The Born-Again Christian Polygamists, Divorcees, Adulters/Adultresses And Paradise
If you are a polygamist-a man with more than one wife-and then gave your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, what should you do according to the unchangeable Word of Life? If you are a woman married to a polygamist and then became a born-again Christian, what also should you do? Similarly, if you are a divorcee before and after you knew the Lord, what should you do as a regenerated soul? Last week, we drew copious bible references on how a man/husband should behave when faced with an adulterous woman/wife.
Now let's flip the matter; suppose a woman/wife catches her husband in an adulterous relationship, what steps should she take to seek redress? Finally, when a husband and his wife have divorced, is it biblical for the two of them to come back together as husband and wife under what some churches refer to as “restitution,” or “reconciliation'? We shall start with the last issue.
If a man divorced his wife under the stipulated guidelines offered in last week's piece according to scripture-we are talking about meeting more than the minimum scriptural threshold (http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/fayemiwo/021214.html), two things normally happen after divorce; the man or woman remarries. In either case, as far as the Lord God Almighty is concerned, the two individuals are no longer together; consequently, it is unscriptural, unspiritual and ungodly for the former husband and wife to come back together again as husband and wife. There are two biblical references to this effect: Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 say:
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man's wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.”
Any church or ministry that promotes reconciliation or so-called restitution between two divorced couples when one of them is re-married is promoting sin. In Jeremiah 3: 1, the Lord God Almighty gave the reason why such unholy marital behavior should be condemned and not be promoted; “They say, 'If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him. And becomes another man's, May he return to her again?' Would not that land be greatly polluted? In the New Testament, the only basis divorced couples can come together again as husband and wife is when either of the two has not re-married according to 1 Corinthians 7:10- 11: “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord):
A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.” When a woman reads the Holy Bible, she is critically bemused at the subordinated position of women. Everything from the Old to the New Testament examined issues of life from stag perspectives. We have explained this issue of female effacement in previous articles but more pointedly as it pertains to marital relationship, the Almighty God was indeed annoyed with Eve in the Garden of Eden on the Day of Fall. While Adam wasn't deceived that day as Paul disclosed in 1 Timothy 2: 14: “Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner,” Adam dropped the ball by abdicating his responsibility.
When the Lord God called on him and asked; “Adam where are you, it was not inquiry of location but of shirked responsibility. But in the distribution of punishment in Genesis 3: 16, God told Eve: “To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." That punishment is loaded. The desire in that verse wasn't talking about sex, but about the constant tension that will run through history between man and woman or what some have termed: “the war of the sexes.” This is why all women through human history desire to control men, either as sons or husbands. But God tamed the woman by telling her that her husband will provide spiritual leadership over her.
This is another full article or sermon on its own, but a look at the second part of that punishment is the one germane to our topic here. Labor pain that women experience during child birth throughout human history was as a result of the vicarious sin committed by Eve and the punishment continued until the very day Gabriel visited the Virgin Mary and announced in Luke 1: 28: “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” Now if you go further and read the Magnificat, you will decode the role the Blessed Virgin Mary played in removing the curse that Eve brought unto women.
The Virgin Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ through the Blessed Virgin Mary put paid to the curse caused by Eve's disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Like all other curses that the Fall of Adam and Eve (not the fall of man) brought in the Garden of Eden which were removed by the death, crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the place of women and men now is of equal footing in the Dispensation of Grace, Hallelujah! This brings us to the issue of a wife's reaction to her husband's infidelity.
What should a born-again Christian lady do when her husband cheated on her? Does she have the same right as the husband to seek for divorce? Yes, absolutely yes! Flip it around as we did last week; can she prove it by two or three witnesses in the commission of adultery? The Bible says no accusation can stand the test of scrutiny and be entertained unless two or three witnesses can come forward and swear they saw the husband commit the act of adultery. If that minimal threshold is met; here is what the Lord Jesus Christ said to the woman in Matthew 5: 31-32: “Furthermore it has been said, 'Whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.” Did you get the spiritual message in the last 10 words? Yes, you can go ahead and initiate divorce against the cheating husband, but here is the great but, you can never re-marry because no man will and should marry you. If any man marries you, he will be guilty of adultery.
So what are you supposed to do? Apostle Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit to answer this question in Corinthians 7: 10-11: “Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.” But you were the aggrieved and why should you remain unmarried? The Holy Bible was talking to believers in Christ here and not unbelievers because if you go back to the first verse in that particular Chapter 7; Paul made reference to tons of letters that those who had just given their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ during Paul, Barnabas and Silas missionary journeys in Corinth were grappling with and these newly-converted Christians in Corinth wanted answers to these various matters, of which marriage and other important mattes surfaced. That was why he –Paul- addressed them thus: “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:”
It is assumed that your husband who cheated on you is a born-again Christian and immediately you the aggrieved wife confronted him after you had established your unassailable three witnesses, he-the husband-would do what a believing husband was supposed to do as stated in James 5: 16: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
If your cheating husband is not a believer, you can't hold him up to this biblical standard. It means the foundation of your marriage is not laid on the solid rock in the first place and you have contravened the warning in 2 Corinthians 6: 14: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” But assuming the cheated husband is a born-again Christian, you the believing wife should separate from him for a while and begin to pray for him. Your loyalty to him is not really to him but to your Lord Jesus Christ and Savior. Assert certain biblical rights as a believing wife and tell him as stated in 1 Corinthians 7: 4b that: “And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife doe,” consequently, by cheating on you, he has violated this sacred marital right and tell him what you want before you can take him back as your husband. If he doesn't meet your demands and terms, tell it to the church pastor and the elders.
If he remains rebarbative, pray for strength to weather the storm and wait until he remarries before you initiate any new relationship because, in the eyes of God, such a man is an unbeliever, and as Apostle Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 7: 15: “But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.” A woman caught in this scenario should explain to any would-be husband who should be a believer when she is about to marry after the “unbelieving” husband has departed and walked out on such a marriage.
A wife caught in adultery cannot invoke this scripture as basis of divorce, because she is the cause of the divorce in the first place. How about the children in such a divorced relationship? Scripturally, the children are fine because they can be sanctified or made holy by either of the believing spouse till they are 19 years old when they can decide to accept or reject Jesus Christ as their Lord, Master and Savior ( Numbers 14: 29). That is a decision they can individually make and are no more under the spiritual tutelage of their parents.
Now we examine the issue of polygamy and the Christian Walk. If you have two or more wives before you knew the Lord and are now a born-again Christian, what do you do? In the Old Testament, virtually all the men lived polygamous lifestyles; Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon etc. Just as all other sins were brought under the blood, death and crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lord God is appealing to all those who have committed their lives into His Hands to be new creation in Christ and all old things have passed away (1 Corinthian s 5: 17), consequently, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
The only way anyone can do this is to pray fervently and seek the face of the Lord on what to do. But while you are praying, there are some scriptural truths that should guide you namely: are the women/wives you have loyal or do they cheat on you with other men? Can you satisfy the women/wives intimately and psychologically? Is it possible for a man to meet the sexual and intimate demands and desires of two or more women at the same time? These questions are necessary, because the Word of Life says in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Again, John repeated the same in Revelation 21: 8 for emphasis: “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Those verses didn't distinguish between pastors and “ordinary” born-again Christians; rather they referred to all human beings on the face of the earth. There are no special rules and regulations for any human being; born again Christians inclusive. Consequently, if you have given your life to the Lord Jesus Christ through confession of your faith and belief in Him and you have taken Him as your Lord and Savior, it means you have changed your mind about sin-lawlessness and disregard to the law of God-why would you continue in the same sins, especially sexual immorality, fornication and adultery? If you kept your two or more wives after professing faith and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ and still have sex with the two or more wives, yet you cannot guarantee absolute loyalty and trust from all the women/wives; it means there are “strange” men having sex at the same time with those women/wives. That is a veritable doorway that Satan and his demons will continue to lure you to other sins, because as Apostle Paul aptly disclosed in 1 Corinthians 6: 18: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”
The moment you gave your life to our Lord Jesus Christ; He becomes your Lord and God and you become His child. Your body doesn't belong to you anymore; your body is a living sacrifice (Romans 12: 1) and as such you cannot join your body with any strange woman. A strange woman is a person who is not scripturally married to you and the non-strange woman is the very first woman who you initially married and entered into a marriage covenant with in your life. But you may give the excuse that you are a king or a chief in Africa and tradition warrants your polygamous lifestyle. Well, you are now a child of the King of kings and Lord of lords and all chiefs in heaven and on earth and anywhere. Do you want to do it His way or your way? The choice is yours.
Now to a sister who is married to a polygamist; what should you do after you have known the Truth of Life and are now a redeemed child of the Living God? Again, I will advise you to pray fervently and seek the face of the Lord and let the Holy Spirit minister to you. I know some of these things can be very heart-wrenching and sad, because I was born into a polygamous family myself and I know pretty well how difficult many of these decisions can be. For instance, how does one expect a woman who has been married to a man for 20 or 30 years as a second, third or fourth wife with grown-up children to suddenly leave the man now that she is a born-again Christian? It can be tough, but brethren, there are many tough decisions we have to make in order to make it to heaven and this is one of such agonizing life-defining decisions.
Our Lord Jesus Christ warned in Matthew 7: 13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.” That man you've been married to for 20, 30 and more years hasn't been your “husband” in the first place as far as the Holy Bible is concerned. Now that you have known the truth, is it proper for you to continue to sin, simply because it is the tradition or because it is a long time you have been in a sinful marriage relationship? Just simply because something is traditionally right doesn't make it right before a Holy and Righteous God! Again, please pray to God the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to open your spiritual understanding and illuminate your heart on the proper step to take to get things right.
Next week, we shall examine the different types of sexual sins and other associated sex liaisons that are condemned outright by our Lord God Almighty ranging from polyandry, masturbation, group sex or “swinging,” prostitution-both male and female prostitution, rape, same sex marriage, lesbianism, transgender etc. How did these sexual practices begin and what are their spiritual explanations, including their effects on human life?
LETTERS OF THE WEEK:
Dear Dr Fayemiwo, I read two articles by Moslem clerics declaring that Moslems believe Jesus was born of the virgin Mary; that He never died; that He will come back as Judge, and that when He comes back He will marry and have children. A long time ago, I read some Christian tracts that have referred to some of these things before and they stayed in my mind. I am wondering if Moslems believe these things, how come they do not make a bit more of Jesus? Well I think this is a great entry point to evangelizing Moslems and the idea of a booklet came up. But I thought perhaps I should give you a first go at it? --- A Sister-in-the-Lord (Name and Location are not disclosed at her request).
Yes, the Quran wrote extensively about the Virgin Birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Hadiths contain miraculous works of our Lord Jesus Christ even to the extent of revealing that our Lord Jesus Christ began to perform miracles right from His mother's womb. The Quran declared Jesus Christ as a saint and a righteous person (Surat Maryam; Surah 19: 17-27). Similarly in Surah 2: 253 known as Surat Al-Baqarah, our Lord Jesus Christ was described as a Perfect and Holy Man conceived by The Virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit.
The only and yet most important thing about the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ which all human beings need to be saved was cleverly twisted in the Quran; His Death by Crucifixion and Resurrection three days later. As we explained in our book; “The Kingdom of Satan Exposed” co-authored with Dr Margie Neal, no matter how you praised and extolled the virtues of the Miraculous Conception and Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and however you advertised His myriad miracles, if you denied His Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection, then there is no salvation and Jesus Christ Who is God in the flesh came to this earth without any purpose and Christianity is dead, period! As Apostle Paul aptly made known in 1 Corinthians 15: 14-19: “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” There is more in our book: “The Kingdom of Satan Exposed.”
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Dear Dr Fayemiwo, in your latest articles on marriage, it would have been interesting to see your view on celibacy. What is your view about celibacy? ---A Sister-in-Christ (Name and Location are not disclosed at her request).
Dear Sister-in-Christ, my views about celibacy would not matter at all. What matters are what the Holy Spirit says and the Word of Life; the Holy Bible. Do you know how many views on earth about all matters under heaven? If we are to interpret and state our individual's views on celibacy, we will have a tower of Babel, but the right question should be; what does the Holy Bible say about celibacy? Celibacy is the act of renouncing sex and marriage by anyone in order to do the work of the Lord. Some people, out of their extreme love for God's work pledged themselves to remain chaste and not be distracted by sex and marriage, because according to Apostle Paul who was a celibate preacher of the Word: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman,” (1 Corinthians 7: 1), but he quickly added almost immediately after those words: “But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.”
Any one should not be coerced or compelled to become a celibate worshipper of the Lord God Almighty, because each and every one of us has been called to freedom and open fellowship with the Lord of lords and King of kings. Celibacy is good, if you have been given the Grace, but personally, I think one should do spiritual works out of Power of the Holy Spirit and not through human efforts and compulsion, because the arm of flesh will fail you,” (Isaiah 31). This is the reason why there are many sexual abuses by some priests in certain Christian denominations, because celibacy was mandated for priests when some cannot control the passions of the flesh and emotions, because it is better to marry than to burn ( 1 Corinthians 7: 9). Consequently, the born-again Christian who desires to be a celibate should ask: Do I want to be a celibate because I couldn't find a mate or I am moved and convinced by the Holy Spirit to become a celibate for the Gospel? Any spiritual work done by any born-again Christian has no eternal value, if it is not initiated by the Holy Spirit. Even in the desire to be a pastor, an evangelist etc., it is not your desire but what the Holy Spirit specifically wants. So also is the issue of celibacy. If you have been called by the Lord God Almighty through the Holy Spirit to become a celibate soul for Him, the only way you can know is your ability to live a celibate life under His guidance.
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Dear Dr Fayemiwo, I notice that in the prophecies for 2014 you mentioned that you will give prophecies from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Are you in any time still going to publish prophecy specifically for Zimbabwe? Thanks. ----Allen Akmuchini, Zimbabwe.
Dear Mr. Akmuchini, yes the Lord God gave me prophecies about Zimbabwe but hasn't given me the go-ahead to publish them. I will when the Holy Spirit says so.
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Dear Dr Fayemiwo, in your prophecies for 2014, I noticed you had nothing about two major Nigerian churches - Deeper Life Church and The Lord's Chosen. Did this fact cross your mind? What do you personally perceive about the two ministries? --- A Sister-in-Christ (Name and Location are not disclosed at her request).
The Lord God didn't tell me anything about the Lord's Chosen and Deeper Life but as someone who had worshipped at the Deeper Life Church at the church's headquarters in Gbagada Lagos in the 1980s while at the University of Lagos before the church relocated to its current world headquarters, I can say the Holy Spirit is moving in the church. I don't know much about the Lord's Chosen Church so I will need to ask God about that but the Spirit of the Lord is with Pastor William Kumuyi and the Deeper Life Church.
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*Dr. Moshood Ademola Fayemiwo is CEO, Alternative Lifestyle Communication, DBA Chicago and co-author of the latest book: “Coming to America.” His past articles in The Christian Walk column has now been compiled into a book because of popular demand and the book titled: “Walking the Christian Walk: Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior” is available now for free. Visit his company's website and find out how you can obtain your free copy of the eBook at: www.allternativecommunication.net