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Transcript 855C — Living As a Single After Divorce
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Harold. I wanted to ask a question. In the Bible doesn't it refer to God putting our sin as far away as East is from West?
HC: Yes.
CALLER: And if He says that He puts it as far away from Him as East is from West, and we actually delve into it a little further, He says that we are to forgive our brother seventy times seventy. But if we really look at it literally, if we are to be Christ-like as Christians, and the word Christian means Christ-like, then are we not charged to be like Him in every respect?
And one of the respects I'm referring to is to put, in other words, as Christ forgives sin, and He says, "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow," and if He does indeed put your sin as far away from Him as East is from West, and we forgive our brother seven times seventy . . . what I'm leading to is this: If we forgive our brother the first time as God would have us forgive our brother, then there really isn't a second time, is there? In other words, if the first time is indeed forgotten, and it's put away . . .
HC: Oh, well, yes, except that your brother sins against you a second time. You've forgiven him and put it away as far as East is from West. That certainly is an application. But now he sins the second time. Now what are you going to do?
Well, you forgive him all over again. And again it's completely put away. Then he sins a third time, and a fourth time, and a fifth time, and a sixth, and seventh, and eighth and ninth, and tenth, and on and on and on and on. How often should you forgive him completely? And the answer is, as long as you're alive, the same way Christ has forgiven us again and again and again and again. As long as we live Christ has forgiven us, if we have become a child of God.
CALLER: What I'm saying is, if you forgive him after the first time, if indeed we put it as far as East is from West, then how can there really be a second? There can only be a first. Each time it's done it's really ultimately not the second time.
HC: Okay. From one vantage point I see what you're saying. That would be true. It would be a new first time. But from another vantage point, and a more normal vantage point, we could say, "Well, he sinned against me. I have forgiven him altogether. And now he sins against me a second time," – not second time in the sense that I'm remembering the first time, but second time only in that he at least did it once before – and I'm not remembering that, in other words, you can play with words here, at this point.
CALLER: The point I'm trying to make is this, Harold. And I asked you this once before, but I didn't really have time to digress on it at any length. But if a person is not saved, and he becomes married, and indeed he is unequally yoked, or whatever, because he's obviously not saved (either a husband or a wife, in this case), and he becomes saved, indeed in his ignorance he did not know. It's like God should forgive them, for they know not what they do.
So what I'm trying to say is this. If indeed somebody gets married and ultimately gets divorced, not having the knowledge of good and evil, as we would when we are Christians, as you and I would have, or others listening, if we in our ignorance err, and we become saved, and God draws us to Him, and we've become a child of God, by grace, and all the things that go with it, then indeed how is it that we could be in such a turmoil with respect to getting remarried. Even though we've become saved, we're charged with the fact that "Aha, you cannot get remarried, because now you are divorced." It just seems like . . .
HC: No, I'm afraid that you are mixing two concepts that are unrelated. Oh, they're related in a sense, but basically they're unrelated. On the one hand, God establishes laws, let me give you another illustration that may confuse it more, or maybe it will help.
On the one hand, God says that we all stand on the same ground. In Christ there is no male nor female, nor Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free. That means that if I'm saved, my wife is saved, my children are saved, we all stand on exactly the same ground. And immediately you could say, "All right, we all stand on the same ground before God. We're all children of God. We're all joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. We're all of royal blood (using all the terminology that goes with salvation), therefore we all have equal authority."
We can conclude that. We stand on the same ground before God. But that is not correct, because God also has introduced government into the human race. And government still has to be observed. Even though my wife and I are on the same ground as born again believers, we're both sons of God, we're both of royal blood, and all of this, nevertheless my wife has to have a certain kind of relationship to me and I to my wife, and my relationship to her is going to be different than her relationship to me. I have to care for her and love her as Christ loved the church, and she has to be submissive to me in all things lawful, and to love me. This is the government that God has established.
Now likewise when we come to the marriage relationship, you can say, well, here is someone who has been married and divorced as an unsaved person. And that sin is completely paid for, and it's all gone. Now does that mean he starts all over again, as if he has never sinned, and the next marriage is a first marriage, because the other one is completely forgotten?
No, no, God still establishes the rules of the marriage relationship. And those rules of the marriage relationship stand whether a person is saved or unsaved. God still has that government that applies to the institution of marriage. Otherwise the marriage relationship would become a shambles. The institution would become a shambles.
CALLER: You know as well as I do that the laws, and I'm not trying to play semantics with you, but as a Christian I'm trying to figure this all out in my mind here. And I also realize that before there were laws something like the Jewish laws. But in this case, now anymore, it's just irreconcilable differences. She may or may not like the way you part your hair. It's not a question anymore of morals or ethics, or anything that used to be part of the marriage ceremony or part of the traditional vows, or whatever, it's changed to such a degree . . .
HC: You of course know why this is. The moment that you start down a path of sin, it's like the fable of opening Pandora's box. Pandora's box in the fable was a box that was loaded with sin. And once that box was opened, you never could bring it back in again. And that's the way sin is. You start down a path of sin, and sin breeds sin. You become more and more sinful.
Now we see this very dramatically in the marriage institution. As soon as the church decided—and many congregations have been falling over themselves to make these decisions in the last two or three decades—as soon as they decided that it was okay to have divorce if the other partner has committed adultery, then that opened the door.
Then the next thing, they studied some more, and they decided it was all right to have divorce for desertion. And then they studied some more, they had some more committee meetings, and they decided that it was okay to marry after divorce. And then they studied some more, and they decided that it's okay to divorce because you have an unsaved husband. And then they studied some more, and now it's okay to divorce because I don't like the way you part your hair. I mean to be ridiculous about it for a moment, but this is the way sin is.
Now God set up very tight guard-rails around the marriage institution: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And if in man's wickedness he is going to divorce the wife that is saved, or the wife is going to divorce the man that is saved, then let that partner remain single, and let him not be married again, because God is concerned that the marriage institution be kept as holy as possible, for the protection of the husband, the protection of the wife, and the protection of the children.
But as soon as the church began to make its own rules concerning this (and of course the world is always looking to the church, whether they realize it or not, as their standard; the world will always live a little more sinful than the church), and if the church allows it, then the world will go a little more sinful. And when the church goes a little more sinful, then the world can go even more sinful.
And so, today, what do we have? The marriage institution is just about destroyed. Sexuality and sexua1 perversion and all the other things that have entered into it are going like Sodom and Gomorrah never even dreamt about.
And it all starts when you begin to destroy the marriage institution. God has very carefully laid these rules out for the protection of the family, and we can't rationalize around it. We've just got to try to be obedient to what God has declared, for our own good. God did not lay down these rules in order to be harsh to us, or in order to have a detrimental kind of a thing for the human race. He did it for our own protection.
One of the biggest problems today is that man thinks he is more wise than God. He thinks he's more wise than God in the number of children he thinks he ought to have in his family. He thinks he's more wise than God in connection with marriage and divorce. He thinks he's more wise than God in what kind of a gospel ought to be proclaimed; it ought to be this kind of a gospel rather than the whole counsel of God. He thinks he's more wise than God in just a whole lot of things.
And every time he takes an action that's contrary to the Word of God, he is doing a terrible disservice to the human race. He is making the human race suffer for it, not only immediately, but also eternally under damnation.
CALLER: I'll close by saying that I just find it difficult, because I'm in that situation. I wasn't saved at the time of my marriage. I got a divorce. I've been single now eight years. And it's tough. Being a bondservant, it's difficult when I see, "Thou shalt not lust," but then it says, "Thou shalt not fornicate." But it also says, "Thou shalt not remarry." I mean, it puts you kind of in between a rock and a hard spot.
You look at the churches today, and it's like marriage is going out of style. And I understand what you're saying about how depraved the world is getting. And I don't want to sound like Job and start arguing with the Lord. I know better than that. But on the other hand, I'm just betwixt and between, trying to figure this whole thing out.
HC: Let me help you a little bit. And I have to admit, I cannot empathize with you because I'm married. And I've never had to face that problem. But on the other hand, I've counselled with many many many people in my lifetime, and I'm fairly familiar with what the Scriptures teach. There are some basic principles that you might keep in mind. And I really would like to assist you in any way that I could.
Number one, we live in a world where we are brainwashed to think that the sexual action is an integral part of mankind's natural and necessary response. In other words, wasn't it Freud who really put the sex act as the very mainspring of all of society's actions? And that is a lie. God has created man, and God is the one who has put the sexual desires within men and women.
And yet God, with full knowledge of the way He has created man, indicates, particularly in I Corinthians 7 (and read that very very slowly and very carefully), that man can live a celibate life. And there are some very great advantages in the single state. That's the first thing. In other words, remember that even though the world's mores and the world's philosophies are such that you begin to think that unless you can have a sexual outlet of some kind, you are not able to live a normal life. But that is a total lie.
Number two, the Bible says, "Flee fornication." Now when you find that you're troubled by any kind of a sin—and this would be a very serious trouble for someone like yourself, who has been married and now has to live a single life—you want to get as far away from it as possible. It means that if there are certain TV programs that turn you on, don't watch those. Discipline yourself. If there are certain books that you might read that will get you into trouble, and get you thinking wrong, don't read those books. If there is certain company that you keep, certain friends that you visit, and by the language they use or the stories they tell, or whatever, it outs you into that frame of mind, don't have those kinds of friends. "Flee fornication."
A third thing you must remember, and this is very very important, the world wants what it wants right now. And if they feel like they're deprived of something, they want their rights, and they're going to have it. Well, the world may as well have it, because this is all they have. When they die, the next thing that happens is Judgment Day and eternal damnation. And this is the only place where they're going to have any of these things that their heart might desire. And even though what they're desiring is only leading them deeper into hell, nevertheless I can understand that the world wants what it wants.
But for the child of God, we have to take a long look. We have to get our life into perspective. And that's why it's so wonderful to have the Scriptures to assist us in this.
Now the Bible talks about eternal life. The Bible talks about spending an eternity in the New Heaven and the New Earth, where there is no suffering or sorrow, or anything. On the other hand, the Bible speaks of our life on this earth that we're strangers and pilgrims. The Bible indicates that we are like the grass that comes up in the morning and dies at night. Our life is like smoke, that is here and then it's gone.
In other words, God is indicating that this life, which seemingly is a long time, actually, as compared with eternity is like a drop in the ocean. It's like nothing.
And so you have to decide. Am I going to have my mess of pottage, my bowl of soup, like Esau wanted, and he sold his birthright for it? Or am I going to say, "Well, all right. So I have to live a few years, more or less. And I don't have everything that my neighbor has, or somebody else has. But on the other hand, I have eternal life and Jesus Christ is my Savior, and I'm living for eternity. I'm not living for today. And oh Lord, help me to focus my eyes on eternity. Help me to focus my eyes on what's really important."
Now incidentally, God lays down a program for the believer, which is a magnificent discipline, namely, that when God saved us He expects us to serve as His ambassador. We are representatives of the kingdom of God. Therefore, in everything we do, we are to act as children of the King. And, as an ambassador, Christ as it were makes His appeal through us. In other words, we are to use every means to share the Gospel with others. We are to look around wherever we are how can I somehow minister to someone's spiritual needs? And when you begin to fill your mind with that activity, that's a wonderful antidote to the other kind of thing that can grip hold of you.
You see, in other words, God gives us some principles to follow so that even though you have to be in the concentration camp, as it were, of this kind of discipline, you can survive through it. Now if you were actually in a concentration camp you couldn't get out. But you can fight against the bars, and you could beat against your captors, or make your life miserable, or you could reconcile yourself to the fact, "Well, all right, I'm in this concentration camp, or I'm in this prison," or whatever the situation may be, "and now, within the confines where God has put me, I'm going to serve as an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ."
CALLER: Thank you, Harold. And pray for me when you get a spare moment, because I'm sure there are a lot of brethren who are in the same situation.
HC: I will, and many will be praying for you.
CALLER: All right. Thanks a lot, Harold. Good night.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.