“Will God recognize my divorce in heaven?”

Steve Brown:
Will God recognize my divorce in heaven? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us. But there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good, as a matter of fact.

Pete Alwinson:
You look, you look good. Yeah. You swim, you eat right. Yeah. You know, come on.

Steve Brown:
No, I don’t eat right, but I do swim and that helps. The thing about me is that I’ve looked old since I was 15. I’m just now coming into feeling the way I’ve looked all my life. That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way. Pete is my friend, and I love him a lot. And that’s one of the reasons that I’ve asked him to join me on this broadcast. And we’ve been doing this for years, but the other reason is that he’s extremely qualified to answer these questions. And he will never speak heresy. Now, on occasion, I will, and I need somebody around who’ll get it right every time. And Pete does that. Hey, listen, go to ForgeTruth.com that’s all things Pete Alwinson and all things God. And by the way, there’s a wonderful podcast that you can find there that you’ll love, and it’s a weekly podcast, mostly designed for men, but women are allowed to be, to see what’s going on in that particular ministry. By the way, I mean it when I say it, that we love your questions. And Pete and I look forward to this time each week. You can ask a question anytime you want by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE and following instructions, and we’ll record your question, and then perhaps put your voice on the air. If you would rather, you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

if you live in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or if you prefer, you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, please do. If you can’t, you’ll probably get the hives. No, you won’t, we understand. Do help us and I promise we’ll be faithful and we will apply that to ministry, to people who couldn’t afford to help us financially, which would make you a good brother or sister in Christ, helping your brothers and sisters out. So, help us if you can, if you can’t say a prayer for this ministry, Pete, lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
You got it. Our Father, we come into your presence now, bowing, and thankful that we can come so freely, quickly into your presence. Thank you that you are the omniscient God of the universe. You know us, you know everything about us, you know our needs, and you knew ahead of time that we needed a Savior and you sent him. And we thank you Lord Jesus for being the only Savior of the world. Thank you for fulfilling the law perfectly. Thank you for living perfectly. Thank you for taking our curse on that accursed tree perfectly. And so, we love you and we thank you, want Holy Spirit for you to live out through us. And so, we come to you at the end of this week and we just ask for your power to flow into our lives more and more, helping us to forgive others, to let the pain and suffering that we experience go and allow you to transform us every day. Be with our pastors and priests and leaders and worship directors this week-end as we go to church to be with the people of God, would you show up in a powerful way, will you speak to us. And now, we pray for your power in answering questions that, Lord, your people would continue to grow, shape us, mold us for your glory. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Let’s go to the phone lines.

Caller 1:
My question has to do with whether or not we’re going to recognize each other in heaven as husband and wife. If our marriage is still sacred because God says, do not get a divorce, but she remarried. So, I’m wondering, is that marriage the one that is recognized in heaven by God? Or, is ours the one that’s recognized?

Steve Brown:
No, you’re in trouble. Listen, that’s a good question. But you know, it’s interesting, sometimes Pete and I go back and forth in answering questions and we think, eh, it may be right, but it might not be. But in this case, Jesus answered your question directly. In fact, somebody, some of the religious leaders were trying to trip him up. And they asked him specifically what you just asked. And his answer was

Pete Alwinson:
Well, there’s no marriage in heaven. So, you know, so it’s not a point for you to worry about. Now, what you, when you said Steve, you’re in trouble, there will be a recognition in heaven, I think. I think there’s continuity.

Steve Brown:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
So, you’ll know her, she’ll know you, but marriage is not going to be the thing in heaven anyway. And there will be pure reconciliation.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Real reconciliation.

Pete Alwinson:
Real and full reconciliation.

Steve Brown:
Have I told you the story about, you know, we had a, I had a lady come to my study one time. And she was a Mormon, and had been a leader in women’s ministries in the Mormon church. And I said, why do you want to join our church? And she said, let me tell you. She said, in the Mormon church, where I grew up, they say that I’m going to be married to the same person throughout all of eternity. And then she said, Reverend, you can’t imagine the problems I have with my husband and I’m willing to live with him throughout the rest of our lives. But I’m not going to live with him for all of eternity, so I’m going to be a Presbyterian. That really happened and I told her that’s probably not the best way to join our church. And I think she left and joined somebody else’s church. But no, that’s not an issue in heaven. It doesn’t, you say, well, I love my wife, or I love my husband so much. I can’t imagine not being married to them throughout all of eternity. Listen, that love won’t change, but it’ll be universal, and it’ll be deep, and it’ll be profound, and it’ll be so very good.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, that’s great.

Steve Brown:
Do I have, this’ll take some explaining, do I have to say a sinner’s prayer in order to be saved? Most of the people listening to us don’t have any idea what that question is about.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, yeah. What is that?

Steve Brown:
No. I’m not going to answer it. You are. What is a sinner’s prayer?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, it’s really the prayer of entrance into following Christ. It’s where the person comes to the end of themselves and says, I am a sinner. God, I recognize that. And I recognize that I, nothing I do can get me into your favor.

Steve Brown:
And would you do it for me?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. So, and the provision is Jesus. So, it really is, as John 1:12.

As many as received Him, Jesus, to them He gave the right to become the children of God.

Steve Brown:
And that’s good. So, there are a lot of formal presentations. By the way, you’re working on a presentation of the gospel for men. And that’s going to be, I’ve never seen something like that before, and it’s going to be really great.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, I hope. We’ll see.

Steve Brown:
We’ll see. But you will include, of course, something like a sinner’s prayer. But it doesn’t have to be in a form that is in a pamphlet or the Four Spiritual Laws, it’s an attitude.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, I think it’s so important cause he asked the further question. If so, where is it in the Bible? It’s not in, there is no sinner’s prayer in the Bible. And interestingly in the gospel of Luke, we see that Jesus is saying.

The kingdom of God is at hand, follow me.

And really it’s just that sinner’s prayer is really that when a person says, I’m going to follow Jesus. I’m going to trust in you fully for everything.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Well, then there is the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee who go to pray at the temple. And then Jesus speaks of justification. And the tax collector, the Pharisee said, I’m a good man, I’m not like him. And the tax collector said, Yeah, you are. I don’t know why I’m here. And then he said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And then Jesus said he would be justified.

Pete Alwinson:
That would probably be the closest to the sinner’s prayer.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, exactly. And it’s not even a formal sinner’s prayer.

Pete Alwinson:
Right. There is no one prayer that you have to pray for entrance into the kingdom of God.

Steve Brown:
But it is an attitude. This is an interesting question. Why do you and Pete pray on the broadcast?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, your response is, it couldn’t hurt. But we don’t do it for that reason.

Steve Brown:
No, we, by the way, we believe in the God to whom we address those prayers. And those are not simply ritualistic prayers that we do because we’ve done it always on Key Life. We do it because we really believe in prayer. You’re a man of prayer, aren’t you?

Pete Alwinson:
I am, and you are. We pray. We, you know, we just talked about the sinner’s prayer. We believe God answers prayer. He changes our hearts, and He’s the answer to everything that we need. And so, why would we not want to be connected to the abundant giver of great blessings?

Steve Brown:
Do you sometimes, I love the way when I said you’re a man of prayer and you said yes without any, do you feel kind of pious? I do when I say that. You know, I don’t want, I’ve heard preachers, I had a guy say one time at a conference, I’ve heard preachers and missionaries say they were sinners all my life, and you’re the only one I ever believed. But preachers and missionaries talk a lot about how the importance of prayer, and it gets kind of pious, and I’ve got to be like them, or I don’t. Our prayer is not that way, is it? It’s a friendship. I can’t imagine. And this sounds pious too. I can’t imagine living a life without walking to my Father and doing that regularly and doing it as a part of my walk with Christ.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And look how Jesus modeled that in his own life.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
We desperately desire the fellowship of God even before the fellowship with other people.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true. So, why do we pray, dummy? Because there’s a God and we believe in him and he answers prayer. We’re out of time and we don’t even have time to sing Just as I Am. So, we’re gone, but Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.