Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Well, today on Focal Point, we're taking our weekly break for some one-on-one time with Pastor Mike. So pull up a chair as Pastor Mike Fabares sits down to talk about the sensitive but crucial subject of divorce.

Welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host Dave Drewy, and it's time to grapple with some tough questions about life and faith. Now you've seen all the statistics. Divorce certificates are just about as rampant as marriage certificates in some states, even among believers.

What's happened? Well, today we're having a heart-to-heart chat about getting through the heartache of a collapsing marriage. No matter where you stand right now, there's help and hope.

Let's join executive director Jay Worton inside the pastor's study for today's edition of Ask Pastor Mike.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Dave. Pastor Mike, we have a question here on marriage and actually this listener writes, what does the Bible have to say about divorce?

Speaker 3

Well, Jay, of course the Bible is very clear on divorce being a tragic problem and something that is lamentable. God, as the Bible repeatedly says, is trying to have us succeed in our marriages, our relationship, which is a covenant relationship, a promise of fidelity and a promise of longevity, as Jesus put it in Matthew 19.

So memorably, what God has joined together, don't let men separate. So I mean, that's the ideal. And certainly God says in Malachi, as dramatically as you could put it, that he hates divorce. It's a terrible thing. It's never without pain and without consequence. And I don't think that's any surprise for any of our listeners.

Speaker 2

Pastor Mike, you mentioned Matthew 19 where Jesus is talking about marriage and divorce, but he also says in there that there is an allowance for divorce. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Speaker 3

Well, again, it's a sad and tragic situation when it is allowed. He actually describes it as the hard-heartedness or the sinfulness of people when that is a necessity and not that it's a necessity, but when it's even an option and when there's an allowance for it.

Because in that passage, it refers to the sexual sin of a partner in a covenant relationship who's obviously violating their marriage covenant. And there is the allowance at that point for the violated party to divorce, along with in 1st Corinthians 7. You can read that text, and Paul is addressing the problem of a non-Christian who is married to a Christian and is fed up with it and says, "I don't want to live with you anymore."

The response of scripture there is, well, then let him go. You are called to peace. In other words, if it is an unsalvageable relationship because the Christian is being so maligned and rejected by the non-Christian, then let your partner go.

And so those are all tragic situations, and they are all filled with pain. They are never good situations. And it is, like I said, lamentable when it happens.

Speaker 2

But if a partner has been wronged, maybe it's an infidelity, should that person automatically be seeking divorce? Or does the Bible tell us something different?

Speaker 3

Yeah, of course not. I mean, the picture of God's fidelity toward us when we're unfaithful, as it says there, as Paul writes to Timothy and the whole Old Testament book of Hosea, you know, here is this unfaithful spouse who was a prostitute by trade and God's love going after that party that has violated the marriage covenant and restoring the relationship.

God takes great pleasure in seeing broken relationships restored. And if we can restore a marriage, of course that's what God would have us do. It can become a trophy to his grace when it's successful.

Speaker 2

And certainly that is a difficult situation. There's a lot of pain obviously, and it takes a long time to build that trust. What would you say to somebody that maybe is going through that right now?

Speaker 3

Well, I would definitely say even before any decisions are made, you should seek the counsel of a competent pastor or a mature Christian who knows God's word and knows the parameters of God's word to sit down and discuss this. Because there's so much emotion involved in a marriage relationship that I think we need to make sure that we do things properly and biblically and we respond in terms of God's truth and God's promises and that we don't just do whatever we feel and we don't just have people chiming in, you ought to drop this guy or you ought to divorce that girl.

There needs to be a real level-headed biblical approach to looking at is there a way to salvage this relationship? And so I think biblical counseling is so important in this. A good godly Christian or a pastor or someone in your church that can help you sort this out.

Because every case is kind of complicated. There hasn't been one situation that I can think of that's been identical. They're all different. There's factors, there's issues. And there needs to be a good biblical approach to this, always seeking to restore the relationship if at all possible.

Speaker 2

Well, Pastor Mike, I'm sure there are people listening that have actually gone through a divorce and are not with their original spouse anymore.

Certainly there's pain and grief.

How would you counsel someone who has done that and is moving forward in their Christian life?

Speaker 3

Right. Well, if there is a possibility, even though there may have been a divorce, you may look at the option and the possibility of wrestling restoration and reconciliation of that marriage, and it can happen. I've presided over some of those marriages where someone had a divorce and they're getting married again to their divorced spouse, and that can again be another trophy of God's grace.

Sometimes that's not possible. Your ex-wife or ex-husband might be remarried, and there's no way to salvage that. In that case, certainly we need to be moving on in the future. There's always going to be wreckage and there's always going to be consequences, but we want to pick up the pieces wherever we're at.

Stop looking in the rearview mirror and constantly, you know, beating yourself up over that. You've got to move forward, confessing whatever sin you need to confess and looking each day at what God would have you do in terms of your life and your relationships and everything else.

So, you know, there's a long series of things that would keep our eyes looking forward. The Bible gives us so much that we need to look at in terms of our present life and rarely has us looking backwards and stumbling over something that may have happened that cannot be fixed at this point.

But if it can be fixed, and that's where I think counseling is important, biblical counseling with a pastor or mature Christian to be able to say, what can I do to fix this? Is it fixable?

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I recognize that there are so many, as you said, different situations that people have gone in troubles in their marriage and have gone through in divorce.

But thank you for taking some time to just talk about a few of them.

And we're going to continue on this topic with a message you gave called "Taming the Detriments of Divorce" from your "Slaying the Family Dragon" series.

Speaker 4

Looking at God's prescription for the family, what it's supposed to be, the ideal, and what God expects in his blueprint for godly Christian homes, we need to examine what the Bible has to say. The first point is a real caution found in a passage that is very important regarding an emotion that is inexorably tied to divorce every time it happens. This caution is found in Ephesians, chapter four. I would like to start here because this is often a starting point for the emotional mix we experience when something as sacred, profound, and personal as our marriage has crumbled.

Anger is a normal emotion; it is even a right emotion, and frankly, it is a required emotion in some situations. You can't be godly without it. However, it is also a dangerous emotion, one that Satan can easily use to become counterproductive as we try to deal with the devastation and detriments of divorce. The emotion I am discussing is found in verse 26, which states, "In your anger, do not sin." The text literally says, "Be angry." But in your anger, make sure you're not going to do something sinful. This reminds me of the mom who came in to find Johnny screaming at the top of his lungs as his little sister Susie had a tuft of his hair in her hand. She comes in, unpeels Susie's fingers, and says to Johnny, "There, there, now, Johnny. Susie doesn't understand that that hurts. Just go on about your playing." Before mom could even get down the hall, she heard Susie screaming at the top of her lungs. When she returned to the playroom, she saw Johnny's hand clasped tightly in Susie's hair. Johnny looked up at mommy and said, "Mommy, now she understands."

The problem with anger, especially when the profound hurt, pain, and betrayal of divorce has taken place, is that we will use anger as fuel for things like retaliation and revenge. I understand there's a time for arbitrators, mediators, and even lawyers across the conference table to talk about equity and justice. However, we need to be careful that in the midst of personal pain like divorce, anger doesn't become fuel for sinful actions. Much like David, who had the chance in many situations to run the knife, spear, or dagger through Saul's heart, he constantly stood back, controlling his personal frustration at Saul. He said things like, "The Lord judged between you and me." There was a sense of deference; he chose to let the normal channels that God has ordained work things out. He didn't use his lawyer, his kids, or any other chip in this situation to try and get back at Saul.

God says that anger is fertile ground for retaliation and retribution, and it is not to be. No matter how badly we've been hurt, anger needs to be carefully governed. The advice given in verse 26, if you keep reading, is the solution. If anger is not going to lead to sin, then we need to ensure that we do not let the sun go down while we are still angry. This is a poetic way of saying, "Don't stay mad very long." The problem is that if we let anger reside in our hearts, it degenerates quickly into a variety of other things that fuel all kinds of wrong responses. So, we need to get over it quickly.

Now, I say this because there is a time for anger. When promises and vows are made—"till death do us part," "through sickness and in health," and "for richer or poorer"—and now those covenant vows are trashed, there is a time to get mad. But in that anger, we must not sin. If we want to ensure that anger does not become a breeding ground for sin in our lives, we need to work through it quickly. When I say "work through it quickly," I am not deferring to the therapeutic talk of the marketplace in our day. I am talking about getting on our knees before God and saying, "I have a volatile emotion that I can't control on my own, and I need you to drain it out of my heart. I need you to take my anger away toward this person who has hurt me so badly, and I need it to go away quickly."

This stage needs to be short-lived. I put it this way in your outline: number one, don't stay angry. You need to understand that when anger resides in your heart, it degenerates into bitterness and grudges that cast a cynical cloud over the rest of the world. As Hebrews says, it is a bitterness that grows up in our hearts and ends up defiling many people. When this happens, it puts a hand out and stops the flow of God's healing and restoration in your life.

Let me show you what I mean. When you let anger reside in your heart, you are involving yourself in a self-defeating emotion because that emotion will block, stymie, and thwart God's process of restoration. Let me show you an example. As we leave Ephesians 4, turn with me to Second Corinthians, chapter seven, and let me show you why anger and the cynical grudges held in the heart of someone who has been deeply hurt can become so counterproductive that they can't even move on. They can't even receive God's help, which is what we need the most in the middle of a divorce.

Though the context here is not divorce, you can quickly see the analogous features of Paul's concerns in verse number five to those going through divorce. Second Corinthians 7:5 states, "When we came to Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest. We were harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside and fears within." You can see how these words are akin to some of the things people go through in the midst of a divorce.

A great sentence follows in verse six: "But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us." Stop right there. That is a great truth, isn't it? We have a God who comforts the downcast, and he comforted us. Paul said that when they were harassed and had conflicts on the outside and fears within, God fixed their problem. Now, that's a great hallmark religious platitude, but you need to recognize the agency through which God gives that comfort. Look at the next phrase: "He did it by the coming of Titus." He did it through a person. There was a real, tangible person that God used to be the conduit, the avenue through which this comfort came.

Verse seven continues, "Not only by his coming, but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern, so that my joy was greater than ever." Do you hear what he just said? He had gone from a situation of harassment, conflicts, and fear, and now he was saying his joy was greater than ever. You know what would have stymied that whole process? What would have stopped it? Thwarted it? If Paul had, because of the harassment, conflicts, and fears, begun to do what a lot of people do in the midst of a divorce: they put their arm out and keep people out. They get cynical, bitter, and frustrated, and while God is trying to help them, they picture going up on a rock, twisting their legs up, burning incense, and expecting God to somehow mystically minister to them.

In reality, what God would love to do is send his comfort, but his frequently used avenue for comfort is people. We can't get bitter and cynical at people just because one relationship has let us down. Just because one person has been found untrustworthy is no reason for us, as Scripture says, to let that experience defile our relationships with many people. Anger is really at the core of the problem.

Anger can also fuel a kind of unhealthy, ungodly comparison in the wake of a divorce that is so destructive. It was such a concern of God that he included it in the Ten Commandments. The tenth commandment states, "Thou shall not covet." Think that one through: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." That's the first thing in the relationship. We often look at others and think, "Look at their relationship. Look at their situation. Everybody's family life is a whole lot more peaceful than mine." The Bible says that this kind of comparison is just bad. It leads us into a state of frustration and discontent, making us feel like our life is the worst on the planet.

We can't go there. We need to deal with anger. How do we deal with it? We go before God and say, "God, I have an emotion in my heart that's fueling a lot of sinful things." In verse 27 of Ephesians 4, it says that when we let this stuff reside, Satan gets a foothold. Satan will use it; he capitalizes on this residing undercurrent of anger in our hearts because we've been so badly hurt. I recognize that it's a hurtful situation when your marriage collapses. All I'm saying is that God says to get over the anger as quickly as possible. Move through it quickly so that you can, on the other side, say, "You know what? My hands are open. There's not that hostility. There's not that anger there. I'm not going to stay angry." That is priority number one on the other side of a difficult divorce.

The second thing that I think is so important is found in Hebrews chapter 13. The writer of Hebrews is dealing with an issue central to any personal and relational disaster in our lives. Hebrews, by the way, is filled with Old Testament imagery and analogies of Old Testament concepts and New Covenant realities. One of them is the constant referral to the priesthood. Certainly, Christ is our high priest, but in the Bible, we are also referred to as a royal priesthood. All of us, the priests in the Old Testament, had a special relationship with God. They were treated differently.

When they were handing out the real estate in the book of Joshua, God turned to the Levitical priests and said, "You don't get any real estate." Now, that would be the day I would raise my hand and protest, "That's not fair. It's not right." The comeback that God gives the Levitical priests, when everybody else is getting their heritage, is that God looks to the Levites and says, "You guys don't get a real estate inheritance because I am your inheritance." This is a huge, profound thought. "I am going to be all you need. I'm going to provide for you, your kids, and your grandkids. Trust me."

There is a kind of intimacy constantly referred to in the Levitical priesthood that sets them apart from everybody else in Old Testament Israel. There were some other distinct things about them. One I have referred to before is found in Exodus and Leviticus. You don't need to turn there, but there was a constant ancient Near Eastern motif that showed when people hit bottom—when they completely lost hope—they would put dirt or ashes on their heads and tear their clothes. In Exodus, it was told that the priests, when they made their ephod, were to make it with special seams so that it would be very difficult for them to tear their clothes. Explicit instructions were given, particularly in Leviticus, that they should never tear their clothes.

God was saying, "Don't ever get to that place. Don't show that kind of remorse. Because, again, like with the real estate, you may feel deprived of something, but I am ultimately all you need. I will be the sustaining factor when everyone else is hitting bottom, putting dirt on their heads and tearing their clothes. You guys, because you have an intimate, real relationship with me, should never get to that place."

This is what I think the writer of Hebrews is trying to encapsulate in this powerful truth in verse five. Why is it that these priests never hit bottom? Why is it that, in the New Covenant, all of us as Christians are never to hit bottom? Because there is something different about us. The context here is money. Verse five states, "Keep your lives free from the love of money." This includes coveting someone else's money, relationship, or anything else. "Be content with what you have." This may mean your bank account is cleared out and your marriage has failed. Let's just put it in those terms, right? "Be content."

How can I make it through that? How can I not lose heart? How can I not be totally depressed in all this? The text says, "Because never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." There is something resonant about that from the Old Covenant that ultimately is enough. So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

There are some trying circumstances in the midst of a divorce, but the Bible says that if you have God—not just a Sunday relationship, not just a church-going habit—but if you have a genuine relationship with God that was spawned by you dropping to your knees in repentance and faith, then you know what it is to have a real spiritual intimacy with the creator of the universe. The Bible says that is a time to cling to that tightly. When you do, you'll find that it will be enough to keep you from hitting bottom like other people do when everything in their life falls apart, when the bottom of their marriage drops out.

There is a difference for those who are called in the New Testament royal priests. We have a different kind of relationship with God. "God is my helper; I will not be afraid of what man can do to me." As a matter of fact, when the bottom drops out and everything is in disarray, those are often the times when God shows how powerful his presence really is. The apostle Paul made that clear when he had a medical problem. We are not sure what that was, but it was so bad that it says in 2nd Corinthians 12, he said to God, "Take it away. Change my circumstances."

Like a lot of failing marriages and those who have been through divorce, that is a prayer you have prayed many times: "Change my circumstances. Salvage this marriage. Make this work." Just like the Apostle Paul, some of you have been through that experience, and God did not change the circumstances. They were not changed. There was not some major marital reform that took place. But God's response to Paul is one that should resonate with us. The scripture says that God said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient."

There is something about this real relationship with me and you that will be sufficient. The favor of God will be sufficient for you. As a matter of fact, he adds this line: "It is my power that will be perfected in weakness." When you have hit bottom and everything in your life is in disarray, and the promises that were supposed to last a lifetime ended after ten years, just remember this: that is the time when your relationship with me and all the power and security it provides in divine help will be clear. In his weakest moment, Paul said, "That's when God was the strongest."

Therefore, I am not going to sit there and constantly badmouth the bad that has happened to me. I am not going to keep putting it in this dark category. I am going to say, "You know what? Even through that, God showed how great he was."

Speaker 1

You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez with a portion of a message called Taming the Detriments of Divorce. And you can find this and additional resources on divorce and dealing with a marital collapse when you go to Focal Point Radio. Today's conversation and message are part of our weekly Ask Pastor Mike segment.

Facing truth can be painful, but it's often the first step toward restoration and recovery. When your eyes are open to the whole truth, that's when you'll see the fullness of God's provision for you every step of the way. And that's why Focal Point is here each day to reach, teach, and equip believers with expository teachings to get you through the hard stuff. It's only possible because listeners like you are stepping up to provide the necessary financial support while production costs continue to soar.

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I'm Dave Drouehe wishing you a restful weekend. We'll meet you back here for more about the covenant of marriage from Mike Fabarez Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Sam.