Going On Unto Perfection
Preaching Classes Level 9 - Lesson #6
Dealing With Messy Divorces In The Congregation
By Art Wallis
Introduction: Few congregations of the Lord’s church have been fortunate enough to survive without the divorce of members within the congregation. At the start of this lesson, let us realize some things that God has told us about this subject.
1. God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). Look what it does to families. It often causes all sorts of emotional problems for the children. Some children go all of their lives thinking that the divorce in some way was their fault. In all likelihood, it will make the wife an adulteress if she is divorced – Matt. 5:32 – because, especially if she is young, she may need sexual gratification and the hope of having children, so she will seek male companionship and that will usually end up making her an adulteress. And the man who marries her will be in an adulterous relationship with her.
(yes, I know all about the “innocent party” argument, but I have never personally known anyone who was totally innocent in the breakup of their marriage….they may have had a wrong attitude, a wrong action, or a wrong reaction; maybe they didn’t keep themselves up….that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some out there who are totally the “innocent party”, but I personally haven’t known of any)
2. But, God still loves those who have gone through divorce. (Malachi 2:13-16)
A. People cry because it seems God doesn’t regard their offerings – no blessings
B. It is because of unfaithfulness between the man and the wife of his youth
1) she is his companion and the wife of his covenant (God has nothing good to say about covenant-breakers)
2) there can be no Godly children/offspring if the husband is sowing seed in the wrong field. God wants godly offspring. Divorce often turns godly offspring into “cleaver devils” as they act out because of not knowing how to handle the divorce at their young age.
C. Do not be “faithless” to the wife of your youth.
D. God hates divorce (what it does to the family and people associated with the family)
E. It is interesting that family violence is also mentioned in vs. 16.
F. Do not be faithless to your wife, but rather take heed to God’s warning.
G. How much better would our nation be if husbands and wives were “totally faithful” to each other; and how much better off would the Lord’s church be if husbands and wives were “totally faithful” to each other, too? (that means NO PORNOGRAPHY, too!)
3. Applying the “Hate the Sin But Love the Sinner” Principle (John 4:7-42 – the woman at Jacob’s well)
A. Jesus reads hearts and minds
B. This woman had come for water from the well; Jesus offers her Living Water
C. Jesus asks for her to bring her husband
D. This woman says she has no husband.
E. Jesus tells her she has had 5 husbands and is just living with the man she has now.
F. To change the subject, she decides Jesus must be some sort of a prophet, so she asks Him a religious question about where it is proper to worship God.
G. She asks about the coming of the Messiah.
H. Jesus admits that He is that Messiah.
I. The woman leaves her water pot and goes into the city to tell everyone that Jesus is that Messiah; they can go see Him for themselves.
J. Not only did they believe in Jesus because of what the woman had told about Him, but now they had heard for themselves and concluded that Jesus is indeed the Savior of the world.
K. Jesus did not condone her sin, but He treated her with kindness and as a result she brought the whole city out to Jesus.
4. See also Ephesians 5:21 – 6:4 dealing with family.
A. There is a certain amount of mutual submission that must go on within the family- Eph. 5:21
B. The husband is to be the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.
C. Husbands are to love their wives. Without this love there can be no respect or trust on the part of their wives.
D. Men, when you make the wife the queen of your castle, she will respond by being sure you are the king of the castle.
E. Love your wife as you love yourself. She is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. You were made for each other.
F. There must be a leaving, a cleaving (sticking together like glue through thick and thin), and a oneness in many areas of the marriage.
G. Paul restates for emphasis in vs. 33, men are to love their wife as they love themselves, and the wife is to respect her husband.
H. Children have a part in a happy home, too, for they are to obey their parents.
I. Children are to honor their father and mother.
J. A warning to the dads, don’t provoke your children to anger; don’t torment and tease them until you break their spirit
K. See also I Peter 3:1-7
5. Trouble in Our Land - See Malachi 4:6
A. When the day of the Lord was to come (coming of Christ from vs. 5)
1) Jesus would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children
2) Jesus would turn the hearts of the children to their fathers
3) If they will not turn their hearts, God would come and smite the land with a curse.
a. many of the “problems” our nation faces today are not “the problem”, they are “symptoms” of the “problem” of the separation within families caused by divorce. We are experiencing this curse in America today.
Few things hurt the inner workings of a congregation as much as a divorce in the church family and the events and situations that have lead up to the divorce. Divorce is a scourge in America today. Even if the couple divorces amicably, if there are children involved, there will be long term inconveniences, if not outright problems in the future.
(Go to next page for the rest of the lesson)
Some things we can and should do when a couple is headed for a divorce:
1. Try to be sympathetic.
2. Try to be encouraging – be praying for them and let them know you are praying.
3. DO NOT TAKE SIDES! – You do not know all the facts and chances are you are only getting the information from one side or the other of the dispute. You can listen; but don’t take sides.
4. Unless you have had professional training in marriage counseling, if things get too serious, you need to refer the church couple to a trained marriage counselor or marriage therapist.
5. If the couple must part, encourage them to part as friends. Especially if there are children involved, their lives will cross paths over and over again until the children are at least 18 years old, especially in the case of joint custody.
6. The best thing to do is to try to prevent situations where divorce may eventually be the end result.
A. Have special Bible classes geared toward making marriages stronger.
B. Maybe we could bring in specially trained members of the church to help strengthen the marriages of our members (i.e. Faulkern/Bracheen Marriage Enrichment Series). (This could also be used to try to bring in non-members from the community to strengthen their marriages…thus a tool to help in our evangelism efforts)
C. Young couples can encourage young couples to work through their problems and be examples by working through examples in your own marriages.
D. Older couples who have weathered the tests of time could perhaps mentor some of the younger couples and invite them into their homes and encourage them in their child-raising and family skills.
7. But there will be times when there is sin in the camp, there is a lack of repentance on the part of the guilty one, the marriage is in the dumpster and the only way out is a Scriptural divorce. What do you do then?
A. Try to encourage them to deflect their anger away from each other or the kids.
B. Help them try to get back on their feet spiritually, socially, and emotionally.
C. As one church woman, who had just shot her husband, said, when asked why she had done that, “I knew the church would more easily forgive me for killing him than it would if I divorced him.”
8. And what about cases like with the younger Winkler family, where the wife shot her husband in the back, then took the kids on an out of state vacation? What messes we can get into. What messes some homes are in, but from the outside everything looks fine until something really disastrous happens.
On the next few pages I have downloaded some factual information about divorces in America and what some of the laws concerning divorce are for the state of Iowa. How sad.
May God bless our Christian homes!