Oh. A. In His presence to celebrate this occasion. We would like you to turn to the back of your program and join us in the singing of the first hymn that you'll there find, May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day. I see heaven on high. We are one, we are three, we are one, we are three. We are one, we are three, we are three. so so You may be seated. Let's bow together in an opening word of prayer. Let us all seek the Lord's face in prayer. We'll be led in prayer by Dr. John Matsko. Let's pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the joy of this occasion. May your blessings be on this wedding service. Amen. Protect, guide, and bless Attaway Catherine and her marriage. As I said at the beginning, we're happy to have you with us and I know that Adam and Catherine are particularly happy that you've joined them today. We have gathered for a wedding, a marriage. And we have done so not only in the presence of this congregation, but very conscious of the fact that we come together in the presence of the Lord. Marriage is something that God established. We need to remind ourselves, and these young people need to keep in mind from this day forward, that this is something God has ordained. It is not a human institution. It is not merely a social convenience. It is a divine appointment, a divine institution. The Lord set it up at the very dawn of creation with the first man and the first woman. Throughout the scriptures, He sets forth marriage as something that is sacred, as a holy estate. He paid it the highest honor during the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ when our Savior personally went to the marriage in Cana of Galilee and there performed his first public sign miracle telling the world that indeed the promised Redeemer had come. In the scripture this marriage union is commended as being honorable in all. And it is even set forth, as we will read in a few minutes time, in the fifth chapter of Ephesians, as the symbol of that mystical union that Christ has established between himself and his church. Given all that the Bible says about marriage, all the symbolism, all the statutes concerning it, given all that the Bible says about marriage, It is therefore something that you must enter upon in the way that God would have you enter it. Not rashly or thoughtlessly, foolishly, but do so reverently in the fear of God and give consideration to the ends for which God ordained this union. In Scripture we find that marriage was ordained that you may have a lifelong companionship. And I start there because though it's very old-fashioned, and it's very much out of keeping with the times in which we live, marriage is, first of all, a covenant. But marriage is, on a human level, first and foremost, a companionship. And when you lose that, you lose the heart of a marriage. So, it is ordained for a lifelong And again, I emphasize the duration, a lifelong companionship. It is ordained for help. It is ordained for the comfort that a husband and a wife should have the one or the other. And it was ordained for the continuance of the holy ordinance of family life that children whom God gives as His gift and in His sovereignty as his heritage should be duly nurtured and trained in godliness in a godly home. Now this is the holy estate of marriage as it is so often referred to and it's into this state that these two young people come now to be joined. Wherefore, if anyone can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together in marriage, let him now declare it, or else hereafter forever hold his peace. And also, Adam and Catherine, I require and charge you both, as you shall answer at the day of judgment, that if either of you knows of any just cause why you may not lawfully be joined together in marriage, you do now declare it. I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, Adam Nolan Acree, should not be joined in marriage to Catherine Elizabeth Nelson. Catherine, I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, Catherine Elizabeth Nelson, should not be joined in marriage to Adam Nolan Acree Adam will you have this woman to be your lawful wedded wife to live together after God's ordinance and the holiest state of marriage will you love her comfort her honor and keep her in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, keep you only unto her so long as you both shall live. I will. Catherine, will you have this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holiest state of marriage? Will you love him, obey, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep you only unto Him so long as you both shall live." Who gives this woman to be married to this man? With our blessing and with joy at God's orchestration of this union, her mother and I do. Adam, if you would repeat after me. I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Adam Nolan Acree, do take you, Catherine Elizabeth Nelson, to be my lawful wedded wife. for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part. Catherine, I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Catherine Elizabeth Nelson, To witness that I, Catherine Elizabeth Nelson, do take you, Adam Nolan Acree, to be my lawful wedded husband, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part. If you would just take the ring and place it on the bride's third finger with these words, I give you this ring. I give you this ring. as a token and memorial that I have taken you to be my wife, and as a perpetual symbol of the steadfast love and unfailing faithfulness that I vow to maintain in our marriage union. with the same words, I give you this ring as a token and memorial that I have taken you to be my husband and as a perpetual symbol of the steadfast love and unfailing faithfulness that I vow to maintain in our marriage union. Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Forasmuch as Adam and Catherine have covenanted together in holy wedlock before God and in the presence of witnesses, I now declare them to be husband and wife in the name of our triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I leave with you the ancient Aaronic blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. The bridal couple wish to sign the marriage documents publicly during the service and in this I am glad to say that they are not quite but getting a little closer to what I grew up with in my home country so I'm glad they're getting back to their roots but I think this is a very beautiful and important part of the service as they sign the official documents that in the eyes of the state will recognize them from this day forth as man and wife. And as they do so, we will have a message in song. He is God my You're fully in person, yes, but Adam's face first, just a little bit more smudging. No one else will be safe as thou art. No one else knows my death or my life. Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light. He's all my wisdom and all my truth I have with me and always will hold I. O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Let us read God's Word. I said we would read in Ephesians chapter 5. where the Apostle, under inspiration, writes, Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband." Amen. The Lord will add his own blessing to this reading from his own inspired word for his own namesake. I should tell the congregation that last night we had a rehearsal of this wedding service. It's always good to make sure that the organist has the time to play, to have the bride up the aisle and down the aisle. you'll notice the groom or the groom doesn't come up the aisle you're learning fast but during that rehearsal we were going through the various parts and then Catherine said well at this stage we would have your sermon you'll no doubt see how long we can last and I don't know if that was a challenge or an invitation, but here we are. I will be very brief, but what I have to say to you is for you and for all who have gathered with you, and it is very important. Today, both in the eyes of God and in the eyes of the laws of men, you have become a married couple. And from this day, you will set up house together and more important than setting up mere house, you will establish a home together. And that's an important, I would say an immensely important task. And in many ways, a very challenging task. For the home is not only the foundation of your personal happiness, and never, never for a moment forget that, understand it clearly. The home is going to be the foundation of your personal happiness here on this earth. It is the foundation also of your marriage bliss. It's the foundation of family stability and of the usefulness of your family. Indeed, it's even the foundation of the ongoing ministry of the Church, and ultimately even of the stability of the nation. So, establishing a home is no small undertaking. Setting out in this path, I can give you no better guide than the guide of Holy Scripture. As I thought of this wedding, I thought of a passage in scripture that has absolutely nothing to do with a wedding, but it has everything to do with your home. In Mark's Gospel, chapter 2, you read of the Lord Jesus visiting a home in Capernaum. It may have been the home of Simon Peter, we don't know, but it was a home in the city of Capernaum. And in the first verse, we read something there that I want you to take with you today and for the rest of your lives. It was noised abroad that he was in the house. It was noised abroad that he was in the house. There's a very simple but profound truth and doctrine in that, and I want you to learn it. And it is that the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in a home is its most urgent need and its greatest possible blessing, the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the home. So let's underline it that the greatest need you have setting out on life together today is to have Christ in your home. Now I have no doubt that you set out as any young couple with a multitude of needs. You have no doubt received many wedding presents and they will help you on your way. I think sometimes when Joan and I look at some of the things we're using, many, many years later, I'll not tell you how many, but many years later we still enjoy the things that people provided for us at our wedding. So many needs are being met. But should people take you and set you in the greatest mansion on earth with the greatest furnishings that man can provide, give you all that material wealth can produce, you still would not have touched on the greatest need that you have. And that need in your home is the real and vital presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here in this church I have often told the story of one of Britain's greatest men of letters, a Scotsman by the name of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle was such a famous person that when a new preacher came to the parish church, he felt he had to pay a visit. And as he went there, the preacher asked Carlyle, Sir, what do you believe is the greatest need of this parish? And Carlyle went right to the heart of the matter, and he told the preacher in no uncertain terms that what this parish most needs is a preacher who knows God, and here I quote, knows God other than by hearsay. What Greenville needs, what America needs, is to see Christian homes that have the presence of Christ, that don't simply have the hearsay, the theory, what we have learned by root, but the living reality of the living Christ, present in the lives, in the worship, in the work, in the attitudes, in the actions, in everything about that home. That's your greatest need. For you personally, if God in His sovereignty blesses your union with children, that will be the greatest need that they will have, is to see the reality of Christ in you and in your home. If your home is ever to be used of God, this is the great need. You will notice it was noised abroad that Jesus was in that house. He wasn't in the others. And I don't want to push this too far, but I think that obviously the contrast is startling. That if you do have the presence of the Lord Jesus in your home, it will make your home truly different from those around about you. And I think this is a vital lesson for young people to learn. It is very easy to become dissatisfied, unsettled and envious. It's very easy to look at what other people have and say, I wish I had that. Why do I not have the other thing? And as I've indicated, you may have or not have those things. That is not what will set your home apart. What sets the home apart is the living presence of the living Christ. Again, I've often told our folk here of how I went visiting a preacher way across the country in a work that was just starting up, and things were difficult. He was working a full-time job as well as seeking to get a church started. They were raising a family. His wife came from a very wealthy background, but the ungodly parents had I said, we want nothing really to do with you and what you're doing. So there they were in the little apartment. They had very, very little of this world's goods. The furniture was of the poorest quality. And yet I have to say that I have never been in a home that was more obviously used of God than that home. They knew how to use their home. And people came to that home because they knew it was different. Drug addicts came there and got saved. Drunkards came there and got saved. They knew there was something different. This was not religion. This was Christ in the home. Adam, as the head of the home, I would say to you, this is your responsibility to cultivate the presence of the Lord in your home. That's what will set it apart. And it's this that will make it truly attractive. As soon as it was noised abroad that Jesus was in the home, the place was overrun with people. People wanted to come there. And you know, I'm sure there was some nosy parker somewhere went out talking about the color of the walls or the kind of furniture there was. I'm sure there's bound to be some idiotic person like that. But for the most part, I don't think anybody noticed anything about the surroundings. What they did notice was that there they met with Christ. An attractiveness that belongs uniquely to a Christian home. I know homes that over the years I have enjoyed visiting. Some of them have been well off by earthly standards, others have been very poor by earthly standards. None of that really mattered. But I can tell you of homes where as soon as you entered into the home, you felt you were walking into a slice of heaven on earth. I knew a preacher who was a very volcanic sort of character. He was a brilliant preacher, a stalwart man of God, but in public life he was known as a volatile personality. His wife was a very sweet and quiet sort of person. Her disposition was such that I don't think anybody, family or otherwise, ever saw her angry in her life. Now, there are not too many people of whom we can say that, but that was true of her. And you know, such was that home that when you went into it, that man who was known publicly as such a volcanic personality, lived in quietness. There was a lamb-like quality about him. There was a beauty about the home and whatever your problems or your troubles were when you went into that home, suddenly you were enveloped in the peace and the reality of heaven on earth. Now that's not high in the sky. The scriptures tell you, Deuteronomy chapter 11, that your days should be as days of heaven upon the earth. So it's not too high a standard. It comes from the presence of the Lord. It makes your home an attractive place. And of course, and with this I will close, it will make it a place of blessing. Now let me make this clear to you. That home was, for those who were there, a place of communion with Christ. That's what your home has got to be. A place of communion with Christ. You may recollect that when you came to see me, I talked to you in your pre-marriage counseling about certain things. And one of the questions I asked of you, as I ask of every young couple, and you gave me honest answers. You'd better have. Because now, this is where it all comes home to roost. I asked you, Adam, does this, has this young woman drawn you closer to Christ? Has she been a help to you spiritually already? I ask you, Catherine, has knowing this man and being with this man led you on with God, drawn you closer to Christ? Both of you could say honestly, yes. And I thank God for that. Because that's the way it has to be in the home, where together you have communion with the Lord Jesus. Your home will be a place of testimony. I've spoken of that, home of a preacher, where people came to get saved. I well remember when Joan and I weren't too long married. the first time our home became the place where I pointed a soul to Christ. When we could kneel in my room, in my home, and see a man who later became an elder in the Church of Christ, but at that time whose life was shattered and broken, see him transformed by the grace of God and come to Christ. Your home, a place of testimony. Let me appeal to you to do something right from the very beginning, and that is to use whatever home the Lord gives you, wherever He gives you it, to use it as an evangelistic base, to bring people in, to show them Christ. Not to give them religion, but to show them Christ. Your home can be a testimony. You're starting out the right way. This is a Christian marriage. And all who come here today, whether they like to see it or hear it or not, have before them, both by visual and by audio means, they have a testimony to Jesus Christ. Your testimony that you are trusting Christ unto eternal life. Everything that you sought to do in this wedding has been in order to present Christ. And I trust the Lord will bless that testimony. I trust that all of you who have gathered with Adam and his bride today will realize the privilege of having such a testimony set before you. This is real. This is a young man and a young woman setting out in life for however long together, but they're setting out for heaven together. And that's the big thing. And I trust that their testimony will be used of God to challenge your heart, that if you're not saved, you will come to know their Savior. And if your home is not the kind of home that I'm telling them theirs must be, that you will seek the Lord before it's too late and set up such a home. It will be for you a place of service. People come to church and try to serve the Lord there when they don't serve Him in their own homes. And that is how you spell hypocrisy and powerlessness. Your home is a place of service. And it's a place of power where Christ will show Himself to change lives, manifesting His glory. And you know, at the end of the day, Could you exist for any better purpose? Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 makes it clear that we were created for this very purpose, for the pleasure of our God, to declare His glory. The only reason why we are is the glory of God. So what greater purpose can your home serve than to be a place wherein Christ manifests His glory? May it indeed be true of the home you set up today, it will be noised abroad that Jesus is in the house." And I think we couldn't have a better hymn with which to close the ceremony than the one that the bride and groom chose without knowing anything of what I would say. You'll find it Again, at the back of your program, all for a closer walk with God, a calm and heavenly frame, a light to shine upon the road that leads me to the Lamb. Let's stand together as we sing. so I'll be gone, I'll be gone, I'll be gone, I'll be gone, I'll be gone, I'll be gone, God's graceful hands, mighty hands of God, are holding us, are holding us, I pray always that you will hear my call. I'm coming home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home, Before we close this service with prayer, I say that the private room will be happy to have your presence with them in the church gymnasium for refreshment after this service, and that they'll be glad to receive you. May I add a word of caution to all who are visiting. The stairway to our gymnasium is rather steep. We have rails that should be held onto. If you have little ones, we have special rails for them. Make sure, please, that they do hold on. If you have difficulty descending a staircase, please go around the building to the side door of the church without using that staircase. We want to keep you safe as well as happy as you join the bride and groom in the reception. Now let's bow together in a word of prayer. Let's all pray. Our gracious God and our Father in heaven, We thank Thee and praise Thee for the grace of God in the lives of these two young people. We thank Thee for the testimony they have given as to how the Lord Jesus met them and saved them. We thank Thee for the grace that has guided them through their lives until this time. And we praise Thee for the providence that brought them together. We thank Thee, our Father and our God, for the love that Thou hast given them one for another and for bringing them to this day. We thank Thee for their exchange of vows. These are solemn, solemn words for any human being to utter. But our God, we thank Thee that Thou canst and wilt sanctify them and bless them and make them not a bondage but a blessing. We pray for Adam and for Catherine. We ask Thee that the good hand of their God will be upon them. And we ask that it will be noised abroad that the Lord Jesus is in truth in their home. Bless the home that they established from this day. Bless the families that are united through this marriage. Bless those who have gathered here to celebrate the union. Our God, we pray that if there are those here who know not the Savior, to whom the living Christ is not a vital personal reality, we ask that Thou wilt speak to them, that Thou wilt use even this marriage service to enlighten their minds and renew their wills and effectually call them to Christ, that they also may have homes in which the presence of the Savior is a glorious reality. Hear our prayer, O God, our Father, and part us with Thy very richest blessing, the blessing of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it. We ask in Jesus' precious name. Amen. You may be seated. And now it is my very great privilege and honor to present to you Mr. and Mrs. Adam Acri.