Marriage Clinic Part (VIII)

Avoiding Marriage Pitfalls

“There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death”(Proverbs 16:25)

Most young men and women spend substantial time preoccupying about getting married some day and having a joyful home. However, the path that leads to a happy and flourishing marriage has many “traps” or “pitfalls” along the way.

A “pitfall” is a cleverly masked trap. On the surface, it looks harmless, but when you walk on it, you fall into a deep pit.

Devil is a specialist at building “pitfalls.” His carefully concealed traps look innocent enough, but they are destructive. Some of these “pitfalls” can keep you from ever having a blissful marriage and a happy home. Let us now look at ten of them:

(1) Trying out sex before marriage

Trying out sex before marriage is often offered as a very rational course of action. A chap will say, “You wouldn’t buy a used car without driving it around first, so why marry without trying out sex!”

Marriage cannot be compared to buying a used car. A woman is not to be thought of as a piece of goods to be “tried out,” but a life partner to be loved and cherished. She is precious and inestimable in God’s sight, and she should be the same in your sight. Remember, you are looking for a life partner, not just a sex partner.

Furthermore, a pre-marital test of sex is NOT a valid sample of what sex will be like within the marriage.

Do not accept the foolish this pre-marital sex idea. If you have real love going for you, you do not need to worry about your sex life being good. It will be!

(2) Craving for the moment

A lot of people everywhere are bombarded with the human philosophy of you can not go through life twice, therefore take hold of all the pleasure you can.

Satan has always tried to advance the idea of living for the moment because it causes people to do things they would never do if they considered the future. A girl at her teenage has always been carried away with the weekend pleasures, thereby ends up with two illegitimate children. “Vanity of vanities, said the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity”(Eccle 2:2)

Nevertheless, life is more than a weekend. It is the rest of your life here, and forever in the next world. If you refuse Christ here on earth and end up in hell, you are not there for the weekend. It is forever!

It is time to identify the seriousness and value of life. Whatever choice made today will affect your life now and after.

(3) Living for good feelings

The saying, “If it feels good, do it,” convey another idea which has pervaded our society. The whole prescription view is based on the idea: “Get a good feeling now, no matter what happens later.”

Some people who should know better think that almost anything is all right if it gives them a good feeling. There is even a song, which promotes this idea with the line: “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right.”

Do not believe this lie! Just because something gives you a good feeling does not mean that it is right. You might get a good feeling out of stealing another man’s wife or woman’s husband and moving around with it, but that would not make it right.

Avoid this pitfall:

Do not let your feelings control your actions.

(4) Sexual immorality

It is easy for young people to fall into the pitfall of sexual depravity. Many are involved in sexual sin, and they seem to be getting away with it. However, no one can violate God’s moral laws without eventually paying a terrible price. A single act of immorality can attract tragic consequences.

A young male Christian had sexual relations with an immoral girl. From this one-time sexual relationship, he contracted a sexually transmitted disease. He received medical attention, but the disease was not brought under control. In less than a year, he was dead.

Keep yourself pure. Immorality is not worth what it costs you.

(5)Adolescent marriage

Those who marry in their teen age are asking for trouble. Teen marriages are twice as likely to end in divorce as those of couples who were in their twenties when they married. The odds are even worse when the bride is under eighteen.

There are at least two major disadvantages to teen marriages. First, if you try to choose your marriage partner while you are still in your teens, you will probably make a wrong choice.

Secondly, most teens are not mature enough to handle marriage. There are issues in marriage that demand mature mind to tackle.It requires large amounts of unselfish, caring love to make a marriage work, and it takes a lot of “growing up” before a person has that kind of love.

Take your time about getting married—lots of time. Do not be in haste to marry too young! Because the way you rush into it, the same way you will rush out. I earnestly pray that you will not make a wrong choice that will mar your bright future in Jesus name.

Marriage has a single door of entry but there is no exit door.

(6) Marrying to escape the problems of being single

Girls need to get over the idea that the chief end of life is marriage. The fear of missing the last chance for marriage causes many girls to ignore their better judgment and jump into a disastrous marriage. A girl may see a number of warning flags, but she thinks, “It probably will not be the best marriage in the world, but what could be worse than living alone?”

The answer to this is: A bad marriage is much worse than living alone. Many women could tell you that a bad marriage is one of the most miserable experiences that anyone can have on this earth. It is filled with hatred, rejection, confusion, resentment and hurt feelings. Innocent children are the victims of such a marriage.

Learn to be happy and satisfied while you are single, and you will not feel pressured to rush into an unwise marriage.

(7)Marrying with the expectation of changing the other person

Marrying someone with the expectation of changing him or her is about like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. The chances of a safe landing are about the same in both cases.

As risky as it is, many girls are still willing to gamble on their future happiness by marrying a fellow in the hope of changing him. A girl may argue with herself, “I know he drinks too much, he smokes and chases other girls, but I think he will change after we are married.”

This is dreaming and it is 100% wrong. You do not change a person’s basic nature by marrying him. If there are problems before marriage, they will likely be much worse after marriage.

Do not expect to change someone after marriage. What you see is what you get! Moreover, what you bargain for is what you receive!

(8)Living together

Living together without being married has become popular among many people, but it is a sinful lifestyle which God can never bless.

Men usually like the “living together” arrangement, but women say, “Sometimes I get the feeling that I am being used.” They put up with it because they are looking forward to getting married, but their hopes are often disappointed. The men usually reason, “Why should I marry her when I am getting all the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities? Besides, I may want a change some day and it will be much easier this way.”

That is pure selfishness! Even if a woman manages to get such a man to marry her, she will not have much of a marriage.

The false idea that marriage thrives best when it is on a “come and go as you please” basis is expressed by the popular song entitled, “Gentle on My Mind.” In this song, the man says that it was not the “ink-stained signatures on some old marriage certificate” that kept him coming to his lover’s home. It was knowing that he could leave anytime he wanted to. It was his freedom to come and go as he pleased that kept her “gentle on his mind.”

How foolish! In addition, how selfish! He does not say anything about the woman and how she feels watching him come and go “as he pleases.” And the song says nothing about who pays the bills in such a home, nor does it take into account the little children who may be born to such relationship—children who would always be wondering, “Where is Daddy? When is he coming home?”

A successful marriage and a happy home are based on unselfish love and commitment between husband and wife. You will never have such a home with the “come and go as you please” arrangement of living together.

Do not accept a cheap, sinful “play-marriage” which God will never bless.

(9) A God fearing marrying unbeliever

In His Word, God commands believers not to marry unbelievers. The Bible says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers…” (2 Corinthians 6:14). Many so-called God fearing are bound in miserable, unhappy marriages because they disobeyed this simple charge of the Lord.

Christians who are contemplating marriage to unbelievers usually feel that somehow their particular situation is different and that this command does not apply to them. However, God’s Determine that you will never, under any circumstances, marry an unbeliever. Deliberately disobeying God will bring serious consequences.

(10) Believers dating unbelievers

Christian young people should not date unbelievers because dating often leads to engagement and marriage. If you do not date unbelievers, you will not marry one.

You may not realize it but Satan is quite a matchmaker. He loves to mess up the lives of God fearing young people by getting them married to the wrong persons. He does this by encouraging them to date unbelievers.

Most God fearing young people do not see anything wrong with dating unbeleivers. But remember, a pitfall is a concealed trap. You do not see the danger of it until you fall into it, and then it is too late.

In conclusion, as it is better saying that prevention is better than cure. It is better one avoids the danger of head-knowledge arrangement kind of marriage than to dangle into it .

Pastor Omotoso can be reached through 08029531853 or email: onwardforchrist2015@gmail.com,