My friends, would you please stand with me as we read from Matthew chapter 19, verses one through nine. Again, let us listen now to the Lord's word. When Jesus had finished these words, he departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him and asking, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from 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. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery. If you would please be seated, friends. Let's go to the Lord and let's ask his blessing once again. Again, our Father in heaven, we do thank you for your great loving kindness to us, and we pray that your blessing now will be upon your word as it goes forward, that your blessing be upon your servant and upon these, your people. We pray for your spirit to help us, that you would protect us in this place, that you will help us, Father, to engage with your word, and we pray that we would be changed because of it. We commit ourselves to you and pray that you would cause the kingdom of Satan great injury, and we humbly ask these things now. In Jesus' name, amen. Who is a candidate for mercy? To the person who believes his life is altogether mercy, that is God's pity upon the undeserving, it holds no interest. Why? Because he does not recognize his need. In his own eyes, he is quite deserving of all the blessing that he has received. He sees himself not like other men. His ways are ordered, his life is disciplined, his behavior Behavior is purposeful, based on those who have gone before him. If others were just more like him, they would have better lives too. Mercy, mercy is for those who have blown it. That's who the candidate for mercy is, those who have blown it, who have made bad decisions, who have lives of much regret. who have done bad things, immoral things, greedy things, idolatrous things. Mercy is for sinners, for those that the world would consider a loser. You're probably wondering, are we looking at the same text here? Didn't we just read about marriage and divorce? On the surface, as we read here in Matthew 19, three through nine, it appears that this text is about marriage and divorce. It certainly addresses the topic. There's no getting around that. But I'm not convinced that marriage and divorce is its primary purpose, but rather who are and who are not true candidates of mercy. I believe the passage's primary purpose is to caution us that we not be among those who render ourselves unworthy of mercy. For beloved, the righteous have no need of mercy. The righteous have no need of mercy. But the sinner, now, the sinner has need of mercy. Granted, most of the subject matter has to do with the issues of divorce and marriage in this passage. This is the subject matter that is used to justify themselves. As I approach this passage of scripture, I am stuck on the why in this passage. Why did the Pharisees think it was good to test Jesus? Why this question that they put forward? Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And why did they bring up the command of Moses when Jesus already trumped them in verses four and five. And in verse seven, so Jesus lays the foundation. He says, this is the facts. And they go, but why did Moses command this? Why are they arguing with Jesus over this point? It seems pretty self-evident. I've come to believe that this text, like an iceberg, where there's a little bit of something going on above the water and a whole lot of something going on beneath the surface of the water, what we have here is on the surface, it appears to be dealing with one thing. There is altogether, however, something darker going on beneath the surface that our Lord is dealing with and that Matthew seizes upon and presents to the reader. Again, this text's primary purpose is to caution you that you not be among those who render themselves unworthy of mercy. And so the question, who is not a candidate for mercy? And you would say, wait a second, aren't we all candidates for mercy? And the answer would be no, no. We talked in Sunday school about thinking on things that are true. And in truth, everyone should be screaming for mercy. But in reality, there are some people who don't, many people who don't scream for mercy because they don't see themselves as being candidates in need of mercy. So listen again to verse three. Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him and asking, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason, for any reason at all? Here, we are exposed to those who do not think they need mercy, and because they do not think they need mercy, they will not receive mercy. Jesus is in the region of Judea. He is making his way to Jerusalem to accomplish his primary task, that of death on the cross. Large crowds have followed him and he has healed them. He was and is about showing mercy. For this reason he came, to ransom the sinner with his very life. And while there, while there in Perea, Matthew points out that the Pharisees came to Jesus. Now, the Pharisees, you remember, are a sect. They're a religious, a group of religious leaders of the day, conservative in their theology, meticulous in their observation of the law. They were not always entirely bad. In John 3, we are introduced to a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a ruler of the Jews. But among this party that is now approaching Jesus, there was a lot of leaven. There was a tremendous need for reformation. Of the Pharisees, Jesus said this in Luke 16, 15, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. The Pharisees have come to Jesus to test him. They're there to test him. They have this malicious intent. They want to bring out something to be used against Jesus to trap him in his own words. And right off the bat, if they had any inkling of decency, they would have gone in private with legitimate questions. The idea here is to make Jesus, who is vastly popular, look bad before the masses. They're driven by jealousy. They don't come to Jesus seeking help with diseases. They don't come to him in truth to find answers. They have come to destroy Jesus. We see this throughout the New Testament. This is what the Pharisees constantly did. This is what we see the Jews doing with the Apostle Paul as he's preaching the gospel. They're out to destroy Jesus. They are out to destroy the gospel. And so they are jealous of Jesus and his popularity. And if they can, they will trap him and make him look bad and establish their own righteousness. They don't come to Jesus because they need Jesus. They have themselves. This is the picture we're portrayed of the Pharisees as they're seeking Jesus out. So it is, friends, when you have yourself, when you're satisfied with who you are, you do not desire Jesus Christ. When you have all the answers, you don't need to go to another with questions. When you are healthy, you don't seek a doctor. Those who don't think they are in need of mercy never seek it out and therefore they will never receive it. And so look at verses three through eight. Here, those who do not think they need mercy, why is it that they think they don't need mercy? It is because they base their beliefs on false standards of righteousness. That's really what we see going on here in this text. While he's talking, Matthew's recording, A discussion, he's recording this discussion about marriage and divorce. What we actually see is that the Pharisees have a false understanding of what it means to be righteous. And when we have a false understanding of what it means to be righteous, guess what? Everyone's righteous. And that's the problem. That's why it's a problem when truth is no longer recognized as being absolute. Because if the lines on the ball field are constantly moving, you never know if you've stepped above the line or not. That's why we read the Lord's Law. That's why we read the Ten Commandments. That's why we read the scriptures. Because truth is not flexing. It's not changing. It's not shifting. Truth is an absolute thing. And so God sets the bar, and he says, this is the truth. This is righteousness. This is holiness. This is what you are called to. But not the Pharisees, no. They've got something else going on, so that they can justify themselves, so that they can make themselves, so that they can believe about themselves, that they indeed are righteous men. So again, listen to what takes place in verse 3 through 8. Some Pharisees came to Jesus testing him and asking, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from 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. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? And he said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it has not been this way. The test is, is they want to put Jesus to the test in regard to divorce. Is it lawful? for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all. Again, the Pharisees had hoped that Jesus, in his answer, would somehow hurt himself, make himself unpopular by offending someone, or put himself in opposition to Moses, the lawgiver. Or as one commentator suggests, perhaps Jesus would say something somehow that would entangle him in the Herod-Herodias affair so that he might meet the Baptist's fate. Maybe Jesus would say the same thing John the Baptist did, and we could get Jesus to get his head lopped off, and we could be done with Jesus. They're not sure, but this is the question they bring. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And there was enormous diversity of Jewish opinion on this question. In the Qumran community, they believed that divorce was judged illicit under all circumstances. In the Qumran community, no divorce, period. But in mainstream Palestinian Judaism, there were two schools of thought, one of Hillel and one of Shammai. While both schools believed divorce was permitted, they did not agree on the reasons why a divorce might be pursued. So I'm reading to you here from Deuteronomy 24, 1 through 4, regarding what Moses wrote. When a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house or If the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled. For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance." So the man finds some indecency in the woman. What is indecency? That's a huge question. The followers of Shammai said and understood indecency to mean unchastity or adultery. The followers of Hillel, Rabbi Hillel, understood it to mean that indecency included a burnt meal or if she talked so loud that the neighbors could hear her. These are flimsy reasons, you understand? They're flimsy reasons. Now, depending how Jesus answered the question, he could hurt himself or risk offending people. He might say, oh, there's more followers of Hillel here. I better say, well, of course you can divorce her. She burnt that meal. She left the iron on your robe too long and burnt a hole in it, right? I guess you can divorce her because she's not being very mindful of your clothes. Or he could try to side with those of Shammai and say, no, only for the case of adultery. Or he could just be a hard line and say, With Qumran, no divorce, period. What's he going to answer? What's the test? We're going to catch Jesus in this. We want to expose him. These were the standards of the day, the traditions which served as the backdrop to such a question. Again, you can understand with all these followers following Jesus and Jesus healing them, If they can trip Jesus up and get them to say something that could nail himself, they would end up discrediting Jesus in front of all these masses. But Jesus does not fall prey to their questions. He never falls prey to their questions and their traps. He did not answer by siding with tradition on any side, but he takes them back to scripture. He takes them right back to creation. How do you answer? questions of the day. How do you determine what is truth? Right here. It's not gotten more complicated, friends. He answers with the scriptures, with God's truth. Listen to what he writes or says in verses four through six. And he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from 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. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Jesus quotes what these Pharisees most surely knew. He quotes from Genesis 1.27 and 2.24 and he summarizes their teaching in verse six. What has God done? How has he created marriage to function? He made them male and female, each for the other, one man for one woman. Notice, friends, two sexes, period. Two sexes, male and female, not men for men and not women for women. I realize that sounds awfully radical, pastor. It's just what the Bible says, friends. It's just what it says. Because they are for each other, the man is to leave his father and mother. And the marriage relationship is more fundamental than the parent-child relationship. We had a man down in Florida who would, and I appreciated him saying this, he would discipline his children. And they say, you always take mom's side. And he would answer, it's because I'm going to live with her for the rest of my life, but you're leaving the house. And so he took this, and it's a proper way to look at it. Marriage is more permanent even than the parent-child relationship. And so you leave. You leave your mother and your father. You cleave to your wife. You are to be joined to her, glued to her, united to her. And they are not now two, but one. They have been joined together intellectually, morally, spiritually, and sexually. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Divorce, my friends, is not what God intended. We preach to a society that is nearly 50% on the divorce rate. Marriage is to be for a lifetime until death separates you from the one you became one with. And so there's clear instruction given to us here, clear implications for us. 1 Corinthians 7, Paul would say that we are not to be unequally yoked. Hebrews 13, the writer would, instruct us to keep the marriage bed undefiled. That is, we give ourselves physically to only one, that one, our beloved, on our wedding nights. That we don't look for and find reasons to justify divorce when it is so plain that it was not God's intention, by design, that divorce should ever take place. Malachi chapter 2, that God hates divorce. And so husbands and wives, you have to make it work. You have to make it work with one another. Husbands, you have to die for your wives. Wives, you have to live for your husbands. Self-centeredness will always desecrate a marriage. It'll hurt you. And so this is the importance of marriage. Here are these Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, talking about what the legitimate reasons are for divorce. Do you see anything wrong with this? What's the point? The point is, you're not supposed to get divorced! Why are you asking what the right reasons are for divorce? You're missing the point of marriage! Why are they doing this? Here they are trying to trap Jesus in such a discussion when God himself designed marriage to be something so much more. And listen to their rebuttal to Jesus. Jesus in verse four said, have you not read? Are you not the Pharisees? Are you not the religious conservatives? Do you not understand the word of God and what it says? Here he is implying that these Pharisees should have known from the scriptures the answer to their own questions. And the Pharisees now said to Jesus, and there seems to be in this passage importance given to this very point. They say, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? Again, they are now referring to Deuteronomy 24, one through four. And I want to point out to you that they are arguing with Jesus now. It never ends well when you argue with Jesus. Just a casual observation. Even though Jesus has already taken them clear back to Genesis and the creation account, they want to imply that Jesus does not know what he is talking about or that Moses was wrong. Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible by the power of the Holy Spirit. Here they are to trap Jesus. You either don't know what you're talking about, Jesus, or you don't know Moses. And if you don't know Moses, you don't like Moses, see, that's going to paint him in a bad light. And notice that they use the word command. Did Moses command that a man must give a certificate of divorce if something indecent was found in her? I'm arguing that those who do not think they need mercy base their beliefs on faulty standards of righteousness. This is why I say this passage is like an iceberg, because on the surface, and I've heard this often, the passage is used as a text for marriage, but I think its primary purpose is to demonstrate that here we have the Pharisees who are using the scriptures to try to justify themselves, to try to demonstrate that other people may need someone like you, Jesus, but we don't need somebody like you because we're not that bad. And so they're gonna justify themselves by quoting Moses, rather we might say by misquoting or misapplying Moses to themselves. Those who do not think they need mercy base their beliefs on false standards of righteousness. These men follow the tradition of men, Hillel or Shammai, and they think that Moses commanded that divorce should be sought out. This being the case, what fault could be found in any of them? They had all sorts of wiggle room when it came to morality, their marriages, their supposed righteousness. They had their own standard of righteousness, and when you do have your own standard of righteousness, friends, you live up to it every single time. Now that seems a very minute point, but I would argue it's quite a significant point because if we don't submit ourselves to the word of God and we come up with our own standard of morality, then I'm not immoral. Well, I need to live with this man before we get married to see if he's the right fit for me, or I need to shack up with her for a while to just make sure that everything's copacetic between us. Are you two living in sin? Oh no, we wouldn't live in sin. We're believers in Jesus Christ. It's just that we think that trying this on would be wiser for us. You see how we do that? And we do this in a thousand different ways, where we decide our own virtues, our own morality, and then we impose them on the world, and we live up to them ourselves. And then we're not so bad after all, are we? I don't need mercy. I'm a good person. Really? Really? Is that what's become of the American church? We've redefined morality, we've redefined righteousness, we've come up with a false standard of holiness, and then we're gonna tell the Almighty, I'm good. Maybe that's exactly what we've done. And maybe why the church has no witness. Because we've redefined what it is to be holy. This is what these men did. Again, they had their own standard of righteousness, and when you do, you hit the mark every time, and then you have no need of mercy. Again, listen to what Jesus, how he answers them. And again, I think this is significant, because they said, Moses commanded, and Jesus listened to what he says in verse eight, because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted. They said, why did Moses command this? And Jesus says, why Moses permitted it? He didn't command it. He permitted it. He permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the very beginning, it has not been this way. Again, here, friends, Jesus corrects their faulty beliefs. by which they have been justifying their bad behavior, saying that Moses permitted you to divorce, but he did not command them to divorce. When a spouse sins and violates the marriage covenant, and by the way, friends, we take those vows, remember? In sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part, better or worse, we take these vows. Is there a single one of you including myself, who has kept those vows perfectly. Not a chance. Not a chance. We violate those vows all the time. Well, if you're going to violate the vow, well, you might as well just not even take them. Not at all. You take the vows, and then you're reminded of how bad you fouled them up, and then you run to Jesus, and you ask for help, and then you strive again to keep those vows. That's what we do. And so what happens when we violate the marriage covenant? Should we act as though we must get a divorce? This is not true. The preferable way to deal with a violation in the covenant is to deal with the sin until it be repented of. That's how you deal with it. Matthew Henry had this to say about Moses permitting divorce. He writes concerning the people of Israel to whom this law or this passage was written. He says, they were generally violent and outrageous, which way so ever they took, both in their appetites and in their passions, and therefore, if they had not been allowed to put away their wives when they had conceived a dislike of them, they would have used them cruelly, would have beaten and abused them, and perhaps have murdered them. Moses permitted it because something worse probably would have happened if he hadn't permitted it, and it was only permitted because of the hardness of heart, and here the Pharisees were using it as a command to justify themselves on how they could break the marriage covenant. And they broke the marriage covenant repeatedly and use that to say, I'm still a good guy and I don't need mercy. You see what Jesus Christ is doing here with the Pharisees. They've come to trap him, to test him, to catch him saying something bad. And what happens? He turns the tables on them. And they're the ones under the microscope now. They're the ones who are being tested. They're the ones who are being exposed. He loved even his enemies. He loved them to expose their sin. What a savior. What a savior. Because of the sinfulness of their hearts, Moses granted a provision of divorce so that Worst things wouldn't occur. Divorce, hear me, divorce sometimes being the lesser of two evils. Divorce again is not God's design. Sometimes it is the answer to the problem. Never should it be the first recourse. And sadly, oftentimes, it is the last resort. The Pharisees and their focus was all wrong. They majored on the minors, all about the concessions Moses granted, ignoring the plain and obvious teaching of the Lord concerning marriage. With this as their standard of righteousness, why would they need mercy? By these standards, no one would be convicted of anything ever, and so they could get away with their sin. Paul writes in Romans 4.15, for the law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, There is no violation. And where there is no violation, friends, there is no sin. And where there is no sin, there is no need for mercy. Turn with me in your Bibles, and I'm almost done here, friends. Romans chapter seven. We read this in verses seven through 12. What shall we say, then, is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind, for apart from the law, sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good. The law is good. But when you have no law, there is no understanding of sin. And when we take traditions and we take these things and we push the word of God aside, we no longer fear sin. And when we no longer fear sin or see sin in ourselves, we no longer feel ourselves crying out, Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. Again, we discount the word of God and we say things like it was written by imperfect men, therefore it can't really mean what it says. We say it is old, it's out of date, its views of men and women are antiquated, they can't be looked upon anymore to teach us what is right and wrong. Or we say stupid things like it doesn't align itself with science or sociology or psychology. So you clearly can't take the Bible serious. And you see, all of these things are what Satan uses to get us to erode our confidence in the Word of God and be able to read it plainly. And this is what the Pharisees did. And this is what we do so that we don't have to feel bad about ourselves. But friends, guilt is a good thing. Shame is a good thing. There are some things you should feel guilty about. Amen? You're not saying it like you mean it. There are some things you should feel guilty about. There are some things, amen, there are things you should feel shame about. And those things would be the things where we violate the word of God when we don't do what he tells us to do in his word. It's not comfortable. It's not meant to be comfortable. We're not supposed to live comfortably in this world, comfortably in our sin. It should grieve you because it grieves God. and it costs the Son of God his very life on Calvary's cross. That's not a light thing. That's not a small thing. We pick and we choose, like the Pharisees, who we will pattern our standard of righteousness and what is right and wrong after. And by this, we justify ourselves in our sinful behavior. And isn't this why so many don't see their need of Jesus Christ today? It bothers people. You go out in this community and you live like a Christian. You refuse to participate in their wicked deeds. And they go, what's wrong with this guy? He thinks he's better than everyone else. He's a legalist. He's a goody two shoes. He's just trying to make us feel bad. Is that your goal? Of course not. Your goal is to honor the Lord Jesus who saved you with his very blood. And if you follow Jesus Christ, you're going to make the world feel not so good about itself. And that's OK. In fact, it's better than OK. Because until they see their need of Jesus Christ, until they feel their sin, they will never cry out for mercy. And when the church tries to accommodate the world and takes on doctrines of demons, as though we'll make them like us more. We're actually making them twice as much a son of hell. We stand on the word of God. God's standard of righteousness, my friends, exposes our sin and our need of mercy. Verse 9, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery. Jesus answers the question. There is a time that is legitimately permissible for divorce. Permissible, not mandatory. The instance of immorality, of marital unfaithfulness, and this topic could be spoken of very much. Marital unfaithfulness is an attack upon the very essence of the marriage bond. Romans 7, 1 through 3, I won't read them, but 1 Corinthians also, 1 Corinthians 7, 10 through 16 address these things. If except for legitimate cause you divorce and remarry another, Jesus says you are an adulterer. My question is how many adulterers did Jesus expose right then and there among the Pharisees? Notice that throughout this exchange, friends, how Jesus took the Pharisees back to God's word Beyond social norms in the world, the church's traditions corrected their faulty theology to bring them to a sense of their own unworthiness so that they might see they need mercy. They have much for which they must be forgiven. Probably goes without saying, but our Savior was a genius. My friends, what do you need? And are you justifying your sin so that it does not look like sin in your life? What do you involve yourself in where the word of God says you shouldn't be doing this and you say, it's okay? Because everyone's doing this. Even respected brothers in the Lord are doing these things. What are you doing to justify your sin? And are you diminishing the word of God so that you might feel better about yourself and look better in the eyes of others. It's easy to feel proud, self-sufficient when the high bar is only a couple of inches off the ground. And that's what we do. My friends, don't be deceived into thinking you don't need Jesus Christ. Don't be deceived into thinking you don't need the mercy he offers. we can justify ourselves and we can go away from this building today feeling good about ourselves. I pray that that's not the case. I don't want you going out kicking yourself. I want you to go out looking to Jesus, who is merciful to sinners. You see, he's the friend of sinners. And we look to him with all of our failings, all of our shortcomings, all of our vow breaking, all the things that we have done wrong, why would we dig our heels in and say, I'm righteous? I can't say that. I can only say it. By the virtue of Jesus Christ and his righteousness imputed to me, I have nothing in myself in which to cling or to boast. That is the story of scripture repeatedly from Genesis to Revelation. It is in Jesus Christ alone that we find mercy. It is only in Jesus Christ that we find righteousness. he brings grace and he brings mercy to those who see their need and cry out to him for forgiveness. May that be the place where you stand and may it be the place you never move from. Let's pray. Thank you father again for this passage of scripture and we thank you for Jesus for your great wisdom, your great grace, your great love, your great forbearance, how you loved your enemies and how you love them enough to lead them where they needed to be. We ask father that you will forgive us for how we do the same things the Pharisees did to excuse our sin, to minimalize it so that we don't see and have to acknowledge our need of Jesus Christ. We pray that you would forgive us for this and we pray Lord, that we would be able to look at the sin in our own hearts, perhaps even to be overwhelmed by it. But then to sing your praises and to say that where sin abounds, grace has abounded all the more. For you have washed the sinner clean. Thank you for your goodness and kindness to us. And we pray, Lord, as we leave this place today, that we will celebrate and rejoice in you, our Savior. Humbly ask all of these things now in Jesus name. Amen.