 Hey everybody, Robert Baltadano here. Welcome to Talks from the Heart podcast. This is going to be an exciting time for you as we discuss issues that are affecting the church. We're also going to be talking about relevant issues on theology as well as practical Christian ministry. Pastor David, I am super excited to start this journey of podcasting with you. I've been looking forward to this. It's excuse my throat. I just finished my Sunday morning services, but I've been looking forward to this, Robert. I want to have more of an opportunity to connect with members of our fellowship and perhaps, you know, the broader Christian audience and hopefully these podcasts might be something that is of value and show value. As we answer questions, I think that are relevant to many of the Christians concerns and things today. It's my pleasure and my blessing to be part of this. And by the way, congratulations on 35 years of faithful ministry. It's been a blessing. You know, I was sharing recently in a church service how that the Lord every step of the way for us from when we first began our ministry back in 1981 to our present how that God has shown himself faithful and has provided in every way. And we've seen some wonderful things take place in our ministry and in the lives of those who have been impacted. So, yeah, 35 years and when you think about it, sometimes, you know, and I don't mean to say this in a loose kind of way, but there are marriages that don't last 35 years. When somebody celebrates the significance of 35 years of marriage, you know, that is really an opportunity, a true opportunity to celebrate God's faithfulness. In many ways, my wife, Marie, and I have been joined in heart and spirit to this work. And so when we consider that we have spent 35 years of our lives, you know, the entire life of one of my daughters is a good portion of the life of one of my sons and obviously a good portion of the other two. It's been a journey that I think has been a blessing, challenging, but completely fulfilling. So, yeah, thank you for remembering that. It's been a blessing. Yeah, so 35 years, I mean, you've seen in those 35 years many spiritual movements, you've seen cultural shifts and tragedies and and all of that that you've experienced, I'm sure I must have, I mean, when you look back in where we're at today versus where you were 35 years ago, there's probably a big difference. There's a tremendous difference. I came out of a revival. The Jesus movement as the United States experienced it was a true revival where God awakened believers and revived believers to once again pursue him and to walk in the power of his spirit. And so, yes, I've seen some tremendous, tremendous things that are on the plus side and I've seen some tremendous things that are on the negative. So, in those 35 years, I mean, like you said, you've seen a lot of different things, some positive things. I'm sure some some negative things and all of that. And you know, as we get into this podcast, talks from the heart, as we discuss these issues, our first program actually, our first podcast here, is on a interesting topic that I think it's affecting the church and I'm sure you would agree with me as well. And you know, I've entitled it Cohabitation the New Norm. And this is something that has infiltrated the church. This is something that, you know, Christians are debating with one another, unfortunately. And just to kind of give you what's been going on out there, I actually read this letter, this young adult, a 20-year-old wrote to this relationship advice person or advisor, counselor, and she wrote him a letter because she's been dating this this man and never been, she's never lived with him, but they're thinking about the future. But nothing has been said as far as marriage and all of that. And in her letter, and I'm going to quote what she said, she put this letter to this relationship advice columnist. She said this and I quote, I can't imagine not living with somebody before marrying them because in my mind it makes sense that you need to be compatible and living together seems like the way to really get to know whether you can make it work. Now when I read that I'm thinking, you know, when I buy a car, and I'm sure you do the same thing, you know, you you road test it, right? Because you want to make sure it it runs well and that you like it. It seems to me that marriage, the approach of marriage among young people is kind of like a road test. What do you think? I think that when you begin to look at human relationships in a mechanical way that there seems to be a logic to it that is actually it's just not practically sound. God intends us to have relationship. We have a relationship with somebody that God has created that is going to fill in the gaps of my life and there may be there may be a number of people on the face of the earth that in one form or another may be able to fill in many of those gaps and and were to were I to have met them and married them and could very well have had a good marriage. But there's a wisdom in waiting for that person that that really is in a spiritual sense, the one who's going to complete me, you know. And so when you consider marriage, marriage is is a relational thing. It's not the way I relate to my car because I get rid of my car every three or four years. Marriage is a permanent institution established and ordained by God. It's one of the three initial established kinds of what's the proper word institutions that God established within nine chapters of the book of Genesis. We know that in Genesis in chapter three, he gave to us the church. We know that in Genesis chapter nine, he gave to us government. But in chapter two, he established for us the fact of marriage and chapter one also, you know, the two shall become one flesh. So marriage is ordained by God and is an institution intended for the betterment of man and Malachi refers to it as being God's holy institution. And so because marriage represents Christ and his bride and the bride has made herself ready with good works. There is a picture in the New Testament, especially of how we being pure, spotless, prepared, because we are in evidence of a relationship with our Creator. And so Paul would say that when somebody determines to have a sexual relationship with someone, he says, don't you realize that when you join yourself to, and I'll use the old test, rather the King James, when you join yourself to a harlot, he says the two have become one flesh. He's making it very clear to us that it's not God's intent for us to just join ourselves haphazardly or even with this mentality of seeing whether it works or whether we're compatible or not. Part of the problem with that is we're not valuing the essential things that will keep somebody married, like faith in Christ and the attributes of a believer that have like love and patience and endurance and which gives to us the ability to create means of communicating, et cetera. I mean, there's so many things that are part of it. We have a tendency of thinking, well, if we're good in bed together, we have sexual compatibility, then it's going to work. In reality, those who have had relationships prior to marriage and who have had sexual relationships have a greater number of divorces because they didn't set their mind on the things that mattered and they put their minds on the things that didn't. They may have built up a relationship sexually, but they still don't know each other's favorite color. They don't know anything about their families, dreams, aspirations. They don't have any understanding of how many children we should have together and things like that. Of course, that's generalization. Some have some degrees that, oh, I'd like to, but no, I've discovered in through my ministry and through life that marriage is much more than just a tryout. Marriage is all or nothing proposition. When you get into these relationships and you say, well, I think that we ought to just give it a go and see if we can get along in the house. You can get along. There's nothing that would keep you from it. You just need to learn each other's habits. That's part of communication. In dating, when you have a dating relationship, you begin to pick those things up anyway. I mean, as a man, if I go to pick up the woman and I walk into the home and I see that she doesn't really put a high priority in cleaning the home, I'm not going to assume that she's going to do that when we get married. If I walk in, she doesn't like to cook and do the things that I think that are part of being my wife. She doesn't like to cook or if she's argumentative or those things don't change when we get married. By making living together as the trial, I think the problem with doing something like that is you're eliminating the things that really matter and focusing your attention on things that are not that important, plus you're entering into violation of God's commands as it pertains to fornication for sexual sin that God says, let no one be deceived because of these things, the wrath of God abides on those who don't follow him. It's a greater issue than simply trying it out. I think that a lot of the younger people today, because they came from broken homes, because they're longing for a relationship and because of all those social things, they're putting the living together in a category to almost justify, well it does, it justifies their sexual sin. I expect the world to live in such a fashion. They don't have Christ and they don't have His word, but God does not expect His children to disregard His word in that fashion and violate His commands. Many times, these who come from those who are believers who go into these kind of relationships are coming from churches that don't teach the whole counsel of God. One of the things that I've read as far as arguments against this, Christians that are trying to justify this whole thing is marriage licenses did not come around till the 1500s. This is something I actually read recently. Were those before that in sin living together? In other words, where they're going with it, it's like, okay, well, if we need that certificate to be considered legal and before the Lord write, well, what about those beforehand? Then I think one person said, well, was Abraham and Sarah in sin because they lived together? They go on and on and on. What would you say to that? I think that we can justify sin with all kinds of interesting arguments. In the beginning, God brought Eve to the man and the two became one flesh. Theologians of all ages from all time has been pointing out that that was the institution of marriage. Yes, on the one hand, you have God who is the officiator over that. He's the first, if you will, the first pastor overseeing this, and God brought the two together. But at the same time, Roman 13 make it very clear that we're supposed to be living under the directives of the law. The law that we live in gives to us an understanding of the legal ramifications of that. On the one hand, I could say, yeah, I can cohabit. We're going to stay together. God brought us together, and all of that. Well, that may have been true in the 1500s, but here in the United States in the 21st century, and it's been this way since the beginning, we have laws that regulate that because in the United States, marriage is not simply a recognition of the two becoming one, but it's also a legal document. And so we have to take into consideration the violation of the law and the law states this. And thus, I believe on the one hand, if I'm on some island and there's no law to that, well, of course, this is how they do it here, nor they do it in this land. I understand that. But at the same time here in the United States, there are laws and rules that regulate that. And as Christians were under the law, and thus we ought to abide by it. Now, you're doing something very interesting in August. And I've never, ever have seen this in any church, you know, and I know I've been part of this fellowship here since 1994. But just my knowledge of other pastor friends and all, but you're actually, you basically announced that if you're living together, you know, we want to make things right. You know, you want to make things right before the Lord. So we're going to do a wedding, and you know, we're going to provide the church and all of this stuff. Talk a little bit about that, because that's very, very unique. I've never, ever have seen a pastor do this. Well, you know, we're aware of how the culture has infected the church. We're aware of that. And we're also aware of what Scripture says. You know, ultimately, the church is brought under what is called church discipline. And so somebody who professes to be a believer in Christ and who professes that this is their home church, they are automatically, biblically, under the discipline of this church. I, as a pastor, have a responsibility of governing this church according to Scripture. And so it came to my attention that in our fellowship, there's more than one who is professing faith in Christ, who's just continuing to live in sin. And I began to be aware of that and began to be concerned about that, because Paul would say a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And so if we do not act on what we know, then I think we give sin a toehold in the church. And so we began to consider that and all and made the decision that we would confront the issue by making announcements, encourage the people in the church who are living in such a way to get right before God, because living together in this church constitutes fornication. And we don't want that leaven to permeate. It is something for their blessing. And it is something that will help to purify the church from sins that have become entrenched. And so we've made the announcement, we're doing counseling with some couples right now, preparing for that date that will take place in the near future. And it's our prayer that we'll be able to help these people to live in such a way that honors the Scripture as it pertains to abiding by the law of the land and no longer fornicating, because they're in the state of fornication right now. Yeah, it's interesting, because it's a bad example. Cohabitation is a bad example. I mean, you're showing something. And I remember when I was in upstate New York, pastoring a young couple came to the church, you know, you're always excited when you have new people coming in, especially when they want to serve, right? You want young people to serve and all of that. So I remember I was excited, you know, and I got to know them a little more. And I noticed that, you know, they would come in together, they would leave together, which didn't think of anything, you know, they weren't married. I knew that. And through our conversation, find out that they were living together, and they weren't married. And that kind of was just like a jab to me. I was like, Oh, boy, no, I have to confront it, because I can't just allow them just to hang out, especially if they want to serve. And so, you know, when you see this, even in the church, like you're saying, even with the announcement you made, I like what you said, you're actually, you're not ignorant of the culture. You understand what is going on outside the walls of this church. And unfortunately, with a church like this size, you do have people, even the size that I had, it wasn't a big church, but yet you still have that effect in the church. And the way you're dealing with it, I think is very wise. It's pretty interesting, because, you know, you're not only getting them right before the Lord, but they're doing something right legally. And I think when you're talking about all these different things about the example that people said, you don't want to have that appearance in the church, because then all of a sudden, then you're going to have other people say, well, they're doing it. Why can't we? I believe that sin spreads just like Paul said, you know, a little leaven doesn't take a large amount for it to spread throughout the church. And it undermines the ministry credibility. It certainly undermines the authority of the pastor, because when you confront this, and they just say, oh, it doesn't matter. There's a ton of other people doing this. You've never responded to them. Why are you responding to me? It's just one of those ways that we're able to say, you know, we, as a church, we want to live according to what the word of the Lord says. And we definitely want to remedy this situation, because it's very blatant. This is very obvious. This is one of those things that is repeated both in the old and the New Testament, that we are not to be unequally yoked, or that we're not to be conducting ourselves in a relationship that is fornicative, obviously. What would you say, though, and I've had this said to me before, I'm going to make sure that I'm in another room and they will stay in another room. I mean, when somebody comes to you genuinely says, listen, I don't have the money to just go find a place on my own, but I'm going to just sleep in my own room, and then I'll have her sleep in her own room, and can that work? You know, one of the things that I've heard that, obviously, over the years on one occasion or another, I've often been puzzled by that. I've thought, well, why don't you just go to the JP? Why don't you go to the Justice of the Peace, get married? Why are you wanting to remain in that relationship? So there must be something else going on that needs to be dealt with. Well, I'm still married to somebody else. Well, now you've got even a bigger problem. So that's where the conversation begins to go. Because my first response would be, listen, if you know it's wrong, why are you continuing? And if you know that it's wrong and are still continuing, why are you continuing is a good question for us to deal with, because it may be that they, well, I'll give you some examples. One, is there not free to marry? Two, well, it's because we want a big wedding. Now, let me see if I get this right. You've been living together for six years. You've got three kids, but you want to wear white. It doesn't make sense. Why don't you just go get married and then have a reception and celebration and be a testimony to your family instead of needing a party? So there are a lot of things like that. You've seen it, Robert. I've seen it where the reasoning is, and I've heard this one too, well, we're saving up money for a big wedding. Now, your sin has become more important so that you can go out and have a big party. You need to forsake your sin, get married, do it the right way, and watch God honor you, because they don't understand the blessings of God. And part of the reason may be because they have been quenching the spirit. They don't even know that God's blessings have not been really on them the way he wants to bless them, because they're not forsaking a known sin. Now, going back to Scripture, because I mean, that's one of the things that obviously you're not going to find in the Bible, you cannot live together. Everybody always goes to that. Well, show me in the Bible where, right? But you did mention something, and I'm going to repeat 2 Timothy 222. I think it's a verse that I've used. I'm sure you have as well. But it says, flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call in the name of the Lord out of a pure heart. So flee also youthful lust. Talk a little bit about what that means. To flee youthful lust, there's a couple of ways that you approach that. One is there is a temptation sometimes with younger people, like Paul speaking to Timothy, so we'll speak from a man to a man. There is a temptation sometimes to prolong childhood. So instead of growing up by going through a variety of things that will make you a man, purging you from childish behaviors and childish views, as a minister, Timothy needed to flee the temptation to remain young, relevant, perhaps, and cool, if you will. And he needed to grow into maturity. So that's one thing. The second way to approach that is the lusts that are associated with youth, which is pride and arrogance, an overbearing attitude, competitive spirit. And so there are certain sins that are part of a young man's disposition that if you're going to be a spiritual leader, you need to forsake and remove yourself from that. So in context, Paul would be saying to Timothy, you are a pastor, and as a pastor, if you're going to have an impact, you need to cease being a child, put away childish things, and you need to pursue the things that make for mature believer in Christ. And as a pastor, especially, you need to evidence those things in your manner of life, flee youthful lust, but pursue these other things that make for a demonstration of spiritual maturity. So in its context, Paul would be saying to Timothy, you need to refrain from the things that are characteristic of a young man, and you need to look to become the model of a man of God. You need to be in conduct and in spirit and faith and in love and purity and all of that. That's what you're supposed to be because you're a pastor. So you need to get past the childish things where you have the temptation to be the cool guy. Today, it would be the guy who has to wear the skinny jeans and have the muscle shirts and to talk cool while he's wearing cool clothes and chewing his gum and having the swoopy hairstyle wherever it may be. You have to get away from that because young people are not looking for a cool friend. When young people come to church, Paul would be saying they're looking for a mature man who can help them to be sober-minded and to grow in their faith and understand the deeper things of God. So Timothy, stay away from all of those activities of the flesh that will disqualify you from being a good example to the flock. And I want to go back to some of the facts that you were mentioning at the beginning of our talk here, that not many really understand or realize what they're getting themselves into when they start living together before marriage. And I did a little research on that and just to go back to that so those of you listening can understand. But I found out that living together is considered to be more stressful than being married. Another statistic is just over 50% of the first cohabiting couples ever get married. So you think about these things, so I'm going to try it out, but like you were saying, sometimes it doesn't even happen. They don't even get married because they're looking at it as a car, right? You go and test drive it. It's not working out well or I want to try something else and they're hopping from relationship to relationship. So this whole cohabitation has these false promises, these empty promises. They're not anything that I think it's stable. I think that part of what I'm seeing now from, excuse me, a generation, you know, an older generation versus what I'm seeing with the younger people. I really believe that part of what has caused the cohabitation craze to become endemic in our society is they don't count the cost of, you know, the unwanted pregnancies, if you will, the children that are being born to multiple fathers sometimes through fornication and one relationship to another. They're not counting the cost, the cost to children and the cost to themselves. They just don't count the cost. Part of it I would say is because the members of the church who made their vows to God to remain married and then at a certain point decided those vows were not as important as my personal happiness or fulfillment and thus we break our vows in marriage and leave behind a broken family with a bunch of children with broken hearts. Those children, you know, know that their mom and dad made vows to God and they were getting, they got married in the church and I've heard the story, so have you, where they'll say, well, my dad used to be a pastor or my dad used to serve, you know, on the board or my dad was a Sunday school teacher or my mom used to and they talk about what they did as they grew up but they didn't remain together and what happens even in the Christian home is the kid says, I, you know, God's grace is sufficient and if I get a divorce, well, my mom and dad did and they survive, we can survive, our kids will survive and they don't see the damage that's been done to them. I know too many who, when you say to them, but your life has been damaged by this, well, I survive, so will they. That's kind of their attitude but it's not a matter of survival, is it? It's a matter of thriving. I don't want my children to survive, I want them to thrive and the way they're going to thrive is by having a dad and a mom in the home that through thick and thin, through hard times and the good times have remained faithful to the vows we made to God first and that's the thing that concerns me. It's not that I expect the world to live by Godly standards. You know, there was a time when laws were in such opposition to divorce that it was not easy to get it and you had to wait for quite some time so the laws were in favor of marriages remaining intact for the obvious reasons and then the church, the church had a strong voice in the lives of people, just the teachings of the church and then you had friends and you had family. All were pulling for you to make it but today there's not that strong. Government has made it easier to divorce and no fault divorce. Family will say, well, if you're not happy, you might as well get out of it and the church doesn't want to encourage not all the church, but some places in the church do not teach that that divorce is not something God intends and stick it out and watch what God can do. We have such a tendency I think to be permissive in so many ways that we have undermined what marriage really is. As we come to the end of this theme or this topic that we have today, Pastor David, somebody's watching us right now or listening to us as they're driving and they're in that situation. They're living together, they're born again Christians and perhaps they're convicted now. What would you say to them? I would say that if God is speaking to your heart and you know you're in sin, confess your sin and forsake it. Repent and go to that one whom you are living with and say, we need to get this right before the Lord and if you're free to marry, you have the capacity to marry, then go get married, make it right before the Lord. I would also encourage you to go to your pastor or to one of the elders in your church, one of the leaders, sit down with them, have a conversation and work it out so that you're going in the right direction with some encouragement and accountability, but it isn't something for you to just say, well, I'll look at this later. The Holy Spirit speaking to you now and because he's speaking to you now, you need to act now. Well, Pastor David, it's been great, our first podcast in the can for a good topic that we've been discussing. This is something that is obviously relevant and it's affecting the church as we've been discussing that we actually have to have these debates with Christians, which is kind of sad, because these are things that should really be black or white. It should be like, okay, like you were saying, it's like you're setting a bad example, there's promiscuity written all over it, if you're living together, because I always think if you're living together, unless you have no hormones, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you just can't, you can't do that. There's temptations that we were talking about. So with all that said, I think it's important that everyone stays close to the Lord and His Word and like you were mentioning earlier, is to really uphold the Word of God, right? Because that's something that is really lacking right now. Amen. Well, here's the thing, I'll give you two examples as we're about to close. The first miracle that is recorded in the Gospel of John was performed at a wedding. So for the individual to say, well, they didn't have formal weddings the way that we have now and this and that, you need to know that during the time of Christ, they did have weddings. Jesus performed His wedding in Canaan at that marriage and He obviously was there to bless the couple that were getting married that day. So there has always been, biblically, writes certain kinds of ceremonies that justified the relationship of a man and a woman to be together, living under the same roof and producing children, always have. That's what made it so phenomenal when Joseph had in his mind to divorce his betrothed wife, Mary, because in the Jewish custom of that day, the betrothal was equivalent to a marriage ceremony with the exception of physical intimacy that came on the marriage night. And so we know that in the new as well as the old that there were certain kinds of ceremonies that were involved in the joining of two to become the one flesh. We also know that Jesus was speaking to a woman at the well and said, come and bring your husband to me. She said, I have no husband. And Jesus said, in this you have spoken truly, you have had five. And the one you have now is not your husband, which is an illusion, I would say, to the fact that she was in a sexual relationship with a man she was not married to. And so Jesus pointed that out. And in that brought her to conviction because she was in a cohabitating relationship, it would seem the one you have now is not your husband, it would seem she was at least having sexual relations with him, because Jesus pointed it out, which cost her to say, indeed, you're a prophet. How did you know this? And that's why she later on went and spoke to the man and said, come and hear a man who's told me everything I've ever done. So Jesus obviously did not bless her relationship. He obviously didn't. And so for those who would argue and say, well, marriage didn't come about until such and so time. No, marriage has always existed in one form or another. It is any cultural anthropologist can tell you it's what is called a universal. Every society has marriage ceremonies of one form or another. Every society does. There's a way to justify living together. And though there may not be a Protestant pastor there performing this with signing certain documents, that society knows that that woman is that man's wife. They all know that because that is ingrained in every human being. There is a justifiable living together as husband and wife in every culture, but the Christian church of all should have known better than to start justifying for an occasion because Paul said that that is a sin that leads to eternal separation from God. We are given the commission to teach the truth and not to water it down because it offends some sensitive hearer, and they don't want to hear that. We want to thank you for tuning in. And not only that, but if you want to have more engaging conversation with Pastor David, Pastor David is on social media. He's on Instagram as well as on Facebook. And if you have any other questions, I'm also on social media as well on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and we can respond to you as well from this topic that we discussed today. So once again, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll talk to you later. If you'd like to learn more about David Rosales, you can visit his website at calvaryccv.org. If you have any questions about today's podcast, feel free to send an email to talk at calvaryccv.org. Thanks for listening and have a great day.