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The challenges professing Western Christianity has of maintaining any kind of relevancy and authoritative standing as “ambassadors for Christ” in the world are rooted not so much in the strength of its secular and religious messengers in opposition, but our failure to stay consistently on biblical point in Word and deed with our own message! While it is true Christians are not perfect or become so on this side of glory, we have, in spite of this, been commissioned by our Lord to represent His glorious resurrected reality, the truths and power of His Word in our lives and deeds as His ambassadors (Luke 24:44-49; John 13:34-35; Acts 2; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, NKJV).
Alas, though, in these latter days professing Western Christianity is willfully fractured many thousands of ways with equal numbers of voices speaking outside of the Word while at the same time claiming adherence to it; confusing many within and especially without that are watching and listening as they are continually summoned to join in (1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 14:33). No less of an issue in this madness by way of example, is divorce. While some professed Christian leaders as solace attempt to tout that the divorce rate among Christians is far less than what it is among those of the world, the Lord’s standard of zero beyond the two instances He allows means He is not pleased!1
The divergent permissions guilty pastors, elders and other leaders are giving to allow divorce beyond what the Lord does is a shameful spiritual and social disaster! Some, as Rev. Pat Robertson did on his 700 Club television show in 2011, honestly seek to help folk in painful struggles. But this does not alter the truth that the Lord’s instructions are being disobeyed. This edited 2011 repost is presented not to put Rev. Robertson in a bad light, but to call us all who genuinely care in the Body of Christ to sober up and consider what we are doing even for compassion’s sake when we go against and lower God’s standards and very importantly, how the watching world really processes it.
Once again, unless we delight in being hypocrites, the Lord reminds us as Christians we have no rebuke for the world from His Word on any topic much less divorce if we ourselves are actively guilty of the same and without His allowed just cause (Romans 2:1-3). To his credit, I recently heard Rev. Robertson give counsel affirming the biblical worldview that the marriage vow is for life.
Originally Posted September 18, 2011
I have admired Rev. Pat Robertson, Founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of its 700 Club for over thirty years. I have all of the empathy in the world for him in the times he has mis-spoken, interpreted or applied Scripture outside of biblical orthodoxy. The Lord knows I do not believe I know it all either, but have as my unbreakable guiding principle to stick unequivocally with the plain teaching of the Bible even when it does not seem fair or right to my sinful flesh or popular. This is where I believe my elder and brother in the faith went wrong this past week in offering his opinion on marriage to a person with Alzheimer’s as I watched the program.
Shamefully, only because the secular news outlets monitor Rev. Robertson’s 700 Club show watching for him to say something they can seize upon to hold him up to ridicule, did they pick up on his suggestion to a viewer question that divorce would be acceptable in the case of one married to a spouse suffering with Alzheimer’s because, technically, that spouse may as well be dead. My brother is wrong, of course, to give a permission the Lord does not! As I write to men in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics,2 the Lord’s design of marriage is until death as we commonly understand it as the total cessation of body life (Matthew 19:4-6; Romans 7:1-3; 1 Corinthians 7:39).
Traditional Christian marital vows are based on the Judeo-Christian teaching of the Bible that physical death is the only God ordained separation of a husband and wife. Divorce and desertion as separating factors are accounted for as accommodation to human sin, not perfect divine will (Matthew 19:7-9; 1 Corinthians 7:10-16). Dementia and other debilitating issues of the mind were present in the first century too (Matthew 4:23-24), but were not taught by the Lord Jesus or His apostles as reasons to divorce.3 Therefore, in God’s program there is no instance of technical death or anything else other than what He has permitted that gives a Christian release from his marital vows.
Sickening to me was the hypocrisy of the secular media that actually found a reason tied exclusively to emotion and sentimentality to support lifelong marriage and gloat over the mistaken preacher. It is a lesson for every aspiring strong man and great woman of God that we are to stick with God’s script, the Bible and “lean not on” our “own understanding” even attempting to be sympathetic as our dear brother was obviously seeking to do with the husband whose wife suffered with Alzheimer’s (Proverbs 3:5, NKJV). The better, biblical answer would have been to counsel the man to honor his marital vows and seek strength from the Lord to bear up under this admittedly excruciating trial (Philippians 4:13).
1 See the March 24, 2019 post, Restoring Marriage As God Designed, under the category, The Cause.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 I have heard most if not all of the reasons professed Christians like persons of the world want to divorce in these latter days and they differ little from those of history
in which God has witnessed it all. Yet, He does not grant divorce except as narrowly allowed in His Word because He hates it (Malachi 2:13-16)! God is not cruel,
but we even as professed Christians can be very selfish and wicked--both men and women; willing to break the marital covenant vows and denigrate marriage
originating from God to have our way. This is also what is so spiritually disgusting from the Lord’s perspective about the way many churches and Christian entities
treat almost any divorce as an unfortunate event that a doting God wills to help them overcome by remarriage, rather than as a painful tragedy of immense propor-
tions in which an offended God will help heal only the injured party in obedience to His Word; forgive with repentance the offender, but allow the natural conse-
quences to unfold on both parties involved to head them off from repeating the same errors again that led to divorce in the first place--if they will give heed. The Bi-
ble's God will never let divorce be “no consequence!”
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