Matthew 5:31-32 "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
Introduction
Jesus says, “If anyone divorces his wife it’s adultery, except…” (and then He goes on to give an exception). And there are enough books and articles written on the question of what that exception is to sink an aircraft carrier. Read any book on the subject, read any commentary on this passage, listen to pretty much any sermon on this text and the great majority of it – if not all of it – will be devoted to exploring what that exception is (or is not), and what other exceptions might there be. What you will not find is very much discussion of Jesus’ main point – that divorce is adultery.
Studying the exceptions and non-exceptions is important. It is a complex study but we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and do it, because we need to know what the Lord wants us to do in all our various marital situations. So we will plan on doing that in the weeks to come – answering questions about if and when divorce or remarriage are permitted, or if you are the innocent party, or if you are the guilty party, if you have blown it but now you have repented, is there a difference between what God permits and what is actually best, etc. But before we get too wrapped up in all of that, it is crucial that we are rock solid on the main point. Otherwise we will probably go astray in our application of whatever we come up with regarding our view on the exceptions. It is more important to know the rule than the exceptions to the rule.
And as controversial as the subject of divorce and remarriage is, there really is not all that much controversy among evangelicals over what the rule is. Generally speaking, divorce is adultery. Jesus made this point from various different angles.
Mark 10:11 Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Matthew 5:32 anyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
So the person who divorces and remarries is guilty of adultery; the person who marries the innocent party commits adultery; and there is even a sense in which the innocent party becomes an adulteress (or adulterer). Divorce is an explosion of sin. And the blast radius starts wide and gets even wider as time goes on.
The Two Sides of Love
Divorce is a sin of unfaithfulness. You make a vow – “Till death do us part” or “as long as we both shall live” – and then you break that vow. That is unfaithfulness.
Remember that in this section Jesus is giving six examples of how the Pharisees’ righteousness was inadequate. He began by showing that their effort to keep the sixth commandment (Thou shalt not murder) fell way short. They thought if they did not kill anyone, they were OK, but Jesus says, “No, if you hate or get angry or call people fools or fail to reconcile broken relationships – you have broken the sixth commandment. All that is in verses 21-26. Then starting in verse 27 Jesus moves to commandment #7 – Thou shalt not commit adultery. Now this section on adultery is fascinating because it is divided into two parts.
There are two ways to commit adultery. Verses 27-30 focus on desire, and verses 31-32 focus on commitment. If you enjoy another woman (or man) in a sexual way in your mind, or you allow your desires to turn toward someone besides your spouse – that is adultery. And if you divorce and remarry, that is adultery.
What this shows us is the two sides of love. You owe your spouse both enjoyment and commitment, because both are part of love. If you have one without the other, it is not true love.
If you are attracted to someone, desire that person, enjoy that person, but you are not committed or devoted, that is not love. Where there is real love, commitment and devotion take over where desire and delight leave off. You love your children. You have a baby, and you enjoy holding her, you love seeing her smile, you hold her and kiss her – not out of discipline, but out of desire. You genuinely enjoy her. But in the middle of the night, when you just finally dropped off to sleep, and she is suddenly screaming for no apparent reason – that is where desire leaves off and devotion takes over. You get out of bed, not because your desire to be with her is pushing you out of bed, but because your commitment to her wellbeing is pulling you out of bed.
When you have to be told by Jesus not to divorce your spouse, then you are in one of those moments when desire for your spouse has left off, and it is a matter of being devoted. Obviously the desire and enjoyment part of love is lacking or you wouldn’t be thinking about divorce. And in times like that, true love will not bail out just because it is not enjoyable anymore because your devotion to your spouse will take over where your desire has left off.
On the other hand, if all you have is devotion and no desire – that is not love either. If you are committed to never divorce, to always do what is best for your spouse, to always serve, keep hanging in there until death – but it is nothing but a drudgery; that is not love. If you are one hundred percent devoted to your spouse, but it is more burdensome than delightful and enjoyable, then you do not love your spouse. The reason that look of desire is wrong to give to another woman is because you owe it to your spouse. So desire and enjoyment on the one hand and devotion on the other hand are the two sides of the coin of love, and if one of them is missing – you are unfaithful to your spouse and it is adultery.
So if the feelings are long gone in your marriage, it does not mean the relationship is dead; but it does mean it is on life support. Commitment and devotion can keep you together temporarily – from now until the desire and delight are resuscitated. But a marriage cannot survive indefinitely on commitment alone, because very soon it will become obvious to your spouse that you do not like them and that being with them is burdensome to you. And that will make it next to impossible for them to love you. So do not ever think that commitment alone is enough. But do use commitment to keep acting the way you should from now until the rest of your love is restored. And when it is restored – that is when the joy will come.
So love requires both desire and commitment. Looking at another woman is unfaithfulness in desire, and divorce is unfaithfulness of commitment.
The Rule
Calling it adultery means the divorce didn’t take
The literal definition of adultery is when you are married to one person and sleep with someone else (or you are the “someone else”). So by calling remarriage adultery Jesus’ point is that you are still married to the person you thought you divorced. That is a radical statement, because divorce is the right to remarry. That is what the word “divorce” means. In Genesis 24 the law required that if a man sent his wife away he had to give her a bill of divorce. Many ancient writers referred to bills of divorce, and so we know what they said. And there were a number of different forms, but the one thing they all had in common – and the one thing that made them a valid bill of divorce, was the statement, “You are now free to marry any man.” That statement was what made a divorce a divorce. It was cruel for men to send their wives away without giving them a bill of divorce, because then the woman was left without anyone to care for her. So out of concern for those women the law of God required that if a man sent his wife away he had to divorce her, which meant he had to give her the right to remarry.
So when Jesus calls the remarriage adultery, what He is saying is the divorce did not work. The first marriage has not actually ended and there is no right to remarry. So there is no actual divorce. I recently saw a scene in a movie where someone asked the main character if he had ever been married.
He said, “Yeah, I was.”
“What happened?”
“It didn’t take.”
He got divorced because his marriage “didn’t take.” What Jesus is saying here is, “You are wrong – the marriage took just fine. What did not take was the divorce.” Any divorce that is not on Biblical grounds does not take. It does not work. The couple is still married. They still owe faithfulness to each other, so that if they get involved with someone else, it is adultery – just like it would be if they got involved with someone else prior to the divorce.
There is a sense in which it did take
That is the force of what Jesus is saying, and if you think it sounds extreme – you are right. But how far should we take that? If you get a sinful divorce, are you still married in every sense? Does your spouse’s body still belong to you? Would it be OK if you showed up a couple years later and slept together? What about if you get married to someone else – are you married to two people now? Or is that second marriage not a real marriage – just an affair?
I don’t think Jesus meant for us to take it that far.
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord)…
(So Paul is explaining to us what Jesus meant.)
10 A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.
If you get a sinful divorce, are you still married? Or are you unmarried? According to Paul, the person who gets a sinful divorce is unmarried.
What about if you get a sinful divorce, then marry someone else? Is that second marriage invalid? Is it essentially the same thing as just having a live-in boyfriend? No. When Jesus spoke with the woman at the well, He said:
John 4:18 you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
She had six partners – five she married and one she did not, and Jesus makes a distinction between the five and the one. He does not say, “The divorces were invalid therefore everyone after husband #1 was just a live-in boyfriend.” All five marriages were valid enough for Jesus to call those men “husbands,” and that last guy was not a husband even though they were living together.
So are sinful divorces valid or not? 1 Corinthians 7 and John 4 make it sound like the divorce really does end the marriage and makes you a single, unmarried person. But Jesus’ words in this text make it sound like the divorce does not end the marriage and you are still married to the person so that remarriage is adultery. How do we reconcile that?
Jesus’ rhetoric
I think the way to reconcile it is by understanding the type of rhetoric Jesus is using in Matthew 5. He is making an extreme statement, stated in the most extreme way for the purpose of jarring our attention and sensibilities. He wants to rattle us and get our attention off the exceptions and onto the main point. So even though there are qualifications to what He is saying, He does not mention those qualifications because He does not want the focus to be on those.
Jesus often spoke this way. Just go back to verse 22. Jesus said do not ever call someone a fool or you will go to hell – that is a general principle. Are there some qualifications? Some exceptions to the general rule? Yes. If we turn it into an absolute policy with no exceptions or qualifications then Jesus would be wrong when He called the Pharisees fools.
After divorce comes the section on oaths. Jesus says we are not to use oaths, and yet we find numerous oaths scattered throughout the New Testament. After that Jesus says not to resist an evil person. Is that an absolute – there is no sense in which we are ever to offer any resistance to an evil person? Of course not. Other passages use that same word and tell us to resist evil (Jas.4:7, 1 Pe.5:9, Gal.2:11). Jesus says to give to the one who asks of you. Did He mean that in an unqualified way? You are never allowed to say no? Your child asks if he can go to Disneyland every Saturday and you have to say yes because Jesus said to give to anyone who asks of you?
Mark 8:11-13 The Pharisees …asked him for a sign from heaven. 12 He sighed deeply and said, "Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it."
In Matthew’s account of the same event we read:
Matthew 12:38-40 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." 39 He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Matthew 16:5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.
Mark 8:14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf
Luke 14:12 "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives…”
How’s that for a strict policy? If we handled that verse the same way we tend to handle the verse about divorce, my whole family would be put out of the church because we are constantly getting together for meals, and everyone in the family is always invited. Are we in sin? Or did Jesus mean for His words to be qualified according to the context of the point He was making?
Language is a rich and complex thing. You do not interpret someone’s meaning just by looking up each word in the dictionary. Interpretation is a matter of discerning what the speaker meant. And if the speaker meant something as a general principle, we would be twisting His words if we try to make His statement into an absolute, unqualified policy.
Unmarried, yet still bound in that you must reconcile
So in this case, Jesus’ statement is very brief. Jesus gives us a general principle, but in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul provides an extended, detailed discussion of the particulars. So if we want to understand the particulars, we go to 1 Corinthians 7. Let’s see if Paul tells us exactly in what sense are you still bound to the person you divorced, and in what sense is the marriage really ended?
1 Corinthians 7:11 But if she does (divorce), she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.
So in what sense did the divorce work? She is considered unmarried. In that sense the union really is broken.
In what sense is she still bound to her husband? Are they husband and wife in every way? No – they are unmarried. However they are still bound together in the sense that God requires them to get back together rather than marry anyone else. If they do go ahead and marry someone else, Jesus says, “That is adultery.”
Does that mean the second marriage is invalid in God’s eyes? No – it is valid.
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce … 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce … or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again
She is free to remarry any man she wants except her original husband. Once there is a second marriage, the first marriage is dissolved completely. If you got an invalid divorce and you committed adultery by remarrying, does that mean you are living in constant adultery every day? No. Once you get remarried, the first marriage is completely severed.
The Reason
The Pain of a Hard Marriage
So, what is the rule? Divorce is adultery. Whatever exceptions there may be, they are exceptions and not the rule. The rule is divorce is wrong. And if that is the rule and not the exception, then it applies to most divorces and remarriages. If most divorces and remarriages were OK, and just some were wrong, then we would say the rule is that divorce and remarriage are permitted, and the sinful ones are the exceptions. But it is the other way around – most divorces are sinful.
The typical divorce is adultery. And what is the typical divorce? I used to assume that most people got divorced because they were interested in someone else. And certainly that would be adulterous to divorce for that reason. But the more I have been around people getting or contemplating divorces the more I am realizing that most people who want a divorce are not involved with someone else – they just cannot stand the marriage any longer. The suffering is to a point where it is just unbearable.
And when that happens it is usually not too hard to convince yourself and all your friends that you are perfectly justified in leaving. I mean – no one should have to go through what you are going through. And from there we rationalize all kinds of things:
• It was wrong for us to get married in the first place.
• What he is doing to me is abusive.
• God does not want me to be miserable.
• This is harmful to the children, etc.
I do not know if there is anything in life more painful than a hard marriage. It is just relentless suffering. When you are at odds with your spouse all the time it hurts you all day long every day, and it can get to where it seems absolutely unbearable.
Why does God forbid divorce for pain?
If you are counseling someone in that position, what do you say? Is our message for those folks to say, “It doesn’t matter how much you are suffering. What matters is that you don’t break the rules about marriage.”?
Why does God forbid divorce in a case like that? You are miserable, she is miserable, the kids are miserable, everyone around you is miserable, you just do not work together as husband and wife; you do not love her, she does not love you; and you both feel like if you just wished each other the best and went your separate ways you would both be so much happier – but you can’t because God said no divorce. Why? Why won’t God let you just divorce? Everyone would be so much better off.
God’s Way is Best
Or would they? I can assure you – if everyone would be better off if you divorced, God would let you divorce. If it were the best thing for you God would not only allow it; He would command it. God always does what is best. God does not enforce rules that are in no one’s best interest just because they are the rules. We all know what it is like to deal with some mindless bureaucrat who cannot make an exception to a rule that is clearly in everyone’s best interests just because he cares more about regulations than about people. God is not like that. God never, ever does anything that is not best.
Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong
When God says you cannot have something that you want it is always because what you are asking for is poison – no exceptions.
Our Way is Not
No matter how right your ways seems, or how wrong God’s way seems – there is never a time when your way is better than God’s way. Did you know it is possible for God to know something we do not know? Nothing could be more self-evident, and yet we so often continue in the delusion that if I cannot see what is good about God’s way then it cannot be good. And if I cannot see anything wrong with my way, then there is no way it could be bad.
What insanity that is! If God is infinitely wise and we are not, then of course there are going to be times when our puny, limited, infinitesimal, little pea-brains will think something is best that really is not best – especially given the fact that we not only have limited intellect but we also have sinful hearts and messed up affections. If it is true that God is perfect and infinite and we are not, then we would fully expect that there would be times when we would say, “I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams how this thing God is doing or requiring could possibly be best” and it is still best.
Psalm 19:7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
You can trust His laws never to lead the wrong way.
So if God tells you do not divorce, or do not remarry – that is best – period. You would not be better off divorced. Staying married is best for you, it is best for everyone else, and it is best for God’s kingdom.
Five reasons why divorce is evil
Divorce is like every other sin – it masquerades as something good when in reality it is only bad. And in the encounter with the Pharisees in Matthew 19 Jesus peals back the façade and exposes the ugliness and evil of divorce. In that text Jesus shows us several reasons why divorce is so evil.
REASON #1
Matthew 19:3-5 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?" 4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 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'?
When God created the ideal marriage in the Garden of Eden, there was one man and one woman – no spares. It was just Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve… and Ethel just in case. For Adam and Eve divorce was not advisable. You divorce your wife in the Garden of Eden and life can get very lonely. The obvious intention was for a permanent union between the same two people.
And Jesus is saying, “That is the model for your marriage.” When you get married you are checking in to the Garden of Eden. As far as your heart is concerned, your wife is the only woman in the world. Your husband is the only man on earth.
REASON #2
Matthew 19:5 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife
The number one relationship in your life from the time you are born – the parent-child relationship, is temporary. There comes a time when you leave father and mother. But there is no verse that says, “And for this reason a man will leave his wife and be united to…” God designed marriage to be a permanent, life-long union.
And that permanence is a crucial part of what makes marital love work. Divorce is not only a cruel thing to do; it is a cruel thing to even consider. You inflict a great deal of harm and damage on your spouse just by holding out the threat of divorce. That threat destroys marital love. God designed the marriage relationship to flourish in its security. It is supposed to reflect the relationship God has with His people, and God has gone out of His way in Scripture to show us how secure that relationship is. If there is a possibility that you might someday call it quits, that has a devastating effect on your spouse’s ability to enjoy marital love in the way God designed.
REASON #3 – One Flesh
Matthew 19:5 …and the two will become one flesh' 6 So they are no longer two, but one.
The stronger the bond uniting two things, the more damage that results from tearing them apart. And there is no greater bond than one flesh. What if you found out your body was planning on getting a divorce? That would be bad news. It would be a mess, because your body is not two parts fastened together at a seam. If your body got a divorce and divided in two, it would be a horror movie. That is what splitting up a marriage is like.
And it is ironic because the whole reason people get divorces is to relieve suffering or to be happy. You do not have to be very observant to realize divorce does not do either one of those.
We all know about God’s famous statement in Malachi 2:16, “I hate divorce.” God is not the only one who has said that. I think just about everyone who has ever gone through a divorce has said that. When was the last time someone told you she just went through a divorce and you ask how it went and she says, “Oh, it was a blast!” I loved every minute of it! I’m so happy now. I’m so fulfilled, so full of joy…”? Nobody says that. I got my haircut last week and overheard a conversation next to me. The guy mentioned that he is getting divorced and the gal cutting his hair did not ask how he liked it. She just said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Divorce promises relief from misery but it does not deliver.
All it does is multiply misery. I have counseled people who are suicidal because of their anger over what they went through as young children when their parents were divorced. People get divorced because they want to be happy; but it does not make people happy. It rips apart what is not supposed to be ripped apart and causes incalculable suffering for the children and other family members and especially your spouse.
Divorce is one of the cruelest things you can do to a human being. If a stranger rejects me, so what? But if the person who knows me best rejects me, that hurts me in ways no one else can hurt me. If someone in business makes you a promise and then breaks it, that might cost you some money. You lose whatever you risked by trusting that promise. But think of what your spouse risked on the promise you made on your wedding day. They gave up their singleness, gave you their youth, gave you their body – their whole life. They risked all that on the confidence that you would be faithful to your promise. By marrying your spouse you took something from them that can never be given back.
REASON #4
Matthew 19:6 …Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
Divorce is bad because it is man undoing what God has done. Why would you do that? How can you defend undoing God’s work? We would not delete words from Scripture. We would not give Goliath victory over David. We would not try to sink Noah’s Ark. We would not try to unmake the creation. Why would we ever want to do violence to the work of God?
The Sanctity of God
Divorce is to marriage what abortion is to pregnancy. Divorce is a marriage abortion. And it is wrong for the same reason abortion is wrong. And that is not because of the sanctity of life, by the way. The reason abortion is evil is not because of the sanctity of human life. Human life is not, in and of itself, holy. If a human being dies that is not a moral evil if nobody breaks a command of God (for example if the person dies of natural causes). The reason abortion is evil is because God has commanded that we not kill innocent human beings. It is evil because it is disobedience to God. The reason we ought not to kill our children is not because of the sanctity of life; it is because of the sanctity of God.
God has given us the prerogative of choosing to bring about a human life. A man and wife can decide to conceive a child whenever they want. We are free to make that decision; but we are not free to decide to end that life. And it is the same with marriage. God lets us decide if we want to get married or not. That is up to us. However He lets us know that starting a marriage is like starting a human life – you can decide if you want to bring it into existence, but once it exists it is not your prerogative to destroy it.
If you have a child, and it turns out that child is a lot of trouble to raise – the child hits his teen years and you discover that he is creating a lot of hardship and pain in your life, you don’t say, “Well, my only choice is to kill him.” You don’t say, “I know God wants me to be happy. I know God would not want me to go through life miserable, therefore my only option is to kill my child.” We do not have thoughts like that because we understand that ending someone’s life is not our prerogative. And neither is ending a marriage.
Reason #5
One final insight we can gain about marriage comes from the word joined in verse 6. It literally means “yoked.” Of all the illustrations and word pictures Jesus could have used to describe the way God joins us in marriage, He chooses a word picture in which oxen are joined together with a yoke.
The purpose of a yoke is to enable two animals to work together as one at a common task that neither could do by itself. (In fact, I read this week that two oxen joined together can pull more weight than the combined weight that they could each pull separately. So if each one can pull five hundred pounds, together they can pull more than one thousand pounds.)
The unity of marriage is a joining together, done by God, for the purpose of enabling the man and woman to work together at a common task. Marriage is not just for companionship. God has given you a task – over one thousand pounds to pull, and to do that you need your spouse. If you break free of the yoke, how are you going to complete the task God has given you?
The Refuge
What about the pain?
So, divorce is evil, it is damaging, it is cruel, it is destructive, and it is forbidden by God. It is not the solution to our marriage problems. And for many people that is devastating news because it seems like if divorce is not the solution, then there is no solution. I can imagine someone who is in a hard marriage or who has gotten a sinful divorce might be listening to this sermon and feeling despair and hopelessness. Either that or anger. Or maybe resistance – you find yourself trying to find loopholes or exceptions or flaws in my reasoning or something that would make what I am saying not true. Divorce or remarriage seems like your only hope for happiness, and if you cannot have that, you think, So I’m just doomed to a miserable life?
No. Divorce is not the solution, but there is a solution to the agony of a hard marriage. There is a solution to any kind of agony. No matter what is causing your suffering – whether it be a hard marriage, or a physical problem, or an emotional problem, or consequences of bad decisions, or various disappointments, or whatever – there is a solution to the pain of any suffering.
The solution is not relief
The solution to our suffering is a wonderful and satisfying solution, but it is a solution that is hard for people to accept because it does not always involve relief from the suffering. Relief from suffering is not all it is cracked up to be. Very often we are just as miserable after we get relief as we were while we were suffering. We think the solution is for the pain to come to an end, but bringing pain to an end is not the source of joy. You can bring the pain to an end, get out of the marriage, marry that other person you think will be so much better – get rid of everything that is causing all your distress – you can do all that and still be just as depressed and unhappy and miserable as ever.
Experience God as Refuge
The solution to the pain is to find refuge in God. Someday in heaven you will have one hundred percent relief from all your suffering. But until then our hope is not in relief – it is in God as our refuge. The word “refuge” implies the trouble is still ongoing.
Psalm 57:1 I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.
A refuge gives you a place of rest in the midst of the trouble. And twenty-five times in the book of Psalms God is called our Refuge.
The last two weeks we talked about the joy and satisfaction of soul that comes from fellowship with God. That joy is more satisfying than the pleasure of sin. Having joy and contentment and ability to enjoy good things while forgoing some earthly pleasure is more satisfying right now than having that pleasure but no joy, encouragement, strength, etc. Or if you want it in a simple statement – wouldn’t you rather be in a good mood and forgo the pleasure of sin than be depressed and have that pleasure?
That same joy and satisfaction is also our hope in times of suffering. You can have the happiness you crave – not by eliminating the source of your suffering, but by experiencing God as a refuge in the midst of your suffering. But to do that you have to give up every other earthly refuge.
Psalm 118:8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.
You can do one or the other. You can look to God as your refuge or you can look to some human solution – like divorce. Or an affair. Or some distraction. But as long as we are looking to earthly things for refuge we will never experience God as our refuge. The only way to experience God as our refuge is to abandon all other refuges and take refuge in God.
You do that when you say, “OK God, I believe that I do not need anything besides the experience of Your presence to be happy. If nothing else changes, but I experience Your nearness and favor, I will be happy” (and you really believe that). But as long as we are leaning on or longing for or putting our hope in some earthly remedy, and we think that is our only ticket to happiness, we are not taking refuge in God.
But when we do take refuge in God alone, two things happen. First, God gives you what you need to handle the suffering. The trouble might still be going on, but He trains you how to handle the trouble.
Psalm 144:1-2 Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. 2 He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge
He gives you rest, strength, renewal, courage, joy, peace, happiness, contentment, fulfillment, and satisfaction; and then He shows you how to deal with the problem. He enables you to make right decisions and to fulfill His will and His calling in your hard marriage.
That is one thing that will happen when you take refuge in God. The other benefit is we receive the grace we need to have joy even in the midst of the pain.
Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
So when you experience God as refuge you get rest. You will find that instead of being so troubled and worried and upset and anxious and agitated and aggravated, your soul is at rest, and there is peace on the inside. We all know the difference between having pain that you can handle just fine and having pain that puts you in a panic. The difference is peace and rest that comes from experiencing God as our refuge.
2 I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." … 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.
Those threats are still out there, but the fear is gone. People in a hard marriage are afraid of all kinds of things. What if my spouse leaves me? What if I lose my kids? What if my spouse does not leave and I have to suffer the rest of my life? What if things get worse? What if I am never happy again? And fear just takes over. But when you experience God as your refuge that fear just melts away.
But that is not all. It is not just a lack of fear and worry and anxiety – it is the presence of joy and fullness and satisfaction.
Psalm 36:7-8 How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.
When you find refuge in God it is similar to sitting down and pigging out at some huge feast. It is like drinking from a river of delights.
The happiness that you want is not out of reach. And it does not come through divorce. In fact, as long as you are disobeying God it does not come at all. We cannot take refuge in God while you are disobeying God and trying to take refuge in our own solution. But if you trust Him and follow His way then the way is opened for you to take refuge in Him and feast on the abundance of His house and drink your fill from the river of His delights.
And please do not think of this as taking refuge from your spouse. Taking refuge in God is not a retreat from your spouse – just the opposite. You can only take refuge in God when you are walking with Him in His way, and His way is the way of love – especially love for your spouse. Strive to experience the nearness of God’s presence through loving your spouse as an expression of your love for God. Express your devotion and delight in God through devotion and delight in your spouse so that you are fulfilling both the greatest and the second commandments, and you will have the joy your soul craves.
Remember – Adam’s delight in Eve came from his love for her, not her love for him. Your feelings for your spouse will return not when your spouse starts loving you better, but when you learn to delight in your spouse. And if you want more detail on how to do that, we covered that extensively in the Building a Joyful Marriage series, which is available on FoodForYourSoul.net.
Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26 The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."
