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possible -- that is, a completely revised and FINAL booklet on
marriage and divorce.
One of America's greatest tragedies -- one of her colossal
sins and of the whole world today -- is the breaking up of families
through the wringer of divorce. God's Church puts major emphasis
on this national and international crime.
A strong and firm family structure is a basic building block
of any happy and stable society.
But when we have encountered so many cases of a present happy
family, where one party to the marriage has been divorced from a
previous marriage, it has been a real heartbreaking experience to
the ministry of God's Church to be required, according to our
former understanding, to tell them this present marriage is
adulterous -- that the present family must be broken up if they are
to enter God's Kingdom. We assumed every first marriage, unless
fraud was involved, was bound for life by the Living God. Not only
did we assume that -- the present dissident ministers who went out
of God's Church assumed it. So far as we knew, everybody who had
any biblical knowledge at all assumed it.
One incident spurred me to immediate and decisive further
extra-intensive effort to insist our research team enter upon a new
crash program to see if God's Word anywhere allowed such a second
marriage to continue.
One man on our staff here at Headquarters asked to see me a
few days before the approaching worldwide Ministers' Conference.
With him was the woman from whom he had separated a few years ago,
in order to be baptized and to enter the Church of God. She was a
"spiritual widow," subsisting on third tithe which was
insufficient. They had children. She was living in Ohio; he in
Pasadena.
He didn't want to live any longer. They were both in a state
of virtual hopelessness and mental anguish. I felt helpless --
just as I have felt before when faced with similar tragedies; just
as our ministers from all over the world feel. I had to tell
them I could do nothing -- unless God could show me where He
authorized them to go back together -- and that seemed hopeless,
because God does not authorize us to act contrary to His Law. What
I did not know then was that God had not bound such cases. But I
promised I would immediately order this crash re-study.
No matter how much anguish is caused -- and we ministers have
suffered this anguish along with the victims -- God's Church cannot
depart from God's Laws or His Truth.
Brethren, this very experience ought to teach all that loyalty
to God and to His Church must always be placed first, over supposed
or real wrongs or personal grievances. God has given those of us
who are loyal to Him and His Word the relief we relied on Him to
give us.
Also there were the many cases of individuals living single