You can all turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5, and we're going to pick it up at verse 31. Once you're there, then I'll ask you to stand for the reading of God's Word. Matthew 5, 31 through 37, and these are the words of God. It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again, you have heard it said of those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair black or white. Let what you say simply be yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. And may God bless the reading of his word. You can be seated. And I saw at a different spot this morning, which is perhaps why I didn't notice it at first, there is a baby in church here this morning. Keith and Cara May brought Reed there. So we had little Luke a few weeks ago, and now we have another new baby here. So welcome to our church, little Reed for the first time. That is an exciting time of life, an exciting sign of life for us as a church as well. So we're dealing with a difficult passage here today, and one that is by no means dispassionate or removed for me. When I was about four years old, I guess I was four years old, my parents were going through a difficult time, and I was enrolled in kindergarten and was spending a lot of time at my grandparents' house. And my kindergarten teacher, who I loved dearly, Hulda Plett, had a sign-up sheet for kids to bring snack. So every day someone was supposed to bring cookies. And it was my day to bring cookies. And because things weren't going so good at home, no one paid attention to the note, and my grandma certainly didn't have it. And grandma sent me off to kindergarten without cookies. And it was snack time. And it was Matt's day. And I was so embarrassed. Because my parents weren't together, I wasn't living at home, this was unheard of in a little small Mennonite community 30, 40 years ago. And I was embarrassed, and I didn't know what to say. I froze up, so I told her that my parents had died. And Miss Hulda Plett, who was a dear saint, understood, I think, what was happening at home, and she took me under her arm. I was crying. And she had saved some cookies from last time, just in case it slipped between the cracks for me on my day. And I say that not because anyone needs to feel sorry for me, and not because anyone intentionally put me in a bad spot, but because divorce affects lots of people. Okay? And we live in an age where probably no one in this room is not affected by divorce. It's a real thing. And while I am not one to shy away from controversial topics, I will admit I struggled this week. Because there's a rail on either side. I often speak about a ditch on either side of the road. And there's clear instruction here that we don't want to back away from at all. And yet there is also grace for those who are in a spot where this is already part of the story or part of a loved one's story. There is hope. verse 31 and 32 says it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery And last week when I was gone, Chris Wald came and speak and Tanya and me listened to the message on our way home. And I think Chris did a very good job. And I like the way he framed the relationship of the spirit and the letter of the law. And what it means that Jesus is raising the bar when he's preaching on the law. He's not changing the standard. What he's doing is exposing what the standard of the law is, or was, all along. And the underlying concept is that we can't divorce the spirit and the letter from the law. And probably some of us are uncomfortable, because we all know someone who, in the name of the spirit of the law, was more than happy to break the letter of the law. And that doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? But we all know that kind of a reverse legalist who's looking for a loophole, and it falls under the banner somehow of the spirit of the law. And so I really appreciated the way Chris talked about the spirit of the law being the root underneath. And eventually, whatever that root is fed, or whatever the nature of that root is, the fruit will show up eventually above the surface. So, for example, on the text he was speaking last week, if we indulge lust in our hearts, that's the spirit of the law, now we're breaking that, there's disease setting up in the root, eventually the fruit is going to show that. Eventually, there's going to be a real-life material world problem with pornography, or with fornication, or with adultery. Or if we allow the disease of anger to rot away at the root of our heart, eventually that is going to show up in fighting, or in extreme cases, in actual murder. And so the same root and fruit principle that Chris talked about last week is in play here, I think. The spirit and the letter of the law shows up in Jesus' teaching here. But now, instead of with lust and anger, application is going to be made to keeping our word, both in marriage and in oaths. And in parallel accounts of Jesus teaching on divorce, the Pharisees demonstrate that they actually don't understand the law of Moses. Tim read it from Deuteronomy 24 already this morning, what that law was. But when the Pharisees, in Matthew 19, if you wanna turn there with me, show that they don't understand what's happening in that law. So in Matthew 19, verses three to nine, we have this account. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. And they said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? He said to them, 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. And so part of the assumption that the Pharisees were wrongfully making is that because there was a provision in extreme cases in the law of Moses for divorce, it somehow made it okay for this to become normalized. And they even appeal to Deuteronomy 24 as though it's really describing nothing more than the administrative steps you need to take to send your wife packing. But of course, Jesus says that was not what Moses was talking about. I don't have to convince you to say that divorce is an epidemic in our culture. But we're not the first culture where this is an epidemic. It was an epidemic in Jesus' time as well. There was a very strong divorce culture in the time of Jesus. And among the Jews, there was kind of two main rival views among the Jewish people on divorce. There was the liberal school of a rabbi named Hillel. Halil interpreted the words some indecency in the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24 to include pretty much everything So if your wife spills the coffee on her way to bring it to you for breakfast. She has committed an indecency send her packing Okay, she burns your toast. That's an indecency send her packing She's gone In one extreme case, a rabbi, Rabbi Akiba, from this school, taught that a man can divorce his wife if he found another fairer than she. Think of that. You can divorce your wife if you find a prettier woman. That's pretty liberal divorce laws, isn't it? And... It's no surprise that this was the popular school of thought. This was the majority opinion. And there were no breaks on this system. Just like there's no breaks on our system of divorce. And divorce spreads rapidly when there's no breaks. The more conservative school, that which was held by a rabbi named Shammai, The conservative school understood that divorce was only permitted in cases of infidelity. And so naturally, Shammai was correct, but for obvious reasons his view was much less popular than Hillel's view was. And so understanding the background here between the rival factions among the Jewish people themselves in this culture is important. Because if we read verse 32 closely, we're going to actually see that it's a pretty difficult passage. And I don't know if anyone else noticed the difficulty, but it's pretty difficult. So the uniform teaching of scripture is that marriage is not a contract, but a covenant. And a contract can be entered into and exited upon mutual agreement. So let's say I'm in the milk production business, but I don't have chickens, and my family needs eggs, and what do you know, Don needs milk and he's got eggs. So me and Don can enter into a contract on our own terms without any outside help. We can arrange a contract of trading, you know, Don will provide this, I'll provide this. And once it's no longer useful for either of us, we can just opt out of it. That is a contract. And the only parties in this contract are me and Don. And if it so happens that... I, you know, I run out of feed and I need to milk a few less cows and so I don't have extra milk for him and his chicken barn burns down and there's no eggs for me. We can just tear up our contract and no harm, no foul. Even tearing up the contract works in both of our interests. You see how this works? This is a contract. Two people enter it on their own terms and they can exit it on their own terms. As long as there's two consenting parties, it's fine. And I think we take that view of marriage, but that is absolutely not what marriage is. Marriage is a covenant, not a contract. As a covenant is stronger because it isn't just a mutual agreement. It involves a sovereign party, a third party, God. I've defined a covenant before, and I'll define it again for note takers. This is important, because it comes up lots. A covenant is a solemn bond, sovereignly administered with attendant blessings and curses. A solemn bond, sovereignly administered, with attendant blessings and curses. And this sovereignly administered piece is important because now we're not just dealing with two consenting parties that agree with the terms. We're dealing with a sovereign who sets the terms on a non-negotiable basis and then he brings people into this covenant. Do you see the difference? It's either our terms or it's God's terms and we enter in. Significant difference between a contract and a covenant. And marriage is a sovereign covenant administered by God. Husband and wife both enter into it by mutual agreement, of course, but they don't set the terms of the marriage. God does. And because marriage is sovereignly administered, the parties are not free to negotiate the terms in or out or during the length of the marriage. So... to pick up on mine and Don's contract, if a wife is unhappy with her husband at around the same time that he notices that a new woman moved into the neighborhood who's prettier than his wife, they can't just agree, well, you know what, it works out good for both of us and there's no kids, so we'll just tear up the contract and go our own ways, it serves both of our interests. We can't do that. Because marriage isn't a contract. Marriage isn't on our terms, it's on God's terms. So they're not free to nullify their marriage like that. The sovereign terms of a covenant means that the marriage is only lawfully exited in the case of sexual immorality. Because the sexual immorality that has occurred has destroyed in itself the covenant bond of one flesh union. Sexual immorality means a one-flesh union has taken part with someone outside of the marriage, thus destroying the covenant inside. And so divorce, in that case, is just a recognition that this covenant has been broken by someone. And we read in 1 Corinthians 7, there's additional clarification that if someone innocent is abandoned by an unbeliever, of course, they are also free in the case of divorce. But in both cases, the divorce is a recognition that someone has already broken the covenant. Someone has already been abused. And when I talk about lawful and legal, I want to make a distinction here. When I talk about a lawful divorce, I mean according to God's law. Okay, according to the sovereign, things are lawful or unlawful. Of course, in Canada, almost everything is legal. So when I say lawful, don't hear me saying legal, okay? Because all divorces in Canada are legal, we have no-fault divorce, but that doesn't mean they're lawful according to the word of God. This changed in the 1960s. Canada followed the same destructive path as many other nations, allowing for no-fault divorce, which no-fault divorce essentially means, in the old days, if you wanted to get a legal divorce, you had to show some indiscretion, you had to show abandonment, or you had to show adultery. No-fault divorce just means it's a contract, and we both decided to tear it up. As long as you get two signatures, the contract is null and void. No one has to be found at fault for the state to grant a legal divorce. But of course this shows that our culture is confused about what divorce is. So having said all that, let's look closely at verse 32 and the problem that it appears to present. So if a man divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality, he makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries her is also guilty of adultery. Do you see the problem? Do you see the problem? It looks like if a man leaves his wife, she becomes an adulteress and she hasn't been guilty of adultery because it says except on the grounds of sexual immorality. So he's giving her a divorce for some reason other than sexual immorality and now on the surface, it sounds like she is guilty of adultery as well as anyone who marries her afterward. And we know, it's obvious, if this woman had committed adultery, the husband would have lawful grounds to divorce her, and it would be redundant to say that he's made her commit adultery, because she actually had done it. So the difficulty here is that it sounds like the innocent party is guilty, because of the actions of her husband, and it sounds unfair. And two things must be said, or more. Well, one thing is, notice in the Law of Moses, there's nothing that rules out reconciliation. Of course, even in the case of infidelity, that is the best. You don't have to divorce a spouse who is guilty of adultery. It can be forgiven. Marriages can come back from adultery. I know several that have. So there's not a command that you have to, that you must pursue divorce. It's permissible, but it's by no means commanded. Reconciliation, forgiveness, repairing your marriage, of course, would be the best case scenario, but divorce is permissible. But if we get into the time and the place that Jesus is speaking to, because the school of Hillel, the liberal school, the one that we live in today, was the prominent one, legal but unlawful divorce was all around, which meant that many women were the victims of unjust divorce. And the cultural assumption, of course, was towards marriage, that people would get remarried whether their divorce was legitimate or not. And thus, the innocent woman, assuming that she is a virtuous and godly woman, was victimized by an illegitimate divorce if she wanted to get married again because the waters are muddied. She's been divorced in an unlawful, illegitimate manner. Now there's this question, am I free to pursue remarriage or not? She's put in a difficult situation. If she has a tender conscience, this is a very muddy, difficult situation for her. Her husband has abused her and put her in a bad spot where she's without a husband and not able to enter into a new marriage without fear of that marriage at least, at minimum, starting out as adultery. And this is very hard for us to conceptualize in some ways because we live in an egalitarian culture where we treat men and women as more or less the same or more or less interchangeably. So I think what we fail to see in our own time is the full weight of how significant a husband's treatment of his wife is. And so we're accustomed to divorce and remarriage in a way that I think we fail to see its significance. But God's law is like gravity. It always wins in the long run. And so despite our cultural assumptions, I will tell you that male headship is inevitable. Okay? It's not something we can choose. It's like gravity. Men always lead. 100% of the time. Wow, that's not true. My husband abandoned me. You know what's ruling your home? The empty chair at the table. Okay? Men always are leading. And if you're a man here, I want you to take that very seriously. You are leading. And by abdicating, you are leading poorly. It's not that you're not leading. You are leading in a destructive manner. Men always lead. Gravity always wins. And if we let our own cultural chaos carry on for a thousand years, it would not at all alter the fact that men always lead. They always have, they are right now, and they will at all points in the future because God designed it this way. So the only question is how are men going to lead? Weak men lead in a way that use and hurt and destroy women. Strong men lead in a way that cherish and value and love women. So that instead of tearing down the structure of society, strong men can together with women build society. A little society in the home or broader in the church and in the broader world. And I want to suggest that women have been, inevitably, the losers in the sexual revolution. They were promised liberation, they were promised freedom, and they got a bag of burnout and misery. Women are the ones who bear in their bodies the consequences of cheap sex. They're the ones who get pregnant. Boys can run away, girls can't so easily. Women feel the pressure to look beautiful at all times, to look cute in a bikini next summer, to have a satisfying career in the corporate world, and to be fulfilled in raising their little children at home. And I want to suggest we cannot treat women like men and expect happy results. The promises of the sexual revolution should mean that women in our time are the happiest people that have been. And study after study shows that the unhappiest people on the planet currently are middle-aged North American women. They've been sold a bill of goods and it has not come true. We don't see the way that God has designed the genders to cooperate with each other. And so for those of us who can get into the biblical conception of what Jesus is saying here, this shouldn't come as a big surprise. Our treatment of men and women, sex, marriage and divorce, can be compared to an army of people sweeping water uphill. It's unnatural, right? But if you have enough people sweeping the water uphill, it can look like it can work for a little bit. But you're working against nature, okay? And that is what all the pressure, all the anger in our society is about, is if people like me, or you, step back and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, does this make any sense? Sweeping water uphill. Why don't we just let gravity work? Why don't we just let things work according to design very quickly? What's the problem? You're not cooperating right then the problem is the person who's saying well. This is all foolish Why don't we just work according to nature? They are seen as the problem and that's why we have pressure pressure pressure that you have to go along you have to cheer on the debauchery of But if we can escape our own cultural assumptions and get into the biblical assumptions, we'll see that a man genuinely bears responsibility for how his wife is doing. And he is responsible for the position he puts her in. In verse 32, a husband victimizes his wife by divorcing her without biblical grounds. And this leads to the second thing which must be said if we want to understand this. And this is an issue of our language, how this works. The wife is innocent in this case, and she is the passive victim of adultery in this case, and that doesn't come through in English very well. Some translations try to give that sense, and I think maybe confuse it further. But she is the passive victim of adultery in this case, assuming that she's not guilty of it. She's affected by it, and she bears the scars, but she herself has not done anything. And so assuming again that our hypothetical woman here is a godly and virtuous woman, and that her husband has convinced himself that he deserves better than her, and he's ready to move on, take advantage of his society's no-fault divorce, she's done wrong, but that doesn't mean she doesn't pay a price. She's still gonna pay a price for his actions. And so again, given the conception of marriage as a covenant where the man is the head and the woman is to be the glory of that head, to be loved, cherished, and honored, protected, for a woman to be hurt this way is a different kind of thing than if someone just lies to you or someone steals something in a business arrangement. It's much more intimate if this happens in a place of marriage where God has given a man, a woman, to love and to cherish and to protect and to uphold and to honor for all her days, and then he just kicks her out like she's a piece of property. It's not designed to work that way. And the husband, in this passage, is the active subject. He has sinned, she's not, but she's the one who's going to carry the weight of the violation. He's happy to move on, his conscience isn't seared, he thinks he's doing the right thing. She's the one left carrying the bag. And again, this is exactly backwards of the way it's supposed to be. Men are supposed to take the responsibility, now he's cast it off on someone else. So she's been exposed instead of protected. And so to use the same root word of adultery here, maybe we'll understand this better if we say, she has been adulterated. You know if something is polluted or something is damaged, it's adulterated? Okay, so the woman has been adulterated by the husband who has committed adultery, who's moving on. William Hendrickson in his commentary says this, The Greek, by using the passive voice of the verb, states not what the woman becomes or what she does, but what she undergoes, suffers, and is exposed to. She suffers wrong, he does wrong. And Calvin also comments on this. He says, as the bill of divorce meant bore that the woman had been loosed from her former husband and might enter into a new marriage, the man who unjustly and unlawfully abandons the wife whom God has given him is justly condemned for having prostituted his wife to others. That's strong language. Prostituting your wife out. So in conclusion, what does makes her commit adultery mean here? The husband is quite literally casting his wife upon the mercy of another man. A good man would be cut to the heart. by the adultery of his wife. But this man is so confused that he acts to transform his wife into an adulteress. He is sending her into the arms of another man to embrace. And she might not move on to another man specifically, but in most cases she will be forced towards dependency on another, whether that's another man, whether that's the state, whether that's her parents, a church, you name it. But by the delinquency of his action, he is communicating that he is okay with his wife living with another man. He has emasculated his honor. He has destroyed his own glory that God has given him. And in one sense, he is no man at all. And the woman he casts off has suffered immeasurable harm by his disgrace, but she is not guilty. She's not guilty, and she would not incur actual guilt by marrying another man, because what we know from 1 Corinthians 7, if she's been abandoned, she is free. But she does live in the shadow of his disgrace, and that disgrace touches her without making her share in the actual guilt. She's without guilt, but her relationship to her husband is so unique and so intimate that by his unlawful divorce, he has made her to be adulterated and the victim of adultery. And of course, this is assuming that the man is the transgressor. I'm not suggesting with this that women can't sin. They can, and they can sin in much the same way. But Jesus uses the example of the man sinning here, so that's what we're touching on. So, if you're here this morning and you have not been touched in any way, shape, or form by abandonment, adultery, or divorce, then be thankful to God. And keep from going there by reminding yourself over and over of what marriage is. One thing I have tried to stress here is contra a world that just thinks in terms of clinical science, so to speak, as though the essence of everything is just, can be observed under a microscope. That's not the case. I want to suggest that the most fundamental essence of a thing is its symbolic value, the way it copies the design by God in heaven. And that means, we know the comparison is made in Ephesians 5, that a husband is a little Christ and his wife is a little church. And so you can go back, and you can feel sorry for four-year-old me, or you can feel sorry for the four-year-olds in your own life that you know that have been harmed by divorce. And there's always victims. And it's heart-wrenching. For the people in the divorce, for the children, for the extended family, it is heart-wrenching. It rips your guts out. It really does. I can say that from experience. But you know what the worst part of it is? The worst part of it is, if you are an uncontent, unhappy woman who is nagging at your husband, you are lying about the church. You are saying that Christ's church is disobedient, unruly, will not submit to authority. You're lying about the church. And if you are a man who is not giving your full affection and your full love to one woman, You are lying about who Christ is. Your life is telling a lie. You're saying Christ might get a better offer. He is not committed to his church. That's a lie. That's the worst part of marriage breakdown, is what we're saying about Christ and the church. Far greater still than the human relationships that it legitimately destroys. It's a big deal. But what about for those of us who have been affected by divorce? And it's already too late. All this good advice isn't going to help stop me now. Consider what Tim read this morning about our sins. Such were some of you. Christ didn't just die to take the guilt of our sin away. He also took the shame of it away. So if you've been sexually sinful, if you have been affected by divorce either directly or indirectly, there's no need to feel shame or look down at your toes when you're looking at the world. This isn't the unforgivable sin. If you are guilty in this area, Christ died to forgive that sin, and you can look people right in the eye without any shame, knowing that you are forgiven, knowing that your shame is taken away. There's one story of a pastor, he talked about A woman who had come to his church and she had been living a very promiscuous sexually deviant lifestyle for many years. And she became a Christian and he, along with some people from the church, went to a conference and they were talking about sexuality. And the speaker was speaking largely to young people who he was assuming probably hadn't been deeply involved in sexual sin yet, and he was speaking rather strongly to prevent these kids, to make them see the gravity of the decisions that they're about to make as they enter into their adult life. And so he was speaking very strongly to these kids, and probably rightly so. But this minister is sitting there beside this woman who's already done all this stuff that's being warned against. And the speaker compared the young girls to a rose. And he showed this beautiful rose, and everyone wants it. And then he said, you know what, girls, every time you give yourself sexually to a man, this rose gets kicked, it gets bruised, it gets its petals pulled out, and eventually he holds up this limp rose and he says, who wants this? Okay, and I think we can feel the weight of that. But this pastor's got a woman who's guilty of all those things beside him. What's he gonna do? All your good advice is too late for me. Does anybody have good news? And this man said, yes, Jesus wants the rose. He wants you, okay? So there is hope for people who have been guilty of sin, guilty of divorce. If you've committed adultery, if you've got other sexual sin, this can be forgiven. Christ wants the rose. And yet for those of you who are not guilty of these things, please beware of how it affects your future. Stop it before it starts. Commit now to be faithful to your wife. Commit now to love your wife as Christ loves the church. Commit now to follow your husband and give him your full trust. And I was gonna speak on ults, but we're doing communion, so I'm going to wrap it up right here. And we will deal with that next time. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you that your law does not come to us as some kind of mixed, ambiguous thing, but that when you give us law, you give us straight up law. You tell us who you are. You tell us the duties that we have before you. You break us and you show the sham that self-righteousness is. Lord, and then you come and heal us with your gospel. You come and touch us, and you take away our guilt, and you take away our shame, so that we have nothing to fear. We can say with Paul, such were we, but you have made us new, you have made us clean, and we no longer bear the marks of our shame. Lord, I pray for each one here, whether they are guilty of some form of sexual sin, whether of contributing to an unhappy marriage, or whether they are walking alongside somebody who is struggling in their marriage. Lord, I pray that we would be both clear that your law comes and breaks us and then equally clear that your gospel comes and puts us back together the right way. Lord, I pray for conviction of sin and I pray for an easing of conscience here both this morning. Be with us as we contemplate this in our own lives, as we prepare to take communion this morning. Lord, I pray that we can know the sweetness that our sins are gone, our sins are forgiven, you have set us free, and we no longer need to wallow in the shame of the past. Lord, I pray that each one here would know the sweetness of that. We pray this all in the strong and gracious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and amen. So as I had mentioned, and as you saw, we're preparing to take communion this morning. And communion is a symbol that God has given us to remind us of our unity and our fellowship with others in the Christian world. It's a symbol that puts a visible, tangible reminder that touches our senses of what it is that Jesus came and sacrificed himself on our behalf. And we celebrate open communion here because we want to enjoy that unity with all Christians who are legitimately part of Christ's kingdom. And so if you are here this morning, if you have been baptized, and you are not currently under church discipline, you are free to celebrate with us. And as we do this, we want to remember both how God's law has crushed Christ and then raised him back to life to forgive us for our sins and to cover us with his righteousness. And so I want to say come and welcome to Jesus Christ for each one here. Let's have a time of silent prayer and contemplation as we consider the sin in our own heart. If we need to make something right, if there's some outstanding sin, there's nothing wrong with passing the elements by. No one's going to judge you. We want pure hearts before we do this. And so let's make ourselves right with the Lord. Lord, once again, the terror of your law has struck us. It has cut us wide open. It has exposed the sin and the hardness of our hearts, how self-serving we are, how quick we are to use other people for our own selfish game. Lord, but also how quick you are to forgive us, to take away our guilt so that we can know you in a deeply intimate personal way that we can enjoy glory with you forever. Lord, I pray that you would be with each one here this morning, clear our conscience. Lord, if there are things that we need to clean up with other people, I pray that you would give us the conviction and then the strength to go out and do that, to keep our accounts short. and Lord, most importantly, with you. I pray that each one would know that their sins are forgiven, that they are free from guilt and shame. Lord, and I pray that you would, by your Spirit, press that truth into us as we take a tangible reminder of what you have done for us on your cross. Thank you for this. Amen. And then I'll ask the elders to come up and to distribute the bread. Marriage and oaths both carry the theme of bonds, promises, and covenant keeping. God is the ultimate author of the covenant of marriage and of the concept of truth. As such, our actions in these areas are external fruit of how we see God deep down. As we keep our marriage vows, as we keep our word, we are showing that we honor a God who is always faithful, who always keeps covenant, and who can always be trusted. Far too often, when we look around us and when we look into our own hearts, we see lies, self-service, and deceit instead of faithfulness. And this once again drives us to the gospel of grace. Apart from being energized by the grace of God, we don't have the desire, the perseverance, or the resolve to keep our word to our spouse or to anyone else. When we see where we failed, Christ would not have us stay in despair and in shame, but delights in forgiving us, in removing our shame, and then giving us strength as we press on ahead. And I'll leave you with the benediction from 2 Timothy 2, 11 through 13. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.