Divorce and Remarriage, Part 2

By way of introduction this evening, I want to thank you for the questions that you turned in last week. Hopefully we're going to answer all those questions either this week or the following week or the week after that. I will answer all those questions to some degree in the lesson that we have this evening and of course next week. Yet there is one question that will help us begin our time together this evening that I thought was really good. They're all good but this one just What is the number one reason divorce happens?

If you recall our series on the Ten Commandments, the seventh commandment specifically, thou shalt not commit adultery, we began that series or that lesson by talking about six reasons why people commit adultery. But the number one reason of course is sin.

And Christ would say in Mark chapter 7 verses 20 and 23 that what defiles a man comes from where? What's on inside the man? The heart. And from the heart proceed what? Murders, fornications, and adulteries. What happens on the inside? You see our heart is desperately wicked, Jeremiah tells us. And so divorce and adultery happens because of what's happening on the inside. And of course the question always comes back how did everything get so bad when at one time it was so good, right? When God created the heavens and the earth man it was good.

He created man and woman it was good. God had a divine plan and what went haywire, what went so bad? You got the woman, you got she wanting to have her needs met, you got her wanting to rule and control her husband and lead the family, and the man saying nope I did it once way back in Genesis chapter three, I'm not going to let it happen again, I'm going to rule over you, I'm going to dominate you, I'm going to put you in your position. And so you got male chauvinism from the word go, all the way back in Genesis chapter three.

That's the battle of the sexes, that's the problem. And thus you have conflict in your marriages. And the only way it's ever going to be resolved is if you understand Ephesians chapter five. Two people who learn to be controlled by the spirit of God so the husband will lovingly, tenderly lead his wife and the wife will willingly and lovingly submit to his leadership. And that's the only way what happened in Genesis chapter three can be resolved in your marriage. Follow so far? That's why divorce happened.

Sin in men, husbands trying to dominate their wives, wives trying to dominate their husbands. If you go back to Matthew chapter 19, you find where the Pharisees come to Christ and they ask him this question, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all? What did Jesus say? Have you not read? You see, the rabbinical tradition taught, we talked about this last week, that they would disregard the divine plan of God. And they did. If you're ever going to have that perfect harmony in your marriage like it was in Genesis chapter two or Genesis chapter one, the only way that's going to happen is if you understand God's divine plan for marriage.

So Christ says, wait a minute, have you not read what the Pentateuch says about this? Have you not read about God's divine plan? And he goes on to say that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female. He made the one male, he made the one female. Genesis chapter two says, for this cause, a man shall leave and cleave. And what was the cause? It was not good for man to be alone. God designed a purposeful union from the very beginning. He goes on to say this, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife.

Not only was there to be a purposeful union, but there was to be a permanent union. He was to leave and he was to be glued to one woman. But you see these Pharisees, these scribes, these leaders, these religious leaders disregarded the divine plan of God. And they thought that they could divorce their wife for any cause at all. And they were chucking their wives right and left. And Christ takes them right back to the text. It says, have you not read about the divine plan? So they come back with another question.

Verse number seven. Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? If this is the divine plan, if this is the way it was from the beginning, then you tell us, Lord, why the lawgiver, Moses, made a command to divorce your wife? Why did Moses command that? Which leads us to point number two of main point number one, the rabbinical tradition.

Not only did they disregard the divine plan, but they distorted the Deuteronomy passage. Turn back with me to Deuteronomy chapter 24. Deuteronomy chapter 24. The Pharisees would take these four verses and they would interpret them improperly. And this would become their basis for their question in Matthew chapter 19, that somehow Moses commanded there to be a divorce. They saw verse number one of Deuteronomy chapter 24 as a command.

And because they saw it as a command, they felt that they could divorce their wives for any indecency whatsoever. And because of that, they could divorce their wives and remarry someone else. This is the only passage in the Old Testament that says anything specific about divorce. So it's important to understand verses one to four of Deuteronomy 24. So you understand Matthew chapter 19 and Mark chapter 10, which go along with Matthew chapter five, which is our text for this evening. Follow me. It's important to understand that to understand that I need to read to you from the King James version.

That's important because the King James version perpetuated the Jewish rabbinical error. Okay. And listen to what it says. When a man had taken a wife and married her, and it came to pass that she find no favor in his eyes because he had found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be married or be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her and write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house, or if the latter husband died, he who took her to be his wife, her former husband who sent her away may not take her again to be his wife.

After that she is defiled for that is abomination before the Lord. And thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Now the Jewish rabbinical error was that they put the command in verse number one.

Now follow this with me. What the Jewish people did is put the apotheosis in verse number one, but in reality, it should not be until verse number four.

If you have a new American standard Bible, you have the correct translation. This is what the new American standard says. 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 indecency in her. And he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house. And she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife. And if the latter husband turns against 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 husband dies, who took her to be his wife, then the apotheosis, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife since she has been defiled.

What was the penalty for adultery in the Old Testament? Death. If the only way out of a marriage was adultery and the penalty for adultery was death, there was no way out of a marriage because you'd be dead. But the point of what Christ is trying to say is that you need to understand that Moses never commanded the divorce. The verse is not a command to divorce your wife. The verse speaks of the command not to remarry the woman that you divorced. That's the command. Because she's defiled. Why is she defiled?

Because you divorced her for something other than the cause of adultery. You follow so far? It's important to understand that. Moses never commanded divorce. He simply commanded that the adulterous defiled partners were not able to return to her first husband because she is defiled.

And she's defiled because the man divorced her for an unbiblical cause, which caused her to remarry, which is very important. The Bible assumes remarriage. It assumes remarriage. If someone is married and they're involved in a relationship, if they get divorced, they're not going to stay single. They don't have the gift. That's why they were married in the first place.

So they're probably going to marry again. So the Bible assumes remarriage. And because it assumes remarriage, if you divorce someone for an unbiblical cause, that is immorality, then what happens is you cause them to become an adulterer or an adulteress. God holds a high view of marriage. He says in Exodus 20, 14, thou shalt not commit adultery. He says in Exodus 20 verse number 17, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. It is so important to understand that if you are married and you committed adultery, you are stoned to death.

But if you were not married and you were single and you had sex with somebody outside of marriage, you were not stoned to death. You were just scourged. Leviticus 19 verse number 20. Now, if a man lives currently with a woman who was a slave, there shall be a scourging. The punishment for sex outside of marriage was a scourging. The punishment for sex inside of marriage was death. See the difference? God holds the marriage as a sanctified, holy union that he has joined together. And whenever you defile that union, go against the plan of God by engaging in adultery or immorality with somebody else, what you have done is gone against the law of God who speaks so vehemently against it.

It's important to understand that Moses said the exact same thing that Jesus said in Matthew chapter five and Matthew chapter 19. What Jesus said in Matthew chapter five was that I came to fulfill the law. I did not come to alter the law. I did not come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill the law. I'm not going to change what Moses said. Why? Because Moses did not command you to divorce your wife for some obnoxiousness. In fact, God never commands anywhere, anyone, anywhere ever to divorce their wife.

God never condones divorce. God never prescribes divorce as an alternative. He concedes the fact that divorce is going to happen. Follow so far? They had completely distorted what Moses said in Deuteronomy 24. To fit their own means, to do what they wanted to do. So when they say in Matthew 19, why didn't Moses command it then? Moses said we could. We were law-abiding citizens. And Christ said what? He didn't command it. He didn't command it. It's because of the hardness of your heart, Moses permitted it.

Do not confuse the two. There was a wide world of difference between what Moses permitted and what you're saying Moses commanded. That's the emphasis in Matthew 19. That's the rabbinical tradition. That's what they taught one another. They would disregard the divine plan of God, that holy sanctified union of two people coming together and the cherished oneness that they had. They would totally disregard that. And they would disregard it based on a distortion of scripture. That's why it's so important.

We said over and over again, it's so important that we know what the Bible says. That we cut a straight path. That we study to show ourselves a proven to God, workmen that need it not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, right? You got to know what the word of God says.

You've got to accurately interpret the scriptures. That's why we need to understand what Jesus said on the issue of divorce and remarriage, which leads us to main point number two, the biblical teaching.

And I want to cover five things with you. I won't get through them this evening. So we'll pick them up next week. But the first thing I want to cover with you is the confrontation back to Matthew chapter five, the text, which is the cornerstone of our time together this evening.

And it was said, whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, skip the phrase, the next phrase, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. I'm telling you this, you're saying you can divorce your wives for any cause. And I will let you know that if you divorce your wife, you're going to cause her to commit adultery. And whoever marries her is going to commit adultery. That's Jesus's confrontation on the matter.

He blows their lustful desires right out the window and helps them to understand the reality of what is happening. They tried to justify their divorces based on a misinterpretation of scripture. They lowered the standard of God and God comes back and reiterates the same standard that has happened every time ever since the beginning of man. God has a standard. And if you divorce your wife for any cause other than immorality, porneia, we'll talk about that in a minute, you cause your wife to commit adultery.

Your sinful mindset went against God's ideal that the marriage bond would last. And so he confronted them head on. They wanted to legalize their lust and they did. It was all working out fine and dandy. There were no problems. They could chuck their wives. They could give her a little divorcement. They could marry somebody else. And in their minds, they were clean. They were pure. They were undefiled. And Christ says, wait a minute.

You have totally blown everything that I have said from the beginning of time. And if you divorce your wife for any cause other than immorality, you cause her to commit adultery. So we go from the confrontation to point number two, the repercussions.

The repercussions. Every time you lose your wife, every time you divorce your wife, you force her to commit adultery. You, Christ says, are the guilty ones.

And every time she marries somebody else, she would cause that individual to commit adultery. Here's the point of what Jesus is saying, that what divorce does is cause a plethora of adulterous relationships all over the place. You see that? That's what Jesus is saying. The man or woman who has no biblical grounds for divorce has no biblical grounds for remarriage. To do so would initiate a repercussion that contaminates people's lives by making them become adulterous. That has nothing to say about the effects upon the children, the effects upon relatives, the confusion, the bitterness, the resentment, and the conflicts of every sort.

You see that? That's what Jesus wants you to understand. And they missed it. They missed it completely. So he's condemning these men. He's just talking about the repercussions. What's happening? This poor woman, man, all she knew was that she had to build a divorce, but she had to leave. It was over for her. So she naturally would remarry somebody else, not knowing that she was an adulteress. If she did so, she becomes the innocent party. And Christ says, you're the guilty ones.

You're the ones. Remember Matthew 18? In the context of the little ones of the body of Christ. And Christ says, it would be better for you that you would die a horrible death than to offend one of my little ones.

And folks, that's the main point here. You see, we divorce people. We get rid of them for any cause. And what we're doing is that we are offending. We are causing a great stumbling to those little ones, those children of God that love him and want to serve him. And it would be better for us, Christ says, that we would die a horrible death than to cause one of his little precious children to fall into sin.

And Christ says in Matthew chapter 5, you are causing my little ones to fall into sin because you are the guilty party.

So on the contrary, the deck is not stacked against the women. Christ is condemning the men, and they are guilty. Because you see, they would remarry. And because they remarried, they were adulterers. And they would make the new woman an adulteress, which leads me to point number three, the exception.

Christ confronts them. You see the confrontation. From there, you see the repercussions. From there, you see the exception. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, except for the cause of immorality, except for the cause of fornication. The word that's used is porneia. We get our English word pornography. It's an all-encompassing term that refers to any sexual intercourse, whether or not either of the parties is married. It's a broad term that includes adultery.

It's a term that includes incest. It's a term that includes prostitution. It's a term that includes homosexuality. It's a term that includes bestiality. All you have to do is read Leviticus chapter 20, verses 10 to 14, all the sexual acts that are recorded in the Old Testament that demanded the death penalty. That's porneia. And Christ says there's one exception.

Note this. He does not say that there is one exception by which you can get a divorce. He says there is one exception by which you will cause the other person to commit adultery. See that? That's the point. You see, people read Matthew chapter 19, they read 1 Corinthians 7 and say, okay, these are the guidelines of prescribed mechanisms where we can get a divorce. That's not what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, and we'll talk about that next week. And that's not what Christ says in Matthew chapter 5.

What he's saying, that if you divorce your spouse for any cause other than fornication, they will commit adultery, inevitably. The only way that you can refrain from that, and they will not become adulterers or adulteresses, is if you divorce them for the cause of porneia, some sexual illicit sin. That's what Jesus is saying. Please understand that. It's very crucial to understanding that God never prescribes, condones, or commands divorce in the Bible. If he hated it in Malachi 2.16, he hates it in the New Testament as well, because God never changes.

God hates it no matter what the cause of divorce. Jesus does not advocate nor demand divorce in any situation. You see, there are people who say, who are just looking for the evidence. They're looking for the evidence that says, okay, they had an affair. It's over. You slept with somebody else. The Bible says that I can divorce you because you were immoral.

You committed a sexual sin while we were married. I have grounds for divorce. I'm out of here. Folks, if that's your attitude, you're no better than the Pharisees because you're adhering to the letter of the law. And God is concerned about what? The hard attitude. God's concerned about the hard attitude. What goes on on the inside? But people are sitting back and they're looking for that way out. And we have to understand that the innocent party has the option to divorce. It is never essential that they divorce.

It's never required that they divorce. It's always the best thing to forgive and be restored. That's always the best. Divorce is never the best solution. At best, it's the best of the worst solutions. It's never the best solution. The best solution is to follow the divine plan of God. The best solution is for you to always follow what God says.

And the best solution is always to be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. That's the best solution. Always. Hands down. We're talking about in Matthew chapter 5 and Matthew chapter 19, in a moral lifestyle, an unrepentant, promiscuous relationship outside the bonds of marriage. We're not talking about one slip that happened 10 years ago, five years ago, or five minutes ago. We're talking about an unrepentant, promiscuous lifestyle that will not change.

And then God says, you can divorce. And if you do, you won't cause the other one to commit adultery. If you divorce for any other cause, then you will cause them to commit adultery. That's what Jesus is saying. He's not giving you a way out of your marriage. Why would God give you a way out of something that he designed in eternity past? Why would God want you to get out of something that he has put you together in? And of course, the comment is, you don't know my husband. You're right, I don't. God does, and God knows what's best.

And we need to understand what he says. His goal is lifelong, monogamous marriages, but as a concession to sin and as a gracious provision for those who are innocent of defiling a marriage, he allows divorce on one single ground, and that's immorality. Back to Matthew chapter 19, this is how he says it. Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it has not been this way. Christ says, because of the hardness of your heart, because adultery was prolonged and the sinning spouse was unrepentant, making reconciliation and a normal marriage relationship impossible.

When an adulterous husband or wife becomes totally insensitive to marital infidelity, then Moses indirectly and reluctantly permitted divorce. He did not prescribe it. Why? Because Christ says in verse number eight of Matthew 19, because from the beginning, it has not been this way.

That's why. He permitted it. It's a concession to sin, but he permitted it reluctantly because from the beginning, it was not to be that way. That's what Jesus is saying. But what about the unbelieving spouse? And what about if something happens before I'm a Christian? That's for next week. You got to come back and hear about those things.