Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage (1)

I don’t know of any subject that is more thorny, that has stirred up more strife and contention, that has caused more division among the people of God than this one! So a word of caution is in order.... I do not write this post, nor any other on this blog, to convince the reader of my point of view, to stir up strife or contention or to cause believers with varying opinions to divide from one another. My purpose (as with every post on this blog) is to simply chronicle how the Lord has used a wide variety of people to challenge and change my thinking and even affect the course of my life. I do not present my views here as being the “final word” on these matters, but simply record how my thinking has radically changed in the process...and is likely to continue to undergo further change as the Lord continues His work of transforming me into the image of Christ!

I should begin this post(or rather this series of posts!) by explaining where my thinking commenced and why it has changed over time relative to the matters of marriage,divorce and remarriage.

Like most people, my original thoughts and beliefs about many things, including marriage and divorce, were inherited directly from my parents. My parents believed
(1) that marriage was a lifelong relationship between one man and one woman,
(2) that divorce for any reason was wrong and contrary to the mind and will of God and thus
(3)that any remarriage after a divorce, while one’s former spouse was still living was also contrary to the mind of God.
Thus, as I grew into adulthood, I knew that many marriages were breaking up and ending in divorce (even among Christians!) and that many such people were remarrying. But I believed...
(1)that all such divorces were disobedient to the word of God and
(2)that all remarriages of divorced people (whose original spouses were still alive) were also acts of disobedience to God and
(3)that such remarriages were adulterous relationships.

I held these views for many years apart from any personal study of the scriptures. Thus they were simply “inherited opinions” on my part but I could not say that they were personal convictions of mine based on personal study of the scriptures!

Thus the first real challenge to my views on marriage and divorce came from another Christian, Steve Kember. I had moved with my wife and family from Collingwood to Norwich in March of 1989 in order to help Steve in Gospel outreach in this community and in the establishing of a local assembly of believers. In work such as this, one continually encounters folks in all kinds of marital situations.

If I was ever to list men that I knew who had the gift of an evangelist, Steve Kember would be the first on that list! He has a heart for the lost and has invested many years of his life seeking out those who are lost and patiently pointing them to the only Saviour of sinners. Since we have known Steve and Merle, they have sought out and have purposefully settled in 8 or 10different “out of the way” communities across Canada. In each one they have invested their time and energy getting to know and befriending people in those communities, and then sowing the Word of God into their minds and hearts. Steve has spent more time calling door-to-door than any other man that I know. He spends his days in this way seeking those who have an interest in spiritual things and then most often spends his evenings in small Bible studies in people’s homes further explaining the Gospel and instructing new believers whom he has lead to Christ.

So, as Steve saw many divorced and remarried people come to know the Lord, he had a natural desire to see them go on to live their lives for Christ and to minister effectively to others. Steve believed that when a person came to Christ, the sins of their past were forgiven and they were to move on from that point in the enjoyment of the grace of God without any changes in their marital status. I discovered that many other Christians shared Steve’s viewpoint.

I agreed that when people’s sins were forgiven, all sins were forgiven including divorce and remarriage! But I also believed that teaching new disciples involved teaching them to observe all the things the Lord had commanded His disciples. Thieves were to stop stealing and work to meet their own needs as well as to give generously to others. Liars were to stop lying and to begin consistently telling the truth. Drunkards were to no longer get drunken but rather to live their lives soberly and righteously. And those who lived in sexual immorality were to terminate such immoral relationships and to live righteously.

Those, like Steve, who believe that folks who get saved in various “divorced and remarried” relationships should maintain those current marriage relationships often express their thoughts in this way, “You cannot unscramble scrambled eggs!” However, they would make exceptions to that rule … If the two people who are married are...
(1) the same gender (because their ongoing relationship would be characterized by sodomy) or
(2)are siblings (because their ongoing relationship would be characterized by incest).
But such people do not generally believe that divorced and remarried folks should separate if spouses of one or both from previous marriages which God had joined are still living (i.e. if their ongoing relationship is characterized by adultery.)

To me, this did not seem to be a consistent manner in which to counsel folks relative to former sins and how to turn from them. But I was immediately confronted with another matter which was equally inconsistent in my own beliefs!.... If, as I’d always believed, divorce for any reason was wrong and contrary to the mind of God, how could I counsel any married people to divorce, even if their marriages were characterized by sodomy, incest or adultery????

I knew then (finding myself between the proverbial “rock and a hard place”) that I had a problem and that something in my own inherited belief system was wrong! So I was driven, out of necessity, to begin to search the scriptures to find the truth. I knew that scripture rightly understood would never leave one with a contradiction and (closely related to this idea), I also believed that there is no sinful behaviour or practice, no matter how “scrambled” it may be, for which God does not have a righteous remedy.
So, with these conundrums before me, I was driven to search the scriptures relative to the matters of marriage and divorce. I had many surprises in store as I learned that scripture had far more to say about these matters than I had ever dreamed! (To be continued….)

Helen Allen's Conversion to Christ

A few weeks after I was saved, I was baptized again and was soon received back into the assembly at the Collingwood Gospel Hall (this time as a genuine believer!) We continued to gather there with a few of the Lord’s people until March of 1989. It was then that we felt the Lord was leading us to Norwich (about 3 hours to the south west) to help another brother, Steve Kember, who was preaching the Gospel there and seeking to establish a new assembly of believers in that area. But here, let me share a bit of Helen’s story…

Helen Ferguson married Steve Allen and their daughters, Stephanie and Cassandra were born before we left Collingwood. When we left, Helen remembers that I asked her to be sure to call me as soon as she got saved! She agreed to do so. (But I was to wait over 8 years before that call came!)

Helen had been about 14 years of age when the others in her family had been saved. She professed to be saved as well. The Christians were so thrilled that it seemed no one seriously questioned Helen about her own experience of salvation but accepted her simple testimony at face value. But it was not long before Helen realized she did not have peace with God. She often heard folks talking about her and saying, “Helen is such a good girl!” But in reality, these comments only made it harder for her to really come to grips with where she actually stood with God. But finally at the age of 19, Helen realized she could not let herself or others continue under such an illusion. She knew she must acknowledge openly that she did not have peace with God, that she was not a child of God and that she did not belong in an assembly of believers. So she withdrew from the assembly. She had no idea how the Lord would use her decision to speak so loudly to me about my own standing with God!

Like many who have often heard the Gospel preached, Helen struggled with what it was to “believe”. Intellectually, she accepted the truth of the Gospel message and could honestly say she had never disbelieved it! But knowing facts about Christ and resting in confidence upon His finished work for her own salvation were two different matters!

She longed to be saved and attended Gospel meetings regularly . In 1996 two preachers – Tim Walker and Jim Beattie came to Collingwood for a series of Gospel meetings. She wished they would come for a visit with her at home but was too timid to ask them! But one night after a meeting they asked her if they could come to see her. She gladly agreed!

In conversation with her, it did not take them long to realize that Helen was struggling with what it meant to “ believe” the Gospel. So Tim Walker asked her, “Helen, if your husband, Steve, wrote you a letter –would you believe what he wrote to you?” She responded, “Of course I would!” She understood clearly, the illustration: Not only had God given His Son, the Lord Jesus, but He had also written a letter (the scriptures) to tell her what Christ had accomplished for her.

Then Jim Beattie turned to Titus 1:2 and read the words of the apostle Paul concerning the truth of the Gospel , “..in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; but hath in due times manifested His word through preaching…”

Helen then realized, that if she could not only trust the facts of what her husband might write, but also rest in full confidence that he wrote the truth, how much more could she rest in full confidence for her eternal salvation upon the faithfulness of a God who could not lie! And so it was that Helen Allen, at the age of 35, came to personally rest in faith upon the faithfulness of God revealed in Christ. It was then that, in the words of John 5:24, she “passed from death unto life”!

So you can imagine how thrilled I was, over 8 years after we had moved from Collingwood, to receive a phone call from Helen telling me that she had at last trusted Christ as her own Saviour and had the peace of God knowing her sins were forgiven!

(In my next post I’ll return to the spring of 1989, about a month after we had moved to Norwich. At a Conference of Christians in the city of Toronto, during a Bible reading on John 14, a radical idea would be suggested by an older preacher from Ireland. That idea would eventually upset my former understanding of the coming of the Lord and the order of events of end times prophecy!)