Elisabeth Elliot: Who of us is not tempted to lash back if somebody says something nasty to us? What they've said to us, if it was nasty, was sinful. Doesn't that enlarge the ordinary field of my temptation to sin? Doesn't it tempt me to lash back at that person?

Lisa Barry: We don't think of that side of things too often, do we? It's the one who hurt us who should get a taste of his own medicine, right? We don't think of our response as something that needs to come under scrutiny. But as we'll find out today, divorce doesn't mean that one was all right and the other all wrong. Elisabeth reads from a couple of different resources today-her booklet, WHAT GOD HAS JOINED, and the book she wrote for her daughter Valerie called LET ME BE A WOMAN. You'll find a lot to think about as you listen today. Then I'll be back with information on how you can get a copy of those resources. And now, here's Elisabeth Elliot to get us started.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking again today about that tragic subject of divorce.

I read a wonderful letter yesterday from an ordinary woman-that's what she called herself-who had ordinary women pray for her. That ordinary woman turned into a very extraordinary woman, because she was the one who was going to get a divorce. But the Lord changed her very nature and she didn't get that divorce.

The only reason people get divorced is because they're sinners. Of course, as I pointed out in the book that I wrote for my daughter when she was married-it was my wedding present to her, a book called LET ME BE A WOMAN-there's a whole chapter on "You Marry a Sinner."

There isn't anything else to marry, is there? You're a sinner. I'm a sinner. We all need God's forgiveness and there isn't any way that a sinful man and a sinful woman are going to live together in harmony 365 days a year without the help of God.

As soon as self comes in, and self-righteousness and self-rights and self-image and all the rest of the "self" stuff that seems so very important in today's world, there are going to be conflicts, because here are two selfish selves trying to make a go of living together happily.

And it doesn't work, does it? No, it doesn't work unless you give up your right to yourself, which is the very first condition of discipleship. That's what Jesus said. "Do you want to be My disciple? You have a choice. You don't have to be My disciple. You can be somebody else's. But if you want to be My disciple," Jesus said, "you must give up your right to yourself. You must deny yourself." A very scary word that makes us all very twitchy in these days, doesn't it? We don't want to be accused of being in denial. But if we're going to follow Jesus, we have to deny ourselves.

I've been reading from a letter that I wrote to a young man whom I thought had a wonderfully happy marriage, an ideal marriage-a wife and two lovely children. He just divorced his wife. I tried to persuade him to change his mind. Well, I didn't get very far.

"Your present discontent is a mercy," I wrote to him, "affording opportunity to repent. Any inkling you have that all is not well is the still, small voice calling you back to repentance, reconciliation and restoration. Will you set about rebuilding as soon as you can?"

Any divorce ought to be bad news to a Christian, because we know how God feels about it. This particular divorce was terrible news to me, because I happened to love both Dick and Sally. Of course, those are not their real names. If my letter to Dick seemed to my correspondent to have no love in it, perhaps that was because he imagines that love and judgment are mutually exclusive. "If you love people, you will never say anything that will make them uncomfortable." Is that true? Jesus said a good many things that made people uncomfortable. Sometimes we're afraid to say what God wants us to say because we might make someone uncomfortable.

That's a question that I have to ask myself when I go on the air. I know very well that many of the things I talk about are not going to be received with alacrity or with thanksgiving by many of my listeners, but I do try to give you the truth of God.

I couldn't help wondering how attentively this young man had read the Gospels. Jesus often made people uneasy. Sometimes He made them furious. If it's sin, call it sin and deal with it as sin. This goes for our own sins first. We are judged by the Word. I'm not the one who makes up the rules that it's wrong to divorce. That's what the Bible says. So I'm not making a judgment that a person was wrong to get a divorce. That person must be judged by the Word of God.

The Word of God I think of as a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness. We can't really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture. In Romans 12 we're told that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds. I don't think television and videos and movies and most of the books that are coming off the press in today's world are likely to transform our minds in the way that God wants them to be transformed. Let's confess our own sins and root them out and forsake them.

Then when we've done that-Jesus explained it vividly as taking the log out of our own eye-we will be able to see well enough to take the splinter out of somebody else's. Isn't is an act of kindness to take out a splinter for somebody? "Oh, come on now," you might say to me, "who do you think you are? What do you know about the situation between a husband and wife? You can't judge. Mind your own business."

I said in my letter to Dick that there was much on both sides that I knew nothing about. I wrote to him solely about what I did know. He had made public vows. He had broken them. I hoped that there was still time to repent, to restore a relationship, to mend a shattered home and heal the appalling wounds of those little children.

But did I imply that Dick was bad and Sally was good? No, I didn't. It's a very confused line of thought which says that the guilt of one implies the innocence of the other. Let's, for the moment, assume that Sally was worse than Dick. He had promised to love and cherish her, for better or for worse. He broke that promise. That Dick sinned was clear enough, and I had said so to him. I did not say that Sally had not sinned. The person sinned against is not necessarily innocent, sometimes far from it. Given the propensities of human nature, the very fact that one is sinned against dramatically enlarges the ordinary field of temptation to sin.

Did you get that? Maybe I should say that again. Given the propensities of human nature, the very fact that one is sinned against dramatically enlarges the ordinary field of temptation to sin. Let me illustrate. Who of us is not tempted to lash back if somebody says something nasty to us? What they've said to us, if it was nasty, was sinful. Doesn't that enlarge the ordinary field of my temptation to sin? Doesn't it tempt me to lash back at that person?

Now of course I had no way of knowing how Sally might have sinned, but I supposed that she had. I supposed that, being a woman, she is something like me-full of pride. I would be dumbfounded, then hurt, devastated, furious and vindictive if my husband wanted to divorce me. Those of you who have been divorced I think would agree that it involves hurt, devastation, fury and self-vindication.

I would feel extremely sorry for myself and would spend a good deal of time and emotional energy thinking of ways to retaliate, as well as to condemn Dick and justify myself, if I were Dick's wife. In other words, I could not possibly be called an innocent party. Those are things I would be likely to have done when Dick told me he was leaving.

Another man who had seen the letter that I wrote to Dick, wrote to me suggesting a list of things that Sally might have done before and after his decision. "I challenge you," he said, "to write another letter to Sally about how she demanded things done her way, was often nasty and sarcastic, often used the good of the children to get her way, how she used every trick to get her man hooked and then did not follow through, how she finally convinced Dick that the children were better off without him than to be a constant source of quarrels, how she sort of liked being a heroine and making Dick look bad, how she had to build up her ego by being not only the nurturer of the children, but the breadwinner as well, how she and her self-righteousness is going to bring up the children away from the bad influence of their dad."

Now I didn't know the man who wrote this letter to me, but I would certainly assume that he was a divorced man and these were the reasons that he had to divorce his wife-all those things which are such temptations for us wives: demanding to have things done our way, sometimes being sarcastic with our husbands, using the good of the children to get our way, using tricks, etc., etc.

Sally might be guilty of all these sins, and more. Dick's list of offenses may be even longer. I don't know either side of the sad story. I speak to you today as one who wants, with all my heart, to point you to the truth of God. Will you listen?

Lisa Barry: As you ponder the things you've heard today, I want to encourage you to get a hold of the two resources Elisabeth mentioned. The first is a book that she wrote for her daughter Valerie as a wedding present called LET ME BE A WOMAN. It deals with a number of challenging situations that creep into a woman's life and offers practical and biblical responses to each.

The other booklet that you'll enjoy is one called WHAT GOD HAS JOINED. That's the full letter that Elisabeth wrote to her friend who was seeking to be divorced from his wife. You'll find it challenging reading, indeed.

For more information on how to purchase either of those things, you can call us here at this number: 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. If you're hooked onto the Internet, be sure to check out our home page. Our Internet address is gatewaytojoy.org. We've started a new devotional page for you with excerpts from Elisabeth's book, ALL THAT WAS EVER OURS. You'll also find transcripts from daily programs, a listening guide to stations all over the country and upcoming program topics. That Internet address again is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Be sure and join us again tomorrow when Elisabeth challenges us all to either live it, do it or shut up. This is Lisa Barry and we will all have to find out what that's all about on Gateway To Joy.