I t has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ “Yet God himself gave Israel a certificate of divorce. And Ezra, in order to purify the nation, instructed the men of Israel to divorce their foreign wives and send them with their children back to Babylon. Men and women make serious, life consuming mistakes. From the writings of Ezra we learn that God does not always “join together” or endorse all marriages. But in those cases where God does join two together, let them never divorce. For God ordains the character of their relationship to be an indivisible union. To violate this by adultery as Israel did in the time of Jeremiah, is to provide a justification for divorce. As Israel continued (as it does yet today) in their adultery, so you will continue in adultery if you destroy a marriage that God put together. Again, any divorce is a concession to the reality of evil and causes severe pain to all concerned. Never consider it lightly.

How foolish we are as we approach the threshold of entering life with another. We make lifetime decisions with underdeveloped intellect and emotional incertitude. We do not wait for maturity to sow our hormonal seed. We do not seek the face of God. We are driven by other forces. We ignore his criteria for union, for peace, for replenishment. In this, we err badly.

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