Basic HTML Version
Satan's world. Satan is the god of this world -- of its religions,
which are deceived by him.
As man rejected God's Laws and God's presence in his life --
as Israel even did, after God had intervened to give Israel His
Laws and ways -- God "gave them also statutes that were not good,
and judgments whereby they should not live..." (Ezek. 20:25). It
was like the expression in II Thess. 2:11: "And for this cause
[rejecting God's Truth -- verse 10] God shall send them strong
delusion, that they should believe a lie." In other words, God
GAVE THEM OVER to statutes, ordinances, governments, customs,
development of knowledge devoid of God's revealed knowledge -- and
WITHOUT GOD ENTERING INTO AND BECOMING PART OF THEIR LIVES. That
has penetrated even into the religions of this world, under Satan's
sway.
The ASSUMED Erroneous Premise
Thus, this greater IN-DEPTH study of I Corinthians 7 brought
to light the PREMISE on which our whole conception of marriage and
divorce was heretofore based: we assumed that GOD personally
looked down from heaven and witnessed and Himself BOUND every
marriage of a heathen, a pagan, a couple who has no religion -- in
short, ALL MARRIAGES of all the billions of human beings on earth.
God had revealed HIS LAW OF MARRIAGE -- His TRUTH about
marriage -- God's PURPOSE in marriage, its sanctity, its PERMANENCY
-- to His Church. And we applied that truth to ALL marriages,
ASSUMING that God entered into every marriage, EVEN THOUGH GOD HAD
NOT ENTERED INTO THE LIVES OF THOSE we SUPPOSED He had bound.
Let us REJOICE that God has revealed HIS TRUTH -- and that
God's Church DID hold fast that which God had revealed as good;
that we did not CHANGE until God revealed how HE HAD NOT HIMSELF
BOUND all marriages.
Unconverted people have never let GOD enter their lives. They
live APART from God -- CUT OFF from God -- because sin cuts one off
from contact with God (see Isa. 59:2). When they have never let
God come into their lives -- have been CUT OFF from contact with
Him -- could He enter into their MARRIAGES and BIND them?
God allows the world to have its governments -- to legislate
such things as war, peace; to regulate the commercial, industrial
and social affairs; to make its own laws of marriage. The
UNconverted are BOUND by the state, but NOT DIRECTLY BY GOD!
Their marriages are LEGAL. Their children are LEGITIMATE -- in
no sense bastards -- but the children of the unconverted are not
HOLY. They do not have this special blessing from God.
These verses I am discussing in I Corinthians 7 were never
clear to us in God's Church before.
But now back to I Corinthians 7.
Notice, now, verse 15: "But if the unbelieving depart, let