This morning as we continue through 1 Corinthians chapter 7, I'm gonna ask you to turn there and I'm going to read verses 10 through 17. Verses 10 through 17. In the context, in chapter six, we looked at Paul's teaching about sexual immorality in general. Then in chapter seven, as we looked at his guidance to those who are with respect to sexual immorality, engaging in lawful sexual enjoyment. And as we walk through that in the first nine verses a couple of weeks ago, now we come to these texts which talk about what happens when marriages encounter difficulties and what's God's guidance there. And so, and as you may remember, as we looked when we very first started getting into chapter seven, you'll see to the blank, So to the married, I'm speaking. So there's one subclass of people, or one class of people. To those who are unmarried, he's going to speak. To those who have a brother, a husband, or a wife who is an unbeliever, right? So these are different situations that Paul talks to us about. And so there, we begin with one of those in verse 10. Now to the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, A wife is not to depart from her husband, but even if she does not depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest, I, not the Lord, says, if any brother has a wife who does not believe and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, But God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk. And so I ordain in the churches." And there we'll end the reading of God's word. Imagine you pick up the phone, many of you probably don't even have to imagine this, and on the other end is a friend who says, we're having marital difficulties. As you pick up the phone and as you begin to hear them pour out their heart about their difficulties, one of the things that I might encourage you to do is not necessarily go directly to 1 Corinthians 7. Right now, I mean, because it can come across as a lot of rules. Right. OK, so here it is. I know you're having difficulty. I know you're having difficulties. But look to the married. Don't you know, don't get a divorce. Click probably won't be that helpful. Right. If you're married to an unbeliever. Well, if they want to leave. you know, let them leave or if they wanna stay, let them stay and try to work out the difficulties, right? Okay, yes, that is what the Bible says. That is God's standard for how we ought to love in that situation. That is a wonderful grace to us to know that very clearly. Okay, I wanna say that, yes. However, what I'd like to do is I'd like to, before we get into that part of it, I'd like to talk a little bit, give a little bit of context from the Old Testament and to give to us, and I just wanna maybe say it this way, what's the importance of all this? That is, why does God make such a point, such a specific set of situations that He unfolds for us as to why He wants His will unfolded in the world in this way? And to do that, what I'd like to do is I'd like to look with you at a bunch of Old Testament passages. So when I say a bunch, I probably got a half a dozen of them here. And I'm gonna start in Psalm 73, verse 27. Psalm 73, verse 27. And these verses, I hope, are going to set for us some of what the beauty of marriage is. But let's see, a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, we looked at the beauty of marriage in the context positively from the Song of Solomon, right? That's a wonderful way to do it. Now we're going to do it in this talking about divorce. We're gonna look at the beauty of marriage, but it's in the sad situation, in the context of the sad situation, of harlotry, and in particular, the spiritual harlotry in Israel, right? So, for instance, Psalm 73 and verse 27, it says there, those who are far from you, and many of your translations probably have that you capitalized, meaning we're speaking about God, those who are at a distance from you, at a relational distance from you, they shall perish. And it says, you have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry, right? So that this, what this passage is saying in Psalm 73, is that God's people are married to God, they're in a marital relationship with him, and yet they have separated themselves from him. And the character, the way that's characterized, it's characterized as deserting, right? So as deserting someone. Now think about what it means to desert someone. Break out my Merriam-Webster dictionary, right, because you think, huh. All right, it says to withdraw or to leave, usually without the intent to return, or to leave someone in the lurch, right, or to abandon without authorization. to quit your post, your allegiance, your service without any justification, right? Many of you might think when you think of desert, you might think to desert something, you desert the military, right? But what I would say in the scriptures is this is even a more significant relationship that ought not to be deserted, right? And so here, what God's people have done is they have walked away from God. They have deserted him. Now, of course, you can't leave God in a lurch. But when you think about it with respect to, okay, our marriages are supposed to reflect this relationship that we have with God, that if one partner walks away from another partner in a marriage, what happened? They were joined together. They were joined together as companions. They're joined together as friends. They're joined together as lovers. They're joined together as people who raise children. They're joined together in all their extended families. And now what you're doing is ripping that apart, right? And as you're ripping that apart, what is it doing? It's like deserting someone. Okay, so just to give some characterization. So that when your phone rings and on the other end, your friend is going through this, this is part of what they're feeling. That's part of maybe what I just wanted to lay out for you. You might say, what's the pain going on here? The pain going on here is that they're feeling, one of the things you might characterize that is they're feeling deserted. Or, if you go to Malachi 2, verse 14. Right, Malachi 2, verse 14. This we read earlier. It says there, okay, people's prayers aren't being heard, and they ask, what reason, God, what possible reason could there be that our prayers aren't being heard? And Malachi tells them, So if you get that phone call, what's that person feeling? They're feeling betrayed. They're feeling betrayal. They're feeling like somebody dealt with them treacherously, right? Okay, she is your companion, right? So this husband, we'll just talk about it from that perspective, this husband has gotten a companion. He's got a friend, he's got someone who will share his life, right? And when he does that, as he's done that, what he's done is he's left, he's dealt treacherous with her. He's dealt treacherous with her as a wife by covenant, right? Now, God says, didn't he make them one? Right, so what's this marriage like? These people, so remember I said earlier, maybe when you think desert, you think a desert in the military sense, right? So a guy leaves his battalion, right? He leaves his battalion behind, but that's a bad thing, but they weren't made one in this sense, were they? This sense, you have somebody departing who really has become one person, right? entity, one entity with another person, right? And so God has made them one. How could they do that having a remnant of the Spirit? And why did God do that? Well, God is seeking godly offspring. He put them together so that they might raise godly offspring. Now somebody wants to leave out of that situation, right? What a horrible thing. And so what God says there again, take heed to your spirit and let no one deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. He hates Divorce, what does divorce do? It covers a person's garments with violence. Okay, now if you look at that phrase throughout all the scripture, when somebody's garments get covered with violence, what that means is they've been in a violent activity, and typically their garments are covered with blood. Like they go to war, and their garments are covered with blood. Or they are assaulted, or they get into a fight, and their garments are covered with blood. And it seems here that that situation is What you're entering into is a situation where you may stir up emotions where people get very angry. They can get very angry and it may result in violence toward one another. Let's talk about that, all that for a second. This is a wife who's a companion from your youth, right? And it's a wife who's a wife by covenant. All right, now, doesn't that sound awful contractual sounding, right? Here we are, look, I'm the party of the first part and you're the party of the second part and we have a contract and therefore you have to stay in it, right? I mean, who wants to characterize Marriage like that. Well, you do, right, okay? Now, what do I mean by that? I want you to imagine yourself being in love, right? Okay, so you're, okay, let's suppose this hasn't become the companion of your youth yet. You're dating the companion of your youth, right? And as you're dating the companion of your youth, you look in the eyes of the companion of youth, and what do you say oftentimes? Well, you say, you're beautiful, you're special, you're wonderful, you're a glorious person, I love getting to know you, I love having you in my life, I love, right? How long do you tell them you want all that, right? You say, what do you say? You say, I am going to love you for ever, right? I mean, that's what lovers do. Lovers don't say, well, you know, this is nice, but next week I'm going to go find somebody else, right? Okay, in this situation, what you say, what this kind of love engenders in the heart is pronouncements of, let's love one another forever. I will love you forever. And you hear, oh, and I will love you forever, right? And so nobody's, so this isn't a situation where somebody's forced you into that situation, right? You were in that situation and you wanted to enter into that situation, but now what's happened here some months or years or whatever later, somebody wants to be unfaithful to that. Somebody wants to forget about all that and tear it apart, right? That's the situation that they're in. And so when you're, again, when you're a friend, you pick up the phone and you're talking to them or you go out for coffee and you're talking to them and they're in the midst of this thing, right? We've joined together to raise kids. We've joined together from our youth. We've joined together as companions. We've joined together saying we're going to love one another forever. And now it wants to be torn all apart. That's some of the pain and some of the difficulty. Or, you don't have to turn to this, I'll just read one verse out of Jeremiah 3. "'Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, "'so you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel,' "'says the Lord.'" Right, so in Malachi, it was the guy, in Jeremiah 3, it's the girl, but in both cases, there's a treachery. Now, I'm gonna turn to Ezekiel chapter 16, and if you would like to do that, you'd like to turn over there. Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 14. Ezekiel 16, verse 14. Here's God again speaking to the nation of Israel about His marriage to them, but also as that reflects our marriage to one another. Here God says, Your fame went out among the nations because of Your beauty. For it was perfect through my splendor, which I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God. So these married people, they give one another gifts, they praise one another, they look at one another's beauty. This, of course, is speaking from the Lord's perspective of his having done that. But here's in verse 15, here's what happened to Israel. They trusted in their own beauty, rather than trusting in what God has given to them. And they played the harlot because of their fame, and you poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. So now this relationship that ought to be exclusive, now they have broken that and they've gone out and they've poured out that harlotry. Now in verse 28, it says, you played the harlot with the Assyrians. And here's the point I came to this text for, you were insatiable. You had this, something was going on in somebody's heart and they were hungry or they were thirsty and they couldn't be satisfied, right? Now, what does the Bible say ought to happen in that kind of situation, right? What the Bible says is that what ought to happen in that situation is you ought to be satisfied with your spouse, right? So Proverbs, right? Be satisfied with your wife. Don't be insatiable and direct all those things. What's going on in that situation is, okay, if I should be satisfied with my wife, where's the problem? The problem is with me, if I'm insatiable and looking somewhere else, that I've forgotten how wonderful my wife is, and I've forgotten to keep looking about how wonderful my wife is, right? And so here, what this text, what's happened in that situation, what oftentimes happens in these situations, is somebody forgets how wonderful this spouse is that God has given to them, and they begin to go out, and they begin to do things to reflect this insatiability. You might remember when Jesus met the woman at the well, you remember? The woman at the well, when he meets her, what's her situation? He begins to get into her life by saying, you've had all these multiple husbands, right? So she's had all these husbands, and the man you have now isn't your husband. Now, what do you do for a woman in that situation? You satisfy her. That's what you have to do, right? And so, now what does Jesus say? What she needs is water that you don't have to come to this well for. In fact, if you have this kind of water that he says, there's going to be rivers of water flowing from your heart. So maybe to say another thing that has to happen in that situation, of course, is that the spouses ought to be satisfied with one another as a reflection of the way that God satisfies us, his bride, by pouring out the Spirit upon us, that he has given to us, that he satiates us in that way, so that we are satisfied with him. That would be Ezekiel 16. So you might be talking to someone on the other side of the phone whose spouse, their heart, has gone in a bad way because they've forgotten to be, if they're Christian, satisfied by God, and then to reflect that in being satisfied with their spouse, in doing the hard work that comes with doing that, in having the belief that comes with that, right? Okay, so Hosea, now I'm gonna turn to Hosea chapter one. Hosea chapter one. Okay, in Hosea one, again, we're speaking of God's people, and it says that the mother of an individual, so their mother, either Israel or Judah, has played the harlot. She who conceived them has behaved shamefully She said, and this is how she's behaved shamefully, I will go after my lovers, and what do the lovers do? They give me bread, they give me water, they give me wool and linen, they give me oil and drink, right? So you could say, all right, so here's the man, or here's the woman, she's looking at her husband, and he provides for her, and then she says, yeah, but I'm gonna go find that somewhere else. Or you could say, here's a man, he's looking at his wife. She's the Proverbs 31 woman. She provides in all those wonderful senses out of Proverbs 31, but he says, I'm going to go find something else, right? Now, he's, well, I'll say, he or she in this situation, they've lost their mind. But as you are picking up the phone, you're talking to these folks, this is what they're in the middle of. So they're saying, look, I have loved this person in this way. I've been a partner to them. I've cooked for them. I've provided for them. I've been security for them. I've done all these things for them. And this is what's happened. That's what they're feeling, that's what's going on there, because that's a reflection of them in the image of God, as God gives these things to us. All right, so, and it says, then what will happen? She's going, well, I think that's good enough for that section, we'll just leave it at that. Okay, now, I'm gonna go back to Ezekiel chapter six, as a summary here of all these things that I've kind of looked at. I'm gonna go back to Ezekiel six, verse nine. Okay, in Ezekiel chapter six, verse nine, this is how God characterizes his relationship with his people as they wander from him, right? Those of you who escape, this is the escape from being exiled, will remember me, right? So they're going to exile, now they're gonna remember God. And as they remember God among the nations where they were carried captive, and this is what they're gonna remember, that God was crushed by their adulterous hearts, which departed from me. People in a divorce are dealing with heart-crushing kind of situation, right? Because, okay, now let's kind of try to summarize all this, and what are we saying? Here's somebody who says, I'm no longer gonna be satisfied with my spouse. Here's somebody who says, I'm not gonna have this companion that I've had from my youth, which I pledged my love for forever. I'm not gonna do it. Here's the person I promised to raise kids with. Here's the person I've betrayed. Here's the person, if you wanna put it biblically, here's the person I've dealt treacherously with, right? Okay, kind of sum it all up. What's so heart crushing about that, right? One lover said to another lover, your person and your works are for me everything I want to marry, right? Everything I want to commit to in this life. And now what are they saying? Your person and your works, I am going to depart from and I'm going to leave and I do not want any more. Is fundamentally crushing isn't it? And that's what God's people do when they say that to God as well when they depart from him I don't want anything. I've your person and your works. They are just not glorious enough to satisfy me anymore That's what God's talking about here Okay, so What do we do about that? Well, one of the things that we have to do about that, of course, in these kinds of situations, is we have to proclaim the gospel, right? You have to tell people the good news. Douglas Wilson had a couple of seminars on marriage, and in the second seminar, he entitled it something like this. The father arranged for his son to marry a prostitute. Okay, all of us in that situation have to come back to that ground zero in the gospel, right? And where do we get that from? We get that from Hosea, you remember? Hosea is going to reflect in his marriage what God's relationship with his people are in his marriage. And how did Hosea's marriage start? God said, go find a prostitute, go find somebody who's already been, in one sense, just their character demonstrates that they're not gonna have any faithfulness to anybody and go marry that one. And then what happens to him in that marriage? Then she leaves him, right? She acts just like her character is. And yet, she gets wooed, she gets brought back to him. And isn't that exactly what's happened to all of us? Our default situation is that our character is we would deal treacherously with God. We would depart from him. We wouldn't have anything to do with him. No matter how many of those blessings from Psalm 103 he showered upon us, we would turn our backs away in the default situation of our lives. But what has he done? He's reached down into our hearts. He's transformed us into a people who would be a bride. And he works on us all of our lives, right? Washing us with the word until that day when we are going to descend out of heaven beautiful and perfect as a bride. That's the good news that's fundamental into all of this situation for us in this, is that there is a marriage which is over all the difficulties that anybody might be having in their marriage, and we've got to focus on those. Now as we focus on those, then that, now out of that, out of all that good, out of all that love, all of all how God is a great husband to us, Now we have the resources, if you will, out of that salvation, out of that gospel, now to go to someone who is treating us treacherously. Now you can tell your friend on the phone, right? This is how you have the resources to love somebody who is being so hateful, so abominable. That's the biblical words for it, right? To you. And to reach out in that situation and to love them, right? And to come alongside them. Now, I hope that at least that gives you some of the context for why now 1 Corinthians 7 is important, right? So that's the situation. Those are the kinds of things that we want to be loving, not hating, right? Okay, so now if we come back to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, We run into this phrase. Paul says, OK, I want to give you some instruction about marriage. And the first bit of marriage instruction I'm going to give you, the Lord has given you already, right? So the Lord give you this instruction, and I'm just repeating it. And so what does he say? That's in verse 10. What he says is, if you're married, don't get divorced. But if you do get divorced, don't get remarried. Now, who's he talking about there? He's talking to Christians. He's talking to a man who the church recognizes as a Christian and a woman whom the church recognizes as a Christian who are married together, right? And as they are married together, then of course, maybe in their relationship, right? They aren't very mature or maybe who knows what kind of things have come into that relationship. And they say, you know what? He doesn't appreciate me. He doesn't love me. He's ignoring the kids. I can't take this anymore. here. Maybe that happens. But what do we do? We look at her and we say, you don't have a reason. I'll get into a reason or two later here, but you don't have a biblical reason for you to be separated from your husband in that situation. The standard of God the God standard is calling you to say I need there's some things I need in my life There's some some truths. I'm missing some things. I'm not believing some things I'm not seeing and I need to this what this ought to be doing to me is Causing me to look at the Bible and get my friends together and say what is it? I'm missing that's causing me in this situation to separate from my spouse and And we hope that they'll be driven to look at those things, and as they are, then they will come back and they'll be reconciled, right? Okay, so that's the first situation. The first situation is, okay, now, what's the second situation? The second situation is what if you're a Christian, right? Somebody in the church recognizes as a Christian, and you're married to somebody the church recognizes as not a Christian. Now what do you do in that situation, right? And one of the questions that actually came up here earlier was the question of, with respect to sex, should we engage in it if we are Christians, right? That's one of the very first things that happened. And so the concern is, if I'm a Christian, should I be involved like this with a non-Christian? That's the question that's coming up, right? And you might think perhaps of Ezra. You'll remember in Ezra, the Jewish people married foreign wives, married pagan wives, and Ezra blew up about that, right? And he said, you need to put those wives away. Okay. Now, in Ezra's day, why did they need to put those lives away? Because what's going to happen is they were going to dilute the nation so much that you couldn't tell where the Messiah came from. And what was one of their purposes? One of their purposes was the Messiah is going to come from the Jewish people. Therefore, we need to have some recognizable Jewish people for him to come from, right? Now, we're not in that situation anymore. So we don't have to put away the foreign spouse, if you will. And Paul here says so much. He says, look, if your spouse wants to live with you, great. If your spouse is an unbeliever and they want to live with you, good. If they are an unbeliever and they don't want to live with you, then in that situation, that marriage doesn't, you know, if they divorce you, then you are divorced and you're free to remarry in that situation, right? And because, why? Why is that? Because who has the power to save people? Or maybe I'll put it this way. Who do you know does not have the power to save people? You don't, right? You cannot know whether your spouse is going to be saved or not. You can't look into the future and say, will my unbelieving spouse be born again so that they might come to their senses and come into this marriage in a good way. And so therefore, in that situation, what the Bible says is you just let them go because God has called us to peace, right? So that's that situation. Okay, then there's one more situation, and that's the situation of Matthew chapter 19. So I'm gonna go to Matthew chapter 19 and look there. And in Matthew chapter 19, I'm gonna start in verse three. In Matthew chapter 19 verse three, the Pharisees come to Jesus testing him and they say, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason? Okay, now where does that come from? That comes from Deuteronomy chapter 24 and there's a debate going on about Deuteronomy chapter 24, right? Okay, so what Deuteronomy chapter 24 says is that if you're going to get a divorce, you write your wife a certificate of divorce, and after you write your wife that certificate of divorce, you do that because you found indecency in her in anything, okay? So what they do is they emphasize that anything, right? And they say, okay, if you emphasize the anything, if you wake up one morning, you don't like this about your wife, you break out the parchment, you write her certificate of divorce, you send her out the door, okay? And so, and you've fulfilled God's law because you gave her that certificate, because that's all God wanted from you, right? Now, so the question the Pharisees come and they say, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason? Okay, so now Jesus says, whoever divorces his wife for any reason, with one exception, except sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. Whoever marries a woman in that kind of situation who is divorced without sexual immorality commits adultery, right? So what Jesus is saying, if you do that, you have committed adultery, right? That's what he's saying there. Okay, now they continue on and they say, now going to verse four, Jesus answered and said to them, let's go back more fundamentally. Haven't you read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. That's the more fundamental issue. Here's God, and what He's done is this. And He's done that in providence, in that you fell in love with one another, and you agreed to get married, and to make these covenantal promises to one another, and to say that you're going to be companions for life, and all those kinds of things. In God's providence, that happened. And so you could say, God did that. He made them one, all right? Now, God makes them one. So then, they are no longer two, but they're one flesh. And therefore, Jesus' very famous instruction there, what God has joined together, let not man separate. Now, the Pharisees continue on, right? The first thing they said was, can we divorce for any reason? No, you can't divorce for any reason. You can divorce for adultery. And if you divorce for adultery, then you can be remarried. And that's for two Christians, right? If two Christians are married and one of them commits adultery, then they can have a divorce and they can both be remarried, right? But in that situation, now they don't have to get divorced. I don't want to say that. They don't have to get divorced, but they have a right to, the person who did not commit adultery has a right to sue out that divorce. Okay. They continue on what so then why did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and put her away, right? Why did Moses just say well just what they're saying is well Moses just said write her a piece of paper and it's okay and Jesus comes back and he says Moses because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives, right and Your hearts were hard. You forgot that it's supposed to reflect the relationship of God to his people. You forgot that you pledged your love to this person eternally, forever in this life. You forgot that that means that you're a companion to them, to love them, and care for them, and forsake all others, and focus upon them, and be satisfied with them, and all those kinds of things. Your hardness of heart So what Moses did is he permitted you to divorce your wives. Now, what I would say at that point is because Moses doesn't want some greater sin, that is, you remember, if you divorce, what happens? One of the things that might happen is your garments are covered with blood, right? It is better to divorce than to murder, right? Let me just say it that way. It's better to divorce than to start plotting, how am I going to kill this person so I'll be out of this marriage? That would be one way at least to understand this hardness of heart. But Jesus said whoever divorces his wife again except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery and Then and then that's so radical even in that day, right? That's that's so radical that that his disciples say well if that's the case then it's better not to marry and I mean, right, that's how committed that Jesus says that married people ought to be to one another. And then Jesus goes into a long discussion about discussing that, but I just wanted to highlight that to say that's the kind of commitment that Christ is calling us to, right? Okay, so what have we seen here? We've seen the guidance that God has for divorce. We've seen the reasons why God has that guidance for divorce, because marriage is supposed to illustrate this lovely relationship that God has with his people, even as God has delivered them out from unfaithfulness, and it's persevering with them in unfaithfulness to make them beautiful in one day. Maybe I'll close with this. I'll say, close with this illustration. What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to go to 1 Peter 3, verses one through six. Let's go to 1 Peter 3, one through six. About what marriage is. Or what marriage ought to be, I'll say that. 1 Peter 3, one through six. Okay. Wives, be submissive to your own husbands, right? Not to everybody's husband, not to any old husband, but to your own husband. Wives, be submissive to your husbands. that even if your husband doesn't obey the word, that without a word, they might be won by the conduct of their wives. What are they saying right there? They're saying express beauty in your life, express true beauty in your life. Now, and hopefully what will happen is this knucklehead you're married to will see that, right? That's what I'd say it there. This guy will get that. Okay, now, continuing on. when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. He says, don't let your adornment be merely outward, right? It's okay to adorn yourself outwardly, right? But where do you get the true beauty, right? Rather, in verse four, let it be in the hidden person of the heart with incorruptible beauty of a gentle and a quiet spirit. Now notice here, that's very precious in the sight of God. So now, whether you're a husband or a wife, you are functioning corporately, right, in all of the church as the bride of Jesus, right? So what I want is I want Jesus to look at me and I want him to see something that's precious. That's what this is. You could say it that way. I want him to see something precious. And so I want to treat my wife in a way that reflects my faith so that he'll say, you know, I look at that and that is worth doing. What he's doing down there, that husband, that's precious. And the same thing for that wife. And that wife, in a difficult situation, what she does is she remembers, I have beauty. And that beauty is seen by God. And it's always seen by God. And it's precious to God. And I'm going to do that. That's how I'm going to live. What a wonderful and a glorious thing there. And it says, in this manner, in former times, holy women who trusted in God, that's how they adorn themselves, right? So that all of us ought to adorn ourselves with what God calls precious, whether you're the husband or the wife in that difficult situation, for instance. And wives do that by being submissive to their husbands. Husbands do that by being protective and caring and loving and bringing the word of God and all those things to their wives by loving their wives and cherishing them, right? Okay, so then in verse six, Sarah obeyed Abraham and she called him Lord. Okay, when did Sarah have to call him Lord? She had to call him Lord when he comes home one day and he says, dear, pack the stuff, we're going hundreds of miles to I don't know where, right? Okay, we're going, right? That's one of the times when she had to call him. And Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord, whose daughters you are, if you do good, and you're not afraid with any terror. What kind of woman, you come home and you tell her, honey, I had a message from God and God told me we've got to go somewhere that's hundreds of miles away. What kind of woman in her right mind isn't going to fear like that? It's the woman who isn't trusting ultimately in that guy for her protection, but it's the woman who's trusting in God to provide those things for her, isn't it? And God says that's precious to him. And so whether you're a husband expressing husband-ness to a wife or you're a wife expressing wife-ness to a husband, God sees those things and they are precious to him. And that's the context that he gives us this instruction about divorce. Let's pray together. Lord, we love you. We thank you so much for your grace to us. Even when we were unfaithful to you, you drew us to yourself. And that as you have drawn us to yourself, and as you walk with us in little ways in which we may be unfaithful to you over days or months, you lovingly, graciously bring the Word of God to us, and you cleanse us with that Word, and you care for us. And Lord, we thank you that you have set up marriage so that a man can say to a woman and a woman can say to a man, your person and all that you are, I adore and I desire to be with as my companion for all my life. And we thank you, Lord, that that points to this glorious truth, that you desire that relationship with us, your people as well. that our person and our works, as we exhibit faith to you, as we trust in you, that you see those things, and you see them all the time, and they are precious to you. And we have opportunity, as you've provided so wonderfully for us in our salvation, to reflect in this kind of marriage that we have with you, things that you look upon and see as precious. Fill us with the Spirit. Give us this grace. We pray, Lord, for friends whom we may know or family members whom we may know who are having marriage difficulties. We pray that the Word of God would shine forth in those about the truths of the glory of marriage and how it reflects the marriage to God. And we pray that that truth would restore those marriages and even more wonderfully, restore relationships with you. We pray for that in Christ's name. Amen.