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How To Find A Good Christian Wife, And Keep Her! |
Chapter 11: Divorce
What If I Am Divorced, Or If She Is? Moses gave the law of God concerning divorce to the children of Israel. Deu 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. God said that if a man desired to divorce a woman he could write her a bill of divorcement and send her from his house, and both he and she were free to marry another person. Deu 24:3-4 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Jeremiah 3:1 NIV "If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled? But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers-- would you now return to me?" Declares the Lord. God also decreed that once a woman had married again, the first husband could not remarry her even if her second husband divorced her or died. Even though God permitted divorce, he was not sanctioning it for any frivolous reason. Continual unstoppable adultery was intended to be the only grounds for divorce. God told the Jews through the prophet Malachi, that one of the reasons he would not accept their offerings, answer their prayers, and bless their nation as he had in the past, was because of their widespread practice of divorce. Malachi 2:13-15 NIV Another thing you do: you flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "why?" It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking Godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. God gave Moses the law concerning divorce because he knows that there are some cases where keeping a marriage together is just not feasible. This law concerning divorce was not intended by God to be used casually, but only as a last resort, when a marriage was totally beyond saving. Also notice in the verse above that what God desires from a marriage is children brought up to have faith in God. Malachi 2:16 NIV "I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the Lord almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. God says that he hates divorce, and he hates violence. We here in the United States are guilty of doing these very same things that God rebuked the Israelites for twenty five hundred years ago. Our divorce rate and violent crime are going to bring the punishment of God down upon our nation. The results of divorce and crime are bad enough themselves without God’s wrath added to them, so we must hope our nation can reverse these trends. The Grounds For Divorce
Christ tells us what the grounds for divorce are. Continual, unstoppable adultery is the only biblical ground that God permits for a believer to initiate a divorce. Matthew 5:31-32 NIV "It has been said, 'anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. Matthew 19:3-12 NIV Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" "haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' ? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." "why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. Matthew 19:9-12 NIV I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." The disciples said to him, "if this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry." Jesus replied, "not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." Mark 10:11-12 He answered, "anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." Divorce, except for the cause of adultery, or as we read earlier, the unbeliever wishing to depart, is a sin. Now this does not mean that everyone who is divorced and remarried is living in sin, and should separate. This would be another sin, the breaking of yet another contract. There is nothing you can do to undo the past. Crying over spilt milk won’t do any good. Accept God’s forgiveness and get on with your life. Resolve to cure the deficiencies in yourself that contributed to the divorce so that your next marriage will be a success. You might say, deficiencies, me? She ran around on me, I had to divorce her. Or she changed after we were married, I just couldn’t stand her anymore. Or maybe she filed for the divorce. Maybe she couldn’t stand you any more or maybe you were running around on her and she found out about it and left you. As I said before, some people are game players. They want to make a pretense of being in the right so they treat their spouse so badly emotionally and sometimes physically that the marriage partner is driven to leave. Make no mistake, the one who mistreats is just as guilty of causing the divorce as the filer. Repeated adultery allows divorce. If the non Christian wants to leave, divorce is allowed, but not commanded in either case. These are commonly called “biblical divorces.” All other are non biblical divorces. Sins, but forgivable ones. Be wary of people who go around saying they are “biblically divorced.” They may be deceiving themselves by believing that the divorce was not in any way their fault. They may be very self righteous and judgmental and if you marry them you may find yourself “biblically divorced” from them before long also. All divorce is caused by sin, and we are all sinners. If sin had not entered the world men and women’s hearts would not be hardened and divorce would not be necessary. We would be in communion with God and if there were a problem we would ask him what to do and being perfect beings both parties would follow his advice. Unfortunately that is not the case in the real world. Divorce is a sin, no doubt about it. God hates it and so should we. Most people who have gone through a divorce do not fear re-marriage, it’s re-divorce that they fear. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin, the woman caught in the act of adultery was forgiven. But, there are consequences to divorce that may follow us a long time or a lifetime. There is alimony, child support, losing half of one’s pension, splitting the property, lawyers fees, bitterness, hatred, mistrust, problems with the children and custody visitation rights battles. God would like to spare us these problems, that’s why he hates divorce, because his commandments are all for our good, that we may have a happy life. Deu 10:12-13 And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good? God does not hold us responsible for what we have done in the past, in our ignorance, and he will forgive us for the sin of divorce just as easily as any other sin. Acts 17:30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Once you know what God expects however, you are responsible to live according to his commands. If you have faith in God and the knowledge of what he expects and are thinking about obtaining a divorce for any other reason than the continued adultery of your marriage partner, be forewarned, this will not be pleasing to the Lord. Those whom God loves, he chastens when they sin willfully and knowingly. At the very least you will lose spiritual rewards on the day we all stand before God and give account of our lives. 2 Cor 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Chapter 12: > 12. Remarriage |