Good morning, church. Last week, I came to church with grandchildren. This morning, I'm coming to church with a cold. Sort of proponent. You know, God answers prayer, amen? We got a miracle here with us. I like Noah Finn. Would you stand up for a minute, buddy? Do you mind doing that? We've been praying for you, and we're so glad to have you here today. What a joy. God is good. If you're new to our church, we're studying through the gospel according to Mark, verse by verse, what we call expository preaching. And this morning we're in the 10th chapter, verses 1 through 12. And I'd like you to turn there with me if you would. And if you have found your way there, would you join me as we stand together for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and infallible word. Beginning at verse 1, Getting up, he, Jesus, went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. Crowds gathered around him again, and according to his custom, he once more began to teach them. Again, this is the first time that this has occurred since the final journey has begun. Verse two, some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing him, and began to question him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And he answered and said to them, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. But Jesus said to them, because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother 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. In the house, the disciples began questioning him about this again. And he said to them, whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery. Let's pray. Father, for many of us, these words strike a nerve. And we ask for your grace this morning. We ask, Father, that you would help us to hear your intent, to know your purpose in marriage, your preservation of marriage. Father, we confess even in our own country, in our own circles, that often it is the collapse of marriage and the family that our society is reeling over. And so we look to you as, our God, our authority, all-wise, all-knowing, all-perfect, all-gracious. We do pray for the one who preaches, who sins like all of ours are many. And we ask, Lord, that we would just really do business with you. Whether we've never been married, whether we're young, whether we're married now, divorced, remarried, Lord, there's all of that here today in this place. And so we ask for your grace. And we pray that this morning we would not just be challenged, but more importantly, leave here changed, not just confronted, but that we might cry like Jacob did, I give up. We might leave here conformed to the image of Christ. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, please be seated. Every Sunday morning, for almost 14 years now, I have stood in this pulpit, or the other pulpit, the other church, and before I preached, I confessed to you that the one who preaches his sins are many. I do that so if you ever find something out, you won't be shocked. Like a lady said to Steve Brown, said, I've heard a lot of preachers say they're sinners. You're the first one I ever believed. There's not one of us here today who has perfectly kept God's law. Let's not pretend. Not one of us. And I say that because in the 35 plus years I've been preaching, every time I exposit a biblical text on the subject of divorce and remarriage, and here at Grace, yes, I've preached already through Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7. Inevitably, someone comes away from that message hurt or offended, But I wanna say from the bottom of my heart, that is never my intent. What is amazing is that that doesn't seem to happen with other sermons I've preached on other sins. When a text deals with lying, pride, vanity, greed, people don't seem to respond, even though there are chances that someone in the group has at some point in their life been guilty of lying, pride, anger, et cetera. I don't get the same reaction. And I thought about the reason that might be the case. One thing is that divorce and remarriage is evident. It can't be hidden. It's a matter of public record. And usually it involves a lot of people. Sometimes last names are changed. Divorce and remarriage simply isn't something that you can hide from. Maybe you can hide your lying, your pride, your arrogance, whatever. Another reason why the response might be different is that divorce, I think, is a very complicated issue. There are nuances and factors that no one from the outside could really possibly understand. And I think sometimes even the categorical way in which the Bible deals with divorce and remarriage can appear to somebody who has gone through that painful experience as something less than gracious. But the third reason, maybe the biggest, is divorce and remarriage, particularly divorce, is one of the most painful experiences that a person can go through in a lifetime. When two have become one and that is torn apart, the pain, the bitterness, the anger, the sense of betrayal, whatever, can be without equal. My wife is a teacher, I'm a pastor, We've witnessed the fallout of divorce, pain, all of that more times than we can possibly imagine or count. Scripture calls me as a pastor to grieve with those who grieve, and there have been many occasions where Deb and I have grieved. And yet as a pastor, a Bible teacher, God's word is God's word, and I would hope that If you're a Christian who has been through these sorts of things, you would, as a Christian, nonetheless agree that God's word is God's word. Again, myself, I have experienced the aftermath of divorce and remarriage. Both of my parents were in multiple marriages. My dad left my wife, or left my mother. My mother actually fled from him for various reasons. When she died, I was 15 years old in Southern California, and there, really from that point in my life, I was orphaned, really didn't have a home until I met this gal over here, and praise God for that. And so really, I'm saying all that to say this, and I'm asking God right now to help me deal with this passage and this subject, in a very pastoral kind of way, yet uncompromised. And as a shepherd, I feel it is always my responsibility to offer hope, yet at the same time, to warn the flock. Where do we begin? This subject is very relevant in our culture. Divorce and remarriage is extraordinarily common today. You all get that. Although I found it interesting doing some research that divorce actually dropped 12% in America during the COVID years. Isn't that weird? I wonder why. I would dare guess that there's no one here this morning whose life hasn't been touched in some way by the painful realities of divorce. But what you may not know is that divorce and remarriage was just as common in Jesus' day as it is in our day here in America. Common. You remember Jesus meeting the woman at the well, John 4 verse 15. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not be thirsty and not have to come here to draw. And Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. And the woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you're right, you don't have a husband. You have no husband because you have had five husbands. And the one with whom now you live is not your husband. This you have said truly. Now here's just a woman in the life of Jesus who has been married and divorced five times and is currently living with another man. Common. Five times and living with another man. I actually can top that. Years ago, a couple had been visiting our church that I was passing at the time. They wanted me to marry them. And in the course of doing marriage counseling with them, I discovered that this man had been married, listen to this, seven times. And he wasn't that old. But the crazy thing was he had been married seven times to only four women. That is to say, wife number one, he married, then divorced, remarried, then divorced. Wife number two, married, divorced, remarried, divorced. Wife number three, married, divorced, remarried, divorced. Wife number four, married, divorced, and now they were wanting me to marry her a second time to him. And I said to this lady, listen, my mom didn't raise Albert Einstein, but I declare I see a pattern going on here. Some of you are familiar with the first century Jewish historian Josephus. He recorded that in ancient Judaism, the grounds for divorce could be given to any man for any cause. In fact, Josephus himself had divorced his wife even though she had bore him three children. And he stated himself that the cause of his divorce was that he was no longer pleased with her. Today, we have what we call no fault divorce law. The general cause is here what we call irreconcilable what? Differences. That means or doesn't mean anything or nothing. In fact, in Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Nebraska, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado, and California, a person seeking a divorce is not legally permitted to allege a fault. That is to say, in all of those states, it is against the law to cite a reason for the divorce. Against the law. A man by the name of Mark A. Smith, who is a political science teacher at the University of Washington, wrote about the Christian culture wars in our country. And one of the things that shocked him as he studied it is the glaring absence of concern by Christians about divorce. Smith notes, if family values refer to ethics and behaviors that affect families, then divorce obviously ought to be at the top. Divorce, he says, seems to carry more direct connection to daily realities of the family than do the bellwether culture issues like abortion and homosexuality. He calls this lack of Christian concern about divorce a monumental scandal in the evangelical conscience. As I was a young pastor, you'll remember some of you, the moral majority who was led by the late Jerry Falwell. You might find it interesting that the moral majority even failed to mention divorce in any of their publications or platforms. Christians have lobbied about abortion, pornography, gay rights, school prayer, equal rights amendment, transgender sex, but nothing silent on divorce. Smith research traced a huge transition that took place in our national conscience, where in times past, divorce and remarriage was considered a matter of intense public interest and significance. But at some point in our culture, as it transformed, the law transformed along with it, and suddenly divorce was reclassified as purely a private matter. As difficult an issue as divorce is for me as a pastor to deal with, it was just as hazardous for Jesus, especially in our text. Let me show you what I mean. Notice verse one and two, Mark 10. And getting up, he, Jesus, went from there to the region of Judea and to beyond the Jordan. Crowds gathered around him, and according to his custom, he once more, he picked it up again, began to teach them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing him, and began to question him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. In these verses, verse one and two, we are given two specific pieces of information. Number one, as this takes place, Jesus is in a place called beyond the Jordan. If you can picture Israel, it's divided down the middle by the Jordan River running north and south. The east side of the Jordan was called beyond the Jordan. It's also called Perea. Perea means beyond. So it's the east side of the Jordan River. And it is on the east side of the Jordan River that the Pharisees wait to come to Jesus while he's on the east side to ask him a question about divorce. And why is this important? Because Perea, the east side of the Jordan River, was governed by a man named Herod Antipas. And as we have already seen right in Mark's gospel, Herod Antipas is the ruler who had John the Baptist beheaded. And why was he beheaded? Because of John's stance on divorce. Mark 6, we're only in chapter 10. Mark 6, 17, and following, for Herod himself had sent and had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. Herodias had a grudge against John and wanted to put him to death, and eventually she manages to pull that off. So here comes the Pharisees, tracking and waiting, to pounce on Jesus in Perea, which Herod Antipas governs, on the subject of divorce. It's a trap. And you can see the evil intent. If you look carefully at verse two, some Pharisees came up to Jesus. Here it is, testing him, testing him. The Greek is pirazo, and it means literally to tempt him. It's the same word used in the first chapter of Mark's gospel, verse 13, where Jesus is in the wilderness for 40 days, and he is pirazo, tempted by Satan. This is evil intent. So they're wondering, will he compromise? Will he save his neck? What will he do? So notice what happens, verse two and four. Some of the Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing him, there it is, began to question him whether it's lawful for a man to divorce his wife. And he answered and said to them, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. Before we get any further into this, what Moses actually said, let me just say that verse two and four really gives us some pretty profound insight into the pervasive Jewish views at the time. It was very, very male oriented. You'll notice when it came to issues of divorce, remarriage, adultery, and so forth, they're talking from the man's point of view. The Jews at that time held that the woman was the one primarily responsible for anything that went amiss. The woman was the one who disappointed the man. It was the woman who was seen in that culture sort of as the temptress. And the man was at some level therefore a victim, at some level. And that's why in verse two, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife, not the other way around. There was no concept of a wife divorcing her husband in ancient Israel. The idea wasn't even on the radar. The second thing, just in these two verses, you'll notice that there is absolutely no concern for cause. Again, they come to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? There's no cause. There's nothing said about anything, adultery, anything. Is it lawful? And the idea, is it lawful with any cause? which of course was the prevailing view at the time. We know that the prevailing view was that a man among the Jews could essentially divorce his wife for any reason. The influential scribe Ben Sirah says, if she does not accept your control, divorce her. Josephus, divorce his wife because he didn't like her behavior, divorce her. Rabbi Hillel, she allowed the meat to spoil, divorce her. Rabbi Hakeba, who was the leading contributor to the Jewish mission, I found another woman fair, divorcer. It's quite a bit like our culture, sadly. But third, and this is interesting, the Jewish interpretation of marriage and so forth was that they saw marriage sort of as an acquisition, and adultery was therefore a kind of theft. Marriage to a wife, the wife became another commodity. You acquired your wife like you acquired everything else in your life. Listen, Solomon didn't have 700 wives because he wanted a new wife every day in a three-year cycle or whatever it was. Everybody get that? They were a statement about his power and fame and all of that. 700 wives, several hundred concubines. Can you imagine what a mess that would be? But it was a statement about himself. I remember being in ancient Israel and being with a scholar and they were pointing out that he was pointing out to Debanai, you know, this is where his horses were kept and here's where his vineyards were, here's where his metal mines were. It was just accumulation, accumulation. But they saw marriage as acquisition, acquisition. And therefore, adultery was simply taking something from somebody else that didn't belong to you. Stealing. Adultery was like stealing. You'll remember even when David committed adultery with Bathsheba, Nathan the prophet comes to David in 2 Samuel 12. He tells the story of two men in one city, remember that? A rich one who has a lot of sheep, a poor man who has one little ewe lamb. A traveler comes and visits the rich man. The rich man's unwilling to take from his massive herd, takes the one poor man's only ewe lamb. And then verse 5, 2 Samuel 12 says this, and David burned with anger against this man and said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely this man who has done this deserves to die. He, listen to this, he must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he has done this thing and had no compassion. And of course, Nathan says to David, what's he say? You are that man. What's David's response to someone taking another man's wife? By golly, restitution needs to be made. This poor man must be reimbursed, compensated, repaid fourfold. That doesn't sound anything like two becoming one, does it? I want my money back with some interest. And so at the time of Jesus, divorce was common. For any reason, wife was a commodity, this is what the Pharisees believed, this is gonna shock you. This is what the disciples believed. This was the normative view at the time of Jesus in ancient Israel. And so Jesus presses the issue, notice verse three and four, and he answered and said to them, what did Moses command you? They say, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. They say, essentially, what Moses commanded is that we can divorce as long as we do the paperwork. Moses commanded us to go through the necessary steps to possess the legal paperwork, and we'll do this transaction, like buying a piece of property. After all, she's a commodity. And essentially what's being said here, if you look at verse four, to write a certificate of divorce and send her away, essentially what that means, the essence of that, is that she'll have this piece of paperwork, and I'll send her away, and if someone else takes her, they won't be stealing from me. And you'll notice that the Pharisees quote Deuteronomy 24 as their justification. It's right there in verse four, it's all in caps, to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. I want you to keep your place in Mark 10 and turn with me to Deuteronomy 24. As you look at Deuteronomy 24, In the first four verses, verse 1, verse 2, verse 3, and verse 4, we have, this is going to shock you, we have the sum total of God's law on divorce. Four verses that are the sum total of what God delivered to Moses on Sinai. This is the Mosaic Covenant on the issue of divorce. Four verses. That's it. So let's look at them. Verse 1, 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, what would that be? Two possibilities. One, she wasn't a virgin when he married her, or she has subsequently committed adultery. Let me continue, verse one, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand, listen to this, and sends her out from his house. Verse two, and when she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, verse three, 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 the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, Verse four, 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 should not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. So question, it's just four verses. What is this law commanding? What is God saying in this? What's the whole point of these four verses? Well, before I give the answer, what God is commanding this law is not what the Pharisees got out of it. Do the paperwork. Pharisees say, listen, if I go through the steps, get the certificate of divorce, I'm good. As long as I do the paperwork, I'm good. If I go through the right procedure, I'm good. That is not what this law is about. What is actually being commanded by God in these four verses is this. If a man divorces his wife, she is, listen to this, to be sent out, and she is never to return again. That's the law. She is to be sent out and never return again. Let's look at these four verses again carefully. Verse one, when a man takes his wife, marries her, and happens she finds no favor in his eyes and has found some indecency in her, he is to write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and sends her out of his house. Verse two, and she leaves his house and goes, becomes another man's wife. Verse three, and if the latter husband turns against her, writes her another certificate of divorce, puts her hand, and sends her out of his house. Or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, Then, verse four, her former husband, who sent her away, is not allowed to take her to be his wife again, since she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. You shall not bring sin upon the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. What is this law commanding? What is God saying? He's saying this. If a man divorces his wife, she is to be sent out, and she is never to return again. This is profound. The idea is this, that marriage is such an indissolvable, permanent, binding, unbreakable covenant, that when that kind of marriage is broken by divorce, the marriage covenant is over for good. With the divorce, there is no turning back. What God is saying in this is that divorce is as indissolvable, permanent, binding, and unbreakable as the original marriage was. As defining a moment as it is when someone marries someone else, the divorce of that marriage is equally as defining. As solemn as it is when someone gets married, a divorce is equally as solemn. As binding as marriage is, divorce is equally as binding. God's law wasn't about paperwork, it was about the seriousness of divorce. This law, just four verses in the whole of the Mosaic Covenant, was given by God to be a deterrent, a warrant, a constraint, against divorce. There's no turning back. There's no turning back. When a man brings a woman into his house, it's forever. And when a man sends a woman out of his house, it's also forever. Isn't that odd? Isn't that odd? You can turn back to Mark chapter 10 with me. As you're turning there, again, we just looked at four verses that constitute the Mosaic law and the subject of verse. What are God's laws about? Why do God's laws exist? God's laws exist because sin exists. All of God's laws exist because sin exists. The verses we just looked at, Deuteronomy 24, 1-4, exists because sin exists. And all of God's laws are warnings, deterrence, and constraints against sin. It's so binding. It's so binding. You know how binding it is? When Jesus says that in Matthew's account of this very same text that we're looking at, in Matthew's account, when the disciples hear this, what did they say to Jesus? It would be better if we never got married. Everybody say amen. They got what was being said. It would be better as if to never be married. It's not about paperwork. It's about the seriousness of all this. And Jesus responds, by the way, you'll notice by drawing a line. He draws a line in the middle of human history. A line between the world without sin and a world dominated by sin. A line between the innocent Adam and the guilty Adam. Verse five, notice, but Jesus said to them, because of the hardness of your heart, he, Moses, wrote this commandment to you. That is, Moses wrote this, God gave it to him after sin had entered the world. Here's the line, it's on this side of the line. But on the other side of the line, verse six, but from the beginning of creation, that is before sin entered the world, God's intent was this, God made them male and female for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh. They are no longer two, but one. Jesus takes the Pharisees back even before the law. He takes them back before the entrance of sin into the world. Before, i.e., man's hardness of heart. Jesus cites in the text both from Genesis 1.27 as well as Genesis 2.24. Genesis 1.27, God made them male and female. Genesis 2.24, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh. They quote Deuteronomy after sin had entered the world, the instructions of the Mosaic law, and Jesus quotes before sin entered the world, Genesis 1 and 2. How does Genesis 127, God made them male and female, and Genesis 224, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and two shall become one flesh, how does that answer the question on divorce and remarriage? Well, in the beginning, God created a male and God created a female. And by the way, God created a male who was to remain a male And God created a female who was to remain a female. God determined their sexual identity. And isn't this the point? God created just two of them. One man and one woman. Which allowed for no possibility of homosexuality. God didn't create Adam and Steve. God created Adam and Eve. This allowed no provision for polygamy. It wasn't Adam, Eve, and Ethel. There was no room for divorce. It would be lonely in the garden for both of them should they divorce. And there was no other people involved for remarriage. From the very beginning, the marriage design was established. Divorce? All he does is work in the garden. Well, all she does is complain about me working in the garden. And they divorce, and that's it. Humanity ends. We wouldn't be here. From the beginning, God's design, one man, one woman with no options. And you know what? Adam didn't pick out Eve. Eve didn't pick out Adam. God placed them together. And what is the idea? They've got to make this marriage work. Everybody get that? They've got to make, there's no other options. Whatever might be divisive, whatever might be destructive, you've got to make this work. Now I realize that with the entrance of sin, the word of God gives reason, biblical reason for divorce. And as I understand it, it is adultery, and it is abandonment, in which I would also include violence. But in the beginning, before sin entered, no exceptions, no exceptions. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a sin-free world? Again, I just want to walk through verses six or nine. Verse six, God made them male and female. Again, it is God who assigns the sex. And just think about that for a minute. In his sovereignty, in his wisdom, when you were born a male or you were born a female, in God's sovereign purpose and plan, in so doing, God determined the role that you would play in the course of society, family, marriage, the church. He did that. He determined that. Verse seven, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother. Clearly, In the Genesis 2 account, Adam didn't have a father and mother to leave. And so verse 2 or verse 7 is very telling in that this was written to instruct future generations, to instruct all generations. When the normal course of history, you and I, all of us from the beginning, except Adam and Eve, would be born of a father and a mother. And isn't it beautiful, you look at verse seven, shall even his father and his mother. You know what's wonderful is that he has, listen, a father and a mother. Why is that the case? Because the marriage of that father and mother is sustained. And he's to leave that father and mother as she is as well. And they turned each other. And in that turning, they find the provision of protection, support, love, identity, that has now been lost with leaving mom and dad, solely in each other. And it says, and the two shall become one flesh. And you remember King James says, and the two shall cleave together. The Hebrew is divac, and it means literally to hold, to keep, all that. You know what it literally means? It literally means, to cleave together, it literally means to overtake each other. Overtake each other. Gentlemen, chasing your girl didn't end when you got married. Do you understand that's what's being said here? Ladies, charming your man didn't end when you got married. You live your married life overtaking each other. I remember when we were young, We were playing catch in one of our first, we had no furniture. And we're running through Screen Porridge's room, she's trying to catch me, I'm trying to catch her. For whatever reason, she changed direction and we came around the corner and hit each other's heads, boom! That was on a Saturday. And Sunday we went to church with two, both of us, black eyes. I was like, you're not gonna believe me. I do want to know that I won. I'm still chasing her. She's still chasing me. And that's the way it's supposed to be. By the way, divack, to pursue, is the very same word that the scripture uses of our relationship with God. Pursuing God. And when does that end? Never. Or the New Testament's use of marriage as a graphic picture of Christ and his church, the eternal nature of Christ, continually, ongoingly loving his bride and the church responding eternally, ongoingly in like way. In marriage, God binds husband and wife together. And what is it that divides? It's always what divides, sin, sin. At the heart of every divorce is sin. It's just the way it is. At the heart of every fracture of relationship, friends, brothers, sisters, family, sin. Sin always divides. It's the nature of sin. So I've beat you up and I apologize, but it is God's word and it is a warning. So how do I conclude? I'm really thankful for Matthew's gospel, because when we find this pericope, this account of Jesus dealing in the Perea with the Pharisees about divorce and remarriage, in Matthew's gospel, that's in Matthew chapter 19, immediately before it, in chapter 18, Jesus teaches on the subject, does anybody know? Of forgiveness. Of forgiveness. Immediately before his teaching on divorce and remarriage, Jesus tells a protracted, long parable about a man who owed his master, remember what it was? A talent. I won't go into the details. It is an unpayable debt. Unpayable. And the master forgives him. And immediately upon being forgiven, what does that evil slave do? He goes to his buddy who owes him chump change and says, if you don't pay me my chump change, I'm gonna have you arrested and imprisoned. And the master finds out and he is outraged. Jesus is teaching about God's amazing forgiveness prior to teaching on the subject of divorce and remarriage. Jesus is teaching about us forgiving, giving others because of having been forgiven. In fact, we have, in Matthew 18, been forgiven of morias. We have been forgiven of a myriad of sin, uncountable, unpayable debt. That's every one of us. You do get that. There's not one of us who will enter the kingdom of God cheap. It's free, but it's expensive. God has paid, can you imagine the debt that Christ paid just for us in this room today? Just us. It's unfathomable. You think the U.S. debt is something? The sin debt in this room is greater than the U.S. treasury debt, just in this room. You've been forgiven, Morris, therefore forgive one another. And so with that in mind, I would just say this, if you are divorced and have sought God's grace, you're forgiven. Has to be. And if God has forgiven you in repentance, forgive yourself and forgive your spouse. That can be hard. But that's how great the forgiveness of God is. Forgive as you've been forgiven. If you're married and you're contemplating divorce, know this for certain that God hates divorce. And try forgiving. Try forgiving. Forgiving involves a difficult thing, it's called being vulnerable. Being hurt the same way again and again and again, but it's Christian. Forgiveness can save a marriage, and I also believe that forgiveness can change a marriage. But we also, and here's the hard part, we all also must never use the lavish forgiveness of God as a license to do what God hates, right? If you were me, Young couple comes in to you and says, I don't love her anymore. You know, of course that always means, next thing I say, well, what's her name? The other one's name. I don't love her anymore. It's always the case, almost. Comes in and say, we're going to divorce each other. What would you do? I'll tell you what you should do as a Christian. You ought to plead that they don't. Plead with them that they don't. And again, I would say this, if your marriage is difficult, how do you not know that this is God's will for you and the means through which God is working on you and in you and through you? As Christian talked about hard words, I got news for you, it's not just words that are hard, life is hard. It's not a cakewalk. And God is ultimately most concerned about one thing, and that is conforming us to the image of Christ, and that is not easygoing stuff. And I end simply with verse nine, what therefore God has joined together, let no man, and I would add no woman, set it asunder. I titled this, and I mean it, Heaven Help Our Home. Let's pray together. Our God and our Father, we are so grateful for the gift of marriage. For some of us, it has been the most joyous of all things. For others of us, it has been the most painful. And we rejoice with those who rejoice, and we also grieve with those who grieve. Our Father, help us as Christians to be different than our culture and our world. It is, Father, a reason for national repentance on part of the church, international repentance, that the divorce rate is as high among Christians as it is among unbelievers. How can that be? And Father, I think that maybe the most pretty, intimate picture of Jesus in his relationship to us is that of marriage. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Wives, submit hypotasso to your husbands as the church submits in love to Christ. Of all things that describe our relationship, us and you, Lord, you chose the marriage. You've become the most intimate, beautiful, tender, a covenantal picture that could ever be imagined. Nothing else even compares to it. Father, as we sit here, stand here before you this morning, Lord, search our hearts. If we're husbands, Lord, help us even before you to say in our heart, God, by your grace, help me to be what you want me to be as a husband. If you're a wife, the same God, help me to be the kind of wife that you want me to be. If you're here and your marriage is in turmoil, God, give me the grace to do what's right. Pray for the change that needs to take place in our relationship. But give me the endurance, the endurance to be faithful to you. And if you're here and you're already, after all of that, remarried, divorced, whatever the case, God forgives you. God forgives you. Divorce and remarriage is not the chief among sins. It's not the unforgivable sin. It's a painful sin. And I pray wherever you are right now that God would just shed his grace upon you, give you the joy that is intended in walking with him and serving him. Allow him to take that which is now the case and make it glorious and great and wonderful and new. You are the God of second chances, no question. or we would not stand a chance. And so we praise you today, Father, for all that you are, all that you've said, all that you've taught us, and all that you've shown us in life. And we praise you and bow before you, in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen. Would you join me as we stand together for the benediction? To all of us, the Lord says, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord cause His face to shine upon you, and to be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His counsel on you, and may the Lord give you His peace. Amen. Rejoice! Rejoice! Alleluia!