We want to consider another installment in our series that we started a while ago on marriage and the family. And some of you may, who are not married and don't plan on being married, may have lost track because there may have been some things, a lot of things said that don't apply to you. But I want to assure you today, and I'll show you how, that this subject, though immediately at face value, looks like it doesn't apply to some of you. It does. It applies to all of you. And we have been looking at Genesis 224, which is God's blueprint for marriage, as Wayne Mack puts it, or God's design for marriage. It is a very key text in the scriptures because it is quoted three times in the New Testament, twice it is recorded as having been said by our Lord, and it's also quoted by the Apostle Paul. Let me read that text for you, and then I'll also be quoting to you several other passages as we move along. If you can turn to those passages quick enough and keep up with me, that's fine, but I don't want to turn the sermon into a sword drill. But chapter 2 verse 24 of Genesis says this, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. We saw how that the three ingredients there, that comprise the design of God in the institution of marriage, which is not a construct of human kind, but is a creation of God, an institution of God, are leaving father and mother. The man shall leave, but it's implied that the woman should leave too. They should cleave to one another, that is, hold fast, be glued together, stick to one another, and we talked about that. And then there is the issue of being one flesh. And we labeled those, for the sake of memory, Mr. and Mrs. Lever, Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver, Mr. and Mrs. Weaver. We come to a fourth element which is not mentioned in Genesis 2.24 because that was before the fall. Marriage still applies to all mankind. That verse still applies to all mankind. But since the fall there has been a division in mankind. between the seed of the woman or the godly seed, those who believe in the covenant promises of the coming Messiah, those who have been set aside into what we could call a community of believers, and those who are unbelievers. And so there is this antithesis that we find throughout the scriptures between God's people and those who are not God's people. And so therefore, there is an added element that we find running through the Old Testament and into the New, at least the general equity of the principle in the New of not being yoked with an unbeliever. If you are a believer, you are not to marry an unbeliever. And so we're going to talk about Mr. and Mrs. Believer today. Mr. and Mrs. Believer. That is today's message. That is what it's all about. We must marry according to the scriptures, and that must be, if we're a Christian, in the Lord. Now, if you marry somebody before you're a Christian, who's not a Christian, that's legitimate. It's legitimate for unbelievers to marry together. And it's also a phenomenon that we see in the New Testament as well as in our own experience, some of you, that you may be an unbeliever to another unbeliever, you're married and one of you is converted and the other is not. And then there's that tension that exists and sometimes God is merciful to convert both of you, maybe at different times, maybe at the same time, which is hallelujah wonderful. But if you find yourself now in a state of singleness, eligible to be married and are a believer, you should not marry an unbeliever. And this is not a piece of counsel, this is a command, which we'll see today. Now the reason why I said at the beginning that it applies to all is for the following. It obviously applies to you if you're single, are eligible to be married and you want to be married, chances are if you want to be married, you're probably not given the gift of singleness. God does give the gift of singleness to some, but normally if you desire to be married, you don't have that gift. So it obviously applies to you if you're a Christian, but it also applies for everyone else in this assembly. Because, if you don't mind me resurrecting something from 11 years ago, it was precisely this issue that this church, before I even came here, had to deal with. And this church experienced tremendous upheaval over this issue. At least this was one of the issues. So you might think, well, how does this involve me? I'm not going to get married or I'm already married. It involves all of us, brethren, because this issue of a Christian marrying a non-Christian, if that were to happen inside of our membership or with one of the children of the elders, it would become an issue of church discipline, which would necessarily involve all of you. So this is something important for all of us to listen to. Thirdly, I can also say that this message has relevance to all of you because all of you have friends, some of you have children, some of you have grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren who profess faith in Jesus Christ. And if you do, you need to caution them and warn them, teach them. not to marry an unbeliever. This ought to be something that they're conditioned to think, even before they're Christians. Hoping that God will convert them, they should already have that principle in their minds. Also, I am addressing another kind of person. I'm addressing a non-Christian. If you're a non-Christian young man today, if you're a non-Christian young woman, or even an older man or an older woman, and you're single, and you're looking around for a spouse amongst the people of God, and you yourself have not bowed the knee and trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, then you have no business looking for a spouse among the people of God. You do have business being here, and you ought to be here, and it's good that you're here. But your first matter of business is with Jesus Christ. You don't come here to find a spouse and lure her away or him away from her first love or his first love who is and ought to be always Christ. And I will also address another kind of person. Those of you who are yoked to an unbeliever, there's something here for you, too. It's perhaps something that you know now was wrong. And I offer hope to you. My own mother, and since it's Mother's Day, I'm gonna talk about my mother a little bit. My own mother married an unbeliever, my dad. And she knows it was wrong. She knew it was wrong. She knows it's wrong. But God saved him by his great grace. When I was one year old. And I really owe and honor both my mother and father, humanly speaking, in the hand of God were the instruments to bring me to Christ. So there's mercy and grace with God. But don't ever let that lead you to presume upon the mercy and grace of Christ. And don't do any of this stuff that's called evangelical dating, or dating evangelism, where you go out with somebody who's not a convert and you are, and you think you're going to win them over to Christ by throwing a lot of money at them and talking about the gospel. Please don't even flirt with that. Don't presume upon the grace of God. And don't marry someone who's an unbeliever, thinking that, oh, well, they'll come around, they seem so close to the kingdom. Guess what? It doesn't matter how close they seem to the kingdom. It doesn't matter how intelligent they are, nor does it matter how much common grace they have. In fact, people who have more common grace are more proud. and have a lot more humbling to do. And we also need to remember that coming into the kingdom of God requires an act of God. A sovereign, merciful, gracious act of God. It's nothing you can produce or anybody else can produce. It is not easy to enter the kingdom of God. Why? Because it's impossible. All things like that are impossible to us, but they're not impossible to God, but don't presume upon him. Don't tempt him. That's a general principle from the scriptures itself. To do so is to put your hand into the fire and then pray that it won't be burnt, and you will most likely be burnt. Okay, our outline for today is fourfold. The New Testament prohibition, number one, Secondly, the Old Testament precedent. Thirdly, the fundamental problems, problems that will result if you marry an unbeliever. And then lastly, the revealed proclivity, those who are flirting with the idea or with a person who is not a believer and with the intent of marrying, and you should not date or court anybody that is not an eligible person to marry, at least theoretically. To do so is to play on the precipice. And then as soon as the magic pixie dust of puppy love falls on you, all of a sudden you're not thinking biblically anymore and you fall over the precipice. Don't play around on the borders of God's commandments. But there's a proclivity in the heart of those believers that is revealed by their flirtation with this particular sin. So we'll talk about that at the very end. First of all then, the New Testament prohibition. First Corinthians, there's two main texts in the New Testament. There's many principles, but let me just, for the sake of time, give you the two main texts. First Corinthians 739, where Paul says, the apostle Paul, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, But if her husband dies, she is to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord. Now, you might say, well, that doesn't apply to me. I'm single. I've never been married. My husband's not dead. I've never had a husband, so why, you know? Well, you're missing the point. The point is, is that Paul is saying that a person who is eligible to be married, whether it be a woman or a man, If you read the previous context of 1 Corinthians 7, he's addressing men as well. It just happened to be a problem in the Corinthian church at this time, and he was warning them against it with women. But men or women, women normally outlast their husbands, it's a fact. You just look at the statistics. And in Corinth, it was probably the same. But it applies to all those who are eligible to be married, and that is, marry who you wish. I'm glad that's there. Because that's my proof text against arranged marriages. Marry who you wish, only in the Lord. Now Christ, only in Christ, that in Christ is an idiom that Paul uses over and over and over again throughout his epistles. And there's no doubt what he's saying. He is referring only to those, Mary, only those who share the like faith with you, who have been regenerated, united through faith by the Holy Spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is your limitation. And people like to say things like, well, there's lots of fish in the sea. Well, for Christians, it's not a sea. For Christians, it's a lake. And if you want to be more picky, for evangelical Christians, it's a pond. And for reformed Christians, we're getting smaller, a small pond. And then for reformed Baptist Christians, it's a puddle, but you see, Paul isn't limiting all the way down. He's just simply saying, you are free to marry who you wish, but it has to be in the Lord. This is a commandment and it's coming from an apostle. And an apostle is a spokesman for Jesus Christ. To reject the teaching of the apostles is to reject Christ. And if you reject, for whatever reason it might be, the words of the apostle in their teaching in the New Testament, You're rejecting, you might as well just reject everything they say. You're not free to pick and choose. And this is a commandment of the Lord through his apostle. The other passage is 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 through 18. He says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial, which is just another word for ungodliness, personification of ungodliness? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said, and now he quotes from Leviticus 26, verse 12. I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Now, those are the two main texts. I'm going to talk about that a lot more. But for now, let's just be content with having read it. Remember that in 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 1 through 6, there is also a passage there that would apply to those, especially women, who are married to men who are either backward, unrepentant, and backsliding, or they are just simply not Christians at all. And they have a special set of circumstances that they need to deal with, and Peter gives instruction as to how they should go about behaving in the house. toward their husband who was unbelieving or backward. But that's for another lesson. But what I've just said about being, what Paul said about not being unequally yoked, let me just throw out some excuses that we hear often these days about this very issue of a believer marrying an unbeliever. And I'll answer each one of these excuses. If I'm blunt, I'm blunt. Oh, but I'm afraid that if I say no to this guy or this girl, I will lose all chances of being married. Well, first of all, marriage, if you do get married, was not by chance. God's in control. Trust in the Lord. Don't disobey the Lord just because you're afraid you may become an old widow or a single man for life. To obey is better than sacrifice. Oh, I'll be a good husband. I'll be a good wife. I'll evangelize while we're married. To obey is better than sacrifice. Don't get married to that person. Don't presume. Don't cross the line. Was it okay for Abraham to sleep with Hagar just because Sarah was afraid she wasn't going to be able to have a child with Abraham? No, it was wrong. And it led to great problems. Was it okay for Peter to have denied the Lord three times because he was afraid? No. So is it okay for you to marry an unbeliever because you're afraid? No, it's not okay because it shows you lack a trust and confidence in God's providence and a contentment as well. Here's another excuse. Oh, we truly love one another. We have so much in common. We're so compatible. Number one, you're not compatible. We just read that in 2 Corinthians. Light and darkness? Idols in the temple of God? You're not compatible at all. If you could have the sight that God has of both your heart and that person's heart, the believer and the unbeliever's hearts, one is alive, one is dead. One is living, supposedly, for the glory of God, and one is not living for the glory of God at all and cares nothing for it. In fact, he hates God, or she hates God. So you're not compatible. So whatever compatibility you think you have, it's probably because you just simply like the same restaurants or movies. Or you just, your personalities seem to match. And then what are you doing? You're just falling in love with yourself. Oh, he's so much like me. She's so much like me. No, not a good excuse. You're going to have to come up with a better excuse than that one, I can tell you. Sounds like Genesis 3. Eve was finding herself very compatible with that fruit. And Adam was very compatible with Eve in taking the fruit from her, knowing what he was doing, not having been deceived. Well, here's another excuse. Well, she and I have such chemistry. We must be soulmates. I don't find the term soulmate in the Bible, do you? Where did that come from? What psychologist made that up to justify certain ungodly things? I knew of a cultic church in the Seattle area when I was much younger, in my 20s, and they made a big deal about soulmates and the pastor basically got up and said, you know, your soulmate may not be your spouse. There may be another woman or another man in this church that's your real soulmate. Seek them out. And then they started to say, okay, we're gonna have prayer nights, and we want all of you to seek out by the Spirit's knowledge who your soulmate is, and we want you all to go and pray together. Sounds so spiritual. Well, I don't need to tell you what happened. Church was filled with adultery. and was scandalous to the Christian faith in all the newspapers. No, don't adopt the world's terminology, this thing about chemistry. And even if chemistry exists between you and someone else that's not your spouse, like some kind of personality thing where you hit it off, tough. You don't marry a person who's an unbeliever on that basis. Well, here's another excuse. He or she treats me better than any Christians I've met. You know what? I wouldn't doubt that. In fact, sometimes I get angry about that. I get angry. that it seems as if the young godly men, the Christian men, are clueless as to how to romance a young woman. I said that in my Sunday school this morning. If only I could give a lesson, but I won't, about how to be a suitor. Figure it out, guys and girls. Be more like a Ruth. Don't just put yourself in a corner waiting for some guy to come up to you. If there's an eligible young man that's godly and he's a Christian, make yourself known. Don't shyly go into a corner, especially these days when guys don't even know how to pursue. I know what people are talking about. There are some people with a lot of common grace who know how to treat a woman, and there are some women who know how to treat a man with respect that are not Christians. It's still no excuse. Better to marry a man that's rough around the edges who is a true believer than to marry an unbeliever because you do not know what lies ahead. When I was in Illinois this, well, week and a half ago, I was in a hotel and there was a moment of time where I could watch, not a moment, but a few moments, a time when I could watch this nature show. And I was watching all about polar bears. And I saw these little baby polar bears and I thought, oh man, they're cute. I want one of those as my pet. And I wanted to climb into the TV screen and hug this polar bear and offer him a bottle of Coke. And then they showed a scene of what polar bears can do with blood all over their face and tearing up and limb to limb destroying carnivorous bears that they are. And I thought, that's a good analogy. because there may be somebody who's an unbeliever that looks like a teddy bear or a polar bear, cute and lovely, but when you get right down to the things of life and marriage, the teeth come out, the claws come out, and you find that it was a very, very bitter choice. Well, he or she is an answer to prayer. That's an excuse. God doesn't tempt men with evil. James 1.13, it's not an answer to your prayer. It's perhaps a test but not an answer. Well, everyone loves him. Even my family loves him or her. So, Jesus said you're to hate your father and mother in comparison or contrast to the love that you have to him. Fathers and mothers are to be honored, but not above Christ, whose word has been given on this issue. Oh, I know that she or he will become a Christian once we're married. Presumption, as we've already said. Oh, but we're essentially married already, since we've already fornicated. We've already had sexual relations, and so before God, we're already married. No, you are not. You're a fornicator. You're not married. Marriage involves commitment, as we already saw in a previous message. And Jesus, in dealing with the woman at the well in John 4, basically said, you've been married to four different husbands or five different husbands. The one you're with now is not your husband. The idea is that she was fornicating with that man that she was living with, but he was not her husband. And that statement by Paul about having relations with a prostitute, why would you want to become one flesh with a prostitute, is no proof text of this essential marriage idea. Because all that Paul was saying is that why would you want to take the highest physical expression, sacrament if you will, not in the church sense, but why would you take that physical symbol and sign of one flesh and give it to a prostitute, one that you haven't even committed yourself and have no plans to commit yourself. Belongs only to your own spouse. Well, as a result of our relationship, we now have a baby together. Therefore, for the baby's sake, we need to be married. Even though I'm a believer, that person's not, we have a baby. What should we do then? Tell me, brethren, if you accept that argument, then babies have become more important than God's command? Since when? That is collateral damage of sin. And as much as we want babies to be raised by a two-parent family, we do not go against God's law out of pragmatism or sentimentality. What if we did that with all of the commandments of the Lord? Have no other gods before me. Okay, God, I won't, but there may be a case in which I will. Don't take my name in vain. Okay, I won't, but there may be a case, situationally, where it's okay to take your name in vain. Don't steal. Well, what if I'm so poor I have to steal? You see, this is a slippery slope. And as I recall, a statement made 11 years ago, is now that we have a baby, we are a family. That's wrong. Baby or not, you're a family if you're married. If a man and a woman come together, they're married and they are a family. But you're not a family until you're married. And having a baby doesn't make you a family. And having a baby surely doesn't justify you getting married to an unbeliever. It's as simple as that. All of these excuses and the smoke and the mirrors. God's word's plain. He draws the line in the sand and we are not to cross that line. Okay, well, our 1689 confession also says the same. Chapter 25 and paragraph 3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry in the Lord and therefore such as profess the true religion and we'll discuss what true religion means in another message. Those who profess the true religion, Christians who Christians should not marry with infidels, that means unbelievers, or idolaters, neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked by marrying with such as are wicked in their life or maintain damnable heresy. I'm spending a lot of time on this first point, so don't fret. But someone might say, well, this person I'm dating right now or I'm interested in who's not a believer, they're not an idolater. Yes, they are. If they haven't come to Christ, the Lord of the universe, bowed their knee and had faith in him, then they're worshiping something, someone, but it ain't Christ. They're not wicked. Yes, they are. It's the worst sin in the world to not obey your maker. Well, they don't hold a damnable heresy. Yes, they do. They evidently believe that they're gonna get to heaven some other way, other than through Christ. Come on. But so many Christians, they get involved in the first place, and then all of a sudden, this pixie dust or something just blinds them to everything that they used to understand so clearly. the black and the white all of a sudden becomes gray and their heads become fuzzy. That's why you need people in the church, your parents and your preachers to tell you, wake up, wake up. You're kissing a frog. Well, that's our first point. Our second point is this, the Old Testament precedent, and I'll be very brief. In the Old Testament, we find from the very beginning, Genesis 6 verse 2, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any one of them that they chose. Now that's an interesting verse because I'm not going to argue if this is angelic beings or demonic beings. That's out of the question. Jesus even told us that there's no kind of thing like that amongst the angelic spirits, demon or otherwise. It's talking about the godly seed of the woman. The people who maintained a community of belief in the promise of God through the line of Seth. And not everybody in that community was a true believer, but it was still a community in the Old Testament sense of faith. And then there was the community that rejected God and went their own way. And it says here that the sons of God, that is the ones who called upon the Lord in faith, they started to look over at the other girls from the other camp. And of course those other girls are going to be more beautiful because they take more time primping. And they're less modest. And they're more outgoing and maybe more flirtatious. And they've got jingle, jangle, bangle. And so they were excited about that and they went over and they started marrying them. And it's also the parents' fault because they weren't keeping their sons from going over to the daughters of men. Well, that was a warning to us. And we see that before too long, all of those believing people, that community of believers got pretty much erased over time to where there was only one man to be conservative, one family to be liberal, that was left on the entire earth amongst probably millions who only did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord destroyed the world with a flood. So what happened? Well, the sons of God marry the daughters of men. And what happened? idolatry, syncretism, idolatry falling away. Generations to follow, no heritage of faith, one man left. The same pattern is found in Exodus 34 verses 15 through 16, where God instructs the people of Israel to not make a treaty with those who live in the land, or prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifices to them because they will invite you and you will offer their sacrifices as well. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. And this is what Paul is alluding to in 2 Corinthians 6, is mainly about having these unholy alliances with unbelievers, especially in intimate settings, not so much marriage, even though if Paul is forbidding us to have business relations, or participate in pagan rituals for the sake of your business with pagans, how much more the more intimate relationship with a spouse. Be not unequally yoked. Why? Because it's going to lead you, just like it led Solomon, the wise, into idolatry. It's exactly what happened. The same thing is repeated in Deuteronomy 7, verses 3 through 4. Do not intermarry with them. for the same reason. Judges 3, verses 4 and 6, same thing. I'm just throwing it out because of time. You can look it up on your own. And of course, we know what happened when, after the exile and the people of Judah came back to Jerusalem, and they once again began to intermarry with the pagans. And Nehemiah, when he came, had them actually put away their wives and their children. Not kill them, but put them away. Now, I'm not suggesting that's a New Testament policy, but the policy or the general equity of these principles is the same. And that is, don't marry an unbeliever. Don't marry someone who's outside the covenant community. for the very real danger of falling in to the idolatry. When you have two pieces of bread, one is moldy, one is not, and you put them together, does the good piece of bread make the moldy piece of bread better? No. Kids, that's a good science experiment. It doesn't work that way. The moldy piece makes the other piece of bread moldy. Such is the case with us. We have remaining sin. We're not glorified. We're not impregnable, as it were. We're not untouchable with the influences of an unconverted spouse. Thirdly, the fundamental problems. You know what the term unequally yoked actually comes from? It comes from, well, you've seen cars going down the road with all sorts of things written on them. Couple has just been married and they're in their car and they're driving down the road and some of their well-meaning friends made a mess of their car by putting all things on them and writing, spray painting, whatever. And sometimes you'll see the words just hitched. That's exactly what unequally yoked means or at least yoked means to be hitched. And it comes from a farming analogy. a big wooden piece of wood would fit over two oxen like a crossbeam. And those two oxen, who are oxen, the same height, they walk at the same gait, and they move at the same speed, are able to pull behind them farming equipment, like a plow. And actually, in the law of God, in the law that he gave to Israel, It was forbidden for them in Deuteronomy 22.10 to put an ox and a donkey together in the same yoke. Why? Because they move at different speeds, they're at different heights, and when you see an ox and a donkey trying to pull a plow, you'll find that there's There's friction between the two of them. One wants to go faster, one's a little bit higher. One of them gets their necks all turned around. Pain, sorrow, ineffectiveness. And just the analogy alone shows you the problems that do exist between those who marry. who are unequally yoked, a believer marrying an unbeliever. As one person said, this is a man named Donald Thomas, and he wrote a book called What's Inside? It's a book for young people to determine who they should marry. He says, to marry an unbeliever is to marry your spiritual enemy. As long as you are unequally yoked, you can never spiritually become one flesh. You will be yoked together with someone of a different heart, different priorities, affections, and convictions. To marry a person who is a non-believer is to marry a person who is an enemy of God. The unsaved individual's heart is in love with sin and opposed to holiness. The compromising power of the world will be given free reign to pound on your family daily. That's a vision of the future. During the dating courtship stage, people are likely to say anything, put on a facade, but when it gets right down to it, that's some of the problems that you'll have. Your spouse will not be able, think about it. If you're married to an unbeliever, your spouse won't even be able to enter into your highest spiritual joys. They won't even understand the language you're using. And in fact, they might even resent it and want to go to another room. Or they'll just stare back at you and think you're weird. Do you want that? If you're married to an unbelieving spouse, you may not even be permitted to come to church by that spouse. And if you are, be reluctantly and you may come alone. If you're married to an unbeliever, how will you open up your house to hospitality? If you're married to an unbelieving woman, she's not going to want to entertain a bunch of Jesus freaks. If you're married to an unconverted man, he's not going to want to open up to a bunch of people that talk about religion because he doesn't want to. If you're a believer and your spouse is not, how will you ever be in agreement on the biblical roles that God has set for you as husband and wife? If you're a believer and your spouse is not, how will you face the hard reality that your spouse is heading toward hell? If you're married to an unbeliever, what about your children? How will they be raised? What about disagreements on how to raise them? What's going to be allowed into your home? What are your kids going to be exposed to? Please, I don't care how old you are, how young you are. If you're single and you're thinking about getting married, don't be duped. Don't be presumptuous. Lastly, the revealed proclivity for two things under this and we'll be done. The revealed proclivity. There is something in your heart if you're someone who is willing to even consider courting or suiting or dating or dorting, whatever term you want to use, an unbeliever. There's something fundamentally already wrong in your heart if you're even tempted to go that direction. And I'm not talking simply about dating an unbeliever by profession. I'm talking about even thinking about dating someone who professes to know Christ, but their doctrine is not according to the true gospel. Religious people, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and Roman Catholics, many, many, many, if not most, don't understand the gospel. Don't think religion all of a sudden in their profession makes them a true Christian. There's more vetting that needs to be done here. But if you are gravitating towards someone like that, then something's already wrong. There's a proclivity, a predisposition in your heart that shows maybe a couple things. One of them you should ask yourself is, have I left my first love? Have I left my first love? Christ himself, have I drifted from him? Have I stopped loving him above all things and his commandments and his ways? That is the question you need to ask yourself. Am I willing to put something, someone over and above the Lord Christ? Oh, the last thing that happened before I left Lewiston, Idaho, and came here. The last counseling session I had was with a young woman, member in our church, professing Christian, who was dating a young man who was not a Christian. And I said to her, let me ask you a question. I said, what if You were a woman and you had kids, a couple of kids, out of wedlock or maybe you had lost your former husband, and you were dating this unbeliever. What if he came up to you and said to you, I love you and I want to marry you, but I don't love your kids? I asked her that question. I said, What would you say to that man? And she said, well, I couldn't marry him because I would want my kids to be part of the package. If he's marrying me, he's gonna be marrying my kids. Correct answer. I said, well, then what's the difference between that and this young man basically saying, I love you, I will marry you, but I don't love Christ. Isn't Christ so much more? than kids would be? How can you marry someone that doesn't love Christ like you do? Which leads to the second question and that is that maybe you ought to really ask, am I even a Christian at all if I can have this nonchalance about marrying someone or even considering marrying someone that doesn't know Christ and love Christ like I do. You should be concerned about your own soul, about your future children, sure, surely, but about your own soul as well. I'm going to quote to you the same man I already quoted, Donald Thomas, and I'm not And he's not saying that if you're a Christian that you'll lose your salvation. Please understand that. But the whole issue of perseverance of the saints is very real and there are professing Christians that do fall away from the faith and sometimes the catalyst or the first step in falling away from the faith is precisely this issue. The safest place for you to be if you're a baptized professing believer, even if you're not regenerate, is to be in the house of God under the means of grace. To whom else will you go for these are the places that give to you the words of eternal life. But, You ought never to be so presumptuous as to think that you will not fall away step by step and by degrees. And here's what this man says. Once you replace Christ with an unbelieving spouse as the object of honor and affection, which you do, if you date and marry an unconverted person, you have put that person above Christ. He says, once you've done that, As the object of your honor infection, you do so to the dishonoring of Christ. Your spouse becomes that first slippery step, which if left unrepentant, will lead you deeper into a life of idolatry and the ultimate loss of your soul. He's a Calvinist, okay? He's not... He's not contradicting the whole idea of being secure in Christ once we are truly born again. But he is saying, be careful. He's saying, watch out. This, just like skipping church, becoming sloppy, and then missing church altogether, and saying, well, I'm just gonna stay home and not have anything to do with church. Well, the book of Hebrews tells us that that's a mark of the road to apostasy. And so is this. Take inventory of your own soul. Why are we even looking in that direction? Don't play around the precipice. Now, I also want to close, and this is it for today. I do want to remind you all that though you must never be presumptuous, if you have committed this sin, and God has saved your spouse, praise him. But you young people and those of you who are single and you look and you say, well, God saved their spouse, see? So I can pretty much be assured he'll save my unbelieving spouse too so I'll get married anyway. That's an argument called post hoc ergo proctor hoc which is wrong. It means, because this happened there, it'll happen to me. I can make an argument based on what's happened before and make it an argument for me. Well, no. No, you must not presume. In fact, God doesn't honor presumption. If you married in ignorance, if you were a young Christian, you didn't even know about these things, and you got married to an unbeliever, that's one thing. But if you, with a high hand, go against God's commandment, Don't expect, though God may be merciful, don't presume, don't expect, don't tempt God in that way. And I also would say to, for those of you who are unconverted, you're young people or not young people, and you're single, and you're looking for someone who would make a good husband or good wife, and maybe you're even here at the church because you'd rather meet somebody here than at the gym or the bar, come to Christ first, and do it genuinely and sincerely, not just to get your spouse. And he will receive you. He will forgive your sins, and then you'll be fit, not only for heaven, but for a Christian spouse. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would protect our church and our children and all of our members who know you and believe in you from the kind of sin that we've been talking about today. And we know that it starts with making sure that we maintain the priority on our first love, the Lord Jesus. Help us to look to him at all times, to maintain a close and comfortable walk with you, to be in prayer and in the word, and may we trust in you and wait upon you, and pray for a spouse from you and wait for your answer, for we know your answer will not go outside of your own revealed will. We pray these things in Jesus' name.