The telephone rang and it was Effron. He and I played soccer together for over 10 years but we had not seen each other in quite awhile. After some catching-up small talk, Effron asked if I would be willing to officiate his impending marriage to Ramona*. I shared with him that I would be honored but first I would need to meet with them three times to do premarital counseling. He sounded a little surprised but agreed and so we set a night to meet.
I arrived at Ed’s house and immediately learned that he and Ramona had lived together for the past two years. Both of them were divorced and this would be their second marriage. My assumption was that neither of them were believers. Years ago I took the opportunity to share with Effron my faith in Christ but he was not interested. So, I figured this would be yet another occasion to share the Lord.
I asked them questions about their background while we relaxed in their warm living room. Slowly, I turned the discussion toward spiritual issues. Ramona openly stated that she believed in God and had asked Jesus Christ to be her Savior. I think the air went out of my lungs. She also went on to share that she had been angry with God and had not been in church for five years. Effron, still did not believe Jesus was the Savior and spiritual issues were not that important to him. He did believe in God and that God would someday judge all people. So now, unbeknownst to them, they were in a predicament.
2 Corinthians 6:14-17b—Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness. What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? . . . For we are the sanctuary of the living God, as God said: I will dwell among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.
Ramona said she had never read 2 Co.6:14. I shared with them that I will marry two unbelievers or two believers, but I will never conduct a marriage between a Jesus-follower and a non Jesus-follower. Therefore, based on their spiritual mismatch, I could not conduct their marriage. Effron grew increasingly agitated and stated that he would not put his trust in Jesus and then gave his reasons. I was able to clearly address his first argument when we ran out of time to meet. We will gather again so as to address Effron’s questions.
My prayer is that our Father will reach down and touch Effron’s heart and draw him to Himself. I’ve asked a team of prayer warriors to pray that Ramona will repent and return to obeying her Lord and that Effron will yield his heart to Christ. What they wanted was a pastor to put a moral stamp of approval on their illicit joining. But there can be no union called lirk or daght, we are either light or dark and in God’s eyes, it definitely matters . . .
*Not their real names and please pray for them!
