Standing for Your Marriage - Even After Divorce
Hi Friends,
If you are divorced, the world will urge you to forget your spouse and start a new life. Find a new mate. Surely God wants you to be happy. But is this advice the Truth from God or from the worldly wise?
INTRODUCTION
God hates divorce. He desires that His people uphold the sacred vows they made on their wedding day. Divorce does not undo the one-flesh relationship that God made with you and your spouse. You may be living separately, but there is a spiritual connection between you that no man and no divorce decree can undo.
If you are divorced, uphold and stand for God's institution of marriage. How do you do that? By not succumbing to the pressures to forsake your marriage and enter into another relationship. Stand until the end with hope in your heart. Against all odds, keep standing and praying for your erring spouse to return to their first love. In the book of Malachi, Chapter 2, it says:
AUDIO READING
Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. Malachi 2:14-16
Whether you are the one who left your spouse or the one who was forsaken by your spouse, stand for the permanency of marriage. Don't believe it when people say your spouse will never change or repent. Believe that there is still hope - believe until the end, no matter what the circumstances. It may appear your spouse is only going deeper and deeper into their addictions and sins, but don't give up. Keep praying for their salvation. No one else is praying as earnestly as you are for them. "How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?" 1 Corinthians 7:16
Maybe your spouse has remarried. That doesn't mean the door is permanently closed. That new marriage is an adulterous liaison that cannot be blessed by God.
Lydia's story is all too common. She married Lyle while they were in college and after 15 years of marriage, Lyle announced that he was leaving her for a young co-worker who caught his eye at the office. Lydia realized she had become absorbed and exhausted by the needs of her growing family and had neglected Lyle, but now her whole world was falling apart.
Seven years went by. Lyle moved thousands of miles away with his new woman. Lydia had not sought a new relationship, though she fought loneliness. A couple years earlier the thought occurred to her to start praying for Lyle and this helped her to forgive him. She prayed that his heart would soften toward her and that if it be God's will, they would reunite.
Their oldest son was getting married and his dad was planning to attend. Lydia and Lyle spoke on the phone about wedding arrangements and she noticed a tenderness in him. The wedding day arrived and Lydia and Lyle had a few brief meetings alone to become reacquainted and the old spark they once felt reignited. She found out the woman he was living with was shallow and obsessed with buying shoes and eating at upscale restaurants. Lydia was different. He could talk with her about the deeper, important things of the Spirit and he missed that. After Lyle went home, he talked several times to Lydia on the phone. This story has a happy ending. Lyle left the woman he was with and reunited with Lydia, the wife of his youth.
We work regularly with men and women who have been praying for their wayward spouse. Sometimes, even after many years, a way is made for them to start talking with their true spouse again. Sometimes this leads to their being reunited - even when one or both of them have remarried in the eyes of the world.
Even if reconciliation does not happen, stand. Stand for the permanency of marriage. Be a witness for the integrity of your marriage vows. Stand for the lifetime commitment you made through good times and bad. Be an example to your children, to your friends and to your extended family that your word is true. Remain faithful to your spouse, even when they have been unfaithful.
Stand for the picture that marriage represents - the union of Christ with His bride, the Church. Who is the Church? His called out faithful followers.
Stand for the institution that God created and be long suffering. Forsake your own happiness and your dreams of a happy family life for the lifetime commitment you made to stay faithful.
Take the high road - the road that leads to peace and fellowship with the One who gave you life, who is the Truth.
Show sacrificial love for God and your spouse. Yes, love your spouse, inspite of all the pain and suffering they have caused you. You love them even when they return angry words and curses. Love them even if they have disappeared out of your life and you don't know how to find them. God knows. God sees your heart. He will not leave you nor forsake you. He may be calling you to be single for the rest of your life to better serve Him. Maybe it is not His intent that you have a happy family life. As grim as that may sound, if it is God's will, His strength and comfort will be with you, and His joy also.
Giving way to your flesh by starting a new relationship while your spouse still lives brings the wrath of God upon you and ultimately you lose the hope of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus tells us:
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery." Luke 16:18
God doesn't see your new relationship as a marriage, but as a breach of your commitment to stay faithful to your lifetime spouse. That's why in God's eyes, remarriage while your spouse still lives is adultery. And adulterers are locked out of His Kingdom.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. I Corinthians 6:9
This loss of your eternal salvation is a cost so high no gratification of the flesh can ever be worth it. Take pity on your own soul. When all is said and done, if you enter into an adulterous remarriage, all that matters eternally is lost for a filthy piece of flesh.
Don't give in to those strong temptations of the world to find happiness in the arms of another. Pray the Lord's prayer frequently, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
Think beyond yourself and your happiness. What has been the biggest tragedy of your life? Is it your spouse leaving you? Yet even this can be used by God to further His kingdom. In this crooked and adulterous generation, stand for the permanency of marriage and be an inspiration to others to also stand.
All who know you will see that you are not like the world. You are not taking the easy broad way. You are taking the narrow way that leads to life everlasting. And there is the hope that others will see your stand and also take courage to stand for the permanency of marriage.
May Christ's peace and blessings be upon you.
SONG: Stand up for Jesus
Wake up and repent. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
