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Transcript 417A
Questions on Remarriage and Christian Living
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Mr. Camping. I just was listening to your program, and I had the same question as the lady that has just talked to you. I was brought up in Europe during the time of Nazism, and religion wasn't stressed at all. It wasn't forbidden, but it just wasn't talked about much. And so I wasn't living a Christian life at all. But now, since listening to your program, I think my life has changed, and I have remarried also. And my question was, in order to be accepted by Jesus and by God, do I have to get a divorce? What is my proper way of living?
HC: Again, the answer has to be that the Bible is not really clear about this. There is no evidence that I am able to discover in the Bible that you should become divorced.
Now bear this in mind. You are saved not because of what a good person you have become. You are saved because you're a sinner, and Christ has covered your sins. He has paid for all of your sins. Now logically, and biblically, when we are saved we want to repent of our sins. And this is what you are struggling with. If there is any sin in my life, I don't want that sin to continue, because I love the Lord and I want to be pleasing to Him.
If a person is stealing, he stops stealing. If a person is lying, he stops lying. If a person has been troubled by the sin of gossip, he seeks strength that he might stop gossiping, and so on. And so when we know that our marriage was begun as a sinful marriage, now what do we do? It's a very fair question, a very honest question. As I've already indicated, as near as I can tell, and you'll notice I'm not saying anything very dogmatically at this point, but as near as I can tell from the Scriptures, you are to seek forgiveness for this sin and accept the Lord's forgiveness, and now go on in your present marriage as if it were a first marriage.
CALLER: In my religion I'm really condemned because of this. I can't receive Holy Communion or have any of the sacraments. Because when I was very young and I obeyed my mother, to marry the man she had chosen for me, my pastor is trying to get an annulment from that first marriage. I was wondering how God would feel about that. I want to do what is pleasing to God, not just to the pastor or to the church, or my convenience.
HC: Actually, of course, we're not saved by the church. We're saved by Christ. Christ is the one who is the authority. Now if you are married to someone in the eyes of the law, and if you have been living together with your present husband as a wife, then while the church might be able to arrange an annulment, the fact is that in the eyes of God you are married. You are married, the same as anyone else is married who is married in the eyes of the state and who is living together as husband and wife.
Now actually, the Bible teaches that there is a natural outworking of sin. If a man, for example, is a drunkard, and finally he becomes born again, he is forgiven for his sin of drunkenness, but he may still die of cirrhosis of the liver, which he developed because of his former drunken condition. Or his life may have been shattered by his drunkenness, and his family broken away from him. And once he becomes saved it doesn't mean that now he's going to enjoy all kinds of blessing. His past drunkenness will work out its natural outworking. A man who has committed a crime and is in jail for his crime could become born again. His sin could be completely paid for. But he may still have to spend the rest of his life in jail.
Now the same is true when you marry a second time. The fact that your sin is forgiven, and the Lord has covered your sin so that it's not remembered anymore, there's no possibility that you are threatened by hell because of your sin. If you're a child of God, there's no way that you can be threatened by hell. Christ has paid for all of this. But there will still be a natural outworking of this kind of action.
And it's easy to see this. There is the problem of the confusion that exists, the alimony, the past wife or the past husband and children that may have been born in the first marriage, and so on. It doesn't mean that your life now in your second marriage is going to be quite as beautiful as it could have been as a first marriage.
CALLER: You're absolutely right.
HC: In other words, you have a lot of natural trouble because it is a second marriage. But I know of nothing in the Bible that says now that you should divorce your husband. Now I could be wrong about this. I don't say this very emphatically. I only say that as near as I can tell you are not to divorce your husband. You are to continue to live as if it is a first marriage. And there are many people who have become born again after they have committed the sin of divorce and remarriage and now are continuing in their second marriage.
CALLER: May I explain something? I really preferred talking to you about this in private, not over the air. I felt that it's sort of very personal. But at the time I did marry my first husband, whom my mother had chosen, I did say to God in church, privately, "Forgive me for what I am saying, but I really don't intend to live with him for better or for worse as long as I live." But that was just between God and myself. Do you think that matters at all?
HC: You see, let's think about what salvation is. Let's take our eyes off your marriage now for a moment, and let's look at what salvation is. When God looks at you, He sees you as a person that is just covered with sin. You're no different than I am or any other human being. The Bible says that there is none righteous, no not one. Now you may have felt that you were living a fairly circumspect life, a fairly decent moral life in many ways, as other people would look at you. But from God's vantage point, unless we had the holiness, the perfection, of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, we stand condemned every day. The Bible says in the Epistle of James, in the New Testament, that if we have broken one point of the law, then we stand guilty of the whole law.
In Isaiah the Bible says our works are as filthy rags in God's sight. So you don't have to think that "Well, there was this sin that I committed when I divorced, and there was that sin that I committed when I was married the first time and I didn't have a sincere vow." Actually, your life and my life and everybody's life is one series of sins.
Now this is why we desperately need a Savior, because every one of those sins, or any one of those sins, will send us to hell. Any sin, a sin that you committed when you were three years old or five years old or six-and-a-half or eighteen, or whatever your age, any one of the sins you ever committed would send you to hell. Now when we become saved, it means that every sin that you will ever commit, every sin that you committed from the day you were born until the day you die, has been taken by the Lord Jesus Christ. He became sin for us, for you and for me, if we believe on Him. And He stood before God as Judge, and He was found guilty for our sins, and the sins of every individual in the whole human race who has ever believed on Him. And God poured out His wrath on Him, because He was guilty for my sins. And Christ, you see, bore hell for me. He took my place in enduring the wrath of God, the equivalent of an eternity in hell for me.
That is why God can never send me to hell anymore, because my sins have all been paid for. I have trusted in Christ as my Savior, I have recognized that I'm a sinner, and that except for the blood of Christ I would stand altogether guilty of hell.
And so I can look back on my life, and I can see sins that stand out. And I look at those sins, and I can say, "Praise God, those sins have been covered by the blood of Christ." But I also know that there are thousands of other sins that don't stand out. Every action of my life, there is no action that has ever been a perfect action. It has always been tainted by sin. And every day I can go to the Lord, and I can say, "Oh Lord, forgive me. I didn't measure up perfectly to Your glory, to Your holiness. But I know, Oh Lord, that my sins have been covered by the blood of Christ. And strengthen me that tomorrow I'll live a little bit more to Your glory," not because I'm trying to merit anything, or to guarantee my salvation, but because I love God and want to live for Him and show my love in this way.
CALLER: I have been listening to your program for a long time, and I have changed the way I believe in God and the way I'm a Christian. Before I seemed to be more afraid of going to hell, and I thought I had to be good because that was expected of me. But now, since I'm listening to you, my religion has changed. I'm bothered by sin, and I don't want to sin because I don't want to hurt God, or rather Jesus, because of what He has done for me. Is that a sign in my favor? Does that mean that perhaps I am saved?
HC: Yes. You can know if you're saved. We don't have to guess about it. I can't know whether you're saved. I can't look at your heart. God is the only one outside of yourself that can know whether you're saved. But if you know, and if you look at yourself very honestly, you know whether your will has been surrendered to Christ. If you know that you believe with all your heart that Jesus has paid for your sins as your Savior, then you can know you're saved, because the Bible tells us so.
CALLER: It's such wonderful news when you tell me that.
HC: Well, that is the joy of salvation. That is the joy of salvation, that we can know this, that our sins have been paid for. And when we find this ongoing, earnest desire that I want to live for Christ because He is my Savior and I love Him with all my heart, that this is my desire, not because I'm meriting anything, now there are many people who are desperately trying to live for God because they're trying to prove themselves worthy, or they're trying to merit something. They're trying to make sure that God sees all their goodness, so that God will have mercy on them. And that will lead to hell. But if we really are doing it because of our love for God, because we aren't comfortable unless we're doing God's will, then we can know that we're a child of God, that we're born again.
And you know, you put your finger on a very common misconception, and I'm glad you mentioned this because this is a misconception that is found in almost every religion and every gospel. You said that you have been told that you have to be a good person, or else you would go to hell. Now many mothers tell their children this. "Jimmy, now you better be good. Otherwise God is going to be angry with you, and you're going to go to hell if you're not good." And this is dinned into our ears. We've got to be good, or else God is going to send us to hell.
Now that is absolutely contrary to the Word of God. That is contrary to the Word of God. That is really saying that you've got to be a good person so that God will save you. And that path will never lead to salvation. The path to salvation is where we recognize that we're a sinner, and we cast ourselves on the mercies of Christ, and we trust in Him as the one who has forgiven our sins, and we pray that we might be born again.
And we can know we're born again when we find within our lives an earnest desire to be good, because we love God.
CALLER: Yes. I think I like your way much better, but it had to be taught through continuous listening, in order to understand what I'm listening to. And the only thing that bothers me is that I can't receive the holy sacraments. What should I do about that?
HC: The Bible doesn't say that we have to partake of Communion. The Bible says, "As often as ye do it, do it in remembrance of Me." Now if we happen to belong to a church that refuses us Communion, for one reason or another, all right then. Let's not partake of Communion. There's nothing superstitious about Communion. It is a sacrament God has ordained, but it is not wrong not to partake if you're not able to partake. There are many people who are bed-ridden, who cannot partake. If the opportunity does arise that you can partake, then by all means partake.
CALLER: I asked the pastor because I go to church. I go to my church, and everyone seems to receive Holy Communion except me. And my pastor can tell it bothers me because sometimes I walk out crying. Sometimes I become emotional about this.
HC: Well, you become emotional for one reason, not altogether of course, but at least in some way your pride is hurt badly. And we all are proud. And when you are singled out as the only one who can't partake, then it's a blow to your pride, and then of course it's very easy to weep.
But what I would recommend to you is, put your trust in the Word of God. The Word of God is the final authority. And spend lots of time just feeding on the Word, feeding on the Word. And as you feed on the Word, you're going to learn more and more about this wonderful salvation, and you're going to be strengthened in your life to live for Christ, and these other things are not going to be nearly so important.
Actually, the Communion service is not for perfect people. The Communion service is for born again people. Anyone who is born again is, to use the biblical language, worthy of Communion. Now we're not worthy because of what we are, but because of the righteousness which has been given to us by Christ Himself. Any born again person ought to partake of Communion. And so you should not hesitate to partake of Communion.
And insofar as confession is concerned, the Bible teaches that we are to confess to God. "If ye confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And we have a high priest who is the Lord Jesus Christ that we come boldly to, to confess our sins.
CALLER: Mr. Camping, thank you very much. I don't read as much as I should, but I listen to Family Radio. But I'm not as knowledgeable in the Bible as the way you explain it, and when I listen to you I'm sure I don't misinterpret it.
HC: It's wonderful that we do have this opportunity to talk together. And every one of us has to begin where we are. Every child of God begins having very little knowledge of the things of the Lord. And when we know someone else who seems to have a little better knowledge, we wish that we could be there, too. But our salvation is not dependent upon our knowledge. Our salvation is not dependent upon our understanding. Our salvation altogether depends upon what Christ did for us on the cross, and our trust that we have put our whole life on Him.
But if we do love Christ, if we do love God, then as we recognize that the Bible is the Word of God, it is the voice of God speaking to us, it is the way that the Lord Jesus communicates with us, then we want to spend as much time as we can reading the Word and becoming acquainted with it Then as you hear these discussions they'll also become more meaningful to you, because you'll begin after a while to say, "Oh yes, I read that in the Bible. I understand what you're talking about."
CALLER: You know, it's like food for the soul. I have come to the point where I need it, where I need to hear it, just like I need food for my body. Perhaps that's why I'm just afraid that I'm a born again Christian, because it's such a wonderful thing.
HC: Well, the Bible says if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, if we really trust in Him, if we've hung our life on Him, we shall not perish but we shall have everlasting life. And if you really have entrusted your life to Him, so that your will is given to Him, then you can know that you're saved. Or in I John 2 we read in verse 3, "And hereby we do know that we know Him [that is, that we are His child and that He is our Savior] if we keep His commandments. He that sayeth, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him." Now the commandments are the Word of God. And if we discover a real desire in our heart to be obedient to the Word of God, because of our love for God, then we have evidence that indeed we are a child of God.
CALLER: But, Mr. Camping, I have progressed quite a bit. But I feel I'm still perhaps too selfish. I like my nice home and the nice things in my home. And sometimes I feel very guilty that I enjoy that. And perhaps I am not saved because of that.
HC: Now you see, once we're a child of God, we're not going to find that we are already perfect. We're going to find that there are things in our life that we're troubled by. Is this sin or is this not sin? And we can go to the Bible to get information, so that we know what God's will might be. We can pray for wisdom. Prayer is the wonderful blessing God gives us, "Oh Lord, may I have wisdom on this matter, or that matter." And then, as we go along, God will give us a settled feeling in our soul, "I ought to do this," or "this sin has got to go," or "that sin has got to go."
CALLER: But do you think that this is really wrong, to live in sort of a nice house, luxury?
HC: Well, the Bible doesn't say that we have to live . . . the Bible puts it this way. The Bible says that we are His ambassadors; we are the ones who hold the Gospel that is so desperately needed in the world, and we are custodians or stewards of all that God has given us so that we might use these things as effectively as possible to His glory, to send out the Gospel. Now there's nothing in the Bible that says that it's wrong to be rich. There's nothing wrong in itself to be rich, that is, rich in the things of this world. But the Bible says let the rich be very generous in their giving. They have an opportunity to really make substantial gifts that the Gospel might go forth. The Bible does not say we all have to live in a tent, or that we have to live in poverty.
The main thing we have to make certain of, however, is that we are not indulging ourselves. Our focal point is not on me all the time. Our focal point is, "Oh Lord, where is it that I can be most effective, in the money that I have or in the things I own, that they might be used to send forth the Gospel?"
I hope this helps a little bit.
CALLER: Mr. Camping, you have helped quite a bit, and I thank you very much.