Are You Married, Divorced, & Remarried?
Marriage as God designed it in the beginning for all man-kind was to be permanent. In Genesis 2:24 God said, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Marriage is one man, for one wife, for life.
With the moral decay in our society, our children are growing up where respect for marriage is declining and the divorce rate has reached epidemic proportions. In the United States today the divorce rate is 53%. For every couple who get married, they are more likely to get a divorce than they are to stay married. Divorce wrecks God’s purpose in marriage. The teaching of God's instruction on marriage has been too often ignored, judging from the disintegration of so many marriages. We read in Malachi 2:16, "For the Lord God of Israel, says that He hates divorce." Divorce is one of the greatest failures of man-kind. In every divorce there is sin. The perpetrators of divorce have rejected God’s will that marriage is for life. The reason for divorce is selfishness. They could care less about their spouse or their children. They are only thinking of themselves.
The most serious part of divorce is that there is sin involved which will cause many people to loose their souls. Most divorces end up with either one or both of the spouses living in an adulterous relationship by remarrying someone else. Adulterous relationships will cause many people to lose their reward of Heaven. We read in Galatians 5:19-21, "Now the works of the flesh are evident which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness…and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." The Bible makes it very clear that one who continues in adultery cannot go to Heaven. If one does not go to Heaven he will have to spend forever and ever in the burning fires of Hell. Hell is real, whether people want to believe it or not.
Doctrinal errors concerning divorce and remarriage are widespread. Much error is being taught and practiced regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage today. James Baird in 1981 in a book entitled "And I Say Unto You" listed 8 different theories that people are teaching on Matthew 19:9. In 1987 Goebel Music in a book entitled "Divorce" listed 25 different theories that people teach concerning marriage, divorce, and remarriage. All of this perverted error is going to cause a multitude of people to be lost forever. Also those who are teaching this error are going to be lost with them. This is such a tragedy. We must be very careful as to what we teach.
People must be taught the whole truth of God’s word. Many people in and out of the church in our fast moving and immoral society have become involved in marriages, divorces, and remarriages contrary to the simple plain teaching of Jesus. People have tried to find a way around the Bible, in looking for some loophole, in an effort to find justification for those living in the sinful and lost state of adultery. The church is being filled with adulterers. We dare not "sugarcoat" the sin of adultery and explain away what God has said. We cannot help but have compassion for adulterers in their lost and sinful state, but in our compassion we dare not change clear Biblical teaching lest we also loose our own souls. Sin has its consequences. When we sin we can be forgiven only when we repent, but we must repent. One, who has repented of sin, does not continue to practice it.
In the following seven sections we will see how adultery is defined and how God defines adultery in the Bible. The Bible quotations are in red.