WYC 2009: This Mind In You

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GYC West

Phil Mills, Sr: Thinking About Relationships

Phil Mills

Courtship Readiness

The Tests for Genuine Love

Avoiding Courtship Traps

Will He/She Bring You Happiness?

We want to cover 4 topics in our series, and those who come to the series will have a syllabus at the end.

The first 2 of the lectures, possibly the third, will be in the syllabus, and then the last 1 will not be.

And from this we'll try to cover a lot of the major principles of happiness in marriage.

Now if you'll look at the various practices around the world, and again I apologize for the feeling blue on the screen.

On my screen It's very beautiful pictures, but you go into various places in the world and you find completely different plans for courtship and marriage.

I was just talking to some folk from India who had arranged marriages.

Their parents arranged the marriage and they think that any other kind of marriage is a bad 1 and it shouldn't be done.

I had a resident, here was a person probably 35 years old, she came and she rotated on my service, and because I was just about to give a series on courtship and marriage, I asked her how she had met her husband, and she didn't even want to tell me.

But I said, well, it'll be interesting because I'm going to be going to give some lectures on this topic.

And so she was willing to share with me that what had happened is her parents had answered an ad in a Hindu paper from the country she was from, and that her husband's parents had put the ad in the Hindu paper.

And so out of the people who had replied to this ad for their son, they selected the...

So they went out, interviewed with the parents.

The son was an engineer in the United States.

They liked the parents, they met the daughter, they decided this was the proper person for their son.

And so he flew back to the country she was from.

3 days before they were married, they met for the first time.

And 3 days later, they were married, and they have a very happy marriage.

I asked her if this is what she planned to do for her children, and she wasn't sure.

This sounds very strange to our Western ears.

However, this is the way it has been usually done throughout most history and in most places of the world.

Christ's marriage himself is likened to a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son.

Until 250 years ago, even in Western cultures, this is how marriage and courtship was conducted.

Parents would choose the spouse for the children.

The children had little involvement on who they were going to marry.

They just depended on their parents to choose them a good spouse.

But that changed with the Romantic period.

You had the Romantic period of music, you had the Romantic period of literature, art, and courtship.

And we've come down to the place where parents are not to even give any input to the children, not to be involved in the selection.

We've gone from 1 extreme, the parents with little input from the children, to the children with little input from the parents.

And generations now have grown up, been married with this type of pattern.

But the romantic period is coming to an end.

There was a headline article in the Wall Street Journal, and this was just a few years ago, and it was entitled, A Key to a Lasting Marriage.

In fact, the reason I found this is I was on the way, passing through the airport on the way to give a lecture on courtship and marriage, a series something like this.

And I saw the key to a lasting marriage, combat.

There's a growing body of sociological and psychological literature that suggests there's no such thing as a compatible couple.

All couples tend to argue about the same things.

They shouldn't even think this was a problem.

Good homes are said to be discordant homes.

They were to give up on agreement and just simply agree to disagree.

And then they made some practical suggestions, such as including weekly fights.

But if fighting saves marriage, why just limit it to weekly?

Instruction in fighting was recommended for each spouse.

It was a serious article presenting some of the biggest names in marriage counseling today.

It did have some practical counsel as well, but just as the romantic period of art and music came to an end, the romantic period of courtship in marriage seems to have come to an end.

People just live together, don't even bother with marriage.

But when the experts conclude that the key to a lasting marriage is fighting, They prove the truth of Isaiah's observation, the way of peace they know not.

Unless the Lord builds your house, you will labor in vain to build it.

I remember making a decision that some of you have made, some of you are in the process of deciding whether you want to make it or not.

When I was determining what course I was going to be taking in my own personal dating and who I would marry.

And I made the decision that's the best decision I ever made, and that is I will follow God's principles of courtship and marriage, and only marry someone that God would approve.

I regret a lot of decisions I've made in my life, but that's 1 decision that I have no regrets for.

And That's why I want to share with you the principles that go into making a happy home.

Our theme is cross, Christian's resources on spouse selection.

And I'm excited to share this with you because I know the joy that comes as a result of following these principles.

It's a Bible and spirit of prophecy based seminar.

There is a theme in Scripture on courtship and marriage and on homes.

Now, I'm going to be using current sociological and psychological literature, but I don't want you to misunderstand.

I'm not pointing to these as authorities.

The Bible is the authority, but the latest in the research simply illustrates the truth that the Bible made clear in its principles.

God's Word is the authority for successful happy dating, resulting in successful happy marriage.

And research merely documents the truth of the Word of God.

If I was going to give you a talk on internal medicine or dermatology or physical medicine or 1 of the areas, You couldn't do that in 4 lectures and cover the entire topic.

We want to go over how you can predict the future, how you can know whether a person that you're thinking of marrying is likely in 20 years to make a good spouse or not.

We want to look at those in 1 of our topics.

I can't cover the specifics and every specific situation is different.

But we can give these general principles which I believe that will be helpful to you.

Now the principles of dating, courtship, and marriage are universal.

However, the applications may be different from person to person.

And each situation has a lot of variables that need to be considered.

I have learned that in a group this size, there's gonna be a lot of different problems that they face.

There's going to be some here that have already gone through an experience that has left you with confusion or perhaps guilt.

Some may be in a – feel that they're in a trapped relationship.

There may be someone here who is struggling with loneliness.

There may be someone who is feeling they're compelled to accept a non-Christian life's partner because there's nobody else in town.

There are sensitive, very close, emotional, important decisions, And I want to be sensitive to those.

Courtship and marriage affects our deepest and strongest thoughts and feelings.

And so these are very difficult situations.

There may be someone here who's secretly struggling with either thoughts or habits or practices that are morally impure.

And I want you to know that God's Word gives the solutions to escape from the bondage of moral impurity.

The Bible can bring peace and key to victory in every area.

Years ago, the king of Israel gave the secret to dating and happy marriages.

Believe in the Lord your God, he said, believe His and you will be established.

Believe His prophets and you will prosper.

This is a formula to prosper not only in dating but in every area of our lives.

The books of Genesis and Judges reveal that those when a church, when a nation abandoned God's principles of courtship and marriage, it ended up destroying the nation.

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Series

Phil Mills, Sr: Thinking About Relationships

Courtship Readiness

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Phil Mills Sr., Israel Ramos, and Judy Ramos ~ Date of Destiny: Finding and Keeping Your Love

Courtship Readiness

58m

Phil Mills, Sr: Thinking About Relationships

Avoiding Courtship Traps

1h

Phil Mills: Dating and Courtship for a Happy Marriage

Preparing for Courtship

57m

Thieves of Love

1h 3m

Phil Mills, Sr: Thinking About Relationships

Will He/She Bring You Happiness?

1h

Seminars

Family in End-Time Perspective

51m

Do Not Awaken Love Till it so Desires

33m

A Sacred Trust: Character

58m

Relationships and Family Life

My ‘Single’ Desire

1h 24m

Understanding God's Will

Session 2: God’s Will - Your Spouse

42m

MTYC 2010 Breakout Seminar - Relationship

Thanks God But I’ll Do It My Way!

48m

Sound Doctrine