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.”
https://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_carter_family/theres_no_hiding_place_down_here.html When the world gives us no place to hide from temptation, we need to cling to Jesus Jesus Christ who is the solid rock where all other ground is sinking sand!
Illustration: In his own words Jimmy Carter once said, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart a number of times. This is something that God recognizes that I will do … and God forgives me for it.” (R. Daniel Watkins. Encyclopedia of Compelling Quotations. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. 2001). Nothing escapes God because He knows the content of our hearts!
THE LAW
God recognizes the hardness of heart in all matters.
1) Gotcha question: If you fast forward to the trick question that the Pharisees threw at Jesus about divorce, then we can see how Jesus speaks about hardness of heart as it pertained to divorce. Matthew 19:9: “He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so”.
2) Divine rebuttal: “Jesus corrects His opponents by pointing out that Moses did not command divorce but permitted divorce … as a concession to the sinful state of affairs resulting in the fall of Adam and Eve for grace.” (Paul J. Achtemeier. New Testsmanet ed. Dougals A. Hare. Interpretation: Matthew. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993, p. 221). We are reminded in Malachi 2:16 that God hates divorce. We have to be reminded again and again that the unguided and unguarded heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9).
Can half-baked devotion equate with holiness? The answer is obviously an emphatic “no”. Half-baked equates with unequally yoked because the two in such a relationship are not equally yoked---spiritually compatible. “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV).
1) Fidelity: Fidelity matters to God. It matters in marriages and it matters in our faithfulness to God in our relationship to God.
2) Rings: and vows: In the marriage service the man and the woman say to each other, “I give you this ring as a sign of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you; in the name of the Father, and of the Son , and of the Holy Spirit”. [Amen]. (The United Methodist Hymnal. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989, p. 868).
3) Baptism: Our Baptism is our wedding ring to God. In our baptism, we renounce sin, claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior, become a member of God’s family through Jesus Christ, and join in our role in the priesthood of all believers to reach those that are lost like sheep without a shepherd.
Are all divorces unlawful except for those based on adultery?
1) Illegitimate: Jesus condemned divorce over trivial matters like what the Hillel school would have casually allowed.
2) Legitimate: Jesus pointed out that legitimate and biblically lawful grounds for divorce were adultery.
3) Hardness of heart:? Adam Clarke in his commentary put it this way , “Moses perceived that if divorce were not permitted, in many cases, the women would be exposed to great hardships through the cruelty of their husbands: for so the word s??????a?d?a, [hardness of heart---(“a heart that is dried up, hard and tough”) Robertson’s Word Pictures] is understood in this place by some learned men. (Adam Clarke’s Commentary). How many of us would interpret, abuse (spouse; child; mental), addiction (pornography, alcohol, drugs and or gambling) and desertion as different ways of describing hardness of heart? Should battered women and children stay in a marriage that could be deadly?
4) Counseling: Counseling should definitely be a part of the equation when a divorce seems likely.
Illustration: A woman when asked why she was seeking a divorce from her husband, said, “When I got married I was looking for the real deal, instead it became an ordeal, so now I want a new deal”. (Tony Evans. Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations. Chicago: Moody Press, 2009, p. 82). There are far too many divorces that have that kind of flavor today.
Have you noticed what Jesus talked about next?
1) Spiritual amputation: Jesus talked about outward behavior and the content of our hearts within: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cats into hell. And if your right cause you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; it is more profitable that one of your members perish, than for whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:29).
2) Application: Jesus was not literally talking about amputation. Jesus was talking about how we are to strive to live a clean life which results in having a clean heart. As John Wesley once said, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Lust in the heart can lead to acting on lust that leads to adultery. The wages of sin are death and flirting with forbidden fruit can be deadly. Jesus is saying that if there are unclean things in our lives that would cause us to sin then we need to remove those things and not flirt temptation’s potential for disaster. God wants us to be holy as He is holy! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
