Could Divorce Be A Part Of The Plan?

Joe Bedy

April 1 2002

Central Christian Church

St. Petersburg, Fl 33776

Joe Bedy

Central Christian Church

St. Petersburg, Fl 33711

May 5, 2002

Divorce, could it be a part of the plan?

Matt. 19:3-10

I have just completed some fairly extensive research on the theology of Biblical marriage, divorce and remarriage.

I am going to share with you a small part of that today, but if you would like a copy of the entire article let the church office know and I will email one to you or make you a copy of it.

Before we can ever understand divorce, we must understand marriage, because divorce is a tearing apart of that which God has put together.

Mal 2:16 "For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel,

Marriage was made by God, for one man and one woman.

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In Matthew 19 isn’t this what Jesus said to the Pharisees who wanted to know if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?

Open your Bibles. (p. 975 in your pew Bible)

Matt 19:3-9

Mat 19:3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

You see the Pharisees were aware of the controversy between the two Rabbi’s Shammai and Hillel and they wanted to trap Jesus and embroil him in that controversy. Shammai was teaching that a husband could put his wife away only for indecency, while Hillel was saying indecency is if you ask your wife for your eggs sunny side up and she gives them to you scrambled. They wanted to test Jesus to see if He would go against the predominant thinking, teaching, morals, values and behaviors His day.

Jesus did what we should all do, He referred to the scriptures and he took the religious leaders of His day right back to Gen 2:24: Jesus wasn’t going to quote Hillel or Shammai He was going to quote God.

Mat 19:4 "Haven’t you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ’made them male and female,’

Mat 19:5 and said, ’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

Mat 19:6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Marriage is NOT of human origin it was established by God as he established perfect order; in a perfect world it was God who established in that perfection the marital bond between one man and one woman. This was done long before He established the family, the church or the government to regulate people or marriage.

Therefore all men must know that marriage belongs to God.

It was for this purpose that a man and a woman would leave their parents and cleave to one another forsaking all others who might put in jeopardy that which God has put together.

That is why Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders of the day in our verses to make the explicit truth about marriage as God designed it clear to them.

Next Saturday we will be joining and witnessing as Brian and Sarah enter into the covenant relationship of marriage.

Up to this point they have lived their single lives according to God’s will. Both are virgins and undefiled. God will bless them for their obedience.

God’s best will require that their covenant be one of agape love. That is that they will love one another unconditionally until they are separated by death.

They will agree to keep that marital bond and not break it through unfaithfulness, infidelity, physical abuse or desertion. Because those things are as much a part of God’s covenant as marital fidelity.

Abuse breaks the covenant of marriage.

Desertion or abandonment breaks the covenant of marriage.

Withholding sex breaks the marital covenant.

And of course adultery breaks the covenant of marriage.

Brian and Sarah will have one chance to live their married lives the way God has established during the perfection of creation and all of us will be hoping and praying that they do, because one marriage between one man and one woman forever, until death is God’s perfect ideal. It honors and glorifies Him, God created marriage and God loves what He created.

However, into God’s perfect order and through one man sin entered the world. Satan knows that a house divided cannot stand.

Satan knows that to undermine the work of Jesus at the cross, he needs to destroy the marriage, the family and the church.

Because Satan knows that strong marriages make strong families and strong families make churches that reach people for Jesus. Strong churches build a strong nation and Satan will do all he can to lie, steal and destroy THE FAMILY. Because if He destroys the family the witness of the church is destroyed.