Category Archives: Marriage Restoration

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Divorce, family law, Lost culture, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Do Not Be Deceived, God Is Not Mocked – Deuteronomy 24 Revisited

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by Standerinfamilycourt

For both prophet and priest are polluted;
Even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the Lord.
…Moreover, among the prophets of Samaria I saw an offensive thing:
They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray.
 “Also among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing:
The committing of adultery and walking in falsehood;
And they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
So that no one has turned back from his wickedness.
All of them have become to Me like Sodom,
And her inhabitants like Gomorrah.

– Jeremiah 23: 11, 13-14

“standerinfamilycourt” should have been absolutely elated and jumping for joy when a leading Christian activist for repeal of unilateral, “no-fault” divorce in Texas recently posted these two YouTube videos of marriage permanence sermons delivered in the past few days in a large Dallas-area megachurch.    Not only did this pastor muster the courage to deliver the “u-haul sermon”  without the usual fawning apologies for stepping on congregational toes, but he….

– delivered this in a very engaging, winsome way….
– based it on the sermon on the mount, with mostly correct, accurate insights in at least the first video about the purpose and effects of TSOM…
– effectively set aside all the usual cultural excuses (except one) for Christians living contrary to what Christ clearly taught…
– acknowledged, albeit a bit hollowly,  that the one-flesh entity is created only by God’s hand….
– actually vocalized the term “serial monogamy” in a denouncing tone…
– admitted that denominations, pastors and churches had sold out due to cowardice on this topic, both politically and in church…and
– admitted that God’s laws cannot be escaped simply by ignoring them.

It was clear that some combination of marriage permanence authors, covenant marriage standers, and our friend, the activist were having a meaningful influence on this pastor, and perhaps on others like him.    But… since SIFC’s focus is on the souls involved, and then on legal reforms needed to redeem our nation (in that order), no rejoicing was actually possible.    The activist is in a second “marriage” while the wife of his youth, who divorced him and “remarried” first, still lives.    His second “wife” is actually another man’s estranged one-flesh wife.    Both shepherd and sheep here labor under the delusion of a “safe harbor” presumed to be found in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, and the (hireling) shepherd made another video in 2015 stating that the only conditions under which he will officiate a wedding over someone with a living, estranged spouse is when said spouse has “remarried” first under the immoral civil laws of men.    Says he (applaudably), he’s motivated and convicted by the need to steer clear of hindering family reconciliation, but (shamefully), when man’s paper has covered over an immoral relationship, reconciliation is thereafter and forevermore deemed “impossible”, apparently finding at long last something too hard for God.

It’s obvious, of course, why such a pastor’s position would be immensely attractive to somebody who now is in the “remarried” position our activist friend finds himself in, and who may have arrived there 95% innocently (5% was the Holy Spirit putting a check in his spirit that went unheeded), and who might conceivably make a very different decision today based on what he’s learned since.    Such teaching is also irresistible to a Christian who has an unadmitted and unconfronted forgiveness problem because the treatment they got in the divorce process was so ugly, and the ongoing damages so deep.   Boy, if we can find a basis to believe that God made an exception for us and replicated that one-flesh entity between #2 and us, because by “remarriage”, #1 severed the prior supernatural one-flesh entity, what a relief!

Tellingly, there is no early church writing that shows those leaders interpreting Deuteronomy 24 as preventing covenant family wholeness after a spouse has returned from taking up legal residence in the “Far Country”.     Those true shepherds didn’t preach “permanence”, instead they preached indissolubility.    “Permanence” has the potential to cement in an immoral legalized relationship and keep us out of heaven.   Indissolubility cements in holiness and automatically invalidates that subsequent relationship in every case.

Deuteronomy 24 seems to make man’s divorce “real”, notwithstanding what Jesus said directly to the contrary in  Matthew 19:8, and seems to forbid our ever reconciling, all in one!    Or does it?     What does the bible actually say about that?

There is a strong reason SIFC led off the early 2016 “debunk” series with Deuteronomy 24 as the second blog in the series, immediately after hermeneutically laying the scriptural foundation found in Matthew 19:6 for the no-excuses life-long indissolubility of holy matrimony.    The “marital unfaithfulness”  exception clause arguments that had, for 100 years or so, manipulated Christ’s teaching in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 were wearing thin and were causing a portrayal of Christ as contradicting Himself – which is to be expected when there’s pre-1800’s concordance evidence still lying around showing that the Greek word “porneia” never has accurately translated into a post-marital sin.   Arguments from 1 Corinthians 7 around abandonment or “abuse” even more rapidly wear thin when Paul is portrayed within the very same bible chapter as contradicting himself.    The sheer genius of satan in elevating the Deuteronomy 24 argument as the new “go-to” strawman argument is, that this one is far more challenging to de-bunk.    Attempts to do so are subject to criticism that if Moses said it, how can it not be God-breathed?    How could Christ contradict Moses (though He very clearly did!) if He came to “fulfill the law” ?   Successfully debunking Deuteronomy 24 marriage heresies also requires a firm reliance on two doctrines (the true nature of one-flesh, and the true nature of the holy matrimony covenant),  that Christ preached, but no pastor today (well, no more than 7 or 8 pastors today) dare preach!   Our 2016 post covered all that, and more.

Upon further reflection since writing that original post, a few additional hermeneutic problems with Deuteronomy 24 have come to light that weren’t addressed in the earlier post, and SIFC has conferred with a couple of other gifted, Spirit-led scholars who contributed some good further insights.    An update at this time seems quite warranted to bring these new items forward, though every word of the old post remains just as valid as when they were penned three years ago.

Pastor Todd Wagner of Watermark Church treats Deuteronomy 24 as creating an all-time prohibition against returning to a covenant marriage after one of the spouses (evidently, without regard to which one) has remarried.   He justifies this by citing the desirability of “outlawing serial monogamy”, parroting  as he does all the conventional liberal commentators.   The implication in this sermon is of the wife remarrying, but “standerinfamilycourt” is willing to bet the farm that he actually applies it on a unisex basis in determining which subsequent weddings he’s willing to officiate over people whose true spouse is still living.    Is this valid, based on the face content and context of the Torah scripture?    Is it valid to extrapolate a Mosaic regulation which Christ actually abrogated in Matthew 5, to New Covenant practice?    If we must extrapolate and extend this Mosaic regulation, why then is eating shellfish OK today, along with not stoning our disobedient children to death?

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is isolated from the rest of the marriage regulatory commandments Moses delivered in Deuteronomy 22, in a chapter that deals the rest of the time with non-marriage topics.    This fact alone should be treated with a certain level of care and deference in attempting to apply it broadly.   While the regulation in Deuteronomy 22 was fairly comprehensive and was broadly applicable, the instruction in Deuteronomy 24 is a conditional set of nested “if” statements aimed at narrowly regulating an evil practice.  That means, “if” the first condition (“when…”) is not met, there is no need to apply the second “if” condition, nor the subsequent ones.   Ditto for the third condition, if the 2nd one is not met, and so on.    With each iteration, the hermeneutically-responsible scope of application becomes narrower and narrower.    Unfortunately for our “remarried” activist friend, this means his situation will fall out of the logic at some point, and in fact, it does so in an early round.     Unfortunately for this pastor he admires, it should be obvious that Deuteronomy 24 cannot be applied on a unisex basis.   It is gender-specific for a purposeful reason, and that reason is not, as he suggests, prohibiting all covenant reconciliations, for all time.    It behooves us to look into what that purposeful reason for the regulation actually was, and keep investigating until the results square with all that Jesus (and His Apostle) clearly said to the contrary later on.

“standerinfamilycourt” commented on the facebook post:

When pastors “truth engineer”, it’s called EISEGESIS.   In the first 7 or 8 minutes of this — which are excellent to a point, we start seeing the eisegesis creep in when this pastor substitutes “intention” for “commandment” and when he focuses on this life going well, instead of eternal consequences of dying in a sinful relationship. If his theory were correct, there would have been no reason for Malachi, chapter 2, nor Ezra, chapters 9 and 10.   Furthermore, if this man’s theory were correct, the U.S. church and nation would not be under such harsh, advanced judgment from the Lord, whereby the salt (Matt. 5:13) has lost its savor (and we’re on the brink of losing our Bill of Rights and national sovereignty) — no longer good for anything except being trampled under foot.  The last several minutes of this video are a sophisticated, full-throated abuse of Deut. 24:1-4 which has several issues hermeneutically.

We know that Matt. 19:6 and 8 were not mere “intentions” because the imperative mood was consistently used, and because Jesus had just gone into the metaphysical reason (Greek: sarx mia, sunezeuxen) why there is no paper “divorce” even possible, hence no release from the ongoing adultery Christ repeatedly spoke of that always results [“EVERYONE who marries one who has been put away enters into a state of ongoing adultery” – Matt. 5:32b; 19:9b; Luke 16:18-31].   As a result, people are still being deceived (even if the standards are a bit tighter these days in a few churches), and God IS still being mocked.  One can never walk by the Spirit while coveting and retaining some other living person’s God-joined spouse, and while forever rejecting one’s own God-joined spouse, and while bearing false witness about who our God-joined spouse is.   Genesis 15:8-17 illustrates the true nature of this unconditional covenant of holy matrimony, because it shows that the inferior (human) party can only violate that covenant, but can never break or dissolve it by any act short of physical death.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Until pastors realize that divorce causes people to die in legalized adultery and permanent irreconciliation with their God-joined spouse, and that dying this way always sends them to hell, churches will never be adequately onboard with the repeal of unilateral divorce laws sufficiently to prevail in repealing them in all 50 U.S. states.

I wish this pastor, who clearly means well, could meet Pastor Ray McMahon, or Pastor Stephen Wilcox, or Pastor Casey Whitaker, or Pastor Gino Jennings, or Pastor Phil Schlamp, or Dr. Joseph Webb.

Final thought: so long as pastors still continue to tickle ears by framing their messages humanistically, they are going to continue to miss the mark. Humanism has always been 100% incompatible with authentic discipleship — which is why we’re hearing about the evils of “divorce” far more than we’re hearing about the evils of “remarriage” and why dying in this sin is not being connected (unconscionably) with its eternal consequences the way Jesus connected them, and the way Paul connected them. Such things can only be preached theistically.

Some of the “truth engineering” going on with pastors who have run clean out of other arguments (directly due to increased awareness of lay disciples around sound principles of hermeneutics) for not urging people out of their covetous, legalized immoral relationships is the anti-Christ myth that once there’s paper around an immoral relationship, it is “sinful” to restore the covenant family. This saves a lot of embarrassment and public admission of wrongdoing when a hireling shepherd has defied Christ and performed an adulterous wedding. God still knows whom He has and HASN’T joined into the sarx mia entity, and with whom He is the superior party in an unconditional covenant (see Gen. 15:8-17). This popular heresy is the evangelical counterpart to the RCC’s God-mocking vehicle of “annulment”.

Further comments left on the YouTube videos (6/21/2019):

He’s on the right track (sort of) by appealing to the sermon on the mount… Piper is 98% truth, 2% heresy. This guy might be 99% truth, 1% heresy, but the standard in the kingdom of God is 0% heresy, because we’ve been given the indwelling Holy Spirit so that we would not mock God without internal misery from doing so.

The last several minutes are a sophisticated, full-throated abuse of Deut. 24:1-4 which has several issues hermeneutically: its conditionality (nested if’s), its murky scope, clearer NT scriptures from the mouth of Jesus that directly contradict, its gender application, the extrapolation of the “land” from Israel (for a specific, temporary OT purpose) to the U.S.A. — to name just a few of the hermeneutical issues.

If Jesus wanted Deut. 24 to be His standard for marriage “permanence” under the Messianic Covenant, He would never have bypassed that scripture and headed straight for Genesis 2:21 when He discussed it in Matt. 19.

 To this pastor’s credit, he alludes to the commandment nature @~2:30 when he says “…tariff engineering might allow you to escape the government’s ire, but truth engineering does not allow you to escape the Lord’s ‘intent’..”   He purports to tell us why, without ever getting to the true reason why: the consequences are eternal, Jesus tells us twice in no uncertain terms, not just temporal.   An “inescapable intent” is by its very nature a commandment , with an eternal consequence for disobeying and never truly repenting.

“The best way to interpret scripture is with scripture” is true enough, but this can and does still lead to error and humanistic bias, if all of the other hermeneutic principles (content, culture, context, and consultation) are ignored. Accuracy in this hermeneutical endeavor requires an accurate starting point to which all other scripture must be compared. Obviously this must begin with the words of Jesus, and it should provide the “why” not just a “what”. Then, after that, it must be 100% in line with everything else Jesus said (He was never schizophrenic – if He said something, there was a serious, eternal reason for it) not only on the topic, but on related heaven-or-hell topics like unforgiveness, irreconciliation, returning evil for evil, the externally-imposed requirement for a disciple to live as a eunuch, etc. In my opinion, the only thing Jesus said about the permanence of marriage that meets ALL of these conditions is… Matthew 19:6, 8

“So they are no longer [ never again , by the verb tense] two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no [hu]man separate [literally, put distance between]…Because of your hardness of heart MOSES permitted you to divorce [send away] your wives; but from the beginning it has not [ ever – by the verb tense] been this way.”

This is in the imperative voice and is therefore a commandment, not merely an “ideal” or “intention”.   It was on this basis that John the Baptizer told Herod “it is not lawful for your to have your brother’s wife.” Had he said, “God is really disappointed with you that you divorced your wife and married your brother’s ‘ex’, so try to stay faithful to her, OK?” he most likely would not have lost his head.

This, of course, is profoundly unpopular in Christendom because it significantly raises the moral standard from “permanence” (which makes all civilly-legal heterosexual marriages theoretically interchangeable morally – “love the one you’re with” ) …to absolute, no-excuses indissolubility . Further, it paints figures like Luther and Calvin as the moral heretics they actually were. It shines an intense light on the immoral living arrangements of many pastors, not to even mention the current POTUS and VPOTUS.

This pastor has said in a previous video that he officiates “weddings” over the legally-estranged-already-married.   He rationalizes (presumably based on gross eisegesis around Deuteronomy 24:1-4) that reconciliation is “impossible” in those cases.   Not only does this fallacy contradict Christ on several of those closely-related heaven-or-hell topics, empirical cases of believers putting their covenant families back together after a series of adulterous remarriages, even where the faux, paper “spouses” are still alive
( #somuch4irreconcilabledifferences on Facebook)… show that God engineers these reconciliations quite miraculously.   Why? Because He is not willing that any should perish, but everyone come to the knowledge of the truth!  Why?  Because He Himself is the superior party in the unconditional holy matrimony covenant — and out of 267 unconditional covenants mentioned in the bible from Genesis to Revelation, no theologian has ever been able to show a single instance where God failed to uphold the covenant or where He entered into a competing one.

That’s precisely what Malachi, chapter 2 is about. When that OT “pastor” divorced his wife and “married” another woman, it clearly broke fellowship with God until renouncement and repentance took place, but it did not break the original covenant itself:

“…I stand as a witness between you and the wife of your youth … she IS (not “was”) the companion of your marriage covenant…”

Make no mistake, pastors who defy God by performing weddings over the already-married-for-life, and who refuse to apologize for misusing the Lord’s name to perform a vain act , and who refuse to counsel these people to sever these papered-over immoral relationships so that they can recover their inheritance in the kingdom of God, will share in the coming judgment because they acted as a hireling (John 10:12-13; Ezekiel 34; Jeremiah 23: 11-14) instead of His faithful shepherd.

“Thou dost not take up the name of Jehovah thy God for a vain thing, for Jehovah acquitteth not him who taketh up His name for a vain thing.”    – Exodus 20:7, Young’s Literal Translation

99% truth, 1% heresy results in all heresy, in its eternal effect.

To close out the gender / unisex application issues with Deuteronomy 24, let’s go ahead and apply it to the immorally-abandoned activist who gave up on his own wife after a brief time, and “married” another man’s abandoned wife, justifying it by the same passage:

CONDITION 1:
“When a man hath taken a wife, and married her,

CONDITION 2:
and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement*, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.“

(* Houston pastor, Timothy Sparks has written a paper disputing the translation accuracy of the purported commandment, “let him write” in several translations, showing instead that the manuscript reflects more accurately as “and he writes” – a simple condition or observation by Moses only.)

Nevertheless, “standerinfamilycourt’s” understanding of the facts is that this gentleman did NONE of these things.  His one-flesh covenant wife, in fact, did all of them.  Hence, the next set of “ifs” in this narrow regulation does not apply.    He cannot, therefore, use Deuteronomy 24 to justify remaining in a “marriage” to another living man’s estranged wife which Jesus repeatedly called adulterous.     In fact, neither could he have used Deuteronomy 24 to justify entering the “remarriage” in the first place, because this conditional Mosaic regulation clearly does not discuss “remarriage” by the innocent male party.    What Jesus actually said in Matthew 19:6 and 12 is objectively more relevant to this man’s situation, where he was legally but immorally abandoned, than anything Moses said beyond Genesis 2:21-24.

So, under these circumstances, assuming a Mosaic regulation can be extrapolated to non-Hebrew disciples in 21st century U.S.A., is our activist prohibited from reconciling with his repenting, wayward covenant wife?    David didn’t think so when he recovered the wife of his youth,  Michal from Paltiel, to whom she was subsequently given, after David did not put her out of his house – no “defilement” there.   Hermes of Philopoulos , the 1st century author of the Shepherd of Hermas also didn’t think so (2nd book, Fourth Commandment on Putting One’s Wife Away For Adultery), even when the innocent husband “put away” the guilty wife.    The previous blog went into detail about how Christ’s delivery of the sermon on the mount abrogated and cancelled those various and sundry Mosaic regulations, to leave us with only the 10 Commandments, condensed down into just two.    But there’s a more obvious set of questions to ask when applying Deuteronomy 24 today:

“What ‘land’ was being defiled if a put-away wife was reconciled to her original husband after taking another husband?”

“What did the ‘defilement’ specifically consist of, and why was it considered ‘defilement’ in the first place?”

Scripture is quite specific about which land is within the scope of this narrow Mosaic regulation:   “thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

Was the land of the United States of America, or the United Kingdom, or Canada, or Australia or Slovenia given to its citizens or their forebears by God, as an inheritance?     No!   There may have been God’s assistance in settling or conquering it,  and there may have further been an Israel-related purpose, in turn, for that, but nobody could argue that there was anything like the Abrahamic Covenant involved!     No, this instruction was specific to Israel!

So how about what the “defilement” was?    That actually circles back to why Deuteronomy 24 applied specifically to the genders as specified, and all of that points back to fulfillment of the prophecies and geneology around Jesus’ birth.     Of course, a man could not be involuntarily put out of his family or his house under the Hebrew legal system.    Women were routinely put out, though Jesus unequivocally declares that from the beginning this was never lawful in the kingdom of God.    Women only had two professions available for their survival, if they had no grown sons to support them:  wife or prostitute.    The law of stoning made the bill of divorcement a survival necessity, as evidence she wasn’t committing adultery in the legal sense, even if she was still committing adultery in both professions in the moral sense.    Her parents typically didn’t live that long, and even if they did, returning to their house would have involved return of the bride price that was paid.    If she became another man’s wife then returned to her original husband, there was potential for the tribal blood lines to get crossed as children were born.   None of this necessarily means that the one-flesh entity created at her first wedding was actually severed, nor does it mean that God created a new one-flesh entity with the second husband, who for that matter, could have been a concurrent polygamist under the culture of the times.

This would have impacted Christ’s blood lines, potentially.     There were longstanding prophecies about that, which further necessitated this Mosaic concession to the pre-Christ depravity of men that their rabbinic tradition wrongly allowed and facilitated (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).     Christ then arrived on the scene incarnate,  the risk of “defilement” ended thereby, and the Mosaic Covenant was officially replaced with the Messianic Covenant (as also laid down in prophecy).    It was now okay for Him to abrogate this Mosaic regulation along with all of the others, to clear the way for the higher moral standards of the Messianic Covenant which would now apply to both Jews and Gentiles.    As He said in Matthew 5:17,  He was thereby fulfilling the law, not prematurely setting it aside, nor “overriding Moses”,  as many of the remarriage apologists love to incorrectly argue.

So, is this pastor’s practice of officiating the weddings of divorced people whose spouses are still living, just because they’ve “married” others already, ever defensible biblically?  Is it ever not misusing the Lord’s name to perform a vain act?   Again, the answer must be:   no!     The nested “if’s” cannot be applied to the benefit of our activist’s guilty covenant wife, nor can they be applied to his #2, the innocent wife who was involuntarily put away, to prevent her from reconciling with the repenting husband or her youth….

The claim that adulterous intervening “remarriage” precludes and overrides the commandment to forgive and reconcile fails on all counts.   

Pastors who sincerely want to bring about a church culture of reformation and repentance must unlearn their politically safe and “aesthetically-pleasing” concept of “permanence” (which they also seek to apply to legalized unions that Jesus clearly, repeatedly and consistently called ongoing adultery while making no exceptions)…and learn the morally-stricter concept of indissolubility which Christ actually taught in that sermon on the mount.   It will be exceedingly messy, and look horrible as the repentance process is taking place (so did the God-commanded sending away of almost 150 unlawful wives of priests with their children, in Ezra’s time), but it is only at this point that the Bridegroom will stop being openly mocked by His bride, the church.  It is only at this point that His bride will cease being deceived, and at the same time, persecuted for standing up (without personal moral authority to do so) for “biblical morals” in others outside the church.   It is only at this point that God’s protective hand will return, and the days of His escalating chastisement will be at an end.   Perhaps it will be at this point, if it comes soon enough, that God’s hand will suddenly peel back and overthrow the immoral civil laws that have heavily yoked us for 50 years in the United States.

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.   So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth…..He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.    – Revelation 3:15, 22

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Remain Chaste or Be Reconciled: Two Co-Equal “Options” Per The Apostle?

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by Standerinfamilycourt

“And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”
– Genesis 3:15-16

But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
– 1 Corinthians 7:10-11

Jack and Jill were joined in inseverable holy matrimony many years ago.   Upon valid, witnessed vows, God’s hand created a one-flesh new entity, with which He then unconditionally covenanted as the superior party.   Jack and Jill had no children in the brief time before their estrangement, and after a time, Jill began to feel emotionally-abused by Jack.    Jill reasoned that this was because she must have married Jack “outside God’s will” and satan, more than happy to oblige, whispered to her: “if you stay, this is going to turn physical”.
(The Evil One’s very name, it should be noted, literally means “accuser of men”.)    She availed herself of man’s unilateral no-fault divorce laws, after the fashion of the majority of women in our culture.    Not long thereafter, she “married” Jim, thinking she could now have a Christ-centered marriage.    The hireling pastor involved was no obstacle to the second wedding.   Domestically, Jim was better able to manage Jill’s emotions than Jack, and children were born into this adulterous union.   Several more years passed.

One day Jill encountered serious covenant marriage standers online who pointed out the mountain of truth in God’s word that “remarriage” to another while her original husband lives is adultery, not just on the wedding night, but every night thereafter.   At first, Jill quite naturally resisted, but nevertheless she took some time to study the word of God for herself with an open heart to obey, to do whatever was necessary to follow Christ completely, and eventually the Holy Spirit persuades her to get out of this adulterous-but-happy second marriage.  She was able to eventually persuade Jim, which enabled a mutual consent petition and voluntary shared parenting arrangements.

Meanwhile, Jack has come to a very different place spiritually than when his bride was last willing to live with him.    He, too, has been absorbing God’s word, is relieved that Jill is no longer living in papered-over adultery, and it appears he hopes for reconciliation.      He is gentle in his efforts to woo Jill back, and hopefully, much is happening in prayer that the rest of us don’t see except in his manner.     If Jack became entangled during the years of estrangement, he too has become disentangled.  We don’t really know yet, and only God knows, whether Jack is ready spiritually to resume and sustain their union, non-covenant children in tow, under the same roof, but his heart appears open to growing his own discipleship.   He has publicly apologized to Jill and expressed regret for the emotional pain he caused her in their marriage.    All of this puts Jack and Jill light years ahead of most estranged Christian couples on the path to the kingdom of God, and is truly a cause for rejoicing even though reconciliation doesn’t appear to be on the horizon.

Enter the blind guide:  Joe means well, but like all of us shepherdless sheep, is no less vulnerable to being controlled by emotions and scars.   Joe runs a local “house church” and a very large standers’ ministry.   Joe has been legally estranged from his covenant wife for a couple of decades, and would probably prefer not to be reconciled, for a variety of reasons.    He frankly wouldn’t have time for her if she did get out of her adulterous “remarriage”, and he routinely refers to her as his “ex”, neither cringing  nor voicing objections when countless other professing “Christians” do the same.   Brother Joe has undergone the further pain of being emotionally alienated by the actions of his wayward wife from his (now-grown) children and sadly hasn’t seen any of them, much less his grandchildren, in many years.    Joe now leads a vibrant “single” life which includes freedom, travel, financial autonomy, mission trips and several ministries.   He reasons that this is in keeping with much of the rest of what the Apostle Paul advocated in the 7th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians about kingdom of God fruitfulness from forsaking marriage altogether, if one is “not bound” to a wife.     He considers himself “single” rather than part of an unsevered one-flesh entity.    Joe devoted a recorded group teaching delivered to the rest of the large stander community about this issue, saying that verse 11,  gives estranged covenant spouses two “options”.   Says Joe, they are not required by scripture to reconcile.    It says right there in that verse, they can “remain unmarried”  – or -they can reconcile.

Is Joe right?   Or is he really just a Christ-robed “MGTOW*” ?
(*rightly-disgruntled “men going their own way”)

We’ll get the technical part of this discussion over with early, so that we can return to a robust discussion of submitted discipleship as a true follower of Christ.   One more thing needs to be said first:  every disciple needs a certain amount of judgment-free space to “work out their own salvation with fear and trembling” once they do have the accurate scriptural facts–and unless there’s some strong indication that the brother or sister is acting in willful hypocrisy while knowing and rejecting the truth, they are entitled to the presumption of good faith in pursuit of God’s will and His truth.    Jill and Joe have much in common in many ways, and one of those ways is they are both in this particular good-faith “boat”.     Satan’s “no-fault” attack on marriage, and its horrible consequences in the church  has been a “doozie” from which it’s not been easy to recover, most of us would agree.

It should by now be no surprise to regular followers of “7 Times Around the Jericho Wall” blog to hear “standerinfamilycourt” remind that the answer to rightly dividing scriptures like 1 Corinthians 7:11 boils down to not taking any shortcuts in applying the 5 basic principles of sound hermeneutics:  Content, Context, Culture, Comparison, and Consultation.    We have gone into great depth in previous blogs about applying the study technique, so this post will be a “cliff notes” revisit.   Despite anyone’s praying, fasting and seeking the Lord for their personal answer, after which they will “feel lead to…”,  SIFC is going to posit that someone who takes 1 Corinthians 7:11 as “two co-equal options” (remain chaste, be reconciled) has stopped superficially at Content, and didn’t really dig very deeply into that one.


(scripture4all.org  Greek Interlinear Text Tool.  Please click to enlarge.)

A couple of quick point-outs about the content of this scripture:

(1) it speaks of involuntary estrangement (choresthetai – literally, to “put distance between”, as the literal furrows in a plowed field), and is not a recognition of any validity for legal “dissolution” of the marriage.   Neither does it validate the reciprocation of that estrangement, which would be incompatible with Christ’s concept of one-flesh (sarx mia), and would excuse both spouses from their 1 Cor. 11:3 roles in the kingdom of God, with which the involuntary estrangement is interfering.    Most importantly, it prescribes a disciple’s gracious response to a circumstance that remains beyond their control.

(2) we must not overlook the importance of Paul beginning this instruction with utter clarity about Whose instruction (commandment) this is: “But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife not leave her husband“.   (Some translations insert “should” here, but neither the text nor the parsing gives them any support for implying such permissiveness.)

(3) Nowhere in all of 1 Corinthians 7 does Paul ever address “divorced” people, or ever recognize man’s divorce as having any validity whatsoever.   He speaks of illicit legal proceedings in 1 Corinthian 6, but ceases to speak of it there.    Elsewhere, Paul tells us in no uncertain terms that God’s “divorce” is always spelled “D-E-A-T-H”.    If that were not so, Paul would be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

(With points 2 and 3 above, we have segued into the Context principle, which SIFC could take much further, but instead refers our readers to prior blogs.)   We simply say that the advocates of co-equal “options” in 1 Corinthians 7 really can’t go here, and don’t dare go here without corrupting or conflating who Paul was addressing in each section of this epistle.    When he speaks of the “unmarried” “being free of concern for a spouse” hindering them from the kingdom of God, he is not speaking of “dedetai”  but of “dedoulotai”.
Scripture consistency demands the understanding that the estranged covenant spouse is nevertheless “married”, in Paul’s parlance (and Christ’s).

We must remember that Paul got his instructions for marriage from spending three years of direct time with the resurrected Jesus, as he tell us in Galatians 1:

“But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.  Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas (Peter)…”

When Paul says, “not I but the Lord”, this is a much stronger statement than if he’d merely been taught by the rest of the Apostles after his conversion, both by the amount of instruction time involved (equal to time spent by Christ with His disciples) and by the force with which he says it.    Any woman who leaves her husband permanently is in sin.   If she leaves him even temporarily for any reason short of physical safety, she is in sin.  She is actually rebelling against God’s sentence in Genesis 3:16, and its NT echo in 1 Corinthians 11:3.   This is as true of Jill as it is of Joe’s wife.    It is true even after she gets out of a faux “marriage” that, for however many years, has been masquerading as her true marriage.   Will this particular state of sin keep her out of heaven, or just reduce her rewards?  SIFC humbly submits that this depends on her heart being of the same hardness as the “unmerciful servant” of Matthew 18:23-35, and would strongly recommend gambling on the eternally safe side of that gamble (more about that below).

But who else is in sin?   Early church father Hermes tells us in a writing called “The Shepherd of Hermas”, of which there is documentary evidence that the Apostle’s disciples attributed the weight of scripture (in other words, conviction of Holy Spirit inspiration):

Mandate 4
1[29]:1 “I charge thee, “saith he, “to keep purity, and let not a thought enter into thy heart concerning another’s wife, or concerning fornication, or concerning any such like evil deeds; for in so doing thou commitest a great sin. But remember thine own wife always, and thou shalt never go wrong.
1[29]:2 For should this desire enter into thine heart, thou wilt go wrong, and should any other as evil as this, thou commitest sin. For this desire in a servant of God is a great sin; and if any man doeth this evil deed, he worketh out death for himself.
1[29]:3 Look to it therefore. Abstain from this desire; for, where holiness dwelleth, there lawlessness ought not to enter into the heart of a righteous man.”
1[29]:4 I say to him, “Sir, permit me to ask thee a few more questions” “Say on,” saith he. “Sir,” say I, “if a man who has a wife that is faithful in the Lord detect her in adultery, doth the husband sin in living with her?”
1[29]:5 “So long as he is ignorant,” saith he, “he sinneth not; but if the husband know of her sin, and the wife repent not, but continue in her fornication, and her husband live with her, he makes himself responsible for her sin and an accomplice in her adultery.”
1[29]:6 “What then, Sir,” say I, “shall the husband do, if the wife continue in this case?” “Let him divorce(*) her,” saith he, “and let the husband abide alone: but if after divorcing (*) his wife he shall marry another, he likewise committeth adultery.”
1[29]:7 “If then, Sir,” say I, “after the wife is divorced (*), she repent and desire to return to her own husband, shall she not be received?”
1[29]:8 “Certainly,” saith he, “if the husband receiveth her not, he sinneth and bringeth great sin upon himself; nay, one who hath sinned and repented must be received, yet not often; for there is but one repentance for the servants of God. For the sake of her repentance therefore the husband ought not to marry. This is the manner of acting enjoined on husband and wife.
1[29]:9 Not only,” saith he, “is it adultery, if a man pollute his flesh, but whosoever doeth things like unto the heathen committeth adultery. If therefore in such deeds as these likewise a man continue and repent not, keep away from him, and live not with him. Otherwise, thou also art a partaker of his sin.
1[29]:10 For this cause ye were enjoined to remain single, whether husband or wife; for in such cases repentance is possible.

[   SIFC:  (*) This translation of The Shepherd uses the words “put away” (or, send away) instead of “divorce”, and here is the original Greek text –

where the word “apoluo” was used (literally meaning: “from-loose”) which most of the early church fathers considered a separation only from “bed and board”- not necessarily a legal dissolution, though Hermes’ writing indeed indicates that Roman law, similar to today’s “condonation” provisions in some U.S. states, may have immorally required this in order to legally exonerate the husband from presumptions of “complicity”.]    This distinction is important because it helps establish that the disciples’ disciples such as Hermes only recognized legal divorce as a man-made contrivance, and (like Jesus) didn’t really hold that it dissolved the actual union.   

 Note, however, that Hermes specifically charged one-flesh spouses with the duty of care over each other’s souls, and so portrays the Holy Spirit as commanding reconciliation consistent with no-excuses indissolubility, so far as it depends upon us.      This would be consistent with the sharp warning Jesus gave in Matthew 18:23-35, also with 2 Corinthians 5:18 and Romans 12:17-19, as well as with 1 Corinthians 7:2-3.    Some who can’t presently bring themselves to obey in this area will try to call this idea that reconciliation is mandatory, “legalism”.   “standerinfamilycourt” appreciates Leonard Ravenhill’s take on legalism, and would suggest taking great care before obedience to an apparent heaven-or-hell commandment is dismissed by a Christ-follower as “legalism”, even though many contemporary “Christians” do so almost reflexively.

“standerinfamilycourt”  personally admits accepting this commandment reluctantly, since a returned spouse in this instance means one who is likely to come back to a financially and emotionally stable household with shattered health and finances, not to even mention a mountain of debt trailing behind as one more evidence of God’s merciful attempt to change their “free will”.    (The Prodigal Son came back home with the stench of hog manure on him and still was draped with his father’s best robe before finding a bathtub.)  Cherished activities and ministries may have to be given up with little or no notice to others.   Oh that Paul had left us with two equally moral options, of which we could “opt” to fulfill the easier of the two!  But a repenting spouse who dies in his or her sins because we refused to lay down our lives the way Jesus did, is infinitely and eternally worse for us, as the prodigal’s “other half”.    Let such a thing as allowing a prodigal to die in their sin be God’s decision, never SIFC’s!

With this last bit of discussion, we’ve just applied three more principles of sound hermeneutics to 1 Corinthians 7:11 – remain chaste or be reconciled:  Culture, Comparison and Consultation.

As readers might imagine, there is a real Jill and a real Jack in the online marriage permanence community.   One of them appears to be earnestly seeking to reconcile and the other has been making some powerful YouTube videos that have raised some of these questions about reconciliation.    The reconciliation-seeker goes so far as to comment about their intentions on their one-flesh’s YouTube posts, apologizing for what happened.   May God protect this pair from satan’s interference until His full will is done.    Both spouses may be “newbies” when it comes to all the implications of the indissolubility of holy matrimony.   At least one of the spouses makes clear that they need additional time and space to process all that repentance entails, and SIFC would agree they deserve it, so long as their true heart is to obey.    The reluctant spouse is also considering the feelings of the children born into the noncovenant “marriage”, perhaps very wisely, though obedience to Christ usually resolves such matters in due time.   Certainly it is prudent for the reluctant spouse to not act in a way that would mislead the children to believe that getting out of the noncovenant union with their other parent was being done for reasons the world (and worldly church) would regard as “adulterous”.      That spouse has asserted the voice of the Holy Spirit in “not being told to reconcile”.    It is not wrong to aspire to be Spirit-led, but we should remember that the person of the Holy Spirit never leads in contradiction to scripture, even where scripture’s application has been obscured by contemporary culture.    (To round out the discussion, SIFC also notes the previous posts addressing some Anabaptist sects who (for other reasons) falsely teach that reconciliation with the spouse of our youth after repenting of an adulterous noncovenant “marriage” is actually “sinful”.)

In Dr. Eggerson’s classic Christian book,  “Love and Respect”, he echoes the marriage instructions of Peter and Paul  in commanding the husband to love his wife, but commanding the wife to respect her husband.    A husband who effectively “writes off” the soul of his prodigal wife (and sometimes their children) after “remarriage”, by treating the instructions to remain chaste or be reconciled as “either / or” options at his own choosing,  does not love her the way Hosea loved Gomer, nor the way Paul describes in Ephesians 5.     As a result, he is directly contributing to her disrespect and continued prodigal state, and probably her perception of him as a “hypocrite”, since he’s wearing Christ as a large badge, but not modeling Christ toward her very well.    The wife who refuses a repenting husband his God-assigned role of her “head”, does not respect him, and by extension, does not respect Christ in him or over him.   In time, her one-flesh husband will revert to a lack of sacrificial love.

About the gamble, mentioned above, between “loss of rewards” and loss of eternal soul.    Will street ministry, group teaching calls, YouTube videos on marriage permanence make up for letting our one-flesh spouse’s soul go uncared for as a result of exercising this “option”?

 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it.For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
– 1 Corinthians 3:10-16

We can’t take our ministry materials through this fire and expect them to survive, obviously.    We can only take the souls we influenced correctly by those materials through the fire.    SIFC would suggest that if we guess wrong here, by virtue of having produced those materials, there won’t be any souls to present.   If Christ’s warnings elsewhere concerning heaven-or-hell issues, like authentic forgiveness, and discipleship through imitating Him by laying down our lives are true without exceptions, there won’t even be a pass at that fire that tests our works.

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

For these strong reasons, it is wrong, selfish and rebellious against the kingdom of God to treat 1 Corinthians 7:11 as presenting two equally-acceptable “stand-alone” options, rather than as dependent commandments (“A”, if not “B”).   It should be clear from all of Paul’s other instructions that he wrote this instruction with a preference for “both / and” (not “either / or”).    After all, reversing the logic and supposing that Jill had left Jack for the “abuse” of having come to Christ, and Jack had remarried, would simply reconciling with Jill absolve Jack from the need to confess his adulterous, noncovenant union as sin and forsake it forever?    Of course not!

Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. For to this end also I wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
– 2 Corinthians 2:8-11

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!

 

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Equal Protection, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare

#RuthSummit 2019 – How Did It Go?

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by Standerinfamilycourt

For by wise counsel you will wage your own war,
And in a multitude of counselors there is safety.
– Proverbs  24:6

As soon as the speaker list was released, this blogger knew that this conference was simply not to be missed, come hell or high water (SIFC literally experienced a little of both before arriving there, but that’s a story for another day).    “Standerinfamilycourt” has always had the greatest respect and admiration for its sponsor, The Ruth Institute.   Many of the scheduled speakers have long been personal heroes (and heroines).   The trip to Lake Charles is easily 15 hours each way by car, but that was no obstacle.    This will by no means be a post about “buyer’s remorse”.   There is no question that some very important connections were made at the Summit, and much cross-awareness “landed” for the participants, SIFC included.

And, there’s no question that what transpired in that venue absolutely fulfilled the objectives for the gathering that the Ruth Institute promised in the promotional information…

“Discover why the Church has been right all along about marriage, family, and sexual morality!
Stories from:
  • Children of Divorce
  • Abandoned Spouses
  • Children of Same-Sex Parents
  • Refugees from the Gay Lifestyle
Learn what it’s costing: in child trauma, clergy sex abuse scandals, runaway government power, and more.”

 

But…a day after returning, some of us were still feeling the effects of a few unmet hopes, including the action-oriented hope that it would be considerably more “shirt-sleeves” and interactive in its format, at least for the sessions involving “activist” panels.    Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse was careful to explain to participants that The Ruth Institute is not a lobbying organization (according to IRS rules for 501c3 and 501c4 educational organizations, TRI being the former).    However, the distinction seems to be more philosophical than strictly legal in how “Ruth” defines her mission and organizes the organization’s engagement with issues and social change.   For example, according to the website:

“In the summer of 2013, the Supreme Court’s decisions in the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases signaled a new level of governmental commitment to the Sexual Revolution. Dr. Morse and the team at the Ruth Institute concluded that the opponents of natural marriage hold a commanding position on the legal and political fronts.  At that time, the Ruth Institute made a strategic decision to enter into the cultural and social fray in a new way.

“With Ruth’s renewed focus on the social and cultural arenas (as opposed to the political and legal arenas)…”

Tidy strategy, this is: hoping to drive culture change in order to ultimately reform the vicious “teacher” that this law has become —except that, all the signs of the times ( for example, 70 years elapsed since Israel’s re-establishment as a nation, the emergence in Europe of mandatory RFID chipping of corporate employees,  Russia’s renewed aggression, Trump’s  move of  the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple)  ….seem to point to the Lord returning and rapturing away His church long before such a strategy might ever come to fruition, after which, the bible tell us the influence of the Holy Spirit will be removed from society remaining on earth, and the Antichrist will have a brief reign that will make all of this moral concern seem wildly irrelevant anyway.    Indeed, it’s entirely possible that the U.S. has already been “given over”, as described in Romans 1 because heterosexual moral reform has been rejected, especially in the church, long before the Windsor / Perry / Obergefell decisions of 2013-2015.    Those of us who are impatient about the timeline of family law reform are impatient mostly because the souls of loved ones remain in serious jeopardy in the meantime.    Some of us want the drag queen fired as “teacher” yesterday, and a morally worthy role model hired in “her” place  for the sake of our kids and grandkids.  No society in all of recorded history has survived more than 3 or 4 generations in the utterly bankrupt moral climate we have now, almost all of it driven by nefarious family laws and institutional acquiescence to them.

What’s largely forgotten in that 2013 strategic thought process at TRI is the need to change not one, but two grossly sinful cultures that sprang from the Sexual Revolution, the sodomy-as-“marriage” culture, and the sequential-polygamy-as-“marriage” culture (still seen by most in Christendom as what TRI refers to above as “natural marriage”).   As our friend, Pastor Jack Shannon pointed out in his 2017 book, Contra Mundum Swagger, those heavily invested in the second culture (relying on either RCC “annulment” or evangelical hypergrace) tend to see the first culture as befalling them from out of nowhere, and by no fault (pun not intended) of their own, seeing it fatalistically as a “test” or “cross to bear” rather than as an immediate call to individual and collective repentance.     It was not lawful for Herod to have Herodias, his (living) BROTHER’S wife, and a man of God gave up his own saved life to warn their souls.  It is no more lawful today for a few of these repeal movement leaders to have their current mates, while SIFC has not shrunk back from warning them in various ways (and is probably not on the short list of suitable conference speakers for that reason alone).

The Lord may not continue to forbear for two or three more decades for culture to change, under a strategy of incremental influence, in order “ease into” legal reforms.   It might be different if we were not citizens of a constitutional republic that His extreme favor gave us in the first place, and which we are now basically squandering  when we fear reprisal, or fear suffering persecution and loss of comforts – steep costs that the early church joyfully bore in order to introduce the world to true Christian morality, though they had little or no formal voice to the Graeco-Roman government systems at all.
For anyone, with both a representative vote and a state of living estranged from their true, God-joined spouse, to compare a reticent approach toward contemporary government engagement with the example set by the early church is just not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Wrote Anglican church historian Kenneth E. Kirk in the 1940’s:

“What is more astounding than the mere fact that the early Church taught and practiced the complete indissolubility of marriage for so long, is the fact that the Church chose to take its stand against the strong contemporary lax social and legal attitudes toward divorce which prevailed so universally all about them. The Church, today, feels that it is on the horns of a dilemma, because so many divorcees are coming to her for help and encouragement. Shall she accommodate the Scriptures to the apparent need of the unfortunate divorcees, or shall she uphold the Biblical standard of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause while faithfully discharging her duty to such distressed individuals?  Every church of today which considers the lowering of its divorce standards should remember that the early Church stood true to the Biblical doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage in a world that was pagan and strongly opposed to the moral and marriage standards of the New Testament. Not only did the Church maintain her stand on the indissolubility in the early centuries, she changed the attitude and standards of the whole world toward it. Even today the whole Church of Christ and the entire western world is still reaping the rich benefits of that heritage.   Shall the Christian Church of today be less courageous and faithful than the Church of the early centuries of the Christian era? Does she not under God have the same spiritual resources?

“There were other grievous social evils in the early Christian centuries. Slavery enveloped the Roman Empire of that age, yet the Christians did not set themselves to change the thinking of the masses against it, but they did set themselves to change the thinking of the masses toward marriage and divorce. Why did they not attack slavery with the same vehemence? The reason was that the Apostles had not received a “thus saith the Lord” from Christ respecting it. They had, however, received such in the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. No sect or school of philosophy is known to have influenced the early Church in this teaching. From whence, then, did she get the teaching? Certainly she received it from the teaching of the Gospels and from the teaching of the Apostles, who had earlier conveyed the same orally (as well as in writing) to the leaders of the early Church who succeeded them.”

(Marriage and Divorce. 2nd ed. London, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.,1948)

For the action-oriented participants (who would like to stay God’s hand in the timing of His finalized judgment), important collaboration items had to be relegated to the conference breaks, such as asking Fr. / Dr. Sullins how one might get important outdated research refreshed, or undertake a child-outcome study for a sociological group that has never been addressed before (children of biblical standers being segregated out from those of generic and incomparable “single parents” because the former are likely skewing that measure by their growing numbers and superior child outcomes from walking out biblical principles in the home).

Perhaps there’s no avoiding the fact that panelists addressing the hydra-headed issue of what’s being done to reform unilateral no-fault divorce laws (and resulting injustices) would have a more difficult time being brief enough to allow feedback and interaction afterwards in a uniform allotted time slot, which was 30 minutes total.    This seemed to be less of a problem with the personal testimony panels where there was ample time for some follow-up, in most cases.    As it turned out, there was no time for such in the “activist” panel led by Matthew Johnston, Jeff Morgan and Christopher Brennan  (~47 minutes into this link).  The personal testimonies, while significant and powerful, mostly represent the symptoms of the disease, while the “activist panel” (in effect) represents a proposal for the surgical approach to excising the disease that is causing the cascade of symptoms.     Yes, this does involve a process for influencing policy and legislation to some extent, but the IRS has given 501(c)3’s a little bit of leeway for potential indirect involvement in this:

501(c)(3) organizations ARE allowed to take part in small amounts of political lobbying. There are two ways to determine how much nonprofits can legally lobby: 1) Insubstantial Part Test and, 2) Expenditure Test. In the first option, an organization’s lobbying activities cannot constitute a substantial part of the organization’s total activities and expenditures in any tax year. This option is somewhat vague, as it does not define “lobbying activities,” “substantial amount,” or how that amount will be calculated. The second option is somewhat clearer. The Expenditure Test defines permissible lobbying activities and measures an 501(c)(3)’s lobbying activities only by the amount of money spent on lobbying activities.

Surely, providing an annual venue for meaningful strategy development, and possible nonprofit mentoring (or incubation) for an allied-but-separate non-profit that could take a more activist role which complements TRI’s core strategic mission would not get TRI into any difficulty with the IRS, nor divert significant resources from “Ruth’s” preferred core activities.   The fact that TRI awarded an “Activist” recognition this year is a good demonstration of that point.   Quite often, when a problem seems complex and intractable, effective solutions are “both / and” rather than “either / or”,  meaning that involved organizations can certainly specialize where they feel their strengths are, while maintaining supportive ties with other organizations whose strengths may be complementary but not duplicative.

Perhaps some time allowance is necessary for “ice-breaking” when diverse allied interests and players (who started out not knowing each other very well) begin coming together for the first time, but the road home from this conference felt as though an untamed “adhocracy” will continue to be aimed in 2019-20 at the political realm, rather than a purposeful coordination of collaborating efforts based on experiences shared, and consensus-finding.   This seemed like a sad waste of the rare and valuable face-to-face time we were afforded in Lake Charles.   Hopefully, some of this occurred at the smaller dinners that were organized for the invited speakers outside the formal agenda.    From SIFC’s seat, it appeared that some panelists were not in consensus with each other about specifics of the way forward.    When the other side plays dirty (as we know they do), one option indeed is to wait until conditions are more favorable before ever engaging, another is to peck away randomly which isn’t likely to be very successful, and the third way is to go after them with a solid, coordinated and well-vetted battle plan that takes into account a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) that is updated at least annually.    One possible solution for the next conference might be some breakout time by interest area.

We all tend to come to these events with a few individualized sub-agendas, in addition to the main agenda items.    SIFC is the first to admit that what will be gleaned from this year’s Summit participation and deemed most valuable is steps to meaningful reform that will come sooner rather than later, and divert that many more precious souls from hell (at least, on account of dying while in a sinful subsequent union).   Another sub-agenda, for somebody else, might be gleaning whatever will most quickly lessen parental alienation or reduce onerous child support payments.   Some standers in the room might prefer for divorce to remain cheap, easy and certain so that their prodigal spouse has an easier path to repentance some day.   Some individuals will be looking to make or continue a livelihood from the reform effort.   These things will, of course, cause some differences in preferred approach and timeline to reform.     Possibly, a sub-agenda for the Summit sponsors is to be inclusive of non-Catholics while not doing anything that might unnecessarily alienate the material support of RCC hierarchy for the organization’s efforts and vision.   Can a mutually-supportable action path be found through all these sub-agendas?   Possibly, but not if insufficient interactive discussion time is allotted among key stakeholders in the program agenda!    This is the first major conference in recent memory attended by SIFC  where some sort of general participant evaluation feedback was not requested.

It did not take long for word to get out among the covenant marriage stander community of this #RuthSummit, and of the livestream video resources that Family Research Council staffers so generously provided.  “Standerinfamilycourt” awoke to an email from a male leader in the movement Tuesday morning, sharing that another abandoned, standing husband had emailed most of the faithful pastors in the movement, and several other standers.   This young husband who originated the email chain had been texting me on Friday, eager to get to the livestreaming links before the opening dinner got underway.    All of this is truly a blessing to that large community, who has (admittedly) mixed views on the actual repeal of unilateral, no-fault divorce laws and the biblically-appropriate level government engagement by Christ-followers.

“Standerinfamilycourt” would like to wrap up this post by giving a hearty “thumbs-up” to a few points in the long list of positives from #RuthSummit 2019 over this past weekend:

1.) Auspicious, God-orchestrated timing:  As we sat at dinner Friday night, while Texas activist Jeff Morgan was receiving TRI’s award as “Activist of the Year”,  SIFC received a text on the cell phone:    Both HB922 and HB926 had been scheduled for their committee hearings on only 2 business days’ notice.    SIFC is “sure” there was no mal-intent with this timing, which is “done all the time”, we hear.    Little did House committee chairman Harold Dutton know that his maneuver increased the joy of the evening, as the veritable who’s who of activists in were in the same room to receive the news while gathered over dinner.   This would include Dr. Morse, Leila Miller, Matthew Johnston, Chris Brennan, blogger Kristi Davis, Dr. Stephen Baskerville, and new repeal enthusiast Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon.     Just picture the phones ringing off the hook in Austin all day today and tomorrow, and the prayers going up for some of these folks who will be there in Austin testifying tomorrow at 10:30 local time.
The timing actually helped increase the chances that if both bills fail against the very long odds of getting to the House floor for a timely vote, there will at least be solid backing for simultaneously introducing them in both chambers (with needed improvements) in 2021, next legislative session.   The Lord works in mysterious ways. – praise Him!

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
– Gen. 50:20

Dear Readers, here is the list of committee members and their contact information.

ACTION REQUEST: Would you consider being a part of history-making and giving each of these committee members a timely call, asking them to support both bills? You do not necessarily have to be from Texas to weigh in, but if you are from Texas, and either you or somebody you know from Texas has a restored marriage after a Texas “no-fault” divorce, this will be very important information to leave with the staffer when you call, in order to deliver a strong message that “insupportability” is nothing more than a subjective legal fiction on which no law depriving citizens of their parental or property rights should be based in a constitutional republic.

A key tidbit about Mr. Dutton, the committee chairman:  he went through a messy divorce in the 1990’s.   Among other traumas from his own divorce, he experienced the horror of having his wife’s live-in boyfriend physically abuse his sons without being able to do anything about it, like many other young men who are subjected to forced divorce. If the situation is that he did not actually initiate his divorce (almost a 70% chance), this could provide something to widen his perspective a bit.

The current legislative session in Texas adjourns for two years at the end of May.    If you are interested in watching tomorrow’s proceedings live tomorrow, Wednesday, May 1, try this link (no promises they will actually have it on camera, but there’s a chance).   Alternatively, it’s likely Jeff Morgan will be videoing capturing the testimony for upload to you his youtube channel as he did two years ago.

UPDATE:  Testimony on the bill to repeal one spouse’s subjective and unsubstantiated declaration of  “insupportability” as a ground for divorce in Texas was heard on May 2, 2019.   On May 3, the bill failed to achieve the necessary votes in the Democrat-dominated Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee to move on to the Calendar Committee, despite having done so two years earlier, and despite dozens of covenant marriage standers calling these committee members’ offices in support of HB 922.   It will now have to be introduced again into the 87th legislative session in 2021.

2.) Wonderful connections with another strong group of Catholic standers was forged:  We already have solid connections with Catholic standers through Bai MacFarlane’s wonderful ministry, Mary’s Advocates.    SIFC learned at the Summit that Covenant Keepers has been working closely with a well-established group of Louisiana standers who have formed a weekly group locally called “Hosea’s Hope” (no apparent online presence).    These standers shared another tidbit of good news:  it appears that Covenant Keepers has worked recently to cleanse its local group leadership of adulterously remarried leaders, which would be an update on our earlier reporting, if confirmed.

3. )  The value that covenant marriage standers bring to the effort to save biblical marriage was publicly recognized at the Summit.   Dr. Morse asked all the standers in the room to “stand” right after the panel on marital abandonment spoke.   We were able then to identify each other, perhaps half a dozen people.    Hard copies of this recent blog post , “7 Important Contributions Covenant Standers Are Making Toward the Repeal of Forced Divorce” were brought to the conference for handouts, and Dr. Morse very graciously gave us impromptu table space in the venue.   She told the invited stander speakers, “when the history is written that this ship got turned around, y’all are going to be mentioned…”     This was said in front of some of the most important Christian scholars we have today by one of the most important Christian scholars we have today, and it went out over the Family Research Council media machine.    It was a mighty proud moment for standers everywhere.    Dr. Baskerville gets a lot of feedback from the (justifiably) angry MGTOW crowd (“men going their own way”).    It must have been refreshing to hear for once about grace-filled men and women going GOD’s way under the same profoundly unjust circumstances.

4.) Dr. Baskerville hit yet another one “out of the ballpark” (opening wide the eyes of some very influential people).    These were the exact words of a stunned Dr.  Gagnon on his Facebook wall after hearing Stephen Baskerville’s riveting 40-minute address:

“Dr. Stephen Baskerville, professor of government at Patrick Henry College, hitting his critique of “No Fault Divorce” out of the ballpark. It is one of the most anti-constitutional measures imaginable, incentivizing family break ups, rejecting basic standards of justice, and giving the state unlimited tyranny…”

Most serious standers who follow our pages were not surprised by this at all, since it is quite customary for the blunt Dr. B to hit things out of the ballpark every time the mic is on.   That said, there is a famous moment in the movie, “Amazing Grace” where MP William Wilberforce has conspired with the head of the Tories to take one well-heeled set on a party-barge tour of the harbor, complete with powdered wigs, wine, hors-d’oeuvres, and a string quartet.   SIFC could go on to describe the proceedings, but it would be more fun to just let the readers watch it instead, while emphasizing that in no way are any Summit leaders or participants being compared with the insensitive lot in the movie, but the “turning point” feel of that moment is still quite similar indeed.   Picture Dr. Baskerville on the bridge of the sailing vessel that carried the slaves – not hard, is it?

5.) The language of the thought leaders in the room appeared to be slowly changing for the better (and root causation finally being acknowledged out loud).     Dr. Gagnon also gave an excellent address Saturday afternoon.   Although it was (by title) about homosexualist twisting of the scripture, he had a lot to say about holy matrimony.  Across several of the speakers, we started hearing a bit less about the looser “standard” of “permanence”, and considerably more about the far more demanding state of indissolubility that Christ laid out.   Desirably, we also started to hear a lot about the one-flesh state, notably at ~ 11:55 in Dr. Gagnon’s address, when he says this about the one-flesh state (echoing Paul in Ephesians 5):  “…so whatever you do to your spouse, if it’s a negative thing, it’s a self-inflicted wound.”   And again, at ~ 21:30, and at ~40:00 where Dr. G comes oh-so-close to appropriately recognizing the instantaneous, supernatural, metaphysical nature of the God-joining that is the very Creational basis for indissolubility, and for “remarriage” while an original spouse still lives, constituting papered-over adultery 100% of the time.    It’s not the repeated physical uniting that creates the one-flesh state, according to Jesus in Matthew 19:6,8 and Paul in Ephesians 5:31, it’s God’s actual hand in the wedding itself that permanently does so.   If this were properly acknowledged, the witness against homosexual “marriage” (and practice) would become so much more powerful than any attempts to “rank” soul-corroding sexual sin.

At ~ 18:00: “When Jesus talked about marriage in Matthew 19 as being indissoluble, permanent, lifelong…a vision largely lost by the church, which is the beginning of our problems.   We would never be at this place on the issue of homosexuality and transgenderism if we hadn’t already lost the battle on the longevity and permanence of marriage…if we had not caved on those issues, we would not have come to this extreme point, and we are at an extreme point now.”  
(SIFC must still respectfully disagree with any attempt articulated between 22:00 and 40:00  to claim that one sexual sin is “worse” than another, when Paul said this in 1 Cor. 6:18-20,  about heterosexual defilement of the temple of the Holy Spirit, and warned at least twice, “do not be deceived” :  both receive the same eternal outcome if unrepented, we’ve lived to see that both equally undermine the biblical family, hence entire societies, sending the unrepentant to hell in both cases.  SIFC believes such a philosophy is a large part of the reason we “lost the battle on the longevity and permanence of marriage”, as Dr. Gagnon had earlier put it.)

We believe it’s the patient, continued voice of the scholar-standers who are respectfully challenging the comfortable presumptions of the more conventional and acclaimed scholars and bringing about this necessary evolution in the latter.

6.)  There also seemed to be a “lessons-learned” readiness to jettison the unhelpful idea of 5 years ago, that the sexuality debates can leave God out and prevail.   The best indication of this maturation, of course, is the theme for the Summit: “Why the Church’s Teaching Was Right All Along” (that is, “right all along” if you ignore the 12th century fabrication of “annulment” doctrine under Pope Innocent III, and you also ignore Luther’s humanistic 16th century innovations.)   The absurdity of this notion should have been obvious on its face in 2013:   “we battle not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities and dark forces in the heavenly realm.”

7.) Satan so feared the impact of the #RuthSummit livestreaming result that he felt compelled to harass the Family Research Council technicians on both days.    Thankfully, the Holy Spirit was invited in both days in prayers to open and close the sessions.  Organizing this kind of an event around a controversial topic that brings together people of different faiths, but the same biblical truth, is never as easy as it looks.   This one came off very well, and was an endless encouragement to thousands of covenant marriage standers around the world who were not able to attend, but wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

We are looking forward to next year already!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce! 

 

 

citizenship, Discipleship, Divorce, Equal Protection, Equal Protection, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare, Substantive Due Process

Myth-Busting: Will Restoring Fundamental Rights to Respondents “Trap” People in Unwanted Marriages?

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by Standerinfamilycourt

The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.   – Proverbs 18:17

As sure as death and taxes, any time a “family law” reform bill is before a state legislature which seeks to curb unconstitutional, non-consensual “no-fault” grounds being allowed to shred a family at the selfish whims of one of the spouses, there are two media responses:

(1) loud howling about people “trapped” in “bad marriages” (the Left), and

(2) deafening silence (the hypocritical Right).

“standerinfamilycourt” humbly submits (and will demonstrate) that these objections are overblown and way out of proportion in the “fairness” picture.

The model reformed “no-fault”  statute will do a few essential things (all are a necessary minimum):

(1) limit the use of subjective grounds like “insupportability”, “irreconcilable differences” and “irretrievable breakdown” to a mutual, joint petition, where all the terms and conditions are agreed by the parties at arms-length (rather than by strong-arm).    The mutual petition part is important here.    No-fault dissolutions should never be obtainable by default judgment, or where the effects of divorce are not mutually agreed.   All default judgments should be fault-based, without exception.

(2) restore the availability of fault-based grounds in the alternative, which is important because many state legislatures have eliminated and disallowed these.

(3) ensure that desertion or “living apart” grounds are only available to the non-offending party.

(4) ensure that marital misconduct is a material consideration in child custody and property division judgments if the parties cannot agree these things mutually and state them on a joint petition.

Yes, this kind of reform will (at least temporarily) leave some parties legally married against their wishes.    However, there are several reasons why both the time frame of delay in legally “dissolving” the marriage, and the number of such cases has been greatly exaggerated.     This is especially true in contrast with the millions involuntarily divorced today against their consciences and against the best interest of the children and grandchildren of the marriage.

Here’s why:

=>  although this 1980’s statistic needs to be refreshed by a study, 20% of dissolution requests are mutually agreed between the spouses.   It is quite possible that the legalization of homosexual “marriages” has increased this figure a bit.

=> of the remaining 75-80%, perhaps half (under current law ) do involve fault grounds, but the Petitioner is choosing “no-fault” grounds for cost and privacy reasons.    Cost should not be as big a deal as it’s made out here, since the statutorily at-fault party can ultimately be made responsible for the costs if the non-offending party has no resources for filing and legal costs.

=>  in the case of endangerment, there will be restored fault-based grounds and fault-based remedies available immediately., as covered above.

Of the remaining 40% of potentially negatively-impacted parties being compelled to remain legally married longer than they’d prefer,  the following mitigations still remain:

=> nothing in this reform prevents an unhappy spouse from separating and living apart — an act that is biblically forbidden in an original marriage unless there is danger to family members (covered above), and living as immorally as they wish with whomever they wish.    They will simply no longer be rewarded by the powers-that-be for doing so.

=> in the case of abandonment, the story is the same, with perhaps a delay of a year or two.   This is not really an unreasonable delay for the sake of restoring the ongoing integrity of our Constitution and our society.

One canard that keeps surfacing is very true, but very selectively applied by the shameless propagandists who skillfully trade in emotional manipulation:   “you can’t force people to stay married”.
Indeed!  We’ve shown here that over a year or two time frame, anyone who wants to legally “dissolve” their marriage, or cause it to be “dissolved”, has a clear path to doing so under virtually all circumstances in a meaningful “family law” reform scenario.    The more accurate saying is “you can’t force someone to live with a person they don’t wish to”,  but their legal marital state is irrelevant in any case.   What is relevant is WHO PAYS under the law.

The emotionally manipulative howling in the press is really about the economics and incentives changing from those that reward the offending spouse and divorce industry, to those that protect the spouse who is committed to family integrity and the true best interests of the children and grandchildren.

Non-consensual “no-fault” divorce laws strip non-offending spouses of their free speech, free religious exercise and conscience rights, along with other fundamental Bill of Rights protections including the right to raise their children according to their convictions, the right to free association with family members on both sides of the family, their property rights, 4th amendment rights against warrantless search of their finances without being accused of a crime, their right to live under an enforceable marriage contract, their right to a jury trial when confiscation of those things is sought by the state.    The best and only way to distract from all of these harsh truths is to howl loudly about very shallow considerations.    In interests horribly adverse to the nation as a whole, they strip us of the separation-of-powers guaranteed by Article 3, allowing the legislatures of these states to override constitutional separation-of-powers protections by legislating away true judicial discretion, true cause of action, and true due process.

Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable.
– Proverbs 14:34 (Douay-Rheims Version)

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

citizenship, Discipleship, Divorce, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare

Can The Sexual Revolution Be Defeated With Only Secular Arguments? (Why I Respectfully Dissent)

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by Standerinfamilycourt

Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.   Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.   But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess  him before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.
–  Matthew 10:28-33

Since the rise to power of homofascism started to rivet the faith community’s attention to the excesses of the Sexual Revolution in earnest about ten years ago, it quickly became an article of faith that some other way had to be found to articulate existential truth to the larger society and policymakers than the out-of-fashion Bible.   Statisticians pointed to the year-over-year increases in the measured ranks of the “nones” (people surveyed to have no religious preference or affiliation) and hastily concluded that they were rejecting the Spirit-breathed content of scripture rather than the easily-observed rampant sexual hypocrisy in the mega-church down the street.    We were cautioned that if we threw our pearls before swine (i.e. the LGBTQxyz political machine), they would be merely trampled under foot and would turn on us.    Turn indeed they did!   Here is an example of the swift rebuke that ensued from the “swine”….

The very influential national Catholic voices among us (for which we remain so grateful to God)  touted “natural law” as the way to crack this nut without offending non-religious and cross-religious sensibilities.    However, to some of us, “natural law”,  as it tends to be applied, sounds like a much watered-down version of God’s law–designed to protectively fence off from moral reform (repentance) the heterosexual root of our “homosexual” sin problem.    One uniformly overlooked element of “natural law” so-applied seems to be chronic, however:  the inconvenient fact that no disease of the body has ever been healed by treating only the symptoms. 

– Why is this secularized “natural law” ideal so tempting to Christian and Jewish social conservatives?

After 50 years of the unchallenged reign of unilateral (so-called “no-fault”) divorce laws throughout the land, some 60% of adults are now living day-to-day in “marriages” that Jesus habitually called adulterous because a legally-estranged spouse is still living.    As displayed above, even malicious, casual bible “scholars” know this.  Don’t bother to bore them with our evangelical “biblical exceptions”, which they see right through!   Since picking up our cross and following Christ tends to be economically costly as well as morally costly,  the adulterously-wed among us tend to also be the very deepest pockets in the land.    How can we afford to do battle against such urgent, existential threats to society as transgenderism, unsafe public restrooms, wedding industry artists bankrupted and hauled off to jail, pornographic indoctrination classes in our schools, on and on, without lots of financial and political support gathered as rapidly as we can humanly gather them?   And how can we gather sufficient funds or political support if we dare call adulterers adulterers?

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.  We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 6 and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.   – 2 Corinthians 10:3-6

  • Concern for children in “blended” families
    Many promoters of the fenced-off  “natural law” approach to legal and church reforms have legitimate concerns for children born into remarriages following a civil-only divorce, even if they agree, in principle at least, that these are the children of adultery according to what Jesus taught.  “All children have an innate right to be raised by both their natural parents in an intact home”, they assert, and policies that thwart this amount to child abuse in their estimation.     This makes it somehow “acceptable” for the wholeness of grandparent marriages to be subordinated in reaching for only limited legal reforms, even while our society is predominated by fragmented family units, and Bill-of-Rights protections designed as a human rights measure for all original marriages which have been trampled in “family” court for five decades will continue to be trampled.   The Catholic voices for “natural law” are frequently joined by the Calvinistic evangelical voices (Billy Graham, John Piper and others) whose oft-cited banality is “you can’t unscramble the eggs”.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Never mind their utter lack of concern, at the time the legal machinery was installed to civilly “unscramble” the COVENANT eggs of the original marriages that God’s hand joined, and never mind any concern for the legitimate children of those marriages.     Never mind that these same church voices remain shamefully silent today while courageous  Christian lawmakers in two states are presently travailing to uninstall that legal machinery.   Never mind that Jesus pointedly said that it is the original eggs which cannot be unscrambled – as all of the Pandora’s Box of ever more-horrifying societal symptoms empties itself in Divine demonstration and testimony of.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           ( SIFC is very grateful for the recent breakthrough article by Catholic author Leila Miller – a very good read that begins to acknowledge what the Lord wants us to see about this.)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Further details on why SIFC believes Calvinists are so prone to joining Catholics in this flawed view will be addressed below.   For now, let’s touch on two more overlooked and overplayed facets of the misplaced concern for the “Ishmael babies”, valuable human beings and Image-bearers created by the moral carnage and dislocations of the Sexual Revolution, which hinder us in fully obeying God in this matter.

(1) there have been studies of the ill effects of remarriage after divorce on children of divorce, but there have not yet been any studies on the effect of reconciling original holy matrimony unions on the children born in the interim into legalized adultery, in eventually failed “remarriages” that followed man’s divorce, but preceded the covenant reconciliation.    There is, however, lots of anecdotal evidence of excellent outcomes on these particular children.    This segment specifically needs to be studied in order for these less specific overall studies to be complete and valid enough to support durable public policy.  This will never happen so long as legal remarriages are deemed morally equivalent (or staying in them morally superior) to holy matrimony the way Christ defined it in Matthew 19:4-6.
Many studies have shown that each subsequent “remarriage” is statistically much more likely to also end in divorce than the previous one, covenant reconciliations being the stable exception, due to the lifelong inseverability of the sarx mia (one-flesh) state created by God’s hand.   This too, is an indispensable element of “natural law”, according to Jesus and according to whole-bible witness entailed in all of the pagan and mixed-marriage couples whose unions God defended as indissoluble, but is completely lost if the biblical argument is discarded.
                    
(2) the Bible tells us in very clear terms that the sin of remarriage adultery is intergenerational.    Hence, living on in an adulterous remarriage does even worse generational  and emulation harm to the children of that “marriage” than does physically separating and legally severing it.     While there is limited hope from some studies that a few in the next generation are learning from the “sins of the fathers”, we are quite literally jeopardizing the future marriages of all children when we allow this malignancy to be cemented as a societal norm.    (There is no “natural law” or secularized way to share this kind of a vital truth.)

 

  • One societal objection seems a lot easier to overcome than two Unfortunately, even among the faithful there are vastly different sexual ethics, most of which also deviate from the teachings of Christ while claiming to be following Him.    As a result, instead of merely needing to build a bridge to the “nones” and atheists in order to do effective battle with the homosexualists, we need to hold together a shaky coalition that includes Jews, Muslims, Mormons, those who believe their church can “annul” marriage, and those who call themselves evangelicals but don’t believe that holy matrimony is indissoluble for life.    In other words, in order to reach those who say there is no God and no binding moral standard, it is necessary to keep two kinds of religious polygamists onboard: concurrent and consecutive, plus a third type that thinks ecclesiastical paper (extrabiblically) takes people out of the second category of polygamy.   No wonder the urge is so strong to leave “religion” out of it!   But leaving God (as He actually is, not as we’ve reinvented Him) out of it, leaves all supernatural power out of it.    As scripture predicts, “they hold to a form of godliness, but deny its power.”

 

  • They hope it will better unify allies in Christ who hold differing faith confessions
    This sounds similar to the previous argument, but actually delves one level deeper.   Keeping it secular seems so much easier when it comes to presenting a united front to agnostics than the hard work of sorting through issues like  sola scriptura vs “tradition”, annulment vs. universal indissolubility, hell versus purgatory, and the Calvinist doctrine of “once saved, always saved (OSAS)” versus the disciples’ doctrine of “once saved, guard your heart“.   Two things can be validly said about this issue:  (1) the 1st century church willingly suffered gross persecution rather than leave God out of it, and they brought moral reform such as the world had never before seen, and (2) the diverse elements of the marriage permanence community squabble daily among each other on these matters, yet God still holds this shaky coalition together for His greater purpose, such that we learn from each other.    We even do so online, right in front of the agnostics and seekers.     He can handle it, and because of His hand in this, so can they!                                                                                                                                                                      The famous Australian evangelist Ray Comfort speaks of leading people to Christ (getting saved) in these terms:  “people need to know what they need to ‘get saved’ from, before they will weigh and accept this as a need in their own hearts.”    He likens it to going through a commercial airline cabin handing out parachutes and urgently instructing the passengers to put them on.   If they put the parachute on in their cramped seats, it’s going to be profoundly uncomfortable.    They’re not going to do it unless they’re told the plane, with certainty, is out of fuel and is about to crash before it can land                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  .….Which brings us back around to the strange bedfellows of Catholics and Calvinists, and why those are the voices we tend to  hear most concerning “natural law” arguments against the Sexual Revolution.   Both tend to believe that hell is for is not for their faithful, regardless of life choices or how people choose to die.   Neither defines “faithful” in terms of bottom-line obedience to Christ.    The Catholics believe God has a “holding tank” for the departed to “earn” one more chance.   The Calvinists believe the worst that disobedience, and even dying while in a God-mocking lifestyle, can result in eternally is “loss of rewards” once “saved” (a single transaction)…as long as unrepentant homosexuality wasn’t practiced.    To be fair to both, neither has allowed the Sexual Revolution to officially degrade their doctrine, such as it stood in the 1970’s, while most other denominations felt license to completely revise theirs based on a vote of their pastors and leadership.   The Southern Baptists, in fact, took solid steps to shore up their family-related doctrine in 2000, even if actual practice would never quite match up.  This unchanged doctrine perhaps has motivated both groups to continue to insist on a voice in the Sexual Revolution, albeit a mostly hypocritical voice in both cases.   Discourse about breaking God’s “natural law design” goes absolutely nowhere out in the world if the best and only reason we can give for why that’s bad is the consequences on the kids.    People using sex like a drug, and people who think this life is all there is are not going to care about the kids, even if they claim a born-again experience.    They’re just not going to.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  God has to be part of the discussion so that we can tell the truth about heaven and hell, even if that offends some evangelicals.    There’s no shortage, after all, of evangelicals who have signed on to the Sexual Revolution themselves, as we all know.   God’s commandments and eternal consequences for disobeying them have to be part of the conversation so that we’re defining terms like “love”, “mercy”, “grace” and “compassion” in terms of eternity, and not just in terms of temporal comfort and feelings.     God has to be part of the conversation so that we’re not misunderstood!

 

  • Illusion that policymakers will respond more favorably to a strictly secular argument
    Only one thing to say here, now that we’re several years in:  how’s that been working out for us?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           “standerinfamilycourt” respectfully believes what the Apostle Paul tried to warn us about in Romans 1 (which is not exclusively about homosexual practice so much as it is about idolatry, self-worship  and misuse of our bodies, in various forms)….
    For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.   Professing to be wise, they became fools,  and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 (   SIFC : Folks, the “impurity” Paul is talking about at this stage is the corruption, by whatever human mechanism, of heterosexual marriage as an institution, that is, any deviation from #1M1W4L which Christ laid out and commanded.)                                                                                                            
    For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,  and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,  being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,  slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,  without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Respectfully, you cannot prattle on about “natural law” to people who have depraved minds, even though they know the ordinance of God.   You have to find a way by the power of the Holy Spirit to put the fear of God in them!    You have to have resolve in reminding them that God will not be mocked, never lies, and that He keeps His promises.    You also cannot pretend that “natural law” does not follow the full creation ordinance, which Jesus made clear marriage indissolubility except by physical death was just as much a part of as were the complementarian roles of male and female.   God did not take a slab of ribs out of Adam, but only one rib.   Adam’s reference to “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones” has a meaning that legal paper cannot ever change, and that’s a supernatural function of the hand of God.                                                                                                                                                                                                   That fact cannot be explained to people with any number of secular arguments, yet it is at the core of why the Sexual Revolution has caused society to degenerate.     God progressively gave them over because they refused to repent despite His ramping up the consequences.  It is foolish to expect God to lift His escalation of our chastening, especially all the manifestations of virulent homosexualism, which He allowed for a reason, without our actual repentance all the way back to the #1M1W4L standard.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  When we speak to the worldly only of “natural law”, we have to keep in mind that “natural law”,  as people generally understand it, has always included polygamy somewhere in the world.    You can’t speak out against today’s polyamory, therefore, without raising God’s full creation ordinance standard.  You can’t separate the author from the contents of His book!    Expecting to claim “natural law” in order to hold onto a system of consecutive polygamy while denouncing and abolishing the array of sodomous practices and ideology (thereby rescuing our threatened religious liberty) will never be permitted by the God of the bible, Who is sovereign over all of it.    Abolishing consecutive polygamy  requires unabashed references to God and His moral standard, as well as to the full consequences of not seeking to reinforce His standard of holiness in our law and in our societal mores.        Defeating the Sexual Revolutionaries requires His supernatural intervention because of the profound spiritual warfare involved, and we must entreat Him for that intervention as purified vessels, giving Him all the glory and honor when He accomplishes it for us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Being public about these truths costs potential book sales and probably won’t put “standerinfamilycourt” at the top of the list of speakers to invite to the next traditional family conference of any size and financial consequence.   In the big picture, that really only matters with regard to fundraising for the 501c4 being contemplated to fill the enormous gap left by the Christian legal defense ministries who won’t touch constitutional and religious freedom appeals of state unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws against the deep pockets of the state AG’s, profiteering bar associations, Lambda Defense, HRC and the ACLU, should one or more of these challenges ever succeed in the lower courts.     However,  whenever Jesus wanted to get something big done, He provided a fish or two, and on one such occasion, it was even a fish with a gold coin in its mouth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         And He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  And they were unable to catch Him in a saying in the presence of the people; and being amazed at His answer, they became silent.
    – Luke 20:25-26
                                                                                                                        www.standerinfamilycourt.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                         7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!
citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, family law, Fundamental Rights, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Prayer, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare, Substantive Due Process

Where ARE You, U.S. Family Policy Councils and Christian Legal Defense Funds???

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by Standerinfamilycourt

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.   –  Sir Thomas More

Given his 1535 martyrdom for refusing to recognize Henry VIII’s divorce and adulterous remarriage to Ann Boleyn, does it seem at least a little reasonable to believe that Sir Thomas More might have been deeply troubled about the Marxist social engineering a successor Lord Chancellor named Gauke is currently cramming down the throats of over 80% of the UK citizens, a sample of whom  resoundingly told Parliament recently they don’t want 6-month forced family-shredding (no-defense divorce) to become the immoral law in their country?

When Ireland was about legalize abortion a couple of years ago, every one of these groups, whose logos appear above, tracked and wrote about it on an almost weekly basis.   When gay marriage was in the process of being legalized in numerous countries abroad (not the least of which was the UK), it was the top daily headline for every one of them.     The push to radically expand unilateral “no-fault” divorce has been all over the UK papers for more than a year now, ever since a British high court did the right thing by the nation’s families last year in denying a 67-year old woman who had no legitimate grounds to seek a divorce against her 80-year old husband of 40 years.  It wasn’t that this woman would never be divorced from her God-joined one-flesh mate under the UK civil law, however (unless the Lord brought her to repentance).   It was only that it had been just 4 years since she moved out of their main house, and this decision made her await the final year under existing law to fully go her own selfish way with a chunk of the sizable marital estate.

You guys decided to sit this one out for some reason.    One can only imagine if instead of an elderly heterosexual couple, this had been Elton John and his lovely “husband” David Furness being denied a quickie divorce under existing law.    Would any of you have been able to resist sparring back at the outraged tabloids?   Yet, in over a year’s time, not one of you has even shown awareness that traditional marriage in the UK literally is on its last lonely stand.

Believers who care about this issue were scratching our heads, but still willing to forgive and support you when two U.S. states in the last four years took the tremendously courageous step of very seriously attempting the repeal of forced family-shredding-on-demand by requiring that “no-fault” grounds only be allowed upon a joint petition or other form of documented mutual consent, but for public purposes, you chose to sit that one out as well.

“standerinfamilycourt” means no disrespect, but 90% of the infringement of religious liberty in the name of the Sexual Revolution can be traced directly back to that grossly irresponsible bill Gov. Ronald Reagan signed on September 5, 1969.    In fact, innocent “Respondents” on the receiving end of a unilateral “no-fault” petition, having been charged with the made-up crime of “irreconcilable differences”, have suffered the earliest, worst and most numerous of religious freedom violations, including loss of God-assigned parental rights to influence and discipline, loss of ability to choose and direct their childrens’ parochial education,  severe financial reprisals in court for not acquiescing to the petition, restraining orders where there was no lawful cause, jail time, loss of licenses, and on and on.   And don’t forget, scripture tells us that if a Christian (or anyone else, for that matter) is “divorced” by their spouse, it is immoral to “remarry” for as long as that spouse remains alive, an act which Christ repeatedly called ongoing adultery.    That item alone makes unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws the most severe of all religious freedom violations, other than religious acts deemed to be capital violations.

If your mission statements are sincere, how can you possibly be silently sitting these events out?    How can you be so embarrassed to be seen with your brothers and sisters in Christ who care as much about this issue as all of the Apostles and early church fathers did?
At least Mr. Reagan eventually admitted that his signature on the death warrant for the institution of binding holy matrimony was his worst act in all of his years of public service.

The people of the UK have a tiny window of time before this destructive law is imposed upon them against their majority will.    We’re going to be nice in this post and not say anything about how inexcusably the industry special interest group that is backing this is violating the Article 73 separation-of-powers provisions in the British constitution,  but we would like to introduce you to your embattled counterparts in the UK who actively fight for the sanctity of heterosexual marriage in its own right.    “Standerinfamilycourt” is pleading with you to come to their aid in any way you possibly can while this time window remains briefly open due to Brexit preoccupation (the hand of the Lord, perhaps?)   And we all know you can give these family warriors at least the moral support they need right now!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mr. Thomas Pascoe and Mr. Colin Hart, of the Coalition for Marriage (C4M).    Please consider giving these gentlemen a hand in not allowing the liberal press and ruling elites to control the debate with the sort of narrative that the past 50 years’ track record in this country has overwhelmingly disproven.

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.   – Hebrews 13:4

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!  

Discipleship, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Prayer, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare

7 Important Contributions That “Standers” Are Making Toward the Repeal of Forced Divorce Laws

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David Franklin, director for Bartow Baptist Association and Georgia coordinator for the National Day of Prayer, called upon those at the prayer gathering at the State Capitol to stretch their hands toward the two houses of legislators and pray for unity in the government. GERALD HARRIS/Index

by Standerinfamilycourt

“Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light.”    – Luke 8:16

“….gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”   –   Galatians 5:23-24

There’s no question about it, disciples who make up their mind to pay the very high price to obey Christ, that is, to choose not to enter into a subsequent intimate relationship or civil marriage with another person while their legally-estranged true spouse is alive, is probably the most countercultural type of figure in modern society, probably on a scale with the first “Followers of the Way” in the first century church, even if their executed bodies are not being used as street torches, as recently depicted in the 2018 motion picture, “Paul, Apostle of Christ”.

“For we bestow our attention; not on the study of words, but on the exhibition and teaching of actions, — that a person should either remain as he was born, or be content with one marriage; for a second marriage is only a specious adultery. “For whoever puts away his wife,” says He, “and marries another, commits adultery;” not permitting a man to send her away whose virginity he has brought to an end, nor to marry again.” (Athenagoras – 175 A.D., A Plea For The Christians, 33)

“Standers”, for purposes of this post will also include those who, based on moral conscience and scriptural instruction, have exited a civilly-legal “marriage” of the sort Jesus called continuously adulterous, even if they’ve never actually had a covenant spouse (as Jesus defined in Matthew 19:4-6).   The true measure is the extent that their life choices and the significant, visible sacrifices they make, speak biblical truth about marriage into a deafened, jaded culture, and this measure is what this post will bring into focus.   Repenters from an unlawful union are standing for the sanctity of holy matrimony in their own circumstances, and quite often they suffer even greater censure and persecution at the hands of other believers than do those standing for the soul of their true one-flesh partner and for the rebuilding of their own covenant family.    In a broader sense, the ranks of “standers” also includes pastors with congregations, many of whom are in intact biblical, covenant marriages, who gladly suffer very real career consequences (along with their family) as the high price for putting rightly-divided scripture and the souls of their flock above the corrupted circa-1970’s doctrine change of their denomination.   Likewise, “standers” include Catholic priests who stand strong against abuse of annulment canons, and who speak out for the souls of those served communion while they are living in what that church euphemistically calls  “irregular circumstances”.

Not all standers can go lobby at the state capital, or have the means (time, treasure, talent) to bring a constitutional appeal of their state statute, or create effective media that exposes the travesties of unilateral “no-fault” divorce to the uninformed, nay, the duped public.    But, not being able to do these things certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t making a very significant contribution in the big picture journey toward success.   Of course, those whom the Lord has resourced to do both over time, will make an even greater contribution.

The truth is that many of these standers who have a covenant spouse off in the Far Country in an adulterous civil-only “marriage” to a counterfeit would actually prefer not to see unilateral “no-fault” laws reformed to be consent-based only.    They fear the possibility that their prodigal may lose the ready ability to repent by divorcing out of these immoral arrangements, and may die in their sin as a result, if the counterfeit spouse won’t consent.    There would certainly be a much greater risk of this if we went all the way back to the fault-only laws of the 1960’s.    We talked to those reform risks in a much-earlier blog post.   Meanwhile, the Lord is still using even the passive witness of covenant marriage standers in many powerful ways.  Here we discuss just seven of them that relate to cultural influence.

At the end of our days, here is how the Lord will test the result of all of our choices and activities, in terms of how we’ve used our time, treasure and talent.   Our part in getting an evil law repealed won’t count for much in itself, really, but the souls that we’ve helped to heaven as a result of the sacrifices in our role, most certainly will:

“For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.   Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver,  precious stones, wood, hay, straw,  each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.   If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.   If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss;  but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”   –  1 Corinthians 3:11-15

Here is how countless unsung “standers”, in their everyday lives, are making an enormous difference, in this life and the next:

1.) Standers’ eventual reconciliations with the spouse of their youth is slowly debunking  the legal myth of “irreconcilable differences”

One of “standerinfamilycourt’s” absolute favorite activities is collecting, organizing and resharing all of the miraculous testimonies of covenant families being put back together by the Lord God Almighty after decades of estrangement, and after intervening adulterous remarriages that even involved the birth of non-covenant children.

The divorce industry estimates this is roughly 5% of couples the legal system has forcefully estranged at the request of just one of the spouses.    To be sure, some of these reconciliations are sinful because the spouses involved still belong in God’s eyes to somebody else, namely the spouse of their youth.

But think of it:  1,000,000 marriages a year “dissolved” by the legal system for a span of 50 years since unilateral “no-fault” divorce was enacted in the 49 United States: that’s approaching 50 million marriages cumulatively, of which 5% is 2,500,000 “irretrievably broken” marriages nevertheless made whole again in that time span, over 40,000 for each state in the union.    Just imagine if even 1,000 restored constituent couples showed up to register a 5-minute testimony before the state legislative committee hearing, where a bill is being considered to restrict the availability of  “irreconcilable differences” as grounds for divorce only by mutual petition!   Will such a bill continue to be killed “off the record” in the Calendar Committee, as has been the case in Texas at least once since 2017?    Would mainstream news media dare to ignore a story like that?

2.) Standers’ celibacy (and typical financial sacrifice) acts like a vehicle-mounted bullhorn into the culture

Our culture has for centuries screamed that we are entitled to a sexual relationship throughout our lives, and therefore any law, moral or civil, that makes this less accessible is by definition harsh and unjust.     This was the siren song of the Catholic humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, who quite literally managed to stamp the Protestant Reformation with the ticking time bomb of family-destroying licentiousness.    Jesus begged to differ:

For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven….”    –  Matthew 19:12

Standers, if their motives are pure, always put eternal souls first in everything they undertake while their one-flesh spouse is off in the Far Country.

To be sure, it’s much easier not to be called a “divider of the brethren” by their pastor when they won’t go to that adulterous wedding, or won’t join that home group run by the adulterous couple who gives the most time and money to the church, or when they complain about the “marriage enrichment” class that’s scheduled featuring “the blended family pastor” being a bad influence on the flock.    It’s much easier not to have their adult children upbraiding them for not being “emotionally stable” enough to “move on” and stop causing conflict in the extended family when their one-flesh has “remarried” the estranged spouse of another living person.    It’s substantially less excruciating not to have to endure the pain and worry on the faces of our elderly parents who may well go to their graves wondering what’s going to happen to their child when we reach their age.   (Truth be told, it’s hard enough dealing with those emotional thoughts in our own hearts from time to time.)

The pastor who no longer has a congregation, as a direct consequence of refusing to “marry” another, after his covenant wife has left him to “marry” a more prosperous pastor, but who goes on to establish an enduring marriage permanence ministry while he’s replaced in his former church role by a shepherd who is indeed “the husband of more than one wife”–perhaps creates the loudest bullhorn of all.    But the congregation he was forced to leave may never fully understand the extent of their loss, this side of eternity.   Here, unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws have successfully attacked a church with its own doctrine, removing a godly pastor in the process and replacing him with a godless one who only has the veneer of “managing his family well”.

3.) Standers’ lifestyle is actually admired by the future policy makers of our nation

The future policymakers of our nation are increasingly the children and grandchildren of divorce.    They are some of the Sexual Revolution’s survivors.    In four years of readership responses to 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce! , some of the best have come from those young people who are raising tiny children and still suffering from having too many “grandparents” in the picture.     They can’t believe someone would make the kind of sacrifice it takes to actually obey the bible.    They can’t believe the integrity of standers, compared to their own pastor.    They can’t believe what they weren’t taught in church that might have made a huge difference in their estranged parents’ marriages.    They can’t believe that they can yet draw a spiritual line in the sand in their own young family for the sake of their own children and grandchildren, and someone will stand with them.   Some can’t believe that a few mature people will say, “Judgment begins with the house of the Lord”,  so stop ragging on the gays when most of the heterosexuals are living in papered-over adultery.

“standerinfamilycourt” got the first taste of this in March, 2013 while attending the March For Marriage in Washington, D.C. organized by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).    A parade of well-spoken, far-seeing millennials took the platform and talked about how the corruption of marriage had impacted their own families of origin.   Many looked idealistically at the hope of repealing “no-fault” laws, recognizing that this was the vehicle that took the nation from “Point A” to where we now were, on that chilly early spring day when oral arguments were in progress at the Supreme Court for two same-sex marriage cases.     It wouldn’t be long before some of the rulings to follow, in the spate of 2014-2015 homosexual rights cases, would embolden a revival of judicial challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws by the aggrieved, and would strengthen legislative efforts for “family law” reform, which were also reviving after a period of dormancy, made more urgent as the culture continued to deteriorate.

As authors Leila Miller and Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse capture in their respective books, these young adults grew up silenced and stifled to speak out against either their parents’ selfish personal choices or the government-promoted family fragmentation and sequential polygamy norm that prevailed in their church pews when they were growing up.    Now they see adults not only not hesitating to “diss” the blatantly unscriptural “blended family pastor”,  but also care so much about a return to 1st century biblical morality that they’re willing conspicuously to live it out in their own lives, in other words, to take up their cross and follow Christ.

Assuming the Lord stays His own hand of judgment long enough for the emerging voices in this generation to begin to have influence over their peers and the existing power structures, the pendulum will eventually swing back from the current cultural depravity.   We see  this even now, as a sizable percentage of this age group simply refuses to participate in the entrenched moral corruption.

4.)   Standers’ unselfish prayer life goes straight to God’s ear on behalf of the nation for which they are interceding

Every covenant marriage stander lives with the very real possibility that their prodigal spouse will die unrepentant in their sin and wind up in hell.   They live with the terrifying possibility that some or all of the children will emulate that parent, and meet the same eternal fate.   They wish they could evacuate all their progeny from this immoral culture that prevails even at church, and go colonize Mars, if that could but change the trajectory for their covenant family.    If they spend any time on their knees at all, they know that the situation was the result of demonic forces going all the way back to the snake in the Garden just before Eve bit the apple, and it’s going to take nothing less than God’s direct intervention to redeem any part of the situation.     

Paul warned the Corinthian and Ephesian churches (and by extension, us):

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.
– 2 Corinthians 10:3-6

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
– Ephesians 6:12

It’s not at all  fun to wear this armor.   With so much on the line for them personally, however, standers tend to have more motivation to faithfully, consistently and persistently do so.    Nobody wants to see their one-flesh life partner meet with the same fate as the rich man Jesus discusses at the end of Luke 16.

Meanwhile, God, who has been allowing a progressive series of ever more devastating (unheeded) judgments on the land over each of the past 5 decades since the enactment of civilly-forced divorce, along with legalized baby-murder and hireling behavior by His shepherds, is seeking for a reason not to go ahead and finalize His judgment.    Standers know this.    God finds various ways to keep reminding the community of covenant marriage standers that giving our nation over to its worst internal and external enemies is not His preferred choice of action, but the hour is very late, historically speaking.

Abraham came near and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?   Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”   –  Genesis 18: 23-25

 

5.) Standers are driving bible study much deeper than would be the case if this controversy over holiness did not exist in the church

Most Christians today assume that the myth that our founders “required” a rigid separation between church and state, while perceived as patently invalid when it comes to abortion or same-sex “marriage” being unacceptable, but when it comes to heterosexual marriage laws, they don’t see a substantial biblical issue.   That’s because our bibles have been altered over time by the social engineers of the last two centuries, who posed as seminarians.

We all thought for a long time that we could simply select a contemporary English bible version that made the text within clear and relatable, with lots of “trustworthy” commentary notes at the bottom, bring it home to the coffee table, crack it open once in a while, and trust it completely as guidance for our lives. In fact, since Christ died (we were told) for our past, present and future sins, we were “under grace”, even if our understanding, hence our obedience to it, was less than perfect on an ongoing basis.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”, right?

Little did most of us know, that most contemporary renderings of Romans 8:1 omit a very crucial last phrase from that verse…

“…no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk by the Spirit and not according to the flesh.”

And though most of us knew that Luke 16:18 forbid remarriage after man’s divorce without any exceptions, we didn’t dare imagine that the next 13 verses containing the story of the rich man and Lazarus was an eternal warning against seeking “your best life now”, by doing such a thing, even though it was literally the next thought out of Christ’s mouth, wrapping up the conversation in Luke 16. Indeed, in most of our churches, one simply did not speak of hell, especially concerning anyone who had ever repeated the Sinner’s Prayer, no matter how they were currently living….much less connect the adultery repeatedly spoken of by Jesus with regard to remarriage, with the adultery spoken of by Paul in asserting that such will have no inheritance in the kingdom of God (“do not be deceived”).

Even though there were at least three recorded instances of Jesus Christ warning that for any man to “marry” any divorced woman was committing adultery, we were assured by celebrity seminary presidents that this was only a one-time act, “over with” on the wedding night, then covered by “grace” and duly forgotten by God who “hates divorce” (yet,  He allegedly “authorized” it for “biblical grounds” and allegedly was Himself “divorced”.)    We were further assured, given that “all authority is from God“, we must obey civil laws that conflict with God’s law, and that therefore, there are “greater” and “lesser” grades of adultery (adultery-lite, if you will, in the presence of civil paper) with differing eternal outcomes than would appear to be supported by our bibles.   We swallowed hard or scratched our heads at the blatant conflict between Matthew 5:32; 19:9 and Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18, but alas, the footnotes that might have shed some light in an earlier era, pre-1970’s…
Revised Standard Version, Second Edition of the New Testament, 1972 – Matthew 19:9

….were now being quietly removed by the Zondervans who stocked those bible bookshelves and cut the sales deals with Amazon. Most of us, having not attended bible school or seminary, having not been taught the history of the scripture manuscript texts, nor whose hands those texts passed through (including when and why), having not been taught how blatantly that which issues forth from today’s pulpits is at profound variance with the unanimous writings of the 1st through 4th century church fathers – many of them actually martyred, most of us never would have imagined the need to dig hard for ourselves into our study of the bible, in a way that goes all the way back to those texts in their original languages.    Most us didn’t at the time know the basis on which we truly needed to call out our denomination’s leadership when they changed their marriage doctrine in the 1970’s by a vote of the pastors, to accommodate unilateral “no-fault” divorce enactment.

Most of us had no idea that we couldn’t rely on the “scholars’ ” rendering of the koine Greek verb moods and tenses, where taking certain liberties could turn Christ’s or Paul’s meaning literally on its head, if it served to prop up the Sexual Revolution that was occurring in the church and had been ongoing since the 16th century for Protestants. (Without elaborating too much here, there is also irrefutable evidence that the same process was ongoing with Catholic bibles for the same reasons and in the same time frame. Try going to biblegateway.com and bringing up Matthew 19:9 in the old Douay-Rheims version, alongside the newer NABRE version, for just one illustration of this.)

All of that was until…. the civil law of the Sexual Revolution collided head-on with the holy matrimony unions of several clean-living seminarians who had a talent for research and writing, and also collided with a few bible school grads whose churches were censuring them for repenting of their adulterous civil-only unions by divorcing civil-only spouses who really belonged to someone else, and remaining celibate, upon their studious discovery of the undiluted truth about “marrying” the estranged spouse of another living person.   Thankfully for all of us, by the Lord’s hand, this was occurring with divinely-orchestrated timing, just when technology and online resources were drastically bringing down the cost of the requisite research tools, and removing various barriers to accessing those tools, as well as barriers to broadly communicating their findings to anyone who was interested. This at times has led to confirmation by pastors and linguists half a world away.  By then, there were at least tens of thousands of covenant marriage standers on social media who were looking for assurance that what the Holy Spirit was leading them in (intensely countercultural) was indeed backed by scripture they could test and research and confirm for themselves.

The books these scholars then wrote have been literal Godsends. When it becomes abundantly evident that we can’t trust the most acclaimed seminarians and publishers of the day, we must all assume responsibility for our own deep scholarship of original sources. We didn’t plan on any of this, but it’s not all bad. Bible study will probably never be “boring” again!

6.) Standers’ “saltiness” in remaining in a less-than-perfect church is affecting their pastor’s conscience, even if they’re seen by him as a “troublemaker”

“If you have a prayer request, volunteers are waiting to pray with you in the prayer room”, they said.   “Stop in before you leave.”

The stander thinks, “uh-huh, how am I going to ask Mr. & Mrs. Blended to join me in praying that my spouse will leave their adulterous remarriage, rebuild our covenant family,  escape hell by not dying in that ongoing state of sin, and set an example to our generations not to repeat his / her sin?”

This is just one of the many examples of the various crosses a stander bears to try and be salt and light in their local harlot church.   No stander should ever attempt to do this unless (1) they are exceptionally strong spiritually and uber-confident of who they are in the Lord,  and (2) the church is otherwise a strong discipling church where none of the pastors are living in that kind of sin.    If there is anyone in spiritual authority in that church who is “married” to somebody else’s spouse, the proper biblical response is to flee that kind of unbiblical leadership.

Generally, to do this for any length of time, standers need to have a very strong support network among the virtual (and occasionally-meeting) marriage permanence community.    If you hear your prodigal was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer, take it both places, by all means.   Prayer requests for the demise of your one-flesh’s adulterous “blended” household probably belong only in the stander community, at least until the prodigal is on his or her way home.   Or maybe not.   Be led by the Holy Spirit in deciding, and you will not fulfill the evil desires of the flesh.     

Some standers find themselves in trouble in bible studies and home groups.   It goes without saying that someone in an adulterous remarriage is not qualified to teach or lead in the church, yet nevertheless, it’s quite common that they do,  so the Lord will excuse a stander for declining to be under the leadership of such a person.


“Godly couples” in ongoing adultery with someone else’s spouse?
And is the “husband” onboard with leading this group?

However, some of the conflicts that might come up may not even involve questions of marriage.   For example, goaded for some weeks to join a “small group”,  and having received no response to a letter written to the senior pastor to orient him to the difficulty of a covenant marriage stander participating in a small group where couples in adulterous remarriages were also members, “standerinfamilycourt” decided to attend a large group under the leadership of one of the junior pastors.    This was a gathering of around 100 people in a church that is approaching mega church size. We were instructed to cluster according to the town we live in, resulting in a sub-group of around 15.    One man seemed to dominate the group, knew it all, and was a dogmatic Calvinist.    As he went on about the Holy Spirit being a “guarantee” that one cannot lose their salvation, “standerinfamilycourt” ventured to inform him of what the Greek text literally said (see comments above about deep bible study), that the original texts use the word “arrabōn (ἀρραβὼν)“, meaning down-payment.    Perhaps it was just the idea of a new face walking in and contradicting the man, but more likely, a lot of Christians were sold a comfy-system that they don’t want disturbed – ever.    Even so, perhaps a little seed was planted for the other 13 participants enticing them to delve a little deeper.

Standers have a couple of unique opportunities in such churches, nevertheless.   For example, why not volunteer to teach a generic class on applying hermeneutic principles to the study of scripture, how to use deep bible study tools found online, and the history of our bible texts to reconcile those areas where (usually manipulated) scripture seems to conflict with other scripture?

Some female standers with home space available have taken into their homes the young, abandoned wife with a baby — so that the church would not push her into an adulterous subsequent relationship using twisted scripture, rather than take on the church-wide responsibility to contribute to her longterm financial needs.

There are times when it is just not possible to stay in a church that does not subscribe to the no-excuses indissolubility of holy matrimony, according to scripture.   Other times, though it’s frequently uncomfortable, that’s still where the Lord would have us right now.    There’s very little chance that state legislative efforts cropping up in a few states to repeal “no-fault” grounds for divorce unless there’s mutual consent, will ever come up for a vote, much less pass and get signed into law, unless someone is there recruiting the pastor’s active support.    The pastors to affluent suburban communities are actually the ones needing the most encouragement to support these efforts.

7.) Standers are emboldening more pastors and priests to forsake false, comfortable teaching for Christ’s hard teachings, straight-up and undiluted

This part of the movement is blessedly growing, which may be the influence that eventually pulls our nation back from the brink.   Some of these pastors have experienced the walk of a stander, and the restoration of a God-joined holy matrimony union for themselves.     Either way, God is orchestrating quite a bit of cross-pollination which also crosses denominations.   It would be great to see these pastors begin engaging other pastors on “family law” reform, especially in states where a repeal or reform bill is active before the legislature.

– A Pennsylvania bible college president writes a book in 1957, a very disciplined hermeneutical masterpiece that the succeeding leadership of his evangelical denomination tried its best to keep buried deep in the bowels of their headquarters basement, even though at the time, it carried an endorsing foreword by the General Superintendent of that denomination.

– A Connecticut pastor in an intact original marriage who juggles his congregation, leadership of a K-12 school, and a weekly radio broadcast ministry…who confronts other pastors with Jeremiah 23 as needed, and calls out the adulterous legalized unions, urging physical repentance, is hopefully sending a few prodigal spouses home to their true mates.

– A young graduate student headed for pastorship in Colorado presents an unpopular scholarly paper to a group of peers on a Reformed campus in a western state, and also goes on to write a fiery book rebuking contemporary church leadership.    He follows his pastor father in a legacy of bringing the same message to retreats for covenant marriage standers and in other settings.

– A fiery black pastor in an intact original marriage regularly dishes unpopular truth out to his Philadelphia-headquartered megachurch and its global satellites.   His tone is far from “diplomatic”.

– A Milwaukee pastor in an intact original marriage realizes that government regulation of holy matrimony was never delegated by God, and in fact, Matthew 19:6,8 backs this pastor up completely.  He refuses to marry anyone under a civil marriage license, and teaches his flock alternative means to secure property and other rights in biblical marriage, while forgoing some of the government benefits that doing so entails.   God sees the weddings in this congregation as covenantally-binding all the same.

– A Canadian pastor in an intact original marriage commends a teenage girl in his congregation for walking in Paul’s 1 Corinthians 5 instructions while the guest of a church in the U.S. when she finds out that her host and hostess are in a “marriage” Jesus repeatedly called adulterous, and cuts the trip short because of it.

– An Ohio Baptist pastor in an intact original marriage refuses to perform any wedding he wouldn’t do right in front of Jesus Christ, and also refuses to take people already in those unions into this church as a couple, no exceptions, no excuses.

–  Another Ohio pastor in an intact original marriage gives up his Cincinnati church congregation on good terms when his conscience no longer permits him to perform weddings over people with living, estranged prior spouses, nor fellowship with people in such a union.   He tearfully apologizes to those he has done the wrong to in performing their biblically-unlawful marriage, then departs to form a house church and weekly conference call supportive of the stander community and reconciliation of holy matrimony unions.  He writes a landmark book on the topic that carries a spirit of gentleness and truth.

– Another Baptist pastor in Arizona openly rebukes several pastors and leaders of large media ministries who are divorcing their covenant wife to “marry” an adulteress,  and all too often, one who is another man’s legally-estranged wife.

– A famous evangelist in the Charismatic movement reconciles with his covenant wife instead of getting entangled in the pursuing attentions of a serially polygamous female “pastor”.    (She went on to other infamous exploits, enough said.)

– A Florida pastor in a long marriage with a widow who gave up his congregation to write two landmark books on the indissolubility of God-joined holy matrimony and the invalidity of subsequent civil marriages while an original estranged spouse is alive, including the required means of repentance.

– A soft-spoken seminary graduate on the east coast writes a very important scholarly and historical book, and accompanying historical paper before he himself marries, then later finds himself standing for his own marriage, and experiencing a God-orchestrated reconciliation in some very difficult circumstances.

– A Houston pastor in an intact marriage who uses his blog to patiently teach principled hermeneutics on a weekly basis.

– A courageous African Cardinal stands up to Pope Francis’ plans to allow civilly-divorced and remarried parishioners (who have estranged prior spouses from valid marriages still living) to take communion, and to further liberalize “annulment” practices.

– A Virginia pastor leaves the legal profession to establish a marriage permanence church and family integrity radio broadcast.

Are these diverse shepherds “harsh”, “unloving”, “Pharisaical”, “unmerciful”, “unpastoral”, “pushing a ‘works-based’ salvation” ?    
No, unlike most of their peers who adhere to the majority opinion, they’re simply focusing on eternal souls, and eternal outcomes.    They are the handful who are fulfilling Christ’s instructions to “feed my sheep”. The law of this territory is that souls are more important than feelings, once forced to make a choice between the two.   Being “pastoral” utterly fails if most of the sheep don’t ever make it back into the right (eternal) fold.   Pastors like this act as a voice of conscience to all other pastors, even in the midst of a denouncing and reviling response from them.   Pastors like this remind everyone, from the county court judge to the Pope, that even if “possession is 9/10ths of the (civil) law”,  Jesus echoed John the Baptizer in the firm rebuke that such possession never exceeds 0/10ths of GOD’s law.   Taking it to the next level, “standerinfamilycourt” would like to challenge these exemplary pastors to consider that “the law is a teacher”,  and take the case to their state capitol (preferably with a church bus full of like-minded saints),  so that we can get back to the days when people didn’t typically go to hell for much more than not knowing Jesus.  Just imagine the character of your congregations  if murder or rape or theft were legal!   You are the “salt” of the pastorates, so please do for biblical marriage what you’ve always been willing to do for the sanctity of life.    We stand very little chance of success repealing this abomination in 50 states without the solid support of church leadership!   

“standerinfamilycourt” would like to close with this:  how many laws would ever get enacted, or how many immoral laws would remain on the books if everyone knew that availing ourselves of that particular law would send us to hell?    How many legislators would vote for a law like that if they could see people in the hell-flames for observing it?   How many would refuse to vote for repeal of such a law, or conspire to keep its repeal from coming to a general vote of our state representatives?   We have immoral civil laws as a result of the traditions of men that were built around sincerely-believed and long-unquestioned heresies, such as Chapter 24 (V, VI) of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which forms the basis for the (extrabiblical) fault-based grounds for civil divorce.  Having answered this question, apart from the example of standers conspicuously devoting their lives to the restored wholeness of their covenant families,  snatching people from those flames, and willingly bucking the contemporary taboo against even speaking of hell, how else would the world ever find out that this is actually the case, according to God’s word?

And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’  But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.     –  Luke 16:24-25

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Lost culture, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

Of Antinomians and Panderers Thereto

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by Standerinfamilycourt

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.   – Jude 4

Not for the first time have we blogged about this, but it seems so-called “blended families” are all the rage with anyone who wants to sell lots of “Christian” books these days.   We’re told that these “families” are “blessed” (and just for good measure, the author will “bless” them), which is a bit strange since they are snapping up all of these books as a growing demographic: “– and their numbers were added to daily by the “family courts” of the land.”
 It’s kind of predictable that the targeted market won’t learn much from these books, however, so they’ll buy more to see if the advice works out any better.   But what if….God doesn’t want these books to work any magic in these unbiblical living arrangements and immoral relationships?   What if…the cost of “blended families”, who come together for reasons other than widowhood, is too eternally high to bear?   What if… a truly loving God splits these “families” up out of eternal mercy for every member of that kind of household?

Very recently, both Ryan and Selena Frederick of Fierce Marriage.com and Kris Vallotton have posted blogs with sure-fire marriage advice for those who purportedly “didn’t plan” to wind up in an adulterous remarriage by Christ’s standards, but now need to find a way to “thrive” (rather than repent).    Ministry people who publicly spread soul-endangering heretical material to make a person feel better about remaining in their state of sin require somebody to make an attempt at an equally public, respectful response, supplying the biblical truth.   Both of these ministries produce especially effective memes that are highly encouraging to those standing celibate until the Lord restores their God-joined, covenant union and removes their prodigal spouse, in true grace and mercy, from the legalized adulterous relationship they’ve fallen into,  which they pray everyday their prodigal will live long enough to repent of — from the heart.    As with RepentanceCry.com, whose divorced pastor/founder is currently “betrothed” to a younger woman who will (unless God intervenes) sinfully supplant his true estranged wife who is still living, SIFC is left with a  dilemma over the rightness of continuing to use their materials on our pages.     Unlike the case with RepentenceCry,  neither of these other two ministries seem to be blocking dissenters at this point, so members of the marriage permanence movement are still able to exchange with them.

So….exchange several of us attempted to do!

The tennis involved with commenters, who can’t abide anyone so confronting the ministry owners who have tickled their ears and validated their sinful choices, typically goes like this for anyone determined enough to sustain the online engagement:

Lob 1 : (aimed at page / ministry owners) straightforward Matthew 19:6 / Luke 16:18 appeal that God-joined holy matrimony is not dissoluble by anything but death, and that all non-widowed remarriage was consistently called adultery by Jesus.

Return 1:  MIsuse of some combination of Matt.5:32, 1 Cor. 7:15 and Matthew 19:9 to “prove” otherwise, and point out the “error” of the lob.   (They don’t know what to do with the actual scriptures in Lob 1, but they’re certain that theirs must override.)

Lob 2:  Patient, hermeneutical explanation why the Returner’s interpretation of those scriptures to justify marrying again, while having an estranged spouse still living, is not hermeneutically correct, and suggesting that they study it further for a period of time.

Return 2:  Projectile vomiting of everything the discarded spouse did, and / or what the true-spouse-of-the-new-spouse did, that God would surely not expect anyone to stay in the marriage and tolerate… these outrages against their happiness.  (Optional insistence that Lob 2 is an untrustworthy  “private interpretation”  with denial that the Lob 1 scriptures say what they say and mean what they mean.)

Lob 3:  Reminder from Matthew 19:6, 8 that Christ didn’t leave us with a choice whether to “remain in” such a marriage, but that He said we simply are in such a marriage until one of the original partners physically dies.

Return 3:  Indignant playing of (you guessed it) – the Pharisee card, accompanied by various Pauline scriptures cited to purport that nobody is capable of living by the ten commandments, and any effort to do so is “salvation by works” and deceitful, self-righteous “boasting”.
The truncated form of Romans 8:1, quoted to omit “who walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh…” is especially popular at this juncture, accompanied with “by grace we are saved through faith, not of our own works lest any man should boast.”     This, of course, is presumed to override anything Jesus ever said directly to the contrary of their sexual ethics, and asserted only to apply to those who are not “saved” yet, because those people don’t have their ticket punched by belief that their ticket is punched.

Lob 4:   A friendly reminder about the sermon on the mount, concerning obedience to Christ out of a grateful heart, and that the 613 old rabbinic regulations to which Paul was actually referring as “the law” are only suspended upon our surrender to Christ’s lordship,  perhaps quoting Luke 14:26 or Hebrews 10:26-29 or Matthew 7:21-23.  (The 10 Commandments remain in full effect, notwithstanding Luther’s objections thereto.)

Return 4: (now growing demonstrably more heated, can go two different ways – path 1,  revert to Return 1 and mechanically parrot this point again and again for the rest of the conversation, alternating this with vicious ad hominem slurs….or… shift into sorrowful-pious-humility mode with an offer to “pray” that the lobber will “get saved for real some day” – path 2, depending on the personality of the remarriage adulterer on the other side of the net, and assuming Lob 4 didn’t horrifically draw one of each, in tandem!)   It tends to get really ugly from here, but four things are clear from both types of tennis partners:

(1) what they were once sold as the terms of salvation is not matching up with what’s now being presented…

(2) who they thought they were in Christ is now being shaken to the marrow of their bones (with which we should all achingly and deeply empathize)…

(3) if it means they can’t have their “salvation” on the terms they were sold, they’re not about to take our suggestion to study up to make sure they’re as “saved” as they think they are.

(4) they must have a full retraction and apology from you, and they will stalk you by tagging, with repetitive points and demands for “answers” to extraneous questions, day and night until they get it (or you decide life’s too short and block them), even if they happen to presently be separated from said legalized adultery partner.

By this point, there is zero question that we are dealing with one or more antinomians in the conversation.  Antinomianism (from the Greek: ἀντί, “against” + νόμος, “law”) is any view which rejects laws or legalism and is against moral, religious or social norms (Latin: mores), or is at least considered to do so.[1] The term has both religious and secular meanings.  In Christianity, an antinomian is one who takes the principle of salvation by faith and divine grace to the point of asserting that the saved are not bound to follow the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments.[2][3] The distinction between antinomian and other Christian views on moral law is that antinomians believe that obedience to the law is motivated by an internal principle flowing from belief rather than from any external compulsion.    What they don’t take into account is that if you don’t obey, you can’t really claim to believe.    The eighteen inches from head to heart has not been spanned.  They’re stuck on simple mental assent which fails to engage their feet, in the way that the tax collector Zachheus’ feet were engaged when he came to saving faith.    Following the ten commandments is an essential element of following Christ that precludes our own presumptions about what He “would want” for us which they were hoping might suspend one or more of those “impossible-to-follow” commandments.  Jesus died, they insist, for our past, present (unrepented) and future sins!

If the site owners are paying attention, and booksellers good enough to make a living at it always pay attention, we’re about to find out if they, too, are antinomians.   All too often, booksellers appealing enough to the masses to have half a million people following their facebook  page, are almost always antinomians, not just people who honestly don’t know any better.    The exchange with the Vallotton page has not been that contentious so far, and nobody was “unduly” triggered there by the truth-tellers.    Vallotton, who has slightly under 400,000 followers seems to have a loyal opposition consisting mainly of the LGBT community and their sympathizers who are among the most vocal on that page, and that’s where most of his attention seemed to be going.    Some marriage permanence disciples had already been there, challenging the premise that “blended families” are covenant families and are holy matrimony unions, before SIFC  arrived there to comment.    This was also true on the FierceMarriage page,  where the owner’s response to the weekend proceedings arrived around noon Monday, as follows…..

“Hi everyone,
Ok, this is a very nuanced topic, and perhaps we didn’t do the intro justice. I’ll modify the introduction of the blog post so it’s not misleading, but I do want to address some things here about assumptions we’ve made—we’ve (wrongly) assumed that you know where we’re coming from and the premises we had in mind when posting this content.

“For clarity:

1: Divorce is never God’s best for any marriage, Christian or non-Christian alike. In fact, the Bible says that “God hates divorce”. (Malachi 2) It’s never His best for any marriage.

2: As a last resort, and “because of hardness of hearts”, the Bible gives two clear grounds for divorce: (1) sexual immorality (Matthew 5:32; 19:9) and (2) abandonment by an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:15). There is nuance to what constitutes “abandonment by an unbeliever” that can only be discerned on a case by case basis, with pastoral care, prayer, and biblical counseling.

3: The two grounds above shouldn’t be construed as situations “requiring” divorce. Divorce is not required or even encouraged in the above cases. They’re exceptions made, not imposed requirements. Repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation are always the best possible ways forward.

4: If the divorce was for unbiblical reasons, there are no grounds for remarriage. If there are instances where divorce occurs and it’s biblically justified, remarriage is acceptable for the innocent party. (Matthew 19:9) But even then, we encourage couples to fight hard for their marriage (see #3 above) through prayer, counseling, and pursuit of each other.

5: This is a very sensitive and nuanced topic for many that requires speaking “truth in love” in a relational context. We must speak truth, yes, but we must do so in a way that encourages others in Christ, builds each other up in him, and lovingly urges holiness in light of God’s grace in Jesus. For this reason, we urge you to only post comments if you can be lovingly truthful without being brash or harsh.

6: There are other questions like, “can I remarry if I got divorced while I was an unbeliever”. This, and questions like it, are complex questions that are very hard to answer quickly. For that reason, we urge you to get biblical counsel from a pastor who knows you and can read God’s Word with you to find the answer.

7: Finally, a divorced and/or remarried believer should not feel any less loved by God. This is not to condone sin, but rather, to reiterate that our being loved by God is a GIFT (“so that none may boast” Eph 2:9) despite our sin, and is good for our salvation in eternity and our sanctification until we get there.

(Uh-oh!)

“standerinfamilycourt’s” response:

Ryan and Selena, a growing number of pastors and other serious disciples who are familiar with the history of bible versions and revisions over the last 150 years, who are familiar with church history for the first 400 years, and who faithfully apply sound principles of scriptural hermeneutics in studying this topic deeply, must respectfully disagree with several of your points.

Overall, a couple of great books by faithful men of God would be a good read for the two of you.

“One Flesh” by Joe Fogel
“Have You Not Read?” by Casey Whitaker
“Til Death Do Us Part?” by Dr. Joseph Webb

Briefly answering a few of your points:

1. God has *commandments*, not “bests”, “ideals”, “purposes”, “designs” or the like. When Jesus said, “what God has joined, let no human (anthropos) put distance between (choresthetai)”, this was in the imperative mood. This is a commandment with eternal consequences if it goes unrepented. Further, Malachi 2 is (in full context) a rebuke of his priests who divorce their God-joined wife and marry another. God makes clear this breaks all fellowship with Him until repented, because HIs covenant remains with the still-living spouse of his youth. God does not hate the divorce out of remarriage adultery with some other living person’s God-joined spouse.

2. Since when has “hardness of heart” been an acceptable attribute in a Christ-follower? This makes the very dangerous assertion that God is obligated to make allowances for our unholy attitudes. This is not scriptural in any sense. Most of us have bibles that read: if you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven (Matt. 18:23-35), do not demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Matt.5:38), do not take your own revenge (Rom. 12:19), and unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter heaven (Matt. 5:20). On the contrary, Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 describe what happens to an indulged hard heart in a disciple.

3 and 4. Studied deeply and responsibly, we find that the so-called “biblical grounds” for divorce simply don’t exist once principled hermeneutics are applied to the scriptures relied upon. Historically, they are the invention of the homosexual humanist Catholic monk known as Erasmus Desiderius, who was unsavory company for the likes of Martin Luther and other Reformers. All of the above 3 books address this in detail, as does our blog, www.standerinfamilycourt.com. The only biblical ground for divorce is to get out of a biblically immoral relationship with somebody other than your God-joined one-flesh original mate. The only biblical ground for remarriage to somebody other than that person is widowhood (Rom. 7:2-3; 1 Cor. 7:11,39).

5. Since on three separate occasions Jesus stated, with no exceptions, “EVERYONE / whosoever / whoso marries a divorced [person] enters into an ongoing state of adultery”, and since at least twice Paul warned, “do not be deceived…adulterers have no inheritance in the kingdom of God” (speaking only of those who die in that state), “speaking the truth in love” requires speaking the truth in eternal terms that lead to actual repentance – the cessation of the sin in order to recover that inheritance.

6. This question melts away once the evangelical myths of 5 centuries are dispensed with. Getting saved does not sever the one-flesh entity created by God’s hand with one’s true spouse, nor does it dissolve the covenant between that entity and God. Matt. 19:5-6,8 The truly regenerated person, properly discipled, should long to reconcile with their true spouse and should get out of their legalized adultery. Many manage to do so despite being discipled by hirelings, because the Holy Spirit directs their path, as Jesus promised He would.

7. It is definitely true that no sin, including even homosexuality, diminishes God’s love for us, but if we reject His commandments as regenerated people, the indwelling Holy Spirit (the main manifestation His enduring love) will drive us toward repentance. If we instead choose to grieve and quench the Holy Spirit instead of choosing to obey Him, we would be miserable in heaven for all eternity even if we arrived there, because we’d still resent moral absolutes just as we did on earth. He’s too loving to allow that. By contrast, there’s conclusive documentation from the minutes of annual conferences that many denominations in the 1970’s voted to officially change their marriage doctrine to accommodate the civil enactment of unilateral “no-fault” divorce in order not to lose finances and members, much like what is happening now with the homosexual community in the wake of legalized gay marriage. This is not soul-care in either case. Would you not make every effort to warn the homosexual that if they persist in their legalized sexual sin, they will not see heaven?

For about 4 years, your excellent memes have encouraged covenant marriage standers who follow our page, to obey Paul and remain chaste or be reconciled to the spouse of their youth. God has convicted many prodigals to exit their civil-only “marriage” and reconcile with their covenant spouse – to His great glory. If you persist in encouraging households that Jesus repeatedly called adulterous to remain in their sin, we will be compelled to blog an explanation as to why the fans of our page can no longer rely on your ministry. Precious souls are on the line here. You have used a public platform to advance a dangerous heresy (albeit you likely didn’t know any better). The godly response, therefore, needed to be equally public. Now you have ample basis for our suggestion that you study this a bit more purposefully, and we pray that you do.

We truly wish there was a “loving, nuanced” way to warn people that what they thought was holy matrimony, Jesus actually regards as ongoing adultery, and that it’s a heaven-or-hell matter. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; although the kisses of an enemy are profuse.” Prov. 27:6

“Let not many become teachers, for they will incur a harsher judgment.” James 3:1

 

Nobody relishes rebuking a ministry leader, or even an individual, in front of 500,000+ followers, and it should never be done lightly.   The starting presumption should always be that they didn’t know any better, and the rebuke should never be more public than their infraction was — but the people to whom false doctrine was disseminated need the faithful biblical truth, even if unpleasant exchanges with “triggered” people must be endured, and even if it means the page owner cuts us off as “divisive”.     There has been no further response all afternoon from the Fredericks, who seem to have become the infallible dispensers of marriage wisdom after less than 15 years’ experience.    By the grace of God, may they remain so, in a world where “gray divorce” is the only growing category, and the church is growing increasingly immoral in all things marriage. That they have not been so quick to respond the second time seems like a good sign of character.   Hopefully, they’re on Amazon right after dinner, looking for those three excellent books “standerinfamilycourt” recommended.   “Standerinfamilycourt” was once a notorious antinomian, too, mentally equating all sins great and small, until the great and eternally merciful shaking came!

More probably, something needs to be said privately to Kris Vallotton, in light of his restrained response to those correcting him, but whose closing words in his blog piece go so far as to formally “bless” households Jesus called adulterous, and to encourage the divorced that “they can love (somebody other than their estranged, true spouse) again”:

“If you have been through a divorce and remarried, I bless you today. I bless your family and your children— both your biological kids and your step-children! I encourage you to say out loud that you receive this blessing for yourself and for your family!

“If you’ve been through a divorce and are single, I want to tell you today that you will love again.

(   SIFC: People who have “been through a divorce” are NOT “single” unless their spouse is dead, or their spouse was already someone else’s spouse and not actually theirs in the first place.)

“Hear me: You WILL heal, and you WILL love again! God’s redemption is bigger than anything in your past and He can do miracles that we never even dreamed of before!”

“Standerinfamiycourt” would just love to be able to influence 400,000 or 500,000 souls all at once, given what we’re trying to accomplish in amassing enough support and influence to overthrow the unilateral “no-fault” divorce regime that brought us to where we are with the harlot church of today.    But this will likely never be, because the moral price of discouraging anyone living in this sinful state from full, physical repentance is just too high, and Jesus has already prophesied otherwise:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!
www.standerinfamilycourt.com

Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Lost culture, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

How Do We Know that God Created Indissoluble Holy Matrimony to Mirror the Gospel?

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by Standerinfamilycourt

From a recent facebook exchange about John MacArthur as a purported gospel “truth-teller” (versus the alleged “distorters” of the gospel), on the Pulpit & Pen facebook page post:

SIFC:  “MacArthur is himself a Gospel distorter because he refuses to tell the truth about the no-excuses lifelong indissolubility of holy matrimony. Piper does tell the truth, but then he turns right around and tells people to stay in their ongoing man-legalized adultery, as if Paul didn’t warn at least twice that doing so will land them in hell. God designed holy matrimony as the very image of the gospel.
It cannot be desecrated the way the Mac-Man promotes, without pulling all of society down in 3 or 4 generations.”

JAB: “I actually agree with you on the permanence of marriage, but how is disagreeing distorting the gospel?”

SML: “[SIFC], please answer Johnny Benson’s question. I am interested”.

SIFC:  “Excellent question, Johnny. I have a male blogger friend who, upon learning the biblical truth and becoming convicted, removed himself from his biblically-adulterous “marriage” to another man’s discarded covenant wife several years ago, encouraging her to reconcile with her true husband. One of his blogs expresses this so much more eloquently than I ever could, but I can’t seem to find it right offhand, so we’ll have to make do with my attempt at it. You are right, this aspect of comparison to the gospel could fairly be construed as “opinion”. It is one of those truths that is Spirit-imparted, but I believe there is ample evidence that Jesus modeled this many times Himself. I think misappropriated Lutherism and Calvinism (“insurance policy Christianity”) tends to blind most of us to this pervasive truth, especially in our adultery-steeped church culture.

“I think the biggest clue that Matt. 19:4-6, 8 indissoluble holy matrimony is God’s first-created symbol for the gospel is the fact that Jesus was one of the two witnesses at history’s first wedding (the other was the serpent) where the very first mini- “church” is created, is repeatedly referred to as the Bridegroom throughout the OT and NT, ending with Rev. 22:17,20:  “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost….He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra and Malachi all testified to this (ironically leading to some of the most egregious hermeneutic sins imaginable in our contemporary churchianity, but I digress)…all of them comparing covenant-breaking with idolatry.  Jesus echoes this in His fiery rebuke of the Pharisees in Luke 16.

“Most people don’t know it (because they deliberately aren’t taught), but the comforting words with which Jesus opens the last supper would have been instantly recognized by the twelve, because they are the ancient, ceremonial words of the Hebrew betrothal ceremony, such as Joseph would have repeated in front of Mary’s family just before His conception….”In My Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you…I go away to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, you may be also….I will not drink of this cup again until I drink it anew in My Father’s house..” (and so forth). The bread symbolizes “sarx mia” (supernatural, instantaneous, inseverable one-flesh) and the wine symbolizes unconditional covenant. His very ministry began at a wedding, where He turned an ordinary element necessary to life* itself into a flow of unconditional covenant.

“When Jesus says, “I will never leave nor forsake you”,  He is referring to all of this, and it is the primary reason He demands unconditional forgiveness of our neighbor as a condition of inheriting the kingdom of God. When Paul says in Galatians 4:22, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman (Hagar) and one by the free woman (Sarah). But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise”, he is referring to the kingdom difference between a God-joined partner and a carnal-but-legal counterfeit.

“Piper also makes the case for holy matrimony reflecting the gospel (as contrasted with our post-modern redefinition of “marriage” to include legalized adultery and legalized sodomy) so very eloquently and accurately, but then he wrongly believes that dying in an ongoing state of covenant-breaking will only result in the “loss of rewards”, despite Paul’s repeated clear warnings to the contrary.
He wrongly claims that full repentance from such is “repeat sin”.
In doing so, he morally equates God-joined unions with those that Jesus repeatedly and unequivocally called ongoing adultery, as if God’s hand would join someone to more than one living spouse or go back on His own unconditional covenant with the existing one-flesh entity He already created. I’ve not personally read Piper’s book, “This Momentary Marriage”, but my blogger friend has reviewed it:
http://genesistwo24.blogspot.com/…/a-book-review-this…”

………………………………………………………..

If only this Facebook exchange had ended right there, but alas, nobody says to a “TULIP-merchant” something like , “[Piper] wrongly believes that dying in an ongoing state of [marital] covenant-breaking will only result in the “loss of rewards”, without getting the authenticity of one’s salvation questioned, do they?    The conversation went on in that tedious vein for what seems like hours afterward, but the readers will here be spared.   “Standerinfamilycourt’s”   prayerful view of that errant dogma can be read here, for those interested.   (Meanwhile, “SML” above went in a different direction of challenge:  “are you really saying there is no divorce for cases of abuse and abandonment?”   Yes, ma’am, but I didn’t write the bible.)

The point “JAB” pushed is nonetheless relevant because someone who views their “salvation” as a guaranteed, punch-card past transaction instead of an unconsummated ongoing betrothal is going to say something similar to what “JAB” refused, after all the above discussion, to budge from:   “marriage is a picture of the relationship of Christ and His bride the church, but it’s not the gospel.   That’s ‘idolizing’ marriage.”     Salvation, for “JAB” and adherents, is strictly the transaction (which the right-minded more accurately call justification), but for him, “salvation” doesn’t seem to entail any of  the details about becoming sealed with the indwelling Holy Spirit, or learning how to live with the Bridegroom in eternity, ahead of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.    In other words, it’s a pared-down gospel that makes our sanctification seem “optional”, leading to the Calvinist’s (false) allegations of a “works-based” gospel if it is based in any way on obeying the commandments of Christ.    Yes, we are indeed free of any requirement to follow the Law of Moses, but obeying Christ from the heart, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is worlds removed from that!   We cannot equate the commandments of Christ with the defunct Law of Moses.

According to the referenced sermon by Dr. MacArthur, “false teachers”:

(1) hinder believers from obeying the truth by falsely claiming the authority of James, the head of the early church, and attacking Paul’s authority
(2) “obeying the truth” is to believe the gospel (circular argument, as presented by Dr. M, if it excludes obedience to Christ’s direct commandments in purported “legalism”)
(3) do not represent God (in “legalistic lies“)
(4) contaminate the church – “a little leaven…”
(5) will face judgment (SIFC: indeed!) because they are in it for money (SIFC: beginning at 38:25 the irony of this sermon really comes to a crescendo)
(6) persecute the true teachers (perhaps by calling them “graceless legalists” and “Pharisees”?)

The hypocritical application of what, on its face at least, is biblical truth is what most tickles carnal ears (contemporary “Nicolaitans”) these days.   Biblical “grace” never focuses on the temporal while completely ignoring what the bible says about eternal outcomes.    Refraining from disobeying Jesus by the act of “marrying” someone else while having a living, estranged spouse is not “legalism”, any more than refraining from sodomy, incest or concurrent polygamy is.     Indeed, James, the head of the church officially required the converted Gentiles in Acts 15 to refrain from sexual immorality.   Elsewhere, Paul tells us our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.   Refraining from, or physically repenting from, remarriage adultery is akin to refraining from touching the Ark of the Covenant — another of God’s most sacred symbols.   No, there isn’t instant death any longer for violators, but only because of Christ’s resurrection, and because God is not eager to instantly dispatch people to hell while Jesus is advocating for their souls that they would fully repent.   (“JAB” made a big deal that this was so they wouldn’t actually need to repent, other than from alleged “unbelief” in “grace”.)

By the Spirit of the Lord, there are a few Calvinists who “get” marriage permanence (Dr. “Mac” not being one of those).    SIFC hangs out on pages like Pulpit & Pen because the page owners are outspoken critics of a wide variety of the worst enemies and abusers of the sanctity of marriage within the evangelical church today.     At the same time, they seem to be boosters of the good doctor, despite his apostasy concerning marriage, and it’s not very clear why that’s the case at this point.   Perhaps it was good to get a word in on the subject, because not just any marriage, nor the institution of marriage reflects the gospel, that is, the husband laying down his life, and the wife submitting to her husband under the Lordship of Christ, both parties forgiving each other as Christ forgives us, seventy times seven, and the preparation for heaven.  How can much of what passes  for “marriage” these days, either in law or in practice, possibly do any of that?    No, it’s only God-joined, indissoluble unions that actually mirror the gospel.  Neither can be counterfeited by caving to an evil contemporary culture.

Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”  Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he *said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”    –  Revelation 19:6-10

(* Sorry, we couldn’t resist the well-timed jab by the satire page, Babylon Bee.)

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!

citizenship, Discipleship, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

Fiery Furnace : Covenant Standing and Our Adult Children

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by Standerinfamilycourt

Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short. – Romans 12:12

For many of us who obey biblical instruction to stand for the wholeness of our families, to treat an involuntary or our own sinfully-initiated civil divorce as a chaste separation of the indissoluble, no matter how long it takes, no matter what pseudo-authority an immoral civil law system attempts to exert over us, no matter what we suffer at church as a consequence of this biblical obedience,  we yet find ourselves in a very long journey that increases the number and sharpness of the rocky shoals we must now figure out how to navigate.   As the journey lengthens, we often lose the support of others after a long season, based on circumstances we can’t control.  We’re hard-pressed, even so, to point to a single hero of the bible who didn’t also experience this, but it seems really hard when it’s us;  when it’s our kids inflicting some of the cultural persecution and suffering their own mortification over our convictions.

Along with the long road comes the intensifying spiritual warfare, because what we are daring to do is shake the very beams and timbers of the world’s oldest and most powerful satanic stronghold. We are generally a pretty strong lot, if our motives for doing this are what they should be. We can’t be “taken out” permanently by our own covetings and lusts, even if our foot might slip on occasion, and we can’t be shamed out of it, even by close friends or disgruntled family members, if our worst terror is that our prodigal spouse faces an eternity in hell if they die before repenting, or that our children and grandchildren might be deceived into emulating him or her some day.   We bear up, some of us, through intense economic hardship, lonely illnesses, the slander and accusation of others in the body of Christ, whose own carnal choices make our contrasting choice seem threatening. When satan knows, after years and sometimes decades of trying, he can’t get to us any other way, he often doubles back around on efforts to get to us through our children. There are several forms this can take, and though “standerinfamilycourt” has blogged on this before by way of personal tales, this post will try to take a look at how this commonly develops, share some things that might be helpful to think about, and finally share some encouraging outcomes.

Catholic author, Leila Miller has written a highly-praised book called Primal Loss, in which she asks a set of questions to seventy adult children of divorce about their feelings and experiences, which she captures in the book.    Most were accounts of parents who, for the most part, remarried and would never have considered standing for the indissolubility of the only marriage God recognized as such.    The parents largely went along with the culture, and had no godly input to do otherwise.   The kids mostly say their adult life has suffered in various ways.

These accounts captured in Primal Loss make a good contrast against which our own choice to obey God’s commandment throughout unwanted marital estrangement can be compared to the emotional impact on our adult children of our not doing so, for a little balance and perspective.   The whole premise of Miller’s book was the grievous temporal emotional impact on the adult life of these casualties of the popular divorce culture, especially where society expected them not to contradict the conventional wisdom about their “resiliency”.   Her premise is true enough:  our culture deeply frowns on adult children of divorce speaking up about how the selfishness of man’s divorce has impacted them as adults, and this expectation is no different for children of standers from the perspective of virtually everyone around them, except us standers.   One of the most repeated (and striking themes) as stated by many of the adult children in this book is how much they truly resent having to explain to their own children Nana and Papaw’s estrangement.

“standerinfamilycourt” has two adult children of the covenant marriage.   Both were young adults when the marital issues first surfaced. Both were raised all their lives in an evangelical home, where they were not even allowed (by their prodigal parent) to spend the night in a home where there was a biblically-adulterous “marriage”, even if the offending couple was part of our church. Both are now happily married, attending church regularly with their young families, and teaching their own children marriage permanence. Both stood firmly, along with their respective spouses, with this covenant marriage stander for nearly a decade leading up to the unilateral civil divorce action, and for at least a couple of years until a prodigal husband legalized his adultery, almost a dozen years into their ordeal.   SIFC is well aware that many standers have a very different personal situation with regard to their children’s ability or willingness to support their stand.

All this said, SIFC has been violently thrown out of the house of each of these adult children at least once in the past 3 or 4 years, for a reason directly related to pressures from the covenant marriage stand, and has been threatened with never seeing the grandchildren again if it continued, and if SIFC didn’t quit the “cult”.

What are some of these pressures that we wish we could spare our kids (and their kids), which inevitably result from the only choice we can righteously make before God?

(1) The adulterous prodigal and their new spouse are relentlessly pouring on the emotional pressure to validate their “marriage”.
This is an all-consuming, driving force among those who know their relationship is invalid and immoral in God’s eyes.    In fact, the more they knew this before they entered into pseudo-marriage, the more intense the effort becomes to gain acceptance.    Cards, bribes, invitations and pleas will proliferate.  Scripture will be twisted to call into question the kids’ “unwillingness to ‘forgive’ ” or their “failure to honor their mother and father”,  or their “disrespect for the authority of civil government”.    They will be pointedly reminded that their own current church would recognize this new “marriage” (too often true enough).

If those measures don’t succeed, the grandchildren will often be contacted behind the backs of their parents.    The child’s conscientious spouse, who never asked for any of this ongoing conflict, will start to fear for their own marriage due to the household turmoil all this lobbying causes over an extended period of time.    If not properly navigated, the adulterers eventually “win” from the simple grind of wearing down family members, and they know they can easily deflect the blame at the same time, preferably onto the stander.    The problem is not their immoral betrayal of their own flesh and blood progeny, it’s that irksome covenant marriage stand, and an “ex”-spouse who is “deliberately prolonging the pain” for all, by “using the kids”, instead of “getting help” or “moving on”.

(2) The children were not raised with the idea of marriage indissolubility, and they support the adulterous union because that’s what peace with our culture dictates.    It usually takes two firmly-convicted parents to raise up children who would fit into the first description discussed above.    Given the apostasy of most churches and the widespread legalized immorality in most extended families and friends’ families, this stands to reason.    Beyond this is the fact that many abandoned spouses come genuinely to Christ only as a consequence of the marital rupture, and did not raise their children with biblical marriage concepts.    In this latter case, the kids come to associate the stander’s sudden “fundamentalism” with all the prevailing lies of the culture about following Christ.

This really puts the stander in a serious pressure-cooker, and can result in much greater actual isolation from children and grandchildren than the first group of circumstances.    These standers often find themselves suffering in silence as their grandchildren are exposed to one or more normalized immoral relationships that they know imperil two generations of souls.    They also suffer much humiliation in these circumstances.    They  suffer almost irresistible fear and a sense of helplessness to do anything about it, even to the extent of fearing to wear their wedding ring in front of the family.    To them, I offer an encouragement from the recent film, “I Can Only Imagine: The Bart Millard Story”.    Bart’s mother left her abusive covenant husband for good cause, and formed a series of immoral relationships soon after.  Bart’s dad, long  before he came to Christ toward the end of his life, never took off his wedding ring.   He, too, was a stander even as a pagan.   Even as a drunk, he was having one of the most important silent influences a man could have on his son’s future life.

(3) The adult children have their peers to appease (and you’re embarrassing them; putting them on the spot).   They go to work, to dinner parties, they’re on facebook and at soccer practice and scouts.   It’s sharply painful to them to be asked how their mom or dad is doing.   Social media exposure makes this circumstance particularly painful for both the stander and the children who feel “trapped” between their parents, in front of their friends, no less.     It’s not uncommon for adult children of standers to “unfriend” one or both parents because of this, particularly if there is any activism involved on the stander’s part, or bragadocious posts on the prodigal’s part – both circumstances being very common.    They dread being asked by these friends if they (like us) think that they or their divorced-and-remarried parents / aunts / uncles / siblings are living in sin.    Even the most faithful of born-again adult children may not be very comfortable with thinking about these matters in eternal, heaven-or-hell terms.    Their focus tends to cling tightly to how people are made to feel in all of the swirling circumstances.   This concern often extends to what they fear your grandchildren might let slip to their own young friends, because so many of those children’s parents are divorced and remarried, as SIFC’s daughter once protested.

(4)  There’s a ninety-five percent chance they are not comfortable with talk of hell, nor of remarriage adultery sending people to hell, especially by the millions.   The very thought that it could be true is even more terrifying to them.    God bless the Francis Chans and David Pawsons of the evangelical world who are now setting the example that’s giving us permission once again to talk about hell, after a decades-long church taboo against it!    In the meantime, we’ve been up to our eyebrows in toxic Calvinism and toxic Lutheranism, with extrabiblical statements like: “He died for our past, present and future sins”, or “God looks at our sins, no matter how bad, through the shed blood of His Son, and He has thrown them as far away as the east is from the west.”  (Presumably, without any repentance required other than “in our hearts”).    Our kids are tempted to presume that just because a couple came together in “remarriage”, and a sovereign God didn’t stop it, He must have “joined them”.     Most contemporary evangelical pastors look right past Matthew 19:4-6, 8 (and related passages) to presume that God “provided for” divorce, and that all civil marriages other than homosexual or incestuous ones are morally interchangeable.    Against that backdrop, linking Luke 16:18 with 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 seems almost sacrilegious.   However, we need to be mindful that Jesus and Paul each made that linkage twice.
Empathetically, can we blame an adult child for feeling intense alarm and strong denial at someone / anyone saying out loud that a parent they always thought was “saved”, who may have even baptized them, is now headed to hell just for choosing the same serial monogamy that everyone around them chooses?

Let’s face it, if we didn’t know there was a biblical hell-penalty for dying in unrepented remarriage adultery, we might still stand celibate out of our first love for Jesus, but we’d have far less company in doing so.   Furthermore, we’d be unloving not to give our blessing to the remarriage of our born-again one-flesh partner, knowing that the “loss of rewards” the Calvinists like to say they will reap in eternity makes their happiness in this life all the more important to them.    We’d be downright cruel to keep calling it adultery, even though Jesus repeatedly did.    It would be harsh on our children and grandchildren not to do whatever we could to ease the intense stress they are already under, if there were no risk of hell for children and grandchildren who go along with the immoral culture and who someday emulate it.    But the biblical fact is what it is, so we “soldier on”.    Jesus never promised us bloodless spiritual warfare.

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.   For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.   –  Matthew 10:34-36

Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.   Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.   But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.  – Matthew 24:11-13

The Apostles instead promised us we’d be surrounded and outnumbered by desperately wicked people in the last days.   There is no way a serious stand can impact our children and grandchildren for the good unless the taboo against talking frankly about hell is gone from us.   If we give place to the taboo out of fear of man, satan wins.    

(5) Their spouse isn’t onboard, including the spouse’s parents or siblings.   Perhaps your child’s in-laws are living in the sin of remarriage adultery themselves, or some of their other children or other relatives are.  Perhaps they are a clergy family in a church where adulterous weddings are routine (or denominationally mandated), and “blended” families are typically the most productive members of the congregation.    Or perhaps your child married an unbeliever, either equally or unequally-yoked. Perhaps you are a serious threat to your son-in-law, or daughter-in-law, because they actually have a living, estranged spouse.    Whatever the reason, expect your adult child to be impossibly-torn in such circumstances, and always make your own choices that protect the sanctity and irreplaceability of their marriage, unless that marriage is biblically-adulterous.

(6) You were once the prodigal, now repented and standing, but your kids still don’t trust you.     I am talking here to the one who divorced a faithful, godly spouse to “marry” someone else you were attracted to, rather than stay and persevere through the issues in your God-joined marriage.   The Lord has brought you back from the Far Country, given you godly sorrow over what you’ve done, but your kids are applauding your spouse’s new relationship(s) because they don’t want to see the other parent hurt again, and aren’t ready yet to buy in to your repentance.   You don’t understand how they’re not persuaded by the years you’ve chastely waited for the Lord to put your family back together since the day of your genuine repentance.  From their perspective, the years they thought they could count on their intact family before it got disrupted by your change of mind (and heart) still speak louder than anything that’s happening now.    That’s a really hard place to be, but not beyond the Lord’s touch.

So, what do we DO as standers with all of this?
To be honest, it seems easier to talk about what we don’t do, first.

– However tempting, and however much legal or informal alienation has developed, we don’t “write them off”.    This is especially crucial for men to understand, in their God-assigned role as the patriarch of the family.   God did not let Eli off the hook when he sinfully abdicated his role as the moral shaper of his adult sons.    Giving in to this abdication urge is an affront to God’s design for the family, even in the extreme situation of legal restraining orders, and even in the second generation.   Whose authority trumps here, God’s or “Caesar’s”?    Be bold, and ask God to bring the children / grandchildren to you, and to remove that restraining order, in Jesus’ holy name!

– Don’t lose sight of the fact that the baseline battle is for souls, not circumstances.

– Don’t forget that the battle is ultimately the Lord’s, but He still needs kingdom soldiers (in their full armor) to carry out spiritual warfare.

– Don’t be the “cobbler whose own kids (and grandkids) went without shoes”.   (This is for the street preachers, etc. out there who think it’s OK to not expect wholeness for their covenant family, as long as they’re “doing something for the kingdom of God”.)

– Never lose sight that NO prodigal mate “divorces” ONLY their covenant spouse, they also “divorce” their entire covenant family, spiritually and practically, especially if they then enter into legalized adultery.

– Don’t be so presumptuous as to give GOD a time limit.   His singular will IS for ALL your covenant family to be whole in this life and to make it to heaven.   Yes, we know it doesn’t always happen that way, but Abraham wasn’t lauded in Romans 4 for comparing himself to others.      

  • DO be so bold as to stare satan down after a discouraging incident with the kids.    You’re a King’s kid, and it’s your birthright, as well as your calling to do so.   Balance that with the other piece of advice given to “King’s kids” (Luke 6:35) by Jesus Himself.   Imagine if God treated us like we treat Him, or if He was intimidated from coming after us in spiritual warfare out of His weariness or fearfulness!
  • DO ask the Lord for special Spirit-revelation about the specific people causing the conflict, and pray for a unique opportunity to be a blessing to them.   Follow through when it turns up.
  • DO prayerfully ask the Lord to pour His peace over the conflicts your kids are experiencing, and a hedge of protection over their marriage, that they would feel His presence and instruction navigating these difficult conflicts.
  • DO accurately walk in your Kingdom marital status 24/7/365, shutting out all resulting intimidation as “noise”.    Paul never once spoke of “divorced” people in 1 Corinthians 7, nor did he actually speak generically of “single” people (despite the bad translations).    If Paul believed one single word of what Jesus told him, which led to his instructions in Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Cor. 7:11 or 39,  why in the world would he?   Paul spoke of the widowed and the never married (“virgins” – parthenos), and the married.    When he spoke of the unmarried (agamois – / agamos: without a[nother] wedding), he was usually speaking of widowers like himself.   To Paul, there were no “divorced” people, only legally estranged, married people.
  • DO pray about wearing your wedding ring and using your married name without apology.    Yes, it’s probably going to threaten your counterfeit replacement and irk your one-flesh spouse.   But who is it who is guilty of the covetousness, theft and falsehood?   Certainly not you!
  • DO remember how loudly your celibate stand is already speaking to everyone around you.   This is for when you’ve shared a deep, essential truth (such as ongoing adulterers going to hell without exception), and you feel the need to “lay low” until the kids or grandkids come to you again.
  • DO ask the Lord to raise up supernatural barriers to exposing your grandchildren to the legal-but-adulterous (and legal-but-sodomous) unions in their lives, the best of which would be firm conviction in their parents about how morally damaging the exposure is.   Yes, SIFC’s prodigal was spot-on all those years ago, and the kids have never forgotten it (to his current chagrin).
  • DO use bible stories (open bible) to straightforwardly communicate unpopular truths to the grandkids in an age-appropriate way, and pray with them.   This is not a guarantee that you won’t incur flak or passing wrath as consequence of doing so (including from your spouse when it gets back to them).   It is best to do so as a response to a conversation the grandkids initiated, and it’s best to make this an occasional, infrequent occurrence rather than a constant one.  You are NOT out of line, and your ARE under God’s covering.   If your spouse reprimands you, treat it as another (rare) opportunity to emphasize souls, eternal destinations, and the impact of the example we set before our children and exposed grandchildren.
  • DO ask the Lord before fully taking onboard their perspectives about the “damage” you are “causing” their children, your grandchildren.   In 2016, my daughter claimed that my reading the John 6 account of Herod, Herodias and John the Baptist to the two elementary-aged granddaughters caused the older one to “wail in despair” about her Papaw going to hell “if she didn’t pray for him”.    I had led this granddaughter to the Lord two years earlier, and knew she was comfortable with prayer.    If there had really been such a “damaging” reaction, it would have been far more likely come from the younger one.   We had prayed together with our arms around each other that day, and they had come to me.
  • DO be purposeful about spiritual disciplines, including prayer in the Spirit, fasting, devotions, scripture memory.   We don’t operate in this kind of realm apart from spiritual warfare, and we don’t “dabble” very safely in it, either.    Do them enough that the odds are your kids and grandkids will frequently “catch you” at them.
  • DO understand “standing” to include standing firm (holding our ground, occupying our God-assigned space).    Try a word search in biblegateway.com on the word “stand”, and see how consistently this concept is associated with the word “stand”.                                                                                                                                         Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
    –     Ephesians 6:13-15

Early on the morning of  “Boxing Day”, December 26, four months ago, SIFC was thrown out of our daughter’s house and sent home early on an 11-hour northerly journey in hazardous weather as a result of answering a question her husband had asked the Christmas night before.    The culprit?   On the surface, it was radical feminism, but on the inside, it was the Holy Spirit challenging her ideologies that are in conflict with the kingdom of God, and which if not repented, are quite likely to seriously threaten her own marriage down the road.    The question posed by her husband was not even directly on marriage, but it was on politics.   In retrospect, after the explosion that occurred at her house in August, 2016,  SIFC should have demurred from engaging, since both granddaughters, ages 7 and 9, were again in the room, and because the topic area, involving a Trump administration nomination, was highly likely to drift into marriage ethics, were I to give a frank, honest answer about this morally  unsuitable nominee.    (SIFC is only a lukewarm Trump fan for morality and character reasons, and these kids both detest him for defeating Hillary.)    Unavoidably, the conversation did drift into marriage permanence and the immoral living conditions of the nominee, who was also not pro-life, as I recall.   Because my views were “polluting” and “confusing” her daughters by opening them up politically to “abuse” in their mother’s estimation, it was urgent that I be out of their house forthwith, our daughter declared (to the utter shock and dismay of her husband).    Day older, day wiser.   It was I who had played into that demonic trap, for the Holy Spirit did attempt to warn me.   I spent the drive home pleading the blood of Jesus over their marriage, after thanking them sincerely for including me in their Christmas.

There was never any apology (except from me for not having the discernment to tactfully change the subject from politics), but by early March, our daughter was texting me about the younger granddaughter’s April birthday party, and the older one’s starring role in the annual school musical, scheduled ten days after that birthday.  It appears that I had correctly discerned the demonic nature of that December setup, and correctly responded to the harsh treatment that resulted.  A week ago I returned from spending a week in their home, this time without conflict, even though our granddaughters were bringing me their bibles and asking for bible stories, and even though they again asked me about Papaw, wanting more prayer for him.   I had stared satan down, had shouted to him on the way back that he cannot have any part of my covenant family, in Jesus’ name, and I didn’t have to worry about creating conflict by wearing my wedding rings because the whole extended family knows they never come off.    After all that had happened, I got to be the one that was there for them, doing practical things to ease stresses currently in their home, that for once, I have nothing to do with contributing to.   Strangely, the other set of grandparents, who live only an hour away, weren’t even there or in touch, as far as I know.

Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.
– Deuteronomy 31:6

 

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!