God's Word directs in tough situations...

Last week we talked about "knowing God's will and our conscience" Scripture reveals God's will for us...sometimes it is hard to hear Him speak because of confused hearts and minds. This past week there have been a lot of questions regarding "marriage...divorce and re-marriage" I myself continue to learn what Jesus is telling us in Matthew 19. Here is a part of a Q&A session John Piper had at his Church. I am just sharing it with those who are struggling with this. My prayer is that it provides clarity and direction. As always, we can ask God for His grace to walk through such times humbly and obediently. For those who are not in such times, we need to love and offer grace just as God freely gives it. But we must start with God's Word...


"If a divorced person has already married again, should he or she leave the later marriage?
The reason this question comes with such force is that Jesus speaks of the second marriage as committing adultery. Luke 16:18, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”
My answer is that remarriage, while a divorced spouse is still living, is an act of unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant. In that sense, to remarry is adultery. We promised, “till death do us part” because that is what God says marriage is, and even if our spouse breaks his or her covenant vows, we will not break ours.
ButI do not think that a person who remarries against God’s will, and thus commits adultery in this way, should later break the second marriage. The marriage should not have been done, but now that it is done, it should not be undone by man. It is a real marriage. Real vows have been made and sexual union has happened. And that real covenant of marriage may be purified by the blood of Jesus and set apart for God. In other words, I don’t think that a couple who repents and seeks God’s forgiveness, and receives his cleansing, should think of their lives as ongoing adultery
There are several reasons for why I believe this:
1) First, back in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, where the permission for divorce was given in the law of Moses, it speaks of the divorced woman being “defiled” in the second marriage so that it would be an abomination for her to return to her first husband, even if her second husband died. This language of defilement is similar to Jesus’ language of adultery. And yet the second marriage stood. It was defiling in some sense, yet it was valid.
2) Another reason I think remarried couples should stay together is that when Jesus met the woman of Samaria, he said to her, “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (John 4:18). When Jesus says, “The one you have now is not your husband,” he seems to imply that the other five were. Not that it’s right to divorce and marry five times. But the way Jesus speaks of it, it sounds as though he saw them as real marriages. Illicit. Adulterous to enter into, but real. Valid.
3) And the third reason I think remarried couples should stay together is that even vows that should not be made, once they are made, should generally be kept. I don’t want to make that absolute, but there are passages in the Bible that speak of vows being made that should not have been made, but were right to keep (like Joshua’s vow to the Gibeonites in Joshua 9). God puts a very high value on keeping our word, even where it gets us in trouble (“The godly man] swears to his own hurt and does not change,” Psalm 15:4). In other words, it would have been more in keeping with God’s revealed will not to remarry, but adding the sin of another covenant breaking does not please God more.
There are marriages in this church that are second marriages for one or both partners which, in my view should not have happened, and are today godly marriages—marriages which are clean and holy, and in which forgiven, justified husbands and wives please God by the way they relate to each other. As forgiven, cleansed, Spirit-led followers of Jesus, they are not committing adultery in their marriage. It began as it should not have, and has become holy.

If an unbelieving spouse insists on leaving a believing spouse, what should the believing spouse do?
Paul’s answer in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 goes like this:
"To the rest I say (I, not the Lord which I think means, I don’t have a specific command from the historical teachings of Jesus, but I am led by his Spirit) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. "

Which I take to mean that marriage is such a holy union in God’s eyes that a believer, a child of God, is not defiled by having sexual relations with an enemy of the cross; and the children are not born with any kind of special contamination because the father or mother is an enemy of Christ. They’re not saved by being married to a believer or born to a believer, but they are set apart for proper and holy use in the marriage.
But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? "

So the answer of this passage is that if divorce is forced on a believer by an unbeliever, the believer should not make war on the unbeliever to make the unbeliever stay. The reason Paul gives for this is in verse 15b, “God has called you to peace.” I do not believe this text teaches that we are free to remarry when this happens. Some take the words, “In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved,” to mean: “is free to remarry.”
There are several reasons why I don’t think it means that:
1) When Paul says in verse 15, “In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved (or bound),” I think he means, “not enslaved to stay married when the unbeliever over time insists on leaving and sues for divorce.” He’s not saying, “The brother or sister is not enslaved to stay single—and thus free to remarry,” because Paul, the lover of singleness, would not have spoken of singleness as a state of slavery or bondage. It is very unlikely Paul would talk like that.
2) The second reason I don’t think he is saying the abandoned spouse is free to remarry is that he just pointed us in the opposite direction in verses 10-11, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.” With a statement like that in front of me (“if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband”), I am not inclined to think Paul is supporting remarriage four verses later.
3) The third reason I don’t think he is supporting remarriage when he says, “the brother or sister is not bound,” is that Paul’s argument in the next verse (v. 16) doesn’t support that. It supports freedom to accept divorce peacefully, not freedom to remarry. Verse 16 says, “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” In other words, you don’t know, and therefore you can’t use that as an argument to create an ugly fight to stay married. So the words in verse 15, “In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved,” mean you are not enslaved to this marriage when your unbelieving spouse demands out, because you have no assurance that fighting to stay in will save him.
4) And a fourth reason for believing Paul upholds Jesus’ ideal of no remarriage after divorce while the estranged spouse is alive is verse 39: “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” So it seems to me that Paul and Jesus are of one mind that followers of Jesus are radically devoted to one husband and one wife as long as they both shall live. This ideal tells the gospel truth most clearly: Christ died for his bride and never forsakes her. "

Today there is so much "brokenness" within the Church.
I believe today is a day of grace and if we "confess our sins He is faithful to forgive us".
Today is also a day of promises...God's mercies are new everyday.
For those that are struggling and suffering, my prayer is that you find joy and peace in the love of the Savior. Live today in the full forgiveness and restoration God provides us in His Son.
God will never leave you or abandon you...
Those who are struggling with past decisions...come to rest in the forgiveness of Christ and find joy today.