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Men, flip over in your Bibles if you would to Mark chapter 10 tonight. Mark chapter number 10. And the title of my sermon tonight is Divorce, Remarriage, and the Bible. Divorce, Remarriage, and the Bible. Now the reason I'm preaching on this is, first of all, this is a subject that has to be covered a lot in the day that we're living. Because of the fact that we live in a society that's very permissive, and especially when it comes to this issue of divorce, it's very permissive. And Jesus was dealing with the same thing. Because the Jews and the Pharisees that he was dealing with, they had the attitude that you could just divorce your wife for every cause, and then they would marry someone else. And this was commonplace in his day. Well, that's pretty much the exact day that we're living in today in America. It's considered totally okay, totally moral by the world to divorce and marry someone else. And the Bible does not teach that that is okay. And our church takes a strong stand on this issue that we believe that if you put away your wife and marry another, you're committing adultery. You marry someone who's divorced, you're committing adultery. This is what Christ taught. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture. And this is what we believe. Now, I understand that there are people in our church who are divorced and remarried. And we praise God for that because of the fact that God can still use you. If you've made that mistake in the past, God can still use you going forward. The many people in my life that I love that have made that mistake, my parents themselves are divorced and they're both remarried. It doesn't mean that you can't come to church and serve God and be used by God. But here's the thing, though. Here's where people cross the line with this, okay? Now first of all, we'll never throw anybody out of the church because that's not one of the things that the Bible lists as being one of the things for which someone's thrown out of the church, you know, the specific sins of fornication and drunkenness and stuff like that. We're not going to throw people out of the church for that. And I understand that people who are divorced, most of them are probably ultimately going to end up getting remarried just because of the sin nature, just because of human nature, just because they don't want to be alone or whatever, even though the Bible condemns it. I understand the reality is that sinful flesh being what it is, many people are going to go contrary to scripture and they're going to disobey that scripture and they're going to get remarried. I understand that. But here's where you're crossing the line, okay? And this is the reason that I'm even preaching this, is because somebody told me, and they didn't tell me who it was, and it doesn't matter to me who it was, I don't even need to know who it was, but somebody told me that a divorced person who's getting remarried to someone, and when we say remarried, we're talking about marrying someone else than who they divorced, was basically inviting them to their wedding. Now here's the thing about that. When you're going around and you're inviting people in our church to attend a wedding that we totally disapprove of, you know, that's where you're crossing a line. Now it's one thing if you're saying, hey, the spirit's willing but the flesh is weak, I'm going to go sin, then go sin on your own. Go sin on your own. Go drive to Las Vegas or drive to Reno or drive where you want, and you go commit your sin, but when you invite other people to attend, you're inviting them to participate in your sin at that point, as far as I'm concerned. And I don't find that acceptable, because obviously if somebody goes, and look, if you're invited to a wedding like that, and again, this isn't personal, I don't even know who I am. I know of lots of divorced people in our church, so it could have been any one of them. But the point is that if you're invited to a wedding like that and you attend, you know what you're saying? You're basically saying that you approve of that union. That's the same reason why, you know, we wouldn't condone of going to a wedding between a saved person and an unsaved person or something. You know, you wouldn't want to go there and congratulate that and celebrate that, because you're condoning that at that point. Now you go do whatever you want, but I just want to make sure as the pastor that everybody knows where I stand on this. Because if people came to me and asked me and said, hey, is it right for me to go to this wedding? You know, that tells me that it's something I need to address, so that that question's not left in anybody's mind. You know, you do what you want to do, you believe what you want to believe, but I just want to make it crystal clear as your pastor that I disapprove of divorce and remarriage. I find it to be sinful. And I will not hate someone or reject someone or throw someone under the bus or cast someone out for committing that sin, but I'm not going to congratulate it either. And I'm not going to participate in it. I will never perform a ceremony like that. And I'm not going to attend. And I'm not going to congratulate it. Because I don't want to be partaker of something that the Bible teaches is wrong. So that's one issue. Number one, I think that it's crossing the line when you want to have a wedding where you're inviting people from our church to participate in something that we as a church don't approve of, okay, number one. But number two is if you're divorced, okay, and you're going to go get remarried, contrary to scripture, well, then you should not be approaching singles in our church and trying to strike up a relationship with them. And especially I'm talking about singles that have never even been married. You know, you're a divorced man. You have no business approaching a single girl who's never been married and trying to strike up a relationship with her or take her on a date. Just because you've made that mistake, don't take someone else from Faithful Word Baptist Church and try to bring them into that error. Or the same thing goes if you're a divorced woman. Don't seek to initiate a relationship with a single dude who's never been married. Because that's totally inappropriate. You know, if you're going to go contrary to scripture, you know, and two divorced people are going to go contrary to scripture and marry each other, hey, I'm against it. But that's one thing. Or if you're going to go out in the world and find some single out in the world that doesn't know scripture or doesn't believe that scripture and marry them, that's one thing. But don't try to bring innocent singles into this sin. And if you're a single today and if you've never been married and you're single, do not marry a divorced person. If you are single and you've never been married, marry someone who is also single and who has never been married or someone who is widowed. Now you say, Pastor Anderson, and look, I know I haven't gotten into the scripture yet, but I'm going to get into all the scripture in a moment. Right now I'm just making it clear where I stand on this and what we believe. You say, Pastor Anderson, this is going to offend people. It's 2017. Listen to me. People have consistently left our church over this issue for the last 11 and a half years. Basically every single year for 11 and a half years, people have left the church over this issue all 11 years. And you know what? God is going to bless our church when we preach the whole counsel of God, not when we seek to tell people what they want to hear. And so if we lose people over this, then we're going to lose people over this. I don't want to lose people over this, but we've done it for the last 11 and a half years. I can't even count how many people have walked up to me and said, Pastor Anderson, would you perform our marriage? And I say, I always ask the same question. Have either one of you ever been married before? Oh, yeah, I'm divorced or she's divorced or whatever. Then I just say, sorry, I can't do it. Here's what the Bible says. And I even tell them, hey, I'm not telling you what to do. If you believe something different, that's between your conscience and the Lord, but I believe the scripture is crystal clear on this. This is where I stand. I can't participate. And to watch that person walk out the door and never come back, I can't even count how many times that's happened. Again and again and again and again and again. But that's life. Now let's see what the scripture says tonight as we get into this. And let's just understand that there are people in this world that are going to, even Christians, who are going to do things that are wrong. They're going to make mistakes. They're going to commit sin. But the problem is when they try to bring us into it. This is like what Kent Hovind did, where he got divorced from his wife and then immediately remarried somebody that he was already seeing and dating from back before the divorce was even through. He's claiming publicly, oh, I'm trying to do everything I can to salvage it, while he's already seeing somebody. And then he gets remarried and says, oh, I prayed about this. God led me to do this. And he even said, I want to be an example to divorce people everywhere, as he, a divorced man, marries a divorced woman, contrary to scripture. And why don't you go ask him how that's working out for him, by the way? Ask him how it's working out. Because you know what? You better be careful what you wish for when you say, I want to be an example to all divorced people everywhere. You just might be an example to divorced people everywhere. But go, if you would, to Mark chapter 10. And look. Well, let me get into some scripture, because otherwise I'm just going to rant for the next 45 minutes. We need to see what the Bible says. Okay. It says in Mark chapter 10, verse 1, and he arose from thence, and cometh into the coast of Judea by the farther side of Jordan. And the people resort unto him again, and as he was wont, he taught them again. And the Pharisees came to him and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife, tempting him? And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Well, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept, but from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife. And they twain shall be one flesh. So then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. Now this shows you right here that this is a tough teaching for people to swallow, because he teaches them, the Pharisees, you'd expect them to be goofed up on these things, but then his disciples come to him and ask him again in the house, like, What were you talking about out there? What was that about? So then he's really clear with them. He's always more clear and blunt with his disciples, and in the house his disciples asked him again in the same manner, and he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, comitteth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she comitteth adultery. Now we think of the concept of a woman divorcing her husband as being a modern concept, because in the United States of America that's only been a modern concept, because in the olden days of the USA women were not allowed to divorce their husbands. Divorce was only initiated by the husband. But there's no new thing under the sun. Apparently, even in Christ's day, women divorced their husbands. So it's not always the husband that's divorcing his wife, sometimes it's the wife that's divorcing her husband. And here he says it both ways. He says that if the husband puts away his wife and marries another, he's committing adultery against her, and if the woman puts away her husband and she be married to another, she comitteth adultery. That's pretty clear. He says you divorce your wife, marry someone else, it's adultery. You divorce your husband, marry someone else, it's adultery. Flip back over if you would to Matthew chapter 5. And while you're turning to Matthew 5, here's a crystal clear verse from Luke 16 that teaches the same thing. You're turning to Matthew 5, I'll read for you from Luke 16. The Bible says, whosoever putteth away his wife and marrieth another, comitteth adultery. And whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, comitteth adultery. So that's a pretty clear scripture right there. You marry someone who's divorced, you're committing adultery. You put away your wife and marry someone else, you're committing adultery. Now look at Matthew chapter number 5, and this is all directly teaching that Jesus did while he was on this earth. The Bible says in Matthew 5, and first before we get into the pertinent scripture, just look at verse 17, it says, think not that I'm come to destroy the law or the prophets, I'm not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled, whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So what we see is that the preface to this section in the Sermon on the Mount is that he says, I'm not come to destroy the law or the prophets, I came to fulfill. And then he starts giving some examples from the law, from the Old Testament, or just from some of the traditions that people had that they were basing on the Old Testament, but they were a little off on those things. But in all points, Jesus in the Sermon is confirming the teaching of the Old Testament. He's not negating or contradicting the teaching of the Old Testament. I mean, did Jesus show up and say the Old Testament's wrong? Did he ever teach that at any point in his ministry? Did he ever say, hey guys, the Old Testament's wrong, it hasn't been translated correctly, it hasn't been preserved, it was written by man, it's wrong. No, no, he always confirmed it. And by the way, any prophet that would come after should always confirm what Christ taught, confirm what the Old Testament taught. Because if it's God's word, it should endure forever. And that's why the apostle Paul confirmed everything that Christ taught and did not contradict the clear teaching of Jesus Christ. Paul confirmed the clear teaching of Christ. That's why Paul says something almost identical to this. He says, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yet we establish the law. So again, he's making a similar statement to what Jesus made. So let's look at the pertinent scripture here. It says in verse number 31, it had been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committh adultery. Now, the modern perversions will change and corrupt this verse and make it a very dangerous verse. Because the one exception to the rule here is very clearly fornication, right? Because the Bible says that if a man put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, saving for any reason other than fornication, he causes her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committh adultery. Now fornication is when unmarried people have intercourse with one another. That's called fornication, okay? Now what the modern versions will do to twist this is some of them will change it to adultery. Instead of saying fornication, we'll say adultery. Now that's ridiculous because the word adultery is used in this verse. So apparently Jesus knows the word adultery, and He uses it a couple of times in that same sentence, but He uses a different word for fornication. You see what I'm saying? Why? Because fornication and adultery are not the same thing. Fornication is that which is done by an unmarried person, and adultery is that which is done by a married person or with a married person. That's the difference between those two things. Now another thing that the modern versions will do that's even worse than that, they'll just broaden this to just sexual immorality, which can mean anything. I mean that can mean Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, right? I mean that can mean I caught him looking at someone in the mall and lusting after some young lady walking by in the park. His eye is wandering. I saw it. I swear it. This is the kind of garbage when you get into these modern versions where you can get the Bible to pretty much say anything you want. Sexual immorality, I mean that could be anything. Who knows what that is? I mean I'm not even going to go through all the crazy examples that that could be, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says fornication. It's consistently what it says. Now go to Matthew 19 and you'll see the exact same thing. Matthew chapter 19. And this is pretty similar to the encounter that Jesus had in Mark chapter 10. It's a little different though. These are all a little different. That's why we need all of them. If it was identical to Mark 10, we wouldn't really need both, but we have both because it states it a little bit differently in all of these cases. So Jesus already taught this back in Matthew 5. In the first book of the New Testament, he spends time teaching it twice. That means it's pretty important. In Matthew, he teaches it twice. In Mark, he hits it again. In Luke, he hits it again. Paul hits it in his epistles. But look at Matthew 19. It says in verse 3, the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? These guys want to just be able to divorce their wife for any reason. For every cause. And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain, shall be one flesh? Therefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a riding of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, comitteth adultery. And whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. His disciples still cannot handle it. They say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. I mean if I were to be stuck with that person for the rest of my life, no matter what. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. I mean he's basically saying, He that hath an ear, let him hear. You know a lot of people can't handle this kind of preaching. But it's the truth. It's the Word of God. Now why is it that Jesus in Mark 10 does not mention the except it be for fornication, nor does he mention that in Luke 16, when he's rebuking the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers and says, You are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. And then he follows it up with whosoever marrieth her that is put away commits adultery, and if you divorce your wife and marry another, you're committing adultery. I'm paraphrasing, but that's Luke 16 verses 16 through 18. And so why is it that he brings up the except for fornication in Matthew, both chapter five and chapter 19, but he doesn't bring it up in chapter 10 of Mark, and he doesn't bring it up in Luke chapter 16? I believe that's because Matthew contains the context to help us understand what the saving for fornication means. You see, God wants us to understand the Bible. So when we're reading the book of Mark, he doesn't throw something at us that we may not understand readily in Mark or that we may not readily understand when we're reading Luke in the context. But the context for this is found right in chapter one of Matthew. Go back to chapter one. See, before you read chapter five of Matthew, you're going to read what? Chapter one. So chapter one lays some foundation that's going to make sense when you get to chapter five and going to make sense when you get to chapter 19. Not only that, but Matthew is the book that more than any other appeals to the Old Testament. And appeals to the laws. So it's written more to an audience that's going to know the Old Testament law. So that's why he's going to throw that out there. But the reader of Mark and Luke, he doesn't want them to become confused. So he just says, look, if you marry a woman that's divorced, it's adultery. You divorce your wife, it's adultery. You divorce your husband, marry someone else, adultery. Okay. But in Matthew, we have a little more context, especially when we go to the Old Testament law. Look at chapter one of Matthew. It says in verse 18, now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. So Mary and Joseph have already made their vows to one another to be husband and wife. They've been espoused, but they've not yet physically come together. He has not yet known her. And before they've come together, she's found with child of the Holy Ghost. So she's found to be pregnant through the Lord. And it says in verse 19, then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, so is he doing the right thing or the wrong thing here? Then Joseph has been being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. So what is it that Joseph is going to do here that God says is the right thing for him to do? He's going to put away his wife. He's going to divorce his wife. Why? Because he married her, and before they've come together, he finds that she's pregnant. Well guess what? He doesn't want to marry a woman that's already pregnant with some other dude's kid, right? So he decides, you know what? Because I'm a just man, I'm going to put her away privily. So let me ask you this, does God condone of what Joseph was going to do in this situation? Yeah, because otherwise it wouldn't have that phrase, being a just man. So this is a situation where divorce is actually appropriate. Now how do you get pregnant out of wedlock? You haven't known your husband, but you're found to be pregnant unless you're the Virgin Mary. How did you get pregnant? Fornication. Fornication. So this is a clear case of divorce because of fornication. Now look, don't just try to explain this away. Don't tell me it's a coincidence that the first chapter in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 1, gives us a story about someone being divorced because of fornication. And then four chapters later, he says, that's the only legitimate divorce. That's consistent. And then in chapter 19, he says, that's the only legitimate divorce. But it's like, no, no, no, let's change it to adultery. Let's change it to immorality. Let's change it. No. The Bible that we have in front of us here is right and it makes sense. And it's consistent. Also, as I said, Matthew is the book where you'd know the Old Testament because it's constantly quoting the Old Testament. It's geared toward an Old Testament Jewish type audience. Go back, if you went to Deuteronomy 24, and let's find the law. Because remember, the Pharisees would bring this up, wouldn't they, to Jesus? They'd say, well, why did Moses command to give her a writing of divorce? So let's go to that scripture where Moses commands this. Now what was the reason that Jesus gave why this command was given? He said, Moses gave this commandment because of the hardness of your hearts. That's why he suffered you to put away your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. Now what does it mean to have a hard heart? Well, the opposite of a hard heart is a tender heart, true or false. So you know, if we had a piece of tender meat, that means that it's soft and the opposite of that would be a hard piece of meat, you know, it's chewy, we can't really get a good bite out of it. Oh, that steak was so tender, right? It melted in your mouth. All right. So the tender heart is the opposite of the hard heart. Now what does the Bible say about the tender heart? Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another. You got that? Tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. So the tender hearted person would be one who is forgiving, the hard hearted person would be one who doesn't want to let something go. Now look, this is a pretty tough thing to forgive, right? You know, you go to marry your wife and she's found to be with child, with somebody else, you know. So God, he's okay with them. He suffers them or allows them, because of the hardness of their heart, that they can divorce their wife over this issue, okay. But that's the only issue that it's given for. Look at the scripture here in Deuteronomy 24, verse 1, when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her. Now this is the phrase that you need to underline. It doesn't just say, well, he just doesn't like her. No, it gives a specific reason, doesn't it? It says because he hath found, I'm going to underline it in my Bible right now, just to set the example. Because he hath found some uncleanness in her, not because he didn't like her cooking, not for every cause, not because she's a pain in the neck and a nag or a loudmouth or whatever. It says that she find no favor in his eyes because he had found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house. And when she's departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. Now look at that. In this scripture, the woman is divorced and she may do what? She may be another man's wife. Now look, is Christ contradicting this when he says don't marry her that's divorced? No, because he said if it's for fornication, if it's for fornication, that's the exception. But what is fornication? Premarital relations. So that's where, what does uncleanness mean? What do you think that means, that she just didn't take a shower? What does uncleanness mean? Does it mean that she was too dirty? No, what it means is if you study the word uncleanness in the Bible, you'll find that uncleanness is tied in with fornication, like where the Bible says about how God's will is that we would abstain from fornication, for God hath not called us unto uncleanness. First Thessalonians 4, he's saying don't fornicate because we're not called unto uncleanness, we're called unto holiness. So basically he goes in unto her and he finds her not to be a virgin. He finds her not to be a maid or maybe even finds some type of an STD there or some kind of other indication, something unclean is there and he says, you know what, I'm backing out of this. I've made the vow, I've been a spouse, but you know, when I went to consummate the marriage, I found uncleanness there and I do not want to be married to this woman. This is not what I thought I was getting when I got married. And so I'm going to write her a bill of divorcement, basically certifying that this union that I made with her is now null and void. Now today we would not call this divorce, today we would call this an annulment. Now I know this sounds crazy, but I've literally known of people, people that I've actually known, where they got married and literally like it didn't, the marriage didn't even last through the day or the week and they went home and tore up the marriage license and just got it annulled and just, you know, they didn't even consummate the marriage. I know that sounds really weird, but that has happened, okay. That's what we call an annulment today in today's lingo. But what the Bible is saying is, you know, you marry her and right there at the beginning, like I mean, is Joseph at the beginning or what? He hasn't even consummated yet when he's given the bill of divorcement. This is right away. Does this say 10 years later? No. He found uncleanness in her, he writes her a bill of divorcement, he sends her out and she can go be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her and write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send it her out of his house or if the latter husband die which took her to be his wife, her former husband which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife. After that she's defiled for that is abomination before the Lord and thou shall not cause the land to sin which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Okay, so do you understand what's going on here? If the woman gets divorced from the second husband, she can't go back to the first husband. Isn't that what the Bible says? Now there's a screwed up doctrine out there. Keep your finger here in Deuteronomy 24. Let's go to Jeremiah 3. Let's compare scripture with scripture here. We're coming back to Deuteronomy so keep your finger there but let's go to Jeremiah 3. There's a goofball teaching out there and I've never heard of this until about five or ten years ago but it seems like it's picking up steam on the internet. This teaching that says, well if you're divorced and remarried you have to go back to your original wife even if you're on your second or third wife. You go back to the original. Is that what we just read in Deuteronomy 24? It said if you do that, you're causing the land to sin and the Bible said that if you do that, it's an abomination to the Lord. So here's the thing. If people get divorced, the goal is to reconcile those people. If people are divorced, we want to see those people reconciled to their original spouse. But once that person goes and marries someone else, that becomes impossible. Everybody understand that? It's impossible at that point. At that point, they've made a vow to a new person now and they need to stay with that new person because they've already broken their vow one time. God tells us we must stick with our vows. If we make a vow, we're to keep it and do what came out of our mouth. Well, if you're on your second husband, now that you've made a vow to him, don't break that vow. Stay with that second husband or you're committing sin upon sin and dead sure, you don't go back to the first husband, that's an abomination or the first wife, that's an abomination to the Lord. Does everybody understand that? Now that's backed up by Jeremiah 3. Now it's interesting because in Deuteronomy 24, it used a phrase which is kind of a strange phrase when it said not only is it an abomination, but it says you'll cause the land to sin. That's kind of an interesting statement, isn't it? Cause the land to sin. We'll look at Jeremiah 3. It says in verse 1, they say, whoever they are, right? They say, if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? Now that's a clear reference back to what we saw in Deuteronomy 24. Same teaching. And it even mentions the land again. You're going to cause the land to sin. Hey, the land's going to be polluted. But thou has played the harlot with many lovers, yet return again to me, sayeth the Lord. So what the Lord's doing here is he's using a parable. And he's basically saying, when it comes to marriage, if a man divorces his wife and she goes and is another man's husband, he can never return to her again. It's an abomination. The land will be greatly polluted. But he's saying to them, even though you've done that spiritually, I still want to take you back, even though you've been polluted. What he's not saying here is, remember that thing I said over in Deuteronomy 24? Just forget it. Just forget it. See, it's a parable. It's an illustration. And you know what? Parables are illustrations. They never perfectly fit what they picture. They're always going to be just a rough approximation. It's just something to help us wrap our mind around things. You know where God says, hey, if you go out and worship other gods, it's like you're committing a spiritual adultery there. Or the relationship that I have with you, it's like marriage. But is it exactly like marriage? Is our relationship with the Lord exactly like a marriage? No. But it symbolizes marriage. And there's a lot of things there that we can learn from that illustration. But we never want to take a parable and just run with it. You know what we want to do? We want to take the clear teaching of Scripture and run with that. We want to take the law of God and run with it. We want to take Jesus' teaching and run with it. Not a parable. So go back to Deuteronomy 24. So this right here is teaching that he goes in unto his wife. He finds uncleanness in her. He uncovers her nakedness. He finds the uncleanness. He says, you know what? I changed my mind. Now it's not ideal. It's not a perfect situation because, you know, ideally from the beginning it should just be that, you know, the two become one flesh and he cleaves to his wife. But because of the hardness of man's heart, God realizes, hey, that might be really hard for certain people to look past that. They can't live with that. So he allows for this to take place. Okay. Now look at Deuteronomy 22 where there's a similar teaching just a few chapters earlier. It says in verse 13, if any man take a wife and go in under her and hate her, and by the way, that's the exact word used in Deuteronomy 24, if the latter husband hate her and put her away, right? So again, a connection. He hate her and give occasions of speech against her and bring up an evil name upon her and say, I took this woman and when I came to her, I found her not to be a maid, maid meaning what? Virgin. This is Joseph's situation because he sees that she's pregnant even before he goes in under her. And it says, then shall the father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate. And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter into this man to wife and he ate at her. And lo, you have given occasions of speech against her saying, I found not thy daughter a maid and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity and they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city and the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him and they shall immerse him in a hundred shekels of silver and give them unto the father of the damsel because he had brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel and she shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days. Now look, I'm not going to go into this. I'm not going to be graphic or for sake of time, just make a big deal about this verse. If you're really confused on this, come see me after service and I'll explain it to you. But the point of the matter is that, you know, most people in most situations when they get married, right? They're going to consummate their marriage and they're at least going to live happily ever after for a little while, at least for a couple of years, right? I mean, 99% of the time they're, I mean, I hope they're getting married for a reason. This isn't something that's just happening constantly, okay? But occasionally there could be a situation where a woman is putting herself forth as a virgin and lies to her husband and then they get married and then he finds out and he's upset, he's angry and then this whole big thing blows up. Or there could be other situations where the woman truly is a virgin but this guy gets the wrong idea and somehow thinks that she's not and then this blow up takes place and sometimes evidence could be produced that she was a virgin by the father and then that would settle the issue. Maybe not. These are ugly situations. This isn't how you want a wedding to end, okay? But the point is that if she truly was a virgin, then it says he can't put her away all these days and in fact he has to pay a defamation fine. He's got to pay money because he brought up a bad reputation and he ruined her reputation and the dad's, and you know whose reputation it really is? The dad's reputation because he's the one who's supposed to protect his daughter and make sure that she remained pure and guard her and take care of her and not just let her run wild. But today Christians just let their daughters run wild. Their teenage daughters run wild. Their young adult daughters run wild. Not my daughters. They're going to be, we're not letting them out of our sight. We're watching them and keeping them safe. I want to be able to guarantee the virginity of my daughter when I hand her off on the wedding day because it'll just have been impossible for her to have committed fornication because she's supervised. So the point here is that both Deuteronomy 22 and Deuteronomy 24 agree with one another. They both talk about similar situations of going into a wife and finding her to not be what she was cracked up and listen to me and I want to just cover all the bases while we're on the subject. You know, look, I understand we're living in a permissive society. We're living in a society where fornication is the norm amongst a lot of people, but you know what? Everybody's not committing fornication and if you even look at the statistics, even worldly unsafe people, a pretty high percentage of them are still a virgin when they graduate from high school and even a pretty decent percentage of them are still a virgin even when they graduate from college. I mean, most of them end up fornicating in college, but I'm saying don't get this idea that just everybody's doing it. No, they're not. Everybody is not doing it and God demands and expects you young people to remain pure and be a virgin on your wedding day and don't get this out, everybody, no, they don't and you know what? I didn't do it. The first time that I had that relationship was on my wedding night and I thank God for that. Okay, but look, there are plenty of other people who did the same thing that I did, so don't get this out, everybody's doing it. That's what the devil wants you to think. He wants you to think everybody's doing it and it's not a big deal. It is a big deal. But that being said, because we live in a society that is cramming that down our throat and is so permissive, a lot of people have already made that mistake before they got saved. They already fornicated before they got saved or even after they got saved, but just before they got right with God, before they got serious about serving the Lord, they committed that sin. Now, let me say this. There's nothing wrong with marrying someone who has committed fornication, okay? If you are okay with that, but you better disclose that before you get married. Do not lie to your spouse and claim to be a virgin when you're not. As a man or a woman, and I'm not, you know, obviously you don't want to go into details or anything like that. You want to forget those things which are behind and reach forth under those things that are before, but you need to disclose that when you're getting married and just Tell the person that you're marrying, look, I'm not a virgin. And just explain that to them and make sure they're okay with that so that they can move on if they say, well, I can't handle that. You know, I am a virgin. You're not. I don't want to live with that. You know, I don't want to deal with that. You know, I want somebody who has also saved themselves from marriage, so I'm going to move on. You know what? You need to make full disclosure like that before you get married. But if you are a young man and you love someone and want to marry her and you know that she's not a virgin, there's nothing wrong with you just forgiving that and looking past that and marrying her if that's what you want to do. But then you know what you're getting into, and so you're making your own choice there. And it's the same thing. If you're a young lady and you're virgin but you're a guy that you're going to get married to, your fiancé is not, you know, and you decide, hey, I know that, I realize that, but I'm okay with that, then you forgive, you forget, you move on. And you don't hang that over their head for the rest of their life either. You know, if you're going to marry somebody that has a past like that, then you need to be ready to let that go and forgive that and be tender-hearted because if you're the hard-hearted type, you know what you need to do? Marry someone else. But if you're tender-hearted and you're okay with that, okay. But be honest and don't lie about it. The Bible puts, and I don't have time to teach all this, but the Bible is pretty negative about people who lie about that, you know, before they get married. That's a bad thing. Okay. Let's go back to the New Testament. Let's go to Romans 7, Romans 7. Now some people's objection to this will be like, well, this isn't fair because, you know, this one person went around and slept around and then they can still get married, but because I'm divorced, I can't get remarried. That's not fair. You know what? You know whether you think it's fair. That's what the Bible says. And you know what? When you get married, you're making an oath till death do us part and a fornicator has committed a different sin that's a bad sin, but they didn't break that vow. And it's a different consequence and it's a different situation. Well, what's the difference if they live together? I'll tell you the difference. The difference between a man and woman living together and the difference between a man and a woman who are married is a huge difference in the sight of God. Whether you think it's different or not, it's different. And so committing fornication and getting divorced are not the same thing. Polygamy and divorce are not the same thing. These are different situations. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you, well, I know what Christ said, but let's you know wrong. We're going to go with what Christ said. We're going to go with what Christ taught. Now Christ's teaching was clear in Matthew 5, Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16, crystal clear. So you say, well, Pastor Anderson, if this is such a clear teaching, then why are there so many Baptist churches that teach that it's fine to get divorced and remarried? In fact, I'd say it's probably the majority of Baptist churches that are very permissive on this doctrine. Now I'm not just talking about the fact that they're misunderstanding fornication as adultery, because they don't just allow it in those situations, no, no. They're allowing it in a ton of situations. They'll say, well, you know, abandonment, abuse, you know. They'll list all kinds of reasons why. So why, if this is so clear, then why is it people are throwing out this teaching? I'll tell you why. It starts with a D, and it ends in ispensationalism, okay? And what it is is that they take this weird hyper-dispensational view of scripture where they throw out the teachings of Jesus and say, well, we just need to listen to what Paul said, right? We've got to listen to what Paul said, and what Jesus said is not for us, they'll say. That's not for us. We need what Paul. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles. So this hyper-dispensational teaching, it's from the exact same people who come up with the pre-trib rapture, because what do they do? They reject what Jesus taught about the rapture. That's not for us. That's not for us. You know, we've got to go with Paul, but here's the thing about that, is that Paul and Jesus don't contradict, and then these hyper-dispensationalists will teach other lies like, well, Jesus taught a different gospel than Paul taught. You know, Paul taught the gospel by grace through faith. Jesus taught a different gospel. Well, you know what? That's a lie out of the pit of hell, because there's only one gospel. And you know what? Jesus is the one who said, he that believeth on me has everlasting life. So that sounds like salvation by faith. Are you telling me Jesus didn't teach salvation by faith when Jesus, the one who said the words of John 3.16, the greatest verse on salvation by faith in the whole Bible? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That sounds like the same gospel Paul preached. Well, guess what? Paul's teaching on the rapture is also identical to Christ's teaching on the rapture. Okay, well, Paul's teaching on divorce is the same as Christ's teaching on divorce. You can understand how these ruckmanite churches or hyper-dispensational churches could get off on this, because they're also off on these other areas, where they're off on the dispensational salvation, they're off on the rapture, yeah, they're off on divorce. Because their hero, Peter Ruckman, what did he go through, three or four wives? Their hero, Peter Ruckman, while remaining pastor of a church, even though he's supposed to be the husband of one wife, divorced and remarried a few times. His disciples make excuses for him, and he taught this teaching. And not only that, I've heard the ruckmanites many times teach that if your wife doesn't want to serve God, you need to divorce her and find one that does. Or if your husband, you know, divorce her and find somebody who wants to serve God, she's holding you back. That's the kind of garbage. These ruckmanites are teaching this totally permissive doctrine on divorce, but sadly, Even mainstream independent fundamental Baptists have been influenced by these dispensational teachings where they say, well, let's go to Paul. You know what, if Paul contradicts Christ and teaches a teaching that just flies in the face of what Christ taught, that would make Paul a false prophet at that point, right? I mean, Jesus is the rock of our salvation. Jesus is the one who died on the cross. In the words of Paul himself, was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? No, Jesus Christ is our savior. Jesus Christ is the one who is the rock of our salvation. And look, the reason that we believe in the apostle Paul is because the apostle Paul did not contradict the teachings of Jesus Christ. He was a faithful apostle and messenger of Jesus Christ that taught the same thing about salvation, the same thing about the end times, and the same thing about marriage and every other subject that he taught. Otherwise he'd be a false prophet if he was just saying, oh, forget what Jesus told you. Let me give you something different. We'd reject him as a liar. You know what, Peter never would have recommended you to read his epistles. In 2 Peter, Peter says the epistles of Paul are holy scriptures. Well, you know what, he wouldn't be recommending somebody who just... Look, Peter was in the house with him when he made that teaching. He's not just going to recommend you, yeah, go read Paul's teachings where he negates what Christ taught. Wrong. They're both teaching the same thing. Look at Romans 7 and tell me if they're teaching the same thing. Romans 7. Romans is the first epistle of Paul that you come to when you're reading the New Testament. Romans 7, this is where we started. It says in verse 1, know ye not, brethren? For I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. So he's using this as an illustration about salvation. But it's pretty clear in this verse that he believes exactly what Christ taught because he said that if a woman, while her husband liveth, is married to another man, she'll be called an adulteress. But if the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband. So that means that if you're... Let's say a woman is divorced and remarried three different times. Let's say... You say that's far-fetched. Remember the woman at the well? She'd had five husbands. Okay, so let's say a woman has had three husbands, right? She's divorced from the third husband and now she's on her own. You know when she can get remarried? When all three of her ex-husbands are dead, then she can get remarried. I mean, if all three of them are dead, then she can get married. And if the husband has an ex-wife, if she dies, you can get remarried. But the Bible says that if the woman marries someone else while her husband yet liveth, she's called an adulteress. Isn't that exactly what Jesus taught? What in this verse is different than what Jesus taught? I don't see any difference. He's claiming that it's adultery, just like Jesus called it adultery, okay? Now go to 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 7. Now this is the one that they'll try to twist. They can't twist Romans 7. What do you do with that? Let's keep looking. 1 Corinthians 7 is where they find the scripture that they're going to twist. Now first of all, if 1 Corinthians 7 is going to contradict Christ's teaching, then you know what? It can't even be God's word. Hey, I know Matthew is God's word. I know Mark is God's word. I know Luke is God's word. This better not contradict. But thankfully, I know that 1 Corinthians is God's word too. And it doesn't contradict. And if it looks like it contradicts, you're wrong. You're reading it wrong. Okay, so the Bible says, and this is a pretty clear statement. Verse 10 of 1 Corinthians 7 says, and unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord. So he's saying, look, this isn't my command. This isn't my opinion. The Lord commands, let not the wife depart from her husband. Now that's a great teaching that the Lord commands there. And then he says, but, and if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife. Now why is there an allowance made there? Here's why. Because the Bible also says, my little children, these things write unto you that you sin not. But if any man sin, why? Because he knows people are going to do it. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So here it says, but and if she depart, contrary to God's command not to depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife. Don't put away your wife. Don't depart from your husband. If the woman departs, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, period, done, case closed, over, finished. Home is what Christ taught. But then they say, oh, but later in the chapter, okay, look at the next verse. What's the next verse say? But to the rest speak I, not the Lord. So isn't it amazing how they don't want to talk about verses 10 and 11, which is what the Lord said. They want to talk about the part that Paul said where he specifically says, this is not the Lord talking. Oh, let's hone in on that. And let's use it to contradict Jesus' teaching. It's madness and folly. Now you say, well, why does the Bible record Paul's opinions in this chapter? Why don't you ask him when you get to heaven? But the Bible says that it records Paul's opinions in this chapter, period. Now every word of the Bible is true, correct? Okay. Every word of the Bible is true. And the apostle Paul specifically says, this is not the Lord talking. Then is it not the Lord talking? Or is it? Now, look, somebody said, well, that's really God's word, what he says. Oh, really? Then that means Paul was lying when he says it's not the Lord. Do you see the paradox here? If the Bible tells the truth all the time, and the Bible says this is not the Lord, then guess what? It's not the Lord talking. It's Paul's opinion. The Bible records all kinds of people's opinions, and the Bible records all kinds of people saying all kinds of things that might be true and might not be true. Now personally, I believe that everything that Paul said here is right. I think Paul's right, but it's not the Lord talking, it's Paul talking. That's what the Bible says. Now the rest of the epistles of Paul are God's word, and the rest of this epistle is God's word, and the part of this chapter that he says is God's word is God's word. But when he specifically says, okay, stop everything here, I want to give my opinion on something, and I just want to make it clear this isn't the Lord talking, then you know what? It's not the Lord talking. It's that simple. Otherwise, you're saying that the Bible's lying when it said it's not the Lord. I mean, does everybody see that? But that being said, I still believe that Paul's right. I actually agree with everything that Paul says in this chapter, but there's a reason why God gave that caveat because he knew that there were going to be people that were just going to home in on what Paul said and twist it and misunderstand it and misinterpret it so God said, you know, just to be safe, let's just make sure that everybody knows this is just Paul talking because I don't want people to take it and run with it and to just disregard what my son clearly taught on this earth. You see what I'm saying? Don't you think it's a little weird that they want to ignore what Jesus taught four times and ignore what Paul taught in Romans 7 under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and home in on Paul's opinion that's not the Lord? That's very strange. But it makes perfect sense because it tells them what they want to hear once they twist it. But here's the thing. Even if you read it, you'll see that it doesn't teach anything different anyway than what Christ taught. Now, the reason why Paul's giving his opinion is because Paul here is not living the average lifestyle that we're going to live. Most of us are all married or we're going to get married at some point in our lives, whereas Paul is living as a single man and he actually does not have a desire to get married. He's just going to remain single for the rest of his life. But he says this is not for everybody. And he's saying that everybody has their proper gift of God, one after this man or another after that. So he is speaking from a very different perspective. So a lot of what 1 Corinthians 7 is about is the virtues of being single because that's something that he understands as a single man. So he talks about the pros and cons and the benefits of being single. Even though God's word is heavily pushing us to get married, he's putting out an alternative there of saying, hey, you can be single and serve God, but not everybody's gifted in that area. Not everybody's going to be happy with that lifestyle. And if you're doubting whether you're happy, you're probably not. Because sometimes people are like, well, maybe that's me. Maybe I'm just supposed to stay single. And I'm like, well, but do you have a strong desire to be married? Well, yeah. Well, you probably should because it's better to marry than to burn. Yeah, but I can wait a little while. OK, but this isn't talking about somebody who can wait a little while. This is somebody who's just thinking, hey, I'm probably going to do this for the rest of my life. And that's OK. If somebody wants to be single for the rest of their life and just serve God like the apostle Paul, that's OK. But you should not make any vows or oaths to that effect because you don't know. Maybe your feelings will change, so you don't want to make any vows or oaths. If that's the life that you want to live, then you go for it. But here are the verses that they'll jump on in this section of, to the rest speak I, not the Lord. They'll jump on this part where it says in verse number 12, if any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. So he's saying, look, if you're married to an unbeliever, don't leave them. Don't divorce them. Stay with them. Verse 15, but if the unbelieving depart, let him depart, a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace. They'll take that verse right there and just throw everything that Jesus taught out the window just with that one verse. It's mind numbing. Well, you know, if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. Well, here's the thing. Okay. Amen. First of all, that's Paul's opinion, not God's commandment, period. But let's say you're going to go with Paul's opinion. Okay. If the unbelieving depart, let him depart. Does that change the fact that you can't get remarried? No, it doesn't. Does it say let him depart and then marry someone else? Is that what it says? You're a liar if you say that's what it says. It does not say go marry someone else. And isn't it funny how people will be married to devout Christians and then as soon as they get divorced, all of a sudden they're like, oh, well, she wasn't really saved. Even though they've been going to church together for 20 years, 30 years, soul winning, serving God. Oh, yeah. Unbeliever. Why? Because they just, look, they've got a round hole and if they got a square peg, they're going to fit it through that round hole. And they'll shave off the corn and say, well, she wasn't even really saved. He wasn't even really saved. Well, sexual immorality. They'll take that triangle peg and shove it through that round hole. So they'll take that verse and run with it. Here's the other verse that they'll take and run with it. Verse 25. And I love how God just keeps having him repeat this. Look at verse 25. Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judgment. Now look, what do you not understand about that? God did not tell me to say this. I'm giving my opinion. And look, if all scripture is true, then this has to be his opinion and he must have not received a commandment from the Lord about it. Because if he received a commandment from the Lord about it, he's lying. And this scripture is a lie. It's not a lie. He did not receive a commandment from the Lord about it. God is allowing him to put in his opinion here. Why? God lets us give our opinion. Look, I get up behind the pulpit and give my opinion all the time. And God doesn't just strike me dead and say, only preach exactly what the Bible says. Look, I'm only going to preach what the Bible says with authority. But sometimes I might get up and just give my opinion about something and just say, hey, you know what? I don't see anything in the Bible about it, but I think X, Y, and Z. I mean, look, there's nothing in the Bible about tobacco. But let me give my judgment. It's bad for you. Don't smoke. Don't chew. And don't go with girls who do. Now, look, is that wrong for me to get up and say, well, I have no commandment from the Lord, but here's my judgment? I mean, stay away from weed. Stay away from tobacco. I mean, is that wrong for me to do that? Is it wrong for me to just get up and give my judgment and say, well, you know, I have no commandment concerning fast food, but let me give my judgment is bad for you. And if you eat a consistent diet of junk food and fast food, you're not going to be healthy. I mean, is that wrong for me to get up? No, it's not wrong at all. And that's part of what this chapter is teaching is that it's okay to have an opinion. It's okay to form an opinion. And it's okay to express your opinion. But just be sure to make it clear what's God's word and what's your opinion, right? So he says, this is my judgment. This is not a commandment from the Lord. And then he goes on to say in this verse 27, art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you. They'll take this and twist this to saying that first of all, they'll make this logical leap. Being loosed from a wife means that you divorced her or she left you. They'll make that mistake. Then they'll take the next leap and say that if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. That's what they're saying. Even though Jesus said, if the wife divorced her husband and marries, it's adultery. If that's what Paul's saying, it's identical to Satan saying, well, you shall not surely die. Right. Oh, no. Oh, oh, oh. When you break, when you break Christ's commandment, no, no, you haven't sinned. Oh, Jesus told you it's a sin to, to, to, to, uh, you know, marry her that is divorced. No, no, no. That's it. You shall not surely die. That's not a sin. That's okay. It's okay to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That would be like what he would be saying here. That is not what he's saying here. When he says, art thou bound unto a wife, seek not to be loosed, art thou loosed from a wife? Being loosed from a wife there is simply a metaphor about being bound or loosed. He's not, he's just saying that you're not married. And that could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe your wife passed away. It doesn't say, oh, if you divorced your wife, if you marry, you haven't sinned or if she divorced you and you're married, you haven't sinned. That is not what the Bible says here. And if that were what the Bible said, it would be garbage. And if that were what the Bible said here, it would still only be Paul's opinion because it specifically says it's not a commandment from God in both places. Those are the two verses that are twisted by these hyper dispensational types in order to teach. Most pastors don't even bother explaining to you how they twist this because I've confronted a pastor about this, like, where do you get off performing all these remarriages where people are divorcing one person and marrying someone else? How do you justify that with scripture? Well, I made a long, I made a decision a long time ago and I have peace with the Lord about it. That's the answer I was given. You know, I prayed about it and I made a decision and I have a certain standard and I have peace about it. I care if you have peace about it, it's false. So look, if you want to take this 1 Corinthians 7 and twist it, twist it in knots and then ignore what Christ taught, why don't you go start believing in the preacher of rapture too? Because it's the exact same thing. You know what I mean? You're twisting Paul's epistle and then just throwing out everything Jesus taught because of dispensationalism. What a wicked teaching. I never really thought about how wicked it was until just right now, this minute. And I've been preaching hard against this for years, but I just now thought about how it's like, it's like what the devil did when he tells you, no, no, no, it's not, no, no, no. Oh, is that what God told you? That's what Jesus taught? Oh no, no, no. But and if thou marry, you've not sinned. It's so weird that anybody believed what Paul would teach that and God wouldn't put that in the Bible, even as his opinion, such a crazy opinion. I actually agree with what Paul is actually saying there. All of Paul, see, look, and let me just go on the record and say I agree with every word of 1 Corinthians 7, but not all of it is God's word because some of it specifically says this is not from God, this is my opinion. No more than when the devil talks in Matthew 4, is that God's word? When the devil says, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. I mean, is that, no, that's false. That's the devil talking. What about when the devil said, ye shall not surely die, is that God's word? No, it's what he said. People in the Bible say all kinds of things. And so this is a clear teaching. Now look, you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you're mean. This is a mean doctrine. You're mean to people who've been divorced. Now let me tell you something. People who have this false doctrine, this permissive doctrine, they're the ones who are mean. And you know why? They're mean to people whose marriage is on the rocks. And then the pastor gets up and preaches this garbage. And you know what it does? It pushes them over the edge and ruins life. That's who's mean. The mean one is the one who's destroying marriages because if you teach this permissive doctrine that says, hey, you can get divorced, you can get remarried, then you know what? Everybody's going to get divorced. And that's what we see in America today. Just divorce after divorce. And I'm exaggerating when I say everyone. But I'm saying a lot of people are going to get divorced. That's why churches are just filled with divorce as much as the world. They say that the divorce rate among Christians is the same as amongst the world. Why? Because of bad teaching on this. Because almost every person I've ever talked to who was divorced, this is what they said. Well, if I would have heard this teaching, I would have done differently. But I never heard this my whole life. That's what they all said. I talked to people who had been divorced three times and they said, if I would have known this teaching, I never would have made the decisions that I made. And they were weeping and saying, why didn't my pastor teach me this? Why did I not know this? Okay, what about the man who loves his wife, carriages his wife, and his wife is divorcing him? And he's begging her to stay with him. And the pastor says, oh, yeah, you have every right to divorce him. Oh, you're justified to divorce him. He smoked a joint. He looked at a dirty magazine. You're justified. All day long, I could list for you those exact examples, people that I know whose wives left them over issues like that and their pastors were just helping them all along the way. Go shopping around for a pastor that will find the opinion. You won't have to go far to find on this. It'll be pretty easy to find a pastor that'll tell you, oh, yeah, you can leave your husband. Tell us all the dirt on him. Come in the counseling session. Tell me all the dirt on your wife. Oh, yeah, you're justified. Look, we all have dirt on each other. If we've been married for decades, nobody's perfect. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We can all paint a horrible picture of our spouse if we wanted to. I'm sure that if my wife hated me and wanted to paint a horrible picture of me, she could write up a two-page thing about what a worthless scumbag I am, and it would all be true if she just took all the worst things from 17 years of marriage and just took out all the good things and painted everything in that light, everything through a negative lens, everything out of context, and she could make me look like a horrible person. You know what? I could do the same thing to her. In fact, we're going to do that as an activity tonight, just kidding. But you know what? I could also, we will never do that as an activity, but you know what? I could also take out a piece of paper, and I could just make my wife sound like the perfect wife who has never made a mistake, and it would all be true just by focusing on all the best things. And you know what? She could do the same thing for me and make me out to be the greatest person that's ever lived and just being married to this guy is a walk in the park. This has been the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. Okay. Look, it's just different perspectives, different context. You know, when you're married for 20 years or 30 years or 40 years, that's a lot of time to say a lot of stupid things, to do a lot of stupid things, and to have plenty of ammo for the other person to convince some idiot pastor, oh, yeah, you got to get out of that relationship. You're being verbally abused. He hit you with a pillow? You're being physically abused. That's abuse. Wait, he screamed at you in a little fleck of spit landed on your nose? That's assault. You know that's right. You know that if we wanted to, we could all demonize our spouse to some pastor who's willing to listen to all the dirt and scuttlebutt on our spouse. But you know what? That is hell. And these pastors are fools to just sit there and listen to that and go, oh, yeah, yeah, you're justified, and to just destroy marriages. That's a mean pastor that will preside over someone's divorce. And you know what? It's a mean doctrine because it's mean to the children of these broken homes when you teach that divorce is fine and the people get divorced and then the kids are getting shuffled back and forth and then all kinds of step parents are coming into the picture. It's wicked. And you know what? I don't know about you, but I want this doctrine to be taught the way Jesus taught it because I want to stay married and my wife wants to stay married and we don't want to wake up every morning and wonder whether we're still going to stay married or not. Do you want to know that your wife is going to stay with you? Do you want to know that your husband's going to stay with you? Because you know the mean pastor, the mean one is the one that will justify divorce so that some woman can spend 20 years being a homemaker and raising kids and doing everything and then her husband just leaves her high and dry because Ruckman told him that he can trade up. You know, and I hope, I honestly hope that Peter Ruckman's in heaven, but he's probably in hell because he was such a big false teacher. I hope he's in heaven. Look, hell's a horrible place. I wouldn't want him to be there, but I have a feeling he probably went the same place that Prince went on the same day. That's what I think. I'm just giving you my opinion. This is not the Lord. This is my judgment. I think Peter Ruckman's in hell right now, but you know what? I hope he's in heaven and if he is in heaven, he does not want you to follow his stupid teachings on divorce or the rapture or anything else because if he's in heaven, he's one of the least in the kingdom of heaven because he taught people not to obey these commandments. He taught them not to be obeyed and he's up there sweeping the floor up there. I hope he's up there sweeping because I sincerely believe that he's probably in the other place because, and look, the reason I say that is because most of his followers are heading for the other place based on the stuff that they teach on the gospel. Every follower of his I've ever met was on their way to the other place, unfortunately, but look, I don't hate him, but I hate his teaching and it makes me sick because I feel like God feels I hate divorce and look, if you've been divorced and you're remarried, I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you. I don't hate you. I'm not trying to beat you over the head or make you feel bad. I don't want you to feel second class because look, you can't get in a time machine and go back and change the fact that you're divorced. You can't change that, so what's the point in hanging that over your head? I don't want to hang that over your head. I don't even like to talk about this subject because I know it makes people feel bad and it hurts people's feelings. I don't want to make people feel bad or hurt their feelings, but at the same time, I cannot let Faithful Word Baptist Church become this permissive environment where we just think that this is okay. Like I said, if someone wants to go out and commit sin, do it on your own. Don't try to bring us with you. Do not try to bring us with you, and I will not back off on this doctrine. No matter how big the church gets, it doesn't matter. It has to stay the same on this subject, and I just want to make sure that everybody knows where I stand. If you walk out of here and say, hey, Pastor Anderson's out to lunch on this, you go attend whatever wedding you want and you go get married and divorced as many times as you want, but I think that 99% of people here tonight have seen what the Bible says and see that it's pretty clear. I think even the people that are divorced in here would probably agree with me, most of them. I'm sure there's some that don't agree with me, and look, that's okay. I love you anyway if you disagree on this, but you cannot do these two things. You cannot involve other people in the church where you're trying to get them to come and congratulate what you're doing, and you cannot approach singles in our church who've never been married and try to take them down this road. Those are the two things that I find unacceptable, and if you agree with me, say amen. All right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for our church, Lord, and Lord, I hope that everybody takes the message tonight and the spirit that it was given, Lord. I love our church. I love the people in our church, but I love you more, Lord, and so I just pray that we would be able to continue to teach what the Bible says and stand strong and have integrity and be firm on this subject and on every subject, Lord. I just pray that everybody who's here would humbly receive what was taught, and I just pray that you would just bless all the marriages here tonight, Lord. My marriage and everybody else's marriage, Lord, we all want to stay married. And so, Lord, I pray that you would just bless our marriages and help us all to never even bring up divorce, even in a fight or an argument, Lord. Help it never even to come out of our mouths as a threat, Lord. Help us all to understand that it's till death do us part. And we love you and thank you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.