Faithless Marriages

Good morning. As Weston mentioned, my name's

Kurt. I am one of the pastors here.

In fact, I'm the only pastor here at the it's time.

Couple of my friends are in Washington, DC right now.

If you don't know these random guys on the screen on the left,

that's Tony. He's the lead pastor of Vita

Springs. He's got about two more weeks

left in his internship in Washington, DC.

And then Gordon and Josh are a couple of the other on staff

pastors here. They are at an event called the

Weekender up in Washington, DC. That's all Capitol Hill behind

them. They're up there kind of a

intensive weekend at the church. And so they get to spend some

extra time with Tony. So I get to teach us today.

So this year when people find out that I'm from Indiana, they

say, oh, you must be really, really excited because Indiana

University won the national championship in football.

And I say no, not at all. I am from Bloomington IN, which

is where Indiana University is. And I grew up a fan of Purdue

University, bitter Rivals. And I went to school at Purdue.

And and so it is in my blood to be a Purdue fan, which means

it's in my blood to root against Indiana University.

And so for me to do that would be very faithless of me.

It would be disloyal. I just, I cannot bear to do it.

And I would say any Purdue fan who cheered for IU is not a true

Purdue fan. They're they're faithless,

right? And you would understand that,

right? You're for many of you, you're

Gator fans, right, in all kinds of weather.

And so it doesn't matter who the opponent would be.

If, if the University of Georgia was playing in the national tag

game, would you root for them? No, of course not.

That would be faithless. That would be disloyal.

We have this innate sense in US of, of loyalty and commitment

and betrayal stings and, and sports is kind of a ridiculous

example, right? Sports, they don't really mean

anything, right? There's much greater things in

life to be concerned about, to be loyal and to be faithful

towards like let's say in marriage, right?

That's where, where one place it really counts.

And when there's faithlessness in marriage, it is painful, it

stings, it's betrayal. And I would add in a greater, in

a greater sense, even faithless living towards our faithful God

is, is maybe the most offensive form of betrayal and disloyalty

and faithlessness that there is. I share that because that's what

we're going to be talking about today in the book of Malachi.

We're going to see some people who betrayed their God, who was

loyal, who is faithful, and the people were faithless.

We're in the book of Malachi. We're preaching through this,

this short prophetic book in the Old Testament.

Go ahead and turn there. If you have a Bible, if you

don't grab a Bible from under seat in front of you, I want you

to follow along with me. If you're not sure, it should be

on page 8, O1. If you have one of those black

Bibles we're going to see today, Malachi issues a rebuke to

people who are betraying God. They were being faithless to God

through divorce and illicit marriages, and they were calling

it good. They were acting like everything

was OK. And so Malachi is going to

rebuke them and he's going to call them back to faithful

living. He's going to call them back to

faithfully live towards God and towards one another and

especially within marriage. So here's here's our main main

aim, our main point for today, as God has been faithful to you,

as God has been faithful to us, we are to be faithful to him and

who you marry and in that marriage.

Now, before I get into this, I know for many of you, you have

either you, you have some relationship with somebody who

is divorced or a broken marriage of some sorts.

Maybe that's you, you have been divorced.

Maybe you're remarried, maybe you're going through a divorce.

Maybe your parents were divorced.

Right there. You seen faithlessness in

marriage. And it's, it's painful and it's

sensitive. And so I wanted you to be

attentive to that and just call that out today and say, hear me

out as we work through this. And God has something for all of

us in that today, as I mentioned, we've been preaching

through Malachi. This is the fourth week.

We've got four more to go after this.

We're going to be 8 weeks total. Malachi was a prophet.

He was about 450 years before, roughly before Jesus came on the

scene. And in his book, he issues these

disputes with God's people. And so there's six of them

total. We're in the third dispute

today, again dealing a lot with faithlessness in marriage.

So let me take a moment and pause for a time of silence just

to gather ourselves and our hearts before God, to take a

moment and pause to pray or just to listen before we get into the

teaching. So you do that with me.

Or take 20 seconds or so and just slow down for a moment and

wait and listen and pray. And then I'll read the text and

we'll get to it. Malachi chapter 2, verses 10 to

Malachi 2:10–16

16. Have we not all one Father?

Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one

another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed

in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the

sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the

daughter of a foreign God. May the Lord cut off from the

tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who

brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.

And the second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with

tears, with weeping and groaning, because he no longer

regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.

But you say, why does he not? Because the Lord was witness

between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been

faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by

covenant. Did he not make them one with a

portion of the Spirit and their union?

And what was the one God seeking godly offspring.

So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be

faithless to the wife of your youth.

For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says

the Lord, The God of Israel covers his garment with

violence, says the Lord of hosts.

So guard yourselves and your spirit, and do not be faithless.

Let me pray. Lord, we thank you for these

words that you have preserved and provided for us.

They are your words spoken through the prophet Malachi many

years ago, and yet they are still true and for us today.

Help me, Lord, to preach faithfully to you in this text,

to honor you with my words and what I say.

Lord, help us to honor you rightly, to see you as you are

the faithful God, and help us, Lord, call us into faithful

living. Amen.

So there's there's a couple of charges or indictments that

Malachi issues to the people today, both related to marriage.

And so let's start with the first one.

God indicts their faithlessness to each other and to himself.

So look back at verse 10. Malachi starts off and he says,

have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?

So he's saying he's reminding them, hey, aren't we one

remember 1 father Abraham created by God as one people,

right? We are his children, He is our

father. There's some echoes of the Shema

in here. And this was a phrase that the

Jews all memorized and repeated often.

It goes like this. The Lord our God, the Lord is 1.

The Lord our God the Lord is 1. And so in Malachi's questioning

of them, he's saying, don't we have remember, Remember the

Shema, Remember the Lord our God, the Lord is 1.

Don't we all have one father? Hasn't one God created us?

So if that's the case, and then he gets into his argument, the

rest of verse 10, he says why then, right.

If this is our God, there's one God that we serve, why then are

we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our

fathers? Judah has been faithless.

Abomination has been committed. Judah has profaned the sanctuary

of the Lord. He says, all right, why are you

being faithless? If this is our God, the one God

who has created us all, why are you being faithless or disloyal

or unreliable? Why are you betraying one

another? And so he brings this charge up

interestingly against each other.

And we're going to see they're being faithless within

marriages. But it's a communal thing.

And maybe some people weren't being faithless in the way he's

describing, but they were allowing it.

They were OK. They're kind of collectively

letting this be OK. And he says you're being

faithless to one another. He says you're profaning the

covenant in the sanctuary, right?

We think of the word profanity, right?

It's profane is to treat something with irreverence or

disrespect or even to violate, he says because of your

faithlessness to one another, because we're going to see their

faithlessness, faithlessness within marriage.

It's like profanity against God's covenant, right?

This union that he made with you.

And I'll get into that in a moment.

Some of the covenant and his sanctuary, they're they're

bringing and making and desecrating God's holy temple

because they're bringing in these offerings, but they are

living faithlessly. He says they've committed

abomination. It's one of those words where

you know it's bad, but you can't really define it.

What is it abomination, right? It's it's something that's evil,

it's disgusting, it's horrific, it's a disgrace.

The word abomination is used in in Leviticus talking about child

sacrifice, right? That's an abomination and this

is what they are doing. They are doing it to each other.

They're profaning God's temple in the sanctuary and how and it

and it kind of builds up and then and it says explicitly how

at the universe 11, he says you have married the daughter of a

foreign God. We've married the daughter of

foreign God. Let me unpack this a little bit.

Essentially he's saying you are marrying women who worship other

gods. He's not saying foreign women.

OK, so non Jewish women. That's not what he's talking

about. Actually.

God welcomed outsiders. He was one of the only gods,

maybe the only God at that time who would actually welcome

people into his family if they devoted themselves to him.

In fact, there's two women that stand out, Rahab and Ruth, both

in the lineage of Jesus. Matthew includes them in Jesus's

lineage, and these were foreign women.

Many of the Old Testament passages actually denounced

mixed marriages, but not because of ethnicity, but because of

idolatry. That's the issue that's at play,

Idolatry, not ethnicity. And so what's happening in

Malachi's day is people were marrying non Israelite women,

non covenant women. You might say they've got a

different father, they're of a different religion.

They do not worship the one true God.

They are devoted to another God. They are the daughter of a

foreign God. They have yoked themselves to

some other spiritual being. That's who they're in bed with.

And Malachi is rebuking them for this marriage to someone who's

already, in one sense, married to another person.

They're married to another God because you can't be one with

God and another God, right? You can't be faithful and

faithless at the same time. If you're faithful and then

you're faithless, it wipes out your faithfulness.

He's saying you can't do that anymore.

And why is this so profane, right?

Why does he call this profanity and abomination?

Because we aren't comparing people to people.

We're comparing our faithfulness to God and in light of God's

covenant faithfulness to these people, this is an abomination.

This is profanity. That they would be marrying

people from a different religion who worship different gods and

bringing them into the temple and offering sacrifices and

saying it's all good, right? It's profanity.

I want to take a trip back to Deuteronomy Chapter 7.

Deuteronomy 7 · chapter mention

You can flip there if you want. Keep your finger there if not.

I'm going to put some of these verses on the screen.

But I want to look at this covenant because I think in all

of what I'm teaching today, if we don't understand how

incredibly faithful God is to us, then we won't quite

understand how atrocious and awful it is when we are

faithless towards other people in marriage.

God is faithful. Now here's what happened.

Deuteronomy 7, God rescued his, these people from Egypt.

He is about to send them into the promised land where they're

going to conquer the people, take over the land.

And here's what he says. He says when the Lord your God

brings you into the land. And here's the first verses that

are going to be on the screen. Deuteronomy 7, starting verse 2,

here's what God says. You shall make no covenant with

them, the enemies, the outsiders, and show no mercy to

them. You shall not intermarry with

them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their

daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons

from following me to serve other gods.

Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and He

would destroy you quickly. He knows how they're going to be

tempted to go in that land and then betray Him and His covenant

faithfulness. And so He warns them up front.

Don't do it. You are making a covenant with

some other gods when you do that and you intermarry with them and

they will turn you away from following me.

He gives them this great warning and then in the next verses He

reminds them why this is so important as He reminds them why

and how they have this union with God, this covenant with

him. In the 1st place, Deuteronomy 7

Deuteronomy 7:6

verse 6 says for you are a people holy to the Lord your

God. The Lord your God has chosen you

to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the

peoples who are on the face of the earth.

God says I chose you, I chose you, I want you to be my

treasured possession. I want you to be my bride.

I want to be in a covenant relationship with you.

You are a people wholly to the Word, to the Lord.

That means you're set apart, you're distinct, you're

different. You're 1 of God's people.

He chose you. Don't betray him.

Now why did he choose them? Well, look what the next verses

say, verses 7 and 8. It was not because you are more

in number than any of the other people that the Lord set His

love on you and shows you, for you were actually the fewest of

all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves

you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your Father's, that

the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed

you from the House of slavery. But he reminds them, I, I

rescued you from slavery. I have redeemed you and I love

you because I love you. Why does God love us?

He loves us because he loves us. And he says here, I'm keeping

the oath that I swore to Abraham, right to your father's

right. There's a covenant there.

And he says I'm going to be keeping that.

I am the faithful God. I chose you.

I made this covenant with you. Don't intermarry.

Don't be faithless to me. And then verse 9, last one, God

says no, therefore that the Lord your God is God, the what

faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those

who love him and keep his commandments to 1000

generations. God is the faithful God.

He keeps covenant. And if we would go on and we

could go on and Deuteronomy 7, we would see He is abundant and

He is generous and He will bless you.

And He lists all of these ways. He's going to bless you for

keeping this covenant that He established in the 1st place,

right? He's doing all of the work.

He even says in verse 13, you shall be blessed above all

peoples. And in all these ways, God is

the faithful covenant keeper, His faithfulness and when we are

faithful to him leads to blessing, it leads to life and

betrayal, leads to destruction, and it leads us away from God.

And that's what Malachi, you might say praise in verse 12,

almost this curse on the people that are doing this.

Look at verse 12. He says, may the Lord cut off

from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does

this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts, Right.

You bring an offering like nothing is wrong.

Oh, we got these other. We got this other wife and

she's, you know, yeah, she's got, she's bringing in her idols

and her little statues and figurines and her, you know, but

it's fine. She could be in the temple with

me. Here's my offering to you.

God, he's like, no, I'm cutting you off.

I'm cutting off your descendants, right?

Your children, your blessing, your heritage.

Sorry, they're gone. What God is saying through

Malachi is who you marry matters.

It matters who you marry. So be faithful to God in who you

marry. Who you marry impacts your life.

It impacts your kids, it impacts your church and your community.

And ultimately, who you marry impacts your union with God

probably more than any other relationship in this world that

you can have. Let me apply this to especially

and first and foremost, those of you that are single.

And if you're married, don't worry of lots of things for you.

And in the second part, this part included, But for those of

you are single, the first question is, are you in a

covenant with God? Are you a disciple of Jesus?

Is He your Father and are you his Son or his daughter?

That's the first place that you have to start.

God is a faithful God. Even though we have been

faithless towards Him, we do not deserve Him to choose us and to

set His love upon us. But He did that, and He showed

that most prominently through the love of Jesus.

And so that's where you must begin.

Are you in a relationship with Jesus?

Do you know Him? Have you trusted Him with your

life? Have you repented from your sins

and your ways and your worship of whatever foreign God you

were, whether that was some actual other false religion or

maybe just your moralism or your do goodism, or let me just be

better than the other people, or the gods of money or the gods of

sex or success, whatever it is that you worship?

Have you turned from those gods and set your love on the one

true God and trusted in Jesus? If you have not, you have to

start there. But if you have, then God cares

who you date because who you date is who you will marry.

And so be faithful to God and who you date.

Dating is very much a modern concept and it's pretty messed

up in most of the ways that it's played out in this world.

And some of you have been through that and experienced

that. And so if you're a disciple of

Jesus and you don't date as the world dates, you date to Mary,

and any potential spouse must be in God's family.

They also must be like you. And that it doesn't matter what

ethnicity they're from or what country or what language, but

you must worship the same God. That's a must.

This is not an optional thing. It's not a OK.

It's a good idea too. It is a good idea and it is

biblical command and directive, and I would say it's pretty

explicit. It's pretty clear throughout the

whole Bible and there's specific places where it gives that

command. First Corinthians 7.

If you want to read more about marriage and singleness, go read

First Corinthians Chapter 7. And there Paul is addressing

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

wives whose husbands have passed away and so they are now widows.

And then what does he say to them?

He says it's OK if your husband dies.

You are free to marry whom you wish only in the Lord, right?

Mary, who you want, as as long as they're in the Lord, as long

as they are a disciple, your potential spouse must be in

God's family for some of the reasons we just read in

Deuteronomy Chapter 7. Now here's a, a question that I,

Deuteronomy 7 · chapter mention

I want you to think about. Why are disciples of Jesus often

so willing to try out relationships with unbelievers?

Why? And if you're single and you

feel any of that pull or that temptation, ask yourself why, if

you're a disciple, and this is, this is really clear biblically,

and it's very wise practically why?

I thought of a few reasons. For some of you, it's fear.

You're afraid, man. I don't want to be single

forever and seems like there's a lack of options around here.

At least I don't like my options.

Or maybe I'm starting to feel lonely and fear is creeping up.

Maybe it's pressure. You feel the pressure societally

and all of your friends are getting married and your parents

are Hey, when are you going to, you know, hey, can I set you up

with somebody? Hey, if you could download any

of those new dating apps, right? Or you feel the pressure of

getting older and still being single.

Pride. Pride would be a really a reason

that I could foresee some disciples of Jesus getting into

relationships with non disciples of Jesus.

You say, well, I won't betray God.

I'm not going to, I'm not going to fall.

I will actually marry them if they're not a disciple of Jesus.

I'd say, oh, so you know better than God.

Oh, you're going to be the one that actually makes that through

and and sees that happen. You're going to be the strong

one, even though so many people have failed at that throughout

history. Said what?

Kurt, he's going to church with me.

OK, great. Evangelistic dating is utterly

foolish. It gets your heart into into a

relationship with somebody that it's hard to unwind it.

And the closer you get to them, the harder that is to separate.

And isn't that interesting? You're the carrot, right?

That's not a good idea, right? You, you're trying to lead them

to God by saying, hey, see, I'm here, I'm I'm on God's side.

Great, they're going to church with you.

But Anne, are you yoking yourself to them in a way that's

actually going to lead you astray?

Just like the warnings that we read here in Paul's second

letter to the Corinthians. He says this in chapter 6, verse

14. He says do not be unequally

yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has

righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship has light

with darkness? He's saying don't yoke yourself

right. Don't be joined.

You can't have light and dark. You can't have righteousness

with lawlessness. For some, you answered that

question. Why was a disciple of Jesus so

willing to try out a relationship with an unbeliever?

Because of just weak devotion to God?

It's not that big of a deal, is it?

It'll probably be OK. You don't really trust God.

Maybe you don't look to him to satisfy you or you just dismiss

his commands. Some might object.

Kurt, I'm already committed in this relationship.

Well, if you're not married, then I think you should break up

with them. I think you should do that

today. Yeah.

It's going to hurt. It's going to be painful.

Then so will be if you enter into a marriage.

And there might be some of you in this room.

And I know some people that I could point you to who got

married to someone who's not a Christian.

And is one of the most painful things because the person that

you love the most in this world and yet spiritually you could

not be farther apart from them. It's one of the most painful

things. And I have talked to men and

women who are in those positions where their spouse does not

believe the hurt. It'll challenge your, your kids

will be hindered by that. And often what really happens

when you compromise in this area, it actually leads you away

from the faith. If you are already married to an

unbeliever, the Bible has lots of instructions for you as well.

I don't have time to get into those today.

The simple guidance is this. Don't leave them be faithful to

Jesus. Be a light to them and show them

Jesus. Be faithful to God and who you

date. Do they really love Jesus?

Are they faithful to God now? Because that's the best

indicator of their faithfulness in the future.

If they're not faithful to God now, can you trust them to be

faithful to you even in the future?

Hasn't God been faithful to you? Hasn't He been faithful to you?

Trust Him and your singleness and your potential future

marriage. Most will get married, not all

will you might say I, I he's not he's not providing for me right

now. I'm not married.

But if you are married to Jesus, as challenging as that might be,

if you want to be married, but you're married, you've got him.

That's what you need. Trust him with your singleness.

Be faithful to God and who you marry.

A quick word to parents parents, train your kids now in this.

Do not leave it to what their peers are saying and doing.

But I've got a couple kids in elementary school.

It's kind of funny. They're like, Oh yeah, so and so

is a boyfriend. What does that even mean?

You're 10 years old. They will learn from that.

How many of you watch TV shows and you see what dating is like

portrayed in media? Teach your children to be

faithful to God. Say only marry somebody is in

the Lord. Doesn't matter how beautiful or

amazing or wonderful they are. If they don't have Jesus, say

no. Be faithful to him.

If you are the friend of a single person, maybe you're

some, you're married and you have some single friends, or

you're single and you have single friends.

Look who this is spoken to. It's plural, right?

We, Malachi says. And our and one another, right?

This is individual, but it's a corporate rebuke.

If you were here last week, Gordon talked about how we are

all priests. We're all priests who are in

charge of guarding and protecting truth and holiness.

There is pervasive covenant betrayals happening in Malachi's

day, and they are approving of it.

And he says that's hurting all of you.

And so you might have some say, well, actually that's none of

your business. Or you might say, oh, that's

none of my business. Well, no, If you're a priest and

that's your friend, if you're a Christian and that's your

friend, it is your business, that's not applicable anymore.

Speak to them. Speak in their life.

Give them wisdom and guidance and warnings if needed.

Ask them tough questions and speak the truth in love.

This is our job collectively to be faithful to God as God has

been faithful to you. Be faithful to Him and who you

marry. Now he gives a second charge.

He's indicting faithlessness now specifically towards the

covenant wife. And so let me get into the

second part of the verses here. He starts off in verse 13 and he

says, here's this second thing that you're doing.

He says you weep, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with

weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering

or accepts it with favor from your hand.

So there's this pious grief. Oh God, we brought our offering,

but you don't accept it. You're not regarding it.

God, what's going on? Why not?

God? Here's what's happening.

They're trying to honor God in one area of their life.

Oh, here we're bringing our offering to you.

God, this is what you wanted, right?

But in the other sense, they are being faithless towards their

covenant wife. So God says no, no, no, no, no,

you can't have that. You can't be cheating on me and

then try to bring me flowers. It doesn't work like that.

He says I'm rejecting your offering because you are

faithless towards your covenant wife.

And then in verses 14 and 15, he reminds them about the covenant

of marriage. And so let me talk about

marriage and it's covenant a little bit because this is what

Malachi brings up. He says in verse 14, the Lord

was witness between you and the wife of your youth.

God was witness. You could say he presided over

their marriages. God instituted marriage.

God created it. It's not a man made idea for us

to redefine and change the laws on.

He made it between a man and a woman as he is the witness

before it and it's not just you fill out the papers and the

state of Florida approves your marriage.

You get married before God and he is witness and he's reminding

them I was a witness in your marriage.

Genesis chapter 2, the first marriage, Adam and Eve.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

It says therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and

hold fast his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

God was a witness, but he goes on in verse 14, he says you've

been faithless to her, though she is your companion and your

wife by covenant, right? There's a there's a covenant of

marriage and they are companions for life.

The Pharisees were testing Jesus one day and they asked him about

divorce. And here's Jesus's answer,

Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 to 6.

Matthew 19:4–6

Jesus says, have you not read that he who created them from

the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore a

man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast his wife,

and the two shall become one flesh, Verse 6.

So they are no longer 2, but one flesh.

What God? What?

Therefore God has joined together.

Let not man separate. This is the intention of

marriage. It's a lifelong covenant, a

bonding. The two become one.

That's why in verse 15 he talks about this union, that the Holy

Spirit is a part of your marriage.

He says in verse 15, did he not make them one with a portion of

the Spirit in their union? So how does this mystery work?

The two flesh become one. God brings two people together

and they get married. And he says a portion of my

spirit is in that marriage, uniting you together.

That's the covenant of marriage. It is to be for you for life.

It's spiritual, it's emotional, it's a connection and there's a

great purpose in it. There's lots of great purposes

in it, but one of them, godly offspring, that's what he says,

verse 15. God is seeking godly offspring.

If you get married, have kids, it's a good thing, Challenging

thing, but a wonderful blessing to have.

Now ultimately marriage doesn't just point to marriage.

It's not an ending of itself. God created it so that one day

he would point to the way that Jesus loves us and he would say

that that's the ultimate marriage In in the New

Testament, Jesus is described as the groom and we are his bride.

Right there is this union, this marriage, this covenant, this

oneness, this 2 become one flesh with Jesus.

Paul, Paul says this, he quotes the Genesis 2.

The two flesh shall become one. And then Paul says, this mystery

is profound. And I am saying that it refers

to Christ in the church. If you're a disciple of Jesus,

you're one with Jesus. You are a member of his body,

united to him in one flesh, covenantily married to Jesus by

the Spirit, never to be separated.

And marriage points to that great reality.

And how were the people in Malachi's day treating that?

They were treating it with violence, he says in verse 16.

For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says

the Lord, the God of Israel covers his garment with

violence. Divorce is separating the

covenant of marriage. It's it's tearing it apart, it's

betrayal, it's being faithless. The the phrase translated here

is a difficult one. Lots of disagreement on how you

actually translate. This covers his garment with

violence. We could just think if there's

some relational and spiritual violence that happens if you try

to take two things that are glued together and you RIP them

apart. There's a kind of violence that

you have to do to, to split apart something that is supposed

to be 1. It makes me think of spilling

something on your shirt and you get a stain.

This, the stain is the covering of violence by, by divorcing

your wives and staining violence on your shirt.

And that day there was some, some kind of tradition where you

would, you know, if you wanted to marry a woman, you would, you

would kind of symbolically cover her with your garment.

And so maybe Malachi's playing on that.

It's like you're bringing violence to what should be a

sacred and beautiful thing. Some translations even render

this God hates divorce. It's an affront to God's design

and faithfulness. It's a misrepresentation of the

covenant love that he intended it to be.

Now don't hear me wrong. He doesn't hate divorcees.

He hates the relational violence of divorce.

Divorce then seems like it was pretty common and easy.

Divorce today is pretty common and easy.

And sometimes we become numb to the violence, to how painful it

can be, to how unnatural it is because God's joined them

together and how destructive that it can be when divorce

happens. Divorce was never God's

intention. Like those verses I just read

from Jesus show that divorce was never God's intention.

He desires all marriages to last for life.

But there are sometimes where there is extreme unfaithfulness

and divorce is permissible. I would say generally not

preferable when in the same verses and Jesus is being tested

by the Pharisees and he talks about divorce, he says whoever

divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries

another commits adultery. So there is adultery is probably

the ACT most extreme act of unfaithfulness that there can be

in a marriage. And Jesus says, OK, if you do

that, you are already breaking the covenant.

You can you can divorce. Paul adds in First Corinthians

7, he talks about abandonment. If your spouse just leaves you,

you're not enslaved to them any longer.

We can talk about abuse as a form of abandonment.

It can certainly could be a reason you separate.

If you're in physical danger or harm, separate.

Get help, Try to bring other people in so that there can be

repentance and the marriage can hopefully be repaired and

restored. Abuse can be an act of

abandonment to the marriage covenant.

Those are some extreme situations of unfaithfulness, a

lot different than what we tend to see in our culture, isn't it?

And maybe some of you have experienced in your life or in

your own relationships. And, and, and when Malachi, he

doesn't explicitly say, he just keeps regarding, he just keeps

saying faithlessness and divorce.

And so he doesn't even say if there's adultery.

It could be that they're just divorcing because it was more

expedient to be married to someone who already lived there

and had more money or had more prestige or status.

And so they're just ditching the wives of their covenant so that

they could get better if they could move on up in society.

Could be, could be things like we hear all the time we just

fell out of love. As if you could just fall out of

the two becoming one flesh. It's just a misunderstanding of

the covenant that we have. We have irreconcilable

differences, right? I think that's probably a common

check box for people that get divorced.

We're just too incompatible. He's different than he was at

first. She's changing.

She doesn't meet my needs anymore like she used to.

Marriage is just hard. Listen, I've been married for 15

years. Marriage is hard.

I understand why people get to divorce.

It can be challenging at times. There can be great conflict and

tension. But none of those qualify for

being faithless to the wife of your youth.

You might say I don't like this teaching.

It's kind of hard. But you know, it's funny.

That's how the disciples responded to Jesus.

Jesus says unless whoever divorces his light, his wife,

except for sexual morality, marries another, commits

adultery, You know what the disciples response in the next

verse? If such is the case of a man

with his wife, it is better not to marry.

They took it seriously. And in their day and age,

divorce was pretty easy and pretty rampant as well.

Count the cost of marriage before entering marriage.

And if you are already married, OK, you're locked in.

You made a covenant with somebody and you might have not

understood that when you did it, but you did it, and now you're

in it. And God will give you grace and

mercy and patience to endure and to be in that marriage, even if

it is difficult and challenging. Seek to be faithful in marriage.

If I had more time, I would be able to get into maybe a lot of

the particulars because each situation is different, right?

Each marriage is different and the difficulties and challenges

that you might face in your marriage.

And so I can't today, but I would encourage you if there's

something in your marriage that's difficult, there's a

hardship, maybe there's been adultery or unfaithfulness,

please talk to me, talk to somebody else today.

There are lots of couples in this church who have experienced

unfaithfulness and adultery in their marriage and they are

still married because God had such grace and mercy on them and

they forgave and they worked through it and it was hard.

All right? We've had couples that have been

on the brink of divorce and they're still together and many

of them decades and decades of marriage.

So you're, there's people here that can, that can help you and

encourage you and talk to you. You just have to be willing to

let them in. Malachi gives us some real

practical and straightforward application, if you will.

And so I want to finish by talking about that.

And he says it twice. He says it at the end of verse

15. He says, so guard yourselves and

your spirit, right? Stop being faithless.

Stop divorcing your wives of your youth.

He says, so guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you

be faithless to the wife of your youth.

And then verse 16, he says it again, so guard yourselves in

your spirit and do not be faithless.

Faithfulness and marriage matters.

So if you are married, guard your spirit and be faithful to

your spouse. So think about that.

Guard your spirit, right? You might say, guard your heart,

protect the internal side of you because it's not just a physical

thing. Well, I'm, you know, I'm not

sleeping around with another woman.

You know, there's an internal aspect of this that that leads

it. You don't just wake up one day

and commit adultery. It usually begins in your heart.

And so he says guard your spirit.

And so if you are married, what are those dangers to you, those

temptations in your spirit within your marriage?

One is the common phrase we use all the time.

The grass is always greener on the other side, right?

Until you get to the other side and you realize, Nope, I got the

same kind of dead grass and Dang holes from those Dang armadillos

dug up in my yard. The grass is not greener on the

other side. But that's the temptation in our

heart, isn't it? And so you look into, oh man,

that marriage is so great all that and that person is so their

spouse is really taking care of themselves.

This right? And we the grass is greener.

And then we, you know, we flirt with the person that at work and

it starts to grow in US and we begin to covet other people's

relationships and be jealous of their spouse or be jealous of

the single person, the flesh and the desires and the lusts of our

hearts come up. Guard your spirit, guard your

heart. Proverbs tells just tells us

this was the husband's it says rejoice and the wife of your

youth. We have that language here, the

wife of your youth bodies get old people age and yet guard

your spirit to the wife of your youth, the covenant that you

have with her. And So what are those dangers to

your spirit? And here's one that's kind of an

internal slash, external sexual sin.

It can be internal, the lusts of the heart, right?

The viewing of pornography. And it can be external self

pleasure and even into adultery. And so here, here's some real

practical advice. Stop sinning sexually.

Stop looking at pornography. Stop cheating on your spouse

with your eyes and in your heart.

It is destructive. It is destroying your

relationship and it will it will possibly end your marriage.

And sexual sin is rampant in our culture.

You can't hardly watch a single TV show or commercial and it's

not in your face. But if you are a disciple of

Jesus, be faithful to him and, and, and so stop today.

And as one who's wrestled with that and dealt with that sin in

my life, I know it's a lot harder than just someone

shouting at you. Stop so you got to be in.

Has God been faithful to you? Be faithful to Him and stop

hiding. Stop pretending like you can get

through that on your own. This is an issue most men have

dealt with or are continuing to deal with, but I know for some

women this is a challenge too. If that's where you are, know

that there is mercy and grace from God for you, but you need

to repent. Confess your sin and repent

today. Believe it, flee from it.

There is hope and there is freedom in Jesus.

Guard your spirit. The Bible gives different kinds

of advice specifically to wives and husbands.

Let me briefly share some of those.

So how do you be faithful to your spouse?

Wives of Ephesians 5 and First Peter 3 talk about being careful

to Don't be tempted to adorn yourself with external beauty,

right? Be faithful to your spouse.

Not by putting on a show on the outside trying to seek control

in your marriage, but rather the internal is what matters most.

Be respectful, have pure conduct, grow and godly

character. Be gentle.

In Ephesians 5, he talks about respecting and honoring your

husband and submitting to him. It can be a great challenge, he

said. What if he's not honorable or is

not respectful? OK, you be faithful and you do

your part and pray like crazy for your husband because he

needs it. Husbands, we are to live with

our wives in an understanding way, Peter says.

And there can be a temptation to either be domineering or

passive, right? I am strong.

I'm a man, I'm in control, and I'm physically stronger than

you. I'm the provider.

I'm the And we can go too far in One Direction or we can go too

far in the other direction. We just have passive, weak men

who don't lead their families, but we are to be providers and

protectors. And as Peter says, you live with

your life in an understanding way.

You listen to her, you think about her, you consider her.

You tend to her heart and her emotions and her affections.

You honor her. In Ephesians 5, he says,

husbands love your wives, love them as Christ loved the church.

I've heard the expression, you know, I just love them to death.

Yes husbands, love your wives to death, yours, not hers.

Just like Jesus died for his bride, the church us, you are to

die to yourself for your wife. That is your command from God.

How can you present your wife to Jesus, holy, pure and spotless?

Two quick things just to conclude, and maybe you can take

these home as some something practical as you think about

just the big picture, guard your spirit and be faithful to your

spouse and marriage. Be thankful.

I want to challenge you to regularly be thankful to God for

your spouse, and there's a lot of things that you might not be

thankful for. Thank Him for the good things

that's guarding your spirit, that's cultivating that in your

heart. Thank him for the wonderful

things about your spouse. And as an added bonus, you

should tell them what you're thankful for, but regularly

cultivate thankfulness that that will help guard your spirit

against some of those other things that infiltrate that.

Secondly, the next time you go on a date with your wife, which

hopefully will be soon, or your spouse, you should be review and

discuss your wedding vows. Find those, look them up.

If you don't have them printed somewhere, write them down,

bring them with you, read them to each other and talk about

them. Hey, how am I doing in this?

Which one of these am I doing? Well?

What are these vows? Have I actually not doing so

well? Just as a way to think, these

are the covenants I made. This is the commitment I made.

How can I be faithful to my wife?

Faithfulness and marriage matters, and it matters because

God is faithful. He's been faithful to you, and

He has made marriage to be a sign of faithfulness that points

to Him. Be faithful to God because He

has been completely faithful to us.

As God made this covenant with Israel so many years ago, He

makes a new covenant with you by his Son Jesus.

You are now one with Him. And as Israel was unfaithful and

we're reading about it today, so have we been faithful.

We have committed adultery against our Lord.

We have been faithless to Him. Even though he's been nothing

but faithful to us. We've betrayed Him.

We were disloyal, We were faithless, but God remained

faithful. And through belief in Jesus,

you're not one with Him. He is our ever faithful and ever

true husband. And so we look to the

faithfulness of Jesus. Look to His faithfulness towards

us and let that cause you to seek faithful living.

If you're single, then be faithful to Jesus and who you

seek to marry. If you are married, then be

faithful to the spouse that Jesus gave you, guarding and

protecting your marriage. As God has been faithful to us,

let us seek to be faithful to Him.