A Message for Singles and Dating Couples----What Are Your Thoughts?

                                 

In this day of loose morals, the topic of dating and sexual purity seems to be avoided. Let's face it, it's an awkward topic. But it has been on my heart for some time, so I'm going to address it.

One of my kids has a couple of friends who see no problem with having their girl friend spend the night or even live with them (no one else in the home for accountability).  These friends claim to be Christians and have what they think are "valid"reasons) for these arrangements. They claim that they are not being sexually intimate.  

Others who are dating see no problem with putting themselves in situations where the temptation to be intimate is difficult to avoid. They spend large amounts of time alone. Most think that it's okay to kiss and make out with each other as long as they "don't go all the way".  Scripture has a different take on this.

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22 ESV)

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV)

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. (1 Corinthians 6:12-13 ESV)

Flee youthful passions...means more than doing everything but "going all the way".  Kissing and making out is allowing youthful passions to take over.  Fleeing means don't even go there, but rather get out and run from it.  

It breaks my heart to see Christian young people putting themselves in situations where temptation can get the better of them.  They are only fooling themselves.  They WILL regret it later down the road, I guarantee it.  

While I'm at it, with pornography being so prevalent on the Internet, I'd like to sound an alarm about that too.  FLEE FROM IT!!!!  It will ruin you and your relationship with your future spouse.

Please read an excerpt from a sermon I found online. I have provided a link if you want to read the whole thing.

http://discipleshipproject.us/fornication-dest.html

Marriage is not the only setting that can establish the expectation of sexual intimacy. It’s the only legitimate setting; but it’s certainly not the only one. And singles dating one another over an extended period of time - spending a great deal of time alone with one another - encounter those settings again and again. They reach a point of profound emotional intimacy - and that emotional intimacy presses almost inexorably toward sexual intimacy. Just about every moment alone becomes a setting which establishes the expectation of sexual intimacy. And they find themselves defrauding one another again and again and again. Now, are we going to kid ourselves at this point?

Singles who have been dating one another for a long time and who have established a profound emotional intimacy with one another become trapped between two sins: fornication on the one hand and fraud on the other. If fornication is avoided, fraud is committed. And if fraud is avoided, fornication is committed. They find themselves bouncing back and forth between these two sins. Soon, their whole relationship turns sour. What should be done? Get married, doggone it. Or break off the relationship. But don’t continue simply dating one another.

A boyfriend/girlfriend relationship cannot endure indefinitely. It’s merely transitional in nature. I’m amazed at how often singles attempt to prolong a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Too many men these days are outright wimps. They want an emotional relationship with a woman, but they don’t want to pay the price for it - marriage. And too many woman these days are succors: they’ll continue indefinitely with a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with hardly a murmur of protest. Listen, ladies, throw the bum out. Drop him. He doesn’t deserve you. Don’t play the fool for him. If he’s not willing to marry you, send him packing. Is he a real man? Then he’ll marry you. The point is stop playing the fool. So many times I hear the excuse: “We just don’t have the money to get married.” Sita and I got married with hardly a dime to our names. Yes, it was tough. But we managed it. The lack of money is just an excuse. And what does it excuse? Does it excuse fornication, ladies? Does it excuse fraud? A boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is going in one of three different directions: (1) courtship and marriage; (2) fraud; or (3) fornication.

Men, come to grips with what you want. If you want the emotional intimacy a woman can provide, then marry her. And if you’re unwilling to marry her, stop dating her. All this business of prolonging boyfriend/girlfriend relationships is morally wrong. And nowhere in the Bible is it countenanced. In fact there are many passages which warn against it. Let me give you a couple:

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

2 Tim. 2:22

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.

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I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.  Do you agree?  Do you disagree?  If you disagree, why, and can you support your reasons with Scripture?  Use the comments section below to add your thoughts.