The Great, Flimsy Excuse and the Great Realignment

We're in Malachi, Malachi chapter 2. If you know where Matthew is, you go back one book. Actually about four pages. And you come to Malachi chapter 2. As we're preaching through this Old Testament book, and I...

Don't know that I've worked through any book of the Bible, and that's 29 of them now. Preaching to you that Spreak speaks more clearly and strongly to the church of today as the Old Testament book of Malachi. Malachi, matter of fact, this book called the Bible is one book. And it all centers in God's glory and God's purposes through the premier Son of God and his premier work of building his church, his people. If you can get that down in your heart.

That that's what it's all about. The rest of it is downhill. It's all about the premier person, Jesus, and the premier work of the premier person. The redeeming and building of his church. Here we come, Malachi chapter 2, verse 16.

TM Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously, each against his brother?

So as to profane the covenant of our fathers. Judah has dealt treacherously. By the way, the word treacherous or treacherously occurs five times. And an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign God. As for the man who does this.

May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who awakes and answers. or who presents an offering to the Lord of hosts. This is another or a second thing you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears. with weeping, with groaning.

Because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, here's their disputation. You know, they're disputing with God all the way through Malachi. You say, for what reason has the Lord, in other words, no regard for our offerings? Continuing to verse 14.

Because the Lord has been a witness between you. And the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously. though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But not one has done so who has the remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring?

Take heed then to your spirit. and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel. And him who covers his garment with wrong, says the Lord of hosts.

So take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. We'll end with verse 16.

Now, again, like my sermon last week from Romans 7, this is not a teaching on marriage and divorce. Our remarriage.

Okay? That's not what we're seeing here. Matter of fact, The men of this day had committed and were committing grievous evil against their wives. Actually, in our day, it's practically impossible to do what these men were doing because the laws are very different. Again, the men of this day had all authority and all legal right over their wives.

They should not have, but they dealt with their wives more or less as a piece of property. They could just discard them at will and replace them at will. And in that context, Malachi brings out. These truths.

So, we'll learn from the experience of these people some powerful applications for us today.

Now I call this The great Flimsy excuse and the great Realignment. And you probably say, where is she going with that? The great flimsy excuse and the great realignment. Here's where I'm going, quite simply. These men were justifying their actions.

By grasping at straws, Finding the most flimsy basis Bringing a truth out of the text, I should say a narrative example out of the biblical text of their day. and spinning it around so they could justify. Divorcing their Jewish wives, wives of the covenant. And replacing those wives of the covenant. With pagan wives who came into Israel.

Not knowing Yahweh, not loving Yahweh, not worshiping Yahweh, but came into Israel clutching their pagan idols. That's what was going on.

Well, first of all, the text points out in Roman number one. The great common bond that they violated. Or you could say we're violating. In other words, this is one people. One people of God.

And they're sinning against their brethren, if you will. Brethren, I'll use throughout the message, probably, but I mean men and women, of course, when I say that. He says in verse 10, very simply, do we not all have one faith? Father. Of course, that's rhetorical.

They all know that. Yes, God is our Father, they would say. God called Father Abraham. God led us through Isaac and then Jacob and then down through the ages. We are of one common heritage.

And ours is not just a bloodline heritage, as special as that is. We're all of the bloodline from Abraham, but we are a spiritual lineage where God has chosen and adopted and secured us as His special, love, unique people, yet we are sinning against each other. Of course, that parallels over to us, does it not? 1 Timothy 5.8. But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The family, a people, matter.

Now that's the context, 1 Timothy 5:8, of an individual nuclear family, but I'm talking about the family of God, the New Testament church. The New Testament church, you see, is the perfection of The people of God of the Old Testament, Israel. God sent out his light and truth and glorified himself primarily through Israel of the Old Testament. And that grows in its perfections until we have Jesus coming and him building his church in the New Testament. And now we are the people of God to shine his light and his truth and his glory to the nations.

i.e., primarily by spreading his gospel. Then he says in verse 10: Has not one created us? In other words, we didn't just become a people because we decided to become a people and we decided to honor God. No, God created this thing. You understand the local church you're in today is a creation of God.

If you don't view it that way, I don't know why you view it any other way. We're not a good deed society. We're not a benevolent society. We're not a charitable organization. We're none of those things.

We do some of those things. We're taught to do those types of things, but that's not who we are. We're a creation of God. You individually are a creation of God by the new birth, but us together, corporately as a body, is the creation of God. The parallel again is real.

And the old dispensation was the creation of God. With a special, unique family of God. In verse 11, he calls us the sanctuary of God. Sanctuary is the idea of God's dwelling place. New Testament texts that point this out very clearly.

And what I want to point out here: not only are you individually the dwelling place of God, i.e., the temple of God, and listen to me, but us collectively as a local church are the dwelling place of God.

Now, that's mysterious, is it not? That's hard to wrap our minds around, but it's very true. I don't know how you can come to our worship service and not have a sense that God is among us.

Now Trust me, there's a whole lot going on in evangelicalism today that's a phony and false sense of God among us. Saying that if God's among us, there's signs and wonders and miracles. If God's among us, we have special lighting and amusements and effects and all this stuff in our church services. I'm afraid that far too often, probably when we get into too much of that, God's not with us, God leaves us. He's not interested in your humanly devised amusements to replace his genuine presence.

Glad I got some amens on that one. 1 Corinthians 3:16. And you is the plural here. It means more than just the individual. You are the temple of God.

That the Spirit of God dwells in you, in you, but in us corporately. This is clear, 2 Corinthians 6:16. For we are the temple of God, as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I noticed the setup there. Yes, I will dwell in that.

And that's again a quote from the Old Testament part of the book, which means that we are the culmination, we are the perfection. of the people of God in the New Testament era. Ephesians 2.22. We're dwelling, the dwelling of God. There is a special uniqueness.

We all have this common bond. And so when the men of Israel of old. Began to divorce their Jewish wives, to take pagan wives, they were violating this glorious, God-ordained, God-created commonality. oneness that we have as a people.

So that was serious enough. Let's note, secondly, in our text the staggering depth of their sin. I don't think, well, I'm convinced, these men could not grasp. The Gravitas The severity of what they were doing and doing it against God.

Now, what they were doing to their wives. what they were doing against their wives was serious and grievous enough. But it doesn't stop there by doing what they were doing to their covenant. Jewish wives, they were doing it to God.

So they're Dealing treacherously one against another. The word treacherous again, or treacherously, is used five times in our text. It means cheated and defrauded. You're cheating and defrauding. Your sisters.

Among your Jewish heritage. And you're cheating and defrauding the purposes of God in making you a people. He goes on there, and well, it's a corruption, if you will. They are corrupting. what God is trying to build.

I just stopped there for a moment. They are actively corrupting. What God is trying to righteously and gloriously build. I just have to pause there and say, God, help us in the New Testament era. That every breath we take should be to the building up of what God's trying to do in his church, never the tearing down of it.

And I'm telling you in many quarters, folks, I've been doing this over four decades, a long time, over four decades. And our dear pastors out there who are trying to be faithful face hell by the acre trying to build up because so many who claim to be Christ's followers are trying to tear down. Strife, divisions, factions, pride, power plays in the church, etc., etc., etc., corrupting, tearing down what God is purposing. To build up, and that's what they were doing in Israel. Bringing in these pagan idolaters into the covenant family, corrupting and polluting.

Matter of fact, the phrase in verse 10 is. That shows us more of the staggering depth of this. They were profaning the covenant of our fathers. That is the covenant God made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the early fathers. The covenant these early fathers prized.

They are just, they're not, I guess, in one sense, they're not taking it for granted. It's like it's a non-issue with us. We don't care about what God's doing with the nation of Israel. We don't care about what God has planned for us. We don't care what the purpose is.

We want to use this place for our own gratification, and in this case, sexual lust.

Well, he says, not only are you doing these things, and it's a profaning of the covenant of our fathers. In verse 11, he uses the phrase, an abomination has been committed. The word abomination is most often used for idolatry in the Old Testament, and literally they were bringing idolatry in. to the nation that is committed. That was created by and committed to a worship of Jehovah, our Yahweh, and Yahweh only.

He elaborates in verse 11, you're doing it in Jerusalem, or rather in Israel, that's the nation at large, and in Jerusalem, in the elect nation, even the holy city where the temple dwells. We do know there were seasons of times where they actually put the idols of Baal and Asherah, probably others, in the temple dedicated to Yahweh. The seriousness, the staggering depth. They went to. By taking these pagan wives, you're committing an abomination.

You are profaning the covenant of your fathers. You are profaning the sanctuary, he says in verse 11. The sanctuary means this is the dwelling place of God, the nation of Israel. It's his sanctuary. It's his holy place.

Now four thoughts on profaning the sanctuary. This was the place, this was the nation that God created. as his special and holy people. Number two. This is the God called people that He covenanted with to be His special and holy people.

He created them, He called them specifically. He says in Leviticus 26, 11, I will make you a dwelling place among you, and my soul will not reject you. How special that is.

So God created them, God called them, and then he says he dwells among them as his special and holy people. Deuteronomy 7:6, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples on the world. on the face of the earth. And then number four, the fourth thought here, not only did he create them to be special and holy unto him, and call them to be special and holy unto him, and dwell among them as his special and holy people, but number four, he loves them uniquely and deeply.

As his special and holy people. In verse 11, he has that simple phrase, which he loves. Which he loves. 1 Peter 2.9. We bring that concept into the New Testament church.

Peter brings it in, and we agree with Peter. 1 Peter 2:9. You are a chosen race, that was said of Israel. You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, that was said of Israel. But now it's being said about us, the church.

A people for God's own possession.

So that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. In other words, God says, I'm building something, like I built the nation of Israel to shine my excellencies to the world. In this dispensation, God's building His local churches. To shine his excellencies to the world. And not just through your individual life, that's important, but that's secondary to what we are together as a church.

Said, Pastor, you're really hung up on this local church thing. Yes, I am, because Jesus is really hung up. On this local church thing. It's his idea. It's not mine.

I learned it from him. 1 John 3:16 tells us we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Well, that speaks to the staggering depth of what these guys were doing in ancient Israel when Malachi was writing. They were so antithetical to that. Far from laying down their lives for the good of the brethren in Israel, for the good of the women in Israel, they were throwing them away. Radically, in contrast, radically the opposite. The antithesis of what they ought to have been doing, the staggering depth.

How serious we should be. as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be on mission with God, fully dedicated from all of our hearts to build His church, His way by His power and for His glory. God forbid we actively seek Our own way in God's church corrupting what He's trying to build up.

So the staggering depth. They're profaning the company of their fathers. They're committing an abomination. They're profaning the sanctuary of God. It's as if the prophet says, I can't say enough about the depth.

of this heinous sin. that you are living in.

So, how staggering their sin of wantonly, brazenly working against. The advancing of God's people for God's honor and for God's glory. Number three in our outline. A specific evil they were committing. We'll go into this now a little more in detail.

You know what it is. Throwing away. Literally throwing away their Jewish wives. to marry pagan Polygamist. idolatrous Wives.

In verse 11, the last part. Here it comes out so very clearly. Has married the daughter of a foreigner. God. Unthinkable.

This was a practice strictly forbidden of Israel. Deuteronomy 7. Three and four.

Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them. That's the pagans outside of Israel. You shall not give your daughters to their sons. Nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods.

Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. In verse fourteen. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been a witness against between you and the wife of your youth. And they're complaining, their disputation with God is: why isn't God welcoming us?

Why is it God blessing us? He said, Well, one reason why is because God was a witness between you and the wife of your youth. against whom you dealt treacherously. Though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. God said, I witnessed you taking this wife.

How serious this is. The Lord witnessed the marriage vows you made unto him. Are you listening to me, church? You don't make your vows first to each other, you make your vows to him. He ordained marriage.

It's his idea. I'm going to get on that in a minute. Pray for me. God witnessed you making these vows unto him and unto your Jewish wives. You made a holy vow to God publicly.

And you kept that vow in the beginning by marrying within the covenant family. Which is pleasing to God. But now you've changed.

Now God sees you treacherously dealing with the quote wife of your youth, verse 14. And it's an abomination, God says. When you deal with your wives this way, God says, it's an abomination to me, it's a sin against me, and it's a sin against your wives. You send these wives away, you abandon your covenant wife out of the family of Israel, you take wives for yourselves from among the pagan nations, and these idolatrous, polygamist wives come into Israel, not knowing Yahweh, and demanding that you worship their idols. Not only that.

He says in verse 14, he builds on this. She's your companion. That's his phrase. She was your companion. She was your intimate and faithful partner in the marriage covenant.

She is the one, this Jewish lady of the covenant. The lady which you started a family with. She is the one you established a home with. She was your lover. Your friend.

Your co-laborer. Under Jewish law, under biblical truth, she was devoted to honor your headship. To be the keeper of your home. And the mother of your children. Why have you done this?

You know, this whole marriage idea. Is the holy? Creation and ordinance of God. And the marriage? According to God, is to represent God's relationship with His covenant people.

You married in the Old Testament? to show how God shows and loves Israel. You marry in our dispensation to show how Christ loves his church and how the church ought to love Christ. Did you think about that before you got married? Why are you so calloused and unscriptural and shallow?

The marriage isn't primarily about you. You didn't create it. You didn't design it. You didn't ordain it. The marriage is a holy ordinance of God.

You get invited as a gracious grace privilege to get in on. The holy ordinance of God. That's the way you should look at it. And these guys radically forgot all of that. They thought, well, marriage is just for my sexual pleasure, and I like the pagan wives better than the Jewish wives.

They were just throwing them away. What a Clear balance we have between Old Testament truth, marriage represents God's covenant faithfulness to Israel, New Testament truth, marriage represents Christ's faithfulness to his bride, the church. And vice versa.

So She's your wife by covenant. The phrase says in our text. You've thrown away these wives who were yours by covenant. In other words, it's not your idea, God is saying. God didn't create anything.

I mean, God created this whole system, this whole idea of marriage, and you've thrown it away. Let's talk about that phrase. That simple phrase, wife by covenant. First of all, you married when you were both in the covenant. And then you continued in that covenant union.

And then you changed. And then you violated the covenant devotion to one another. And then you violated the covenant of holy matrimony. Verse 16, God says, I hate divorce. I hate it when you throw a marriage away.

Selfish, self-consumed, God dishonoring lust. You see, marriage is so central. To our service and our standing with God. In other words, the covenant of salvation. And the covenant of oneness with God and the covenant of a couple in marriage are intertwined and interchangeable and inseparable.

They just go together. You know, when you got married, you can't untangle that. A man gets married and next week he goes to work. And he's never the same again. Everywhere he goes, he takes the fact that he's a married man now.

It it permeates and touches and flavors everything. And vice versa, ladies. And so God is saying, loving me and knowing me, and being faithful in your marriage are interchangeable and inseparable. They always go together. You're a married couple within the holy covenant that God created.

Now, so summarizing where we've come to so far in this section. These men had sinned grievously against their Jewish wives. Violating the covenant devotion of love and welfare, they were to have one to another. And they abandoned those Jewish wives. and replace them with pagan idolatrous wives.

Wives who did not know Yahweh, wives who did not love Yahweh, and wives who did not. Worship. Yahweh, but wives who came in to covenant Israel clutching their pagan idols.

So here's a key point now. We're going to get into some real practical stuff here. And if you're about to get married or you know someone who is, these are good things to think on. And let me say this broader statement, then we'll get to three individual things. You cannot honor God and build up his church, and at the same time, dishonor God's holy ordinance of marriage.

In one sense, everything you do affects the church. Everything you are and do in the world affects this church. Just like if you're a husband, everything you do or don't do. Has an effect on your wife. You're one flesh now.

But in a real powerful way, what we Do in marriage. has a powerful effect on our witness as a body to the world. I've thought on this a number of times in recent years, how thankful I am. That divorce in Grace Life, Church of the Shoals, is very rare. And for a church of our size, that's very unusual.

And we didn't have, Brother Matt, we didn't have to start a program three years ago and say, let's discrease, divorce it. No, we just tried to be biblical. But when it comes to the holy ordinance of marriage, I think there's some things we need to stop and rethink. And I'm not going to say these in a real absolute, hard-lined way, but more the attitude of the heart, okay? I think we need to rethink.

The marriage ceremony.

Now, I'm not saying this primarily just to use the church, but just the culture in general. What right does our culture have taking God's holy ordinance and making it whatever in the world they want it to be? They don't have that right. They're profaning. The holy ordinance of God.

And we don't need to follow them into it. Amen, church. A marriage ceremony to be. what the author, creator, and ordainer of the ceremony meant it to be. is to be centered in Christ.

and glorifying of Christ. It is His holy ordinance. The dress of the bride should be modest. The dress of the attendants of the bride should be modest. And appropriate.

It's not about you showing off your sex appeal, it's about glorifying God. You see, the marriage is not primarily about you.

Now the young girls say, and I've raised some of those.

Well, I've always dreamed about this kind of marriage ceremony. I've always dreamed about this kind of wedding. That's not wrong. Don't you like little girls? I love girls.

Little girls. They're just dreamy and emotional. But they do need guidance. They're not being wicked usually.

So often we as dads are failing them. We're not lovingly and sweetly and kindly giving them instruction along the way. Yes, darling, that's a wonderful thought. But we want to honor Christ first, and we might want to change it this way or that way. Can I get an amen, dads?

It's what God left you here for. You are good for something.

Okay. If you'll just get active in what God needs you to do.

Well, I've always dreamed of a wedding this way and a wedding that way. But I think we need to remember this is a holy ordinance of God, and we need to realign and redirect our hearts to find joy in that first. I looked some of this up. You know, today we have Barn and farm marriages, wedding ceremonies. I'm not saying that's absolutely wrong.

I just don't know why it's necessary. Jesus was born in a barn, but You don't live in one now. And trust me, the marriage supper of the lamb is not going to be anything like being in a barn. It's going to be glorious. There's barn and farm themed marriages.

There's the outdoor marriage in general. There's beach and resort destination marriages. There's a new one out. It's called the Bohemian Theme Marriage. You all dress up like hippies.

Again, I'm not saying these are carte blotched evil. But did you think about Christ and it being a holy ordinance first? I need to rethink some of these things.

Now when I say I don't think any of these are oh Outright evil. Maybe the bohemian hippie thing. I don't know. But Yeah. If you do one of those, I'm not wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt.

Trust me. And I won't let Brother Matt, he'd probably wear one. Here's an either way. He's got that s truck with all that special. These hippies do those things.

But anyway, anyway. I'm teaching Brother Matt's more conservative than I am. And that's saying a lot. But let me tell you this: no matter how you quote, design the wedding, just grieves me to say that. You're designing his ordinance.

You don't get to do that. It's not your idea. You didn't create it. Trying to stay on track here. I'm really trying.

Everyone who attends your marriage ceremony. Who has a fraction of the Holy Spirit? Knows right away if your marriage is centered on Jesus. are on your creative ideas. The key principle, perhaps any theme could be acceptable, any style within limits could be acceptable if it adds to Christ being centered and Christ being honored above all.

If it says first and foremost, look how creative and clever we are. then it can't say at the same time, and Jesus is Lord. You understand? This is not a civil union. Civil unions may be fine for a society.

As marriage is the best for God and a people to function together, of course. But we don't function by civil unions. This is a holy ordinance of God. You do not actually need to give your marriage a theme. Because the creator and designer of marriage has already done that.

And the theme is. Hiya. In fact, You never start planning a wedding ceremony and then say, well, let's make God the center of this. No. You start with God.

He's the center. He saved you. He's made you his. He's glorified himself and honored himself. And the marriage ought to glorify him and honor him and reflect him.

He's designed and ordained marriage and the marriage ceremony to please himself and to be a blessing for you. And those always go together. The more he's pleased, the more you're going to be blessed. If you belong to him.

So stop inviting Jesus to your wedding. As if it begins with you. And you're doing him a favor by letting him be a part of it. He's not a part. He's not even the most important part.

He's the whole thing. You can't invite Jesus to what he created. You can't invite Jesus to what he designed. And you can't invite Jesus to what he owns. He invites you as a grace privilege.

To participate in his holy ordinance of marriage. Are y'all getting this? I am the Alpha and Omega, Jesus says. I'm the first and the last. I'm the beginning and I am the end.

And marriage. Like all aspects of our being, but according to our text, Old and New Testament, a much more important aspect of our being. Because the covenant of salvation and to be his people, and the covenant of marrying. and being married, are so intertwined as one. But anyway, all of it.

begins with him It continues with him. And it ends with him. We need to rethink. The wedding ceremony Secondly, we need to rethink the marriage relationship. The way marriages function is not up for discussion or debate.

There is no place For God's divine ordinance of marriage and the marital roles to be tampered with to quote catch up with the culture, end of quote. God's wisdom is beyond time, and God's wisdom is superior to time. Men may change over time, but God does not. Marriage has one chief purpose, and that is to honor and glorify God. by the participants in the marriage honoring God's divine truth.

in how they live it out. That's it, period.

So in dying to ourselves. And striving to live out our role. As in one position or office, the role of the husband. And in the other, the role of the wife. We do that so that we might show, prove to the world the superiority of God's wisdom over man's wisdom.

Marriage is intended to reflect God's unique relationship to His church, His people. And That unique relationship he has to the church as a whole.

So we live out these roles because they reflect the way God relates to us as His people. The husband Reflects the authority and the love of Christ. as he leads his wife in a sacrificial matter. And then it may be hard if your wife is disrespectful. That may be hard if your wife is not appreciative.

But sometimes you do God's will by carrying a cross. And that's included. in the marriage relationship. Don't be Donald Trump. That when one doesn't just fit his fancy, he gets rid of her and gets another one.

That's not honoring the holy ordinance of marriage.

Sometimes, men, you have to carry a cross. And say, even if she doesn't respect me and she doesn't honor me, I'm going to pay the mortgage, I'm going to give her a good car, she's going to be well-dressed, she's going to have plenty of food, we're going to have a retirement fund and disability fund. I'm doing what God taught me to do. Regardless. It's a holy covenant.

And ladies? You reflect the submission. And the love for your husband, the way the church is to submit to and love Christ. And sometimes, lady, that's not easy. To a husband that's not thoughtful.

A husband that doesn't spend enough time at home. A husband that doesn't appreciate all the work you do. But ladies, you still do it. And carry your cross.

So you might show the world. The superiority of God's truth and God's wisdom. And none of us are scoring 100 here. But we need to rethink some things. Quit thinking you're the exception.

Quit thinking we got a new thing going. We don't view marriage biblically, but we got a new way that works for us.

Okay, call me when you're 65. Call me when you're 75. I'm telling you, the folks that don't honor God in these principles early on. do not end their lives with human flourishing. They end their lives with human languishing.

And decline. Even and often despair. We need to rethink the marriage ceremony. We need to rethink. The marriage relationship.

We need to rethink the permanence of marriage.

Now in this context God says in verse 16, I hate divorce.

Now, again, the contextual aspect here doesn't mean that God has said in the balance of biblical truth there's no place ever for that. It should be very rare, very unusual among the covenant people of God, but there are concessions. that God allows. There should be no thought in our minds. That I'm taking this wife, I'm taking this man, and this is my whole life on the line.

God hates divorce because it reflects badly on God's character. Because when we go into the covenant of marriage, we're going to have the same heart our God has when He has a covenant relationship with us. It's inconsistent with his character. It dishonors God among the nations.

Furthermore. These men in this context who were Throwing away their covenant Jewish wives and marrying pagan idolaters instead? They were doing something to their wives in this day that was horrific. They were crushing their lives, opening them up to despair, literally on the streets, and violent attacks. Just completely Could die there.

Because another man couldn't generally take that woman because she's still considered the husband of another man. And in that day, you had to have a man to care for you. Pam and I were talking about this. I usually preach my sermons to her, and she gets under conviction. I know I'm good.

But Tom We're talking about, you know, it's really flipped over today. You know, they tell us today that 80% of divorces are initiated by the wife today. And almost every time she gets the alimony she wants, she gets the child support she wants. And he has no right whatsoever. To where surveys are showing, a lot of younger men are saying, in today's context, there's no reason to get married.

Because if I get up late one morning, she can just run off and take the money and the kids, and I'm sunk. It's radically opposite. We go from one ditch to another, don't we? and abuses. On both sides.

In verse 16, he has this phrase: I hate divorce, says the Lord the God of Israel. And notice, and him who covers his garment with wrong. The garment here represents the total being, the inward being. The idea is he saturated himself with defilement. How could you be as an ancient Jewish man, how could you more saturate yourself with corruption and defilement?

than to say I'm casting away A fellow Jewish lady A woman who is a co-covenanter with me with God. Throwing her out, abusing her woefully, and then taking a wife from among the polygamous. Pagan idolaters. God says, I hate it when you do that.

Now I'll be quick. Number four. a great empty excuse and the great realignment. Look at verse 15. God said, all this you're doing.

Look at verse 15. But not one has done so who has a remnant of the spirit. He said, The men among you who know God. The men among you who are spirit-filled aren't doing these things. There are a remnant among the nation.

They wouldn't dare do these kind of things.

Now, there's an interesting thing, by the way, Dr. Seal, you might be interested to know this. The eminent Hebrew scholars say this is the most difficult part of the Hebrew Bible to interpret. Not just this verse, but this section. And here's something that the boys need to know in their expositional classes.

There are times when the scholars can't tell you what exactly the text is. You're going to have to trust the Holy Spirit of God. To lead you. To what you need to tell your people that Sunday. And I think that's purposeful on God's part because while we do need to be thorough in our exegetical dealing of the text, there are times when we can't pin it down exactly with that.

And trust me, if Kyle and Dalich and German, Hebrew scholars, and others can't pin it down, you're not going to pin it down. But we do know verse 15 what he's referring to. When he says, look at the next phrase in the New American Standard, and what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? What did that one do? Here's the point: they've got this flimsiest excuse for what they're doing.

And here it is. They would go back to Abraham. And Abraham couldn't have a a child by Sarah, his first wife. But Abraham and Sarah were devoted to God's purpose to have godly offspring and form a godly nation, Israel. That's what God told them.

But she's old and she can't have a baby.

So Sarah says, Abraham, take my maidservant Hagar. And have a child by Hagar, and that'll be the son of promise, and that'll be the holy offspring, and God will form a nation out of Ishmael. Hagar's son that would be born. That's what Abraham does. And then God says, nope, time out.

Abraham? You blew it. Wrong? I will not bless the descendants of your union with Hagar. I will only bless the descendants of your union.

with Sarah. I will supernaturally enable her now to have a child, Isaac. And that will be the godly line which will result in a godly nation. Here's what these guys are doing.

So after that, God says to Abraham.

Now you've got to separate from Hagar and devote yourself to Sarah and the goddess line through Isaac. They took that whole context, brought it over, and said, Aha, see, now we're free to set our wives aside like Abraham was free to set Hagar aside, and then we can just get all the pagan women we want. That's the flimsiest of arguments. That's the grasping of straws to try to support your case when you have no foundation. That's spinning the text.

You know where grasping of straws comes from? It's the idea of you're drowning, you barely get your arm up on top of the water, and you say, throw me something, and somebody throws you a hand of wheat straw. And you grasp at that straw, but it doesn't do you any good. You're sunk.

Well, these men are grasping at some sort of spin on the narrative of Abraham setting aside Hagar. But by the way, first of all, Abraham set aside Hagar. Because God told him to. But here's the real kicker.

Now, if you get this, we've wasted all of our time. If you don't get this, we've wasted all of our time. You've got to get this. Look at it there in verse 15. And what did that one, that's Abraham, that they keep using as their excuse, what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring?

Here's what that means. with all of his failures, with all of his weaknesses. Blowing it time after time, there's one thing Abraham had right, and he never varied on it, and that is, I am committed to the covenant purposes of my God. And my God's purpose is for me to have a godly heritage and it become a great nation, and I'm committed to that. Yes, I messed up with Hagar, but that's in my heart and that's settled.

That wasn't in these guys' heart. They weren't concerned about the purposes of God in Israel. They weren't concerned about the glory of God in Israel. They weren't concerned about the covenant devotion they're to have to Israel and to Jewish wives. They just wanted to satisfy their lust.

So these are not the moral equivalency. When Abraham set aside Hagar, it was for the purpose of God's purposes. They're sitting aside. Their wives. For fleshly indulgence, period.

God's not on their radar. Yeah. I'm going to have to run an aisle someday, and this is close. You can be weak. Deficient.

Fall short. Make mistakes. But if you from your heart am aligned with God's purposes, Ultimately, he's going to make everything work out. I constantly teach pastors, and one of the main things I teach them is: follow me so you won't make the mistakes that I made. But I can tell you one thing.

Before Holy God, that's been clear in my heart from the beginning. I want to be serious and devoted from the heart to the purposes of God. And the purposes of God? You have to be Bible saturated. Glory of God focused.

Christ honoring and local church centered. You get that right. Your marriage ought to be about that, by the way. You don't get married with the premise of we're going to honor and glorify God's covenant by this marriage being centered in a good church. For the glory of God.

Well, these guys weren't doing that. They were using the Bible in a malicious, scandalous way. To treacherously teach their wives and dishonor God's purpose, his faith is real. Right quick. What they needed to do was get rid of this flimsy excuse and get a great realignment in their hearts.

I want to realign myself. From the heart with God's purposes. And by the way, are you listening? We all need many. Mini Realignments.

Ye mayen wait. Im I In I. You know what this is? You know where you're sitting right here? You know what you're doing today?

This is called Realignment Sunday. And next Sunday will be Realignment Sunday. And the next Sunday will be Realignment Sunday. Because you know what you did? You got out in the world this week and you begin to embrace some of the world's purposes and some of the world's ideas of what's important.

And not all of that in the world is wrong, but sometimes it's good, it gets too important. And God brings you in on Sunday to give you another M-I-N-I realignment. You still love God. You're still committed to his purposes, but you got out of whack. And you have to repent again, just like I do.

These fellas in Malachi chapter 2 needed a fantastic, great realignment. Thank God we don't have to go that far before we get realigned. Amen? Can I ask you, is the purpose of your marriage to be a part of God's covenant people, the local church, and help that local church shine God's truth, God's light, and God's glory? Is that it?

If not, you're in desperate need of a realignment of your heart and your thinking.

So were these men. Because as the text goes on, 15 being the centerpiece, if you miss verse 15, you miss the centerpiece of the text. The travesty. And the greatness of their wrong to their wives was secondary to missing God's purpose for Israel. Are you hitting me?

One quick thought. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians? That if you have an unbelieving spouse and they will not stay with you if you love Jesus and follow Jesus. He says, let them leave. You know why?

Because as holy as marriage is. We ought to fight. Matter of fact, there's a number of you sitting out here, and you know, I know you, and you've been through the failure of a marriage, and God's given you a glorious, godly marriage now. And some of you went through the failure of a marriage, and you didn't quit, and you got your original spouse back, and it's glorious. We ought to fight for marriage.

Amen? But if someone says If you want me, you got to leave Jesus out and his church. Then you say, I love you, I'll stay devoted to you, but I cannot abandon my Christ and his church for you.

So serious as marriage is. God's people and God's covenant. to be one of his and his people. is more serious.

So the great Flimsy excuse they were trying to give. And the prophet's saying here, and I'll read this, and I promise I'm done with this. Verse fifteen, middle part. Take heed then to your spirit. And Jeff Knoblett, Southern Middle Tennessee, amplification of that text.

Realign your heart following the Spirit's leadership. Get back right and let no one deal treacherously. Against the wife. of your youth. Uh