WWUTT 905 Q&A Divorce, Vaccines, Matthew 17:21, and Obedience?

Apology for Leaving Out a Divorce Detail in Last Week’s Testimonies

Did God ever say that divorce was permissible? Does the Bible say anything about getting vaccinated? And where is Matthew 17 21 in modern translations? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily study in the word of Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness. Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. I want to start off this particular episode of the Q &A, being Friday, we take questions from our listeners. And I want to start off this episode with an apology. I've already apologized to my wife about this.

So last week, one of the questions that we were asked was what our testimonies were. And we decided to do that one had never shared our testimonies before. We talked about it just a few minutes beforehand, just a few minutes before I opened up the mic and we started flying with our testimonies, which I think we thought were going to be short.

Yes. And that was the intent. And we ended up taking half the episode. But I made the decision beforehand. And I told her not to mention that she was divorced. And people who know us and know our story and listen to that episode were concerned that it might have sounded like we were trying to hide something.

Becky was. She did get pregnant out of wedlock. And then to try to make the decision right or make the situation right, then you got married. Is that kind of how that went? No, we were planning on getting married.

OK, you were planning on getting married anyway. But this was a man who was unfaithful. Yeah. He was abusive. Right. And there was a recommendation of a pastor even that she get out of that relationship.

So but all of that was really complicated. So as we were trying to share our testimonies quickly and simply, I said, let's leave that part out. I was also this is what I had in mind. I wanted to protect my wife from certain critics.

Right.

Because in order to cover it well, it would have taken a long time to explain quite an explanation and out of everything.

So anyway, this was knowing the kinds of criticisms and things like that that I get for things that I say, I was trying to protect Becky from that. But in hindsight, that was not the wise move. And I realize that it would have been better to have just been honest with what we shared in our testimonies.

So I put Becky in an awkward situation and I apologized to her for that. I didn't think we would get any any concerns raised about that at all. But there were a few people that asked for clarification, basically.

They said, now, hang on, weren't you divorced? Yeah. But you said in the episode that you were pregnant out of wedlock, which is true. Right. She was. We didn't say anything that was untrue. But I for certain reasons, just out of, you know, me being a man and wanting to protect my family, I decided let's not mention that.

And and that was my call. So I'm apologizing to you, the listener. There was no attempt to try to deceive anyone or lead anyone astray. I see that the wise decision would have been to just have been honest about that.

And then if anyone had any questions beyond that, then we could have explained right from there. So so where we want to go today, we actually want to start with addressing that particular topic because I have been asked this a few times.

I don't think we've ever covered this on the podcast before. Maybe. I think we've mentioned it. Was there ever? There was one. There was a question specifically related to divorce?

Yeah. But I don't remember the ins and outs of it.

OK, well, this question came to me in February. So this was a fairly recent question. And then after we get through this one, then we want to go to the other three questions that we didn't get to last week.

Right. So but this question comes from Jamie and says, Greetings, sir. I am very thankful for your work and I appreciate your videos. I was wondering what your views are on divorce and remarriage for those that have been abandoned by unbelieving spouses, where the departed spouse has committed fornication and even had children with other people and been married to another.

And then the other abandoned spouse is left alone. Is the let's see, the departed spouse is right. The spouses that departed committed fornication, even had children with other people and got married to someone else.

And then the other abandoned spouse is left alone. So Jamie goes on. Is the abandoned spouse to remain alone for the rest of their life? Have you done a video on this topic? No, there's not a what video on on this particular subject.

No, I would be interested to know your thoughts coupled with scripture to back them up. If you have studied the scenario and have anything. Thank you so very much.

God bless you. Jamie. Thankfully, with my situation, we have done a lot of biblical research on this. Yes, we did.

And like we like we mentioned in our testimonies last week, Becky and I received counseling from three different pastors. Yeah. Plus, we went to a marriage seminar. Right. And then after we got married, we went to another marriage seminar.

Right. I had been through a failed engagement and she had been married and divorced. And so we wanted to know that we were going to do this biblically. Right. And even when Becky and I first started seeing one another, I think this was like by our second or third date, how openly honest we were with each other about our past.

Yeah, it was pretty, pretty quick. Yeah.

And one of the things that Becky said to me was she had been researching this about divorce and remarriage because she wanted to make sure that if we were going to go forward with wanting to get married and our engagement was well, we were together from our first date with one another.

And again, just using that word is the common nomenclature. But from our first date with one another to the day that we were married was 17 months to the day. And so we spent that entire time. We sought the Lord's will.

We received counseling. And Becky had said, again, this was by our second or third date, she brought to me her concerns about would marrying me cause me to commit adultery. And so we explored that together.

We went through however many pastors that we had talked to during that period of time. Some of them had different viewpoints, and there were even members of my own family that had different viewpoints on this on this subject.

But here is let me read to you from Matthew chapter 19. We'll go from here. Matthew 19, starting in verse three, and the Pharisees came to Jesus and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?

And Jesus answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?

And he said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery.

The disciples said to Jesus, if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better to not marry. But Jesus said to them, not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given for there are eunuchs who have been so from birth.

And there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men. And there are eunuchs who have been, who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it.

So from the word of Christ, we have whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. So the biblically permissive occasion for divorce would be if one spouse was sexually unfaithful.

And in the case of Becky's story, that was what happened. And so it was by a pastor's recommendation, if memory serves, it was even the pastor that married you. Isn't that correct? Yeah. That came to you and said, I made a mistake in encouraging you to do this.

Because there were indications of unfaithfulness before you got married. Yeah. And abuse. And abuse too. Right. And then you got married, but there was biblical cause for you to get a divorce because of his unfaithfulness.

And that's the same way that I've taught that according to what Jesus has said, sexual immorality or sex outside of marriage is a biblical cause for divorce. Now, Jamie has said, if there was an unbelieving spouse that left the believing spouse and committed fornication and even had children with other people and got married to another, the abandoned spouse is left alone.

Is therefore the abandoned spouse to remain alone for the rest of their life. I say to you, no. I agree. Now in Romans chapter seven, we have this, and this is Paul repeating what had been written in the law of Moses.

Or do you not know brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives.

But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law.

And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. Now it's passages like this one in Romans chapter seven, verses one through three, that leads many to say the only cause for getting remarried to another would be if your died, if he died.

Right. So if he's unfaithful and you get divorced, that's biblically permissive, but you cannot get remarried because he's still alive. So the hope would be that he would repent from that transgression and he would return.

Jamie's question, however, specifically states he's left and now he's married to someone else. Correct. So are we going to encourage him to get yet another divorce and then return to his previous spouse and then that spouse whom he's divorced has to remain single?

Because that would be according to that law. You know, all of these things get complicated.

Yeah. And it's just a, you're just digging a different hole. Right.

So in the confessions of faith, let's go to the confessions to get a little bit more light on understanding even what Paul is saying here in Romans chapter seven. I will say that according to the London Baptist confession, I have it right here.

Here's my Baptist confession of faith along with the Baptist catechism, which I left sitting on the stair rail earlier and Raya, our two year old, went, Daddy, you forgot your Bible. Not quite, but it's a little light.

Yeah. She's looking out for me. They're not quite scripture. But anyway, in the London Baptist confession, I think it's, is it chapter 25 here? Let me try to flip there. I don't quite have all this memorized.

25 is where it has. Yes. Marriage. That's the chapter on marriage in the London Baptist confession. London Baptist confession, 1689. There isn't any mention in here of divorce. It talks about what is biblically permissive marriage.

Marriage is to be between one man and one woman. Neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time that. And then paragraph two, marriage was ordained for the mutual help of the husband and wife for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue and for preventing and for preventing of uncleanness, which is the statement that Paul makes in first Corinthians seven so that you do not commit sexual immorality.

Each husband should have his own wife and each wife, her own husband. So anyway, so going on from there, there's there's four paragraphs altogether in that particular section on marriage, but there's no mention of divorce.

And I was curious about that. Why would the Baptist confession of faith not mention divorce, but the Westminster confession of faith does mention laws concerning divorce and and somebody who's maybe more has a deeper historic understanding of the LBCF 1689 may know these things a little bit better than I do.

But just from light reading, what I understood was that the Baptists who were agreeing upon the London Baptist confession could not come to an agreement on what was what was biblically permissive divorce.

And so they left it out of the confession, which totally sounds like a Baptist thing to do. One thing that they did agree on, though, was that in the Westminster confession, it says that if a man's wife dies, he cannot marry her sister, for that would be incest.

And the London Baptist said, no, no, no, no, no, because, you know, there's even the scenario that's brought before Jesus of the woman who's married to a man. He dies. She marries his brother. He dies.

So which one is is she married to in heaven? Right. And Jesus, you know, doesn't say, well, she's not supposed to be marrying these guys anyway. That would be incest. Right. He says, now you have this all wrong, because in heaven there is not marriage and being given in marriage.

So that was that was where he corrected the Sadducees on that particular point. So the Baptist said, we're not going to carry that over to the Baptist confession because we don't agree with that particular point.

If a man's wife dies, he should be able to marry the sister. After all, Leverite marriage in the Old Testament was that if a woman's husband died, the brother was supposed to be the one that married her.

Right. That wasn't considered incest. Right. So I agree with I certainly agree with the Baptist take on that, even though that's that's not spelled out that way in the Baptist confession. But in the Westminster Confession of Faith, it says this adultery or fornication committed after a contract being detected before marriage gives just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract.

In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and after the divorce to marry another as if the offending party were dead. So I think that that is I think the Westminster confessionalists got that right.

Yeah. And that is how we look at a law like Roman seven verses one through three and see how a woman who has been divorced because her husband was sexually unfaithful to her and has gone off and married another.

Is she to remain alone for the rest of her life? No, she can marry because it's as if that man she was previously married to was dead. Right. That marriage was never actually a real marriage to him in his heart.

He was never in that vow. Well, where where was it that the Israelites, I think it was, was told to send their wives and children home? Yeah, right.

That was in Ezra. Yeah. And toward the end of Ezra, you had the Israelites who had married pagan women and they were instructed to send their pagan wives away. They were supposed to go back to the lands that they came from.

Right. The word divorce is never used there. It's just saying to them, send them away. The Lord God did not look at that as a real marriage, even though on the outside we would have called it real marriage.

You know, they they married these women. They moved into their home. They had children with them. They were supposed to send those women and children away. Right. Because this was not marriage according to what the Lord God required of his people.

So in the eyes of God, in the case of sexual immorality like this and something so extreme where a man has left his wife and has even gone and married another, I mean, he's dead in his heart. He is dead to the vow and covenant that they had made in marriage.

He was never in that. So she should not be penalized for that. Right. To have to suffer the penalty of that for the rest of her life when she had, I mean, a husband who never actually cared for her. And then she's wasted her vow and covenant on a person who's, I mean, basically lost.

Now there's still a hope that he's going to repent. But I would not encourage that man. If I was pastoring this particular situation, I would not encourage that man to get divorced from that woman that he went and married.

I hope that he repents. He realizes that what he has done is sin.

And then makes it right that way.

Right. By being committed to that marriage. Yes. Exactly. And in the meantime, the woman whom he left and cheated on and went after another woman, his first wife, she can get remarried. And it's as if that marriage died and there was never anything real or legit there in the first place.

That's the way I would pastor that situation. Anyway, bringing that up. There is, and you've probably heard this before, John Piper has some very controversial views on divorce and remarriage because he has a very, very tight view.

And I've heard from people who share John MacArthur, John MacArthur, John Piper's convictions on this. And they have brought those concerns to me and has said, you know, this is adultery. If a man commits adultery and goes and marries another woman and leaves a wife single, if she goes and gets remarried, now she's committed adultery.

That's the viewpoint that they have. And I don't share that viewpoint and how strongly they hold to that viewpoint and how critical they are of anybody who doesn't hold that viewpoint. That's why I didn't want my wife to mention it last week when we were sharing our testimonies.

So let me play for you an answer, a Q &A from Desiring God, where the host of Desiring God is asking John Piper this question with a very similar scenario, and John Piper is giving his answer. So here is that particular clip.

Don writes into us from Australia with a difficult situation concerning his daughter. He says, I've read your teaching on divorce and remarriage, and I think by and large I agree with you. Could you clarify one thing for me?

My daughter, now age 31, was married when she was 18. The marriage seemed solid, both Christians, active in the church, ministry together, no children. After seven years, they purchased a business and hired a young 18-year-old girl.

Cutting to the chase, husband commits adultery, father's a child, child dies, but the husband runs off with the other woman. And so he says, my daughter is kept faithful to the hope that they could be reconciled.

She's not had any other relationships and has maintained her walk with the Lord through this painful and difficult time. She believes the Word teaches there's no remarriage after divorce, so she should remain single for the rest of her days, assuming her husband does not repent and return.

There's a good chance he will remarry. Is this my daughter's lot, even though she's not been the one to carry out the divorce? Yes, I think she's got it right, and I'll tell you the reason why. And I know my standard here for Christian obedience is incredibly high and difficult, and I don't take lightly the fact that I have four sons and a daughter, any one of whom in their 30s or 40s could have a divorce, and then they would, they would, I would be faced with the question, not just this dad, I would be faced with the question.

So your view is that they stay single, that's what you're saying, as long as the spouse is alive. I'd say that's my position. And the reason is that what that daughter has decided to do is bear witness by her, not morose, but joyful, engaged ministry, singleness, how highly she esteems the covenant that she made, which is a picture of the covenant between Christ and the church, which is a loud, clear statement for those who know her, that Jesus Christ really loves his church, and the church really loves him, and that's an unbreakable covenant picture.

So the reason I'm willing to make that stand is because I want to say so loud and clear to a divorce-ready and remarriage culture, you're not telling the truth about Christ's covenant with his bride.

He never, ever divorces her, and she never divorces him. It is a forever covenant, and therefore we would do well to testify to it with this kind of beautiful resolve. And the testimony, too, is of God's faithfulness, just as this wife is evidencing her ability to be patient and wait, and should the Lord bring him back, it's like the Lord waiting for us sometimes when we run off to the far country, getting the pig slop.

That picture is there that says he is faithful. That's right.

Now, when we first listened to that, I didn't agree with it at all, but I noticed I caught a few more caveats in there that I didn't quite catch the first time. So she actually, this wife whose husband has left her for another woman and is likely going to get married to this other woman, the wife believes in her heart that there will be reconciliation.

So I would say in that particular case, if she's actually holding out hope for reconciliation, then she shouldn't get remarried. If that's the condition of her heart, she still remains united with that man who has left her, then don't go against your conscience and convince yourself it's okay to go with another man.

Definitely. So, yeah, in that particular case, if that's the heart of the person that I'm pastoring, that would be the advice that I would give to her. But let's say the woman felt completely abandoned and felt completely alone, and she's heartbroken, but she's not united to this man anymore.

He's already married another woman. She's coming to me and asking, what do I do? Do I have to be alone for the rest of my life? My answer is going to be no. If you feel like, and understand when I say that, I'm not saying follow your heart.

No, it's more of a conviction. I mean, sometimes you're lost and you don't really know where God is leading you, but at the same time, you know it's either time to move on or it's time to hold out hope and pray.

And I'm using, so I'm using feel in the spectrum of wisdom, not according to like, yeah, chase your heart. But remember the word of Christ in Matthew 19, nine, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery.

So the qualifier there being except for sexual immorality, why is that so bad? Because when a husband and a wife consummate their marriage, the two are one flesh. He goes and unites himself with another woman.

He's become one flesh with another woman. So he's broken the one flesh covenant that he had with his wife. And it's as if that covenant was not genuine in the first place. So where John Piper is saying there about this marriage needs to be a picture of Christ covenant in his church.

Well, no, when you've got, when you've got infidelity happening there, the covenants broken, right? My friends, God has been through a divorce. Jeremiah chapter three, verse six, the Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what she did?

That faithless one Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, which is a reference to Israel worshiped false gods and there played the whore. And I thought after she has done all this, she will return to me.

But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.

And then later on in the chapter, go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, return faithless Israel declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger for I am merciful declares the Lord. I will not be angry forever.

So he sent Israel away with a decree of divorce, but called for repentance. And indeed the Lord God is merciful. We have this in second Timothy chapter two, starting in verse 11. The saying is trustworthy for if we have died with him, we will also live with him.

If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. So again, this is why I say, you've got to seek these things with wisdom.

You mentioned being prayerful, seeking the counsel and wisdom of other Christians, seeking the counsel of your pastor, the elders at your church.

Every situation is different too. Each one of them is assessed in its own way with people that you know, not with, oh, this is a one-liner and that's all we get. So we're going to have to try to answer this, you know, without all the rest of the information.

You can't do that. And that's why we went to so many different counselors and, you know, to get the different pieces of the puzzle and put them together and assess whether or not our marriage was going to be biblical.

And we wanted to make sure, Becky and I wanted to make sure that we were getting the biblical answer. Right. Not the answer we wanted. Exactly. That's why we went to so many different pastors. Because we didn't want this to be, okay, fine.

We got the guy who's given us the answer we want. Yes. Yeah. No.

I'm in love with this woman. I can marry her. Yay. Right. You know. No, we wanted to make sure it was good on all levels and it was pure and upright. And we also, we do not encourage divorce. We do. That's not the first thing we jump to whenever counseling others because I've been there.

I've done that. And even though I wasn't married for very long, it was not easy. It was horrible.

It was horrible. We would not wish that upon anybody to go through that.

And even if they're like, you know, I can't stand him. He's been unfaithful. She's been unfaithful. She's done this, yada, yada, yada. Reconciliation is so much better. Right.

And we've advised that. We're going to look first for reconciliation. That's what we're going for first. Right. Even though you have biblical cause to divorce him, if you're going to go by Matthew 19, 9.

Exactly. Can you reconcile? Is he repentant? Can this marriage be saved? That's where we go first. That is. And Becky, because this is her story and is her testimony, we've had women that have come to her and said, well, you were divorced.

Yeah. I mean, can't I do that? And that Becky's response to that is not, yeah, sure. Let me tell you what I went through. It's her reply is exactly what you said there.

No, no, no. It doesn't make things easier.

What is so much better is the exercising of grace and the reconciliation where there has been sin and betrayal, and yet these two people are able to save their marriage in Christ. That's where you should go first.

Amen. But in the particular situation that it cannot be saved. And I have been in these situations before. Even when I was not a pastor, I was in a situation where we were appealing to a man who had been unfaithful to his wife, and we're begging with the guy, she wants to forgive you.

Go back home. And he'd already made up his mind. He said no. This was a woman he met on the internet, by the way. I don't even know that they had actually met face to face yet, but he was, that's how absurd the situation was.

But he had already said in his heart, not going home. This is the decision I've made. I'm going to go after this other thing. And that was before I'd never even had an inclination in my heart to become a pastor at that particular time.

And I've been in those situations. If reconciliation can happen, that's what should take place. But in the event that something like that happens, where the person is an unbeliever, and Paul even says in 1 Corinthians 7, if you're a believer, he's an unbeliever.

If he vows to stay with you, then you should stay in that marriage. But if he decides to leave you, then let him go. And Paul doesn't say there, now you can't get remarried. It is as if, as stated in the Westminster Confession, he's dead.

That's right. It's as if he's dead, dead in heart, though he would still be alive in his body. But to that marriage, that man has died. And so again, yeah, I think in wisdom, seeking the advice of many counselors is the way to go first.

Oh, definitely. Most definitely. But in a particular situation where somebody has been unfaithful, they've already been remarried. You can't encourage a divorce so that they go back to their previous spouse, because then it's, you know, two wrongs don't make a right.

Then you've got the situation with the other spouse that they divorced, now we're in that boat again. Right. You know, that's just a never ending cycle. So in the event that something like that has happened, I don't think that the circumstances fallen upon you to have to stay single for the rest of your life.

Paul even says in 1 Corinthians 7, if you cannot control your body, get married. And I have even said that to two people who were divorced and I did not think it was wise for them to get married. And yet the guy was coming to me and asking for advice and he's like, man, I just I don't think I can control myself.

And I said, then get married. It would be better for you to get married than to burn with passion.

So so those were the cases in which to get remarried after a divorce. What is an occasion, just one real quick to not get remarried after a divorce.

If there's any chance that reconciliation can happen, then I would say wait it out for as long as you possibly can. How long is it going to be until this other person sees their sin, is convicted over it, comes back, begs for forgiveness?

Because we even know personally of situations where two people were divorced. The offending spouse realized that they were an idiot, came back and they got remarried. Yeah, we've seen that happen before.

Yes. So that's great if that can happen. But if it's a situation where that person's been unfaithful, runs off with another woman, gets married to that woman, in which case that at that at that point, you have to conclude that there's nothing that's going to be reconciled.

Right. Yeah. Trying to find the words, I don't know, wording it in a way that I haven't already worded it. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. I can't think of another word. So. OK. All right. Well, thank you for your question, Jamie.

And I hope that that was helpful to you. We go on to this question from Brent. And this is one of the ones that we didn't get to last week. Here's a question for you. The vaccines cause autism crowd has evolved some.

Now it incorporates people are allergic to things in vaccines which kill children. And I won't allow the government to intrude into my life and force me to stick unknown substances into my body. And even now are starting to say it's against their religion.

Sure enough, I go to a search for religion slash vaccines. People are using Bible verses to support not vaccinating and why it's against their religion as an elder of a church and someone who often goes to explain the text of the Bible and touch base with people who get it wrong.

I was curious what your outlook was on it, as I haven't a clue to know where to start researching in the Bible or how to approach this, except maybe back in the very start of the Bible in Genesis one twenty eight.

So in Genesis one twenty eight, it says, and God bless them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every thing that moves on the earth.

So I would guess that in Genesis one twenty eight in the vaccines controversy would be well, then I'm letting that substance have dominion over me. Right. Instead of taking dominion over the earth, I guess that would be the context.

I'm not really sure. I'm not sure either. I haven't heard that one. I don't agree with the argument that I cannot get a vaccine in my body because it's against my religion. What are you talking about?

There's there's nothing in the Bible that says thou shalt not get a vaccine. So that's absurd. However, I will also say it's unbiblical for the government to force you to get vaccinated. Right. I don't agree with that either.