as the two become one in marriage. Their oneness as a couple is far brighter and stronger than their oneness ever was apart. This kind of oneness with each other and God is the greatest wedding gift purity gives.

The Cost of Impurity
Though the gifts of purity are priceless, the costs of impurity are expensive. It was reported that the average cost for a wedding in 1998 was $19,104, and the wedding industry that year took in $32 billion dollars.⁵ I am confident that brides and grooms would pay this price several times over if they did not have to deal with the costs of their own impurity. Here are some of the costs of impurity before marriage.

Some marriages pay the high costs of physical danger. A recent study stated that before teens graduate, two-thirds will loose their virginity and that one in four who are sexually active will become infected with a sexually transmitted disease.⁶ Other marriages will pay the high price of emotional distrust. Spouses may silently question their partners and think, “If they could not control themselves before marriage, how can I trust them after marriage?” Furthermore, impurity makes you pay the high costs of personal disappointment. A survey of 3,000 women discovered that only 4% of the women and 1% of their fiancés were still virgins on their wedding night.⁷ Can you imagine the disappointment that they experienced by not being able to offer each other the gifts of godliness, unselfishness, and oneness on their wedding night?

The value of purity is too high and the cost of impurity too expensive not to remain pure before marriage. God sees this as an important element to living happily ever after in your marriage.

Marry a Believer

Another instruction God gives to have a marriage that lives happily ever after is to marry a believer. Again, this is not a new instruction from God, but has always been a part of God’s plan.

Trust God’s Plan
God’s plan for His believers to marry other believers runs consistently through both the Old and New Testaments.⁸ It now appears in Malachi 2:10-12,

10 Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?

11 Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. 12 As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob-even though he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty.

Remember that Nehemiah and Malachi are contemporaries. Therefore, Nehemiah 13:23-29 gives a clearer explanation of Malachi’s charge.

According to Nehemiah 13:23-24, some of the men had married women from Asdod, Ammon, and Moab. This affected both the language and leadership of their homes. The children had learned a foreign language and forgotten how to speak Hebrew. Furthermore, the men ran the risk of reliving Solomon’s sin. Nehemiah 13:26 reminds them that Solomon was a godly king who had been led astray because of the influence of marrying women outside his faith.

For the same reasons, God encourages His believers to marry other believers. If you don’t, your children will forget the language of God. God’s language is His word. Furthermore, marrying unbelievers weakens the godly leadership in your home. Thus, marriages live happily ever after when they are the union of two believers who speak and teach the language of God’s word, and lead together under His leadership.

Trust Your Prayer
But many of today’s youth and even the ever-growing number of single adults would ask, “How do I know when God has set aside the one He wants me to marry?” Abraham and Isaac would say, “Pray!” This was their experience in Genesis 24:1-4,

Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way. 2 He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh. 3 I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, 4 but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”

Sarah has been dead three years. Abraham is 140 years old with a 40 year-old son living at home. And now, Abraham believes it’s time Isaac was married. Therefore, he sends his choicest servant to fetch Isaac a wife. However, he was specifically told not to look for her from among the daughters of the Canaanites.

Though Abraham told his servant to find Isaac’s wife from among his kinsman and not the Canaanites, there was still a problem. At God’s instruction Abraham left his kinsmen. Abraham’s family was the first to follow God whole-heartedly. God was to create a great nation from among them. There were no others like Abraham and Isaac. Therefore, it would appear that Isaac would have to convert his wife.

This may cause some Christians to think, “I can marry someone who is not a believer and try to convert them.” This way of thinking is not only unbiblical (2 Corinthians 6:14), but it has also led many to experience great heartache. Furthermore, there are more believers alive today than at any other time in history. This however, leads to another good question, “With so many believers to choose from, how will I know which believer God has chosen for me?” Again, Abraham and Isaac would answer, “Pray.” This was from their experience in verses 12-15a,

12 Then he prayed, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a girl, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,' and she says, 'Drink, and I'll water your camels too’--let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder.

In verse 12, Abraham’s servant prays “O Lord, …give me success today…” Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown render this Hebrew phrase literally to say, “Let come before my face this day, what I seek.” ⁹ In verses 13-14, he specifically lists what he needs to see in order to know which girl is for his master’s son. Of course verse 15 records that Rebekah appears before he has even finished praying. Abraham and Isaac would say that when you pray specifically, seeking God’s leadership, God will show you the believer you are to marry.

Chuck Swindoll confesses that some have taken God’s encouragement to pray for their mate to strange extremes. A woman once told him that each night she hung a pair of men’s pants on her bed and prayed,

Father in heaven, hear my prayer,
And grant if You can.
I’ve hung a pair of trousers here,
Please fill them with a man.

Swindoll told this story to his church one Sunday, and a few weeks later received a letter from a concerned mom that read,

Dear Chuck, I’m wondering if I have something to
worry about. I’ve noticed that our son, when he goes to bed at night, has this bikini hanging over the foot of his bed.¹⁰

Granted, these prayers may be a little extreme, but the principles are trustworthy. When you pray specifically seeking God’s answer, you will be able to discern God’s choice for you from among believers. And when you marry God’s choice for you, you and your spouse are on your way to living happily ever after.

“What If”

Thus far, the Bible has revealed ideal circumstances for a married couple to live happily ever after. They are to remain pure before marriage and are to marry a believer. However, many have already lost their ideal conditions but still want to know if they have the chance to life happily ever after with their spouse. These individuals raise several questions of “What if?”

What if you have lost your virginity?
You may be asking, “What if I have lost my virginity before marriage? What can I do to reclaim that sense of purity as a wedding gift?” Though your lost innocence can never be recovered, you can still experience God’s forgiveness. My encouragement is to be like the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Jesus told her in verse 11, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” By repenting of your sin, asking God’s forgiveness, and having no more sex before marriage you can rebuild the value of your wedding gift to your spouse. Again, you can never reclaim your lost innocence. However, you can increase the measure of godliness, unselfishness, and oneness in your marriage.

What if you have not married a believer?
Your question may be, “What should I do if I have married an unbeliever?” God answers this question in 1 Corinthians 7:12-14,

12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

Here, God cautions you to not commit a second sin and seek divorce simply because they are not a believer. Instead, God charges you to live a godly life before him or her. By doing so your spouse and your children may be saved.

What if God still has yet to reveal His choice for you?
With the growing number of single adults, some may be asking, “What if God has still yet to reveal His choice for me?” Keep praying and remember what God says in Proverbs 21:19, “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.” For men and women the truth is that it is better to wait and pray than to be impatient and be wrong. It is better to wait and live fulfilled by God’s choice than to be impatient and live frustrated with your choice.

A final word: to the little Suzie’s of the world who don’t think that being married and living happily ever after go together, God says they do. They do as long as you start them right and live them right. You start them right by remaining pure before marriage and by marrying a believer. Living right is the next message.