June 18, 2007 8:23 PM

The Truth About Divorce
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January 2003

What Will 2003 Bring?

As we face this new year of opportunities I was asking the Lord for a word to encourage and challenge you. Some of you have been such faithful prayer warriors and supporters for years, while others have just recently chosen to be a part of this vital outreach.

For the past twenty years the Lord has allowed me the privilege of declaring this truth about marriage and divorce. Let me say to those of you who have recently purchased my book and tapes and have realized the seriousness of this problem in the Church; Chances are that you have no idea what we have experienced to have gotten to where we are today. I can remember a time when I didn’t know where I was going to get the monies to mail out the books people were ordering; A time when we had no literature and all receipts were hand written. I can still remember how my wife and I had to retype the first edition of the book seven times before we had enough courage to get it printed, and had to get the printer to allow us almost a year to pay him for the first printing.

I remember my first radio interview in Tampa, FL that led to my first television interview in St. Petersburg, FL. When I came out of the studio from that interview, I remember the lady at the switchboard asking me, “What in the world did you say in there? My switchboard is about to burn out with people very upset.

I can remember a lady who was very active in several ministries, having listened to the first set of tapes I ever produced, get within about four inches of my nose and scream, “You are a false prophet and are teaching lies!”

I can remember over the years pastors telling me they had no interest at all in reading my book. They knew what they believed and weren’t about to be confused with any facts to the contrary.

I have had groups tell me they were praying that God would judge me and bring curses on me because I was causing so much agony and division in their organization. Other large ministry leaders who have listened to this teaching have said; “I know what you are teaching is true, but we would never dare to teach it or we would lose over eighty percent of our support.

By now, you might be asking, “Why are you telling us all of this? Why is this necessary?”

I am telling you this to let you know that we are in the days which Paul spoke when he wrote to Timothy. II Timothy 4:3-5 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselvesteachers, having itching ears; (telling them what they want to hear.) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (Men’s misguided ideas.) But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, , make full proof of thy ministry.”

What I experience in this ministry is what every Christian should experience if he or she are to fulfill Paul’s exhortation to Timothy. There are no “armed forces” in the Lord’s army. We are the army and every one of us are required to get into the fray.

If the message the Lord has put on my heart is consistent with the whole Bible, and the holiness of our God; If it is a commandment and we are commanded to “Keep His commandments.” Then it is not enough to read the book and say “Amen.” It is not enough to send an offering once in awhile to support what we are doing. If it is truth, we are responsible to declare and share it.

Some of us would say, “If I did that I would lose all of my friends.” If that is true, we don’t have the right kind of friends. But, if losing our friends would stop us from declaring something we knew to be consistent with God’s will and word, then we need to reread Luke 14:25-35.

Today, there are many who have committed themselves to get this message out to their area of influence and are paying a dear price. One couple found out their denomination headquarters had ordered their state overseers to cancel out seven state-wide that had been set up for me to teach in one year. That late cancellation just about devastated my travel schedule for the year, but the Lord had other plans for me then.

This young couple were committed to their denomination and local church, but not more than they were to being faithful to the Word of God. They prayed and decided the Lord wanted them to do something personally to get this truth to their denomination. They were a self employed couple with a very busy schedule but felt the Lord impressed them to step out and get the message to their denominational pastors, regardless of the cost.

At great expense they had a book and two tapes sent to every pastor of their denomination in the seven states where the pastor’s seminars had been cancelled. The result has been an overwhelming vote on the part of their denomination at the last general assembly to refuse the setting aside of the clear teaching about marriage and divorce.

That is the bright side of the story. The other side is that the couple was forced out of their home church where they had been faithful workers for years, and have since experienced many health problems and financial difficulties. Some in their denomination who wanted to see this theology change have castigated them in the denomination.

You might suppose these experiences would cool them off and silence their witness, or weaken their conviction. If that is what you supposed, you couldn’t be further from the truth. You see, this couple knows that a conviction is different from a persuasion. Their last correspondence to me asked me to send them more cases of books for another opportunity to get this truth out. They wrote, “Just because the devil is knocking our family around does not mean that God is not working or that we are not alive...We will let you know what happens.”

How many of us are really willing, for the sake of the Gospel, to:“endure afflictions, make full proof of thy ministry?” This is what it will take if we are to succeed in restoring this message to the Church. Every one influencing everyone they can where they are, regardless of the consequences, that some might be saved and encouraged to reach others.

Pat and I cannot thank the Lord enough for so many of you who have paid a price to declare this truth with others. Some of you have been asked to leave your home churches, or, been ostracized by your families and some have experienced financial struggles; but you have learned to “endure afflictions.” Like Paul, the Apostle, you have learned to place your relationship to Jesus Christ and His gospel above everything else, regardless of the cost.

Paul asked the Church of Rome a pertinent question that we should ask ourselves regularly: “What shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Romans 8:35-37

If we truly believe this message about marriage and divorce and biblical principles are vital and true messages, we encourage you to ask the Lord what more you can do this year, regardless of the cost, to help make this message known.

We are now being asked to travel overseas this year to help other believers learn these truths; but if the necessary finances aren’t there, we can’t go. We are preparing new sets of teaching tapes to help many who have no home church to help them grow, but if the finances aren’t there, we cannot do this.

I am not saying this as a complaint. The Lord has been so faithful to provide for our needs this past year in every way. We have been able to buy equipment to edit and reproduce tapes and permanently store them on CDs, and to provide some free materials for national pastors overseas who desire to learn balanced teaching to teach others.

This year, as the Lord provides, I have committed myself to meet with small groups all over the country to help establish themselves in this truth and begin to build a firm base of believers who can begin to influence others in those areas.

There is much to do, and we continue to covet your prayers while we pray that each of you will not get discouraged, but rather, “Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord inasmuch as ye know your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Amen!

QUOTATION FROM A.W. TOZER:

“The truth resolves some difficulties and creates others. “The truth shall make you free”; that is, free from the woes, the yokes, the burdens which sin imposes. Yet that same truth brings problems of another kind. It cannot be otherwise, since we are forced to entertain truth in a world dedicated to the lie. Human society is in a quiet conspiracy against the truth as far as it touches spiritual and moral things.