Wayne Van Gelderen: Seems like every time I turn around, I’m having the opportunity to talk about this. The matter of courtship in our world today, you can sense there are many people with an open heart wanting to receive it. But there are a lot of people that really don’t want to hear this advice because it runs so contrary.

It reminds me, we heard the story about the two country boys, that good old Billy and Clyde, they wanted to go fishing. The pond had frozen over, so they were going to take their hand at ice fishing. So they set up just a few feet from each other, cut their hole in, and Billy just started pulling out these whoppers.

I mean, it was amazing. Poor old Clyde, you know, he had the same kind of bait and everything he thought, and he wasn’t catching the thing. Finally, after a couple hours, he said, this is ridiculous, Billy.

What are you doing? He said, this isn’t fair. And Billy just sort of mumbled, mm-mm-mm.

And Clyde says, come on, what are you doing? He said, mm-mm-mm. And he said, listen, you’ve got to tell me.

And so Billy, frustrated, spit something into his hand, and he said, you’ve got to keep your worms warm. So sometimes advice is not readily appreciated, and it does seem like every time, you know, for a while, I had started years ago speaking on courtship, and then, you know, anything you speak on that’s on the more controversial side you get known for. And I thought, you know, I don’t want to be known as Mr.

Courtship. I want to be known as a man that believes in revival and seeing God work and evangelism. I said, I think I’ll set this aside for a while, though I know it’s important.

Well, it reminds me of another story. Okay, this is Sunday afternoon, so I’ve got to get you going here. But you know my love for cats, all right?

So this is a cat story here this afternoon. The man lived on a little farm, but he had to work in the city during the week to make ends meet. And his wife had a cat that he just couldn’t stand.

You know, I certainly sympathize with the fellow. And so finally he determined that he was going to get rid of this cat. Now, he wasn’t going to kill it because he loved his wife, but he took it with him on the way to work and dumped it out way up the road.

And sure enough, when he came home that night, that cat was laying there by the door where it usually was just purring away. He said, I can’t believe it. So he goes much farther, jumps the cat off, and sure enough, when he gets back that night, there’s that cat.

This time, he took him all the way to town, and the cat was back. So it was now Saturday, and he is going to do something about this. So he starts on a drive.

He winds around mountains, goes and goes and goes, and finally he knew the cat would be forever lost, and he dumps the cat out. Well, several hours later, his wife received a phone call. It was from him.

He said, honey, is that cat home? He said, sure, it’s sitting by the door. He said, would you put that cat on the phone?

I need to get directions on how to get that. Now, I want you to know that was my first compliment for a cat. Did you catch that?

So just keep one. I guess it was the second. In the men’s chapel, I had one there also.

But it seems like no matter what I do, the old courtship seminar comes back. So here we are again. Now seriously though, I have become more and more convinced that what we’re going to talk about today, and we’re only going to be able to give just a fairly simple view in these hours that we have.

But honestly, this is at the core of why we’re seeing so many problems today. It comes out of the decline of our culture and of evangelicalism, And then it has, not following biblical principles, has really created an environment for Satan to wreak great havoc upon our families and upon our young people.

And the reason I’m more than glad to do this is because every young person that marries in the will of God, having kept their life and have learned of purity and seen what God can do, the generational impact is beyond what we can imagine. Do you realize just this one seminar for the cause of Christ is going to mean much in the days to come of the Lord Teres? So it is a serious matter, and that brings us now to our notes.

We’ll just look right here. We’re going to move through these first couple of sections very quickly. I’m not going to take for granted that you’ve heard this before, though I am going to go fairly quickly here at this point.

It’s true, the Bible does not address itself to what we know today as modern dating. Does this mean that we do not have the guidance from Scripture to handle this foundational issue and therefore must look to culture for our direction? Now that simple little question, folks, has been on the minds of fundamentalists since the 60s.

And the question has been, do we just simply Christianize, sanitize the cultural norm, make the best of it, or do we look to the scripture to find something else? Well, almost across the board, it has been accepted that since it is culture, we have to make the best of it. That has been what has gone on among Christian families for some period of time.

And by accepting that, we are accepting the thought that the Bible is incomplete in its revelation regarding this most vital decision of a person’s life. And so either the Bible just totally yields to culture and we make the best of it, or dating is not in the Bible for some other reasons. In fact, I submit to you that you do find dating in the Bible, but not in a way that shows it as the means for finding the right one.

And so today, as we have now come, it’s been 25, 30 years since I started speaking on this, Since we are where we are now, I think most Bible-believing Christians, such as the church I was with this weekend, are more than open to reconsider where we’re at because it is not a pretty picture. So I want us to look at culture today. I want us to ask ourselves the question, is it neutral?

Is it something we can clean up? Is it able to be our guide, or are we going to have to go to the Word of God for our answer? And of course, we all know what the answer to that is.

So, should we trust culture? Look at the mess we’re in. I’m going to jump over a number of different paragraphs.

We have these entire notes for you for your own later study. But you may remember William Bennett’s, the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators back in 1993, and he talked about what a terrific danger our teenagers were in. I’m going to give you some updated statistics.

In 1960, 70% of marriages were first marriages. 70%. Folks, 1960.

I want you to note that many of these statistics will be 1955, 1950, and 1960. So we’re talking about an absolutely breathtaking decline in literally the last few decades. Do take note of that.

In 1990, 50% of marriages were first marriages. Add to this, 2010, almost 60% of marriages, I’m sorry, 40% of marriages were first marriages. So we’ve gone from 70 to 50 to 40.

That’s tragic. In 1945, 80% of children grew up in two married parents’ families. 1980, 50% of children had the normal family.

In 2008, 25% of children had two parents. 25%. This has all been in the last half century.

One in five young people lose their virginity before age 13. Milwaukee Journal, I’m going to read the paragraph, talks about how we have so gotten into a mentality in this matter of dating that even little girls are trying to emulate young ladies. Then the statistics of different age brackets that are involved in immorality, If you go down to the male 18, 79% of males at age 18 have been involved in immorality.

It’s now 85%. Females is now 80% in 2010. So it continues.

Just since these notes, it is increasing dramatically. 1955, 12% of teenage girls were immoral. In 1988, 70 percent.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services now, it is, as I said, 80 percent. And then the statistic jumped down one in 1955. Again, notice 55, 50, just this last half century.

There were five known venereal diseases. In 1988, 50 known venereal diseases. Folks, make no mistake about it.

When it comes to morality, God judges. There was a lot of bad press for any preacher that intimated that AIDS had anything to do with morality. It had everything to do with morality.

And folks, we’ve got to understand God is not mocked. He is on the throne today, and we are in deep trouble. If you knew how much of sexually transmitted diseases were around where you are and where you live, you’d be shocked today.

You can look at the pregnancy statistics. Every day, and this is 20 years ago, 3,000 teenagers get pregnant. and in 1955, 7% of births to teenagers were out of wedlock and now 1988, 65%.

In 1965, 5% of all births were illegitimate. In 1990, 28% of all births were illegitimate and that is much higher. I don’t have the accurate figure at the moment.

Go down to the jump one, 1988 and that’s again 22, 23 years ago. 43% of evangelical teenagers had lost their virginity by age 18. Did you know that statistics are now telling us that evangelical teenagers are only slightly behind the world at large?

It’s very interesting in Josh McDowell’s 1990 survey that there was a great correlation when a young lady began to start dating and the percentage chance that she would end up immoral. If they started in junior high, almost for sure. And it really went down quite a bit in our culture to age 16.

Of course, I’m sure it’s changed, unfortunately, higher now. But it did make quite a bit of difference. The later you start, the more maturity that’s there, the less that that’s a possibility.

In 1970, there were 523,000 unmarried households. In 1993, there were 3,500,000 unmarried households. That’s just from 70 to 93.

Today, as we’re going to see as we look at the pattern historically of what’s happened in dating, now marriage has been supplanted by living together. I wouldn’t doubt that that number has doubled, if not quadrupled. I don’t have the latest figure.

I need to get that. But it’s amazing how we’ve just seen in 20 years a shift. In 1960, there were 393,000 divorces, 93, 1,200,000 divorces.

Every day, there are 3,000 divorces in America. This is a very interesting statistic. If you go back to 1900, which would be the transitional years where dating began to really come into vogue in a unique way, I’ll explain that.

Back then, only 250 marriages, one out of every 250 marriages in a divorce. That is when courtship still had a firm hold on America. Now, of course, it’s even worse than one divorce for every two.

It’s 60%. And then the final thing there is a study by J.D. Unwin from Harvard, and he thought for sure he would find that civilizations were stronger once the mores of morality were lifted and they found out just the exact opposite was the case.

And folks, please understand that it’s not just we have someone that’s heading us towards socialism today and that’s why we’re having economic problems. It is a deeper issue. We have a rampant morality problem in our country, and it’s deeply affecting every facet of our culture.

So this is where we are. And then, of course, we haven’t even touched on what technology has done in bringing opposite-gender relationships through technology into the forefront. And then, of course, of all of the horrible things that can be seen, I’ve mentioned that upper elementary children, you have the vast majority have seen things that many adults here have never seen, 80% plus.

And so we, could I say, folks, that culture, at the same time that dating is predominant, has declined rapidly? Is that an observation that’s legitimate? it.

Now the observation though that we need to see is, is it wise for us to look at the cultural methodology to find out how we should do it? And I think it’s not hard now in 2010 to say no we shouldn’t. We need to look at biblical principles that are bedrock that can guide us.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be throughly furnished unto all good works. So let’s move right on. I do want to take a moment on this matter of history here because I want you to see the history of dating.

The problem, I take this young generation of college students and all of our high school junior high students that are with us here today, that for you all, it’s hard to imagine there was anything else but what you see around you. In fact, even for me and my age generation, dating was already one generation to two in by the time we came on the scene as far as becoming the predominant way to find a mate.

So I can only imagine now in 2010 how it’s hard to even relate to the fact that there was any other way. But did you know that through biblical history, on through Western civilization, all the way till the late 1800s, beginning of the 1900s, a basic biblical model of courtship was the standard way that people found their mate. So modern dating is the new thing.

Courtship’s not the new thing. I want you to realize that what I’m going to talk to you about is nothing new. It’s as old as can be.

We simply have gone back to the Bible principle that dominated culture. Now, we know that just looking at culture, we just talked about that, is not the way you prove anything, but it is very helpful to look at history to see why we’re in the place that we’re in. And I want you to notice the same period of time how things have changed so dramatically in the statistics that we’ve seen.

And so at the beginning paragraph on this page of how this mess came to be, We talk about the fact that this doesn’t prove our thesis. It gives us information that helps us. And look at the bullet points there.

The Christians who largely defined and influenced our culture, and I’m speaking of American culture, once held to similar biblical beliefs and practices concerning courtship. The ideas are not unique. The courtship traditions of the first three centuries of our culture in many ways held to biblical standards.

The influences from which modern dating developed were clearly unbiblical and ungodly and even anti-Christian. So I want you to see that we of course had the blessing of God at the beginning of our country. We have some key revivals that reinforced that, that dominated our culture.

And so it embedded itself into the thinking of America for the first couple of centuries. and that when we see the beginnings of modern dating as we know it, it did not come out of our Christian heritage. So please note that.

Modern dating had wrong principles from its very beginning. Now you go way back to the pilgrims and to the Puritans that came here to America, set up the different colonies and so forth, you would find across the board these basic elements of the pattern for courtship. The priority of spiritual maturity.

In other words, there was no thought of a young man, young lady ever having any interest in one another without spiritual maturity and readiness. It was complete parental control. It was only to look to solidifying the reality of getting married.

There was protection from all physical involvement. and there was just a continuing generation by generation respect for the biblical model to please God. I mean, that’s just set in that culture.

Nothing else was even thought about. New England law back in those days, parents were given the care and power for disposing of their children in marriage. Now that’s an old word, okay?

It doesn’t mean you get rid of your kids in marriage. Though there is some truth to that financially. But anyway, the care and power for disposing of their children in marriage.

In other words, back in those days, and I’m not saying that was fully right, there was the law that children had to be under the authority of their parents. That was so embedded in the thinking. Now, you go to the 1700s, and you remember the 1700s were beginnings of problems in Western civilization coming over into America, and we desperately needed the Great Awakening.

If you read the history of the 1700s, it’s very interesting. And God did give us the first great awakening, and then at the very end of the 1700s, the second great awakening. And right in the middle, sandwiched between both of those, our country was formed officially.

And as you study the 1700s, you see that almost completely still, those elements that we just talked about were still in place. parental control, intentions, serious marriage intentions. In other words, there was no boy-girl relationship for the here and now pleasure of it.

And I’ll keep emphasizing that. The timing, when fully prepared for marriage. By the way, if you say, Pastor, I can’t keep up with you, the answers are in the back.

Okay, there’ll be a little note there. They needed to be able to support. And I was in farm country yesterday, so they really got a kick out of the fact that the father was willing to divide the family lands and to forego the son’s labor on the farm.

I got first time I’ve ever had that kind of response. So they could relate to that. Environment in the home or community family settings.

In other words, where did the courting occur? Physical standard, none before marriage. Fornication was a great reproach.

And it mentions here how, and by the way, there will be a lot of quotes from experts who have written definitively on the history of American courtship and dating. So these quotes are coming out of a lot of research. Where did the giving of one’s hand come from?

You see, that was the whole idea that in marriage you had that right. For us, we’ve lost those meanings. The key qualification was the practical examination of character.

Men and women were wary of passion. In fact, if indeed passion was how a relationship got started, they were greatly suspect of that because it meant that reason and spiritual guidance were probably lacking. They were right.

Now, certainly affection, the secondary qualification, affection is very important. This is biblical, and let me just say here that arranged marriages are pagan, and they are not biblical. That’s the extreme on the one side.

Obviously, the modern dating system without parental involvement is the extreme on the other side. But the fact is that affection and the agreement of an understanding of the children is always the Christian biblical way. Massachusetts’ mother told her daughter she would not wish any friend of hers to give their hand where they could not give their heart.

And it becomes very quickly apparent to young people when they get to know each other a little bit, under the leadership of parents, whether or not they could give their heart. And God makes that obvious, and it’s just one of those sweet things where the Lord works. But they protected themselves from what they considered the false decision-making that came from passion.

And they very much wanted to make sure they were doing the right thing. So that was the 1700s. Now we go to the 1800s, the transition century.

And I want to remind you, it’s the transition century for America and for Western civilization. And I’m not going to take the time to get into this in any detail. Since we have such great history students here, we should be fine.

But important considerations. The Romantic movement in philosophy. The Reformation got us back to the truth of the Word of God.

And yet, in the breaking of the back of the authority of the church, it also opened up the man becoming his own authority. and for a while you had the Age of Enlightenment and the rational thinking movement, and logic was that which dominated. But, you know, that doesn’t meet the need of the heart.

And so everything began to be focused on man, and you have many facets of this in the romantic movement, existentialism and so forth, where the focus became on man, and out of that came humanism, out of that has come many of the different philosophies of our day. And so you have feelings and what man wants being predominant. That’s a very simple way to look at it.

And, of course, the biblical pattern is that we believe in the truth. The truth affects our behavior and our emotions. And that is, of course, a beautiful pattern for marrying.

And it’s very interesting. Novels is the next line there. You can look at novels.

You can look at classical music. You can look at many different aspects of our culture from the beginning of the 1800s to the end of the 1800s, and you can see a dramatic change in the arts, in the novels, going from a view that is God-word and truth-based to feelings-oriented and man-based. What came up in the middle of the 1800s?

What major philosophy that’s just undermined biblical faith? Darwinian evolution. You had the beginnings of secular humanism prior to that time.

You had theological liberalism, which was a mixture of all of this. You had Marxism, socialism, and on and on. And that was basically, also the cults came during the middle of the 1800s.

So the authority of God’s word and the predominance of biblical thinking began to break up as Satan began to tear down Western culture. If you were to have had an evangelistic campaign in 1810, you could have had almost every Protestant denomination and not compromised to do it. At the end of the 1800s, almost every Protestant denomination had massive liberal wings to it.

And by the early 1900s, we lost every denomination. So there was an enormous upheaval in the whole structure of believing God and the effect of the Bible upon our culture. And, of course, this came out of Europe, came to the United States a little bit later.

And, again, I’m making this a very simple summary. But it did affect. And what I want you to see is that you were at the first part of the 1800s almost completely still like the Puritan pilgrim, early just Christian perspective on courtship all across the board.

By the end of the 1800s, as the authority of God’s word went, so did the proper view of courtship. So we see control. Parental control still is continuing but was declining towards mere approval as romantic love became the key qualification.

Now courtship was still at the time when it is still for marriage. Keep that in mind. So the 1800s still, it was older and still in a more serious perspective.

Timing, mostly when ready to look toward marriage. You didn’t have boy-girl relationships prior to real courtship. Environment is mostly in the home, but at the end of the 1800s, wanting more privacy because of affection over the leadership of the Lord, over reason and character.

As the country became less and less God-centered, that began to happen. Physical standard was still very strong, but there was some allowance for physical contact. And you can see the tension in some of these quotes here that was beginning to come at the turn of the century into the last century.

There may be a little evidence of sexual activity before marriage in many Victorian courtships, speaking of the 1800s. However, petting just began at the end of that century. 1904, Northwestern College, Dean of Women said, I have heard that some young women allow men to touch them to hold their hands.

My dear girls, never indulge in such frivolous actions. Can you imagine the dean of women of a major college in this century making that kind of statement? In fact, in a Christian college in many cases.

Okay, so it shows you there was the tension beginning. It was beginning to break down 1904. 1907, an advisor was talking about how you still were supposed to keep yourself.

I mean, you can just see the tension going on. 1915, the dean of women at the conservative University of Wisconsin lamented the tidal wave of irresponsible joyousness that had come to college campuses in 1890s with the influx of youth who believed college life was more fun for your money. So things were falling apart in our country.

Listen, folks, behavior always follows an attack on the truth. Behavior is held in toll by the truth, and of course we know spiritually by the power of God. Now, the key qualification no longer was character.

It was clearly romantic emotion. Now we’re getting into the human aspect of it. 1830, romantic love was becoming a key thing, Lister says.

It goes on through the century, and it became very strong at the end of the century to find mate selection. Okay, now we go to the early 1900s. I want you to catch this.

Did you know the courtship was still fully going? People were not having any kind of getting to know each other outside of intentions for marriage. All the way through the 1800s, that was so embedded, and it was still under parental control.

Unfortunately, parents were losing the control, and there was a lot of sin coming in, but that’s the whole concept of courtship that we can’t even, without looking at the Word of God, even understand. That was still the normal way of thinking.

so I want you to get this some different things occurred in our culture that started what we now call modern dating dating wasn’t in the 1800s just a crumbling courtship there was an emergence of youth culture did you know that only 7% of high school age kids were in high school I’m not saying that’s good but that certainly did keep from the independent peer pressure and of course you had two parents starting to work in the mid part of the century and you had kids on

their own. In 1960, 90% were in high school.

Dating provided a way to manage the social demands of the peer society. Materialism and luxury. Up until the 1900s, most people did not have extra money to do extra things with.

Automobiles! That was the beginning of independent couples’ relationships beginning that could be outside of authority’s view, and many, many awful things occurred there. Movies, bringing a whole different view about courtship and marriage to people.

And it had a huge effect, obviously, on the next generations. Close dancing, dancing was no longer your square dance kind of thing. It was definitely for the wrong purposes.

And then humanistic social science studies. Used to be that the preachers across America in declaring God’s word about different issues are the ones that made the headlines. Now the experts are social psychiatrists and so forth.

And so we are now a humanistic society. Now, as we look at the beginning of the 1900s, this is where dating came up. Now, this is always a hard thing for me to get people to understand, because we’re not talking about mid-1900s.

We’re talking about early 1900s. The pattern was promiscuous dating, P-R-O-M-I-S-C-U-O-U-S, dating, okay? Now, what does that mean?

What that means is they wanted to protect courtship and marriage, but now since the moral structure of America and truth and God, the fear of God was beginning to diminish because of all these humanistic philosophies coming in, there was now this desire to enjoy what God had intended for marriage in all aspects of a male-female relationship before all of that. So what you had was, nobody wanted to get, there was no such thing as steady dating. That was courtship.

And brother, if you did that, now you’ve got to get permission, and it’s going to have to be courtship, and then you’re going to probably get married. So they would, during their high school and college years, date as many people and enjoy. It was all for pleasure and for fun.

Let me just read you a couple of things here. The middle paragraph. In the 20s and early 30s, the social pattern was one of multiple or polygamous dating.

They dated each other for the fun of it. Then another quote. There are many problems with a system that fosters the belief that a man can come to understand women by dating 56 different girls in nine months.

That prepares youth for a lifetime of monogamous marriage by stressing an ideal of promiscuous popularity. But that’s exactly what happened. You had the roaring 20s.

Now, some of you from a generation not that far back, But getting close to that, but you may know it was very interesting. With the generation of people who were teenagers in the early 1900s, you never had them talk about their teen years. They talk about their courtship.

They talk about getting married. But there was a deathly silence about what happened before that. And, you know, I’m convinced that one of the problems in the middle part of the 1900s that many adults carried awful guilt.

And I think that’s where you saw a lot of the breakdown of marriage because a lot of things happened before courtship. But isn’t it amazing? Courtship was still there.

All of those aspects of it for 1930, 1940 were still in place. But dating started so you could enjoy male-female relationships with no intention of marriage. You’ll see that.

The control, parental control was continuing. but individual and peer control was rising. And of course, when it came to dating, the parents weren’t all that concerned about it.

Intentions, personal pleasure, and fun. To have as much privacy and at the same time as much excitement as possible. Timing, when attraction is sensed, when wanting to have fun, when pressed by the peer group as soon as early teen years.

Environment was out of the home. Now in the automobile, drive-in theaters, all these kind of things. It was a totally different perspective.

The physical standard was emotional involvement made the physical okay. So there sure was a lot of what you call petting going on, but unfortunately immorality began to find itself more and more into these relationships. Though many did hold back from that, there still was a lot of things to be regretted.

I remember the preachers preaching when I was just a kid, and they would really preach on petting. They would really preach on how we have really fallen in that sense. Now, in the middle and later 1900s, and here I want you to see this.

Where did all of our statistics sort of start? Middle of the 1900s, right? The pattern began to be going steady.

What does that tell you? Courtship crumbled. Courtship couldn’t stay under that kind of a perspective without respect for biblical mores.

This was just simply a cultural hold on. So now, why bother with courtship? Let’s go ahead and have a relationship now.

And so in the 50s, you had a boyfriend, girlfriend, you had the exchanging of rings, wearing the letter jackets, and of course a lot of the TV programs, movies, and all began to broadcast that kind of thing. So the pattern was a number of steady relationships until you found the right steady relationship. You might ask permission of the parents, and then you get married.

That’s really been the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. So many parents that are represented here, you came out of that era. You can’t even relate to the promiscuous dating era.

You would think more of the boyfriend-girlfriend kind of a thing. And the problem here is that in junior high and sometimes even elementary school, but definitely in high school, you had this ritual going on, so you had a bunch of mini marriages, all kind of emotional issues now. You had all kind of pairing off.

You had a whole new dynamic, a powerful dynamic in high schools. And it was a total different regimen. And obviously it opened up an enormous set of problems for those in leadership.

In fact, it deteriorated so bad that in the 60s they didn’t have any control for a while in the high schools until it was clamped back down on because you couldn’t continue on that way. And so going steady was simply, as Bailey says, sort of play marriage, a mimicry of the actual marriage of their slightly older peers. So the control was becoming completely controlled by the individual used themselves.

The intentions were personal pleasure and fun. I mean, here you have this relationship. Here you’re having all of this, and it’s not just one date.

This is a full-fledged relationship. Timing as early as older elementary grades. Environment outside of the home, for the most part.

Physical standard, emotional involvement made anything okay. And the key qualification was personal, emotional attraction, lustful desire. Now, we’ve gone one step further, folks.

You have going steady in the early years. You have living together, replacing marriage. You see the progression?

You had dating, but you still had courtship and marriage. But the dating was unbiblical, out from the authority of parents, totally for the wrong reason. And so dating replaced courtship, and so you had steady relationships.

You had steady relationships in marriage. Well, that just continued to undermine the moral code of our country. And now going steady replaced marriage so you had living together with only a percentage of people actually wanting to bear the legal responsibilities of being married.

Do you see the progression? Now, I want you to note that the minute courtship disintegrated in the 40s and 50s, the moral results in America just went crashing. And since the early 1950s on, we have seen a breathtaking change in our country.

And that is the history. Now, let me ask you, where do the roots of dating come from? Anti-biblical, humanistic philosophies of the mid-1800s and theological liberalism.

What was the purpose of the first set of, the first entering into dating as we know it, 1890s, 1900? What was its key purpose? For finding a mate?

For finding God’s will? It had one purpose only, folks. It was called sin.

It was purely for pleasure. the history of dating has absolutely no aspects that commend it as a vehicle for which you find a life’s mate and folks i’m not even saying the half of it now let me stop here i’m looking at an auditorium full of adults who are here today married because you use the vehicle of dating, correct? And so you’re a little confused.

You say, well, well, you know, we have an awfully good God. And wasn’t he gracious to you? And he certainly, many of you, looked to the Lord and asked him to lead.

And you kept some standards and you endeavored to communicate with your parents. God worked. But I wouldn’t doubt if I was to honestly talk to most parents here, you wish you could do it differently.

You wish it could have been more on the basis of faith. And though God protected you, some of you weren’t saved. You went through the dating situation and you’re so thankful for who you have.

Folks, we’ve got a sovereign God. But the fact is we’re in the year 2010, and even what you knew as dating is not the dating of our modern era. And I want to say that to look to culture for the means that we use to find the right one is to look to an anti-God, satanically controlled culture that has ruined the families of this country and has deeply wounded Bible Christianity.

And I want to submit to you that I think it’s really important for us to take a good look at what God would have us to do. Now young people, God loves each one of you dearly. Each parent here.

He wants you to be right in the middle of his will. And I want to promise you, if you will take to heart the biblical principles we’re going to be talking about, you’re not going to miss anything that’s good. In fact, you will maintain the goodness of God.

He gives perfect and good and precious gifts. It is Satan that you will avoid. And you’ll be able to go into marriage with a clean conscience, with the full thrill of this being the relationship that God has for you, and you will taste and see that the Lord is good.

I promise you that. And so it is a completely different approach to what all of the adults here, for the most part, some adults may have had courtship principles, but most of adults here, this was just life, but you were careful, many of you, and praise the Lord for His goodness. But the fact is, represented also in this church are many, many scars because of the modern dating system.

So let’s look at a positive here, okay? We’re going to put this as sort of our standard, as sort of our goal. What is it we’re after?

Well, it’s marriage. So let’s talk about this for a few minutes here. This is the gold standard, so to speak, and we need to measure everything else by this standard.

And remember, folks, we’re looking at biblical principle, not methodology, here this afternoon and this evening. I want you to get a hold of truth and ask yourself, what are you going to do about truth? And what is the best way to implement truth in our lives?

So, I’ve heard a good definition of marriage. A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and the two become one flesh. In fact, that has an inspired ring to it, okay?

That’s God’s definition from Genesis chapter 2, verse 18. Principle number one, partnership. Two become one.

This is one of those great and glorious mysteries that are just, I mean, Marriage is beyond our ability to fully understand the beauty of it until you’re in it. And then the Spirit of God just continues to develop it and develop it. It is God’s perfect idea.

God in eternity past, when He thought about blessing His creation, this is what He came up with. I’m telling you, when God does something, He does it right. You look at the beauty of our universe.

You look at the beauty of this earth. Marriage is the diamond of His creation. He created us male and female.

He wants us to enjoy everything that we were created to enjoy in marriage. Sin has come into the world. So we have to look at sin and how Satan endeavors to get us into sin, eliminate those pressures, follow biblical principles, and there will be a glorious partnership.

Remember, every one of us in this church age are called of God to make a very major impact upon this world. And for most here, it’s going to be strengthened, and the fullness of that work is going to be accomplished through marriage. It’s not good that a man should dwell alone.

God made a helpmeet, a completer for him. So when we think of the church, when we think of God’s plan, when we think of souls, when we think of everything that’s so dear to us, marriage fits right into it, folks. And so this matter, like I said, of courtship deals with truth.

It deals with maintaining God’s plan, upholding His creation. It gets down to the very heartbeat of man’s relationship with God. And it’s so important.

So we don’t want anything to hinder or scar our young people from having in every way possible the closest of all relationships in marriage. We want them to be one. And we don’t want anything to hinder that.

And Ephesians 5.31 restates it in that beautiful picture of Christ and the church. 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. Then principle number two, promise.

Outside of our covenant with God, and this is part of it actually, this is the most sacred of all covenants. Malachi 2.14, yet ye say, Wherefore, because the Lord hath been witnessed between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, yet she is thy companion, yet she is thy partner, yet she is one with you, the wife of thy covenant.

The most sacred, the most important, the most critical, as far as God is concerned, covenant you’ll ever make, is when you stand on that platform and say, I do. You are giving of yourself completely to be the instrument for God to meet that other person’s needs, and to be able to accomplish God’s will through your lives. And so marriage is a covenant.

The covenantal promise is what consummates a marriage. This is the key, this sacred, the wife of your youth. This is the wife of thy covenant.

The covenantal promise is a vow before God and man. The marriage covenant is permanent. God hates divorce.

So we want our young people to come into marriage with the full ability to know they’re marrying the right one. They’re under authority. They have kept themselves pure.

They’re able to give to each other completely. And they don’t have the emotional baggage in which any possibility of a temporary relationship is even possible. They understand commitment.

Now let me just say, and this is, I’m just give God the glory here. I’ve had the privilege over the years of either officiating or partially officiating well over 100, it’s probably about 120 or so, courtship marriages. And I’ve had more than that as far as other good Christian weddings that I’ve been able to be part of.

But I’m thrilled to tell you, to my knowledge, every one of those marriages is thriving. Well, that sure bucks the percentages, doesn’t it? That’s the goodness of God.

That’s parents that love God. That’s a respect for the Word of God. You know, if I seem like I get a little excited here, if I get a little stirred, folks, I know this is truth.

I have seen it. I have experienced it. I’ve experienced it in my family.

I’ve experienced it in my extended family. I have seen it here in this church and through many young people that we love. And, folks, it is worth fighting for because it has enormous ramifications.

So we want to be able to make a lifetime promise. The idea of a vow is mocked with the following promises heard today. As long as our love shall last.

As long as we can last together. That’s tragic. Principle number three is procreation.

I could spend a lot of time here. I’ll tell you folks, it is tragic. Do you realize that morality has everything to do with God’s creative plan?

And when we are immoral, we are light about that which God says is very important. Remember, what is marriage all about? And did he make one?

Malachi 2.15, Yet he had the residue of the Spirit, and wherefore one, that he might seek a godly seed. Friends, we need to be in God’s will and trust the Lord in this regard and realize that one of the most important facets of marriage, coming into it, being able to be the right kind of parents, having the right kind of relationship, is the godly seed that will propagate the gospel in years to come. And we all value family here.

And so we need to understand that our children need to come into marriage prepared with the confidence that they are in God’s will, with the deep conviction of God’s leadership, and being able to be fully given to be the parents that God wants them to be.

and then principle number four is picture this has meant more and more to me as I’ve thought about it we already quoted from Ephesians 5 31 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 young people let me give you a challenge here everything about how you treat the opposite gender should speak of the holiness of the relationship

that God has with us you will be a picture to a lost world of Christ’s love for the church we are Christians and everything we do loudly speaks forth about the character of our God.

Let me ask you, as you think about maybe other peers who’ve been involved in modern dating and what they’ve been involved in, what kind of picture of Christ does that give? Of his character, of his person, of his holiness. Of his love.

Marriage is designed by God to form a holy picture of Christ’s relationship to the church. We need to tremble a little bit when we think about that. Everything that is done in getting into our marriages and then in our marriages ought to loudly declare the glorious truth of salvation, of the character of our God, and the life that he wants us to live.

It’s a very, very wonderful thing. All right, those are four really beautiful things, aren’t they? Let’s review them here just for a minute.

Number one, what are we wanting to see in all of the marriages of those that we’re involved in? We want them to be able to be full partners, one with another, cleaving one to another. They have become one, help meet, leader, able to love, able to be fully serving the Lord together.

Number two, they need to make a promise that goes deep and that it is a lifetime promise that they are not at all, because of their past experience, having any question mark about their relationship. Number three, they need to have a respect for procreation, for a godly seed, understanding that this family is not about them, it’s about each other, it’s about the cause of Christ, and it’s about future generations, and that everything that they do in that courtship and marriage is a reflection on their God.

Pretty high standard, isn’t it? So let’s keep that in mind. We’re going to look at the four principles in just a minute of dating, and then we’ll compare them to marriage.

Obviously you know where that’s going to go. And then we’ll look at the four principles of courtship, which is what we’ll really deal with here for the bulk of the time. And we’ll see how they match up as far as preparing someone to fulfill the ideal of marriage.

All right, stand up for just a minute. You’re doing well. You’re staying right with me.

You can stretch if you’d like just as long as you don’t hit somebody next to you over in this section over here. So that could be a little dangerous. Yeah, sideways or something there.

All right. Everybody doing okay? You hung in there.

I’ve gone definitely fast track here, but you’re, I think, staying with me. I appreciate that. All right, you may be seated, and we will now get back to being negative, okay?

That was positive. It was fun to talk about marriage, but now we’ve got to talk about dating. We saw our culture, and at the very time dating, and especially going steady, has predominated what’s happened to our country.

It’s crashed. It’s not just been because of that, but all the forces together have brought us down. And we saw that the original purpose for dating was pleasure equaling sin.

Then we now have looked at God’s beautiful standard and thus the basic principles of marriage. And our heart’s desire ought to be, as Bible-believing Christians desiring to serve the Lord, how do we get there a safe and appropriate and biblical way? Well, let’s go back to looking at dating.

We really haven’t looked at it. And we’re going to look at four principles. And then I’m going to take some time to look at the violation of biblical principles.

And that’s where I’m going to really get the Bible into your hands here to look at this. This definition here is a very awkward type definition. But the purpose of it is to envelop all aspects of the modern dating as we know it in distinction from courtship.

Because sometimes those terms are interchanged. The independent, that’s the first blank, the independent developing by a man and woman of a temporary, note that, romantic relationship for personal emotional satisfaction through the means of thoughts, looks, notes, talks, or events. Not preparing for marriage.

It’s not to find God’s will. It is simply a here and now enjoyment of one another. The independent developing by a man and woman, not under authority, of a man and woman of a temporary romantic relationship for personal emotional satisfaction to the means of thoughts, looks, notes, talks, or events.

By the way, you can be in a good Christian environment, in a good Christian school, and still be caught in this. You know, that’s why we added notes, looks, okay? It’s amazing how, I don’t know if it’s angels or what, but I have seen more backpacks get jostled and notes fall out.

I mean, just at strategic times. And it’s amazing. Into the hands of principles go those kinds of things.

And be sure your sin will find you out. I always chuckle when I see that. But it is, without ever going on a date, you can begin a relationship that God did not intend for you to get into.

Now, it’s very interesting. Lloyd Saxton has this quote here. Dating differs from previous courtship practices in the following ways.

Number one, and note this, this is going to be key, the introduction of the man to the woman by a member of the family is not considered necessary. Number two, there is no chaperone. I mean, this is, when you read this, people look at you, where planet did you come from 70 years ago?

It wouldn’t have been that odd to say those things. This is an observation of history by Saxton. There is no commitment on the part of the male or female to continue the relationship beyond the date itself.

Number four, the date is planned by the adolescents themselves and not by their elders. Number five, physical enemies such as hand-holding, petting, kissing, and sexuality are expected rather than forbidden. And so you have this going steady.

It’s something new in the last half century in the dating practice. And, of course, now it even is worse than that. Like I said, this is a little bit old.

But I want you to see that, honestly, there has been every attempt to try to defend this multiple relationship experience prior to marriage. And here’s one writer that is trying to say this is okay, has an evangelical link, believe it or not. Dating is a proving ground for love.

Loves arrive and are given a whirl on the dating merry-go-round that is common during the teen and adult years. Most of these lovers will last only a short while. Each new special friend, each new relationship, each new feeling helps the person gain experience and the wonders of human interaction and insight into himself.

As loves come and go, the emotional repertoire of the individual is developed to the point where he or she is increasingly capable of loving wildly, that’s about right, widely and deeply in the many ways that are important for fulfillment. Oh, brother, excuse the scientific response.

that is so untrue but that honestly folks I read books on dating even by evangelical authors back in the 70s and they’re trying to say there’s something good in all of this now we’re in 2010 and all we see is wreckage over the landscape you see that was an idealistic naive response back then but it is not true that multiple relationships prepare you for the four principles of marriage. They greatly undermine your preparation. All right, let’s look quickly at the four principles of dating.

Principle number one is pleasure. Pleasure. The courting history that we just went through reveals the pleasure of romantic intimacy has been the driving motive to join the dating game.

From the mid-1800s on, romance has been the key. Not God’s leadership, not character, not what God was doing. and then it got into just enjoying the dating time just for the selfish sake of it and all into what we’ve seen in this century.

And it’s all in the name of love. And I really like what Rabbi Lebo, I don’t know how you say his name, but he is calling Jewish young people back to the Old Testament model of courtship. It’s very interesting.

And so he’s warning them about this very selfish perspective on love. Love that hinges solely on sensual attraction reflects only self-gratification. People have invented a whole lexicon of false terminology to express distortions of life’s truths.

For example, people say they love fish. What do they do with the fish they love? Well, first they snuff out its life.

Then they cut it up, bake it, broil it, fry it, chew it, and swallow it. Do they really love fish? Most certainly not.

They love themselves and seek self-gratification. The poor fish serves only to achieve this end. The term love often has the same connotation when used to refer to the opposite sex.

In such cases, it means I love him or her for the pleasure and self-gratification he or she is able to give me. Now, folks, that statement is so right on. Really, what is talked about in most cases in the typical boy-girl relationships, I love you, it’s all about yourself.

And that’s why that kind of affection and emotion cannot keep going, because any time you have self, you can never satisfy self enough. And I can just tell you, young ladies, outside of the will of God at the right time, if a boy tells you he loves you, he doesn’t. Because no boy would ever undermine a father and tell you he loves you outside of the will of God at the right time.

You can just change it a little bit and say, I love myself. That’s exactly what he’s saying. Don’t fall for it.

You will be deeply hurt if you do. No matter how sincere you think the fellow is. That pleasure is the main reason for joining the dating game is revealed by the main reasons why couples break up.

The relationship gets boring or too hard to maintain. Someone better comes along. A partner no longer meets his or her needs.

Quarrels or misunderstandings. Romantic feelings and excitement have disappeared. See, that’s all selfish.

And that’s where most marriages are. That’s why 60% of marriages dissolve. Note the statement there.

How many of these reasons are heard daily in divorce courts across our nation? Principle number two. The first one was pleasure.

The second one is personal choice. This principle goes out of the basic humanistic assumption. Remember, that’s where dating comes from.

That a young person’s heart is basically good and he or she will make the right choice even if mature individuals don’t see it their way. Of course, we will look biblically that that is not true. Now, young people are to be part of it and give their parents their heart, and they mutually together work on finding God’s will.

But they acknowledge, the older I got, the more I realized I needed my parents’ protection and guidance. The boy or girl goes after the person they find most personally attractive or available at the point when they feel the impulse for romantic involvement. I hate to say this, but you know, this, I love someone and all these deep feelings, I hate to say it, but you could have those if you’re in this selfish perspective for many different people.

This kind of love is not the determination whether it’s God’s will or not. In fact, many times it’s the clear indicator it’s not. Okay, God was not in it.

There is little or no authoritative control or accountability. There’s no authoritative control or accountability. The modern dating system is a parent forfeiting his responsibility.

And I’m amazed today in common culture, now Christians are a little different but not necessarily a whole lot better, but I find that when parents are confronted with the need to help their children in this matter of finding the right one, they back off from it and don’t think it’s their responsibility. Here you rear a child all the way through their teen years, and then you just let this most important decision go to the wind. Realizing there’s a very real devil.

He’s the God of this world. We have hearts that are depraved. Who can know them?

God wants the multitude of counselors and biblical authority to protect children. That’s how God has worked it. So it’s personal choice.

Principle number three, periodic relationships. Not a oneness, not a single-mindedness, And it’s accepted from almost elementary years on up. You’re going to go in and out of relationships.

The clear dating principle is that temporary relationships, and many of them, are desirable and good. Note some recent quotes from evangelical literature. Fundamental literature.

It is obvious and natural that a teen can have only one boyfriend or girlfriend at a time, and they may choose to date that person steadily. Do you see how we have bought right into the cultural thinking and tried to sanitize it? The purpose of dating in high school is to get to know as many girls and boys as possible.

Steady relationships don’t do that, folks. I can tell you when you don’t have the dating system, there’s where young men and young ladies get to know in a proper way many, many different people. Now note the point here.

Might not it be that this repeated breaking up is more preparation for handling the impulses toward and the pains of divorce rather than the commitment of marriage? And I’m telling you it’s exactly what happens. Marriage is but another steady relationship.

They’re used to ending them when things don’t go well. The average marriage is about seven years in length and 60% break up. They’re simply going through the same patterns that they developed while they were in the dating process.

And then principle number four, physical aloneness and intimacies. Promoting lust and sexual involvement is at the core of the dating system. The history and statistics reveal the sad truth.

Now let’s remind ourselves, in the early 1900s, what was the obvious purpose of the institution of dating? Pleasure. There’s no doubt.

I mean, history tells you that. These are secular historians from Oxford and Harvard that have written these key things. And so it is well known that the original purpose of dating was very selfish and lustful.

No wonder we have the problems that we have. The drives and desires of the flesh control the young persons. Even the sincere Christian young person involved in the dating game has naively set himself up for great temptation.

I have seen many kids over the years whose parents tried to control a form of dating, got into a relationship with some standards, but the temptation and the pressure around them was too great to handle. And it’s so tragic, the things that had to be then dealt with at that point. All right, let me just ask you very quickly, how do those four principles match up with the marriage principles?

Does it help us get to a permanent relationship, a partnership for the cause of Christ? Does it get us to desiring to have a serious rearing of a godly seed for the cause of Christ? Is it a picture of Christ’s permanent love for us?

Well, the answers are fairly clear. Now, number four, we’re going to look, as I said, at the biblical perspective on modern dating. And this only scratches the surface, but we’re going to at least give you some things to think about.

In 1961, the Reader’s Digest article of the reprint of the Life article by sociologist James Bessard noted that the trouble with American marriage is American courtship. He felt that American parents permit and even encourage their children to select their mates in just about the worst of all ways. When was that?

1961, when all of this new type of steady dating began. All right. Let’s look at the biblical problems with the typical dating scene.

Sin problems. The first one is impurity. Now, is there a problem in general with impurity in our country today, mentally?

Let’s look at the mental aspect of it. Obviously, there is everywhere you turn. And today, unfortunately, with the access of sensuality and technology, and then all around us in the malls and the billboards and everywhere you turn, it takes the Spirit of God with leading men and women into self-discipline to foresee the evil and hide themselves by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, getting into a dating relationship with a young man and young lady, when they’re not thinking about marriage, they’re not under the leadership of their parents, or even if they are, they’re still in an unprotected situation, they are developing a relationship that God only intends for marriage. Especially in our day, is there any potential for mental problems? Let me just tell you, young men, you’re not to think about any woman but your wife.

And it’s one thing to think about what you see in images, it’s another thing to begin to develop a relationship with an actual person and begin to think the wrong thoughts about them. Let’s see what God said about that. Matthew 5, 27, Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

And then it goes on to say, If your right eye offend thee, what does the Lord say? Pluck it out. If your hand offend thee, cut it off.

Well, that would sure solve some issues, wouldn’t it? But that’s how strongly the Lord dealt with this. And so there is great potential for immature young people getting into the dynamics of the passion of a relationship to begin thinking about the opposite gender for a specific person in a way that they should only be thinking about their wife or husband.

So that we could make, I don’t think I have to go long on that, I think we all understand that. Now, one that we don’t see is the emotional. Now, if you were to read through Ephesians chapter 5, what’s the emphasis in Ephesians chapter 5 about Christ and the church?

Christ is to love the church, or the husband is to love the church, I’m sorry, love his wife as Christ loved of the church. You’re dealing with the emotional sacrificial commitment of love, which is the main driving aspect of two becoming one. Now, in just a minute, we’re going to look at the physical sins that are part of the dating relationship.

But I think we miss the very heart of what relationships are all about, and that is the emotions of a male and female coming together in that glorious union that God has made for marriage and getting bonded emotionally, and then it’s not the right thing, and they break up. And now you begin to have this scarring and problems, and you don’t have single-mindedness, single-heartedness. It’s impurity of the mind and heart.

Let’s read together this long paragraph here. God made man male and female. In other words, our sexuality is at the core of our humanness.

It is a vital way we reflect the image of God and bring glory to Him.

it is very clear that our sexual nature is not just physical but a part of our very souls folks how women think and men think are very different we laugh about it but it’s a beautiful thing God in his perfect creation made us this way and there is a deep need of a man to have the communication love and support of a woman and the same a woman for a man this is as deep in the human realm as you can go there is a need,

desire, joy inside a man or woman to love and be loved, to own and be owned to care for and be cared for to understand and be understood to know and be known and these needs can be deeply, satisfyingly fulfilled by a member of the opposite gender this is the soul and heart of a man that was made to be united with the soul and heart of a woman when we speak of emotional purity we are speaking of this created aspect of each man and woman

and the need to preserve one’s heart and soul and mind for one person, one’s lifelong marriage partner.

We talked about that partnership, that cleaving, that oneness. We want to do everything we can, parents, young people, to keep the hearts of young people single-minded toward God, single-minded toward the ones that they’re going to marry, and not get into relationships before it’s time for the right one. Yes, we want to keep them physically pure, but we also want to keep them emotionally pure.

And that’s the real heartbeat of the picture of Christ and the church. You see, what happened when you got into the Romantic era of the 1800s, you began to have this romantic, emotional love feelings, and this was something that people could experience outside of marriage. And this began to be romanticized.

In fact, what is the key part of most novels from the mid-1800s on? It’s that. If you don’t have a romantic scene and this, and it doesn’t necessarily, and most secular ones even end up with a great marriage.

And so this is, and by the way, let me just mention this here. I think it’s a very dangerous thing, parents, for your children to read Christian romance novels.

Because it puts, even though it’s all this talk about the Lord, it puts an emphasis on the romantic part and the emotions and the feelings, and it takes away God’s wonderful leading very clearly and gets young girls particularly, but also young fellows, into vicariously getting involved in those kind of relationships and looking for that rather than what God has intended, which is better but may not seem the same and can really undermine a right perspective.

Now, I hate to use this as an illustration, but just to put this into perspective for you, I have a husband and wife come in to counsel, and the wife is, I mean, upset. And the husband’s sitting there perplexed. And she is, and I find out what the problem, and the husband says, Pastor, I have been true to her.

I have not been physically involved with anyone else. Yes, I love so-and-so. Yes, I write love notes of so and so, but I’ve never been untrue physically to this woman.

You’d want to throw a tomato at him, wouldn’t you? Excuse me, I shouldn’t have said that, but that’s how you would feel. You think, oh my, that’s horrible.

Well, do you see, do we not consider the emotional attachment of a married man to somebody else as something equal to even the physical infidelity? It just makes you sick to think about it. Folks, when people get involved in dating, they are getting emotionally attached to somebody else’s future mate.

That’s what physical immorality is so horrible about. You’re stealing from someone else’s mate. But you’re doing the same thing with the love and the emotions of someone if you’re not intending to marry them or have a very selfish perspective on it all.

Virginity, single-mindedness, purity is first inward and then outward.

and really think about this you want to young people keep your heart mind and body for the one you have are to marry and I promise you it will make all four points of marriage just beautiful if you will believe God in that realm and of course physical purity what does physical intimacy beginning with hand holding communicate in a dating relationship and you know this is what happens folks even in Christian dating it doesn’t it doesn’t it’s not just going out on a date it immediately

gets into physical contact commitment to one another desire for the other togetherness romantic feelings you’re specifically aware of the sexual nature of an attraction to the opposite gender and then it just gets into the whole pleasure aspect these things are reserved according to the word of God only for marriage.

I remember we had to preach against hand-holding. That was the big deal. I used to tell young people, you know, I don’t know what’s so romantic about this claw, you know, two claws.

But there was the bonding. And, of course, any married couple will tell you it’s the beginning of just the wonderful oneness that leads to the wonderful, all the aspects of marriage. You don’t hear much preaching about hand-holding anymore, do you?

That era is over. It’s either a young person keeps involved for the Lord, or they get involved in things they shouldn’t write off the bat. It’s tragic today.

Well, verse after verse. 1 Corinthians 6, 16. What, know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body?

For two saith he shall be one flesh. The whole idea of anything outside of marriage, the Bible says it’s as bad as that kind of thing. 1 Timothy 5, 2b, the younger women as sisters with all purity.

Gentlemen, you are to have a wonderful relationship with your mother. You are to have a giving and sacrificial relationship with your sisters. And you are to treat all older women as mothers.

and you are to treat all of your young ladies as sisters. The Bible. There’s only one lady that you are to go and have a different kind of relationship with, and that is the one you marry.

That’s God’s standard. It’s a great standard. Now, let me just ask those of you young men that have good sisters and you love them, they’re unmarried, you don’t want anybody at all getting interested in them the wrong way, do you?

well you’d feel like fighting wouldn’t you as the brother almost should i’m not going to promote fighting but i mean that’s the way way you feel all right well just apply it to yourself with young ladies first corinthians 7 1 now concerning the things were of ye wrote unto me it is good for a man not to touch a woman nevertheless to avoid fornication it goes on and talks about the relationship a man a woman should have now let me just say folks people argue Well,

it’s not just talking about touching.

No, it’s not just talking about touching. It’s talking about touching in a way that it causes a response that applies perfectly to what we’re talking about. In no way is it right for a woman to touch in an inappropriate way a woman, ever, anytime, outside of marriage.

Folks, we’ve got to get back to thus saith the Lord. These things are not hard to understand. So therefore, whatever we choose, as far as the way we are going to find God’s mate, we’ve got to protect ourselves in every way from mental, emotional, and physical impurity.

Just move on here. We have played naive with the views of human sexuality. That’s why, listen, our forefathers in the 1600s, 1700s, they drew the line.

They didn’t trust young men and women. They didn’t trust themselves. Folks, listen.

The most beautiful thing in the world is the physical attraction between a man and a woman. It is that which cements the emotional oneness. And I tell you, young people, it’s not wrong.

God has that in you. You want that there. That’s what’s going to get you out of the comfort zone of being with your mommy and daddy.

And make you venture out into starting your own home. Do you think about that, fellas? You’ve got it made with your mom.

To think you’ve got to go out and earn a living and support a wife. I mean, you wouldn’t do that unless God put something pretty big inside of you to want to do it. So it’s all beautiful, it’s good, but it’s powerful.

We’ve got to be very careful. And that has always been accepted, all throughout Christendom. Fornication is a great reproach.

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. Now let’s look at other things. I’m going to go through these quickly.

Defrauding, and I’m going to define this in a little bit from 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 through 8. That’s stealing from somebody else emotionally or physically. Breaking of the law, the Ten Commandments.

Here’s just five suggestions. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. What happens when someone is out of the will of God in a male-female relationship?

It becomes a God. Honor thy father and thy mother. The Bible says, when does a man leave his father and mother?

When he cleaves to his wife. What happens when a man cleaves to his steady date? He prematurely leaves his father and mother.

I’ll have parents talk to me about they’re having problems with their young person. They just don’t seem to be close to them anymore. And almost always I find out there’s some kind of hidden relationship going on.

and so you don’t honor your father and mother and those kind of things thou shalt not steal that’s defrauding you’re taking from someone else what belongs to them if you get into the improper relationship thou shalt not commit adultery not even in your mind thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife isn’t the tenth commandment something that hits it right there anytime you desire what is not for you That’s coveting, and that’s the tenth commandment. There’s five major commandments.

Another sin issue, searing of the conscience through continual yielding to sinful temptation. You see, if you’re going to be used of God to have a pure conscience, if you’re going to be able to hold to the truth, if you’re going to be able to have faith, then you’ve got to be careful and not violate your conscience. And whenever you do, you’ve got to get it fully right with God and repent.

Holding forth a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck. And I am absolutely positive. I look back in the era when I was in college.

I was a dorm soup of about 450 guys. And I knew which guys had the wrong attitude. I knew that the ones that were in wrong relationships.

And almost to the man today, they’ve compromised the word of God. It doesn’t always happen. If you’re honest with God.

Listen, many folks here have come from a bad background. Just agree with God. And God will just give you a, He’ll give you your conscience back.

But oh, knowing better with a good heritage and to knowingly sear your conscience, young men, young ladies, is a very serious thing. Developing of the strange woman, an evil man perspective. The evil man will hurt anyone and do anything to get what he wants.

It doesn’t matter if he hurts a girl and hurts her future marriage if it makes him happy. That’s an evil man. A strange woman gets what she wants by using her feminine charm and ways.

That’s the flirting of a dating relationship. Not good traits, folks. That’s the low of the low in the book of Proverbs.

And other spirit sins, if you’ve ever seen the dating culture, jealousy, bitterness, anger, hurt. I mean, kids are just overrun. At a principal of a Christian school in the seminar I was in yesterday, and he said, I can’t, he said, you’re exactly right.

He said, you wouldn’t believe the fights in the hallways between girls. He said, it was vicious. The guys would just run away.

They, you know, but girls are nasty. And he said, it just, it overran the school. All of these relationships and all of the jealousy and bitterness that went on.

He said, I saw it firsthand. Developmental problems. loss of social development and family relationships oh folks you develop know how to serve the Lord in the broader scheme of things in having a healthy family relationship you don’t want the premature break now note this closely loss of emotional development this goes back to that emotional impurity instability and insecurity young people that don’t get the dates or have people reject them all kind of issues start early Why do we have so many psychological problems?

Feelings of rejection, either from breaking up or a lack of a boyfriend, girlfriend. Oh, the pain of breaking up or of not being noticed. You know, it’s wonderful for young people.

You don’t have to be the beautiful person if you believe God. God will bring the right one at the right time the right way if you’re in the will of God. And He does it.

It’s not based on the Hollywood model. Broken hearts and deep hurt scars that last a lifetime. Folks, it’s real.

Tender initial or deep loves that linger for years after being broken off may even last a lifetime. A wishful tie to someone in the past. There are emotional bonds that remain long after you are married to someone else.

This is where all the mixed up emotions in marriage come from. A callousness develops after the first painful breaking up that protects from future pain and makes future breaking up more easy to handle. And that callousness keeps you from partnership.

It creates many marriage, many divorce, maximum pain. Honestly, a long-term steady relationship broken up has the same dynamics as divorce. Especially if there was a lot of physical involvement.

Feelings of betrayal, loss of ability to trust others and have confidence in others, confusion, suicidal thoughts, it’s just tragic. and the overwhelming guilt unless they come to the Lord. You see, there’s ownership.

There’s mutual relationships. And you can read down that list there that, you know, it’s an exclusive relationship. There’s the intimacy.

You’re supposed to keep it going. Take some kind of spoken end. It’s almost like a legal decree.

And so it’s very similar. Let’s move on. The loss of intellectual development.

Let me just say, young people, high school, college years are precious years. God’s doing something spiritually, intellectually. Your mind is still very open to being able to learn and develop.

And if you are in an improper relationship at the wrong time, you will be overwhelmed by those pressures. And you will greatly dwarf your future ability. Mark it down.

And then this is key, loss of spiritual development.

Distraction from single-mindedness Oh listen, this is the time And that’s why we have the rules that we have here We want you to sit in chapel And be thinking about your God We don’t want you to be worried about this relationship Or that relationship We want you to have the relationship That will make your relationship with your future spouse What it ought to be Because it’s through the grace of God That it will be beautiful Guilt Loss of blessing Judgment from God for defrauding backsliding from

focus not on God pulled down by a weaker date I’ve seen so many men with great potential get interested in a girl who did not have the same heart and their whole life was ruined because of it no time for exertion in spiritual ministry realms that’s why the right time will be when these things don’t happen loss of normal maturity family problems involvement when you’re on your not really at the right time.

Parents may have given agreement because they don’t understand but it isn’t the blessing of God on it. Father’s role is obliterated. Break in relationship and trust with parents.

Then there’s peer problems. Mistreating of other young ladies not as sisters in Christ. Tail bearing and gossip.

Broken friendships. Tensions among peer and youth groups. So many youth groups are that way.

social problems I hate to even mention these things date rape, disease, teen pregnancy and abortion and then what we’re really gearing for here in this session is those marriage principles listen to what Bradley says whatever we have been doing these days hasn’t been helping the church young people keep falling by the wayside and we say it’s just Christian dating I say that Christian dating is robbing from marriage what God intended to be part of the marriage relationship. Note this.

All we say for marriage today is complete cohabitation, complete sexual privilege, and having children. He’s talking about that in the Christian realm. Now look at some of the problems here.

Lessons God’s design for marriage by cheapening marriage privileges. Now I tell you what, I get the biggest kick out of it. Young people that have kept their heart, kept their body weight, They have a chaperone.

They’re completely free from anything that would hurt their consciences, waiting for the right time to have the full, even the deepest of relationship. They go through the wedding, go through the wedding reception. They get in the car, and it hits them halfway down the road.

We’re alone. And it’s right. And I tell you what, it is sweet.

It is sweet. And everything that God intends, and believe me, marriage is better than I can even say, is all ahead of you. You haven’t robbed from yourself and from someone else.

One’s first love and desire, which often is always remembered, does not belong to one’s mate. Oh, this next one is so critical. Flirting habits of those, treating those of opposite gender carried into marriage.

Inability to trust mate. Jealousy. Memory of past loves causing unwanted thoughts or a wandering heart.

Comparison of mate to past dates. Mate is cheated out of the gift of virginity, both of body and of heart. And the false ideas of marriage love.

And all this very false, artificial, worldly picture of romance and love is not going to be what is marriage. It’s going to be better, but it’s not going to be what is portrayed from a sensual, fleshly perspective. Self-centered desires, idea of romance based on lust, the sweetness of stolen water and the pleasantness of secret bread, false commitment, loss of innocent childhood vision of what marriage is about.

And then, of course, divorce. I’ve read this quote before, but I think it’s so good. During the time of the Persian Gulf War, someone asked General Schwarzkopf concerning the military prowess of Saddam Hussein.

The general replied, well, he’s neither a strategist, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he’s a great military man. Dating is wonderful, isn’t it?

It isn’t safe for kids’ purity, their spiritual growth, their relationship with their parents, their future happiness, There’s spiritual fellowship. It violates biblical principles. It follows no biblical pattern.

It is creating all kinds of problems. But other than that, dating is an outstanding thing. Let me ask you folks, should we Christianize this?

How can you Christianize something that’s unbiblical? That’s my point. Do you know what combining, and this is a common term by the way on Christian campuses today.

You know what combining, hoarding, and dating is, don’t you? It’s adorting. And that’s what the term is.

No, adorting won’t work. Courtship is an old word. It has a lot of meanings.

But we just want to have… Now, Dr. Jim’s is a little too awkward.

I still can’t say it. Faith-based mate-finding. Try saying that.

You can say it now. Ready? Faith-based mate-finding.

That’s pretty good. You do better than I do. I get tongue twisted on.

But I don’t think that one’s going to have a long life. So maybe one of these days we’ll come up with the right term there. All right, I’m going to take a couple of more minutes here and just get you thinking about the patterns that we see in Scripture.

And then we’re going to spend in the evening service our time looking at biblical principles of courtship. Adam and Eve. God noticed the need for a helpmate, not Adam.

I’ve heard some great messages, and it may be so, that Adam was around looking at the monkeys and was jealous. I don’t think so. I really don’t.

He’s a pretty smart guy, all right? And I don’t think he felt alone because he was made for God. God noticed his need.

And oh my, when after Adam began doing God’s will, he was to have dominion over the earth. That was a lot of work, and he was working hard. God prepared Eve for Adam while he was sleeping.

And God brought Eve to Adam. And did Adam have any trouble? No, he loved her.

he thought it was a great idea okay because it was perfect he had a perfect relationship with the Lord there was no sin in his life he was innocent and he immediately loved her he didn’t pick her out of different options God brought her to him he knew it was from God he trusted God he knew this was perfect and he loved her the two cleaved together the two became one flesh you say well that’s the garden folks it is the pattern a God that could

create Eve out of Adam can bring the right one to you the right way.

Old Testament betrothal. Now let me just read down through here. Betrothal is to fix upon by agreement or appointment to meet a date or appointed time.

Now, let me just mention here, What this was is you had an extreme seriousness about engagement. The New Testament term was espousal. The Old Testament term was betrothal.

It was so serious that a legal agreement was made. A dowry had to be paid so that it was clear that the man had the kind of money to take care of this woman. And that a legal representative called the friend of the bridegroom negotiated it all.

That’s big time. See, the point is, folks, marriage is important. Now, arranged marriage, again, is heathen.

There can be the perversion of it. But in the biblical perspective, betrothal and espousal was a beautiful thing. You had the full agreement of both families.

You had the seriousness of the character reference and the absolute commitment. You legally bound yourself. You had to be that sure.

You just didn’t make engagement a little bit more serious, going steady. So what we call courtship was the provisions just prior to betrothal or a spousal where both of the young people knew this was the right thing in agreement with the parents and it was all set up. And there are different ways that that would happen.

The point I want you to see here, folks, is now the dowry is a nice idea. I sort of wish, you know, we could maybe institute that this fall. But anyway, I think it’s a great idea.

But that is if you’re on the bride’s side. But then we want to do away with it for the rest of the time. But the whole idea was that this was a serious matter.

And that there was full confidence that this would work. And there were formal ceremonies, legal documents. They were called husband and wife and so forth.

And then the engagement was lasting about one year. You remember when Joseph thought Mary, his betrothed wife, was with child, he didn’t know about the Spirit of God’s doing. And so he had a mind to put her away to divorce her.

And then you have Isaac and Rebekah. I’m not going to take the time to go through that there. You had a godly man, Isaac.

You had the initiation of Abraham. You had the prayer and seeking God’s will, covenanting with the Lord. You had the testing of the character of Rebecca.

You had the sense of God’s leading with the servant, I being in the way God led me. You had the parental confirmation on the bride’s side. You had the consent of the bride.

This is unique here because they had not met, but they knew each other’s families. Leaving of home and the wonderful comforting union. Now in the last couple of minutes, and then we’ll give you the break before the service.

Folks, the whole idea of betrothal and the seriousness about marriage and the purity of marriage and this whole procedure, Christ and the church relationship by God the Father uses that as its picture. Folks, it wasn’t just a cultural way. This was forever immortalized by God using it as the picture of his eternal relationship with us.

So let me just go down here. 2 Corinthians 11, 2 speaks of, For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband. Speaking of Christ, it’s a beautiful thing.

Ephesians 1, 4, The Father chose the bride. He hath chosen us and him before the foundation of the world. John 3, 29, The Father sent the friend of the groom, John the Baptist, was the legal representative, speaking forth the character, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.

That’s great character, all right? The Father sent the Son to gain the bride. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.

The Son obeyed the Father’s will. I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father that has sent me. The groom initiates the love.

He was the one that made the first decision under his father’s leadership. We love him because he first loved us. The greatest dowry in the history of the world was the blood of Jesus Christ, proving that he had the ability to have that relationship.

Christ is a way. I go to prepare a place for you. Now, let me just add something in here.

What would happen is the legal agreement was made. The betrothal would begin. The groom would leave, and the poor bride-to-be was now left alone for a little time after they had gotten to know each other.

And what was the groom doing? He was going to prepare a place. He was going to prepare a chuppah in the room in the house of his father.

Now, as I said a few weeks ago, I hate to disillusion you. You’re not going to have your own mansion on the river of life. You are going to have a room in the very house of the Father.

That’s a whole lot better. What’s the whole point? You’re going to live with him forever.

And so he would work hard. He would prepare it. Everything would happen.

And then the day would come. You see, the bride had to be ready every night. She’d go to bed wondering if it’d even be in the night.

Her friends, the virgins, needed to keep their lamps lit. Know the illustration? And at any time, the trumpet could sound way off in the distance that the groom was coming for the bride.

If she wasn’t ready, it wasn’t a good thing. And so she would have all her attendants, and they would go, and the bridegroom would take her to his home, and the great feasting would begin. My friends, when that trumpet sounds, Jesus Christ is ready for us.

And we’ll meet him in the air to be with him forever. Isn’t that a wonderful thought? See, the whole picture here, the purity of the bride.

Of course, we’re washed by the blood of Christ. The marriage, supper, and celebration. The bride is clothed in white garments and is forever.

We’ll live in eternity forever. Do you see the picture? The point here is, folks, marriage is serious.

We better get there a serious way so that we do not play any games with it. Let me just finish this page out for you. Jewish Shadukim is the modern term by Jews for what we would call courtship, and it’s much similar.

And then notice the last one, the marriage ceremony of Western Christian culture. We’ve had many wonderful weddings here. Who comes in first?

The groom. You know what that pictures. And then the bride has to, does she come down by herself?

no she is on the arm of her father if he is living and able to give her away or she’ll be on the arm of some man that’s representative of that family and that father has the obvious authority and that they’re part of that family until he says her mother and I do and I’ll tell you dads when you step away from that daughter you had better know it’s the will of God and it’s a sobering moment it’s a beautiful moment as I’ve already said the

bride is in white representing your purity and you know it’s almost a joke today you may kiss the bride but it’s a big deal in Christian culture and heritage why?

because that’s the first kiss it’s a big deal and I love Dr. Jim’s illustration Dr. Jim of course had followed these principles and they were going to kiss in the ceremony.

And, oh, my, he was nervous about it. That night he was pacing back and forth. You can just see him.

And he said, what if I blow it? I mean, it will be terrible. You know, we get to this part and I don’t know what to do with how to kiss her.

He looked at the mirror for a moment and thought he might practice, and that grossed him out. And so he comes nervous to the wedding. I’m only about three feet away.

And I’m telling you, when the preacher said, you may kiss the bride, I almost had to turn away. It was downright embarrassing. He is a schmooch.

I’m telling you. He did an A-plus job. Don’t worry.

You don’t need experience. All right. It’s a beautiful fact you’ll do better because it will mean the world to you that you kept yourself for each other.

Do you see all that’s involved, folks? This goes to the depth of our relationship with the Lord. We can’t mess it up.

There’s the picture. Oh, may God help us. All right, I owe you a break.

We’ll start the service in just a few minutes. Thank you for your good attention. Well, throughout the day here, we’ve been looking at really the collapse of our culture and the enormous pressure that has put on Christians.

And yet we have a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And His Word is sure. And in the midst of this dark day, God’s blessing can still be upon His people if they choose to trust His Word.

And it’s a wonderful thing. As the Gilmores were thinking, I remember when Great is Thy Faithfulness was sung at their wedding. Honestly, it was a touch of heaven there in that ceremony.

And as I mentioned earlier in the afternoon, I had the privilege of conducting well over 100 courtship weddings. And I tell you what, everyone is the same. There is a touch from heaven.

There is something that is just so wonderful as you sense the smile of God. God created marriage. God loves us.

God wants to give us the best things in life. He doesn’t want us to be miserable. He has made us a certain way, and He wants us to enjoy everything that He has for us.

And so I do come to you, as I said earlier, with a real sense of urgency in my soul, because I know, of course, the Word of God is true, and I also know that these biblical principles make all the difference.

And though we live in a dark and wicked day, Our children can take all that we have allowed God to put in their hearts and minds and to bring them through this transition from our home into the next home in a wonderful protected way that will bring the glory of God into their lives. I want you to turn with me to a couple of familiar passages before we go back to the notes. Very familiar verses, Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now we have all gathered together today wanting to have the perfect will of God for our children in their lives.

I think we all want that. But we see here that to know the will of God means that there has to be a presenting of our wills to God in every area. A living sacrifice.

Surrender is absolutely key. And that these lives that we surrender by His grace are to be lived in a holy way. And it is not to be conformed to this world, be pressed into the mold of this culture controlled by Satan, but instead through the power of the Spirit of God we are to be transformed by the total renewing of our mind and therefore we can know what the will of God is.

Now, we spent quite a bit of time looking at where the world is. And the world is declining rapidly, tragically, here in America and Western culture. And we’ve seen that the whole scene of dating and all of that is anything but holy.

We look back in history and saw that the very conception of dating at the end of the 1800s, As it began, it was not a substitute for courtship. Courtship was still going on. It was an excuse for sin, for pleasure, for relationships that everybody knew then were not the best thing.

And it came out of the whole rise of humanism and Darwinian evolution and man-centered living of the mid-1800s and theological liberalism. And as our culture began to collapse, so did this whole matter of family and how to find life’s mate.

and so what we’ve been forced to do and it’s a good thing here a hundred years later we’ve got to come back and say Lord what would you have me to do I want to be a living sacrifice I want everything I do to be holy I want to be conformed not to the world and what the world does but be in a transformed lifestyle with a whole other thought process then if you’ll turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 getting to that at some

point in our series, but let me just read these verses.

We want the will of God? Well, let’s look at verse 3 of chapter 4. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.

So the will of God is that we have to make every provision possible to stay away from any possibility of fornication or impurity. That every one of you We should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, even as his culture, even as what we’ve looked at, which knoweth not God, that no one, if you notice that’s in italics, no one go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter.

We should not steal from the life of someone else by any kind of indecent, immoral, improper male-female relationship, stealing their emotions, stealing their body in any matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto what? Holiness.

And young people, I want you to note the next verse. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man. Anyone here that might despise this teaching to have a holy life in the matter of dating and courtship, You’re not despising man if you despise, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

So we’re talking about wanting his will, not being conformed to this world, wanting to live holy lives, not to defraud one another, understanding the will of God is sanctification. Folks, these are powerful principles. These are huge areas of the Word of God.

Now, for those of you that have come in, if you have your notes, if you’ll go to number six. I do not have the same pagination. What page is that?

Which one? 25. Thank you.

Page 25, number six. We have looked at, first of all, after we dealt with where our culture is, and certainly we don’t want to look to our culture for the pattern, and when we looked at the history of modern dating, we realized it came out of unbelief. It came out of an attack on the Bible.

and its very purposes were insidious from the very beginning. Even though, by the way, let me just say, most everybody here came into marriage through the dating system because that has now been America for several generations. And God is good and God has done some things to protect many people here.

Some of you were in Christian homes and you did the best to protect yourselves. And we just need to thank God for His goodness. But let me just say, for many here, you’ve testified to me, oh, I wish I could do it all over again.

But we can do that with our children. And it’s a wonderful opportunity. So we just need to agree with God.

Just rejoice that God has led you to the point where you’re at in your Christian life and just embrace the truth. And so I just always need to say that. We need to be thankful.

But we looked at the history of dating, and then we looked at the four just key obvious principles of marriage, where we’re headed. partnership, cleaving one to another. God made us male and female to fellowship with Him and to accomplish the dynamic purpose that He has for every one of us in this church age.

And therefore, that partnership should be with the deepest of promise, covenant, so coming into this marriage with purity of heart, soul, and mind, so that there can be a covenant that is permanent. There is an absolute solidity in that relationship. that there is an awareness of the seriousness of it.

And so procreation, a godly seed, understanding that the next generation is at stake based upon our preparation, heart and life, and how we’ve come into this marriage. And really, above all, it is a picture of Christ and the church. Who Christ is.

How He loves us. We are a picture through our courtships, engagements, and marriages as to the reality of our God. That’s what it says.

Ephesians chapter 5. Those are big deals. We looked at the four principles of dating.

Pleasure, that’s how it started and how it is today. Men and women getting together, not for the purpose of marriage, not for the purpose of finding God’s will most of the time, but for the purpose of a male-female enjoyment of one another in all different realms, which God intended to be for marriage. God wants us to keep our mind, our emotions, and our bodies for marriage.

And that’s where the greatest fulfillment is, and that’s where God’s will is able to be accomplished. And so, you know, pleasure is a real problem. Personal choice.

In other words, it’s all independent of authority. Periodic relationships, just in and out of relationships from early on, elementary years right on through. And then, of course, the physical aloneness and intimacies that are parts.

The question was asked, those four principles, do they get us to the four principles of biblical godly marriage? And the answer, obviously, is no. Now let’s look at the principles of courtship.

And we want to look at those and then some practical application here this evening. Again, another cumbersome definition, but on purpose, just to include all the things that we’re going to be talking about. Two fathers initiating and controlling.

By the way, the answer key is at the back there. Two fathers initiating and controlling the introduction of their marriageable children to their families and to each other for the sole purpose of confirming God’s will. Concerning their marriage while maintaining all purity.

Now, we’ll look at those areas there. Two fathers initiating and controlling the introduction of their marriageable children to their families and to each other for the sole purpose of confirming God’s will concerning their marriage while maintaining all purity. Now, folks, the last thing I do, and frankly probably the least important, but still obviously everybody wants this, is to look at the methodology.

What I would like you to do, after all the scripture we’ve already looked at, is to ask ourselves the questions on these four principles, how are we going to apply them? You know, it’s one thing to believe something, it’s another thing to have a plan in process on that. So principle number one, purity.

We just read from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3, this is the will of God concerning you, what? Even your sanctification being set apart from all impurity. Purity of mind.

Single-minded only toward the one that God has for you. Single-hearted. Not getting into that emotional oneness, which is really the essence of marriage with a number of others.

Endeavoring to keep one’s heart for the one that God has for you. And obviously all aspects of physical purity.

this is the key motive of a kind courtship it is the desire to save oneself completely for the oneness of marriage so nothing will hinder the beauty of that covenant now note this this principle acknowledges that purity is not the natural state to which the human heart resorts purity must be deliberately and carefully guarded young people on their own are extremely vulnerable and must be protected and directed God-ordained authority. The heart of man is cursed. It is deceitful and desperately wicked beyond understanding.

It is very important to realize how fickle our emotions can be, how easily Satan can entrap us, and if we do not have guards put up, how we can fall into sin, even sincere, good young people. I have seen young people who have given their hearts to the Lord in early high school years, not be guarded by their parents, not have a promise one to another, get into relationships, and all that they could have been has been destroyed. It’s a tragic thing.

So, this purity must be maintained throughout one’s entire personality, single-mindedness, single-heartedness, and an untouched body. May I talk to every dad here? I doubt if there’s one dad in this room that doesn’t wholeheartedly agree that you want to keep your child pure, right?

All right, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? I mean, you’ve got to exercise leadership.

You have been given the responsibility of the leadership of your home. What are you going to do about it? If you believe that purity is mind and heart and body, then that means that you’ve got to have a plan in place that maintains the mind, heart, and body of your child through the enormous pressure of adolescents into college training and into the right timing for God’s will for their life.

See, that’s the question. Biblical principle. You almost don’t have to have me telling you some ideas.

If you really think about it, you’ll begin to realize there are lines that have to be drawn. All right, principle number two. Parental responsibility.

Now, I did not say parental arrangement. Again, I want to emphasize arranged marriages are not biblical. They are pagan.

We are talking about accepting the responsibility of the procedure you’re going to have as a family and taking the responsibility of leadership no matter how much it costs you, No matter how much you have to do, you will guarantee that, Dad, when you bring your daughter down the aisle, she’s pure. That, Dad, when you’re sitting in the pew and your son walks out, you can say, praise the Lord. That’s what we’re talking about.

Parental authority and direction is the God-ordained means for young people to find their life’s mate. Now, I want to remind you, Genesis 2.24, Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother at 18. No, it doesn’t say that.

At 22, doesn’t even say that. And shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Now, we’ll see in a minute.

We’re not wanting to raise mama’s boys. Though they have a lot of their mommy. Okay.

You guys never need to outgrow that term, if that’s what you called her. But the point is, there is a responsibility of guiding into marriage, right from the creation of mankind. Let me just remind you of some obvious verses.

We often talk about these in child rearing. Exodus 20, 12. What’s that?

That’s the fifth commandment. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Here we have the fifth commandment.

And you remember how the Lord Jesus summed up in Matthew 15 about loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and loving your neighbor as thyself. And he talks about the two tables of the law. The first table of the law was the first four commandments of honoring God, and the last five commandments of honoring and loving one another.

What is the bridge commandment that is key to both? It is honoring your parents. Mark it down.

How a child treats his parents as he enters into adulthood will be the attitude he has toward his God. To the detail. And how he treats his parents and others under the leadership of his parents as he enters adulthood will be how he will treat his fellow man.

It’s a scary thing. It’s a huge commandment. In fact, you say, well, that’s Old Testament.

Well, the Lord Jesus said that for God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother, and he that curses father and mother, let him die the death. Well, Jesus took two different commandments and put them together. So if you want to say it’s Old Testament and you want to follow Jesus, well, we might have a lot of dead kids around here.

All right? He that curseth his father and his mother. What he was saying is, this is truth.

It is bedrock. You go right to the epistles. Ephesians 6, 1 and 2.

First verses, most kids learn. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment, with promise.

Now, how does this work? Let me just quickly mention here, with the young men, it should be the purpose and desire of every father to develop the manhood, vocation, and spiritual calling of his son. And that doesn’t end at 18, it goes right on into when they can be serving the Lord.

And we find in Galatians 4, 1 and 2, the wonderful illustration here of how God has brought us from the Old Testament to the New Testament period and what we have in Christ. But he says in the illustration, Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.

And the way this worked in the Old Testament days and New Testament days was the fact that the dad took upon him the responsibility of the training of his sons. He wanted his son to learn the skills. As the master of the estate, he was preparing his son to be able to be administrative, to do all the things that needed to be done to take the father’s place.

And he was under school teachers. These were servant slaves that one day he would actually be over, but he had to be under at this time. And the father took the responsibility.

And the father did not allow the community, or did not have the community, treat the son as a full-fledged citizen and man until the time appointed of the father. He knew the training was done. So we don’t see the father just keeping the son as a little boy.

He’s making a man out of him, wanting him to be independent, but he is under the leadership and counsel of his father until he is on his own. and oftentimes that was in the mid-20s, later 20s. How old was it when Jesus entered into his ministry?

30 years of age. And of course, involved in this would be, and it was clearly Old and New Testament procedure, for the son to be under the father in regard to who he would marry. Then you have the vows in Numbers 30, verses 3 through 8.

I won’t read those for time’s sake, But there you have the same verbiage for wives as you do for virgin daughters. If they made a vow and the husband hears it, he could disallow it. If a father hears a vow, he could disallow that vow.

And so the idea here of the vow of a husband and wife, of course, is the most important of all human vows. And the father clearly had that authority. Then you go to 1 Corinthians 7 dealing with the issues that women faced in the New Testament period because if you weren’t married, you were nothing in those cultures.

But what are you going to do about who they should marry? And it’s very clear in verses 36 to 38 of chapter 7 that a father had the right to determine when and if his virgin daughter should marry. And this, of course, has been throughout Christian history.

It’s been throughout Western civilization. You have the beautiful story of Hudson Taylor and of Adoniram Judson that you can read there. Now, I want everybody to listen closely right here.

A lot of times, people ask me, what’s courtship all about? I don’t tell them, all right, I need three hours. Would you please sit down?

I have a set of notes here that I like to give you that doesn’t work most of the time. This is a luxury to have even this amount of time. So what do I tell them and not tell them?

Well, I give these four principles, but if you want the dividing line between conservative dating and genuine courtship, because a lot of things that are called courtship is not courtship, okay? If you want the one clear-cut principle that is the most important of all, taking the first two principles here of maintaining purity and maintaining parental responsibility, it’s this. And I want every young person, every child here to get this.

It is the giving of the heart of the child to the parent. Where the child makes a covenant with the parent and the parent makes a covenant with the child, so to speak. But the child says, I will not begin any relationship, even of the more subtle type, without your direction and initiation.

Now, parents, you need to be talking to your children about what’s on their heart. The older they get, they need to be able to share. They need to be able to share their thoughts.

It ought not be a secret area. You need to have their hearts. They need to be starting to talk about who they’re going to marry and the things that they’re burdened about.

That ought to be a fairly good and somewhat common communication at times when it’s appropriate. But there will be a time in which it’s right. And so we’ll look in just a minute at preparedness.

But here’s the dividing line, folks. And here it is, young people. This is the dividing line for you.

You tell your parents, you’re not going to get a relationship going. You’re not going to get the connect. And let me tell you how long it takes to get a connect going.

It’s either somewhere between 8 and 15 seconds. I’m exaggerating a little. It might be 20.

It doesn’t take long. In fact, like I said a little earlier, you can get a spark, unfortunately, I hate to say this, between a number of different people. So you’ve got to settle in your heart.

There’s one person that God has for me. I believe in a sovereign God. And I believe that God will honor His Word.

And I vow to my parents. Remember what Pastor Gilmore said. I will be under your leadership.

And I will not independently get a relationship going. I will wait for your direction. And at the right time.

And I will not. By the way, and I will not pressure you to do that which you do not want to do. All right, keep that in mind because I’m probably going to hammer that a few more times.

All right, principle number three is preparedness. This is the initial prerequisite for courtship. It follows directly from the belief that God has designed intimate male-female relationships to occur only in the bounds of marriage, and therefore one must not begin pursuing such a relationship unless fully prepared to handle the responsibilities.

You see, folks, there is no right for a man or woman to have a connect outside of marriage. God always calls that immoral. And so therefore, we have got a courtship is not trying one and then trying another.

That’s dating. A courtship is at the right time with the clear direction of God when the hearts are opened, and I tell you, once they’re open, like I said, it’s about 20 seconds. I’m joking, but it’s pretty quick.

Then you better be realizing they’re going to get married within a reasonable amount of time. And so the young man, to be prepared to be in a courtship, must be spiritually mature. He must be consistent in his spiritual walk with God.

He needs to show human maturity, character, consistency, hard work ethic, having overcome those kinds of issues, obviously, in his life. He needs to have a very clear call and direction in his life. He needs to know, even though he may not know the details, he needs to know what God has called him to do and be able to clearly share that burden.

Vocationally, he needs to have training. That’s why young men need to be finished with college or heading to be finished with college and be ready to be able to provide and to be able to move into their life’s work. They need to be financially in order and not having debt, being able to handle the responsibilities of marriage.

And they need, the parents need to know they’re ready for fatherhood. If a child were to come in the next year or two, that child would have a father that would be ready to know the basics. Obviously having to grow, but there’s confidence on the part of those parents that he would be a good father.

A young lady needs to be spiritually consistent, walking with God. The glory of God should be on her life. She needs to show the same maturity, character, and knowing how to stay consistent and have the hard work ethic also.

Know how to be a wife. Understand the principles of that. Homemaking skills to be able to properly be a Proverbs 31 woman.

And to be ready with a good basic understanding of how to be a mother. Wow. Boy, that sure changes the picture, doesn’t it?

So I guess could we all, if we accept this to be true, could we say that elementary dating is probably out of the picture? Okay. Junior high dating.

senior high dating early college dating okay it’s amazing freshmen come in a little starry eyed you know there’s a fairly good crop of folks around you know I hate to say it that way but you’re very aware you know this is not my youth group I mean these are a bunch of nice young ladies and young men that’s alright you’re aware of that and we can tell that the freshmen are adjusting to that reality alright and so they may chafe a little bit at those rules

initially, but they begin to settle into the fact that, no, God wants me to prepare myself, and okay, I can wait.

Then they get to be a junior. Technically, they could court. I’m never asked by juniors to court.

They’ve gotten smart. This is serious stuff. Are you kidding?

I’m not about to get into this yet. It’s amazing. It’s a total different perspective, and it really is true how all of a sudden they wake up to the facts.

You see, that’s the whole point. What are we doing? We have the heart of the child, and we get them to the point where it’s internalized, and they begin to realize this is the most important decision in my life.

I want your guidance, and I know the Lord’s going to lead me, and I want to prepare myself. And I tell you what, it is glorious when a child has that perspective. And just the closeness you have as a family, it is just a beautiful thing.

So that’s the third principle, preparedness. And then the fourth principle is patience. I needed another piece, so that’s what we had, but it’s a good one.

And the idea of waiting on God, that God sovereignly will work it out at the right time. Pastor Gilmore read to you, quoted to you, Isaiah 64, 4. And God does things above what we could ask or think.

He noticed Adam’s need. He knew exactly. He will lead.

And God will do it just the right way. And let me tell you, folks, it is never the same way. Now, it’s very interesting.

Now, I have been through four courtships and been through many courtships. As I mentioned, many, many, many courtships with folks. And anyway, we’ll go any further.

Others coming. But no two are alike. And in our family, there are no two alike.

And it’s just been joy to see how God works. There’s not a certain age. Ladies, if you get past age 22, it’s not over.

Okay, honestly. And how it happens to somebody, you follow the same principles, but God’s got his perfect plan for you. And let me just say, all four courtships in our family, it was like a touch of heaven when each one of them occurred.

I just can’t explain what it’s like. I mean, you can just sense the smile of the Lord, and each one of them were different. I thought, you know how it is when you have more experiences, sometimes they may not seem quite as special.

Well, I’m telling you, these last two that occurred this summer, I came home from the start of Mary Faiths, and I told my wife over and over, that just the presence of God was there. And then how God worked it out for Anna Grace, the presence of the Lord was there. I’m telling you, it is very special when God does it.

The God that saved your soul and will keep it for eternity can bring the right one at the right time at the right way. Listen, if you can’t believe Him for that, what are you going to believe Him for? In fact, it will greatly hurt your faith and greatly hurt your walk with God if you take it into your own hands with the normal methodology of our day.

This is an opportunity to see how good your God is. And I promise you, it will be beyond what you could think as to the sweetness and the fullness of it when it comes at the right time. All right.

Now, those four, remember those three sets of principles? Marriage, all the beauty of the partnership and the promise, the depth of that, and the matter of a godly seed and the picture of Christ in the church. And we certainly see that the dating principles did not get us there.

But do you see how purity, can you see how parental responsibility, Can you see how preparedness and patience, all our ways that God can get us to marriage the way God intends it to be? All right, our last few minutes together, we’re going to talk just some practical things. I’m going to not even fill in all of period number one, childhood.

Here, all that we talk about with child rearing is really key. Let me just say, parents, one of the first things you’ve got to be thinking about, how do I get my child’s heart? Discipline, communication, teaching, all these things that we’ve talked about are absolutely important.

And it’s got to be your number one goal to have such communication and the child in submission to God through your life that you are able to work together. That is absolutely key. And so I urge you to think about that.

And I mentioned the four different relationships, the same gender and the opposite gender relationships. how important they are. It ought to be in the teen years that the dad ought to, actually when they’re just little girls, the dad ought to get the promise from the little girl that she will trust her dad to find the right one and they together and that she will give no other man her heart until it is the right time.

In each of the cases with my daughters, we had a little ring that was given in a very sweet time and we would talk often about that. And the young men covening with their father that they will trust their father in this regard. And again, what’s the key point?

I will not get a relationship going until you know it’s God’s will, dad and mom, and will do it when you said it and the way you said it at that time. I will wait for God to work through you. That’s the, honestly, if you’ll do that, that will be the key secret in keeping you in a biblical courtship.

Well, let’s look now at period number two, which is the courtship. What is the goal of the courtship? Well, it is to confirm God’s will concerning whom to marry while maintaining all purity of heart.

Oh boy. Mind and body. Now, remember we talked about how the whole betrothal system, a spousal system of the Old and New Testament was so serious that it was even legal?

You had better know it’s God’s will. And the whole idea of a dowry and the legal witness of the friend of the bridegroom all showed that those sets of parents needed to know this was God’s will for those that knew the Lord and that this was right and that these young people were ready and it was the right thing for them to get married. That’s how serious the biblical perspective was.

And so courtship, let me just make this clear so I don’t forget it as I go through. Courtship is not just an experimental time. That’s dating.

I’m telling you, parents, well, either of the dads, you ought not let a courtship begin unless you’re thoroughly convinced this is the right thing. Now, you need the courtship time to just confirm it in your soul. They need to be together.

You need to be together with them because at times, sometimes mistakes are made. This is an opportunity for God to reveal that we are human. But I’m telling you, when God is in it, you’ll know.

In fact, to me, the greatest crisis is not when the young man comes and asks for my daughter’s hand in marriage. The crisis was me giving permission for courtship. Because that was pretty much, I’m saying, I know this is God’s will.

I wouldn’t dare start this unless I knew it was God’s will.

and so that’s when I get torn up I mean that’s the hard time for me that’s when tears are shed on my behalf because I know I said about 20 seconds with courtship it’s about 2 seconds once they’re together they know that everything is put together and they have to maintain their heart purity so you can’t go long in that whole process you better know what you’re doing so let’s just give some practical things Folks, I’m just giving some basic principles here based upon these truths

that we’ve talked about.

But the key is maintaining purity, maintaining parental responsibility, not starting until they’re prepared, and waiting upon God. Don’t shop around. And by the way, a young man ought not, you know, I’m a senior now, let’s see, who should I marry?

I’m telling you, when God begins to work, God begins to work. In fact, all of a sudden, the blinders come off. Parents in your own, all of a sudden, oh yeah, I wonder if that’s it.

You start praying about it. You don’t go shopping and asking ten different girls for their credentials. I mean, that’s that kind of thing.

Your mom doesn’t go do a survey. This is a matter of believing that God will work. And you’ll know when it’s God.

But anyway, the length of time varies according to the situation and God’s leading in the hearts of those involved. Distance and accessibility are factors. It needs to be short enough to not produce undue emotional attachment, but long enough to gain full confidence in God’s will.

Parents need to be committed to whatever personal sacrifice it takes to get the matter solved as quickly as God permits. All right. You don’t want to get started unless you know pretty well it’s the right thing.

All right? Both kids are pretty convinced. Sets of parents are convinced you get started.

Now, you can’t go real long because that’s a whole environment for there to be a relationship developed. And so courtship, you know, I don’t have an exact time, but we’re not talking months and months. We’re talking more in the area of weeks.

It all depends. If they’re not together, well, then that may take… In fact, I wouldn’t get a courtship started unless they can, on the front end, be around parents and be where they’re able to spend time together.

All you’re going to do is frustrate the situation. Just wait. And so it’s hard to give exact timing on that.

It all depends on the leadership of the Lord in the parent’s life. Now, the father of the young man leads an initiation. An awareness of God’s leading to a potential wife becomes apparent to parents of a young man or the young man himself upon discussion and parental consensus, the father of the young man, and it always should be unless the dad won’t, or the young man if the dad just won’t because he’s unsaved, doesn’t want to, approaches the father of the girl.

Let me just say that if a man has, and many young people today come from broken homes and so forth, and yet they want to do what’s right, spiritual leadership has to step in. Now, you never bypass parents. You endeavor to get them active involved, even if they are somewhat detached.

but you will need the counsel and protection usually of a pastor or other spiritual leader in your life. And on several occasions, I have talked initially to the father of a girl on behalf of a young man who did not have an active father, just to help protect and to see what the Lord was doing and to be able to work the things properly. So that sometimes happens.

But normally, it is the father of the young man who initiates it. Remember the picture that we gave prior to the service beginning was the picture of Christ seeks us. And we love him because he first loved us.

Now the awareness of God’s leading to a potential husband might become apparent to the parents of a young lady or to the young lady herself. Sometimes God will prepare. Sometimes he doesn’t.

I don’t know. It’s probably about half and half. Half the time it seems like the dad and the girl are sort of shocked by the contact of the other man, but yet the Lord still works it through.

And many, many times there has been an inkling on the part of the girl that maybe this is God’s will, but the girl doesn’t do anything to manipulate there. They need to wait for God to lead further and make the parents of the young man or the young man aware of God’s leading. God did lay upon, I think it was initially my wife’s heart about Pastor Gilmore.

Actually, Mrs. Zimple’s heart years ago, she was just a little girl. And so we almost didn’t want to talk about it.

We appreciated Pastor Gilmore when he was a student there at Maranatha. But, you know, they never saw each other, so it would be a miracle. So we just prayed about it.

But I remember it was on our hearts, but nothing we could do. And what a miracle it was. He showed up and helped play the trumpet at my mother’s funeral.

And we had a few things like that that were an encouragement. And then when, I’ll never forget, when I got a call, I was away from the house to come to the house. I was at Camp Joy.

And my wife said, Pastor, or not Pastor, Mark Gilmore is here. He wants to talk to you. I thought, could it be?

And so I got home as fast as I could. And he rather tentatively said, I just wanted to sort of test the waters with you. Do you think I might be able, my dad might be able to talk to your dad about this?

Something like that. He asked me about it. I act very calm.

You know, like, I don’t know. And inside I’m going, hey, hallelujah, this is great, you know. It was a good test, you know.

But anyway. So we waited and God did it. Nine kids later, praise the Lord.

Yeah, that’s been good. And we enjoyed every part of that. So, it can be both ways.

Like I said, all four of ours were very different. The father of a young girl should not allow a courtship to begin unless he sees clearly that a young man and his father have prayed and sought God’s will concerning the matter, have examined the character of the girl, and are confident in God’s leading to the point of courtship.

Now, I’m telling you, dad of the girl, You better see the conviction of God in the eyes of that young man, and you need to hear it in the voice of that father, and know these are godly people, or they have prayed, at least the young man is godly, and they have a real sense of God’s will, or you’re not going to consider it. You’re not about to have somebody shopping.

I’ll never forget, we were a bit shocked when I got the call from Brother Obermiller, though we had just an inkling a little ahead of time. Donald didn’t play cool enough, and we got a little touch of it, but I got the call, and that was a great call from Brother Overmiller as he tried to explain why and how and everything.

And so it was a night or two later, I guess a couple nights later, I met with Donald, and I tell you what, he was on a mission. That was great. I was impressed.

I mean, he was ready for that dinner. He didn’t eat much that night, but I didn’t give him a chance to. I mean, he got grilled up and down and sideways because I knew this was going to happen quickly.

I began to read, you know, they’re coming here this fall. None of that was mentioned, but I knew what was happening here. And I’ll never forget, I said, Donald, why do you want to marry Anna Grace?

And I can’t give you the exact words, but I can see the look right now. Because she’s God’s will for me, and God has told me that I am to marry her, if it’s okay with you. Man, I mean, it was deep conviction, and then he realized, oops.

But he didn’t realize that that was exactly what I wanted to hear. Man, oh man, was it conviction. It went right to the depths of my soul, and I needed that because of the short-term nature of the situation.

and that’s what you’re looking for. I mean, there is a depth of conviction about that. Now, moving on quickly, the father of the young lady leads in confirmation.

If the father of the girl approves, both families begin to work together to discern God’s will. The father of the girl plays a key role since he is the one who must give away his daughter. The father of the boy, of course, initiates the action, Really praying ahead of time, being careful not to even ask unless he’s sure it’s God’s will.

I tell you, gentlemen, don’t just do it because your son sort of likes the idea. You better get alone with God. You better get alone with Him.

You better know what you’re doing. Now, if the girl says, father says, no, that’s okay. Just say, well, praise the Lord.

And just regroup. But don’t be thrown by that. But you better know.

But then the father of the girl takes over. And, boy, that was certainly the case with poor Jesse. A total different situation.

His dear parents, I respect them greatly. And Dr. Williams had the deepest of conviction.

When he talked to me, he and his wife, a year and a half ago, and we met together there in a hotel room, and it was the sweetest thing. They were careful, but they just knew it was God’s will. And I’m thinking, this can’t be now.

This is the end of the sophomore year of Mary Faith. And I just, but I tell you, in my heart, I sense, you know, God’s doing something. I respect this man, but this is not the right time.

So very graciously we talked it through, and I just said, you know, I’m not even going to start thinking and really bearing in on this until the spring of this coming year. And they accepted that. And, of course, Jesse’s heart was on the line throughout that entire time, and I think God did some real work in his heart.

His dad was very happy that he just had to wait on the Lord. And then the timing came. God began to move in my heart in mid-spring.

I really began to move in my heart at the end of the school year. Then went down there in Indiana. And I tell you, just a breath of heaven when God moved.

So, you know, no two situations are alike. And the dad of the girl has to really know what is God’s will and think through all aspects, all four of those principles about what that should be. Now, when the courtship begins, the time in which the young man and young lady are together is exclusively in the presence of one of the families.

The interaction is not only in specially planned events, but also in the realm of normal everyday life. The input of siblings is very important as well. Parental knowledge of the potential mate is more important in many ways than the young person’s knowledge of each other.

I mean, this is a decision parents need to know. Now, I don’t want to overstate this because obviously courtship is going to occur not just with family. But that’s why we don’t encourage here with BCM students, if the parents are not here, to start the courtship if both sets of parents are gone because we’re not the ones to convince.

You know, it is the parents that need to spend the time and have the family interaction and so forth. So many times at Christmas or many times in the summer, we encourage that to be a very good time to get a courtship beginning. because you want all of the interaction.

It helps develop in-law relationships early on. You really get to know their heart. The whole family has that touch of God upon it.

It’s just a wonderful time. And like I said, it doesn’t take all that long. If both sets of parents know it’s God’s will, this is simply confirming it.

It is getting to know one another. It is a precious time. I mean, it’s unlike anything else to be able to go on a date with your son or daughter and the person they’re courting and get to know them.

It is just an absolutely wonderful time. It was really something there in the end of July. If you’ve been to our house, you know we have the family room and living room and we have French doors in between and made a great dating parlor.

You know, one couple’s over here and one couple’s over there and the doors are closed and we’re sort of in and around. And it was, I said, this is a very unusual situation here. So not often the pastor’s home becomes a dating parlor.

But anyway, worked out very well. The young man and young lady are never alone together, including being alone in the crowd of strangers. This is not only for physical protection, but emotional as well.

Remember, courtship and engagement are preparation for marriage. They’re not married yet. Now, folks, let’s just understand we need protection.

Chaperonage was all the way into the early 1900s. This is not something new. It just seems like you’re from the planet Mars if you talk about it.

But it is such a, and, you know, the couples have a good time alone talking with people that are assigned to be around, family members or other responsible adults and or people that are assigned for that. And it works very well. But that protection of chaperonage, I really encourage you.

The young man and young woman should not touch at all. Both individuals need to clearly understand that they are seeking God’s will and do not want to defraud one another in any way. The young lady still belongs completely to her father.

The young man has no rights toward her. They are still saving themselves for the one who is to be their mate. A great aid in this is that everything that occurs or is spoken is discussed with that person’s parents.

You want to just be as open because what are you doing? You’re getting ready to decide fairly quickly here because you want to maintain your heart. Is this God’s will?

If so, then let’s get engaged. This is a serious matter. So this period ought not to begin without a good measure of peace and confidence in God’s leading.

And let me just say, fathers of the girls, it is absolutely necessary that you have a thorough examination of the young man. You don’t need to have any surprises, and that ought to occur. I think it ought to occur before you say yes to a courtship.

And I mean, ask the hard questions, the good questions, all about the future, the past, their preparedness, what they’re going to do. I mean, you really need to hear them through on every facet. And I tell you, fellas, if you know you’re going to get quiz like that, that’ll hold you from jumping the gun too quickly.

Okay. Get your act in order. And I tell you, some dads, I mean, every dad ought to scare a guy half to death.

I mean, that’s all part of it, you know. And it doesn’t happen very much, but do ask the hard questions. And I tell you, who should ask them first?

The dad or the boy. You ought to have your session. You ought to know your son’s heart.

How can you recommend him and ask for a girl if you don’t even know your son’s heart and he’s not prepared? See, that should all be taken care of. So, like I said, courtship almost presupposes engagement, but it still is a protection because you need the human dynamic of the interaction, both of the couple and of all the family and those who are spiritually involved in that person’s life.

Now, period number three is engagement, and I’m not going to focus here. This would be another lecture itself. But let me mention, the goal is to prepare for marriage, not primarily the wedding, by the way.

The length should be enough to fully prepare for the marriage, not too short to feel rushed, most of the time, and not too long as to be frustrated. If you go too long in engagement, you can actually embed wrong. You see, you’re not married.

And so it’s hard to develop the fullness of relationship without that, and you can actually develop bad habits if it goes on and on and on, especially if you are together all the time. So, you know, anywhere between like six months and a year is normal. I would say that certainly you don’t have to go the full year, though that certainly is legit.

But if it’s going to be longer than a year, wait to be engaged. Wait to start a courtship. You better be within a year of knowing you could be married before you allow courtship to begin.

That’s my own perspective. And so the young man should approach the father and so forth. The time of preparation begins for the young man.

He needs to fully win the young lady’s heart. And boy, I tell you what, now he can lay it on. I would not, gentlemen, ever say I love you to a girl unless it’s the night you’re saying, Would you marry me?

Keep those words for the time you mean them from your heart spiritually with the full permission of both sets of parents. You need to have gone to that dad and let him know when you’re going to be engaged and get the full permission from him. Begin to really communicate.

It still will be limited because you’re not married, but develop a oneness of spirit. And you need to really get further character development from people that are in your lives. Finish your schooling and training.

Prepare for all aspects of the marriage. And young ladies, you need to prepare yourself also the same way. Parents, you need to make sure all problems with your children of the past are solved.

Really work on communication. Share with the future in-law any needs you know with their son or daughter that they can help. Draw the future in-law into the family.

Share counsel with the couple. Develop that relationship and obviously prepare for the ceremony. And we as a church should provide the pastoral counseling and accountability.

Make sure they’re communicating and prepare for the wedding. Make sure you’re still with the family as much as possible. You’re not married.

The young lady is still under her father’s leadership. And again, this is the most, let me just say, this is the time to have chaperonage. Because once you know it’s the right thing, once your hearts are being knit, Your whole being wants the physical warmth.

I’m not talking about the wrong stuff. You don’t have an impure spirit normally, but that’s a natural thing. And you don’t want anything that will mar the beauty of what you are doing.

So the couple ought to just have the covenant to refrain from all touching until they are married, because that’s a biblical thing. And then, of course, marriage is the last thing. All right.

We got through most of the notes there. live in a dark day God is light and in him is no darkness at all and I’ll tell you parents and young people I urge you to embrace purity I urge you to embrace submission to parental authority or parental responsibility parents commit yourself to being prepared before you start a courtship and have a total trust and faith in God. And let me just say, young people, God has not failed once yet.

And He never will. We can trust Him. Wait on the Lord.

Again, I say, wait on the Lord. Let’s bow for prayer.