Audio Testimony on Repentance from Remarriage Adultery

Contact: Olga Snellings, 724-632-3210

OPINION, Jan. 22, 2019 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Olga Snellings of Evangelical Outreach:

It was around the middle of June 2013, when I stumbled across an article about remarriage adultery where I read, "By law, a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress." (Rom. 7:2-3)

Soon after came another verse -- equally terrifying:

"Or do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 6:9-10)

Another very similar verse reads as follows:

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars - their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)

My heart started pounding as I realized the relationship I had been in for the past 6 years was not a true marriage after all, but adultery, and that God viewed me as wicked. I was in the gravest of dangers because if I died at that moment, I would spend an eternity in hell. Reactions were quick and intense by family members, friends and other professing Christians. They figured I had some other reason why I was doing what they considered a "crazy thing" other than the fact that the Bible calls it adultery, and God commands us not just to confess our sins, but also to obey Him and forsake them in order to be forgiven.

"He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." (Jn. 3:36)

Some Pharisees came and tested Jesus by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" "What did Moses command you?" he replied. They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." Jesus further said that, "anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Mk. 10:2-12, Lk.16:18). Jesus, by these decrees, effectively overturned and voided Deuteronomy 24, which cannot be used as a loophole for the stiff-necked trying to justify remarrying after divorce.

The fornication exceptions we see in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 cannot be used to justify remarriage adultery, but can only be applied to the ancient Jewish practice of betrothal, whereby if a man found out his bride was not a virgin, he could divorce her. When Mary came back from her cousin's house obviously with child, Joseph thought she had been sexually immoral. He wanted to quietly divorce her (Mt. 1:19) to spare her from being stoned to death under the Old Testament law, but an angel of the Lord told him not to put her away because she had been faithful and had conceived through the Holy Spirit. We, the Gentiles, do not have betrothal; thus, there is no fornication (sexual immorality) exception in the rest of the New Testament. In other words, today your spouse's cheating does not permit you to remarry after divorce. Furthermore, abandonment and abuse do not justify remarriage after divorce either. A party can leave and stay away for safety; however, remarriage is not permissible under grace.

Please consider the following passage concerning remarriage adultery from Mk. 6:17-18:

"For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his Brother Philip's wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, 'It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.'"

Even though Herod had "married" Herodias, she was still considered Philip's wife. That is why John said it was not lawful for him to have his brother's wife. In other words, both Herodias and Herod were adulterous because of their illegitimate remarriage. Although Herod and Herodias were not Christians, God's law still applied to them regardless of whether or not they believed it or agreed with it.

"A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives." (1 Cor. 7:39)

I was horrified upon my discovery that my "Christian" life had all been in vain. How could I have been so deceived! The whole time I was there, singing songs to Jesus, handing out gospel tracts, sponsoring Compassion kids, and giving my tithing dollars to those smiley religious fable and fairy tale tellers. I was on the road to hell being told lies that my future sins were forgiven before I committed them, that all God could see when looking down at me was Christ's righteousness, and how much the Lord delighted in me (no matter what wickedness I did.) The religious works I did in Jesus' name for all those years did not cancel out my adultery. There is no such thing as a Christian adulterer on the road to heaven.

I heard some frightening statistics; as many as 40-60% of people in the pews are in sexual relationships diametrically opposed to God's word. In the "Bible Belt," the divorce rate is about 50% higher than the rest of the country—most likely the poisonous fruit of the poisonous tree of "Once Saved Always Saved."

People today do not even seem to know what marriage is. For the record, a legitimate marriage is between one man and one woman who were never legitimately married before or who have lost their spouse through physical death. Many people are not actually married in God's eyes but, instead, are actually in adultery. The modern apostate church does not teach about the one-flesh covenant marriage relationship. People today, including the church crowd, are hopelessly clueless about this type of adultery, and multitudes in these unlawful remarriages, do not realize the danger they are in. A marriage cannot be both legitimate and illegitimate at the same time. If you divorce from a legitimate marriage and remarry another person, it is adultery, but if you divorce from an illegitimate marriage and marry a life-long single person, it is not adultery. Why? Because, in the latter scenario, there is no one-flesh covenant marriage on either side to violate. In my own personal situation, there was so much divorce and remarriage on both sides, I had to hire a private detective to help me untangle the mess. I also researched back in the court records to investigate marriages from the 70’s since the validity of my own marriage hinged on the validity of all previous marriages.

I do not want to be in conscious torment 400 quadrillion years from now because it was too hard or inconvenient to leave a comfortable situation or because I buckled under the ridicule and persecution that will arise when you take a stand for God. Our soul is our most precious possession. The narrow road that leads to eternal life is difficult and often lonely (Lk. 13:24, Mt. 7:14) but, "we are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14)

I was determined to obey the Lord Jesus at any cost. I was not going to listen to men and devils and their fine sounding arguments. I vacated my adulterous remarriage and am completely severed from my old life. "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (Jesus) and for the gospel will save it. What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mk. 8:35-38)

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires (lusts), they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Tim 4:3) What could be more appealing to the desires and lusts of the flesh than to be told by the big name preachers that, under grace, people may remarry after divorce or that their remarriage adultery is merely a one-time sin that can be confessed but still continued in and ongoing under grace.

It took a while to overcome the shock and awe of all this, but better to be shocked now, than to be shocked upon physical death, expecting an entrance into the Lord's presence, only to wake up in the flames of torment and realize that I had been deceived. I think of the multitudes in hell right now because of this remarriage adultery. Friend, do not under any circumstances, enter into an adulterous remarriage. And if you do find yourself in such a situation and you value your soul, do get out. No person or sin is worth going to eternal fire over. Do not be deceived; the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Our life here on earth is a like a betrothal period – a test to determine whether or not we will enter heaven and attend the marriage supper of the lamb; to do so, we must die in a state of heart purity. To die in a state of unrepentant remarriage adultery will disqualify us from entering the Kingdom doors. Christ is coming back for a faithful bride, without spot, wrinkle or blemish - wise virgins who have remained pure and kept their lamps burning and ready for service - not a bunch of people committing remarriage adultery who go inside a church building. God bless you.

Remarriage Adultery Gospel Tract