FLEE FROM THESE THINGS
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote to me – but before I share the lady’s question with you, just a little background from her letter.
All the values that I mention are all fictitious, but they are all less than the true values.
Her husband and she were married for about 20 years, when he left her for a younger woman about the same age as their daughter. She has now been alone for 7 years; this is how long it has taken her to get over this tragedy in her life.
She is now beginning to feel that she would now like a partner, but because she is a professing Christian, she does not want to begin something which is wrong in the eyes of our Lord.
She however really does not want to be alone and lonely in her old age.
So – may she marry again?
This is how I see this kind of problem:
Firstly we must very clearly understand – our Lord hates divorce:
MAL 2:16 “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.
The New King James Version (NKJV) reads as follows:
MAL2:16 “For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence,” says the Lord of hosts. “Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That you do not deal treacherously.”
For our Lord adultery is almost as bad as a person committing murder and then with his bloody clothes of his victim, walks away and continues through life with the murder weapon in his hand.
Because our God is Almighty, He sees everything (to put it this way) in the present time.
According to how I understand the Word, there is – except to sin against the Holy Spirit – not a greater evil in the eyes of our Lord, than divorce.
It is an extremely great tragedy in Christianity that we do not stand a step back from the world, when it comes to divorce.
We as Christians should stand out in our marriage like the city on the mountain. This should be like how the marriage should function.
MAT 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
I am of the opinion that the greatest reason why Christian marriages fail, is because we do not take into account the first principle of Christian life in our marriages and if we do, it is very low on our priority list and is easily swept from the table if it is in conflict with us, (let us call it) love or infatuation.
What is this first principle?
MAT 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
In other words, most Christians will, at the very last of all things, wonder if their partner is maybe a Christian, and if it is not so, well, then it is just one of those things.
While the Word strongly forbids us from marrying a non-Christian:
2COR 6:15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
2COR 6:16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them
and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
I always put it this way:
Never contemplate (consider) marriage with someone, if you have not already ascertained if he/she is a Christian.
In other words:
Never give your heart to someone if you are not totally sure, that that person has given his/her heart to Jesus.
Back to the question that was sent to me –
Our Lord hates sin, but our Lord loves the sinner and if I say “the sinners”, I mean all of humanities sinners.
JOHN 3:16 For God so loved the world (all people) that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
JOHN 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Therefore, even though our Lord hates divorce, to put it this way, He on account of His extreme great love for people, made a concession in the Old Covenant for Israel towards marriages. We read in the Word:
MAT 19:3-9
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife (as the Lord saw them), and the two will become one flesh’?
6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits (as our Lord sees it) adultery.”
Do you see what Jesus says, God who became human?
MAT 19:8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.”
We have already seen that our Lord did this great deed for humanity – that despite its sins, He loved humanity so much that He sent His Son to the world as sacrifice.
With that in mind is it totally unthinkable that our Lord will punish someone for the evilness of someone else.
Therefore I am convinced in my heart that our Lord is forgiving in certain circumstances where it is concerning divorce in the New Covenant, just as He in His great Godly love, in the Old Covenant where he made concessions and I think the lady who wrote to me, is in a classical situation of Christian life and I can almost hear in my heart how our Lord in such a circumstance would say to her:
MAT 19:8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.”
It is totally unthinkable for me that our Lord would expect of her now to be lonely and to go through life alone, just because her previous husband made a wrong choice.
This after He Himself created us as social beings who do not have to go through life alone:
GEN 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Therefore, to Christians whose marriage has ended up on the rocks and who was really not guilty and who walk around with guilty feelings and who are afraid and think it is wrong in the eyes of our Lord if they begin another relationship, I want to say:
You must not feel guilty.
Make sure your life is right with our Lord and continue with your life.
It is certainly not the will of our Lord that you must be punished for someone else’s sin.
He shall never punish someone from a broken marriage, for something wrong which has been committed by someone else.
He also says to us through His Word – and I quote now from the New Testament two verses of many which I could use from the Word, to show that I am personally responsible for my wrong doings/deeds, when I stand before our Lord:
ROM 14:11 It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
ROM 14:12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
2COR 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
Then, within my own heart, I believe that:
If a child of our Lord is within a marriage where there is physical, emotional, sexual, or verbally abuse/harassment, and the person in the marriage who does that, does not change, the one who is abused/harassed should walk away from the marriage (according to the things I see in the Word which our Lord repulses/hates).
I share with you now just one example from the Word, where I believe you will recognize one or more of the signs of this sort of abomination, which I have just mentioned:
ROM 1:28-30
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
If you are in such a marriage where the person, him/her, which is guilty of this sort of abomination namely, physical, emotional, sexual, or oral abuse, and that person does not want to go for counselling and you stay in this marriage – your mental health or ‘sanity’ and/or maybe your life might be in real danger.
To use the words of my great hero Paul:
“Flee from all of this.”
1TIM 6:11 But you, man (woman) of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
1TIM 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called …”
In closing I want to repeat what I have already shown you and I truly would like you to gain insight into how immensely important it is, to put it that way that a godly marriage must be your highest priority.
You must never give your heart to someone if you are not completely sure that that person has already truly given his/her heart to Jesus Christ.
I have two other writings from the Word which you may be interested in, and with pleasure I will send them to you on your request.
The titles of the two writings are:
Oor saambly. – About living together.
Also:
Christelike erkende huwelik, of saambly. – Christian recognized marriage, or living together.
Greetings,
Sakkie