I am going to start today with some good news, and a warning. Young woman, do not marry outside the faith. Not at all. There are consequences: the pluralistic rules that you have grown up in do not work in other countries. My understanding is that Miriam is a Christian but for the fact that her father is Muslim — and the fact that her Mother is not, and she is not, is immaterial.

This is one reason that Paul taught women to let their pagan husbands divorce them if they willed, and then allowed remarriage. (We can have an exegetical argument in the comments if people want to, but this is the reformed interpretation, to my knowledge). And he told the young to marry within the faith. Because it matters.

Sudan’s foreign ministry says a Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for identifying herself as a Christian will be freed “within days,” following an international uproar over her conviction for apostasy.

Ministry spokesman Abdullah al-Azraq announced the development late Saturday in Khartoum, just days after the woman — 27-year-old Mariam Yahya Ibrahim — gave birth in prison while awaiting her execution.

Ibrahim is also the mother of a 20-month-old son. Both children are incarcerated with their mother.

Born to a Christian mother and a Muslim father and raised Christian after the father left the family, Ibrahim said she had never herself been a Muslim, despite Sudanese law defining children of Muslim fathers as Muslims by definition.

A court in early May gave her four days to recant her Christian faith, and imposed the death penalty when she refused to do so.

Christian-Muslim unions such as Ibrahim’s marriage to U.S. citizen Daniel Wani are defined under Sudanese law as adultery, prompting the judge to impose an additional sentence of 100 lashes on the young mother.

Ibrahim’s husband, Daniel Wani, is a Christian. He was not allowed to visit his wife and children on the day of the daughter’s birth, but did see his family a few days afterwards. He says they are all doing well.

For what we have in Christ is much more precious than that which is without. Now, we limit our choices somewhat because not all those who we desire are of Christ, and the teaching of the Western Church over the last two generations has not supported men in leading their wives and families. But that’s something that men have to reform. And what we have been bought into is something greater than any man.

HEBREWS 12:18-29

¹⁸You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, ¹⁹and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. ²⁰(For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.”²¹Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) ²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

²⁵See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! ²⁶At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” ²⁷This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe;²⁹for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

Now, there are many out there (pun intended) who think the churches teaching on marriage is too restrictive because we won’t let those with Same Sex Attraction marry. Well, folks, it’s worse than that. The teaching is that we should not be unequally yoked: that we should marry within the faith. We should not mate with the lapsed, backslidden, or the antichristian. That we should preach and pray that all of the above, and all those who sincerely follow other paths should be bought to a saving faith in Christ.

And that we should not do missionary work in the bedroom: it will not work, and besides, fornication is a sin.

Now, there are many who say this is hard. And it is: but be careful here. Those who claim they are of Christ are not perfect: we all have favourite sins and abrasive habits. It is only in Christ that we are made whole. But at times that very consuming fire — persecution, trials, sickness, tragedy — strikes us, and forces us to become witnesses to the glory of God or fold and fail. Such happened to this Sudanese couple: she was facing death and he was facing the loss of his children, who were accounted illegitimate, as indeed their marriage was seen by the Mullahs as adulterous. But God uses trials to refine us. He’s not thinking as much of this world, but our eternal state.

1 PETER 4:12-14, 5:6-11

^4:12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. ¹⁴If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

^5:6Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. ⁷Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. ⁸Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. ⁹Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. ¹⁰And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. ¹¹To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

We need to understand that marriage is more than a fungible contract. When we marry it is not merely our bodies and our future children that are placed before God. We put our fortunes and sacred honour on the line, and the society we live in thinks all these things can be destroyed.

Yes I’m quoting an atheist here. One can use anything that is good and noble within the culture. And honour is not merely within the church, but is something you need to look for.

The first inkling that there might be something amiss with my new tools arose when I gave birth to my first child and became a stay-at-home-mother, dependent on my husband for economic security. It wasn’t so much the sneering contempt for my choice that clued me in. I met the ubiquitous “goodness! What do you do all the day?” comments with aplomb, I thought, answering, “the same thing the people you pay to care for your children do all day”. No, it was the frightened, anxious, concerned whispers that gave me my first insight into a culture that doesn’t like or respect men very much.

“But what if he abandons you and the children to starve in the streets? What if he decides to trade you in for a younger model? What will you do if he just disappears?”

The questions were serious. Everyone seemed to know someone who had suffered that fate. Everyone but me. The idea that my husband would just up and leave his children, his wife, his home, his friends, his family – everything we’ve built together over the years, struck me as preposterous. He would have to be a monster to do that! Is that what men are, at heart? Monsters? Just waiting for a chance to destroy the people they love? But what if he just left us in poverty? Took his income and delivered, begrudgingly, whatever the courts ordered and then partied happily with bikini-clad twenty-year olds and left us to struggle to buy food or heat our house or find the money to take our beloved pets to the vet? What if he did that? Again, he would have to be, maybe not a monster, but a seriously cruel, callous person. And he’s not. He’s the most loving, kind, thoughtful, intelligent and caring man I have ever met, which is obviously why I married him. “It happens!” insisted the voices! “All the time!”

But does it?

My own lived experience told me a very different story. Given that nearly 50% of marriages do fail, it was no surprise that marriages around us started to fall apart. But with one single exception, all of those marriages were terminated by the women. The only man I know who initiated his divorce did so only after the violence in his home escalated past shameful and slightly painful to life-threatening, and yes, it was his wife who was the violent domestic partner. It was only after she threw a stoneware dinner plate and cut open his head, nearly severing his carotid artery, that he left. Despite the encouragement of many friends, he refused to file charges against her. It was too humiliating. Besides, who would believe him?

Young men, know that you have to select women of faith and of honour. You have to be faithful to them and you need to know that they will keep their word and remain within the covenant with you. A living faith is required: that is clear scripture. It is also a good filter: but avoid those who play Sunday morning nightclub.

And women, everything I have said to the men applies to you. Finding a man who is both faithful and not gelded is hard. I know.

I will give you one hint. You will find him in the traditionalist churches. You better be prepared to live by that set of rules.