Sunday, November 5, 2023 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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What does it mean to be made in God's image, but to be made in a way that we are to love

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God supremely, love others rightly, steward the creation in righteousness? No other creature was made in that particular intersection of relationships.

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The angels were not given charge of the creation, nor were they called to to be fruitful and multiply.

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The beasts were not called to exercise dominion.

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Mankind made in God's image is set into a particular area of responsibility that no other creature was given.

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Designed specially, specifically by God for his glory. And after the fall,

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God begins to make covenants with those he has made in his image, and every one of the covenants is shaped just like the image was shaped.

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So whether he's talking to Noah, or Abraham, or Israel, or David, or in the new covenant, everything is still pertaining to how we relate to God, how we relate to one another, and how we relate the world that God has created and given to the one made in his image.

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And so we're thinking about the Ten Commandments, and we have,

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I think, paid attention to how connected and specific they are to God's covenant with Israel, and how it is in the progression of the covenants, and we come to the light of Christ, how

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Jesus is not in opposition to the commandments that God gave to Israel, but he is the fulfillment of the law, and has something brighter to reveal, higher to bring about, greater, something greater to say as the fulfillment.

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And so we're going to see more about that tonight. So Seventh Commandment, you know, these are really short memory verses.

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You shall not commit adultery. You shall not commit adultery. Whether it's Exodus 20 14 or Deuteronomy 5 18, same thing.

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You shall not commit adultery. And as we see as that is one of the ten words that God gave to Israel that constitute the the testament or the covenant that was placed within the ark of the covenant, it was so said because it carried around the covenant, we see that it is not a moral law that encompasses all manner of sexual immorality, but particularly deals with sexual fidelity amongst those who are married, that the marriage covenant ought not to be breached.

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Now Jesus has something to say that goes in one way deeper, another way shines brighter.

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So let's go to Matthew chapter 5 and see what he has to say about it. We thought about the way in which this principle is evident within the covenants,

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God made with Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. And now we come to Christ teaching about how things work in his kingdom.

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And when we come to Matthew chapter 5, right after he says that he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, meaning he's not here to erase the

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Old Testament, or as the Jews would have understood it, the Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the

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Kethuvim, the law, the prophets, and the writings. He says I didn't come to abolish that, but to fulfill, but to fulfill.

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He also says that the righteousness required to even enter into his kingdom at all is something even superior to that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees who are the experts at interpreting and applying the law that God gave to Israel.

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And so with that in mind, and with the fact that Jesus said that you're not supposed to break the commandments, but to teach them, and obviously to teach them in the light of him being the fulfillment of them, he begins to have this pattern in which he says, you have heard that it was said to those of old, but I say to you.

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You have heard that it was said to those of old, but I say to you. And he takes a selection out of the

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Ten Commandments to talk about those. He says here's how it goes of those of old, but now here's what

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I'm saying to you. And lo and behold, not only is he in agreement with what was said, but his righteousness is indeed greater, higher, better.

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Someone greater than Moses is here. Someone greater than the temple is here. Someone greater than Jonah is here.

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Someone greater than Solomon is here. That's just the refrain over and over and over again as you go through the Gospels. So not only does he take from the

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Ten Commandments, but then he begins to cite, he cites from the civil law, he cites from the ceremonial law.

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He just, he selects different laws and he just does a full sampling, and each one he says, you have heard it said, but I say to you.

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And we see how he brings something superior. So notice in verse 27, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.

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Well, word for word quote. Seventh Commandment, it's right there. You can look in your English Bibles and go back to Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20.

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That is the seventh commandment. Exactly. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you.

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Now, Jesus is not disagreeing, right?

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But he is going further. He's bringing something better.

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Okay, so as I say, but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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His heart. Now, how did he handle that central commandment of the ten?

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The one that stands in the middle of the chiasm pattern of the Ten Commandments. You shall not murder.

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He said, you have heard it said, you shall not murder, but I say to you. What? What did he talk about? Hatred in the heart.

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Hatred in the heart. Oh, okay. So he's dealing with something even more intense.

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And he does the same thing here. He does the same thing here. All manner of men in that crowd, as Jesus is teaching, would have said to themselves up to that point,

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I have not broken the seventh commandment. And Jesus would agree with them.

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True, you haven't broken the seventh commandment, but you have lusted in your heart after a woman.

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Therefore, you have committed adultery in your heart. He's bringing something superior, something deeper, something more intense.

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And so what does he say? If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you.

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For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

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And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

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Do you remember in the old covenant, the way that the justice system worked? It was the principle of what?

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Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

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Remember that? That was the way in which God instituted the civil statutes.

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How are you going to render proper judgment and punishments? Okay. Notice what

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Jesus does here. If your eye offends you, if your hand offends you.

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Interesting, isn't it? It isn't whether or not somebody else gouges out your eye, therefore take out theirs.

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It's not if somebody cut off your hand in an accident, therefore their hand has to go, or some equivalent compensation.

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It's you need to cast away all of that which is going to keep you out of the kingdom of heaven.

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And in this, Jesus is working in the language of hyperbole, because if you gouge out your eye, have you erased lust?

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If you cut off your hand, have you erased lust? No, you haven't.

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But what Jesus is saying here is that there needs to be sacrificial repentance. Like, what is more valuable here?

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What is more valuable here? Now, for others, now remember, he's preaching and he's saying, here's how it's going to work in my kingdom.

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It's something, your righteousness needs to exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, if you're going to be part of my kingdom.

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And if you don't follow these commandments the way that they're understood in me, and if you break them and teach others to break them, then you're going to be leased in the kingdom of heaven.

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So he says, here's how this works. You don't get to avoid breaking the seventh commandment by going through a series of divorces and engaging in serial monogamy, right?

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Because that's the way that the scribes and Pharisees were accustomed to handling that problem, right?

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So they're not going to commit adultery, but man, I'm tired of this wife and that woman looks good, so I'm going to find some fault with my wife, put her away with divorce, and then

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I'm going to go get that woman for myself. I didn't break the seventh commandment, and they would be correct.

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They did not violate the seventh commandment of that old covenant, but that's not the kind of righteousness that Jesus comes to reveal.

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And so what does he say? Furthermore, it has been said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.

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He's quoting from Exodus, but I say to you that whoever, he's quoting from Deuteronomy, but whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

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Now this is going to lead us right into Matthew 19, so you might as well turn over there.

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I want us to pay really close attention to what Jesus is saying and what he's not saying, keeping in mind the reason why he's talking about it.

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The way in which adultery of the heart was coming to pass was that the so -called keepers of the law were lusting in their heart, committing adultery already in their heart, that was the problem.

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Then they were divorcing the wife that they had and then going after another woman, and Jesus is saying, you know, it's been said to you that this is how it goes, but I say to you, no.

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Isn't that interesting? At the end of Matthew chapter 7, which is like the conclusion of the

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Sermon on the Mount, those who were listening to him, they were bum -fuzzled and astounded.

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They had not heard teaching like this. They were amazed. Why? Because he did not teach as the scribes, but he taught as one having his own authority.

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Now the scribes, you must remember, are the ones who very carefully copied down, word for word, counting even all the letters, the

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Old Testament Scriptures. And therefore the scribes were the experts on what was written there in the

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Holy Scriptures, in the Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the Ketuvim, the Taddak, the Old Testament. They were the experts.

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If anybody wanted to know what was what, they would say, thus says Moses, and thus says the prophets about what

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Moses said. So the scribes would teach the authority of who?

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Moses. How did Jesus teach? Did he say, you have heard it said by Moses, and this is how

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I think that we should follow Moses. He said, you have heard it said, but I say to you.

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That's just a warm -up for the Mount of Transfiguration where Moses and Elijah show up with Jesus, and Peter thinks, oh we've got three tents.

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Let's make three tents, and let's put Elijah in one, Moses in another, Jesus in another, and this will be the geographical center point for all understanding of God's Holy Writ.

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This will be the headquarters of interpretation. And you can ever come up here and hear from Moses, and hear from Elijah, and hear from Jesus.

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And God comes down in the Shekinah glory cloud, stops that right in its tracks, and when

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Peter opens his eyes, he sees no one except Jesus himself alone, Matthew says, emphasizing every single one of those words, and God says, this is my beloved son, hear him, hear him.

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Right? So Jesus comes teaching with his own authority, not as one of the scribes.

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He comes as having his own authority, and it's the same authority that he had when he spoke to Moses from the burning bush.

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Who did Moses meet with as a man face -to -face with a friend? It was the second person of the

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Trinity, because there's only one mediator between God and man. So Moses got his stuff from Christ, so no,

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Christ isn't submitting himself to Moses. That's not how that works. It's the same authority that came out on the smoking, trembling

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Mount Sinai. The scribes may appeal to Moses, but Moses appealed to Christ, and Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, if you believe

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Moses, you would have believed me, because he testified of me. You search the Scriptures, because in them you think you find eternal life, but it is these that testify of me, he says.

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So Moses' authority was derived as he communed with the pre -incarnate Christ, God the

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Son. He got all his authority from Yahweh. With him, Moses met face -to -face.

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Such was the glory conveyed upon Moses that he had to wear a veil when among the

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Israelites, but Christ lifts the veil in the New Covenant, 2nd Corinthians 3. So I think it's important to understand that context.

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So when Jesus is teaching and says, you have heard that it was said of old, but now I say to you, he's saying it's time to grow up.

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You know, Paul put it this way, as a child you were no better than a slave, but when you become of age, and you're truly a son, then things are different now.

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Old covenant into new. And the way that Jesus handles this situation is clarified in Matthew chapter 19.

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So I want to compare Matthew 19 with Matthew 5. You've heard it said, but I say to you, and he comes back to the same information when we get to Matthew 19.

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Now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings, that he departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the

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Jordan, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there. The Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?

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That was the debate going on at the time. There was two schools of thought on the matter, and one said, you know, if she burnt your hummus, divorce her.

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The other said, only if it's really serious, divorce her. And they want to know if he's side A or side B, and Jesus says no.

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He says no. Verse 4, he answered and said to them, have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

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Notice he's quoting from Genesis 1 and 2. How did

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God make us in his image? Let's go back to the basics. So then they are no longer two but one flesh, therefore what

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God has joined together, let not man separate. And then they said, well what about Moses?

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See? They said to him, why didn't Moses command, notice how they say command, to give a certificate of divorce and put her away?

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He said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

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Period. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.

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And just in case you were thinking that that is, that can't be as harsh as it sounds, his disciples then say, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.

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So they thought it was pretty harsh. So how do we understand that?

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Notice what happens there. They said, but Moses said we could. And he's saying, no.

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Oh my. What do we do with that? Well let's go back and take a look at what

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Moses actually said. What did Moses actually say?

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Deuteronomy 24, 1 through 4. He said, when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man's wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the

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Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

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Wow. The number of correlating phrases depended upon one another, and they took that and said,

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Moses commanded us to divorce our wives, thus proving the hardness of their hearts.

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But what Moses wrote was saying he was trying to stem the tide of additional sexual immorality by all the rampant divorce going on, and Jesus said simply, it doesn't matter what

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Moses said from the beginning, it was not so, period. Now, what does

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God think about divorce? He says he hates divorce,

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Malachi. Why? Because it covers the garment with violence, because it is violent, because it is disastrous, because it is terrible, and anybody who's gone through the divorce will say, yes indeed, it's terrible.

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Okay? So when they asked Jesus about it, he says, no, period, full stop, that's not how this works.

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From the beginning, it was not so, that's it, what God has joined together, let not man separate, period, that's it.

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Now, it has become traditional in wider Christian evangelicalism to read what

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Jesus says in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 when he begins to talk about adultery and say, oh, divorce is not a problem, it's okay and fine, as long as certain prerequisites are met and certain follow -up actions are not followed.

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That's not what Jesus says. He says divorce is a problem, divorce is bad, divorce is sin, period.

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Oh, by the way, additionally, it's made worse by other things. That's what he says.

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He says divorce then causes adultery when divorce follows something other than adultery.

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If adultery has already occurred, the divorce doesn't cause adultery, but if no adultery has occurred and divorce occurs, then adultery now becomes a real problem, especially with all manner of remarriage.

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Now, that is a really harsh thing to think about and to say and to deal with, which is why it's not read that way.

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But just follow the periods. What does Jesus say? Divorce is bad, divorce is a problem, divorce is sin? No. The answer is no.

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And additionally, when these other things happen, then adultery is tacked on top. Now, why would

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God say that? Because he knows best, and he loves us, and he made us, and he's in charge. And say, well,

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I thought there was some clause where divorce is fine and hunky -dory for Christians to do.

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Well, we're gonna end on this, and let's go over in 1st Corinthians 7, and we'll see if that is so.

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So, verse 10, 1st Corinthians 7. Now to the married

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I command, yet not I but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband, period.

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But if, even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and a husband is not to divorce his wife.

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Now, you read out loud, we're not saying that Paul's not being authoritative here, but just saying that he, as the

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Apostle of Christ, is bringing more information and more specificity to what Christ already said in his earthly ministry, okay?

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But to the rest, I, not the Lord, say, if any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she's willing to live with him, let him not divorce her.

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And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if she is willing to live with her, if he's willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.

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Now, that might be tough. What good is my marriage when I'm not married to somebody who's a believer?

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Well, it's good in the eyes of God. Verse 14, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

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What is he saying? Not that the believing spouse, by her faith or his faith, thereby saves or brings into the new covenant, by their faith, the spouse and the children.

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That's not what he said. The concern is whether or not I'm being holy and doing the right thing and pursuing holiness by remaining in a family where I'm married to an unbeliever and I have unbelieving children.

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The answer is yes, because God made us that way. It's part of the image of God that he instantly, he makes

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Adam and Eve and instantly they're in a family. Husband and wife, married. That's good. Marriage is good.

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Children are good. Now, verse 15, but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart.

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A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.

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For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? You know, 1st Peter talked about that. Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?

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Ephesians 5 style. So, think about this. Who makes the departing motion?

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The believer or the unbeliever? According to verse 15, the unbeliever. Now, an unbelieving wife may abandon her husband and leave him to fend for everything, and she's gone and destroying everything in her wake, and there's just no way she's coming back.

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In that case, unfortunately, sadly, and with every interest of doing what is right and rather than spiteful and bitter, then the believing one says, okay,

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I'll trust God, and I guess I'm gonna have to go on not being married anymore, right?

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But it's the unbeliever who departed. Maybe an unbelieving husband does not provide for his family and ruins his family and runs off and does whatever he wants and just kind of leaves his family to fend for themselves, and he just won't be reconciled and won't change.

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Well, that's sad, but notice it's the unbeliever who's giving up and leaving, but the believer is not instructed that way.

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You see that? So, I think that is clarifying.

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That is not the way it is written in the Old Covenant, is it? But beloved, we're in the

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New Covenant. There's a righteousness that is superior to that of the old, not in argumentation against it, not in opposition to it, but superior.

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Someone greater has come, and it's something wherein Jesus is pointing back to how

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God made us in his image, and Jesus coming as the image of the invisible God is giving us the clearest light on the matter that we could possibly have.

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Okay, questions or thoughts as we close? Right, so part of the ministry of the law, according to 2nd

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Corinthians 3, was as a ministry of death, as Paul talked about also in Romans, to expose the sinfulness of sin.

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So you begin with this, do not commit adultery, okay, and then as all sorts of machinations occur among sinful men to do this and this and this, more and more case law comes out through the

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Mosaic writings, in which all of a sudden now we're seeing all manner of new ways that people are sinning.

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So for example, not only do we have legislation there about what to do in the case of a woman being divorced from a husband, and then divorced from a second husband, and then she's not allowed to come back first, we also have legislation in the

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Mosaic writings under the Sinaitic Covenant about what to do about distributing your inheritance amongst your various children from your various wives, plural, your polygamy, right?

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So in that case, when we read the Covenant, we're saying, did

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God approve of polygamy? No, from the beginning it was not so, and every time we find polygamy in the

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Scriptures, there's always a mess surrounding it, and in fact we found that kings are especially forbidden not to multiply wives for themselves, but such was the problem that in the hardness of the hearts of those who belong to the

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Old Covenant, they said, okay, I'm not breaking the Seventh Commandment, I'm just gonna have, you know, 18 wives.

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Well then all sorts of sin was happening, because sin begets sin, and then they were not treating their children properly, not observing the statutes properly, and there's all sorts of mess, and so a lot of these, some of these responses from Moses was responding to the increased mess, the sinfulness of the sin being exposed by the law, right?

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Yeah, and then, you know, you had something where, like, if you were out chopping wood and their axe head came off and killed the guy next to you, whoever his kinsman redeemer was, it was his job to come kill you.

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Your job was to run as fast as you could to the city of refuge and hide out there until the high priest died, and then you could be free to go, but if you ever left before the high priest died, the kinsman redeemer could hunt you down and take you out.

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Man, isn't the New Covenant great? I much prefer the New Covenant. There's purposes and reasons for the law which are good.

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All of it is God -breathed and instructive to us, teaching us, admonishing us, rebuking us, instructing us.

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It's full of wisdom and full of prophetic explanation of who Christ is to come, but it's standards which were there to demonstrate where God's covenant people were falling short of his image, right?

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The law was supposed to design this is what the image of God looks like in corporate life, and they just kept on failing and failing and failing, and that's the law which was demonstrating that and showing that, all at the same time pointing forward to the perfection of the image in Christ and also at the same time readying the people for the need for a

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Savior. Alright, let's close by singing the doxology together.