We continue our series with the book of Malachi this morning, and come today to chapter 2, verses 15 and 16 for our text, which says, But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? he seeks godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. And so our text today continues the subject of last week's sermon on the topic of divorce as we continue on. Last week, verses 13 and 14, and today, verses 15 and 16. You recall that the prophet Malachi, God's messenger, brought two indictments to Israel relating to marriage violations. The first was their marriage to pagan Gentiles who continued to worship idols rather than to forsake their idols and worship Jehovah, the true and living God. And the second was divorcing their covenant Jewish wives for whatever reason, and in many cases, no doubt, in order to be able to marry the foreign pagan idol-worshipping wives. And both of these violations are called treachery. five times, I think, in these four verses. The prophet, by the Spirit of God, accuses the people, who are called the people of God, of treachery, of breaking faith. Because both of these violations involve breaking faith with members of the covenant nation. Obviously, when they divorced their wives, they were breaking faith with their wives. members of the Nation of Israel. but also when they married pagan idolaters, they were breaking faith with other members of the nation by breaking God's covenant with Israel in the very terms by which God had promised special blessing upon that nation, but they were violating the covenant and therefore were breaking faith with other members of that covenant, their brothers and sisters in the family of God. Furthermore, we learned last week that their divorces had covered the altar of the Lord with tears, as cast-off Jewish wives cried out their anguish to God, causing God to reject the offerings of the public worships as these offerings were brought by men who had broken faith with their wives of their youth. For the cries of the injured are louder than the prayers of the injurer. And so Malachi continues to rebuke these practices in today's text, explaining exactly why God so strongly opposes divorce. And we need to listen carefully as we examine these two verses, and they divide neatly into two parts. And so, why God hates divorce? Number one, the goal is godly children, and number two, the impediment is divorce. God wants a godly seed. And the obstacle to that is the divorces that are being carried out by the people of God. And so we begin with verse 15. The goal is godly children, but did he not make them one, having a remnant of the spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Now I need to tell you up front that this verse, like one we saw last week, is rather challenging in regard to translating it and therefore interpreting it. Sometimes biblical languages can be that way, and Hebrew can be particularly difficult. And so there are extreme translation difficulties here, and there are many variations, different ways that the words and phrases of this verse can be put together. And therefore, as Andrew Hill said in his commentary, every translation contains an element of interpretation. As you translate, as you try to decide among the various choices, which is the one that is intended by the Spirit of God, various elements of interpretation enter into those choices. But I think when we put them all together, We're going to look at the variations, at least many of them today. But I think when we put them all together, we can see what is the clear path, what is the most likely meaning of the verse, and therefore what God intended. But let's work our way through it. And in the case of verse 15, it is the first half of the verse that is so challenging. The second half is pretty clear. When he says in the second half, therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth, there's very little difficulty in the original language there. And there's very little difficulty understanding exactly what he says and what he means. But it's that first half that has a number of phrases that we have to wrestle with. And again, I read that part. But did he not make them one? Having a remnant of the spirit, and why one? He seeks godly offspring. Every one of those four phrases has a number of variations that could be employed in translating it. We'll start with the first one. But did he not make one, is what my translation says, and most of the other translations I looked at say something very similar. It seems that most Bible commentators and interpreters, translators, have come to pretty much the same conclusion. But the problem is that the one which is in the Hebrew can be either the subject or the object of the verb, and that makes quite a bit of difference in how this verse is translated. It's translated in my version as the object of the verb, and the he is understood. did not make one, the one being the object. And the he is therefore understood. Did he not make one? But then again, you have to make some decisions if you go that route. And the decision immediately before you is, who does the he refer to? It's not even in the text. It's understood and has to be understood if one has made the object. Did something make one? Did not he make one? And the most obvious response to that is that he refers to God. Did not he, that is God, make one? A reference, we would think, to original creation when God made Adam and Eve and joined them together in marriage. and made two one. We just read about that in Matthew chapter 19. And God did that. He did that at the very beginning. Did not God make one? Did not God make two into one? And therefore set the pattern for marriage for all time thereafter. But it is also possible to understand this as meaning God made Israel one. rather than Adam and Eve. Because in the context there is that emphasis as we've already seen upon God's covenant relationship with Israel and how God made Israel different from any other nation in the world. How God brought the people of of Abraham's physical seed together into one nation, and he unified them together. And one of the charges we've already seen is people breaking faith with this unity in the covenant community, this oneness that God has forged between members of the covenant community And you are breaking that by breaking your promises and by divorcing your covenant wives. Did not God make Israel one? Did God not make Israel a unified covenant nation? And here you are breaking it apart. Or the word one can be the subject of the verb. And in that case it would be, has not one made something? Or, just as properly it could be translated, has not one done something? And that renders something like this, if you translate it that way. No one has done this because there is the not the no one in there. It's not what one has done. It's what no one has done in our translation that comes across as But did he not make them one? But now if you put the one at the beginning it becomes no one or not one Has done this and you have to couple it to make understand what you're getting at there with the next phrase Having a remnant of the Spirit. So no one has done this while he had a remnant of the Spirit that is Anybody who has even a little bit of God's Spirit within him would not act this way. But making one the subject of the verb even allows another possibility that's very different. And some have taken the one, in this case, to be Abraham, the one from whom they all sprang, the one father of them all, all who were members of the covenant community. And if you take it that way, it comes across like this. The one who was our father, namely Abraham, did not do this, not as long as the remnant of the Spirit remained in him that is not as long as he had life and breath. He didn't do this. He didn't put away the wife of his youth. So you can see why it's challenging to get exactly to what Malachi is saying here by the Spirit of God. And that's just the first phrase. But did he not make one? We move on to the second one, having a remnant of the Spirit, which we've already dealt with in part because we had to in order to consider some of the possibilities in the first phrase. But here we have various Different possibilities. What does having a remnant of the Spirit mean? Is this talking about God's Spirit, or is it talking about man's spirit? The Hebrew words do not make that clear. If it's God's Spirit, of course it is the Holy Spirit. If it's man's spirit, then it is the breath of life, no doubt. If it's God's spirit, then what it's saying is even a residue, if it's man's spirit rather, it could mean even a residue of the spirit belongs to him, that is to God. In other words, God owns us, all of us, body, soul, spirit, as we might say, he owns it all. Even the smallest residue of man's spirit belongs to God. Now you can see how in these various translations, every one of them could be possible. Every one of them has truth that is edifying and helpful to us. Or it could be, as we've already seen, men who have a residue of the Spirit, the capital S, Holy Spirit, do not behave in the way that you have behaved in putting away your wives. Or there's even another way to consider having a remnant of the Spirit, and that is this, God has more than enough Spirit to accomplish anything. And that's true too, isn't it? Did he not make them one, having a remnant of the spirit? Something like this. God had more than enough spirit to make more than one woman for Adam if he wanted to, but he didn't. He made one. Not because he was out of power, out of ability after he'd made one. He said, that's all I can do. Gotta stop here. That wasn't the reason. while he only made one wife for Adam. It wasn't because He didn't have enough power, enough of His Spirit to make more than one. Or, if we take that same idea and apply it to the meaning that one means He made the nation Israel one, it would mean, didn't God have enough Spirit to make and bless more than one nation? But He didn't. He just made one. One covenant nation. One special people. that he had in mind for a particular purpose, which he goes on to explain here what that purpose is. Namely, he seeks godly offspring. That's why he only made one wife instead of many, if that's the way to understand it. Why? Because polygamy, because divorce, wars against that goal of a godly offspring. And therefore, God knowing what is the best pattern to produce the goal of godly offspring, made what was needed in that case. He made one man, one woman, and he brought them together into one unit, one marriage, and said, you stay together till death. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Or, in the case of the nation, he had enough spirit left that he could have made many nations that he called his people and made his people and blessed as his people. But he didn't, he just made one. Why? Because he was seeking a godly seed, offspring or seed, it can be translated either way, and originally the word really is seed. He was seeking a godly seed, and in that case you would focus upon seed being the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason God chose to make one nation is because through that one nation He was bringing one Messiah. And that brings us then to the third phrase, which again we've already bumped over and dealt with a bit. And why one? And why one? For what purpose did God make husband and wife one, Adam and Eve one, and husband and wife one? Or for what purpose did God make Israel as one nation? Or even, going back to the Abraham idea, this could be translated, and what the one? Referring to Abraham. And here's where we get into something interesting because a lot of the Jewish commentators like to take it this way. And what the one, that is the one Abraham, if you took the one to meet, be Abraham earlier, but did he make them one or did one One did not do this, namely our father, Abraham, the one did not do this as long as he had breath. And if you take it that way, what the one, it's a reference in the minds of many Jewish commentators to Abraham who put away his wife, Hagar. And that became an objection by many of the Jews to this teaching about divorce so wait a minute our father Abraham put away Hagar didn't he? yes he did but keep a couple of things in mind here number one Hagar was not the wife of Abraham's youth that doesn't quite fit this pattern Sarah was the wife of his youth and he continued to maintain his loyalty to Sarah. This, of course, gets into the problems of polygamy, which takes us down another path. But number two, the reason why Abraham did that is not because he was indifferent to producing a godly seed, but precisely because he was determined to produce a godly seed. His putting away Hagar, which was really at the instruction of God, it was at the impetus of his wife Sarah, but God met him and said, that's okay, that's the right thing to do in this situation. The reason was to protect the godly seed, namely Ishmael, who was being, or rather Isaac, who was being threatened by Ishmael. And so he put away Hagar in order to seek and maintain and produce a godly seed. A lot of different possibilities. in this text. But any one of them that you take leads down a line of truth that you can document elsewhere from the Bible. It's not taking us off into the wilderness. It's taking us down various paths of truth. But the question is, how do we determine which one was intended in this particular place? And the final phrase, we have to work on that one too, he seeks godly offspring or he seeks godly seed. And here again the question is who's the he? Is the he man or is the he God? He seeks godly offspring. If it's in reference to man, it's something like this, the one, the man who seeks godly offspring isn't going to do this. He's not going to put away his covenant wife. He's not going to put away the wife of his youth because he knows how detrimental that is to having godly offspring, godly children. But if the he here is God, he, God, seeks godly offspring, then it could apply in three different directions. Number one, God seeks godly seed from marriages. That's what he's looking for. God designed marriage in this way for this purpose. He is seeking godly seed out of these marriages that he has designed. From the very beginning, Adam and Eve, one man, one woman, one lifetime. brought them together. Or, it could be God seeking godly seed from the covenant nation of Israel. God is seeking a godly seed from this nation, from this people that he's made his covenant people, from this people that he is blessed above all other people on the face of the earth. God seeks godly seed from you, Israel. Therefore, stop putting away your covenant wives. Or it could be, as we've already mentioned, a reference to the one seed, namely Jesus Christ. God seeks the ultimate seed, namely Jesus the Christ. And that's why he has done this. But that too would require the preservation of the nation and the preservation of marriages within the nation in order to keep the nation protected and undefiled until the fullness of the time comes and the seed, namely Jesus Christ, is brought into the world. In fact, there's no reason in this case that we cannot combine all three of these. God seeks godly seed from marriages, number one. God seeks godly seed from the covenant nation Israel, number two. God is seeking the ultimate seed, Jesus Christ, Number three and all of those can be combined together because they are really all necessary to produce the Messiah the godly seed But as we work our way through all these different variables and possibilities we realize that When you put them all into context, it's pretty almost certain, pretty likely almost certain, that what this verse is talking about is God-instituted marriage for the purpose of producing godly offspring. That's the bottom line. That's what the prophet is saying here. The institution of marriage designed by God is for the purpose of producing godly offspring. Therefore, be certain that you don't do anything to damage that God-given purpose. Which brings us then to the second half of the verse, which I say is crystal clear. Therefore, here's the admonition based upon the words in the first part of the verse, therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Take heed to your spirit. These divorces that are taking place, You have all kinds of reasons that you offer as to why this is necessary, but please understand, take heed to your spirit. In nearly every case, the main problem is within you. It's not outside you. Take heed to your spirit. take heed to your spirit because there are so many influences that are trying to draw you away. There certainly were in Israel's day all kinds of influences. The pagan nations around them, the idolatrous Gentiles that were around them seemed to have close contact with the nation of Israel and in many cases through their licentious practices were enticing the men of Israel away from the purity of their marriages and into into lasciviousness of various kinds and even into divorcing their wives and marrying these pagan wives. So take heed to your spirit that you are not drawn away and enticed by the lusts of the flesh. Take heed to your spirit because it's too easy for you to be self-deceived. We all are apart from the work of God's Spirit in our hearts and apart from the light of God's Word in our souls, but we have a responsibility to give attention to the Word of God and give attention to the promptings of the Spirit and to deal with the things in our lives that are contrary to the Word of God. And when we don't do that, when we reject His Word, when we push back on His admonitions, when we fail to deal with the things that He shows us, then we become very easily deceived take heed take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth which is an admonition based upon the charge back in verse 14 the charge the accusation that you have put away you have dealt treacherously with the wife of your youth The Lord 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." And because that had happened, was going on, and would continue going on unless there was a recognition that this is wrong, and repentance and change in the lives of those who were continuing to head this direction. And for that reason, the prophet Malachi says, take heed to your spirit, Let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Let none break faith with the wife of his youth. Let none break faith with his covenant wife, his loyal, faithful, committed wife, the one you married in your youth, who has been loyal to you all these years, and now you're going to cast her off like a worn-out piece of clothing that you're going to toss in the trash or send to goodwill? That's the way you're going to deal with this wife of your youth, this covenant wife, who has been so loyal and faithful to you all of these years? Ah, take heed to your spirit. and let none of you deal treacherously with the wife of your youth." Which is telling us that if the goal is godly children, then divorce is a major impediment. Therefore, guard your hearts very carefully. Do not allow your heart to be drawn away towards sinful pleasures. If there were enticements in that direction in Malachi's day, think how many more there are in our day, just simply because there's so much more access, so much more media, so much more temptation that is so immediately present and readily available, that we better be on guard, we better take heed to our spirit, or we're going to be Drawn in and destroyed, take heed to your spirit. Guard your heart very carefully. Take heed to your spirit. Do not allow bad relationships to develop in your marriage. A bad spirit, a bad attitude, a bad relationship between you and your wife, which generally Starts small and develops gradually so gradually that many times people don't realize exactly what's happening But they do realize at some point that things have really broken down this marriage isn't good anymore. We're not getting along We're not communicating anymore Wonder how that happened because somebody or both somebodies were not taking heat to your spirit Don't allow bad relationships to develop in your marriage. And take heed to your spirit that you don't deceive yourself into thinking that the problem is primarily with your spouse. That's what we tell ourselves, isn't it? When there's problems, yep, I'm having problems with my marriage because he, because she. Take heed to your spirit and be eager to understand and own your own part of the problem. There's more part that's yours than you are ready to own unless you be honest with yourself, unless you take heed to your spirit. I'm not saying that your spouse is perfect and you're the only one who's wrong. I'm just saying that it's not the other way around either. It's not that you're the perfect one and your spouse is the one that's entirely wrong. When there are problems in a marriage, there's always problems on both sides. Now take heed to your spirit that you don't fall into the trap of blaming it all on the other one. Take heed, take heed to your spirit. Because the goal is godly children, verse 15, and the obstacle is divorce, verse 16, for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. For it covers one's garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously. Now here's a strong denunciation. In the strongest language found anywhere in the Bible in relationship to divorce, the prophet Malachi says, the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. Whoa. He hates it. He detests it. It's a strong word, a jarring word. How are we to understand that word, especially in the light of what we looked at last Lord's Day briefly, that there are in the Bible at least two, and probably only two, but two legitimate reasons for divorce, namely, unfaithfulness, immorality on the part of one of the partners who's been unfaithful to their spouse, and that's a legitimate reason to divorce that unfaithful spouse. We read about that in Matthew 19. And of course, in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul gives us another reason that when an unbeliever departs, they leave the marriage, they go away, they no longer are willing to remain in the marriage, that gives the one who's been deserted the legitimate grounds to pursue a divorce and no longer be in bondage to one who is no longer willing to live in the marriage relationship. And God has given us these exceptions. So what are we to make of this strong statement, God hates divorce? Are we to understand that to mean all divorces? God hates divorce. The very word means to send away, to dismiss, to put away. God hates divorce. How do we understand that? If we understand that to mean God hates every divorce, then in the light of these other passages, we would have to say, but he doesn't necessarily hold both parties equally guilty for the divorce because the Bible itself recognizes what we sometimes call the innocent party. which needs to be finessed, because as sinners, all of us as sinners, there is no innocent party totally, but when it comes to the marriage relationship and to the requirements of the marriage relationship, one may sin against the other. One may commit adultery and the other one does not. And that means one has sinned against the other. One may desert the other, the other didn't desert them, and therefore one has been sinned against by the other. But it is no contradiction for us to understand God hates divorce to mean He hates divorce, that it happened, even though He does give permission to His children to pursue divorce in these two instances. Or it could mean that God hates the sin that causes the divorce, the adultery that caused the breakup of the marriage. God hates that. The desertion, the unfaithfulness, the one who made their marriage vows and said, I will be with you till death do us part, but off they go. breaking those vows, God hates that sin. God hates the sin that causes divorce. Or another way to understand this phrase, and this may be the best way, is to understand that God, through Malachi, is saying, God hates such putting away. In other words, God hates divorces such as these. He's just described Jewish men who, cast off the wives of their youth who had been faithful to them, who had not been derelict in their responsibilities to the marriage, but because they wanted younger wives, they wanted trophy wives, they put off the wife of their youth and left her in the lurch while they pursued their own sinful desires. And this very well may be saying, God hates such divorces That's followed by a puzzling reason. Why does God hate divorces? Well, it covers the garment with violence. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorces, for it covers one's garment with violence. What does that mean? Well, again, this could be a general statement about the rippling effect of divorces. We like to think that there's. No real damage done. We like to talk in our day sometimes about a friendly divorce, an amicable divorce. Isn't that wonderful? We still get along with each other. The divorce is not really a bad thing. You're kidding yourself. You're kidding yourself. Because divorce is an act of violence against one's spouse, against one's children, against other members of the family, against members of the community. We talk accurately about the scars of divorce. We're talking, of course, about scars of the soul, but they're scars, they're wounds, they're scars, and the word violence is a very appropriate word, therefore, to link to divorce that causes such wounds and scars. Some have taken This covering the garment with violence is a reference to hypocritical worship that has also been referred to previously. that it covers your garments with the blood of the sacrificial animals. You're still going to the temple and making your sacrifices, and even sometimes maybe getting splattered with the blood of the animals, but you are divorcing your wives. In other words, sinning while engaging in religious activity. That was common in Malachi's day. That, unfortunately, is far too common in our day. the hypocrite who goes to church and sings the songs and does all the outward things, all the while sinning, sinning, sinning in various ways. That may be what Malachi is getting to here, though I don't really think so for several reasons. But here's something that's probably more to the point, because there's indication in the Bible that the garment was a symbol of marriage, putting a garment over a woman to claim her as wife. We find reference to that in the book of Ruth, if you can remember. when Pastor Carnes taught through the book of Ruth on Sunday nights. I guess that's been two or three years ago now. I don't remember how long. But remember the advice that Naomi gave to Ruth in chapter 3 about Boaz? He says, then it shall be when he lies down that you shall notice the place where he lies and you shall go in, uncover his feet and lie down and he will tell you what you should do. And after Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was cheerful, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain, and she came, softly uncovered his feet, and lay down. Now it happened at midnight that the man was startled and turned himself, and there, a woman was lying at his feet, and he said, who are you? So she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative. The garment, a symbol, of marriage. And that's probably what Malachi is saying here, and that really meshes beautifully with the first one, the general statement of the violent rippling effect of divorce, but now it attaches it more specifically to this idea of the garment. The garment being the symbol of protection, of a man taking a woman unto himself, and covering her with his garment of protection, as in the act of divorce, ripped that garment of protection, violated that garment of protection, violated the covenant promises that he made to this one that he covered with this garment of protection. Instead of a protecting garment, the garment has become a garment of violence, a garment of broken promises. Therefore, and again, the last part of verse 16 is as clear and unequivocal as the last part of verse 15, therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. He comes back to it again. Guard your spirit, your heart, your inner man. Do not deal treacherously. Don't break promises. Don't break faith. God takes that very seriously, even if men and women don't, but God does. For those of you who are scarred by divorce, especially somebody else's divorce, I am tempted to ask for a show of hands, but I'm not going to, but there would be a sea of hands if I asked, how many of you in some way have been scarred by divorce? I can't imagine how many hands would go up all across the auditorium today. And for you, let me say, determine not to repeat that in your own life, and many of you have. You've felt the sting, you've felt the scars, you've felt the wounds, and you've said, I'm not going to let that happen to me. I'm not going to let that happen to my marriage. But let me give you a word of caution. You're going to need more than fleshly determination. Sometimes people think that because they've been hurt by something, that their human determination, that they're not going to repeat that, they're not going to let that happen to them. is enough to guard them against it. No it's not! You're not that strong. Take heed to your spirit, understand your makeup, understand your damning weakness, and don't deceive yourself into thinking that by the strength of your own determination you can make sure this doesn't happen to you. But please know that God is able to heal the scars and to make you whole in mind and soul once again. And therefore, seek God through His Word for the healing that your soul needs, for the healing of those scars of violence, of divorce, whether your parents divorced and you're the child of a broken marriage, whatever the relationship may have been, understand that you don't have to be broken and wounded for the rest of your life. Don't buy that deception. Understand that there is a balm in Gilead, and God is able to heal those scars. And He will, if you will seek Him in His Word, both for the healing that your soul needs and for the ability which you will need to conduct your life and marriage in a different way. God will give you all that you need if you'll seek it from Him in His Word. But I have a word for those of you who are in troubled marriages that have not culminated in divorce, at least not yet. Not yet. and we trust never will. I have a couple of words for you. Number one, good for you. You haven't taken the easy, immediate path, even though you're struggling with difficulties in your marriage, as I'm sure some of you are. There are always people in this category. I say good for you, but I also say, listen to me now, bad for you. What do I mean by that? Well, apparently you haven't adequately dealt with your problems, because they're still there. You've refused to let them culminate in divorce so far, but you're not dealing with them adequately, that is, in God's way. Please understand that God is as concerned with your sins that impede a good marriage as he is with divorce. Some people act as if everything's okay as long as we don't get divorced. No, God's just as grieved by the sins that are going on in your marriage, even though you haven't divorced, as he is with your divorce, should that come, God forbid. I've seen some people use no divorce, we don't believe in divorce, as a club over their spouse. They're confident that their spouse would never divorce them because of their commitment to marriage and so they feel that they can do pretty much what they want to do. God hates that kind of reasoning. Or I've seen other spouses use the no divorce commitment as an excuse to not tend to the weaknesses in their own life that are contributing to problems in the marriage. But I know he'd never divorce me. I know she'd never divorce me. He or she has a commitment to the Bible. They'd never divorce me, so I won't have to worry about that. I don't have to give attention to these things. God expects you to tend God is grieved when you fail, husbands, to love and cherish your wife as He tells you to in His Word, and to work at a struggling marriage until you bring it to good health. God is grieved with you, husbands and wives, who fail to grow and change in accordance with the Word of God. You just are coasting and neglecting areas of your life. God's grieved with that. God's grieved with you husbands and wives when you fail to forgive your spouse as you should and fail to encourage your spouse as you should take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously and the only solution for these things is to acknowledge that they are so to repent and change instead of blaming the other one, pointing the finger at the other one, and stealing yourself in your own self-righteousness, you don't have much of that, mister or missus. But if you want cleansing, if you want help, for those of you who are already divorced and you know that you made mistakes but you can't go back, come every soul, by sin oppressed, There's mercy with the Lord. Thank God for that. Thank God for that. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There's no cleansing while you rationalize, justify, deny, excuse, say, I did nothing wrong. But when you acknowledge this was my part, I'll let my partner or ex-partner deal with his or her part between him and her and God, but I'm willing to deal with my part. I'm willing to own my part. I'm willing to acknowledge my part. When we are willing to confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Praise God for that kind of love and grace and mercy. Well, that's the end of Malachi's message about divorce, aren't you glad? We took it to Sundays, but it was needed, wasn't it? We need to take these things seriously, shall we pray? Father, help us to deal honestly with your word as it applies to our lives as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.