Cohabitation

who live together before marriage have higher separation and divorce rates. The National Survey of Families and Households, based on interviews with 13,000 people, concludes, "Unions begun by cohabitation are almost twice as likely to dissolve within 10 years compared to all first marriages: 57 percent to 30 percent."
C. Those who live together before marriage have unhappier marriages. A study by the National Council on Family Relations of 309 newlyweds found that those who cohabited first were less happy in marriage.
D. Those who are sexually active before marriage are much more likely to divorce. A study of 2,746 women in the National Survey of Family Growth found the non-virgin brides increase their odds of divorce by about 60 percent. Here is secular evidence for St. Paul’s injunction, "Flee fornication."
E. Those who live together are at high risk for contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Three million teenagers alone contract one of five dozen STDs. If untreated, STDs can lead to brain damage, heart disease, infertility and even death. Women who have three or more sexual partners in a lifetime are 15 times more likely to get cervical cancer.
F. Those who live together do not experience the best sex. The best sex is found in marriage. Couples who abstain from sex before marriage are 29 to 47 percent more likely to enjoy sex afterwards.
G. Those having premarital sex may be fooled into marrying a person not right for them. Sex can be emotionally blind. Real love can stand the test of time without physical intimacy. The sexually active lose objectivity and actually cheat on the test of time.
H. Those who live together before marriage often suffer guilt and fear due to the dangers of STDs or unwanted pregnancy. Guilt can lead to frigidity and impotence
III. What the Bible says.
A. God Loves us.
(1 John 5:3 NKJV) For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
B. God intended us for marriage (Matthew 19:4-9 NKJV) And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ’made them male and female,’ {5} "and said, ’For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? {6} "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." {7} They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" {8} He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. {9} "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."
"Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." (Heb. 13:4)
(1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 NKJV) For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; {4} that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, {5} not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; {6} that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of