E-Harmony vs. Disharmony, Part 1

Standing at the wedding altar together, exchanging their tearful vows, a bride and groom anticipate a lifetime of love and loyalty. But sometimes, tragically, that isn't how their story plays out.

When life takes over and intense pressures begin to eclipse their romanticized intentions for marriage, the same two people begin to see separation as the only way to find relief. And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Matthew chapter 19 on the insight Jesus gave about marriage and divorce. Chuck titled today's message, E-Harmony versus Disharmony. I often think what a privilege it is to have a copy of the scriptures in our own language available in so many versions and texts, fonts and convenient ways of reading it. So easy to take it all for granted. We have the very word of God in this magnificent book we call the Bible. So easy to take all of that for granted, isn't it?

And we've had it all of our lives. We've never known a day in this great country where we have not been able to find a Bible and turn and read something Jesus said or something Moses wrote or some event that took place in Joseph's life or David or Elijah or one of the disciples. We have a vignette today in Matthew 19, sort of a slice of life that occurred that has become, believe it or not, a battleground because of the subject matter.

It has to do with marriage and divorce. And I say before we get into it that no single sermon will answer all of the questions, but perhaps your interest will be piqued and you will pursue answers by turning again to what we'll be reading as well as related sections that are called parallel passages. 1 Corinthians 7 addresses the subject. Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, Deuteronomy 24, Genesis 1 and 2. So sprinkled through the Bible, the subject of marriage and sometimes even marriage and divorce are addressed and we are wise to hear what God has written. But let me add, as I will today in the message, there is not only the ministry of the word where we study verses of scripture, there is also the ministry of God, where he uses wisdom, common sense, experience, knowledge gained through pain to help open our eyes to truth. So let's, while we love God's word and bow before it as it instructs us, let's be careful not to be guilty of bibliotry where we worship the print on the page and limit everything that relates to our decision to a verse here, a verse there, a statement made here or one there that we put together in a system of thought that makes sense to us. All this to say life is very complicated. Marriage is very complicated.

And the breakup of a marriage is humiliating, heartbreaking, sad, disappointing, tragic, leaving people in its wake, including children, as well as those in the family who ache as it occurs. All of this to say, let's be sure as we read the scriptures that we see a bigger picture about life than just what is written in this single section, okay? I say all that so you won't pick up stones to stone me when we have finished, because I'm going to take you into a journey that you do not expect, but hopefully it will help all of us understand with greater wisdom what God would have us know and do.

I hope I said that right. Matthew chapter 19 verses 1 through 12 is the section we're looking at. I'm reading from the New Living translation, similar to the one you are using, but different in various other ways, but reliable nevertheless. Matthew 19. When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went down to the region of Judea, east of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him there, and he healed their sick. Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question.

Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason? Haven't you read the scriptures? Jesus replied. They record that from the beginning God made them male and female, and he said, this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together. Then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?

They asked. Jesus replied. Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery unless his wife has been unfaithful. Jesus' disciples then said to him, if this is the case, it is better not to marry. Not everyone can accept this statement, Jesus said.

Only those whom God helps, some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry. For the sake of the kingdom of heaven, let anyone accept this who can. Look again at the last line. There's a lot of grace in that line. Jesus isn't poking his long index finger into your sternum saying, accept this and believe it and go with it. He says, let anyone accept this who can.

Keep that in mind. That's the tone I want to set as we go into the subject. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled E-Harmony versus Disharmony. Four year old Susie was so excited she could hardly stand it. She was sitting in her preschool class hearing for the very first time the story of Snow White. She couldn't wait to get home and tell her mother about it. And her favorite part of the story she just jumped into, she said, and you know, Prince Charming came on his beautiful white horse and he kissed Snow White back to life. And you know what happened then, my? Why, yeah, honey, she said they lived happily ever after.

Oh, no, no. They got married. In childlike innocence.

The little preschool girls spoke the truth without even realizing it. Getting married and living happily ever after are not necessarily synonymous. Several years ago, I was bringing a series on marriage and the family, and there was a lot of interest in it. And following the service, the line was long. And one of the individuals who had sat through the service and had hardly taken his eyes off of me didn't wait in the line, but just walked ahead and reached over and handed me a very carefully folded note, handwritten one sentence. I waited till I got home to read it and I unfolded it and it read, the most difficult years of marriage are those following the wedding.

Well, opinions differ. Those who live in unhappy marriages would be quick to say that there is a short distance between eharmony and disharmony. That marriage really is not all that is cracked up to be. On the other hand, those of us who have lived for decades with the one who has been our partner for life and have known a lot of the joys of marriage, not to mention some of the challenges as well, would be quick to say that this individual is not only our marriage partner, but our very best friend. Perhaps that's why I love the story of the marriage between Sir Winston and Clementine Churchill. The former prime minister was once asked, if you had your life to live over again, what would you want to be?

After 55 years of marriage, Sir Winston quickly replied with a twinkle in his eye, I would want to be Mrs. Churchill's second husband. It's easy to forget the reality of an unhappy marriage that goes all the way back to the beginning of life in a home. Because sin landed hard on the very first couple, and it changed everything. Adam and Eve had known nothing in that place of innocence but beauty and harmony and a closeness and an intimacy so much so that they existed naked with one another and were never ashamed.

Not only physically unashamed, but emotionally unashamed. There were no ugly secrets. There were no bent and broken places from the past that they dragged into the marriage. There were no trivial reasons to break up or even significant reasons, for they lived in innocence until sin came. And from the coming of sin and their lives all the way to this very day, the presence of sin has done its best to ruin every marriage.

If it could. Let me be quick to say that there are those who live together as long as they possibly can, but for justifiable reasons, they finally break it off. And they'd rather even live the rest of their lives alone than to try to make it in the misery of what has been for them a heartbreaking, horrendous life with another person. And then admittedly there are those who, for the most trivial of reasons, end the marriage and move on in life and find another partner and another trivial set of reasons, end that relationship and find another and then for, I could go on and on. And it's affected not only life in the secular world, it's affected the church. That's what has changed in my 50 plus years in ministry. There was a time when it was not quite as much an issue in the church as it now is, for there is hardly a difference between the secular world and the issue of divorce and the church world and the issue of divorce. Chances are good that half of you listening to me today have been through the sad, debilitating experience of a breakdown in your marriage. And as hard as it is to look back on it and as humiliating as it feels, you remember it with sadness and heartbreak. It's affected your children, it's affected your family, it's affected those who were once close friends.

Unfortunately, it may have even affected your relationship with others in the church. And here we find ourselves now dealing with it again when we come to Matthew 19. Before I get into it, and I will get into it fully, let's sort of set the stage for it because that has something to do with why the Pharisees say what they say a little later on in this question-answer time with Jesus. First, there's a geographical description of where they are. Always note that when you get into a chapter if geography is mentioned. Always have your maps handy from the back of your Bible to trace where you're talking about so that you're oriented.

We'll save a little time by not turning today, but I'll try to describe it so that we'll all understand it. We read, when Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee, that's up north in Israel. He left up north and he went down, that's south, coming down to the region of Judea east of the Jordan River. Galilee surrounds the Sea of Galilee. The River Jordan connects that sea with the Dead Sea and it runs its course from the Sea of Galilee south to the Dead Sea.

There's a west side where Jerusalem is down toward the southern part when you get into Judea and there is an eastern part which is the land known as Perea. So they're over on the Perian side, the east of Jordan, and there we notice the crowds have followed and there he again is healing the sick. It must have been wonderful. No matter where he went there were crowds and no matter where the crowds or how many there were healings. It must have been a time of rejoicing for those who had been sick as well as the loved ones who brought them to Jesus. So here at the east of Jordan in the land of Perea, we have a gathering of rejoicing people as there is healing in Jesus without any showmanship whatsoever, without accepting one coin for his work, for he did not do it to be seen or to get rich. He did it out of love for those who were hurting and in his healing of them there are these who rejoice over it. But there is a smaller group in the crowd that isn't rejoicing and isn't smiling.

They are there to find a reason to accuse him, to discredit him that they might arrest him and put him away. We know that. The public doesn't know that. But we know the book of Matthew, we know the Bible, we know all of this is moving inexorably toward the cross. That's why he's moving toward Jerusalem.

He won't be back in Galilee again. But the Pharisees who knew their Bible, though they didn't live the truth, they certainly added to the Scriptures with their 600 plus rules and regulations. They were the consummate legalists. They were the people who stirred up controversy and here is no exception, the Pharisees came. I read in verse three they tried to trap him with this question. Look at the question.

Verse three, should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason? Now why would they frame their question like that? Because that was the going opinion of that day. Most rabbis taught that. It was based on the teaching of the school of Hillel, H-I-double-L-E-L, Hillel. The school of Hillel was liberal to the core and those who taught there and those who learned from those rabbis carry the message into Galilee, into Judea, and all over the land of Israel that marriage is for the least reason you can imagine, able to be broken by the husband, by the way, never by the wife. In the Middle East in that era, a wife, a woman was a thing, not valued, not respected, truly an unworthy creature. So you never read of the woman divorcing her husband. You read of the man divorcing his wife.

We'll not get into any of that or I'll be here till three o'clock, so we'll leave that alone. But obviously it was a bad idea and a bad plan and a bad part of that culture. Anyway, what were some of the reasons they gave for divorce?

Hold on, talk about trivial. They taught that if a wife spoiled her husband's meal, burnt his toast, he could divorce her. I was reading this list to Cynthia. She thought about it for about a split second and said, if I'd had a bad husband, I'd burn his toast every day.

But that's not inspired, so we move on. If she went about with her hair unbound, he could get a divorce. If she spoke to men in the streets, but her husband wasn't with her, the husband could divorce her. If she spoke disrespectfully of his parents, he could divorce her. If she raised her voice in a disagreement loud enough that she could be heard by the neighbors, he could divorce her.

Here's another one. If the husband found a woman more beautiful than his wife and caused him to no longer find favor in his wife, he could get rid of the wife and marry this woman that he felt was more beautiful. It was those and a dozen other trivial reasons that I won't take the time to name. Jesus, do you believe that? Do you believe that for just any reason, a man could divorce his wife? There was also another school of thought is on the other extreme.

It was called the School of Shammai, S-H-A-M-M-A-I, Shammai. Rabbi Shammai taught, and it's very conservative, that for no reason whatsoever was divorce ever permissible. Ever. Under any circumstances.

It was the most narrow, hard-line position one can imagine. It was not only unpopular, it was in fact unscriptural. For that is not the position of Scripture. We're fully aware that today's subject deserves far more time than just one half-hour program. And we're devoting Monday and Tuesday to addressing this serious issue of marriage and divorce.

So please keep listening. Chuck Swindoll titled this study in Matthew 19, E-Harmony vs. Disharmony. And to discover the resources we have available on today's topic, please visit us online at insightworld.org. In recent days, you've heard me make the observation that this daily program is widely known as the centerpiece to Insight for Living Ministries.

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