Ron Garber Ministries  

 "Children be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord." Colossians 3:20

The reason most truth is not well received is because it goes against the flesh. This world is at enmity with God, therefore its teachings are contrary to the will of God. "The whole world lies in the power of the evil one." (1Jn.5:19) One of the world's most ungodly doctrines is dating.

Dating is Satan's way of destroying God's order of courtship and marriage. It has caused untold pain and heartbreak, the loss of virginity, plus hundreds of thousands -perhaps even millions- out of wedlock pregnancies. Unsupervised dating allows males and females to be alone, which leads to kissing and touching until the desires and burning of the flesh get out of control and this leads to sexual intercourse.

Have you wondered why we have so many divorces today? Young people "practice" learning how to deal with problems that will come with divorce. They "go steady" with someone and give their feelings and emotions to them. After a little while, they "break up" and then "go" with someone else. They may go through this psychological pain several times. This makes the trauma of divorce easier, since they have experienced the emotional turmoil that it may bring even before they were married. They have learned how to cope with these emotional turmoils by being desensitized.

After being married for a while, as a result of dating and being intimate with so many different partners, one may begin to fantasize what it would be like to be married to someone from their past relationships. Or, they may tire of being married to the same person and desire to have a relationship with someone else, like they experienced through dating. This has caused people not to take God's institution of marriage very seriously, and to look at divorce as no more than just "breaking up." Today, many people just live together rather than get married because it doesn't bring with it any more responsibility that dating.

God's plan is courtship, whereby two unmarried people are never alone before marriage. Dating, as I pointed out, has produced a multitude of pregnancies and illegitimate children, even in Christian households. (Illegitimate is a word they do not want to hear or use.) The immature respond of Christians is, "God forgave me." The word says, "For Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation." (2Cor.7:10KJV) There is no longer guilt or shame connected to such immorality, however "Godly sorrow" is a result of guilt and shame for what they have done and brought on the church and the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians are "...to supply moral excellence," in their faith. (2 Pet.1:5) How can they be the light of the world when they are doing and living just like those of the world? I can truthfully say that courtship, under a "responsible chaperone," has never resulted in even one pregnancy.

So what is the course the church is following? Almost all follow Satan's way rather than God's order. Even seeing the consequences of dating, few, if any, will come back to God's way. Why? Because, even if they wanted, they would have a very difficult job bringing their children to reject dating and accept courtship. Their children may claim to be Christians, but very few know what it means to "...be obedient to their parents IN ALL THINGS," and would continue to date. Therefore parents will make excuses so as not to alienate themselves from their children. Their love for their children exceeds their love for God. They forget that Jesus said, "They shall be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter mother." (Lu.12:53) And also, "Brother will betray brother to death, and father his child: and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death." (Mat.10:21)

People say, "How will you find the love of your life if you don't date?" Well, if dating is God's intended way ...how come it has produced immorality and so many illegitimate children? What they call love is usually nothing more than the lust of the flesh out of control. True love is more than physical attraction. Older women are to "...encourage (or train) the young women to love their husbands." (Tit.2:4) Husbands are to "...love their wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for her." (Eph.5:25) And you thought you were supposed to fall "madly in love" with the person before you get married. Too often they find the "madly in love," they thought they had was nothing more than fleshly desire.

          Comments 

 Dear Ron: I absolutely agree with you; I appreciate this article.God bless you for being so brave and telling it like it is, a lot of times  churches focus more on an emotional high than trying to learn and adhere to God"s laws of love like the Decalogue. I see this in so many so called christian churches, one gets turned off _if I can use that expression_ and after awhile you feel a void because you are not getting spiritually fed and this results in many people quitting  church. I know God says not to forget to assemle together but in a case such as this, one is wasting their time, you just sit in church and wait for the moment for your emotions to get triggered by manipulation from the pulpit or other so call spiritual brethren and I"ve learned through the years we are to live by faith not emotions, it is dangerous to live by emotions that is why so many people lose their salvation because they rely on emotionalism. God bless Ron

Pat H.