In the coming days, I expect to post some of my laments. Sometimes I get so sad about the state of the world, especially the state of the church, I just cry out to God over the wickedness, apathy, and hypocrisy I see every day. I think God doesn't mind when I vent, because I believe he also laments over what He sees here.
Lately, I have witnessed several newly broken homes resulting from men who have forsaken their vows and committed adultery. At one time, the church wouldn't tolerate such behavior, but in one of these instances, the man is still teaching Sunday School at his church, though he is open about his adultery, taking his new object of lust to public events, even if his wife is at the same event. The church seems to say, "this man is a sinner, just like the rest of us, so why should he be singled out?" As usual, the church's refusal to honor the true doctrine of holiness is leading the Christian culture to hell.
This deadly, cancerous disease of depraved, selfish minds called divorce is a blight on the church, a sickening stain that spreads its corrupting, lethal venom with every passing year. This corruption is graffiti on our walls that says, “Ha! You’re no different, you bunch of hypocrites!” We preach “good news,” yet we live in laughable turmoil, ravaged by the very illness we claim to cure.
Have couples completely forgotten these holy vows: “For better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, ’til death do us part”? With words like these binding two into one inseparable union, a reasonable person would think the divorce rate might be one in a thousand, perhaps one in ten thousand, and with drastically lower percentages in the church.
Rather, the truth about the divorce rate is beyond tragic. With the national rate hovering at around 43 percent of unions,
and around 50 percent for couples under the age of 45, the prospect of marriage looks more like a coin flip than a promised life of fidelity. And an even more alarming conclusion comes from the Barna Research Group: “Christians are more likely to experience divorce than are non-Christians.”
Divorce rates are actually higher among professing Christians than among atheists!
Such a finding is a tragic slap in the face of Christ, who said,
Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh”? Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).
God hates divorce. (See Malachi 2:16.) Trying to deny this fact is like closing our eyes in a hurricane while denying the reality of wind and rain furiously slapping our faces. Yet people make excuses in droves, thinking that their vows are mere ceremony, empty words designed to decorate a beautiful show. It’s as though they crossed their fingers while promising marital faithfulness. They believe that somehow God will excuse their mistaken belief that this person was really “The One” whenever they decide the sparkle is gone.
In reality, God has left us with no option; we are to fulfill our vows.
When you make a vow to the
Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the
Lord your God will surely require it of you. However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the
Lord your God, what you have promised (Deuteronomy 23:21-23).
Why do “Christians” divorce at a higher rate than non-Christians? There are two major reasons. The first is simple. Too many people view God as a doting grandfather who just wants to make them happy. I have heard people say, “God wouldn’t want me to stay in an unhappy marriage. That’s why I knew He wanted me to get a divorce.” Seeking only their pleasure, these people assume that God always blesses their pursuit of happiness. They have molded God into their image, fashioning a bobble-head idol who simply nods “yes” to every whim of its human creator.
They are merely playing Christianity, not really walking the bloodstained steps to
Calvary. They are like straw houses built on sand. While they close their eyes to the truth, the hurricane strikes, and they are left desolate. Their houses crumble, all because they have denied the reality of the wind and rain, the reality that God really does require their sacrificial allegiance and doesn’t condone fleshly indulgence for the sake of “happiness.”
What is happiness,anyway? Where does it originate? Was Paul happy when authorities unjustly sent him to prison? As a matter of fact, he was! Singing hymns of praise to God, he celebrated God’s goodness even during terrible circumstances. (See Acts 16:25.) Did the apostles find joy in being flogged? Surprise! They actually enjoyed it! Although the beating itself likely drew moans of agony and painted dark bruises on their aching bodies, they still rejoiced in their suffering. (See Acts 5:41.)
For a Christian, true happiness comes in pleasing God, especially during great trials. This is the happiness our Lord calls us to seek. God isn’t interested in fulfilling our fleshly desires, allowing us to please ourselves in violation of His principles. If Paul had bought into the rationalizations of many today, he might have stayed at home and skipped his missionary journeys. “Traveling is just too hard!” he might have said. “They threw big rocks at me last time. And I can’t risk going to places where they’ll throw me in jail. I wouldn’t be happy there, so God can’t be calling me to do that.”
If Jesus had lived a “please-the-flesh” mentality, He wouldn’t have gone to the cross. He might have said, “Father, you wouldn’t ask Me to bleed and die for a bunch of sinners, would You? That wouldn’t make Me happy.” And He would have skulked out of the garden and avoided the approaching soldiers.
The true story should blare in our minds like a trumpet call to sacrifice. Although Jesus had a bodily desire for the cup of death to pass from His lips, what did He say to His heavenly Father? “Yet not My will, but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42). Going to the cross brought Him true joy, as the Scripture reveals, “Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus said to His Father, “I have come … to do Thy will” (Hebrews 10:7), and this shout of complete obedience echoes in the soul of every true Christian around the world.
What made Jesus “happy”? Pleasing God. What makes Christians happy? The same self-sacrificial search for holiness, the seeking of God’s kingdom and His righteousness. Whoever seeks fleshly desires over God’s purposes is not a real Christian.
“For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Romans 8:13-14).
Yes, God wants us to be happy, but of far more importance, God wants us to be holy.
On this truth, we can all firmly stand, because as we live holy lives we find true happiness in obedience. This is our joy, to find favor in the eyes of God.
Another reason the divorce rate is so high among “Christians” is that so many of them have bought into the popular “blind-God” concept. They’ve been taught that sin is normal and that when God looks at them He sees only Jesus. Naturally they conclude, “God won’t bring judgment for the sin of divorce. He doesn’t even see it. He sees only His dear, sweet Son hanging on a cross.” It’s as though Christians have a cardboard cutout of Christ shielding them from view.
This heresy threatens to tear down the walls of the church. We might as well close the doors and send everyone home. Not only are we
not separating ourselves from participation in the world’s system, these lies concerning our commitment to marriage covenants have made us worse than the world. Our hypocrisy makes us look like clown-faced charlatans, and people just laugh and shake their heads, thinking,
What a bunch of buffoons! This Christianity sideshow just doesn’t work.
There are many forces that try to tear married couples apart: family and financial pressures, spiritual persecution, and mental illness, just to name a few. Every one, however, is anticipated in this wedding vow: “for better or for worse.” God still commands us to keep our unions whole. Only adultery remains as the true break in the marriage covenant, and even then we’re not commanded to divorce. God still hates divorce, although He allows it when sexual unfaithfulness destroys the bond. Even when it is allowed, however, divorce still stains the beautiful image of Christ and the church. Divorce, even because of adultery, stands as a symbol of failure, a precious pearl intentionally thrown into a sewer for the sake of a few minutes of pleasure by the adulterer or adulteress.
Adultery proves unfaithfulness to God. The Bible says, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall 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, shall inherit the
kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
Don't be deceived. You cannot be a Christian and an adulterer. Since the church, for the most part, has bought into the lie that true believers are still sinners, every imaginable sin has become both commonplace and acceptable. Unrepentant adulterers are teaching Sunday School and pastoring large flocks, parading their hypocrisy on national television.
With this kind of example, the blind leading the blind into hell, it's no wonder God and His true followers lament. The time for judgment is coming quickly, and it will begin in the church.
