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  • Remarriage After Divorce?

    Question : I was married to a non believer for 17yrs, I had always believed in God, but was unaware of the born again experience an in receiving Jesus until after I divorced. I remarried a much younger man, we are both Christian, I fear where it says if one remarries, makes the partner an adulterer.

    Answer:

    Do not fear. In the dispensation of Grace, because we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into Christ’s death, we have been freed from all sin after we believed in Christ as our Savior.

    This is shown in Rom 6:3-11,14

    Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

    Also, since we are not under law, but under grace (Rom 6:14), we are not under the marriage laws on divorce and remarriage. This doesn’t mean they have no meaning, it just means the blood of Christ has freed us from the penalty of death. We don’t try to keep those laws. Instead, we should focus on loving God and allow Him to fill us with His love. Then we by faith should let His love show in our lives.

    But in the dispensation of grace, when the law is no longer in power for believers, God wants the husbands, according to Eph 5:25-33, to:

    “love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself.”

    1 Co 6:7,12 says,

    “Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? 12 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”,

    This is not the problem. God, indeed, hates divorce. Under Christ’s interpretation of the law in Matthew 5, there was only one ground for divorce:

    Mat 5:31,32 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘˜Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.”

    An important passage on this subject is found in 1 Co 7:10-28

    Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. 11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. 12 But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. 13 And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. 15 But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. 16 For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? 17 But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk. And so I ordain in all the churches. 18 Was anyone called while circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Was anyone called while uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. 20 Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called. 21 Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. 22 For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 Brethren, let each one remain with God in that state in which he was called. 25 Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy. 26 I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress – that it is good for a man to remain as he is: 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you.

    God seems to say it is all right to get remarried if a person is divorced:
    Let’s look at 1 Co 7:27,28 again,“Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you.” This shows us that the sin is in the divorce. If you remarry, you have not sinned. This doesn’t mean God wants us to sin or divorce. He wants us to live for Him freely. I’ve been married to my wife, Joan, for 46 years. We were not married to anyone else, before, so this is not a defense I am making for myself. It is the way grace operates.

    In Christ,
    Bob Hill

  • Why is it that if we sin we will die?

    Why is it that if we sin we will die? I searched for verses to answer that question and after searching I have come up with the idea that it might not be sin itself but the Knowledge of good and evil that causes us to die. Gen. 7:17, Romans 7:13. So my question is: (before we are saved) is it our sins that actually causes us to die or is it obtaining the knowledge of good and evil that causes us to die? It is impossible for us to live without sinning. (Romans 3:23) So is it really the sin that causes us to die or is it the knowledge of the sin?

    Great question. The Scriptures show quite often that it is sin that causes death. Here are some of the Scripture passages that show that.

    Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned

    Rom 6:3-11,16,22,23 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 16Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 22But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    Rom 7:5,13 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 13Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

    Rom 8:2-4 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

    1 Co 15:54-56 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

  • The Problem of an Evil World and a Good God

    The Problem of Evil is a big deal and often goes misunderstood. The problem is “If God is good, how can he create a world that is so evil? How can evil exist with a good God?”

    I am an Open Theist, I believe this theology to be consistent with the Bible for many reasons, This is an invitation to see the answer through it’s scope.

     Open Theism, if you don’t know, believes the future is open, even to God, to change and some uncertainty and is thus unwritten. Using this theology answers many of the questions about the problem of evil when you apply freewill to the equation.

    It might be a strange question, but think about it: What if God cannot see beyond the decisions we have not yet made. Many say the tests God puts man through are for man to know the outcome… I say that they are so God knows too. When Abram went to Sacrifice his son, God was testing to see if he loved God, and when God knew the answer, he admitted, “NOW I know.“

    Adam and Eve weren’t give the tree as a test for their own good…. If God knew the future, he would have known the outcome was not good. Instead, the tree was about choice, a choice we needed to have in order to be free.

    Being free is important for us because it allows for us to experience and give true love. But being free means we need to have a way to reject love. God created a world, perfect and sinless and intended it to stay that way. His creation was good, and saw no evil.

    But this creation requires a certain amount or rules and order to function correctly. He made gravity, for example. It always pulls things down. He made rocks hard, he made ground soft, each has its reason for being made the way it is. God made man with very complex bodies and a powerful mind. But if a man were to jump off a cliff, gravity would take over and that man’s body simply cannot withstand the impact.

     God didn’t create event of a man jumping off a cliff leading to his death, this suffering is not a creation at all. If is rather a choice that man made.

    Man took the good things God created and began to use them in ways that opposed the order of things. It is just a choice.

    I believe God did not know that Adam would eat of the forbidden tree. I do not think God knew the men to follow Adam would sin in much much worst ways than he did. He knew it was a possibility, which is why he planned from the very beginning, and before that even, to allow Jesus to be the sacrifice that would atone the world of those who wished to be atoned.

    Why is Everyone Evil?

    Did we really get evil because we inherited it from Adam? I think not, when you have a theology that says everything is planned, It is easy to believe that God made us evil (supposedly for his GOOD purposes….), but I do not believe either to be the case.

    What God did was give us a law, written in our heart. Paul talks about all this in the first few chapters of Romans. The first law, was written on our hearts. Remember, Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. Not of the tree of MAKE ME EVIL, as predestinationalist think.

    Adam and Eve received this knowledge, a law, of what is to do and what not to do. They didn’t have it before, they relied on God for such understandings. Eating the tree was the perfect way to leave God because now, no longer do you need God to know what to do, you can look to this law, written on your heart, your conscience.

    Now, evil is not that God made us naturally evil because Adam was that way. God did tho give us all this conscience because of Adam. God saw it fitting to let us all have this conscience because Adam had one now. The conscience can be thought of as the first law.

    It, as it turns out, is this law that, in essence, brings about sin. Paul goes on about this in his writing. He asks that because of this “feature” of the law, does that make the law sin too? No, because the law is meant to prevent this sin. It is the person who uses the law to find out what sin is to commit that sin and then fall from God.

    But the thing you might wonder is why does everyone sin? Not because God made us that way… it isn’t built in our hearts and souls to sin. Some want this to be true because they argue “It creates a need for Christ,” what they fail to see is that we always have that need, be it for forgiveness, or just the oxygen that we breathe.

    We were all given these incredibly strong and complex bodies, a fantastically designed mind, and the great and wonderful freedom to go in the path we wish. It is a power we have, compared to other creation, we have super powers, if you will.

    We often do not want to give up this power or want more for ourselves and use our knowledge of evil to get it, in some small way, or some bigger way. Wanting power isn’t bad, I think we were designed to want to grow and gain for for ourselves, but that good desire along with our knowledge of sin is a troubling combination, but necessary to instill order in the human race who has chosen to live without God’s help.

     So evil by nature? Not quite… at least not in the way some say.

     Natural Evil

    Natural Evil includes other evils of the world, such as natural disasters and disease.

    There are many aspects of life today that were not issues for man in the garden. Disease, for example could be cured instantly by the tree of life… But I do not believe disease was a problem for early man. The same goes for natural disasters.

    The Flood is the event that I believe changed everything. Before the flood, men lived for hundreds of years, then gradually the life span shortened. God said he intended to destroy the earth, he did.

    I believe the flood caused new mountains to be formed, the elevation to change and the atmosphere to change. I believe the water that covered the earth fell into what is now the atlantic ocean as the mountains formed. This triggered all sorts of conditions that threw off the true natural balance.

    The piles of dead flesh, the gigantic mass of water, just imagine what mutations of viruses and bacteria would result. These things that were good before the flood and had a good function changed over time, and still are changing.

    The flood rearranged the entire earth, weather, the land, everything changed. Earthquakes, hurricanes, everything was made possible from this one event.

    That’s my theory. If I am wrong, it doesn’t matter. By faith we can know God didn’t cause unjust evilness(wickedness) in this world.

     Open Theism

    Open Theism is a theology that you can use to sort through this yourself. It frees preconceived notions from your mind so you can read the bible without adding your own ideas… It is fully compatible with the word. Best of all, it erases the ideas that a Good God caused Evil, and allows you to see God as one of passion and who is flexible, who can change his mind and who can do is he really wishes.

     God is all knowing… but the future isn’t a thing to be known because God didn’t create and predestine every little thing. The future is open, not settled. It completely solves the problem of evil and helps one to understand what the Bible is saying.

  • God Understands Suffering

    Many people think God is so powerful that he cannot know suffering and sadness. While it is true that God is powerful, he can know suffering.

    Saying God can feel pain does not mean he is a weak god. Having feelings is not a weakness, it simply means He cares.

    He takes advantage of the situation to make the best of it.

    Psalm 10:14
    But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief,To repay it by Your hand. The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.

    When sorrow has you, he knows what is going on. He can even relate to it; if you are suffering over something you do not deserve, or if you grieve over a loss beyond your control, he can understand your pain.

    Remember, God endures the loss of love all the time. Daily people are making the choice to follow him, or to reject him. God leaves the choice up to the individual, and even though the promise of good things that are to come, some turn from his ways for sin.

    God loses these people, and it must break his heart. For he loved them, yet they reject his love and his way. Try to hear the desire in his passage to Jerusalem:

    Matthew 23:37
    O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

    Think about the love a mother hen has for her chicks. She keeps them warm under her wings, and as one family, they rest together. This is the kind of relationship Jesus says he wants with us. Not only does he want it now, he says “Often I wanted…” For a long time, he has desired this. Yet the unwilling reject God.

    God knows pain and rejection. But he can take it, and he can deal with it. He can make it right, and make the best of it.

    We should be glad to be with God, for he knows our suffering, and he knows how to make it right.

    You should take time to read Psalm 31. Here are a few highlights from that passage:

    7 I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities,

    14 But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD; I say,”You are my God.” 15 My times are in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, And from those who persecute me.

    19 Oh, how great is Your goodness, Which You have laid up for those who fear You, Which You have prepared for those who trust in You In the presence of the sons of men!

    23 Oh, love the LORD, all you His saints! For the LORD preserves the faithful, And fully repays the proud person. 24 Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the LORD.

    Even though you may see no escape from your suffering, God is there. He understands, and you can talk to him about them, knowing he can relate. Pray to God, go under his wing.

    He has good things waiting for those who wait on him. Be strong and pray for patience. Pray for understanding and wisdom, knowing He hears you and can answer. It is important to talk to God in the hard times, but most of all it is important to know he really does hear, and can really relate.

  • Evangelism, “How to”

    Sharing the gospel takes guts, yet it is as simple as opening your mouth. Listen to Pastor Adam talk about how Paul reached out to King Agrippa, and find out what we can learn from his example.

    Pastor Adam’s Website.

  • Victory by Grace

    Being set free through Christ’s grace means can know it is ours no matter what life brings. Nothing can separate us from the Grace of God!

    Listen to “Victory by Grace” by ShorewoodBibleChurch.org

    For More Studies from Shorewood Bible Church, visit his list of audio studies by clicking here.

  • Forgive, No Matter What?

    Should christians require repentance before forgiving others, or should they always forgive no matter what? Pastors Bob Enyart and Steve Perry go through a number of forgiveness verses to explore this issue.