All right, let's turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. We'll use this verse as a foundation stone as we continue our series entitled Dating and Discipleship. These are biblical principles, biblical truths that we've been teaching for decades here, but it was certainly time to renew our conviction and our commitment here. Last time we talked about being a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and that's the foundation stone. Now, I'm not suggesting that you wait until your children are genuinely converted before you teach these principles. But I am not suggesting, but I'm instructing that none of this matters if you're not a disciple, if you're not committed to take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ. A disciple means to follow after another. If that's what's settled in your heart, then these principles matter to you.
If not, I can understand why they wouldn't matter to you. This is for the man who has a new heart, been made a new creature in Christ Jesus, has become convinced that our ways are not God's ways. Our wisdom is not God's wisdom. So we come today to this second installment of Dating and Discipleship that I've entitled The Devil's Detour of Modern Dating. The Devil's Detour of Model Dating. Now, we're talking about young people and we're talking about the processes, if you will, the relationships we develop as we look toward finding our life's partner. And I'll probably say this several times, but for every area of life, God has his path and Satan has his detours. Every area of life, God has his wisdom and truth, a path, but Satan has his detours.
Now listen to me. We're not talking about a strict uniformity for all of us concerning the specifics involved in Christian young peoples and their relationships. Each family may have different applications and different convictions to some degree. So we're not talking about some sort of cold, legalistic uniformity about specifics, but we are talking about a firm unity about biblical principles.
All right? Now that being true, there will be some times when perhaps a dad needs to be pulled aside by another brother in Christ, maybe a church leader. And he's got a 13-year-old daughter, let's say, and that 13-year-old daughter is dating 17, 18, 19-year-old boys and going out for two to four hours once or twice a week alone with these older boys. So there might be a time when a father like that needs to be pulled aside and very gently and meekly and calmly and compassionately just say to him, have you lost your mind?
There's a place for that occasionally, but that's the rare exception to the rule. Your way don't have to be my way, but I can tell you this, my girls and my son-in-laws thrived under these principles, but it's because they were first committed to be disciples. And you say, one thing a disciple knows is I can't trust me. One thing a disciple knows is I am weak and vulnerable. Brothers and sisters, that's why we have to have a Savior, amen?
We're weak. And far too often in the church, we just embrace the world's approach to something and it sows the seeds of failure, a lack of flourishing, and dishonoring of God. And so none of us are perfect. Certainly don't think the nobles did it all right. We didn't, and don't think we're the pattern, we're not the pattern, but we did strive after these principles and God did bless them.
And I want to charge us all. So mainly, in fact, I'm talking to the folks who have even sub-grade school children. That's when you've got to start talking of these principles. As Deuteronomy 6 says, as you rise up in the morning, as you sit in your house, as you recline at night, as you walk along the way, make it just a part, not a harsh thing, not a formal cold hour of training, but just talking about biblical principles so that when they come to that age, they start being interested in some guy or some girl, they know, here's how our family is going to approach this, all right? All right, Ecclesiastes 12, verse 1, the writer says, Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, I have no delight in them. In other words, the writer of wisdom says, God is for you young people also. God is not just for the senior adults who are getting toward the end of life. When they look around and say, hey, I'm too old, I'm too tired, I'm too sick to enjoy this world, I just might as well honor the Lord and fellowship the Lord and go be with the Lord.
Well, there's nothing wrong with that. But the writer says, no, young people must seek the Lord. Young people must follow after the Lord.
Young people must learn. Now notice my wording here, learn to joy and treasure in the Lord supremely. That is above all of the things. We can enjoy a lot of things down here in common grace and they're given by God for us to enjoy. And these things in this world for this temporal season are given to us that we might enjoy them and praise Him for them, but Christ must become our chief joy. So you still have a God even though you're a young person. You're to honor God even though you're not old, you're still a young person. Or another way to say this, while you're young, learn to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
All right? Now one primary area of this is this area of how we get together with a guy or girl, develop a relationship, find Christian engagement and then marriage. I told you sort of the process and this is, I don't, I hadn't heard anybody use this phrase, but the principle's been around forever that when we're teenagers or so we might have a Christian guy-girl relationship. We find somebody that we have serious thoughts about as someone we might want to be married to one day so we enter into a Christian courtship to see if engagement is proper and right. We'll talk about the things the Bible tells us there. So we go from a Christian guy-girl relationship and that could be with several people over the years because you're not going to do modern dating so you're not getting involved intimately and defrauding one another. We'll talk about that in a moment. But anyway, Christian guy-girl relationship then that goes to a Christian engagement and then that goes to a Christian marriage.
All right? Courtship, engagement, marriage, the way I should have said it. So now this thing of modern dating and the idea is a guy gets with the girl, they go off together, they separate off together, and they do things together and supposedly they're learning one another and seeing if this is God's person for them. By the way, God did not design us to try one another on like an article of clothing and then discard them if we want to thrill with somebody else. That's using, that's selfish, that means spirited, it's not Christian at all and that shouldn't be happening in God's church. We should be treating our our young girls if we're a young man like sisters and and the young boys if we're a young lady like brothers in Christ. And you can say, well I understand pastor you're saying that that's not realistic. It is realistic. I've watched it, I've seen it, and many of our families have lived it.
But this modern dating idea really is a relatively new thing about 70 years old or so and one sociological researcher said it came on the heels of the women's rights movement, the growth of cities, that is people moving from rural areas into city areas, the decline of strong parental authority, the diminishing of parental parental authority, and we see that in our world don't we? The advent of the automobile of course fed right into this and then he said the less modest clothing of young ladies. So God's got his paths for every area of life but Satan always has his detour and trust me his detour is not just a dead end his detours run off a cliff.
All right? Now Jesus' temptation is a real picture of this detouring of Satan. Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He's there and and Satan comes and says you're the son of God.
You've got this power. Turn these stones into bread. You've been fasting 40 days. Aren't you hungry? And Jesus said no that's not you missed the point. We're not to live on bread alone but by everywhere that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What was Jesus saying? My provision comes from God but I'm not just here to seek God for my provision.
I'm here to seek God to honor and glorify him and he gives me my provision. You see God had a plan for his son Jesus and Satan said let's put a little detour on it. Let's put a little twist on it Jesus so that you can fulfill what you're supposed to do.
You're supposed to do supernatural things but let's do it for your sake and not for the glory of God. Jesus would have nothing to do with that. Satan takes Jesus to the the pinnacle of the temple and says you know what the Bible says?
Jesus if you throw yourself off of here he'll give his angels to you to embrace you and hold you up from getting hurt on this fall. Jesus rejected that. You're not put to the Lord your God into the test. I'm not supposed to take God's promises and misuse them for my purposes and my pleasure.
I have God's promises to build God's kingdom and honor and glorify the Lord not to misuse. So here's what Satan did again. Here's what the Bible says. Here's God's path.
Now let's put a little detour on it. Don't quite do it the way God says to do it. Satan takes Jesus to a high up mountain to see all the kingdoms of the world and he says I own all of these as such right now. So this is Satan talking.
Now and since he was right he is God of this world temporarily. God's allowing him in his sovereignty to allow Satan some leeway over earth for a season. And so Satan says it's all under my control right now. If you just bow down and worship me you'll get control of the world and you'll get control over all of these.
And that's what you're going to get anyway isn't it? Jesus, God's going to make you king over everything. Well Jesus rejected that.
In other words, here Satan is saying here's a detour to get to where you're going anywhere. Well we're going to get married anyway and that's why we're here and that's God's will. So let's just do it our way instead of God's way.
No! You do it, look, you don't do it God's way just because it's best for you even though it absolutely is. You do it God's way because it glorifies Him and it's best for you.
Roman numeral one in our outline. Modern dating, if you will, minimizes parental authority and parental blessing. It minimizes parental authority and parental blessing. In Ephesians 6 verses 1 through 3 the Bible says, Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.
Staying under your parents' authority and oversight and blessing. Is it because God is a cosmic killjoy and wants to rob you young people of pleasures in life? No, it's for your betterment. It's for your blessing. And I like that phrase, it's for human flourishing.
You will do better by doing this. But dating in itself is this getting off away from parental authority and oversight and being on our own, if you will. Proverbs 22 15 reminds us that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. That means these little children, and by the way this this flows into, you know, on through up in the teen years at least, and unfortunately it continues on into senior adults and too many people, and that is they're little fools. They're little fools. The liberals keep telling us that we need to listen to children because they know what they are. And we can listen to great school children to tell us things as extreme and bizarre as, I'm a girl but I'm really a little boy, or I'm a boy but I'm really a little girl. And the liberals tell us you parents have really no right authority to intervene here. We experts will take over now and we'll help them transition from their thinking or to abide by and become what their thinking is, even if it's as perverse and bizarre as thinking there's something they're not from their birth. Well you have fools trying to help other little fools act foolish. So my point is this. Young people have no business seeking relationships with those of the opposite sex. Out from under mom and dad's oversight of authority and blessing.
Why? Because they're foolish, and they will do foolish things. So to be a real disciple means you stay under that authority, but dating by its very nature wants to push children out from under the authority and separate them off to do what they think is right or best.
Okay, Roman numeral two. Modern dating often violates the biblical teaching of separation. Modern dating often violates the biblical teaching of separation.
Now we should be kind and we should be friendly to all people, absolutely. But the Bible forbids disciples of Jesus Christ from seeking and maintaining intimate bonds, being yoked together if you will, with those who do not know Christ, now listen, and also those who profess to know Christ but aren't living like it. Two groups, those who are not Christians and those who profess to be Christians but are not living like it.
We're not to be bound together with them, and that certainly would include those that you would have a dating relationship with if that's what you're doing. 2 Corinthians 6 14. Very clear, very straightforward. Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, and what fellowship has light with darkness. And then secondly, 2 Thessalonians 3 6. And by the way, let me just tell you, I'm gonna have these notes typed up and make them user-friendly because you could never read my sermon notes. I have my own shorthand and it just wouldn't work, and we're gonna make sure that everybody has a copy that wants a copy, all right?
So ladies in the office remind me that I said that, okay? 2 Thessalonians 3 14. If anyone does not obey, now let me go up to 2 Thessalonians 3 6. 2 Thessalonians 3 6. Now we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us.
2 Thessalonians 3 14. If anyone does not obey our instruction in the letter, that's the Word of God, take special note of that person and do not associate with him so that he will be put to shame. The old adage of missionary dating, you know, well the girl said, well he's not saved, but I'm trying to win him to Jesus. Well you're doing it the wrong way.
You're following a detour. You're trying to achieve a good end, not God's way, but your way and man's way. And those people who insist that to have a relationship with this girl, we've got to get together, we got to leave the home where mom and dad and the family are, we got to go out alone together and spend hours together once or twice a week, maybe three times a week, and that's the proper way to achieve the end of a good marriage that served and glorifies God.
It is not. And so very often the people who insist on that are not believers, and the people who insist on dating that way are not walking with God if they claim to be believers. Roman numeral three, obviously modern dating promotes sexual impurity.
Number three, it promotes sexual impurity. Now God made men and women different. I'm just appalled at people who claim to be brilliant and intellectuals and well-educated who keep trying to tell us that there's no difference.
My star's in heaven. There's wonderful, glorious differences, and the way we respond to the opposite sex is very different. Girls are designed by God for romance. It's how you talk to them, the words you use, the caring, the compassion that's something of an attractant, even a stimulation to them. Boys are more like animals.
It's strongly visual. I say that tongue-in-cheek because let's don't diminish what God's made beautiful. It's right for a boy to be sexually stimulated by an attractive girl. That's not wrong. It's wrong to cultivate that. It's wrong to pursue that before the covenant commitments of marriage, but it's not wrong that God made men and women different. It's not wrong that God made you like that. But then you get them together in modern dating, you send them out alone together, two to five hours at a time, and say, now y'all honor the Lord and live right.
Yeah, sure. Do you not know how God made young boys and girls? Modern dating causes us to defraud. 1 Thessalonians 4-6. In 1 Thessalonians 4-6, Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and he says, and that no man transgress and defraud his brother. Literally means take advantage of in the matter because the Lord is the avenger and all these saints, as we also told you before, and solemnly warned you.
Don't defraud. Now in the context of morality, defrauding someone means you are knowingly stirring up desires you cannot righteously satisfy. Nothing wrong with stirring up desires if you're married.
That's blessed of God. But modern dating puts you in situations where it's inevitable that you're defrauding one another, stirring up things in one another that cannot be righteously satisfied. And actually as you act on those desires, you begin to implant in your relationship the seeds of failure and the seeds of destruction in your own heart and life.
Modern dating not only defrauds. 2 Timothy 2-22. It violates the truth of this verse. 2 Timothy 2-22. Now flee youthful lust and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Now Timothy's a young man and Paul very straightforwardly says to this young man, even in the ministry, flee from the opportunity, if you will, Timothy. Flee from the environment where you would be tempted to carry out the God-given and good sexual passions that are in your life. He doesn't say go on and date like the world dates would just be strong.
You're not supposed to be strong. You're supposed to get out of there. Flee youthful lust. Well modern dating doesn't flee it at all. It throws you into environments where lust can take advantage.
Modern dating violates 1 Corinthians 6 18. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.
Here's the idea here. Flee this immorality because if you get involved immorally, you're sitting against your body. Here's what he's saying. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body is made to serve God, not to be involved in fornication. So you're misusing the Creator's intention for your human body and that is He never intended you to have the pleasures of sexual expression outside of the covenant of marriage. The pleasures of marriage go with the responsibilities of the relationship. This whole nonsense today of well it's good and it's best if couples shack up together.
If they live together without a marriage commitment to see if things work right. That is so beneath human dignity. That is so beneath the kind of maturity and caring and respect we're to have one for another.
I mean sure you're going to shack up with this guy's girl and basically what he's saying is I'm going to use you as if we're married and then if I find something better I'll trade you in for a better model. That is not of God. You're not a piece of livestock and vice versa. These things are not of God. You can't violate the Creator's design and prosper.
There will be a payday someday. And then A.T. Robertson in his brilliant commentary says about this this verse where he says he'll reap the results in his own body if he gets involved in sexual immorality. She says the moral and physical rottenness wrought by immorality defies one's imagination. Modern dating violates first Thessalonians 5 22.
It says abstain from every form of evil. Hold yourself off. Abstain from that which looks bad. There's no way a couple of young people in the prime of their hormonal development can go away for several hours alone together two or three times a week and that not look bad. There's no way.
There's no way. Modern dating violates Romans 13 14. Make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust. You date very long at all and pretty soon you're going out on the date planning to be intimate emotionally and physically.
Usually both. Planning ahead. That's violating Romans 13 14.
Make no provision. And just I'm going to read this section out of Proverbs because here's two people who intentionally are getting away from oversight and accountability. Not necessarily their parents in this context but for us it'd be away from the parents, away from the student group at church, away from church families and and the kind of accountability they could bring us. Proverbs 7 6 through 9 and then 7 21 through 27. For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice and I saw among the naive, that means he's young, I saw him naive and I discerned among the youth a young man lacking sense, passing through the street near her corner. He knows where he's going. He knows where her corner is. And he takes the way to her house in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night and in darkness separating away. With her many persuasions she begins to entice him. With her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool.
Until an arrow pierces through his liver as a bird hastens to the snare so he does not know that it will cost him his life. Now therefore my son, you young men, he says, listen to me and pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her past.
Avoid the areas, the environments where these things can happen. Verse 26, For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. Her house is the way to Sheo, descending to the chambers of death. I remember very vividly, and this has happened several times, a young lady in our church, she was a single young adult at that time. She'd been dating a young man and she said, Pastor, we both love the Lord. We know we're saved, but in getting alone together regularly, it's just impossible to stay pure. Roman number four, modern dating diminishes your fellowship with God. It diminishes, clouds out, you might want to say, your fellowship with God. And that's right, the opposite of our verse that we started with.
Ecclesiastes 12, one says, Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Draw near now. What I call this, I call this a triangle of guilt. Let's picture God at the top at the apex of the triangle and it comes down and the guys over here and the girls over here at the two bottom points of the triangle. God's will is that the guy and the girl draw closer to God and then draw closer to each other.
Satan's detour is, no, don't do that. Y'all just draw closer to each other. And then a cloud of guilt begins to develop between them and God. As the emotional and physical intimacy grows, they feel more and more guilty and more and more separate from God. And if they keep on going that way, they'll be functioning in a using, controlling relationship instead of a beautiful, pleasing relationship that glorifies our Lord.
And it begins to drive them further and further away from God because the guilt gets deeper and deeper in their hearts. Roman numeral five, modern dating divides youth groups. I've seen this a time or two and I've heard about it a lot of times. When guys and girls in youth groups start dating like the world and they go off together and then one breaks up with the other. Well, I'm telling you what, there's a civil war that develops.
She's got her group and He's got His group. There's bitterness, there's ugliness, there's the schism of divisiveness and lying. And what happened to love? All men will know you're my disciples by the love you have one for another. And that all could have been avoided.
Now listen to me. If they hadn't dated like the world but just had a Christian guy-girl relationship, causes divisions and factions and problems in the church and in the youth group. Roman numeral number six, modern dating can lead to emotional instability. You see, God did not intend for you to have the kind of emotional attachment to someone that modern dating puts you in. God did not design you had to have the kind of physical involvement the way modern dating encourages. And that goes on for weeks and months and maybe even years and all of a sudden she wants to break up or he wants to break up and you have the same kind of reaching emotional pain that you would have if you went through a divorce.
Why? Because God ordained you for a deep intimacy. The emotional bonding of a relationship is the glue that holds marriage together and you got the super glue of marriage out before you got married. And if you tear that apart after you've bonded like that, it's very, very painful. It can lead to serious problems.
It's not unusual to hear of a person that's attempted suicide and then you find out why it's because he broke up with me. Why is that so damaging? Because they violated God's principles. God ordained that super glue of attraction to be for the marriage bond only, not for teenagers who are just getting to know each other. Deep and horrible problems that really some carry throughout their lives that builds fear and insecurity into the lives going forward.
Roman numeral seven. Modern dating sowed seeds of marriage failure. This is one of the most powerful things I think I've ever learned practically speaking on the relationship of guys and girls as they grow up together. Modern dating doesn't leave you at home with the families very much. Typically, again, it's get away by yourselves. Get with the person, we'll get away by ourselves. And what they usually say is, well we've got to do that so that we'll get to know each other.
Sure, you don't get to know each other well that way. When you're alone together, you're trying to look your best, you're acting your best, you're trying to say the right things. If you want to get to know a guy, get in his home and be around his family and especially around him and his mom a lot. See how he talks to his mother. See how he respects his mother. See how he cares for his mother. See how he honors his mother. Now you're learning if he's the guy you want to be with. Not when you get away alone together. He'll act like anything to get what he wants from you.
But he can't hide it in the household. And guys, you want to know what a girl is like? Get in her home, hang out with the family. See how she respects her father. See how she submits to her father. See how and if she obeys her father.
See if she gets the the honorable role of husband and father in the home situation. That's the way she's going to view you one day as a husband. You don't get to know each other best when you're off alone on some dates. You just know each other best when you watch them in the home environment. But modern dating puts you in that situation where you're out and in those vulnerable areas. You're not fleeing youthful lust.
You're not avoiding the appearance of evil. Emotional and physical intimacies begin to develop. And the more they develop, the less you really know each other. You're getting together more or less to use each other, not to learn and to serve each other for the glory of God. And then you get into marriage, you really don't know each other. And the dirty, twisted ideas you have of intimacy are now different in the marriage relationship. So you don't know anything.
You don't know how intimacy is supposed to work. And you don't know the true person that you married because you clouded everything and mucked everything up, for a good word from southern middle Tennessee, mucked everything up by violating God's principles. So you've sowed the seeds of marriage failure.
Now praise God there's forgiveness in Jesus Christ, amen? Because once you've got married, it's God's will. And you can begin to dig your way out of the seeds of marriage failure, especially if you're in a good church and got strong preaching and you're a humble repenter. But you put great challenges in front of you concerning the success of your marriage if you violate God's principles in courtship. Galatians 6 7 and 8 lays this very principle out so clear for us. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. It may not... you say, I'm getting away with it right now. You just keep going.
There's a payday someday. Be not deceived, Galatians 6 7 and 8, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh, i.e. willfully follows one of Satan's detours instead of God's good path. One who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Well, Roman numeral eight. Modern dating is based more on lust than on love. It's based more on lust than on love. In today's world when that boy usually tells that girl, I love you, what he really means is, I love me, I want you. Love can always wait to give.
Lust can never wait to take. Now, are any of us free from this? Absolutely not.
Absolutely not. But you can be a good disciple that says, I know I'm weak. I know I can be worldly and fleshly.
I know I can be selfish and lustful. That's why I need a Savior. So what I'm saying to you, use the church. Use the the fellowship of the youth department of the church. Use your families as a protection and authority and a barrier to keep you from indulging headlong into the behaviors that will violate God's principles and bring ruin and destruction into your lives. Number nine.
We only have 10. It can ruin your relationship with your parents. How many times have I seen it through the years that a Christian family will have a girl or a guy and son or daughter, and they get all wrapped up in this person, and the more they get wrapped up in that person, the less time they spend with mom and dad. The more they get wrapped up in that person, the less time they are, to the less extent they honor mom and dad.
The more they get wrapped up in that person, the intimacies are developing that should have waited for marriage. See, that's part of the intuition. Can I just throw this out there? Boy, some of you moms and dads are gonna be frustrated at me for saying this. That's okay.
You've been frustrated with me before. I'm a grandfather of seven now, and I look so forward to already started reinforcing these truths with my son-in-laws and my daughters as they're going to teach them to their children, because by the way, I strongly endorse the patriarchy, if it's a godly patriarchy. We need fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers raising the standard and keeping things consistent and raising up the parameters and you encourage the younger ones. So I want to be involved in and doing all these things, but I think we generally have believed a lie in western civilization of waiting too long before people get married. Waiting up in the 20s and pushing, well you got to have this done, you gotta have your graduate degree done, and in a real sense you are throwing your young people into temptations and difficulties that they don't need to be in. I'm not saying it's an absolute rule here, but generally speaking, I think we wait too long.
I think there should be longer courtships and much shorter engagements. There's a reason why the Bible says it's better to marry than to burn. A lot of you Christian parents sitting here today think it's okay if my, now you wouldn't say that loud, but in your heart you're kind of resolved that it's okay if they're sexually immoral, maybe they'll marry the right guy one day or the right lady one day. That is not a god. Your children can be virgins when they get married. I know that for a fact.
It can happen. But can I reiterate again though, listen to me, there's nothing worse than a cold-hearted legalist. If you take my notes in my teaching and you leave out the new birth, I'm gonna fuss at you. This isn't about just the rules. Amen? This isn't about just the right and wrong, or this is the way we did it, you gotta do it just like we did it, or it won't work.
It's not about the rules. It's about the principles and a new heart that loves and enjoys in God's wisdom. I'm just so glad that even my son-in-laws, when they were wanting to court my daughters, I was very firm and very clear, and the more I was firm and the more I was clear, the more they'd say things like, I need that. Thank you.
I need that. That's why I'm saying you've got to be a disciple. And we'll get into this the last session, we'll get on this a lot, but if a guy wants to court your daughter, and the first thing the daughter says is, well, you'll have to talk to my dad. Matter of fact, when Sam wanted to court Anna Claire, Anna Claire said, you need to listen to my daddy's preaching. Well, a lot of you aren't preachers, so that won't work for you. And Sam started listening, I think, I'm right Sam, up to five sermons a day.
He must have been spitting with Anna Claire. Amen? But in reality, he was under conviction, was converted during that season of time. God was just working in his life, but he was drawn to that. And that's how you know, it's just wonderful. If they're not drawn to that, they're not God's best for you. And it goes both ways. And sometimes a guy or girl, they'll jump through the hoops to try to act like they're devoted to Christ, but you give a little time, it'll become clear, no, no, they haven't been, their heart's not really in this.
They're just dotting some i's and crossing some t's and trying to to make themselves look like something they're not. It's amazing how these things work. What was on?
It was on nine. It can ruin your relationship with your parents. You get together, you get too close, you feel guilty, you begin to deceive mom and dad, you begin to leave details out, you begin to lie to cover over how much time you're spending with this guy, this girl, then there's all out rebellion, the dominoes just fell and fell and fell, and you have diminished, if not almost ruined, the one relationship God's ordained for your protection and your flourishing in life, your mom and dad.
Are you listening to me? Even if mom and dad aren't right all the time, even if mom and dad have their own sins and shortcomings, and by the way, moms and dads, in a figure of speech, be a hypocrite. If you didn't do it just right, ask God to forgive you. Don't be overbearing now, don't be just a rule keeper, don't be a Pharisee, but be determined, listen, for the glory of God. You're going to do for your children perhaps what your mom and dad didn't do for you. Some of you grandmothers and granddaddies, you need to help your sons and daughters, your grandsons and granddaughters do a better job than you did.
Be a hypocrite. You know I don't mean that literally, but as a figure of speech, to illustrate the principle. Anyway, back on ruining your relationship with your parents, those dominoes fall and fall and fall, and there's a damaged relationship there. Number 10, last one, modern dating can cause you to miss God's best for your life.
Now be careful who comes to your mind when I say this, okay? Satan generally brings his best before God brings his best. Now I don't mean that person was of Satan, they just weren't God's best for you.
And God has, and here's a promise young people you've got to stand up, God has promised if you'll honor your parents' wisdom and who you're looking for, He'll make sure you end up with God's best. He can super intend through even a parent's heart that's not right with God to bring you to the right place with a marriage partner. But if you follow the detours, you try to do it yourself, it's very likely you're going to get married to somebody that wasn't God's best for you. Now the moment you get married, it's God's best. You got in the relationship, you got too emotionally, physically intertwined, that's what the Bible calls a stronghold, a bondage as such. So you went ahead and got married, then you get married, and oh my goodness, this doesn't fit. This is difficult, difficult.
This marriage is a challenge. Maybe it didn't have to be if you weren't on one of Satan's detours, he followed God's principles. Mom and dad have the ability, dads have the ability to see wrong motives in other boys. Moms have the ability to see bad motives in those girls who want to date your boys.
We'll talk more about that later. I was in a revival meeting many years ago and this dear man who I was preaching for was a good man and a godly man. And one evening just fellowshipping alone together, he said, Pastor, you know I I want to tell you that, you know, my wife and I, we quote, fell in love and courted and got married and then God called me to preach. And I want you to know every day of my life since then has been miserable because every day since that day I was called to preach, she's hated the ministry. And you could just sense the pain, you could just sense the grief.
Now he was good to her, he was faithful to her, but their marriage was a shambles. You see, God's ordained your pastors, your church family, particularly your parents to be His guardians as such to keep you from making the wrong decision. Satan hates you. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
He would say, well you're going to get to the right place eventually, just have some fun along the way and follow this detour. It can cause you to miss God's best for your life. So let's remind ourselves that modern dating at best is about 70 years old, so that means for about 6,000 years of human civilization cultures approach this differently. Matter of fact, you can go to the cultures where they have arranged marriages. I'm not saying that I'm all for that, but that the happiness in the surveys of the married couples and the longevity of the commitments is way better than the cultures who do not do arranged marriages.
Isn't that interesting? Brothers and sisters, we got to get back to the fact that marriage isn't about you being happy, marriage is about you making a commitment to somebody for the honor and glory of God, because He's ordained it to work that way. Modern dating is not the only route to get there. There's certainly a better path to take, so I charge you this morning to carry your cross in this aspect of finding the right life partner. Die to worldly plans and satanic detours. The Bible says there's a way that seems right to a man, but therein are the ways of death.
It seems right, but it's not right. In our next session, we'll have insights on what does a Christian Geiger relationship look like. What's that look like then, Pastor?
If we're going to look at things different, what does it look like? And remember that carrying your cross, listen to me, is to save you, is to save you from the errors and the pitfalls, the heartaches. Carrying your cross is to save you, and carrying your cross is to bless you. It's never meant to punish you. It's never meant to punish you. The modern satanic, or the satanic detour, I should say, of modern dating. Brothers and sisters, we can do better. God deserves more glory in our young lives, and we deserve more human flourishing and blessing.
