Is Divorce a Sin? - Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church (Part 1)

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March 6, 2016

This is the first part of Jeff Durbin's series on the Kingdom of God relating to Divorce. http://apologiachurch.com http://apologiaradio.com

Is Divorce a Sin? - Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church (Part 2)

00:00: Matthew chapter 5, Jesus here is in the famous Sermon on the
00:06: Mount. We've been in the series,
00:12: The Kingdom of God, for some time, and we're in the most popular sermon in the history of the world,
00:23: Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has already pronounced blessings upon His people, divine happiness upon His people.
00:33: He explains His position on the law of God, and then He begins now addressing pop culture conversation, conversations that were on the front cover of the newspaper.
00:50: These were important issues then, and they remain important issues now.
00:58: Let's get to Matthew chapter 5. I'll read the text, and we'll begin to unpack it together as a church. Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 31, hear now the words of the living and true
01:10: God. It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.
01:22: But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.
01:31: And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
01:37: As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as a church.
01:43: God, Father in heaven, I just want to pray for Your blessing,
01:48: God, upon this service and this time together, where we worship You together, coming before Your Word.
01:56: Lord, listening to Your revelation, Lord Jesus, we submit ourselves wholly and completely to You.
02:07: Lord, You say things to us that cut, that challenge, that lift up and bless and encourage.
02:18: And I know, God, even based upon Your disciples' response, that we will have difficulty in hearing
02:29: Your words and receiving Your truth. And so, God, I pray by Your Spirit that You would instruct us today, teach us today.
02:39: Lord, open our eyes. Help us, God, to understand Your purpose in marriage.
02:44: Help us, Lord God, to glory in You and to celebrate what
02:51: You have made. Help us, God, to understand Your purposes in creation and in marriage, so that we bring
02:59: You praise in how we walk this out. God, bless us with understanding from You, God.
03:10: Get me out of the way. Protect my lips from error, God. Teach Your people today.
03:15: In Jesus' name, amen. All right, this is big. It's very, very important. Matthew is chocked full of beautiful things.
03:27: Oftentimes in our culture, I've said this before, we are slaves to the whim of the pastor, and so you have topical sermons, you know, really, what is the pastor's fancy for the next day?
03:38: Twelve weeks or six months? You know, you become a slave to the pastor in the sense of what he thinks is important, and you may not get the whole counsel of God because you're focusing it upon what the pastor is thinking about or what's most important to him in that season or that time.
03:53: And here's the thing, topical sermons are good and necessary at times, but at Apology at Church, it's been our
04:00: MO. It's been what we want to do in teaching, to do expositional
04:05: Bible teaching. That is, go through the Bible verse by verse, and when you do that, the glorious thing about verse by verse
04:11: Bible teaching and going through a text like this, although it takes a long time to do if you do it right and do it faithfully, the glorious thing is you get so much.
04:21: You get to learn about the entire Bible. You get to go from cover to cover because you begin to unpack the
04:26: Word of God, see what's being quoted, go to something else. When a topic is brought up, you've got to go to the other parts of the
04:32: Bible to learn about what was God saying then to those people, and you get the whole counsel of God.
04:38: So in Matthew, you get to see God's covenant faithfulness, Him keeping His promises. To the Old Testament people of God, you get to see the historical narrative come to life of Jesus walking with His people.
04:50: You get to get a flavor of what it's like when God becomes a man and walks among us. You get to learn about Jesus telling you not to worry, commanding you actually not to worry, promising you that your needs will be met, that God will take care of your needs.
05:04: You get to see Jesus dissing hypocrisy, talking about prayer, talking about fasting, talking about giving.
05:10: You get to see Jesus talking about the coming tribulation upon that generation. You get to see so much about God, and you get to hear from Him on so many things, like about lust, and you get to hear from Him about how we should treat others and about vengeance, and you get to hear about adultery.
05:29: You get to see what God has to say about His purpose in creation, His purpose in marriage, the uniqueness between male and female.
05:37: You learn so much. But here's the challenging thing. When you go verse by verse through the
05:42: Bible, you get to places where you're not allowed to skip. You get to teachings where you see
05:51: Jesus saying some really hard things. For example, we were just in this, right? Jesus saying very hard things about lust.
05:58: You see Jesus talking very directly to His people, talking to them about the fact that, look, you know, adultery, it says you should not commit adultery, but that is not what they were making of it in their day.
06:08: It is not simply the external act of adultery. It really begins at a deeper place right there in your heart, and Jesus says this, look, if this is your sin, if lust is your thing, and if you don't cut out or pluck out your eye and throw it and cut off your hand and throw it,
06:24: He says, then you will end up in Gehenna with your sin. Hell. And so it's tough stuff when you go expositionally.
06:33: You can't skip stuff. You got to make sure you address it, and you address it head on. But the glorious thing is you get the entire counsel of God.
06:40: And I want to say this. As we approach this text, we've already talked about anger in our hearts and how that makes us murderers when we have anger in our hearts.
06:48: It's not just the act of putting a knife into somebody or a bullet into them. It's actually deeper.
06:54: It starts in your heart. All murder begins in a different place in your heart, and then you begin to see Jesus talks about adultery.
07:00: We've addressed that issue, and Jesus says, look, if you don't cut it off and pluck it out, then you end up in Gehenna. We've already touched that.
07:06: Now we get over here into divorce, and we see that this is important stuff because so many of us have been affected by it.
07:14: And it's important at least in two ways. Listen, here's why this is important for me. Number one, the issue of divorce in our culture and popular
07:21: Christian culture. Divorce is oftentimes never even a subject in our churches.
07:27: It's never even a topic. We don't talk about it. You can have churches that are filled with people, and you've got people getting married and remarried, and nobody even asks a question, is it an appropriate thing to get remarried?
07:39: Should you be getting remarried? Is it lawful at this point before God for you to get remarried? We don't address it.
07:46: We have large churches where people just sort of do their own thing and never really talk to the ministers, the pastors, and really get counsel.
07:52: And what does God say about my marriage? And what does God say about maybe even a remarriage? And I think oftentimes we're afraid to do the right thing.
08:03: And so we fail in Christian culture today in not asking the important questions, and we just say, oh,
08:09: God will redeem it. It's fine. It's not the unpardonable sin, and so it's fine. God can redeem it.
08:15: We don't ask tough questions. We get too lax on the issue because we say, oh, well, God will forgive us. The second reason it's important is because oftentimes you do see
08:24: Christians have been abused by a misapplication of these very texts.
08:34: I was listening to a debate this week between two Christians. One was more really in line with what we're thinking as a church, and that is that God's law stands.
08:43: And if God said divorce was permissible under certain circumstances, then divorce is permissible under certain circumstances.
08:49: And the other guy was holding to a position that said, no, no, no. Jesus essentially was throwing away the law of God and the
08:56: Mosaic law, and He was really saying this, that divorce is only permissible because of adultery.
09:01: And He says this, even if there's adultery and you're the victim of it and the divorce ends and you didn't have a hand in it, the person committed adultery against you, the pastor said this, if you're the victim of the adultery and the divorce happens, he says this, you still can't get remarried.
09:19: You have people, women, women who are in situations where they're the victims of spousal abuse.
09:26: They're verbally abused. They're physically abused, maybe even sexually abused in a marriage.
09:32: And if you mishandle this text, if you get it wrong and you don't read the whole of God's Word, you may end up saying to that woman, well,
09:40: God says it's only permissible because of adultery, and so you're stuck in that marriage. You need to remain in that marriage.
09:46: And so what's important here for us to understand is this, is that God's Word cannot be handled in such a way where we simply grab a text out of its context, we rip it out, and we fling it around and hurt people with it.
10:02: God's Word must be handled with a reverent awe and fear, and we must not come to texts in the
10:10: Bible and begin to mishandle them, because when we mishandle God's Word, we end up mishandling
10:16: God's people. It's very, very important to get this right. On the one side, we don't want to be in a position where we actually say, no, it doesn't matter,
10:25: God will forgive you, so whatever the cause, it doesn't matter, God will forgive you and redeem it. And we don't want to be in a position where we abuse people and the
10:32: Word of God when we mishandle it and don't understand the whole of God's Word. This is a very important issue.
10:39: The first thing we need to do as we unpack this is lay some foundations. You guys ready for this?
10:44: Yes? Let's lay some foundations from the Scriptures, and let's talk about the text itself. Let's read this text real fast.
10:51: Again, Matthew 5, 31, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce, but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
11:10: Now, oftentimes, people come to this text and they say this, okay, Jesus says, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce, he's referring there to the laws in Moses, but Jesus is saying this now, but I say to you, and he's now changing the law.
11:32: Many times people say that, that Jesus is saying, I know Moses said that, but I'm saying to you this, therefore, we're going to abrogate
11:41: Moses and give you a new thing. Thus, within a space of a few verses causing
11:51: Jesus to utterly contradict himself. Where and how?
11:57: Let's move backwards a little bit. That was Matthew 5, 31. Matthew 5, 17,
12:04: Jesus says, do not think. The Greek says, me namasete, which means do not even let it into your mind.
12:15: Don't start thinking. Don't get the seed of it started. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
12:22: I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
12:28: And then He says, for truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
12:36: Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
12:51: Now watch this. If within a space of a few verses, our interpretation as Christians is that Jesus quotes the
12:59: Mosaic code and then relaxes it or changes it, then you have
13:04: Jesus now being the least in the kingdom of heaven. So we have to ask ourselves the questions, can we handle this text as an isolated proof text and ignore what the
13:16: Mosaic legislation said and what the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7?
13:23: So we need to talk about it. Now, let's lay some foundations once again quickly. Let me answer this quickly.
13:29: So somebody says, okay, so you're saying Jesus says He didn't come to abrogate the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them, and He taught not to even relax the least of commandments.
13:39: Right. So does that mean there are no changes in the law of God? My answer to that, of course there are changes in the administration from the old to the new because the substance has come.
13:55: So for example, the Old Testament had a temple. The people of God were to have a temple.
14:00: You had the holy of holies. You had a high priest who offered sacrifices on Yom Kippur, got up in the morning, offered a bull sacrifice for himself, and then offered the scapegoat and the other goat sacrifice,
14:13: Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, every year. You also had instances where you had the priesthood, you had the
14:19: Passover, you had little rituals they had where they would remove leaven, and they had to do this as a ritual before God.
14:28: But I want to say this, are we bound by those laws any longer? No, we're not bound in the shadow kind of thing.
14:36: We are still bound in the substance kind of thing. For example, we don't have a physical temple anymore, but do we have a temple?
14:43: Yes, a temple that now will never be destroyed ever. Do we have a high priest today?
14:51: Yes, but now we have the high priest in the meaningful, fulfilled sense, the sense it was always pointing to.
14:59: We have Jesus now, our high priest, who A, has no sin of his own, and B, will never die again, and He intercedes for us forever.
15:12: We also still celebrate Passover. Someone says, oh, so now
15:18: Jesus has come, you don't obey the Passover laws. Well, actually, we do still celebrate
15:23: Passover. But guess what? I got the real Passover. I got the real Passover. Jesus, who died on Passover, who is the
15:32: Lamb of God, and His blood covers my house, and the judgment of God has passed over me, been diverted from my house.
15:40: I am now freed from my slavery and bondage, and I've entered into the promised land of relationship with God.
15:48: That's my Passover. So is Passover irrelevant? It's completely relevant. But do I do it in the old way?
15:55: Not anymore. Is my high priest relevant? Completely, forever.
16:00: Is the temple relevant today? Yes, but in the real, fulfilled sense.
16:06: I'll give you an example of how this looks in Scripture and how the law does change, but the substance is still there.
16:13: Quickly go there, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and you're going to see in a moment why this discussion is so important to have in terms of Jesus' discussion about divorce.
16:23: 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 6.
16:31: Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the whole old leaven, that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened.
16:42: For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
16:50: Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
17:01: So Christians are still to celebrate Passover, but in the real, meaningful, fulfilled sense.
17:09: Jesus is our Passover, and now we are to get out the leaven of malice, clear it out of our lives.
17:16: Do you see? So do Christians celebrate Passover? Yep, in the meaningful, fulfilled, real sense.
17:24: Are there changes in the law of God and its administration under the new covenant? Without question.
17:31: Are Christians under law as fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve? Are we under law?
17:38: No, we are under grace. Is the law of God now void because Christians are under grace?
17:46: Do we now void the law of God because we're under grace? Let me show you
17:51: Romans 3 .31. Very important text, go there, Romans 3 .31. The text says, after the big discussion, let's start in 3 .28.
18:04: After the big discussion about Christ as perpetuatory sacrifice for us, Christ as the one we have faith in.
18:11: In Romans 3 .28, it says this, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
18:20: Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also.
18:28: Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, do we then overthrow the law by this faith?
18:38: I think most evangelicals today would say, yes, by all means.
18:44: But the text says, by no means. On the contrary, are you ready?
18:51: We uphold the law. In the new covenant, the
18:56: Apostle Paul says, do we void the law now because of faith? He says, by no means.
19:03: On the contrary, we actually establish it. We uphold it. Oftentimes, I think
19:11: Christians come to the text of God's word, particularly in Matthew, and we don't understand the context. We don't understand the controversies happening in Jesus' day.
19:19: We don't understand the whole of Scripture. And we look at Jesus there as saying out of one side of His mouth,
19:24: I didn't come to abrogate the law of God, and then turning around in the other side of His mouth abrogating the law of God.
19:30: And any interpretation that makes Jesus look like He's contradicting Himself within the space of a few breaths ought to be rejected.
19:39: Amen? Okay. So, what do we see in the Word of God in the New Testament? This is very important.
19:45: I want you to memorize this statement, this phrase. We see the assumption of continuity.
19:52: The assumption of continuity. The New Testament apostles and writers always assume the continuity of the
20:00: Old Testament in the New. Unless, get this, unless there is a specific part of the law of God that is changed under the new covenant administration.
20:14: Can I give you an example? The holiness code. We've talked about this a bunch, right guys? How many times have you talked to an atheist about, say, a particular social issue, like maybe abortion, or you talk about, say, homosexuality in our culture, and you point to laws in the
20:31: Old Testament where God specifically says that a man is not to lie with another man as he does with a woman.
20:37: It is toleva. It is an abomination. And then that atheist friend of yours will say, what?
20:44: Do you eat shellfish? Do you have mixed fibers in your shirt and your pants?
20:50: Got him! Right? That's what they say, because we don't understand our Bibles.
20:56: And as my friend says, being an atheist dramatically impacts your ability to read the
21:01: Bible, apparently. When we look at the Bible, we see, and particularly in the book of Ephesians, the apostle
21:08: Paul specifically says, Ephesians chapter 2, that the holiness code contained in ordinances, the dietary restrictions, all those things like shellfish and the fibers in our clothing, all those things, he says those are all gone now because now
21:28: God has taken Jew and Gentile and made them one new man. And now that we have the mission of the gospel going out to the ends of the earth,
21:38: Jew and Gentile coming together in one people of God, all the dietary restrictions, the separateness of the code is gone because those things that separate
21:49: Jew from Gentile now are abolished in Jesus Christ. It's a glorious thing.
21:55: But watch this. Does that mean that those dietary restrictions and all the holiness code were meaningless?
22:01: Absolutely not. They meant and mean a lot, because they pointed ultimately to Jesus and his holiness and his separateness and to the holiness and separateness that we're supposed to have as the people of God today.
22:16: They were a symbol. They weren't the thing. They were pointing to the thing.
22:22: But now we see in the New Testament, the apostles have to actually tell you with the law of God.
22:28: They don't assume it's now defunct and over and done with all those silly, stupid little laws.
22:34: They actually have to tell you, oh, this particular thing in the Old Testament law, that actually was fulfilled in this way, and here's why.
22:44: And now you know why it's no longer practiced by us in the old way. But you only see the assumption of continuity throughout the
22:52: New Testament. We know that there's a change when the New Testament apostles under divine inspiration tell us there's a change.
23:00: Now, ready? I needed to get all out of the way. Okay. We good? Okay. That needed to be said, because so many people come to the text of Matthew, and they see
23:14: Jesus doing something that he absolutely was not doing. They don't understand the context, the background.
23:20: They haven't read it really in full. They haven't gone to those passages to even see what he's saying, and they say, well,
23:28: Jesus here is giving us a new law. It's amazing how you can look at the same text and see two entirely different things.
23:36: But Jesus tells you, don't even begin to think that I have come to abrogate it.
23:45: Is Jesus abrogating the law of Moses regarding divorce? Is that what he's doing?
23:50: Is he saying, well, I know Moses said that, but I'm going to go ahead and do away with that now? Well, let's look at a couple examples, shall we?
23:58: I'm going to give you a couple examples. If you're writing notes, these you need to write down. I want you to go home, and I want you to think about them.
24:04: I want you to go to the text themselves. I want you to go into a deep study on the
24:09: Sermon on the Mount. First thing, was Jesus abrogating the laws of Moses in the
24:15: Sermon on the Mount? First, he said, absolutely not. Don't even think that he was.
24:20: I'd like to say that we can stop there and just move on, but that's not enough. First thing, let's look at lust, or as a popular guy says, lost, okay?
24:35: Lust, that's in Matthew chapter 5 verse 27.
24:42: You've heard that it was said, you should not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
24:50: Does Jesus here change the law of God? Because he directly quotes from the law of God.
24:57: Well, let's ask this question. Are you ready? Was lust permissible under the
25:03: Old Testament? Was Jesus saying, okay, ready?
25:09: It says you should not commit adultery, but I'm going to give you something new. Don't lust in your heart.
25:16: Was he therefore changing the law and expanding it in some way? No, because this is important to get.
25:24: In the Old Testament, God judged lust in your heart in the same way he does in the
25:30: New Testament. What Jesus is doing here in Matthew 5 is he's pointing out that their handling of the word of God is awful, because they were saying, ultimately, well, you should not commit adultery.
25:42: I haven't. I've given her a certificate of divorce. I haven't actually done the act, and Jesus is condemning their external obedience, and he's showing that obedience really begins in the heart.
25:54: Proof? He does it throughout the Sermon on the Mount, like when he talks to the Pharisees that he calls hypocrites, when he tells them, you pray so people see you praying on street corners.
26:06: He says, you go into your closet and pray so your father who sees you in secret will reward you openly.
26:12: Jesus condemns their external obedience when their hearts were far off. He says, when you give, don't even let your hand know what the other one is doing.
26:20: Don't give and ring bells and blow trumpets so everyone sees. He says, you give to your father in secret, and Jesus talks about fasting.
26:29: He says, when you fast, don't be like the hypocrites. These people over here, they want everyone to see him fasting.
26:34: He says, essentially, if you're going to fast, you fast before God. You'd be hungry for God, and you don't let anybody know that you're fasting.
26:42: Don't brag about it. Don't boast about it. Jesus condemns their external obedience where their heart was far off.
26:48: Let me say this. In the Old Testament, God was as concerned with the heart as he is in the new.
26:54: The problem was is they didn't get it, and they weren't doing it. Deuteronomy chapter 6.
27:00: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Let's do it in Hebrew now. Hear, O Israel, the
27:07: Lord our God, the Lord is one. God says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and Jesus says, strength.
27:18: God calls you to love God with your heart, and they had turned these laws into external codes of obedience where their heart was far from God.
27:28: Jesus comes in and says, I'm not going to have that. You're not going to lust in your heart because that's the same thing.
27:34: Pluck your eye, cut your hand, or you end up in Gehenna, and Jesus also speaks in Matthew chapter 5 about number two, murder.
27:44: Did Jesus change the law about murder? Is Jesus here in the
27:49: Sermon on the Mount, is he giving them some new law? Well, let's look at the text itself.
27:56: Go to Leviticus 19, 17. Leviticus 19, 17.
28:11: Leviticus 19, and I want you to read verse 17.
28:18: This is from the law of God. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.
28:34: What does the law of God, the Mosaic legislation say about hate in your hearts?
28:42: It says what? Don't do it. So is Jesus here giving us a new law that wasn't in the
28:49: Mosaic legislation when he talks about anger and hate essentially in the heart?
28:55: He's pointing out to them where they're failing, and he's showing them the true intention of the law of God.
29:03: Now, the third point I want to make is in Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 43, go there.
29:13: This is a big one. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
29:25: Do you know there are many, many people with a cursory reading of the Bible who have gone to that text, assumed its validity, and they've flung that out saying, well, the
29:36: Old Testament taught you to love your neighbor and to hate your enemy. But do you know that that text right there in Matthew does not exist?
29:51: So what is Jesus doing? He says, you've heard that it was said, he did not say it is written.
29:58: You've heard that it was said in their day they had so mishandled the word of God that they were going around telling everybody this tradition that God tells us to love our neighbors and to hate our enemies.
30:12: Well, let's go to the text of God's word, go back to Leviticus again 19, and let's read the next verse after the one
30:19: I just showed you. Leviticus 19, verse 17, you read it a moment ago.
30:26: You shall not hate your brother in your hearts, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him.
30:34: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.
30:43: I am the Lord. God says you are not to hate somebody in your heart, and you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
30:49: They had in their day twisted and perverted the law of God, and they were saying God tells us to love our neighbors and to hate our enemies.
30:56: And Jesus now in Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount, corrects them. He's not giving them a new law that God hadn't said before.
31:05: He is teaching them the true word of God, the true law of God, and Jesus tells them you are to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
31:12: Watch what Jesus says here. But I say to you, verse 44, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your
31:19: Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
31:28: For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?
31:33: Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Jesus is telling us the truth about the law of God.
31:40: Amen? Powerful stuff, guys. Next. This is a big one. Are you ready for this one?
31:46: Matthew chapter 5, verse 38. You've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
31:56: But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
32:04: Oh, this is big. It's so big. I was outside the abortion clinic doing evangelism with our church, and we have a board that says that God hates the hands that shed innocent blood.
32:26: Right? God hates the hands that shed innocent blood. Somebody said, you're telling people that God hates.
32:35: God doesn't hate anything or anyone. Now, notwithstanding the numbers of verses that can be brought up where God specifically says,
32:46: I hate this and I hate that, the person finally said, when we got down to the bottom of it, that's what it says on the verse, on the sign, they said, well, that was
32:56: Old Testament. God also said there, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but Jesus changed all that.
33:03: And where do you think they got that from? Matthew chapter 5, because doesn't it say that?
33:08: It says, you've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
33:18: Was Jesus now saying, no more justice? Well, we have to look at what
33:25: Jesus is quoting from. What is Jesus quoting from? He's quoting from Exodus 21, 24.
33:32: Go to the text. Exodus 21, 24. Exodus 21, 24.
33:42: By the way, what's in Exodus 20? Say, 10 commandments. Praise God, someone knows that, okay?
33:48: Exodus 21, 24. Now, in Exodus 20, God gives us the 10 commandments.
33:56: They're not 10 suggestions, 10 commandments. Exodus 21, God then begins to describe what justice is if you fail in his commandments.
34:09: And in Exodus 21, starting in verse 22, ready?
34:14: When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.
34:29: But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
34:44: Two things I'm going to say about this. A, how does God feel about the child in the womb? So when someone says,
34:52: God hasn't spoken about abortion in the Bible, I want to say, you need to read your Bibles, because God does talk about the baby in the womb, and he says here that...
35:02: It's a case law, by the way. The Old Testament gives you case law. It gives you an idea, and it says if this sort of thing happens, here's justice for that.
35:11: That's how, by the way, our modern legislation system was set up. It was built after the Mosaic legislation, case law examples.
35:18: Here's a case law example. If guys are fighting, they're negligence, and the baby is lost, it's life for life, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, eye for eye.
35:28: What's the principle? Ready? Justice, harmony. In other words, if something happens, the justice for it has to be equal to what happened.
35:41: Now, we can have long discussions about does it literally mean you pluck the person's eye out.
35:46: I don't personally believe so. It has to do with justice for the crime. But one thing
35:51: I want to point out here is this. Ready? Very important. You need to grab this. The passives that Jesus quotes from there, when he says, you've heard that it was said eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but I say to you, do not resist an evil person.
36:04: If they smack you on the right cheek, turn to them the other. He quotes from a case law regarding the civil justice system.
36:13: So, are you ready? Who was eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn given to? Was it given to the regular person?
36:21: It was given to the judicial system. What were they to do?
36:27: Justice. If somebody stole, God says, this is justice for theft. If somebody was wounded in that way, this is justice for that.
36:35: They were not to take eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and to turn it into personal vengeance.
36:43: Proof that Jesus is not abrogating justice, proof that Jesus is not saying
36:49: God is no longer concerned with justice, is the example that he gives. What does he give as an example?
36:55: He says, if somebody strikes you on the right cheek. Well, this culture, the
37:01: Hebrew culture, was a right -handed culture. I need an example for this. Let me get
37:06: Jason. Come here, Jason. Come on up.
37:15: You ready to fight? I absolutely am. Okay. Okay.
37:21: So, when Jesus says in His culture, you've heard that it was said eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but I say to you, do not resist an evil person.
37:30: If somebody smacks you on your right cheek, turn to them the other. The passage he quotes from is the judicial system.
37:39: It has to do with justice in the case of crimes committed. But Jesus here talks in His culture to people who were taking eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and turning it into rights and privileges for personal vengeance.
37:54: Because the example He gives in a right -handed culture, the Hebrew culture is a right -handed culture.
38:00: You look throughout the whole Bible and you see everything in reference to the right hand over and over and over.
38:05: He says, if somebody smacks you on your right cheek. Well, let me ask you this. How in a right -handed culture do
38:14: I smack Jason on his right cheek? I can't get his right cheek on this side.
38:23: So, if I want to smack him in his right cheek, I have to do a backhanded slap.
38:31: Now, when you think of a backhanded slap, first of all, you're like, that's messed up, right?
38:37: Like, right? Okay. When you think of a backhanded slap, what are you thinking of if somebody gets you with a backhanded slap?
38:45: It's just an insult. It's a cavalier backhanded slap. Thank you,
38:50: Jason. If you think about how we would do that today, somebody gives you the finger.
38:57: Somebody throws their fist at you. Somebody insults you. They call you fat.
39:02: They call you ugly. They talk about your mama, right? If somebody gives you the backhanded slap, if somebody just insults you, then
39:13: Jesus says you turn the other cheek and you don't retaliate because of a backhanded slap.
39:20: But what they were doing is they were becoming a culture of people who were all about personal vengeance.
39:26: And they had said this, God says, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. You offended me, I'm going to get you.
39:33: And Jesus says, you've heard that it was said, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and they were abusing that.
39:38: And he says, but I say to you, don't resist the evil person. If they smack you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek.
39:46: He wasn't abrogating the law of God about justice. Jesus is not saying, this is very important, it's almost blasphemous to suggest it,
39:56: Jesus is not saying that God today is no longer concerned with justice.
40:03: He's not saying that God says to victims under the New Testament, I don't care.
40:09: Can you imagine God in the Old Testament gives you this outline for justice in society?
40:16: And in the New Covenant where Jesus is the King reigning on his throne, he's Lord of lords and King of kings, that God now says, all that justice,
40:26: I don't care. Jesus died and rose again, it's all good. Is God concerned for victims today?
40:33: Yes. Is eye for eye, tooth for tooth, still God's standard for the judiciary?
40:39: Of course. God still cares about justice. If you want proof of that, read
40:44: Isaiah 42. It says the Messiah is not going to stop until he's established justice in the earth.
40:52: Okay. Now, I want to give you guys a little background. We're going to lay the foundations today.
40:59: You got to return for the sequel next week, okay? All right. Two schools of thought
41:04: I want you to know about that were happening in this generation, and it is specifically the context
41:11: Jesus is addressing when he talks about divorce. There were two schools of thought in Jesus' day in the first century, okay?
41:19: In his area, two schools of Jewish thought regarding divorce. There was the school of Shammai, a rabbi,
41:28: Shammai, and there was a school of Hillel. So, there were the
41:34: Shammaites and the Hillelites. Shammaites and the
41:40: Hillelites. Now, the Shammaites had held to a conservative view of divorce and remarriage.
41:52: They essentially pointed to the law of God and said, look, divorce is permissible only under these circumstances because God's law tells you how and when to get divorced and when it's permissible.
42:07: So, the Shammaites were essentially conservatives. They were fundamentalists.
42:13: They would say God's law says divorce under these circumstances only. However, the most popular view of the day in Jesus' culture was the view of the
42:26: Hillelites. The Hillelites had divorce, are you ready, for any cause.
42:34: It was a for any cause divorce. And they said this, get it?
42:39: Moses said, you could give a certificate of divorce and you could be divorced.
42:45: So, they said, divorce for any cause, as long as you give that certificate, divorce for any cause.
42:53: What were some of the divorces that actually were on record in that generation? She burned the soup, for real.
43:03: She's not pretty anymore. That's messed up. They would say divorce for any cause.
43:11: Moses said you could give a divorce certificate and therefore divorce for any cause.
43:17: And you had two schools in collision with each other. So, what was on the front page of the newspaper of that day?
43:24: This kind of controversy. And Jesus addresses it directly.
43:29: You've already read Matthew 5. I want to show you the other important texts of this week.
43:35: You can read through them and come back next Sunday because we're going to unpack it. Here we go.
43:40: Next text, other than Matthew 5, Matthew 19. Move over.
43:46: Matthew 19, same book. You don't have to travel far. Are you ready? Matthew 19, starting in verse 1.
43:52: And now, by the way, the context here is important. Now, when
43:57: Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the
44:02: Jordan. Pause. Anyone happen to know where that is? It's the location of a very famous controversy between a very respected
44:14: Jewish prophet, John the Baptist. Who did
44:19: John the Baptist condemn? Herod. For what?
44:26: He said, it is not lawful for you to be married to that woman.
44:34: By the way, here is a prophet of God speaking to the civil government of his day, telling him what is not lawful to do.
44:45: Kind of a thing you need to put in your mind, okay? Now, it's not an accident that Matthew tells you that Jesus now goes to Judea because that was the location of Herod and the controversy surrounding
45:01: Herod and his marriage. Now, here we go. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there, and Pharisees came up to him and tested him.
45:14: Do you think Matthew is just throwing that in? He was in Judea, and the
45:19: Pharisees came to test him. They knew the controversy. They knew about Herod.
45:25: I'm sure they knew about John the Baptist. Now they got Jesus saying he's Messiah, and now they're going to test him.
45:31: They know the place they're putting Jesus in. You got Herod over there. How you feel about his marriage?
45:38: So they tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife?
45:46: What's it say? For any cause. What was the two school?
45:54: The Shemaites and the Hillelites. What did the Hillelites say? You can have divorce for any cause.
46:02: So what do they do to test Jesus in the area where this is a big controversy? They say,
46:07: Jesus, how you feel about this one? Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?
46:15: Who are you with? Are you with Shemaite or Hillel? Which school are you in?
46:21: And Jesus says, he answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
46:38: So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
46:47: They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart,
46:55: Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery.
47:06: So Jesus is showing which school he is in. Who's he with? Well, he's with the, in this, in this controversy, the
47:15: Shemaites would have held to the conservative view, you can't divorce unless it's for the reasons of sexual immorality, adultery.
47:23: They were going to the law of God, and Jesus is siding with them against the Hillelites who said, divorce for any cause.
47:32: Now, another text you need to see that's really a parallel to this text, I want you to have it, is Mark chapter 10.
47:39: Mark chapter 10, same controversy, here it is in Mark.
47:45: And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again and again, as was his custom.
47:52: He taught them, and Pharisees came up, and in order to test him asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?
47:58: Pause. Mark left out for any cause in his account.
48:05: Why would he do that? I believe because it's just assumed.
48:11: They knew the controversy. It was understood in their day that divorces were being, were being given for any cause.
48:18: It was just assumed by Mark. He answered them, what did Moses command you?
48:23: They said, Moses allowed a man to write a divorce and to send her away. And Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this in the commandment, but from the beginning of creation
48:33: God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.
48:42: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. There's the other text.
48:49: Let me give you another one, and this is an important one. Now, pause for a moment. If you didn't have your
48:54: Old Testament and you only had Jesus there, you would see Jesus being very narrow on the issue of divorce.
49:02: You would see Jesus explaining God's purposes in creation. Divorce for any cause?
49:09: God created them from the beginning, male and female, and they become one flesh. Don't separate what God has brought together.
49:16: That's Jesus' view on divorce and marriage. God's taken two people.
49:21: He's made them one. Don't separate it. Divorce for any cause?
49:28: You have two people that God has joined together. Don't separate it. Sexual morality, adultery, on that basis.
49:38: But now watch. You go to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. 1
49:44: Corinthians chapter 7, also the Word of God. And in 1
49:50: Corinthians chapter 7, the Apostle Paul has a discussion about sexual morality. Let's read it, shall we?
50:00: Now concerning the matters about which he wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, but because of the temptation to sexual morality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
50:12: The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
50:21: Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Some of you guys are like, that's an encouraging word from God.
50:34: Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time. So much for the
50:40: Word of God being very stiff and cold and puritanical. Paul's like, only for an agreed upon time.
50:54: Other than that, don't deprive one another.
51:00: It's important. The Bible's like, this is good. It's good. Very good.
51:06: Okay. Verse 6. Now as a concession, not a command, I say this.
51:12: I wish that all were like as myself, as I myself am, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another, to the unmarried and the widows.
51:22: I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am, but if they cannot exercise self -control, they should marry.
51:30: For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Did you hear that?
51:35: I hope you did. It is better to marry than to burn with passion. So amen, girl.
51:48: That's what I was trying to say. You should get married. Like you should get married.
51:55: It's better to marry than to burn with passion. So many people set standards up for themselves in this day and age that are just not realistic.
52:03: They're not realistic. Guys are trying to get the front cover magazine model, right?
52:08: The perfect Christian woman, this perfect hottie. She's got to look like that girl in the magazine cover and all the videos and everything else.
52:15: Got to look like that. And when I find that woman, I'm getting married. And the whole time between now and then,
52:21: I'm going to struggle and fight with lust while all these amazing, beautiful Christian women around me, and I'm going to ignore them completely so I can wait for that magazine woman, right?
52:30: Stop sinning and get married. So many guys got a beautiful woman right next to them, beautiful, wonderful Christian woman right next to them, and they're like, when's
52:39: God going to send my woman to me? Get married. I'm telling you, women and men in our culture,
52:48: Christian women and men, sometimes are so completely foolish on this issue. You're looking for the wrong kind of person.
52:56: Maybe this, maybe this, maybe your standards are too high. Maybe you ought to do what
53:02: Douglas Wilson's dad said, and that's when you get to a certain age, you finally walk into church, you walk up to a girl and you say, hey, you love
53:09: Jesus? I love Jesus. Let's go, right? And you get married, right?
53:15: Paul says it's better to marry than to burn with lust. Get married.
53:21: Okay. To the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord, the wife should not separate from her husband.
53:28: But if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. Let me say it again.
53:35: But if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And the husband should not divorce his wife.
53:43: To the rest, I say, I, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.
53:54: First and foremost, no question about this, God tells you in his word, you are not to be unequally yoked.
54:01: Christians shouldn't go out searching for a spouse, a marriage partner who is not a believer.
54:06: That creates all kinds of intensity and conflict and God speaks directly to it. Don't do it.
54:12: However, can God redeem that if it happens? Absolutely. And what
54:17: God does not say here is this. If you're a Christian married to an unbeliever, you get to divorce them because they're an unbeliever.
54:25: That is sin. You cannot do that. God speaks directly against it. Paul says look, if you're married to an unbeliever and they're going to stay with you, do not divorce.
54:35: What's the goal? Win them to Jesus. Win them with the gospel. Verse 13.
54:41: If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
54:47: For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. Doesn't mean they're saved.
54:53: And the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean.
54:58: But as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so.
55:06: In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. Very important word there.
55:14: Enslaved. Now watch this. If your view on what Jesus says in the
55:19: Sermon on the Mount is that it's only for adultery, only and ever because of adultery, and the old covenant laws no longer stand over marriage, then now you have
55:30: Jesus at war with Paul. There's no adultery talked about here.
55:39: There's no adultery. The apostle Paul says this, if there's abandonment, if they abandon the covenant, then the person who is abandoned is not bound.
55:49: What's that mean? You are now set free. Set free for what? To be able to be married.
55:57: You're set free from that marriage. But that's not adultery. So if we say that what
56:04: Jesus is saying is the old covenant law is no longer binding about divorce, and it's only in the case of actual adultery under the new covenant, then we do have conflict between Jesus and the old covenant law and Jesus and Paul.
56:22: And let me say this, any interpretation that puts the Bible against the is not an interpretation you should hold.
56:29: We're going to begin to unpack what it means, but let me just give you this broad picture quickly, and we're done.
56:37: In the old covenant, God did allow for divorce under certain circumstances.
56:43: He was not lax. He was not hillelite. He did not tell them to divorce for any cause, but marriage is a covenant.
56:52: And when people come together in a covenant, they were bound by obligation to one another.
57:01: And it was expected in the law of God that you were to give food, shelter, clothing, love to your spouse.
57:11: Food, shelter, clothing, love. And under the old covenant,
57:18: God did give them permission to divorce under those covenant -breaking situations.
57:26: He didn't just say, just give a certificate of divorce, as the hillelites were saying. He said, because of your sin, because there is sin in your sinners,
57:36: I know marriage breaks up. Here are the circumstances you can divorce under. You can give a certificate of divorce.
57:42: These are the reasons how and why God gave permission for divorce under righteous circumstances, godly circumstances.
57:52: Let me give an example. You've got a woman in a marriage with a guy who is beating her.
57:59: He's punching her teeth out. He's sexually abusing her. He strikes her every day. He cuts her down.
58:06: He calls her names. He is verbally, emotionally, spiritually, physically abusive.
58:13: Are we really saying that, well, Jesus says it's only because of sexual morality, so she's got to stay in that marriage?
58:22: Not under God's law. Under the actual law of God, of course she can divorce that man.
58:32: Of course she can. He's broken covenant with God and with her.
58:38: She's not condemned. He's condemned. If there's a situation where there's a husband who's not providing for his family, refuses to provide for his family, he's abandoned covenant with God, he's engaging in drugs and selling drugs and doing illegal things, he's putting the family's money at risk and their livelihood at risk.
59:00: He's not providing food, clothing, shelter, or love under the law of God. That is a reason to break that covenant and to give a divorce.
59:09: Under righteous circumstances. If there's a situation where a person abandons the marriage,
59:18: I have counseled so many people in that situation. They're in a marriage and the person literally abandons them and they're gone for years at a time or months at a time.
59:30: In a situation like that, under the law of God, do you have permission to divorce? Yes. However, now that I've said it, go to your handout
59:42: I gave you from Bonson. I want you to see it. However, my words right now are not to be taken to say this.
59:55: You have a fight with your spouse and you feel unloved by them. Pastor Jeff said food, shelter, clothing, and love.
01:00:05: You don't love me. I'm divorcing you. Or you hit a hard time financially and you say, now you're struggling financially, divorce.
01:00:18: Let me say this. If you divorce under those circumstances, you are condemned by God and you will be judged as an adulterer if you are unrepentant and you decide to leave a marriage for those ridiculous reasons and you don't hang in there and fight for that marriage.
01:00:34: If you just leave and you think that you're going to get away with it, you're going to trick God or somehow hide it from God.
01:00:39: Believe me, God knows your heart. Here's what
01:00:45: God says about marriage. Look at Bonson's thesis on divorce and spousal abuse.
01:00:52: Look at the first page. Look at B. Ideally, there should be no divorce.
01:01:00: It is contrary to what God desires most. First point from Matthew 19 .6,
01:01:06: what therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Number two, for I hate divorce, says
01:01:13: Yahweh, the God of Israel. How does God feel about divorce, brothers and sisters? He hates it.
01:01:21: Hates it. God does hate things. One of them, and there's a handful, one of them is divorce.
01:01:31: So if as Christians we treat divorce in a cavalier way and we act like we can just get divorced for any reason at all, we're standing under the voice of the one who says,
01:01:44: I hate it. Number three, these words state the ideal for God himself makes provision for putting marriage asunder.
01:01:55: Matthew 19 .8 -9, Deuteronomy 24 .1, and practices divorce himself.
01:02:03: Jeremiah 3 .8. Number four, similarly death and killing are contrary to the divine ideal and would not have come into the picture from the beginning, but due to man's sinful condition,
01:02:14: God gives orders regarding them. So here's the point, God ordains marriage,
01:02:19: God protects marriage, God commands marriage, and commands you to fight for your marriage. Let me say this, if you were in a situation with a believer, listen closely to this,
01:02:29: I need you to hear me on this, if you checked out, come back right now. If you are in a marriage and your spouse commits adultery on you, it does not mean as a believer that Jesus said,
01:02:41: I can divorce for that reason, so therefore I can divorce for that reason, and go ahead and do it. Let me say this,
01:02:47: I believe that God calls you in that situation. If your spouse is repentant, you forgive, you pursue reconciliation, is it possible for God to redeem any marriage?
01:02:58: Yes. Can he redeem a marriage that suffered from adultery? Yes. Can he change it all and wash it away and make everything new and have it be something you don't remember anymore?
01:03:11: It's not a part of your marriage anymore? Of course. So just because Jesus says that adultery is actually a reason for divorce, doesn't mean that as Christians you should pursue it.
01:03:25: If you come into my office, well the studio, if you come in and sit down with me and you tell me that your spouse committed adultery,
01:03:36: I am not going to tell you to divorce them. I am not.
01:03:42: And if you tell me all the reasons that you think you should get divorced because there was adultery, I will tell you every reason to think about never considering separating in marriage, and I will remind you about all that God has done to forgive you of all your sins every single day.
01:04:01: I will remind you of how much God has pursued you in the midst of your spiritual adultery against Him. I will remind you about how every single day that you sin against your
01:04:10: God and lover of your soul, He pursues you, He loves you, He washes all that sin away.
01:04:18: If you're in a marriage where there's a tough spot, and you're fighting with one another, and you're angry with one another, and you're saying mean things and nasty things, and you say,
01:04:25: I don't feel loved in my marriage, I don't feel cared for in my marriage, I will tell you, you fight for your marriage until your last breath.
01:04:35: If somebody says, my partner abandoned me, I don't know where they're at, I'm going to say, let's find them. Let's find them.
01:04:42: If you got divorced for no reason really that's biblical, if you're divorced now, and it was for no biblical reason, and your spouse is over there somewhere unmarried, and you're over here unmarried,
01:04:54: I'm going to tell you, you reconcile with your spouse, and you guys be together because you're still married in God's eyes.
01:05:03: I don't care if you are divorced. I don't care if you have the certificate of divorce. If you are divorced for unbiblical reasons, and your spouse isn't living together with you,
01:05:12: I'm going to tell you, hey, guess what? You're still married no matter what your certificate says, and you are to fight for reconciliation always and every time.
01:05:22: However, if you are living with a person who claims to be a believer, and they are unrepentant, they are a serial adulterer, they continually abuse you spiritually, emotionally, physically, if they've abandoned the marriage, and they are unrepentant,
01:05:36: I will be behind you 100 % to love you, and to encourage you, and to stand next to you in that difficult trial.
01:05:45: We'll be with you, and I do believe that if you are divorced for biblical reasons, and you fought for it, and you had to get divorced, and it was for God honoring lawful reasons,
01:05:56: I do believe that God can redeem that, and God can make all things new with that, and of course you can get remarried.
01:06:04: If you were the victim, it's important to recognize that while God says, what
01:06:14: God has brought together, join together, let not man put asunder, God is not saying there the divorce cannot happen.
01:06:23: It's a command, don't break it, but God of course knows we live in a fallen world, and a sinful world, and there are covenant breakers, and when there are covenant breakers under the law of God, God gives you specific provisions to handle it.
01:06:41: Next week we're going to go into them. Was this big? This is tough, right?
01:06:47: It's a big one. Here's the thing, I'm going to end with this. There are so many in this room who might be thinking right now,
01:07:02: I don't know if I was divorced on biblical grounds, and you might be in a tough spot right now.
01:07:13: Well, my word to you as a brother, as a pastor, humbly, is if it's possible for you to get remarried, or to go back to your spouse, you fight for it now.
01:07:25: You start praying for it now, you fight for it now. If your life essentially has been blown up, and things ended bad, and they didn't end biblically,
01:07:39: I want to affirm to you this, God is a
01:07:46: God of redemption, and divorce is not the unpardonable sin, and I do believe that God can bring redemption out of all of it.
01:07:58: I would call you to be patient. I would call you to trust God. I would call you to believe that He's faithful.
01:08:07: I would call you to believe that God can redeem it, and you to wait on God, and to trust
01:08:13: Him. And to those who are not married,
01:08:19: I hope this inspires you and encourages you to get married, and to treat it as an amazing thing.
01:08:30: And for those of you guys that are married, I want to encourage you with this,
01:08:36: Jesus gave you your spouse. So many people have said to me, in all my years of counseling,
01:08:45: I have had so many people say, I do not believe that it's
01:08:50: God's will for me to be married to this person. It's really difficult to hear that, because it's such bad theology.
01:09:06: And I'm thinking, if your theology is that bad, I don't need to listen to anything else you say.
01:09:13: Because if you think, as a married person, in covenant with another person, it's not God's will for me to be married to them, if you think
01:09:20: God's that kind of slippery God, then you need some work. You need to read Bavink. We need to work on reform dogmatics or something, because you don't have it right.
01:09:28: Seriously, I don't think it's God's will for me to be married. Of course it's God's will for me to be married to that person.
01:09:34: Are you married? Yeah, it's God's will. Okay? You're like, oh, but we don't get along.
01:09:40: You know what you need to do? Look at yourself and figure out what your sin is in the marriage. Quit focusing in upon their sin.
01:09:47: You focus on your sin, because the only person you're going to answer for before God is for yourself.
01:09:53: God's not going to say, oh, I know your wife. She's always nagging you. She's dripping all the time, and I know why you're treated that way.
01:10:00: No, He's going to say, look at your sin. Look how you didn't love her. Look how you were angry. Look how you were bitter. Look how you didn't do what you were called to do.
01:10:06: Look how you didn't treat her like the church. He's going to talk to you. And wives will say, oh, my husband, he doesn't talk to me.
01:10:13: He doesn't love me like Christ loves the church. You know, he doesn't do this. I think Jesus is going to say to you, how's your respect for your husband?
01:10:23: Oh, no, but he doesn't talk to me. He doesn't love me. He doesn't treat me like the wife that he's supposed to. How's your respect for your husband?
01:10:31: How are you submitting to your husband? How's that going for you? God will hold you accountable for your walk before God.
01:10:41: Husbands, love your wives. Wives, respect your husbands.
01:10:48: Every marriage conflict I've ever seen, as a minister of the gospel, every single one comes down to those conflicts.
01:10:54: Husbands, not loving their wives. Wives, not respecting their husbands. And the woman says, well,
01:10:59: I don't feel like I can respect him because he's not doing such and such. And he goes, well, I can't love you because you're not respecting me.
01:11:04: And then it's like this unbelievable little circle that only ends when one of you finally says, I repent, and I'm going to love my wife.
01:11:13: Or I repent, and I'm going to start respecting my husband. Now, if it's not any really major issues, that'll generally solve your marriage problems.
01:11:23: If there are bigger issues that that doesn't solve, come talk to your pastors. Come talk to your pastors.
01:11:30: This week, I'd like you guys to read through this, look through this, so that next week I don't have to spend time going through every single part.
01:11:38: I want to give you the overview and the sequel next Sunday. I'm going to talk to you, summarize all of this.
01:11:44: I'm going to give you all of the law of God concerning divorce, remarriage.
01:11:50: And then next week, I am going to talk to you about God's divorce and remarriage in the book of Revelation.
01:12:01: And if you want to know what is that all about, stay tuned. You have to come next week.
01:12:06: Let's pray. Father, I want to thank you so much for the time we had in your word. I just pray that you help. Help me to be faithful this week as I prepare to talk to the church about divorce.
01:12:16: Help us as a church to be healed in our marriages. Help us who are single and are called to marry to get married.
01:12:24: Help us who are struggling because of a divorce to see your will in that. And Lord, I pray for redemption.
01:12:31: I pray for healing. I pray for forgiveness and grace and joy all to be poured into those situations.
01:12:37: God, we give you glory and praise. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your law, which is good. In Jesus' name, amen.