What is wrong with the "marriage permanence doctrine?"
Hi, welcome to today's little lesson.
We're gonna delve once again into a very controversial subject, the subject of divorce and remarriage.
We all know that there's a lot of diversity within the body of Christ as to what's the
truth about divorce and remarriage and there's one group in particular that's pretty much
on the extreme fringes and they call themselves the marriage permanence people.
However, when you delve into their doctrine, you find out that they're encouraging long-standing
Christian families, Christian husbands and wives, to divorce if one of them's been previously
married because their thesis is that you're still married to your original spouse.
Your divorce is not recognized by God.
In His eyes, you're still married to your former spouse.
If you are divorced and remarried, you need to divorce again and, if possible, go back
to your original spouse because it's a lifelong covenant, 'til death do us part.
Like all doctrine that is being promoted within the body of Christ, there's always some truth.
But just because something has some truth doesn't mean it's all true.
I wrote some articles, some e-teachings, I do one every single month, addressing this
very subject, addressing the question of divorce and remarriage.
The title of those lessons, three lessons, was "I'm Divorced and Remarried.
Am I Living in Adultery?"
Those teachings garnered a lot of interest and a lot of discussions.
I at the same time filmed a couple of videos that didn't go into quite the depth of those
e-teachings, but touched on some of the high points.
Those videos garnered a lot of interest.
As I'm making this video right now, one of those videos, I think, has received 22,000
views.
That's a lot for us.
It's not a lot for some people, but it's a lot for us.
We got 200 people that liked that video and 100 that hated that video.
It just kind of shows the division that exists.
Now, we're gonna talk about this on today's lesson and maybe the next one or two that
follow.
We'll see how long it goes.
But just to give you an idea of some of the potential fruit of the divine divorce doctrine,
the marriage permanence doctrine, I wanna read you a post I read on a Facebook page
of someone who's promoting divine divorce in a big way.
Okay, listen to what this woman wrote, her testimony.
She said, "The Lord became my King after I was so worldly.
I had lived with men," obviously out of wedlock, "and even women."
She had homosexual lesbian relationships with women.
Again, obviously a person who was far from God's standards.
But she says, "But I was saved from all that."
Well, praise the Lord.
"And I started going to church."
Oh, praise the Lord for that, too.
That's all good.
But now here's where it starts going downhill.
"I saw a man playing guitar and the Lord told me right away he was my husband."
She was sitting in church, looked up to the front, the worship team or whatever, and there
was a guy playing the guitar and the Lord told her, "That's your husband."
Okay.
Not how it usually works, but, you know, not ruling out anything.
But listen to her next line.
"He was fake married with five kids."
Now, let me explain to you what she means by fake married.
That means he's not really married.
He thinks he's married and even has five kids, but he's not really married.
He's fake married.
Why was he fake married in her estimation?
Why was he fake married in her mind?
She says, "But after I told him his fake marriage was adultery because his 'wife' had a living
first husband still," see, that defines it.
She's a divine divorce person, a marriage permanence person.
This guy she's spotted up in the choir, in the worship team playing guitar, who God says
is your husband, he's married to a woman he has five children with, but he's not really
married to her, allegedly, in God's eyes because his marriage to his wife is not legitimate
because she's been previously married and divorced and now remarried to him.
You see the logic there?
They're not really married in God's eyes.
The woman he's married to is actually, in God's eyes, married to her first husband.
Therefore, she can't be married to this guy.
It's a fake marriage.
She enlightens him to that, that, "Hey, the woman you're married to, you're not really
married to in God's eyes, you're not married to at all.
You have not a real marriage, not a legitimate marriage.
You have a fake marriage.
You're actually living in adultery.
The only way to get out of that adultery is to divorce that woman who was previously married
'cause she's not really your wife."
"After I told him his fake marriage was adultery because his 'wife' had a living first husband,"
now, if her first husband had been dead, then she'd have said, "Oh, no, you're allowed to
be remarried because your first husband with whom you had a lifelong covenant is dead,"
"he then knew our love was from above and he left them."
Okay, did you hear what happened?
Yes, you heard rightly.
She convinced this guy that his current marriage was not legitimate, that he and his wife really
were not married, that she was actually married to her former husband, and when he realized
that he left her.
It didn't say he divorced her, but essentially that's what he had to do because he was legally
married.
If you got married to this gal, which that's the end of the story, he had to have gotten
a divorce from this first wife here.
"He knew our love was from above and he left them."
He left his wife and five children to marry this gal.
Again, it was okay in her eyes for them to get married because she had never been married
herself, so she was not married to anyone in God's eyes.
He, then, was no longer living in adultery and had never been married prior to that "adulterous
marriage" to that woman who had been previously married and divorced.
He was free to remarry, so they got married.
She convinced him to divorce his wife and they got married.
He left his wife and five kids.
Now, that's not the worst part.
Here's the last part of her post.
"Now we help others know true covenant marriage of God to which is," and this is her definition,
"true covenant marriage, which is any first marriage for the man and the woman."
This was her first marriage and actually it was his first marriage 'cause what he thought
was his first marriage was an illegitimate, adulterous marriage.
That's marriage permanence doctrine, my friends.
That's the fruit of it.
Alright, I'm out of time for today's lesson.
Our next little lesson, whenever that is, will continue.
Hope to see you then.