Hey everybody, thanks for joining us on the Baptist Bias. I'm your host, Pastor Shelley.
We're here at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship Conference Day 1. And we're going to have Pastor
Corbin Russell on with us tonight because he's going to be preaching. We also have Pastor Aaron
Thompson who's going to be preaching on Sunday. And so we're excited to have a conversation about
a controversial topic, divorce and separation. But I'm going to go ahead and introduce my guests.
Pastor Corbin Russell, how's it going?
Going pretty good, glad to be here.
Thanks for having me out.
Yeah, of course.
And Pastor Aaron Thompson, how's it going?
Good, excited to be here.
Thanks for having us.
I feel like you guys dwarf me on the show or something like that.
I'll try to slouch a little more.
I've been dieting too, so I've been trying to minimize that a little bit.
How's that been going?
There's only so much a guy can do, down 30 pounds so far.
How many?
30.
30?
From the new year, yep, 30 more to go.
So.
Nice.
Yep.
That's like a baby.
Yeah, it's like chopping off a leg.
That's good. How you been like what are you been doing for your dieting exactly just calorie counting?
Yeah, that's all I do if I try to do it try to get some exercise in you look a little slimmer over there too
Pastor Thompson, what's your secret?
cocaine's a hell of a drug
Kidding long kidding sprinting. No, I just I've been just tracking calories and stuff like that. So not tracking
So that energy restriction like what is what is like maintenance counts calories for you guys. Oh, come on starvation
For me, it's like I feel like you know, I'd say but you know, it'd make a lot of people mad, okay
I've done pretty much full keto almost so
I'll say it just like 3200 calories nice. I like that. Yeah, so I feel like I'm like maintenance though
I feel like I'm like 25 2600 or something like that if I want to maintenance, so I'm under 1500 right now
So that's got to be for cutting. That's not me. I'm cutting. Yeah, that's definitely not maintenance for you
I'm cutting hard right now
Well, I'm gonna challenge, I'm gonna challenge you guys on your diets tonight, because uh, I made some...
That's out the window tonight, brother.
If I faint or pass out at any point during the evening before dinner.
No, I don't know.
I made some ribs, and I've never made them before by trying to make a short rib.
then some some lamb some rack of lamb so we're going homemade yeah nice yeah half
that rack is for me right yeah something like that's the deal that work up now I'm
excited about it let's get into our let's get in our topic a little bit here
and I'm gonna read a verse from the Bible when we talk about divorce it's from
Malachi chapter 2 the Bible says for the Lord
The God of Israel sayeth that he hateeth putting away, for one covereth violence with his garment, sayeth the Lord of hosts, therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
Now in the context of Malachi chapter 2, he definitely describes putting away your wife and the wife of thy youth and dealing treacherously against her.
It says explicitly in this passage that God hates putting away.
You know, to me, this is a great verse to just show that God hates divorce,
but I think some people might argue like, oh, that's Old Testament or something like that.
What would you say if someone were to kind of balk at this particular verse, Pastor Russell?
Well, the Bible says, I am the Lord, I change not. You know, he's Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday, today, and forever. So, God doesn't have to reiterate everything verbatim
in the New Testament that he said in the Old Testament. Otherwise, it'd be
you know, twice as long of a book to read, but you have so many other New Testament commands
that make it clear that maybe it doesn't use the word where God hates it, but it's obviously
God is not for divorce. God is not for separation. God is opposed to these things.
Yeah, in the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying,
wherefore there are no more twain but one flesh,
what therefore God had joined together,
let not man put asunder.
And typically, if anybody asks my opinion,
that's usually what I'll quote as I'll just say,
Jesus said, let not man put asunder.
So I just don't think you should ever divorce.
You know, I kind of take a hard stand.
I just say you should never divorce, period.
And even if you had a situation where someone was a psychopath or a weirdo or a freak, like to me,
obviously, you can pray for God to kill him. Like Abigail kind of curses her husband, Naval.
But at the end of the day, divorce to me is only just going to give money to lawyers.
And it kind of tempts you to then end up getting remarried,
which the Bible says that that's a form of adultery. So to me, I always say, even if you're
keep them your reprobate until they die or whatever so
but i know some people have different opinions there and i'm not going to
necessarily throw a lot of stones but i mean from my opinion i just you know
let not man put a sundar i'm kind of curious pastor thompson you know when
it comes to divorce you know people are coming to you
do you do you have any kind of exceptions or do you kind of just have a
similar viewpoint what would you say i have a similar viewpoint yeah i've
never told somebody to get divorced ever and i don't believe in that at all
Now with the reprobate thing brought up well first of all you never know someone has come to me and just like well
I think my husband is a reprobate, but it's like how do you know that for sure yeah unless they have some sort of evidence and
You know people might try to get out of it that way
But I just because they actually brought up a pastor actually pastor manly Perry said if they're if they're
Your spouse's reprobate you can divorce some of that's the exception he gave and I said well
You know words the chapter and verse on that
So I just said
Unfortunately the system that we live under you know they should be dead based
upon you know the Bible system and so should adulterers but we don't live in
that system. I wanted to make a comment on this point because here's the thing
obviously if someone was an actual
Hedify proven pedophile or like a proven serial killer like sodomite, you know something like that
Then obviously, you know, we could pretty much discern like this person's a reprobate
Yeah, and I think like maybe sometimes passers say that
and that's kind of what they mean but then this is what people hear like you know my spouse was
pretty mean to me and forgot my birthday I'm pretty sure they're a referee yeah I know and so
so like even by saying like there's this exception for reprobates I feel like you kind of just you
almost green light a lot of people that just want to hear what they want to hear and so
You know, even in those extreme scenarios, I'm like, you know,
obviously, if someone was a pedophile or something like,
we're going to try to kill you literally.
Obviously, you don't necessarily have to be in their presence.
I get that.
But the divorce doesn't really help anything.
Yeah, you're just giving money to divorce attorneys.
In fact, I said, no, by the way, I just said no.
Yes, I said the Bible doesn't teach.
I said, yeah, you can you should get away from them.
and obviously you got to protect your children and all that, but like I did not endorse and
divorce and I said and the other thing is that I don't know what you're saying to me is true.
One, I mean, there's been some legal precedent where people have been trying to get their
children to have gender transition surgeries and stuff like this, and by getting divorced
you give more custody.
I just feel like getting the government involved in those situations is probably going to make
it worse more times than not.
So to me, I'm a hard line.
I'm never going to tell someone to do it.
You know something you should avoid 100% yep, and again those extreme scenarios are something that I've never even heard of right
We always run to these extreme hypotheticals and like you were kind of saying earlier people kind of use that to gloss over
The real reason they're getting divorced, which is something much more minor. Yeah, and
and those are the issues we should be more focused on.
Well, there's a lot of advice out there that I've seen.
Someone like Dr. John Delaney, he's part of Dave Ramsey's crew and
he pretty much just says like, if you're unhappy, you should divorce.
And I was thinking like, well, that's everybody has marriage problems because
I've never heard of somebody coming to on a show or asking advice like,
I'm really happy, I just want some advice.
It's like, you're always going to be unhappy at different times in your marriage, but
Um, to me, you know, we should just avoid divorce completely.
Uh, now I want to go to clip D2 because there's this woman who's like
celebrating divorce and, and I kind of want to play this clip and then we'll
make some comments on it.
Well going viral right now a woman's divorce party and her photos you heard right divorce party now divorce parties
They're not a new trend
But the internet can't get enough of these pics because the women are wearing wedding gowns the divorcee claims
She wanted to celebrate maybe that's why she's divorced
She wanted to celebrate friendship and starting a new chapter in her life.
So this got us talking.
Should you celebrate divorce?
You, our fifth host, had a lot to say during our Facebook and Line pre-shows.
Jenny writes, hell yes, you celebrate that divorce.
Al?
I don't know.
I think this is a way, especially by publishing the pictures, it's a way to kind of take
one last jab at your spouse.
You know, I think that, you know, you and your partner at one point loved each other.
If you're going to celebrate it, just, yeah, I don't think you need to put it on the internet.
All right.
Rick says, hell no, you celebrate 20 years, 30 years plus of marriage.
Erica.
I agree, celebrating marriage is a lot better
than celebrating divorce, as the resident divorcee
on the show.
I think if you're celebrating a divorce
and you're not really over it,
so when she says that she's talking about bringing,
or celebrating a new chapter in her life,
you don't celebrate a new chapter in your life
by dragging in the old garbage.
Now, did you celebrate whatsoever your divorce or no?
No, I did not celebrate.
Did you mourn?
I mourned a lot.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, that's, it's a very-
They say it's like a death.
It is.
Would you be offended if one of your friends
had been like, you're getting divorced,
let's go out and celebrate, let's go to Mexico
party well I had friends who were like oh let's do something but it was like more
a reconnection with my girls and like actually getting me to the next step of
my life not
Well, I didn't want to keep droning on in that that clip, but crazy idea
I guess I've never actually even heard of people celebrating the divorce in such a public way
Obviously some people when they first get divorced
I've seen them be kind of like happy or gleeful and try to like covering up the the reality that divorce is just so ugly and
taxing and
expensive and
grievous in so many ways, but
Um, I mean, it's kind of a sad reality that we live in a country where people are celebrating
something that's just destructive. I mean, it's, you failed. Like, why would, why would you be
celebrating failure now? It's almost like a participation trophy, but even worse,
that you, you got disqualified and now you're going to celebrate. Um, I mean,
Obviously biblically the Bible is just saying this is bad. This is wrong
It's it's a sin. So
Like I don't know. What are your reactions to this woman celebrating divorce?
Well, I think it's interesting. She read with the lead with the word hell. So that kind of tells you right
She obviously has no reverence for the things of God to begin with so man
No shocker there that people who disregard the Bible and can just you know
These words like that which is mockingly that they're the ones that are celebrating divorce. These are someone on that show that had
Enough guts to say well, it's not something to celebrate something to mourn. Yeah
Well the person that's actually been through it kind of realized like that's not not a good thing, but I mean
I'm sure that it's out there like some people would try to say like you know
I'm happy I'm divorced, but in my personal experience people that I know and the people that I've seen and the
Situations that I've experienced like everyone hates it. It's a loser for everyone
Like this is not a good thing people often very much regret their divorce
I mean, do you really see people celebrating this pastor Thompson?
I mean, that's the first time I've ever seen that but it's not that I I don't know that I mean it probably does exist
so I think it's weird and I
Think it's just kind of a sign of the times that nothing is sacred anymore and you know the divorce rate is just crazy
Like people didn't used to get divorced now they do so we just kind of live in a time where it's just a common thing
But now it's just even now more over the top
Do you think this is like a agenda-driven?
Like, we're just trying to just promote these things
and lie to people just to try and push them over the edge.
Like, oh, I want to have this cool, fun party with my girls.
And so, you know, maybe I should get divorced
and then I can reconnect with my friends and, you know.
I can have a better life or something like that.
Look, this woman's really happy.
Maybe I should do it.
Obviously we know who controls the media stations.
So, I mean, is this even like a very big reality
or is this just some kind of a propaganda,
you know, story that's being pushed on us?
I don't know.
I kind of feel like it is being a propaganda,
but it is working, obviously.
I mean, I was telling you yesterday about,
you know women that are just divorcing their husbands that are perfectly fine and there's a
trend to put all this stuff on tiktok and this woman is divorcing her husband that's she says
there's absolutely nothing wrong with him at all he's the perfect the perfect husband he's a
perfect father and she's just divorcing him because for no reason basically she's trying to find a
reason to not divorce him even though there's nothing wrong with him it's just it's just kind
you know nice guy's finished last type of thing and it's kind of making yeah go ahead.
Well I saw something where they they're calling this walk away wife syndrome have you seen that
term? I haven't you kind of said something about it yesterday when we're talking but like it is a
trend thing that's happening. Yeah there's all these articles it's like it's now like a new
psychological diagnosis well like maybe it's not official but a lot of people are just referencing
And maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I don't know.
But it's definitely so common now
that they're labeling this thing something.
Like a lot of women are just walking away
from their husbands.
I mean, what do you think of the catalyst for this stuff?
Social media.
The me generation. I mean, yeah, I mean look at the photo. She posts it's like her and all like it's like a costume party
Laying down with her what new wedding dress wine party. Yeah with a bottle of wine or yeah
It's reconnected with my I want to hang out my friends again
You know, it's like the only friend that my wife has their men besides me is the father the son of the Holy Ghost
So I mean, what do you think about they want to be friends with their old friends in shame
Kind of the absence of shame like you know, we you know
We talk about like women that commit fornication is like the walk of shame
But it's like shouldn't there be like this association of shame when you get divorced or you're you're not staying with your husband
And again a lot of divorces, you know, maybe start with some kind of separation
They kind of start with them no longer dwelling together and it's not even necessarily
Stigmatized anymore because everything's abuse
you know, every, you know, there's verbal abuse, there's emotional abuse, there's,
he's just not connecting with me, or I'm not happy, or yeah, whatever it is, just some reason.
Yeah. And I mean, it seems like pulpits aren't even shaming this stuff anymore.
Well, that's it right there. There's no shame because it's not something that's shamed publicly.
It's something, they're celebrating it. I mean, it's something that-
I feel like they're encouraging it.
Right.
Yeah, they don't have a problem with it.
Yeah, there's plenty of people that are going to rubber stamp your divorce.
I mean, if I go to a non-denom church right now, and I talk to the pastor, and I'm a man,
but let's say my wife does.
My wife goes to a non-denom pastor right now and says, you know, my husband doesn't really
connect with me anymore.
I feel like he's just emotionally, you know, abusing me.
And I feel like he's not spending time with me.
Like what should I do?
I mean, I don't know how to put a number on it, but that's not to say it's not out there
I mean, I'm sure that's out there. I
Had a I had a friend that I worked with and he was an independent Baptist. We didn't go to the same church, but
his wife divorced him because
He got she caught him like watching porn or something and the pastor encouraged
The the wife to divorce him and he he divorced she divorced him
They had like four kids together and she got remarried to another guy
And he just their church the church that they went to or that he I'm sure the new guys never made a mistake
Oh, yeah, yeah, but he but they see said that that was adultery and so
She divorced him and remarried this other guy, and then he ended up going to another church
And the church I know that he ended up going to doesn't believe in divorced remarriage
It was a church in Tri-Cities, Washington that I mean they had that right
I know they didn't teach that because I went to I don't know some evening service there
And they taught that and I was like oh, and they didn't believe that it was you know that fornication
Was you know the adultery so so at least they you know
I know of a Baptist church that believes the right thing about it besides our churches and stuff
so but there are true that I went to another church and
the deacon's son
Married a woman that was divorced that went to our church. So this woman went to our church
She was married to an unbelieving spouse and for years. She stayed married to him
He was happy to stay married with her and then all of a sudden
Because he wasn't a believer. She just decided to divorce him
and then married the deacon's son and the pastor of our church remarried them. Wow!
Wow, so there you go that an independent fundamental Baptist Church
Churches, we're not talking about independent fundamental Baptist Churches. I mean
Obviously to kind of go back to what you said earlier with this guy looking at stuff. He shouldn't or whatever like obviously that's a problem
Obviously, I shouldn't do that
But at the end of the day and then that's a serious problem
But at the end of the day like how many pastors are then gonna encourage
wives to do something wrong
and two wrongs don't make a right like oh well he's doing that we'll leave him go back to your parents
or maybe even a worse situation and they're just kind of encouraging this separation policy and you
know some people say like distance makes the heart grow fonder but I feel like that's kind of a
dangerous saying because I feel like in marriage like you should not be separating ever you should
not be creating distance that you don't need to obviously if you have a traveling job I get it
not around her spouse because if you're not around them long enough I feel like
it could cause you to grow apart and have more problems not I don't feel like
you I don't get sick of steak because I eat it I you know it's it's like I don't
get sick of things I like you know I don't get sick of hanging out with you
know of my wife because I hang out with her it's like to me you kind of like
forget why you like people when you don't hang out with them
when you kind of leave and when you start leaving you start making practical decisions
like oh now I need to pay for an apartment or I need to get my own utilities or whatever
and it's like you're you're almost creating this environment of what would divorce actually look
like and then maybe it's easier to pull the trigger but well legal separation I just want to say
this really quick legal separation is is basically the the beginning of divorce yeah it ends in
Like in the legal term, at least in the state of Washington, you can't just
I'm sure it's different in every state, but yeah, but a legal separation. I know at least in Washington state
is is basically like your divorce because everything separates legally and you have
your own money they have their own money and it's just basically kind of just setting the stage for
divorce it's like you're being divorced if you're separate. Didn't you tell me that maybe you had
some personal experience with divorce? Well I've never been divorced. I'm not meaning that sorry.
No, yeah, I mean, I'm a child of divorce like my I saw my parents break up and it wasn't pretty
Did they separate before they divorced? Yeah, there was I can remember as a young child
I mean they they divorced and I was like seven or eight, you know second grade whatever that is
But yeah, I remember there were it's not your fault. Thank you
You know, that's a thing for a lot of people they would think that
If that is true about you specific no, well, I mean that is something that I had to be actually when I was a child
I'm sure what someone had to tell me that right, you know because I you when your parents disappear
You do wonder why is that? You know even even if you see everything that's going on, you know firsthand
You as a child you can't process that right you don't understand why they can't just
You're like well, I mean to my sister too, and I have to get along with her
It's like why can't you guys just learn to get along right so?
Yeah, so I have some experience that way firsthand seeing that happen
I think that's one thing that a lot of people neglect to think about when they're making
these decisions.
How it affects children.
Like, if we were to look at the data, I mean, I preached a sermon about a year ago called
The Devastating Effects of Divorce, where, I mean, I don't have access, we can't really
look at it right now, but if we were to look at the statistics, like it's obvious how terrible
it is for not just the people that get divorce, but more specifically the children, I mean.
You're more prone. You're more likely to not graduate high school go on to college
You know, it's gonna lead to you know financial hardship. You're more likely to divorce yourself. I think also statistically at least
Not necessarily you but just just the general right. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. You are yeah, there's I mean, it's it's terrible
I mean you can see why God says he hates it
Yeah, it affects everybody and they if people always want to run these extremes like oh, you know
I have to leave him because you know, he's this or that but
The fact is is that people are leaving for much more minor reasons and if divorce weren't an option from day one
You're forced if you go into a thing and knowing and agreeing that this is not an option for us
Then you're forced to work your problems out right no matter what they are
No, I think it's important to have that right man's mentality that you know
I'm gonna keep my vow period and then therefore I'm gonna work on
issues instead of allowing them to grow into bigger issues or making really bad decisions.
In the long run. Like we just celebrated 15 years in my marriage.
That's great. And it wasn't, you know, it's like any other marriage. It wasn't.
There were low points and high points for both of us, but it's honestly, it's better now than it's ever been after 15 years because we went through those things.
You know, that you have to go through those experiences, have those difficulties and grow as a person by working through that stuff because you know it's...
How would you have felt if your parents celebrated the divorce?
Well, yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't feel pretty good about that at all.
That's terrible. This is a heavy subject.
It is.
And we're about to celebrate, we're celebrating our event.
But we're bringing some heavy topics, the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship.
And we've got some cool stuff here.
If you still can make it, you know, we've got stickers.
We've got some new IP fan club stickers.
We've got the Baptist Bias sticker.
We've got shirts. We've got all kinds of stuff.
the event, but, you know, it's important to address these issues because this affects
real people, divorce affects real people, separation affects real people, and preaching affects real
people. I think if all the pulpits of America were giving a sound message on these issues,
then there would be less divorce. There would be less separation. We probably can't avoid it,
but there could be less. And I want to play a clip, clip number one, from a pastor that used to be,
you know, part of the new IVB or claimed to be our friend, but
Uh, he was kind of talking about, uh, you know, this, this subject and I want to hear
what he has to say on this.
Here's another thing that 1 Corinthians chapter number seven is saying, did you know, and
here's to all this other, you know, this other philosophy of this, this bad leadership, do
you know that, you know, she can leave.
This is in Afghanistan.
She has to follow you
Just like you have to follow me willingly
If if you leave this church and you you call me I mean don't do this
But if you call me tomorrow and say pastor, you know, I
Don't like your face or whatever and I I'm gonna I'm gonna not come back to church anymore like no one's gonna hunt you down
No one's coming to get you
You know, there's nothing that's going to be done to you or whatever. This is a willing you willingly come here
You willingly come here to hear the word of God you willingly come here for reasons that are in the Bible
She can leave he can leave
Both ways
You know this isn't Afghanistan and you shouldn't want it to be you shouldn't need it to be Afghanistan for you to lead your
lead your family I
Mean if you need Afghanistan if you need the Taliban to be run in the United States in order for your marriage to work
You got problems, buddy
Big problems look and it's exactly the same look leading by constraint doesn't work
So I want to I want to make a few comments. I'll let you guys comment. You can say whatever you want, but
Number one if constraint doesn't work, then I guess the military is just up a creek without a paddle
So I think constraint can work that doesn't mean it's always the best results though
he keeps saluting to the idea of a wife can possibly leave is just kind of an
observation of free will everybody has free will so of course i don't know that that point needs to
be belabored but you know in america and in countries throughout history divorce has been
illegal and it was not limited to islamic countries like afghanistan or something like that and i
Enforce that particular statute and say, hey, we're just not going to grant divorce.
Divorce is just not a legal option.
And kind of force people to work on their issues from a civil perspective.
Obviously, the no-fault divorce in California really radicalized divorce in America.
A lot more divorce, a lot more separation.
I think it's been really negative in our country.
I would love for us to go back.
and overturn that kind of stuff and say,
hey, we're not gonna grant these no fault divorces
and all this nonsense and junk.
Additionally, encouraging people to think about,
I guess kind of walking on eggshells in their marriage,
I feel like is kind of a dangerous mindset.
You know, if I was struggling in my marriage,
and I was trying to lead my wife.
The last thing I would want to hear is the idea
that if I push too hard or if I try to lead her too much
or if I try to correct her too much,
she's just gonna drop me like a bad habit or she can
or that's on the table or something.
Like, to me, then, how in the world
are you gonna actually lead?
I think what's being implied here
is that you don't actually ever tell your wife what to do.
You never tell her no.
You never become forceful in any way.
Because she could quote leave,
you just have to simply be a good example
and just hope that she magically follows your example.
But to me, this undermines the authority of a husband
and it kind of insinuates that the husband is not allowed
to just tell his wife what to do
or tell her to just get in line
or provide any kind of disciplinary action,
whether that be a verbal correction
or even further beyond that.
And to me, this is just dangerous because I feel you're just planting bad ideas, you're
making it where men don't have an opportunity to corral a wife that's maybe rebellious.
And again, for a wife's perspective, you know, she's supposed to be very submissive to try
and win over her husband.
But I think biblically, you know, the husband is supposed to, you know, wash the water or
you know rule over her so I think there's there's guidelines there there's rules there
so you know and again how husbands enforce that or what their discretion is is going to be
different but you know for me like I would be really upset if I was in church hearing my wife
can basically just drop me like a bad habit like church because
Technically, if I don't come to this church, or I don't go to a specific church, that's not a sin.
There's nothing in the Bible that says I have to go to a specific church to be a sin.
But if I divorce my spouse, or I leave my spouse, that is a sin.
So I feel like conflating those two things, again, is also extremely disingenuous,
just a horrible parallel, at best case scenario here.
But again,
You know, I would, I don't even try to encourage my members to leave necessarily unless they're bad.
I guess I have said that a lot. I have said like, hey, if you don't really want to be here,
you don't like me, please leave. But like people that like me or like our church or
helpful to our church, like, I don't want them to leave or encourage them or say like,
hey, no problem, just do whatever you want.
Obviously like I would try to compel that person to say like, hey, you should stay with us, you know
We love you. You're a big blessing or big impact here. We want you to be here
But with my wife like I'm not going to just try and like sweet talker. It's like you're married
You're you're with me. There's no option here
I'm going to go pick you up and put you on my shoulder and bring you back to my cave. You know, I mean like
You know, I feel like this parallelism is not
accurate, it's not biblical, it's dangerous, it's misleading, and I'm worried that this
kind of message can really cause more problems for a lot of people than it's going to help.
I just want to get y'all's perspective on this though.
Well, it's certainly not going to help, I mean, that's a message that they're hearing
everywhere else.
the Bible in church, God's Word in front of God's people.
Why don't you just preach what the Bible says?
Let not the wife depart.
That's 1 Corinthians 7.
Why not get up and preach why is need to be submissive?
Husbands need to love their wives like that's preach what the Bible actually says
Right, and you know and let people you know encourage people to work it out not give them this. Hey, you know
She could leave yeah, that's semantics. She could technically leave and I like you kind of the philosophy
You know over my dead body when it comes to my life, right? You know, I get it. We all understand that we all under
That's how the world works. That's not news to anybody
free will exist that we don't need to go to church to move on you know
he reminded once again that
You know, it's no fault divorce in this country and people can leave it. It's happening all the time like in the house of God
Let's preach what the Bible says. Yeah, I mean I could say well, someone could just walk up and punch me in the face
But like I just don't know that that's helpful in the service of I'm just encouraging my members to just punch me in the face
Or something like that a lot of things could happen
I mean I can quit I could quit any job should be doing because in Texas we have the right to work
It's like a right to work state
but I've never been in a meeting where my boss is just like,
well, you can leave whenever you want,
or he's just trying to encourage me to leave or something.
It's kind of a weird he didn't ask you to do something because he's afraid you might quit right
He wasn't didn't give you like a list of things get this accomplished by the week
I need you to work some overtime like it, but but but if you're gonna quit because of that like don't worry about
I'll continue whatever you want actually that's kind of a weird it's a bad analogy
It's a bad parallel like you said and it's just you know just let's just preach what the Bible actually says
That's what we're called to do as preachers
And if people don't like it, you know, they'll suffer the consequences.
That's their problem.
We're our job is to just say what it says.
Do you have any comments on this, Passive Thompson?
You pick up your mic.
Yeah, when he preached that, I preached against that.
And I just I felt like he was he was literally just not literally,
but he was cutting the balls off of every man in his congregation.
And even just when in that same sermon he's talking about you know
When the spanking teens is just bad to do or whatever and they shouldn't spank your teens or whatever and people could do
Whatever they want, but like you're telling like any any any dad that the spanked his teens after that
Then basically the pastor is overridden the man of the house in every single
Household in that church or anybody that listens or has he has influence over in any household from there on out
It's one thing if you believe that and that's your personal belief as a pastor
But like to preach that to the congregation as if that husband's an idiot for for teaching that in his own home
You don't we ask pastors
We're not to just jump into someone's home like that and say what they should or shouldn't do and then just say
Oh, he could they could just leave the pet the past that's not what the past is even talking about the passage is actually
talking about if an unbelieving spouse leaves, then you're going to remain unmarried.
And you're not under the due benevolence in such cases.
That's what it's actually talking about. It's not like, oh, the believing spouse can just leave.
That's not what it's talking about.
So I just kind of want to read just a couple verses here because it says in verse
Ten it says and unto the married I command yet not I but the Lord let not the wife depart from her husband
Period yeah, so I'll say it doesn't say oh they can leave is that what it doesn't say?
Oh, but they can leave no it says don't depart the Lord says that right. Sorry. I'm getting a little fired up about it
They're just pissed. No, it's a good point because that's what we need to hear here. Here's the thing like
When we preach, we should preach with the presupposition that people actually want to obey God's commandments.
Not what's legal or not legal.
Because there's plenty of things that are legal.
Like, I could say, hey, you can go drink alcohol until you pass out.
Legally.
I mean, you could do that, but you shouldn't do that because it's a sin.
So I'm not going to necessarily encourage somebody to do anything that's going to be
a sin or act like that's even on the table, because sin shouldn't just be on the table.
Anyways.
And obviously, even if we just go by legal ramifications of a wife departs from her husband, yeah,
she's going to suffer financial consequences, divorce is ugly, she's going to have all kinds
situations. It's not like she's going to get off scot-free even from a legal perspective.
Then she's broken her vow. I mean, how does God feel about her? There's consequences for her sin.
I mean, you're just like, oh, well, you know, if you do things that aren't right,
your wife could make this really bad decision. Okay, but that's all the time. Everybody can sin,
everybody can make bad decisions. But why would I want to encourage anybody to think that a bad
Right? I mean, you know...
But where's constraint in here?
Like, he's just making this up.
The text isn't talking about this.
It's talking about, you know,
if you have an unbelieving spouse,
and they, like, because this happens.
People get saved, and then the other person isn't.
And then the person that's unsaved,
the house divided, Jesus came to bring division.
and you know the sword divides, the word of God divides and sometimes the
unbelieving spouse does not want to live with the believing spouse and they're
like you're a nut job you know you're a religious fanatic or whatever and then
they're like I'm done I'm leaving but sometimes the people do want to stay like
the marriage that I was talking about that guy wanted to stay with her but
instead she divorced him because she just wanted to be with the deacons whatever
and his son, and so she divorced him
and then sent him packing down the road.
But the Bible is saying here
that you're supposed to stay with them
if they're pleased to stay with you
and that your children are sanctified
by that Christian merit.
But because of you being a believer.
But it says, but if the unbelieving.
Depart it doesn't say if the believing spouse depart says if the unbelieving depart let him depart a brother or a sister
Is not under bondage in such cases
But but God has called us to peace. It's not talking about. Oh, don't get him in a headlock on their way out the door
Or beat them into submission
the believing spouse. I mean he's just drawing things out of the text that aren't there and that's
what pissed me off so bad about what he said there because he's just extrapolating things that are
not in there just because he had an axe to grind with Pastor Anderson. That's what his whole stupid
series was about. Well again like you said in 1 Corinthians 7 it says let not the wife depart from
her husband. That's what the Bible says. Then he's just bringing up how the wife can leave multiple
as long as her husband liveth. So even if man grants divorce, that doesn't mean that God is
approving of that and that God is still not binding that wife to the vow that she made and to that
marriage. And so the Bible says even if you get divorced, if you get remarried or you or someone
else, it's adultery. And the Bible's really clear about that. So, you know, oh, she can leave and
You know, like that's just, that's not what the Bible emphasizes, that's not what the
Bible is bringing up.
It's not, it's not warning husbands like, hey, don't actually try to rule your house
because your wife could just leave you or divorce you or, hey guys, I mean like, no one
reads the Bible and then is reading a text and thinking like, you know what, husbands
need to kind of pull back a little bit here and they need to make sure that they're not
like saying something a little aggressive to their wife here or trying to quote rule,
bike and strain.
It's just insane to me because I'm thinking like, well, I'm pretty sure you either believe
in Jesus or you go to hell.
And you know that seemed to work, you know, I kind of decided to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for a lot of reasons
But one of them was because if I don't I'm gonna go to hell period some say with fear pulling them in the fire
Yeah, you're considering you're you're trying to
Compel them to come in with fear, bro
I mean obviously God even talks about putting like a hook and the king of us
You know the general of a serious nose and just dragging them back from where he became
He's like God God's gonna actually cause every single person
whether they like him or not, to bow the knee
and to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of the glory
of God the Father.
So I think God's okay with constraint
when he wants to have constraint.
But you know, obviously I realize that in a marriage,
you know, you want your wife to make free will decisions.
You want your wife to genuinely love you.
You want your wife to make, you know,
you want your wife to actually not be a robot
or be a slave.
And we get that point.
but you know it's so over the top that now I feel like you're you're basically contradicting
other parts of the Bible to kind of fit this agenda and what I don't like about this is again
real people going to real churches hear stuff like this and then think I okay I can finally
leave my spouse because other people see it differently and even though you might have five
guys over here saying it's you know never do it it's not right when you have anybody on the other
They just kind of feel like, okay, I got someone that's batting for me.
You know, I got at least one person that's going to side with me, and so, you know, this person's empathetic.
And so that's why it's important for men of God to just say what the Bible says and have a unified message
and not say these weird things, these confusing things, because this is devastating.
I hate divorce, I hate separation, I hate what it does to people and their families.
and just it's so destructive and in some cases it becomes permanent and so you know these things
need to be warned against and preached against so you want to say something else Corbyn before we
move on? Pastor Reusall? No I mean I agree with everything you said I just think that like you
said we don't need another place where men are being hamstrung we don't we need to as men of God
and encouraging them obviously as the Bible commands to love their wives
and to nourish their wives even as they do their own bodies and
to you know do what's best for them to be self-sacrificing.
We don't obviously we're not trying to radicalize anybody or say yeah you no
matter what happens she's stuck with you.
you know, that's not us condoning anything else. I feel like sometimes we get painted in a corner like,
oh, if you're saying that she has to stay with him no matter what, then you're condoning
spousal abuse or whatever it might be. I'm not condoning that. I'm just saying what the Bible
says. I'm just saying that the Bible doesn't give you any excuse to leave your husband.
It doesn't bring up the exceptions. You know, except for, you know, fornication in that rare
But other than that, there is no other reason.
I have to say that I have to tell you as a pastor,
the Bible does not give you permission to force your spouse for any reason.
That does not mean I'm condoning your husband's poor behavior
or it's not an excuse for bad behavior.
Well, the law is a provision for fornication.
But Jesus doesn't even make that provision. He just simply said let not the wife depart from her husband, right?
So like, or what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
So to me, that's kind of like the eye for eye. Like, the law gives provision that justice would be served and you do have an eye for an eye.
But Jesus is saying, hey, just turn the other cheek in a lot of situations, going above necessarily what's just or equal, and at the end of the day, like,
I think with Hosea being commanded to stay with his wife, with what he says in Malachi like,
I get that there's the exception brought up, but I just still don't even think there is an exception
for this kind of nonsense. And to me, when people bring up their exceptions that are not what the
Bible's saying, you know, as like some kind of a gotcha, it's like, okay, but it's not like God
didn't think of these scenarios.
And there's going to be collateral damage no matter what we say.
If we say, hey, you can divorce for some reason, well, then someone's going to abuse that.
Someone's going to abuse that exception. Someone's going to abuse that situation.
If we say, hey, never divorce for any reason, well, someone's going to abuse that.
Someone's gonna do something wrong and there's gonna be a bad situation
I think what people don't realize is there's gonna be abusers on both sides of the of wherever you fall and God already thought
About that a long enough and then he just said you know what I decided that just it's never gonna happen
Does that mean there could be a bad scenario? Could there be someone that abuses that?
Policy or that particular thing sure but at the end of the day
That's the that's the least of the collateral damage. That's the least of the serious problems that you're gonna have in society
than where you have the opposite. I mean do we really have more problems in society or less
problems in society because of divorce? It's like it's real obvious that no fault divorce is just
destroyed our country and sure if we went back and rolled the clock and said never divorce
could we find this one horrific guy that did something stupid to his wife and we're all kind
of like yeah then look the other way and it kind of sucks. Sure but it's like that's like one out of the
thousands or millions of horrible things that are happening right now so to
me like from a collateral damage perspective when people bring up these
these weird scenarios they're not thinking about the other side and now
there's gonna be abuse of any rule of any law of any situation and really we're
limiting the abuse to where God is limiting the abuse types exceptions I
don't know what your thoughts are on that
As Christians, we shouldn't be looking for the loopholes.
We should be establishing the law.
We should be establishing good marriages.
As men, we shouldn't be like, oh, well,
the pastor said we should never divorce for any reason.
So just take your smacks or just people just look for dumb things.
Oh, well, the pastor said this.
It's just like, don't be a jerk.
Be a benevolent dictator in your home.
But you shouldn't be looking for reasons
to try to treat your wife like crap.
You know or look for reasons to just talk crap to your husband because you just think that you can just get you know
Because you can't get away with it
Well, it works both ways and they never bring up the other side because it's like both sides say hey
Why should not divorce from their husbands and you're like?
Oh, what if he's abusive and a terrible person and it's like I would just say stay with them and try to do the best
You can but it's like they never bring up the other side where it's like what if a guy comes to me and says hey
My wife's committing adultery all the time
and not making meals, and nagging me, and whatever.
It's in her name's Gomer, and it's the book of Hosea,
and God's like, hey, buddy, you gotta pay for it.
Like, not only do you have to stay with her,
you have to pay her extra money just to not whore around.
Like, you know, that's God's advice to this guy.
And again, some people would just be incredulous.
They'd say, well, God doesn't want me to be an unhappy marriage.
And it's like, yes, God does because you made that vow and you decided to be in that relationship.
And so, yeah, he does want you to be in that situation.
That said, right there, you made a vow before God, for better or worse, and choose wisely.
That's, see, and if we if we force people to be in crummy marriages,
then some people would take marriage more seriously.
When people go, maybe you should bury that guy, maybe you should listen to like 15 people
who are going, that guy is, you know, he's a psycho.
Like, I just love him, you know, just, maybe you should just listen to him.
Well girls wouldn't want the bad boys anymore, they wouldn't want the bad guys if they were
stuck with them forever.
Two black guys later, it's like, yeah, or whatever.
They would want to marry this, the safe, smart provider.
And, you know, that's unfortunately being overlooked.
We have a huge dating problem, a huge marriage problem, a huge separation problem in America.
And again, I think churches are not preaching what the Bible is saying on this subject.
This world's so backwards and screwed up anymore, I mean, it's just a list of problems.
The last place, you know, that should be adding to it is the house of God.
We just need to get up and preach what the Bible says, and people need to learn to deal with it.
And we're gonna be ending here about five minutes short.
We're at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship Conference.
Thank you guys for tuning in.
We have lots of people that have been coming in,
so there's been lots of crowd noise,
but we're really excited for all of our guests,
and I'm excited to hear Pastor Russell preach for us.
I'm even more excited to eat later, but.
You can skip right to that.
That's fine.
Yeah, we could bring out the food, but.
Just photocopy my notes, pass them around.
You, you, if you're watching this on the Baptist bias channel,
you're going to have to switch here and about.
10-15 minutes and we're gonna be streaming on our steadfast rumble. We're also on God resource
You can check that out. We've got the stream there on God resource calm
Also, we have a secret hidden YouTube channel if you could ever find it
I can't really promote that but we have a couple different ways that you can you can find it
I know you got nuked from YouTube. I did. Thank you. Yeah, welcome welcome to the club. What are you doing over here?
I'm kind of nervous
You make me, I'm afraid of you, you know, I'm just kidding.
I'm starting to wonder if you guys are starting to suspect me.
Why don't you preach something spicy or something?
I'm just kidding.
I guess.
You've preached harder, you know what I mean?
You get up and preach the Bible says every now and then, you know what I mean?
I guess so.
Was that channel, was that the channel that I had the BLM clip from forever ago with the horrible, horrible video camera and audio?
Yeah, from North, yeah.
Yeah.
Your videos were some of the most viewed the entire life of that channel.
Well, that's sad, but, uh, because the audio quality and the video quality were really rough.
It's all about the content.
Content is key.
Yeah, I guess, I guess just scream about something.
Yeah, the Tremble Exposed, that was like, that was one of the bangers on there.
I want to play one more clip, uh, clip three.
We had one more clip where we got some loudmouth feminists, apparently advocating for divorce
and or considering divorce and
Um, you know, it's just a sad reality, but we need to, you know, smack smack them down spiritually. Let's let's uh, watch this clip
I have them and my husband for almost 20 years, but about three years ago
I was strongly considering
Divorce and I want to talk to you about why so i'm going to tell you the story
Of the day where I thought to myself
Maybe I don't want to do this anymore
My husband and I had four kids, we both worked full-time, we'd been together for 16 years
at this point, we'd been together since high school.
And on paper, I have an amazing husband.
He is incredibly supportive, he's kind, he's loyal, he's a great dad, he's very hands-on,
he's an active participant, he's always present.
Like, on paper, what else could I ask for?
But in reality, my experience is very similar to the experience of other women.
burnt out from our marriage and from motherhood. Because what happens to so many of us is that
we marry these amazing men and we have amazing relationships and then we have kids. And when
we have kids, women tend to carry a disproportionate amount of the work in the home, the work of
raising kids and the mental load. And that is exactly what happened to us. About three
months after my fourth baby was born, I remember looking at my husband and saying, I need more.
What the problem I think I think it's pretty obvious what the problem is. What was it Pastor Russell?
She's working a full-time job and still trying to be a mom does sound like a lot of your life
Yeah, it does sound like maybe she just focused on being a mom
Yeah, I'm married to your amazing husband. Well to me. I hate these meaningless platitudes of like my husband's perfect
And he's amazing
But then he's not so like which one is it like if he's amazing and perfect then what would you do?
Why would you even divorce him anyways? Like it's it's self-contradictory, but again
I do think that it's it's definitely gonna be difficult if you put your wife and a pair of pants
and you send her to go work for the man and then she's got to come home and serve the whole family like
She probably will get burnt out now. Does that mean that she should divorce her husband? No
If her husband was forcing her to do that, should she still do it? Sure
But if you want to have a successful marriage, obviously this guy should you know, just
pay all the bills, maybe that means they can't have all the money or all the the fun activities they
want or something like that. Yeah, sell the house, sell the second car, sell all your work you know
your pantsuits and yeah you know maybe maybe she can make some clothes. Take your shoes off,
get in the kitchen, make some meals.
Had some more kids yeah, you know, but here's the thing all sin I came to this realizations
It's like all sin is just selfish at the at the root core
You know I was gonna say that earlier that I mean at the end of the day
That's what this all comes down to is selfishness and she just doesn't want to watch kids anymore probably and she does have her boss
Babe life or whatever it is
She just wants it the ejection seat and she doesn't want to take care of anybody else and she doesn't want to do anything
She just wants to kind of live on cool easy street
and not take accountability for anything and just kind of check out and the reality is it's
because the the door is open because they have these options here and they think that it's a
better life just kind of like Eve she looks at the fruit and she's desiring it but as soon as she
takes it oh no that was not the door that I should have gone down and I think unfortunately women
need to be guided by a logical sound biblical spirit-filled husband so that they don't just think
I think this is a good door to walk through.
I think this is a good option here.
Like, my life will be better because these women are walking through these doors right
now.
They're destroying their lives.
They're destroying their families.
They're destroying their futures.
They're going to become bitter old hags and they're going to end up hating everything.
Just imagine being their kids and seeing that video, you know, later.
Like, although she takes that down.
Because that's supposed to make the kids feel in that situation.
You guys, you know, our marriage is great, but you're the problem.
It's just so much work, you kids, just destroyed our marriage.
Right.
I can't enjoy my fun job and my husband anymore because, because kids.
It's a terrible message.
I mean, that's why they have public education and daycare and all this stuff because people
don't want to raise their kids.
And obviously it's hard work.
Kids are hard work, but look, it's worth it.
Put the work in, put the effort in.
Divorce is not the answer and it's really the love of many is waxing cold
Yeah, that's it natural affection is waxing cold. Mm-hmm. You know when a woman doesn't want to raise her kids
It's it's a scary woman
Yes, we have just a few minutes, but I want to get your last thoughts
I'm just gonna say that you know obviously our government doesn't help with the system
It's designed to have two people having to work out jobs and all the systems
They've designed to take all that away from us so where people used to educate their own children people used to
You know just have one sole provider in the 50s. You could you could buy a house on one man's income
And they could buy a car, they could own their own home, but things are just different now.
Now, in order to have extra, you have to have both people working outside the home, or at least...
That's by design. That's not an accident.
You know, because marriage is the fabric of society, so if they can tear that apart...
Do you think that it's really unaffordable, or is it just that you can't necessarily keep up with the Joneses?
Yeah, well, you can't have all the jet skis in the summer home and all that stuff, right?
We have to understand that we just need to, men just need to work harder and suck it up and work
sacrifices and sacrifice for your wife and don't make her have to work twice as hard as you do.
You know, you need to work harder so she can, she's got a hard enough job at home having a bunch of kids.
Cleaning house cooking dinner. That's hard work. That's it's not my calling it a full-time job is is you know selling it short
It's definitely hard on them, but we appreciate them. That's why we love them and thanks guys for coming on the show
I'm really looking forward to your sermon pastor Russell and yours pastor Thompson and sounds like we need more sermons
You know against divorce and separation and this is a big epidemic
But we want to address it and talk about it and try to encourage people to make the right decisions here
We're gonna address really controversial topics.
Check it out tomorrow night, also 5 p.m.
We're gonna have Pastor Oz on,
and then on Friday, 5 p.m.,
we're gonna have Pastor Steven Anderson,
and we're gonna be addressing some really hot topics.
Thanks so much to our supporters and to our fans,
and check out the stream tonight,
day one, Pastor Corbin Russell
at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship.
God bless you and get the Baptist Bias.