American Dating Culture Destroys God’s Simple Plan of Marriage

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Introduction

In the early 1980s, I gave our church teens a strong warning about the risks of American-style dating which was becoming more and more dangerous to Christian morality.  Up until the 1960s, men and women truly needed each other.  Women aren’t strong enough to farm or to hunt without modern machinery; the only way a woman could survive was by persuading a man to feed her.  Marriage was a matter of life and death.

Guiding a house was a lot of work.  It did a farmer no good to raise a crop unless he had a wife who could turn his harvest into edible food and a hunter needed a wife to turn whatever animals he killed into something edible and turn the skins into clothing.

Women worked hard.  There was wash day and baking day when they did all of that activity for an entire week.  It wasn’t possible to dry bed sheets during cold winters, so the wife had to wash and stash an entire winter’s worth of clean sheets before snow flew.  Wives were so important that a widow often received a marriage proposal or two as they shoveled dirt into her husband’s grave.  Divorce was rare because neither party could survive without the other.  Marriage was a matter of life and death.

As household machinery came along and women could get jobs to support themselves, men and women no longer needed each other to survive.  An unmarried man could buy prepared meals and didn’t need a wife to keep his house or apartment.  Working women could pay their own bills.  This made stable marriages much less important to survival so young people became less careful about dealing with the opposite sex.

My Asian friends were far more involved in their children's marriages than my American friends were.  My wife and I sat at a table in Tokyo going over resumes of potential husbands for the youngest daughter.  The family had hired a well-respected marriage broker who interviewed all the parties and circulated resumes as she thought attraction might happen.

When candidates indicated interest in each other, a date would be arranged.  It was assumed that all parties were seriously intending to marry.  It was OK to marry for love if your choice came from a well selected list of compatible people.  Modern dating applications claim to do the same thing, but they can’t keep people from lying.  Software can’t copy the wisdom of an aged grandmother whose reputation depends on making good matches.  Arranged marriages are still so common in India that romantic Bollywood comedies about misadventures of marriage brokers are reliable money-makers.

Asian arranged marriages lasted longer than date-driven American marriages so I warned our teenagers against the dangers of unrestricted dating.  Christian parents were neither warning nor supervising their young people, and morality has gotten considerably worse since then.  We now know that great emotional damage can result when young people come together physically outside marriage.  This makes it difficult for either party to build a strong, God-honoring marriage later.

As countries become wealthier and young people move to cities, they rely less on older people to find partners.  Youth-driven marriages fail so often that many young people in Japan and Korea are deciding that relationships are “too much trouble” and avoid dating and  marriage entirely.  In the US, educated people aren’t having enough children to replace themselves.  Japanese, Korean, and American cultures are doomed because of a lack of babies.  The future belongs to whomever shows up for it.  A culture dies if there aren’t enough kids.

When Adam lost his comfortable job keeping the Garden of Eden, he had to work hard to stay alive:

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.  Genesis 3:19

God didn’t say how Eve would eat.  From that day, a woman needed a man to feed her in order to stay alive and a man needed a wife to process whatever food he grew or caught.  Marriage was a matter of life and death and children would come when a man and woman got together.

God knew that young people would stop wanting children.  Look at what He wrote:

I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.  I Timothy 5:14

At the time the Holy Spirit inspired these words, men and women had exactly two choices – marry or starve.  That’s why Ruth’s decision to follow Naomi from Moab, where her family would find her another husband, to Israel where Naomi told her she wasn’t likely to marry was such a leap of faith.  If Ruth hadn’t married Boaz, Naomi’s kin would have taken care of Naomi, but Ruth might have starved that winter.

God knew that the industrial revolution would bring enough work opportunities that women wouldn’t need to marry.  He also knew that the pill would make it possible for men and women to come together without having children. That’s why He gave that command.  Modern women don’t have to marry, and they don’t have to have children if they marry, but God commanded that women marry, bear children, and raise them.

To have the best chance to succeed at motherhood, a woman needs a long-term relationship with a man who’ll take the responsibility of caring for her and however many children God gives them.

That’s a lot of work for a man.  When I learned how much work our first child brought, I spoke of the work when my grandmother asked me how soon she’d have another great-grandchild.  She gave me a steely look.  “Understand this,” she said.  “The pleasures and joys you get from your wife are God’s way of paying you for all the work they bring.”  We had two more children, but she didn’t live to see them.

Proverbs 31:1 shows that King Lemuel’s mother taught him how to care for his future wife.  The wife she describes worked day and night (Pr. 31:18), but she worked out of her house.  She didn’t spend her days in an office far from her children.  A modern working mother who commutes to an office or even satisfying a boss via the internet from home doesn’t have enough time or emotional energy to prepare meals from scratch or teach her sons, nor can she teach her daughters about men as God commanded:

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; ⁴That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, ⁵To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.  Titus 2:3-5

A lot of older women tell me that they don’t know what to say.  To be fair, it took my wife 20 years to find an approach that would get younger women to listen, but those who’ve listened to her and followed her teaching have ended up in sound marriages.

The more I think about this long-ago message, the sadder I get at how few listened and how few American Christians are teaching their children how to follow God’s Simple Plan of Marriage.  I updated this message because I see American-style dating customs spreading to other countries and I want to pass on the warning.  This is what I said:

Marriage and Whoredom – a message for teens

One major marriage problem is that many voices tell us that men and women have exactly the same wants and needs.  Christians know that God made “male and female” so that men and women want very different things from marriage.  It’s hard to overcome all these wrongful messages from popular culture.

A man who’s listened to the popular culture thinks he’s marrying a soft, curvy man who wants the same thing from marriage he does; a woman thinks she’s marrying an angular woman who wants the same things she does.  Most newlyweds haven’t been taught about marriage, so the differences come as a surprise.  People find it hard to give to their spouses because they haven’t been taught enough about the differences to find it easy to figure out what the other wants.

When they find out how profoundly different men and women are, there’s shock.  The man realizes his wife wants something completely different from what he wants.  He is afraid she won’t give him what he wants, so he tries to force her.  The wife finds out her husband wants something different, so she tries to force him to give her what she wants.  This is trouble, as each strives to get what he or she wants instead of trying to give what the other wants.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.  II Timothy 2:24-26

Misunderstandings can lead to striving, it’s hard to be meek when you’re afraid you’ve married someone who can’t or won’t give you what you expected.  God’s plan provides for both husband and wife to be so wonderfully satisfied that marriage can give you a taste of the joys of Heaven right here on earth, but both parties must handle marriage in God’s way.

Christians must marry with the goal of giving to the other instead of getting.  God expects His people to serve Him because we love Him (2 Cor. 5:14).  God expects married people to serve each other out of love.  The Greek word translated “love” is agapao, which is not an emotion, it is a conscious decision.

A woman has a God-given duty to choose to belong to her husband (Song 2:16), and he has a God-given duty to choose to belong to her (Song 6:3) and to dedicate his life to nourishing her and cherishing her (Eph. 5:29).  God expects husbands and wives to serve each other; they serve God by serving as He expects.

Buying and Selling Each Other

I once heard that the girls in a high school quit talking to the boys.  The boys did something the girls didn’t like, and the girls got together and decided not to talk to the boys until the boys did what the girls wanted.  They were giving the boys the old silent treatment, a common wifely weapon women use to rule their husbands.

I’m told that many wives stop talking to their husbands when they get upset.  I ask you, is the silent treatment, that is, not talking to him until he does what you want, the right way to deal with a husband?  Is this OK?  Is this Godly?  Communicating calmly when you’re upset is difficult.  Girls, you want your husbands to be glad to communicate with you, you want him to be glad to talk with you and to hold you.  You want him to be glad to have you spend all his money making yourself happy, is the “Silent Treatment” the way to make him happy with you?

Over time, a wife can force a husband to do most anything, she can rule the house if she chooses to rule.

Adam ate the forbidden fruit because his wife gave it to him (Genesis 3:6).  Abraham ignored God’s promise of an heir by Sarah and got his maidservant Hagar pregnant because his wife wanted children now.  Abraham later let Sarah drive Hagar out into the wilderness out of jealousy (Genesis 16:1-6).

Isaac blessed his younger son Jacob instead of his eldest son Esau because his wife fooled him (Genesis 27).  Samson told Delilah the secret of his strength even though she had tried several times to use it against him because she “pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death” (Judges 16:4-20).  David made Solomon king because his wife asked him to (I Kings 1:16-21).  Solomon’s wives led him into idolatry (I Kings 11:1-8), but he was unhappy with them (Ecc. 7:27-28).  Were these women happy?

A wife wants her husband to be glad to communicate with her, glad to support her, glad to give her what she wants, and not have to be nagged.  How can you be that kind of wife?  Read the Song of Solomon, Proverbs 31, and pray for wisdom how to be a good wife while avoiding bad husbands:

Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: ¹²To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; ¹³Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; ¹⁴Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; ¹⁵Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: ¹⁶To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; ¹⁷Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.  Proverbs 2:11-17

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.  James 1:5

God won’t criticize you for asking how to be a good wife.  God wants you to be wise, but nobody can teach you if you don’t want to learn, not even God deals with a proud spirit.  God resists the proud (James 4:6).  If you earnestly want to know, if you humble yourself and ask, you’ll get wisdom, God promises it.  God wants you to be a good wife as a testimony for Him; if you fast and pray for wifely wisdom, God is doubly eager to grant your prayer either through the Holy Spirit or by having you meet an older woman, preferably a long-married grandmother who can explain.

Now I’m going to tell you ladies something from the Bible that’s not popular:

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.  …  But the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.  Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.  I Corinthians 11:3, 8-9

I get a lot of trouble from Christians when I say this.  Unsaved people, amazingly, admit the truth, unsaved women know that they are made for men.  It’s the saved that give me grief.  They tell me that having a woman submit to her husband is old-fashioned, “God made me just as good as he is, why should I submit to him?”

Most of you ladies will marry and you’ll face this question, to submit, or not to submit?  Listen, ladies, God, who created you in His own image, created you for a man.  He designed you and molded you and made you to be the glory of that man.  He intended that your children be taught to rise up and call you blessed, and your husband also (Proverbs 31:28-29).  He wants your husband to praise you and to appreciate you.

Don’t you think God wants you to be happy?  Don’t you think you’ll be happier if you’re the glory of your husband than if you try to stay independent?  If you trust God for salvation, can’t you trust Him to order your marriage?  God expects you to belong to your husband.  Is God good for you, or is God not good for you?

God made men very possessive.  If you belong to your husband by following the advice the wife’s mother received (Song 8:3), your happiness will belong to him.  He will find that making you happy makes him happier than anything he could do for himself.  That’s the only way to give your children a father in the sense of a man who cares deeply about helping them grow up.  No matter what a man knows in his head about the birds and the bees, men don’t really believe they have anything to do with making babies.  The baby is clearly yours – you had it last – but what has it to do with him?  If you’re his, however, your children are also his.

Men, your wants are simpler than a woman’s, you want a wife who’s proud to be yours and eager to be yours, it’s that simple.  The problem is that women are often proud to be with their husbands, proud to walk beside him, proud to have his arm around her, but that is not what a man means by having his wife be his.  Men and women have very different ideas what marriage is about.

Men can force women to do things, but you don’t want to force your wife to be yours, you want her to be happy to be yours, you want her to delight in being yours, you want her to rejoice when you take her.

Now I’m going to tell you men something from the Bible that’s not politically correct:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. ²⁴Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; ²⁶That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. ²⁸So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. ²⁹For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: ³⁰For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. ³¹For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. ³²This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. ³³Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.  Ephesians 5:22-33

Even the lost know a man should die for his wife when the time comes.  Even the unsaved cry, “Women and children first” when a ship sinks and people make for lifeboats, but God rarely wants you to die for your wife, He wants you to live for her.

God wants me to use my authority over my wife to her benefit, to lead her by serving her (Mk. 9:35, 10:44), to make her a glorious wife, as Christ uses His authority to benefit the church, to make it a glorious church.  What God has in mind, men, is that you’ll sacrifice your life daily for your wife, caring for her, nurturing her, sacrificially letting her spend all your money building her house, every day.

How can you be that kind of man?  Read the Bible, pray, ask for wisdom to be the husband God intended you to be, and hope God sends you an older woman who can teach as Mrs. Lemuel taught her son (Pr. 31:1).

The Message

I’m going to give you an inductive message.  When I heard that all the girls in a high school stopped talking to the boys, a message popped into my head, just like that, but it’s an inductive message.

In deductive messages, I state the conclusion, then offer proof, that’s best for noncontroversial messages.

In inductive messages, I state facts that link together, you’ll see the final conclusion before we get there.  Seeing it yourself helps you remember.

With respect to the silent treatment, it doesn’t matter if the girls actually did it or not, the important thing is that they thought of it.  Let me ask you, does your father pay your mother to care for the house?  Does he pay your mother to raise you?  Why does she do it?

One of the tricks of an inductive message is that you take a sudden, unexpected turn off in another direction and come at the subject from behind.  Here’s the turn in this message.  Why do we give money to the Lord’s work?  Does God need our money?  This is a question which heathen find hard to understand.  Are we paying God to do things for us?

My Japanese friends are frank about contributing to temples so god will smile on them and help them.  This is what paganism is, it isn’t just worshiping idols, pagans pay “god” to do good things for them.

Here’s an example from the Bible:

Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, ¹⁶As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. ¹⁷But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. ¹⁸But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.  Jeremiah 44:15-18

That is how paganism works, it’s a purely business transaction.  You pay the queen of heaven and she does something nice for you, you don’t pay her, and she doesn’t.  Pay cash in advance; a pure business arrangement.  The more you pay, the more blessings you get.  In America, this is known as the “Prosperity Gospel.”

People would rather be saved by works; people would rather buy god’s favor than receive freely of God’s grace.  Jesus’ teaching about the widow with the two mites was astounding because nobody ever thought God cared about people who couldn’t pay big bucks.

Do we give to the Lord to earn his favor?  No, there’s a hymn, “We give thee but thine own, what `ere the gift may be, all that we have is thine alone, a trust, Oh Lord, from thee.”

What’s the difference?  My Japanese friends go to their Buddhist temples and drop money in the box, we go to church and drop money in the plate.  How can you tell the difference?  How can you tell if someone’s giving or getting?  You can’t, it’s hidden in the heart!

The heart is the key difference between idolatry and faith; the heathen pay their gods to do favors, the more they pay, the more god likes them.  We belong to God, and give to further His work out of gratitude, out of a sense of cooperation with God, out of a sense of association with God, of being laborers together with God (I Cor. 3:9), of being part of the family of God.  Heathen belong to themselves and rent god’s favors; we belong to God and give back part of our substance which He has given us.  It’s belonging to God versus renting favors, it’s a matter of the heart.

The Bible tells us that the Israelites went after other gods.  The passage from Jeremiah tells you they did it and their fathers did it from generation to generation.  What did God say about that?  What did God call their idolatry?  Whoredom!!

And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them.  II Chronicles 5:25

There are 19 references to spiritual adultery in the Bible!  19.  That’s a lot!  God must hate it very much.

Now, what does the dictionary say that whoring means?

1) A woman who prostitutes herself for hire

2) In Biblical use, applied to a corrupt or idolatrous community

What’s does “to prostitute” mean?

1) To offer oneself to indiscriminate sexual intercourse, usually for money or other valuables.

But prostitution doesn’t always involve sex:

2) To surrender or put to an unworthy purpose, to sell for base gain or hire.

That is, to sell that which should not be sold or to use something valuable wrongly or in an unworthy way.  That’s whoredom.

The people who wrote this dictionary didn’t fully understand idolatry, they thought idolatry meant the worship of idols.  Indeed it does, but idolatry also carries with it the idea that you are separate from god, and that you hire god to do favors by giving to the temple.  We call it “Simony” after Simon who tried to buy the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:18-25).

We Christians give to God because we’re part of God, we’re brethren with Christ, so we give freely as God freely gives us salvation.  It isn’t a “buying and selling” arrangement because we’re one with God.  You can’t sell yourself anything, you can’t pay yourself to do things because all your money is yours already.  That’s how it is with God, everything we have is His already.

Husband and wife are not supposed to pay one another, they belong to one another, they’re one flesh and should freely give to one another.  Your father doesn’t pay your mother for keeping the home, nor does she pay him for taking care of her, they give to each other out of love because husband and wife should be one in God’s eyes.  You can’t pay yourself.  Marriage is belonging, not hiring or renting.

There’s a great deal of whoredom in many marriages.  How did we start?  I mentioned that I heard that the girls decided not to talk to the boys.  The girls said, “We won’t talk to you, that is, we won’t give our companionship, until you do what we want.”

You girls don’t have to give your conversation to boys, you aren’t married, so the “silent treatment” at this time is not whoredom, but within marriage, making deals with your husband can be whoredom, as surely as the grass is green and the sky is blue.  When you say, “I won’t give you my companionship unless you do what I want,” you’re selling companionship which God says you should give freely.  That’s prostitution.  That’s whoredom, just as giving to God in expectation of favors is idolatry.  The whore says to a man, “If you pay me, I’ll do something nice for you.”  The girls said to the boys, “Do what we want, and we’ll talk nicely to you.”

It’s not whoredom when unmarried girls do that, but it gives girls practice in playing the whore after they marry by making deals with boys before they marry.  Is that good?

How often, men, have you offered your coat or some food to a young lady, hoping that she’d talk to you, that she’d share her femininity with you?  How often, ladies, have you smiled at a boy, hoping he’d carry your books, hoping he’d share his masculinity with you?  Aren’t you buying and selling your attention?

“But,” you’ll say, “we aren’t serious, we don’t mean anything by it.”

I know you don’t mean anything, that’s the problem.  God disapproves of teasing when you don’t mean it:

As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, ¹⁹So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?  Proverbs 26:18-19 

God says that sort of teasing is as bad as throwing arrows, fire, and death!  You see, you can’t give your all to each other, you aren’t married, so you swap bits and pieces of yourselves.  I know you think whoredom and prostitution apply only to sex, but they also apply to anything that should not be sold.  Men and women are not to be sold to one another, you’re to give of yourselves freely in marriage.

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, ¹¹And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; ¹²Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; ¹³And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. ¹⁴And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.  Deuteronomy 21:10-14

A wife is not property no matter what men may think.  Note that this passage doesn’t use the word “slave,” it calls the captured woman a wife.  Treating her as a wife meant that she couldn’t be sold, she wasn’t property, he had to set her free if he didn’t want her any more.  Taking her changed what she was, it set her apart, it humbled her and sanctified her in the eyes of God.  Wives are not for buying and selling.

The Japanese have many words for “whore.” One translates as “woman who plays,” that is, an unserious woman who plays at having fun instead of working for joy.  Another translates as “woman who sells her flower.”  Even the heathen know a woman’s flower, that is, her purity, is not to be sold, but to be given freely in love and devotion to her husband.

There’s commercial calculation in dating.  A girl may say, “I don’t like him much, but he’ll take me to a movie I want to see,” and go out with him because he met her price.  A man may say, “I don’t like her, but she’ll go to McDonalds.  I can afford that,” and take her out because she met his price.  I’ve heard girls say, “I won’t go out with a guy unless he has a cool car.”  Proverbs 31:10 says that a virtuous woman’s price is far above rubies, how can a girl settle for a mere car?  Her price should be his life for her life until one of you dies.

If you don’t think boys and girls think like that, guess again.  Buying and selling yourselves, that is, whoredom, is an essential element of most dating behavior, that is, boys and girls getting together when they aren’t thinking about marriage.

Some colleges restrict dating to sitting together at functions you’d go to anyway, they want to be sure there’s no buying and selling between men and women that builds the habit of whoredom in dating and later on in marriage.  That’s not good for you, is it?

Not only that, when you date, all that can happen is for you to break up.  Ladies, young guys aren’t ready to marry you, they’ll be good husband material some day, but right now, they aren’t ready to marry anyone, nor would you want to marry any of them as they are now.  What can one of these guys do if you hang out together and start to get involved with one another, as you surely will?  All he can do is dump you, what else can he do, he can’t marry you?  You’d rather fall into sin or that you marry when you’re far too young to take on the responsibility?

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.  Psalm 27:14

When you’re dumped, it doesn’t always mean dislike.  My cousin was dating a college guy she liked.  He dumped her, she was so upset she left the country and taught English in China for 3 years.  When she got back, he called her up and bought her dinner.  Turns out, he’d fallen in love with her, but he wasn’t through college, he couldn’t support her, there was no way he could give himself to her in Godly marriage.  He knew he’d better not see her at all lest they be tempted, so he “dumped” her, reasoning that if God intended her for him, she’d wait until he could give himself to her fully.  They are married, and happily so, because he had the strength to rule their relationship, slowing it down when it was going too fast, but claiming her as soon as he could honorably take her to wife.

Breaking up for any reason is hard to do, but dating teaches you that it can be done.  Breaking up dating relationships gives you practice for breaking up your marriage.  Is that good for you?

Now you know where I was going, I think.  What was I leading up to?  (Is dating bad for you?)

You’re right, but if I had said dating was bad for you up front, that it sets you up for whoredom and divorce, you’d have closed your minds, that’s why I did it inductively.  Some of you refer to “that `no fun’ sermon” when I urged you not to spend so much time having fun that you didn’t have time to get ready for joy.

Some of you think I’m mean because I didn’t let my sons have fun.  They did have fun, it’s just that their fun was directed toward future joy.  They worked practicing the piano, but that prepares them to serve the Lord.  I know you think I’m being mean to you, but was I mean to my son Benjamin because I wouldn’t let him play in the street?  He really wanted to run out where all the action is.  Was I mean not to let him run out where he could become roadkill?

You’ve agreed that keeping Ben out of the street is not mean because you know enough about traffic to know he could be killed, but you don’t know enough about dating to know how badly you can get hurt.  Haven’t you seen enough of your friends get dumped not to want those scars on your heart?

Any whiplash of the heart you suffer while dating makes it hard for you to give yourself fully to whomever you marry.  And what if you hold back in marriage?  You can’t fool your husband or wife, they’ll see you’re holding back, and start holding back.  You’ll see them hold back, and hold back more.  And down you go!

If you spend your teen years practicing whoredom by buying and selling each other in dating, how can you switch overnight to a loving, giving relationship just because you said some words in front of a church?  You can’t.  Accepting salvation makes you a new creature, marriage vows don’t.  That is why I urge you to avoid dating until you’re old enough that it might be practical to think of marriage.

“But,” you say, “How can we get to know what the other sex is like without dating?”  Through teen activities.  In an activity, one’s the treasurer and another counts the money, those jobs can be done equally well by either sex.  You can learn what the other sex is like by working with them in nonsexual situations.

Dating is sexual by definition-when a boy pairs up with a girl, the most important thing about her is her sex, that is, that she’s a girl!  When a girl links up with a boy, the most important thing about him is his sex, that he’s a boy!  Dating is sexual and swapping bits and pieces of your sex with each other outside marriage is whoredom.

I don’t want anyone playing the whore before marriage.  I don’t want my sons to teach my daughters-in-law to play the whore after marriage.  I want my sons to marry women whose hearts have not been damaged by ill-advised dating, who are prepared to give of themselves to my sons in marriage, so that my sons can give freely of themselves to their wives.  For only in mutual giving can you build a strong, godly marriage.

That’s the real harm of dating-the fun of dating teaches you to break up, it teaches you to play the whore, so that you have no foundation for the joys of godly marriage.  Call this the “`no dating’ sermon” if you want, but I’m sincerely trying to open my heart to you, so that you can have as happy a marriage as my wife and I, so you can avoid the pitfalls that damage so many marriages.

Marriage works when the husband treats his wife as God’s gift to him and she acts like God’s gift to him, but giving yourselves to each other is hard to do when you’ve spent years and years buying and selling yourselves.  God expects you to marry to give, not to get.  God expects you to serve Him by serving each other after you marry.  Nothing less works as God planned.