Married For The Wrong Reasons | Divorce And Remarriage

Married For the Wrong Reasons? The Right For A Christian To Divorce And Remarry.

A person can actually get married for the wrong reasons---even christians. To absolutely stay single after a divorce or in a wrong marriage is not God's heart nor Scriptural. (However, we do recognize that most marriage failures are due to selfishness or ignorance on the part of one or both of the spouses.) Because the original meaning of the Scriptures have been lost regarding marriage after divorce, many have been driven away from the church and God.

Staying in a Marriage for the Wrong Reasons

“For how do you know, O wife, whether YOU will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether YOU will save your wife?” (1Corinthians 7:16).

The implication is that we can actually continue to stay married for the wrong reasons. The emphasis here is whether YOU will save your spouse. For when we think we can do God’s job to pressure someone to become a Christian or believe the way we believe, we are in grave danger. For NO ONE can come to Jesus “unless the FATHER ...draws Him...” (John 6:44). For we can actually be trying to lead someone to the Lord and be out of God’s will because it may not be OUR place or the right time. (However, we are always to be an example of who God is, and what He stands for; not to be slaves, imprisoned by the threats and or beatings of ungodly men.)

The word “save” also means to deliver, heal, restore to proper order, or to make whole. The idea to save is often found in new marriages where one of the partners “thinks” that they can change the other or cause them to be free of some sort of problem such as drugs, rage, alcohol, or crime. But after much pain they find out it doesn’t normally work that way. It takes God to change a person’s heart and to free them from such things.

The Wuest translation put it this way: For “ONLY as the Lord has assigned to each one his lot [in life], as God has called each one, IN THAT WAY let him be ordering his manner of life...” (1Corinthians 7:17). Many have taken this Scripture to mean that the spouse that wants to walk with God is supposed to submit to the ungodliness of the other spouse. This is foolishness!

The real questions for this Scripture are, “what has the LORD assigned to each of us as our lot in life? As we walk in that assignment, how shall we order our manner of living?” The answer to both of these questions must culminate into this one thing. “Be holy, for I am holy” (1Peter 1:16).

Some have even said that if a wife for instance, is in a bad marriage, whether they’re being abused or however their husband is treating them, that that is their lot from God. This is nothing but foolishness and stupidity in its purest sense. They don’t know it’s the “...GOODNESS OF GOD [that] leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). An abusive type of environment in the home is just not good. A healthy home environment is brought about by seeking “...those things which are above, where Christ is...” (Colossians 3:1).

How can a person live a godly life and at the same time submit that life to someone who practices ungodliness? “For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other...” (Matthew 6:24). You cannot love the Lord your God with all your heart while lowering and yielding yourself and your children to accept, partake and participate in things that the Lord Himself detests.

What has the Lord assigned as our lot in life? Surely it can’t be a life you hate so much you want to die to escape the pain. No! The Scriptures are so powerfully clear. Let’s take a look:

For “...we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM AND BE SEPARATE, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you! I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. THEREFORE, HAVING THESE PROMISES, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2Corinthians 6:16b-17:1).

If that’s not powerful enough, the Scripture also says to, “Let love be without hypocrisy. ABHOR WHAT IS EVIL. CLING TO WHAT IS GOOD” (Romans 12:9).

How could you not hate evil, and truly love, at the same time? That is hypocritical love. Hypocritical love does not hate evil. It allows evil to dwell beside it in its own home. Love MUST hate evil to be true in itself. Let our love be WITHOUT hypocrisy. Otherwise, it’s not love at all, but bondage. And for one to “cling” to that which is good, one must at the same time separate from that which is evil. As we move closer to that which is good, there is always a moving away from that which is evil. TRUE LOVE ALWAYS HATES EVIL!

It says in Proverbs 3:6, “IN ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” How can we, in all our ways acknowledge God and receive direction, if we are united to a spouse who does not want to follow God’s ways and doesn’t want us to either? The marriage will produce constant strife. God wants us to live in peace.

There are many critical keys in this book regarding divorce, remarriage, submission, interracial marriage and relationships. Click on Divorce: God's Will? to order.