Matthew 5, please. One man once said that when you preach through the books of the Bible, one of the great blessings is sooner or later you will preach on every subject imaginable. But one of the disadvantages is that sooner or later you will preach on every subject imaginable. And so here we are. We're landing. It would be much easier for me to skip these next two verses because I don't want to cause hurt or discouragement or anything like that. But we are in Matthew chapter 5 and about 31 and 32, So I'm going to paint it in a positive light. Till death do us part. And so that is going to be our look. We are forgetting those things which are behind, and we are reaching forth unto those things which are before. And God can use you as you surrender to him for service and ministry. And so, but till death do us part. And that will be our text for this morning. If you're following along, Matthew chapter five, just two verses, 31. It has been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, this is the third time we had over here in 28, but I say unto you, we had in 22, but I say unto you, 32, but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causes. her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. May the Lord's blessing to the reading of his word. Let's pray together, please. Heavenly Father, that you just helped me this morning. May I say nothing amiss. We thank you so much for the Gideons. We thank you for Mr. Smith being with us today. Pray to bless him. Bless each one in our camp, local camps, camps abroad. Lord, I believe Kentucky is one of the largest giving regions across the world. Lord, we just pray to use these Bibles for your honor and your glory. And Lord, for our message time today, as we think about this text, may we, what the marriage that we are in now, may we endeavor with God's help to be solid in our commitment to each other, putting you first, Lord, in our lives, and then each helping one another. And so I pray that you'd help me today, Lord, a difficult passage, but one that you did not gloss over yourself. And so help me today, please, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. One author said, I thought it was quite interesting the way he worded it. He said this, he said, when we come to the third of the six illustrations Jesus was chosen to emphasize in the Mosaic Law, he says, this one finds us in territory no author wants to tangle with. except for Jesus, apparently. And so there we are. And so I will try to be as clear and concise. I'm not gonna cover all the parts of this topic. I'm not going to cover what's the criteria for remarriage, et cetera, et cetera, who should be remarried. I'm gonna talk about this topic specifically, to death do us part, and how that the Pharisees in that day and age had so misconstrued and changed it to what they wanted to change. God wants your heart. That's what he wants. He wants your heart to follow him. And so that's gonna be my goal today. I'm not, I certainly do not want to hurt or to offend anyone at all. Divorce is a difficult thing. Both of my family, my wife's family have gone through those difficult days. And so most of us have all been touched in some capacity. I think the failure of marriages in America today in large part could be laid at the feet of pastors who have not preached the truth of God's word that God designs and has been designed from the very beginning is one man, one woman for life. They are glued together. And I almost put, I almost had, last night I was gonna glue two pieces of paper and have them here today. And when they've been glued together, you cannot separate them except there's a lot of tearing going on. And so that's the idea. We'll talk about that more in just a few moments. it's interesting being in a conservative church all my life it seems sometimes it seems a church folk would rather be uh they'd rather forgive a church folk for a felony rather than a separation in their lives uh and so may we not be throwing stones may we not be critical may we encouraging and if you've gone through this yourself God forgives and go forward for the cause of Christ what he has asked you to do now and be faithful to the partner in which you are married to now my wife was and I by only by God's grace will celebrate 40 years together in December And so I praise the Lord for my wonderful wife. We had a celebration just yesterday down in Greensboro, North Carolina. Both of our children, one child came up from Spartanburg, one child came over from Chesapeake, and we met at Hibachi Grill yesterday. And so we got to watch them in the fire and all the smoke and all the cooking thing, and Audrey just loved that. She just was fascinated by all that cooking. And I said, I said, I said, how long you worked there? He goes, two weeks. He said, no, he said, he called me Pops. That was my name, Pops. And I called Stephanie the birthday girl. And he said, no, actually from when I was a teenager, I started learning how to do this. And so anyway, but long story short, it is, we just, I'm thankful for my wife and we should be courteous and careful to thank our spouse. I do far too many grumbling and complaining. Back to our text. We find in that in today's age there's now you say well pastor I just read and I just saw that the separations statistics are going are getting fewer and fewer separations and divorces. Yes because 70 to 75 percent of people live together before they are ever never even get married. 18 to 29 years old, 78% believe today that it's okay to live together even if you have no intentions of being married. So you want to know why the divorce statistics are less? Because no one's getting married. And so I just, so let's be careful how we tweak them. On the back is your outline. Here we go right to number one. If we find the perception is about divorce and there are two views and there's the view of the world, verse 31, the view of the world and your outline back of the bulletin. It has been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce." Just read that carefully. And it hath been said, what you have heard, those who are listening, whosoever shall put away of his wife, all, I'll put it here, all he has to do is give her a writing of divorcement. And that covers everything. And that was the idea of that era, of that day and age. There were two schools. There was a school of Shammai, who was a very conservative school. And there was the school of Haleel, who was a very more of a liberal type school. And they, this is the one that sort of carried weight You could have dismissed your wife as a husband. You could dismiss your wife, for example, if he disliked her, if he fancied another woman, if her cookery were not up to his taste, he could dismiss her. If she was quarrelsome, if she went out in public with her head uncovered, if she entered into a conversation with another man, he could write out this bill of disbursement and Dismiss her if she burned the bread. If she had a bad reputation. If she didn't have children for 10 years. All these reasons. He could simply write a bill of divorce and dismiss her. And what that bill of divorce meant did was, she wasn't dismissed for adultery. And that's what it's for. She wasn't dismissed for adultery. So she, you know, someone else could maybe marry, et cetera. I'm not getting all that. But what they had come to the point was this. If I don't like you, well, I'm going to find somebody else. In America, we have a dating culture. If I don't like it, well, I'm going to find somebody else. If I don't like you, I'm finding somebody else. And so about the 10th person I date, I finally marry. And after I get married, well, I don't like you. I'm going to find somebody else. You see what we've prepared ourselves to do is to separate, not to stay together. So we find here that the Jewish people had done similarly. Now, they weren't as bad as the Romans. The Romans could have between 15 to 20 wives in their lifetimes. The Jews did not divorce at that rate, but it was something far too common. If heard, or it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let her give her a writing of divorcement. And that's what God, but Jesus, but I say unto you, and by the way, I can say God and Jesus in the same sentence because that's who he is. He is God. Now, where does this come from? Well, if you want to hold your finger, Matthew, and look with me at Deuteronomy, or just let your finger, you know, just turn over. Deuteronomy 24, please. Where does this ideology come from? Deuteronomy, the last book of the law, the Torah, the Pentateuch, written by Moses, Genesis collated by Moses under God's supervision and inspiration. Why would I say that? Because Moses lived about 1400 B.C. and Genesis starts about 4000 B.C. Deuteronomy 24, verse one, when a man hath taken a wife and married her, Deuteronomy 24, one, it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness. Now you see what this, so important, uncleanness, a wrong kind of thing. I'm thinking of really an immoral type thing, does it say, specifically, uncleanness in her. Then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it to her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it to her hand, and send her out of his house, and if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, the former husband which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled. For that is abomination before the Lord, and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for inheritance." They're going to go, look right there. Look right there, pastor, or look right there, Jesus, if you would. It says right back in Deuteronomy that we're allowed to do that. This legal document to send our wife away for whatever reason we may choose to do. Jesus said, but I say unto you, We've got a lot of wrong ideologies about the Bible today, about what makes a Christian, what doesn't make a Christian, about what we should do, what we should not do. We have to go back to right here. This is it. The ideology of transgenderism in our world today. The Bible says God made men male and female, period. We understand that. We've got to come back to God's word. And they were, well look back there, and they were so misconstruing it. So that was the world's view. Secondly, under this perception was the view of the Lord. The view of the world, the view of the Lord. Back over in our text, Matthew chapter 5, verse 32, please. Matthew 5, verse 32. It says, but I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery. So he reveals this readily acceptable idea as not acceptable with God. God has chosen in his providence one man for one woman for life. That is the commitment. Why do we have a lot of people at a wedding? because you are witnesses. That's why they're there. And the more you have, the worse it's going to cost at the reception. We understand all those things. So maybe you only want to invite two people there. But they are, when you say your vows back in Port Norris, New Jersey, 1984, about 1130, 1140, 1150 a.m. after the four long prayers are over, I said to my wife, and I love her, et cetera, December 28th, 84. And there's a bunch of people there on a Friday morning of all things. And some, I don't know, maybe 60, 70, I don't know, a lot of people there. Why were they there? Well, I remember. I remember Tim and Stephanie, when they said those vows, they made a commitment to one another. Yes. Most importantly, God, you made a commitment. And she was there. Yes. And she was there. She was the book person. Yes. She was there. We made a commitment to God. And so when you make this commitment to God, matter of fact, this bonding, when it says that there shall be one flesh, that's the same word used later in the New Testament for the Trinity. It can't be separated. That's how important I know things happen. But that's the idea behind one man, one woman, the leaving cleaving. That's what it's about. You are breaking from your parental authority and you are then with one another being together. It's far more than the physical act of marriage. That's just really a smaller part of it. The big part is you are sold out to one another, God first and then to each other, and you are committed. The people that stay together and the people that do not have the same problems. Pretty much. in many regards. It's your commitment to solving them with God's help. Now I know again, and I know some of you had spouses that just did not want to stay with you and did all kinds of things they shouldn't have in them. I know there's a lot of things, caveats in here. But the principle still remains in the marriage you are in now, you need to be committed to your spouse, period. No wandering eyes. So we have the view of the world, the view of the Lord. Now it says here, Jesus said this one, there is a motion here. He says, whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication. Earlier on, they believed that was someone who had been immoral before they actually got married. But I think this is far more than that. It's someone who behaved immorally, et cetera. Now let's turn to Mark chapter 10. If you would there, please mark chapter 10. I am keeping an eye on the clock. It actually stopped about 15 minutes ago, so I don't know how long we've been here, how long we're going to go. Teasing, that's all just a little humor. It's not even humorous, I know, because you probably have the roast on at home or the crock pot getting overheated. I'm not sure where you're going or with all those things, but you're doing for lunch. Probably Carol's having some kind of special lunch today on her eighth birthday, maybe, or you had it last night. Leftovers from yesterday. That works. We have leftovers from the bocce. There we go. All right. Mark chapter 10, go there please. The Pharisees came to him, verse 2, and asked, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife, tempting him? He answered and said unto them, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorce and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, for the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this call shall man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and twain shall be one flesh. So then ye are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man, husband, wife, anyone put asunder. So the reason he did that, because of your hard heart. But his goal, from Adam and Eve on, has been when you make a commitment to be married, and again, the marriage you are in now, you've made the commitment now, with God's help, you endeavor. to make it a lifelong commitment. There's one time I see inscription, I'm very conservative as you, there's one time I can see it's okay for, personally, we're gonna stay away from that, but there's one time for sure that every pastor would agree on, if your spouse dies as a Christian, you can marry another Christian. That's the one time everybody would, oh, we heard that, oh, that's just, duh, hello, pastor, yes. But that's true, if your spouse dies as a Christian, you're free to marry another Christian. Another Christian, that's the one thing clearly. But God says if you're to marry, you're to marry another believer. Whatever the nationality it is, that's between you and God. But what I can tell you is a Christian should never marry a non-Christian. Matter of fact, I, again, personally, won't marry an unbeliever to a believer. I would marry two unbelievers if you'll let me talk about salvation first and make way for counseling. I'll marry two unbelievers, hopefully get saved while we're doing that. So here we are back to our God's plan. We see, first of all, under this point, God's plan, but from the beginning, it was not so. The Lord said, it's not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmeet. The phrase, a suitable helper, a companion. That was God's plan. The human institutions are the home, marriage, government, and the church. You understand that? We're to leave, in verse seven of Mark 10, we're to leave father and mother. In Genesis 2, and now, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of a man. 24 of 2, Genesis, therefore shall man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. That's what God's design is to glue. It's for you to be so much in love with one another and so much asking God to help you that you are glued together, if you would. God's plan, God's purpose in verse 8. and the twain shall be one flesh. So then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. My children have accused my wife and I of sharing a brain sometimes, because we have the same response. If you're raising children still, but I have learned as they get older that they're still your children, except the problems are different. And so you think, oh man, I can't wait to unlock faster, an empty nest. The nest is just different places now, and so you're still concerned, and there's actually more in the nest now, and so there we are. But parents, all that to say this, we are to be on the same page. Discipline, loving, caring, that's part of being a team, if you would. God's plan, God's purpose also in verse 7. He purposes that we put Him first. When we make that vows before God and unite and marry to become one flesh in God's eyes, how's God going to sort out everything that's happening in the world today in our own county? God's God, I am not. So we have to trust Him. We're not to operate independently. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder that would even say that the husband and wife themselves. Have you ever counseled pastor someone to divorce? No, but I have on a few occasions counseled people to separate because typically it was the husband acting so wrongly. abusively, you need to separate, and then he needs to get some help. And then once he's gotten right, then start reconciliation process. But I have never ever, that I know of, counseling someone to divorce. but I have counseled separation with the prayer and hope." That's reconciliation. Is that not reconciliation, even in the church? You go to someone, you talk to them, and the whole purpose of church discipline, really, is reconciliation back into the fellowship as they get their life right. Now, sometimes there's spouses, and I've counseled with people, I tell you, I might as well not have done it, because I just know, especially the husband had no desire for the marriage to work. I'm telling you, I'm... It's like, I might as well be speaking to the wall. Because if both people in the counseling session do not want it to work, the pastor, he's out of luck. I don't believe in luck. He's just, what can I say? What can I say? And I'm going to throw a lot of them in. It's our responsibility, men, to be the men of the home, to lead our homes right. If you are leading a home as God would have you to lead, and you are loving your wife as Christ loved the church, almost every Christian woman has no problem with that. If they're watching you lead the right way, they're just going to jump on board with that. And you want your spouse to change? Change yourself first. Then they're responding to somebody new. Love is more an action to be learned than a feeling to be felt. Grow up. Pull up your bootstraps. This is life. This morning wasn't feeling good. But you know, I can't call and say, you know, I think I'm not gonna come to church today. You know, I think I'll just wait out this Sunday, you know, stay at home, watch football or something like that. That's not an option. You're the pastor. Kid, you know, just pull up your bootstraps. That's why I was late today. So in case you're wondering here, well, pastor wasn't here till like a quarter to 10 this morning. What's going on with that? Why he's late? I'm human. And we all have these tendencies, like, man, I've got so much, why don't I go fishing today before it gets too cold? Man, I could do this today. I got so much work to do at home. I want to get started on that. What about God first? Tell them Charlie's High School, you'll never start putting God first. It's a marathon. The Christian life is a marathon. We're continuing to walk with Him and grow. It's not a sprint. It's not a 100 yard, 100 meter dash over in 10 seconds. This is a lifetime where you're walking with God. and serving him. The perception of divorce, the devastation of divorce, number one is the separation of divorce. We find in verse 32, the whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery. Why are we being a negative influence on our spouse? The Pharisees were doing that. Just let her go. And the poor ladies, what were they going to do? The husband had a right to send her off. Such a negative, I feel sorry, how many women just trying to recover? If you're a widow in that area, you remember how hard it was for a widow to make ends meet? Matter of fact, the New Testament, it'd be 60 years old, I believe, before they took you under the, because so many, it was such a difficult thing. The sin of divorce. One man has said this, I can think of no circumstance where sin is not directly involved in divorce in some way. And lots of times, you may be sitting here, and your spouse, your former spouse is the one who did all the sinning, and you wanna, this wouldn't get right, they wouldn't listen. Sometimes, especially men, we get our head in a fog. and the deer season, the male deer, they get their head in the fog and you can't do anything with them because that's just time of the year. And then sometimes they get their head in the fog and I don't care what you say to them, it's like, were you talking to me? Do you say something to me? I wasn't listening because I'm thinking about one thing, how I can please myself. Wake up, man, if that's where you are, or heading that direction. The sin of divorce, there also is the succession of divorce. What happens to the children? How sad it is, and you have had to go on through this difficult scenario. I don't often use my own family, but my brother's two daughters, one of them has not talked to him for years on end. Sad. It's sad. And then finally, there's a clarification of divorce, the perception, devastation, clarification. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication, there is the exception. Now you say there's an exception. Yes, there is. And you can read through that. There's possibly another exception in First Corinthians chapter seven. But remember, our purpose this morning is this that till death do us part. You've gotten married. You've made the commitment now that you're in it. Now you've got to continue on. And you are by God's grace to be faithful. And the expectation expectation. What does God expect you to do? God expects you to put him first and allow him to work in your life where you're going to be the husband or wife that you should be. God hates separation. God hates that. His desire is, pastor, even when there's been fornication, yes, I believe God's desire would be for that person to get right. And there's going to be all in the person who's done right is going to have a hard time. I'm telling you to forgive and getting beyond that. The person who's done wrong, man, you've got to be what you got to be patient. It's a big thing you did. You need to be patient and allow your spouse, whichever it is, God to work in their heart and life. It's a very difficult thing. But that, I believe, is still God's plan. There's been wrongdoing, there's reconciliation, and there's getting right with God. Sometimes it can't happen, I understand that. And it's beyond your control, I understand that. But in the situation you are in now, Expect what God expects for us is to put him first and everything if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Yes God can forgive if you will confess At one past one teacher in school, which I don't agree with this. He said every time a Separated person is involved with their new partner. They're committing adultery over and over every time they get together I don't think that God gives us for he forgives us and gives us, we can still be used. There should be every effort to reconcile, yes, but then if that doesn't happen, then we have to put God before all, we understand that. So, tying up this morning, what is it we should do? I think we should, Ask God to help us. We were first, we first married, we live in New Jersey, and I started ministry there. I was in church school, ministering to the church, teaching piano, working at a roofing supply, and not being what I should be as a husband. My wife says to me, Tim, we need to have counseling. I said, I don't think so. I don't think I need counseling. We don't need counseling. I'm a pastor's, you're a pastor's kid, I'm a pastor's kid. This will all work out. And by God's grace, we had Ian early, a lot earlier than we ever thought we were going to have a child. And I really think that's what God used to keep us together. It wasn't her, it was all me. I had some... thing out here that, man, when I get married it's going to be a piece of cake and I don't have to work at it anymore and I can still have all these things I want to do and not love. It's more an action to be learned than a feeling to be felt. And if you're, man, if you're at this same point that I was many years ago where I just, I want to spread, you know, What's out there? And I saw this meme about there was cows on one side and they were looking over the fence and there was cows with like little adopters things on and they were looking at the grass and they were trying to take a picture of the grass. We're trying to see if it is greener on this side. It's because it's over the septic tank. That's why it's greener. We need to be men that lead our homes. Men that will lead our homes. Pastor, you're just picking on them. I am picking on the men, because I am one. We need to lead our homes right. And ladies, as we lead our homes right, please follow us. And make a commitment. Till death do us part, I'm going to be married to her. And she's going to be married to me. you with your spouse. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We've heard about it today being spread across the world, how it affects people's lives. Lord, we're quick to jump on and yes, preach it, pastor, preach about that sin they need to cleanse from and preach on that. But when it comes to our own lives and is the Bible still right? Well, help us not be looking for loopholes. The Pharisees were the consummate example of loophole finders, which is right up until divorcement. But that was not your heart. Lord, you want our hearts. So may our hearts be in tune with you. And Lord, may our marriages be in tune with you. Lord, we understand that a Christian home has to start with two people, really. We're Christians, we're gonna have a Christian home. If there be even one person on the sound of my voice this morning that's never surrendered their life to you, and they know they need to do that, may today be a day of salvation for them. And I ask all these things in Jesus' name I pray, amen.