Chastening

Thank you, Mparker for your response and the rest of you for complying with my request.

Shane since I’m rather long winded and I hate reading very long posts myself I will respond in a series of posts instead of just one. I think we have several points to consider and this way maybe they won’t get too tangle up with one another.

How do you know? God sometimes allows us our sin now knowing that eventually we’ll figure it out, or because He knows that we’ll learn/understand our lesson better later on if He gives us enough room to hang ourselves.

Let’s go back and re-examine David’s story. Did God know when David decided to stay home from the war (perhaps a sin in itself, as a king was supposed to be leading his men into battle)? Could God not have averted the whole episode by sending Nathan to David right there at the beginning? But in His wisdom He left David to do as he pleased.

Now David is on the roof looking down at Bathsheba, who probably thinks she’s safe bathing in the evening air because all the men are supposed to be at war. Could God not have sent Nathan (a respected prophet) to tell her not to do it, because David will certainly sin if she does? But God didn’t do it. It was David who sent to Bathsheba to come to the palace. Should Bathsheba have said no? Possibly, but remember she is Soloman’s mother, so think before you answer that one.

Now the deed is done and Bathsheba is pregnant. God could have sent Nathan to David when David was only contemplating killing Uriah and Nathan could have told him the same story about the man with a single lamb. David might have been just as outraged and would have stopped before he committed murder. But God, in His wisdom, didn’t do that either. He allowed David to not commit just one sin but many sins in order that David learn the consequences of impurity and not only for David. Think about it: Do we ourselves not learn to this day from David’s experience?

Sometimes, God lets us sin and continue sinning because He knows that it will suit His purposes in some way and at the same time will turn to good for ourselves.

 

Ah but what does Paul say about just this thing:

Ro 7:19
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

We know what we should do, but we don’t always do it!

Please explain the basis for this belief? Given what I said earlier about how God dealt with David, show me where you come by the understanding that God deals quickly with us.

Shane, she had no power whatsoever to lead him back to Christ. Christ does the drawing. All anyone else does is to be an example or a tool.

 

I agree, but it doesn’t follow that since there is a divorce coming that they are BOTH now out of God’s will nor that they were BOTH out of God’s will during the marriage. Sin can creep up on just one party to the marriage without the other one being involved or even having knowledge of the first one’s sin. If you are somehow under the impression that once a person is married that there are no secrets, well, let someone who’s been married for 20 years attest to that not being reality in any way, shape or form!

Now you may say that there should be no secrets and in a perfect world that would be the case. We, however, live in a world corrupted by sin and all we can do is trust that our spouse doesn’t have a secret that will harm our marriage. Often, often, often, one spouse will find out that the other holds a secret devastating to their marriage. That, my friend, is the sad reality of life.

I don’t see how we can tell what God is doing. Often times we can’t actually see what God is doing in another’s life. Yes, on the outside looking in, it appears this man is having his sin and enjoying it as well without any apparent consequences. But remember, David’s consequences didn’t come to pass until month and even years had passed (depending on the consequence).

 

Ah yes, there are always those who believe/claim they are saved but aren't really. This man may indeed be one of those. I'm not going to discount that possibility. I have seen many a man (even some who were deacons in the church) who had all the world fooled into believing they were saved/Christian but had a deeply seated sin in their lives that even their wives didn't know about for years.

But, it is not for me to say that these men weren't really saved. We can't see the heart of a man.

We also can't say that the wives of such men sinned by marrying them when at the time of marriage the men were carrying on the act of being Christians. Like you say, there are many who only claim salvation but have never experienced it and are only following a set of "rules" that they think make them "Christian".

Wow! I can save my husband???? Again, we can be an example that may lead our husbands to Christ, but we really aren't saving them ourselves. That would cross the whole line drawn by Christ when He said "I am the way".

 

Getting him saved (if he wasn't) would have been a huge impact, yes. But I'm not about to say that she should have stayed once he made it clear that he no longer desired the marriage (by shackin' up with another woman). Remember Paul says that we are not bound to a marriage with an unbeliever nor an adulterer.

I hate divorce as much as the next person, but not all marriages can be saved. Marriage is not a 50/50 proposition. It is a 100/100 propostion and without that kind of commitment a marriage won't last.

We Christians are given certain advice that if we follow it, we will have a better marriage, but the burden is on the WE. One person can't do it all by themselves with no input from the other. Divorce happens when one party doesn't want to commit.

And the verse "Who knows whether?" The question leaves open the possibility that the wife won't save the husband.

I do think we mostly agree here though.

 

I'm not arguing divorce in this thread Shane.

And you and I don't have to agree.