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We also looked at how God often brings judgment when His people disobey His command to marry in the Lord. God has commanded all His people to marry others that are children of God and qualified to be married. There is a commandment to the people of the world that they should not marry divorced individuals and a man should marry a woman, and so forth. Man has just pulled the idea of men marrying men and women marrying women out of his own imagination and that is not allowed in the Bible. A man can only marry a woman and God would permit a man of the world to marry a woman of the world or a professed Christian could marry another professed Christian that is not truly saved. The Bible permits a union where they are “equally yoked” and that is in accord with the teaching of the Bible, so an unsaved male or an unsaved female may marry a member of the opposite sex that is also unsaved. The only restraint is that they marry a person that is not divorced. They must be a single individual or someone that is a qualified widow or widower.

For the true believer, we have those same laws of God where a man is to marry a woman. We also must marry someone qualified to marry; a single man cannot marry a woman that is divorced and her husband is still living. The children of God have those same guidelines, but they have an added command that we must not be “unequally yoked.” Let me read about this, again, in 2 Corinthians 6:14:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

It goes on to say in 2 Corinthians 6:17-18:

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean *thing*; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

God has given further instruction to the child of God that he is not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” Again, that Greek word translated as “unbelievers” is “ap-is-tos,” which means “no faith” or “without Christ.”

God also speaks about marriage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7 and He gives various guidelines to help us. For instance, it says in 1 Corinthians 7:27:

Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.

This is interesting because most people do seek a wife or a mate. Here, God is saying not to seek for a wife. Then it says in 1 Corinthians 7:28:

But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.

Then it says in 1 Corinthians 7:36-39:

But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of *her* age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.

Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth *her* in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth *her* not in marriage doeth better. The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

This goes along with not being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. The elect people of God may marry other qualified people, as long as the person is not divorced and the previous spouse is still living; in God’s eyes marrying a divorced person whose spouse is still living is not permitted because God still views that person as married to their former spouse. This is because God’s Law says that what God has joined together man is not to put asunder, so when people get a divorce in an earthly court it is acknowledged in the eyes of the world, but it is not allowed in the higher and supreme court of God. The Bible is the supreme Law Book and the higher supreme court of the Law of God denies your request for divorce. You might say, “Well, I am already divorced because I already was granted a divorce in an earthly court.” However, that does not matter because the Law of God is unchangeable and unalterable and no matter what earthly judges rule they have no power to overturn the Law of God. What God has joined together man has no power to put asunder, so the reality is that in God’s sight the two that divorced are still married. Therefore, the solution is that if the former spouses have not remarried, they should return to one another because they are still man and wife in the sight of God.

God’s people follow those particular laws, but we have an additional Law of God and God has this added protection and benefit because all of God’s Laws are helpful for the children of God. If we are able to live in accordance to the Law of God (to the degree we are able to do so), our level of peace and joy will increase. God has provided this protection for His children that are qualified to marry. It is extremely important that someone we are thinking about marrying is someone that is “in the Lord.” Is that person truly a child of God? Of course, we live at a point in history that is unlike any previous time in history. During the Church Age it was actually much more difficult for a child of God to determine if a prospective spouse was a true child of God. They may both have gone to the same church and listened to the same sermons and sang the same hymns and attended the same Bible studies, but that was a time when the “wheat” and the “tares” were still growing together and God had commanded that the tares were not to be uprooted until the time of the end, so true believers would have had a difficult time in trying to figure out the true spiritual condition of the person they were interested in marrying. Oftentimes, the “sons of God” might marry someone that turned out to be the “daughters of men,” who were professed Christians and, yet, they were not born again. They wore the name of Christ, but they had the same old heart of unbelief and they just covered it over with religious trappings. As a result, there would be a marriage where there was trouble in the home.

Today, God has helped the elect children of God that live on the earth in this time after the Great Tribulation and in the Day of Judgment. Things are not easy for us and it is a troublesome time and a severe time of testing and, yet, there is an area where we have been helped because God has ended the Church Age and He has separated the wheat from the tares. During the time of the Great Tribulation He set in motion His mechanism to separate them by issuing His command to His people to depart out of the midst of the (corporate) church and flee to the mountains, a figure that pointed to God and His Word, the Bible, and God’s people did come out. Of course, not everyone that came out was truly elect, but everyone that did come out was separated from the tares that were bundled for the fire. For example, let us say there is an elect man who is now outside the churches and he is waiting upon the Lord to open his understanding to certain things and he is continuing to search the Scriptures. However, this man has a normal desire for marriage and children and, yet, he wants to be faithful. He meets someone at work or he meets a neighbor that introduces a nice “Christian” woman to him and she is a member of a Presbyterian or Lutheran church or any other church. She is a nice person and they get along. However, we have to consider the time in which we are living because God has already made the separation, as it said in 2 Corinthians 6:15-17:

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in *them*; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean *thing*; and I will receive you,

We are to come out and be separate. You see, now this can be another area of testing because let us say that the woman is still within a corporate church and she is single and never been married and she is qualified to be married. She says she is a “Christian” and since he is a Christian, are they then equally yoked? No, they are not. If it was during the 1,955 years of the Church Age, then they would have been qualified to marry one another, but we cannot overlook the time in which we live. So, here is someone that firmly believes the Church Age is over and here is someone that still attends a corporate church, but God has left the churches and bundled them as tares. Therefore, there is no union and there is no “agreement” and the Bible says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” It is certain that these two cannot enter into the union of marriage unless they be agreed in the things of God in the Bible.

Just because someone says they are a Christian, it does not mean anything.

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