How Do You Know They Won't Be Saved?

Amen. Well, I want, not me, the Apostle Paul wants to encourage you to not give up on seeing your lost loved ones saved. So that's what I hope to leave you with this morning, the same encouragement to not give up on seeing your lost ones saved.

And you know that's a burden of Paul's, but I think the text that I go to, it would not be your go-to text, right? When we think about seeing a lost one saved, obviously one of the first places we go, it's not Paul, but we go to 1 Peter 3, 1. Right, we go to verses like that. But in order to show you this verse and give you a consideration on how to interpret it, I need to build up the context of 1 Corinthians. I need to get you inside of their minds and what was happening as a church.

And this is very important because it's kind of like Romans 7, right? If you go to Romans 7 and you just isolate Paul talking there about a wretched man that I am, what do people tend to do? No matter your conclusion on the text, you can tend to look and say, wow, I've experienced that. This must be talking about the true struggle that a Christian has, because I've experienced that. So it's not just Romans 7. There's other passages that we can approach in a similar way where we read it and we think about some experience someone's going through or that we have gone through and we say, well, that must be what this passage is meaning.

But I trust you would agree, to really understand what the author's original intention was to his original audience, we need to try to, as much as we can, without going too far, reconstruct what that original audience had in their mind and that would help us understand what Paul was saying to them, right? There are many statements parents make to their children and a parent might make one statement to a child and another parent makes the same statement and they need something different based on the conduct of the child. They might mean something entirely different. And if you just isolate that one statement, you might not understand what their heart was behind what they said.

And so we're just going to kind of skim through some of 1 Corinthians 7 and then we'll get to this section of what Paul says. We'll just start skimming in 1 Corinthians 5. I want to get you thinking some about how these people were thinking and then we will be able to consider a possibility of what Paul really means when he says a certain statement. And my hope is you're going to leave realizing this is a great encouragement to believe God to save our lost loved ones.

And that's my desire. So 1 Corinthians 5, verses 9 and 10. We pick up on something here that's an interesting detail.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, right? So he's written about that in the past. And how did they take that? Well, look what Paul then has to say. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world.

So that would seem to imply some took it in that way. Enough of the group took it in that way that Paul is addressing that in this letter. And he makes a statement.

I mean, if you've got to do this, you need to go out of the world. You guys are taking a conclusion from what I said that would mean you totally have to remove yourself from the world. If it leads to an insane conclusion, it probably is not a right interpretation.

And so what was the Corinthians conclusion? It seems we shouldn't be around lost people. We shouldn't be around lost people. You know, there's some sort of corruption.

Well, if you get that type of thought in your mind, that could affect how you view relationships like marriage, for example. Okay, then go to 1 Corinthians 6. You get another situation that Paul is dealing with in verse 16. Or he just mentioned in verse 15, shall I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never.

Then he says, do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, the two will become one flesh. And so Paul's teaching in this letter on this reality of you can be joined to someone, you become one with them. So I know he's saying this in this letter to them, but you know what? You hear something like this, and he's already saying this based on maybe other things they've thought.

You could come to the conclusion that maybe I shouldn't even have intimacy with my wife or a wife with a husband if they're an unbeliever. Or maybe not even if they're an unbeliever just at all because something is wrong with this. And then we go to 1 Corinthians 7. We find that isn't just a theory, that actually is, as I looked at two weeks ago, briefly that is a problem.

1 Corinthians 7. Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, the church at Corinth wrote, they were saying it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. And then Paul, as I pointed out last time, he says in verse 3, the husband should give to his wife these conjugal rights. And so the Corinthians, it wasn't just their saying, don't fornicate, that's not the point.

They were saying that even a married couple should not be engaging in intimacy. So the Corinthians conclusion, no intimacy with my wife. And then you go down to verse 10.

And this is getting near the section I want to look at. To the married I give this charge, the wife should not separate from her husband. If she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled.

And the husband should not divorce his wife. I take verse 10 as many do. He's speaking to people who are a married couple and they're both believers.

And we see that because the very next statement he makes is he says, to the rest. And when he makes this statement, the rest identifies a group where there's a believer and there's an unbeliever in this marriage unit. And it makes sense if at the start of 1 Corinthians they're saying you shouldn't have intimacy with your wife or the wife with the husband.

It makes sense that some would be concluding I just need to go and divorce my spouse. Even if she's a believer. You know, I should be single like Paul and Jesus.

So that lands us in 1 Corinthians 7. To the rest, so Paul addresses the believer who was saved and his wife was not. So he has an unbelieving spouse or she has an unbelieving spouse. And let's just read this section.

This is what I want to narrow in on. 1 Corinthians 7.12 To the rest, I say, I not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

Again, that's the big issue here. People wanting to divorce one another. Verse 14 For, here reason is, why they shouldn't divorce.

For the unbelieving husband is made holy, is sanctified because of his wife. So we're going to have to define that, but you're going to be able to see right away it's not talking about salvation because he goes on to talk about salvation. He's not using these terms made holy and salvation synonymously.

The unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they're holy. Then he says a contrast.

But, if the unbelieving partner separates, so if they take initiative to separate, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. And then he says, start a new sentence in the ESV, God has called you to peace.

And then he has a rhetorical question. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? So, I hope if we've gone through this letter, just kind of skimmed it over very briefly, you can see there's a real problem where you had believers believing they shouldn't be having intimacy, and therefore they should divorce. And if you have a problem where two Christians are actually thinking about divorcing, it would be an automatic conclusion.

How much more would the believer who's married to an unbeliever be thinking that he should be divorcing his spouse? And clearly, that appears to be happening because Paul deals with that in these verses. He deals with a specific situation. And this whole idea, it's not foreign to the Bible.

In Ezra, you had the sons of the priest who had married foreign women. And they pledged themselves to put away their wives. That was a right response.

And so everything affecting the thinking at Corinthians, we don't know all of it. It's kind of like when you go to 1 Timothy 4 and you find people forbidding marriage and teaching doctrines of demons and teaching you shouldn't have certain food. It's not like you figure out exactly where all that comes from.

But false teachings like that were getting spread in the early church and it was affecting churches and therefore it was affecting people and their marriages. So at Corinth, kind of an overview summary right here, it seems the issues facing many were these. We shouldn't be around lost people.

I shouldn't be one with my spouse. For I'm becoming one with an immoral unbeliever. And then, oh wait, even if my wife is saved, I shouldn't have intimacy.

I should divorce her. That's 1 Corinthians 7. 1-4. And then now there's this issue at Corinth with believing couples thinking that they should even get a divorce and how much more a believer with an unbeliever.

So this is what context Paul is up against. And clearly, it's affecting enough of the individuals in this church where Paul is dealing with these issues in his letter to them. So this matters to understand.

Paul, in short, he tells them you should be around the lost. If not, you'd have to leave the world. Your conclusion's crazy.

And he tells them marriage is holy. Even with an unbeliever, you shouldn't divorce them. This is not something to flee from.

They obviously thought it was something to be fleeing from. And then he tells them, even if your wife is an unbeliever, I want to argue he's saying how much more you should seek to save them and live with an expectation that they might be converted. And we're to consider that.

And all of this, as you see in v. 40, he says all of this, and he says, I too have the Spirit of God. And so even though Jesus didn't specifically address these types of questions in Matthew 5, He dealt with other questions about marriage and divorce. Paul here dealing with specific situations that really haven't arose yet.

He's speaking through the Spirit of God and giving us inspired Scripture. Alright, so let's dive in here and think about this. When understood in his context, this is what I want to put forward to you, that I believe v. 12-16 offer great encouragement to see unbelieving family members saved, specifically your spouse.

An encouragement as opposed to something that is just painting some picture of well, this is just reality. It's most likely not going to happen. Which is one way people take these verses.

And so in this section, Paul's basically dealing with the question what is the spouse supposed to do if they're a believer and their spouse is an unbeliever? How are they to conduct themselves? What are they to do in this sort of a situation? Now I imagine, like I said, many of you would be thinking well, 1 Peter 3.1, I've got to love this person, I've got to win them even without a word. Well, guess what? That's right. But that's not how everyone in church history took upon themselves to handle that type of a situation.

We find here a people in a church where that was not at all how they were thinking. And I think we're going to find Paul and Peter don't contradict each other and they don't have different thinking. They both really encourage the saving of the spouse.

But that's a real possibility. That's an expectation that should happen. But the audience that Paul is up against here, they've got an opposite type of thinking.

They're not here zealously wanting to see their wife converted. You've got believers divorcing one another. Their whole thinking is in a different place and those are the type of people that Paul is seeking to address right here.

These people wanted out of the situation and we're going to see it in v. 17 and on of which they were called. They were very discontent with the situation that God had saved them in and they thought that they needed to divorce their wife because some way and somehow they were in some sort of relationship that was immoral and it wasn't best. And you can see in v. 17, look at some of these verses after he says right after here, you get a big sense of the big thing on Paul's mind.

V. 17, Only let each person lead the life the Lord has assigned to him to which God has called him. V. 18, he goes on with this language. V. 20, Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.

The people had a problem. They didn't want to remain in the condition in which God had saved them. They wanted out.

V. 24, In whatever condition each one was called, there let him remain with God. And then he really spells it out. What is it? V. 27? Look at this.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free.

He's saying that because that's exactly what these people were thinking. I've got to get free of this spouse. I'm a believer and I've got an unbelieving spouse.

He or she is thinking, I've got to get out of this. This isn't a right situation. They were not at peace.

Does this sound like these people at church were having peace in their marriages? It's not like you had a lot of peaceful marriages at Corinth. No. You did not have a lot of peaceful marriages at Corinth.

You had a lot of pressure from false teaching to remove yourself from a situation by which you were in, right? The same pressure happens in 1 Timothy 4 with this thing of food. You know, imagine you're sitting down to partake of something that is totally legitimate and someone gives you the eye of judgment that you shouldn't be eating that sort of food because they have some sort of legalistic false teaching. Well, the same thing could happen with marriage where you look and it's like this isn't right.

All the more if I've got an unbelieving spouse, what am I doing staying in this situation? This isn't really pleasing to the Lord. So Paul here is giving them reasons by which to remain and he's seeking to correct their thinking. And if you just look at the flow again, I think it's easy to see that in the first half.

He explains the people and their situation in verse 12. And then he gives the first reason in verse 14, the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. He gives a reason why they should be remaining.

There's something they don't recognize about their impact and influence upon the unbelieving spouse. So let's look for a moment at this first reason. And then I want to argue with you that there is a second reason he gives as well on why you should not divorce your spouse.

And he's trying to change their thinking in another way as well. So the first reason right here. Why should they not divorce? Why should they remain as they're called? For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife.

And then he says, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Now I realize a whole sermon could be dealt on this one text. I guess the first thing I'll just say to you is this.

I trust you recognize whatever Paul's saying, however you interpret it, is it a positive statement? Is he putting a positive statement in their mind of something good that it will happen if they remain married? You would agree it is a positive statement. He doesn't say you're made defiled by being married to this individual. Which from everything that we can read from this letter, and if we try to reconstruct what was in these people's minds, I think it's safe to say it seems some of them had this mindset that this is defiling, this is wrong, this is immoral, and they're wanting out of this.

Even at the very start of this chapter, you've got people not even wanting to come together in intimacy because of these wrong ideas that have entered the church. So clearly, it's something positive. Secondly, I would give at least one way to define this.

There's two aspects I think. When you look at what does he mean by they are made holy, for the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. If you think again of 1 Timothy 4, it's interesting.

You had a church that faced the same false teaching it seems. They were saying that marriage and food is unholy, right? It says they forbid marriage and they required abstinence from certain types of food. And in that same chapter right there, Paul uses the exact same language and he says this, he says, no, it should be received for it is food and marriage made holy by the Word of God and prayer.

Made holy by the Word of God and prayer. Well, what's Paul even doing there? What does he mean by the Word of God? When you think about the pastoral epistles, what does Paul at times mean when he uses the statement the Word of God? Is he just saying the Scriptures? No, often it seems the idea is the Gospel. You're made holy through the Gospel.

He's telling people, as the Gospel has saved you, these people are saying these are things you can't partake of, but no, this Gospel, these things are actually not defiling to you as a person, as a believer. And so, the false teachers, they claim marriage is corrupt. Paul's saying, you know what? Marriage and these foods, this is actually a holy activity for believers to engage in.

The Gospel should change how you view these things unlike a Jew. A Jew who married to a Gentile in the Old Covenant, or like I read briefly from Ezra, they would be right away thinking, I've got to get out of this situation. But the Gospel's made it okay to partake.

It doesn't forbid marriage. It doesn't call you to divorce your unbelieving spouse. And so Paul uses that same language there in regards to marriage.

It's made holy. It's to be viewed in a way it's pleasing to God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not something that is defiling.

So I think that's part of what Paul means. This makes sense in the context. If they have an apparent fear that they might be coming defiled by remaining with an unbelieving spouse, which I would argue that seems to be a fear among people at the church, it makes sense for Paul to be saying something like that.

Stop looking at how you think this is affecting and defiling you and look at how you can actually be impacting the unbeliever. Think that way. Think about the impact you can make upon them.

Think about how this is pleasing to God. If you respond in a way and you call what is holy unholy and you call it defiled and you endorse what the false teachers are doing, that's going to be the last thing that's going to help you win your spouse to Christ. It's kind of like kids who grow up in movements where it's all this legalistic law.

It creates a generation. They don't want to receive the Gospel. They despise it because they don't know what the Gospel of grace is.

They view it as a bunch of do's and don'ts. And we know from Colossians what do's and don'ts do. They have a great appearance, but they create a mess.

So, a third thing, and what does he mean by this positive command that we should be thinking about the impact of the unbelieving spouse and it even hits on this reality of your children being affected. So what's Paul mean? There's something about me as the believer that is making holy my unbelieving spouse and my children. Some sort of positive impact.

Again, I don't believe in any way it's them acquiring salvation because it goes on in v. 16 to say how do you not know whether you will save? So they're not saved. Whatever this is, it's not salvation. And it's not, I don't believe, making them holy.

When it says the unbelieving spouse is sanctified, it's in the perfect passive indicative. What does that mean? It means that through their relationship with a believing spouse, they have been put in a special position where they are influenced by the holiness of their believing partner. There's an influence.

That's the word that keeps coming up as people are trying to define what is happening here? What is happening here? They didn't do anything to achieve this. Rather, it's a result of their marital connection to the believer. So there's some sort of influence and impact that's happening to the lost kids, that's happening to the lost spouse, and I would argue it's happening to your relatives.

By you being a Christian, Paul says put you in the equation and it affects those around you. Remove you from the equation. That effect is not happening anymore.

It's like Paul is saying if you don't divorce and you continue in this marriage, there's a real possibility that you're going to keep having a positive impact around those unbelieving individuals. A great impact upon them that ultimately, yes, could lead to their conversion. So Paul is appealing that this marriage to the believer is okay in God's eyes.

You might say, well, yeah, we already know that. Brethren, these people, they didn't apparently have a good grasp on that being a reality. And it doesn't sound like they were thinking about the spiritual impact that they could have upon the lost spouse.

They were very much focused on what? Not their impact on the person, but how the lost were affecting their perceived holiness. And it made them think, I've got to get out of this situation. Paul is saying, you blind? Don't you recognize you being a believer? Don't you see this influence you're having that you should be having upon the lost spouse and your children? And you're going to get some wrong idea of spirituality that you've got to remove yourself from this? You're going to let the false teachers dupe you into thinking in that way? You're making this all about self.

You're not making it about how you can save them. You have a wrong idea about how you can sanctify yourself. You're missing the reality you can be used to influence in a positive way these unbelievers in your home and that this union of marriage in God's eyes, it's not defiled.

You don't need to go divorce your wife like the priest in the Old Testament. You're a new covenant believer. To the pure, all things are pure.

But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Both their consciences are defiled. And he's saying this shouldn't be happening here.

You shouldn't look at the food. You shouldn't look at the marriage and say there's something defiled about this. So you back away and bam, you take your impact out of the picture.

You remove your impact from the picture. So at this point, here are two applications. Paul has really had to tell these people something that is often a big problem for us.

Paul in many ways, if you look at that whole section, verse 17 and on, remain as you're called, remain as you're called. You know another way you could phrase that? Paul's saying stop trying to change your circumstances as if a change of circumstances is the real thing you need in your life right now. I want to be holy.

I've got to get out of these circumstances. Something's not right about these circumstances. Paul's saying, what are you doing? Change how you're perceiving this whole situation.

Look, if in my garden there's a plant and it's not flourishing well, could it be a location problem? Could it be that I planted the plant and it's not getting enough sunlight? Absolutely it could be that. But let's say I know the plant is planted in a place where there absolutely is enough sunlight. I can go move that plant all day and it won't solve the problem if it has a disease in the roots.

And I've got to change my location. That will solve a heart problem. And Paul, he's not letting these people come to that conclusion.

The second application is this. When you're around your lost family, what are you most worried about? Are you most worried about them having a negative impact on you and your kids? Or do you go in there most concerned about how can I have a positive impact upon them? Which way do you think? You tell me. It's so easy to think, well, we've got to protect our kids and there's so much corrupting influence, even from the family, where you're constantly in protective mode and you forget we're called to be in offensive mode.

We're called to be, what? Salt and light? In the midst of a war, we're called to be a city on a hill? Right? And we tend to go the other direction. That's apparently what's happening to these people in some way. They're thinking that way.

We're to be like bees. I was trying to think of something about bees. A bee moves around, they pollinate, they directly affect the reproduction of many plants and they promote new plant growth.

Does a bee have a stinger? Yeah. But it's not a wasp. It only can sting one time.

You've got to use that carefully, because there are times you've got to sting. And there are times you've got to hate your father and mother and your wife and children and have a radical distancing from unbelievers. And there is a wrong corruption that can happen.

But brethren, my argument to you is that's not the great issue here that's facing this church at Corinth. These people are not thinking evangelistically. They're not thinking faith-filled.

They're thinking, I've got to divorce my wife. Something's not right about this. I've got to go be single.

I've got to go be like Paul. And Paul is saying, don't divorce. Don't divorce.

Remain as you're called. Remain as you're called. If you have a spouse, when God saved you, remain with them.

That is Paul's thrust right here. We can tend to be a thorn bush that's passively defending itself and it's not going forth making a positive impact. So, I'm studying this context.

Two weeks ago, devotionally, as I had this in my morning reading. And I'm thinking, wow, these people really wanted out of their marriage. They viewed marriage in a distorted way.

Paul is saying, don't divorce. Remain as you're called. And that made me wonder, do I understand verse 15 and 16 right? Verse 15 and 16.

Verse 14, he's telling the believing spouse of the impact they have on the unbelieving spouse. He says, but if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. Let's look at this.

Verse 15 comes right after Paul gives a reason why you shouldn't divorce. He's giving a reason why you should not divorce. He's saying this to people who probably already divorces have been happening and he's trying to give them a right thinking that they don't currently have.

And then he contrasts it and he says, but if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. You know one thing that is clear about verse 15? Paul is saying to them, who should be taking initiative in this separation that's happening? The unbeliever. Well, that's the opposite of what's happening at Corinth right now.

Right? All that we can find here, Paul's addressing a bunch of Christians who are wanting to leave their unbelieving spouse. The issue isn't, at least, he's not dealing with that head on. Not saying that there aren't some at the church.

Again, we've got to be careful how we reconstruct what might be happening here at this church. But notice the emphasis there. The unbeliever takes initiative.

Paul's already said many times, remain, don't divorce. Remain as you're called. So in this statement, I would even start to take verse 15.

He's adding to this reason of giving them another reason not to divorce. He's saying, look, let them take initiative. He's basically trying to put them more in a place where they realize I need to remain as I'm called.

That's been a big thrust. That's what he follows all of this with is remaining as you are called. Okay.

So, all of this, and then the ESV starts in the middle of verse 15. It starts a new sentence and it says, God has called you to peace. Now, I don't know, first time you opened your Bible and you read this section, I don't know when you read, God has called you to peace, how you interpret that.

Is that to the married and how they should be treating their wife right now? Or is that something to the person whose spouse is leaving them? And let's say they're too zealously wanting to see their spouse saved or something like that, and He's saying, you need to live in peace with them. Let them go. I don't know which one of those.

In the past, I would connect verse 15 when He says, let it be so. I would think, well, He's saying, don't fight it. Just let them divorce.

Move on. God wants you to have peace. Okay, that's how I'd take it, right? I know some of you probably take it that way, and after you hear me, you might still take it that way.

But, I started thinking, wait a minute. I'm reading my experience in here. I'm taking people I know and I'm sticking them in the text.

Oh yeah, that one brother, man, he so badly wanted to see his wife saved and she just kept, you know, and she eventually gave the divorce in and he didn't want to sign the papers and we had to let him live in peace. One problem with that, based on the context of what's going on at Corinth, that's not the type of people Paul is describing to us. It's the people who are divorcing their unbelieving spouse.

You had people divorcing their believing spouse. Right? You got divorcing believers and saying, sexual intimacy is wrong. We can't engage in intimacy.

And then you had believers divorcing their unbelieving spouse. That was what was happening right here. So as I'm thinking about that, as I'm getting into context, I'm thinking, wait a minute, what if this is actually a command again of what he's calling the believing spouse, how they should be treating the wife, the unbelieving wife.

Similar to 1 Peter 3.1 and that type of a statement that he's actually saying, God who wants you to remain as you are called, well, that God has called you to peace with your spouse. In other words, don't divorce them. That he's moved on from the contrast in v. 15 and he's actually going back to his positive reasons why you should not abandon the unbelieving spouse.

So I thought, well, this is something I need to try to consider. What if I've not understood this right? Because that would affect how you understand v. 16. Because v. 16 starts with a conjunction.

For how do you know? And you know how you understand what the answer to a rhetorical question is? You understand the context by which the rhetorical question was asked in. So v. 16, a rhetorical question which has an implied answer, depending on how I understand the context that question is asked in, I'm going to understand what the answer is. And he connects, God has called you to live in peace.

And he explains why God has called you to live in peace. For how do you know whether you will save your husband? So that's the answer. God has called you to live in peace because this is the hope of what it's going to lead to.

So, my understanding had been, Paul is saying God has called you to live in peace, let him be divorced, and he's basically making a statement of we've got to be realistic here. You really don't know whether you're going to save your husband. You don't know that.

You don't have a word from God about that. Brother, sister, just be realistic. You've not had a promise from God they're going to be saved.

Just let them go. That's how I understood this text. But it hit me.

Wait a minute. Is that something Paul would say to his audience he is facing? Because that was not their issue. And he's already stated in multiple ways, don't divorce.

Remain as you're called. Again and again and again. So, you know, I did what I did at this point.

I thought, you know what, I'm going to go look at my commentaries. And lo and behold, I'm reading commentaries and I'm finding this exactly is a view people take. Just to read one of them, they structure the Greek in this way.

They say the idea Paul has is do not divorce a pagan spouse. That's the idea, right? You see that right there at the start of 12. And then he gives reasons.

And the commentator said reason one Paul gives, they are sanctified in you. And then Paul gives an exception. If they choose to leave.

And then he gives a reason again why not to divorce them. Because God has called you to peace. Meaning that's a conduct for the married man to be treating his unbelieving spouse.

And then Paul gives a rhetorical question to actually build their faith and confidence up by saying, don't you realize perhaps yet that God will save your spouse? And then the commentator, he finished by saying, this fits the context better which has to do with urging them not to dissolve mixed marriages. Not with urging them to make peace if the marriage is dissolved. So at that point, okay, you know what? I'm not crazy if I interpret this passage this way.

Other people, they embrace this sort of view. So think with me a little here. Let me give an attempt because again, how you take God has called you to peace will affect how you view the rhetorical question in verse 16 and how you answer that when you hear what Paul is saying to them.

And I'm believing this is actually a great encouragement to believe God to save. So let me try to attempt to prove that to you still. And yeah, I thought, you know what? The issue here is not about making peace when a marriage is dissolved.

It's about getting them not to divorce. That's what Paul's been dealing with. So God has called you to peace.

Well, where is there not peace? Where is there not peace because of what the false teachers are teaching? There's not peace in the marriage. That's where there's not peace. You've got believers wanting to divorce the unbelieving spouse.

That doesn't sound like it's going to build peace. If the issue were men refusing to let an unbeliever go who wants to divorce because they're so badly wanting to see the unbeliever saved, if that was what's established throughout the letter and the context that that's the way people think, which you could say that's how some people in our generation think, then I would understand Paul meaning something different by what he's saying. But I don't see that as being the issue that he's addressing.

Where peace is lacking is their present relationship in marriage. Imagine you go ask one of their sons, right? Dad just got saved. He's now joined the church at Corinth.

And he's got an unbelieving wife. And you go up and you say to the son, let's say the son comes to church with Dad. And you say, hey, how's it been since God saved your father? Has it been incredible since God saved your dad and the son? He says, well, Dad, it's odd.

He stopped sleeping in the same room as Mom. Now he's actually going to get a divorce because of his religion. He's going to abandon her.

He talks all the time about Paul and Jesus who were single. He keeps saying that Mom's immoral and that these things are not holy, that I've got to abandon them. I could see a kid at Corinth based on the data we've got here, that somewhat being his response.

Does that sound like peace? Does that sound like peace is happening in this home? I would say no. The false teacher's view. 1 Corinthians 7, 1-4, no intimacy.

And then he goes on. Divorce. That's not leading to peace in marriage.

What's the opposite of peace? He says God has called you to peace. What's the opposite of peace? The same word, peace, is used in 1 Corinthians. Later, he actually contrasts it with something else in 1 Corinthians 16 when he's speaking about Timothy coming to them.

Listen to this. He says, so let no one despise Timothy, but what? Help him on his way in peace. Right? So you've got peace or you've got despising an individual.

That I believe is what's happening here. They're looking down on the unbelieving spouse rather than looking at the impact they can make and how God can use them in their life to bring them to salvation. And that to me seems like what's happening right here.

And again, notice the statement, God has called. It's the same language he goes on to use again and again. God has called you to remain in whatever condition you are.

I think that's all Paul's doing right here. He's given a new command. They'll say in the Greek grammatically that absolutely you can take it that way that God has called you to peace.

In your marriage, believer, start loving the woman, not talking about how immoral this relationship is in seeking to divorce the woman. If you see some legitimacy to that, that what's going to create peace at Corinth is for men and women to put away the false teaching that says marriage is not holy and to stop thinking they're living perpetually in a state of defilement, and they stay as they are as when God saved them, even married to an unbeliever, and they start to live in peace with the unbeliever, then Paul goes right in the next verse and he actually gives a hopeful statement to encourage them with another reason that as you seek to have peace with them, as you seek to not look down on them and not to despise them, but you have conduct that is respectful and honorable, very similar to what Peter says in 1 Peter 3, that you can win them without a word by your pure and respectful conduct. Does it sound like the women at Corinth are getting respected by their believing husbands? If the husband divorcing them is someone that this is unclean and this is defiled and Paul is saying, no, in Christ this marriage has been made holy even though your wife is an unbeliever and you can have an impact on them.

You see, Paul wants them to think that way. To think more about the hope of this unbelieving spouse being converted. So then, he starts out verse 16 with a conjunction for how do you know whether you will save your spouse? And so, as I said, we understand a rhetorical question based on the context.

Usually the answer is obvious or implied. Right? You just know. This seems to be what he's getting at.

If you take God has called you to peace not as a command for the believing spouse, but as Paul's saying, just let them divorce, move on in peace. And I'm not saying there aren't situations where that is what counsel, regardless of this text, is the wisest thing for a person. I'm just saying similar to Romans 7, you go read your experience into the text.

Are you really considering the context of Romans 6? Same thing here. You're considering the context of this church and everything else going on in this letter when you seek to make that conclusion. So, I could take the rhetorical question as Paul saying it's unlikely they're going to be saved.

You just can't know. Don't get your hopes up. Looks like this divorce is going to happen.

Right? You could take it as that way. But again, what I'm coming to is a conclusion that based on the original audience, best is you could reconstruct what they're going through and how they're thinking and therefore what Paul is seeking to do and change how they're thinking. I think what he's saying here is a positive command that those who are wanting to divorce their unbelieving spouse, he's saying stop.

Only allow it if they pursue it. But apparently they're not pursuing it right at this moment. You're trying to divorce them.

That's the problem. You need to have peace with them. You need to remain as you were called.

You need to not give up. What you're doing is just giving up and throwing in the towel. Why? Why not give up? For how do you know whether they won't be saved in two weeks? Where's your expectation? Corinthians, that God's going to come in and save their soul.

You don't have this expectation. You're divorcing them spells out loudly that your spouse being saved, it's not even on your radar. You have this whole wrong idea of personal sanctification and this is defiled.

I can't sleep with them. I can't do this. And I just want to be holy.

And I want to know you're doing the exact opposite of becoming holy. You're becoming a bad testimony of the Gospel and it's not going to lead your unbelieving spouse to believe in this God of the Bible. It's going to lead them to be bitter at this God of the Bible because you're wrong conclusions.

So, I don't think v. 16 is a statement of realism to them. I don't take it that way. I was trying to listen to sermons and there are people that take it as a statement of he's just being realistic.

They almost never dealt with the context. And everyone who dealt with trying to safely reconstruct what was in the Corinthians' minds, they start taking this verse in a different way as a positive command to those who are married to live in peace. But often people would think of situations in their church not the church at Corinth and therefore they would make this conclusion.

So, if God's called you to peace, it's actually a positive command to not look down upon, to actually love, to believe that your influence can be sanctifying upon them. Paul's actually building your expectation up with the rhetorical question. And so I'd ask you, is there anyone in your life right now who you think they will never be saved? Paul looks at you and says, how do you not know they will never be saved? Whether you will save them or not.

How do you know? Stop acting like by divorcing them, like you know their soul is final and damned. Stop acting like nothing is going to happen and that it is hopeless. You're preemptively giving up.

And I thought about another place where a rhetorical question is used to drive in a bar into someone's heart who is going to give up. It doesn't deal with marriage, but it's similar in Queen Esther. Right? The Jews are going to be slaughtered.

She was the means to see these Jews saved. Right? But what was her thought? I've not been called to come into the King 30 days. Boy, it's really unlikely something's going to happen.

What did someone do? Someone asked her a rhetorical question. And it had an implied answer. And that was Mordecai.

He used a rhetorical question to drive home a dagger in her heart. Look at Esther 4.14. If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place. But you and your father's house are going to perish.

And then he says this, And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Who knows, Esther, whether you've not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? The question by Mordecai wasn't posed to sow doubt into Esther's mind. It was to suggest to her that God can absolutely through His providence and means in her unexpected rise to power that she is the person for the task. And we know Esther took the rhetorical question in that way.

Because what did she do? Right away, she gave a response that was fast. Let's pray. I'm going before the King.

That's what our response should be in 1 Corinthians 6. You read that. Paul's saying how do you not know whether you're going to save them? And that new believer who's got this idea that marriage is corrupt and he's being defiled by this person, and he's seeking to divorce his wife. She's not even initiating it.

All of a sudden, he realizes, forget that. I'm not going to divorce this woman. I'm going to love this woman.

I'm going to live in peace with this woman. I'm going to pray I'm a sanctifying influence in this woman's life. I'm going to seek to win her to Christ.

That then becomes their attitude. Mordecai emboldened her. And I believe that's what Paul's seeking to do here.

This should be us with our most lost loved ones. Well, I've prayed 30 years and God has yet to save them. Oh really? You're going to give up at that point? So I'm saying that a legitimate view, verses 15 and 16, is that God has called you to peace.

It's actually a positive command to those who are married. It's calling the married to do that which they weren't doing to their unbelieving spouse. And this goes hand in hand with the previous reason to remain married that He gives that they can be sanctified and impacted and influenced by you.

So I think the point of the passage is that if someone responds to the call of the Gospel and their spouse doesn't and their children do not, the believer should consider the great impact they can have on their spouse, their children, and they ought to seek to save them. And compare this even with Peter. I feel like Paul gets painted in a way where he's thinking differently here than Peter.

Listen to 1 Peter 3.1. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may... Some versions even render will. They may, they will, be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Doesn't that sound like living in peace with your spouse? Respectful and pure conduct.

And Peter is saying they will be one. And do you ever notice this? Look what Peter... You're not in 1 Peter. You don't want to turn there because we're nearing the end.

We're running out of time anyways. But hear 1 Peter here. That even if some do not obey the word.

Well, what's that imply? If some don't obey the word, it implies that most of the marriages are Christians. Now that's interesting. If most of the marriages apparently are believers and this is in the early church, this isn't a bunch of 2nd and 3rd generation Christians who are all marrying each other and you've got a church of a bunch of married couples.

Right? This is early on in the midst of the Gospel advance and all of that. And so some rightly conclude from that that it seems like what had God been doing among this church that Peter's even speaking to? He's already been in the business of saving unbelieving spouses and that's what's led them to have only some couples that don't have believing spouses. The majority of believing women have a Christian husband.

What's that from? That's God saving people. God saving people. Now look, I know in our church this isn't a growing issue where believing spouses are seeking the desire to divorce their spouse because some false teaching that came in where their view of marriage is distorted.

But what is an issue and what can be an issue in our church is you preemptively giving up on seeing someone saved and by your heart becoming detached, your conduct now alters and you're no longer living in peace, you're no longer having respectful and pure conduct and you're actually giving your unbelieving child or your spouse more reason now to doubt in their conscience that what you have is right because you're backing off. Because your heart is sunken in. You know what, Paul? He looks at it as very important for the laborer's presence to be among the people they're seeking to convert.

Right? You've got a mission field. You don't rip all the missionaries off the field. You've got an unbelieving spouse.

That believer is able to make an incredible impact. I mean, this is Paul who says I become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. This is Paul who said in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.

This is a Paul who constantly is believing God to save people. I was thinking, what do all these people have in common? Martin Lloyd-Jones, Rachel Sauceda, Ginny Montgomery, Leo Lopez, Sarah Jennings, Craig Musselman, Sidney Kelly, Stephanie Rodriguez, Paul Washer, James Hudson Taylor, the list could go on. Every one of those individuals at some point was a believing spouse married to someone who was an unbelieving spouse.

And you know what happened to every one of those spouses? God saved them. And I'm not going to make a list of those who had ended in a divorce, but I'll tell you this, as I thought about that, it's incredible, the list is a whole lot shorter. And I think we should have that expectation.

I mean, you go to John and you find about asking anything in his name? I mean, what are you going to do with that? Well, you know, not for this. Paul Washer preached a sermon blocks down the street from here and his wife, after a missionary of 15 years, was converted. Martin Lloyd-Jones' wife, Bethan, was saved under his ministry.

It's incredible the different testimonies you can read about and the things that God has used. So, how is your conduct among your unbelieving children, relatives, and spouse? Is it something where they observe your life and they know this Gospel's right? They've got the truth. I know it.

And I don't want to admit it. We should pray for whole households to be saved. Look, our text shows us whole households weren't initially saved, right? You've got an unbelieving spouse.

But this same letter, Paul, he says the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Ikea. A household. All those people there, first converts in Ikea.

Let me give this one example. Recently, I wrongly stated Hudson Taylor's wife was saved after they were married. I don't know who I said that to.

I'm sorry. Hudson Taylor has the exact same name of his father, right? So it's his dad. But let me just share this example.

Just hours before his wedding, he was struck with the text. So he's in the barn getting food ready basically for when he's going to get married and bring his wife home. And he was struck with the verse, it says, for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

And God saved them. And he went on to the wedding. I don't know if his wife had a profession at that point.

And they left the ceremony. And it says, he didn't hesitate to confess all that had taken place. Simply and earnestly with his young wife on his arm, he explained that he had enlisted in the service of a new master.

Hearing which the bride exclaimed in dismay, surely I've not married one of these Methodists. Her heart told her James was right. But she was extremely hesitant to bear the blame or criticisms associated with being a Christian.

So she grumbled. She scolded. She managed to make things generally uncomfortable.

From the first day of their life together, James had commenced family devotions. However, Betty, she refused to join him, deliberately made a show of busying herself with other tasks. Finally, one evening, she was more difficult than usual, and her criticisms were more unjustified.

James bored as long as he could. And you can imagine he's praying, Lord, what do you want me to do? Before she knew it, Betty found herself lifted in his strong arms and carried to the room upstairs. There he knelt down, and keeping her still beside him, he poured out all of his sorrow and his concern in prayer.

She had not realized before now how much he cared for her. His earnestness solemnized and impacted her. And though she would not show it, she began to be troubled by the sense of her own sin.

All next day, her distress deepened, how willingly then she would have been as her husband was. In the evening, the Bible was brought out as usual, and Betty was glad enough to listen. The prayer that followed seemed just what she was needing.

And that night, while James was still on his knees praying, she entered into peace with God. That's just one example of a man, you know what? He didn't get married and say, I'm going to go divorce my own wife. Well, he got saved and married an unbelieving spouse the same day.

But that's got to be our attitude, brethren. Are we going all out for our lost loved ones? In our conduct, that matters. Yes, I grieve for those of you who have not seen whoever those loved ones are converted.

But I would say as I take Paul's question here, how do you not know whether they're going to be saved this year? So pray and live a life that has an impact upon them and have an expectation for God to work. Let's pray. Father, Lord, we want to trust You.

We want to look to Your hand that is not short, that it cannot save, an ear that is not deaf, that it cannot hear. Lord, we grieve to see the separation that our loved one's sin has made between You and them so that You do not hear them. But Lord, You do hear us.

We have access through the blood of Your Son that was shed on the cross of Calvary. And Lord, I pray. Lord, I ask that You would save.

Lord, there's names that come to my mind. Maybe not best to mention them. But Lord, there's brethren with lost spouses.

Lord, You have saved. In the past, Lord, we expect You to continue to do that. Lord, we want to believe with Peter.

They live that way. It's going to lead to that. Father, please save.

Lord, we want to be a people who believe You to do these great and mighty things. And Lord, I believe You've given us every reason for that. Lord, we want to buckle down.

We want to love people. Lord, help us to have respectful conduct. Lord, help us to not look down on the lost.

Lord, even hearing last night about someone who despises the church just because of a simple comment someone made that just kind of made him feel really despised. Lord, that was hard to hear. Lord, we don't want that.

We don't want to hear about people who look at us as harsh. Lord, help us to be salt. Lord, help us to make an impact.

Lord, help us to see those around us. Lord, be impacted by the holiness in our lives that they would really have it hit their conscience that they would know what this person has is right and that they would believe on You. So Lord, give us more faith in this area.

I pray all of this in Christ's name, Amen.