Gooding, David: 8 - Question Time

Allow me to make one announcement. My good elders at Apsley Street Assembly, to whom I try permanently to be obedient, uh, have requested that I announce that I shall not be able to finish the studies in the Gospel of John that we began last year in Apsley. Some people have, uh, been asking about whether we could finish them. God willing, one of these days we will try to do that. But, uh, this year, uh, I shall not be able to attempt that, eh, because of the, uh, urgency of other things. One, the writing of material for Russia and Ukraine and other wars. The opportunities continue, and therefore we feel that they are things that we should concentrate on while the door remains open. We have no guarantee, the way things are going, that that door will remain quite so widely open in the future as it is now. And then, before I get completely senile, I would, uh, want to write certain other things and put down some studies in scripture for those that may come after. So it's all my fault, but forgive me, and if you can find it in your heart to pray for us and my good friends who work so much harder than I do in the Russian things, that God would bless this particular effort at this time. When we are able to get, uh, something going again in Apsley Street, we will, of course, let you know. And if you would be interested in that, uh, my two good elders, there's one of them sitting there. Where has the other one got? There he is, there you are. Stand up, if you wouldn't be mind. These two men, yeah, yeah, these two men, they are those, and if you would be so kind as to let them know, uh, if you would be interested, so that when such a thing can be done to have further studies, eh, uh, we could let you know. Now, thank you, uh, uh, for the questions that you have put in. I have a a large sheaf of them. I shall do my best to answer as best I can, uh, as many as I can, though they are so numerous that I shall have to, uh, put a lot of them, so to speak, together from time to time, and try to answer them as a group rather than individually. Question one: I understand, says the questioner, I understand you to have said that the personality of the unsaved will disintegrate in eternity, and that you equated that with perishing. Please, can you explain this more clearly? What I meant was that the, to take one verb that is used by our Lord to describe the state of the impenitent and lost, is that they perish. I do not understand that to mean that they cease to exist. What I, uh, uh, take that to mean, among other things, is that if people die unrepentant, they not only come under the wrath of God and his displeasure, but they suffer the consequences of their wrong choices in life. Abstain from fleshly lusts, says Peter to his fellow believers. They war against the soul. Paul talks about lusts which drown people in perdition. Paul talks elsewhere about the old man that waxes corrupt. He talks of others whose word does eat like a gangrene. We should consider then not simply the eternal penalty of sin, but the eternal consequences of sin. If envy is allowed to go on, it will overmaster a person and make them a freak of a human. If lust is unchecked, it will distort a human being's personality for eternity. That's what I mean. In our life as believers, we surely know the importance that confidence in the Lord. When we are battered by difficult circumstances, when our emotions are harrowed and disturbed and tempestuous, and we meet all kinds of problems, and there seems little light upon them, then it's our confidence in the Lord, isn't it, that, so to speak, keeps us together. You imagine being in eternity and no true confidence in God. That's what I mean by using what is not a biblical word, I admit, personality disintegrating. Still exist, but what a terrible thing it will be. Blessed are those that get into the gate of the city, for outside... Ah, there's the most horrible perversions that life has ever known. There is no magic wand that turns them into sanitized sinners, as far as I can see. What a man has sown by way of character, he shall reap. Question two: in Paul's declaration, the body is for the Lord, he also said the Lord is for the body. Please explain this statement. Well, our bodies are for the Lord, says Paul. They are not just temporary. For this body, he that raised up the Lord Jesus, raised up his body from the dead, will raise our body up from the dead one of these days. And the body is for the Lord, as Paul explains, in the sense that the human body is designed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, a temple of God. So the body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. That is, the Lord, of course, in his grace as a faithful creator, maintains it. He will transform it. He already dwells within. But oh, what a marvelous thing is when his eternal glory shall dwell in us, like the Shekinah glory dwells in the tabernacle in the wilderness. The Lord is for the body. They need no need of the sun. The glory of God did lighten it. I don't know how you suffer, uh, how you've experienced life when you've had friends come from Timbuktu to visit you, and you take them out to see the glories of the, uh, Irish countryside. So very often you have the day arrives, and it's as dark and as dismal and as raining and as black, and all you can say is to your guest, well, look, there's a marvelous scene over there. I'm sorry you can't see it, but you'll have to take my word for it. You see, you need the light, don't you, to bring out the glory of a thing. How, when you get home, my good sister, and the glory of God. Bringing out all those qualities that by his grace and spirit have been wrought in you. What a lovely thing. I'm looking forward to it, to see you. I do see. Our body for the Lord, to make him a temple. The Lord for us, in that he will bestow his glory on us and use us. Now the question, when the ministry was given on 1 Corinthians chapters five and six, quite a lot was mentioned of the personality and the body. Please, can we have an explanation of the difference between the body and the flesh in chapter six verse sixteen? Six verse sixteen, know you not that he that is joined to an harlot is one body, for the two, saith he, shall become one flesh. And I suspect the questioner means, why are the two terms used in that one verse? Know you not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body, for the twain, saith he, shall become one flesh. Well, in the context, perhaps the difference is not all that great. Paul has been talking about the body and how the body shall be permanent, and the Lord shall raise up our bodies, you'll see. He then says, know you not that your bodies are members of Christ. He's not thinking of your flesh, the stuff that your bodies are made out of, but the whole thing. The flesh is the stuff that the body is made of, I guess. The body is the thing that is composed of flesh. Your bodies are members of Christ. Shall I take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. Why shouldn't you do that? Well, know you not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body, physically so. Now he comes to make a, a difference between our be- uh, our, uh, someone who's joined to a harlot and someone that is joined to the Lord. Someone who is physically joined to the har- a harlot, the nature of the link is flesh, isn't it? He that is joined to the Lord, the nature of the link is spirit. So Adam, uh, in in verse sixteen, the twain saith he shall become one flesh. The reason why flesh is used in the first place is because Paul is quoting Genesis, the two shall become one flesh. He's quoting the Genesis rule. And Adam said of Eve, she's bone of my bone and flesh of my se- flesh of the same material. In addition to that, as I would see it, you'll see, joined to a harlot, the the the method of connection is the flesh. Joined to the Lord, the contrast is the joining point is the spirit. Please give, uh, could you give a word of explanation to one Corinthians seven fourteen which says, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. What does that mean? To start with, I think it is helpful to notice the verb. The unbelieving husband is sanctified. Now, you will immediately see that you couldn't substitute the verb justified for sanctify, could you? Not in that verse. Sometimes we use our terms carelessly. Justified, sanctified, you say, well, what is the difference? But here the difference is exceedingly important. You could never say an unbeliever is justified. Why not? Because you can't be justified without faith. How is a person justified? We're justified by faith. So to say an unbeliever is justified would be a contradiction in terms. That is absolutely impossible. You see, to to be justified, he'd have to be a believer, he'd have to believe. So there is a very big difference then between justification and sanctification. So, again, the new birth. How is somebody born again? Our Lord makes it clear, John chapter three: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him. You can't be born again without faith. You can never say the unbelieving husband is born again through the wife. No, no. You can, however, say that an unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. Because sanctification is not the same as justification or the new birth. I- it is a verb with many different levels of meaning. In the Old Testament, for instance, a pot could be sanctified. Yeah? Mrs. Jones lent her pot, one of her saucepans, one day to the priests to cook some of the meat of the sacrifices in. And that pot became sanctified. She never got it back, actually. You see, it had, it was, um, it had touched the holy things, and therefore it was sanctified. The pot wasn't born again, of course, nor justified, was it? But it was set aside for God's use. Secondly, if you say in this sense, what is the opposite of sanctification, uh, uh, being sanctified, well, something that is impure. Now, when it comes to human relationships and marriage in particular, forget now about being a believer or not. You can talk about a girl, she's not a believer, but you could say she is a pure, chaste, the English translation says, but a pure virgin, yes? We don't mean that she's born again yet, but she is pure, chaste. And marriage is meant to be, even amongst believers, a pure thing, in that sense a sacred thing. There are perversions at that level. Now then, suppose a woman and a man, they've married, now she gets converted. Her husband is still an unbeliever. Is their relation an impure relation? No, says Paul. It is still a sacred thing at that level, and their children are sacred. They're not the children of whoredom, as the Old Testament would say. They're not the result of some impure perversion. And finally, now that the woman has become a believer, she is sanctified at the highest sense, isn't she? She's set apart for God. It has a sanctifying effect on her life. Does that mean that he had to put her husband away because he has not had that experience? No, not necessarily. She's content to live with her. She will be, uh, in that sense, sanctifying influence on him, won't she? As a Christian wife. Mm. And their children will not be in the sight of God, perversions or abominations or the result of unclean relationship. They will be regarded as sacred. That's what I take it to mean. But it gives no, uh, ground, of course, to believing that somehow the children of believers are automatically saved and born again somehow. The, uh, next question. In one Corinthians five verse eleven, a quote. I have written unto you not to keep company of any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator with such an one, uh, know not to eat. Uh, the first question, there are two. This business about not keeping company with a man that's called a brother, uh, not with one such a one know not to eat, does it primarily to refer to the church? Members of the church as such are not to, uh, to put him away and not to eat with him? Or does it or does it not include the family of that man? Do you see? If, uh, a brother seriously sins, is known to be an inordinate, covetous man and very bad reputation in the world as such, or is a fornicator, and therefore has to be put away. His wife, who might be a very godly woman, does she have to stop eating with him at home, and must all the children just throw him out or something? So my answer to that would be no, it refers to the church, qua church. Why does the church have to put him away? Well, for two reasons. One, to deliver him for Satan, that by the disciplines of life he might be brought to repentance, even if it costs his physical suffering. And the church therefore removes its protection from him and exposes him to the attacks of the devil. Uh, secondly, the church has to do it for the sake of the church's reputation and the gospel's reputation. If the church allowed such a person to frequent the church, and members of the church frequently indulge in social, uh, contact with him, the world outside would get the impression that to the church it didn't matter, this kind of social, serious social sin didn't matter. That would destroy the very reputation of the gospel. So the church, our church, the members of the church are to, uh, not only to excommunicate, but to avoid social contact. That said, it doesn't mean that the elders or someone so gifted shouldn't from time to time try and contact the man to help him and bring him to repentance. But mere social c- contact, as though it didn't matter what he'd done, is another thing. In the home, of course, wife and children, that's another thing altogether, another situation. I don't know that the scripture requires them somehow to boot their father out at all. Secondly, does this reference with such and one know not to eat refer to the Lord's table or include it? Well, doubtless, uh, the excommunication would excommunicate him from the Lord's Supper. Juicy. Uh, but the phrase know not to eat, I suspect, also includes the social concourse, intercourse with such a person. Now we come to a group of questions, uh, that have to do in general with the, uh, problems on divorce and remarriage, basing themselves in particular on one Corinthians, uh, 7. I shall answer them as a group generally, because they cover a a lot of the same ground. The first says, I was very disappointed on Saturday evening, twenty ninth of January, when you were speaking on chapter seven of First Corinthians. You did not read or comment on verses ten, eleven, or thirty nine. Would you kindly give your interpretation of these verses at question time in March? Many others who attended the meeting that night would also like to hear your views on the above verses. Another question, uh, in a similar fashion, uh, says in Corinthians one seven ten to eleven, Paul says as follows. So let me do that at least and read the passages. 1 Corinthians 7, 10 to 11. But unto the married I give charge, yea, not I, but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband. But even if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband. And that the husband leave not his wife. Verse thirty nine of the chapter. A wife is bound for so long as her husband, so long time as her husband lives. But if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord. And the question is says, in light of this and other New Testament scriptures, such as Romans, Mark, and Luke. Scriptures could be read, so let's do precisely that. Romans seven twenty three. Oh, sorry, Romans seven two and three it should be, sorry. Romans seven two and three: For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. So then, if while the husband lives she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man. That was Romans, Mark ten verses eleven and twelve. Mark ten, eleven, twelve. And he says to them, whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if she herself shall put away her husband and marry another, she committeth adultery. And Luke sixteen eighteen: Every one that putteth away his wife and marieth another committeth adultery, and he that marieth one that is put away from a husband committeth adultery. And the questioner goes on to say, in the light of these and other New Testament scriptures, is there any room for accepting remarriage after divorce before the death of the spouse. A third, uh, question is in, is a letter from some good dear brother, and he asked me, well, at least he, he com- he comments in the course of the letter on verse 27 of chapter seven uh of First Corinthians. So let's read that as well. First uh Corinthians seven, verse 27. Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. And the questioner says, a strongly favored concept among some Christians is that in verse twenty seven the Apostle Paul is speaking about divorced persons, and the following verse twenty eight permits sinless remarriage after divorce, because verse twenty seven says, art thou loosed from a wife, seek not a wife, but and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. Uh, and so the question to me is, is this so that that is what these verses mean? For that particular small detail, uh, uh, uh, I could comment on it forthwith. As far as I am aware, those verses have nothing to do with a, with uh, uh, divorce or remarriage, except in this. Paul is answering still the question, if you are a Christian, is marriage something that you should try to get out of because it is not very, you know, it's not too spiritual a thing. Uh, or if you're now a convert and your husband is still unconverted, or the other way around, are you obliged to get rid of your partner? And the answer is no. Are you bound to a wife? Don't seek to be loosed by whatever means, certainly not by divorce, of course. Uh, carry on. Aren't you loosed from a wife? Some people want to say that means, have you been recently divorced from a wife? In other words, has your wife divorced you? But that seems to me to be, uh, not certainly not a necessary translation of the Greek, nor yet a li- likely one. Uh, uh, people can be loosed from a wife by death, for instance, can't they? And if, uh, Jose, this man's wife has died, he's now loosed from the law of the wife and husband, isn't he? What shall he do in those cases? Does it mean that if your wife has died, you should never marry again? And Paul is saying, uh, well, in my humble es- estimation, my advice would be that it is a good thing not to get married again. But if you do get married again, you have not sinned. Here is a thing at which the Lord leaves it for your decision. Whichever way you choose, having lost your wife or having lost your husband, whether to get married again or not to, whichever way you choose, this is not sinful. Paul, as a advice, would say in certain circumstances you might be wiser not to get married again, but the Lord leaves it to you. But, uh, to say that the end of verse twenty seven, are you loose from a wife, means have you been divorced from a wife, seems to me to be going beyond the, uh, the necessary meaning of the term. In the second, uh, list of questions, uh, a thing that I could deal with now while we go, because it's a detail. Further, in the light of one Corinthians six one to two, is it not in defiance of God's word to seek or to be part of divorce proceedings? Divorce can only take place through the world's courts, and the passage quoted is chapter six of First Corinthians. Dare any one of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints. So does that apply also to divorce? Does that forbid believers, two believers and they've fallen out, to go to the courts and ask the courts to divorce them? My comment on that would be that it would be and is a very sad thing, in terms of witness to the world, if two Christian people have to admit that the grace of Christ in one or other or both has not proved sufficient, and that they must divorce. That surely is a sad testimony. On the other hand, we should remember that when you get married, you can't get married simply as a private concern, nor as a thing that concerns the church. You have to get that registered with the state, don't you? Consider this kind of example. Here is a good woman. She's married a gentleman, and there's one that I was hearing of just recently, when a few weeks, months after they were married, the man told his wife that he wasn't a believer, he'd only pretended to be a believer to get her. Now, what should you do? Furthermore, in such cases, a man could go to the modern courts and complain that his wife, being a Christian, had tortured him mentally by her narrow views, and such are the liberal judges at this time that they might well decide in his favor, grant the divorce that he seeks, and give him the custody of the children. Would it be a Christian thing to put up with that? And see the children consigned by the state to this ungodly deceiver and unprincipled man and brought up in the world. Would you think that's a Christian duty? Or would you think the wife now should have a right to go as a Christian to the courts and explain the truth, and if not justify herself, try to keep hold of the children. You say that's a special case, that's a case where one of the persons concerned is not a believer and openly admits it. I mention it to to illustrate the point that when it comes to practicalities, some of these questions are far more involved than looks like it on the surface. To come to what is the central point of these, this, this set of three questions, uh, you'll see well put by, uh, one that says here, uh, along with this concept, it is usually explained that adultery breaks the marriage bond. I find that whole concept tortuous and untenable against the rest of this same passage, notably verses ten, eleven, and thirty nine. And that brings us to the heart of the whole matter. Because in Rome, in one Corinthians seven, Paul, on this particular issue, quotes what the Lord said. When in verse ten he says, but to the married I give charge, yet not I, but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband, and that the husband leave not his wife. What he means by saying it's not I that give the commandment, but the Lord, is that here he is actually quoting what the Lord said. Do you see? Now, when you read one Corinthians seven, the words might well seem, as they do to the three that have written in, to mean that their divorce is not allowed whatsoever to Christian people, let alone remarriage. Divorce is not allowed. And that has been a view that has been taken all down the centuries by large sections of Christendom, the Catholic and Orthodox churches in particular. When you go to the Gospels to see what the Lord actually said, Mark and Luke s- will say the same phraseology as Corinthians here. There is no mention of any exception to this. But it is notorious that when you come to Matthew nineteen, our Lord appears to insert one exception to that blanket prohibition. And the verse is 9, uh, chapter nineteen, Verse nine. I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife except for fornication and shall marry another commits adultery, and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery. The verse appears to allow an exception in the case of adultery. The age-long dispute all down the centuries and still today is what that exception means. Some good folks will say, no, Mark, Luke, and Corinthians allow no exception. They prohibit divorce and certainly therefore remarriage. And that is the thing. Whatever this exception means, it can't contradict what m- m- Mark, Luke, and Corinthians say. Those who hold that view are, of course, godly, uh, uh, brothers and sisters, exceedingly so. There is an equal number, perhaps more, not of worldly lax, uh, believers, but exceedingly godly men and women who say the opposite view, that Matthew nineteen does permit divorce, uh, under certain circumstances. You'll see. How shall it be reconciled? Now, this is a very big problem. Uh, I am not going to answer it tonight. I'm going to disappoint you again, and I'll tell you now why I shall not answer it. Because the question becomes exceedingly intricate. Here I have two, uh, things that came into my possession on this very topic. Written, as far as I know, by a couple of Irishmen, you'll see. One takes the view that our Lord does not permit divorce, and certainly not remarriage to believers. The other takes the view that, yes, there is an exception. And here they're proving their case too. Yes. To prove their case as they feel it ought to be proved, and the minimum they could write, this man writes five full scat pages, single typing, and the other man has seven pages of A four, detailed argument. I'm not going to try and settle the question for you tonight, and I tell you why. Not that I want to dodge it, but if I were to give you what I would think, I would would not want to be dogmatic in the sense that I would take a view and say, that is that, without discussing with you the views of other godly men and women who take a contrary position. We must believe what we must believe, mustn't we, before the Lord? But when godly people, I'm not talking about permissively inclined Godly people, take a different view, then it is part of our task in coming to a view to consider their opinions, and where we cannot agree, to give reasons. Now I quote just one example of what I, uh, am saying here, the terms of that exceptive clause. Uh, not allowed except for adultery. Whosoever shall put away his wife except for fornication and shall marry another commits adultery. Some have felt that the way to solve the apparent difference between Matthew on the one hand, with the exception, and Corinthians, Luke, and Mark on the other, that don't mention any exception, is to say that the word here translated in your English as fornication is being used very, very carefully and precisely to mean premarital unchastity. That yes, our Lord does allow an exception, and the exception is this, that if after marriage it is found that one or other has not been a virgin at the time of marriage, but has been guilty of premarital unchastity and hidden it from the partner, when the partner discovers it, the partner has right in this case to divorce because the marriage was entered into under false pretenses, and therefore the party that has been lied against, uh, is not to be kept to that marriage bond that has been fa- uh, uh, uh, forged because the other party told a lie. Now that would be a very neat, uh, way of resolving it, wouldn't it? And indeed, it convinces many godly people and is a view that one should consider. However, when it comes to the technicalities, the word in question, and now I must trouble you for a moment with technicality, the word in question in Greek does not mean premarital unchastity. In our English, fornication can sometimes mean that, premarital unchastity. After you're married, sexual sin is adultery. That isn't how the words are used in the ancient world. The word that is here translated fornication actually means harlotry, using the services of a prostitute. And you'll see it is possible, isn't it, for a believer, married, to go astray and use a prostitute. That's no, that is, uh, in other words, a sin that he can do before he marries and afterwards as well. The word actually can also mean incest. It can mean promiscuity, not just one act, but a constant, uh, behavior in this ungodly fashion. In fact, if you look at the experts, you'll find a list of other possible meanings as well. Now, I mentioned that simply to show this one thing. Why do I not, uh, uh, come down dogmatically tonight here? Because to tell you what I mean, I should need, uh, seven, nine pages, perhaps twenty, And that would take us beyond what we could possibly bear this time of night. As one of the questioners says, however, look, don't feel obliged to answer it in, in public tonight. Would you be prepared to tell me what you believe privately? Yes, I would certainly, if you come up and make yourself known. And if elders in particular, any elders here, I'm not an elder, you should remember that. But as far as any technical meaning of Greek could happen, and as a teacher of the word, if you as elders would want to hear what I have to say, then I would be perfectly glad and willing to come and put my little contribution into the pool of your thinking. But to do it tonight without being, eh, unduly dogmatic would be impossible. I would want to say one or two things, if you will allow me. The Lord, in dealing with this in Matthew nineteen, took his hearers back to the ideal. They said to him, is it all right for a man to divorce his wife for this or that or any other cause? And when he said no, they said, well, why did Moses allow a man to write a bill of divorcement and divorce his wife and marry another? And our Lord replied, Moses did that for your hardness of heart, but it wasn't so from the beginning. So here we have three stages, don't we? One, the ideal that was in the beginning. Two, what was permitted under the Mosaic law, but was not ideal, but was permitted. Three, what is positively sinful? Three degrees, not just two. What our Lord did was to insist on his apostles that they do not be content with mere permission. They go back to the ideal. What I want to say about that is this. In this day in which we live, these times in which we live, the general attitude in society has become so lax, and the pressures upon young people so great, and the spirit of the world so easily permeating a believer's thinking, that allow me to plead with you elders. Of course, when things go wrong, you have to try and deal with them. It is better to bolt the door before the horse gets out, isn't it? I urge elders to start training the young people, and not only the men elders, but the women, the senior women, in any society, it's the women very often that hold the key to morality. In my youth, no respectable unconverted man would tell a blue juke, blue joke in the presence of a woman. Now, if you listen to the woman's Radio Four, they will from time to time be positively pornographic and shamelessly so. What I appeal for, therefore, is for elders to run courses on what true Christian marriage is and what the ideal is. And for the senior women, as Titus says, to train the younger women as to what Christian marriage is, and urge upon them the ideal, and not to wait until the damage is done. And the ideal for marriage is this, says our Lord. God made the male and female. For this cause shall mother a man be, uh, leave his father, and the two shall become one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man put us under. What our Lord is talking about is the very institution of marriage. What is marriage? It is not just a contract. Like two businessmen might agree, look, we'll, we'll go into business together and we'll, we'll get out a contract, you'll see. And, uh, that's all it is. And when the contract has served our purpose, well, we'll ditch the contract, and that's over. That's business. And alas, so many marriages in the modern world follow that, don't they? You'll live together for the next six years, says the world, and if it works, well, it works, and if it doesn't work, well, we'll ditch that and go on for another one. That could easily come to be the attitude of Christian young people, couldn't it? That's not marriage in God's view. Isn't a contract like that. It is joining two people into a lifetime union. We need it taught. Secondly, Secondly. allow me to point out that when things go wrong, we shall need the compassion of Christ, can't we? When he was confronted with a woman taken in adultery, and they cited him the law, such a woman should be stoned. What do you say? He didn't say, but the law of God must be kept, therefore you must stone her, did he? You say, was he going easy on adultery then? No, he wasn't saying adultery is bad. But our Lord, having the authority so to do, of course, did not insist on the law's penalty, did he? But said, I don't condemn you, woman. In other words, I'm not going to say you must now be stoned. Go and sin no more. We shall err in our decisions about things that go, when things go wrong, if we don't learn that same compassion that the Lord Jesus showed. And if I may cite an Old Testament example for the moment, we all cite King David, don't we? As the man that taught us much about God's forgiveness. He wrote the lovely psalm on forgiveness when God forgave him for not only adultery, but for murder. If he had been content with adultery, uh, uh, you'll see, that would have been a very difficult thing, wouldn't it? Because if he, if he married another woman when her husband was still alive, that would be very, very wrong, obviously wrong. He got rid of the problem by shooting the woman's husband. So he wasn't any longer living in adultery, was he? It's not a recommended solution. Ghastly, fearful, wasn't it? Dark with sin. And God forgave him. We sing his hymns still. In dealing with these things when things go wrong, and in our interpretation of what God or Christ is saying, we must remember compassion. And finally, I recur to the point, we must do nothing, however, to trivialize marriage. Even in Deuteronomy, when a man was permitted to put away his wife and write a will of divorcement, and was free to marry another, and she was free to go off and marry another husband. Even the Lord Moses says, but if that second man died, and the first husband wanted her back again, then God said, no, you don't. Why not? Well, if that kind of thing was possible, it would have induced a lot of wife swapping, wouldn't it? And trivialize the whole thing. Two stories I want to say, tell you. I can show I will tell you I'm an old bachelor, you haven't forgotten that at all. And both concern America. I was approached once at a Christian conference by a young gentleman, oh, not so young, in his thirties perhaps, who had recently been converted from a life of the most lurid kind of crime. His wife had been a partner in it, they'd long since been divorced or separated, they couldn't care less, of course. He got converted. He came to ask me about divorce and remarriage. I went through the various things that people say in both sides of the question that godly men have argued. Do they? And when it came to that, I made the further thing, there is no command in the New Testament that you have to get divorced. Is there? You, uh, in some societies you would have to, if your partner became promiscuous in some societies, society would demand that you divorce that partner. If you didn't, you would be thought to be living on, uh, ill-gotten gains. But there is no command in the New Testament itself that you've got to get divorced, is there? I said that to this young man. I said, did you love your former wife? Well, now you got converted. Why wouldn't you go and, uh, tell her that you love her and you'd like her back? He said, I'd been, but she told me that was nonsense. I was only trying to make myself feel good. I said, that's understandable, my boy, isn't it? Do you suppose that you- she's going to believe that you're changed into an angel overnight? You'll have to bear with this and prove it by perhaps long years. I said, I can't wait that long. Why not? Well, he said, there's a young girl in, well, she's not so young in the eh, there's a young lady in the meeting, and she wants to marry me, and the elders want me to marry her, and they're pushing me to marry her. Oh dear. Oh dear. This is the epistle that will tell you what your rights are. It will call upon you on sometimes to forego your rights for the sake of winning other folks to Christ. And as for trivializing marriage, I have a great and dear friend in that of Halsted country, delightful Christian, and because he is such a delightful soul, he's been asked to marry many young men and women. Uncle George, they call him. The last time I stayed with him, he said, David, I'm getting worried by the situation. He said, I married recently a fine young couple, beautiful young couple they were. I married them. He said, about nine months later, I got a phone call one morning. Hello, Uncle George? Yes. How are you, my dear? It's all over, she said. What's all over, he said. Well, the marriage. Didn't work out, Uncle George, so we've ditched it. What, in nine months? That is trivializing marriage, isn't it? God help us, because in our island we shall feel those pressures more as the days go by. Let us not trivialize marriage. On the other hand, there come circumstances, as I understand it, when ma- when divorce is not only necessary, but permissible. And remarriage possibly the only thing that can be done for the best in that situation, all things considered. But my reasons for that would be many, and I cease from that now. Finally, we've asked a lot of questions about... Here they are. What do you think these are on? Out of the whole sixteen chapters of Corinthians. Well, you guessed right, of course. I'll answer them as quickly as I can. In what ways do men and women differ? This arises by my comments last session, you'll see. Could you describe the characteristics of both sexes, particularly spiritually and psychologically? That is a serious question. I, I see its seriousness. I shall not attempt to answer that tonight, because as I understand it, the question is not necessarily relevant to what I was saying last week, or last occasion. The last occasion in one Corinthians eleven, we were talking about the function of man and the function of woman. Man first made, woman made for the man, you see, and from the man. Man the image and glory of God, woman the glory of man. In other words, their function. As far as I know, one Corinthians does not discuss the different qualities of man and female in that connection. It's simply dealing with the question of the function of the male and the function of the female. To draw a slight analogy, there were days when here in Northern Ireland we had a governor. Now, I didn't know anything about the governor. He never asked me to tea. Nor did I know his wife. Whether she was a masculine type or an extremely feminine type, as they say, you know, uh, whether he was a strong-armed man or not so strong-armed man, I, I don't know about, uh, their qualities as to people, important as they were, of course, and very relevant to certain situations. But with him being governor, this was a question of function. And when it came to authority for, uh, the, uh, responsibility for what went on in Ireland, then the governor was the one responsible to the queen, not his wife. He was responsible. And if things went wa- wrong, he had to take responsibility for it. That was function. That, I understand, is what Paul is saying, among other things, in one Corinthians eleven. There's a function given to the male. There's a function given to the woman. Now, I suspect when the governor got home, Josie, he waited on his wife. She sat down, and he stood, and she got the coffee, and I suspect he wasn't, uh, and served her as a good man he was. And certainly Christian men should cherish their wives like Christ loves the church. It's not a question of tyranny and enslaving a woman, or certainly not. On the other hand, when it came to public functions, when the governor came, say, to Queens for some function, when the governor came in, we all stood. Honoring the queen in his presence, so to speak. He stood in for the queen, not his wife, him. If the queen had come, he would have stood while the queen sat, you see. We're dealing, therefore, with public function, and as I understand it, Corinthians is saying that, uh, um, uh, when it comes to function, God has given one function to the male and another to the female, whatever their personal qualities are. Then I have a whole host of questions here, uh, because I said that the women praying and prophesying was in a, uh, unofficial or semi-official occasions, and I got myself into a lot of wa- hot water there, you'll see, and genuine and interesting questions. Why did I say that? Well, I can answer many of them that you put in, if you'll allow me to say this. There is an apparent contradiction between chapter eleven and chapter fourteen. Chapter eleven talks of women praying and prophesying. You can pray without doing it audibly, you cannot prophesy without doing it audibly. The women prayed and prophesied audibly. Whereas chapter fourteen says, verse thirty four, let all women keep silence in the church. It is not permitted unto them to speak, but to let them be in subjection, as also says the law. And if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it's shameful for a woman to speak in the church. How then do you reconcile those two? Some people will say, well, you choose the one that's clear, and if you can't explain the other, well, well, never mind. So that the one that's clear is one Corinthians fourteen, that the women keep silence. So we don't know what the other is saying, so that's it, but we go by one Corinthians fourteen. And the others, they're guaranteed to be some, aren't they, will say, no, one Corinthians eleven is the, uh, uh, uh, is a clear one, uh, uh, 11 is a clear one. Uh, women pray and prophesy, whatever one Corinthians fourteen means, we don't know, but never mind, we go by the clear scripture. And these are people seeking to be true, they're not irresponsible. In my youth, there was one way of trying to reconcile it. It is just shameful for a woman to speak in the church. And people used to say the word there translated speak means chatter. Shameful for a woman to chatter in the church. Speak she can if she's speaking sensibly, but not chatter. And they had the view that in the ancient Christian churches, women chattered. Why they got the view? Do you see? Uh, the last time I was in a Jewish synagogue at one of their services here in Belfast, I don't know what the women did because I wasn't allowed to sit among them. I had to sit amongst the men. I can tell you what the men did. They chattered from one end of the thing to the other. And when they got a bit bored with listening to the law, they got up and went across here and had a word with Joe and Jack, and they were talking about their holidays and the state of this, that, and the other, with an occasional Baruch Hashem, you know, just to make out that they were listening to the law. Where the ocean notion arrived that was only women that chatted in the early churches, I don't know. A gratuitous insult to women. If the chattering was the problem, the men would have had to be told you mustn't chatter either. But the word doesn't necessarily mean chatter at all, does it? It's a normal word, means to speak. A more modern interpretation is to say that the verses are to be read in the light of one Corinthians fourteen twenty six to thirty three. When the prophets prophesy, the others are to judge. Let the other prophets judge, that is. And some say, but it is in that connection, and only in that connection, that women are told they mustn't speak. They mustn't speak for the interpret- for the purpose of questioning the prophets. Why mustn't they? Well, the view that was given to me at one stage was this, that, uh, some of these women might be married women, and if their husband was one of the prophets, they might start questioning him, and under the guise of questioning, might, might be wanting to put him down a pick or two. I didn't know what to make about that, being a bachelor. So I didn't believe that women would do such a thing, you see, to start with. Another gratuitous insult to women, it seemed to me. Some said, well, it's the married women that mustn't speak. Why mustn't it? Because if they started to speak, they might interweave a little teaching and thus usurp authority over their husbands, and that wouldn't do in public either. Well, perhaps they might. I wouldn't know about these things. You'll see. Ah, what about the unmarried women? They wouldn't be wanting to bring their down a picatou, would they? Is it so that the, it's just the married women that aren't to speak in this context, and only the unmarried ones? But that would be absurd, wouldn't it? Or to get a, a, a senior Christian woman with years of spiritual experience behind her, and she mustn't? And some newly converted bright young thing of seventeen who scarce knows where to find the Gospel of John, she may? That seems a bit odd to me. At any rate, if those were the reasons, Paul would say so. When he says it is a shame we mustn't ask a question, he gives you the reason. Not that it would be a shame to question a woman to question a prophet. Simply, it's a shame to speak in the church. I therefore said, in my humble estimation, I may be wrong, that the contrast is between the church and the home. What is not asked to do in the church, she's encouraged to do at home. And that would be the explanation of the difference, apparent difference between fourteen and eleven. Then I, uh, I said that, um, and have been known to be saying that, uh, when it came to women prophesying, we could take the example of the Jewish prophetesses like Anna, who wouldn't have prophesied in the course of the temple services, nor in the course of the synagogue services, but on other occasions, in that part of the temple which was, uh, simply there for folks to, to do what they pleased in, and many people lectured and carried on. That's a place where the public met and gathered. Uh, there she exercised her ministry. In the presence of men, yes. Why not? But it wasn't either in synagogue or temple, it wasn't in a formal service. And as I understand, the Christians likewise would have followed that same thing, not in the formal services of the church, but elsewhere on other occasions. Now, finally, and there are many more, but here I must let you go, or you'll never speak to me again. Uh, the question is this, when if women have to, uh, be covered in their exercise of these gifts, uh, and when is a church meeting a church meeting, when isn't it one? And, uh, if on certain circumstances, according to me, in semi-official occasions, a woman may pray and prophesy, um, and they are to be covered so doing. Um, does that mean the woman must, in her own home, uh, be covered? My answer to that is that the question of covering or non-covering is a symbol, and therefore what controls its use is a sense of appropriateness. You can take symbols to extremes where they become quite silly and are inappropriate. If you ask for clear, detailed directions, it seems to me that God has not given them. He's left it to the detail, to our good sense and spiritual understanding. When is the thing appropriate? For instance, it's not a question of when must a woman be covered merely, is it? It's when must a man be uncovered? And perhaps if I close by reminding you of that. Think, if you can, my dear sisters, a little bit about us men. You will, won't you? We mustn't pray, prophesy covered, may we? Not when the symbol is in force. When would you think it appropriate for us to pray and prophesy with our heads covered. That's also a question, isn't it? Arises straight out of the text. Some folks have a big conscience. I've known elderly gentlemen to go to funerals, and when they s- the uh preacher started to pray, uh, they took their hats off. And the east wind was so strong, it it gave them pneumonia double pneumonia, and everything else under the sun, and the next week they were being buried themselves. That is taking symbols to a silly extreme, isn't it, Wat? If I'm in my car at the top of the Simplon Pass and go to put the brakes on and the brakes fail, I say, I'm going down here. Lord, oh, half a minute, I've got my hat on. That'd be ridiculous, wouldn't it? We must learn, when it comes to symbols, to judge according to what is appropriate, in the fear of the Lord and wanting to please the Lord. I wish I could say more. You've given me volumes of more questions, such as what is prophecy? And are the gifts still available today? And so forth and so on. I regret I haven't been able to, uh, cover them. Forgive me for that discourtesy. Eh, rather than answer things dogmatically, I have perhaps spent too long on this and that question. Forgive me. And if you are urgent to know what my views are, my telephone number is Belfast double six double zero eight zero. My address, seventy three Myrtlefield Park. If I can be of further help to you in these things, do make use of me. For the passages that we have been studying tell me that my chief job is to serve you. Sorry I've not been able to answer all your questions. Uh, please forgive the discourtesy, and as I say, if they are urgent with you, ring me up or come and see me, and I will try to answer them then. And God bless you, one and all. Uh, thank you, first of all, to those who, uh, asked the questions. And Professor Gooding, as you have answered them, I'm sure you have variously educated us, uh, challenged us, corrected our ignorances, and above all, stimulated our thinking. And indeed, if that's not so, the fault will be ours, and most certainly not yours. But what is certain is that you have answered, uh, most graciously and above all with great wisdom. Thank you, Dr. Gooding, Professor Gooding, for being with us. To all who are here this evening, thank you very much indeed, and I'm going to ask Professor Gooding just to commend us all to the Lord as we would leave. Thank you for coming. Blessed Lord Jesus. We thank thee for these times together, for thy holy word, for the desire to study it, for the help of thy Holy Spirit and his illumination. And now, Lord, we turn from that to thee, for the day is far spent. Much we have heard, much we have listened to, much we will in the immediate future forget. Preserve in our memories, we pray, those things particularly that thou art concerned that we learn at this time. Preserve in our memories the awareness that thy word does have answers, that against times yet to come when we need it, we may know where to look. Above all, blessed Lord, grant us that we may love thee, that in thy word we see thy glory, that ever we come nearer to thee. Help us to love thee with all our hearts and with all our minds. And tonight, Lord, come in with us, that we may know thee in that intimate fellowship of hearts. Be thou the joy and the song of our pilgrimage as we journey home. These things we ask for thy greater glory and for thy namesake. Amen.