Marrige? Is it still necessary?

32 Pages·2012·1.381 MB·English

by  Dwight Hall

Coldwater MI 49036
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Copyright © 2012
by Dwight Hall
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the USA
Published by
Remnant Publications
649 East Chicago Road
Coldwater MI 49036
517-279-1304
www.remnantpublications.com
Editing by Debi Tesser
Copy editing by Andrea Alexander
Cover design by David Berthiaume
Text design by Greg Solie • AltamontGraphics.com
ISBN: 978-1-937718-64-0
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“Five times,” he said. My eyes widened. The
man was telling us the number of times
that he’d been married. He continued to say that
he still hadn’t found happiness. What I heard next
I would never forget.
At that time my wife Deb and I were visit-
ing our relatives in another state. We woke up
that morning excited about visiting their church.
When we arrived, a nice couple asked us to come
join the pastor’s study class. As we took our seats
in the crowded class, I realized that the study was
on marriage and divorce. I was anxious to hear
what was going to be said about a subject as im-
portant as marriage. The pastor went from couple
to couple with the questions, “What do you think
about marriage, and when would it be appropriate
to get a divorce?”
The comments that followed astonished me!
Then a man who had had his hand raised for a
while blurted something out with such certainty
that no one would even think to question him. “I
am on my fifth marriage and time will tell how
this one will work out,” he said. I sat there spell-
bound. What came out of his mouth next I can
still clearly hear today.
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4 Marriage?
“God wants us happy!” he said. “Even though
this is my fifth marriage, if I am not happy God,
does not expect me to go through life unhappy.”
As I sat there trying to comprehend what had
just been said, I was rudely brought back to reality
by a jabbing in my ribs. While I was still trying to
figure out if I had been dreaming, Deb said, while
still jabbing me, “You need to say something.”
I looked at her in disbelief while saying unmis-
takably with my eyes, “You have got to be kidding
me. I am a visitor here and don’t know anyone.
I am not about to get mixed up in this. Even if I
did say something, what could I possibly say that
would make any difference?”
As I was telling her this with my glaring eyes
another thought suddenly popped into my mind
that I also tried to convey to my now agitated wife.
“Let the pastor take care of this. It’s his class. He
knows what to say about marriage and divorce. I
mean, this is a big thing in today’s world. He knows
exactly what the Bible says about this whole mar-
riage and divorce thing.”
Just as I was finishing these well-intentioned
thoughts the pastor said, “It’s so nice to have visi-
tors today. Maybe we can get another point of
view.” I froze. “NO, Lord!” My mind said this so
loud that I was sure the whole class heard me.
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Is it Still Necessary? 5
The much-dreaded question came to me like
a freight train breaking the silence of night. “So,
what do you think about what has been said so far
this morning?” the pastor asked. Like an on-and-
off switch in my mind, instead of telling the Lord
not to have the pastor ask me such a question, I
was pleading and asking the Lord to give me the
wisdom to answer this question. The Lord says in
His Word that before we have asked, He has an-
swered (Isaiah 65:24).
The words came to me and, before I had time
to reconsider, I said, “I don’t think it matters much
what I think. I have heard a lot this morning of
what many of you think, but I do know what the
Bible says in Matthew 19:3–9:
The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him,
and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife for just any reason?”
And He answered and said to them, “Have you
not read that He who made them at the begin-
ning ‘made them male and female,’ and said,
‘For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the
two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are
no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what
God has joined together, let not man separate.”
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6 Marriage?
They said to Him, “Why then did Moses com-
mand to give a certificate of divorce, and to
put her away?”
He said to them, “Moses, because of the hard-
ness of your hearts, permitted 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 an-
other, commits adultery; and whoever marries
her who is divorced commits adultery.”
When I had finished reading, the room was
quite silent and the pastor was now glaring at me.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that he was
not happy with my answer. After he spoke a few
choice words, he went on asking other people in
the class and, needless to say, he did not ask me
another question.
I went home a few days later but could not get
these plaguing thoughts out of my mind. I kept
thinking, “I know what the Bible says, but why
then are there so many questions on this issue?
Have times changed and the Bible is out of date
and, therefore, meaningless in the area of mar-
riage and divorce? God does want us to be happy,
and the pastor went to school so that he could
understand the Scriptures.” As I pondered and
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Is it Still Necessary? 7
prayed about all these thought-provoking ques-
tions, I decided to study this subject out until I
had answers that would not only satisfy me but
could also stand the test of scrutiny.
The first item I needed to deal with was the
Bible. You either believe it is the truth and is time-
less, or you put it in your good-book category. It
did not take but a nanosecond for me to come to a
decisive conclusion on this first and most impor-
tant item. God does not make mistakes, and He is
not the author of confusion. The Bible has stood
the test of time and always will. The very princi-
ples in the Word of God are from God and will
never get old or outdated. Just the fact that Jesus
Himself spoke those words in Matthew 19:3–9
was like Him saying to me: “I will take care of this
vital principle Myself.”
Then I moved on to find the answers to the
other questions that had been plaguing my mind.
I got on the Internet and did some research. I
found that roughly fifty percent of marriages
end in divorce in the United Sates.1 This is quite
a high number, and this does not account for
people living together without a marriage license.
Some statistics show that the divorce rate is al-
most the same among born-again Christians and
non-Christians.2 Whether or not this is true, the
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8 Marriage?
divorce rate is clearly way too high if you consider
yourself to be a Bible-believing Christian.
The man in the Bible class had said that he was
on his fifth marriage and that God wanted him to
be happy. As he said this, I thought, “Will he ever
find one that will make him happy?” As I was do-
ing my research, I found out why this man would
be hard-pressed to come up with “Mrs. Right.” US
studies show a significantly increased rate of di-
vorce “when a comparison is made in 1st, 2nd and
3rd marriage breakups in America. The marriage
breakup rate in America for first marriage is 41%
to 50%; the rate after second marriage is from 60%
to 67% and the rate in America for 3rd marriage
are from 73% to 74%.”3
Wow! So from these statistics, this man will be
less happy with each successive marriage. I came
to the stark conclusion that God’s happiness is not
founded in men’s or women’s ways. Then I came
to the final study. I needed it to help find not only
the answers but also the solution to the marriage
and divorce question. I wanted to see what some
of the key reasons for divorce were. After doing a
little research, this is what I found.
In the study “People’s Reasons for Divorce,”
208 people responded that their reasons for ending
their marriages included infidelity, incompatibility,
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Is it Still Necessary? 9
drinking or drug use, growing apart, personality
problems, or lack of communication (listed in or-
der of most commonly reported cause).4 These
were just the first six out of the eighteen reasons
for divorce listed in the study.
In the past, I have given marriage counsel-
ing to couples who came to me with their trou-
bles. I have often seen that after people get mar-
ried, the novelty of each other wears thin. They
begin thinking that they might have just made a
big mistake. They are unhappy and discouraged.
Eventually, the thought of divorce creeps into
their minds. It is looked to as an escape from an
unfortunate and uncomfortable situation. Then,
many end with the self-justification “God wants
me to be happy.” With that comes one of the other
most repeated statements I have heard. It goes like
this: “We thought we were in love, but once we re-
ally got to know each other, we found we were just
not compatible.” This process of thinking obvi-
ously isn’t making successful marriages.
In my marriage, some of the very same ar-
guments that I found in my research surfaced
like a nuclear sub. I saw so many marriages fail-
ing around me, and I didn’t want to be like that.
It frustrated me when I got angry with Deb,
too. I wanted to be like Jesus, to find something
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10 Marriage?
that worked and have a happy home, but at that
point in my life, I just didn’t know how. I knew
the Bible could be trusted, and I especially knew
it was right. However, the big question I had was
“Why then, if we were Christians, was it not work-
ing out?” I could have blamed it all on Deb—well,
at least ninety-five percent was her fault—but in
my heart I knew that wasn’t true. It had to be at
least fifty-fifty. When I was really honest with my-
self, I came to the conclusion that it might be a
little more me than her. I knew I would have to
dig deep to find the solutions we so desperately
needed. The first and foremost question I wanted
answered was “Why marriage?” Maybe it would
be better to never marry. I know God instituted
marriage. I always thought that He made it be-
cause we were not happy or because we were lone-
ly. What I found out took care of almost all of my
previous questions.
Why Marriage?
When the Lord created the world, He made
Adam before Eve. Adam named the animals and
walked around the Garden of Eden, but there was
something missing. God said, “It is not good that
man should be alone; I will make him a helper
comparable to him” (Genesis 2:18).
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