Luke 18, but I'd like you to start please with me in Deuteronomy chapter number 24. I'm going to take you through, you know what, let's do even deeper. Let's go to Exodus chapter number 21. Go to Exodus 21. I'm going to take you through a trail of texts, passages, and I'll be watching over here with our internet feed as well, so if you have a question or a comment, feel free to type it in there. We'll do our best to answer. And if you have a comment or question here tonight, Please do If you don't mind lift your hand or wait for that opportune time when no one is talking and speak out Okay, that'll be fine, too. So Exodus chapter 21 So here's what I'm doing to me taking us through the Passages that I'm going to take you through in order as you find them in the Bible is the most user-friendly method tonight so that doesn't mean that they are What I'm gonna ask you to do is hang on to a few things and imagine this imaginary dry erase board up here. And I'm gonna ask you to remember something out of each passage if we can. And then we're gonna end up in the book of Luke, okay? So Exodus chapter 21, please, if you could. And verse one, this is gonna be kind of an odd passage. The flock of God is not thinking, I'll bet the pastor will come straight out of Exodus 21 tonight. Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them if you buy a Hebrew servant He shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing If he comes in by himself, he'll go out by himself if he comes in married his wife will go out with him If his master has given him a wife she has born him sons or daughters the wife and her children shall be her masters And he'll go out by himself. I mean, it seems pretty simple so far I'm sure you can see exactly what the application will be for us. I Maybe not. But you see the idea here. If a dude is hired and his master provides a wife for him while he's working on his property, well then the wife stays with the master when the man is released on year seven. On the other hand, if the man is taken into bondage by a master and he's already married, then in year seven when he's released, he gets to take his wife with him. All right, so that kind of begs the question. Just so you know that, don't bother me, sis, okay? Don't worry a bit, all right? We like that voice. So if you're wondering about the person in between, the person who says, you know what? I did not bring my wife into this slavery or a hired indentured servant lifestyle. And I did meet her and she's a looker and I married her and I'd like to keep her. Well, then here's what the Lord says you can do. Verse five. If the servant plainly says, I love my master, my wife, my children, I will not go out free. His master shall bring him to the judges and he shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost and his master shall pierce his ear with an owl, A-W-L. Is that a word you use often? Maybe when you're over there buying bread from the Amish, maybe. But AWL is a wooden peg that gets hammered through the slave's ear. And they do it at the doorpost. And he'll serve them forever. So, kind of picture yourself, men. You, for whatever reason, find yourself enslaved to another Hebrew. That's the context. You're a Hebrew. And year seven, you have a choice. You found a wife, year two or three, whatever, and you married her and she also belongs to your master. Year seven comes along, you can leave without her or you can stay with the master and keep your wife. And the only thing you have to do is, you know, I mean, in front of the judges of the city, you just need to go over to the doorpost and you become forever your master's slave. in order to keep your wife. Now, I could preach Christ right there, and I could talk to you about how Jesus took upon him the form of a servant forever, and says in Hebrews chapter number 10, quoting Psalm 40, my ear you have opened. And it's talking about the piercing of the ear, and how that the Lord Jesus became a forever human in order to gain a bride. How about that? Yeah, servant is doulos, or doulos, sure, that'll work. And it's the lowest rung on the Greek servitude. I hesitate to even use the word Greek, because my Greek professor's in the room. But we have, without question, we have a doulos, which is the opposite of lord, which is kurios. That wouldn't be the word here. I would have to check the Septuagint to make sure. But here, I'm not sure the word in the Hebrew. I'd have to check and make sure. Although I can tell you that there's three people in the room that could. What did you say, Andy? Huh? Evid. Is that the Hebrew equivalent to doulos? Okay. There you are. Should have turned around and asked him, Pastor Randy. So anyways, then we get to verse number seven. Take a look at verse seven. If a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. All right, so she doesn't get to go out on year seven. Verse eight, if she does not please her master who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people since he has dealt deceitfully with her. Now here, if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. This is just a messy culture. If you don't understand it, you don't live in it. Basically, if you're in the middle of it, it makes kind of makes sense. I mean, I mean, she's your servant, and you can be betrothed to her, you can betroth your female servant to yourself, or you can betroth your female servant to your son. But if you do betroth her to yourself, you have to treat her like she's your wife. If you do betroth her to your son, you have to treat her like she's a daughter-in-law. Verse 10, if he takes another wife, he will not diminish her food, her clothing, her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, she shall go out free without paying money. All right, so let's see if we can talk through this a minute. If this female slave is kind of set apart and not really the wife of choice for this master, Then he still has to take care of her as if she's a wife by giving her the three things clothing food and marriage rights and Marriage rights is pretty broad term. It's a very narrow term depending on who you read You can read between the lines or read outside the lines, but in any case it'd be entertaining whatever commentator you pick up, but it probably means exactly what you think it means food, clothing, and marriage rights belong to her. And look, verse 11, if he does not do these three for her, she shall go out free without paying money. So this, you know how our judicial system works, right? Well, maybe, maybe not, and maybe it doesn't work, but, but here. In reality, we would say that we have fresh evidence that the judicial system does in fact work. It's like 24 hours old. But, normally speaking, the judicial system is to take existing legislation and make it apply to cases in which it is not depicted in the legislation. In other words, it looks at precedence and case law in order to see how it ought to be done today. It takes precedence in different contexts. In other words, Congress can only write so many laws, although if you put a challenge to them, they might try to They might try to do more. They can only write so many laws. They can't write a law for every situation. And therefore, it's the judicial system's job to take what legislation does exist and apply it constitutionally to places in which there is no legislation written. Does that make any sense at all? Okay, thank you for a few of the head nods anyways. So if that's true, then Here we have some case law and if you were a judge and judges were already set in motion in chapter 18 when Moses's father-in-law Jethro Who is not to be confused with Jethro Clampett. This is Jethro the father-in-law of Moses Tells Moses he ought to set up levels of say it for me anyone Administration we might call them judges. Yeah, and magistrates maybe and magistrates are judges and their job is to take what law is Explicit and apply it in situations where there is no explicit law So what I'm trying to say is many have seen this passage as a proof text that if you are in fact not being provided for by your spouse that could very well be biblical legitimization for a biblical divorce and Here is a woman who is betrothed, which is quite a bit more intense. We usually were told betrothal is the equivalent to an engagement. It's quite a bit more intense than that. Basically everything happens except cohabitation with betrothal. And so, here you have a woman who is betrothed to a master, basically married, but not consummated the union and is not cohabiting with the master. He does not provide for her in that he is negligent, how's that for a word? Cruel in his negligence. It's not like he fell down on his luck, became unemployed, and then, you know, hard luck, she had to get a job, and we're not talking about that. We're talking about a woman who does not have the freedom to become employed outside of her master's care. And now her husband won't care for her. This is the equivalent to a man leaving town and locking the doors from the outside to his apartment and putting a padlock on the fridge. That's what we're talking about. And in such cases of cruelty, God prescribed here divorce. a putting away, a letting a wife go, a betrothed anyways, to go out and be free to marry another man. Please help me from our study in Ruth, if you remember, what would a woman be faced with as an employment opportunity if she couldn't find a man to marry? Say it louder, please. Nothing, but there was also some clandestine work she might involve herself in. Prostitution, right. In fact, I think maybe a year ago on Sunday night we preached to Genesis 38 and Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah. Alright, so this is the first passage I wanted you to see. Any questions about this? I'm not expecting us to have a full-on understanding of this passage, but do you have any questions about this? and decides not to keep him, leaves, the master winds up with a woman, an ant, whatever, a Right, and now we're going to talk about that abuse. Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 24. We're going to take a look at this certificate of divorce. Probably some of you have your marriage license hung up on the wall somewhere or in a safe. Probably you wouldn't do the same thing with a divorce certificate. Hang it with pride behind your desk down at the office maybe. with an engraving on the frame, that was a close one, you know something, I don't know. Deuteronomy 24 and that's awful, I can't believe the pastor's joking like that. Deuteronomy 24 and we might notice verse number one please. When a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he's found some uncleanness in her, And he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house. Now let's stop right there. So far in this verse, we've been told there's one cause for a man to send his wife packing. And I don't mean carrying a gun. I mean leaving, going back to mom. And it is uncleanness. Now in the context, this seems pretty simple because earlier in Deuteronomy, there were some clear signals as to whether or not the woman you just married was, in fact, pure. You all know what I'm saying? We have young ears in the room. And so if, in fact, it turned out that she had not been pure before marriage, there would be some... I'm telling you, it is prescribed in this book, okay, that if certain things could not be presented to the in law to prove that she in fact came to her marriage evening with cleanliness, then in fact it was up to the husband who could have her stoned. And I don't mean smoking bad hemp. I mean something different. I mean receiving rocks on the head, okay? All right. So if this is true, and it is, that leaves the application really narrow. Uncleanness meant sexual infidelity to the man that she married, and usually it was found out early in the marriage, like the night of. Well, If you take this completely out of context of what I just shared with you that is otherwise shared in Deuteronomy, then it becomes open to abusive interpretation. Uncleanness can mean anything. And there was an entire school of Pharisees that would apply this to being something as basic as you burnt the meatloaf, basically. And uncleanness could be anything. And a man could abuse the system and give his wife a writing of divorcement for something that he would say she was unclean and that you know maybe and he would take other applications of uncleanness out of Leviticus if you can read between those lines and send her away so verse number two when she departs from his house when she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, if the latter husband detests her, I mean, talk about hard luck, husband number two detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her as his wife. This is really difficult. Husband one gets rid of her because she's sexually unpure, impure. Husband two either dies and she becomes a widow or divorces her like the first husband did. In either case, verse number four, her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she's been defiled. And defiled by definition has been with another man. For that is an abomination before the Lord and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. A couple very, very difficult things that you should draw out of this passage is the connection between the conduct of the people and the welfare of the land. You notice in verse 4, you will not bring sin on the land. And over and over again, we're told that this little spot of geography in the Middle East has reactions to the conduct of the people that sit on. In fact, Leviticus 18 uses this language, the land will vomit out its inhabitants. So the idea here is that the promised land or Israel, or the geographical space that we usually identify with Israel, incorrectly referred to in times past as Palestine. That is a sacred piece of ground in God's eyes because of His covenant. And apparently, how the Lord allowed the people of Israel to stay in that land was related to how they behaved. And not just behaved, but more specifically in this context, how they treated the institution of marriage. Isn't that what it says? Now, here's what ought to scare you. I think it was 2012 when Amendment 1 was voted in by the voters of North Carolina that defined marriage is between one man and one woman. Remember that? And then a one judge, you know, in North Carolina, one judge overruled, I think, two million North Carolina votes. Just like that. 61% of North Carolina said, we want this as an amendment to our Constitution. And one judge said, no, unconstitutional. How do you vote as unconstitutional? How do you say something is unconstitutional when, by Constitution, the people voted for the constitutional amendment? But anyway, I say all that to say that there was this, for about two or three years, it seemed like the only thing Christians or churches in North Carolina talked about was marriage and who gets married. And I mean, it is an important thing to talk about. But what I think that you and I should draw our attention to in this passage is that the Lord is not talking about same-sex marriage, same-sex attraction. He's not even talking about homosexuality. He's talking about heterosexuals getting married and staying married. So if I could say something tenderly to us and to those who will listen to this later, watch this on the internet, Marriage is a mess in America and it has nothing to do with homosexuals. It's really important that we get that. We would have a leg to stand on. And look, there are plenty of exceptions to biblical divorce, to what God thinks about divorce and remarriage. And I don't want anyone in this room thinking that I think you're second class. But I think that a person coming to this passage should be able to come to it with an understanding that God has an opinion about marriage as a rule. And therefore, brothers and sisters, Marriage in America, 50% divorce rate in America among Christians is not thanks to the homosexuals, it's thanks to the pro-life, mostly. I'm talking about good old-fashioned Southeastern American, yuck, yuck, drumsticks, apple pie, baseball, love mama, Christianity. As pro-life and pro-traditional marriage, as politically conservative people are, we sure have made a stinking mess of it. And then we want to say it's the queer's fault. No, for years and years and years now, heterosexual, politically conservative Christians have been leaving their spouses. Am I right or not? Are there reasons that a person could or should do such a thing? Certainly. But hopefully you come from this passage knowing how seriously the Lord takes it. So seriously that he says, let me give you a scenario. Let's say that you are married and that you are then divorced and then you get remarried. Let's just say your second husband dies. You're not allowed to go back to your first husband. Now, the why will become very clear by the end of the message, but basically, there is a potential for abuse for weekend divorces and remarriages to be with people you want to on a fling and still be legal in God's eyes if this is abused. Here's how this works, right? You wanna be with someone, let's just say someone visits our church and they make eyes at your husband. That happens in churches, and we're trying to make sure it doesn't happen here, amen? We should be safe here in our marriages and safe in our conduct and such. But from time to time, people do sinful things. And let's just say that in your hearts, in your mind's eye, you want to find a biblical justification for doing something as sordid as being with someone that you love and you think you love for a year. And your wife has the smart idea that she actually wants to play the market as well, play the field as well. And so you do this whole kind of, well, maybe we'll kind of get some time away from each other and we can maybe, you know, get some space and maybe in a few years we'll find each other again. So you get a divorce with the intention of maybe getting married again just so that you can do what you want to do with anyone you want to do it with while you're divorced. And so what I'm trying to say is this was a slick way of staying legal in the Mosaic Law and being with whoever you wanted to be with sexually. Is that you would have seasonal divorces and then remarriages. So that you could say, we didn't break the Word of God. I gave her a certificate of divorce. And then before we came back together again, we got remarried. This was a safeguard against that. Any questions? It'll get a little less intense here. Okay. Let's go to the book of Malachi. Some have thought him as the Italian prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, but it's Malachi. And it's near the end of the Old Testament. Malachi. and okay I'm coming over to looking over at our feed and I don't see any questions just yet see some comments look at Malachi chapter number two and you're going to see people that actually did what I described Malachi chapter number two and verse number 13 we'll say Malachi 2, verse 13. This is the second thing you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, weeping and crying, so that he does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. Yet you say, for what reason? All right, so let's see if you can picture this in today's language. At the close of the service, a particular person comes down here, weeps at the altar. We want that to happen. but the particular person being described in this verse, in language for today, comes down here, and every week, pours out his or her heart to God about a particular sin in their life, or a particular thing in their life, and the middle of verse 13, the Lord doesn't even regard that they're there anymore, their offering of worship, their offering of praise, back then it would have been an animal, And so here, verse 14, Malachi is answering the hypothetical person in the audience who's saying, why are we being rejected at the altar? Here's what the Lord says in verse 14. You say, for what reason? And here's what the Lord says, because the Lord Jehovah, Jehovah, he has been witness between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Two things that you should pick out of that verse. The Lord is okay with young people getting married. And two, it ought to involve a covenant. A covenant. Verse 15. He did not make them, but did he not make them, one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? Why does God want two people who are in the covenant to get married? Because he wants them to have godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none of you deal treacherously with the wife of his youth And you look here for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce It covers one's garment with violence says the Lord of hosts therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously Okay, so this is heavy stuff As a rule, you should come away believing what God says about divorce. It doesn't mean that it never happens. It means that typically in this passage, it was happening because people were breaking their covenant with their wife. And they were doing it so haphazardly. They were dealing treacherously, verse 14, with their wife. And here the Lord says He hates divorce. In other words, if we could put it in the form of a noun, it's an abomination to Him. Okay? If you take abomination and turn it into a verb, it could be that he hates. So here, the Lord is saying that divorce is an abomination to him. Again, no one says, you know what I need to do, Sunday night, let's keep it light. I want to speak on divorce and remarriage. No one does that. It's because it's in the book of Luke, and we're trying to give you some background to it, okay? Any questions about this, Malachi chapter two? All right, take a look now at Matthew chapter, I hear you brother, Joey. Joey Todd says that I'm starting to preach like the old men. All right, so look at Matthew chapter number 19. Matthew chapter number 19. I'm just trying to let the page speak, my brother. Matthew chapter number 19. And what you're about to read now is affectionately known as the exception clause. It is. I mean everyone knows Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 have the exception clause if they've studied this topic much in the framework of God's Word. Let's review what I haven't said yet tonight. Can I? I have not said that divorced and remarried people are second class. I have not said that all divorces are against the will of God. I have said that God appears to be clearly saying that he hates a culture of divorce. He hates the act of divorce born out of treachery and breaking up the covenant. We have reviewed that. We have talked about a bill of divorce meant allowed by Moses in the case of uncleanness. Now, we look at Matthew 19, and we might see in verse number three, the Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? Now friends, the Pharisees, they know the Old Testament. They definitely know the books of Moses. They're baiting Jesus, baiting, B-A-I-T, they are baiting Jesus and attempting to trip him up. And they know the answer to their question. Because they have the same Bible that you and I have today They just didn't have chapter verse divisions and it wasn't written in English, but they had Deuteronomy 24 1 that says for uncleanness not for any reason for uncleanness And here, in Matthew 19, the Pharisee says, is it lawful? Now, if we say, is it lawful, we use words like, is it legal? Like, is it legal to speed to the hospital if your wife is bleeding in the car? The answer is, whether or not it's legal or not is kind of irrelevant at that point. I'm speeding, right? I'm going to run every light. If my wife is in danger, I'm running every light. I'm going to speed. I'm going to go at least a hundred miles an hour in that Hemi. It's going the whole way. I'm telling you right now, if you don't want me fired for speeding, make sure my wife never gets injured. All right. Okay. So if you don't want me getting in trouble being in the paper, make sure that all of those things line up perfectly. So, No, no verbal cuts. No, that's right. She's always so kind to me, though. I mean, she's just sweet as she can be. Isn't that right, baby? Yeah. All right. So, so here the Pharisee says, is it lawful? So what is he referring to when he uses the word lawful? Moses law, the Old Testament. What did you say, Keith? Yeah, yeah, is it allowed, and basically we bring all those answers together, is it allowed in Moses' law for a man to divorce his wife, to put her away, is divorce, if you have a King James, is it lawful or legal or allowed in Moses' law for a man to divorce his wife for any reason? He already knows the answer, he's already heard from God, now they're trying to trip Jesus up into how they define uncleanness. So since they have developed so much in their ability to bend the word uncleanness, Jesus is going to fix it for them. So in verse number four he answered and said have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh So then they're no longer two but one flesh therefore what God has joined together. Let not man separate Verse seven they said to him. Well then now here's the proof that they knew Deuteronomy 24 Well then, why did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce to put her away? Where did he do that? Deuteronomy 24. And Jesus said, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives. In other words, even if you have the box checked for the big reason why you're allowed to divorce, The real reason why we divorce, even in that situation, Jesus says, is because somebody's got a hard heart. Now, think that through. Christians have no business saying we split up because we just weren't getting along, we had irreconcilable differences, blah, blah, blah. No, it is a horrible sin against the covenant-keeping God. And so, we find out in verse number eight, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. It was never in God's plan for two people to get married outside of the covenant, or in the covenant, and then divorce. But let's put a list of things that are not the will of God when it comes to marriage. You are not supposed to marry an unbeliever. So right away, when you go from the book of Genesis where it says that God put you together, don't let anyone pull you apart, we should not be surprised that marriages are trashed when a person marries an unbeliever. I hope that we get to a culture in our church where it's more than, do you believe in God, Junior, before you marry my daughter? Do you believe in God? It better be a higher bar than that. You mean all he has to do is not be an atheist? What kind of retardation are we propagating in our culture where our biggest question for someone is, do you believe in God? Amen. So we've got to make sure we clean our house before we start trying to get irritated with three and a half percent of the population. And we need to make sure that we're raising the bar. When Sonny boy tells you that he's dating a girl, it shouldn't be while she's a real looker junior. There ought to be some other qualifications there, like, is she a born-again believer who lives a life that looks like she's been regenerated? So anyway, all that to say, from the beginning, it was never God's design for there to be marriages and breakups, marriages and breakups. And while I'm at it, if that was never God's design, then maybe we should scrap practices that train young people to marry and divorce all the time. Are you with me? I know parenting's not easy, I know that, I'm in the middle of it. And I know grandparenting's not easy, and I know being a parent-in-law is not easy, say amen right there. All right, so anyways, in verse number nine, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, so Jesus is doing us a favor now in defining Deuteronomy 24 one, uncleanness. Immorality. I believe the Greek word there is porneia, isn't it? I believe so, which is where we get our word pornography. Except to be for porneia. And marries another commits adultery and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. Yowzers. So if you divorce and remarry other than because of immorality, you are an adulterer. And if you marry someone who's divorced, you are an adulterer. So we have verse 10, the disciples said what maybe some folks in here are saying. Well, maybe we shouldn't get married then. I mean, verse 10, in such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry. Here's what the disciples basically said. If I'm stuck with that girl for the rest of our lives, and the only hope I have of getting out of that marriage is that she cheats on me, it's better for a dude not to get married. That's quite an outlook, isn't it? So, friends, Christianity is a mess in America, and we can start with our own house, can't we? Now, so why did I bring you through this litany of Scripture? Because once you get to Luke 16 now, let's go there. Luke 16. Luke 16, please. If I were to title this message, and I can't stand when preachers say that, because when you say, if I were to title the message, you're titling it. So, the title might be, why is there no exception clause in Luke? This is worthwhile conversation. Don't forget, Luke wrote this gospel without any expectation that you had Matthew or Mark. And so therefore, if he thought you needed the exception clause, he would have put it in here. Now, I spent a long time this morning giving you the context of why there's a connection in Luke 16 between the opening parable, the closing passage of Rich Man of Lazarus, and verses 16, 17. I did my very best to show you the connection of those three portions of scripture. And then I acted bewildered because it's a bewilderment to wonder, okay, I get everything Jesus has said so far to these Pharisees, Secondarily beginning verse 15 because they were listening on what he told his disciples in verses 1 through 14 I get the whole talk as we described this morning in verse 16 and 17 that everything that the Pharisees were seeking They should have found it in Christ beginning with the law and the prophets should have let him write to Christ Okay. Well then what in the world? And then we get on, I mean, to me, you better be thankful I didn't write the Bible. To me, it seems like it makes good sense to go from 17 to 19, and what in the world is 18 doing in there? And by the way, I'm not the only one who feels this way. I mean, here's one dude, we'll call his name, we'll act like his name is G. Campbell Morgan, because it is. He says, we can't tell why Luke should decide to place this text at this precise place in his narrative. No idea. No idea why. Here's another guy named Ybor Powell in his commentary, Luke's Thrilling Gospel. He says, some have suggested that these words constitute an interpolation by a later hand. If we could just say it in plain man's language, some dude edited after Luke. Well, if those are the two choices we have, I take neither. I'm one of those guys that thinks that the Word of God is written by God. And that I think it's without error and that every verse in there belongs in there. So then the question to us who believe the Bible is very simple. Why is it in there? It's not should it be there. We know it should be. We believe the Bible. We believe it was written perfectly and that it wasn't dropped in haphazardly like some kind of paratrooper in Normandy. No, we believe that it belongs right here after verse 17 and before verse 19. Now the question is why? And so, let's read the verse. It'll just bless your heart. Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery. Now, there's no exception clause there. And a person would wonder, number one, why is there no exception clause? It doesn't give you an out for adultery. And number two, why is it even in the verse? Why would you go from talking about the purpose of the Old Testament is to lead us to Christ, and then go to, let's talk about the end of the world passing away, and then, and if you divorce your wife and marry another, you're an adulterer. And if you divorce your wife and marry a woman who's divorced, you're an adulterer. Okay, now let's talk about hell, verse 19. Right? I mean, isn't it a little strange, that flow? So those are two big questions you should be coming to. But before I start with that, do you have any things I should be talking about here? Any questions, comments? Yes, Tim? I believe he's going back to remind me of what we already know about if any of the things have a nerve, a spirit in it, like certain things are out of the law. To remind me what that's in the law, that's one of the things passes into, I believe. And then a second point. it sounds like you're asking me why aren't they allowed to get married a second time So I could see your question two different ways. So tell me if I'm tracking right here if a person if two if divorced people find each other and get married Why aren't they allowed to seems like God would forgive that? Ah Once they're married. Oh Well, okay. So the question Tim asks is a solid question and it ought to be asked by everyone in here if marrying a woman is constitutes an adultery because either you did not biblically divorce your first spouse, or if marrying a divorced woman is adultery because she did not biblically divorce her first spouse, then are they continuing in adultery staying married? Is that pretty much what you're asking? Yeah. And we would say that the act of marriage is the sin. Staying married is the righteous thing to do. So if you're married to someone, stay with that person. even if the act of marrying them was a sin. I've heard people say, if the marriage started in sin and God can't bless it, oh, that's ridiculous. You can't find that in scripture. In fact, we find the opposite. God blesses things that happen out of sin constantly. I mean, we've been in our Genesis study on weekday mornings where God, for some reason, blesses Ishmael. He shouldn't have been. God blesses Moab and Ammon. They shouldn't have been. Just over and over and over again, God blesses things that start in sin, but it's to draw attention to himself. For example, the crucifixion might be a good one. Jesus was murdered and it turns out that it actually pays for our sins. So anyways, I hope that answers the question. We would never want anyone to think that we're saying that one way to fix a divorce is to get a second one. Never. So thank you for that. So as we've reviewed these passages, so we've actually talked about in our review here both in Exodus where it looks like negligence to your marriage partner could result in, you know, if we're talking about survival, where the woman had nothing provided for her, you remember back that about 30 minutes ago? And that seemed to be a biblical justification for divorce. It seems like in Matthew that there's a biblical justification for divorce if we're talking about sexual impurity from your spouse. But I want to make sure that I reiterate that Jesus says that if you can forgive and don't in that situation, it's because of a hard heart. Now there are times, there are many situations where this is uncomfortable. Like, what do you do if your wife leaves you or your husband leaves you and is sexually active with someone and won't repent of what they're doing? Well, that's a different situation. They're not seeking forgiveness, and you should not feel obligated to give it. Would you like a proof text? You should be saying, yes, I want a proof text. Look at Luke 17. Look at the first part of Luke, verse chapter 17. Verse 1, he said to his disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. Friends, it is totally unbiblical to require people to forgive people who don't want forgiveness. If we're talking about judicially, if we're talking about let things be left to God, that's a different view of that, and we'll talk about that more next Sunday. But I'm not talking about your spouse cheats on you and stays in that lifestyle that you have to continue on forever and ever and ever until you are old and single. That's not what I'm saying. But since I'm not exegeting that passage, we'll move on. Then there's this feeling in 1 Corinthians 7 that you're kind of let off the hook if your spouse, who is an unbeliever, leaves you. Just kind of a feel for that. All right, so why isn't there an exception clause here? I have two, I have an answer, and then we're going to talk about how this fits the context, and then we're going to be done and take questions if you have any. The number one reason why the exception clause is not in this passage, and there's another little answer, but I want to give you the answer so that when you leave here you can remember the answer. In the Greek language, there are participles and there are articles that go before the participles. So if you didn't care for English too much, you're not going to like that last sentence. But the idea in verse 18 is that whoever divorcing his wife and remarrying another commits adultery. So divorces is not simply a verb, it is a participle, and so also is marries another. And though it's not obvious in the passage because it's not translated from the Greek language, there is a the before divorcing. So the divorcing one who is marrying another commits adultery. In other words, please, See if you can see in the sense of the English that it is one action the person is going through. They are divorcing their spouse in order to marry another. And that is why there's no exception clause here, because the whole point in this passage of divorcing your spouse is in order to be unfaithful. So whoever divorces their spouse and marries another, it is seen as a singular action. In other words, this is someone who is looking to be free of their spouse so they can hook up with another person. That is why you don't see an exception clause. And frankly, that is why the verse is in the context. It should be evident from Matthew 19 that the Pharisees were frequent marriers and they wanted tons of justification to divorce and remarry. It should be obvious to you that divorce and remarriage was a frequent thing for the Pharisees. So why does he bring it up here as a case, a situation, an example for the Pharisees to consider? All right, let's do the math. Are you ready? All right, thank you for that, Denny. Remember what this is about. Remember that chapters 14, 15, and 16 are a sparring match around Jesus between two parties. Who were they? Pharisees and scribes who were very legalese. They did everything by the book, but only by the book. Notice what I just said. And Jesus told them in verse 16 that doing things by the book should lead them to what? To him. Does everyone get this? The purpose of the Old Testament, they thought, was so that they could know how they must live at a minimum. And Jesus says, no, it was more than that. It was to lead you to kingdom of God type stuff. That's what verse 16 says. Well, meanwhile, they're having a fuss with another group of people around Jesus. Who's the other group of people? Publicans and sinners. Publicans are the extortioners. They're the franchisees. They collect money for Rome. Remember this? And they are hated greatly. Chapter 15, verse 1 and 2, this man receives sinners and eats with them. Remember this? And we already defined what a sinner was in the context of Luke. A sinner is someone who is a hired girlfriend. And remember, the whole pretense of chapters 14, 15, and 16 are that the filthy publicans buy their women and Jesus eats with them. Unlike us, we obey the law. And the Lord eats with the publicans and sinners who are lawless. So here Jesus takes something that the Pharisees and scribes apparently do very regularly. They divorce their spouses to marry another. And what Jesus is doing in something that would have been terribly obvious to the listener, and then terribly obvious to the reader of Luke's gospel, is Jesus is showing them that although they obey the law, they are doing the very same thing that the publicans are doing. They're doing what they have to do to be with the women they want to be with. The publicans, they buy their women on the street. The Pharisees, they bend Moses' law to have the women they want. She's a looker, how do you get her? Give your wife a certificate of divorce. And so Jesus here is showing them that they are lawbreakers as much as the publicans and sinners, and showing them that they are in fact adulterers. Now all of a sudden we are aware that God is calling Pharisees adulterers and the women that set themselves up to receive them, end of the verse, as adulterers. So why is this verse in here? Because it is the pinnacle of the conduct, the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Pharisees have all kinds of problems with publicans and sinners and people who don't respect Moses's law. But the Pharisees do too. They just find nifty ways to obey the law. They are the college student that's told that's lights out in the dorms at 1130. And at 1131, they turn them back on. You call it legal prostitution? Right, so they're obeying the law and in their mind they please God because they're obeying Moses's law, but they're achieving the same thing that the publican did. They're getting the women they want. Now maybe you understand why the Lord Jesus takes both of their love for money and disdain for the poor and then grabs their misuse of marriage and begins an entire story about a rich man that pictures them who is in the torment of the flame. So that's the flow of the context of chapter 16.