When someone becomes a victim of divorce due to the adultery of his/her spouse, immediately, most of the pastors, ministers, Bible teachers, Christian leaders, and preachers traumatize the victim. Let us examine this serious situation more closely.

REALITY TRANSPARENCY

✦ As a pastor and Bible teacher, I can affirm that most, almost all pastors, missionaries, Christian leaders do Not know how to counsel properly.

We do not learn real counseling in the seminaries. I took the pastoral counseling courses at the seminary and at the time, I thought they were great. But, in comparing them with real professional counseling, I can say that their value is elementary and misleading at best.

✦ This is the reason why, after I began my pastoral career, I went on for the complete professional clinical psychotherapy training, Masters degree, internship, Board Examinations, and multiple clinical work. Before I had this professional training, I knew very well that I, as all the pastors, cannot truly serve and help those who are going through emotional or mental problems or trauma.

✦ I can say with confidence that most (almost all) pastors and Christian leaders DO NOT know how to provide true counseling. Yet, at the same time, almost every pastor claims that he is a good counselor, even anointed by God to be a pastor and a counselor, which is false.

First, they assign themselves as lords and judges over the victim.

Second, they pretend to be comforting and understanding.

Third, they condemn the victim openly or subtly as if it is the fault of the victim or as if it is a taboo, or as if it is a sin, (even unforgivable sin).

Fourth, they enslave the victim under the false teaching that they cannot remarry again, although the divorce was due to the adultery of the other spouse.

It is sad to see this constant abuse of the people of God, the victims, who are weak, fragile, broken and traumatized. These victims become more traumatized and defeated for many years by these preachers, pastors, Bible teachers, and Christian leaders.

Pastors, please stop abusing the fragile victims of divorce, who are divorced due to the infidelity of their spouses.

This is the reason of this Biblical study, to bring truth and liberty to the victims of divorce whose spouses committed adultery.

✦ It is also sad to see the flaunted arrogance of these preachers and Bible teachers who brag that they know everything about marriage because they are married for twenty or thirty or forty years of more. They are forgetting that the main reason for their long lasting marriage is their wives.

In my twenty-five years clinical experience, I always found that when the woman wants to keep the marriage against all odds, the marriage is kept. The woman is the primary determinant of the marriage. She also can be the primary detriment of the marriage, if she chooses to be so.

This should not infer that women who are divorced are all guilty. We should not blame all divorces on women. There are situations when the men are committing adultery and abusing their wives.

God sanctifies us by His Ten Commandment in which He commanded us to have no fornication (adultery) in our lives as singles or as married.

Hence, men or women who tolerate fornication or adultery in marriage are breaking God’s Law. Some pastors and Christian leaders, I know, are unfaithful to their wives, yet they brag that they are married for many years.

Men and women are commanded to keep purity, holiness, and sanctity of marriage. When the other spouse lives an open lifestyle without purity, then we are commanded to hold God’s moral character and remain pure. Compromise with sin never honors God. In these cases divorce is the righteous choice before God.

Therefore, I say that divorce is righteous when it is a matter of honoring God by refusing the adultery or the fornication of the spouse.

Many pastors and Bible teachers force and teach the victims to forgive and remain in the marriage. Such is a stinking abomination before God. The word abomination means stinking or something that smells bad to high heaven.

God said: “Be holy, pure and sanctified as I am holy.”

These popular pastors and Bible teachers teach: “Compromise, love, forgive and forget the harsh God YHWH of the Old Testament. Accept the adultery and fornication because we are humans and such passion is normal and human.”

Their teaching is a clear violation against God.

Let us discuss the deeper meaning of FORGIVENESS.

When a broken family or a victim of infidelity comes to me, I always say: “In cases of adultery/ fornication of a spouse, it is important to forgive, but without acceptance of sin.”

✦ Forgiveness is an act before God: It is forgiving the sin committed against me.

✦ Forgiveness does not mean accepting victimization.

✦ Forgiveness does not mean accepting or compromising with sin, namely, the sin of fornication and adultery in marriage.

✦ Forgiveness means also that the fornicator/adulterer is given a second chance to repent. When Jesus told the woman, who was arrested in the flagrant act of fornication/adultery, that there is no one condemning her, He clearly told her “Go and Sin No More.”

Jesus did not forgive to allow her to keep on living her past lifestyle. But, He made it clear, it was a sin. He made it also clear that she must Sin No More.

“When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more," John 8:10-11.

✦ Forgiveness does not mean that the sinful spouse becomes all of the sudden pure and righteous. Rather, as we forgive, we must be watchful.

✦ Forgiveness does not mean Trust. When the trust is broken, it needs time to be rebuilt. And, Trust is the second most essential foundation of the marriage.

✦ Forgiveness allows trust to be built step by step and day by day.

✦ Forgiveness does not mean that divorce is forbidden. We must forgive the adulterer/ fornicator spouse, but at times, God directs us to separate and to divorce for the protection of God’s name and God’s moral character in us.

✦ Divorce does NOT contradict true forgiveness. Some Bible teachers, (most of them actually), say that when you forgive your spouse, this means that the divorce is averted and you should not think about it again. No, forgiveness has to do with the sin. Divorce has to do with the purity, the sanctification and the holiness of the marriage and the victim.

CONSEQUENCES OF BAD PASTORAL AND LAY COUNSELING:

What are the consequence of the bad counseling given by these sincere arrogant (confident) pastors, missionaries and Bible teachers?

There are many long-lasting detrimental effects on the victims:

1) Victims of divorce due to spouse’s adultery are fragile and weak. They seek help, support and wisdom from those who pretend to be in the Seat of Power in the Church, the pastors and the Christian leaders.

Instead of finding strength and healing, they become weaker and weaker because of the counseling.

They become dependent on those who, with a sweet smile, pretend to be helping them.

2) The victims will make wrong decisions which will affect them for many years to come.

3) The traumatized victims will become more traumatized, while comforted by the soothing words of the counselors. Such trauma can last, with some victims of divorce, more than fifteen years.

But, at the same time, because of the sweet talk of the pastors, they will cover it up and repress it. Such trauma may cripple them emotionally in many areas in their lives.

4) Some pastors and Christian leaders, (most of whom are not qualified nor know what is real counseling), open emotional and mental wounds. But, they do not know how to close these new opened wounds.

First, they do not know how to bring God’s healing Word to affect their healing, worst yet, they do not close the new wounds which they opened.

The victims who come to them for counseling, end up with more emotional and mental imbalance and even disorders.

Surgeons love to open and cut the human body. But, when there are irresponsible and untrained surgeons, they open and leave the wounds open to become more infected and to initiate more severe diseases. This is analogical to what these pastors and Bible teachers or counselors may be doing.

I know a popular and very successful (millionaire) pastor who was the direct cause of a suicide of a young mother with two children who went to see him after her divorce. But, it appears that there is no accountability. He continues making hundreds of thousand of dollars every year.

5) Many pastors (preachers) and Bible teachers use popular teachings. They use their smartness and worldly wisdom, thus they appear to be logical and correct. But, the true healing counseling must be conform to the Scriptures which is opposite to this world, i.e., illogical in this world.

Pastors who are popular have peace with the world. Jesus and the true faithful believers are NEVER popular with the world, even when they are physically attractive, unless they enjoy the popularity and compromise God’s pure principles of holiness.

Victims of divorce are traumatized and fragile. They do not need the wisdom of the world. They need God and His healing and wisdom. The world is evil. When pastors help the divorced victims to adjust to the world, they are not bringing God’s healing, but rather the world comfort which is nothing but a facade hiding many kinds of evil.

6) Most pastors and Bible teachers do not teach the Word of God, except maybe twenty minutes once a week. Most of the church activities have to do with socially acceptable (called Christian) connections and preservation of the Church hierarchy and finances. Therefore, it is not surprising to see people are fainting of hunger for the spiritual Word of God. They are starving and grasping unto tiny crumbs of God’s wisdom and they cannot find good clean and pure crumbs.

Then, when a life changing decision is urgently needed, these people feel distraught and at a loss.

In other words, Church leaders train the sheep to remain blind, lest they change the Church system and go back to the way of Jesus (the ekklyssia). This is an added high stress on the victims of divorce.

7) Most pastors are not aware that un-repented infidelity in marriage is clearly indicative that the person is not truly born from above, hence a false Christian. This is not a judgement or condemnation, but rather the words of Jesus: “You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'” Matthew 7:16-23.

If and when pastors and Christian leaders understand the foundations of the Scriptures, then they can provide a better counseling. Added to this problem is that many pastors are not born again, although they are wonderful Christians and they are doing a great job in their churches.

8) On some occasions, (let us hope rare occasions), some pastors comfort the victims of divorce in a physical and intimate manner. When a woman is distraught, she may feel that this pastor really loves her and cares for her needs when they have intimate passionate sessions. I do know some pastors and some women who told me about many encounters with such pastors. But ,let me say and hope that these are the exception.

I made it a rule for my interns, pastors and lay counselors, “Never to counsel a woman alone in a private room.” Men are best counselors for men and women are best counselors for women. Let us stop this abusive abomination which some (hopefully rare) pastors are doing and which usually (almost always) is kept quiet and covered up.

By the way, professional counseling and psychotherapy has a very strict ethical and legal boundaries, therefore, the rule mentioned above does not apply to licenced professional psychotherapists.

✦ We need to know also that some (maybe many) women do not know how to relate to men except sexually. Since their school years, beginning in junior and senior high schools and especially in college, they have been active sexually in different forms and they had never a true friendship with a man. These women create an immediate passionate feelings towards any man who comforts them. This is called “transference.” This is not an excuse for pastors to engage in any physical or sexual intimate relationship. The same, there is no excuse of abusing trusting children in any form.

✦ Pastors and Christian leaders have no ethical or legal boundaries, EXCEPT what they deem appropriate for themselves. This is dangerous, even very dangerous. There is no room for ‘trial and error’ until the pastor gets it right. Even one time is a heinous sin against God and against the pastor’s wife and children.

Therefore pastors and lay counselors should counsel men for men and women for women.

✦ Pastors, do you think that these women (victims of divorce) who are comforted sexually are healed, or are more traumatized?

9) Some pastors and Christian leaders attempt to do the best they can. Some read books on counseling and on psychology. But, we need to learn, not from the secular world, but only from what Jesus said. Jesus made it clear that human wisdom is faulty and God’s Word is the ONLY truth.

✦ Do you not know that secular psychotherapy is antichrist. Whenever a person comes for therapy and expresses any difficulty in marriage, the secular psychotherapist immediately proposes divorce and separation as the only alternative.

✦ Many Christians and Messianic Jews object saying “The Bible does not address all the modern situations and topics of the culture today, and we need to apply the wisdom which is given to us through the Holy Spirit.” This is false, because the Bible does address every issue in our culture today and the Holy Spirit reminds us of the Scriptures.

Let us see what did Jesus say and how he answered this objection which I heard from most of the pastors, Christian leaders, and Christians:

✧ Matthew 23:1-16 “1-2 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.”

[Today, the pastors are lords and the Christian leaders are lords. They claim that they teach the Word of God, thus they sit in the Seat of Moses. But, they are not appointed or anointed by God. They are appointed and anointed by people and the Pyramidal Structure, the Church.]

“3 Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say/teach, and do not do.”

[The correct translation from the original Hebrew text (called Shem Tov) is: “3 Therefore, whatever he (Moses) tells you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works (the works of lords Pharisees ‘ma’asim’); for they say/teach (the teachers Pharisees teachings ‘tekonot’), and do not do.”]

[Today, pastors and Christian leaders took the place of the Pharisees. The Pharisees to the Jews are the same as the pastors and the Christian leaders to the Christians. This is a form of Replacement Theology in practice. This is not from God.]

“4-16 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, 'Teacher, Teacher.' But you, do not be called 'Teacher' [Pastors - lords of the Churches]; for One is your Teacher, the Messiah Jesus Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.'”

[As you noticed, the teaching in these verses Matthew 23:1-16 are contrary to the Church structure.]

Pastors and Bible teachers who are smart and follow the maxims and teachings of the culture, psychology, the media, logic, and passion on equal level as the Scripture err gravely. Sadly, most of the Bible teachers do that.

There are very few Bible teachers who hold ONLY to the Scriptures and these are not popular at all. But, these latter Bible teachers merit my highest regards.