Dennis: Tom, you feel strongly that anyone who has been involved in a divorce, that what that points out is there is a fundamental problem here that needs to be addressed before you can go in any direction, right?

Tom: The fact that a marriage license was torn up by a divorce decree in a court of man does not mean that any records have been changed in heaven. And a lot of people who come to us for marriage are not scripturally free to marry.

People show up at church, you know, with the ink barely dry on the divorce decree, and they're saying, "Okay, we're ready to get on with our life." They need to be alerted to this fact – the highest rate of divorce is among people who have been divorced before. And they think, "Well, I will never make that same mistake again," but the truth of the matter is, if your heart doesn't change, and if your value system doesn't change, you'll make that mistake over and over and over again.

Dennis: You'll just import that same attitude into a new marriage.

Tom: And the Scripture is pretty explicit about people who are free to be married and people who are not free to be married. Every once in a while, a couple sitting there in chairs in my office are shocked when I say, for instance, to the young man, "So you tell me you've been married before?" "Yes." "Well, has your first wife remarried?" "Well, no, she's living someplace else." "Well, do you know where she's living?" "Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do, or I could find her." "Well, have you considered the importance of reconciliation?" "No, that would take a miracle." "Well, don't you understand that Jesus is good for that? I mean, He loves miracles, and" –

Dennis: Have you seen some of those in your ministry?

Tom: Absolutely, absolutely.

Dennis: At this point, where someone has come to you to marry another person?

Tom: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And then there's this big question – I have turned to his intended, who is sitting there beside him with trembling lip, and then the mascara really begins to flow when I say, "You know, if you really loved him, you would want what's best for him, wouldn't you?" "Yes." "Well, did you know that's what's best is for there not to be another marriage created; what's best is for there to be reconciliation. And before you all go any further, do you think that you owe a trip and a word of apology? Shouldn't you ask that person to forgive you for leading her husband astray in this relationship and tell her that you have her word that you're backing out of this relationship so they can repair this marriage."

Bob: I bet you don't win many popularity contests at that moment in your office.

Tom: I don't think that's my goal. I think my goal is to be faithful to the Scripture, and if I do not exercise faithfulness in the Scripture, I'm not much of a pastor for them, anyway. I didn't set up shop just to perform marriages. The issue is what's going to happen to their family. And they're going to bring whatever clouds they have in their relationship right straight into their family if they're not resolved.

So we have a little exercise that we encourage these couples in if we discover there's been a divorce, to go through, and I don't even participate in the exercise with them. I give them a sheet of paper called "Divine Viewpoint," regarding divorce and remarriage. I ask them to go out and work through the Bible study. About 90% of the time I never heard from that couple again.

Now, sometimes they decide not to get married, sometimes they just go get married, but at least I have not said to them, "I believe God is smiling on this decision," on your part. Sometimes they'll come back and say, "You know, we've done all of this, and we believe we're scripturally free to be married," at which time we have a long discussion on that.

But having freedom from God to remarry, that's a tough one. Many people, many people are not scripturally free to be married.

Dennis: You know, it's interesting at this point in a couple's life, many times they're not interested in the truth, and I wonder sometimes how soft our picture of love has become even in our counseling, local church situation, when we go ahead and just kind of wink the other way at a circumstance that we know God doesn't approve of.

Tom: How many pastors who do this – "Well, I'll lose my privilege of ministering to them." No, you forfeited your right to minister to them when you told them something that wasn't true.

Dennis: Yes, and, you know, it's giving up on truth. I mean, it's giving in to emotion and the warmth of being liked and loved. God didn't call us, as Christians, to run a popularity contest. He called us to be people of truth and love, and love was always held in tension with the truth. I don't like the word "balance." Balance denotes something – I don't like it – I like the word "tension" because I think love and truth put tension against one another that call us to be Christlike.

Tom: And, you know, it raises a lot of other questions. I'm sure you have people listening to your broadcast right now who were divorced and remarried, and they say, "Man, I could have been reconciled, and we didn't, so what do we do now?"

Well, let me just tell you, it is not God's will to commit another divorce. I mean, that's not the plan here. But it might be a healthy exercise for you to seek forgiveness from offended parties and admit to God that you made a mistake.

As a matter of fact, the very marriage you're in may have, as a barometer of its health, your willingness to admit before God that you were wrong to enter into it, and now you're going to take the time that you have left between now and when you meet Jesus and do everything God wants you to do with that marriage between now and when you meet the Lord.

That's so important, and I can't emphasize enough – and the love aspect. You know, if you speak the truth in love, I tell these people, "Look, I'm willing to go with you. I'm willing to walk this journey with you." Well, now, some are just going to get mad, I mean, they're just going to get slap-dab mad about that, you know? I'm sorry, but that's just the way it and, by the way, that's the reason they probably got divorced the first time and will probably do it again because they will not hear the counsel that's given to them in that regard.

Dennis: And, you know, we're not just speaking to pastors at this point. I believe we're talking to the priests of families. That's the fathers who must, in essence, give away their daughters again in marriage, and the father of a son who must approve of this union. And I think we, as parents, as husbands, mothers, I believe we enter into this process and we, too, this is not just the pastor's responsibility back at the local church, this is the kind of Christian living that God has called us to stand up and represent the truth of God's word.

Bob: We're going to talk tomorrow on the broadcast the other prerequisite that couples ought to meet before they move ahead with marriage. I hope our listeners can join us for that.