Ryan Swanson: Hello, and welcome back to the Satisfied program on the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Ryan, and I look forward to finishing up our series on emotional purity today, at least for the most part finishing it up. This podcast was supposed to come out last week. If you noticed, our schedule got bumped a little bit here on the Thee Generation Network because my wife and I and our son Parker were in El Paso, Texas where he had surgery. He was diagnosed couple months ago with sagittal craniosynostosis and it’s just a developmental issue with the skull but thankfully it’s completely treatable. Many of you were praying about that there were there were hundreds that were praying for him and it just went so well so we appreciate your prayers on that and pray for his continued healing but he doesn’t know anything hit him; he’s a happy little boy still so very thankful to the Lord for how that went. 

Then also I wanted to quickly just mention that the Cord app is coming along. We’re about to move into the second stage of development and to more of the backend coding and stuff like that. We’re working with our developers right now. They have pretty much finished our branding. We’ll update the website and landing page for the Cord app soon with the new branding and logo. But it’s really exciting. It’s coming along and looking great. So we were able to put the first $10,000 down on that. Sent a check in for that a couple weeks ago. And we’ve got another $26,000 due here pretty soon, so be praying with us about that. 

Moving into our discussion for today. I kind of introduced it in our last podcast and just tell you it’s… Not really a super easy one to find a balance on and give but I feel like it’s a discussion that needs to happen. Even Paul, we will be in 1 Corinthians 7 today, and we’ve been there before when we discussed it’s good for man not to touch a woman. We talked about the idea of the touch that kindles a fire; that burning within us. Will be in that again today, but I just find it interesting as I’m struggling and wrestling through how to present this in the right way and the balanced approach. Even Paul in that passage, before he gets to the subject matter that we’ll be discussing today from this passage, even Paul says, but I speak this by permission and not of commandment. It’s almost like Paul saying, can I say something off the record real quick? And the Holy Spirit says, no, it’s going in. And therefore we’re able to read it today. But he’s saying, can I call off the record with something real quick? Cause I feel like it needs to be said, but it’s not the easiest thing to say, to present and that’s kind of how I feel as I’m discussing it as well. 

But I want to present to you just several trends, in regard to marriage and the family over the past 50, 60 years. So if we were going back to about the 1960s and, and look at the trend in our. in our culture towards marriage and the family, we would see a tremendous increase in divorce rate. In fact, even just from 1960 to 1980, the divorce rate doubled. We would see the rates of cohabitation, those living together out of marriage skyrocketing to where it’s just absolutely the norm today in our culture. And then in turn, the amount of children out of wedlock, of course, is… again very normal and a huge increase right there. So we see these trends over the last 50 years that are clearly immoral trends. They are very negative and have affected our culture in very negative ways. 

But there’s another trend that I want to point to that actually, we, as even Christians have as a neutral, amoral trend. And actually, I’ve never even heard it discussed before, to be honest. But it’s a very clear, demonstrable trend that you can find in just about any study of marriage and family demographics, studying our culture. You can find these numbers. It’s not difficult to find. But let me give this to you. 

In 1960, if we took the age bracket, 18 to 24-year-olds, 45% of 18 to 24 year olds were married. They were married by that point, 18 to 24, 45%. 

If we were to move up to 2010 when this particular study was done in 2010, so not even to today, in that same bracket, 18 to 24 year olds, it’s not 45%, it’s dropped to 9%. 9% are married by ages 18 to 24. 

In fact, if we were to go to the next age bracket, 25 to 34, we would see in 1960, 82% of those in that age bracket, 25 to 34, were married. But not 82%. In 2010, it dropped to 44%. 

So in other words, there were more people married in the age bracket of 18 to 24. There were more 18 to 24-year-olds married in 1960 than there are 25 to 34 year olds married today.

Let’s look at a different study. If we were to take a larger age group from 18 all the way up to 32, and if we were to look by generation, the 1960 generation, the silent generation, as it was called, 65% of those in that age bracket of 18 to 32 were married. The boomer generation in 1980, 48%, Gen X, 36%, and millennial 26%. So we went from 65 to 48 to 36 to 26. 

What a decline, huge, huge decline in the rate of marriage. In 1965, the typical American woman first married at age 21 and the typical man at 23. But by 2017, those figures had changed. Now the average age of a woman first married moved from 21 to 27, and for a man it moved from 23 to 30. So what is this? What’s going on with marriage? Well, a study was actually done and just asked those that were polled, is marriage becoming obsolete? And 40% said that they believed marriage was becoming obsolete. It was even higher in the age bracket of 18 to 24, 45% said that marriage was becoming obsolete. 

Now I know probably the majority of you that are listening to this who are single, which is our vast audience, probably the majority of you are getting kind of excited at this point and saying, oh man, I’m looking forward to the application from this. Here we go. We go all the way through a series on emotional impurity and then finally it comes at the end, y’all need to just go out and get married. Yeah, well, I know that’s probably the application you’re hoping for, but it’s not quite where I’m going with this, okay? Not quite. We need to answer that question though. Why are people getting married later? And there’s many explanations that have been given, but one that is, I think, the most legitimate that stands out in several of these studies is just simply the fact that we are not nearly in a condition to get married at that young age as they were 50 years ago. There has been a change in maturity, and the focus, and the vision, and even career path. There has been such a change in our young people to the point where one study done said that men are usually not emotionally mature for marriage until they’re 30 years old now. Women are not emotionally mature for this level of commitment until their past 25 years of age, 30 and 25. Yeah, there you go guys. And you thought the emotions was a ladies problem. No, 30 years old. You’re not mature. This is a secular study that says the men are not mature enough for marriage until they’re 30 years old and the women at 25. There’s a vast difference in, if you’re 18 years old, there’s a huge difference in what an 18 year old is today and what an 18 year old was 50 years ago. An incredible difference. 

In fact, if we were to go way back a couple hundred years ago, children ages 7 to 12 comprised one-third of the factory workforce. 7 to 12. What are 7 to 12 year olds doing nowadays? Children in rural areas began working on the farm at 5 years old. Responsibilities grew as they got older and parents prepared them for marriage. Young women would marry as young as 15 years old a couple hundred years ago. The pioneer children had to know not just how to tend the farm, but how to defend it as well from violent intruders that were common at that point. And this age bracket that we call teenagers did not even exist. It wasn’t a thing. You were either a child or you were an adult. There was no in-between. And every child was simply preparing for adulthood and marriage. 

Why were these children being given these huge tasks on the farm and being pushed to their limits? Well, it was because they were being prepared to take these on for themselves, to take the farm or start their own. The young ladies were being actually trained in home economics and culinary arts and homemaking and these things. That was a training from as young as it gets, whereas today many young ladies want nothing to do with a focus and learning on that. You see, 50 years ago, the reason that we can look at these statistics and see how many were married is because they had been preparing for marriage since they were children. That has been a focus. They had been preparing for adulthood. But today we kick that can as far down the road as we can. Today we want to stay a teenager all the way up into our 30s or more. And you can see the maturity level is not that much different many times. 

I remember talking to a guy that was turning 20, from 19 and he was so disappointed. He just, he wanted to stay. And he told me that, “I want to stay a teenager. Teenage life has been so much fun, I don’t wanna move on.” And so I’m presenting to you that the trend in the statistics of marriage and our decline in the amount of marriages today has a direct correlation to a focus on ourselves, to a lack of preparation for marriage. we are not taking life seriously. 

I’m not saying that we need to turn the dial back 100 years ago and delete every youth activity and youth camp and everything, but we do need to watch the effect that it has had on our culture and especially in one particular area. And this is when we’re going to go to 1 Corinthians 7. This is where Paul gives that disclaimer, and says can I go off the record here for a second because I’m about to say something that’s gonna get me in trouble. First he proposes that it’s not a bad thing just to remain single. He says to the unmarried and widows “it is good for them if they abide even as I,” But he says “if they cannot contain, Let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn.” Now is that same? It’s the same passage that we talked through before, the touch that kindleth, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, and now that same desire, that innate burning is discussed and given in this verse, and saying it is better to marry than to burn. 

Now first, we need to clear up the misconception that marriage is not going to solve your lust issue. That’s not how it works. However, you are in a very vulnerable position as a single person. Very vulnerable. Especially in today, in the way that sexuality is so publicized and literally just coming after you from every corner. And our culture is geared towards ensnaring people sensually. You are in a very precarious position as a single person without a proper way to physically satisfy those desires. Now we have discussed in great detail in podcasts in the past how Jesus can be that satisfaction for you, and that is the entire point of our Satisfied program here, is that Jesus can be all of that for you, and even into marriage. If Jesus stops being your satisfaction even in marriage, you’re still going to have issues within marriage. So marriage is not the cure-all, that’s not the point. It’s not that it’s going to solve your problem. It’s going to be Jesus before marriage, it’s going to be Jesus after marriage. That never changes. However, you are in a very precarious position as a single person, and that’s what Paul is saying. He’s saying there is a burning desire within you, and that desire was made for marriage. It wasn’t a mistake. God put that desire there, and He put that desire there to be fulfilled in marriage. It is the purpose of it. 

Does that mean it’s God’s plan that everyone get married? No, not necessarily. It’s not. And that’s a certain gifting actually, the gifting of singlehood that Paul discusses in this passage. He says some are gifted that way. There’s different gifts and he is admitting that, noting that. But for the majority, God has designed that desire in you be met inside of marriage. And so it’s difficult to discuss and to have a program on purity for single young adults in our audience without actually saying, you know what, this is a God-given desire, and it was given to lead you to your spouse. It was given to draw you to your spouse within marriage. Now wouldn’t it make sense then, that if the devil was going to try to attack and ensnare in the moral arena, that he would not only make these temptations so much more prevalent and drag our culture through the immoral dirt, but would he also take away that God-given safe haven of marriage and put that on a decline so that there are more and more unmarried young people in a precarious position without any way to physically properly satisfy those desires — a burning of lust. 

I think it makes total sense and we should have seen it coming. This is not a non-moral trend. It’s an attack from the devil. But the answer is not, oh, we just need to go out there and get married faster. Because you ain’t ready to get married. The reason that you’re not married is not because you looked on the trends on marriage.com and discovered people aren’t getting married until they’re 32 now a day, so I guess I’m waiting. No, the reason you’re not getting married is because you’re not ready. Now, I understand that to be quote unquote ready for marriage, we could be waiting our entire lives and we’re always growing in that. Those of us that are married would be the first to tell you that every week we learn something new about marriage. You’ll never be totally ready for marriage before marriage. That’s not the point. But I’m just saying when you look at a group of teenagers in a youth group and try to picture married couples serving the Lord in ministry, it’s getting harder and harder to do that. It’s getting harder to do it even with college students, to be honest. And I could tell you, I wasn’t married till I was 26, but I wasn’t ready a day sooner. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to get married sooner than that. But the Lord had so much more to teach me and I was not prepared. And if you know my testimony, you know that, that I was not ready at that point. 

So as we conclude, let me ask you to consider where you’re at. Again, you absolutely can and must get victory as a single person in the moral arena. You must. You absolutely must. And Jesus is everything for you. But I want you to think ahead and plan ahead because God likely has a much bigger plan for you and likely does have a plan for marriage for you. 

So let’s think ahead. Men, what are you doing to prepare yourself for marriage? Can you picture yourself right now as a husband or father? And maybe you should ask somebody else that knows you, because we can be deceived a little bit. Ask your parents. Ask maybe a youth pastor or a godly friend in your life. Hey, could you see me as a married person right now? What do you think needs to change? Ask the Lord and the Holy Spirit to point things out in your life. What things need to change in my life? Start hanging out with older men in your life. Start hanging out, take a guy out in your church that has been as a seasoned man, maybe someone that knows you and can point things out in your life, or maybe just someone that you respect enough and just could ask him for counsel on what it would take to prepare yourself for marriage. I mean, even if you’re a 13, 14 year old, get out there, start asking how you can prepare for marriage. That is a great thing. Sit down with your dad and say, “hey, dad, you know me, you’ve seen me. What things need to change before I can be married? Because even if it’s not until I’m 26, I need to start preparing for this now.” A

And another thing, get desperate to know God’s will for your lives. You know, uoung people today don’t hardly start considering what they’re going to do with their lives until they’re I mean at the very least going into their freshman year of college if they’re going to college.Many times it’s after that so many are changing their majors part way through because they’re still not really sure what they’re doing and what direction they’re going and why don’t we get desperate about this when we’re a teenager or when, You know your early teens when you’re 13 14 years old let’s get desperate and get a vision and find God’s plan for our life. 

Ladies, I want you to think of the type of man that you picture yourself completing, that you think God and His perfect plan would have you to complete someday, to be a wife to. That kind of man, and ask yourself, what kind of wife would that man be attracted to? It’s probably not gonna be your average, loose, scandalous, silly, flippant, flirtatious, teenage girl. A man like that God has for you is probably one that he’s going to be a family man. He’s going to need someone that he can trust to raise, to help raise his children. He’s going to need someone who can keep a godly home. He’s going to be a strong leader, that’s what you want in a husband. So in that case, he’s going to need a strong, supportive, encouraging partner. You’re going to want him to be pure and single-minded so you yourself should be pure, appropriate, and modest. You’re going to want that man to be wise and thoughtful, the man that God has for you, so you yourself are going to need to be meek, and under control, and reserved. 

Young men and young ladies, as we conclude our discussion on emotional impurity, we are up against a huge battle in any purity realm today. It is a massive, massive battle. You have everything you need in Christ, but there is one desire that the Lord has designed and would love for you to be able to fulfill within marriage. It’s the way it was designed to be. It’s what He wants. And I think it’s appropriate because it is in God’s plan for most of us that we start thinking and preparing for marriage. But instead of preparing for marriage in the way that our culture tells us to, just by going out and seeking and trying to find that one, as one friend of mine put it, why don’t we make the focus on being that right one? So that when God says it’s time, then you’re ready. You’ve prepared yourself. You are ready to be that right one. 

Young people, it absolutely is better to marry than to burn in Paul’s understatement of the epistle. So let’s get serious about marriage and start seeking the Lord’s help in preparing yourself. Don’t be like those in your culture today that couldn’t care less about thinking about the future because they’re all about here and now. They’re living for their sports. They’re living for their video games. They’re living for their friends. Get your eyes off of the here and now in the present and start asking the Lord for a vision for your future. 

Let me conclude with this. I remember one thing being very frustrating going through college especially, and then it seems like every stage is that there will always be people that tell you, oh, you think your freshman year is hard. You just wait till your sophomore year. Oh, you think your sophomore year is hard. You should just wait till your junior year. And when you’re a junior, you think your junior year is hard. You just wait until you’re a senior. And then when you’re finally standing and ready for graduation, then they tell you, Oh, you think college was hard. You just wait until you graduate and life gets just so much harder. And so then you graduate and then you’re in real life and then they just, oh, you just wait till you get married and then you get married. You just wait till you have kids and then you have a kid. You just wait till you have five kids. And it just, it never ends and maybe you can relate. But I remember just being so frustrated because I can honestly look at where I’m at today and being married with a kid and even going through a trial with him and the surgery. I mean, I’m sure there’s so many more trials down the road and things we’ll have to work through. But I can honestly look at where I’m at and say, this is awesome! I love where I’m at. It’s never been better. Never. And I look back to my freshman year when people first started saying, oh, you just wait until you’re, you know, it’s just going to get worse from here, brother. It’s going to get more and more difficult. And I’d say my freshman year was the pits compared to what God has for me today. And I want to get that in your head. Where you’re at right now as a teenager, you think it’s all great, you think it’s glorious, and people tell you, oh, enjoy it now while it lasts because life just goes downhill from here and it’s not true. Look, enjoy what God has for you today, but it gets so much better, so much better.

Get your eyes off the present. Start getting a vision for the future. God has so much more in store for you. 

Now what I wanna do in our next podcast, instead of moving right on into another series is actually to take one more opportunity to answer questions, to discuss things we might have missed, maybe to rehash some things. I’ve gotten some questions via text or email that I just haven’t really had a chance to respond to, or maybe they were addressed in a previous podcast, but just the way that the questions have come up, maybe I need to reiterate on some of those things. May have something God is giving you that has helped you in emotional purity and you’d like to share it with others. Send that in to me and if it’s something I think would be appropriate and fit in, I’d love to share it. I’m still learning myself in this area. We’re growing together, so I’d love to get your thoughts on it. Feel free to send in any questions or thoughts you might have. And I look forward to that discussion we have in our next podcast. 

Well that’s it for today. Thanks for sticking with us and we’ll look forward to hearing from you. If you have something to contribute to that podcast, you can email me at satisfied@theegeneration.org. We’ll talk to you next time. as we continue to learn how to be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ.