by Standerinfamilycourt
Our response to this article,
Are the Church’s Teachings on Sexuality Still ‘Good News’ for the Divorced?
…which is (in part) about Protestant covenant marriage “standers” and their example to Roman Catholic divorcees.
There’s much to say here. Bottom line: Jesus told us in Matt. 19:8 that all “divorce” is a man-made fabrication “from the beginning”, a violation of the created order (Gen. 2:21-24; Matt. 19:4-6), and the only “marriage” God recognizes is both complementarian and life-long indissoluble by any acts or paper of men. He and Paul both go on to say that dying in the ongoing state of adultery – that is, “remarriage” after man-legalized abandonment of a God-joined spouse, sends people to hell (Matt. 5:27-32; Luke 16:15-31; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21).
The only people, therefore, who are actually “divorced” are the subsequent spouses who were never married in God’s eyes to begin with. True God-joined spouses are only immorally abandoned, according to the word of God, because only D-E-A-T-H ever dissolves those marriages. Jesus mentions NO religious test for this that is recorded within the four canonized gospels, nor do any of the Apostles reference such. Bluntly, all Christ-followers should vehemently object to Roman Catholic doctrine that waters down this truth via the papal contrivance of “nullity”, which today amounts to little more than revival of the vile medieval practice of selling indulgences.
By the “church” the obvious reference in this article is to the RCC, who since the 12th century has progressively watered down this hard truth with “annulment” (extra paper), a practice which is now almost universal in this country. The Protestant church, on the other hand, watered it down by ignoring / reinterpreting / obfuscating the scriptures, fraudulently handing jurisdiction over to the civil state by the Reformers, and by casting inexcusable doubt on the Apostles and early church fathers who unanimously confirmed the hard truth for 400 years–until history’s last “Donald Trump” came along (namely, the Emperor Constantine).
Under the concurrent polygamist, Constantine, the church took its first Leftist turn, in gratitude for being delivered from Roman persecution.
We saw this wicked cycle being played out again at the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas a couple of weeks ago, where in addition to the longstanding violation of Matt. 19:6, the largest evangelical denomination in the U.S. is now paving the way for sanctioned violation of Matt. 19:4, rather than repent of BOTH forms of marriage desecration, and rather than patiently endure the resulting persecution of staying true to biblical sexual ethics. Possibly the recent spectacle of human street torches on the big screen in the movie “The Apostle Paul” didn’t bode well, but there also seems to be increasing evidence of dirty money making its way into both the RCC and the SBC. The objective of the outside financial largesse, of course, is to complete the decades-long orchestrated political extinction of the biblical family.
“Irregular circumstances” need to be repented of by severance. This is a euphemistic canonical term for immoral life choices that Jesus and Paul both repeatedly tell us destroy the souls of those involved. Jesus couldn’t have been more clear that this is ongoing adultery in every case where there is a living, estranged spouse on either side. We can all empathize with the desire to lessen the stigma and trauma for the children of such illicit unions, but we must never lose sight of the betrayed children of covenant, and must never favor the illicit children over the covenant children (and covenant generations). God never did this. Jesus was graphically clear in Luke 16 when describing the eternal fate of such “married” people. We presume that then, as now, there were non-covenant children involved — just as there are children made in God’s image today being raised in sodomous unions.
In fact, while it’s great that this article highlights and praises the “standers” who endeavor to live chaste lives following man’s divorce, it’s also true that the only pure motivation for standing that goes the distance is the consuming and enduring desire to keep family members and our one-flesh mates (as well as their legalized adultery partners) out of hell by leaving the door wide open to their physical repentance. Any church that recognizes “irregular circumstances” and gives that any other treatment than what was prescribed by Paul in 1 Cor. 5 is directly stoking the demand for the rising, overwhelming incidence of divorce. We don’t need family flowcharts, we need on-our-face repentance in the holy fear of God!
The authors write:
“Protestants have a term for those spouses who remain true to a wayward spouse even in the wake of what may be a necessary separation and/or civil divorce: “standers.” Absent clear and enthusiastic support for this approach (both from within the Church and without), it simply does not occur to many faithful U.S. Catholics that ‘standing’ might be the most compassionate option for the abandoned spouse and his or her children.” (We standers certainly believe that the Apostle Paul would agree.)
This is an excellent observation, with a couple of caveats. First, most standers who are true Christ-followers do not consider civil divorce “necessary” under any circumstances, because they know it is of no effect in the kingdom of God. The obvious exception is, of course, divorce out of a “marriage” that Jesus repeatedly called ongoing adulterous (non-widowed “remarriage”) — a union which God is always precluded from participating in at all. This differs not one whit from a sodomous, legalized union for all the same reasons. Disciples in covenant marriages should endeavor not to participate in the civil system, and should be willing to endure whatever hardships necessary, rather than disobey 1 Cor. 6:1-8.
If the authors are under the impression that standers are ever civil divorce initiators, they are only fractionally correct. There are a handful of these who went from prodigal to stander after learning the truth, and then repenting (by leaving adulterous subsequent relationships, legalized or not). Separation without civil involvement may indeed be necessary for original marriages — and this is consistent with the instructions of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 7:10-11, not to divorce, and if divorced, to remain celibate until reconciled.
Secondly, local Protestant churches typically consider standers “pariahs” and a threat to the “unity” of the church. Some false shepherds will even carry out “church discipline” on vocal standers (instead of on the legalized adulterers whose souls are actually on the line). Of course, one does not necessarily need to have an estranged marriage to be a stander in the larger sense.
Thankfully, God is raising up a growing handful of Protestant pastors, with and without congregations, in an encouraging variety of evangelical denominations, who are coming into the biblical truth in the last few years, Berean-style, through deep study of original language scripture manuscripts and the writings of the ante-Nicene “church fathers“ (whereas their faithless peers would prefer to discard this valuable historic evidence in order to please and appease the religious humanists filling their pews)–and these true shepherds are coming into the unpopular truth by the wooing of the Holy Spirit. These men have determined to suffer the economic consequences and the censure entailed in refusing to do adulterous weddings, in attending marriage permanence retreats to encourage standers, in writing truthful books, and in preaching the truth without fear of the temporal consequences. SIFC and the angels in heaven can’t sing their praises loudly enough!
SIFC believes it was Dr. Towers who recently suggested that the effects of the standers’ movement on their children should be studied when there is a large enough sample size. Amen! At present, SIFC blogs anecdotally on this topic quite frequently. We would all hope that unilateral divorce will be abolished nationwide, well before sample size “n” can occur and before longitudinal results would ever become available. SIFC has historical doubts that the Lord will tarry that long in these Days of Noah, but absolutely applauds Dr. Towers’ desire to see this topic studied. Let’s be thankful that the Lord has orchestrated that Catholics and Protestants work together to turn the moral tide in church culture before it’s apocalyptically too late for our country.
All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
But He does according to His will in the host of heaven
And among the inhabitants of earth;
And no one can ward off His hand
Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’
– Daniel 4:35
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
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