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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab your songbooks. We're going to start off singing song 404, but right after this we're going to have a song in your bulletin. So if you don't have a bulletin, please raise your hand at this time and the usher will bring you one. But we're going to start off with song 404. When the battle's over, 404. Let's sing it out. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church. Pray that you please bless every aspect of the service this morning. Pray that you fill our pastor with the Holy Spirit and just help us to sing out to you with love in our hearts this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. So for our next song, we have a handout in your bulletin called Rejoice in the Lord. Beautiful song. If you don't have it, go ahead and raise your hand and usher will bring you one. We've sung this once before. It may be new to some of you. So if you know it, sing it out nice and loud. Rejoice in the Lord. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not get a bulletin already but you would like one, you can lift up your hand nice and high and one of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. Also on the front, we have our Bible memory passage. We're on Psalm 59, verse 9. And any children that are 18 or under and can quote the verse of the week can get a ice cream treat at our midweek service. On the inside, we have our service times, soul-winning dinner. Also church stats. Please make note that we have our Spanish services at 9 a.m. from now on. And so if you have anybody that speaks Spanish or would prefer a Spanish service, you can recommend that morning service. Also when you go out soul-winning, you can try to recommend that as well. On the right, we have a list of expecting ladies as well as our prayer list. Please be in prayer for our church. Also upcoming events, there's a sign-up sheet for the July 6th. Pure Words Baptist Church Soul-winning marathon. Make sure you've indicated if you are planning on doing church transportation because by the end of the day, we're going to have to make decisions as far as just getting all of that situated and accommodated. So if you are planning on attending, please make sure you have signed up on the sign-up sheet today. If for some reason you're listening online and you didn't make it today but you plan on coming, email us. That way we know that you're planning on attending and or send us information saying I want church transportation and we can try to get that to you. Those who are participating in the church transportation will send an email out to everyone to give you some information specifically about how the church transportation will go. On the back, we have the congratulations to the Conire family on the birth of Zachariah Castilian. He was born on the 22nd at 4.15 a.m. Seven pounds, 10 ounces, 21 inches long. Congratulations to them. Definitely a great announcement. At this time, we're going to sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 67. It's going to be in our special handouts. You can use a Bible if you'd like, but the special handouts do make it easier to sing along. If you know it, sing it out nice and loud. Psalm 67. All right. Let's sing it out. Psalm 67. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, And what that does is it really kind of perverts and makes something very difficult in our society, and that is dating, dating. And what I want to talk about this morning is dating. And when it comes to dating, I haven't really preached in my mind hardly anything about this, especially like a full sermon or anything like that. But I do think it's good for me to approach this topic at this time while we have so many kids that are not dating yet, okay? But there will come a day when a lot of these young children are teenagers and young adults, and dating will become a big deal. Now, myself included, I don't have any children that are of dating age, and so that hasn't really happened. When it comes to this specific topic, I also want to make a couple things very clear. I'm going to, in this sermon, give a lot of just personal advice, okay? And then there's also a lot of things that the Bible clearly teaches on this issue, but at the same time, when it comes to dating, I feel like the vast majority of all dating ideas and concepts and what people like to do is based on their own personal discretion and personal opinion. And what I think is dangerous is for preachers to sometimes get up and just be really dogmatic about this is exactly how people should date, okay? There are things in the Bible that are very clear that we should all be observing, we should all be doing, but when it comes to dating specifically, I feel like there's just so much breadth to that particular subject, and there's so many different options and viewpoints that I don't think it's healthy for us to try and say this is how everyone should date. And I am not going to be the dating police in this church. If you ever learn anything from this sermon, please learn. I am not going to police anyone's dating, okay? And I want to say this too, and this makes me a little bit sad to think about, but it's probably reality, that there could be people that get upset and leave church because of dating. I mean, especially when you have lots and lots of kids, and they're all dating each other, and sometimes parents will start thinking like this kid's going to marry this kid, and everybody gets all invested in these little relationships, teenage dramas and whatever, and then so-and-so breaks so-and-so's heart, and so-and-so dates their friend, and so-and-so does this, and everybody gets all upset and mad, and there's drama, and it's just like weird. And then people say like, I can't go to church because I don't want to have to see that person. And you know what I'm saying is real. You may think like, oh, that would never be us, but I think that it's all of you, okay? So what I'm trying to do in this sermon is trying to give some general advice and some ideas and help us as a congregation try to prevent some of those things from happening. But even in the best prevention, it's probably likely that those things could end up occurring in the future. But what does the Bible say? Our goal in life is not to commit fornication. Our goal in life is to serve God, okay? And the Bible does give solutions for how to avoid fornication specifically, but if we keep reading this chapter, notice what it says. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid! What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For to sayeth he shall be one flesh. So the Bible's talking about there's some aspect of marriage that's special and unique to marriage. And when people commit fornication, they're basically taking advantage of something that should only be done in marriage. And that it's actually, there's some kind of a union there that is meant to only be in marriage, and when it's done outside the boundaries of marriage, well, then a lot of issues, it's sinful, there's a lot of problems with that specific situation. God wants the union of man and woman to only be within the boundaries of marriage. And anything outside of that is fornication. Now, of course, if someone is married and they're bound by that matrimony, if they commit some kind of an act, now that's a form of adultery, okay? So, but the Bible is, in this section, really bringing up the idea of fornication specifically. And that's really important to dating. And especially young people that have not been married yet are considering dating one another. Look what the Bible says in verse 17. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body. But he that committed the fornication sinned it against his own body. So, the Bible is saying that, in fact, fornication has a unique aspect to our physical bodies, where you can actually hurt yourself and harm yourself by committing fornication physically. Like, if I steal from you, that doesn't really hurt me physically, right? If I lie to you, that doesn't necessarily hurt me physically. So, committing fornication can actually have severe ramifications to you physically and personally, okay? And so, that's what the Bible is bringing up. Verse 19, what? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. So, the Bible says, if we are to be godly Christians, we are not only to worship God internally and just with our spirit and pray, but we're also supposed to make sure that our bodies are not sinning against God as well. And one of those aspects is committing fornication. Now, it says in verse 7, it just keeps rolling on this thought. Now, concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Now, of course, some people get a little carried away with verse 1 of chapter 7, but if you notice like the last like 7 verses of chapter 16 are just hammering, being joined to a harlot and fornication. And then verse number 2 of chapter 7 is bring up fornication. It's weird to then start making touching something that's not dealing with fornication. Okay, because the sandwich is just like fornication, fornication, fornication, fornication, touching, fornication. And then some people will be like, you can't even like, you know, ET fingers or something, you know. And it's like that's not really what the Bible was saying here, okay. It's obviously talking about things that are in that context related to that specifically. Typically, the way I interpret this, and this is not a perfect rule, but it's just generally speaking that if you wouldn't touch a man the way that you're touching this woman, then that's probably not appropriate, right. I mean, that basically kind of helps give you the parameters and the idea of where the boundaries are, of what this quote touching would be when we are leaving the boundaries of, you know, something that's normal, right. I mean, men and women, I'm sorry, men and men, they'll shake hands, they'll give each other a hug, and some cultures they'll even give a greeting style kiss, okay. In America we don't have that weird culture, but, you know, I say it's weird only to us, because technically in the Bible they did that, and obviously Jesus and his disciples would have done that. There's nothing wrong with it, and the Bible even says to greet one another with a holy kiss. So, there's technically nothing wrong with that. So, I would say, obviously depending on culture, there would be technically nothing wrong with men and women that are not married to shake hands, potentially give a hug in a certain situation, or even potentially a greeting style kiss, okay. Not any other kind of kiss, because men would not do that, ever, okay. Also, I'm probably not going to put my hand on your inner thigh, okay. Now, obviously Abraham did that to swear an oath to his servant, but that was intense. He was like, what's happening, okay. That was a strange occurrence, all right. So, again, I'm just saying, if you just think about these things pretty basically and pretty logically, it can kind of help you understand these boundaries, these parameters. What I'm saying right now is just Bible. I'm not just giving my personal opinion. We are supposed to avoid fornication, and if we want our youth and the young people and single people to avoid fornication, well, you know what, you shouldn't be touching each other in a way that you wouldn't be touching the opposite gender or your same gender, and we should be putting boundaries. What kind of boundaries? Well, verse 18 says flee fornication. That means you should have some serious boundaries trying to avoid fornication. Now, I want to go to a few other places. Go over to Genesis 24, Genesis chapter 24, and I kind of have like four main things that I want to bring up. I want to bring up the styles of dating that exist. I want to bring up age and the ages of dating. I want to bring up how engagement works or recommendations on engagement, and then specifically just getting married and marriages, all right. So, in the first category, what I want to talk about is styles of dating, and what I'm going to be trying to explain is not necessarily a recommendation. I'm trying to explain what exists, okay. From my viewpoint, there's approximately three different styles of dating that exist in the world. You kind of have arranged marriages, then you have courtship or going steady, and then you have what I would call a free-for-all, okay. And just to give you a brief explanation of what these look like, an arranged marriage is simply where parents or the guardian just says, you're going to marry this person, and they agree with the other parents or other guardian, and they basically say, you're going to marry this person, and the parents have agreed, and then basically you're just getting married to that person. That's one style of dating in a sense. Another style would be a courtship or slash steady. What this style is kind of like is you're specifically and exclusively dating one person. Now, there's all kinds of ways that this could look. It can be formal and informal in the sense that formal and more of a courtship idea is the fact that you've approached the parents or the guardian or whomever, and you've said that you have interest in courting them or dating them or going steady with this specific individual, and you basically got that permission, and so it's kind of this formal dating process. Informal is the sense that sometimes people are just kind of exclusively dating, but they haven't put any labels on it, right, but they're still kind of just exclusively dating that person. And then the free-for-all would be basically someone just going on dates with people, but they're not going steady. They'll go on a date with a person, then maybe go on a date with a different person the next week and then another person, and this could be in a couple different ways. Like, it could be that it's light, so they're just taking the dates very lightly. They're not making it very serious, or it could be just someone being a scumbag just going on dates with all kinds of people every single week, right? But when it comes to dating, it seems like these are kind of the three styles that exist. Now, this is what I don't want to do, and what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to condemn any style of dating. I'm not going to say that anything is wrong, but I think what is important is to think about the different pros and the different cons to each style, okay? When we think about arranged marriages, what would be some pros to that style of dating? Well, number one, parents are smarter than their kids. I mean, that's just a fact, okay, that parents are wiser. And I personally think that parents would probably be pretty good at picking spouses, just generally speaking, because they're not going to necessarily pick someone that they think is just a scumbag or a loser or has ulterior motives. Now, of course, in times past, a lot of arranged marriages were for money, power, wealth, to keep certain money in certain families and things like that. But I'm just saying in today's culture, generally speaking, if parents were to try and arrange a marriage, they're most likely trying to arrange someone they think is going to be well-suited for their child, okay? A second pro to arranged marriage is a lot of times you can pretty much eliminate fornication from even happening. Now, that to me is a pro, because if we're talking about fleeing fornication in the Scripture, and that's an important subject, by having arranged marriages, that could potentially eliminate it. Here's what are some of the cons to arranged marriage. Well, it kind of leaves out the free will aspect of your children, doesn't it? It doesn't necessarily give them a lot of say, potentially. Now, again, some arranged marriages, a lot of times, they'll still get input from their children. They'll say like, hey, we've been kind of surveying and looking at all the different families, and we kind of thought this person might be a good fit, and the child's like, yeah, I like that idea, or no, I kind of prefer this one, and then maybe they try to arrange a marriage with that particular family. So it's not to say that the free will's completely gone. In some cases, it's literally like you're marrying this person and you've never even met them, okay? That could be a scenario, right? Another con to this particular style could be the idea of, well, are these two people going to really fall in love? Are they going to have a strong emotional bond? Are they going to really love each other? But I want to show you that in the Bible, you have this style, and this style works. Now, what would be the first example of this would be Adam and Eve. I mean, think about it. Adam didn't have a lot of choices there, and if he did have choices, it was all the animals, right? He was looking for a help meet, and he's like, nope. And then God just basically presented him his rib, and he was like, I hit the jackpot. You know, it's not like that's even necessarily a bad thing. And in many cases, some people might even marry better because of the arranged marriage situation, because the parents just ended up helping them make a better decision than they would have even made. So you can't necessarily get mad about that. Here's another example is Isaac and Rebekah specifically. Now, I want to just read a few verses here. I'm not going to read this entire chapter because Genesis 24 is a very long chapter. But look what it says in verse number 1. And Abraham was old and well stricken in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house that ruled over all that he had, Put I pray thee thy hand under my thigh. See, that's what we're talking about, right? And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But thou shalt go into my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac. So Abraham is procuring a wife for his son, and he specifically wants to get a wife of a specific kindred. Now, you know, you could call that racist. But at the end of the day, it wasn't so much him being racist as it was him having a prejudice for a particular religion. He didn't want women of the Canaanite religion. He wanted women of the Abrahamic religion, which is obviously a precursor here. But essentially, people of his kindred were more likely to be worshippers of the God of the Bible, the God of specifically Adam and Eve and everything else as a predecessor. Abraham is kind of like the main father of the faith, but even prior to this, people were still knowing who God was and the Lord was. And so he wants to get someone that's going to be equally yoked for his son. Now, obviously, God kind of performs a miracle to bring the servant unto Rebekah specifically. But I just want to illustrate for you, from Isaac's perspective, he doesn't have any say in this. Like, we don't see anywhere in the Bible Isaac saying, Pick out a good one. Make sure she's pretty. Can she have blonde hair? You know, I want these, you know, statistics or something like that. Or I want these dimensions or whatever. He didn't get any of that. In fact, we don't even know what he thinks. All we know is that Abraham's like, I'm going to get a wife. He sends the servant. The servant actually procures Rebekah, brings her back. Look at verse 63 now. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide, and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, the camels are coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel, for she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master. Therefore, she took a veil and covered herself. I want you to notice a couple things about this. Number one, also Rebekah agreed to marry Isaac, having never met him. Never seeing what he looks like. And that should tell all of you ugly guys, money cures all things, okay? Because he brought a bunch of money and said, hey, do you want to marry this rich guy? And she doesn't even know what he looks like, and she's like, yes. Okay? I just, I'm just telling you what the Bible says, alright? Verse 66, And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done, and Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Isaac was covered after his mother's death. Isaac had never met her, Rebekah had never met him, and you would say, oh, she's a gold digger, but that's not true. And what I want to show is this is a really important thing. Notice what it said in verse 67, And he loved her. So, I can't stand here and condemn arranged marriages and act like they're somehow bad, because think about it, they eliminated, they completely eliminated fornication. The parents are wiser and made a really good choice in what wife he could have. And even though he didn't have free will, ended up loving her anyways and having a blessed marriage, and they stay married. Okay? So, can I sit here and just say, arranged marriages are bad? No, I cannot say that. Now, does that mean that I'm recommending or saying that's how you should do it? No, I'm not necessarily saying that either. But I just don't want people to start getting dogmatic about certain dating styles and thinking like their dating style is the only dating style that works or is available or should be done. Okay? Now, I want to go to another one. Go to Genesis 29. Genesis is such a great book because it has so many relevant stories to our life. It's such an exciting book. In fact, my wife often tells me it's her favorite book because, and I can see why, because it just has so many great stories. And it's a very compelling book. It's really easy to read through Genesis. Then you start getting through Exodus, and the first half is really exciting, and then it just slows down, you know? You start getting all the temple stuff, and then you get it again, and you're like, oh man, again? And then it's like all the Levites and the Numbers and Deuteronomy. It's a lot slower paced, whereas Genesis has a lot of stories. And look, these stories are for us. These stories are supposed to help us understand how to live in today, in 2024 America. You say, oh, that was back then they did arranged marriages. No, everything in the Bible is for today, and every example is for today. And if someone told me they're going to do an arranged marriage for their child, I would not condemn that person, and I could even see why they might make that selection because it's not necessarily a bad option, okay? Now, Genesis 29, look at verse 16. And Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well favored. And Jacob loved Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger daughter. Now, here we have an example of Jacob already loving Rachel before they get married, okay? And he is willing to serve for seven years. The Bible says in verse 19, and Laban said it is better that I give her to thee than that I should give her to another man. Abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her. Now, this is what I would put in the category that I brought up, secondly, of like a courtship or kind of going steady, where someone is exclusively dating someone else with the intention of marriage, of course. And this is a long courtship, seven years' time. I don't know all the specifics to this. I don't know that the Bible even gives us the specifics to this. Maybe the seven years was based on Rachel's age. Maybe not. I don't know why it was a seven-year thing. Obviously, there's spiritual symbolism here, and there's a lot of other reasons why that number is put in there. Seven is like a number of perfection, different things like that. But when it comes to specifically the practical understanding of this, let's just say maybe Rachel was 15 or 16 years old or something like that. Maybe she was 18 or 20. I don't know. But perhaps it was just, you know, he wanted to wait. He liked her. She was attractive. And so he wanted to marry this young woman, but he's just waiting for her to become older. I don't know. But he was willing to wait a long time. Seven years is a long time to court and to date someone. Me and my wife, we dated for like five years-ish or something like that. Very long time in my mind. And I don't really even recommend this long of a courtship or going steady in our society because, again, one of the main goals of getting married was to avoid fornication. Seven years is a long time, okay? But, you know, I don't know all the circumstances. I'm just kind of saying this is a specific example that we see in the Bible. We talk about courtship or going steady with a particular person. What is the pros to this specific style? Well, to me, one of the pros is that you get to really know somebody before you get married. And you can already indicate whether or not you love them before you get married, okay? Because notice the Bible says that Jacob already loved Rachel before they got married. So we don't have to worry about after they get married if they're going to fall in love, right? With the arranged marriage, of course, I personally think if it's a male and a female and they're generally matched on a lot of different things, they can fall in love. Like, I think that that's always the case. It works, okay? For some reason it just works. Men like women, women like men, and you can pretty much fall in love with virtually anyone, okay? But at the end of the day, you may prefer someone over another. It may be easier. You might gel with someone a little bit more. And so that's where the courtship and the steady gives you that opportunity to kind of explore those feelings, those emotions, and see if you really like this person a lot, okay? I think that's a big pro. Here's a con to a courtship or going steady style of dating is that you really limit your dating pool, okay? In the sense that if you're going steady with one person for a long period of time, well, that means there's a lot of people that you're not dating, you're not potentially figuring out if you're compatible with them or figuring out what you like, and it could be a long investment that you make that ends up not even going all the way through. So if I get serious with someone and I date them for seven years and let's say it doesn't happen, I get married to Leah, oops, right? Or obviously, just let's say they break it off or they break up or they decide not to want to get married to each other. Well, then it's a lot of wasted time, right? I mean, think about all the other people you could have potentially been dating or you could have already gotten married sooner and everything like that. So to me, it doesn't really make, you know, it's not necessarily good to be going steady and dating someone for a really, really long time, you know? You probably want to get serious only when marriage is going to be around the corner. That way, you're not necessarily waiting a really, really long time, wasting time, getting strong feelings that may not end up happening. And of course, a lot of breakups aren't even mutual, which is sad. Like sometimes, somebody's really invested in the relationship and the other person decides that they're not so much and then they end up breaking it up. Because their society is so wicked, this often happens where a young man will be dating a young woman and they are committing fornication. And because of that, she gets really invested in the relationship. But he knows he's never going to marry this person. So his only goal is to just keep the relationship going until the status quo is disrupted. And many young women are so naive that they don't realize that's going to happen. And so it's just a prolonged waiting period and as soon as he's ready to go, he's going to hit the road. That's why you don't want to commit fornication before you get married. And you don't want to necessarily try to get all these really strong emotions of somebody that you're definitely not even married to yet. You know, the arranged marriage, after you've gotten married, you're locked in. It's like, let's just go all in and just try to fall in love with this person as much as possible because there's no turning back, right? But when you're dating, you're not locked in. So you want to keep yourself guarded a little bit. You want to make sure that you're not getting too serious or too heavily involved. And you know, I want to make something clear. Your children are probably too young and they're not understanding everything I'm saying right now. I'm trying to teach you guys what warning signs and advice you should be giving to your children. And be thinking about, and again, what I'm saying right now is my personal opinion, okay? But I'm just trying to help give you some general wisdom, some general discretion here, that when it comes to dating, you may not want to take it super, super serious when marriage is not around the corner. Because it can be devastating results as a consequence, okay? So again, I'm not against courtship or going steady. I think it makes sense in many cases. But what are the pros? Well, the pro is seeing how they really feel about the person. What are some of the cons? Well, you're really limiting your dating pool during that time period and you may be investing a lot into something that may never even materialize. It may never even happen. And so you want to be careful with that and make sure that you're not getting too serious when it's not really going to actually happen. That's why even when I was younger, I kind of already had that idea and mentality. So if I was dating a girl or I was going on dates with a girl and I like already knew like I will never marry this person, I would just immediately break up with them. And, you know, other guys that I knew didn't have that mentality. They were going to see how much they could get out of the relationship before they ended it, okay? But that was not what I want to do. And I didn't want to get really involved with young women that I wasn't really interested in pursuing or already thought, you know, I already know that I wouldn't marry this type of person or I wouldn't be interested in her long term. You know, a lot of those things were when I'm thinking like, what is this woman going to look like as a mother? You know, as a young teenage boy, unfortunately, a lot of times you're only thinking about one thing and that thing's not the most important thing. You know, you should be thinking about things like, what is she going to look like a mother? Is she going to want to go to church with me? Is she going to be someone that I enjoy talking to? Okay? And it's like when those are all exes, it's like, you know, you need to end it. You need to just say like this is not a person I should continue dating, continue pursuing. And of course, when you break up, it's not fun. It's difficult. They get mad or whatever. But, you know, you're better off just moving on and just dating only people that you would ever consider marrying. I don't personally believe dating should exist unless you're pursuing marriage with that individual. Okay? That to me is the only reason you should date. If you're dating for a reason other than marriage, you probably have bad intentions. Okay? Or you have a bad goal or you're trying to be sinful. Okay? That should be really the only goal. And again, that's my personal opinion, but I'm just trying to give you an idea. Here's the third one. Go to Genesis 34. Here's the third style of dating, and this is what I would call free-for-all. Free-for-all just basically like you're just going on dates with people. Or you're just going out and just doing whatever. There's no labels. There's no courtship. The parents aren't involved. The children are literally able to just do whatever they want. Okay? Now, what are some pros to this style of dating? Well, number one, it's really easy on the parents because they have to do literally nothing. And I would say that almost everybody in the world is doing this option where they basically, the parents have zero involvement, don't care, and that kids are just kind of doing whatever they want. And especially with dating apps and all kinds of other things, people are just constantly just doing whatever, however, whenever. What's the con to this? There's a lot of sin in these dating relationships. Okay? And here's an example. Genesis 34, verse 1. And Dinah, the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. I just want to go hang out with my friends. You know, that's dangerous. I even hear this, and it worries me, but I hear this with married women, too. It's like, we just want to go out on the night. It's like, what does that even mean? And look, a lot of women, a lot of married women will go to the bar and go to the club and go to all these places like, us girls just want to have fun. What does that mean? You know, that's dangerous, and honestly, I just don't see how that could even be realistic. Okay? Obviously, if girls want to get together and, you know, hang out, there's nothing technically wrong with that, but you got to ask some questions like, where, when, is there supervision, whatever. Like, I don't want my wife just going out on the night, town, just wearing whatever, dressed like a hoochie mama or something. And look, a lot of men allow their wives to do this. That is foolish. That is foolish. Oh, it's just a girls' trip. We're going to go to Vegas. No, you're not. That's never happening. Ever. People will allow their wives to do that. And look, my wife is very, a very good girl. She loves me and whatever, but I'm not even going to allow her to get in one of these environments where young men would try to entice her or talk to her or whatever. You know, that's a bad move. And my wife's very innocent, but there's some women that have a bad past, you better never let her go around that. You should definitely keep her away from all men. Okay. I don't like this opinion. You just sound like you're controlling your wife. Yes, she's my wife, and I'm jealous for her, and I don't want to just offer her to some adulterous party or something like that or some adulterous situation. And look, it's not like men aren't going to do the same thing too. It's not like us guys are going to have a guys' party at Las Vegas or something like that either. But you know what? I used to think that it was only guys that did this, and I've been aware as of late that a lot of girls do this, and I'm just thinking like, wow, that's dangerous. I know why guys do it. So that tells me why women would do it too. And you know what? There's not a good reason to do it. And, you know, obviously dressing immodest when you're not with your husband, there's a reason why you're doing that. It's because you want attention. And the question is, how far are you going to let that go? And, you know, many times people commit sin not realizing they were going to commit that based on their first decision. Like Dinah's like, I just want to go hang out with the girls. Right? But then look how it escalates to verse 2. And when Shechem, the son of Amor the Hivite, prince of the country, notice this, saw her. He took her and lay with her and deviled her. What was the only thing that made him want to lie with her? It wasn't her winning personality. It wasn't her intellect. It was that he saw her. Hey, she's pretty. And then just immediately lay with her. Just immediate fornication. And let's just be honest. If there's no boundaries, if you can just do whatever you want, if you're alone or you're in private, people will commit fornication on the first date. On the first date, the second date, the first time meeting. And our culture and our society has gotten so degenerate that it almost seems like most people are like this. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But most people in our society today, especially once they've gotten to college age or older, they are pretty much willing to lay with a stranger. And just on the first date, first night, I'm wondering why I'm getting so many amens. Do you have personal knowledge of this? Okay, just want to make sure. I mean, I'm just trying to be honest with you that this happens, okay? And it's out there. Be careful. Some people know about it, apparently. Go, if you would, to Proverbs chapter 18. Proverbs chapter 18. Now, this is what I do want to say. I'm not against this style of method of dating. That might sound like crazy what I just said, okay? But this is what I want to make it clear. Is the three styles of dating, we didn't really talk about the boundaries involved in any of these. And so I want to talk about three different boundaries as to how the dates themselves go. Technically, a free-for-all style of dating, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem was that Dinah went out by herself, right? I mean, if she was just hanging out with different people, but her dad was there or her brothers were there, there probably wouldn't necessarily have been that big a deal. And honestly, I think that there are certain times when people should be dating and it should be without labels and it's not necessarily an arranged marriage. Like, they're just simply just going out, hanging out with different people, and just getting to know each other and forming friendships, relationships, whatever. And it doesn't have to necessarily get to the point of, like, we're steady or this is an arranged marriage. It could be just, hey, we're friends and we're hanging out. There's technically nothing wrong with that. You know, we have events at the Red Hot Preaching Conference, like a singles event, where they have all these people together and they're all just kind of hanging out, keeping it light. That doesn't necessarily mean they're all dating each other now or anything like that. That doesn't mean it was an arranged marriage situation. It was just a way for single people to just kind of hang out, interact, get to know each other better. But it's supervised. It's in public. People are aware of what's going on. I hope it's not a lot of Dinah situations happening at that event, okay? And I don't think that it was. So, what I'm trying to communicate is that there's technically nothing wrong with any of these styles. It's more kind of how you approach them that's probably the more important aspect of that, okay? But I do want to make it clear that, you know, the Bible does give some other verses to think about when we talk about styles of dating, okay? And this is a verse that I wanted to bring up. Proverbs chapter 18, look at verse 22. Whoso findeth the wife, findeth the good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord. This actually kind of praises a certain style of dating where it's them actually going out and seeking somebody, right? So, that first one we talked about, the arranged marriage, doesn't really work as well with this specific verse of saying like someone going out and literally finding a wife, okay? And I think that for 99% of all people, the arranged marriage is not on the table and it's never going to happen. So they probably need to take the advice of this specific verse of you need to go out and find a wife, okay? And so, you know, this is probably the most realistic. Again, if someone said, hey, we are thinking about arranging a marriage with this other family with these two kids. We think they're really compatible and that's just kind of how it's going to happen. I'm not going to be like I condemn it or something. I'm not against that style. But at the same time, for the vast majority of us, it's probably not realistic and I think the Bible is giving us this indication here, hey, we should go out and look, okay? So that gives us a little bit of idea. Now, go if you went to Deuteronomy chapter 22. Go to Deuteronomy 22. I want to talk about three different aspects to the dates themselves, okay? So we talked about the different styles of dating. What about the dates themselves? What do they look like? Well, again, to me there's three different approaches to this as well. Number one would be doing absolutely nothing as far as a parent. From a parental perspective and from the date boundaries, there's no boundaries. There's no rules. It's just a complete free-for-all, do whatever you want, okay? And then a second one would be chaperoned. A chaperoned dating environment would be either a parent, guardian, or responsible adult is there, an uninterested party is there to just basically make sure that the dates happen formally, that they're fine, nothing weird happens, no one's hurt, attacked, no fornication, any of those type of things, right? And then the third would be just simply no dating, okay? So let's talk about those. No dating, that's most likely in the arranged marriage situation, okay? What are the pros to not allowing them to date? They're not going to commit fornication. I mean, that's a pro. You have to be honest with it. What's the con? It could make their relationship a little awkward, right? It could make the honeymoon a little awkward, you know? But as the world demonstrates for us, plenty of people are willing to lie with someone the first time they meet them literally. So if the world doesn't think, this is what's funny to me, the world will go and lay with a stranger all the time and act like it's cool, awesome, and that they're amazing for doing it. And then they'll notice somebody getting married and it's the first time and it's the first night and they're like, well, that's weird and that's awkward. It's like, which one is it? You know, that's kind of funny that you think it's so cool to do that all the time and it's so fun and special, but like if people literally did that, it's somehow awkward now magically. It's like that doesn't make it awkward. In fact, to me it would make it more freeing anyways because you don't have the guilt of sin. You don't have to do it in a dark, shady way. It can be something that is fine. So, you know, that's one. The free-for-all, well, what's the pros to this? What's the pros to having no boundaries on your children and allowing them to date however, whenever with no rules? Well, the pro to me would be you maximize free will, right? I mean, you really can't, your children can't get mad at you and feel like you are too restrictive, okay? And there is a pro to that in the sense that children can feel like they made that choice because here's what happens for some people, maybe a lot. People get married and they have hard times and then when they have hard times, they want to get out of the marriage relationship and they use this as a mental excuse. I didn't choose you, okay? So in an arranged marriage situation that could like be literally true, or even in other cases they could say like, oh, I feel like my parents pressured me or I feel like you pressured me or I feel like there was all these things that made me get married to you, okay? And it could cause people to resent their marriage or try to get out of their marriage, whereas if it was completely no boundaries, then you have no one else to blame but yourself, okay? And I'm not saying that, I'm not trying to say that, you know, you should consider dating methods for this specific scenario, but I'm just trying to be honest that that is a legitimate pro because I've seen people, they get pregnant out of wedlock, get married, and then later they say the only reason I married you is because I was forced by my parents because of that situation and they have a lot of marriage problems because in their mind they've convinced themselves they never chose this person and they don't want to choose to love them, okay? That can be dangerous in a marriage relationship, but the reality is you have to, and that's why I try to really emphasize to the married couples, like you are making a choice today to love this person forever. No one is forcing you and even in the opening vows, it says if you freely and deliberately chosen each other for life, will you please join hands? That's how it starts before we do the vows. Again, it's not my fault if you're lying and I've never seen anybody with a gun to their head or anything like that, okay? But it's really important, and I believe in this wholeheartedly, for people to be aware that you're making a lifelong decision and you made that freewill conscious decision because what can happen is people can gaslight themselves and later in life say like, I didn't even make that choice. I didn't even want to marry them. I don't even like them. And it's like the person's lying, but in their mind they actually believe that because sometimes you can gaslight yourself. Sometimes you can convince yourself that you don't really even like this person or you've never loved this person, and it's total hogwash. It's not even legitimate whatsoever. You totally love them. It's just you're in a rut and you sometimes just can't remember your mental state. You can gaslight yourself on all kinds of things. Food, places you liked in the past, things you've liked. I mean, sometimes I kind of am confused about some of the meals that I used to eat in the times past because when I was a kid and I lived here, I used to like corn dogs. And I'm not joking. Like, I ate them. A corn dog is the most disgusting thing I could ever imagine. The smell itself almost makes me hurl. Like, I can't even believe that I used to eat them. I used to also like coleslaw a lot, and I just don't like coleslaw anymore. But I'm just like, it's so weird to me. If I were to try and draw up the emotions, like, all right, you like corn dogs. You love corn dogs. I couldn't do it. I hate corn dogs with a burning hatred, okay? Even the smell is so disgusting, it makes me want to hurl. But there was a time in my life where I liked them. That's weird. But you know what? Sometimes your feelings and emotions completely change. Hey, you know what? You could have a rut where you just really don't like your spouse, but that does not invalidate the fact that you truly love them and like them in times past. And it also doesn't mean that you can't invert that and, like, swap and go from, like, not liking to liking them. You know, whenever I was a kid, whenever we'd eat fast food or eat a burger, I would only ever eat plain and dry. And I remember, like, sometimes they would accidentally forget and, like, put the veggies on the burger or whatever, and I hated it. I was so mad. And I had to pull them off, and you have the slime from the tomato still, the residue on it and whatever, and you're like, what? But now I love the vegetables on burgers. Okay? I want all the vegetables. So I changed a little bit on that, right? And here's the thing. There are times when you can ebb and flow, you can change. You know, I know when I showed my wife the first time a sermon by Pastor Steven Anderson, she did not like it, okay? He was, like, ripping on how Johnny Depp was a faggot, okay? She liked Pirates of the Caribbean, okay? I'm confessing her desires and likes there. But, you know, over time, she ended up liking a lot of his sermons. At first, she did not like a lot of his sermons, and that's okay. You know, it's okay. That taste and preferences are going to ebb and flow, and your feelings and emotions are going to ebb and flow. And, you know, in a marriage, your feelings and emotions are going to ebb and flow. So what's important is to not allow yourself to get gaslit and not recognize and remember, hey, you chose this person for life, buddy. And not only did you choose him for life, you even liked him in the past. And you even loved him in the past. And you know what? You have to every single day remind yourself, I'm still choosing to love you even if I don't feel like it right now. And, of course, women struggle with this the most because they love to live by their emotions. You know, marriage is not supposed to live on emotions. You need to live on the fact that you already chose to love your spouse forever. And you just love them today anyways. You just do good under them anyways. You know, husbands, be not bitter against your wives is what the Bible says. Hey, even though she might have had a bad day yesterday, give her new mercies today. And you love her today. And you know what? Marriage is a fight. But I want people to realize that I think free will is a beneficial part of a relationship. And so if you go the full arranged marriage with no dating, you put your children in a situation where they could gaslight themselves and say, like, I didn't choose this person because of that. So, again, is there a benefit to the free-for-all style? There is. What's the con? Almost everybody's going to commit fornication if you literally have this option. If you say, I'm not going to chaperone the dating, I'm going to literally just put them out in the world and say, go have fun with the daughters of the land. Almost everyone will commit fornication if not all. If not a hundred percent. So if the goal in the Bible is to not commit fornication, then it sounds like that really shouldn't probably be the option. So to me, what makes the most sense, and this is my personal opinion again, is to find a healthy balance between not committing fornication and giving them some free will in the process, right? If we could have a happy marriage of those two ideas. So, like, from my perspective, I think what makes the most sense is to allow them to have chaperone dating. Not to just say no dates and not to just say no boundaries, but to have some style of chaperone dating. Now, again, if someone decides to do those others, I can't condemn you. Of course, if your children are committing fornication, yeah, I'll have to deal with that. But I'm just saying, if they're not, and technically it's possible, well, then, okay, I can't really do anything about it if you make that decision. But what's the benefit of chaperone dating? Well, it reduces fornication. Chances of fornication are much lower if you're doing only chaperone dating. But what's the con to what I'm saying? And what's the reason why people don't do chaperone dating? Because what I've been explaining to you just sounds like a no-brainer almost. Like, well, yeah, that sounds great. Why wouldn't we do it? Because it's hard work. Because it takes effort. And, of course, a lot of people are shipping their kids to college that are out of their sight. So it makes chaperone dating virtually impossible at that point. I mean, it's just not going to happen. They're just doing the free-for-all. And what's happening in the free-for-all? A lot of fornication. Well, what's happening? When you have a lot of fornication, end up knowing it wants to get married now. And then you totally ruined it anyways. You know, college, I'm pro-learning. I'm pro-higher education. But the problem with college is a lot of degrees are not actually learning anything. And it's just a promotion of fornication to the extreme. And not just fornication, obviously, drugs, alcohol, all kinds of other stuff too. You know, college is a very dangerous environment for a Christian person. I, you know, went to college and I lived with my parents at home for the first year. And really that prevented me from doing a lot of bad things and making a lot of bad decisions. But when they, my parents literally like kicked me out of the house. That is when I started making a lot of bad decisions. And it wasn't because I didn't have a desire to make the right decisions. I had a strong desire to do what was right. And I did love the Lord in my new man. But boy, I just let that old man take over. And you know, you put yourself in the wrong environment with the wrong people. And as soon as you open one door, then it's just like, you know, you just kind of just go wild sometimes. And it's just not a good approach. And unfortunately, we have our society, just so many young people just destroying themselves through fornication, through these things. Why? Because parents are too lazy to chaperone dates. And I think that they should. And that's my personal opinion. If you can somehow manage for your children to not commit fornication and commit sin, and you didn't have to monitor their dates. Well, you're special. Okay? God bless you. I can't condemn you. But you know what? That's just not the vast majority of people. Probably not very realistic. And society is so degenerate right now, I think it's unrealistic completely. Maybe in times past, it seems like our parents, my parents especially, they're a lot older. My dad's like 80. He said when they were young, there's no boundaries and kids are dating and they weren't necessarily just committing fornication every single second. Just because it was shunned by society a little bit more. But you know, that is not the society today. Okay? We don't live in 1950s America. So, you should probably take off your naive cap and put on your realistic cap, put on your Bible cap, and realize that, hey, if Dinah's going out and committing fornication on day one, it could happen to anybody. But look at Deuteronomy 22 and look at verse number 13. The Bible says, And yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity, and they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city, and the elders of the city shall take that man and chastise him. And they shall immerse him in a hundred shekels of silver and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel, and she shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days. Why am I bringing up this story? Notice who's taking personal responsibility for their daughter's virginity. The father. To me, it seems biblical and it seems like there's precedent here that the dad is making sure that the daughter was a maid and was a virgin. How can you do that if you're not chaperoning dates? If you're just allowing your children to go on a free-for-all. You can't have that certainty, okay? And here's the problem that if she wasn't, what does it say in verse 20? But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel, then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die, because she hath wrought folly and is able to play the whore in her father's house. So shalt thou put evil away from among you. Now, here's what I want to also make clear. Even though the dad has a responsibility to make sure his daughter stays a virgin, the responsibility is still solely on the daughter. Because the dad is not punished. Only the daughter is punished. Meaning, you young ladies are responsible for yourself. And you have to make sure that you're making the right decisions, and you have to say no, and you should stay away from this. Now, of course, we don't live in a society where this actually happens, but you know what? I'm not even against this. Now, at the end of the day, this is not saying, and I want to make it clear, it's not saying if someone committed fornication that they should be put to death. That is not what the Bible is saying here. Because the Bible actually clearly says if two people get caught committing fornication, they're supposed to get married. That's what the Bible says. This is someone lying about it, okay? This is someone defrauding someone in marriage, specifically, in that specific context. That was the death penalty, okay? So, it's a different crime. It's not really the crime of fornication, it's the crime of defrauding somebody under the guise of virginity, okay? So, it's a completely different situation. But, you know, if we lived in a society where this existed, where this was the case, well, you know, women would probably take their virginity a little more seriously, wouldn't they? Go to Leviticus chapter 19. Because here's the thing, the men would not pay a dowry for someone that's not a virgin. They wouldn't have to pay that because it's already been lost. Because if a woman's not a virgin, then the man that did that and didn't get married to her had to pay the dowry already. So, to marry someone that was like this, you wouldn't pay a dowry, so she would get no money for that particular situation. And she would be less desirable on the marketplace. Less men would be interested, less high quality men would be interested in this type of a woman. So, there would be almost no incentive for young women to do this. They would be very de-centivized to do such a thing. Whereas in today's culture, it's not as stigmatized and there's not as much issue. The problem also is this, it's just awareness. Because this stigma still exists because humans are humans. It's just that women are so stupid and they've been led astray and deceived into literally destroying themselves without realizing it. There is going to be a giant crop of whores in America that no one will marry. And it's sad, but that is what's going to happen in America. Leviticus chapter 19, look at verse 29. Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom and the land become full of wickedness. That is America right now. One of the major issues in America is men prostituting their daughter. And again, it's not so much a direct thing. It's not like he's literally the pimp or something. But it's just basically saying he's allowing his daughter to go out there and commit all kinds of fornication. And it's destroying America. It's destroying our country. And you know, we can get mad all day long at like the Jews and the elite and the new world order and blah blah blah. But you know what, no one is forcing a man to prostitute his daughter. Men need to protect their daughters and to make sure they're safe. So again, what am I talking about? Let's just do a quick recap. Number one, Bible says don't commit fornication. That's just Bible. That's not even my personal opinion. Bible also says it's good for a man to find a wife. That's what the Bible also says in the scripture. Additionally, the Bible has a lot of precedent, a lot of instruction about fathers protecting their daughter's virginity. Based on those three things, my personal opinion is that when it comes to dating styles, I would prefer the courtship-steady model and chaperone dates for my children. Not saying that I wouldn't consider other options, but that's probably the preferred option in my mind. Makes the most sense biblically. You can take that for what it's worth. Now when it comes to age, what does that look like? Now I'm just going to kind of give my personal opinion. I'm not going to go to a lot of verses on these. I'm just trying to give you some general advice here at the end. I believe, and this is my personal opinion, that children should not date at all until after 16 years old. That under 16, they should just be friends. Because there's nothing wrong with being friends. And you're still pretty far in my mind of getting married. That there's no reason to get real serious about it while you are under 16. And there's no reason to even date in my mind. Because, frankly speaking, when you're 15, your idea may change a lot about what you think about people. You know, unfortunately, I grew up and went to public school. And it has its pros and cons. But one of the cons is that you notice this. A lot of senior guys date freshman girls. And this is what I noticed. It was kind of the loser senior guys that dated freshman girls. Why? It's because they could not procure a date with the contemporary because they weren't really that cool or that awesome. But to this young girl who's unsuspecting and doesn't really know any better, this older guy just automatically seems cool. And so a lot of freshman girls would date senior guys. And they really would have never been a match for this person. It was just an age issue. And after growing up, they would have been like, wow, I can't believe I would have dated this loser. And I can think of a specific situation where a young girl in my grade dated an older guy that was a complete loser. And then they even got married after high school. Probably only because of all the things they did in that relationship. And then they quickly and soon after got divorced when she realized this guy was just a loser. But she got too invested in an older guy when she's 14 or 15 years old and just doesn't know any better. And you know what? Fourteen and fifteen year old girls are stupid. I said it, okay? You just don't know anything. And especially when it comes to men, you have bad choices in men, okay? And I think that they just, you know, a young girl can just like attention from men, just older guys. And they may think like, oh, this guy is cool because he's showing interest in me. But he's really not that cool. And you need a little bit more time to mature. Girls really don't get fully matured mentally until they're about 18, 20, that kind of age range. Guys, it's like 25 or later, you know. But girls do mature a little quicker. But you know, they still need that time to mature. So to me, I don't even think you should get married until you're 18. And I'll explain that in a minute later. But, you know, with that in mind, that they're not going to get married until they're 18, there's no reason to even start dating until they're 16, okay? Second part of my personal advice is that if they are going to date at 16, from the ages of 16 to about 17 and a half, they should only do light dating. Or they should probably not even necessarily go steady or be like really committed. They should keep it really light, maybe going on group dates, just hanging out. You know, they can still go on dates. I wouldn't prevent somebody from going on a date in my family. But maybe just kind of keep it really light. And you know, to me it makes sense to allow the free for all style to be this part of their life. The 16 to 17 and a half, they just go on one date with one person and they're just kind of keeping light. And then they're going on maybe a date with a different person eventually or whatever. But they're not being that real exclusive or whatever. And they're not calling each other on the phone every single day. You know, I personally don't like that when they're at this age. Why? Because they're also not ready to get married either. And there's still a lot of time. Now once they get to about 17 and a half, they're within six months of potentially getting married. If they want to get really serious and be exclusive and you know, I'm not going to be against that because they could technically get married in that short period. In like about a six month time window. But when they're still 16, you've still got two years, you know, at least at minimum in my opinion. And so I would just try to keep it light. That's just again my personal opinion. And I'm trying my best to preach all this and give you my preferences now. So that later when I have kids and everybody else like, you know, it doesn't seem like it's just, well Pastor Shelley's making up these arbitrary rules and preferences based on his situation. Like I'm trying to give you advice that I don't believe I'll change my mind on. Again, there's always exceptions and things like that. But I'm just saying these are my general ideas and attitudes and how I'm going to approach this and how I think other people should consider approaching it. When a child's from the age of 17 and a half until they're still living at home. So in this range of they're 17 and a half to whatever age they're still living at home. I believe they should go on chaperone dating. They should not date for more than two years. The dating plus engagement window should probably be between six months to 18 months. And that they should have known the person for more than a year. So if someone dated and was engaged for only six months, but they've known the person for a few years, I don't think that that seems unreasonable. If you've never met this person before and you start dating, it might make sense to date at least a whole year or maybe 18 months just to get a full year of knowing who this person is. Before you marry them for life. Okay. So that's just again my personal recommendations. I know people that have not done these things. And that's okay. I'm not getting mad at them. I'm not upset with them. I'm just trying to give you what I think is ideal. What makes sense. What should be the norm, the most common situation, not the least common situation. Young adults. So if you're not living at home and you're not married, here's my recommendation. Here's my recommendation. That you should do group dates. And that might sound uncomfortable. You might not like that idea. But I think that's what you should do. If you're young and you're on your own and whatever, you should just do group dates. You should not be alone in private ever. You should be intentional about boundaries you have about not committing fornication. And you should be upfront with that person and say, hey, I really like you. I could see this going to marriage, but I really want to make sure that we don't make a mistake. So I want us to make some really clear boundaries so that we're not going to be tempted in that way. Number four, I think you should have a shorter dating cycle. You probably shouldn't date for a very long time. And then another tip is that you should probably take separate cars if you're traveling alone. And again, why am I giving this advice? Because we're supposed to flee fornication. That's a pretty strong word, flee. You know, what I said is probably not comfortable. A lot of people might not even like it. But, you know, people that don't take this advice are going to commit fornication. So they can get all mad at me and say that I'm a goody two shoes. But you're just not even trying to not commit fornication. I'm trying to give you advice where I believe you could potentially date as a young person and not actually commit fornication. And if you're going to be alone, like you don't have someone to go on the group date, make sure the whole date is in public. Right? That you're not hanging out of your apartment alone, you're not hanging out in the car alone somewhere, you're just not alone. And then that way, you know, you're preventing yourself from making bad decisions. When it comes to being engaged, go if you would to Judges 14 for a moment. And I'm going to try and, I'm going to wrap up quickly here on this. When it comes to engagement, and this is what I've preached a lot of sermons on, but I'm just going to remind you. When it comes to choosing someone to marry, these are the four criteria that I always tell people. Number one, you should be attracted to them. If you're not attracted to them, move on. Number two, they need to be saved. Number three, I believe you should be equally yoked. And what that means is it means that you both have the same spiritual desires for the big picture of life. Like what kind of church you want to go to, how many kids you want to have, basically how you want to serve God. Like if you can't agree on the big picture of like how you want to serve God, how you want to have your family, and just like what kind of church you want to go to and things like that, well then it's probably not a good match. You want to at least agree on some big picture items and be spiritually yoked. And then four, you should be jealous. And that to me is a really important aspect of determining your spouse. When you recognize I can't imagine her or him being with someone else that drives me insane, I want to kill them, then you're like, you're jealous for that person. And that's a good indication that you should marry that person. Look, if you're attracted to them, you're both saved, you both want the big picture items out of life, and you're jealous for them, you're a match. That's not even a big list necessarily. I'm saying it can work if you meet those criteria. But some people, they don't take all of my advice. You know who doesn't take my advice? Samson. Now Samson took some of my advice, just not all of it. Look at Judges 14 verse 1. And Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up and told his father and his mother and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me to wife. And his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well. Well Samson on our four point checklist, attractive, he got it. It was like, hey, attractive, yep, I like her, she pleaseth me well. Because he saw her. Remember what it said? He saw her. He liked what he saw. Saved, oh, fail. Equally yoked, ah, fail. Jealous? No, actually, because later when she's kind of like, well I mean you could argue he's a little bit jealous at least. He does like destroy everybody for like someone taking his wife. But he ends up kind of like, you know, leaving her at one point. So his jealousy was a little bit off kilter. Obviously no man wants someone to lie with their wife, they're going to be mad about that. But he didn't seem jealous enough for her in the sense that he basically just abandoned her at one part in the story. So, you know, he failed. If he failed this test, I don't recommend getting married. If you told me, hey, she's saved, we're equally yoked, and she's attractive but I just am not that jealous for her, I wouldn't, you know. If you say she's attractive, and I'm really jealous for her, but she's not saved, no. It's got to be, it's a package deal. Now when it comes to getting engaged, and boy, please young single guys, please listen to what I'm about to say. Here's my personal opinion. This is how you should get engaged. Number one, ask the parents permission. Okay. Number two, this is, that was the first step. Second step, buy a ring. Alright, go to Genesis 24 and I'll show you a verse there. Number three, officially propose. And then number four, set a date. And I just say this because you wouldn't be the first, and I hope it's the last, but you wouldn't be the first where someone comes to me like, hey, we're getting married. And I'm like, oh, congratulations. So when did you propose? Oh, I didn't. Does she have a ring? No. Did you ask your parents? No. Did you all have a date? Nope. How are you getting married? What does that even mean? How are you engaged? Like, that doesn't even make sense to me. Like, you know, to me, you follow these steps, right? Ask the parents permission. Buy a ring. Officially propose. Set a date. And let me explain something. All women want this. All women want this. They don't want this like you're just sitting here eating it in and out like, Do you think we should get married sometime? Sure. Hey, guys, we're engaged, man. That is not what they want. Okay. And it shows that you're like not even that interested in her. I mean, this is supposed to be the wife of your children for all time? You want her to satisfy your every want, wish, and desire, and that's how you treat it? It's like, come on. We should be better than this. And I'm just going to be honest. It's embarrassing to me as your pastor. Like, when I have to explain to other people, like, hey, someone's, you know, getting married or whatever, and they're just like, yeah, they didn't get officially proposed. They didn't even buy a ring. They're not even sure when they want to get married. It's like, it's like, are you even taking this serious? I'm not like playing church and playing weddings and playing house or whatever. Like, this is a real church. We have real weddings. Y'all are real people. We should have, like, real customs, okay, and real traditions. Now, again, this is my personal opinion. If you come to me and you say, hey, we're going to get married. I didn't ask the parents. I didn't buy a ring. I never officially proposed. Tell me a date. I'll still help you, but I'm embarrassed, okay? I'm embarrassed for you, and I'm kind of wondering, like, why are you taking the relationship that's the most important human relationship you'll ever have so nonchalant? Take it seriously. And, you know, if you really wanted to say yes, look at Genesis 24, verse 53. And the servant, this is talking about Rebekah again, brought forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and gave them to Rebekah. He gave also to her brother and her mother precious things. Now, you say, like, well, why did she say yes? That didn't hurt, okay? I'm just saying that didn't hurt at all, all right? Gove you a Mark chapter 10, and I'm going to wrap up, but, you know, you say, like, oh, well, that just means women are gold diggers. Well, you know, what is the most important aspect of a man in marriage? Providing. What's the most important aspect for women in the marriage? Okay, we already know. But we're not, you know, we're not testing that out, okay? And at the end of the day, if that's what you want and that's what you expect, why can't she want and expect something too, right? Because men will be like, well, she should be attractive and be thin and be healthy because that's the part of marriage that I enjoy. Well, then why can't she want you to have money and provide well? Like, oh, she's a gold digger. She's going to have to financially rely on you for the rest of her life. Why would she not want someone that's going to have good money? And, look, I don't believe that every woman just has to be married to a rich guy. But she wants a guy to be able to provide well, okay? She wants to be able to have a nice house and have a car and have things and have some of the normal stuff of life. Every lady wants that. That's so normal. And, you know, when you can actually provide a nice diamond, a nice ring or whatever for her, it kind of shows, like, hey, I'm able to bring the bacon to the table here. And she might be kind of interested. Now, again, this is my personal opinion. You can look it up. Most people recommend three months pay to buy on a ring. I would say between one and three months pay. And if any of you deadbeat guys out there who don't have a real job, I'll just say, like, 4,000 to 12,000, all right? Now, of course, that's 2024 America. Next year it might be a million. I don't know. But, you know, keep with inflation here, okay? But, yeah, that would be, you know, in my mind a reasonable figure. It doesn't need to be 100 grand or something stupid like that. But, you know, it doesn't also need to be like a crackerjack box ring or something like that either, okay? Maybe you can find a happy medium. And I'm sure that there's nice looking rings between four and $12,000 that you could find that she would really like. Last point that I want to make is about marriage itself. When you want to get married, you know, I want to help you. But there are a few marriages that I will not do. So I just want to make that clear now so that way people, you know, don't have to ask me about it. But Mark Chapter 10, and I wasn't going to go to some other places, but I'm not for sake of time. I want to read a few verses here though. Look at what it says in verse number 11. And I like it worded in the way in Mark because it does it on both sides of the equation here. But it says, Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committed adultery against her, and if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committed adultery. The Bible is saying if a man divorces a woman and gets her married, it's adultery. And if a woman divorces her husband and gets her married, it's adultery. So, therefore, I will not marry someone that is divorced. And their spouse is still living. Okay. Now if you go to Romans Chapter 7, which we're not going to go there for sake of time, the Bible says that if you are married and get divorced, but they're still alive, you're still married in God's eyes. And because of that, you're committing adultery when you get remarried. Okay. So as long as your spouse is alive, I will not remarry that person. Now, if someone got divorced and then their spouse died, I would technically remarry that person. So my wife was like, you just have to kill them. No, I'm just kidding. It was a joke, okay, folks, in Minecraft or whatever. So if someone is divorced and their spouse is still alive, I will not marry them. So what about the scenario? Well, I got divorced and remarried and then that spouse died. Okay. But what about the first spouse? As long as you have any spouse that's alive, sorry, you know, it's like, Elizabeth Taylor, sorry, I can't understand your situation very well. But if you have any spouse that you're married to, it's off the table until they're dead. Okay. Here's another marriage I won't do. I won't marry anybody under 18. Just don't even ask because there's no point. Now, again, if someone were to get married under the age of 18, I would tell them to go to the Justice of the Peace. So I can't stop you, but I just won't do the wedding. Okay. If you want me to do the wedding, you have to be at least 18 to, for me to perform the wedding. And then thirdly, I won't marry an unsaved person. So whether that's both or one, but if someone in the relationship's not saved, I will not marry them. Okay. So those are my, there might even be more, but those are the ones that I think are just probably the most common, most obvious, like these are marriages I will never perform. Okay. And I just want to put that out there. If someone's in fornication, like in 1 Corinthians 5, I give them the option to either quit fornicating, get married, or quit church, and I would perform that wedding. Okay. Someone that's in fornication but needs to rectify that, I would potentially do that. As long as they are over 18, they're not divorced and remarried, and that they are not unsaved. Okay. I would still consider that. And when it comes to kicking somebody out for fornication, that's pretty much reserved for people who are members who know better. You know, if you bring a first-time visitor into church and they're committing fornication, don't come up to me and be like, this is awkward, Pastor Shelley, because I think you need to kick this person out. It's like, look, the sermon's probably going to do that. You know how many people come one time and then don't show back up? Like, I didn't need to have to then, quote, kick them out either. Okay. It's like, it's so hard for people to just even want to come to church, let alone. So it's like, someone's got to be coming to church for a while, become an established member, know better, and then we'll deal with that, address that particular situation. I don't think that that's leavening the church because you don't even know who this person is yet, right? What leavens the church is when we have people that have been a member for 10 years and then they're committing open fornication in the church and no one's dealing with it, that causes problems. Because then it says like, oh, I guess I can just do this and get away with it, and the pastor doesn't care and the church doesn't care, and then it's setting a bad example and then other people start doing it and it's causing a problem. That's what the really, what 1 Corinthians 5 is addressing in the situation and I will address that and I will have uncomfortable conversations. And here's the thing, I'm trying to lay down some clear boundaries for dating. Please take my advice because I think it's right, but you don't have to. But here's the thing, if you don't take my advice and your children that have heard me preach for years commit fornication, I will deal with it publicly. You don't want that. I don't want that. I will do it. I've had to call people and ask and have uncomfortable conversations already. I don't want to have those conversations, but I will have those conversations and I'll have them with you, okay? And I'm just trying to put a little pressure on you to do the right thing because the last thing I want is for it to be like, oh yeah, all the teenagers at this church are getting knocked up and committing fornication and doing whatever. That's not going to be our reputation. I would rather shrink in size dramatically and have a clean reputation than just be the growing, bumbling, fornicating church. Oh man, they're growing, they're expanding, they've got all kinds of people. It's the nightclub. Look, I've been to churches like that. You know, I grew up in a church that was similar to Gateway, it's called Trinity Fellowship Church, and when they had their youth program, their youth program was very small. I mean, at times it would be running like dozens. And then all of a sudden it was running 500 overnight. You know why? Because kids were committing fornication in the bathrooms. It's like, why does a youth program go from like 12 people to 500 in a few weeks? That's why, okay? So, you know, growing doesn't necessarily mean it's a good church, okay? Wow, what an impressive program you have growing here. The Spirit of the Lord is really flowing here. No, that's not what's happening, okay? And I don't expect that this type of preaching, we're just going to grow like a weed and have 500 people tomorrow, okay? This sermon's not going to bring in the masses, all right? But at the end of the day, our church is here to serve God, and we're supposed to try and flee fornication, while the world's not. And I want to try and help you. Please consider, you know, taking your children and the young people's dating seriously. Please do it. It's important for their lives. I wish that, you know, my parents and other people in my life and all the kids that I grew up with, their parents took this issue seriously. It's sad, the state of our culture. But you know what, if we don't make the change, no one will. If we don't start correcting the problem, it's just going to get worse and worse and worse. And we need to be a bright and shining light in this area and show people how it's done and marry virgins off and have successful marriages. All right, let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us so much wisdom from the Bible and helping us understand that our bodies are not for fornication, but our bodies are for the Lord. I pray that you would just help give wisdom and discretion to all the parents in here and all the young children and all the kids that they would understand that, you know, getting married is such a wonderful thing, but there's a lot of sin and temptation in this area. And I pray that you would help us to create boundaries, to use discretion, have wisdom, to try and give these young people and new couples the opportunity to have a successful marriage and a successful life, and that we would take the dating seriously. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. For our last song, let's go to 119 till the storm passes by. 119 till the storm passes by. Song 119, let's sing it out. Hear my cry, hear me sing, till the storm passes by. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds the war. Till the clouds flow forever from the sky. Hold me fast when we stand in the hollow of thy hand. Keep me safe till the storm passes by. Many times Satan whispered, there is no need to try. For there's no end in sorrow. There's no hope by and by. But I know thou art with me. And from far I'll rise, where the storm's ever dark in disguise. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds the war. Till the clouds flow forever from the sky. Hold me fast when we stand in the hollow of thy hand. Keep me safe till the storm passes by. When the long night has ended, and the storm's not no more. Let me stand in thy presence on that bright, peaceful shore. In that land where the tempest never comes, Till the storm passes by. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds the war. Till the clouds flow forever from the sky. Hold me fast when we stand in the hollow of thy hand. Keep me safe till the storm passes by. Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed. You are dismissed.