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PERMANENCY of marriage. Two of God's Ten Commandments protect the
permanency of that sacred and holy union.
Divorce Question Plagued Church
But today we live in a deceived and sinning world. Satan is
the god of this world. It does not KNOW the true God, nor His
Laws, nor does it UNDERSTAND the meaning and PURPOSE of marriage.
It is a world plagued with broken marriages and broken
families. This type of violation of God's Law produces much
SUFFERING. More than one in every four marriages is now broken by
divorce -- approaching one in three.
Of prospective Church members -- those applying for baptism --
somewhere near one in five, or one in four, have been divorced, and
most of these remarried. In order to qualify to be baptized and
accepted into God's Church MANY have been required by the Church,
knowing this teaching, to separate from a second marriage -- in
many cases a happy marriage with children.
This brought on a growing class of what came to be called
"spiritual widows" -- women separated from such a second marriage,
unable to support themselves (and often children) and therefore
living on third tithe. Also many divorced from a former marriage
were plagued with the desire to remarry -- forbidden by the Church.
Some began studying the Bible to find a way around this law
and to justify remarriage after divorce from a first mate. A book
was found, attempting to justify such remarriage without one being
called an "adulteress" or an "adulterer." Several tried to justify
a conclusion opposite to PLAIN SCRIPTURE by trying to prove that
the word "fornication" used by Jesus in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 --
translated from the Greek word porneia -- could mean the equivalent
of "adultery." Efforts were made to read meanings into Deut. 24:
1-4, Jer. 3, and Hosea to allow for divorce and remarriage.
I appointed a team of scholars and researchers to research
this question with a fine-tooth comb -- NOT to find a way to twist
or distort or misapply God's Word, but to find the TRUTH. After
this team had been studying the question and researching for some
time all angles purported to justify remarriage after divorce, I
promised, in December, 1972, to carefully study the papers prepared
by the team and produce a new booklet on the subject as soon as
possible.
This I did. I studied carefully the reports of the researches
of the several members of the team. In addition, at the same time,
there was my own further study of all these points of contention.
The result was a new 96-page booklet titled Marriage and Divorce.
I proved, adequately and conclusively, in it, that the maneuvering
and twistings and human-reason arguments endeavoring to prove God's
spiritual Law of marriage allowed divorce and remarriage were
false, and that God's spiritual Law STANDS, immutable!
GOD'S CHURCH WILL NOT COMPROMISE WITH GOD'S LAW, or with the