Should I Attend the Wedding of a Couple Already Living Together?
00:00:00.000 | Happy Friday.
00:00:05.780 | Today's question comes from a young man who listens regularly.
00:00:09.580 | "Hello Pastor John, thanks for the podcast.
00:00:12.060 | Here's the dilemma I face right now.
00:00:14.320 | My wife's best friend is also a lesbian and was recently engaged to marry another woman.
00:00:20.980 | My wife and I are unified in our decision that we will not be able to attend their wedding
00:00:25.580 | based on all the things you talked about back in episode 191.
00:00:30.220 | However we have heterosexual friends who are getting married too who are currently living
00:00:34.760 | together and sleeping together before marriage.
00:00:37.600 | I think we would attend this wedding without hesitation but my question to you is this,
00:00:42.200 | are we inconsistent to not attend a homosexual wedding because we do not affirm their sexual
00:00:46.720 | lifestyle yet be willing to attend a heterosexual wedding of unbelievers whose lifestyle of
00:00:52.200 | premarital sex we also cannot affirm?"
00:00:55.640 | Pastor John, what would you say to this couple?
00:00:58.720 | It may be or it may not be inconsistent depending on other factors.
00:01:08.000 | So let me draw out something that may be implicit in what this young man is asking and the paths
00:01:16.760 | of relationship he's pursuing or not with both kinds of couples.
00:01:24.000 | What I would want to be sure to say is that not attending the so-called wedding of a so-called
00:01:32.400 | marriage between two men or two women is not the last word about the relationship that
00:01:40.760 | you may have with these people.
00:01:42.320 | In other words, it may be exactly the right thing to do.
00:01:46.480 | I think it generally is not to be affirming of that kind of relationship by attending
00:01:52.120 | that ceremony and yet it may be the right thing to do to continue showing principled
00:02:00.180 | kindness to those folks in the hope of revealing the truth of Christ.
00:02:06.560 | So I just want to make sure that not attending the ceremony is not the entire extent of our
00:02:15.240 | moral duty in Christ toward these people.
00:02:20.760 | If they are professing Christians, that makes the relationship all the more difficult and
00:02:26.120 | complicated since the Bible says we are to disassociate from brothers, professing brothers,
00:02:35.000 | who live in this kind of sin, 1 Corinthians 5:11.
00:02:39.240 | But if they are not professing Christians, there may be numerous ways in which we can
00:02:46.640 | extend the grace of God toward them in the hope of conversion.
00:02:53.400 | And similarly, with regard to the heterosexual couple whose wedding we do attend, that should
00:03:01.520 | not be conceived of as the last thing we do to put truth in their lives or to bring exhortation
00:03:10.200 | and admonition and conviction for their sin.
00:03:14.600 | Now having said all that, I think it is ordinarily wrong to attend the ceremony of the so-called
00:03:24.720 | gay marriage, but ordinarily right to attend the ceremony of a couple who has been living
00:03:33.320 | in sin but is marrying, or in marrying or not in principle sinning.
00:03:41.520 | In the first case, the ceremony is a celebration of sinful behavior, and in the other case
00:03:47.860 | it is not necessarily a celebration of sinful behavior.
00:03:53.720 | That's why it's not inconsistent to go to the one and not the other.
00:03:59.720 | But there is a complicating factor that I should bring up, which the questioner may
00:04:06.000 | or may not have thought of.
00:04:08.560 | The issue concerning this second couple's relation to God is not mainly their past behavior,
00:04:17.840 | past sexual sin, but their present convictions.
00:04:23.600 | If they are moving away from fornication because they are now persuaded it is sin, and they
00:04:30.820 | are marrying as a declaration of repentance and faith in Christ and a commitment to righteousness,
00:04:39.800 | then they are right with God, and we should join them in the penitent and happy celebration.
00:04:48.880 | But it is possible that they are not at all persuaded that having sex together as an engaged
00:04:57.640 | couple is sin.
00:05:00.160 | Maybe they would do it all over again, same way.
00:05:03.360 | Many in our day, tragically many, are deluded about this because of how superficially they
00:05:11.720 | submit to Scripture.
00:05:13.560 | They don't submit themselves to God's authority in Scripture.
00:05:16.720 | They just do what they feel like doing and assume God is okay with it, like sleeping
00:05:24.480 | together before they're married because they think they're committed to each other.
00:05:29.440 | It is clear from Scripture that not only is adultery sin, sexual unfaithfulness in marriage,
00:05:38.520 | but sexual relations before marriage is sin as well.
00:05:44.760 | That's clear.
00:05:46.640 | The very term "sexual immorality," as it's used in Matthew 15, 19, Hebrews 13, 4, Ephesians
00:05:55.560 | 5, 5, 1 Corinthians 5, 11, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, 7, 1, and 2—1 Corinthians 7, verses 1
00:06:04.640 | and 2—all refer to fornication or sexual relations before marriage.
00:06:09.920 | It is good—this is what Paul says—it is good for a man not to have sexual relations
00:06:16.360 | with a woman, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have
00:06:23.160 | his own wife and each woman her own husband.
00:06:26.440 | That's a clear teaching that if you don't have a husband, if you don't have a wife,
00:06:32.200 | then to have sexual relations is outside the bounds of God's revealed will.
00:06:39.740 | So if the couple that we're talking about here, whose wedding you're going to attend,
00:06:44.440 | if the couple has only stopped doing the act of fornication, but have not stopped believing
00:06:52.000 | that fornication is right, then they probably, if they belong to a Bible-believing church,
00:06:58.760 | they probably are in a position where they should be disciplined.
00:07:04.080 | Because we don't just discipline people for unrepentant actions of sinning, but also
00:07:10.820 | for unrepentant belief that sin is right or permissible.
00:07:17.880 | The reason for this is that believing that sinful behavior is permissible means, according
00:07:23.360 | to 1 Corinthians 6:9, that we endorse patterns of behavior that destroy souls, which is like
00:07:32.960 | murder, murder in our heart.
00:07:36.480 | Those who do such things will not enter the kingdom of heaven, Paul says.
00:07:40.840 | And he's talking about fornication, not just homosexuality.
00:07:46.020 | And what complicates the question being asked, then, is that if the couple who approve of
00:07:52.440 | fornication—they don't think it's wrong for an engaged couple to have sex—if the
00:07:58.200 | couple who approve of fornication are professing Christians, then the Bible says, 1 Corinthians
00:08:06.200 | 5:11, "I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name 'brother'
00:08:15.500 | if he is guilty of sexual immorality, not even to eat with such a one."
00:08:22.320 | And then you'd have to ask, "Well, should I go to the wedding?
00:08:25.000 | I can't even go to the reception."
00:08:27.740 | So the question is not merely whether the marriage ceremony is appropriate, which it
00:08:33.000 | is in and of itself.
00:08:35.240 | The question is also whether the couple endorses a lifestyle of fornication during engagement,
00:08:43.440 | which the Bible says imperils people's souls.
00:08:48.640 | All of these thoughts, everything I've said in answer to this question, show that the
00:08:55.000 | issues we are dealing with are deeper than simple attendance at ceremonies, and they
00:09:01.640 | involve us in a kind of messy mixture of compassion and confrontation that is never easy.
00:09:09.600 | Thank you, Pastor John, for tackling such controversial subjects consistently, and thanks
00:09:15.440 | for joining us today and listening.
00:09:17.800 | Over at our online home, you can explore all 1,250 of our episodes.
00:09:21.060 | You can find episode 191 as well.
00:09:23.640 | You can scan a list of our most popular ones.
00:09:25.820 | You can read full transcripts, even send us a new question of your own.
00:09:29.000 | Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
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00:09:57.760 | See you next time.
00:09:58.760 | Bye.
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