By Standerinfamilycourt.com
This blogger has a new companion Facebook page Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional. Like anyone advocating for an unpopular-but-just cause, I’m acquainted with many like-minded men and women who believe God created marriage only, and man / Satan created the dissolution of marriage, in utter rebellion against God. Those of us who are “divorced” in men’s eyes from the husband or wife of our youth, are still very much married in God’s eyes, since He’s the party who will never exit a covenant union nor allow a non-covenant relationship to prosper. Men and women who have been standing for years, are believing God for the restoration of their stolen and ruptured marriages.
Note: standerinfamilycourt.com recognizes that the remainder of this post may offend some Christians and others who are in subsequent civil marriages following a civil divorce, and may offend some pastors who have officiated these unions under the official but errant policy or position of their church body. Our intent is not to offend or judge – the Protestant church has taught an unbiblical doctrine on this matter ever since the Reformation, which has gone mostly unchallenged. As Jesus himself directly pointed out to an offended crowd, Judaism’s similar error goes all the way back to the days of Moses. We apologize for the emotionally distressful impact of what we have to say, but not for speaking the truth of God that others need to hear for the good of society as a whole. Our prayer is that individuals in that situation would hear from the Holy Spirit on this matter and that pastors whose practice is to officiate adulterous remarriages (where a covenant spouse is still living, born again or not, remarried or not) would repent before God for offending an unbreakable covenant to which the Lord of Hosts, the God of Angel Armies remains a party, regardless of any godless act of fallen human government.
One of the hopes for both this blog and for the facebook page is that our constitutional challenge case would develop a following and possibly even build to a class of Illinoisans with a direct common interest in the outcome of this case. What if my prodigal suddenly repents in the middle of the proceedings? God is in control, and is ardently pursuing him! If there were multiple parties with legal “standing” to our constitutional challenge, the cause shouldn’t die or the case become moot if marriage reconciliation occurs for one family or another who come along as a party to the case. There is no question that such an event must take priority over any other cause – wholeness in our families is just too irreplaceable and impacts too many generations to forgo for any public cause. Then, too, winning this battle in Illinois would only mean the same thing would need to happen in 49 other states plus the District of Columbia, since there’s no national fix to this national tragedy. God needs to raise up many others with the gutsy resolve to walk the very expensive and emotionally-draining, lonely path He assigned to me in this state.
So I’ve been pondering why fellow standers seem mostly reticent to embrace the overthrow of unilateral divorce in the courts? One possibility that occurred to me is the covenant husband or wife of their youth has entered into a non-covenant marriage with an adultery partner. Is it possible that many standers fear that if the law changes, their spouse will not be able to exit that adulterous civil contract?
The husband of my youth is also under duress to marry the other woman now that he has obtained his “piece of paper”, so I’ve definitely wrestled with this issue myself. He’s being compelled to legalize his adultery with someone who has been divorced for some 30 years and who has grandkids just like we have grandkids from our 40 year covenant marriage. Standers are spiritual warriors who have the audacity to pray that the 30 years of divorce will be bridged and that prodigal spouses in that other family will exit their adultery and allow God to restore their covenant marriage according to His will and way. I recently shared on Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional a glorious story about God doing just that, restoring a marriage after 28 years of divorce! – “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Mark 10:27
This last nugget from the word of God is why I came to understand that I mustn’t fear that what’s good for the country as a whole might work out badly for my particular family, should the Lord remove the profuse thicket of (prayed-in) Hosea style thorn bushes currently restraining my prodigal from legalizing his adultery. The spiritual battle of standing for restoration of a covenant marriage has always been about fighting on one’s knees, and this dilemma is just another aspect of the same.
We must understand that the falsehood we’ve been sold as “no fault” divorce is actually a one-way street that in reality amounts to unilateral divorce – the two are always mentioned interchangeably but are in no way the same. My prayer is that the overthrow of this divorce mill regime will eliminate unilateral divorce, but preserve a true “no fault” option available by mutual petition only. Where there’s no mutual petition, the party seeking the divorce will have to prove traditional fault. Yes, this will likely make it harder, slower and costlier than it is today to get out of some non-covenant marriages, but there are several possibilities for the God of all creation to move and overcome such circumstances:
(1) there may be some kind of substantial abusive behavior in a home built on such a shabby foundation which included premarital adultery, such that there would be provable cause-based grounds
(2) God will reignite the eros, phileo and agape between the adultery partner and their own covenant spouse, in response to our prayers for their family, such that there develops a mutual “no-fault” agreement to exit the non-covenant marriage
(3) since repeal of unilateral divorce would be a slow state-by-state process, the Lord might move the non-covenants to another state where unilateral divorce is still available
(4) in His sovereignty, God removes the life of an interloping non-covenant partner. (God spells divorce “D-E-A-T-H”.)
Even in the natural, the outlook for an adulterous remarriage, or any second or subsequent marriage for that matter, is not so good. If a 40 year lifetime of shared pursuits and experiences can be so easily discarded, what’s the prognosis for a so-called “significant other” who wasn’t quite significant enough not to be lied to, hidden from family and cheated on over a period of years? How much trust, security and confidence could there be in a relationship that was birthed in selfishness, theft and treachery?
“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” Matthew 7:26-27
God has been working in me uniquely and individually to believe Him in all circumstances that there’s no way He will promise and not fulfill (Numbers 23:19), even at the most hopeless points in the journey – when I’ve been losing in court, and treated as the wrongdoer by the human judge, slandered in a shrill chorus by both that judge and opposing counsel. And when to my dread, I can’t avoid enraging the man I love and escalating the conflict with every new development in this long contest of spiritual wills. God still leads me beside the still waters as promised, and will prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies (abundant vindication), in His timing and His orchestration.
It took time and much grief to get the nation into this messy situation in the first place. Purging this evil from our society is also going to be messy, but before a holy God, we really have no choice. He will pour out sufficient grace to get us all through it, glorifying Himself beyond all we could ask or imagine. He is able.
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce
www.standerinfamilycourt.com