or b y the people who are elected by the people, it is easier to get a divorce than one would think. As one woman said leaving the court room following her receiving the decree, “Now, if it will just be as easy to sell the house.” Now I feel that the sobering thing about the rapid growth in our divorce rate is not so much these reports, tragic as they are in the reading, but what is revealed in one other fact. While our nation has been built upon the strength of its Christian homes, you will find that a definite change in views toward divorce has been taken by the church. This danger signal should serve to remind us of the fact that it is not what the church or its leaders say, but what saith the Scrip tures! The Word of God points the way so clearly in all of this grave difficulty. You remember how the Pharisees, a re ligious sect of that day, came to the Lord Jesus and endeavored to trap Him on the subject? They asked—in Mat thew 19:3—“Is it lawful for one to di vorce his wife for any cause?” You see, this is not something new. Jesus simply answered them with the direct state ment that God joins man and wife to gether and no man should separate them. “Ah ha,” they said, “but Moses commanded us to give a certificate of divorce—what about that?” Our Lord’s answer was, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the stub bornness and perversity of your hearts. But God did not ordain it so.” Then He went on to point out that whoever divorces his wife for any cause, except for infidelity, sexual impurity, and marries another, has committed adul tery. The w o r d s incompatibility, cruelty, or neglect are not found here. Jesus does not even recommend divorc ing an immoral partner; only permis sion is suggested. Someone experiencing this difficulty may say, “Yes, but it is so hard to pray without any hope.” My friend, is it not harder to hope without prayer? Let us have your questions and we will be happy to look at them with you in the light of God’s Word.
should be changed from “marry in haste and repent at leisure,” to “marry in haste and repeat at leisure.” The thing which is cause for alarm, and the reason why you should be alerted, is that the divorce rate is grow ing, and that you can do something about it. Just after the Civil War, in 1867, the rate was three-tenths of one percent. In 1957, ninety years later, the rate had jumped to two and two tenths, or an increase of more than 600 percent. Thé national rate is now one divorce out of each three and a half marriages. (It goes even lower in some areas, such as Los Angeles.) And do you know, one of the tragic things in our fear-ridden society of the sixties, is that more and more older people are getting divorces. People who have been married for 15, 20, 25, even 30 years. One judge recently stated, “Some peo ple don’t think much more of divorce than they do trading in an old car. They think that a marriage license is something which they can take down to the court house and have cancelled.” Look at recent reports, even out of Hollywood, of so-called successful mar riages, lasting for a number of years, but finally ending in tragedy and heartbreak. The rate of older people getting divorces is certainly growing. But, does divorce really end the mis ery of an unhappy home? Dr. Abraham Stone, noted marriage counsellor has pointed out, “Occasionally a new life opens up in another marriage, but gen erally the easy divorce brings only un happiness. I do not see many where it works out satisfactorily.” Actually, statistical studies show that people have a slimmer chance for happiness in sub sequent remarriages. Thomas P. Mona han made an analysis of the Iowa-Mis- souri divorce records, and found that the probability of further divorces is the on ly sure thing. Sociolgist Paul H. Landis says that remarriages are 50 percent less stable than the first ones. Perhaps it is not my place to say it, but I believe that in m an y instances we have only ourselves to blame. The way in which we have made the laws, and the laws are made by the people,
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