Divorce and Our Hardness of Heart

Mark chapter 10, and as you turn there, ask yourself, what do you think the main point of marriage is?

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Just be honest with yourself and your mind.

Don't try to give the Sunday school answer.

Just kind of your raw, visceral gut.

What's the whole point?

What's the main point of marriage?

Context what we're going to be looking at.

Jesus has been spending more and more time.

The second half of the gospel, Jesus is kind of closing ranks, circling the wagons in some sense, trying to get lots of extended time alone with just the 12 men to prepare them to lead the New Testament church after he's gone.

But the crowds are still thronging around him, and he can't help himself.

He keeps teaching.

He kept healing people.

But what we're going to see is what would happen a lot of times is he would have a little teaching time.

But then the real teaching, the real meet came after the big public teaching in the house, the debrief with the disciples.

And this total side note, but I know that I guess it was maybe two weeks ago we had a women's discipleship lunch that my wife spoke at and did a great job.

And so, guys, when in doubt, who's the greatest disciple of all time?

Jesus.

This is the way you do it.

You live life in front of people, you let people watch you, and then you let them follow you around and ask you a bunch of questions, and you answer it.

I mean, it's kind of like parenting, it's discipleship.

This is what Jesus is doing.

So let's look at this passage.

Mark chapter 10, verse 1.

Mark 10:1

And he left there, and he went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again.

And again, as was his custom, he taught them.

And Pharisees came up, and in order to test him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?

And he answered them, What did Moses command you?

And they said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.

And Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.

And he said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.

And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

So, Christ is traveling, the crowd follows, he teaches, as we've seen multiple times now in Mark's gospel, the Pharisees hate Jesus.

The Pharisees were recognized as the authority on the Old Testament, on true Judaism.

They were the separatist party.

We're not going to conform to the pagans, to the Roman and Greek culture.

We're going to try to stay true to biblical Judaism.

At least that's what they said.

That's what they prided themselves on.

And most of the crowds thought they must be right because they seemed so serious and religious.

But they were really fakes.

And Jesus is coming along, teaching with real authority, and they hate him for it because all their power, all their privilege is going to Jesus.

And so they come to test him.

They don't really want to know the answer to this question.

That's not what's really going on.

They're trying to trap him.

And we don't know exactly what the trap was, but maybe it was twofold.

One, he's in the territory of Herod again, who, if you remember, Herod is the one who had taken his sister-in-law and married her, and John the Baptist had preached very publicly against, hey, you can't do that, and he'd gotten his head chopped off for it.

And so maybe they're hoping, well, we didn't like John the Baptist.

He got killed for running his mouth about divorce and remarriage.

Maybe we can get Jesus to say something, because we know that him and John the Baptist seem to be kind of neck and neck and agree on a lot.

That may have been part of the trap.

But the other thing, and this is probably more likely, is this there were two different kind of famous rabbis at that time.

And one would have been the more conservative, the more traditional.

And the way that he interpreted a certain passage in the Old Testament is Deuteronomy chapter 24.

Deuteronomy 24 · chapter mention

In fact, let's go look there for just a second.

Keep your finger right here in Mark 10.

We're coming right back, but flip over to Deuteronomy chapter 24 for just a second.

Deuteronomy 24 · chapter mention

Probably not a book that we spend a lot of time in.

Deuteronomy chapter 24, it's the second giving of the Mosaic Law.

Deuteronomy 24 · chapter mention

It's Moses kind of preaching this long sermon, trying to make sure the Jews know how they're supposed to live before they go into the promised land and Moses is going to die.

And just look at this one verse.

Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 1.

Deuteronomy 24:1

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some indecency, and that's the key word, indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of the house, and she departs out of his house.

Now we're going to read the rest of it, come back to Mark 10.

But here was the debate.

The word refers maybe to nakedness, it's some type of sexual sin.

If a husband finds his wife into some type of unchaste, he can write her a divorce, kick her out.

The more modern and liberal day rabbis were teaching, no, indecency can be anything.

And this is, I'm not making this up.

This was from little, it could be spoiling his dinner.

It could have been he just saw a woman who was more fair than his wife.

And so that was the real debate.

They were hoping that Jesus would come down clearly on one side, and then at least he's going to alienate half the nation.

They're trying to get him into trouble.

All right?

Now, um, what's very interesting because a lot of the Pharisees and maybe some other Jews, they probably feared, you know, Jesus is doing stuff that is weird to us.

They were thinking he's gonna toss out the whole Old Testament.

But notice what Jesus said.

When they kind of try to trap him in a test, he says, What did Moses say?

Basically saying, I believe in the Old Testament.

I mean, he could have in some sense said, I wrote the Old Testament.

Just go back to the Bible.

I agree with the Bible.

What'd the Bible say?

And they said, well, you know, Moses did say we're allowed to get rid of our wife if we want to, we just have to write our certificate.

And a little bit of history.

Before the Mosaic law would have come, what a man could do, women didn't have this privilege, but in the nation of Israel, a man could just divorce his wife for a word.

So just think about how bad that would have been.

I mean, literally, he could have been to the marketplace, saw another girl who he thought was cuter than his wife, come home and said, baby, you burned a toast, you're out of here, and that was it.

And back then, in this very traditional society, the men had all the power and the privilege.

This woman, in some sense, would be destitute.

You're married, you get divorced.

So part of what God was doing was trying to regulate divorce and say, no, no, no, number one, you can't do divorce willy-nilly.

The conservatives are right.

It can only be for some sort of like sexual sin.

Then you can divorce, but then you have to do it legally.

There has to be a certificate in some sense to protect this woman's honor so you're not just kicking her out.

All right, one commentator said, if divorce became too easy, then it could be abused and it would basically become like a legal form of committing adultery.

So Jesus, they say, well, he did give us this allowance.

And Jesus says, You're right, he did.

But why did he do it?

Let's go to the heart of the matter.

He did it because your hearts were so proud, your hearts were so rebellious, your hearts were so stubborn.

Now, this is talking about people thousands of years ago, but notice Jesus doesn't say because their hearts were so hard.

He says, because your hearts are so hard.

Because what Jesus knows is you guys are just as bad as the original Jews that were kicking out their wife because she burned the toast.

And he says, and that's not the way it was supposed to be.

That was never God's intention.

God's plan from the very beginning is seen very clearly in the book of Genesis, written by Moses as well, as like one man, one woman for life.

That was always the intention.

And that there's something more than just a physical union.

There's a spiritual union going on there that God causes to happen.

And what God has put together, no man should ever separate.

He came down very hard, very clear.

And notice this the Pharisees have no response.

You notice that?

It's like they just kind of probably tucked their little tail between their legs and scurried away.

Every time they got into a verbal battle with Jesus, it never went well for them.

They just don't learn very quickly.

We want to clarify what you're really saying, because almost certainly the disciples kind of had the same view of divorce.

And it's kind of like, you didn't really mean.

And he's like, Let me make it clear for you.

Yeah.

The way it's supposed to work.

One man, one woman, four life, no divorce.

That was the original intention.

And notice what Jesus does as well, though.

He says, Listen, it can be a man that does this, a man can divorce his wife, remarry.

He's committing adultery.

But it can be a woman too.

There are plenty of examples of that, even in the Bible, like Herodias, who left her first husband to marry Herod.

So Jesus is kind of going against both a little bit.

It's not just the man that can do this, the woman can do it too.

But it is supposed to be divorced only for sexual sin.

And we'll get to that in a minute.

Now the first thing that we need to take away from this, whether we're single, whether we're married, whether we're happily single, happily married, is this.

We all have some hardness of heart.

None of our hearts are perfectly soft and sensitive to the Holy Spirit like they ought to be.

We all have some hardness of heart.

So how can we see this in ourselves?

Okay?

The first way is this.

We know the word.

We know the Bible intellectually, like the Pharisees did, but it's like we totally missed the main point.

We missed the forest for the trees, so to speak.

I was talking to a friend of mine this week, and he's he's really starting to grow spiritually.

And it's pretty interesting.

He said, we weren't even talking about that.

He just said, I want to tell you about what God's been doing in my life recently.

I said, okay, I want to hear it.

He said, I've grown up my whole life in the church, grown up my whole life believing in God, grown up my whole life reading the Bible.

He said, but basically, here is the way that I have lived my whole life up until just now.

He said, if the Bible was like crystal clear, 10 out of 10, like, don't do this, like, don't murder.

He's like, then I obeyed the Bible.

If there was any degree of gray, I basically did whatever I want and just assumed, well, God'll bless me.

What I want must be what God wants.

Now I really appreciate his honest because he started to realize is I'm basically not submitting to Christ as Lord.

I'm just doing whatever I want.

And from being in college ministry for about 27 years, here's one thing I've learned is we are experts at finding gray where there is no gray.

Right?

And I tell you where people do it a lot is with sexual sin dating and marriage and divorce.

The Bible can be pretty clear clear, and you're like, no, I think I see some gray there.

I've got some special goggles I wear.

It makes everything gray.

Is there anywhere that you're doing that in life?

Is there anywhere I'm doing that?

It's a constant temptation.

The second way that we can see the hardness of our own heart is this.

We use our power and privilege to serve ourselves rather than others.

Listen, guys, some people in life have more power, more privilege than others.

There's nothing sinful with that.

That's just the way it is.

You cannot get away from that reality.

The issue is when you are given power and privilege by God, how do you use it?

Do you use it in a selfish, sinful, self-centered way just to serve yourself and take advantage of other people?

Or are you like Christ and are you using it in selfless ways to serve others, to minister to others?

I mean, what why this test?

Partially because the Pharisees, this is pretty funny, guys.

The Pharisees were known for being very conservative, very traditional, very tight, I mean legalistic.

But when it came to divorce, they're like, no, no, we really like the liberal view over here.

Which back then the liberal view gave men all the power, and the women were totally taken advantage of.

And all the Pharisees are men, so like, no, no, we really like this, you know.

I can divorce her for whatever I want to.

Is that the way you read and interpret the Bible?

I'll just choose whatever position serves me the most, makes me the most happy in the moment.

I remember when I was in high school and I really started growing.

I was really a believer, really growing, but I was still in so many ways young, arrogant, self-righteous, rough around the edges is not even a good enough phrase to describe it.

And I would get in these debates with, you know, not even friends at high school about theological things.

And listen, I loved like verbally chopping people's head off with a verse.

I was good at it, and I boasted in it, and I went out of my way to do it, and I felt very self-satisfied.

But at some point I started to realize way too late, it's like, I don't love these people.

I'm not helping these people, I'm not trying to help them understand the scriptures better.

I'm not really trying to win their hearts.

I'm just like a bulldozer driving over their face.

I mean, I was I using the word of God?

Yes.

Was I oftentimes correctly interpreting it and applying it?

Yes, but not in love, not to serve, in a sense, to build my own reputation.

That's what the Pharisees were doing.

That's how we can see our own hardness of heart.

But what about God's heart?

How do we see God's heart?

How do we know God's heart?

There's at least two ways that we can see it here.

Part of what's so great about this passage is we get a picture of God's heart.

When uh one of my sons was going through some kind of mad, angry, I want to debate everything.

He would oftentimes want to come and pick a fight with me theologically.

Pretty smart.

Wasn't probably the smartest decision of his life.

Uh and there were a couple of times I kind of fell back into my old high school ways.

But for the most part, I've had a little bit of sanctification since then, not much.

But I really did have compassion for my son.

So there were times he would want to kind of bring up these theological debates.

Well, this verse, what does it mean?

And keep it kind of pie-in-the-sky theory.

And I'd always start saying, Well, here's what the verse means, and what do you think that means for your heart?

And I can remember saying, Why are you making this personal?

But here's the point it's like, at some level, I didn't care about winning a theological debate with my son, right?

Big whoop.

The 40-year-old ordained minister beat the 15-year-old in an argument over the Bible.

What do you want, a cookie, right?

I didn't I didn't care about that anymore.

I loved my son.

And I wanted his heart.

And he wanted to just kind of randomly debate, and I was trying to listen and learn and say, how can I cut to the quick?

That's what Jesus is doing here.

They just wanted to debate divorce regulations, theological stuff.

Maybe trap Jesus, maybe justify themselves.

And Jesus says, Let me talk to you about the hardness of your heart.

Because even though Jesus could be very rough with the Pharisees sometimes, he loved them.

And what he was doing was showing them their pride, showing them their arrogance, trying to break and humble them.

He knows how sinful and weak we are, and thus he protects us.

Listen, in the Old Testament, the Jews were abusing divorce like crazy.

And so even when Moses gave them an allowance for divorce, why?

It was to protect primarily the women that were just being taken advantage of and dumped because that's the heart of God.

God cares for people.

He doesn't want people abused, he doesn't want people taken advantage for.

Now, let me just give two quotes because the Bible does have allowance for divorce.

I'm gonna make this clear in just a minute, right?

There's a lot you can say about marriage and divorce and remarriage, and we're not gonna say it all this morning.

But here's Tim Keller.

Sometimes betrayal and cruelty can damage the fabric of a marriage so that its continuance would be greater evil than divorce.

God granted divorce against his ideal design as a merciful adjustment to our sinful condition.

This means divorce can never be looked at as a morally neutral option.

It is always the result of someone's serious sin.

Even if one person is mainly the victim and not the perpetrator, there can't be a no-fault divorce.

Amputation may be necessary.

We talked about that last week, right?

But they are always an evil and a terrible thing.

Cranfield said this: when our sinfulness traps us in a position in which all the choices still open to us are evil, and that happens sometimes on planet Earth.

We are to choose that which is least evil, asking for God's forgiveness and comforted by it, but not pretending that the evil is good.

Man's stubborn rebelliousness against God is what's seen in this passage.

Does that make sense?

There will be situations in life.

Guys, I gotta go ahead and say this.

The Bible gives us a lot of ethics, right and wrong.

But at the end of the day, the Bible is not primarily a handbook on ethics, it's not primarily a morality tale.

Because if that's primarily what it is, we're all in big trouble, right?

Because we're all failing somehow.

The Bible does give us right and wrong, but it's not the main thing.

It's a story of salvation, it's a story of forgiveness, it's a story of transformation.

And we should be uber thankful that it is, or there's no hope for any of us.

Now, the second way that we can see God's heart in this passage is this God's plans are always to bless his people.

That's think about marriage for just a minute.

God loves to give good gifts to his shirt, he loves to bless.

God invented marriage, it was his idea, and all the good fun stuff that goes with it.

Sex and romance and friendship and having kids and all of these things.

It was all his idea.

He's not ashamed, he's not embarrassed, he's like, I gave, I created this for you, but he gives us rules and regulations to protect it so that we can enjoy it in the best way and not get into trouble and ruin it.

And to the degree that we obey, much more likely that we will experience the blessing of it in the long run.

Hard in the short run, worth it in the long run.

Okay.

Third thing is this the heart of marriage.

What is marriage really about?

Right?

They want to try to debate Jesus, trap Jesus legally, and he's like, no, no, I want to get to the heart of God.

The mind of God.

When he invented marriage, what was he doing?

Marriage is ultimately about this, guys.

The heart of marriage, it's about joining one man, one woman for life.

And that means it's it's hard, but it's worth the work.

Even in our sinfulness, I'm a sinner, she's a sinner, the culture around us is sinful.

The deck, in one sense, is not stacked in our favor.

But because God loves his people so much and God loves the gift of marriage so much, to the degree that both spouses will lean in and seek to obey God's will, there will be joy, there will be blessing, there will be happiness.

But guys, you got to remember this, okay?

God is more committed to our holiness than to our happiness.

And is there a lot of joy that comes in marriage?

Yes.

But it usually is on the back end of a lot of sanctification, is it not?

Because we're both sinners, it's kind of like taking two pieces of sandpaper and saying, let's just rub these two pieces of sandpaper together to get them as smooth like Jesus.

And you can be in this game for 60 plus years and you're not going to be all the way there.

But there can be real progress, there can be real joy, there can be real intimacy, even as the rough edges are being rubbed off.

So I got four very quick points of application for different groups of people that will be listening.

So, first would be if you're in this room and you're single, if you're thinking about marriage, prepare for and consider marriage very seriously.

Second, to choosing to put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the biggest, most important decision you will ever make.

And so you do not want to make this decision alone or just with your boyfriend or girlfriend with lots of hormones and emotions involved.

You want to get older, wiser, godlier people, counselors, pastors, elders, hopefully your parents involved in making the decision.

Because there is one decision on planet Earth that you can make that will set you up for failure in every other way, is this one.

Don't rush in, right?

Even Elvis said, fools rush in.

I think he said that.

Be sober, all right?

The second thing if you're already married, do everything.

You can to work hard by the grace of God to make your marriage thrive.

Do not just be happy with we're surviving.

We're doing better than the Joneses.

Could be worse.

Because listen, I've been doing this long enough.

I've been involved in enough marriage counseling, and unfortunately, divorce counseling on the back end.

Where sometimes the way the story goes is one person is like, I'm miserable, I've been miserable for years, I'm out of here, I can't take it any longer.

And the other person's like, I thought everything was fine.

Now listen, I'm not trying to make anybody terrified.

I am trying to make us sober.

So if you're like, I think our marriage is fine, that ain't good enough.

Ask, hey, how do you feel about our marriage?

And do everything you can with God's help to make your marriage as good as it can be, as strong as it can be, as enjoyable in godly ways for both people as it can be.

And guys, here's one of the reasons I say this.

There was a day and age where all the culture, even the secular culture, to some degree pushed people to stay married.

Right?

You know this?

I mean, there's the famous quote by Billy Graham's wife when somebody asked her, hey, did you ever consider divorce?

And she said, No, I considered murder, never divorced.

I mean, murder would have been more allowed.

You didn't divorce.

And listen, secular statistics will show if you're miserable in your marriage but you commit to just stay for the next five years, things will probably turn around.

There's something about if I'm on an airplane and I know I got a parachute right there and the plane starts to go down, I probably would jump out.

But if I'm on an airplane, I got no parachute and the plane starts to go down, it's like, by golly, I'm gonna try my best to figure out how to fly this plane.

And I've shared a little bit of our story before.

I'll just give you the brief version here.

First year was miserable, first three years really were pretty hard.

And we both had times, not in the heat of the moment, we had plenty of heated moments, but after the heat of the moment, after we were yelled out and were tired and kind of cold, well, we both said some version of, hey, you're not the person I thought I was marrying.

And if I didn't think God hated divorce, I would divorce you, I'd be gone.

But the vows I took to you weren't primarily to you, they were primarily Jesus, so I ain't leaving.

I may be miserable for the next 80 years, but I'm stuck.

And here's the thing the first three years were pretty hard and terrible, the last 24 have been great.

But be feeling stuck was a good thing that said, she's a lot of sandpaper, I know I'm a lot of sandpaper, but we're gonna be stuck together, we might as well start rubbing the rough edges off.

Make the most of it.

And it's amazing how God can use that and transform.

All right.

Third group.

If you're struggling spouses, please consult elders, please consult counselors before you get a divorce.

Is there a time and a place for divorce?

I'm gonna mention this in just a minute, yes.

But it literally ought to be treated like the nuclear option.

Worst case scenario.

Absolute last option after everything else should be tried.

So, guys, if you're already on the struggle bus in any type of way, again, I've been involved in good churches for too long where there are elders that are happy and ready and willing to get into messy marriages and try to fix them.

But nine times out of ten, here's what's happening.

By the time the elders actually find out there's a problem and jump in and start trying to help, one person's already called the divorce lawyer and it's pretty much too late.

Don't wait that long.

As soon as it's like, hey, we have a fight and we cannot fix it.

We've been having the same fight for about six months or six years.

You need help, you need a third outside objective party to help you.

And we have people in this church that will be happy to help you.

The fourth.

If you're already divorced.

Whether it was your fault, her fault, his fault, nobody's fault, both of your faults.

The first thing I'd say is this if there is any way for you to realistically be reconciled to your spouse, do whatever it takes to try to be reconciled.

But if there's not, be forgiven in Christ and move on.

And one last verse we're gonna look at.

Everybody flip to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Paul's talking about marriage, he's giving practical advice.

He's gonna go all the way back to Genesis 2 and quote the exact same passage that Jesus quoted.

I wrote this in my notes, and a couple of times I'm like, should I change that?

That doesn't sound right.

But no, it's right, and I'll explain why it's right.

Paul goes even deeper in his teaching about marriage right here than even Jesus did in Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Look at what he says.

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 31 and 32.

Ephesians 5:31

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

That's Genesis 2 again.

That's Moses, that's the original attent.

Look at how Paul applies it.

This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church.

The deepest reality of marriage, the real heart of marriage, it's not even about you and your spouse.

It's about you and your spouse, it's about me and my spouse being a little living parable of the greatest story that was ever told.

The gospel story.

And that's why I can say Paul, in a sense, goes deeper in his teaching on marriage than Jesus even did because the gospel hadn't happened yet on planet earth.

It's already happened, and Paul's interpreting says, listen.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, left his father's throne above.

So free, so infinite his grace.

Came to earth.

He bled for Adam's helpless race.

Think about it, guys.

There was a bride price that Jesus had to pray, and it was his blood.

For the church, for the people of God, for all the people that ever trusted him.

We were stubborn, we were hard-hearted, we were arrogant, we were self-righteous.

To whatever degree we knew the word of God, we interpreted it all as gray.

I'll just do whatever I want and stamp God's approval on it.

And he said, No, no, no.

I love these people.

I love those people.

I'm going to get those people.

Listen, biblically speaking, you have to interpret the Bible in light of the Bible, Matthew chapter 19, 1 Corinthians 7 would say, if there's adultery, if there's abandonment, there can be divorce.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

Nuclear option, biblically approved.

But again, whether you are the godliest single person in the room, whether you are the godliest married person in the room, you're the furthest thing from an adulterer, the furthest thing from a divorcee.

We all have some hardness of heart.

Apart from the grace of God, that could be us.

We all need grace, we all need mercy.

We all need the cleansing blood of Christ.

And when Christ came to the earth and went to the cross and lived and died and rose for his people, what was he doing?

In a sense, he was saying, I love you, I want to marry you.

I want to marry you spiritually, I want to forgive you, I want to cleanse you, I want to take you into my family eternally, even with all your bad record, your lack of righteousness.

I'll give you my last name, so to speak.

You won't be known anymore for your own messy reputation.

You'll be known as my wife, my bride.

Let's celebrate such a savior.

Lord Jesus, we are so unworthy.

You are so good, you are so glorious, you were so wise, you are so beautiful.

You give us so many good gifts in this life, Lord.

Marriage is a wonderful gift.

A spouse is a wonderful gift.

Best friendship with another human being.

The mercy, the forgiveness that we can practice with one another on the horizontal level is a wonderful gift.

It's enjoyable.

But all of these things are just a dim reflection, a tiny reflection of your love.

Your wonderful, glorious love, compassion, gentleness, condescension, your passion to seek and to save the lost.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I pray for myself, I pray for everyone listening that we really would be melted by your love.

We would be soft-hearted.

And more and more, by your grace, by the filling and empowering of the Holy Spirit, we would be conformed to your will, to your image, not to the sinful culture around us, not to just our own sinful preferences.

Make us into the men and women of faith and love and truth that you want us to be.

And we pray all these things in Christ's name.

Amen.