Marriage, Divorce, and God' Grace

All right. Let's get back to the sermon on marriage and divorce, and let me just read again for you Luke 16, verses 14 through 18. Now let me just say to you that there's so many scriptures that I'm not even touching that go much deeper into the ideas that I'll be presenting. And sharing with you. And the depth of scripture is so deep. I would be a fool to stand up and tell you up here that I understand all of it. I'm digging deep.

I'm trying to get deeper in that well, but I have so many questions myself that I'm going to be asking the Lord someday. But I do know this. His word is the truth. And we stand on the truth, and when I can't explain it, or when I don't understand it, when I don't like it, it's still the truth. And I stand on that because it was God breathed. Every word written in this Bible literally is God inspired. It is the literal, it is breathed right onto the pages.

And so I stand on that. You've got a Bible nut for a preacher, I'll tell you that. So let's look at Luke 16, starting verse 14. Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money were listening to all of these things, and they were scoffing at him, snubbing him. And he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of man. I would hate for Jesus to stand there and say that to me. I'd go, oops.

But God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. Since then, the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is forcing or pressing his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail. It's not gonna fail, guys. It is eternal in nature. Everyone who divorces his wife, he throws in this example, everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.

And he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery. He's defining biblical adultery there for us. And that's a hard word to hear, but it's a word that we need to hear and understand in the full context of scripture. We need to understand that. So last week, I concluded my sermon referring to the two schools of thoughts among the scribes and the Pharisees. The Jewish scholar Shammai took a more conservative view towards divorce. It was allowed, but only under the grounds of sexual promiscuity.

He took a very literal view of that. And his school actually sometimes could be guilty of propagating legalism. Hillel took a much more lenient view for divorce, pushing the misfortunate idea that divorce could occur from almost any reason. He was on the liberal side of that. Now, while some of his stuff was gracious, sometimes it went beyond the boundaries. If you go and study Jewish religion and history and culture, you'll notice that after 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, that the Hillelian view was predominantly accepted by Jewish scholars. They were much more tied in to the lenient side than the legal side of things.

When I was in seminary, I'll always remember this. You know, seminary is

seminary is a spiritually forming experience. It will push things into your mind and your heart and your soul that you never even dreamed of. They'll make you think of things that you never even thought of. One of the things that we had to do was we had certain experiences where we actually went into ministry and then we had to come back later and sit in a group together. In fact, we had to keep a journal, a 24 hour journal of everything we did when we were in ministry. And then we had to build some case studies. So then we had to bring those case studies forward so that our class and our professor could analyze how we reacted in these case studies.

And sometimes we did pretty well, sometimes we didn't. I can remember sitting there one night and there were probably about 12 of us in this circle with the professor, Dr. McCain. He was a professor of counseling and he was the leader of our group. So he's the one that was gonna be grading us and giving us a grade for our practical experiences that we'd had. I was a youth director that summer at First Methodist Church in Borger. So I had to keep a journal completely of everything I did, also along with all the kids, all the conversations with parents, all the conversation with kids, all the conversations with the church, everything we did.

I had to keep all of that. There was a young guy in this class, because I had surrendered to preach a little bit later and transferred from Tech to McMurray, I'd lost a complete year of school because they didn't accept my ag hours at McMurray. So I was a little bit older than some of the seminarians that were in this group. Some were two, three, four years younger than me. And some had not had many life experiences in life. Y'all know me, I've already shared with you that I burned both ends of that candlestick pretty hard before I got saved. And this young guy, I'll never forget, he's young and innocent and precious guy.

I mean, just a really lovely guy. And he was an associate pastor in a church for a summer. And he was to do counseling. Now, why on earth they chose a 21-year-old to be a counselor? I don't know, but anyways, he deals with a couple that's struggling in their marriage. And I don't know if there was infidelity, but there was a lots of evil things taking place when he described this experience. And immediately, immediately, he recommends divorce.

Now, he's won my sympathy. I'm going, good job, you know? And the professor unloaded on him with all four feet. And I mean, rebuked him right there in front of all of us, corrected him. Now, the professor finally calmed down and said, now, let me explain to you why I'm doing this. You may be the last one that stands between a marriage uniting and a marriage failing. And so, you may be the one that can help bring restoration and reconciliation and redemption back to this marriage.

And so, you have to have a high view of marriage. And this professor said, you don't have a high enough view of marriage. And, you know, I'm sitting there going, well, you know, I wouldn't have graded him that way, you know? I've got too much of, I'm gonna tell you, I got too much of a pastor's heart. I probably would have done the same thing. You need to get out of this thing right now. You need to get out of it.

But, as I walked away from that discussion, that evening, thinking to myself, you know, I better get a grip on this issue. Because recognizing the sinfulness of man, I knew as a pastor, I would have to walk through this experience with the offender and the damaged innocent one. That I would be the one providing pastoral support. And that I better get a grip on how I'm gonna approach this. Now, I can tell you firsthand, I have seen the fallout of these actions from the deception of divorce. But I have also seen the reparation of God that only he could do when his divine order of marriage was honored. So, I'm gonna share with you four principles this morning that these didn't just jump on me overnight.

These have come through a process of pastoring people even when I was working at the John Deere house, pastoring my customers. You know, I didn't ever quit pastoring even though I was selling tractors. I stayed connected. So, I wanna share four principles with you. And principle one is this. Now, don't immediately react and walk out the door. Principle one is this, that I had the lockdown in my heart.

God hates divorce. God hates divorce.

Malachi 2,16. For God hates divorce, saith the Lord, the God of Israel. And he covers his garments with wrong, saith the Lord of hosts. So, take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously.

I'm gonna say this as pastorally as I can. God hates divorce. But listen to me, God does not hate people.

You hear that? And you must always hold these two statements in tension.

In the story in John 8, 2 through 11, there's a woman caught in the act of adultery. And that's all we really know about this woman. You know, as I've read that story and studied it and stuff, I've walked away wondering, what are all the details of her story? I'm gonna ask her someday when I get there.

By the law, this woman deserved death. If you go back and study the Old Testament law, death was the penalty for adultery. But listen to me, by the one who fulfilled the law, this woman was given forgiveness. Do you hear what I'm saying there? Jesus came not to nullify the law, but to fulfill it. And he demonstrates forgiveness. Through the forgiveness of Jesus, the stage was set for her to start over without the accusal of shame.

And the power of his word was spoken over her when he said, go and sin no more.

You've messed up. Don't do it again. In this whole mess of the divorce deception, it's easy for us to take the low road of self-righteousness like the Pharisees, isn't it? And not the higher road of forgiveness. and reconciliation and restoration like Jesus. So this became a real anchor in me working with folks that were experiencing the sin and tragedy of the divorce. God hates divorce, but God loves people. Principle two that I've learned through the years is God's covenant of marriage is holy.

God's covenant of marriage is holy. In Matthew chapter 19, in verses one through six, listen to the words here. And it came about that when Jesus was finishing these words, he departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan and great multitudes followed him and he healed them there. And some Pharisees came to him, underscore this, testing him and saying, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all? Shammai, Hillel, put it in its context. That debate is what created this question. My opinion is the Pharisees asking this questions were Hillelians seeking to justify their open-ended practices of divorce and proliferation of adultery all across Israel.

They were mentoring it. They were setting a trap for Jesus. Wanting him to choose their side and yet he'd have none of it. Listen to how he answered them. He said, have you not read that he created them from the beginning, made them male and female? Now, let me just sideline this for just a second.

He made them male and female.

That is what constitutes a marriage, the joining of male and female. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. You hear what I'm saying? There is no allowance in scripture for same-sex marriage.

None. In the beginning, he created it this way.

When the homosexual community attacks this idea, it's not just their act of sin that's monumental, but they're attacking the very creation of marriage and family. It goes much farther than just the act of sexual sin. They're attacking God's creation. Marriage is between male and female.

You got that? It's a biblical foundation.

And he said, listen to this. For this cause, for this cause, the creation of male and female, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

Consequently, they are no longer two, but one flesh. What God has joined together, here's Jesus, let not man separate, put asunder. Let not man separate. Right. You know, in the marriage ceremony,

we make this statement. Into this sacred union, these two come now to be joined together. Is that not a description of holiness, of the covenant? Into this sacred union, these two come now to be joined together. In Ephesians chapter five, verses 21 through 33, and I'm not gonna read all that to you. Go read it. It's a monumental statement about marriage.

The apostle Paul speaks of the mystery between the union of Christ and his church, literally the bride of Christ. Jesus, the groom, the church, the bride. This union is described as the spiritual, mystical representation of what a marriage, this side of heaven, should look like. Go read it.

You'll see that. And then the apostle Paul quotes these words that Jesus quoted when speaking of marriage that goes all the way back to the beginnings. That's a big word, beginnings.

In Genesis 2, 24. For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. And let me add verse 25 just for fun. And the man and the wife were both naked and they were not ashamed. Here is the elements of the mystery that create this union.

Leaving, cleaving. Now you'll hear preachers preach those two all across the nation. I got another one. Because I've learned this through the process of time, being married myself and working with others, weaving. You hear that? Leaving, cleaving, and weaving. Leaving everything and everyone else behind and making this relationship the priority.

When God called Abraham, what'd he do? He left and he followed God, didn't he? When we get married, we leave what has been presently the priorities in our life and we make that relationship the priority. Cleaving, cleaving is the bonding, literally in the Greek language, it's the bonding of two pieces of wood glued together that create an inseparable union. It's just almost impossible to break it because it's been glued together and it's not to be messed with. Now you could get up and get a sledgehammer probably and stretch it out across there and break it. But you're bringing things into it that should not attack it.

Now, weaving, the two shall, I love this, become. You hear that? Become, it's a process, become one flesh. Kim and I, when we got married, positionally, we were one flesh. But I can tell you 50 years later, there has been a process going on making us one flesh. You understand what I'm saying there? And guys, this is where the hard work begins.

Leaving and cleaving, I handle those pretty good, but the weaving, that's where hard work begins. Don't let anyone tell you that marriage is easy. It's the hardest relationship you'll ever take on. It's work, marriage is work. And boy, do we need to stress that. You know, in the early days of preaching and teaching and marrying couples and seeing the epidemic of divorce going through the roof in this nation and even in the church, I started requiring what I call pre-marital counseling.

Six weeks, one hour each week was required and there was homework to bring to that. My goal was to talk them out of getting married. That's my goal. So, I actually did talk some out of it. At the end of those six weeks, they both looked at each other and said, we're not ready for this. Now, I want to tell you, I consider that the best ministry actions I ever did. And some have even come back years later thanking me for explaining the holiness of the marriage covenant.

We spent time, and they said that because they came to the end of that class and decided we're unequally yoked. We should not be getting tied together because we're not equally yoked. There's a lot of things that you have to consider when you're marrying someone.

Sometimes we jump the gun. We think, well, this is the only solution or this is the only possibility. I've got to enter into this relationship without considering that maybe I shouldn't.

We're young, most of us, when we get married, and sometimes we're so young, we're simply not brain-wise or mature enough to do that. That's why you need to get with older mentoring people when you're going through this process so they can help you decide, is this God's will for my life? Principle three, God permits divorce.

Matthew 19, seven through nine. Let me read this to you. The Pharisee said to him, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? Jesus said to them, because of the hardness of your heart. I identify that as our sinful nature. And then he says, Moses permitted. Moses permitted you to divorce your wives.

But notice this qualifying statement. But from the beginning, it has not been this way. He goes all the way back to the beginnings. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery. You can flip it man and wife there in that language if you want to. The first thing I want you to notice here is the play on words. The Pharisee said, notice this, Moses commanded divorce.

Jesus said, Moses permitted divorce. Now guys, there is a vast valley between a commandment and a permit.

When I was in college, we had a Saturday night Bible study, worship and Bible study. And Dr. Sam Wilson, who was political science professor at McMurray, a believer and a very gifted Bible teacher, he taught us a lot of scripture. And one of the lessons that transformed my thinking was on the sovereignty of God and the freedom of humans, free will. And the holiness of God, he tied all this together, the holiness of God and the sovereignty of God. The sinfulness of humans, and in that discussion, he talked about, I'll never forget this, the perfect will of God and the permissive will of God.

You hear what I'm saying? The perfect will of God and the permissive will of God. A few years later, in a morning worship service in Wilmore, Kentucky, at First United Methodist Church there, the pastor, preacher deluxe, Dr.

David Seamans. I'll tell you, I went to seminary those three years at Asbury Seminary, but I learned more from Dr. David Seamans on Sunday morning, listening to him preach than I did in all those seminary classes. Because he broke the word open and he taught things that penetrated all us young people sitting there. In a town of 5,000, First United Methodist Church had 2,000 in church on Sunday morning. Seminarians and college students, 1,000 of them in church on Sunday morning, and boy could he speak.

I'll never forget, with a brokenness in his voice and tears in his eyes, picking up on the same thoughts that Dr. Wilson taught us, he made this statement. Sometimes, because we live in a fallen world, believers are permitted to choose the lesser of two evils. Then he went on and explained that. I never even thought of that, that sometimes we're forced into a corner where we know this is the perfect will of God, but the options that we have to choose are the lesser of two evils. Now, he said it as a pastor with tears in his eyes.

Moses permitted divorce. Even though he knew the perfect will of God concerning the marriage covenant,

even though he knew about divorce and adultery. I asked myself the question, who was Moses to be able to do this? He was the deliverer of Israel out of Egypt. He moved in the supernatural obedience of the Lord. Just go read everything that took place in Egypt through the hand of Moses. He was the lawgiver to Israel. He was the interpreter and explainer of the law.

He, for a time, was the sole judge and jury in Israel. He was not perfect, but he knew the heart of God's compassion for his people. He did not autocratically permit divorce. He was God's spokesman. You hear that statement? Moses was God's spokesman. He knew that divorce was not God's perfect plan, but because of God's loving kindness, he permitted divorce because it was the choice between the lesser of two evils.

You know what confirms his position to me about defining the will of God? In Matthew 17, 1 through 3, listen to what it says. Six days later, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garment became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus.

All this distance of time had passed, and yet at one of the most profound experiences in the life of the disciples in Jesus, who was present, Moses, his spokesman.

Moses permitted divorce.

Secondly, I want to wrestle with the uses of two Greek words defining adultery. In Luke 16, 18, the Greek word for adultery is moikeia, defined as betrayal, defiling the marriage bed, infidelity, and unfaithfulness. In Matthew 19, 9, the Greek word is pornea. What does that sound like to you today? It's not hard to know where our English word comes from, is it? It does not refer to adultery as moikeia does. It is defined as a sin that includes a wide range of illicit sexual intercourse and sexual activities.

The word can be referred to prostitution, sexual intercourse outside of marriage, pedophilia, promiscuity, homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, premarital sex, and even bestiality. In our day, some biblical scholars have broadened its meaning, and they say in the spirit of Scripture to simply not refer to sexual acts, but to evil actions that are destructive and devastating to the spouse. Desertion, physical abuse, mental abuse, verbal abuse, imprisonment. I have literally counseled with women whose husbands would not let them outside the house in public. They wanted to keep them in prison, in their own houses, because they didn't trust their spouse. Even slavery. They were treated as slaves.

The criticism of their view is this, and it's a decent criticism. Well, you can make a molehill into a mountain. You can just take anything small, and you can blow it up and give you cause to get a divorce, and that's true. But here's the pastor in me. I have sat across the vest listening to some spouses that were not critiquing a molehill, but were being crushed by a mountainous landslide. You hear what I'm saying?

Evil, evil, evil abuse and torment was taking place. Now you wonder, well, did that spouse lose their mind, or did that spouse lose their mind, or were they just captives of sin? I can't tell you all that, but I've worked through that with couples. Bottom line is, Moses permitted divorce because of the graciousness and loving kindness of God. He was a realist when it came to the sinful nature of man.

Now, you may want to throw that out. You're welcome to do that, but that's where I've ended up because of my pastoral heart. But I always took the high view before we went to there. God hates divorce, but God permits it.

Principle four.

I'm glad this is in the Bible. God wipes away all our sins.

Acts 3, 19. Repent, therefore, and return, that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. I've walked through the valley with many a couple, many a friend, many an offender, many that were offended through this institution of divorce. I've walked through that valley, and it is so wonderful to see the grace of God cleansing, wiping clean the brokenness and the hurt and the pain, and them coming around and saying, I felt the presence of Jesus today.

I felt his restoration and his reconciliation and his redemption. I'm not a has-been in the kingdom. I can still produce fruit and be effective and be a blessing to God. In 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You know, if you want to get self-righteous about this thing, go and look and see what Jesus said about adultery when he talked about the seventh in your heart.

You're just as guilty. You're just as guilty. That nails a lot of us to the wall, doesn't it? Here's my conclusion. In the Jewish religion, a scribe or a rabbinic priest, this is even present today, can serve as a meseder gittin, as the pastoral adjudicator of divorce according to Jewish laws. After a time of corporate and individual fasting and prayer, the meseder gittin would hold a ceremony for the couple divorcing. Now, I can tell you that probably oftentimes, maybe only one showed up.

I know how, you know, I've been there. You know, I don't even want to be in the same room with that so-and-so. And I understand that. I completely understand that. But the meseder gittin would hold a ceremony. And in the liturgy, he would not only speak to the sin and failure of divorce, but also to the tragedy of divorce. Do you hear what I'm saying there?

When we see tragedy, if you're a Christian, you have compassion, don't you? In the closing lines of the Talmudic tractate on the subject of divorce, he would quote it. And here's what it says. When a man divorces his wife or the wife divorces their husband, the very altar of the temple sheds tears. Isn't that beautiful? The very altar of the temple sheds tears.

And that's the heart of God. He's got a perfect will, guys. He's got a perfect will. And I'll never not lift up the high view. But he also has a permissive will. In Romans 12, 9 through 21, I'm not going to read all that, the apostle outlines the character of a believer. And here's the stance as a pastor where I'm at.

And there may be guys say, well, you've missed, you're not right, Hurst. Well, that's okay. I'll take it on to heaven with me and I can be corrected up there. Let love be without hypocrisy.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. You hear that?

Weep with those who weep. You know, I wouldn't be much of a pastor if I didn't cry with you when you cried. It also says rejoice with those who rejoice. There is a time when rejoicing will come back.

Amen?

Associate with the hurting.

Rub elbows with the hurting. And this one I love most. Do not be overcome by evil. You've been forced in that corner. And you had to choose the lesser of two evils. But overcome evil with good. You're not done.

I think I'm pretty biblical on this. But I'm open to correction. I'll tell you that. The well is so deep in scripture. I don't understand all of it.

But Sam Wilson helped me. When he said there is a perfect will of God. And there is a permissive will of God.

And you're not outside the kingdom when you're walking into permissive. Amen? God's good, isn't he? And he is constant in his steadfast love and redemption.

Hallelujah. Let's bow together in prayer. Lord, I thank you. For the law. And the fulfillment of the law. Lord, I pray that we might walk in the fulfillment and power of the Holy Spirit.

That we might rub elbows with the hurting.

And embrace them with the forgiveness, the cleansing power of the blood. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Guys, I love you. And I'm glad to get this monkey off my back. Because it's not something I like talking about. But it's in the word and we got to talk about it. Amen. So may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you.

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you. And give you his everlasting peace. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Love you.