9 Responses to “December 24, 2009”

1. Robert Klous
   December 28th, 2009 @ 7:21 pm

   I am totally with you on this topic. I have read all of Ravenhill’s books. Wesley Duewel’s Touch the World through Prayer is also a great book on prayer. I am a few years older than you, and have been through Dallas Theo Sem with a Th. M. and elsewhere with more education. Unfortunately today, so many leave the seminaries spiritually dead, like those those enter the cemetaries physically dead. I live in VA and would like to connect with your ministry in the near future. I have practically memorized the New Testament as you have apparently have mastered the Old Testament. Keep in touch, maybe we can join up to battle the grand old and defeated enemy, the devil. check out myspace, Seeking REvolutionary REvival for its hundred blogs or so to see my philosophy of ministry; blogs dating back to 2006. God bless Robert

2. Richard Coords
   December 31st, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

   Hello Dr. Brown,

   Regarding remarriage, I’m single, so this doesn’t apply to me personally, but I do have a theological question, as it pertains to the wider issue of Licentiousness vs. Legalism.

   At 22:37, you said, “Could that endanger your salvation? Yes.”

   At Matthew 19:9 and Mark 10:12, Jesus confirmed that those who have remarried, for causes other than adultery, are indeed guilty of adultery, but I think that you go one step further than Jesus in these two passages, when you say that as such, they cannot be saved, unless they reconcile with the first person that they were with, or else to break up and remain single. However, you rightly point out 1st Corinthians 6:9 where Paul states that there will be no adulterers in Heaven. But, when Paul specifically deals with marriage at 1st Corinthians 7:10-11, he stops short of making it a “salvation issue,” as you have. Paul states: “But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.”

   So why were Jesus and Paul less explicit than you? You said that you are merely repeating what is “clear and obvious in the Bible.” You said, “Well, it would mean, as I understand it, repenting of that second marriage and reconciling with the person that he was married to. That’s how I understand it.” So why didn’t Jesus and Paul, break it down as a salvation issue, as you have?

   The danger is that it reminds me of the Jailor who asked Paul: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30) But if we follow your logic, wouldn’t Paul have to say, “Well, are you in a biblically correct marriage? Does your life perfectly conform to the Law, down to the smallest letter? You must first get your life right with the Law, before you can get your salvation from the Lord.”

   So this triggers the two potential extremes: Licentiousness vs. Legalism. Paul states that we are “not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:14) So, one extreme might argue that it gives license to sin, as being unconditionally dead to the Law, while the other extreme argues for perfect adherence to the Law, which is Legalism. Thoughts?

3. Dr. Michael L. Brown
   December 31st, 2009 @ 10:48 pm

   Richard,

   Please read carefully passages such as 1 Cor 6:9-10; Eph 5:3-5; among other verses that make clear that a practicing adulterer will not inherit the kingdom of God. If Jesus therefore says that unjustified divorce and remarriage constitute adultery, then that would obviously endanger someone’s salvation. I am saying nothing more than what the Word of God plainly says. God saves us freely and calls to serve Him, commanding us to turn from evil (see, among many verses, 2 Tim 2:19). If we refuse, we will pay the consequences.

   All of us fall short, for which we repent and receive mercy. But if we harden our hearts and turn away from God’s ways, we can forfeit our salvation, a repeated warning in Hebrews.

   That being said, I have no idea what connection there is between all this and Paul’s words to the jailer in Acts 16, as per your question.

4. Richard Coords
   December 31st, 2009 @ 11:26 pm

   Hello Dr. Brown,

   First of all, Happy New Year and may God bless your ministry and awesome radio program in 2010.

   Let me give a real life illustration:

   A woman cheats on her faithful husband, and her lover murders him, and then the two get married and have children. Essentially they are both living in an adulterous marriage. Since they refuse to break up and live as singles, would you say that their salvation is in danger? Their names are David and Bathsheba.

   There are people in remarriages with children, and then they get saved, and now as brand new Christians, we have to tell them that they will go to Hell if they don’t break up?

   What about a woman who lived with her boyfriend for a couple years, but never got “technically married,” and then they broke up, and eventually she meets another man and they get married. Technically, and legally, it’s her first marriage, but she is little different from someone who was legally married and divorced. Would counsel her to reconcile with her original boyfriend?

5. Dr Michael L Brown
   January 1st, 2010 @ 1:26 am

   Richard,

   Happy New Year, and thanks for the kind words. I’m sorry that I don’t have more time to pursue the questions you’re asking here, but in short, David repented of his adultery and murder, God forgave him (although there were grave consequences), and he went on blessed.

   There are endless possible scenarios, but I think the witness of the Word is quite clear on the main points.

   Bless you!

6. Bo
   January 3rd, 2010 @ 1:45 pm

   Thank you Dr. Brown for standing firm on the truth once again. It is very difficult to be a “John the baptist” sort of fellow in this unrepentant country. John said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother Philip’s wife.”

   The church has watered down the truth to the point that we have remarried pastors and elders. And that certainly doesn’t jive with Pauls letters to Timothy and Titus. It grieves me to see the blind leading the blind right off the deep end into the lake of fire.

   This topic, divorce and remarriage, is one that hits home with almost everyone in the US. We all have loved ones that are living in adultery and do not want to accept the responsibility of their actions. It would truly be better for them to cut off the one they are seeing and touching and cast them from them and enter into life mamed than to continue the relationship and be cast into hell. (Mat. 5:27-32)

   This is a hard saying, who can hear it.

   Shalom

7. Bo
   January 3rd, 2010 @ 1:48 pm

   That last sentance was supposed to be a question.

   This is a hard saying, who can hear it?

8. Elizabeth Mirandes
   January 18th, 2010 @ 9:36 pm

   I am a witness of the living word of G-d. I divorce and remarried and my soul, spirit and body are witnesses of the sin of adultery. The Holy Spirit made me experience it with a powerful grieve of repentance. When my ex husband remarried also, I felt the same sin committed against my own body. I know it sounds weird but later I research the explanation and truth behind of all my experience G-d is never wrong, nor He is a man to change his mind. When He says, ” And the two shall become one flesh”, know that a supernatural happening took place, that is impossible to perceive unless is by the power of the Holy Spirit in line with the Word of G-d.
   For those out there who choose to believe that this is a legalistic opinion or refute Dr. Michael Brown and G-d’s Truth, I recommend the following books as powerful research in this subject: ” Till death do us apart? and “Divorce and Remarriage” by Joseph Webb Th.D., Ph.D. and Patricia Webb Ph.D.

9. Dr Michael L Brown
   January 18th, 2010 @ 10:02 pm

   Elizabeth,

   What a painful and poignant story. Thanks so much for being willing to share it publicly, and may God’s grace bring healing and restoration in your life.

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