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Transcript of Weldon E. Warnock’s Radio Program (2-29-04) “Searching the
Scriptures” (WJLS 99.5 FM, Beckley, WV). “Concerning a Website by a Preacher in Southern West Virginia” “And thank you so much and a good, good evening to each and everyone of ya. Welcome to another Searching the Scriptures broadcast. We are grateful that you have tuned in tonight and we want you to tell others about our program. We’ve got a large listening audience in Southern West Virginia, I get a good response and people say they enjoy the broadcast and they like the songs too. We’re gonna just play one song tonight as we did last Sunday evening. We generally play two but we will get back to two next Sunday evening, but there are several things I want to talk about so we’re gonna eliminate one of the songs tonight. And if you’d like to get in touch with me, you can call 270 (for the area code) 237-9514. Now let me give it again. Area code 270-237-9514 or you can just write Beech Creek church of Christ if you have a letter that you would like for me to receive and they’ll send it on over to me. And that address will be given at the conclusion of our broadcast tonight. Well we’re gonna have a song and then we’re gonna get into our lesson for this evening and hope you can stay with us. It’s just good to be on WJLS, in Beckley, this is a live broadcast and appreciate so much the personal at WJLS. And they have always been real cooperative with me thru the years and I know with others who run the station as well. And they go out of their way to help ya and we appreciate that so, so much. And now, let’s listen to this beautiful hymn and I trust that you will enjoy it. Hymn This broadcast is sponsored by the Beech Creek church of Christ in Mingo County. They meet on Sunday morning at 10:00 for Bible classes, 10:45 for worship; Sunday night at 6:00 and on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM for midweek Bible study. And they invite you to come and be with them at any or all their services. And they’d be delighted to have ya and you’d be most welcome. They make you feel at home. That’s at the Beech Creek church of Christ, in Mingo County. That’s over close to Williamson out of Delbarton a ways. We’ve got members of the church of Christ all across Southern West Virginia listening to us. As well as those of various churches. And those who are not members of anything I guess. And we’re happy to have you in our radio audience each Sunday night. Now I want to talk a little while tonight on what I began on last Sunday evening, concerning a website by a preacher in Southern West Virginia. And this morning at 1:06 AM, I was told, I’m not on line, but I was given this information that he put on his website, excerpts from my lesson last Sunday night. And I suppose with some comments with it. But there are twelve clips on there. I don’t know why he didn’t put on there the whole tape. I wish he had. People need to listen to all of it. But 1:06 AM in the morning? Why was that so urgent to stay up more than half the night with services this morning, to put that on a website? Now ladies and gentlemen about somebody obsessed with one issue of this marriage, divorce and remarriage? This man is obsessed. All the time on that, day and night. Now he had an article that’s on there now I guess about me that my radio broadcast “Week After Week After Week,” well that’s not near as much as his website, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And then he criticizes me, for (laughs) saying a few things once a week? Now come on. Now I was told that he took off the letter I wrote to the church over in Beckley, I wrote a letter in 2002 to the church at Beckley and he put that up on his website, now here was a letter I wrote to members of the church in Beckley and he stuck it (laughs) up there for everybody in the country to read. And then he took it off. I wonder if somebody said, you need to take that off, you’re inconsistent. You’ve complaining because this preacher in Tampa, Florida that mailed out a letter of your personal correspondence to all the members of the church in Beckley where you preach. And there’s some churches in West Virginia, and by the way, I didn’t give addresses of those churches they got it out of this church directory that churches across the country have, as well as individuals, the church at Beech Creek didn’t get one, and the church at Neola didn’t get one, this preacher in Tampa because they’re not in the directory (laughs) No, no that’s where he got it, evidently. And, so, he was thinking, I suppose, that he was inconsistent of criticizing the preacher in Florida for sending a personal correspondence to members of the church in Beckley, as well as to churches in WV. And then he took my letter that was addressed to the members of the church in Beckley and put it up on his own website for everybody to see. But he took that off. Now, I haven’t heard a word about a debate. And I want an oral debate, and I’m going to keep insisting we have an oral debate. Now let me tell you something, brother. You don’t intimidate me. No siree, you want a debate, we’ll see how much courage you have, how bold you are. We can have a public discussion, you don’t want to call it a debate, we’ll call it a discussion over in Beckley. They’ll be hundreds of people come, I guarantee you. Already some preachers have sent him an e-mail, saying they’d like to see a public debate in Beckley, and then you can put the audio of that on your website, as well as all the other websites that would want to run it. That way, people can hear it everywhere. Now, here’s a man that’s causing dissention in the church, confusion in the church, in various places, and he’s been after one preacher to debate on his website for over a year. And now he’s wanting to debate me, he said on his website. We’re not going to have it on your website. We’re going to have an oral debate where we can discuss it eye to eye, and then you can put it wherever you want to, the audio part of it, and let people hear both sides. Now, I don’t know of anything more fair than that. But I don’t believe he’ll have a debate, be willing to have an oral debate, I’m not going to hold my breath until he agrees to have one. I don’t know what he’s scared of, he claims he’s got the truth on all of this, and let’s see if he’s got the truth. I think we can expose, Ladies and Gentlemen, his invalid arguments and his sophistry that he uses in trying to establish his position that a put away person who’s been divorced, an innocent divorced person who has been put away, even by a fornicating mate, cannot remarry. Now he talks about post-divorce, post-fornication divorce, and pre-fornication divorce. Well, he doesn’t believe in either one if the person is put away, who’s innocent and the fornication has taken place before the divorce, he doesn’t believe that that person may remarry. Now you think about it. Here’s an innocent person, let’s just say a woman, innocent, faithful wife, and her husband is running around on her, committing fornication, and she’d like to save the marriage. There may be some children involved. And if she is put away, if he, this fornicating husband gets a divorce, puts her away, she can’t remarry. That’s his position. You know what his advice is, as well as these others that hold the same position? Their advice is, if your mate is committing fornication, don’t try to reconcile or resolve it, you rush quickly to the courthouse because the fornicating spouse may beat you there and put you away and then (laughs) you can’t remarry. Now that’s how absurd, friends, this thing has become. Then, he talks about post-fornication divorce, if an innocent wife’s been put away, and I used the illustration last week about this soldier in TX. I mentioned about this soldier went off to the Vietnam War, he was gone 12 or 13 months, he left his wife behind, had to go to war, he came back and she had divorced him, and married somebody else. Now his position is that he could not remarry without sinning because he was the put away. He didn’t know he was put away, couldn’t have done anything about it. But that’s how, that’s how ludicrous this position is, Ladies and Gentlemen. And so, whether it’s pre-fornication divorce or post-fornication divorce, it makes no difference with this brother if you’re the put away. You can’t do anything about it whatsoever. I’d like to debate that, I just want to show you the fallacy of that, we could have a public discussion in Beckley, WV. So, I’m ready to have it anytime that he gets up the courage and the backbone to have it. And maybe some of the people over there who are standing with him could goad him and dig him a little bit, and get him to debate. I don’t know what he’s afraid of, he says he’s got the truth, and he talks about me passing on rumors, and falsehoods, and made a statement that I disagreed with a decree of Jesus. Now you think about that, Ladies and Gentlemen. Here’s a preacher who said I disagreed with a decree of Jesus, me and Jesus are at odds with one another, according to this brother. Well, Jesus taught that the innocent party may put away the guilty party, one who’s guilty of fornication, and marry again. Ah, he says, the put away can’t remarry. Well, that’d eliminate all the Jewish women of the first century, and many years thereafter, because they never put away their husbands. The husbands gave them the bill of divorcement. That’s what Moses taught in Deuteronomy chapter 24 beginning with verse 1 and what Jesus stated in Matthew the 19th chapter, when the Pharisees asked Jesus about Moses, that he allowed man to put away his wife for every cause. And Jesus said, well, Moses suffered you to put away because of the hardness of your heart, your wives for every cause, but from the beginning it was not so. And so, the women didn’t put away their husbands, and I quoted different authorities last week to establish that fact. One’s James Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible. I failed to mention Ralph Earl in Word Meanings of the New Testament, Dr. Ralph Earl on I Corinthians chapter 7 (laughs) stated that the women did not put away her husband in the Jewish culture. Here was William Barclay, this Scottish scholar, and preachers all read his books, he said that women did not put away their husbands. Josephus, the Jewish historian said that the women didn’t put away their husbands. R.C.H. Lenski, a scholar, a professor at Capitol University several years ago wrote a series of commentaries on the New Testament, said they didn’t put away, the women put away their husbands in the Jewish culture. And here is Dr. William Hendrickson, he said that the women didn’t (laughs) put away their husbands, and over and over and over. So what were the women to do, of the first century that they couldn’t put away their husbands? They were always the put away. Well, if they were innocent, they could remarry. And Jesus stated in Mark the 10th chapter that verse 12, that the woman put away her husband and be married another, why she committed adultery. Well, Jesus recognized the fact that a woman could put away her husband. He allows that, but the Jews, they didn’t. So a woman who lived in the Jewish culture, they couldn’t. But Jesus said she could. Now, which one has priority? Which one has precedent? Is it the Jewish law? Or is it the law of Jesus? So, the Jews put away the women, and Jesus said the woman could put away her husband but she couldn’t do it by a bill of divorcement, she couldn’t issue one of them, so she had to do it by disavowing her marriage vows or by dismissing him or by repudiating him. And I read this statement that this brother wrote, that he quotes Thayer, page 66, and Thayer says dismissal from the house, ‘course from the house, not in italics, and he was just in commentary, dismissed from the house. But, the men stayed at the house and if the woman was innocent and she put away her husband, she didn’t dismiss him, run him out of the house, Ladies (laughs) and – no, no, she had to be the one that went, he didn’t go. She had to go, but she could dismiss him, she could repudiate her marriage with him, she could tell him “I’m no longer married to you, I don’t recognize you as my husband because of fornication.” Now, here’s an interesting thing. This brother says that no put away person can remarry regardless of the circumstances, even a woman who’s been put away by a fornicating husband, if she doesn’t put him away, she can’t remarry. Now, as she goes to the, goes over to the courthouse, and she files for a divorce, and they won’t accept fornication on the papers. Uh-uh, they won’t do it in West Virginia, they won’t do it in Kentucky, and most the states, they won’t put it down there. They might put down “irreconcilable differences.” You know what he said, this brother, this preacher in Southern WV? He said, “Well,” he said, “they don’t have to have it on the paper.” Well, listen to this, because God knows. Sounds like “mental divorce” to me, doesn’t it you? (Laughs). God knows. Well, that’s the whole point, friends. God knows, and the Lord knows the situation and fornication destroys the marriage. If a innocent mate disavows it before God, now the civil authorities have nothing to do with it. Civil authorities can’t join you in heaven and the civil authorities can’t unjoin you in heaven. God does the joining and God does the unjoining. And my God, my Lord said, neighbor, that fornication would destroy the marriage. I was reading in a commentary a few days ago, and the commentator stated in I Corinthians 7 that fornication was equivalent to death. In death, the bond is broken. In fornication, the bond is broken if the innocent party wants to use the fornication to disavow, repudiate, dismiss, put away the guilty party. So you can see how absurd and illogical all of this is, Ladies and Gentlemen. That’s why I’d just love to have the chance for a public oral debate, so I could show the fallacy of this brother’s argument, which he’s dividing the church and causing dissention and problems across the country. Yeah, he wanted to send his material up to Paden City, WV, and have them distribute it up there among all the members. And he wanted to have an oral debate up there. He didn’t want to do it up there, but he suggested they have one up there. And he was told, “have one down there in your back door.” So, here’s what’s taken place, friends. Now, let me show you something. He said I disagreed with the Lord’s decree. In Matthew chapter 19, verse 9, Jesus said “Whosoever putteth away his wife and marrieth another, except for fornication, committeth adultery. And he that marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.” Now, this was Jesus’ response to the Pharisees when they approached him, as stated in verse 3 of Matthew the 19th chapter, and said to Jesus, asked him and tempting him, “Is it lawful for man to put away his wife for every cause?” What Jesus proceeded to do, was to show that they couldn’t put away their wives for every cause. Now remember, the Jews were the ones who gave the bill of divorcement, the men, to their wives, the wives not to their husbands, and Jesus said, “Have you not read at the beginning, God made them male and female.” He made them man and woman, male and female. “And man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Parenthetically, I might say that this is why, we should not, cannot have same sex marriages approved before God. Jesus said, it’s between a male and a female. That’s how God established it in the beginning, He instituted marriage between a man and a woman. That’s what’s wrong with a same sex marriage, as well as some other things that the Bible teaches. But our Lord, in response to the question that the Pharisees asked, goes on down to verse 9, and He shows the consequences if you marry for every cause. Now, just eliminate fornication for a moment. Eliminate that one in verse 9 out of your mind for just a moment. And Jesus is showing the consequences, first of all of a man marrying a woman, puts away his wife and marries another, he commits adultery. If I divorced my wife and married somebody else, I’d commit adultery. And when I put her away, somebody else married her, they commit adultery. The reason is, that we’re still joined in the sight of God. Now then, here Jesus gives two consequences in Matthew 19 verse 9. The man who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery, that’s consequence number 1. Consequence number 2, the woman who is put away if somebody marries her, then he’s committing adultery, and implication is, she is too. But now, let’s bring fornication, the exception back into the picture. If we bring fornication into the picture, Ladies and Gentlemen, then the one who’s innocent in this has a right to remarry a person who has the scriptural right to marry. The innocent can disavow the vows, can repudiate the marriage because the Jewish women couldn’t do it by giving their husbands a bill of divorcement. And this soldier in TX years ago (laughs), he couldn’t go to the courthouse and file, it was already done. But he could use the law of God. And let me tell you something. The innocent party has least the right of one putting away. I hear this idea, two puttings away, the second putting away. That’s nonsense. Here’s the man who puts away his innocent wife, here’s the fornicator who puts away his wife, that’s one civil divorce. But you know the Lord allows one for the innocent partner, neighbor. Are you listening to me? Then you say I disagree with the decree of Jesus Christ. Shame on you. I believe what the Bible teaches, I’ve preached it for 50 years. And they’ve got this article, Weldon Warnock’s 19 Year Progression of Error. Well, that’s funny that nobody else has ever found that out, if I’ve been preaching this for 19 years. But he didn’t give me enough credit, I’ve been preaching for 50 years, and preaching the same thing and believing the same thing that I’m teaching tonight. No, I didn’t disagree with the decree of Jesus Christ, Ladies and Gentlemen. Now, in the remaining moments that we have, why are people taken in by things like this, to the place that they draw lines of fellowship and accuse others of being false teachers? Why are people so influenced by preachers that come along on just about anything? I’m convinced that if a preacher came along with some of the brethren and he said, “you can only have the Lord’s supper after 6:00 on Sunday night because it’s a supper, and Jesus instituted it after 6:00 on Thursday night, which would have been Friday, Jewish time, but here’s Thursday night after 6:00 and so we need to have it after 6:00. It’s a supper, not a breakfast, we don’t have it (laughs) in the morning. And not only that, but he was in the upper room, and Paul in the 20th chapter of Acts in Troas, he preached ‘til midnight, they did it at night, and it’s an upper room, in fact on the third floor, and we need to build us an upper room, and have it after 6:00.” Bless your heart, there’d be some brethren who’d go right along with it. And those who disagree, gonna cancel your meeting. Those who disagree, we can’t have any fellowship with you. Those who disagree, you’re a false teacher. And that’s the way, that’s the way it works. And in Galatians chapter 3, verse 1, “Oh foolish Galatians,” Paul said, “who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?” And that word, bewitched, is charmed or as casting a spell on, or to mesmerize. And there’s some sweet-talking preachers who come along that just show their charm or spell on brethren and they, they fall for it, whatever he says, and they (laughs) lock step right in behind him. It’s like Romans 16, verse 17, 18, “Mark them that cause division and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them, for they are such that love not our Lord Jesus Christ, but by good words and fair speeches” – that is by smooth words and flattery, “they deceive the hearts of the simple and unsuspecting.” Now, we have flattering preachers. Oh, you’re the greatest, they’ll say. And they go on, and back slap and apple polish. They’re like the Absalom, of David’s son of Second Samuel 15. Why he would kiss ‘em and tell ‘em what he could do for ‘em and stole their heart in Second Samuel 15 (laughs), and verse 6, and these sweet-talking preachers can come along and use this sophistry and build up false arguments, vain, by vain deceit, and deceive people and they fall right in with it. Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to be mighty careful what we do, what we accept, what we espouse, to make sure that it is the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Satan has his ploys, he has his devices, II Corinthians 2, and verse 11, and we’re warned of his subtlety in II Corinthians 11, verse 3, Paul said to the church at Corinth, “I fear, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, that your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ,” that is, that your single focus on Jesus might be divided. Uh-huh. And ‘course, there’s other passages as well, in the New Testament, but we need to be mighty careful as to what we’re saying and what we’re embracing and what we’re accepting and not be led astray. But, my time has come and gone and we appreciate so much you listening and we’ll get on to some other things next week. Let me hear from you. I’d like for to see what you think. Let’s have this debate in Beckley, don’t, don’t try to back out of it. And we need to have it right out in the open and see what the Bible teaches. Thank you so much. Have a very pleasant good evening and may the Lord richly bless you. |
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