Doing the Right Thing Too Long
I know we have covered a lot of ground, but let me share some final things with you in closing. God’s desire and mine is that every husband and wife enjoys each other to the fullest. Marriages are very special before the Lord, but the people in the marriages are even more special.
There are some couples who are enjoying their marriage. There are also many couples who find their marriage like an anchor around their neck pulling them under water for the third time. A proper marriage is very wonderful and very beautiful; however, it is possible to stay married and be doing the “right thing” too long. The story of God testing Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac is a good example of this:
The Lord told Abraham to “...Take ...your only son Isaac, whom you love and go ...and offer him there as a burnt offering...” (Genesis 22:2). So Abraham listened to God and tied up Isaac and placed him upon an alter that he made. “And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham ...DO NOT LAY YOUR HAND ON THE LAD, OR DO ANYTHING TO HIM; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me’” (Genesis 22:10-12).
What if Abraham missed the Lord’s voice telling him to STOP THE SACRIFICE? What if Abraham had kept doing the last thing he was supposed to do? Isaac would have been dead! If we miss the Word of God or the voice of God and continue in a marriage longer than we’re supposed to, we too, can become a sacrifice that was not intended. God does not want us to be a “sacrificial victim” for the “sake of the marriage.” Just as God told Abraham to stop the sacrifice of his son, so God speaks to us who are in dead marriages to stop being a sacrificial victim for the sake of the marriage institution. Jesus Himself said to those who esteemed the institution to be greater than those who make up the institution, “...IF ONLY YOU HAD KNOWN WHAT THIS SAYING MEANS, I desire [to have] mercy ...RATHER THAN ...[to have] sacrificial victims, YOU WOULD NOT HAVE CONDEMNED THE GUILTLESS” (Matthew 12:7 AMP).
Many good books have been written that deal with how to promote and build strong marriages. Thank God for them; we need them. However, there are very few books that deal with the “need to divorce.” We must not view the divorce of a bad marriage as an end of something good, because it is not. If the marriage were good, there wouldn’t be any divorce. It’s the end of something that went bad, and the BEGINNING of something new.
http://www.divorcehope.com/christiandivorcefacts.htm
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