by Standerinfamilycourt
“You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.”
– Deuteronomy 11: 18-21
SIFC was down in Arkansas for our eldest granddaughter’s eighth birthday, having not seen them for almost 2 years, due to some exaggerated circumstances brought about by man’s divorce. I was trying to take a short nap on a recent afternoon when our little one plops herself down on my guest bed and says, “Nana, why did you split up with Papaw?” I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask her until later where she had heard that. Her 5 year old sister was in the room at the time as well.
Nana responded,
“Oh, baby. Nana never wanted that, and loves Papaw very much. It’s not possible to get a divorce like that in God’s eyes! Nana’s wedding ring is still on, because Papaw will always be Nana’s husband until one of us dies, and it’s sinful to go into a courtroom and get a piece of paper that says differently. We have to pray for Papaw to stop living in sin so that he won’t go to hell — we don’t want Papaw to go to hell, do we?”
(Trigger alert: those who do not walk with Christ, and who think obedience to His stated word is optional WILL be offended by this post. It is already well-established that SIFC “lacks grace”, is “judgmental” and is “legalistic”. Nolo contendre : so was John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul and James!)
I was able to talk to this precious one about how God created one-flesh when her mommy and daddy got married, when her uncle and aunt got married (she was the flower girl in that wedding at age 3), and when Nana and Papaw got married, about how God looks and sees only one person instead of two for as long as both are alive. She repeated it back to me with a real sense of relief, and grasped it perfectly – that only death unglues people who are really married, (“right, Nana?”). Right, baby.
Later in the evening, her parents decided to take advantage of my visit to squeeze in a date. Caitlin has always loved bible stories right from her big-girl bible when tucking the girls in, so I decided to tell her the story of John the Baptist, Herod and Herodias, and said Herod had a real wife once (“like you, Nana?”) and Herodias had a real husband whose name was Philip. They both thought they could divorce their real wife and real husband and be married to each other – but how come, Caitlin, did God not join Herod and Herodias? (she got the reason right following our earlier talk about one-flesh). We talked about why John the Baptist cared so much about whether Herod and Herodias went to heaven that he was willing to risk having his head cut off. It went really well, but before I did the bible story, she asked me why Papaw’s bible was in my suitcase and why Papaw didn’t want his bible any more. I was able to explain that when someone has made up his mind that he doesn’t want to obey Jesus anymore, they can’t stand what the bible says, but we can pray that God will make them really hungry again for His word. She wanted to know why her daddy always got mad every time she visited with Papaw on skype, and why can’t she ever see him in person. I did my best to say her daddy just wants to protect her from Papaw’s bad friends. Good friends help you be closer to Jesus, but bad friends make you ashamed of Jesus and make you want run away from Him.
The next day, Caitlin’s mother expressed her angry displeasure that Nana had told their daughter about hell and what sort of things send people there if they die in the same. Nana endured the indignity of being upbraided by the child she birthed and raised and discipled, who deems all talk of hell to be a manipulation and control mechanism, to which she will not tolerate her daughter being exposed. How could I not “respect her beliefs”? (This “belief” seems to be a bit late-developing, to such an extent that it was a bit shocking to hear it coming out of her mouth. More likely, the one-flesh discussion was equally offensive to her because it inherently discredits her husband’s aunt who is in a longtime lesbian union, and it violates her liberal politics in every possible way.)
They say that God has no “grandchildren”, only “children”. May the telling of this family story comfort many standers who are surely going through the same struggles in their own covenant families.
The morning after that, it was the son-in-law’s turn to suggest that imposing Nana’s “belief system” on others was causing chaos in their family, was directly responsible for daily strife between them, and was causing him to question Nana’s emotional stability. We had a lengthy exchange on the infallibility of rightly-divided scripture, and the fact that there are not multiple correct alternatives when comes to rightly dividing the same. He suggested I was not “extending grace” to my prodigal husband of 40+ years in insisting his non-covenant marriage is what Jesus called it – ongoing adultery. I warned him that retreating on his prior resolve not to expose his daughters to that immoral relationship will not produce the relief he craves, nor will it end the barrage of emotional blackmail the family has been receiving from my husband, who refuses to see his granddaughters unless the family embraces his adulteress.
Can admitted non-believers convey “grace” to backslidden believers? Isn’t “grace” something that flows FROM GOD THROUGH those who are exclusively His? Isn’t the “grace” of non-believers false because they themselves reject God’s grace in their own lives because they reject the idea of repentance and obedience that is attached? Aren’t they the ones who love to point to Jesus saying “let him who is without sin cast the first stone”…but they look at you stupefied when you remind them of Christ’s next sentence: “Go and sin no more!”
If one denies or doubts that there is a real hell and people send themselves there by refusing to repent and obey Christ’s commandments (the bible says in Heb. 10 that this is insulting the spirit of grace) what can the purpose of grace even be?
“Grace” without love for God’s word or His order is certainly human kindness — so long as eternity isn’t considered. It is sympathy and empathy — making fellow travelers on a journey to the same fiery destination feel better about their unrepented sin. Such “grace”, however, is false because it cannot supply the ingredient that restores the kingdom of God and turns that traveler around on his or her wayward road. You cannot convey to another that which you reject for yourself, due to its high price tag, can you?
Has Nana given up on God’s ability to redeem her entire household? Not on her life! Over the past eleven years, the devil has launched a series of fiery attacks against various other family members, and God has always shown up and shown off. This time last year, another son was having a massive faith crisis to which Nana’s stand was also contributing, and an even more devastating reaction issued forth from this adult married son. It is not for nothing that Paul wrote about taking up the full armor of God while shaking up the princedom of the power of the air in the name of Jesus Christ. Nana will be praying against any exposure of our granddaughters to Papaw’s unrepented mockery of marriage, but if it occurs, at least Caitlin will have heard the truth about it. We will have prayed together with our arms around each other for Papaw to repent and return to the Lord, then to his covenant family. Nana makes no apologies whatsoever for not saying something more culturally acceptable, like…
“Sometimes people who love each other try as hard as they can, but in the end, they realize they can’t live together. It’s nobody’s fault, so we just ‘trust God’ and move on…” (No such pablum for this Nana!)
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” – Matthew 10:34-36
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!
I admire your faith to remain true to the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in both grace and truth. May God bless your stand and may the words of faith to a granddaughter have impact on future generations. We are not called to please man, we are called to fear God. The fact that family members are offended is not unlike what the Lord said to those who seek to follow Him. (Luke 14:26) Nevertheless, the pain you feel to see loved ones in a state of unrighteousness can really press the need to share the Gospel, and how this Good News is a reflection of the love of a husband and a wife.
Thank you, Neil. I’m hearing some similar tales right now from other standers who are grandparents and whose holy matrimony covenant union testified to others for decades, before satan targeted their family, and pulled a productive soul-winner off the battlefield with lust, greed and self-worship.
This process of standing in the gap over many years for other faltering family members is excruciating to say the very least. The ongoing devastation in their lives and marriages is unspeakable when the one who should be shoring them up as believers has been corrupted, perverted and transformed into somebody they no longer know. Without a direct appeal to the throne of heaven, it would be unbearable!
SIFC received what amounted to an ultimatum from the son-in-law, that unless the public marriage permanence activities ceased (seen by him as “shaming” anyone not conforming to her “belief system” and reflecting “poor emotional stability”), he will cut off access to the family. Her own son levelled a similar threat exactly a year ago, then repented within a few very difficult weeks, and is now back to walking with the Lord. SIFC must obey God above man, regardless of the apparent family cost. Sometimes that means staring satan down. Ongoing prayers appreciated for this family and every other family of marriage warriors in the same situation.