What’s In A Vow
9/29/96 Eccl. 5:1-8 Matthew 19:1-12
What’s in a vow. There’s a V in a vow and it indicates that victory is possible when the vow is kept. There’s an O in a vow and it indicates that opportunities for many things to happen, some good, some not so good, and some bad. There’s a W in a vow and it indicates Work is going to be required to make the vow stand the test of time.
We serve a loving, compassionate and forgiving God who makes vows to us with the intent of keeping his end of the deal. He said, Lo I will be with you always, even until the end of time. His word tells us that his mercy endures forever. It says when we confess our sin, He removes it from His presence, as far as the east is from the west. It tells us nothing can seperate us from His love which is found in His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus himself says, "come to me all of you with heavy burdens and I will give you rest.
The Scriptures make it plain and clear that God’s arms are open to anyone who comes to Him in repentence and asks for forgiveness of their sins. God has made a vow to us, "if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But we must always remember, the cost of forgiveness did not come cheap. God’s grace was not cheap or free. It cost the death of Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross, he didn’t die with the message , go ahead and sin as you please, my blood will cover whatever you do. When we willfully disobey God after becoming Christians, the Scriptures state in Hebrews that we are stomping on Jesus, treating his blood as unholy, and insulting the spirit of Grace.
Can you imagine what dire predicament we would be in if God had not made a vow to be with us always. Can’t we all confess, we have done things which would provide Jesus with ample evidence against us to get up and walk away. The amazing thing is not that we have stayed with Jesus all these months and years, but that He has stayed with us. Very few if any people could walk close beside us if they knew us as intimately as Jesus did. That speaks more highly of the vow Jesus has made to us, than the one we made to Him. Our God is a compassionate God.
God wants us to be as compassionate toward others in our vows, as we want him to be to us. One of the greatest attacks on the vows we make today is on the vows of marriage. One of the most difficult topics to speak on in the church today is divorce. The reason is, there is no good time to teach on it. Within the church, at any given moment someone is going through or coming out of a divorce.
We are all affected by the society in which we live. Our society has instilled with us the belief that we all have the right to live happy, wonderful, and fun filled lives. That which hinders our joy, should be removed so that we might become self-fulfilled persons. The same mentality has become part of the church’s theology. God does not want you to be sad, ever. He wants you to be enjoy life. We interpret Jesus’s words of abudant lives to mean, abunance in things, abundance in pleasure, and an abundance of having things go my way.
Yet if one looks at Jesus’s life, we some material things, but not a whole lot. We see him having some fun, but there’s some persecution, betrayal and lonlieness. We see some things going the way He wanted, but there was some time spent in great pain and agony up there on the cross and there was that moment in time in which He was completely seperated from God the Father, when He cried out something we never will have to, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me."
The world has told us there is such a thing as a no fault divorce. Well what is there to have caused the tremendous amount of pain that goes on in the lives of the people which led up to the no fault divorce. No fault means, because it wasn’t my fault or your fault, we simply split things evenly and walk away. We appluad this new enlightened way of thinking as progress. What we don’t see is the great injustice involved.
One person may have been committed to making this relationship work, has endured years of abuse, and now this other person has found someone new. Completely breaking his or her vows can he or she come into the court with clean hands and say I only want my 50% share. We give more recognition to contracts between businesses than we do the contract of marriage. If a business promises to deliver a million gallons of oil at $1 a barrell and the contract is signed. If the price of oil goes up to $5 a barrell, the person selling can’t say, oh I changed my mind. I’m going to sell my oil to someone else for $5 a barrel. If he does, the original buyer will be able to sue him and get $5 million for breach of contract.
The word of God is united on the position of divorce. God says in Malachi, I hate divorce. Some people have misunderstood that to mean, I hate divorced people. God didn’t say , That he said I hate divorce. God’s commandment in Malachi was to "guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth." Today the Spritit of God is one of the few voices in society which says its important for you to keep your marriage vows." The consequences of failing to do so are enormous in terms of human pain and suffering.
Most people want to get married in a church or church setting because they know inside, God created this thing called marriage. Many weddings start off, in the presence of God and these witnesses. In our Old Testament reading, it said do not be quick to come into the presence of God to make a vow, especially a vow you will not be keeping. It would be better for you not to make a vow, than to make it and not keep it.
Divorce came into being under the time of Moses. Jesus makes it clear that it did not come about because of God’s change in what marriage should be about, but because of the hardness of the people’s hearts. God saw the tremendous amount of pain and suffering some of the men of the time were heaping upon the women and he allowed divorce, not to please the men, but to be merciful to the women. At that time a woman could not get a divorce, she could only leave.
There’s a verse in Dueteronomy 24 which says If a man marries a woman and he becomes displeased with her beccause he finds something indecent in her and he writes her a certificate of divorce. Some took this verse as God’s approval on divorce and came up with a no-fault definition. One school of teachers said a husband could divorce his wife for any reason that he became displeased with her, even if she burned the evening meal once to often. All that was involved was a man declaring publicly I divorce you, and giving her a crtificate to that affect. God hated this practice because it left many women as prostitutes to support themselves.
The other school insisted the only reason for divorce would be if the wife was sexually immoral. In the passage of the New Testament, the side which wanted a very loose interpretation of divorce and the marriage vows came to Jesus to try to get him on their side. They asked, "isn’t it lawful for a man to to divorce his wife for any and every reason."
Now today we would paraphrase and say isn’t it okay for a man or woman to get a divorce for any reason which might cause them to be unhappy with each other. What would happy if we changed the vows to reflect what really happens. John do you agree to take Mary as your wife and be faithful to her in marriage. Sure as long as I’m not tempted by any other woman. Mary do you agree to take John as your husband. Sure, as long as he understands be in the way I need to be understood. Well John do you promise to give her first place in your life. Yes, but not on Sundays during the games, or Fridays when I run with the boys, and not on days when I just have to have time to myself from trying to work two jobs. Well Mary are you going to accept him as he is. Yes, but I’m not putting up with his family, I’m not going to have him trying to change me, and I’m not interested in dealing with his friends. John will you be honest and open with Mary. Yes, as long as she doesn’t ask about how much money I make, how I spend it or where I spend my time. Mary will you forgive John when he hurts you. Yes, after I think he has suffered enough and I reserve the right to remind him of the last time he hurt me.
Dearly Beloved you have heard the vows with exceptions and stipulations proclaimed by Mary and John, I hereby proncounce them husband and wife for as long as neither of the two violate any of the expressed execeptions and stipulations. Now you all know those vows lack the commitment to victory, to opportunity and to work to make the marriage a success.
Jesus didn’t look at marriage at what it looks like at the end, but at the view of what it should be from the beginning. He told the Pharisees, "Look God created men and women, they are to leave all else behind, faithfully cling to each other for life." Jesus considered the process of becoming one so intimate and binding that the only reason he gave for divorce was if one partner violated the oneness in the relationship by brining in a third party and committing adultery.
Now Jesus was talking to other Jews who shared the same faith. When he said adultery was the only reason for divorce, even the disciples were shocked. "What are you saying Jesus. If the only reason I can have to give my wife a divorce is she has to commit adultery, it might be better not to ever get married." I want you to notice, they saw marriage as a tool for their own happiness, not as a commandment to become one with this other person in which the goal is to help the other person reach his or her full potential through mutual service and submission to each other.
Why Jesus before I listen to a woman’s views as equal to my own, I’d rather not marry her in the first place. Jesus took such a strong view against divorce to protect both parties. If they realized they were to be in this relationship for life, and sought to love God in the midst of it, they would have to love each other in the process. This is why it is so important for Christians to marry Christians who are already demonstrating a submission to God in their lives.
When you look at a topic in Scripture you have to look at Scriptures in its entire context. Now some people have read this verse on divorce and said it was the only basis for divorce. That’s not accurate because the Bible speaks of divorce in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. It deals with situations which are more like ours in which one person is saved, the other is not, or one person leaves and the other wants him or her to stay, or two Christians who are having a rough time of making it.
Now what you did before you got saved does not have any bearing on who you are in Christ today. So if you were divorced before you were saved, its the same as having not been married because you became a new creature in Christ. If you are married and then get saved, but your spouse is not saved, you’re still married and bound by the vows which you took so even though you became a new creature in Christ, it did not wipe out your previous standing. As long as you are married, you are married as far as the lifestyle got requires of you. A vow is a vow whether you’re separated or not. Therefore a Christian who is married is not free to date someone else because he or she is currently separated.-
In I Corinthians 7:10 it says 10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. Now the reason Paul uses the word separate for the woman and divorce for the man is that during that time, a man could divorce his wife, but she could only leave her husband. A woman didn’t have authority to get a divorce.
Paul is speaking here to two people who claim to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Paul says listen, if both of you have Christ in your lives you ought to be able to submit to each other and get along. There’s no such thing as irreconcilable differences between Christians. There is such thing as being stubborn, hardheaded, and unwilling to change as Christians. The devil can get into all of us at times. What do you do when you allow the devil to get inside of you. I remember one time about 10 years ago, when my wife said, "Rick I don’t know if we’re going to make it." We had a choice. We could either change or convice ourselves that each was right and the other was wrong.
The word of God says, if two Christians won’t get along, they are free to separate from each other but if they chose that path they are are to remain unmarried. Somebody will say what, what about their sexual drives. This is not realistic. You see God has a higher value in mind. The goal of two Christians is not thank you Lord, now I can get me somebody else. The goal is to each work on him or herself so that eventually they can be reconciled to each other.
There is no problem two Christians cannot work out at the feet of Jesus Christ if both are willing to make sacrifices. The only time you have an irreconcilable difference is when one person refuses to honor the vows he or she has made in the marriage. If I am truly putting the needs of the other person ahead of my own, how can that person have an irreconciliable difference with me. Paul says the issue here is not some issue, its a matter of mutual submission.
Now what’s the case when a person gets saved but the other person isn’t saved. One wants to serve the Lord and the other one doesn’t. The Bible does not teach, either get them saved or kick them out of your life. Look at verse12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.
Paul is saying, your marriage is holy to the Lord even if you’re married to an unbeliever. God expects you to serve your husband or wife with same amount of energy as if the person was saved. The key is, is the person willing to live with you as a husband or a wife. No Christian has the right to divorce a spouse simply because he or she is not a Christian, so long as the person is saying I want to be a part of your life and I will continue to be a good husband or good wife to you. There are people who are not saved that are still good husbands and wives. Although the word of God condemns marrying a person who is not a Christian if you are, nowhere does it take side against someone whose spouse is not saved.
Now if the person is beating you upside the head, verbally or sexually abusing you or your children, threatening to take your life, or destroying you as a person, that person is not willing to live with you.
But things such as, we don’t share common financial goals, or he or she isn’t spending enough time with me, or he or she is not at my educational level, or I don’t think I love her or him like I use to or we got married young, or I’ve just got an itch for a change, or she doesn’t listen to me, or I think I married the wrong person, or I think God has somebody else for me, or I’m tired of cleaning up after him, of she just talks too much.
None of these are legitimate reasons for Christians to end up in the divorce court. The fact you have problems in your marriage is nothing more than the Scriptures are true. The bible says think twice before getting married, because every marriage is going to have its share of problems. It’s not the amount of love in a relationship that determines its success or failure. It’s how serious do both people take the vows they made before God. In each of the reasons I’ve cited, at the core of it is one’s own selfishness in the belief, this other person is to make me happy on my terms of happiness. We claim to take this person for better or for worse, and the moment the worse part gets here, we’re ready to get rid of him or her. It’s not that we need a new partner. It’s that we need Jesus to get a hold of our hearts, and mold us back into submission to His will. When you come to God complaining about these things, God is going to say do the same thing I would do, show him or her how much you love him or her.
Now what does a Christian do when the other person has shown, I am not willing to live with you, I will do everything I can to make you suffer, and I am leaving you. Don’t you know God knows how much your heart is in pain when you want your marriage to work and the other person doesn’t. I want you to notice, that God gives you more than one option. You can pray, Lord I’m going to wait and see if you change this other person. There are testimonies of person praying for monts and for years for their spouse and the person finally came to the Lord and back to them. That’s fine if that’s the decision you want to make, but recognize as God does that there are many testimonies of the other person never coming back to them or to the Lord. God does give you another option if you choose to use it.
He says in verse 15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Our God is merciful. Notice here the situation is that of a believer and an unbeliever. Simply because a person says I’m a Christian doesn’t make them a Christian. The apsostle Paul says anyone who does not provide for his immediate family, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
The word of God says when the unbeliever leaves, the believer i not longer bound in such circumstances. You don’t go searching after the person, nor does your marital state have to depend on how they feel about you. Get up and go on with your life in peace.
As Christians, God has called us to take our vows seriously. Chances are, we will not be anymore serious in the vows we make to one another than we are in the vows we make to God. If you promised God you would do such and such, if God healed you, or blessed you, or helped you to do this or that, and yet you find yourself breaking this vow, there’s a good chance you’re breaking other vows in your life. What vows have we broken between us and God, what vows have we broken, between us and our spouses, or between us and our children, or between us and our parents, or between us and our church. Every broken vow is a pain in the heart of God.
