Unimportant Burdensome Destined to fail You don’t have to do it!

Cohabitation: Living together “as” man and wife, but unmarried Implied sexual relationship

The number of unmarried couples living together went from 430,000 in 1960 to over 6 million in 2006

More than half (54 percent) of all first marriages between 1990 and 1994 began with unmarried cohabitation

The majority of young men and women of marriageable age today will spend some time in a cohabiting relationship

“ You test drive any car before you buy it” “Everybody does it” “Better to find out early than to divorce”

You have wearied the LORD with your words …..in that you say, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them“ Malachi 2:17

Cohabitation = Fornication Fornication = sexual relationship outside of marriage between unmarried people Fornication is a form of sexual immorality

Sexual Immorality: Adultery Divorce and remarriage (without cause) Homosexuality Lewdness Lasciviousness Immodesty

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 1 Thessalonians 4:3 25+ times in the New Testament!

Fornication destroys your body’s holiness 1 Corinthians 6:18-19 Romans 8:28

Fornication robs marriage of its gifts Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Hebrews 13:4

Fornication leads to greater rebellion Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, …. Romans 1:24-25

Sexuality’s purpose is to bond husband & wife But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.Malachi 2:15

Sexuality’s purpose is to bond husband & wife Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 1 Corinthians 7:3-4

Sexuality is comparable to worship The LORD said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: "Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot.” Jeremiah 3:6

Sexuality is comparable to worship Sacred and unique within the proper confines Abominable outside of the appropriate place

More than eight out of ten couples who live together will break up either before the wedding or afterwards in divorce

Couples who marry after living together are 50% more likely to divorce than those who did not.

Only 12 percent of couples who have begun their relationship with cohabitation end up with a marriage lasting 10 years or more.

One study reports that even a month’s cohabitation quantifiably decreases the quality of the couple’s relationship

Children of cohabiting parents are three times as likely to be expelled from school or to get pregnant as teenagers than children from an intact home with married parents.

Children of cohabiting parents are five times more likely to live in poverty, and 22 times more likely to be incarcerated

Directions to Eternal Life Hearing the Word of God Romans 10:17 Believing the Divinity of God Mark 16:16 Confession of Jesus Christ Romans 10:9 Repentance of Immorality Acts 2:38 Baptism to Change Morality Acts 22:16