Marriage And The Heart

MARRIAGE AND THE HEART

Text: Matthew 5:27 -32

Today’s text presents us with two touchy topics----- lust and divorce. All one has to do is look at the news, newspapers, and internet news outlets and see that there is fodder for discussion about these topics everywhere.

What comes to mind when I mention these … Hugh Heffner, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer? I could go on and on, but you see the point being made.

The Garden of Eden gives us a wonderful lens with which to view lust and divorce. Both of these are forbidden fruits. God created boundaries to protect us. Temptation challenges our faithfulness to stay in bounds. The forbidden fruit is always out of bounds and not in God’s will for our lives because of its destructive power.

What would Jesus say about divorces today? I believe that Jesus would say the same thing about divorces today that He did back then. There were two schools of interpretation when it came to the law. The Hillel school was lenient unlike the other school, the Shammai School which was strict. (Eduard Schweizer. The Good News According To Matthew. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975, p. 123). The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus in a trick question about divorce in Matthew 19:3. It is not hard to guess which school Jesus would have sided with on this issue. In today’s text Matthew 5:27 - 30, Jesus clarified that it is possible for someone to commit both lust and adultery even adultery in the heart. Jesus cuts to the chase and preaches to His audience about the heart, the law and God’s will.

THE HEART

Have you ever noticed Jesus often talks about matters of the heart when He spoke with those who opposed Him?

1) Questions: Again and again, we see Jesus talking with seekers as well as opponents about the heart---the inner person.

2) Opposition: There were those who opposed Jesus because of how His teaching often presented a challenge that rivaled they lived. This was especially true of the Pharisees who seemed to follow the Hillel school of thought where divorce was not thought to be that big of a deal.

ILLUSTRATION: The Hillel school were by far too casual about divorce. According to the Hillel School, a man could divorce his wife if she messed up his dinner, went in public with her head uncovered, if she talked to a man in the streets, if she was a brawling woman, if she spoke disrespectfully of her husband’s parents in his presence, if she was troublesome or quarrelsome.” (William Barclay. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew. Volume 1. Revised Edition, Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1975, 152). 3) Non-disputable answers: Every thing that Jesus taught had been given to Him by God the Heavenly Father as Jesus tells us in John 15:15.

Did Jesus give an unexpected interpretation of the seventh commandment about adultery?

1) Wanderlust: Wanderlust is often defined as a desire to travel and explore. (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/wanderlust). Remember how Jesus interpreted the sixth commandment: “Thou shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) in Matthew 5:21- 26? Jesus was saying that it is possible to be guilty of murder through speech even if one did not actually murder another. We could call it “wanderlust” because of the heart’s impure motives traveling into a zone of forbidden thoughts.

2) Lust that wanders: It seems that Jesus’s interpretation of the seventh commandment must have come as a shock. Why? Jesus mentioned that adultery is something that can happen in thought even if it does not happen in deed it can happen within one’s heart. : “You have heard that is it was said to those of old, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that whosoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

3) Lust of the eyes: Consider I John 2:16 : “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (KJV). Now, tie that to the story of King David and his affair in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. David had wandering eyes (2 Samuel 2:2), a wandering heart (2 Samuel 2:4) that created that he acted upon and had an affair and committed adultery. According to Matthew 5:28 David is guilty of a lustful heart. He also broke the fifth commandment “Thou Shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13) as a result of this affair as he has Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband strategically placed in a battle that caused his death.

Who can escape the deceitfulness of the unguided heart that bites the bait of temptation? There are lyrics to a song by the Carters that says it well: “ The Devil wears hypocrite shoes and if you don’t watch out he’ll slip it on you. …. There's no hiding place down here. Well, I run to the rock just to hide my face, And the rocks cried out, no hiding place There's no hiding place down here.”