I think people lock themselves into ‘words’ and the ‘law‘ and not the spirit of the words.
What actually is a marriage anyway?
Cant a person easily recite a sinners prayer in a church, at an emotional or deceptive moment and walk away, [like the seed along the rocky road] and never grow? .. an insincere verbal commitment perhaps??
Was that person ever really ‘saved’ or is that person ‘backslid’ and/ or apostate ?
Likewise how many people have entered into a legal marital union thinking they understood the committment, yet found they didnt even understand each other?
How many mistake lust for love?
How come so many quickly fall out of love when the honeymoon is over?
Like the love God has for us, which is pure and holy, how many actually have a marriage that starts out that way or remains that way?
Divorce is rampant.
Infidelity is considered normal in the world.
Adultery is encouraged by society as a whole. Look at TV..
Still that vulnerable little plant of love that one ‘can feel for another’ and then ‘marry’ can sometimes last a lifetime as evidenced by people who have remained married over 50 yrs and still have a twinkle in their eyes for one another….they seem to be the exception to the rule anymore..
The dirty devil has polluted every facet of life and religion that he can and never ceases to devise ways to torment God’s people.
We all are sinners and all make mistakes and often out of guilt, fear or ignorance can remain in an ungodly marriage for decades because they believe it is God’s will not to divorce..
Well it is also God’s will not to steal, kill or be a glutton, but those are sins the eyes get winked at.
It is easier to receive a death row reject who found religion and listen to such a one than to accept a person who has had a heartfelt change and a new or better relationship with Christ but has a divorce on their record.
I knew one such couple that had a great music ministry and were allowed to perform at church but because both had been previously divorced, legalistic members would never allow them to be names as official music ministry members, which eventually led them to leave.
In another instance the pastor’s 16 yr old daughter shockingly got pregnant so he married her to her boyfriend to make it ‘right’….
3 yrs later at the ripe age of 19 they split up.
She was allowed to be the music minister of that church, simply because she was the only one who could play the piano [ gotta love a country church~] that went on well til she was mid 20’s and fell in ‘love’ again…
Now to remarry, her dad had the dilemma on how to justify it, since the bible says so much against divorce and then remarriage, especially for a woman.
They decided to call her ex – gay~ After all, he once was quoted as saying he would rather be with a man than to ever have anything to do with her again… so he just had to be gay… [couldnt have been her constant attacks and her 400 lb stature]….no couldnt be…could it?
This compromise and legalistic justification seeking, on her dad, the pastor’s part eventually led to him leaving the pastorate, as he couldnt legalize everything he was so ignorant of.
So the point I am trying to make is that God has called us to peace but with the devil’s intervention on our ‘browns’ ,has interfered in our relationship not only with God but in every facet of life, primarily in marriages since God has called the marriage bed to remain undefiled and often it is not.
Jesus said that divorce was allowed because of the hardness of heart but only justifiable in cases of adultery…
Now consider spiritual adultery and God divorcing Israel because she went after the baals… false religion, defiling the spiritual marriage bed with the devil..his devices primarily… like changing animal sacrifices for sacrileges and temple desecrations, or the marriage bed defiled by adultery with another husband [ or wife whoever it is that commits the adultery]… and is adultery merely the sexual act???
Not necessarily… since it is a break in faith with the one you are married to and consummated symbolically by the sexual act [ or joining of house to house]..
It can also be, as to look to another with the eye, as Jesus said to look at a woman wrongly is to already have committed adultery in their heart… so it is more than mere ignorant infidelity.
So what if you are legally married on paper but have a spouse who has not committed their soul to you?
Isnt it the same as a person mouthing the sinners prayer insincerely?
I think there are people who are considered ‘legally married’ but have failed to be married in the eyes of God since He searches the hearts and minds of men[and women] and knows us better than we know ourselves.
Some churches out and out reject a divorced person but embrace a repentent murderer.
Other churches split hairs and will allow a divorced person if they were divorced prior to getting saved.
Still some churches will allow a divorced & remarried couple to attend but not become members or anyone of importance.
God has called us to peace, but Spirit of Religion has wormed its way into Christianity and the devil with his ‘has not God saids’ has managed to manipulate even churches who claim to know the grace of God and walk by it, take exception to those who are divorced without regard to whether they ever were or werent truly married in the eyes of God.
Why is it then, that many churches will recognize that a sinner who nonrepentently says a sinners prayer in another church will be required to ‘get saved over again’ or baptized in another church ‘over again‘ … not recognizing the previous feeble perhaps attempt, but will hold a past marriage in an iron clad condemnation?
Better yet, that person is considered to not being capable of managing his own household and therefore not allowed to be a pastor or preacher…
If all the exceptions were to ever be considered, who could ever stand before a church and be counted worthy at all?
GBU~! Ave
Ave 