Divorce And Remarriage Acceptance Led To Gay Marriage Acceptance

If you are a believer in Christ, don’t act so surprised by how many churches have changed in the last several years to accept Gay Marriage. This was all brought on in part because almost all churches compromised on divorce and remarriage over the last few decades. After all, if you can accept adulterous marriages into the church (in violation of passages like II John 9-11), why can’t you do the same with gay marriages?To explain why the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor has changed to accept gay marriage, Ken Wilson (its founding preacher) said - “Why was I willing to let so many divorced and remarried couples know that they are welcome and wanted while refusing that same welcome to gay and lesbian couples? How could I say to the remarried couples, whose second marriage was clearly condemned by the plain meaning of scripture, ‘You are welcome and wanted,’ while saying to the two mothers raising their adopted child together, ‘I love you, but I hate your sin’?”What do we learn from Mr. Wilson’s statement? That many churches now accept gay marriage because they saw it was inconsistent to accept adulterous marriages and not accept gay marriages similarly. After all, they’re the same thing in principle.What do I mean by adulterous marriages? Consider Matthew 19:9: … whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. (NKJV) Do you see that if you have divorced your spouse for any reason other than fornication, or they have divorced you, then you are living in adultery with a second spouse? Surely you don’t think God approves of you continuing to commit adultery with that person indefinitely?Should adulterous marriages be terminated? Secular history tells us that Herodias had divorced her husband Philip unscripturally, and then married Herod. Notice in Matt 14:4 what John the Baptist told Herod about his marriage to Herodias – “It is not lawful for thee to have her.” Does that mean John (who was speaking for God of course) expected Herod to stay in the marriage, or terminate it? It’s pretty obvious isn’t it?As I mentioned, many churches have changed on this issue. As a typical example notice what the Methodist Creed book said in 1896 about divorce – “No divorce, except for adultery, shall be regarded by the Church as lawful; and no Minister shall solemnize marriage in any case where there is a divorced wife or husband living; but this rule shall not be applied to the innocent party to a divorce for the cause of adultery.” Then notice what the same Creed book said about ninety years later in 1984 - “Where marriage partners, even after thoughtful consideration and counsel, are estranged beyond reconciliation, we recognize divorce as regrettable but recognize the right of divorced persons to remarry.” Do you hear the sea change from standing for exactly what Matt 19:9 says, to compromising to something completely different? But it gets worse: In 2015 the “United Methodist Church … leadership voted to submit … a … legislative proposal … that removes "prohibitive" language from The United Methodist Book of Discipline concerning homosexuality. … the proposal would allow United Methodist pastors to perform same-sex marriages in United Methodist churches. … this proposal does not consider homosexuality incompatible with Christian teachings even though Methodists have historically recognized the practice … as sinful.”Conclusion: If we’re going to stand for God’s truth that gay marriages should be terminated (Rom 1:26-27), to be consistent we're going to have to oppose adulterous marriages also.