Divorce and Remarriage, Part 3b

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 I thought was really good They're all good, but this one just happened to stick out

What is the number one reason divorce happens? If you recall our series on the Ten Commandments, the seventh comm 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? Well, 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 He wired? What was 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. 3, I'm not going to let it happen again. I'm going to rule over you. I'm going dominate you. I'm going to put you in your position And so you've got male chauvinism from the word go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 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 5: two people Who learned 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 That's the only way what happened in Genesis chapter 3 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 And what did Jesus say? Have you not read? You see, their 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 2 or Genesis chapter 1, 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 Female He made the one male, he made the one female Genesis chapter 2 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 a 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 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 1 to 4 of Deuteronomy 24

So, you understand Matthew chapter 19 and Mark chapter 10, which go along with Matthew chapter 5, which is our text for the city 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 Vers 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 hath 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 giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, or if the latter husband die, 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 an abomination before the Lord, and thou shalt not cause the the land to sin, which the Lord thy God give 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 hypothesis in verse number 1 But in reality, it should not be until verse number 4 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 sent her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, then The apothecis

Then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife since she has been def 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 a divorce The verse is not a command to divorce your wife The verse speaks of the comm not to remar 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 adulteress, 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 ass rem 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'll probably be going to marry again So the Bible assumes rem And because it assumes remarriage, if you divorce someone for an un 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 20:1, 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 were married and you committed adultery, you were 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 is 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. S 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 5 Matthew chapter 19 What Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 is 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' 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 conce 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, you see, to do what they wanted to do So when they say in Matthew 19, why did 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 Perm it Do not confuse the two There is 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 one that 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 approved unto God, work that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, right? You've 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 5, 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 comm adultery And whoever marries a divorced woman commits ad. I'm telling you this

You're saying you can divorce your wives for any cause, and I want to 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' confrontation on the matter He blows their lustful desires right out the window It helps them to understand the reality of what is happening They try to justify their divorces. bas on a misinterpretation of Scripture They lower 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, Porne, 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 ad 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 adultere 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 is that she had a bill of divorce, but she had to leave It was over for her So she naturally would rem 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 we 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 ad 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 pornea We get our English word pornography It's an all-encompassing term That refers to any sex interc, 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 Pornea 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 won't 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 is 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 pornea, some sexual illicit sin

That's what Jesus is saying Please understand that Very crucial To understanding that God never pres, 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 avenue They're looking for the avenue 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 heart attitude What goes on on the inside, you see 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 tender, 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 ten 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're divorced 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 when you understand what He says, His goal is lifel 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 hearts, 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, excuse me, and reluctantly permitted Divorce He did not pres it Why? Because Christ says in verse number eight of Matthew nineteen

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 have to come back and hear about those things.