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Dating Outside the Church

By Richard T. Ritenbaugh
October 9, 1999
Tape 415

During my second sermon at the Feast this year I made a statement that several young people and even some of the older singles misunderstood. They thought what I said gave them "permission" to date and marry outside the church. I want to state very clearly that this is something that I do not recommend in the least. What I said was indeed misunderstood, because dating and marrying outside the church is a massive stumbling block and can only bring trouble in future years.

I want to go back and re-quote what I said during the Feast so you can understand the background of all this. I made a transcript of that portion of the sermon so I could repeat it to you today just so you can hear it again.

"I know others who have married someone right out of the world, and they are now converted members of God's church. This is not the normal way it should be done, but it happens every once in a while. If God is working, ...if God is calling that person, He finds a way to bring him into His church, ...but always the point is conversion."

I think people heard that and stopped at the first sentence—"I know others who have married someone right out of the world, and they are now converted members of God's church." When they heard that they stopped listening to my qualification of that. My very next sentence was, "This is NOT the normal way it should be done, but it happens every once in a while."

I can see how someone can misconstrue that, especially if they're not listening fully to the whole explanation. But I want to make it very clear that the Church of the Great God does not teach that dating outside the church is wise. We do not teach that it is a good thing that our young people and older single people should date outside the church. It's not good. It's not wise. We teach that baptized members should NOT date outside the church, and that baptized parents should not allow their minor children to date outside the church. Once children reach their maturity and still are not baptized, we then hope that they will decide NOT to date in the world because it is a trap that rarely produces good results.

In the remainder of today's sermon I would like to explain the reasons why God does not want our single people to date and or marry outside His church. There are many reasons, and they're good reasons—they're very strong spiritual reasons which to me are quite convincing when you look at them from a spiritual point of view from the spirit of God.

God is producing in us something that is very special and very precious. He is producing children much like Himself, and anything that gets in the way of that is not good. Dating outside the church, and marrying outside the church only makes that process the harder. If you want to be one of God's children in His kingdom, you don't want to make it any harder on yourself. God warns us many times in the Scripture not to do this. He doesn't say, "Don't date outside the church," but He says it in other ways that are very clear.

Let's begin with the classic passage in Scripture on this subject—II Corinthians 6.11. I'm going to read all the whole way through to II Corinthians 7:1 because whoever put the chapters and numbers on these verses did a poor job in this section here because the section goes from verse 11 all the way to verse 1 of Chapter 7.

II Corinthians 6:11 O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. 13 Now in return for the same (I speak as to children), you also be open. 14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people." 17 Therefore "come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you." 18 I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty." Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (II Corinthians 6:11 to II Corinthians 7:1)

When you read the whole passage like that, it really opens up some understanding of what he was getting at here.

The passage begins with an appeal from Paul for the Corinthians to treat him with the same openness and affection that he gave them. He mentions there, "as to children," ...that he was speaking as to children. He wanted the same kind of affection and respect and honor and openness that a child would give to his father. In turn he would then treat them like a father would treat a son or a daughter, with the same kind of affection and respect and honor that would happen in a normal good family relationship. That's what he wanted with them.

He launches into this exhortation—"not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers—with this idea: "Look, I've got something hard to say to you, but I'm being entirely open with you and I'm treating you with the love that you deserve, and I want you to treat me with the same respect and love by accepting my advice and my instruction."

He showed his love for them by giving them the hard truth, and he wanted them to return or respond with the same love by accepting it and listening to what he said, just as our fathers would give us the advice we need whether we wanted it or not. If we truly were showing love, then we would take it for what it was worth, and respect it by doing it.

We have to remember that we're talking about the Corinthians here. They were a special case in the church because Corinth was a very bad city. You wouldn't want to live there. I don't want to go into all the particulars there, but it had perversions that we probably don't see in our world in very many places. It was a crossroads for all sorts of bad things. It was a trading route and a lot of shipping was going through there. The people in Corinth were used to quite a bit of perversion, and that's what they were coming out of.

Remember, in I Corinthians 3 Paul says, "Corinthians, you are still carnal." This is the base that he's going from because these people had a long way to go in many respects. They had one leg in the world still, and one leg in the church, and they were trying to balance the one off the other. They were trying to not let go to all of the things they had in the world that they felt were beneficial to them, and fully grab on to what God was offering them. There was still a tug-of-war in them, whether they were going to go one way or the other.

These books open up basically with the idea that there was someone in the church who had married his mother-in-law, or however it was. There was incest, and Paul says, "These are things that the Gentiles don't even speak of, and it shouldn't even be considered in the church." So we're talking about a church congregation here that was very worldly and they still had quite a few intimate ties to the world. Paul said, "This is the hard truth. You've got to sever those ties because they're dragging you down."

He's not necessarily talking about marriage here, or dating. He's talking more generally about any sort of ties with the world that were more intimate and personal and time-consuming even. These were ones where they spent a lot of time and effort in pursuing worldly things, and Paul says, "Look. You're an entirely different creature now. You should be, and you have to let go of those things because your life has begun anew, and you have to live it God's way entirely."

What we can get out of this is that it is almost impossible—I would say it probably is impossible—for converted members of God's church to have the best of both worlds, because the two systems, the two ways of life, are incompatible. "Love not the world, nor the things in the world," [I John 2.15-17] because this world is passing away. We also have, "Come out of her My people." [Revelation 18.4]

There are many Scriptures in the Bible where God tells His people to come out of those areas where we can be dragged back into the world—dragged back into the systems that we were called from.

Paul's command here, his instruction, derives from God's instruction to Israel in Deuteronomy 22:10. If you read Deuteronomy 22:10, you might think it has nothing to do with this. But what does Deuteronomy 22:10 say? It says, "You shall not plow with an ox and with a donkey together." Paul lifted that principle out of the physical law concerning agriculture and applied it to human relationships.

When you put an ox and a donkey in the same yoke, you have problems. Just on a physical sense, an ox and a donkey are different statures. The yoke doesn't even fit them properly. A donkey is normally taller than an ox. An ox is broader than a donkey. They are different lengths. They are different weights. There are different species with different temperaments. They don't pull the same. They don't go with the same measured stride.

If the poor plowman in the back is trying to control an ox with this plodding "Let's- go-I'm-going-to-do-this" kind of temperament, and a donkey, whose temperament is stubborn and might not want to go, you will have one side pulling, steadily plodding on and on, and you have the other one back on its heels trying not to go. They are not going to accomplish the job that the plowman is trying to do. That's the word picture here that Paul gives to us. You don't want to be unequally yoked like a donkey would be unequally yoked with an ox. It doesn't work. They don't pull the same.

Let's go to one of the most quotable Scriptures in the church of God in the last fifty years. Mr. Armstrong used it just about every sermon, especially in the latter years of his life.

Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3)

Same principle. Can two walk together unless they have the same ideas and beliefs and goals? The idea here in this verse is particularly that you have a meeting, and can two people walk together to this meeting unless they have agreed already on the time and the place. If they haven't agreed on the time and the place, one will walk to the meeting and be there at the time that he thinks that it should be, and somebody else might even walk to a different place at a different time altogether, and what relationship is there going to be?

We say today that some walk to the beat of a different drummer. It's the same sort of thing. You walk to the beat that God is sounding from heaven, while an unconverted person walks to his own beat, and the two will not jive. What we're seeing here is the oil and water principle. Certain things just don't mix.

The Greek word for yoked means, among other things, allied, coupled, mingled, or united. You can stick any one of those words in there and they will make sense. You don't want to be unequally allied, unequally coupled, unequally mingled, or unequally united with unbelievers. Like I said before, though the context does not specifically mention marriage, it certainly is applicable to it.

Think of it. What closer allies are there than a marriage—a husband and wife? They should be the closest of allies, doing everything together, and doing the things for the common good of the family because of the special relationship. We even call them "couples." That's what this word means. We are to be united as one in the marriage covenant. Even though marriage isn't contemplated necessarily in this specifically, it certainly fits, and maybe Paul had it on the top of his list. I don't know. I know he was speaking generally, but if he was thinking of anything specific, I'm sure that marriage was one of the ones that he was most concerned about. Remember, the problem in I Corinthians was a marriage problem. The guy had married his own mother-in-law. So there you have it.

Paul then goes on and asks these questions. There are about five of them. What common ground is there between polar opposites? Think of the word polar. What do the north and south poles have in common, except that they're both ice-capped? They are thousands of miles apart. Think of it in scientific terms. In a magnet you have one pole that is positive, and it attracts. You have another one that is negative. (I will get to this idea of opposites attracting a little bit further down the line.)

The word "fellowship" in verse 14—"For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?"—maybe could be a better word—"commonality." "What commonality has righteousness with lawlessness?" The question is rhetorical, and the answer is obviously "none."

The second question is, "What communion has light with darkness?" This word could also be translated "fellowship." Maybe a better one is "participation." "What participation do these things have with one another—light with darkness?" Light and darkness don't mix. One is on one extreme of the spectrum, and the other one is on the other. All you get is a little hazy twilight in the middle. It's neither one nor the other.

The third question is: "What accord has Christ with Belial?" The word is a musical term. It means harmony. When people sing in harmony they sound good. But Paul says that there is no harmony between Christ and Belial. They are at odds. They are at loggerheads with one another. They don't mix.

The fourth question: "What part has a believer with an unbeliever?" This is a legal term, but it often had to do with agriculture when let's say an inheritance had to be split. So this could be, "What share has a believer with an unbeliever?" Let's say there were ten acres that were to be split among four or five sons. Each would get a share. That's the legal part of all this. Well put that right in there. "What kind of share does a believer have in the things of an unbeliever?"

The last question is: "What agreement has the temple of God with idols?" That's pretty well translated. I couldn't find a better synonym for that. "Agreement" seems to work very well. Do they agree on anything? The answer rhetorically is "no."

If we're intimately associated with God, which is what he's talking about here—("You are the temple of the living God. He has called you as His sons and daughters.")—Paul says in verse 17 that we have to separate ourselves from these opposites that he's mentioned in earlier verses. In II Corinthians 7:1 he says we have to separate ourselves from what defiles—"from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit."

He's talking about pollutions or corruptions—anything that would soil us, anything that would drag us down. Then he says, on the other hand, we have to fill our lives with what is holy and good and true, and do this for our respect and reverence for God, because that's the sort of attitude and approach that is going to lead us into the kingdom to be His sons and daughters.

Practically speaking then, having an unconverted mate or dating outside the church, it is almost impossible to accomplish God's purpose in us. Some people have made it work and I give them a great deal of credit, but it's not been easy on any of them because there are certain things that just conflict.

I read in Adam Clarke yesterday, and he quotes an honest clergyman as saying, "A man who is truly pious, marrying with an unconverted woman will either draw back to perdition, or have a cross to bear during life." In short, this would be setting one's self up for failure, and only by a great strain would it be possible to make it work. If you do make it work, there are always those strains in the dark cloud of difference hanging over things.

Often times an unconverted mate is moral, because you're moral. You probably wouldn't have gotten married if you had not been moral like he was, because to get married to anyone you have to have some common ground. But even if the unconverted mate is moral, it does not guarantee there won't be friction, because the two ways are so incompatible.

Just answer these questions. I'll ask them rhetorically. How well can one keep the Sabbath with an unconverted person interfering? Many people who have an unconverted mate have reached a kind of compromise on that, and on Sabbath one goes one way, and one goes the other, and never shall the twain meet until sundown. But you noticed what they've had to do. They had to go "separate" for that period of time.

Now what about such things as unclean foods? What if one of them really likes pork chops? What about the conscience of the wife who may be converted and having to prepare pork chops for her husband? I'm just talking practical little things that people may not think of.

What religion does one teach the children? I heard it on the radio not too long ago people talking about Jewish-Christian marriages, or Christian-Muslim marriages, or Christian-Buddhist marriages, or non-aligned non-religious with whatever other religion there is, and people saying how difficult it is to bring their children up in one religion or the other. Usually what they get is a syncretistic mix of both, or they are fairly liberal people and they say, "Well, when Johnny and Susie get to be eighteen they can decide for themselves." And then they just don't worry about it at all.

Going back to my "Parenting" series, if we're going to rear our children to be godly, and to be ready for God to call them when they reach a certain age, we have to think about those things. If we really want them to be in the church, there's going to be a fight with the unconverted mate on that subject.

What does it teach the children that their parents don't agree on such a basic issue of life as religion? It seems to me it would start them off on the wrong foot not only religiously, but from the point of view of marriage. What are their marriages going to be like when they see this basic fundamental disagreement between their parents? How will it affect them?

An unconverted mate just simply complicates matters. Life is hard enough as it is, and to knowingly go into this situation where you make the choice to do so seems foolish to me. Now if you're already in the situation—if God calls you and not your mate—well, God must have figured that you could handle it, because He did it. But where you have the decision to either go into this situation or not, I would say don't do it.

Paul, in I Corinthians 7:15, gives permission for divorce between mates—one who is converted and one who is unconverted—if there is not peace between them, if the unconverted mate makes trouble with the converted mate worshipping God in the proper way. That should tell us how vital marital harmony is to successful growth in God's way of life. He would prefer in this case where there is strife between an unconverted mate and a converted mate, that we break the marriage covenant in order to keep our covenant with Him. Which is the more important?

This is specifically for one mate who is converted and one who is unconverted. He says specifically, very clearly, that if the unconverted mate allows you to do all these things in peace, ...fine. Leave it like that. But if there is trouble, and it is constant and it is dragging you down, there is no peace, there is no way that you can grow in that environment, He says it's okay to separate. But it's not just a blanket thing, but only if these specific things are met. God comes first, and our marriages come second. In this case with an unconverted mate, He does give permission to divorce if God is being pushed aside.

What about our situation now in the church? The church has been scattered. Our churches are small. We are sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away from any potential mate. We look and say, "Oh, there's no one to marry." Does this situation that we have of being spread out with few eligible potential mates give us more leeway under God's law?

The book of Genesis relates the story of a man and his wife who, rather than trusting God to give them what they desired, decided to take matters into their own hands. Here they were, in a land that was not theirs. There weren't many Hebrews around. They were on their own. God had sent them there. It was His will that they do this, to go into a land of people of a totally different race. They were all alone, and they decided to do the expedient thing—what they thought was the expedient thing. And you know what? The world is still suffering for their jumping the gun. This is obviously Abraham and Sarah, ...and putting Hagar into the mix.

Genesis 16:1-6 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. 3 Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. (Genesis 16:1-3)

Notice that there was a marriage. Hagar became a secondary wife. I guess they figured ten years was enough. They gave God ten years, and if He didn't do it by then they were going to go ahead and do their own thing. At least that's the way it seems.

V4 So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. (verse 4)

Suddenly there was strife in the camp of Abram. ("Never let two women in the same kitchen," I hear.) Well, this was a different type of kitchen, and one of them had the upper hand.

V5 Then Sarai said to Abram, My wrong be upon you! [It's all your fault!] I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. [There are problems on both sides here. There is despising on the one hand, and on the other hand there is overbearing, and self-righteousness basically, because Sarai was the one that had come up with the solution as it was.] The LORD judge between you and me." [And boy! did He.] 6 So Abram said to Sarai, Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please. And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. (verses 5-6)

V15 So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

After this problem, when Hagar was out in the wilderness and God saved her, she bore Abram a son, Ishmael. The Arab-Hebrew conflict hasn't stopped since. Four thousand years of hostility from this one mistake, ...this one jumping the gun, this one time where they thought, "God had failed us. He's put us into an impossible situation. I'll solve it myself." And now we have how many Arabs facing how many Jews, and killing one another, blowing each other up, shooting bullets into one another, because they're fighting over this land that God had given to their father Abraham—both their fathers—and they both feel they have a right to it.

We can see that taking matters into our own hands, when faith and patience are required, can produce absolutely horrendous results. Now Abraham is a special case. He's the father of the faithful. The things that he did are magnified because of his position, but with us similar things can happen on a somewhat smaller scale. They're still awful to have to endure, and who knows what problems will be in future generations because of this.

Doesn't God say that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him? Obviously we don't hate God, but the principle is still there, and the results of sin often go down several generations. Someone has to take the punishment, whether it's us, or our children, or our grandchildren, or our great grandchildren. Mistakes have consequences.

Romans 8:28 is still in the Book. God will give us everything that is good that we need if we love him and are "the called." It's there. It's a promise. He hasn't necessarily promised us a mate, but He's promised us what is good for us. If we just wait, have a little patience, and have some faith that God will give us whatever will help us and prosper us and be good for us, in His time. That certainly would include our mate. We ask Him in faith. God says He will give it to us, with the caveat that it would be something that is good for us, because He does nothing that is not out of love. That's just His nature.

In hindsight we can see how foolish this was for Abraham and Sarai to do this. But can we also see that the despairing about our current situation—our scattered condition—jumping the gun then and providing our own human solution will only complicate matters. Can we see that without having to look in hindsight twenty years down the road and say, "Oh, if only I had waited"?

It's far better to marry as a somewhat older wiser person in the church than it is to jump the gun and marry while we're young outside the church. Thats just the way it is. It would be better for you to wait a little while unto you're older and more mature and find someone in the church than it would be to take matters in your hands while you're young and foolish and do what your hormones are telling you to do. (I'm speaking mainly of course to the young people. I hope the older ones have a little more control over their hormones.)

You could even ask, if you like, some of the recent newlyweds (and there were several this summer and this spring) how the scattering affected their choice of mate. I bet you they would tell you that the scattering actually enhanced their choice of mate. You think about the ones who've recently got married, and you will find that if this hadn't occurred, they would have never found the other, because circumstances were worked out that they came in contact with one another, and started a relationship which led to marriage.

So the scattering is not a bad thing. It may narrow things a bit for us, but we've got to think of it more positively, that if you do really love God and you really want something like this to happen to you, that God has orchestrated affairs to bring that about. Nothing is impossible with God.

Let's go to Psalm 37. This is the attitude we've got to have. This is one of my favorite Psalms. Remember I told you at the Feast that my favorite hymn in the hymnal is number 30—"Wait and Hope and Look For God." This is where it comes from.

Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 4 Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:3-4)

See, that's the way we've got to approach this. Trust in God. Go ahead and dwell in the land. Do good. Feed on His faithfulness. Think of God as a delight, and then lo and behold you'll find that you'll have the things that you really wanted.

V5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. 6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. 7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. (verses 5-7)

That last little bit advises you not to look at how other people are faring and how they have gotten what they've gotten. Wait and trust in God. He'll bring it about what you need, or what you want.

V34 Wait on the LORD, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it. (verse 34)

Psalm 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD, and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. (Psalm 40:1)

God doesn't always give us the things we ask for right away. Remember the Scripture we heard several times during the Feast, that His eyelids test us? Often times the test is whether we'll wait for Him to act, whether we'll have faith to do, to plod on, to do good, to be righteous in the meantime until He gives us the thing that we want. And if we really want a mate, we can put that on the top of our prayer list, and He will recognize that and give it, ...but it may be a little while. So wait and trust in Him to bring it to pass.

If God can create the universe, if He can part the Red Sea, if He can walk on water, He can find a mate that's fitting for us. That's an easy thing. Remember, we walk by faith, not by sight.

We can look around and say, "Oh! There's no one here to marry. I'll be an old maid (or an old gentleman, I guess). But that's not the case. That's walking by sight. God sees an awful lot more than we do. He knows what's going on. I've had people come up to me and say that they were sure that God prepared the husband or the wife for one of their children, that they could see by looking at events that certain things happened to bring it all to pass, that otherwise these two would never had met. Or otherwise maybe they would have met, but they would have never hit it off unless certain things had happened.

Some mothers I know have prayed for their children, saying, "Please prepare a fitting mate for this daughter of mine (or son of mine)." And it seems that God has answered those prayers in many cases. God is aware, and He wants us to have happiness. He wants us to have the mate that will be a helper comparable to us. So don't despair. Just wait patiently, and trust in Him.

Malachi 3:6 is another one of those memory Scriptures.

Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. (Malachi 3:6)

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Think of that. Do you think that this scattering of the church has changed God? Do you think the scattering of the church has changed God's law, or the principles that God has set down for our conduct? Do you think that just because we're scattered that all the principles of finding a mate have been thrown out the window and you can just go down the street and find someone? That's not the case at all. God says, "I do not change." Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

T

RTR/smp/

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