Dr. Mark Ongley
This truth in Proverbs is important enough that Solomon repeats the exact verbiage in chapter 14 & 16. Clearly, this is a truth worth driving home… there are countless ways men, women and young people make foolish and destructive decisions based upon what seems right in the moment.
This faulty thinking can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eve’s original disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden. Even there, before sin saturated nearly every aspect of humanity, a decision was made. A decision based not on what God clearly stated, but on what “seemed right” regardless of what God said.
Naturally, the world doesn’t care about God’s laws. Many don’t even believe in the reality of a personal God who created all things, let alone a God who gave His life to redeem hopelessly fallen humanity. The real issue isn’t the perspective of the unchurched and non-believers. Rather, the far greater concern is so many are living according to “a way that seems right” to them, even as professed Christ-followers.
The examples are endless, but certainly compromise made in the inordinate pursuit of: pleasure, comfort, money, careers, retirement planning, following feelings, personal happiness, sex, and identity are a few of the many ways we set ourselves on a path leading toward death because we reject God’s way for what feels right to us.
As our understanding of and value for God’s laws diminish, we functionally consider ourselves to be more enlightened and “nicer” than God. So we make compromises for ourselves and others that often seem small at the time, frequently giving way to cumulative or major sudden life-choices that are a total departure from God’s intention and outside of His protective boundaries.
When this happens, we engage in the same distorted thinking and reasoning as Eve. We observe the “fruit” before us (whatever that might be). Satan, the world, and our own flesh reason that “it” seems good (Genesis 3:6) and we depart the narrow path of life for the wide path of destruction and death. Sadly, in our deluded condition we often influence others to join us on this path that promises wisdom, fun, and freedom, but actually leads to bondage.
Setting aside the many areas we as purported Christ-followers and regular church-attendeee ignore the lordship of Christ in our lives and abandon The Narrow Way, this particular blog post is addressing one primary area: cohabitation.
In 2019 Pew Research reported that 58% of white evangelicals approved of cohabitation if the couple intended to get married.
According an article at www.probe.org/cohabitation “Cohabitation, as a lifestyle, is on the rise. Consider the significant growth in cohabitation rates in the last few decades. In 1960 and 1970, about a half million were living together. But by 1980 that number was 1.5 million. By 1990 the number was nearly three million. And by 2000 the number was almost five million.
Researchers estimate that today as many as 50% of Americans cohabit at one time or another prior to marriage. The stereotype of two young, childless people living together is not completely accurate; currently, some 40% of cohabiting relationships involve children.”
I have a friend who regularly attends church, participates in Bible-studies, and highly values connecting with other Christians for support and mutual encouragement. She gave her all to an abusive first marriage, doing everything she knew to walk out her commitment and vows. When she discovered that her husband was committing adultery repeatedly she separated from him for a significant amount of time. With his apparent repentance and commitment to work on their marriage, supported by positive actions on his part over time, she returned home in hopes of participating in the much needed growth and development of a far better marriage.
Unfortunately, he did not have the same level of commitment, and as bad as the first 10 years of their marriage was, the years that followed were far worse, including more adultery. Eventually, she left the marriage and divorced her husband. She was devastated, to say the least, and needed time and counseling.
Eventually, without any intention of pursuing a relationship she became friends with a Christian guy, which led to a romantic connection. This brought about a dilemma. My friend had been so emotionally and mentally abused and violated, she was totally afraid of the prospect of ever marrying again. She also didn’t want to put her kids or herself through another failed marriage. She and her boyfriend wound up crossing sexual boundary lines. After that behavior continued for months, it didn’t seem like a big deal for him to move in, with the idea that it wouldn’t be long before they would “tie the knot”.
It’s been 4 or 5 years. They attend church together and seemingly have a life and family together, but with no actual commitment. Her boyfriend wants to get married, but there are still so many areas of unprocessed pain and fear it’s just been easier for my friend to stay where she’s at – living a life of cohabitation, disconnecting from God and her own conscience in this area and ignoring the impact her behavior is having on her now adult children, who are great young men and women, but care nothing for Christianity. Her witness for Christ and her inner peace have been compromised.
In most cases though, cohabitation isn’t about unresolved or avoided trauma from a previous marriage. It’s simply convenient; a way to save money, a way to “test drive” the guy or girl before saying “I do”. But this is a complete disregard for the institution of covenant marriage originated by God.
At www.crosswalk.com an article entitled, “Cohabitation and divorce - - is there a correlation?” stated the following: A 2010 "meta-analysis" looked at 26 peer-reviewed, published studies that followed various couples over time. This analysis found that marrieds who had cohabiting pasts were more likely to face divorce, and that "noncohabitors seem to have more confidence in the future of their relationship, and have less accepting attitudes toward divorce.
Hebrews 13:4 is frank and clear, “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators [those who have sex before marriage] and adulterers [those who have sex with someone other than their spouse after marriage] God will judge.”
A few years ago a friend confided in me that he was completely baffled by his 12-step program leader. He had been part of a popular Christian recovery program in a local church for more than a year, working out his own substance abuse issues. He had recently learned that his leader was living with his girlfriend, but according to the leader they weren’t having sex.
While it is possible (though highly unlikely) they were not having sex, is that all that matters in whether or not couples are cohabitating? Aside from the fact that sexual sin is far more likely when we are living and sleeping under the same roof, how does this impact those who look to us as a shepherd or mentor? Either this will generate mistrust (as it should), undermine the leader’s character, or it may embolden others to live out the same practice, usually without any effective boundaries to guard against sexual sin.
1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 says “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every appearance of evil”. Avoiding or delaying marriage and cohabitating instead may seem like wisdom, but it’s definitely not godly wisdom.
Staying on the narrow path with God and trusting His many commands to avoid sexual immorality are both good and for our flourishing, leads toward fulfillment, joy, and life. Let’s choose life, rather than momentary pleasure accompanied by severe long-term consequences.
The contentious election is behind us. Whew! Feel the relief? You may have thought democracy would end if either one of them was elected. But here we are and hopefully your stress level is a bit lower.
Two weeks ago, I brought before us the unusual story of Phinehas, the zealous Levite. By quickly grabbing his spear and chasing down an apostate leader who had just waltzed by the Tabernacle with a Midianite woman, God honored him with a special covenant of peace for him and his descendants.
At the end of that article, I challenged you to enter your own Tent of Meeting, seeking God for wisdom for the questions posed in that article: What would he have you do in response to the tripling of sex trafficking of children and young girls? Yes, they need rescue, shelter, and much healing. And then what about the new wave of people seeking out children and youth for sex? Our culture is sick. How should your church or ministry respond?
This concern grew to a passion for me in the 90’s. At that time, little was written from a Christian perspective about sexual addiction, abuse, and confusion. What I got my hands on kept referring to the practice of inner healing prayer.
David Seamands and Leanne Payne were the first books in my hands. But it seemed impossible for me to grasp the “how to’s” from simply reading books. Eventually, God led me to the Doctor of Ministry Program at Ashland Theological Seminary where I was trained in inner healing prayer by one of the best—Dr. Terry Wardle.
As I’ve said a thousand times, as soon as I was trained, God began leading abuse victims and sex addicts to me one after the other. It was profound and exhilarating to watch God at work right in front of me as broken people found healing.
So are you ready to grab a spear? Let me suggest a few armories to run to.
Dr. Wardle founded Healing Care Ministries which has trained thousands of people in inner healing prayer. His four day seminar is simply the best. Attending in person is ideal. Dates and locations can be found at healingcare.org.
But they now offer a virtual format with the same content. Over a four-week period, you will experience 12 hours of teaching, 3 hours of demonstrations, and 8 hours of online small group interaction guided by a skilled facilitator. There are six different time options, including both morning and evening sessions.
And going deeper . . .
If you already have thorough training in inner healing prayer, you can join a cohort for training to bring healing to people with a variety of sexual issues. Threaded throughout the 8 weeks will be a sound theology of sexuality which will help guide you as you pastor or counsel victims of the Sexual Tsunami. You will find these two-hour training sessions to be valuable, not only in equipping you for ministry, but also in simply deepening your understanding of God’s design for us as sexual beings. This particular cohort will launch in January, so email me soon at ongley01@icloud.com if you want to jump in . There’s room for 8 but five spots are already taken.
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Feel some righteous anger rising? Longing to see the local church have a transformational impact for Tsunami victims? Contact me for all of the details for enrollment.