This sermon emphasizes the importance of parents being involved in guiding their children towards godly courtship and marriage. It warns against the dangers of casual dating, flirting, and sensuous clothing, highlighting the negative impact they can have on future relationships. The speaker urges parents to lay a solid foundation through proper teaching to ensure their children enter marriage with pure hearts and emotions, ultimately aiming for the blessing of a happy and godly marriage.

Joining the next generation is the title of our thoughts here. Proverbs chapter 5 verse 18 and 19 say these words. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love. The pursuit of godly seed is not a one-generation thing brethren. If our hearts are filled with God's burden for sanctified children we will look way beyond our present generation. I think that I've made that clear all week long. If our hearts are truly set for a godly seed we will be looking way beyond where we are right here. I hope by now that you have caught the vision of what God is longing for. God is pursuing godly seed with all his heart. And this burden reaches into the realm of marriage partners for our children. This is not a little issue. We have one more strategy that I want to consider here. If we stop and think about it. We all know this is not a little issue. Ponder this. You can lose much of the work that you have invested for 20 years. If you stand idly by and allow your children to fall in love with whoever comes by. You can lose nearly 20 years of labor. We need to wake up on that one. We need to wake up on it. That's not a little thing. If you let your children fall in love with whoever their affections happen to land on. You will be sorry. As a pastor for the last 20 years I have seen this happen a few times. It is a great burden every time I see it. I have seen the whole next generation lost by a foolish love affair. Can I say it that way? That ended in a marriage that mom and dad did not want. But what could they do about it? It seems to me to be utter folly to after you have spent 20 years training your children to then send them out into a mixed-up Christian world to find a partner all on their own. This is folly in my opinion. They say that the divorce rate is now 50% in the Christian church. Could this whole matter of joining the next generation have anything to do with this devastation? I do believe that it does. I don't think we're doing wisely. Children are growing up and they are thrust out into a mixed-up confused Christianity. Their hearts mesh with somebody else. They fall in love. They get married and then all of a sudden they find out what reality is all about and it's not very good. The scriptures are full of examples of a sweet and a happy marriage. The text above, the one I just read, is one of those examples. There are others. I believe there are things that we parents can do that will help our children to have the reality of this blessed experience that we read here in Proverbs chapter 5. The whole appeal of these verses is to stay with the wife that you chose in your youth and enjoy a happy marriage. Now I studied this text a bit and if I understand it properly, that word fountain there is referring to the children of that union. Let thy fountain, let thy children of your union be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Stay with your partner and that is exactly what God is saying to us out of Malachi chapter 2 in verse 15. I made them one so that the next generation would receive an overflowing blessing that flows out of a godly union between a husband and a wife. Here's my plea in this meditation here this morning. Parents, please get involved. I know there are lots of opinions today. There's lots of little different slants on courtship and and how the next generation is joined in holy matrimony. I know there are different opinions on that and I'm not going to cover all of those different opinions in this message but I would make this plea. Parents, please get involved in the joining of the next generation of your children. That's my plea. The whole issue is parental involvement. This whole thing is coming back out of the closet in the last 15 years. Some parents are waking up and saying, hey, wait a minute. Something isn't turning out right here. This isn't how we did it. This isn't how I got married. I had to see what dad thought about it. I had to ask my mom what she thought about him and they're coming. They're dragging this whole thing of parental involvement back out of the closet and I think it is a wise move no matter what the different opinions on how it's all done that mom and dad are being brought back into this whole this whole plan of of the children getting married I think is a blessing. There are several voices in our land that are calling us back to the old paths of Bible courtship and parental involvement and I'm one more of those voices. There's no way that I in this short amount of time can cover all the things about godly courtship. However, I do desire to at least stir up your interest so that you will look into it more fully if you haven't already. Most of our children are not able to seek their life partner without some outside input. That's my opinion. There are simply too many gray areas that undiscerning youth cannot see through. I will give them in a moment. You need, the young people need, your 20 plus years of experience to guide them through the maze of this mixed up gray Christian world that we're living in today. And I mean no offense to any youth when I say that but it is harder than you youth may think it is to come up with the right godly partner for your life's partner. In the Bible we learn that the father exercises influence with his child before they were ready to be married. Abraham arranged a bride for Isaac. It seems this was common in his day. When a young man was seeking a wife he sought permission from her father. In addition, the father gave the word to his son when it was time to go and get his bride. The parents were involved, this is clear. There are several reasons that I would like to bring out here this morning why I feel it's important for the parents to get involved. Number one, because of false Christians. We live in America, the Christian nation in quotes. Millions stake their claim on the Christian faith. Many professors are not possessors of the real thing. Bless God, sincere youth are tricked into marriage only to find out later there's no substance to their partner's Christianity at all. This is a lifelong tragedy. Awesome. The parents are the ones who can stop it. These false professors sound very good when you talk to them. They can wax eloquent, they have their theologies, they can say all the right things. You ask them questions about their faith, they'll give you theological answers, they may even quote you a Bible verse. Our young people are not mature enough to discern all of this. Some of them are, some of them are not. They need our help. We parents through proper teaching should lay the groundwork for this kind of involvement. By that I mean that our children expect that we are going to get involved when it's time for them to choose a godly mate. Through teaching we should lay that foundation so that when that time comes it's very relaxed and the child is already knowing this thing has to be cleared with mom and dads and maybe even ministers. A mutual understanding on this point is imperative. Lead your child to covenant with you. I will not release my emotions without your blessing. What a beautiful covenant that one is. I will not let my flittery emotions go forth to some young man or some young lady without clearing it with mom and dad. Second reason why moms and dads need to get involved. Divorce is becoming very very common. Fifty percent in the church. I wish it was not this way but it is. The possibility of a partner breaking the marriage vows is very high today. It happens all the time. It must be stopped. The Christian ideals of marriage have dropped very very low and the binding power of those vows are gone. Dear parents, I think most of us still believe that marriage is for life but we must protect our children from the tragic separations that are happening everywhere today. If we believe that marriage is for life and we allow our children to hook up with somebody who doesn't have a deep commitment like that, they're gonna let him set someday and guess what? There's not another one to go to. Marriage is for life till death do us part. That makes it very urgent that we not allow our children to just flip off into the world somewhere or into the Christian world or into some youth group somewhere, fall in love with some guy or some gal and get married because they had a flitter flutter inside their heart over there. Only to find out five years later that those vows didn't mean a thing to that person and they leave them set with two or three children. I'm telling you it happens all the time. If we are not alert it will spoil the next generation brethren. I meet many Christian men, many who are afraid to get married because of this very reason right here. I mean I've heard them say it. I'll ask them. You're 30 years old. Why aren't you married? And they say I'm afraid to get married. I'm afraid to get married. Oh why? Oh he said out there where I'm at you know people get married and divorced all the time and I believe marriage is for life and I don't want to get a woman who's gonna drop me. Wise men, our children need our discernment in these things. We must get involved. We must learn how to get involved. We must teach our children that it's right for us to get involved. Lay the groundwork. A third reason. Emotions are very powerful. There is a lot of truth in the old adage love is blind. Once the heart falls in love it is almost too late to try to change things. The youth cannot see straight anymore. This is the power of emotions. Many a parent tried to turn the thing around after the heart had already fallen and they only ended up with conflict and bitterness and discontent and a division in their family and the youth went off and got married anyway because of the power of emotions. This is the power of emotions and that is from God. God designed us that way but God designed us that way that all the power of all those emotions would be given to one for life. When these emotions are released in a proper relationship it is most beautiful. It's Proverbs chapter 5 like I just read to you so beautifully describes what these emotions can be like. But when these emotions are released on the wrong person they are just as powerful and just as hard to stop. Many waters cannot quench love even if it's love to the wrong kind of person. Many waters cannot quench it. You can sit them down and offer them anything and they will not take it. Lay the groundwork. That's the plea that I'm making. You lay the groundwork in your teachings with your children so that they understand when I get up there in age I will keep my heart. I will not let some fella or some girl throw me some note. If I get a note I'll bring it to my dad and my dad will go see the fella with a furrowed eyebrow by the way with a furrowed eyebrows all right to have one then. Yes young man I have a few things to say to you. I understand you gave my daughter a little note. Yes I did. I believe that's the way it ought to be. We need to protect our daughters and we need to protect our sons but more so we need to protect our daughters. Because of these powerful emotions it is imperative that we secure an understanding with our children. Number four that you have the issue of the possibility that they're not compatible. Not everyone is compatible. I've given some strong reasons up until now but this one is not so strong but it is still a reason. Sometimes a couple is simply not compatible. There may be many different reasons for this. Their convictions may be different and that can hinder a marriage. It may be they were raised in a different culture. This can also be a problem in a marriage. Young people need help in discerning all of these things. That's what the parents are for. And the fifth reason is the best reason. The rewards of a happy marriage. We want our children to have a happy marriage. A happy marriage as God says in Malachi 2 15 secures a godly seed for the next generation. We want our children to have a happy marriage. This is the most urgent point that I've made. All the rest were negative but this one's positive and it's the most important one of all. I've been a pastor now for 20 years. I now have a long list of couples who have followed this old-fashioned way to get married. Guess what? They all have happy marriages. Hallelujah! Guess what else? They're all raising godly children. You can see them. Some of them have been married 15 years now and the children line up behind them like stair steps. Guess what? They're raising godly children. Godly couple. Godly young man. Godly young lady. Come together under authority with a blessing of their parents. They're joined together in holy matrimony. They have a happy marriage. They kept themselves for each other. They kept their hearts for each other. They kept their hands off of each other and they married in a pure courtship. Guess what? They have beautiful happy marriages. The atmosphere of their happy marriage blesses the children and the children are godly children growing up in the next generation. This is no little issue brothers and sisters. It is no little issue. It is our responsibility to help our children to preserve their hearts for a one. For a one. In Genesis chapter 2 verse 22 and 24 we find these words out. The Bible says, And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and he brought her unto the man. And Adam said, Oh this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore the Bible says, Shall a young man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, singular, and they shall be one flesh. As I understand it, God's heart is that a young man and a young lady's hearts are saved for that time when they know it's God's will for them to marry. Now I know there's lots of ups and downs in all this. I know we're working with real children. They're human beings. They have all the things in them that we have in us. Sometimes that doesn't work right. Sometimes a child will let their emotions go and different things like that will happen. But I believe that God's heart is that they learn to hold their heart, that they learn not to release the emotions of their heart, that they keep that so that when they know this is my husband or my wife, let them go. I mean open up the dam. This is my wife. Open up the dam and let all the emotions go. All of the ones that God put in there. But until you know it is your wife or your husband, you hold them back for him, for her. Let us consider these verses a little further as we consider the subject of God's heart for our marriages. God prepared Adam to see and to feel his need of a helpmeet. This is very evident as you read the flow of the context of the chapters. Adam named all the animals male, female, male, female, male, female. It's almost like God set him up. And we got all done looking at all these animals and given them all names and seeing male, female, male, female. There he was all by himself. God set him up. For what? For longing. For a desire that he would recognize I have a need. Something is missing in my life. And then when God prepared his heart so well that way, then God put him to sleep. And while he was asleep, God took out of his side a rib and made he the woman and took the woman and gave the woman to the man. And I'm telling you, all the emotions of Adam were released on Eve. And all the emotions of Eve were released on Adam. And it was one heavenly relationship in the garden. Now I know the fall gets thrown in there and that mixes things up a bit. But we see what God's heart is at as we look at scriptures like this. Adam became a one-woman man that day and Eve became a one-man woman. And I believe it's still God's will that it be just like that here with us 2003, maybe 6,000 years since God did that with Adam and Eve. It's still God's heart that it be that way, that a young man gets married and he can say, I am a one-woman man. This may sound silly to you, but God could have easily given Adam two wives if that would have been the best for him. But God didn't get Adam two wives. He only gave him one. Amen. The permanency of their relationship is very clear in our text. From the beginning, the pattern is one man and one woman for life. That's it. We Americans sure have lost our way on this one. But God's heart has never changed. The beauty of what Adam and Eve had is still possible if we follow a few godly principles. And again may I say, with 20 years of experience, having seen many couples follow this kind of a pattern, it is awesome to see a young couple get married like that. In fact, mom and I look on with jealousy and say, wow, their love surpasses anything we've ever, ever seen or known. They're so excited. They're so well-balanced. They're so flowing. They're so right. Their relationship is just so beautiful and right. Why? This one kept their heart. This one kept their heart. God brought them together and all their emotions were released. And God put his blessing upon it. And they are not living under any law that says we have to be married the rest of our life. There's no need for divorce laws for them. Amen? That's what we're talking about, dear brothers and sisters. Adam and Eve entered into their marriage from a place of utter innocence. They were both virgins physically and emotionally. The emotional fountains of their hearts found release for the first time on their God-given partner. I believe this is the foundation of a happy marriage. We parents have a responsibility to preserve the hearts of our youth for that glorious day. And I'll tell you what, that's pretty sweet to be at the wedding too. And you look over at them and they're holding hands for the first time. And you look at them over there at the table and they give each other a peck on the cheek. And the glow is just flowing there. I'll tell you what, it's worth it. It's worth it. When you look over there you realize they're pecking on each other's cheek and they've never done it before today. Hallelujah. Oh glory. Sorry, I'm gonna get off my sermon outline. But bless God, there's nothing like it, I'm telling you. What a reward it is. It's, I tell you what, it makes those few years of waiting and holding back the heart seem like nothing at all. When all of a sudden God brings you together, brings your young people together, the right young man with the right young woman. And all those emotions and all that innocence and all that beauty is released on each other. Oh glory. It's beautiful. You look at it and say, that's God's ways. And it has such an answer of wisdom upon your heart, you know it's the right thing. Sorry about that, let me see if I can find my way back in this piece of paper here. I must say that. This may seem radical to some of you, but it is possible for your children to come to the marriage altar with a heart that has never loved another man or woman. It is possible. I have seen it many times in my 20 years. They can come to the altar with a heart that is not being motivated by fleshly desires. What a different foundation for the beginning of a marriage. Yes, God gives, God gives the option that if you can't keep yourself from lusting, you can get married. It's better to marry than to burn, but I'm telling you that is a cheap second-rate option compared to holding the emotions of your heart and your life and refusing those fleshly motivations and getting married to a pure young man or a pure young lady because you want to glorify God in a holy union together. There's a big difference between the two of those. I would encourage you to shoot for the best one. They can come with a heart that says what can I give instead of a heart that says what can I get. That will make a big difference in the marriage too, by the way. Let's look at the spirit of a virgin just a little bit here. I would like to use this term to describe the beautiful state of innocence that Adam and Eve had in the beginning. Whatever happened to the word virgin? That used to be held up everywhere. That used to be the high goal and held in high esteem and every young person sought after that with all their heart. It used to be the crowning prize over a young man or a young lady's life that a young man or a young lady could say, my partner is a virgin. We lost it somewhere in the rubble of free love. A few men have pulled it out of the dust and brushed it off and praise God for that. Listen to the root meaning of this Greek word virgin. It means unknown, unknown. Take that as deep as you want to. It means unknown. There are many implications in this meaning. The word virgin is in the Bible and it describes a maiden who has not known a man or a young man who has not known a woman. Amen? And by the way, I feel as strongly about young men being that as I do about young ladies being that way. You know, there's not enough of this double standard stuff. Young men need to be the virgins also. It has the connotation of fresh, new and unused. These are all other words that describe the original meaning of the word virgin. Hallelujah. God give us that. Give us young people that get married like that. That's my heart. These words portray the lovely purity of Adam and Eve's marriage. It is our duty as parents to keep our young people fresh, new and unknown in every area of love and it is possible to do it. In Bible days, a true virgin was fresh and unknown physically and emotionally. And I praise God for every young person who has determined in their heart that they will not have sexual intercourse before they get married. This is commendable, but I want to tell you there is a higher plane than this, however, and that is to have a heart that has never known romantic love. That is a higher plane yet. Praise God for everyone who's a physical virgin, but let's shoot higher than that. Watch over the hearts of your children, your young people, so that when they come to the marriage altar, they are not only a physical virgin, they are also an emotional virgin. Virginity is sacred and something to be highly esteemed. We need to guard over our children that they do not lose this sacred treasure prematurely, but I believe the heart is just as sacred as the body, especially when you look at it in light of the marriage relationship. The heart is more sacred than the body. This is overlooked by most parents and young people. To bring a virgin heart to the marriage altar is powerful stuff. We have fallen so far that it is hard to imagine what this would be like. Oh, my parents, let your imagination drift and dream a bit this morning. Imagine it. A young lady enters into courtship with a man that she's going to marry and she can say to him, I saved my heart for you. Praise God that she could say, I've saved my body for you, but oh, how much more powerful when she could say, I have saved my heart's emotions for you. Here, take them all. 125% of them. Whoa! I'll tell you what, that makes a solid marriage guaranteed. That makes a solid marriage and guess what? That solid marriage sanctifies blessed little children and makes them godless. God is after a godless seed. Let's look at a couple of touchy applications here as we move down toward the end. This all sounds wonderful, dreamy, and much like a storybook, but how do you make it happen? We will have to change a few things in order to attain such high ideals. Would you allow me to just touch on some of those touchy things that we need to change if we're going to seek such high ideals? Number one, the dating game. Dating is a temporary romantic relationship with the opposite sex. That is the literal definition of it, by the way. A temporary romantic relationship with the opposite sex. It is very common in our society, however, it is relatively new. You have to go to a modern dictionary to get a definition of it. It isn't even in the Webster. 1828. Through the means of dating, a young person can, quote, fall in love several times before they get married. They think that it is great fun, but they do not know what they are playing with. They do not realize that they are playing with two of the most powerful things in their whole life. They are playing with the heart, which is the most powerful part of their being, and with the emotion of love, which is the most powerful emotion within man. They are playing with both of those. Oh, let's play ball with the most powerful thing. You throw it to me, I'll throw it to you. I think I'll give it to you for a while. Give it back. I'm gonna hurt you when I take it back, and I'm gonna go give it to somebody else over here. Foolish, foolish, utter foolishness to do that. That's what all the marriages are falling apart. They do not realize the depth of what is happening on the inside of them when they break up, which they do all the time. In quotes, it is like a mini-divorce each time they do it. Remember what I said earlier? Play is practice for future living. They are playing at divorce. Let's practice divorce for a while. Awesome. Each time a young person, quote, breaks up, they tear holes in their sacred emotions. These wounds leave scars of mistrust and vengeance that hinder their marriage for the rest of their life, unless God comes in and delivers them somehow from it. Let's look at the next touchy application. Flirting. The definition of this word is very revealing. Look at this definition in the light of what I have presented in the previous point. Flirting means to court triflingly, to express emotions of love without serious intent, to play at love, to toy with love. That's what flirting means, if you look it up in the dictionary. This word does not sound so innocent after reading the true definition, does it? These definitions are relatively new. The old dictionaries only allude to them. The modern dictionary calls a flirting woman a loose woman. Wow. If we are saving our hearts for one man or woman, we will stay as far away from this loose activity as we can. The Bible calls flirting defrauding, stirring up in somebody else something that you cannot lawfully fulfill in their life. That's called defrauding in the Bible. Number three, sensuous clothes. Many different motivations lay underneath the world of fashion and provocative dress. For most of our youth, it is the desire to draw the attention of someone else. They want to be noticed. They want the boys or the girls to look their way. These three points flow together like sisters. The dating game flirting and sensuous clothes. Think with me. Let us reason this one out a little bit in our own minds. If we are saving our heart for one man, we will not have any interest in drawing the attention of boys in our youth. Amen? So what's with all the fancy clothes? Let's sum it up this way. Let me give you a very simple little equation. Sensuous clothes plus flirting plus the dating game equals fornication and divorce. Do you want that? That is the foundation that many young people are playing with. We shouldn't be surprised that the divorce rate is 50%. We shouldn't be surprised that young people in the church are falling into fornication. We shouldn't be surprised when marriages end up breaking up because of adultery. We shouldn't be surprised at all. We allowed our young people to play the game they've been practicing. They've been meditating upon it and no wonder they end up doing it in their very real life. In conclusion, the sad part of all this premature play at love is the immorality that it breeds among those who claim to be Christians. This brings more devastation into the marriage. It is heartbreaking to look at all of it together. Imagine the scenario. Two young people come to that glorious day of their wedding. They are filled with all the hopes and dreams of a good life together and everyone is happy for them. They both have some of this baggage that they carried along with them into their marriage because no one watched over them. The hurts are there from previous relationships. Fear and mistrust are standing right beside the hurts, remembering the pain of those past relationships. They have plenty of fleshly desires cultivated during the many fun days of playing in the field. In addition, they both have their ideas about what a man or a woman is really like filed away from their future, from all their past experiences for their future responses. By God's grace, some will make it through all of this and secure a happy marriage after they wade their way through all that mess, if they knuckle down and work their way through it. But on the other hand, many will not make it. We all know the statistics, don't we? Parents, we have some responsibility in this. I'm pleading with you. We can save our children years of heartache if we will just get involved, direct their lives through those crucial years. And I plead with you again at the end. Lay the foundation so that you have the freedom to get involved in your children's courtship and marriage. Lay the foundation with proper teaching so that when that day comes, everything's free and clear and open and nobody is saying, what are you doing, what are you doing speaking here? What do you mean I can't see him anymore? Who do you think you are? Get rid of all of that and lay a good solid foundation so that your young people know my dad and my mom are going to be involved when it's time for me to get married because they love me. This is the plea that I'm making as we consider the subject of joining the next generation in holy matrimony. We have to wake up on this one or you can throw 20 years of labor just like that and a godly seed is cut off just like that. It happens. It happens a lot. It happens way more than I wish that it would but it doesn't have to happen. May God wake us up as parents and open up our eyes and may you dear young people wake up also. You are playing with fire. You just think you're having fun but you're not if you're involved in these things. You're not. You are not. I give these thoughts for two reasons. One, to encourage you parents to search out this subject and study it further and whet your appetite and number two, it is clearly part of pursuing godly seed. May God help us on our way. May God help us find our way in this mixed-up Christian world that we are in. Let's pray. Oh Father, my heart weeps for joy Lord as I think of the beautiful couples that I have seen get married and the beautiful marriages and the happy homes and the happy children that came forth from it. I weep for joy dear God but my heart also weeps with an ache when I think of some of the others and the destruction that is bringing. Oh God, I pray deliver us Lord. Deliver us from these things. Oh God, I pray open the eyes of our understanding God. Help us to take a stand. Help us to be a bit different in a very mixed-up world Lord. Our children are at stake. Your glory is at stake. The happiness of the next generation is at stake. Oh God, may we invest our hearts and lives in a right way. Is there not a cause Lord? Yes there is. I pray help us to see the cause. I pray it in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.