This Sunday, August 12, 2018 is mine and Amy’s 29th wedding anniversary. Twenty-nines years, how can we be married 29 years?!? But with nearly three decades of marriage I have some expertise. I have some things to share about marriage and preparing for marriage.

With college students coming back on campus and students returning to high school, I thought I would share some advice. Advice that contributed to the success of our marriage. Something we both set in place long before we even met.

We decided to be faithful to each other before we knew the other existed. We decide to be sexually intimate only after marriage and only with our spouse. We dedicated ourselves to faithful love. Here are some reasons why:

1. Premarital sexual intimacy is COUNTERFEIT LOVE.  It will not last.  You will not grow together intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually if the relationship moves to sexual intercourse before the maturity of marriage.
2. There are Emotional Consequences to premarital intercourse.  I heard recently that studies demonstrate many emotional problems in adolescence and young adults result from premarital sexual intimacy.
3. There are Physical Consequences to premarital intercourse.  Of course the probability of pregnancy is just one.  The other consequences include five (5) incurable std’s caused by sexual immorality.  When you are sexually active with someone, if they had other partners before you, by default you are involved with them and all those that they were involved with before they were with your partner and so on.  One virus even causes cancer later on in life. Diseases pass through all those contacts.
4.  There are Marital Consequences to premarital sexuality.  You bring extra baggage into a relationship that is already difficult.  How can each spouse know the other will be faithful if they could not wait until marriage? And what if “I am not as good as the others before me?”
5. There are Spiritual Consequences to premarital intimacy.  Yes, God will forgive, but even in forgiveness the consequences of our actions often remain.  Remember, the sword did not depart from David’s house.

–  Scott