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Last week, as we continued our sermon series through the Gospel of Matthew, we looked at the first six verses of Matthew 19, and in those verses, Jesus upheld the biblical view of marriage as He was asked His position on divorce and remarriage.
And what Jesus appealed to was the creation account in Genesis 2 .24, which says that marriage is between one man and one woman, and when a man and a woman get married, they become one flesh. Last week, I mentioned how this one flesh relationship is often shown in couples who have had a rich marriage for many decades.
You can't talk about one without talking about the other. The best example that we know in this church is Elvin and Susan. They've been married for over 70 years. A few years back, we had a Good Friday service, and I was surprised to see Susan come alone.
And so I asked her, Susan, where is Elvin? And Susan said, Elvin is at home resting. And two days later, of course, we had service again. It was Resurrection Sunday, and I see Elvin. I said, Elvin, we missed you on Sunday.
And he said, I went into the bedroom to put my shoes on, and I came out, and she was gone. The two are so attached that they are one. There is no other relationship like the marriage relationship on earth.
This one flesh relationship shows God's beautiful design. Now, this question that Jesus was asked about divorce and remarriage came from his greatest earthly enemies, the Pharisees. What they asked him was, can anyone get divorced for any reason?
This was not an innocent question. It was a hostile one. Their whole goal was to bring Jesus down. The leadership of the Pharisees, along with the Sadducees, were the ones who held power in Israel in the first century.
The Romans had the most power, of course, with the emperor. But in this region, the Romans kind of let them do what they wanted, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees were the ones who had the power. And because the leadership was corrupt, the common people were corrupted by their teaching.
The Jewish leadership had a hold on the people. But when Jesus came along, everything changed. Once Jesus started his ministry, the common people started to follow him. As I mentioned a week ago, no one had ever seen anything like this.
Wherever he went, crowds followed him. Thousands upon thousands of people followed him wherever he went. When he fed the 5 ,000, it was actually 25 ,000 because the 5 ,000 only counted the men. All these crowds following him led the Jewish leadership to feel threatened by him.
They were losing their power from this man from Nazareth. I mean, Eureka is out in the middle of nowhere. Nazareth was out in the middle of nowhere. We know what that's like, don't we? One of the ways the Pharisees hoped to bring Jesus down was by painting him in a negative light before the people by asking him a question that the masses would see as strict and rigid.
The Pharisees had developed so many unbiblical positions and one of those positions was that people could get divorced for any reason. And this was attractive to the people, of course, because anyone in a difficult marriage wanted to be freed.
And so when the Pharisees told him, oh yeah, go for it, they would follow them. The way the Pharisees justified their position was by misinterpreting what the Old Testament said about divorce. The rabbi Hillel, who lived during the first century BC, came up with this false view and the Pharisees were glad to follow his errant teaching since they were ungodly people.
The scripture says that the Pharisees were lovers of money and here we learned that they were willing to give up their wife to marry another woman for any reason. Now that we have set the table for the remainder of this passage, at this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 19.
And if you're using a red Bible, it's on page 979. And in verses seven through nine, we will see Jesus go after the faulty view of the Pharisees and also explain when are the rare occasions when divorce and remarriage is permitted.
So this is a two Sunday sermon. Last Sunday was part one. Today is part two. And it's once again titled The Broken Gift. And to give us context, I'm gonna read verses three through six before we zero in on verses seven through nine.
So Matthew 19, verses three through nine. And Pharisees came up to Jesus and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? 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.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. 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, 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.
Here's our big idea for this two Sunday sermon. And once again, every sermon is calling us to do something, to make a decision. And this sermon is calling us to understand that marriage is a permanent covenant between one man and one woman.
And the first reason why we saw it last Sunday, the first reason why is that the sacred union before God shall not be broken. And the second reason why is this. God's Mosaic law about divorce was made to prevent divorce.
To prevent it. God's Mosaic law about divorce was made to prevent it. And we'll see this in verses seven and eight. Now the Pharisees were people who held to the Old Testament as their authority. So in order to justify this divorce for any cause, they had to get the Bible to say what they wanted it to say.
You can make this book, say whatever you want it to say. Right, if you work really hard at it. This is what false teachers do. They get the Bible to say what they want to say, not what it really says.
In the first point, I mentioned they followed the Rabbi Hillel. And I mentioned that in the introduction as well. In order to justify his position, the Rabbi Hillel, who would have been the liberal Rabbi at this time, he misinterpreted a passage from the Mosaic law.
And as they follow Rabbi Hillel, the Pharisees show their misunderstanding in verse seven. In verse seven, they said to him, why did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?
Because they're asking this question after Jesus told them, we need to go back to the creation. Marriage is between one man and one woman for life. That's God's design. You don't get into marriages just to get divorced.
There's a commitment that's made at the beginning. It might come by surprise that God would give a law for divorce in the Old Testament. But what we need to understand is that God wrote these laws through Moses in the context where the practice of divorce was widespread and there needed to be principles in place for what needed to happen when this happened to bring order to society.
But what we will see is that the Lord made it so through his instruction that seeking a divorce would be costly for the one pursuing it. Let's read the instruction from Deuteronomy 24 verses one through four concerning divorce.
When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has some indecency in her and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house and she departs out of his house and if she goes and becomes another man's wife and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house or if the latter man dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, the first husband who sent her away may not take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled for that is an abomination before the Lord.".
End quote. Now as you can see, the Lord made this law about divorce to protect women from being easily divorced. The Lord made it so that husbands would not want to give up their wife and move on to someone else because they would not be able to get her back.
When she's gone, she's gone. The text says that once she was defiled, the husband could not get her back. Now what does Moses mean by defiled? What this means is that an unlawful divorce took place as he sent her away without grounds and then this woman remarried another man committing adultery and when this happened, the first husband could not get her back.
In our next point, I have more to say about biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage and also whether or not an unlawful remarriage is in a continual state of adultery but we'll get to that in the next point.
But the Pharisees asking Jesus this question used this passage from the Mosaic Law to tell people it was okay to get a divorce for any reason. Last week, I said things like chewing too loud, snoring too loud, right?
I'd be in trouble if that was the case. Getting under the skin of your spouse in any way. Your spouse isn't a good cook but this literally happened with the Jews in the first century. The most trivial reasons were justified for a person to get a divorce and they looked to Deuteronomy 24 and they said, see, the Bible supports this.
One from Hillel's tradition said, he may divorce her even if she spoiled a dish for him. Another said, he may divorce her even if she found another fairer than she. That would be a difficult marriage to be in.
One mistake, you're gone. We'd all be in trouble. But what Jesus says in our text this morning is that divorce is a last resort and that the marriage covenant between one man and one woman should be permanent.
We already read that in verse six. What God has joined together, let not man separate. But we have to look at what the Mosaic Law actually said in Deuteronomy 24. That text tells us that God did allow for divorces.
The Pharisees thought that widespread divorce for any reason was prescribed in that passage. But Jesus disagrees with that. Jesus tells us in verse eight why God gave that instruction to Moses for the nation of Israel.
Verse eight, he says to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. So what Jesus tells the Pharisees is that God made this law to address the widespread divorce that was already taking place because of their sinfulness.
Hardness of heart is another way to say sinfulness. They were not doing what God told them to do. They were choosing idols over him. They were disobeying. And he's saying because of your hardness of heart, God gave you this law in Deuteronomy 24.
He knew there would be divorce in their land and so he put a law in place to prevent divorces, not promote them. He put this in place to bring order to society and to take care of the women who would be taken advantage of by men if this law in Deuteronomy 24 were not there.
In other words, Deuteronomy 24 is not a divorce on demand passage like it was claimed to be by the Pharisees. It is helpful to understand the customs of the day as we look at this. In ancient Israel, when a woman married a man, the woman's father would give her and her new husband a sum of money.
The first husband would be able to keep that money if he found some indecency in her and divorced her. However, if she remarried, her father would give her another sum of money that would be hers regardless if her second husband divorced her.
And the first husband could not go back and marry her just to get another sum of money from her. So God put this law here also to prevent the possibility of this money-making scheme. And we know that the Pharisees were lovers of money.
So you can see how they would justify this. Now you will notice that the Old Testament law tried to minimize divorce, but it did not prohibit it. In the passage we just read from Deuteronomy 24, it did not prohibit divorce because of the fallenness of the world, including His covenant people Israel, as Jesus said in verse eight.
God knew there would be divorce, and so a law needed to be put in place so that men would not defile themselves by getting back his first wife who remarried unlawfully and therefore defiling herself. And this law was written not to take advantage of women and keep remarrying to get a larger sum of money.
He wanted the man to think twice before divorcing his wife. He was saying, if you divorce her and she remarries, you can't get her back. So God wrote the law addressing inevitable divorces with the goal of preventing them.
Okay, so understand that marriage is a permanent covenant between one man and one woman, and the second reason why is that God's Mosaic law about divorce was made to prevent it. Okay, so here's our third and final reason why.
We have to understand that marriage is a permanent covenant between one man and one woman, and that is Jesus gives an exception that makes divorce permissible. Okay, now we're about to enter a very controversial verse.
And I kind of joked with someone, we're getting all these controversial passages one after another, but that's okay. We need to hear what the word of God says and so we can apply this to our lives. Now in the New Testament, Jesus explains when a divorce can happen, and this comes from our text in verse nine.
Verse nine, he says, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. It is important to remind ourselves that Jesus has already made it clear in this text that when a man and a woman enter the marriage covenant, this is a covenant that should be kept over the long haul.
What we see here is that Jesus' view of marriage is much higher than that of the Jewish leaders of his time, and this is what he corrected in Matthew 5, and what he is correcting in our passage in chapter 19.
But as Jesus holds this high view, he does say there are grounds for divorce and remarriage, and verse nine tells us this. In almost all circumstances, divorce is not allowed, but there is one, and I think two, from another passage in scripture, which I'll explain in a bit, where divorce and remarriage is permissible.
What Jesus says in verse nine of our text and also in Matthew 5, 32, is that divorce is permitted when sexual immorality takes place. Now, there are two positions within the Christian community when we ask the question, are there biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage?
One view is yes, it is permitted under very limited circumstances, while the other is that no divorce is allowed, and therefore no remarriage is allowed under any circumstance. And as we saw last week, this was the very rigid position of the Jewish rabbi Shammai.
He also lived in the first century B .C. like Rabbi Hillel. Remember, Rabbi Hillel is the liberal position. You don't like how she cooks, okay, divorce her. You don't like what he looks like, okay, divorce him.
Rabbi Shammai is, doesn't matter, no divorce for any reason. Okay, so they're opposite ends of the spectrum here. Now, you might wonder, how could there be a view that says there is no divorce and no remarriage if our text says clearly that when sexual immorality happens with one's spouse, then the innocent party is allowed to divorce and remarry?
Well, here's why. You will notice that the text says sexual immorality and not adultery. The reason the text says sexual immorality is because the Greek word that is typically used for fornication, fornication is, of course, sex before marriage.
The word that is typically used for fornication is used here, and fornication is, of course, not the exact same thing as adultery. The Greek word translated sexual immorality is the word porneia. And this is where we get the word pornography.
On the other hand, the Greek word for adultery is moikeia. And that is the word we would expect to see in this text with marriage as our context. The lack of the word moikeia and the use of the word porneia in both Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 is the primary reason that there is another view on the issue of divorce and remarriage.
That view is that divorce is never permitted in the New Testament, and therefore there is no remarriage that is okay in God's eyes. What the no divorce and remarriage advocates say is that Matthew is different from the other Gospels when discussing this subject.
In Mark 10, verses 11 and 12, Jesus says that if a divorced person marries another, that person has committed adultery. But he gives no exception clause. Then in Luke 16, 18, he just says the same thing, but there's no exception clause there either.
So what is different about Matthew that includes the exception clause? Advocates of no divorce and no remarriage argue that Matthew 1, 18 describes that Joseph and Mary were betrothed. And what betrothed means is close to what engagement means in modern times.
Not officially married, but pursuing marriage. So according to no divorce and no remarriage advocates, what Jesus is describing in the exception clause are those cases when sexual immorality takes place before marriage, during the betrothal stage.
And therefore, the betrothal should be ended, not the marriage. So that's where they get the view. You can kind of see if you're following. I know this is kind of complicated. I understand that. I hope you're staying with me.
Now, I do not take that view that divorce cannot happen under any circumstance. What are the problems with this position? Well, there are a number, I believe. The first one is that Matthew 5 and 19 is not talking about the betrothal stage.
He's talking about marriage between one man and one woman. In Matthew 19, the Pharisees are not asking Jesus about the betrothal stage. They're asking Him about marriage. And He takes a strong view on the permanence of marriage by saying that only when there is sexual immorality can a man or woman divorce and remarry.
Divorcing when adultery takes place is consistent with what God did to Israel in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 3 .8, this is one of those verses, like that's really in the Bible? Yes, it's in the Bible.
He sent Israel away with a decree of divorce. Jeremiah 3 .8. God divorced Israel because of their spiritual adultery. They went after other gods. And so what did God do? He divorced them. Now, why does Jesus use the word porneia in Matthew 5 and 19 that is typically meant for sexual sin of the unmarried and not the word that is typically used to describe the sexual sin of the married, moicheia?
Well, the word porneia sometimes is used to describe general sexual sin in the New Testament. For example, in Galatians 5 .19, when Paul lists the sins of the flesh, he mentions porneia and certainly adultery is included in what he means in that verse.
Paul does not include a separate word for adultery. He said whether it's fornication, whether it's adultery, he calls it porneia. And I think those who take the very rigid position of no divorce and remarriage are overthinking it.
And one can do that when trying to understand the Bible. The plain meaning is always the true meaning. Do not get too creative in interpreting the Bible. And what I've seen in my life is that people who are really smart, they tend to be really smart people.
I don't know what it is. Like it seems like the smartest people don't have an edge on the truth. That's just been my experience. They tend to have a lot of errors because they get too creative. And it's the person who's the B student, maybe not an A student, but the B student who tends to be more precise because they don't overthink it.
Today we celebrate the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem. Zachariah says he's gonna enter Jerusalem on a donkey, the colt of a donkey. And you can imagine people trying to get creative with that. What is he saying?
He's gonna go with humility. It's not really talking about a colt of a donkey. No, it's a colt of a donkey. He actually goes into Jerusalem with that. What the Bible says precisely in the Old Testament is fulfilled precisely in the New Testament.
That's how you interpret the Bible. The plain meaning of the text. Do not think outside the box when the answer is inside the box. The best way to read the Bible is to find the plain meaning and the immediate context of Matthew 5 and 19 tells us the plain reading.
And that is that divorce is permitted if the marriage bed is defiled. And therefore the innocent party is free to remarry. Jesus is talking about marriage in Matthew 5 and 19. And what he tells us is that if adultery is committed, then this is grounds to break the marriage covenant.
Now, there's lots of questions I'm gonna answer here because you probably have tons of questions in your mind right now. And I'm gonna try to answer those questions. And if I don't answer it, ask me later and I'll try to answer that question.
And every question I'm answering, by the way, we're trying to find the answer in here. It doesn't matter what my opinion is, okay? The answer needs to be in here for it to be legitimate. So we need to ask the question, does this mean that one should automatically get a divorce if their spouse cheats on him or her?
And I think the answer is no. You want to do your best to save the marriage. That's what we always want to do. This covenant that was made between a man and a woman and God is sacred. God cares about the husband and wife keeping their word to him.
And the promise was made to stay with one's spouse until death. And so the innocent party should work to keep it that way. And if the one who committed adultery is sorrowful for what he or she did and desires to change, then the marriage should continue.
However, there are cases where the one who commits adultery is unrepentant and stays in unrepentance. In this case, divorce is permissible. But this would only be the last resort. From what we can see in our text, Jesus gives permission to move on from the marriage covenant when the other party has violated the covenant through adultery.
So as we can see earlier in the gospel in Matthew 5 .32 and the equivalent in our text in verse nine, there is at least one condition where the covenant between man and wife can be broken. And that is adultery.
But there's some more questions we need to ask that I hope to do the best answer here. Now, what we saw earlier in the gospel of Matthew in chapter five is that Jesus tells us simply thinking of a woman lustfully is considered to be adultery by God.
So the question is, what if my spouse commits adultery in that way? Unrepentantly. The Bible does not give a clear answer on this, so we need to do our best to think through this. If heart adultery is considered adultery, it's not as severe.
I mean, there's different degrees to sins. But still, it is severe. Heart adultery against the spouse. I believe this may be grounds for divorce if the person is unrepentant. Because if the person is willing to do that, then that person is willing to enter into a relationship with someone else and to enter physical adultery.
The key, once again, is whether or not repentance is present. It is not uncommon for men and women in marriage to struggle with lust. Everybody at one time or another has struggled with lust. But there needs to be a desire to turn from this sin.
For one to continue in it unrepentantly, deeply respecting his or her spouse, gives the innocent party the opportunity to end the marriage if he or she feels it is the only solution. That would qualify as unrepentant sexual immorality that ends the marriage.
Now, there is one more possible exception that would permit divorce and remarriage, and that is when an unbeliever leaves a believer. This comes from 1 Corinthians 7 .15 that says, if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so.
In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. Now, this is one we need to be careful with because the definition can get very loose as to what desertion means. Desertion is not my spouse neglects me sometimes or he said some things that hurt me.
Desertion is complete desertion. And it is complete desertion specifically by an unbeliever. The unbeliever leaves, let the person go. The text says in 1 Corinthians 7 .15 that the believer is not enslaved in the marriage.
Let your spouse go, and the implication then is that the believer would be able to remarry just like Jesus said in Matthew 19. Now, let that last point be clear. A believer should always marry a believer.
Young people, listen closely to that. A believer should always marry a believer. As a pastor, I will not do marriages between a believer and an unbeliever. As 2 Corinthians 6 .14 says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness? A believer should not marry an unbeliever. And we wanna warn people not to make that mistake. However, if there is a marriage that is unequally yoked and the unbeliever stays, then the marriage should continue.
And hopefully the unbeliever will be won over to Christ. But even Paul says, how are you sure that you are gonna save your spouse? You can't be sure of that. In some cases it works out, but more times than not, it does not.
So be very careful. Marry a fellow believer. There is difficulty in marriage. There's difficulty in marriage even between two believers. Marriage is a very difficult thing to take part in. It is a great blessing.
We talked about that last week. When marriage is done according to God's design, it is the greatest earthly blessing there is between one man and one woman. When you enjoy that rich fellowship, especially as Christians, you enjoy that rich fellowship together, it's one of the greatest gifts of life.
But marriage is difficult even for believers. We talked about the quote last week where Ruth Graham said, have you ever thought about divorcing Billy? No, no, I've never thought about divorcing him. I've thought about killing him, right?
I mean, these are two believers. And that marriage is difficult. And how much more difficult when there's marriage between a believer and an unbeliever? Now, there's one more question I want to answer that I told you I would answer earlier.
Does a marriage that should have never happened remain in continual adultery? There's lots of marriages like this. That's a question we need to answer. And I believe the answer comes from John 4 when Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman.
He's talking to a woman who has been married five times to five different husbands. And it is important to note that each man that she was with, Jesus calls a husband. In other words, he saw the initial union as adultery, but now that they are married, he considered the marriage legitimate.
They should receive grace. And the hope is to keep this marriage together that they would experience the blessing of God in this marriage. If you see a married couple who shouldn't have gotten married, they did not have grounds to get remarried, and they're in that position, you don't just say, okay, leave each other.
No, we say, no, stay married. We need to acknowledge it shouldn't have happened in the first place. And you need to repent for that. Confess that sin before the Lord. But as you remain married, you do not stay in a continual state of adultery.
Okay, so those are the questions I wanted to answer. And there might be some more questions. And I mean, I think that for a pastor, the questions of marriage and divorce and remarriage, those are some of the toughest questions to answer.
But obviously in a fallen world, this is the world we live in. And we have to try to address this biblically. But as I wrap up this third and final point, it is important to remind ourselves that Jesus has a high view of marriage, that he has a rigid view of marriage when it comes to divorce and remarriage.
He is serious when he says what God has joined together, let not man separate. And everyone who is married here should see your marriages that way. Understand that marriage is a permanent covenant between one man and one woman.
And over the last two Sundays, we have seen three reasons why in this text. The sacred union before God shall not be broken. That's the first reason. God's Mosaic law about divorce was made to prevent it.
That's the second. And thirdly, Jesus does give an exception. For the married in this room, the person you made that covenant with on your wedding day is the person you are to stay with for the rest of your life.
You are to stay with this person through the good times and the bad. It is true that marriage is hard. About half of marriages end in divorce. And in the church, it's not too far behind the world. It happens far too often.
And in some cases, one spouse gives up on the marriage and it's very hard on the one who hasn't given up. And I want to sympathize with if anyone here is feeling that right now. It's so hard when you're married and it's just dead.
That's a sad place to be. But God meets you in that place. He's there to help you. He hasn't forsaken you. You can only control your part. You need to pray for your spouse. You need to try to save your marriage.
You need to pursue God as you're in this place. But marriage is intended by God as a wonderful gift. I remember 11 years ago, one of my friends got married and I was his best man. And we were getting some food from the grocery store before the marriage.
And we were in the parking lot. And a guy came outside and the guy started talking to my friend. And my friend told him, yeah, I'm getting married today. And the guy said, my condolences. And I remember when I was engaged, my manager where I work security said to me, he's like, what are you thinking?
Are you out of your mind? He was a man who had been divorced. And we need to stay away from this negative view of marriage. It's sad when people have such a negative view because marriage is a beautiful reality.
The Bible teaches in Hebrews 13, four, that everyone, whether married or single, should view marriage as sacred. It's to be held in honor by all. It truly is a great gift from God. And my prayer is that everyone here would see it as that, as Proverbs 18, 22 says, he who finds a spouse finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
So may the Lord be honored by the marriages in this church and whether married or single, may we encourage the married to keep this sacred covenant till death. And as I mentioned last week, I mean, have that picture of the end of your life where you can say, you know what?
Think of all those trials we went through. Think of all the difficulty we faced over the years, but by God's grace, we made it to the end. And you'll be able to look back and say, it wasn't always pretty, but it was a beautiful journey that we went through as we tried to live out God's design for this covenant called marriage.
Now the last two Sundays, the focus has been on marriages, but the Bible has a lot to say, not only about married people, but single people. And sadly, single people are too often forgotten within the church, but God's word has a high place for singleness that is very important for us to see.
And so he talks about that in the next portion of our text, but that'll be two Sundays from now because next Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. And we will look at a different passage, of course, we'll focus on the bodily resurrection of Christ.
And I look forward to looking at that with you, but this time let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in heaven, we do live in a fallen world. And sometimes Lord, marriages can look ugly and we can wonder where your perfect design is.
But Lord, there are good examples for marriage. And we thank you Lord for the great examples of marriage in this church that we can follow. As we look at a couple like Elvin and Susan and many others as well, Lord, that we want to live out this beautiful design that you have created.
And so I pray Lord that this church would be full of healthy marriages that are honoring to you and that we would all have a high view of marriage, that we would all encourage each other in our marriages and that you would look down and be pleased.
It's in your son's name we pray, amen.