Benard Kagaga
Man is weak and is always trying to get things that support him in his wickedness. One said, “Matthew 19:9 is not for the Christians for the Lord spoke of it during the Law of Moses.” Another preacher said, “This is not applicable to non-Christians.” Lovers of truth know where to place this text. Let the writer put some few points concerning the directives God has placed for the truth lovers. The Lord said, “Whoever (anybody, Christians and non-Christians) divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever (anybody, Christians and non-Christians) marries her who is divorced commits adultery.” (Matt. 19:9 emph. BOK).
Folks, God condemned sexual immorality in all ages of mankind not as some alleged, only in the Law of Moses. It was commanded before the Law of Moses, at the time of Mosaic Law and in the Christian dispensation. How do the truth lovers know this? Only by studying and “rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15).
Those who claim that the text under consideration is only applicable to the people of Moses’ times, notice these “thus saith the LORD.” Joseph was a man who lived before the time of the Law of Moses. When Joseph’s “master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” (Gen. 39:7), Joseph proved that this command was there with them before the Law of Moses when he said, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (v. 9b.) Who told Joseph this but the Law of Moses was not yet established? Joseph did not live under the Law of Moses, but God had already commanded them to live morally.
On the other hand consider what we get from the scene of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible says, “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave” (Gen. 18:20). Which sin? The sin of sexual immorality “And they [Sodomites] called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.” (Gen. 19:5 emph. BOK). There was a standard even then of determining what was wrong and right in the eyes of God. My friend Matthew 19 is applicable to nonbelievers as well as believers.
In the case of Abimelech, he was told that immorality was not permitted by God and people will be judged for it was condemned even before the law of Moses, “God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” (Gen. 20:3). There was a standard regulating sexual morality for the non-believers before the Law of Moses, during the Law of Moses and during the Law of Christ and that is the teaching of Matthew 19:9.
During the Law of Moses, this law was spelled out plainly to the believers “You shall not commit adultery…You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Deut. 5:18-21), and the penalty for this was also spelled out: “If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die—the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel.” (Deut. 22:22). Folks, sexual immorality was condemned by many during the Mosaic age, Solomon Said, “Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul.” (Prov. 6:32). Jeremiah the prophet calls it abomination, “commit adultery…all these abominations” (Jer. 7:9-10).
What of non-believers during the Law of Moses? This law was applicable to them, for Herod was not a believer in God but see what he was told in regard to sexual immorality, “Herod had laid hold of John and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Because John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” (Matt. 14:3-4). Folks how can something be unlawful if there is no moral code for it? And do not forget that this man was not a believer in God during the Law of Moses. Sexual immorality is unlawful for the Son of God has condemned it (Matt. 19:9).
Paul the Apostle of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ when writing to the Romans, he listed “sexual immorality” (Rom. 1:26-29). What of the Lord Himself? He told the Samaritan woman at the well that “for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly” (John 4:18).
What of believers under the New Testament? Paul addressed this issue when writing to “the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:2). He condemned it “I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral” (1 Cor. 5:11a). When writing to the Ephesians Christians he said, “no fornicator…has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Eph. 5:3-5) so because of this he encouraged the believers to “abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thess. 4:3). Non-believers under the New Testament are also under Matthew 19, for the apostle Paul talked of the “sexually immoral people of this world” (1 Cor. 5:10). Something cannot be immoral if there is no standard to prove it or disapprove it. The word of law here is Matthew 19. Paul also said to the Corinthian Christians “Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators…will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). He also said that “such were some of you” (Corinthian Christians). “But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (v. 11.)
Matthew 19:9 has been applicable in all three dispensations of mankind—Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian—to all followers of God as well as non-followers. That was why Jesus, when asked the question in Matthew 19, referred them to “the beginning ” (Matt. 19:4 emph. BOK). Sexual purity is also stressed by the writer of the book of Hebrews as he said, “Marriage is honorable among all [not only believers], and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” (Heb. 13:4 emph. BOK) These are undeniably plain truths of the Bible, “think soberly” (Rom. 12:3) and abide by “the will” (Matt. 7:21) of God and obey Matt. 19:9 for God spoke it (Heb. 1:1-2) just as He spoke “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16). Folks “he who does not believe [Matthew 19:9] will be condemned.” Do not allow yourself to be deceived by those who are looking for the loopholes in the word of God for their wickedness but obey a “thus saith the Lord God.”
If you have been in a wrong marriage before becoming a Christian, God is calling you (2 Thess. 2:14) into His fold; believe (John 8:24), repent (Luke 13:3) by amending “your ways and your doings,” (Jer. 7:3), stopping the wrong marriage and taking the “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4) after Confessing the name of the Lord (Acts 8:36-38) and burial in the watery tomb of our Lord “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38).
If your marriage became bad after you have been a Christian, then you need to repent and come back to the right way of the Lord before it’s too late by correcting the mistakes you have made as you pray for the forgiveness from the Creator. Do not be deceived.
POSTSCRIPT
Benard Okoo Kagaga
(1976-2021)
When I returned from Kenya 13 years ago, I told my wife that I would trust my life with Benard Kagaga, and the years never changed my assessment. He was “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). He was my friend, a brother in Christ, and I loved him and his family. They took me into their home and treated me as one of their family and I never knew a man as tireless as Benard in the Lord’s work. Practically every waking moment was spent by him in reading, studying, or teaching, and he loved the souls of men and the church the Lord purchased with His own blood.
Born in 1976, Benard was stricken by Tuberculosis at the age of 45 in 2021, leaving his wife Dorothy, a son Wayne, and three daughters, Margaret, Sandy and Nadine.
I am thankful for the sound and faithful work of Benard Kagaga. When the story of the church in Western Kenya is told, his name will be written large. Primarily because of him, the churches of Christ and their preachers in that area of Kenya are doctrinally sound. He, and they, were unashamed and unafraid to preach the pristine Gospel of Jesus Christ and to earnestly contend for the faith. They are aware of doctrinal departures in this country which threaten the church, such as elder reevaluation/reaffirmation, Dave Miller’s refusal to repent of those things, anti-ism which was imported to Kenya, the Bear Valley Bible Institute which operates a school at Kisumu near Ndhiwa, as well as Golf Course Road which is making inroads there and operating “feeding stations” at Ndhiwa where Benard preached for the Kalmindi church of Christ.
Benard’s brother, Veroon, wrote to fellow preachers that Benard’s final thoughts were on them and their work. “He died on my hands mentioning you faithful brothers. Even prayed for steadfastness in this journey and work.”
His warfare past and his armor laid aside, Benard Kagaga now belongs to the ages. As Israel mourned Moses in the Plains of Moab, we who love Benard mourn the passing of this great servant of the Most High God. Benard would remind us that the cause he served is greater than us all. He shall not return to us, and we shall not soon see his like again, but we shall go to him.
Of him, we tenderly echo the sentiments expressed by Alexander Campbell upon the death of his friend Walter Scott: “I knew him well. I knew him long. I love him much… By the eye of faith and the eye of hope, methinks I see him in Abraham’s bosom.”
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Jerry C. Brewer, Editor and Publisher of The Gospel Preceptor —
