Truth Magazine

By R.J. Stevens

And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.” Some are teaching that the “whosoever” and the “whoso” refer only to believers; namely, those in covenant relationship with God. Most of those who espouse this doctrine also teach that a believer who is living in an unlawful marriage (adulterous relationship) would have to dissolve that marriage to save his or her soul. They believe repentance and prayer, which is the law of pardon for the believer, involves turning from the sin of adultery and/or any other sin in order to be forgiven as a child of God (Acts 8:22).

On the other hand, they teach that an unbeliever who is living in an unlawful marriage (adulterous relationship) would not have to dissolve his marriage if he repents and is baptized. If repentance to the believer means dissolving an unlawful marriage, would not repentance to the unbeliever involve dissolving an unlawful marriage? We need to realize that the book of Matthew was written after the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and was primarily for the benefit of Jewish believers and unbelievers.

Let us consider some rhetorical questions. Can an unbeliever and a believer commit and thus be guilty o’f the same immoral sins? Can an unbeliever and a believer both love their neighbor? Can an unbeliever and a believer both be morally pure? an both obey the laws of the land? Can both he lawfully married? Can a believer and/or an unbeliever put away his or her companion for fornication and marry another without committing adultery? There is only one passage that gives both the believer and he unbeliever that right and it is found in Matthew 19:9.

Can a believer become an unbeliever? According to Hebrews 4:1-11, we learn that believers can fall into unbelief. Can a Christian who is living in an unlawful marriage say that he did not have enough faith when he was first baptized and thus be baptized again and continue to live in an adulterous relationship? This is not hypothetical – we heard a man say this very thing. He felt that being baptized again would make his second marriage lawful.

Not very long ago, we heard a terribly strange doctrine on one of the television talk shows. There is an atheistic organization, with headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, advocating people to go through their ceremony of being “de-baptized.” It sounded weird then but it is even stranger today. They were proud of denying their faith and encouraging others to do the same. You don’t have to go through their ceremony to deny your faith. Can anyone who has lost his faith and is living in adultery regain his faith and be re-baptized? Does his second baptism sanctify his adulterous marriage, making it a lawful relationship for him to continue in? The answer is no because his second baptism would not sanctify his adulterous marriage any more than his first baptism. Surely we can see that repentance, as it relates to an adulterous marriage, demands turning from the sin of adultery and not continuing in it.

The fornicator of 1 Corinthians 5 had his father’s wife. Was his father a believer? We don’t know, but it doesn’t make any difference. Was his father’s wife a believer? More than likely she was not, because the instructions Paul gave the church at Corinth concerned the man, who was a believer. Did he have her before he was baptized or after his baptism? It doesn’t say because it doesn’t make any difference. Did this man need to repent and dissolve this adulterous relationship? 1 Corinthians 5:5 says he had to be withdrawn from to save his soul in judgment. Furthermore, 2 Corinthians 2:6-8, implies the punishment had accomplished what Paul desired. Thus, this man truly repented.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 teaches that some of the Corinthians had been homosexuals, idolaters, fornicators and adulterers. If one can see that obeying the gospel involves the homosexual putting away his homosexual partner, the idolater putting away his idol or the polygamist putting away his many wives, he ought to see that the adulterer needs to put away his adulterous partner. God and his people in Corinth could not have fellowship with the fornicator who had his father’s wife. The reason is because the only way any fornicator can have fellowship with God and his people is to quit fornicating – just as the guilty man, in 1 Corinthians 5, did by severing his relationship with his father’s wife. We are not saying this to destroy souls but we are hopeful that it will help souls to be saved in the day of judgment.

Many Have Chosen To Be Unmarried

The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34, made it clear that people do not have to be married to go to heaven. In fact some have married companions that have destroyed their hope of heaven. Choosing a marriage partner is one of the most important decisions in life. There are faithful Christians who have made the choice to remain unmarried because they have not found the marriage partner they believe will help them go to heaven. They have the lawful right to marry (1 Cor. 7:2) but choose to remain unmarried because their first interest is the kingdom of Heaven.

Many widows and widowers have chosen to remain unmarried because they, too, have not found the companions to encourage them in their goal of the heavenly home. They have the right to marry again (1 Cor. 7:39) but they also choose to remain unmarried because the kingdom of Heaven is first in their lives. Some have put away their companions for fornication and choose to remain unmarried because their first interest is the heavenly kingdom. These also have the right to marry again (Matt. 19:9) but choose to remain unmarried. Some have put away their companions for an unscriptural cause and have made the choice not to marry again, They realize they don’t have the right to marry again according to Matthew 19:9; Luke 16:18; Mark 10:11, 12. This decision is made because a home in heaven is more important than an unlawful relationship here on the earth. There are those who have been put away because they were guilty of fornication. Many in this category have chosen to be unmarried because there is no scriptural right for them to marry again (Matt. 19:9). They afso follow the course of being unmarried in order to save their souls and to have the hope of heaven in their hearts.

According to Galatians 5:19-21, Hebrews 13:4 and many other passages which we would cite, adultery will keep a person from going to heaven. There are many men and women today who are committing adultery in their unlawful marriage. Should they continue in their sin of adultery that grace may abound? Paul says, “God forbid” (Rom. 6:1,2). Isn’t it possible that this is what Jesus meant in Matthew 19:12, when he said, “. . . and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it”?

Our Thinking Must Be Governed By Truth Rather Than Emotion

What is a teacher of God’s word supposed to tell people who admit that their marriage is unlawful. “When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul” (Ezek. 33:8,9). We must speak as the oracles of God (1 Pet. 4:11). If a teacher of God’s word warns a person to turn away from adultery, he is speaking as the oracle of God. When a teacher tells a person that he can continue living in an unlawful marriage because his baptism put him into covenant relationship with God, this is not speaking as the oracles of God. It is for just this type of teaching that the prophet declared, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! ” (Isa. 5:20,21) An unpleasant truth is profitable but pleasant error will not profit the teacher or the hearer.” May God help us all to reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine (2 Tim. 4:24). We put off having this article published for over two years because I am not a writer and certainly no scholar. However, I don’t want to straddle the fence on this issue. It is my desire to stand on God’s truth. This might sound strange but I welcome opposing views more than agreeable views. We also pray that he will help each of us to have the right attitude toward one another by keeping our hearts open to further study. (Reprinted from Gospel Truths, Dec. 1990.)

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 5, pp. 131-132
March 7, 1991

By Ron Halbrook

In Isaiah 5:20 the prophet of God thundered against the perversion and perverts of his day,

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Such men pile sin upon sin, perversion upon perversion, and struggle to drag this ever increasing load of ungodliness through life as an overloaded wagon. It is pulled by cords of falsehood, to which they have harnessed themselves (v. 18). They defy God to do anything about it, laughing at the threat of his judgment (v. 19). No one can rebuke or restrain them because they “are wise in their own eyes” (v. 21). Their moral vision is dimmed not only by arrogance and conceit but also by intoxicating drink (v. 22). They “justify the wicked” and “take away the rights of the ones who are in the right! ” (v., NAS 23) God said their root and their blossom would rot, and be consumed “as the fire devoureth the stubble” (v. 24).

Those who call evil good in our time proclaim sexual perversion and pornography as “art.” Robert Mapplethorpe was a photographer and a homosexual who died of AIDS at 42 in March 1989. A collection of his photographs has toured America with the help of tax money from the National Endowment for the Arts. It appeared at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio in the Spring of 1990. On 7 April the arts center and its director were charged with pandering obscenity and displaying children in “nudity-oriented material.”

In addition to harmless pictures, there were male and female nudes and homoerotic images. Two portraits of children display their exposed genitals. Five photos involve sadomasochism (seeking pleasure by inflicting pain on oneself or others). One of these is a self-portrait of Mapplethorpe with a bullwhip in his rectum. Another shows two men with one urinating into the mouth of the other. Three additional obscene pictures similarly explore Mapplethorpe’s homosexual perversion. These seven were the basis of the court case.

“Jury acquits art museum in obscenity case,” even though “. . . They were gross,”‘ read two headlines in the Houston (TX) Chronicle (6 Oct. 1990, p. 1A and 7 Oct., p. 6A). On Friday, 5 October 1990, the jury returned “not guilty” verdicts. Jurors who admitted the homoerotic Pictures projected a lascivious or “prurient interest in sex and depicted sexual conduct in a patently offensive way” decided the pictures were legally protected by their “artistic value”

(7 Oct., p. 6A). Ann Tucker of Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts agreed that Mapplethorpe’s homosexual and sadistic pictures are “legitimate subjects for art if done by an artist in an artful way.” The artist must express his “thoughts and feelings and experiences,” she said, and, “If it’s art, it’s not obscene” (“MFA reacts to victory in Cincinnati,” Houston Chronicle, 6 Oct. 1990, p. 18A).

This is all very enlightening! it turns morals into semantics. Hocus-pocus, evil is art and if it’s art, it’s not evil. Now you see evil, now you don’t – it’s “art.” What if an artist’s “thoughts and feelings and experiences” lead him to cut off parts of his body or the body of another person? Let him record the images on film and circulate the photo collection with the help of tax money. “If it’s art, it’s not mutilation.” Rape? Put it on film, circulate the pictures, and, “Presto! If it’s art, it’s not rape.” See it? Get it? “If it’s art, it’s not murder.”

Talk about a new morality, this could eliminate all crime! If a choreographer waltzes into a bank and robs it, it’s not robbery, it’s art. The pictures are not evidence of a crime, they are a collection of images of the robbers, er, I mean, artists’ “thoughts and feelings and experiences.” Another show can go on the road with tax money. Actually, every U.S. Post Office displays the pictures of such artist’s faces at government expense, so why not display photos of their “work” too? Think of it: every post office can be a cultural center of art!

Prisons need culture, too. How else can inmates be rehabilitated? Art collections depicting bank robbery, rape, and murder will be v-er-y popular and educational. Prison overcrowding will be solved – prisons will soon be empty. Criminals will become “artists” who record their “thoughts and feelings and experiences” on film. To interfere with the recording and displaying of their “work” would be “censorship.” (If some Bible-thumper retorts, “If it’s art, it’s not censorship,” tell him to sit down and shut up before he gets us all confused. We can solve all the world’s problems in the name of “art” if we can keep the Bible out of it.) Culturally deprived policemen may try to arrest some poor artist at work, but the criminal, er, I mean, artist will be instructed by the National Endowment for the Arts to recite his rights in the creed of fine arts, “If it’s art, it’s not a crime.” All activities from the work of petty thieves (er, budding artists) stealing hub caps to the work of professionals running drug cartels are “legitimate subjects for art if done by an artist in an artful way.” The con artist was just ahead of his times!

Preachers Part of the Problem

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil” (Isa. 5:20).

The text well describes the spirit of our age. In our overrefinements we arc losing the sternness of the truth, carefully polishing off every edge and point and corner that might prick conscience into activity. We are toning down moral distinctions until they are becoming quite confused and indistinct; we can hardly tell for certain what is right and what is wrong, what is evil and what is good (Pulpit Commentary on Isaiah, 1:102).

When a jury made up mostly of church members can attach artistic value and legal protection to homoerotic and sadistic photos, our nation has lost its moral bearings and sense of moral outrage. We are puffed up with vain pride and empty falsehood when we get too refined to call evil by its real name. Its real name is not art!

What are churches teaching when so-called religious people will compromise truth and right in the face of the vilest immoralities and criminal acts? The people of America have been fed the moral pablum of situation ethics until “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (Isa. 1:5). Preachers have been accentuating the positive until they really have eliminated the negative – not eliminated sin and evil from the lives of people, but eliminated the ability of people to recognize sin and evil. If babies can be murdered in the name of “a woman’s choice,” certainly children can be used and abused as the subjects of erotic photography in the name of “art.” If churches can compromise on abortion, church members can compromise on pornography. If some churches can view homosexual preachers as acceptable though not ideal, some church members can view homosexual pictures as acceptable though not ideal.

As preaching has drifted further and further from the Bible, so the people who hear such preaching have drifted further and further from the Bible. The only solution is to go back to the Bible as the final and absolute revelation of God’s will, and as the final and absolute standard of right and wrong. Scriptural marriage is honorable and right (Heb. 13:4; Matt. 19:9). God allows one man to one woman in marriage for a lifetime, the only exception being that an innocent partner may put away a fornicator and marry another. All marriages in violation of this principle are adulterous and sinful. This is the very same principle which condernns homosexual practices as immoral and sinful. The same Bible which prohibits homosexuality prohibits adulterous marriages. Sodom was the cultural capital for artists and museums which depicted homosexuality and sadism. God destroyed the city with “brimstone and fire” and recorded it as a reminder of his wrath against such perversion (Gen. 19:24-28; Jude 7).

Practicing or tolerating homosexuality is characteristic of men and women who turn awary from God and reject his truth (Rom. 1:18-32). Professing God or religion does not change this reality. Nations which profess God but become engulfed in perversion decay and fail. “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34). More serious than the fall of a nation is the eternal torment of hell which awaits those who live and die in sin (Matt. 25:46).

The simple truth is that preachers are not preaching the simple truth. In Jeremiah’s time, wickedness filled the land because the prophets and the priests lied to the people about their sins, saying, “Peace, peace; when there is no preace.” People became blind to their sins and “were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.” When Jeremiah cried out against their sins and begged the people to walk in “the old paths” of truth, they would not listen because they preferred the positive message of false teachers (Jer. 6:13-17).

People are confused and blinded today by a combination of loving their sins and loving their preachers who speak an uncertain sound and minimize sin. Men will not come to the truth of the gospel of Christ while their hearts are set on sin and on preachers who tickle their itching ears (Jn. 3:19-21; Matt. 6:22-23; 2 Tim. 4:2-4). Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21-23). Just like not everything called art is true art, not everything called religion is true religion.

It is time to call evil evil, and good good. Let God be true. His Word is right. Rather than blurring the line between truth and error, we must diligently search God’s Word and take our stand for truth and right. The Bible settles what is right in matters of morality and in the realm of religion. The Bible is right when it calls sinners to believe in Christ, repent of every sin, confess Jesus as God’s Son, and be immersed in water for the remission of sins (Acts 2:37-38; 8:35-38).

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 4, pp. 112-113
February 21, 1991

By Terry F. Sanders

The story is often told in the newspapers and news reports. It is a story of tragedy in which we all are touched with sadness. It seems that a house somewhere caught on fire. In the house was a typical family of four – a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter. The house burns to the ground, a tragedy. Yet, if the house burns to the ground with the family still inside, it is a tragedy of greater proportions.

To make a point, let me add some details to this story. While the house is burning, the family remains inside. The fire department, police, and other people involved in fighting the fire begin to cry out, “Come out of the house! Escape while you can! Get out now!” The family then comes to the window and shakes their heads and reply, “No, we will remain inside the house and fight the fire from the inside! If we come out now we could do little good. So we will remain here and do what good we can inside!”

How tragic! How pathetic! To think of the foolishness of that family remaining inside a burning house and actually thinking they were doing the correct thing. While this story is imagined (to the best of my knowledge and the sincerest of my hopes), another similar story is quite true. The story goes something like this:

A family is attending some church where unscriptural teachings and/or practices are holding forth. Their “house is on fire,” so to speak. Perhaps many others have identified the problem and found out that it could not be headed off. Perhaps these same ones left. They are attending elsewhere at a place where people believe in following the New Testament as a pattern for all things. They turn to those left behind and cry out, “Wherefore, come ye out from among them, and be ye separate (emphasis mine, tfs), saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Cor. 6:17). Those who are left behind reply, “No, we will remain here and work from the inside! We will do what good we can! We will remain although we do not approve of some of the things going on here!”

How sad! How inexcusable! To think that people recognize error and then stay among it when they can easily see that the die is set. So many times the excuses are pathetic. “We have many friends here, our children like it here, we have some family here,” etc. And let us not forget the best one, “It doesn’t make any difference anyway!” Since when did any one thing that a church did or taught not make any difference to God? Isn’t God interested in what we do? I think so.

Can you see the sad end in both of these stories? The family that stayed in the burning house perished unnecessarily. The family that stayed in the apostate church will be, I fear, woefully lacking in the day of judgment. Because the Lord says to be separate, they will have no reason for remaining and fellowshipping what they know to be wrong. Staying inside to fight error might seem to be a noble thing, but it would be a terrible price to pay for such with your soul and the souls of your family.

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; But the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). Think about staying in a place of danger, but don’t think very long. Salvation is now (2 Cor. 6:2).

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 4, p. 117
February 21, 1991

By Keith Greer

Just by the mere fact that we live in Las Vegas, with gambling not only legal but a very lucrative industry here, there are many temptations placed before us to participate. Even if we stay completely away from “The Strip,” there are slot machines in virtually every grocery store in town. One has only to stand in a grocery store line and watch a child begging his mother to go home – while she just keeps putting one quarter after another in the machine – to realize that gambling is not the “fun little pastime” that many would have us to believe.

Gambling is one of the most difficult sins to recognize. There are those who want to gamble and want to prove that it is correct in the sight of God. As we go through our study, I would like you to consider some questions that you should ask deep within yourself and answer according to the Scriptures.

(1) What is good about gambling?

(2) What is attractive about gambling that entices so many to want participate?

(3) Does gambling damage your example and influence as a Christian?

Gambling, by definition, is “to play a game for money or other stake. . . Hence: to take money or other thing of value upon an uncertain event; to hazard; wager” (Webster’s N.I. Dictionary). There are two essential elements involved in gambling.

(1) The “stake” (one must win at the expense of another);

(2) The element of “chance.” (If you play, then you have the chance to win or lose.)

One of the reasons that many have trouble seeing anything wrong with gambling is the fact that it is accepted, in some form, in virtually every part of our society.

Many denominational and secular groups, not only approve, but also arrange gambling operations to raise money for some “worthy cause.” Such events as bingo and “Monte Carlo nights” bring funds to various organizations which hide behind the “good” that this money does. Here in Las Vegas, much publicity is given to the contributions that the gambling industry has made to our schools in the form of revenues.

Presently adopted by one-third of our states, lotteries have become an “acceptable” means for governments to raise revenues without calling for a tax hike.

Regardless of what others are doing, as Christians we are to “abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:22-23). If the Lord comes today, are you ready?

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 5, p. 129
March 7, 1991