The Question of Divorce
New Liberty Christian Church, Veedersburg , IN on September 16 2012 Richard T. McQuinn, Pastor
TEXT: MATTHEW 5:31-32
Jesus said, Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a written divorce paper. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife forces her to be guilty of adultery. The only reason for a man to divorce his wife is if she has sexual relations with another man. Anyone who marries that divorced woman is guilty of adultery.
The subject this morning I am sorry to say, touches all of us in one way or another. It has either visited our own homes, our families, our friends, or our neighbors. Every night on the television it is reported to us what movie or rich stars are breaking up and getting a divorce.
I will not be exhaustive on this subject today. Time nor energy will permit that. There is just too much material here for us to be complete. I will however give you the Bibles teaching on this hellish subject. I will seek to be plain, simple and truthful. My aim is not to condemn or to bring guilt on anyone. It is to lay it out in simple terms what the teaching of Jesus was on divorce.
Importantly you need to know at the get-go that God Almighty forgives and restores all bad relationships when repentance is shown and forgiveness is asked.
You well know the story of David and Bathsheba. A short version is that it was a one night stand. It was an affair of the flesh. The lust of the flesh as Jesus says. It progressed to a cover up, a murder, a marriage, the death of a child that was conceived in adultery outside of marriage. Here we are today looking at this history lesson viewing the lives of people in our culture.
When you see David and Bathsheba you see that they did get married. They did have a child between them. That child was Solomon. Solomon was listed in the linage of Jesus. If and when you read Proverbs 31 you will realize that probably Bathsheba was the author and you will see a very beautiful picture of a godly woman in the entire Bible.
The sword never left the family of David. Right away you must see forgiveness, healing and restoration! You see a marriage, a godly husband and a godly wife.
God Almighty specializes in restoring and cleansing. He takes that which has been broken and makes it brand new again. So let’s begin today at square one realizing that the human race is not perfect, but if we all come to Him and seek His will, repenting of our sins and turning away from the ugly stuff of our lives then we are as pure as when we were born in the eyes of God. The only thing we can do about the past is to receive forgiveness.
The only thing we can do about the present is to live it on the basis of a promise. The past forgiven and the future a promise. Today let us all band together and move forward knowing that our walk has to be on Gods Word.
You remember full well ---Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery! Adultery is having sexual relationship with another person who is married to someone else. You go to bed with a married person who is not your mate. The term fornication is used to describe sexual relationship with a person who is not married to anyone. The one night stand. You are to guard your heart on all of this.
You and I have to understand the background of these two short verses of Jesus. The crowd Jesus is speaking to is very quiet as He brings to them a new understanding of getting along with your husband/wife.
The background of this text, historically is from the Roman view of marriage. The Romans had a high view of marriage and the family. The father in each home was supreme. He was THE law in the home. He dictated all of the affaires of the wife and children. That respect would continue as long as the father was living. You did not cross the old man! It does not matter how much prestige the son or daughter had or how rich they had become, they always respected and honored their fathers.
As a result of this belief, in the first 500 years of Roman rule there was not one single shed of evidence that shows even one divorce. Not one! If you have studied history then you know that the Romans conquered the Greeks militarily, but it was the Greeks that conquered the Romans morally.
In the Greek world promiscuity, marriage and divorce were abounding everywhere. Prostitution was an every day occurrence. This was a very immoral society. The Romans could have their prostitutes, their concubines and their wives. This part of history shows that they were marring and divorcing and marring and divorcing every day. It no longer meant anything to be married.
If we turn our attention to the Jewish world of marriage we see some interesting things on the subject. The Jewish folks had the highest understanding of the Bible in the entire known world. They knew the Law of Moses, they knew the writings of the scripture but they began to imitate the Roman view of marriage.
In Moses day they were marrying and giving their wives a page of divorcement. The wife would leave. Someone would marry someone else and then say I don’t like her either and divorce her as well. All of this revolved around the teaching of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (A man might marry a woman but later has found something bad a bout her. He writes out divorce papers for her, gives them to her and sends her away from his house. After she leaves his house, she goes and marries another man, but her second husband does not like her either. So he writes her out divorce papers and gives them to her and sends her away from his house. The woman can not go back to her first husband because she has become unclean. )
Deuteronomy is saying here that if the man does finds something bad about his wife---she isn’t good in bed, she does not satisfy him, she does not look up to him, then he can cast her off if he knows for sure that she had been in another mans bed. The divorce has taken place.
There are two schools of thought here in the Jewish world. The Conservative school of Shamai and the liberal school of Hillel .
If a man should see a woman prettier than his wife, he could go home and write her a certificate of divorce and set her out of the house. If she burned the coffee, if she did not obey his wishes, she could be sent packing. Moses placed restrictions by obliging the one desiring a divorce to give a divorce certificate. This protected the wife against the mere whim of an angry husband. During the time necessary to arrange this written document, reflection might lead to reconciliation. Jesus is teaching that neither husband nor wife has the moral right to dissolve the marriage relationship, except for the single cause of unfaithfulness.
Therefore Hillel school of believers said you can divorce for anything. They were liberal in their thinking. The Conservative school of believers stuck to their guns that marriage was for the life of the two married people unless they were unfaithful to each other.
Now take a guess which school of thought Shamai or Hillel prevail in the days of the Jewish believers. Still the same thinking of today, isn’t it? No fault, no foul, just an easy no feeling divorce.
Lets you and I now look at the Biblical documentation for the absolute reasons you can get a divorce and then get remarried. There are three of them. Listen UP! You are hearing it here.
1. When someone is divorced and remarried prior to becoming a Christian.
I want you to look closely at this from II Corinthians 5:17. (If anyone belongs to Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have gone: everything is made new.) It means that all things have past away and all new things have yet to come. It really means that when a person comes to Christ there is no more past. IT is GONE. We become new creatures, brand spankin’ new. Without spot or blemish. Everything in the past has been forgiven and washed over by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Therefore divorce and remarriage is possible when it all happens before they become a follower of Jesus. Do not spend anymore time on your guilt feelings if this pertains to you. You have no past when it comes to Jesus. Thank God for 2nd chances and forgiveness.
2. Desertion—Look at I Corinthians 7:15 If those who are not believers decide to leave, then let them leave. When this happens, the Christian man or woman is free. God called us to live in peace. This means that if someone who is a Christian is married to someone who is not a Christian and the non Christian leaves permentally--leaves the marriage and moves out, then the Christian has the right to remarry again. This would not be an adulterous relationship.
This word desertion can also mean desertion on many fronts. Chapter 7 spells it out in I Corinthians. It plainly says that you are not the owner of your own body. Your mate is. You do not withhold affections for one another to punish them. You only obtain from material sex union when you both agree and that reason is for prayer and devotion and then you are to reunite. You can not and must not withhold your love from your partner. You are deserting them and the other person a Christian, is free to leave and remarry again.
3. The grounds of adultery. This is the very text that Jesus was speaking about here to these people. Please be mindful here that these are not commands that you should divorce each other because of desertion or adultery. Both of you are to look deep inside each other when these things happen, repent, ask for forgiveness and move on together in the Lord. If you don’t, then you are on the road of disaster. Your marriage will break up. One of the most powerful forces in this world is Forgiveness. When the outside world sees how much you love each other and how much you have forgiven each other they know that your strength comes from the Lord.
Now I have Biblically given to you the three reasons you can get a divorce and remarried under the eyes of God. Oh I know we all have our own suggestions, but this is the Thus Says the Lord.
We say that divorce is no big deal; it is just about me and my feelings. It is my decision. I don’t love you anymore. Well big deal. Get back to where you love each other again. It is a command of the Lord to do so. The world is glorifying the divorce movement. At last we get to do our own thing. Free, free, free at last. I am no longer in the bondage of married life.
In the process of us doing this we have deified ourselves and we have humanized God Almighty. We say to Him, God you stay there, if I need you I will call on you, but right now I have to get a divorce from this man or woman. I will make up my own mind for my life without your set of rules.
If you want your children to be four times susceptible to crime and spending time in jail, then just get a divorce and deprive the child of a two parent family. If you want your children to be much more addicted to drugs and alcohol then simply get your way and get a divorce. If you want your child to lean toward suicide then just get a divorce. If you want them to decline in school then just take a parent away from them. Do you know what it is like not to feel loved and supported. Kick your kids in the teeth and kick them again for good measure. You are meant to stay together as a family under the eyes of God.
Wes Covington has written a book---How to dump your wife. He tells how to horde the money, how to hide the subject that you are going to file for divorce, how to keep your honey girlfriend a secret and how to walk out of the marriage dumping on your wife. He tells you that if you are not happy with your wife just dump her. Sounds like he is from the old school of Hillel doesn’t it? He gives you sample letters to write to your son and daughter telling them that this is going to be good for them in the long run. This is a toxic evil sin concerning the topic of divorce.
USA today reports of Starter Marriages. It is where they spend some beginning years together and if they don’t like each other then they just pack up and leave.
If I were to be asked what the number one threat to America today is, I would not hesitate to holler out. It is not the assassins that want to murder us, but it is satan who wants to destroy the institution of marriage between a man and a woman. It is because we are no longer close as we were. We use to look out after each other, carry each other, and protect each others back. You can bank on these words----every civilization from the beginning of time has gone down the tubes because of morals. Like maggots it just keeps eating away Divorce is an amputation. We cut each other off from our bodies and life and throw them away. You are no longer any good to me. Get out of my sight. Do you remember in the marriage ceremony your preacher said words like---What God has joined together, let no man ever take apart. God has joined your hand with your arm, your arm with your body, your foot with your leg and so forth.
An amputation does not take place when you say that you have an infected fingernail and you go to the doctor and he says that we will have to cut off the entire hand.
You get another doctor pretty fast, don’t you? In the Old Testament in regards to divorce, amputation was only used when you were endangering of losing your life. When the infection from your finger was destroying your entire blood system. You cut it off to save the body, not because you have a hang nail. It has to be a life saving event.
Summing this up, we next have to ask the question of what is marriage really? The first thing we realize is that marriage is a contract. It protects both parties. It is a legal form of protection. A contract marriage is You, Your mate and the State. A contract marriage is the thinking that each other will make each other happy. We will fill in the gaps of each other. We will live happily ever after. Right!
Contract marriages are not working. I can tell you that most all of the secular folks that have degrees in marriage counseling are a waste of time if they are not Christian in their theology. You see if you do not follow the plan of the creator then how can anybody advise you. Both the husband and wife must seek the Lord daily in married life if it is to succeed in today’s world.
A woman by the name of Barbara DeAngelos has written a best seller on marriage. She has an info commercial on TV to sell her books and speaking engagements. She has made lots of money telling folks how great marriage is and what to do in marriage to keep your relationship red hot. The only thing about Barbara you need to know is that she has been married five times already. One of her husbands she was married to was John Gray, and he authored the book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. He has been married at least three times. John and Barbara have a lot to say about marriage, but between them they have a total of eight marriages piled up. I don’t believe I would go to them for guidance on what God has to say about marriage and how to keep it. You remember Ann Landers. Wrote for over 50 years giving advice on marriage. After 36 years of marriage she called it quits and said that they were not longer in love with each other. You see here by example that contract marriages don’t get it.
The piece of paper that you have signed, yes, is legal, and is suppose to protect both of you. If just one person no longer cares or falls madly in love with someone else then there is almost nothing you can do this side of the miracles of God. It is a no fault situation. We have made it awful simple for marriages to break up and go their separate ways.
There is another kind of marriage. First we have to ask the question—what is the essence of marriage. In other words, what is marriage all about? If you tell me that it is love then I have to tell you that isn’t enough. For you see we love different things. For instance I have had some beautiful dogs in my time that I loved very dearly, but you know I never proposed to them at all.
If you tell me that marriage is all about having babies, then I have to tell you that rabbits have that over us 100 times and they don’t stay together.
What is the heart and soul of marriage? Your marriage. The part about what holds the two of you together. What is the glue? It is a word that is super glue called Covenant. It is not a contract----it is a covenant. It is my promise till death do us part. It is made up of you, your partner and God. It is a creator plan of success. God is at the apex of the triangle and you and your partner are the legs. The closer you grow with God, the closer you grow with each other.
Be mindful, that marriage in the scriptures is with a man and a woman. Not two men, not two women, but a godly man and a godly woman dedicated to staying together no matter what.
God made a covenant with the people of Israel and He kept His promise. He is still in the keeping of promises today. Ephesians chapter 5 tells of the covenant between a husband and a wife. They leave their families and become one. It means here that you have left your individual families and united with your partner in a covenant relationship.
The Bible is telling us all that we have to make our partners the number one person in our lives. Number one. You don’t have room, energy to fool around with anybody else that is not your life partner. It is dangerous and deadly. You are to support each other, look after each other, compliment each other, and spend time with each other.
What about marriages where sarcasm is still around, where the partners down grade each other and spit out fault findings? You are not tall enough, you don’t have enough muscles for me, you are over weight, etc. They are telling you that they are not in love with you, or they no longer care what you think. Do you know that you can be the most beautiful person in the world? You can be good, charming, healthy, but if your partner tears you down constantly and tells you how bad you look, that you are ugly, and then all of the world can not go against your partner. You will leave the house thinking that you are ugly and you will act like that. Encourage each other in the Lord.
The word in marriage is the word HALUTE! It is my partner. Sandy, my wife is my Halute. My best friend. One thing about marrying your best friend is that they know you. They know when your are ticked, happy, sad, discouraged and they keep on loving your regardless.
When you marry because of sex appeal, looks, or a romp in the sack, it normally will not last. You are married for the wrong reasons. The beauty will not last and if you have not been looking for inner beauty then you are lost in this relationship. If you walk into a room and there are 6 people of the opposite sex then right away you start eliminating 5 of them. Too tall, too short, too fat, wrong color hair or no hair. You are looking for the wrong reasons.
The Hebrew word Halute is best friends for life, for protection, for safety, for security, for comfort, for satisfaction. So many start out looking for romance and sex and when that is faded away you wound up with nothing instead of looking for a best friend first. One that you have known and are known for several years. Don’t expect the man or woman to look the same in 20 years as they did the first time you met them. If you get married just for looks or body parts, they will let you down.
In marriage you are on safe ground if you look for your Halute. Your covenant friend. If you begin with friendship then it grows to romance. If you marry for the looks and there is no friendship—then----when the sex appeal is gone and there is no friendship you are left with nothing.
Marriage is powerful. It helps determine who you are, what you are and your drives. Your married partnership is the one of the greatest power in the world. And the two shall be made one. One plus One still equals ONE.
AMEN. And AMEN
Contributing stories form sermons by Drs David Jeremiah and Ed Young
