16 – Sherley - “My parents are pressuring me into an unequally yoked arranged marriage.”
“Sister Sherley grew up in a Catholic family in India, but she rejected the Catholic faith and became a true born-again follower of Jesus Christ. Her parents had already been persecuting her for her faith, and now they were using deception and threats of suicide to pressure her into an unequally yoked marriage relationship with a Catholic man. She loved her parents and did not want to lose them, but she did not want to marry this man. In my message to her, it comes down to, will she obey her earthly parents, or her Heavenly Father?”
The Cost of Discipleship: Choosing Your Suffering
Sister Sherley, of India, was facing a terrible situation, as you can hear in today’s recording to her. Her willingness to surrender to an unequally yoked arranged marriage, if it was God’s will, was commendable, but I reminded her, as I have reminded many, that the scriptures explicitly warn against being unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). God Himself hated the marriages in Ezra 10 where Israelites joined with foreign women who led their hearts astray. Consider the countless men and women trapped in miserable marriages, hating their lives, feeling like they've lost God by marrying a child of the devil. Sherley’s arranged marriage would yoke her to a child of Satan, in direct violation of God’s command. His Word is clear: he who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous; he who does what is evil is of the devil (1 John 3:6-10).
Like the wheat and tares in Matthew 13, there are only two kinds of people. God commands us to separate from close fellowship or relationship with unbelievers, to touch no unclean thing (2 Corinthians 6:17). Sherley’s situation echoes that of Madame Guyon, forced into a disastrous arranged marriage. However, God used her suffering in that marriage to bring her to a place of brokenness and humility, ultimately leading her to a total surrender to Christ. But many sisters like Sherley are already there, already broken and humbled before God, and God has no need to put them into such a painful prison.
Like Sherley, many of us, will experience the testing of our faith, when we are pressured to obey our earthly parents over her Heavenly Father. Scripture teaches us that following Christ requires denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and even appearing to hate our family to obey God (Luke 14:25-27, Matthew 10:34-39). Jesus Himself told a man who wanted to bury his father first, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Luke 9:60). He also stated, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).
There comes a time when trusting and obeying our Heavenly Father may require disobeying earthly parents. You must choose your suffering. Will you suffer now, through obedience and denying yourself, or will you suffer later the consequences of disobedience (Galatians 6:7)? Remember, “God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." You will reap darkness if you yoke yourself to darkness.
May God grant you clarity and courage to stand for your faith, even if it means suffering. He is faithful, and He will not forsake you. Be willing to be like Sarah, wife of Abraham, who did not give way to fear. I pray God gives you strength, light in the darkness, and fills your heart with the truth of His Word. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). May His will be done.
