"When is a Person `Unequally Yoked' Together?

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?" 2Cor.6:14

Long ago, the Lord forbade Israel to yoke two different animals together, such as an ox and a mule (Dt.22: 10). It was cruel to do so, for the weaker animal would work too hard, trying to keep up with the stronger animal. Neither would there have been any escape from the abusive treatment, the weaker animal being yoked to the stronger. Using this analogy, Paul told the saints not to be "unequally yoked" with unbelievers.

In the old covenant under the law of Moses, an "unbeliever" was one who had not submitted to the law and circumcision. If a man was not circumcised, he had no part with God's holy people. In this new covenant, a person must also be "circumcised" - spiritually. "for we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit..." (Phil.3:3). It is Spirit of God which now makes one either a believer or a non-believer. If one has received the baptism of the holy Ghost (with the evidence of speaking with other tongues), God has baptized them into the body of Christ, and that person is a believer (1Cor.12:13). If a person has not received the holy Ghost, they are NOT a believer, for God "gives the holy Ghost to all who obey him" (Acts 5:32). Through the Spirit, God declares who is a "believer", and who is "not a believer". We can trust God. If you have received the Spirit, be thankful for the special "circumcision" God has wrought in your body. If you have not received the baptism of the holy Ghost, you are not yet a part of that holy "Israel", for you have not yet received the "sign of the covenant": the holy Ghost. We must add though, if you have begun to follow Jesus and have not received the baptism of the Spirit, don't be discouraged. Be encouraged, because God will give the Spirit to those who don't stop asking, seeking, and knocking - for many with faith may yet enter in, praise God.

It is wrong for saints to be "yoked together" with unbelievers, for the unbeliever (the weaker) is forced into a spiritual pace he cannot maintain. He cannot possibly serve God "in spirit and in truth" as the believer can. Those who have received the Spirit, have hearts which are spiritually inclined. Unbelievers, on the other hand, are "of the world", that is, they are motivated by worldly or carnal interests, even though those inclinations may look or sound religious. Everything they do, even the apparently good things, is tainted by self-interest. For good reasons, God insists that His people not be yoked to unbelievers, and that includes a "yoke of worship" or the "yoke of marriage".

Obviously, we must associate to some extent with sinners, because that is what this world is made of. The only way to avoid all contact with the wicked is, as Paul noted, "to go out of the world". But we can, and must, avoid all unnecessary and binding associations, because the nature of the world and all who belong to it is contrary to the nature of God and His people.

The problem is not so much that the unbeliever intends to drive the believer away from God. In fact, many times sinners prefer believing mates or associations. The problem is that the sinner's deadness to the things of God will, in time, adversely affect the saint who lives with it, day in and day out. "Be not deceived", wrote Paul, "Evil company corrupts good manners." For a sinner and saint to live together, a compromise must occur, and since a carnal mind cannot be subject to God (Rom.8: 7), the compromise must always be on the believer's part. God warned His unheeding children in the Old Covenant, "thy daughter shalt thou not give unto [the unbeliever's] son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me..." (Dt.7:3-4). Jehovah was never more in earnest than when he pleaded, "Give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons.... Make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. It will surely be a snare unto thee" (Ezra 9:12; Ex.23:32-33).

Ungodly marriages of "the sons of God" and "the daughters of men" (that is, between the righteous and the unrighteous) caused such an increase in wickedness that God angrily destroyed the ancient world with a catastrophic flood. Later, we hear Samson's godly parents pleading with him to marry one of the virgins in Israel, but he lusted for voluptuous Philistine women, until, at last, his enemies found him sleeping on Delilah's lap. Not heeding God's counsel, wise Solomon married ungodly women, who influenced him to turn away from God when he was old, and "Solomon [worshipped] Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites" (1Kgs. 11:5). Thus we learn, as Solomon in his better days preached in Jerusalem, "There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel, against the Lord" (Prov.21:30).

Israel's constant attraction to foreign ways of worship, and her self-willed marriages to Gentiles resulted in untold suffering and heartache. When the judgments of God seemed unbearable in the days after Cyrus, King of Persia ordered the temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, one of Ezra's fellow workers, Shechamiah, confessed, "We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange [unconverted] wives of the people of the land; yet, now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now, therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them" (Ezra 10:2,3). What an uproar among the people it would cause today, as it did in Ezra's time, if a man were sent from God to denounce the ungodly marriages of saints and sinners as Ezra did! What a stir it does cause when men of God proclaim that holy Ghost baptized saints must detach themselves from those who do not have the holy Ghost and are not seeking, nor requiring it of those seeking the things of Jesus. This, as we know, would be no easy task, "neither is this a work of one day or two, for we are many that have transgressed in this thing" (Ezra 10:13). Yet, it had to be done then! And the Scriptures suggest that the congregation will experience a similar purging before the return of the Lord Jesus (Mt.13:40-42).

At that time, it was discovered that "the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass." When we grasp the magnitude of this problem and see that the leaders of the congregation are most guilty in this transgression, we can readily understand why so little is said about it anywhere. The hands of ministers in the congregation are covered with the blood of fallen saints, fallen because of the effect that their ungodly marriages have had upon lives - marriages solemnly performed by such ministers, both physically and spiritually. Christian pastors are "marrying" God's children (those who have His Spirit) with those who do not have the Spirit. In earthly marriage the holy Ghost filled person is willingly joined together with the one who has never been baptized with the Spirit, and the result has been confusion and disaster for every one of them. And spiritually, in every congregation, those with the holy Ghost are "yoked" together with those who do not have the same Spirit. It is altogether filthy, and that is why the holy Ghost is pleading with God's people to "come out of her my people"!

I wonder how many more of our young women will be sacrificed to the lust of unbelieving men before the congregation is stirred to demand an answer from our overseers? And how many more of our young men will be allowed to trade their fire and faith for the pleasures which worldly wives offer, before we cry aloud to God, as the repentant Israelites cried to Ezra for help (Ezra 10:14)? How long will it be before we are moved by the terror of the Lord, as Israel was moved, to demand that the man of God stand in the gap and denounce such marriages, rather than perform them? How many broken hearts and ruined lives are acceptable? There will be an accounting for the marital disasters to which ministers are lending their hand, and an accounting now to the congregation is better than to wait for the reckoning at the judgment seat of Christ.

From Genesis to Revelation, marriages of believers with unbelievers are forbidden. This is one doctrine which should be agreed upon by everyone in the body of Christ, regardless of any other doctrinal consideration. So, my friend, do not yoke yourself in marriage to anyone who has not been born into the family of God. No words can express the grief of those who have rebelliously joined themselves to one who has no heart for Christ. Their stories (and they are many) are heartbreaking. Please, my dear friend in Christ, do not marry out of the divine order. How can two hostile spirits work together in the same yoke? If your spouse's objective is carnal and yours is spiritual, what will the outcome be? Oh, how many precious brothers and sisters are defeated and confused because of worldly entanglements, marriage being one of the chief. Their pathetic and despairing spiritual condition gives somber testimony to the veracity of the Word of God.

And to you child of God in the Spirit - do not go to any meeting where those without the holy Ghost are told they are born again prior to receiving it. This is the doctrine of Balaam (to mix God's children with the heathen), and has devastated and made destitute the body of Christ. Joining together with any person in worship who has not obeyed God and received the Spirit (Acts 5:32) will kill you. That is why the Spirit of God has by and large left the Pentecostal denominations everywhere. There is not one congregation that is clean in Christianity . . . no, not one.

"Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of an harlot? God forbid."

Believers should be taught that their marriage (in marriage and in worship) is to be connected through the cross of Christ, and the holy Ghost. That is the key to God's blessing. It is the way in which God unites a man and woman physically, mentally, and spiritually. A marriage thus formed is unbreakable. Jesus spoke of such a marriage when he said, "What therefore GOD hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mk.10:9). It is easy to find a minister for hire who will say that God approves of your marriage, but that does not make it so. Outside of the will of God, marriage ceremonies are as vain as all the other works of sinful men.

Paul wrote, "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" (2Tim.2:4). This is sound advice. The battle is on. The hour is come. The powers of darkness are leagued together in secret conspiracy against us, as we proclaim the unpopular truth that God's people should only marry within the body of Christ, and should only worship within the body of Christ. What will you do about it, my friend? Will you be equally in earnest about this truth? Will you speak out? Will you give yourself wholly to the Word of God, to establish His truth in the congregation? Somewhere, there is even now a young saint in need of God's light. How much does their future mean to you?

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