"A Hard Heart and a Broken Home" Matthew 19:7-9 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew 19, verse 7, 8 and 9 is where we'll be this morning.

Matthew 19:7

Matthew 19, verse 7.

Matthew 19:7

The Pharisees said to Jesus, Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?

Jesus said to the Pharisees, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.

But from the beginning it was not so.

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.

This weekend many of our pastors were at the Shepherd's Conference, which is a pastor's conference out in California, and it ended with just a rousing sermon and a rousing challenge for pastors to go home and have confidence in the word and preach the next verse.

And I thought, that's a great sermon.

My next verse is about divorce.

It was a good pregame speech, but the wrong game, I guess.

This is one of the most difficult topics in the Bible to address.

In fact, the disciples, in verse 10, you'll notice, we'll save this for a few weeks from now, but in verse 10, the disciples say, if this teaching is true, it's better to not even marry.

That was their takeaway from Jesus' lecture.

That's hard to believe.

Peter calls in the kind of passages that are hard to understand.

The disciples say, if this is true, well, just stay single then.

I know this morning there are probably five different groups of people in the congregation as we approach this topic.

The first is those who don't think it applies to them.

Maybe you are happily single and you think you'll be married one day, you want to be married one day, and the idea of marriage is appealing to you, and the idea of divorce is just unfathomable to you.

It doesn't affect your world.

Maybe you're happily married and this is a topic that you think doesn't concern you.

Maybe you're at the end of your life and you have had a life of faithfulness with your spouse who maybe is in heaven and you know you think this is just this is a topic that does not apply to me.

I ran the race, I took off the uniform, it's over, you know.

Um that's that first group of people.

But the word of God is for you in every circumstance, and I hope that this morning's passage meets you where you're at, even if you think it is not applicable to you.

The second kind of person that's here this morning might be someone like myself.

I come from a divorced family.

I don't remember a time really when my parents were married.

They divorced when I was young.

My parents loved me and cared for me, of course.

Uh, but I've moved between um both of them, and that's how I grew up.

And for me, that was that was normal.

I know divorce has victims and consequences and all that, but but that was me.

That was the only life that I knew.

I remember my high school soccer team.

Um we were you know together for a few years.

It was a club team when I was in high school, and you look at the players on the soccer team, and I remember it struck us one day that of all the kids on my soccer team, only one of them had parents who were married.

Only one.

And we thought he was the weird one.

His mom even drove like the minivan, the early Ford Astrovans.

The third group of people might be those that have pursued an unbiblical divorce.

You've left your spouse in an unbiblical or an ungodly way.

You shouldn't have done it, but you did it.

And here you are this morning.

The fourth group of people might be those who have been wronged by that divorce.

Your spouse left you.

You wanted to stay married, and they left.

And when you got married, you thought marriage would be a blessing to you.

You were excited about what your life would be like.

You received your spouse as a gift from the Lord, but soon your spouse turned on you and wronged you and left you.

And you're the, in the sense, innocent victim of that.

I know sometimes you'll you'll be at a church and you might feel like you're a second-class citizen because you're divorced.

You think that people look at you differently or respect you differently because of that when it wasn't even your fault.

And I know it's a very common feeling that people have, that people have told me they feel that way.

I think some of it might be generated by their own hearts.

I don't think a lot of that is given by others.

We wouldn't try to make somebody feel that way.

So maybe there's a sense of guilt and shame you carry and that colors how you perceive people around you, or maybe people duly true look down on you because of your divorce, even though it wasn't your fault.

And if that's the case, uh I am sorry for that.

But I know some of you are here this morning.

And the fifth group of people might be those who are struggling in a marriage, like you're not happily married.

You're married, you have the ring to prove it, but you don't have a spouse that seems like he or she loves you.

You have your eyes open to scripture, but also open to the reality of living what seems to be suffering.

Your husband or your wife is mean, argues, nags, criticizes, even more extreme examples, throws things, punches holes in the wall, yells at you.

All that stuff.

For all five of those categories of people, I hope you know that the word of God is the same for each of you.

Matthew is not a choose your own adventure gospel here.

You get to Matthew 19, verse 1.

Matthew 19:1

If you're happily married, go to chapter 20, verse 1.

If you're not, keep reading.

The conversation began last week when we looked at the beginning of chapter 19, and the Pharisees in verse 3 ambushed Jesus.

It's to test him, it says, asking, Is it lawful to divorce your wife for any cause?

This was the chap they had done on John the Baptist.

John the Baptist preached against divorce, said that it was ungodly for Herod to divorce his wife and marry another, and they ended up killing John the Baptist for it.

The Pharisees are rooting for that same outcome here.

They would very much like it if Jesus condemns divorce and finds himself betrayed.

Jesus answers the question.

The question is rooted in verse 3 around any cause.

It's an argument from Deuteronomy 24, which we'll look at later this morning.

But Jesus, if you remember last week, didn't answer with Deuteronomy 24.

He answered with Genesis 2.

He didn't start with the provision for divorce in the Bible.

He started where God made them male and female and brought them together so they would be help meet compatible with each other.

He designed them as a permanent union.

Jesus says that himself in verse 6, what God has joined together, let man not separate.

Jesus makes it clear that in marriage, husbands and wife are joined to each other and they shouldn't be separated.

They shouldn't be separated.

When you get married, you don't have ifs in your wedding vow.

That's Jesus' point.

Do you take this woman whose hand you now hold to love and to cherish as long as you both shall live, to have and to hold, and richness and health and sickness and riches and poverty?

As long as you both shall live.

If she doesn't gain weight, if she turns out to actually be a good cook.

If so, say I do.

If he doesn't lose his hair, if he doesn't get lazy one day, if he's nice to you.

There's no ifs in the wedding vow, of course.

Jesus says this is divine mathematics.

One plus one equals one.

It's the mystery of marriage.

God designed marriage to be a union between a man and a woman, to make a new life together, a new unity, and it's a form of grace.

We talked last week about how it's for believers and non-believers alike.

It's a form of grace to the world.

It comes to the world before the fall, it lasts after the fall.

Even non-Christians can be married and bring love and joy and experience the grace of God through their marriage.

Eve was tailor-made for Adam, the word in Hebrew back in Genesis 2.

It's not a particular word for made.

It implies custom made.

Eve was a wife custom-made for Adam.

It's the difference between buying a suit off the rack and having a suit tailor-made.

Eve was tailor-made for Adam from his very rib.

And Jesus says, don't let people separate that.

The idea here, the overarching idea, is that the intention of marriage was to be unbreakable.

It was to be unbreakable.

Jesus says, what God has joined together, don't let people separate.

Even if you're in a difficult marriage, even if you're in a so-called rough marriage, God calls you to stay together.

Now, the Pharisees began this by asking you about Deuteronomy 24.

They said, Why did Moses permit, command, allow divorce?

Why is it lawful in verse 3?

Is it lawful?

Why is it lawful?

And Jesus, as I said, doesn't answer in Deuteronomy 24.

He goes back to Genesis 2.

But the Pharisees are not being dissuaded.

Look at verse 7.

They repeat the question, but more forcefully.

Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?

That's their question.

Which leads to the provision of divorce.

It's meant to be merciful.

Divorce is meant to be merciful.

The Pharisees, you don't even need to know Hebrew to know the Pharisees are not representing Deuteronomy 24 well.

They ask, why did Moses command divorce?

And you might be thinking, where did Moses command divorce?

And the answer is that he did not command divorce.

The Pharisees are misrepresenting what the text says.

Last week I told you if I was Jesus, I would have started with what Deuteronomy 24 actually said.

Jesus didn't, he went to Genesis 2.

But now he is going to go to Deuteronomy 24.

I'll put it on the screen so you can see it.

It's Deuteronomy 24, verse 1.

Deuteronomy 24:1

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then he finds no favor, she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her.

Then she departs from the house.

That's Deuteronomy 24.

Now the text goes on for another 10 or 11 verses.

This is a long law.

It's really governing remarriage in Israel.

That doesn't concern us this morning, so I'm not going to take you through all of Deuteronomy 24.

But the first part is what the Pharisees are focused on.

Now I want you to notice right away that there is a command in this passage, but the command is not to divorce your wife.

It doesn't say you must divorce your wife.

It is a permission, not a prescription.

Notice that the Pharisees looked at this passage and says, Moses commands divorce.

He does not.

Moses permits divorce.

And he permits divorce in the case of it says some indecency in her.

It's a Hebrew word that implies sexual morality.

It's very close to the Greek word that's used in the New Testament.

Pornea is the Greek word for adultery.

Sexual immorality.

So the question in the Jewish world was a divide.

It was a debate.

Are you allowed, permitted, to divorce your spouse?

And it can work both ways.

Husbands can divorce wives and wives can divorce husbands.

Can you divorce your spouse for only adultery?

This is the narrow understanding of Deuteronomy 24.

It's a long-standing debate in Israel.

The rabbis debated this, probably going back to the wilderness with Moses.

And the two sides of the debate are named after the schools of rabbis.

It doesn't matter to us.

I won't even use them.

But they're often often called the narrow interpretation or the wide interpretation.

The narrow interpretation is that in this verse that's on your screen, Moses is allowing for divorce only in the case of adultery.

An affair.

That's the narrow interpretation.

The wide interpretation is obviously wider than that.

And it is the argument that Moses permits divorce if the relationship has gone rotten.

If there is something wrong in the relationship, if there's a stench, if it's unseemly.

And there's all kinds of examples of what that could be.

The couple's not happy.

One is arguing, one is belittling, one is nagging, one is slandering, one is lying, one is not sleeping in the same bedroom with the spouse.

One is won't eat in the same room with them.

One is mean to the kids and just is obnoxious, indecent.

As the rendered kind of softly finds no favor.

And this goes all the way down to even silly things, like can you divorce her if she burns your dinner, kind of thing.

But of course, that's not, I mean, it's easy to say that's the wrong answer.

That's not the real debate.

The real debate isn't can you divorce your wife if she burns your dinner?

The real debate is can you divorce your spouse because living with them is unbearable?

You can't do it anymore.

That's the question to Jesus.

Now you'll notice Jesus in his answer is pretty clear that adultery is the only grounds for divorce.

He says in verse 8, it's because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.

Notice Jesus challenges the use of the word command and replaces it with the word allowed.

Moses did not command you to divorce your wife, he allowed you to divorce your wife in the case of that kind of sexual immorality.

It was an allowance.

And it is indeed an act of mercy.

What was the punishment for adultery in the Old Testament?

Well, it was you would be drugged to the city gate and hit with rocks until you died.

You got your head bashed in.

There's no easy way to get stoned to death.

But that's what it was.

So you can see how divorce then is indeed an act of mercy, isn't it?

Your spouse had an affair on you.

You find out, there's evidence.

Maybe he or she confessed.

They're supposed to be taken to the city gate and hit with rocks until they're dead.

Or you could divorce them.

That's an act of mercy.

It's an act of mercy.

And it takes a particular kind of stony heart to take that act of mercy and expand it and extrapolate from it that you can divorce your spouse for any reason then.

And that's what the Pharisees did.

They say, Moses said we could divorce our wife, therefore we can divorce our wife because we don't like our marriage.

That's their argument.

Otherwise, why would the Bible have allowed divorce?

And it is a bit of a superficial argument.

Is it okay to burn your house down?

Well, if not, why do you have a smoke detector?

Why'd you put smoke detectors in your ceiling?

If it's not okay to burn your house down.

That's their kind of logic.

Why would Moses allow for divorce if it's not totally cool to do it?

Imagine a teenage, a teenager asking their dad, can I borrow the car?

And the dad says, Yes, but don't crash it.

It's the kind of thing parents say.

I remember being told that as a kid and thinking, why would my dad say that?

It's not as if I was planning on crashing the car, but now he said, Don't do it, so now I won't do it.

But now I understand as a parent, it's the kind of thing I would say.

You're going over to a friend's house, don't crash the car.

I don't know if it keeps her from crashing or not.

And because I don't know, I'm going to say it just in case it works.

Don't crash the car.

And now imagine the child telling me, but dad, the car has airbags.

It's okay to crash it.

No, it's because people are bad drivers that the cars have airbags.

It's not saying it's okay to be a bad driver, it's recognizing the reality in the world that you don't control the other people on the street.

Why did God allow divorce?

Because of your hardness of heart.

That's why he allowed it.

And it's meant to be a mercy.

It's meant to be a mercy.

Which means, what the actual command was, and let me put it back on the screen, there is an imperative in there, by the way.

You have to actually divorce them.

If you separate from them and if you put them out, you have to write them a certificate of divorce.

And you have to notice what Moses says put it in her hand.

None of this, we're just separating for a while, for a year or two.

We're not divorcing, mind you.

They've had an affair.

I don't want to divorce them, I'm just separating from them.

Or even in the wide arguments, the wide understanding of this passage that I can't live with my spouse anymore because of how mean they are, abrasive they are, and they yell and they throw things and all the stuff, and I can't do it anymore, so I'm separating from them, but I'm not going to divorce them because maybe I don't have grounds for divorce, maybe it's not a biblical divorce.

I'm just not going to live with them ever again.

Now what?

Moses says, don't do that.

You have to write a certificate of divorce.

You don't banish someone to perpetual marriage purgatory because you don't want to do the paperwork.

That's the point.

That's the actual command.

And I dwell on that because it is very common in the evangelical world now for people to do exactly that.

To say, I'm going to separate from my spouse.

I don't think it's biblical grounds for divorce, so I'm not going to file for divorce.

I'm just not going to live with them anymore.

Years go by.

It's freezing them in an unmarried situation.

Not even the Pharisees, not even the Pharisees tried that stunt.

Even they knew that wasn't right.

Well, the big point is that God hates divorce.

That's Malachi 2.16.

God hates divorce.

Jesus goes on.

In verse 9, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery.

We'll do the exception phrase in a second.

It's an offset phrase there by commas.

You might remember this from your English grammar.

The sentence functions without that clause in there.

You can remove it's a dependent clause, lacking its own subject and verb, so you can basically remove that clause, and the sentence still works with its intended meaning.

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.

That's because God hates divorce.

If God hates divorce, why did he allow it then?

Yeah, I get it, it's an act of mercy.

But still, even bigger picture.

Why does he allow spouses to be so mean to each other?

If he hates divorce.

It's a hard question to answer when it's framed like that.

It's an easier question to answer.

If you answer from the bigger picture to the smaller, make a more general question and apply that answer to a more specific question.

That's a very good way, by the way, to navigate ethical dilemmas and Bible interpretation hard hardships to answer a bigger question and then apply that to the smaller thing.

It's hard to work from the trees up.

Sometimes it's easier in the Bible to work from the forest down.

And this is one of those cases.

Instead of asking why, if God hates divorce, why does he permit it?

A better question is: if God is holy, why does he allow sin to be in the world?

That's a very broad question.

It's the same kind of categorical form as the divorce one.

If God is holy, why does he allow sin in the world?

If God really hates sin, why did he let the devil into the garden?

If God really hates sin, why did he kill an animal to make an atonement and to provide cover for Adam and Eve in their sin, if he hates it so much?

Why did he make a nation of priests?

To tell people how they can have their sins forgiven?

Why did he send Jesus to bear our sins in his own body, to make our sins his?

And to suffer and die on the cross to make atonement for sins so that we can be forgiven from it if he hates it so much?

That's a better question.

And the answer to that has to be because God receives more glory in a world where there is sin and suffering, but a resurrected Christ than he does in a perpetual Garden of Eden.

He receives more glory, more of his character and his attributes and his ways are on display.

More of his will is on display.

More of who he is is on display in a world and believed and worshipped by people if they have suffered and seen Christ forgive them than had they never suffered at all.

God is more glorified in a world with an empty cross and an open grave than he is in a world where everybody is in the Garden of Eden forever and ever and ever.

Now you either believe that or you don't, but it's the Christian answer to believe that.

And now you can work backwards into specific situations.

If God hates murder and says don't do it, why did he ordain and predestine Jesus Christ to be murdered?

Or if the Son of God is holy and to be worshipped, why does he allow Judas, in fact, foreordained Judas is the word Jesus uses, to betray him?

Betraying him is wrong.

Why does he let Judas do it?

And it's do you see how it's the same answer?

That he is more glorified through the death and resurrection of Christ than a sinless world.

So why does God allow difficult marriages?

Because he's more glorified in our sanctification and how we bear up under trials and how we rely on Christ in the hardest of times than he would be without those things.

He receives more glory from the end of the book of Job than from the start of it.

But if you had to choose, you would choose the start of it, wouldn't you?

That's what Jesus says.

When God joins together, don't separate.

And whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.

The person says, But I divorced my wife and married this other person.

My new marriage is not adultery because I divorced my wife.

As if the paperwork could dissolve the marriage.

Jesus says, God brought it together, you can't separate it, and you say, But Lord, I filed the paperwork.

And this is a carryover effect from gay marriage that I don't think we were necessarily anticipating.

You know, before gay marriage was legalized, there was this pretty much universal evangelical understanding that it is not a real marriage.

But then the Supreme Court gave their ruling.

Tit the gavel and everything, published the ruling.

And states adopted legislation, and now you have same-sex couples that are married in the eyes of the law with each other, and that's confusing.

We say we know the Bible doesn't recognize that, God doesn't recognize that, but they did fill out the paperwork.

You chuckle, but then you flip that around to divorce.

It's the same logic with divorce.

Yeah, he left his wife unbiblically and married somebody else, but it's not adultery because he filed the paperwork.

God says, I brought them together, don't let anyone separate them.

And you say, I know that, Lord, but Circuit Judge Smith, duly ordained in the Fairfax County Courthouse, signed off on this.

I paid 150 bucks.

The Sheriff's Department served it and everything.

Certainly that counts as divorce.

And Jesus says, you try that, you marry somebody else, you're committing adultery.

And by the way, that is the exact same answer from Deuteronomy 24.

If you divorce your wife, Jesus is answering with the narrow answer.

He's saying only adultery is valid grounds for divorce.

Any other reason, you're perpetuating adultery.

You keep on committing adultery.

Why is divorce?

Let me get to this first.

There's two grounds for divorce.

God hates divorce, but he allows it in two situations.

He allows divorce in two situations.

The first of those two situations is adultery.

That's from Deuteronomy 24, but it is restated here by Jesus in Matthew 19 verse 9.

Matthew 19:9

This is the exception clause, except for sexual immorality.

He's tethering this back to Deuteronomy 24.

He does get to Deuteronomy 24 and he says, this is grounds for divorce.

And you might ask yourself, why is adultery grounds for divorce?

If God joins a couple together, why does adultery break it?

And the answer is because adultery is a particular, odious kind of sin that is actually have a corrosive effect on the marriage relationship.

It's the divine mathematics.

One plus one equals one.

Adultery messes up that equation.

One plus one plus one.

No longer equals one.

It equals a hot mess, is what it equals.

Broken hearts, broken homes, all kinds of conflict.

Not the kind of covenant family that God designed.

That's why you're allowed to divorce.

Not commanded, mind you.

The Bible doesn't say if your spouse has an affair, you must divorce him or her.

But it's permitted.

Now the truth is, the scenario that Moses likely has in mind, given by the context of Deuteronomy 24, by the way, is an ongoing unrepentance affair.

Where, to use the language of Deuteronomy 24, the wife is having an affair repeatedly.

Like she's sleeping with somebody else.

And she's confronted and she doesn't want to break it off.

Are you stuck then?

Are you stuck in that relationship forever and ever and ever?

Are you stuck where I guess I'm just married to somebody who's constantly with somebody else?

And Moses says, no, you're not.

You can divorce your spouse.

If your spouse is in an ongoing affair and won't repent, leave them.

You're not supposed to say married to somebody who is with somebody else.

Leave them and file for divorce.

Don't just leave them and say, you know, now they're stuck.

Let's see how what luck they have in their future because I'm not giving them the paperwork.

That's what's forbidden.

That's what's forbidden.

I'm telling you, we want to reiterate this idea that your spouse is not going to be married to you anymore, but you're not going to give them the paperwork.

It's vindictive and immoral.

Not even the Pharisees tried it.

Jesus here rebukes it as well.

But there's a thousand, a thousand different scenarios in this that Jesus doesn't cover.

This is a principle, not a law, and that's the problem with principles, is that it takes wisdom to know how to apply them and when to apply them.

So for example, if a couple finds out, you know, the husband confesses, ten years ago I had an affair, the husband says.

Ten years ago, I had an affair.

Does the wife have grounds for divorce?

Those kind of questions.

And every situation is different, of course.

What about the husband has an affair and the wife says, Okay, I forgive you.

I'm not going to divorce you, but then a couple years later, he starts flirting with other people.

Not an affair, but flirting.

What about that then, huh?

Again, there's a thousand scenarios that the Bible doesn't give definitive answers to.

Wisdom is the ability to apply these principles to your current situation.

Wisdom requires people that aren't you.

You are not the wisest person when it comes to your own marriage, by the way, because you're a part of it.

You have a very difficult time seeing it from the outside.

What color is your house?

You wouldn't know if you never left your room.

You need help from older, godlier people to help you make wise decisions in those kind of scenarios.

What about pornography?

Is that grounds for divorce?

After all, Jesus says if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, isn't that adultery?

And the answer is yes, that is adultery in the heart, but that is not the same thing as adultery in the world.

And pornography is bad for a million reasons.

It calcifies your heart, it ruins your life, it makes you depressed and dark and ruins your marriage and is offensive and rude and ungodly and kind, unkind to your wife.

It's so wicked in a million ways, but it's not the same thing as adultery.

And it is not grounds for divorce.

When Jesus says if you look at a woman with less in your eyes, you can just re-reengineer that, reverse-engineer that back to Deuteronomy.

In the Old Testament, is Jesus saying that somebody who looked at a woman with less in their eyes should have been stoned to death at the city gate?

Because that's where the divorce law comes in.

Oh, you looked at her with less in your eyes.

We're gonna put you to death then.

That's not what he's saying.

He's saying that the actions on the outside come from the root on the inside, which is obviously true.

Of course, your actions on the outside.

But what about somebody who's just trying to have an affair, but it doesn't work?

I heard recently from somebody, true story, somebody told me that they were, the couple told me themselves.

They were the guy was going to have an affair.

He was Ubering to have an affair.

And his Uber driver got pulled over and arrested for an outstanding warrant or something.

And so he had to call another Uber to go home.

And he confessed to his wife.

Now what?

I said, well, just be thankful for a day.

Like spend a day being thankful.

That the Lord stopped it.

Like he providentially stopped it.

He didn't stop it because of any amount of self-control in the guy.

That's not why it stopped it.

He stopped it providentially, receive that kindness from the Lord.

Tomorrow you can work on counseling and working yourself through it, but today just be thankful for a minute.

There is a distinction between adultery in the heart and adultery in the real world, so to speak.

But it's not grounds for divorce.

Secondly, abandonment.

Abandonment.

Jesus doesn't talk about this here in Matthew 19, but it is brought up in 1 Corinthians 7.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul, as he's teaching, keeps tying it to what Jesus said in Matthew 19.

He's bouncing back between what the Lord said and what Paul is adding.

And so he's intentionally tying 1 Corinthians 7 to Matthew 19.

So it's not in the context on the page, but it is in the biblical context.

Jesus doesn't talk about abandonment here because he's talking to a bunch of Jews and he's responding to the Pharisees who are all under the law of Moses.

When the gospel goes into the world, though, it's going to encounter people that are in married relationships before they came to Christ.

Two unsaved people married, the gospel comes in, one believes and the other doesn't.

Let's say the wife believes and the husband doesn't.

Should you stay married?

And Paul says, yes, stay married.

Stay married.

Because who knows, maybe your faithfulness in marriage will be the very thing that saves your husbands.

But what if your husband says, I won't stay married to you?

Then Paul gives teaching on that.

If the unbelieving partner separates, let it be.

The brother or sister isn't enslaved.

God has called us to live in peace.

This doesn't mean even that he's leaving because you're a Christian.

Maybe he's leaving because he doesn't like you.

Seriously.

Maybe you have a terrible marriage.

And then you get saved, and your spouse doesn't.

Marriage isn't going to get much better.

You try to make it better, but there's no sanctifying work in his heart.

So Paul says, stay in marriage.

Maybe it will work eventually.

But the guy is like, you know what?

I don't like you.

I don't like Jesus, of course, but I also don't like you.

I've even heard of divorces in this situation where one spouse has told the other, don't be confused.

I'm not divorcing you because you're a Christian.

I'm divorcing you because you're mean.

Apostles, let him go.

You wouldn't allow a Christian divorce that way.

Of course not.

Two Christians say we're divorcing because we can't get along.

You would never allow that.

Because the Spirit is sanctifying both of your lives.

But if one of them's not saved, you can't do much about it.

That's his point.

So let him go.

Let him go.

You're not bound.

Again, this is the same principle from Deuteronomy 24.

Even in that kind of scenario, you would give the person a certificate of divorce.

You wouldn't hold it over their heads and condemn them to perpetual marriage purgatory.

You would actually divorce them.

Let them go.

Now, this again, like the adultery one, leads to a thousand other examples, doesn't it?

What about a husband who says, okay, you're saved now?

I don't want you going to church.

I forbid you from going to church.

Then I would say, don't go to church.

Submit to your husband in that.

Pray for him.

Submit to him.

Who knows?

Maybe your submission to him will be the very thing the Lord uses to save the guy.

Wouldn't it be neat if in the waters of baptism one day you hear the testimony that we had a terrible marriage and she got saved?

And so I told her, don't go to church anymore.

And she said, okay.

And I said, Well, that's the first time she's ever obeyed me.

Something must be right.

Something must be at work in her heart.

I have heard those testimonies.

I'm sure you have too.

What about if he says, don't read your Bible, don't pray, don't worship Jesus.

You say, I mean, I can't do that.

Doesn't mean you can divorce him, but you can't say, I'm not going to honor you in that one.

I'm going to read my Bible.

I'll do it when you're not around if you want, but I'm going to read my Bible.

I'm going to worship Jesus.

I'm sorry.

I have to.

I want to stay married with you, of course.

I'm not saying that's grounds for divorce.

I want to stay married with you.

But if you leave, I understand.

That's abandonment.

That's what Jesus says.

Divorce is allowed.

Again, a thousand questions.

What about abuse?

People will ask that.

You know, that's not one of the reasons given in the Bible for divorce.

The word abuse means different things to different people, of course.

And I will tell you this.

I'm not saying physical abuse doesn't happen.

I'm not saying that at all.

If physical abuse is happening, the person who's doing it should be in jail.

You should call the police and lead them away in handcuffs and you should be safe and all of that.

But I am honestly telling you this.

In 15 years pastoring an Emmanuel Bible Church, I have never encountered that situation.

I've encountered situations with husbands throwing things and punching holes in the wall.

And if I ask, has he ever touched you?

I've always been told no.

But here's what I have been told.

The spouse will ask, Is divorce okay if he's hitting me and everything?

And I would say, separate, call the police.

He should be in jail.

He'll be confronted on his sins, he'll be put out of the church, and then you're free to leave him.

Because it's not for nothing that the very next part of the phrase says, you are called to live in peace.

And the conversation always goes this way.

Okay, he's not hitting me, but he is doing all of these other things.

He won't eat with me, he yells at me, he says mean things to me, he's mean to the kids, he's mean to the dog, he's mean, blah, blah, blah, the whole list.

Honestly.

Matthew 19 is connected to Matthew 18, not just because 19 is after 18, but the whole narrative is bracketed with the children.

Jesus brings the children to himself and says, These are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

That's Matthew 18, verse 1.

Matthew 18:1

Matthew 19, verse 13, Jesus brings the children back to him again.

Matthew 19:13

This teaching on divorce and remarriage is connected to church discipline deliberately by the Lord for this reason.

If your husband is yelling at you and mean to you and all of the things, then he's sinning against you and he should be confronted.

And if he repents, great, you've won your brother.

If he doesn't, bring a witness.

And if he repents, great, you've won your brother.

And if he does it again, the church is told, and the church goes after him.

And if he repents, great, you've won your brother.

But let me tell you what I've seen over and over again.

At that point, the guy repents or the girl repents, the wife repents, and the offended spouse says, But I'm not taking him back because of how awful he was.

So now you're in a situation where the person's repented.

I'll tell you what the Pharisees said.

They said, take him back once, take him back twice, but not thrice.

Do that whole thing one time, do that whole thing a second time.

If he acts that way a third time, you can divorce him.

And Peter said, But Lord, I would I would take my wife back seven times.

And Jesus says, No, seventy times seven.

It's amazing to me that the gospel is powerful enough to reconcile a believer and a non-believer to each other.

But there's some Christian marriages where the couple say it's just not us.

Why is that?

Maybe they care.

Maybe they lack faith that God can restore a broken relationship.

Maybe they just life is so miserable with their spouse, they think this can't be what Jesus wants.

He's got to have something better.

I I've heard people say, I'm gonna divorce him.

I know it's wrong, but grace will abound.

After all, you said earlier, God's more glorified by an empty grave than he is a world without sin.

Why don't I keep just plug in another sin to that?

I know it's wrong to get drunk, but why don't I keep getting drunk so I keep experiencing the forgiveness of God?

Or put it back into marriage.

I know it's wrong to be mean at my wife and yell at her and cuss at her and all that.

I know it's a sin.

So I'm gonna keep doing it so I keep experiencing the grace of God.

That's insane.

You glorify God as the grace of God transforms your life.

Somebody who says I'm gonna keep sinning so that grace abounds is demonstrating they have never experienced the grace of God.

So don't say I know divorce is wrong.

Yeah, God can restore it too.

Unsaved people to each other.

Yeah, you can restore an unsaved person and a saved person to each other, but in my Christian marriage, it's not gonna fly.

The grace of God is stronger than that.

Finally, there is grace in all of these situations.

There is grace in all of these situations.

You're in a broken heart, you're in a broken home with a broken heart, there is grace for you there.

Divorce is not the unforgivable sin.

If you left your spouse in an ungodly way and married somebody else, you can't undo that.

You can't divorce your second spouse now.

You can't put the egg back in the shell.

It's scrambled.

That's why Jesus so strongly urges you not to do it.

But once done, you can only deal with what's in front of you.

You can't go back.

You can only deal with the life you have now.

There's so many high school kids in our church whose parents are divorced and on second marriages.

And a high school kid can't even know, probably, who is in the right or who is in the wrong.

And they're not called to.

You just have to love the parents that are raising you.

You have to love who you live with.

Live out the fifth commandment towards them.

Even if you don't know the details, you don't need to know the details.

You just need to honor God in whatever situation you're in right now.

Be thankful for the people who raise you and who love you.

If you're in a difficult marriage, fight for your marriage.

Pray for your spouse.

Call each other to repentance.

Not because your spouse deserves it.

Your spouse doesn't deserve it, to be quite honest.

He doesn't deserve it or she doesn't deserve it.

But because when you were still a sinner, Christ died for you.

That Jesus loved you when you didn't deserve it.

In the Old Testament, adultery was always a picture of Israel in the church.

You know, Ezekiel describes Israel as the woman that was raised and married and then started whoring herself out on all the hilltops.

That's the image in the Old Testament.

Hosea married an ungodly prostitute and had to go buy her back from her sex slavery, and that was an image of Israel and how God was going to purchase Israel back.

In the New Testament, the image switches, it flips.

We are the harlot.

And yet Christ loves us and buys us and cares for us.

So if you're in a bad marriage, understand the grace of God is sufficient because your marriage, even your bad marriage, is a picture of Christ in the church, how Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

While you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you.

Get help, of course, for your marriage.

Find older, godlier people that can help you.

But don't give up.

And if you're in a good marriage, be thankful to the Lord.

Be thankful to the Lord.

And don't get lazy.

Dieter and I have been married for 20 years.

Not time to get lazy, babes.

You keep pursuing godliness with each other to keep improving all the days of your life.

God, we're grateful that the gospel is not for perfect people, but for broken people.

It's not for healthy homes, but hurting homes.

The gospel makes happy marriages, but it's not only for happy marriages.

We know that.

Seal that truth in our heart.

We know the disciples walked away from this conversation and said, if this is true, who can why bother?

Why bother?

It is true though, Lord.

I know there's a thousand different couples in this worship center right now with a thousand different stories and details and what-ifs.

So I pray that you would take this passage and apply it to each situation according to the working of your spirit.

We pray for your mind.

May the mind of Christ dwell in us richly so we can navigate the issues of a complex and fallen world.

We pray your spirit would do that.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBC.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.