Jesus Teaches on Divorce

In your Bible, if you would join me in Matthew 19, Matthew 19, we're going to read verse 1 down to verse number 12, Matthew 19.

This is a heavy topic, I know, in our culture, in our lives. All of us have at some point probably been affected and impacted by, it's the subject of divorce, and Jesus teaches, teaching on that in verse 1 down to verse number 12, and it says, And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee and came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that He which made them in the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they too, or they twain, shall be one flesh. Therefore they are no more two, but one flesh.

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto Him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorce men and to put her away? And He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered or allowed you to put away your wives.

But from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, comitteth adultery. And whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. And His disciples say unto Him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. Seems like a pretty strong response, doesn't it? But He said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, say they to whom it is given.

For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that has able to receive it, let him receive it. I'm sure when we read through this, many of you are like question here, question here, and question there.

Anybody feel like that when you go through that text? I hope you do have some questions, and I'm going to try to get through some ground today through this heavy topic. Father, we thank you for your word.

It is our guide in a world that is so broken and lost. And Lord, we do pray for this upcoming election, but we know that this country and our lives are in your hands, not in any man or woman, and definitely not in the government. So we trust you today. We pray that you would govern our hearts today. Let us feel the presence of your Holy Spirit. And Lord, even today we're going to be observing the Lord's Supper, and so may our hearts be sensitive to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, that we would prepare our hearts to remember you at the table of the Lord. And God, I pray that if anyone's lost today, that they might be saved. And for those who have gone through divorce or been greatly impacted by such a situation, that they would find truth to guide them for healing, for forgiveness, for strength, and that your glory would be put on display in your servant's lives.

We ask this in Jesus' name. And God's people said, man, you may be seated today. By remembering the context of where we are, we had spent three sermons in Matthew 18 as Jesus was dealing with the topic of forgiveness. And I had so many of you who came to me and told me that you were battling some different things through the years, and it was very helpful to find freedom from some of the bondage of bitterness and maybe some other questions you had that we were able to help navigate through some of those. And I truly believe revival can come into a person's life and even into the life of the church when forgiveness begins to permeate the culture and life of a church and a family and a home.

But it is setting and reasonable for Jesus then to step into a text of Scripture that is divinely appointed for this, after you deal with the topic of forgiveness, that you would roll straight into divorces. Because if there's anything that is probably the hardest area to forgive in is when families get broken up. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of hurt. And I would assume not needing to have a raise of hand from this, but most everyone here has felt the sting of divorce at some level, whether you personally went through divorce, whether you had parents, children, relatives. We've all felt the fracturing power of that, and nobody's excited from the pain that it causes.

It can be very traumatic. In America, 45 to 50% of first marriages end in divorce. Statistics have shown that second marriages, it goes up to 60 to 67% of marriages end in divorce, and by the third marriage, 70 to 73% end in divorce. So if the first one doesn't last, the likelihood of the second and third go downhill quickly. That does not mean today, if you're in a second marriage or even in a third marriage, that you're going to get a divorce.

Those are just statistics in the country right now. It should do two things. Number one, if you have been remarried from a previous divorce, you should be focused even more so on the need of Christ in your life. There should have been some pain in your past that taught you some things that say, I don't want to do that again, amen. And it should also cause people who are thinking about getting a divorce that if you go into a second marriage, it doesn't mean that's going to be any easier, because you're going to marry another sinner, amen, and you still got to live with yourself. So those are two problems that you can't get away from. Now, each year, two million marriages happen in America, and about a million end in divorce, and that is not including all the millions of children that are affected by this. It's a very, very traumatic thing.

Someone has commented that couples are married for better or for worse, but not for very long. Now, I understand that this is, again, a massive issue. There's a myriad of questions. I know that people have different experiences, and in any time you get into the area of forgiveness, marriage, divorce, these kind of issues, people will inevitably say, but you don't understand what I went through, or you don't know what I, situation I'm in, and there's all kinds of these things. But we have to remember that God's Word is true, and it is, and our lives are to be a servant to what that truth is, and our life doesn't define new truth, right?

Sometimes that happens. I know some pastors who don't preach on homosexuality anymore because one of their kids became a homosexual. That would be like if my child got into fornication or adultery, that I'm like, you know what, I don't want to preach on adultery anymore.

Anybody want to go to the church where Pastor Josh doesn't preach on adultery if his child became an adulteress? We don't define the message by our life. We define the message by God's Word, and we must be a servant to the text and not make the text a servant to us, and that's a very important reality.

So I want to first look at the setting of this text, then work through some critical subjects of marriage and divorce. Now, verse 1 through 3, we see the setting and question of divorce. It says in verse 1, and it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings. That statement is used five times in the Gospel of Matthew to let you know that there is a specific discourse or message that Jesus just finished. Some of you may be aware, but theologians believe that Moses, when he prophesied that there is going to be one who was raised up like unto him another Moses in Deuteronomy 18, 15, one like himself to you, to him you will listen that Jesus is the new Moses, if you would.

He was the greater Moses, just like he was the greater David. And just like Moses wrote five Old Testament books, so Jesus in the book of Matthew, the Jewish epistle, Jewish Gospel, gave five different sermons. And you remember when Moses went up on Mount Sinai, he came down with the message, and you see also in Jesus when he went up on the mountain and gave the sermon. And there's many parallels to that, but there are five different major discourses that Jesus gives, and this lets us know that he came to the end of actually his fourth discourse. The first one was the Sermon on the Mount.

He's got one more on the end times, which will be in chapter 24, which we'll probably get to by the end times. Now, verse 1 says he departed from Galilee. Galilee is in the north of Israel. If you consider kind of Israel being broken up 180 miles from Dan to Beersheba, there's three different sections to Israel. The northern part is Galilee. It was more Gentile, heavy regions of the area.

That's where Capernaum was. That's where the disciples, many of them, were from. The middle area is Samaria. That's where the Jews just didn't like.

They disdained the Samaritans. And the southern part is where Jerusalem was in Judea, the Dead Sea, Jericho, all of that region was to the south. So Jesus is now departing from the northern region, going south to Jerusalem. Now it is of note that Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not record Jesus actually going to Jerusalem until the end of his ministry. They focus on his northern Galilean ministry. They're called the synoptic gospels, or the similar gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John, on the other hand, does speak about Jesus going to certain feasts of the Jews to Jerusalem.

But he's the only one that does that. But Jesus predicted he would be killed in Jerusalem, according to Matthew 16 21. And now he is deliberately heading there. It is believed at this point, Jesus is about a year away from his crucifixion. They believe this is around 29 AD. He is most likely crucified in the springtime at the Passover of 30 AD.

And so he's only got six to eight, ten months left of life, is what the belief is here, as he's moving toward that end portion of his ministry and earthly life. Verse 2 says, There were great multitudes that followed him. They were surrounding him, and he healed them. His fame was very high.

There was a great entourage around him, moving to Jerusalem. And this also, you need to understand, aggravated the Jewish leaders. They were jealous of him. The religious leaders despised him because everybody loved Jesus.

And they're like, Man, we couldn't draw crowds like that. And they were very disdaining of him. And so he's healing people, doing miracles, things that they could not do. And now they come to him in verse three, and they want to discredit him. And so they pose a question to him in verse three. The Pharisees also came into him, tempting him and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause or to divorce her for any reason? Now, why would they ask that?

And why would that be a challenge to answer? Let me explain some things, and this will bring you into the context of the day. Again, you only really can understand the context or the text of the Scripture when you understand the context. I would like to also note that if you remember, John the Baptist was beheaded because he preached against Herod and Herodias' unlawful marriage, right? Herod had taken his brother, Philip's wife, and he preached against that. He was imprisoned and beheaded, and perhaps they are wanting to stir up Jesus to make a statement about Herod and Herodias now that he's down in Judea, and maybe they could get him killed.

So maybe that would also be in the background of their question. Now, just a little bit about Jews in that day. They saw marriage with a very high view. They actually saw marriage as a sacred duty. They took the statement in Genesis 1 28 when God says, Be fruitful and multiply as a divine command, that if you don't get married and have kids, you're sinning.

Like, it is wrong not to go on and have kids, and you are slaying, they said, your posterity, and they said you are lessening the image of God in the world. Now, ideally, they saw divorce as something that was bad. They knew Malachi 2 16 that God said, I hate divorce, but the view had liberalized by the time that Jesus comes on the scene, and here the Pharisees come to Jesus, and they're tempting him. They're testing him and asking him this question of basically a no fault divorce.

Can you divorce her for basically any reason? And the reason they ask him this is because they knew that Jesus held a very conservative, what I would call a biblical view of divorce, the right view of divorce, and they knew that his view of divorce was counterculture. The culture in the day had began to mold into a very liberal view of divorce and easy divorce, but Jesus did not hold such a view, and so they set him up with this trap of a question. And what they're basically wanting to do is pit Jesus against the culture because divorce was so rampant, and so they come to him with this question, and they're actually referring, and we'll dig deeper into this passage in a little bit, but in Deuteronomy 24 one, they're referring to this passage from Moses that said this, when a man had taken a wife and married her and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes because he had found some uncleanness, it could also be translated indecency in her, something that was in the realm of sexual immorality in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house. So the big debate among the Jews was what is the uncleanness or indecency?

What did that mean? There were two basic rabbinical schools in that day. There was the rabbinical school of Hillel and there was the rabbinical school of Shammai, which was a lot more of a conservative viewpoint. Now according to the school of Shammai, they held and taught the strict and conservative view that no divorce at any time except adultery, not being faithful to your marriage.

But Hillel, that other school, believed and defined the indecency in the widest possible way. They said a man could divorce his wife basically for any reason, and let me just list some of these that they would ascribe to. They said if she went in public with her head uncovered, you could divorce her. If she talked with other men in the streets, you could divorce her. If she was a brawling woman, I don't know if we have any brawling women in here today, they said it depends on how you preach today, preacher, whether we'll be brawling or not.

I'm just reading you what they said. This is not my belief here. They said if she spoke disrespectfully of her husband's parents in his presence, she was a troublesome or quarrelsome woman and he could divorce her. If she spoiled his dinner by putting too much salt in his food, he could divorce her. One rabbi, Rabbi Akiba, said that the phrase if she find no favor in a sight meant that he could divorce his wife if he found another woman more attractive than her. Oh my.

Oh my is the edge of brawling, isn't it? Now guess which school was more influential in that day? It was the school of Hillel, right? In a male-dominated culture, they picked up the one that would mold into their own desires. Now Rabbi Hillel had in fact died only about 20 years before Jesus' public ministry and it had permeated the culture. It was so easy to get divorced in that day that women were afraid to even get married because they were unwilling to subject themselves to such an easy way for the man to get out of it and it was such an insecure marriage. It's also of note that even the Pharisees, according to D.A. Carson, one of the great scholars of Scripture, said that it was scandalous the amount of divorce that was going on among the Pharisees.

In fact, if you're familiar with Josephus, the great Jewish historian who was also a Pharisee, he was also divorced and he wrote in his antiquities, for any cause whatsoever a man could divorce his wife. So this was the leading view in that day. So the Pharisees come to tempt Jesus with a question. They're basically asking, are you on the side of Hillel or are you on the side of Shammai? Like which school are you going to side with? Are you going to side with the rest of the culture and what we believe and teach?

Are you going to side with that strict, narrow, very hardened idea that was held by Shammai? So this is really the setup and how does Jesus respond to this? Verse number four, Jesus, his answer to divorce.

Verse four says, and I just appreciate this, and he answered. Wouldn't it be nice if in the day where political sidestepping they would just give an answer? Is anybody tired of the cowardness of politicians these days?

I don't know that they really believe a lot of the things they say, it's just that they'll say whatever they want you to get your votes. It's just like, have what they call a backbone that's called a spine, isn't it? Use that.

Have conviction. So Jesus answered, and he answered and said to them, I love this, have you not read that he which made them in the beginning made them male and female? This is such a monumental verse.

Let me share a couple thoughts out of it. First of all, he says, have you not read? In other words, don't you know what the scriptures teach?

Why are you asking me such a basic question? Don't you know the Bible? This presupposes that you're able to read the Bible and know what it means. Also of note, Jesus isn't saying, well, don't you know what Hillel teaches or don't you know what Shemite? He doesn't go to tradition, nor does he go to other scholars to say, this is what they said, so this is what you should believe.

He presupposes that you are able to read the Bible and know what it means. Haven't you read it? Does that make sense? This is why? Well, people say, well, there's people read the Bible and they have all kinds of interpretations.

You know why? Because number one, they don't believe what they read or they change the scripture to fit their sin. Why did Hillel believe that?

Because men wanted to divorce their wife and have the freedom to do that whenever they wanted. So they took the scripture and molded it to themselves. Duh. Like anybody can see that. Don't you know what the Bible says? It's so clear.

I had somebody, I forget who it was and maybe they're here today. I don't even remember the conversation and who it was with, so I'm sorry if I, but I was like, listen, I was going through the gospel with somebody and I said, I said, you know, read Romans 3 23. They're like, well, you can make that belief, say whatever you wanted to believe. I'm like, I didn't even say anything about it yet. Just, just read it. Look what it says. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I'm like, what does that mean?

They're like, well, people have different services. I'm like, just read it. What do you think it says? All have sinned, not hard. And then they've come short of the glory of God. The standard of God, you've fallen short, right? What's John 14 six say? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and life. No one comes to the father, but by me. Yeah, but what about, yeah, but what about, what did he say? What does it say?

Right? You read the Bible and it means what it says, and it says what it means. We just, we just take our experiences and elevate them or tradition and elevate them to a point where now we skew the scriptures because we read it through our own lens and instead of letting the scriptures be the lens.

And so we must hold to a normal literal interpretation of scriptures, not allegorize it in some fantastic way that basically makes the scriptures moldable and flexible to whatever we want it to be. Now, now Jesus says, have you not read that he which made them at the, what's the next word? When did Jesus believe the beginning was? He believed that it was in the beginning in Genesis. Genesis one is the beginning. Well, I struggle with like evolutionary teaching. Jesus did not.

I do not. The Bible's clear. We believe in a six literal 24 hour day creation account. That is a factual biblical truth.

In the evening and the morning were the first day. You can't get out of that. What's it say? I mean, it just says what it says. It's so clear. Why did he say that?

The end of every day. It's very simple. Well, preacher, it takes light so many thousands of years for it to come from these long stars. Okay, I got that.

So when God made them male and female, it takes a sperm to unite with an egg and allow that, you know, with the woman and they begin to create a baby, an embryo. Did he bypass that whole process? Yes he did. He was like, I'm going to wait around for 30 years for Adam to grow up here. It's ridiculous. You think God can't create stars and be like, let me go ahead and let their light come? Why do we make God unable to do these things that the Bible clearly says he does?

Anyway, trying to push past this chafes me. But in the beginning, God made them. You're made in the image of God. And it says he made them, uh oh, here's a big word in our day, male and female. The Bible does talk about genders. God created them in his own image. And Jesus is quoting from Genesis 1 27 and he made them male and female. Genesis 5 2 says male and female created him and blessed them and called their name Adam. The word Adam simply is a from a Hebrew word that means mankind or humankind in the day when they were created.

He created them in a day. It's important to understand the basic truth that gender is assigned by God at birth. It is not assigned by my own desires. Truth doesn't conform to me. What kind of nation descends to the point where we will mutilate a child's body and adults will do that to them. By the way, people who say, well, if you don't allow people to have gender transition surgeries, they will commit suicide.

So they threaten you telling you that if you don't allow these things, if you don't affirm them, then they'll kill themselves. Can I give you a statistic from our government? This year, a massive study, massive study was done that concluded in its archive in the National Library of Medicine that the results of the study showed individuals who underwent gender affirming surgery had a 12 times higher suicide attempt risk than those who did not go through with the surgery.

12 times higher. They don't publicize this because it doesn't fit the agenda. I don't know if you've learned yet or not, but our media tells us what we, they want us to believe, not what is true. The conclusion in their own words is this. Patients who have undergone gender affirming surgeries are associated with a significantly elevated risk of suicide.

It seems clear that if you affirm lies to people that it is very damaging to them. So the Bible says God made them male and female. Also, Jesus is teaching here that marriage was created and instituted by God, and everything he made was very good. The only thing God said was not good was that man was alone. Genesis 2 18, he says, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for him. And it is, and so the idea of helpmeet here doesn't mean the woman was subservient to the man.

Like, you know, he made her just so he could have some help, though he needs help. The use of the word helpmeet here is the Hebrew word ezer, and it could also, it carries the idea of like ideal partner, helper. You know the Bible also calls God our elzer, uses the exact same Hebrew word. Psalm 115 9, O Israel, trust thou in the Lord.

He is their ezer or help and their shield. Eve was created as Adam's counterpart. Eve was complimenting Adam. She was his match.

She was just right for him. Genesis 2 goes on to describe how God created the woman from the rib of the man, not from his head above or feet below, but from his side. And he brought the woman unto the man, and the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And the Bible says they too became one.

There was a uniting. Verse 25 of Genesis 2 goes on to talk about where they were pure. They didn't have any clothes, but they were pure.

There was an innocency. There was no sinful past to skew their minds. They were joined in a glorious relationship called marriage. This is God's institution.

It's the first of three institutions. Before he made the government or the church, he created the family. So God's design was one man for one woman. He didn't create multiple wives for Adam. He could have. If polygamy was God's design, he would have made a couple of wives, but he knew that in his infinite wisdom, that would have not been good. And all the women said?

Yes, man. That's right. Now, if God believed in anything other, he would have done it differently.

And you see God's design in the very, very beginning. One man, one woman, one flesh union. This is a leaving and cleaving.

They leave their family. They cleave unto their wife. Now, God created marriage to be the one special union that would also produce children. Genesis 1 20 80 says, Be fruitful and multiply. So Jesus adds here in verse six of Matthew 19, he says, Wherefore, they are no more twain but one flesh. Wherefore, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

Jesus quotes almost verbatim the Septuagint here in verse five and six. And so marriage is disuniting. It is not just an external thing. It's not just two people, you know, making a contract. It is actually a covenant between the two and God. But it is a uniting of them in a special way, mentally, physically, emotionally, even spiritually. They're coming together in a one flesh relationship that is very, very special. Over the years, I've done many funerals, spouses have come to me, and when their spouse dies, they say, you know, feel like a part of me has died.

And that's in some sense of reality, like you feel that, you feel an incredible loss of that. But the blessing is, when you're saved, you haven't lost them, you're just separated from them temporarily. They're with the Lord. Now also notice the intimacy in which Jesus places God's role into this. In verse six, he says, What therefore God hath joined together.

This isn't something that just men and women come together and make this contract. God is intimately involved in uniting them in a covenant relationship between the three, the two people and God. That's God's design for marriage to stay intact and not get a divorce. What is God's view of divorce? Well, again, Malachi 2 16 says, For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith, He hateth putting away, which is just another word for divorce. God hates divorce. One reason God is so serious about our commitments in our relationship is because our marriage covenants reflect God's covenant with the church. He takes covenants very seriously, and we should be very thankful for that. How tragic would it be if God says you can get a divorce for anything you want?

I mean, imagine the chaos that would come from that. Also, how could God not hate divorce? What good has come from divorces?

How much good has it has it produced? Just think about all the heartache, the pain, the separation, the broken families, broken covenants, broken promises as much joy that we feel in our wedding day should also be reflected in the amount of sorrow we feel in a day of divorce. Now, why does God hate divorce? Because divorce is always a result of sin somewhere. People don't get divorced because they both love Jesus enough they get divorced because somewhere somebody loved himself too much, and they begin to go down. Now divorce grieves God's heart, it should grieve our heart.

And what is divorce? Well, divorce is spoken of in four passages by Jesus in Matthew 5, Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16. And divorce involves the breaking covenant union between a husband and a wife. Throughout the Bible divorce is regulated, you need to know this, by a formal written and delivered declaration of breaking and ending that covenant. In the Bible, it required a written statement, the presentation of what the Bible calls a right of divorce ends the marriage, even if the obligations inside the marriage are broken and violated, the marriage lasts until that formal decree has been issued and signed. William Barclay writes, the Bill of Divorcement stated, let this be from me the writ of divorce and letter of dismissal and deed of liberation, that thou mayest marry whatsoever man thou wilt.

They would simply sign it in the presence of two witnesses and they would be divorced. Even God himself, some of you may not be aware of this, but even God divorced the nation of Israel. Did you know God got divorced?

Does that sound odd? Jeremiah 3 verse 8. And I saw when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery, who did they commit adultery on?

God. The nation did. He said, I put her away and gave and given her a bill of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And so in this idea of being married to the nation of Israel, Israel was divorced from God, the northern tribes, but Judah never was.

Judah never was according to Isaiah 50 verse 1. Now I've heard people say we are not legally divorced, but we are divorced in our hearts so our marriage is over. Listen, I understand that it can be a terribly painful process and you can be wronged in terrible ways and the divorce process can get drug out for a lengthy long period of time, but you need to know this. In the eyes of God, you are not divorced biblically until a bill of divorcement, the legal document is signed.

It's just what the Bible says. Just as you are not married in your hearts, so you're not divorced in your hearts, right? You can't just say, well, I'm married in my heart to this person, so we're just going to move in and live together.

It doesn't work that way. The Bible doesn't recognize that. Also, when the giving of a divorce is finalized, that marriage union is over. And I want you to know this, even if the marriage ended for unbiblical reasons, it is over. It is wrong to say to someone, well, you guys are still married in the eyes of God.

No, they're not. And you can't say that about yourself. If you've been divorced, you're not married in the eyes of God to the other person. Listen to 1 Corinthians 7 verse 10. Paul is speaking of a believing couple who divorced. Even though they divorced for unbiblical reasons, they were still viewed, they were viewed as no longer married. 1 Corinthians 7 verse 10 says, and unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband. Look what it says, but and if she depart, let her remain.

What's the next word? He didn't say you're still married to him. Remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife. So when a divorce happens, when a formal decree is given, that ends the marriage relationship. Now, in verse 7 through 9, Jesus goes on to make some regulations about divorce. Look at verse 7. They say unto him, why did Moses then command to give a written writing of divorcement and to put her away?

So they have a follow-up question here. They're basically asking, who are you to forbid us to give our wives a right of divorcement and a bill of divorcement when Moses said we're allowed to do that, and he even commanded that we do that. Well, God instituted marriage, but he did not institute divorce. What God does is regulates divorce, and that's important to understand that difference.

He doesn't institute it, he regulates it. Divorce came about because of man's sinfulness, and God regulated it so people would not be abused in the marriage relationship and that marriage would be upheld and honored. Now, Moses gives three different references to divorce in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 22, 19, 29, and then chapter 24, verse 1 through 4. In each case, he's regulating divorces, but he also does not forbid divorce from happening.

The only passage in all five books of Moses that he mentions any grounds for divorce is in Deuteronomy 24, verse 1, and listen to what he says here again. When a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness or indecency in her. Now, what is this uncleanness or indecency?

It's from the Hebrew word gerva, and it refers to the nakedness of a thing. Some have translated it as indecent exposure. It includes improper, shameful, indecent behavior. It was some kind of promiscuity that fell somehow short of full adultery, because in that day, adultery in that Old Testament time would result in the person being put to death. So it had to be less than adultery, but it was something on the coming right up to the line of that. He said, if that happens, if there's some kind of shameful, improper, indecent behavior that's found in your spouse, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and send her out of the house. Because of sin in the marriage and this indecency, this shameful thing, they gave a bill of divorcement.

Now, why is that important? You need to understand in the Near East in this time, they would just say, I divorce you, and they were divorced, but it's like, how do you verify that? So there had to be some kind of writing that protected both her and the husband, and so they had God regulated the system to make it protective of the people, and then they could go on and be remarried. Verse 2 says, and when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. So Moses presupposes that when you get a divorce, you're probably going to get remarried, because you don't have the gift of singleness. I disagree with people, and I could talk about this, I just don't have time this morning, when somebody even gets divorced for an unlawful reason, and they say, well, you need to be single the rest of your 50-year life. So how does that work when they're battling and they don't have the gift of singleness?

And now their spouse doesn't want to reconcile, and I wish I had time to go into all the details of that, and if you have questions about that, I'd love to sit down and talk to you. But Matthew 19 verse 8 and 9, Jesus responds to this because they were utilizing this in a way that Moses did not want it to be laid out. They were saying that Moses commands you to get divorced, and Moses never commanded it, he just allowed it. He gave a provision for it, because what Jesus says in verse 8, he says, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered or allowed you to put away your wives.

But from the beginning, it was not so. Because you were resistant to God's commands, because sin came in, there had to be some kind of provision. Mercy was applied, grace was applied, but it doesn't mean you take it and say, well, now I'm going to abuse that mercy and grace and do whatever I want with it. They were abusing the process, and Jesus says that's not the plan.

That's not the design. Sometimes marriages break, sometimes things fall, sometimes things get torn apart. It's a last ditch type of effort in some way where God steps in and gives some grace to say, let's allow this to be peaceable and civil. God has not called us to strife and bitterness and all these things. And so God implemented a gracious opportunity for that situation to come to an end, but from the beginning, he said it was not so. They're like, oh, God's given us an allowance, now I'm just going to do whatever I want with it. And they adulterated God's grace. Does that make sense? And I believe in situations today, God's grace also can step into situations and provide mercy in times where things can get pretty out of hand inside of a relationship.

I'll talk about some of those in just a minute. But verse 9, Jesus says, whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication and shall marry another commits adultery. And whosoever marries her, which is put away, doth commit adultery.

So here's the authority of Christ. He says, I say unto you, except it is for fornication, the Greek word porneia. It speaks of marital unfaithfulness.

It's some kind of adultery or sexual sin. Now, now, he said, this is this is a this is the reason that Jesus gives that you could get a divorce. This is not a way out of a marriage, but it's rather the only legitimate grounds that Jesus here is saying he recognizes.

MacArthur writes, God never condoned divorce because what he joins together and is not to be separated adultery. Another reality that God never intended is the only thing that can break the bond of marriage. In fact, in the Old Testament law, adultery would necessarily dissolve a marriage because the adulterer would be killed and then you'd be free, right? So this is actually an act of God's mercy that doesn't kill the adultery, lets them live. But he says that's a way that marriage could come to an end. And he says, if they marry another, they commit adultery.

And whoever marries her which is put away does commit adultery. He is teaching that those who do not have a right to divorce do not have the right to then remarry. To divorce wrongly, without any biblical reason, creates a chain reaction of adultery.

In other words, you're setting your ex up to be an adulterer. In the face of this liberal view of marriage in the Lord's Day, Jesus raises the bar and a stinging and shocking message to them. His statement is a rebuke to the Pharisees who were just giving people a license to get divorced and they had molded into this school of Hillel. Now today we have a culture where divorce has just covered the landscape. Do you know what the number one cause of divorce is in America?

Used to be money. Number one by far now is infidelity. Infidelity. People not being faithful to their marriage. I wonder why that's the cause. Is it perhaps because of the amount of sexual pollution that has just invaded our culture?

We have an overly sexualized culture just so, so sad. Here you actually see again God's divine mercy and allowing if you're married to somebody and they're in an adulterous relationship to be able to not be confined to that indefinitely but that you could be removed from that. Now some people could ask the question, am I required to divorce if adultery or unfaithfulness happens? Would I be required to divorce them? And the answer is not at all. Not at all. The Bible does not command divorce.

It only allows it. Jesus is not saying immorality must lead to divorce. Only that it may lead to divorce. The marriage I believe needs to be fought for and worked out. Jesus just got done talking about forgiveness and that we need to apply forgiveness just as we have received forgiveness. But sometimes you can forgive people and they just continue living the way they are, right? And you can't change those people but you can do what God wants you to do. But I would say many don't fight for their marriages enough.

They too easily walk away. And if a spouse I believe truly repents of their sin, if they commit adultery and they truly repent that you should forgive them and seek reconciliation. And people say, well I just couldn't do that. But we have to remember that our sin against God is like adultery. We've all committed adultery on God.

And that's what he even called the Old Testament nation of Israel that they have done when they sinned. And so we have to recognize that. And again I understand those things can be extremely heavy and difficult but God's grace, he can help through that process and it takes counseling and work obviously. But we've had couples throughout our church who have gone through those kind of things and God's healed their marriage and their marriage is thriving now. Praise God for his mercy and grace. I want to share with you a study published by Psychology Today that showed, listen to this, 78% of those who remained in a difficult marriage reported five years later that they were quote very happy.

Very happy. I can't tell you through the years how many people I've talked to who were divorced and they look back with so much regret. Maybe they've even moved on and got remarried and they're thankful for their new marriage and things but they'll tell me if I could have gone back I would have done things very different. I've had people say, you know, if I could have gone back I never would have gotten a divorce and they're so sad over the situation. And listen, divorces, I know in the moment it's like I just can't stay here but we have to realize that give God time to work. Be patient. Don't just jump right into divorce. We think that's the easy answer. It's not.

It doesn't, it may ease the pain on the immediate in some sense but it really doesn't because it just causes more pain in the long term in so many ways or it can. Now Jesus only speaks of one way here and the question can come, what if a spouse is, you know, unfaithful you could get a divorce but is there any other ways that divorce is permitted in the Bible? Well in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul indicates that if you're married to an unbeliever and that unbeliever wants out of the marriage and they want to divorce you that you can, you are, it's actually a command in the Greek, it says you need to let them go.

It says such people are not under bondage. 1 Corinthians 7, 15, listen to it. But if the unbelieving depart, let them depart.

Let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases but God has called us to peace. You say well why didn't Jesus give that regulation because Jesus is talking about people who were believers. People were not, Paul's dealing with if you're a believer married to an unbeliever. There was no Jew who were like I'm going to divorce you because I don't believe in Judaism.

It didn't exist. They, Jews held to the same kind of belief system to be a faith-filled Jew was just part of the culture. Even if you were pagan in your practice you were religious. So, but to the people who are sometimes getting saved out of paganism as Paul preached the gospel in that part of the world in Rome and other places, people were getting saved and sometimes their unbelieving spouse did not want to stay with them and he says then you have to let them go. He says you are not in bondage to that and bondage here speaks about the marriage union that you're bound in that marriage and he says you're no longer bound but you're free and free to do what? You're free to remarry.

That's the idea. Whenever the Bible permits a divorce it would permit remarriage. Paul's permission for divorce here in no way contradicts the Lord's permission because the apostle is speaking about a situation Jesus did not address. Now people are allowed to remarry I believe for three reasons.

I got to go quick here. Three reasons. First of all in the case of adultery if the spouse is unfaithful then divorce happens you can remarry. Secondly when a spouse wants out of the marriage. If an unbelieving spouse wants out of the marriage you could remarry. Thirdly Romans 7 39 talks about if a wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives but if the husband is dead she is at liberty to marry whom she will only in the Lord.

So those are the three reasons. If your spouse dies or if they are an unbeliever who went out. Now let me answer the question what about in the case of abuse? What if a spouse is abusive? You're going to tell me I have to stay inside of some verbal emotional or physical abuse.

First of all absolutely not. You don't stay in a relationship where you're getting abused. I would never counsel somebody if your husband or wife even is abusing you in some severe way. It could be drug abuse, it could be physical abuse, it could even turn into such heavy emotional or verbal abuse that you would need to my first counsel is you need to separate from that situation. You don't you don't you don't keep the image of God which you are made in in a situation where you're being physically abused in some way.

I'm not telling ever anybody to go out and get a divorce but you need to remove yourself from that situation. Does that make sense? But also let me give a precursor to this. Just because somebody says they're abusing them doesn't mean they're abusing them. And I say that understanding like that can go in a lot of different directions but I'm just saying I've had people in the past say well they're just abusive and I say could you give me some examples of what they're doing? Well they've never hit me. Well they've never touched you.

No they've never really and they go and is there any time where they ever put their hands on you, threw anything, hit anything, got physical? Well they never done any of that they just but they raise their voice one time and you see some and then I find out later all this person is being unfaithful in their spouse they're trying to turn them into some kind of abusive spouse that they were not so that they could try to get out of the marriage. Remember and listen what your pastor tells you when a spouse is unfaithful on their other spouse they will try to make their spouse who is actually the faithful and look like a devil because they're out living in sin and they want to bring them down so they don't feel like they're in such a hole of sin. It's unbelievable. It's it's the old adage you blame the other person for what you're guilty of.

Politicians. Anyway that's what politicians do it's like they're probably committing everything they're blaming the other person for but now now what about the case of abuse if it is abuse then then then you need to separate then church discipline steps in pastor somebody's going to go to them talk to them seek to work things out and that's that can be a longer process sometimes if they if they don't repent of that and they just continue to go down that path it would ultimately evidence that they're not a believer because if they don't repent they're evidencing that they're not a believer and if they're not willing to reconcile when they want out then that would allow them through 1st Corinthians 7 to get a divorce and to move on. If they if they separate and then the person doesn't repent and they go off and they start being with somebody else because they're in their sinfulness and abuse turns into infidelity then that would violate Matthew chapter 19 and that would give them the freedom in the Bible to divorce but that's not what they're looking for the faithful spouse but I'm just telling you that's a lot of times what that can lead to. So if you ever in an abusive situation you never want to stay in that you want to separate give God time to work now what if I divorce for an illegitimate reason in the past and remarried and I know some of you guys are probably carrying some conviction right now and I want you to I want to speak to you for a moment. What if I divorce for a wrong reason in the past and I'm remarried should I divorce my current spouse?

That's what they asked Paul in 1st Corinthians 7. Illegitimate reasons for remarriage still constitute a real marriage. God views your marriage as a real marriage. Matthew 19 says this look what he says, I say unto you whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication and shall marry another. He doesn't say you can't marry another he says you it's an actual marriage they commit adultery and whosoever marrieth her which is put away does commit adultery. Jesus doesn't say you think you're married he says you're actually married. Remember when Jesus was with a woman at the well in John 4 he said you were with five husbands you think those are all legitimate marriages? She wasn't even saved so he but he recognizes them as five different legitimate husbands and then he says the man you're now with is not your husband. So you're with a guy living with a guy doesn't constitute marriage according to Jesus. Does that make sense?

Does it also not show you the level of grace that God has? He goes to her? He goes to that woman?

Yeah. Because in God's kingdom there's no second class citizens. So when she gets saved she's forgiven and God uses her to be the vessel to reach the city.

Is that incredible? So if you've been divorced you're not a second class Christian in Lighthouse. You're a first class along with everybody else under the grace of God Christian.

It's a level at the foot of the cross. If you're single here today you're not second class. Married people are not better than you.

That's what he talked about in verse 10 through 12. Rejoice in your singleness. Singleness is a lot better than a bad marriage. Amen.

That is a true ism. Sometimes people are like oh I just wish I could be married. Only in the Lord.

Only what God wants because if you get the wrong person buddy you're going to be coming to me and I'll be like I told you. Now I need to answer this question. Is the illegitimate marriage an act of adultery or a continual state of adultery?

And I want you to know this. If it were a continual state of adultery the new marriage and the Bible would let you know you need to get divorced because you're continuing to commit adultery but the Bible never says divorce the person. If you get remarried it doesn't say get out of it. If it was continual adultery it would. But the Bible calls it marriage and it never teaches to get out of it. I believe it is adultery in the act of getting married but it is not a continual state of adultery.

It is not. As Craig Bloomberg says a new marriage is not continuous adultery as well as many other theologians and Bible students would agree. Well I struggle with guilt over my divorce even though it was on biblical grounds.

What should I do? God has not called us to live with grief and I want you to hear this. If you have a spouse that's faithful and they die the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4 not to overly grieve.

And if we're not to overly grieve for a faithful spouse who died we're not to overly grieve for an unfaithful spouse that we were separated and divorced from. Does that make sense? I could preach on this for a while. I didn't want to preach on this for more than one week. I'm trying to move through Matthew but there's a lot here. If you have questions about some of these things I would be more than glad to sit down and walk through these things with you. Now let me wrap up the last part here in verse 10.

I'm just going to have to summarize this quickly. His disciples said if the case be so with a man it's not good to marry. There's a lot of reasons why they said that because they saw in their day that they've been taught by the Pharisees in their day the scribes that a bad marriage is so miserable and you need to be able to have a way out. They said a bad wife in their day the rabbi said a bad wife is like leprosy to her husband.

What is a remedy? Let him divorce her and be cured of the leprosy. They even believed it was your divine religious duty to divorce her if she was a bad wife. So they're like man if this is the case if we're bound in marriage it's probably better not even to get married. And Jesus says in verse 11 all men can't receive that. It's okay to be single but not everybody's created for singleness save to those whom it is given. Some people have been given the gift of singleness that's why there's no marriage doesn't make you better than someone who's single. So he goes on in verse 12 and he says for there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb. In other words some people were masculated and some other words I won't use for that but they were they were made that way from their mother's womb they were born like that or there was eunuchs which were made eunuchs because they were in the they would work among the harem of the different kings at that time and they would they would have them become eunuchs and then there were some who were made eunuchs for the kingdom of God's sake. That would better be understood that they didn't physically do that to themselves but rather that they they saw themselves to abstain from marriage which was what was happening in some of the early church there was those who went into asceticism and they were like depriving themselves of marriage but marriage in the Bible is called the grace of life according to 1 Peter 3 7 and so he says that he that is able to receive it let him receive it.

It's okay to be single. Paul says it's great to be married it's it's in many ways it can be better to be single because you can fully give your life to God but but whoever can receive it receive it. Peter was married we know because Jesus healed his mother-in-law. Now in conclusion marriage is a gift that reflects God's covenant between Christ and the church.

Divorce is not part of God's original plan it's the last resort in the case of unrepentant infidelity and if an unbeliever wants out of the marriage. If you are divorced today you need to forgive your ex. You need to show the same grace to them that God has shown you. But you don't know what they've done just read Matthew 18 again. We've done a lot worse to God than what they've done to us. Forgive them. Seek forgiveness for any wrongs you've done.

If you've been divorced or if you're single you're not second class. God used incredibly people in the Bible that had some messed up lives. Abraham had a messed up marriage life.

You know I mean the list goes on and on. David think about what David did right. Now if you're married protect your marriage let your marriage be a living example of Christ's love for the church. If there's ever been a day when we need to uphold our marriages isn't it today? You know in the Bible when God created marriage in Genesis 2 you know what the next thing it says in Genesis 3 the very next verse. And Satan was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made the serpent was and he came immediately and attacked the family in marriage. You don't have to be looking for sin. Sin comes looking for you.

And today just know that God loves you today. Protect your marriage. We have a great marriage study we do on Thursday nights. If you've never been through that re-engage you could sign up for the next course that comes around.

But you need to plug in the Life groups, 242 groups. If you faithfully read and pray with your spouse, be in church together I can tell you you're putting a safety net around your home. And don't think because things are good now that they can't get bad real quick. Genesis 2 was a really wonderful place in their marriage and it dived real quickly in chapter 3. And so let's be people who protect our marriage and allow God's hand to be in them. Amen. So I'll stand this morning.