Grace of God in Relationship to Divorce and Remarriage

Driving home: God is preparing character. He is committed to make us like Christ. And often the great crucible in which He comes is a meeting point. They use the word marriage the wrong way. carries on that task is the crucible of dif…

Martin uses the hypothetical scenario of a wife bound to a hemophiliac husband who contracts AIDS to illustrate the pressure to find 'spurious ways' to dissolve a marriage beyond biblical grounds, emphasizing that vows are 'for better for worse, in sickness and in health'.

What should a wife do if the husband who's a hemophiliac with no moral culpability contracts AIDS? Must she? Does she continue to be bound to a man terminally afflicted with AIDS and perhaps voluntarily forgoes sexual relations or have to be unusually precautious in those relations? Now everything within us feels the trauma of that tragedy, but vows were taken for better for worse. In sickness and in health, someone brings up the question, what about the person afflicted with a terminal illness that keeps them hospitalized for years? What about the person who is clinically brain dead but kept ...

7:46 - 8:49 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God is preparing character. He is committed to make us like Christ. And often the great crucible in which He comes is a meeting point. They use the word marriage the wrong way. carries on that task is the crucible of dif…

He further illustrates the pressure to find unbiblical grounds for divorce by asking about spouses afflicted with terminal illness or who are clinically brain dead, highlighting the desire to release individuals from difficult marital bonds despite biblical prohibitions.

What should a wife do if the husband who's a hemophiliac with no moral culpability contracts AIDS? Must she? Does she continue to be bound to a man terminally afflicted with AIDS and perhaps voluntarily forgoes sexual relations or have to be unusually precautious in those relations? Now everything within us feels the trauma of that tragedy, but vows were taken for better for worse. In sickness and in health, someone brings up the question, what about the person afflicted with a terminal illness that keeps them hospitalized for years? What about the person who is clinically brain dead but kept ...

7:46 - 8:49 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God is preparing character. He is committed to make us like Christ. And often the great crucible in which He comes is a meeting point. They use the word marriage the wrong way. carries on that task is the crucible of dif…

Martin warns against this book, contrasting it with Small's earlier work, because it 'relegates the things I've preached today either to some idealistic kingdom ethics... or it opens the door for seeking and justifying divorce on many grounds not warranted by the scriptures'.

within us would desire to find some kind of justifiable casuistry to say, yes, the person is released from the marriage bond, we dare not go beyond the word of God? And you see, one of the problems with that pressure to find other causes is the hedonistic spirit of our day that fails to realize there is something more important than an idyllic marriage. God is preparing character. He is committed to make us like Christ. And often the great crucible in which He comes is a meeting point. They use the word marriage the wrong way. carries on that task is the crucible of difficulty, of tribulation ...

8:49 - 10:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Think biblically on the question of how the grace of God meets those who come into the orbit of God's grace with a past of divorce and remarriage, or those believers who fall into such sins.

Martin uses the vivid, shocking metaphor of a 'branding ceremony' with a 'D/R' (divorced/remarried) poker to illustrate the legalistic and unbiblical way some churches treat believers with a past divorce and remarriage, making them 'second-class citizens'.

Many of our children whom I trust because of the kind of stable homes out of which they have come, and the kind of instruction they've received in home and in school and in the assembly of God's people. We'll be preserved from those horrible statistics, but if we are being used of God to reach our generation as it is, we are going to find more and more of those whom the Lord graciously saves will come to us with the baggage of fractured marriages as part and parcel of their past experience. And what are we to say to them? You must be forever relegated. To second-class citizens in the kingdom, ...

12:38 - 13:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Think biblically on the question of how the grace of God meets those who come into the orbit of God's grace with a past of divorce and remarriage, or those believers who fall into such sins.

He shares an anecdote about a Christian couple with a past divorce and remarriage who could not find a church in a large metropolitan area that would receive them into membership, illustrating the real-world impact of legalistic church policies.

past will go directly from the baptismal tank back to the robing room and mingle with God's people. All who've had divorce and remarriage in their past must go into the kitchen where we have a poker that is heated. And we have a brand, and we will press it on their forehead, and it has a D slash R, divorced and remarried, and we will brand you in your forehead so that the rest of your days you will sit among us, so that everyone looking upon you will know you're a divorced and a remarried person. You may be part of God's people, but marked until you get your glorified body. Is that what we mus...

13:38 - 14:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not go half-bent all your days thinking that sins related to marriage are only partially cleansed or forgiven; they are fully and completely forgiven in Christ.

Martin uses the analogy of 'level ground of Golgotha' and 'God's courtroom' to emphasize that all believers, regardless of past sins, stand equally cleansed, sanctified, and justified before God through Christ.

And we stand on the level ground of Golgotha. We stand on the level ground of God's courtroom where the sentence of an imputed righteousness goes forth. We stand on the level ground of God's cleansing fuller's shop where He washes and purges all who come to Him. And there's not a shred of evidence that those who had adultery and homosexuality and other sexual and marital perversions, growing out of them, are somehow put in an anteroom, a little bit short of fully washed, sanctified or set apart unto God in Jesus Christ. And though I know it has application to another passage, the principle is ...

26:54 - 28:10 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin uses 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 to show that former fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals are 'washed, sanctified, justified' in Christ. He highlights the Samaritan woman…

This extended example illustrates Jesus' grace in offering salvation to a woman with a 'messed up marital past' (five husbands and living with another man) without requiring her to 'sort out' her past relationships first, but only to acknowledge her sin.

John chapter 4, here was a woman who before her conversion had a messed up marital past. The Lord Jesus, fully knowing her condition, present and past, offers Himself to her as the water of life with no conditions. Notice that. He said, If you knew who it was who was speaking to you you would have asked of Him and He would have given unto you.

28:10 - 28:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Now, my friends, if you're my fastidious and God, you've got the heart of a Pharisee. And God is not ashamed to say, I bring my Son in a line that includes a marriage begun in such sordid, rotten, filthy circumstances.

This detailed example illustrates God's forgiveness for a marriage begun in the most 'sordid context' (adultery, lust, murder) and how God not only forgave David but sanctified the union such that Solomon, a product of that marriage, was in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

right where she was all he was doing was drawing forth from her the acknowledgement that if she was to drink of the water of life she had to own the reality of her sin up to that present moment and owning that sin find forgiveness and pardon and that satisfaction of soul in christ as the water of life that she couldn't find in all the bed hopping she'd done over the years ah but you say what about someone after conversion what about the sin of disrupting a marriage marital abnormalities contracting marriages in adultery does god forgive those sins in a believer well the classic example of god'...

29:36 - 31:04 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Quoting J. Adams, Martin argues that the church must forgive murder and sexual immorality, including adultery and unbiblical divorce, just as God does. He challenges the tendency…

Martin quotes J. Adams' book 'Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible' to reinforce the argument that God forgives even the 'basest sort' of sexual immorality and that the church must do likewise, noting that Christ's own lineage includes Rahab and David/Bathsheba.

And it's at this point that I want to read from J. Adams' very helpful book, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible. And Mr. Adams says some very strong things in his introduction about Dwight Small's perspectives as well of a negative nature.

35:18 - 35:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And may I say it reverently, even grace can't unscramble an egg.

Martin uses the metaphor 'even grace can't unscramble an egg' to illustrate that while God forgives past sins, some consequences, like the reality of a subsequent marriage, cannot be undone or 'unscrambled' to revert to a previous state.

And may I say it reverently, even grace can't unscramble an egg.

42:17 - 42:21 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And may I say it reverently, even grace can't unscramble an egg.

He contrasts Zacchaeus' ability to make financial restitution for wrongful gain with the impossibility of 'unscrambling' a fractured marriage and subsequent remarriage, arguing that not all restitution is possible in the same way.

you can't unscramble it. A scrambled egg is a scrambled egg. And in some areas, restitution can be made. If you have wrongfully taken money, as Zacchaeus did.

42:29 - 42:41 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin refutes the view that a past divorce and remarriage automatically disqualifies a man from church leadership. He interprets 'husband of one wife' (1 Timothy 3:2, 12) as…

Martin refers to an 'esteemed and respected' member of their church who holds public office despite having come through 'the trauma of a disrupted marriage,' illustrating that their church practices restorative grace in leadership selection.

he's disqualified for office? You see the nonsense to which such unbiblical positions lead. And we say, without any shame or reservation, that we are grateful to God for the restorative grace that is planted in our ranks, one very highly esteemed and respected second to none among us, who is not excluded from his office, because God allowed him to come through the trauma of a disrupted marriage. And that's not self-justification.

53:28 - 54:04 Read in full sermon

The point: If someone complains about a member's past, smile and say, 'yes, and I know even more than that,' and first receive and cleanse and accept them. Don't complain to Jesus that you don't like the largeness of His grace.

Martin refers to members of the congregation as 'monuments of that very kind of grace,' signifying that their lives, despite past marital struggles, stand as testimonies to God's pardoning and restorative power.

It opens the door of hope for pardoning, restorative, renewing grace. And how I bless God that I look into the faces of not a few who are monuments of that very kind of grace. And in that sense, you'll understand what I mean. We're proud to be your pastor.

59:59 - 60:21 Read in full sermon

The point: If someone complains about a member's past, smile and say, 'yes, and I know even more than that,' and first receive and cleanse and accept them. Don't complain to Jesus that you don't like the largeness of His grace.

He imagines a scenario where someone whispers about a member's past divorce, and instructs the pastor to 'smile and say, yes, and I know even more than that,' emphasizing acceptance and forgiveness over judgment.

And if someone should come up whispering to us who somehow or other found out about your past and thought they could turn our hearts away by saying, don't you know? Smile and say, yes, and I know even more than that. And first, receive them and cleanse them and accept them. Don't complain to Jesus that you don't like the largeness of His grace.

60:21 - 61:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Continue to hold to the highest biblical standards of the sanctity, nature, and permanence of marriage, but say to those who are shattered, fractured, broken, and bruised that there's a Savior who forgives and a body of …

Martin uses the metaphor of 'medicine' for the truth of God's grace and forgiveness, urging those who are 'bleeding' from guilt to 'drink it in' and apply it to their hearts.

And there's a body of His people who try to reflect His heart and to manifest His grace. Well, I believe God's helped me to deliver my soul on this issue. I can go off on my vacation with a good conscience. And if any of you go on bleeding, it's because you ain't using the medicine.

61:33 - 61:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Take the medicine of God's Word and grace, drinking it in until you know who you are in the presence of God and know that what you are before Him by grace, you are in the eyes of your brothers and sisters in this place.

He contrasts the hypothetical 'D/R' brand with the true 'brand' seen on believers: 'W, washed, S, sanctified, J, justified' (WSJ), emphasizing their identity in Christ.

We don't see you with a brand on your forehead. If there's any, we see the brand W, washed, S, sanctified, J, justified. WSJ, that's all we see. And that's over all of us because without that we'd all go to the same hell.

62:19 - 62:42 Read in full sermon