Insights on Marriage and Divorce

Chuck Swindoll: Cultivate, relate, learn, work, review those vows. Go back to where you started. Repeat the things you did in courtship. Take time off in the weekends. Spend time cultivating your romance. Don't walk away. Don't leave your husband. Don't leave your wife.

Dave Spiker: Few things complicate a life anymore than divorce. But perhaps it pales in comparison to the complexities of remarriage. Today on Insight for Living, you'll hear Chuck Swindoll continue his three-day study on this highly sensitive issue. It's possible that you or someone in your family have suffered the awful pain of a separation and divorce. How do you get through the next phase? How do you come together again in marriage in a way that engenders trust and confidence? Well, let's find out what scripture says as we hear Chuck Swindoll's message called "Getting Through the Tough Stuff of Remarriage."

Chuck Swindoll: I am prepared today to present evidence from scripture that I have worked through. It has come from not just weeks of thinking, but years. And I'll continue to think on it. My position continues to be in a state of research and flex a bit. This thing of marriage is a mystery. How much more mysterious is remarriage and the issues related to it?

Matthew chapter 19 is the place to start. Matthew 19 is that at least for the first 12 verses is that selection where Jesus is asked about the issue of divorce. When the Pharisees came to test him, according to Matthew 19:3, they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?" They want to know Jesus' answer. He gives them the beginning of the story as he talks of Genesis 1 and 2 and quotes from the passages. But that's not sufficient because that's not addressing divorce. That's addressing marriage.

They want to know what about divorce. So he says or they say, verse 7, "Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and divorce her?" And he said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery."

I have come to the position in my study that the first of three cases of permissible remarriage is the case of the unrepentant immoral partner. Look again at verse 8. Jesus corrects them by saying it wasn't a commandment; it was a permission. You said, "Why did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce?" I say Moses permitted you. And he said in this case, because of the hardness of heart, a permission was granted.

Very few things are suddenly hardened. Hardening takes time. It is a process for water to harden to ice. And since he states immorality as the reason in verse 9, I believe he has in mind the thought of a continual returning to a permissive lifestyle. More extreme, I would say porneia, which is the word used for immorality, refers to illicit sexual involvement repeatedly and without repentance.

Incestuous relationships, homosexual relationships outside the bonds of marriage, adulterous relationships with another person's wife or husband, relationships of intimate nature with other single people outside the bonds of marriage. I believe you get the picture. What I want to stay away from is the thought of a one-night stand where one loses his battle or her battle with lust. And he or she falls and returns home repentant, broken, seeking the forgiveness of the mate. It's not a lifestyle. It's a failure. Yes, there's only been another reminder that the mate is human and has fallen into sin. Tragically so.

But I believe porneia here has reference to a hardening of the heart. And that hardness of the heart works its way out in a life of immorality. The faithful partner who stays at home, if forced to live with that, lives under the constant threat of venereal disease, of emotional trauma, of danger and threat from the other mate or the other partners that are working against the marriage, the predators.

And all of this could bring harm to the home and illness and even death to the family. Because there isn't a repentance on the part of the guilty partner who stays in that lifestyle, the one who is faithful to the marriage has the option to walk away. I've worked those words carefully. Don't misquote me. I've referred to this as an option.

Almost without exception, and I really mean almost without exception, my counsel to people who come to me about that has been stay together, try to make it work. And I will look into the face of the guilty if he or she will admit such. And I will plead for repentance, trying my best to bring about a change. And if these are people that I have known and loved for a long time, I will sometimes make a trip and face them, certainly if they are people I have married, pleading for the marriage to stay together.

Sometime it will not. It cannot. And I believe the exception clause permits the faithful partner who has not committed this act of unfaithfulness permits them the option to walk away and to remarry. That is what Jesus states and that's what I understand it to teach. Again, I remind you, there are those who teach otherwise and I respect them. I may disagree with them, but I respect their right to hold another position.

Now, 1 Corinthians chapter 7 is the next case. Please turn there. If you ever meet with a group of single parents, you will notice one part of their Bibles is well marked. And it is the 7th chapter of 1 Corinthians. And rightly so. All of us should be good students of the scriptures, but those with threatening marriages should be extremely good students of 1 Corinthians 7. If you are not, make it a period of time, set aside a period of time to make a study of this very helpful and enlightening chapter.

He begins by speaking to those who are... well, let me put it this way. If I were to give a title to chapter 7, I would draw upon a statement I heard when I was a child growing up in the south. "If I had my druthers." Ever heard that? "If I had my druthers." If you had your druthers, what would you druther be? If Paul had his druthers, he would wish that all people remained unmarried so that they might be crack troops for Christ.

Immediately available, 24 hours a day accessible, able to give themselves rather quickly to the things of the Lord and go to the wall even to death for the cause of the gospel and not in any way be held back by the requirements and assignments of home and marriage. He's not against marriage. He's just saying, "I have learned now as a single man, the availability is far more, far greater." In that sense, the priesthood has something going for it that I do not.

My wife and my children require of me time. And so they should. And I am not a faithful man of God, I am not a good husband and father if I do not give them some time. And that means time away from the things of God. If you can call things at home things not related to the things of God. I cannot give myself to the work of the church and at the same time be pulled in the direction of my home. So if Paul had his druthers, he would say stay in the camp of the unmarried and there you will be able to give yourself full bore to the things of Christ.

But, verse 2, not everybody can do that. Because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. There are people who can't do it. I'm one of them. And so are many of you. I cannot live happily without a wife. I cannot live fulfilled, I have learned in my life, without a wife. And therefore I have sought God's choice and I have found her and I have therein found a sense of magnificent satisfaction.

And to guard against immoralities we married, which is one of the several motivations for marrying. You simply cannot stay away intimately so you marry and can enjoy the delights of intimacy within the bonds and proper bonds of marriage. Now, verse 7, he says, "Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am." However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. Paul is in one camp, Chuck Swindoll's in another. And I hand it to Paul. I don't know how he does it, but that's great, Paul. Hang in there.

Verse 8. Now, notice the categories. To the unmarried. Now, circle that. He first talks to the unmarried and to widows. He puts them in the same camp. To the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I. If I had my druthers, they'd stay unmarried. They'd be among that group of people ready to do the work of Christ at the drop of a hat. I could call on them and they'd be a part of the ranks and we could move into this city and take it for Christ. I'd rather they remain as I.

But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. It's better for them to marry than to burn, repeating the same thought as he begins with the chapter with. Now the second category, to the married, verse 10. I give instructions, not I but the Lord, meaning the Lord has already spoken on this and I repeat what he has said. That the wife should not leave her husband. Now, you want to hurry on to verse 11. Don't do that.

Look at verse 10. To the married, find contentment in your husband. Make a study of him. Husbands, make a study of her. Cultivate, relate, learn, work, review those vows. Go back to where you started. Repeat the things you did in courtship. Take time off in the weekends. Spend time cultivating your romance. On and on and on the counsel would go. He's saying to the married, don't walk away. Don't leave your husband. Don't leave your wife.

Parenthesis, he's back to reality. There are times you can't. You can't and remain sane. Sometime you can't and remain safe. Sometime your life is at stake. Sometime for sanity's sake or for the children's protection you can't stay in that relationship. And if she does leave, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And the same applies to the husband with his wife, that the husband should not send his wife away.

But to the rest. Now, that's a third group to circle. Who's left? I mean, you've got married and you've got the unmarried. Who are the rest? This is the only place I know of in scripture that gives any kind of detailed counsel to the rest. That is, those who are unequally yoked. Listen and read carefully. Verses 12 to 15 talk to you. To the rest, I say, not the Lord. By that he doesn't mean it's not inspired as some critics have claimed. He means the Lord hasn't addressed this.

Jesus on earth did not speak to this issue. But in the progress of revelation, the Holy Spirit has revealed this to me. And I write it to you under the inspiration of God, even though it's not in the red letters of a red letter edition of the Bible. It is with equal force that he writes it. Now to the rest, I say that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, let him not send her away.

And a woman, meaning a believing woman, a Christian woman, who has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, let her not send her husband away. Here's counsel that we can live with. You are both lost and you meet one another and you marry for whatever reasons, perhaps all the wrong reasons. And yet you begin to cultivate some kind of a home and family.

You conceive and you bear a child and perhaps yet another child. So you start a family. And lo and behold, someone at work mentions the name of Christ or reads a Bible over a lunch break and you happen to notice that or you attend a Bible class or you happen to step into a church that preaches the gospel and you hear enough to become convicted of your sins and you give your life to Jesus Christ by faith. You become a Christian and then you go home.

Your mate is still lost. You're saved. You are in a condition called an unequal yoke. You are in a place where there is an unsaved partner and children. And now you are born again. Do you send your unsaved mate away until he or she comes to know Christ, if ever? He says definitely not. Let her not send her husband away. And the same with the husband, let him not send her away. Why? Verse 14.

Because the unbelieving mate, the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified or set apart to God through her husband. For otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. What does all that mean? It sounds like gibberish. It means this: the presence of a saved partner in the home sets the home apart to a measure of God's blessings.

The children are under the sound of the gospel, being influenced by at least one parent who is born again. And the mate, who may not even care about the things of Christ, lives his or her life in the presence of a saved, caring, hopefully compassionate and loving partner. And in that sense, he is set apart to the things of Christ. Doesn't mean he becomes a Christian necessarily. It means he is under the continual influence of a godly lifestyle.

Described for the wife and husband beautifully in 1 Peter 3:1 to 7, which is another study on how to live with an unsaved partner without preaching, without leaving little notes, without pushing for a decision, without threatening to leave. You set the home apart. And the children would otherwise be unclean. If the saved partner left, look at what it would do to the children who are now under only the influence of a lost person, a lost parent.

Ah, but we're not there yet. Verse 15 goes further. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves... now I take it that it's a voluntary departure. There isn't a force, there aren't threats. He leaves on his own or she leaves on her own. Let him leave. Just as you are not to force the partner out, there is not to be force in making the partner stay. If the unbelieving one leaves, permit the departure. Let him leave.

And then the additional statement: the brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. Everything of course revolves around the words "not under bondage." And of course this is where there are so many opinions. My question here is bondage to what? And that's your question. Remember when we spoke earlier on marriage in my former message we talked about severance and permanence and unity and intimacy?

This has to do with the second of those four statements, those four keywords. Has to do with permanence. The man and wife are glued together. The word means to be bonded. And it is in fact so rendered in the 39th verse of the same chapter. Look at 7:39. A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband is dead, she is what? Free. The bondage, the bonding, the permanence is broken.

She is free to marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord. And that's another sermon. But whatever one does in the search for a mate, a Christian looks for a Christian. That is the one God blesses. That is the relationship God's hand is on. Now back to the word itself. She is bound as long as her husband lives. By the way, in my three statements in this message, I am assuming you understand that death is another reason permitting remarriage.

I assume everyone understands that from scripture, but in case you are not so informed, verse 39 would certainly be the grounds for that. She is freed to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. The word for bonding is the same idea as the word cleaving in Genesis chapter 2. But there is an uncleaving, if I may coin the word. There is an unbonding. There is a break in the bondage, back to verse 15, when the unsaved partner departs.

When there is a departure or as I have called it a desertion by the unsaved partner, I understand the teaching to be you are free from the bondage because God has called you to peace and you are free to pursue remarriage. Luther taught from this passage that the Christian partner thus released may remarry. A.T. Robertson, a Baptist scholar writing many years later adds, "It does not apply unless the unbelieving partner marries again."

And that of course would be an extreme application of this passage. Then you really know there has been desertion. Your unsaved partner has left and has closed the door behind him or her, has remarried. You know the bond has broken and you are free for sure in that case. Let me caution us here again. We are not talking about an argument where one walks out and slams the door. That's not desertion.

We've all done that. I've done that. You have done that. That's just part of a good healthy marriage. You just do that. You do that so you don't kill each other. You get a little space in between. I read sometime ago of a guy who'd been married 55 years the same woman and some dude asked him, "How in the world did you pull it off?" And he said, "Well, my wife and I agreed when we first married that we would not carry on arguments. We would walk away. And I suppose you could say our 55 years of marriage has been in place because of my love for the outdoors. Take a long walk."

Obviously he's not referring to an argument where the unsaved person slams a door and shoves off for a night or to go out to get a beer to come back home or whatever. He's referring to a departure that is a permanent departure. He's gone. And in some cases you can't even find him or her.

Dave Spiker: A deeply sensitive subject. Getting through the tough stuff of remarriage. You can listen to Chuck Swindoll's complete message by ordering the CD or MP3 audio file from Insight for Living. Today's study and the companion message on divorce is just a part of a larger 14 part series. It's called "Getting Through the Tough Stuff" and when you order the complete set, it comes with a helpful workbook. You can make your purchase online at insight.org or call us at 1-800-772-8888.

As you dig deeper into this topic on your own, remember that Insight for Living has a wide variety of other resources available to you online. We invite you to spend some time browsing through our website to see the articles, messages, books, and other related materials at your disposal. You'll find these resources and more at insight.org/marriage. And you can download the convenient mobile app online in order to hear Chuck's teaching on your own schedule and wherever you go. You'll find a link for downloading the mobile app on our website at insight.org/app.

And finally, we'd invite you to follow Chuck Swindoll on Twitter and join the conversation about today's topic and more by liking our page on Facebook. You'll find the links for both Facebook and Twitter online at insight.org. I'm Dave Spiker. Chuck Swindoll's message on the biblical view of remarriage concludes next time on Insight for Living.