Song of Solomon 8:6 “Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire…” For any of you reading this, I expose my own sins and errors—not so that you will condemn me (God chastened me severely!)—but so that you might avoid my mistakes. The right response to having my conscience violated would have been to totally sever my connections with this young man, because he was not living in submission to God.
Although your heart (like mine) may desire to see all men come to repentance and be restored to fellowship in the spirit of Galatians 6:1, if you find that a friend is starting to violate your boundaries, drop the friendship immediately! Let God be God in their life. You cannot “rescue” such a person, and you will fail if you try. Dropping a friendship is the strongest statement you can make, and it is also the most helpful thing you can do—believe it or not! It is especially helpful if you are able to do it in love, clearly articulating your grief and reasoning, because that conveys to the friend, “I care about you, but if you want our relationship to be restored, you must restore your relationship with God first, and you must learn to respect my boundaries and needs.”
This does not include married “friends.” Once you’re married, you have become half of a unit and giving up on your relationship will damage rather than help your spouse (and yourself, as painful as remaining in an unhappy marriage is). “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9).
However, do not let someone drown you. Jesus is the lifeguard, and he is on duty! If someone you love dearly is entangled in a web of sin, cry out to God for help in unceasing, intercessory prayer, but do not compromise yourself in an effort to untangle that person. As Bob Jones (president of my alma mater) used to say to us in chapel, “It’s never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.” But, what can you do? Look again at Galatians 6:1. “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
Notice that this is a group—not an individual—effort. What is the appropriate way to deal with a friend who is falling away from Christ and has offended you? Read Matthew 18:15-17. #1. Confront him personally, as friend to friend. If that doesn’t work, #2. Go with several friends and confront him. If that doesn’t work, #3. Treat him like an unbeliever. Ephesians 5:11 warns, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” Even Paul gave up on professing Christians who were living in disobedience (see I Timothy 1:20).
Don’t be afraid to “let go and let God” take over. He is able. Have you entrusted yourself to him? You can entrust others to him also, even if they are rejecting him! It’s funny how we learn things for ourselves and then struggle in understanding how to apply the same principles in our relationship with those we love! I have seen a number of parents live godly, separated lives themselves but struggle when it threatens to separate them from their children. Is God less able to care for their children than he is able to care for them? Many do not have the faith to actually break fellowship with a rebellious adult son or daughter, choosing a compromising friendship over standing with God against open sin.
This is not love and actually aids Satan in his destructive plans. We need to understand that there are few things in this world as the powerful as the separation from, and the disapproval of, those we love. Frankly, I have never known of such an unhappy, compromising alliance to have a happy ending, although God is very merciful, so it has doubtless happened. God’s call is for us to take an unswerving stand with him against those who rebel against him.
It takes tremendous faith and courage, but God will honor those who honor him, and I can tell you one true story where the parents stood with God and it turned out right. I have dear friends who had three wonderful sons. The middle son, during his late teens, fell in love with a somewhat older woman and decided to marry her even though she was an unbeliever and divorced. For the sake of the story, I will call him Will. The parents and two brothers reasoned with Will through the Scriptures and prayed with many tears, but all their pleading fell on deaf ears, and he was more determined than ever to go through with his plans.
When the family saw that Will simply could not be persuaded, they sat down as a family and told him that although they would always love him, they could not fellowship with him as long as he was intent on pursuing a marriage with this unbelieving divorcee because they felt he was resisting God’s will according to the standard of “be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14), and “whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery” (Matthew 5:32), leaving them no option but to “come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:17).
The next months seemed like years to that dear family, especially the mom. They loved Will deeply and anguished…perhaps more than he did…over the separation. I don’t know what happened, or why, but I do know that eventually Will gave up his girlfriend, and now—twenty-five years later—he’s married to a sweet Christian woman who is a joy to the whole family. I’m certain that Will is happy today because God worked in response to the faithful love and fervent prayers of his family, but I also think that somewhere along the way Will realized that his God and his family meant more to him than his girlfriend, and he decided that separation from them was more painful than losing his girlfriend’s affection. Our closest companions will always have the greatest influence. Be sure to always be there for your family…but always stand with God for good!
Summer Setting 