Drink From Your Own Well

“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well…Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.” (Prov. 5: 15,18)

“Drink waters out of your own well,” says Solomon. “Get your lovin’ at home!” There are no sweeter waters than these. Couples whose love enjoys the smile of God are the ones most capable of enjoying the fullness of its pleasures. God is the Author of marriage and unless His boundaries, as well as His blessings, are acknowledged, it becomes a half-hearted distortion of the real thing.

Marriage has been under attack from the Garden of Eden to the present day. The onslaught has intensified through time, until, looking around, one is tempted to suspect it may be drawing its last breaths. In the last thirty or forty years, it has come to be considered only one of many avenues for expressing love, along with such arrangements as “open relationships,” or living together on a trial or semi-permanent basis.

In the so-called “open relationship,” two people have apparently decided they are only somewhat fonder of each other than other individuals with whom they may choose to fornicate, from time to time. Then there are those who have decided to cohabit, exclusively, without benefit of marriage, living, so to speak, with “no strings”; that is, except for the psychological (and sometimes physical) ones that will haunt them later. And these do not take into consideration the wrath of God upon such actions. “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Heb. 13:4).

Sex is God's wedding gift.

The intimate expression of love is only honorable if it is takes place within the confines of marriage, which Ephesians five makes clear is a covenant between one man and one woman...only. Anything else dishonors God, society, and the participants. God restricts sex to marriage, says Warren Wiersbe, not to rob us of pleasure but “to increase pleasure and protect

it.”

I’m not sure why I chose to broach this subject just now. Certainly not to bring up past, forgiven sins. More, I suppose, to warn those who may be susceptible to Satan’s promise that “stolen waters are sweet,” when all the time they are poisonous. I could write on it several times a week, no doubt, and be sure of addressing someone who has been, or is now, a participant in some sexual sin, or who knows someone close to him or her who is. If it is abhorrent to God in a non-believer, how must it look to Him in His children?

In a few days, my husband and I will celebrate fifty years of marriage. I cannot tell you how blessed I feel that, by the grace of God, we are able to look at one another, clear-eyed and unashamed, because we have remained true to God and each other in this important area of our marriage. We share a great love that flames brighter and steadier today than when we were newlyweds; but, contrary to sentimental, popular opinion, that is not enough to ensure faithfulness. It is the sincerity, depth, and God-consciousness of the marriage vow that seals the purpose. The words of German pastor and martyr, Dietrich Bonnhoefer, in a marriage ceremony, speak to this: “It is not your love that sustains your marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains the love.”

Mark it well; the best and sweetest love is the love that pleases God, so heed the wise man: “Get your lovin’ at home!”