“The Problem with Playing House”
Provers 16:25 - ©Dr. Larry L. Thompson (2005)
Introduction: This past Monday I was confronted by a full page of articles from USA Today which the Lord used to prompt my spirit and address a growing problem we are facing in America. The title of the articles: “Wedding Bells Aren’t Ringing” and “Cohabitation Is Replacing Dating in America.” - USE PICS
As I read those articles I was confronted with this quote: “Few ministers have the courage to risk offending these people. Pastors are afraid that if they preach on cohabitation, many people will get mad and that some will hit the exits.” Scott Stanley: Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.
Michael McManus, president of The Marriage Savers network said his organization is active in 163 cities and in 39 states and, wherever he travels to speak he never sees more than one or two hands raised when he asks, “How many of you have ever heard a sermon on cohabitation?’ I am convinced most pastors simply do not know that 5 million unmarried Americans are living together.” Michael McManus: Marriage Savers: Helping Your Friends and Family Stay Married
With this in mind please look at today primary text:
Proverbs 16:25 (NIV)
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”
The literal translation is simple: In our lives there are times the enemy will bring before us a path that absolutely appears RIGHT. Tragically, the rightness is present only as a phantom, it is provided from the Enemy of your soul to deceive you; once you take this path and judge falsely you find you have gone astray. You will always take this path without regard to God and His word. Those who walk on this path follow their own opinions and are proud of their positions; obviously their positions are very important because it helps justify the fact they have chosen this destructive path. The bottom line is this: Once you choose this path you willfully chose to be estranged from God. In order to satisfy your fleshly security you choose a path that seems perfectly innocent, even justifiable and yet God’s word clearly states that you have put into motion the act of death. SOMETHING DIES when we willingly choose a path in direct opposition to God’s plan for our life. Make no mistake about it: It seems right but it’s dead wrong!
To illustrate the scope of this growing problem in America, listen to a few of the quotes from this week’s articles:
“Cohabitation is here to stay and I don’t think its good news; especially for the children. As our society shifts from marriage to cohabitation you have an increase in family instability!” Dr. David Popenoe, Rutgers Sociology professor and author of “The State of our Unions 2005.”
“In the USA, 8.1% of our coupled households are unmarried heterosexual partners.” USA Today (7-18-2005)
“Men and women who moved in together used to raise eyebrows. Living together out of wedlock, once considered shacking up or living in sin, has lost its stigma as cohabitation has now become mainstream. In some sense, cohabitation is replacing dating.” Cohabitation is Replacing Dating; USA Today; (7-18-2005)
“65% percent of altar-bound men and women live together before getting married. There has been a 700% increase in cohabitating heterosexual adults since 1970. It is time to look back and ask, ‘What are the effects of living together having upon marriage and relationships?” — Bride’s Magazine – Dr. Phil McGraw
“Today 10 million people are cohabitating with members of the opposite sex. The average age is 25-34.” U.S. CENSUS
One does not have to be a trained sociologist to know there is a growing problem in America involving couples simply living together out of wedlock. What at one time was considered unthinkable now appears our society is attempting to redefine cohabitation as an appropriate lifestyle.
Today, my desire is not to make you feel uncomfortable but to share with you TRUTH; an honest biblical response to this growing problem in our society. In this message you will hear the biblical truth and the consequences associated with cohabitation as it relates to adults, children, and to our society. Remember, our problems in our society will never go away simply because our culture has lowered the moral standards.
Let’s begin this study by examinging first, THE COHABITATION MYTHS…
I. THE COHABITATION MYTH (Prov. 16:25a)
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” (Prov. 16:25a)
Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines cohabitation as: “living together as husband and wife without being married.” Strangly Webster associates cohabitation with marriage and I call that defination a myth. Myth, according to Webster is: “A person or thing having only an imaginary existence.” Cohabitation is an imaginary marriage.
No matter what we call it, a growing number of Americans are “Playing House” - living together as lovers without being married.
• According to the 2000 Census: 21% of adults are now or have been in a cohabiting relationship. (USA Census report - 21)
• According toa Gallup Survey it appears our society is approving… “Over 60% of adults say it is not a bad idea to live together without marriage.”
a. MYTH: “Living together is a good way to find out if we are compatible. A "trial marriage" will increase our chances for a good marriage.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” However, look at the real truth…
“All available research indicates that people who live together prior to getting married are more likely to have marriages that end in divorce.” — The Boston Herald
“40% of all cohabiting unions break up before marriage. Of those cohabitating who do marry there is a 50% higher rate of divorce than those who do not cohabitate prior to marriage.” -- Sharon Jayson; USA Today (7-18-2005)
“The expectation of a positive relationship between living together and marital stability has been shattered. Studies from the United States, Canada, Sweden and New Zealand show the divorce rates substantially higher for those who cohabitate than those who don’t. A recent study on cohabitation concluded that after five to seven years, only 21% of unmarried couples were still living together.” — The Boston Herald
“Couples that cohabit before marriage increase their odds of divorce by 50%. Research discovered that only 15 out of every 100 cohabitating couples were married after a decade…” -- Data from the University of Wisconsin Social Science Department
b. MYTH: “We can be just as satisfied living together as we can if we were married”
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” However, look at the real truth…
“Cohabiting women are 3.5 times more likely to be depressed than married women who have never been divorced and 2 times more likely to be depressed than women who have never married - and even more depressed than women who have been divorced.” – Dr.
“Cohabiting heterosexual couples are twice as likely as married people to think their relationship is in trouble and be anxious about it.” -- The University of Chicago and the State University of New York at Stony Brook combined efforts to produce the: “National Health and Social Life Survey”
“When married couples are compared to cohabiting couples, the married couples are consistantly more likely to share roles and be equalitarian in their relationship.” -- Dr. Jerry Nelson, “The Expensive Counterfeit
c. MYTH: “Cohabitation allows us to enjoy the satisfaction of a monogomous physical relationship.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” However, look at the real truth…
“Cohabiting couples are six times more likely to be sexually unfaithful to the relationship than couples united in marriage.” -- Dr. Andrew Greeley: University of Chicago
d. MYTH: “Cohabitation leads to a secure, successful and stable union.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” However, look at the real truth…
“Cohabitors are two to three times more likely to abuse each other physically. Because boundaries are normally not established in cohabiting relationship there is a greater likelihood of misunderstanding and the disagreements that can follow.” – Dr.
“For every one married woman battered by her husband there were four unmarried women were battered by their live-in boyfriends. Live-in boyfriends make up only 2% of the non-parental child care in America but they account for 64% of the non-parental child abuse.” -- 1966 report from the United States Center for Disease Control - Family Research Council
“In a study of over 13,000 adults we discovered that those who cohabited before marriage reported greater marital conflict and poorer communication than marrieds who never cohabited.” -- The Cohabitation Report from The Journal of Marriage and Family: Thomson and Colella
e. MYTH: “We cohabitate because of economics.” It is sound financial reasoning to cohabitate thereby saving on all iving expenses.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” However, look at the real truth…
“While some people live together because it is a cheaper and a very convenient way to get sex, most men and women who cohabit, do so because they want to belong. Some, out of fear or hurt, have suppressed that desire, but most people long to belong. They long for a relationship - a oneness of soul, an intimacy that is more than just physical - an intimacy at the real core of their being - an intimacy of spirit. It really has very little to do with economics.” – Marriage Hungry: Dr. Phil McGraw
f. MYTH: “The reason we cohabitate is because our society has proven that the institution of marriage is a failure.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man…” However, look at the real truth…
Marriages never fail. People fail in marriage. It is true that many men and women abuse their marriages but that doesn’t discredit the institution or value of marriage any more than drunken driving discredits automobiles. God’s word says “Love never fails” and so if what you have in the intimacy of marriage has failed there was at least one partner that failed to understand God’s message and His plan regarding marriage.
We have explored some of the cohabitation myths, now let’s turn our attention to God’s design for couples who desire to spend their lives together.
II. THE COVENANT MARRIAGE (Gen. 2:18; 20-24)
“The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
In his book, Design for Christian Marriage, Dwight Small wrote, "Man was not complete in himself but he had need of intimacy with God. Man’s nature had an appointed deficit that could only be filled by means of union and communion with God. But man was given an appointed deficit that made him dependent in still another way. Just as he could complete himself spiritually only in personal interaction with God, so likewise he could complete himself physically and socially.. only as he lived in interaction with other another human...”
This interaction deficit is obvious to us as we read Gen. 2:19-20:
“Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” Gen. 2:19-20
All the rest of creation could not meet the need that was Adam’s. Man was still alone. So what did God do? Read Gen. 2:21-24
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ’woman,’ for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:21-24 (NIV)
“and He brought her to the man."
Relationship, connectedness, intimacy and the desire to belong to another human was the missing piece! When God brought the man and the woman together the creation was complete.
Examine again what Adam said: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ’woman,’ for she was taken out of man."
God made the woman with a complementary nature to man so that there would be a basis for attraction and mutual fulfillment. An individual man is attracted to an individual woman and each finds the possibility of fulfilling the life of the other. Each has the capacity to complete the other; they also complement each other and in doing so missing intimacy is found! This is what many people are seeking today and obviously hoping to find it by means of cohabitation.
So why can’t couples have this need met in cohabiation? Because they omit the biblical foundation and direction that the Creator of our life provids in marriage.
a. THE COVENANT FOUNDATION: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24
Genesis 2:21 God created woman and brought her to the man, God officiated a marriage not at a cohabitation. In Genesis 2:22 God officiated the wedding ceremony. Am I reading too much into this passage? I don’t think so - look at what the Word says in verse 24: "For this reason"
What God did in Genesis 2:21 is the prototype of all other unions of men and women.
b. THE COVENANT FOCUS: v.24 Underline the words “LEAVE” “UNITED” and “BECOME ONE FLESH” These words define the focus of marriage. They define the context in which men and women can find the connectedness, the intimacy, the desire to belong, to love and be loved, and everything they long for in life.
The coventant focus in building a foundation for a true biblical marriage involves three distinct acts…
i. OUR FOCUS IS TO “LEAVE” (awzab – Vines: to forsake, relinguish, sever) A specfic point in time when a man and woman make a decision to separate from the past. This is a decision to LEAVE and the focus of the decision says there is no going back. “I am changing my relationship to the past and past people.” In covenant marriage it means I will no longer relate to my parents, my past friends or anyone else in the way I used to because I am entering into a new God ordained relationship and this relationship requires I make a decision to LEAVE.
Now consider the focus of the couple who cohabitates or is "living together." Honestly, haven’t you really left the door open to going back? Isn’t that the real reason there is not a marriage because you are not sure you want to leave your old life and allow the focus of your future to be only with your mate? Those who live together outside of marriage intentionally leave the door open - fearful of cutting off a possible retreat in difficult times. In making this tragic mistake they fail to FOCUS on the FIRST ESSENTIAL ACT OF a covenant relationship. They fail to LEAVE.
ii. OUR FOCUS IS TO BE “UNITED” “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife…” The word “UNITED” in the Hebrew is “Daw-bak” in the Greek it is “Pros-kol-lah-O” both words meaning “that which is intentionally joined; adhesive or glued.” There is a point in time when AN INTENTIONAL DECLARATION is made and there is a commitment to a new way of life, a new loyalty. THREE TIMES IN THE BIBLE (Prov 2:17; Eze 16:8; Mal 2:14) marriage is specifically called a "COVENANT BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE AND BEFORE GOD.” That is not accidental! This is exactly what "uniting" is about - it is a covenant.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A "COVENANT" IN THE BIBLE:
1. A COVENANT IS STATED AND SPECIFIC. It is not assumed, it is publically declared. It is not general but direct and to the point.
People who just live together often have nothing more than assumptions and hopes (along with a lot of fears.) They have no stated and specific commitments. For it to be a covenant, for it to be a marriage - there must be an intentional STATED FOCUS to UNITE: "Do you?" and a response, "I do."
2. A COVENANT IS SEALED OR PERMANENT. 3 YEARS IS THE AVERAGE TIME TOGETHER FOR THOSE WHO COHABITATE. Of those who live together less than 40% expect their arrangment to be permanent. And even those who desire it to be permanent can’t ignore the statistics - many don’t become marriages and those who do, without a spiritual change of heart, are more likely to end in divorce. Sadly, There’s nothing permanent about cohabitation.
Cohabitation Pledge and ask is permanence implied here? “We pledge, while in this union, to be responsible to each other and to be committed to a relationship of loyalty and mutual caring.” (1996 cohabitation union pledge in San Francisco when officiated by Mayor Willie Brown)
By contrast, in a marriage, a relationship of real intimacy grows out of the soil of trust and the bedrock of that trust is permanence. When Jesus was commenting on this passage in Genesis 2 He said that permanence is an essential element of being "united". Matthew 19:4-6: "Haven’t you read," He replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ’made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Those who cohabitate only give the illusion or façade of this permanence.
3. A COVENANT USES A SIGN OR SYMBOL TO ILLUSTRATES THE PLEDGE. God gave the sign of the rainbow to corroborate his covenant with Noah. God initiated the sign of circumcision to corroborate the covenant with Abraham. When covenant-marriages were initiated they were accompanied by a sign, a gift or a symbol. Today the ring is a sign, a symbol of the covenant.
4. A COVENANT HAS SIGNATURES OR WITNESSES WHO CONFIRM THE CONTENT AND INTENT OF THE COMMITMENT. It was required that people making a covenant have witnesses to that covenant - People who could affirm the intent and the content of the commitment being made. In marriage the signature of the witness is an essential element before the state will issue the license.
In each case the cohabitating is the direct opposite of all the elements of a covenant relationship.
iii. OUR FOCUS IS TO “BECOME ONE FLESH.” Now we have the final part of God’s definition of covenant marriage which is can not achieved by those who cohabitate: “and they will become one flesh.”
One flesh is not just sexual but is also emotional, mental and spiritual.
The "one flesh", the oneness, the connectedness, THE UNITY REPRESENTS THE INTIMACY AT EVERY LEVEL OF LIFE; it is the very relationship that men and women seek. That intimacy or “oneness” doesn’t automatically happen in a marriage but a life-long covenant marriage is the protective environment in which, over a life-time it can happen by God’s grace. The phrase, “become one flesh” indicates a PROCESS.
The tragedy in cohabitation is that couples are attempting to meet their need for connectedness, for relationship, for intimacy, without attending to the essentials of "leaving, uniting, and becoming one flesh" that comes in a covenant marriage.
Tragically, survey after survey demonstrate that some of the loneliest people in America are those who cohabit.
Dr. Dwight Small: “Loneliness on the human plane results in part from the illusion that people indulge themselves into believing that they can live with other people without true commitment and without entering into responsible interdependence. The deepest needs in human life are met by a life commitment from another to love and accept.”
Cohabitating gives the illusion of intimacy which in the end only exacerbates the loneliness. Physical intimacy is used by men and women alike to create intimacy instead of expressing intimacy. Sexual oneness outside of spiritual oneness perverts the whole conception and intention of intimacy as God designed it.
The great C. S. Lewis wrote, “The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and which make up the total union demonstrated in the marriage commitment.” -- C.S. Lewis; Mere Christianity
Conclusion:
If we love people, we must tell them - just living together doesn’t work! God loves us and He said, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4)
I beg you, PLEASE UNDERSTAND FROM GOD’S WORD… THERE IS A WAY THAT APPEARS RIGHT TO MAN…however, that ‘way’ is a trap, it is deceptive, it is a lie and it will not provide the life you are seeking; as a matter of record, that particular path leads to death. Make no mistake about it, when we take a path different from God’s intended design something will die. I must tell you as a Shepherd of this flock, “Cohabitating is sin; it is not your answer and please don’t just live together, your action will rob you of the very life you seek. You may think of it as “Playing house together” but this is one game that can rob you of something very precious…you intimacy with Christ and with one another.
SHARE STORY OF A&J AND A&K. Couples who came to F.B.C. living together, people loved them enough to share God’s plan for their life spiritually and His plan for marriage. They FIRST made commitments of their life to Christ…then immediately found the joy in making a COVENANT MARRIAGE before the Lord. “Leaving, Uniting and for the rest of their lives, becoming One flesh.”
