 Corinthians chapter 7 beginning at verse 10 and I'll read to verse 16. 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. And a husband is not to divorce his wife, but to the rest I not the Lord say, if any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he's willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. 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. For how do you know, oh wife, whether you will save your husband or how do you know, oh husband, whether you will save your wife? Marriage. The joys of marriage. Marriage is a subject that people are always, always looking for help in. I heard of a newly wed couple who were on their honeymoon and the groom took his new bride by the hand and he said to her, listen baby, now that we're married, I hope you don't mind if I mention a few little imperfections that I've noticed about you. Well, not at all, the bride replied with a very sweet voice. It was those little imperfections that kept me from getting a better husband. So imperfections. Marriage. Right off the bat, and this isn't in my notes, but I'm going to say this just briefly to lay a foundation. Divorce is not, divorce is not the unforgivable sin. It is not the unpardonable sin. I've had a lot of people over the years ask questions relating to divorce and all and divorce is one of those things that, and I'm going to look at this in some detail with you tonight. It's one of those questions that people have as it relates to marriage that really concerns them, especially those who are born again, those who love the Lord. And there have been many people who have had divorces in this fellowship. There are quite a number who have been married in divorce. And I cannot tell you how many over the years that I've spoken to who have a great burden about that. And so let me begin this study by saying it is not the unforgivable sin. As all sins, divorce can be one. And divorce is one of those things that God through his grace and his mercy will forgive us. And I want to say that upfront, not to give you permission to go out and say, all right, he'll forgive me. I'll dump him. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that it's one of those, those sins that the Lord will forgive and he does forgive. And I wouldn't want anybody to walk out of this room tonight, feeling any sense of condemnation whatsoever. Say that as an introduction, but we'll get into our study. Now, before we look at these verses, let me remind you of a couple of things that are leading up to this. We know that in chapter seven, Paul is providing counsel for various groups in the church in verses eight and nine. He was writing to unmarried Christians. There are three terms that are used to refer to non-married. One would be divorced, another would be widowed, and the other would simply be virgins. Those are the words that are used in in 1 Corinthians. And so he was speaking to those who were unmarried. But in verses 10 and 11, he is going to be providing counsel for Christians who are married. And I want you to notice this. We'll look at this. He is providing counsel for Christians who are married to other Christians. In verses 12 through 14, he's writing of Christians married to unbelievers. The unbelievers wanting to remain married. And then in verses 15 through 16, he writes to Christians who are married to unbelievers who desire a divorce. And that's what we're going to be looking at tonight. Christians married to other Christians. Christians married to unbelievers who want to stay married. And Christians married to unbelievers who desire a divorce. But as mentioned, last time we were together, we looked at verses eight and nine, and he was writing to unmarried believers. Now, we saw how that Paul there in that passage recommended that unmarried believers remain single. Now just reading that where he says that he would prefer that they remain even as he is noticed in verse eight, I say to the unmarried believers that they remain unmarried to the widows. It is good for them if they remain even as I am. Paul we know was a single man. And so he's counseling that they remain unmarried. Well, there are those who are unmarried who think that this is kind of a harsh thing. They think the command is very harsh. And because they don't want to remain single. There are some who cannot even think of living alone. No get out of their marriage or their marriage ends whether it be through a divorce or perhaps an untimely death. But they're immediately desiring to get married. And they desire that greatly because they can't bear the thought of being without somebody. Sometimes they find someone while they are still married. I have, I cannot tell you this and I won't go into lots of details. But I cannot tell you how many times I've encountered this in this church. Where somebody will, I'll give one example. Somebody asked me to perform a wedding for them. But the problem he said is that his wife to be whom he was engaged to was still married. And they were waiting for the divorce to be finalized. So once the divorce is finalized, will you perform the marriage? I mean, that is not an uncommon thing. I have had more than one person who's approached me even while they're still married to somebody else. And have asked me if this church can provide premarital counsel for them so that they can get remarried even though they're still married to somebody else. And so that's kind of a mindset that quite a number of people have. It isn't unusual. I have seen it many times. And with that in mind, it's just a very bad, it's really not a great thing. It's a bad thing. So Paul is writing here and Paul's counseling believers and he's saying to believers, remain single. Serve the Lord. If you're in the position that you can do that, serve the Lord. Serve the Lord if you're single. There's a woman in scripture, her name is Anna. She's found in Luke chapter 2, verses 36 and 37. And Luke writes like this concerning here. He says, there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Manuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity and this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the temple but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. She was married, widowed in an early age, but she decided that the best thing for her to do is to continue serving the Lord and that's what she did. You see, being unmarried has great advantages especially in the areas of freedom to serve Jesus Christ. After one of the Bible studies many years ago, I had finished a Wednesday night study and these three young guys in their early 20s came up to me after the study and they said, pastor, we're going out for some coffee. Would you like to go? And I smiled because yeah, I'd like to. I'd like to hang around with you guys but I still remember my answer. I said, I got a big smile and I laughed. I said, I can't. I'm married. You know, it was like, I think my wife would like me to come home. But to go out and hang with the boys, yeah, I'd love to do that but I can't do that. See, I couldn't do that even as a younger man. I can't do that now because I fall asleep at nine. But the fact is, is when you're single, you can do so many things. You can go on missions trips. You can get involved in service in a variety of ways. There are just so many things. I remember before Maria and I got married, I had the opportunity, I was going to Biola. I had the opportunity to go to Guatemala City and it was a summer program that was going to go into the next year and I made application to go. I was going to go to the University of Guatemala and I was going to be gone for about six months and I was looking forward to it. Not to get away from Marie. We weren't married yet after we got married. But anyway, it was not to get away from Marie but because that was an adventure. That was something I wanted to do. We were going to go for the summer and build a hospital. We're going to go out and do construction work and I was going to go to the university there and my Spanish is very bad so I was going to be able to learn to speak some Spanish. It was all good for me. I was looking forward to it but they cancelled the trip. I wasn't able to go and so I didn't. Instead, I went to Europe for three months. That's another story Marie's still mad at me about. But the bottom line is I was free. I was free to do what I wanted to do and when you're single, you're able to do that. You're able to go to places, do things, minister. It's just a freedom. So Paul says, I would prefer that you be even as I am. What would you like Paul? Free to serve God? Free to be able to go pick up and go on a mission journey whenever I wanted to and was able to. And so that's the point he's making. It's not that marriage in and of itself as an institution isn't a good thing. It's a great thing and those of us who are married will say amen to that. It's a great thing. I love being married. I love it and that's part of the reason why some, when they find themselves suddenly single, have such a problem because they're not used to that. They want somebody in their life. They want somebody next to them and that's all understandable. But Paul would say, you know what you need to do? Find opportunity to serve the Lord. See, not all people can live that single kind of life because they have physical desires. They want to be married. They want to have children. Why? I do not know, but they want to have children. But they're burning sometimes with these physical desires and so Paul would say it's better to marry than to burn. Burn with passion. You see, the important thing about marriage, and the Bible makes this very clear, is when you get married you're to marry a fellow believer. You don't marry unbelievers. There's no such thing as missionary dating, you know, as no such thing as a missionary marriage. In chapter seven here, in verse 39, he says, a wife is bound by a law as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she's at liberty to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord. So when you get married it's in the Lord. It's another way of saying that your relationship, your marriage, is with another believer. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 14 through 16, Paul said it like this, do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people. And so when you do marry, he says it would be in the Lord. You don't go out and marry somebody who doesn't know the Lord. Now he's also not saying that this makes them weak or less committed to Jesus because within marriage the pleasure of sexual expression is legitimate. In Scripture the overwhelming testimony of Scripture is physical intimacy is blessed by God when people are married. And so we looked at that together and we had concluded with verses 8 and 9 and now we pick up at verse 10. In verse 10 it says now to the married I command yet not I but the Lord. A wife is not to depart from her husband. And so it would seem that some Corinthian believers thought celibacy was to be preferred over marriage. It seems that they wanted to know if divorce was permitted so they could serve Jesus unencumbered. Well Paul gives the answer there and notice what he says. He says a wife is not to depart from her husband. The word depart is in reference to divorce. So wife is not to divorce her husband is what he's saying. Now I want you to notice also how he says it. He says now to the married I command yet not I but the Lord. When he says that he's given a command which he specifically refers to as a command that comes from God. In the Old Testament Malachi chapter 2 verse 16 that Scripture says I hate divorce says the Lord God of Israel. And so God's plan for us is that we marry and remain married over the course of a natural lifetime. So to understand divorce we need to know something of God's design for marriage. Remember with me in the New Testament book of Matthew chapter 19 verse 6 Jesus said therefore what God has joined together let not man separate. So God's design as you find in the Scripture from the Old Testament to the New is a permanent bond in marriage between a man and a woman. What is commonly used a phrase is used today maybe not as common as I just stated but it is a common phrase I've heard it more than once they speak about trial marriages meaning their first marriage that they have is a trial it's a try out we kind of work it out and if it doesn't work out we divorce and then we go into the real kind of thing a trial marriage every marriage is a trial but that's a different subject entirely it's not a trial marriage you don't get married just to try it out and see if it works it's not like that it's not like going out and trying out a car driving around the block and saying yeah I'll buy it marriage isn't like that at all God's intent is that the two shall become one in him and his intent is that we remain together for the full course of our natural life that's his intent and he says what God has joined together let not man put asunder that is God's command for marriage that's his design in Romans Paul referring to this in Romans chapter 7 verses 2 and 3 says like this he says by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he's alive but if her husband dies she's released from the law of marriage now he doesn't say if she kills him that's something else too but the husband dies she's released from the law of marriage so then if she marries another man while her husband is still alive she's called an adulteress but if her husband dies she's released from that law and is not an adulteress even though she marries another man so as long as that man is alive under the law she's married to him and yet what happens when you get a divorce what happens with divorce well the scripture that actually gives permission permission for divorce permission for divorce is simply recognizing the sinfulness of human nature is taken into consideration the weakness of our flesh Psalm 51 verse 5 says surely I was sinful at birth sinful from the time my mother conceived me so this permission to divorce was actually given as a concession for the weakness of our flesh it was a concession that recognized that we're weak so God permitted divorce under certain circumstances but he didn't command it he permitted it Jesus had a conversation is recorded in Matthew 19 in verses 5 and 8 and it says there for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife the two will become one flesh so they are no longer two but one therefore what God has joined together let not man separate why then they asked did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away Jesus replied Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard but it was not this way from the beginning when God in other words created Adam and Eve he didn't produce some spares in case they didn't make it and so that's the point that Jesus is making he said from the beginning God's creation and his intent was for Adam and Eve to be together for the course of their entire lives together that was his reason for creation but what happens when you have trouble in marriage and it becomes so difficult well Jesus said there's permission you have a permission because of his grace but it's not his design in the New Testament there are basically two reasons that are given that permit divorce first Jesus said that divorce is permitted in cases of adultery in Matthew 5 31 and 32 it Jesus said it has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness causes her to become an adulteress and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery so the Lord's permission that he gave was in the case of sexual immorality a man and a woman are married and one of them commits adultery when that person commits adultery they have broken the bond of marriage so the one who has been sinned against has permission in scripture to give what was called a writ of divorcement to divorce them that was a biblical reason so one reason for divorce is adultery there's a second reason that is given in the New Testament it's here in chapter 7 and it's at verse 15 and it's abandonment it says 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 and we'll look at that again in just a moment but say you were married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever doesn't want anything to do with you the unbeliever wants nothing to do with you or the Lord or anything and they basically abandon you so in the New Testament principles you have one you have adultery which is a biblical reason for divorce Jesus gave it and second Paul would say and there's the abandonment where a Christian is married to a non-believer the non-believer doesn't want to be with that Christian any longer and they release them they divorce them there was a third reason that the early church gave but it's not found in scripture but I'll give it to you just as a third reason and that was violence in the home when somebody was being beaten normally it was the woman when she was being abused in the early history in the early ages of the church she could receive a divorce because her life in children's lives were threatened by this violence and so on occasion they would actually give a writ of divorce for that scripturally you have adultery and abandonment and so Paul is writing and speaking concerning these things now divorce is presented today as a normal process of eliminating pain and eliminating problems today's society looks at divorce as if it's natural and even harmless but we have to ask ourselves whether it really is harmless and really is it really natural somebody once wrote divorce is always a tragedy no matter how civilized the handling of it may be it is always a confession of human failure even when it is the better of sorry alternatives and that's an absolute fact that's the truth that's why Jesus spoke concerning the hardness of your heart he said because of the hardness of your heart you were permitted see as Christians and I know that this is this is one of those things that people would say you know wait wait a minute if you haven't gone through this you have no right to make judgment on me and therefore I'm trying to be careful not to make that kind of judgment so I want to be careful with that because I don't want to come on like oh you know I'm just so even though it's true I am I just don't want to come off and say I'm so perfect you know the bottom line is is I want to give you what the scripture says and let you live with that and decide based on what you know is truth and you do have your decisions that you make related to the information you get that is scriptural I'm not here to make judgments on anybody God knows that and I want you to know that too but Jesus made it very clear Jesus said because of the hardness of your heart Moses permitted this all through scripture and I'll say this quickly this isn't in my notes but I'm going to give it to you as as this way here all through scripture in the New Testament especially we have principles of forgiveness principles of forgiveness I have sinned and I'm actually what is called a debtor that's why Jesus said forgive us our debts because when we say forgive us our debt well I am a debtor I am somebody who has sinned against God and in in in sense I have this debt against him he actually has I have actually I'm in debt to him so when I say forgive me my debt I'm asking him to release me from something that I actually owe him and so you have the forgiveness of debts as a principle that that forgiveness actually is for us to understand as a way of releasing somebody so of all people we as Christians ought to understand the principles of forgiveness we ought to understand that why because we have been forgiven that's why Jesus said even as you have been forgiven you forgive others so if I have been forgiven for the sins that I have committed then I have an obligation to be one who forgives others because it gives the it gives a full sense to my understanding of what forgiveness is and so that's what Jesus is talking about he's saying you have a hardness and the reason you have a hardness is because of the pain you've suffered and your heart has become callous so when somebody says please forgive me you are not quick to do that because you've been hurt so badly and you become hardened over it now it is true that there are some who just say forgive me just because it's something they commonly do they do it over and over and over again with no sincere repentance and after a while you realize this person just uses the word forgive me so they can continue in what they're doing and you discover that and after a while you say I just cannot do this anymore it's not that I don't want to it's not that I'm not in a state that's willing to but you're really not repentant what you do is you come up and you've discovered that if you say you know please forgive me baby for a while I will and then you get over on me for something else and you do it over and over again you repeatedly do it because there's no fruit of repentance in your life so eventually what happens is rather than them really seeking forgiveness what they've done is they've used the principle of forgiveness just to get their own way we discover that and there are some people who do that I've seen a lot of that I've seen a lot of that they use Christian terminology to try and get over try and get permission to continue in sin doesn't work that way but what happens when there's a genuine repentance what happens when the husband or the wife comes and says I have sinned against God and I have sinned against you and I no longer am worthy to be related to you in marriage but I am so sorry for what I've done my heart is broken what happens when it's sincere what happens when it's real well we as Christians do our best to forgive and move on that's what we do we release deaths but the fact is that sometimes my heart has been walked on so much that it's actually become callous and hardened so no matter how you say now I am sorry and I have sinned please forgive me the fact is as you've hardened my heart to you because of your continued sin but never a sense that you truly are repenting and so I'm going to release you because I have biblical right to do so I'm going to let you go because I frankly do not believe that you are truly repentant and I'm going to release you from this relationship that does happen and often it does well Jesus made a state and he said that happens because of hardness of your heart and it can happen because somebody has constantly trampled on it to the point that it's broken it to the point that it's hardened towards them or it can be because I've made choices I'm not going to put up with this even if you are repentant I'm going to move on and I'm going to leave you behind and so we have to weigh that through in our own lives you see in verse 10 and 11 the point he's making in verse 11 he says even if she does depart let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband and husband is not to divorce his wife the point he's making is if a Christian divorces a Christian except for adultery neither partners free to marry another but if they do remarry it is to be their original partner and that's what the bible teaches now in verse 12 but to the rest I not the lord say if any brother has a wife who does not believe and she's willing to live with him let him not divorce her and a woman who has a husband who does not believe if he's willing to live with her let her not divorce him for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband otherwise your children would be unclean but now they are holy now notice how he begins verse 12 but to the rest now notice this I not the lord say if any brother has a wife who does not believe so here's a question what about marriages to unbelievers should we divorce them so we can marry believers I have had I had a woman in our church a few years ago several years ago and now approached me and after reading that passage asked me well she asked me this question she said I'm married to a man who doesn't know Jesus Christ the bible doesn't want me to be married to an unbeliever should I divorce him and marry a believer I kind of think she already had a believer in mind I'm not sure she was an unbeliever he was an unbeliever when they got married during the course of their marriage she heard the gospel and got saved when she got saved she began to read her scriptures when she began to read her scriptures she said I'm not supposed to be unequally yoked and so now she's asking should I divorce him and marry a believer so we together can worship the Lord Paul was dealing with that 2,000 years ago that question was asked of him 2,000 years ago but I want you to see something I want you to notice how Paul says I not the Lord say now isn't that interesting I not the Lord say why are you saying that Paul because if you look again verse 10 to the married I command yet not I but the Lord you get that in verse 10 but then you go on into verse 12 but to the rest I not the Lord say so somebody immediately will say Paul was given his opinion at this point wasn't he and the answer is no he's not given his opinion then what is he giving here at this point what he's doing is he's given a teaching concerning something that is absolutely new called marriage within the confines of the Christian faith you see he was able to to quote Old Testament he was able to speak of Malachi chapter 2 because there is Scripture in the Old Testament that he can use and he can say God's word says this but Christianity is a new thing and so it's a new reality for two believers two Christian believers to be married so what Paul is doing is he's pronouncing something a new rule within the confines of the church but you don't have any Scriptures that deal with two Christians because Jesus didn't give that teaching so he can't quote the Lord he can't say Jesus said this in because Jesus hadn't spoken in that specific way so Paul is basically not giving an opinion but he's actually dealing with a new thing now he knew that what he was writing and the things that he was teaching them were inspired by the Holy Spirit this was common knowledge 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 15 and 16 says this and consider that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation as also our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given to him has written to you as also in all his epistles speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction as they do also the rest of the Scriptures so the Apostle Peter was recognizing the writings of Paul as Scripture and having scriptural authority so he's not giving his opinion he's dealing with a new situation Jesus had not dealt specifically with this question so Paul says I am saying this because Christian marriage is an entirely new arrangement so he's saying you are not outside of the grace and blessings of God if your spouse is unsaved keep in mind that some came to Christ after they'd been married but their spouse remained unsaved that is common in this fellowship we see it all the time somebody coming forward to receive the Lord but they're married to somebody who has no desire to follow Christ it happens all the time all the time and the husband doesn't want to be divorced from that person his wife or the wife doesn't want to be divorced from the husband they're fine they're content to live in that arrangement and that's what Paul is dealing with here you see some came to Christ after they'd been married but the spouse remains unsaved so his point is believers are to remain married to unbelievers who want to remain married remain married why? because God can bless you and God can bless your children the children will be blessed as God blesses the believing husband or wife a man and a woman are married they have children the wife will say get saved the husband and the wife together remain because he loves her even though he doesn't agree with her and doesn't want to follow Christ but God begins to bless that woman because she's a child of God so God begins to move in her life and as God is moving in her life and God is blessing that husband who doesn't know the Lord is a recipient of the blessings that God pours on the wife simply because the two are one and so should the Lord bless her in a variety of ways and just think of the different ways God blesses he's going to be a recipient simply because he's in the same house with her you see this kind of thing in the Old Testament you see it in Genesis 39 verse 5 the scripture says from the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph the blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had both in the house and in the field Joseph was blessed by God but he was serving in the house of Potiphar an Egyptian who had no relationship with God but because God was blessing Joseph Potiphar was a recipient of the blessings that were poured out in the life of the believer so you as a believer are being blessed by God and you're married to an unbeliever and that person simply because God is blessing you is going to be also a partaker of those blessings so I'll just give a stupid illustration but the illustration nonetheless you get a bonus at the end of the year you did some great work you get 10,000 dollars and you come home with that money you're married to an unbeliever what do you do you don't tell them no what do you do well because you have the money it's it's the families it belongs to us see in in my house I don't know if every house is this way I would assume that it is but more than likely it's not we don't have Marie's money and my money we don't have that we never have it's always been her money and I you said no it's it's it's always it's always been our money that's how it's always worked you know so we've never had separate bank accounts we don't have separate credit cards we don't have separate debit cards we don't have separate any it's all ours it's ours so anything that I get automatically is hers so if someone gave me a gift I don't just put it in some like secret stash of some place or she doesn't know this I got this extra $50 and I'll go drink a lot of Starbucks by myself I don't do that you know and and should she somehow you know steal some money from somebody and get some no should she somehow have some a gift of some sort it belongs to us that's how it's always worked it's always been that way from the beginning it was that way you know because we never made separate accounts it was always ours you know the two shall become one flesh well in a way the two have one pocketbook and so we contribute to the the common Rosala's stash if you will and it's just ours and that's how it's always worked and so if Marie were working some place and she you know is in some organization that gives bonuses and she got you know a $10,000 bonus or whatever she would come home with a check or whatever $10,000 after being cashed and she would just say look what we got look what we have but the fact is I wasn't blessed with that personally I didn't get a bonus for what I do she did but she being blessed is blessing me with it and that's how it works and in the family when God is blessing that believing wife though she may be with an unbelieving husband those children are being blessed by God's blessings in mama's life so the father doesn't want to give devotions to the kids because he doesn't care so she goes into the bedroom with the babies she opens up her bible and it just so happens this guy is willing to live with her so he's not restricting her he goes into the front room he's watching whatever it is on TV he he wants to watch and as far as he's concerned she's out of the you know out of his hair for a moment the kids are out of his hair he's got some quiet time he sits in front of the TV with his beer he doesn't care and she's in the other room and she's in the other room they're in the in the bedroom with the kids and she's opened up the bible and giving them devotions God is blessing her and as God blesses her those children are being blessed because they have a believing mom who is blessed by God who brings those blessings to the children that's what Paul is speaking about here when he says and I'll read it to you again verse 12 if any brother has a wife who does not believe and she's willing to live with him let him not divorce her and a woman who has a husband who does not believe if he's willing to live with her let her not divorce him for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband otherwise your children would be unclean but now they are holy they have a witness in the home who is able to bring them up in the ways of the Lord and even though the father may be an unbeliever the mother has faith and she gives it to her children we have a great example of that in the life of Timothy we all know Timothy because Paul wrote him two letters first and second Timothy and we know that Timothy had a Jewish mother and a Jewish grandmother but he also had a Greek or a Gentile father who was an unbeliever so Timothy had a believing mother but an unbelieving father and so when Timothy came to faith in Christ it actually came as a result of the fact that faith had been within his mother and grandmother and they communicated it to him and that's how he got saved to the hearing of the message of salvation in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15 Paul said it like this he said and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus so when Paul was writing to Timothy he said from childhood the word childhood there in the original language is not simply toddlerhood it's infancy he's saying from the time you were born you had a believing mother a mother who first was Jewish and then came to faith in Christ as a believer so from the time you were an infant you have been raised in Scripture so by being raised in Scripture you had a foundation of the word of God so when you heard the gospel of Jesus Christ there was something within you that responded to that message and you were saved and it's all due to the fact that you had a believing mother in 2 Timothy in chapter 1 verse 5 he says it like this Paul says when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and I am persuaded is in you also and so that's a practical application of the teaching Paul is giving you may have a daddy who's too busy for Jesus in church he may go on Easter because he's a decent kind of guy he may go during Christmas he may come for various functions but he's not committed but mama is mama came to faith in Christ he loves her to pieces has no problem with her actually sees her as doing better and is more in love with her than ever before because the changes that are taking place he loves this woman he trusts her she's a great great wife so he doesn't stop her so she says baby I'm going to go to church Sunday night I'm going to go to church Wednesday I'm going to go to church Sunday whenever the church is I'm going to a woman's this or that can you watch the kids and he says yeah I can spend some time with them I'll take him up for some breakfast and he's one of those nice guys so she goes to church he's fine with that Paul says don't let him go don't divorce him because he's willing to remain with you and you have the ability to raise those kids in the faith of Christ that's what you need to do but what happens when that's not the case verse 15 if the unbeliever departs let them depart a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases God has called us to peace how do you know oh wife whether you'll save your husband how do you know oh husband whether you will save your wife what happens when you have somebody who is really opposed to the gospel and hates every moment that you talk to them or live for Jesus Christ talk to them about Jesus or live for Jesus sometimes they get tired of it I don't want to hear it leave me alone I remember a guy who many years ago now put on like he was a Christian he put on like he was a Christian how do you know if he is or isn't if you hardly even know him she hardly knew him how do you know but she decided to marry him because he told her yeah I know the Lord even came to church he would come to church and sit there in church and did all the appropriate things you know when the worship happened he sang when you know when the Bible was opened he'd read it he did all the appropriate things and so from her perspective this guy's a believer she thought he was a believer they got married and she came and spoke to me I didn't perform the wedding by the way Raul did no I she she she came to me pastor I don't know what I'm gonna do she says I married a man who claimed to be a Christian but she said after we got married he told me I don't want you worshiping God anymore I am your God I am your God I provide for you I work for you I am your God you have to choose who you're gonna serve heavy huh true story I'm not making it up though it's a good one I'm not making it up true story I am your God when am I going to do Paul says let them depart you're not called to that relationship she let them go sometimes an unbelieving spouse may do all they can to destroy the faith of their wife and their children I have seen that I've seen it more than I care to admit to I've seen it I've seen the pain I've heard I've heard the pain I've I've I've ministered to the broken heart and I've seen it they don't want you going to church they don't want you serving the Lord they don't want you giving they don't want you to do any of those things so they give an ultimatum it's either God or it's me well my my counsel is very simple resist compromising your walk with God that doesn't solve the problem you end up miserable on a deeper level than ever before so he says let them depart why verse 15 God has called us to peace and when that that scoffer is no longer party of your life you can heal and you can walk with Jesus Christ so if an unbelieving spouse deserts or divorces a believer the believer may let them go and this means that the believer is no longer bound and is free to remarry once again only another believer because God has called us to peace in a home filled with fighting and criticism and anger God has called us to live a quiet and peaceable life and sometimes when that divorce is finalized the contention ceases peace can now exist homes are healed hearts are healed and you move on and so that is just some basic advice and and instruction from from Paul that I believe still has a lot of bearing in our life today