And the kiddos are free to head the junior church. We come in our study of God's Word this morning to the 19th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Matthew chapter 19. If you want to read together, begin in verse 1. It says, When Jesus had finished these words, He departed from Galilee, and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there. Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him, and asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. And they said to him, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? And he said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery. The disciples said to him, if the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. But he said to them, not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and that there were also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who was able to accept this let him accept it. The subject for our study this morning is God's Word on Divorce. God's Word on Divorce. As we come into this subject, we're entering into a subject that is of supreme relevance for us today in this society, in our culture, in which we live. And I want to be definitive on this. I want to be clear on this. I want us to walk away from this study with a word from God on the subject. And in being definitive and in being clear, we've got to rise above the muck and the mire and the mud. that is a result of all of the sin that hastens and leads to divorce. There's so much lack of clarity on this subject. In the church today, I think, there's so much confusion on the subject. When you talk about divorce, when you talk about the concept of remarriage after divorce, when you talk about these things, there seems to be a lot of confusion out there. And I think that rises from our perspective as those who are down in the muck and the mud and the mire of the sin. that leads to and hastens divorce, when we're in that, it's hard for us to see ourselves clear, and to think ourselves clear, and to see that God really has spoken clearly on the matter, and He did not stutter when He spoke. We get all entangled in it from our perspective, and there is confusion. And so my goal and my desire is that we would sort of get a lift up out of that, and be able to see this from a God's eye perspective, so that when we walk away from this study, we can say, this is how God thinks on the matter, this is how God instructs us on the matter, this is what God clearly teaches. I want us to see that God's Word addresses the many, many things that throughout history have led to this reality of divorce. As I enter into the subject, I feel compelled to say a few things about it. First of all, if you're here this morning and you have a divorce in your past, and perhaps you might find yourself shrinking a bit into your seat right now, don't do that. and don't make up your mind that you're not going to come back next week for part two. Come back. Be here. Our goal is not to put anyone down. Our goal is not to make anyone feel bad. Certainly that's not my intention. We're just going through the Gospel of Matthew. We just came off the subject of forgiveness and now we're entering into this Subject of divorce. This is God's Word. This is where he has us in our study So if you have a divorce in your past first of all Don't tune out don't shrink in your seat. I want to remind you of something that I read from Psalm 130 and verse 3, and this is for all of us, because there might be a tendency for those of us who maybe haven't officially had a divorce, who don't have a divorce in our past, to sort of start to reach up and pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves and thereby judge ourselves to be righteous and look down our noses at those who have. But Psalm 130 in verse 3 says, if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand." There's not a single person in here this morning before God who could stand in the presence of God on the basis of his or her own deeds, divorce or no divorce, in our past. So this is not about us judging one another. or looking down on one another or congratulating ourselves. And thanks be to God that the psalm does not end there. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand but there is forgiveness with you. And one of the things I love about Matthew's gospel, it's a book that is in the providence of God, as the Spirit of God moved in Matthew's heart, as Matthew put it together. It's a book that's constructed around five discourses, five sermons. Remember that. We've already seen the first four. It started with the Sermon on the Mount. The last one we came out of, chapter 18, the sermon, you could say, on interpersonal relationships, or a sermon on the childlikeness of believers. We just went through that. We've gone through four. We're waiting for the last one, the fifth one, which is the Sermon on, or the Olivet Discourse. And Matthew sort of constructs his whole gospel around these sermons from our Lord. And he's concerned a whole lot more about theology than he is about chronology. His order is much more logical than it is chronological. He's not just unfolding the life of Jesus in consecutive order. He's unfolding for us the life of Jesus in theological order, in a logical order that makes sense with the points that He wants to make as He's moved by the Holy Spirit. And so just coming off the end of chapter 18, we were looking into what subject? Forgiveness, right? Forgiveness. And then he gives us our Lord's teaching on divorce. You think we might be able to find a connection between those two things? What is the one great glaring thing that is missing when two individuals come to that place where they're ready to end a marriage? It's forgiveness, right? Forgiveness. And when Jesus concedes in verse 8 of chapter 19 that Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, notice the reason. Because of the hardness of your heart. In a word, unforgiveness. So there's a connection here in the mind of Matthew as he's moved along by the Spirit, as we move into this teaching of our Lord on the subject of divorce. Where there is divorce, where there is an end of a marriage, there has been a building of a hardness of heart, and all kinds of sin has entered into the picture. It's going to come into that place. So there's a connection. in the mind of Matthew. And as we enter into the subject again, we all need to remember that it starts with what chapter 18 ended with, and that is forgiveness. Chapter 18, verse 21, Peter came and said to Him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. And the point is that there is to be no limit on our forgiveness, no boundaries on the forgiveness that we extend to one another because we have received forgiveness without limit from God. One of the things about this subject of divorce that bothers me The pendulum, I think, swings from one extreme to the other in the church with how it's viewed, how it's spoken about, how it's addressed. On the one end of the spectrum, there's a view or a treatment of divorce that is almost casual. an unconcern, you could say, for the holiness of the people of God, and therefore an unwillingness to confront those who are pursuing divorce and deal with it biblically, to lovingly call them out and say, are you, in the sight of God, justified in pursuing a divorce? In many cases, erring on the side of grace, you could say, but I don't really want to say on the side of grace. I want to say more on the side of a lack of concern for the holiness of God's people. There is an unwillingness to confront those within the church who are pursuing a divorce on grounds that are not biblical. And so, there's that extreme where the pendulum swings over there, and it's not addressed, it's not dealt with, and it's sort of swept under the rug, and people get divorces, and they stay in the same church, and it's never addressed. And people say, well, we just forget. Love covers a multitude of sins, and it's never dealt with. Well, that's not right. But the pendulum can swing in the other direction so that when the subject of divorce comes up in the church, we won't even say it. It's the D word and it's so bad and it's so heinous and it's one of the big sins. And so we won't talk about it. And in a strange, different way, we sweep it under the rug in the sense that we want to pretend as though it never even happened. It's so horrible. And the people who have experienced that, or they have a divorce in their past, are ostracized and considered second-class citizens in the church, if you will, because that's one of the big sins. We need to remind ourselves that in the sight of God, it doesn't necessarily pan out like that. We can find lists in Scripture of what we might call the big sins. One of them is in 1 Corinthians 6, in verse 9. It says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals. It goes on to say, will inherit the kingdom of God. And those are the big sins. Oh, that's a list of the big, bad, ugly sins. But in the same list, in verse 10, it goes on to say, nor thieves, nor the covetous. And that's where we can be a little bit hypocritical. We can say, oh, divorce, that's one of the big sins, or homosexuality, or idolatry, or adultery, all the ones in that list, those are the big sins, but covetousness is there too, and we don't treat that the same way. What is covetousness? And have any of us been guilty of that? Wanting, lusting after something that belongs to someone else. Do you remember the last commandment? You shall not covet. Right? And then there's a whole list of things that you shall not covet. And the last one is your neighbor's wife. Remember that? What is it that leads to adultery? What is it that leads to the one thing that breaks the marriage covenant in the sight of God? It's covetousness, right? It's coveting your neighbor's wife. It's that attitude of the heart. And so the external and outward act that formally breaks the marriage covenant is something that starts in the heart and it's something that we all struggle with, covetousness. And that makes the list too. And my point is we've got to stop in the church making our lists of the big sins that we label as the big ones and anyone who's committed those sins is a second class citizen in the church. But these other sins that us good people struggle with, they're really kind of minor by comparison. Well, that's the wrong end of the extreme, too, in viewing divorce. We need to be asking the question, what is God's word on divorce? What does the scripture have to say about it? And that's my goal for this study. And my goal is not to hammer anyone over the head, and that shouldn't be anyone's goal. We all stand on level ground at the foot of the cross as those who have been forgiven by God and who need His grace and His forgiveness. So it's not about us looking down on one another or looking back to people's pasts. What I want us to do is just to come humbly with hearts and ears and minds that are ready to hear and ask the question, what is God's word on divorce? What does God have to say about it? It's a pretty important subject, isn't it? In our society today, given where we're at, given what the status of marriage is in this country, I was doing some studying this week and I kind of ask myself the question, what's been the history of divorce in this country? And we kind of know where we're at today in terms of divorce and our society's view of divorce, but where did we start in the early days of this country? What was the view of society toward divorce? I found some records that recorded the first legal divorce in the American colonies. It was granted to a woman by the name of Ann Clark in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And it was a divorce granted from her absent and adulterous husband, Dennis Clark, by the Quarter Court of Boston. In a signed and sealed affidavit presented to John Winthrop Jr., the son of the colony's founder, Dennis Clark admitted to abandoning his wife, with whom he had two children, for another woman, with whom he had another two children. He also stated his refusal to return to his original wife, thus giving the court no option but to punish Clark and grant a divorce to his wife, Anne. And the court's final decision read, quote, Anne Clark being deserted by Dennis Clark, her husband, and he refusing to accompany with her, she is granted to be divorced. Well, you can see from that transaction and from the granting of that certificate of divorce that it was something that was taken very seriously. And it wasn't just casually granted by the legal system in the early American colonies. This man was resolute in his sin, already involved in an extended adulterous affair through which he had produced children. And he would not come back to his wife. He would not reconcile with her. He was resolute in that sin. And so the court, and you get the idea reluctantly after careful consideration, granted that certificate of divorce to Ann Clark. She is considered the innocent party in this case, and the husband was punished by the law of this land. Well, for decades and decades and many, many years, that view of divorce stemming from a Judeo-Christian view of marriage in this country held. It wasn't until the 1950s that many court rulings and state laws started to recognize the concept of no-fault divorce. But even in the 1950s, it was much more difficult than it is today to obtain a divorce because you still had the cultural amores, the cultural attachment to a biblical or Christian view of marriage. So the divorce in that day was a stigma, culturally. And according to society, and with more conservative judges that were hesitant to grant divorces, it was harder to get them. It really wasn't until the 1970s The U.S. started to institute no-fault divorces that were easily obtainable. And now today, just about every state in the union allows for no-fault divorce. Some of them will require a waiting period between one and five years, and so if you don't want to wait, you can file a fault divorce and get one quite easily, whether or not you fabricate the cause of fault. And so, here we are today where divorce is common, it's prevalent, and the attitude in our society increasingly is sort of nonchalant toward it. It's really not that big a deal. And so marriage itself, when you enter into marriage, it's not necessarily a big deal. It's more about the ceremony, it's more about dressing up and looking pretty and throwing a big party. And if it doesn't work out, and if the love and the feeling wears off, then you just get a divorce. You just get a divorce. If you fall out of love, If your spouse is no longer making you happy or meeting your needs, then you just get a divorce. Just get out of it. And that's a growing attitude in our society, particularly here in America. Occasionally, I ran across the statistic that 50% of divorces in of marriages in America end in divorce, which is not necessarily accurate. Actually, you might be encouraged to find that the percentage is less because that simply looks at the number of marriages that happen in a year and the number of divorces that happen in a year. If you go back and examine the specific marriages of people, the percentage drops down to more like 39 or 40 percent, which is encouraging, right? It's not 50 percent, but 40 percent is still a lot, right? That's not so good. An interesting statistic I wrote down, in America the divorce rate for a first marriage is around 40%, the divorce rate for a second marriage is 60%, the divorce rate for a third marriage is 73%. Other statistics, if you look at the global rankings on divorce, in terms of different countries around the world, the highest divorce rate, top 10 countries in the world, number one, the United States, number two, Puerto Rico, three, Russia, four, United Kingdom, number five, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Finland, Barbados. Number one, United States, divorce rate, the highest in the world. So this is where we're at. in our country today on this subject of divorce. As I was doing some research, of course, some ads were popping up online. One of them said this, online divorce, complete all forms online, fast, lawyer-free, 100% guarantee, 149 bucks. Another one said this, how to get a divorce when your spouse doesn't want one. These are ads. Another one I saw was a short, pithy statement that apparently has gone up on billboards across the country in various places, put up by a law firm that, of course, provides divorce services. And it says this, life's short. Get a divorce. So there's this attitude in our society about divorce. And it's very common. Marriage itself is being undermined. Marriage itself is being attacked. So I think it's very important for us to come to the Scriptures and ask, what is it that Jesus had to say about divorce? What is God's word on divorce? So we pick it up in verse 1, chapter 19. And this really is a transition here that's important in the ministry of Jesus. when Jesus had finished these words. That marks the end of his sermon on the childlikeness of the believer. That's the fourth of his discourses, the fourth of his sermons. They always end with a statement like this, when Jesus had finished these words. And here we're told that he departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. This is very important as a transition in his ministry. He's leaving Galilee and he won't come back to Galilee until after the cross. He's done. ministering in Galilee. This is where, in terms of time, he spent the most of his ministry, ministering in Galilee and all those cities around the Sea of Galilee and around Nazareth and that sort of northern region of Israel. He's done there now. And so now it's a transition, a pivotal moment in his ministry. He's focusing now on Jerusalem. Increasingly, he is resolute in going to the cross. He's headed for the cross. He goes into the region beyond the Jordan. Typically, he would cross to the east of the Jordan and go south from there and head toward Jerusalem because Samaria was to be avoided. Of course, Jesus had experience going through Samaria when he intended to. But on this occasion, he goes east of the Jordan, beyond Jordan, as it was called, into that region. He's headed down toward Jericho, from which he'll head up into Jerusalem for the cross. And we're told that large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there. And this follows Jesus wherever He goes. And graciously, compassionately, He continues to heal the sick, and touch these people with the grace and the goodness and the mercy of God. And in verse 3, we find the Pharisees. They came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all. This is where we come to the subject at hand, divorce. Now, the Pharisees, we understand, are not just seeking information. They're not trying to learn. They're not coming to Jesus with a humble heart and really saying, you know, we just, we wanna do this God's way and we just want you to help us to understand what God would have us do on the matter of divorce. That is not their heart at all. They already have their minds made up. They've already landed on where they stand on that issue. They're not seeking information. They're not seeking to learn from Jesus. They came to him doing what? Testing him. We've seen this again and again from the Pharisees. They had already made up their minds way back in chapter 13, it says, to destroy him. They wanted to do away with Christ. They wanted to kill him. They wanted to discredit him in any way they could, and so they came up asking him this question. They wanted to paint him into a corner to entrap him in something that he said so that it could discredit him before the people, undermine his ministry, lift up their own ministry and reputation, and discredit him. And Mark this, These men are smart. I mean, they are sharp. For Jesus, this is child's play because he's God. He's not intimidated by them. He knows exactly what they're gonna ask before they ask it. He knows exactly how he's gonna respond. And every time they try to entrap him, they walk away looking the fools because he's God. But I'll tell you, if it was me dealing with these men, They could humiliate me. They could make a fool out of me. I mean, they're smart. They're the scholars. They're the best of the best. They're the highly educated. They're the elite. And they are sharp. Let me tell you, they pose a question that does a couple of things. Number one, they want Jesus to take a position, one of the rabbinic positions. And there were essentially two main positions, one represented by the rabbi Shammai, which was the conservative position based on their interpretation of Deuteronomy 24, where Moses gives instruction regarding divorce. He doesn't command divorce. He just talks about it. And the only command in that passage actually is a prohibition against remarriage in the case of divorce. And we'll talk about that. Don't get all unsettled about that at this point. But they interpreted Deuteronomy 24 either conservatively or more liberally. The more conservative interpretation was from the school of Shammai which said you could only divorce on the grounds essentially of adultery. Of adultery. then the more predominant position, go figure, the more popular position in the day of Christ was represented by the school of Hillel. And he essentially said you could divorce for any reason at all. So when the Pharisees ask, is it lawful to divorce for any reason at all? They're asking him, according to your interpretation of the law of Moses, can a man divorce his wife for any reason? whatever he wants to. And that really was the interpretation of Hillel. You could divorce your wife, for example, because she took her hair down in public. You could divorce your wife because you saw her talking to another man. You could divorce your wife because she burned the bread while cooking. You could divorce your wife because she put too much salt in the food. She spoke ill of her mother-in-law because she was unable to conceive and bear children. And the list goes on and on. You can read about it in the rabbinic sources. Pretty much for any reason at all. If you were a man in Jewish society, you could divorce your wife. And so they asked him that question, but I think they had a more sinister Intention. I think they wanted him to take the conservative position that they knew he would take. You remember that there was another one who took a position on divorce? Remember who that was? John the Baptist. Back in chapter 14, you remember that? Back in chapter 14, he had taken that position on divorce, a definitive one, and it was in reference to Herod, remember? The king. So in chapter 14, In verse 3 it says, John took a definitive position on divorce that in the sight of God it was not right for Herod to take his brother's wife. And what happened to John? What do you think the Pharisees wanted to happen to Jesus? Same thing. They wanted to entrap him. They probably were hoping that he would take the same stance as John and thereby put himself in danger from Herod. Their motivations were filled with malice. They desired to destroy him in any way that they could, and so they asked the question. Notice, when Jesus answers their question, this is profound. This is the wisdom of God. This is an answer that transcends the question. It rises above it. He does not initially even take one of those positions of Shammai or Hillel. He actually goes back behind divorce and before divorce to the original purpose and intent of God in creating the institution of marriage. Look at verse 4. He answered and said, 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. Notice his response, he says, have you not read? It was laced with sarcasm. These guys are the experts in the law of Moses, right? The Torah, the first five books of the law. Genesis through Deuteronomy. Have you not read? Have you not read the opening chapters of the book of Genesis? You who fashion yourselves to be experts in the law of God, you who take the seat of Moses, In your debate over divorce, have you failed to even read the most fundamental teaching of the creator on marriage? He's really punched him in the gut with this response. He's taken him back before divorce. to the original purpose of God and marriage. And this is where we need to go. When we're dealing with the subject of divorce, we can talk about divorce all day long and how we can deal with divorce and how it needs to be addressed. But if we don't begin with marriage and what marriage is all about on the side of God, then we lose the bigger picture. We gotta go to marriage itself. And frankly, if anything is under attack in our society, it is the institution of marriage. Mark this well, if there is a God-ordained and God-designed institution that is for the glory of God and the good of the human race, the devil is going to focus the fury of his attacks on that institution. And that is certainly the case with marriage. Marriage is under attack today. in our society. So we need to look at God's original purpose for marriage, the original design in the mind of God, and that is the tack that Jesus takes here. And in his response to them, he is essentially saying this, when God instituted and designed the marriage union, he never intended that it would be broken. He never intended that the marriage union would be broken. So we go all the way back to the original creative purpose of God, and I want to just give you a sweeping overview of what we need to begin to start looking at. next time and perhaps in the time that follows. It's important for us to slow down and consider the subject in great detail because there's a lot of confusion on it. We want to bring the clarity of scripture to bear on the subject. We want to look at marriage itself and what it is in the mind of God. And so I want to begin just quickly by giving you an overview of the points that Jesus makes here. And the first one is this, one man and one woman. Inside of God, marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman, and the way that God created testifies to that. Notice what he says. From the beginning, God created them. And he made them male and female. This goes back to the first chapter of Genesis. Genesis 1, 26. And in the Hebrew text there, the emphasis is on the one man and the one woman. Male and female. One man, one woman. Think about it. When God created Adam and Eve, he didn't create Adam and Eve and Jennifer. He didn't create Adam and Eve and Steve, right? He just created Adam and Eve. There were no alternatives. In the purpose of God, in the creative design of God, He never intended that there would be another option. One man, one woman. That's it. Frankly, divorce was not advisable for Adam and Eve. And what are you going to do? If they got divorced, We wouldn't be here today, would we? I mean, that was it. And so in the plan of God and according to the purpose of God, it's one man and one woman. And who would have thought that we would ever need to say this? It's not one man and one man. It's not one woman and one woman. Remember the aberrant and sexual deviant behavior of homosexuality has been around a long time. But homosexual marriage? Marriage? The Bible doesn't even specifically justify that with a direct response. It's so evident, according to the creative design of God, that marriage is something that can only happen between a man and a woman. And you take it down to the fact that God sees them as one flesh, right? One flesh. You can't obtain a one flesh relationship between a man and a man or between a woman and a woman. You just can't get there. Because the one product of the one flesh union that really represents the individual uniting together of a man and woman is a child. And two men or two women cannot produce that. It's sad that we even have to say that in our society today. And frankly, one of the things that really fries my shorts is you get people interviewed on whatever news channel and they'll just pick on a conservative preacher and they'll stick him up there because they want to rip the guy apart because he essentially takes a biblical position on the matter of homosexuality. And they'll be interviewing him and finally get to the point where he takes the position and says, look. This is the Christian position. And the response of the people interviewing him and the other people who are part of the panel, he knows, oh, I can't believe you said that. You're so bigoted, you're so hateful. How could you ever say such a thing like that? But what I don't understand is why anyone is surprised by that. I mean, this is nothing new. This has always been the biblical position. There's never been confusion about the Christian position on marriage and on the homosexual issue itself. I mean, we didn't invent this. Christianity is not a religion that you sort of morph and modify however you choose to see fit so they can sort of conform to society and whatever people think. Christianity is a religion that rises from the pages of scripture. Apart from the Bible, there is no Christianity. Even the sacred book of Islam, the Quran, recognizes Christians as people of the book. That's what we are, we're people of the book. Our religion is the religion of the book, it's the religion of the word of God, and in the word of God it is so clear that marriage happens between a man and a woman, one man, one woman, that's it. We don't have an alternative if we stick to the book. And so the first principle is that one man and one woman bond that God created. There was only Adam and there was only Eve. Now, secondly, it was to be a strong bond. And that's where Jesus quotes from Genesis chapter two, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. cleave to his wife. The word was used in the Hebrew of gluing or cementing objects together. It was used of Ruth clinging or being glued, you could say, to Naomi, Ruth 114. That connection, that bond that can't be broken. God intended it to be that way. Even the modern Hebrew word for marriage, kiddushin, is closely related to the terms for holy and sanctified, which have the basic meaning of being set apart and consecrated. One writer says, this expresses the consecration of husband and wife to each other as well as to God. Marriage as God has always intended it to be involves the total commitment and consecration of husbands and wives to each other and to him as the divine author of their union and witness to their covenant. So it's a strong bond. It's a one man, one woman relationship. It's a strong bond. Thirdly, one flesh. The two shall become one flesh. That's repeated often in the scriptures. One flesh, one flesh, one flesh. 1 Corinthians 7, when Paul starts talking about marriage, he says this in verse 4. He says, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise also, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. So tight is the connection between man and wife that they are said to own one another. They own one another. They're so much a part of each other. And that oneness again is represented in the one flesh union that produces a child that really is indivisible, that really is a product of those two individuals. And so on the side of God, He says they are no longer two but one. And you can't divide one. Just like you can't divide the child that is the offspring of that union, you cannot divide the union itself. It's a one flesh union. Fourthly, it's made by God. We'll sort of close on this until next time. It's made by God. Verse 6, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. And listen, this is Really an all-encompassing definitive statement about marriage. It is made by God. Marriage between a man and a woman. And listen, I don't care if they are Christians or non-Christians, pagans or devoutly religious, when a man and a woman come together, they're coming together and entering into a union that is instituted and made by God. It's so important that we understand that. People will say they wanna get a divorce and they'll say, well, you know, We weren't believers, and this union was not made by God. Nonsense. Every marriage is put together by God, and it's to be regarded as such. And he says, let not, therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. This is serious. When the bond of marriage is broken, you are attacking something that God has made, that God has put together. So Jesus goes back and he says, from the beginning it was not so. From the beginning, here's the original design and intent and purpose of God. He made no provision for alternatives. There was only one man. There was only one woman. It was to be a strong bond. It was a one flesh and you can't divide one. And it's made by God. And when we break up what God has put together, it's a very serious matter. We're gonna be looking into that more next week. We need to consider a lot of things here, okay? There's a lot of questions people have. What about, what about, what about? There is an exception clause in this passage. I believe there are biblical grounds that according to the grace of God, because he foresaw the hardness of human hearts, God allows divorce in certain cases. Okay? And if he allows divorce, I believe that he allows remarriage in certain cases as well. And we need to look at those things, and we need to ask those questions. Very clearly, the Bible talks about adultery as breaking the marriage bond and therefore being one of the allowable grounds for divorce. I say allowable. It's never commanded. It's never the spirit of Scripture that you would look for a loophole or seek a divorce. The other is in 1 Corinthians 7 where it talks about the unbelieving spouse leaving and going away and being resolute in that departure. And there's a lot there for us to look about. You have what about questions? What about in the case of abuse? Is that addressed in the Bible? What about this? What about that? What is allowable on the side of God? What is not? These are things we need to consider. We need to have a definitive and clear stance on this so that we can speak clearly to the matter because we address it. Every church addresses it. Every church needs to take a stand and we need to be asking the question, what is God's word on divorce? So come back next week and Bill's gonna be preaching and he's gonna unfold all of that for us. Let's pray together. Our God, we thank you that you have spoken clearly on the subject of divorce, because ultimately you've spoken clearly on the institution of marriage. God, we thank you for marriage, that it is beautiful. that it is an institution created by you. It's something we want to uphold. It's something we want to honor. It's something we know that is part of the very fabric of a healthy and whole human society. And so it grieves us when we see it so under attack. And so unraveling at the seams in our society and being ultimately the base cause for the falling apart of this country in many ways. The family, as it disintegrates, that has a ripple effect on our society. And so God, we want as your people to be able to have a clear word from you on this matter. God, I pray that you would guard each one of us in our hearts from having any sort of a self-righteous or judgmental attitude. I pray that we would all be reminded that none of us could stand if you should mark our iniquities and call us to account on the basis of our own deeds, all of us. have sinned and fall short of your glory. And so I pray, Lord, that we would extend forgiveness without limits. I pray that your grace would ooze from us and your love. We would address this issue from perspective of humility, asking with a humble heart, what is it that you say about it, Lord? And I pray that we would just have hearts that want to submit to that. Whatever you say, God, that's what we want to say. That's the instruction we want to follow. And so God, we ask for your blessing as we continue to study the subject and pray that we would well represent what your truth says on the matter. And we ask it in your name. Amen.