All right, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. 1 Corinthians chapter
7. The title of our message this
morning is Christ's Word on Divorce. Christ's Word on Divorce. You might title it Christ's Word
on Marriage and Divorce. Let's read it together. Verse
10 and 11. Unto the married I command. That's Paul speaking. He says,
Yet not I, but the Lord. Let not the wife divorce her husband, but,
and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, be reconciled to her husband.
And let not the husband divorce his wife. Everything I'm going
to say here goes both ways for a husband and a wife. Now, believers
are to marry believers. That's just plain, the plain
revealed Word of God. Just plain and simple. And this
is written to believers. Believers are the only ones that
are going to enter into this. It's written to believers. It's because
the covenant of marriage, the covenant of marriage between
Christ and His bride, Christ and His church, that is ordained
by God, I mean the covenant between a husband and a wife, that is
ordained by God to picture that covenant of marriage between
Christ and His bride. Let me say that again. That covenant
of marriage between a husband and a wife was ordained by God
to typify, to picture, to glorify the covenant of marriage between
Christ and His bride, Christ and His people. Christ's covenant
of marriage is unbreakable. It's unbreakable. I preached
this morning to you from Hosea that beautiful love story between
Hosea and Gomer because I wanted you to see that. I wanted you
to see that union, that marriage covenant between Christ and His
elect. I thought it would shed more light on this message. And
if you, anybody listening that didn't hear that first message
out of Hosea, the greatest love story ever, I'd encourage them
to go listen to that before they listen to this. So having heard
that, you know now, you know from Ephesians 5, Christ is the
husband of His bride, the church. The church is made up of everybody
God chose to save. And that's His church. Scripture
says the husband is the head of the wife. And here's why. Even as Christ is the head of
the church. That's the purpose of it. Because
Christ is the head of the church and He's the Savior of the body.
Therefore, the man is husband of the wife, is head of the wife,
and he is the savior of the body. When a husband or wife marry,
we enter into a marriage covenant before God. And it typifies Christ,
who entered the same kind of covenant for His bride before
God in eternity. We saw it this morning, but let
me repeat it. Christ entered a covenant. The Son of God entered
a covenant with God. It's called the everlasting covenant.
It never ends. It never ceases. If you're a
sinner that you can't do one cussed thing for yourself, you're
going to know that's the best news you'll ever hear. God chose
a people and gave them to Christ. And Christ entered a covenant
to satisfy the law, to work out a righteousness for them. He
entered a covenant to go to them and reveal this to them. He entered
a covenant to keep them and provide for them and protect them and
preserve them. He entered a covenant to bring
everyone and present them to Himself a glorious church without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That's where we get the picture
of the bride coming down the aisle to her husband. Without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. It's a beautiful picture, a beautiful
picture. But Christ will never, He'll
never break that covenant. Scripture says He will not lose
one. He will not lose one. Now Ephesians
5 tells us this, we're one with Christ. It's a mystery, but we're
one with Christ. And that's why He says a husband
and a wife will leave, they'll leave their parents and they'll
cleave to one another. And two will no longer be two,
they'll be one flesh. And he said that, he said, we're
members of Christ's body, of His flesh, and of His bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall
be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.
He says, this is a great mystery. But I'm speaking concerning Christ
and the church. That's why God ordained for a
husband and wife to marry, and be one flesh, because it pictures
Christ and His church. You understand that? Everything
we learn, if we're going to learn it right, If we are going to
know how it is that a husband is going to know what he is to
be to his wife, and a wife is going to learn what she is to
be to her husband, we have got to look at Christ and His church. Christ and His church. You know
the first thing Christ did when He came to this earth? First
thing He did when He entered His public ministry? He went
to a wedding. First thing. Don't you know He
rejoiced as He sat there quietly listening? He didn't conduct
a ceremony. He sat there and listened. And
he listened and he heard the preacher saying how this glorifies
Christ and His bride. And there he sat listening to
it. Listening to it. Everything he'd do for his bride.
Now I realize that some believers are going to hear this. Some
believers are going to hear this who are already divorced unjustly
and who have already remarried unjustly. It's just like every
time you preach, you're going to step on somebody's toes because
the gospel is offensive to our flesh. We sin. And every time
you preach, you're going to offend somebody with it. But let me
say this to them, if there's anybody like that, forget the
things that are behind and reach forward to Christ. That's what
Christ says in the Word. Forget the things that are behind.
Christ has redeemed His people. He's purged us of our sin. If
He brought you to repent of it and cast your care on Him and
stay on Him, forget the things that are in the past. I'd say
that to you about any sin. Forget the things that are by
past. And learn from this what He's
teaching. It'll make your marriage better. And for you who are currently
married, you believers, or you that are going to get married,
I say to you, especially you that are going to get married,
pay close attention to this text. Pay attention to what Christ
is teaching us here. Paul is the one speaking, writing,
but God is Christ speaking. It's Christ speaking. Now, here's
what I want us to get. Since marriage between husband
and wife glorifies Christ's unending marriage to His bride, Husbands
and wives should do everything possible to keep their covenant
of marriage until death parts them. We should do everything
possible. That's a vow. Do everything possible. First, all right, first. Our
Lord commands husband and wife not to divorce. Not to divorce. He says, verse 10, until the
married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife
divorce her husband. Now, when Paul says, unto the
married I command, yet not I but the Lord, he's saying that when
Christ walked this earth, he spoke this himself. He's saying
that we have scripture showing Christ spoke this. That's what
he's saying. Now I want you to turn to Matthew
19. Matthew 19. And let's see where Christ spoke
this. Christ himself commanded, let not the wife divorce her
husband, and let not the husband divorce his wife. And he tells
us why. here in this passage. Matthew 19.3, the Pharisees also
came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful
for a man to put away his wife for every cause? Now you've got
to understand the Pharisees, they're self-righteous, religious,
free will works religionists. And they want to be under the
law because they don't hear what the law says. They think they
keep the law. So they want to be under the
law. And so they're coming to tempt Christ hoping that he'll
answer something that goes against the law and then they can condemn
him. They can condemn him. They say,
now we're justified for not hearing you, this is why we didn't hear
you. poor preachers everywhere. I'm telling you, when men get
ready to leave, they hate this gospel. They just won't get up
and go. I don't know why, but they feel like they got to justify
themselves for going. And so they try to entangle the
preacher, get something on him in some way so they can justify
leaving. I wish they'd just leave. They're free to go, just free
as they can. Alright, look here now. Let's hear what he says
though. Verse 4, And he answered and said unto them, Have you
not read, And he which made them at the beginning made them male
and female. And he said, For this cause shall
a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife,
and they too shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more two,
but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let no man put asunder. Now you hold your place right
there. God made this marriage between a husband and a wife,
and He recorded it in His Word, and Christ is here declaring
it, and it shows this union between the Christ and His bride. Now
when a couple is getting married, I don't care where they are,
they can be in a church, they can be standing in front of the
justice of the peace, it don't matter. When that couple, a believing
couple, I'm saying believers, when they're first married, their
first husband, their first wife, they're first married, God is
presiding over that wedding. God's presiding over that wedding.
I know that his preacher's standing there conducting the wedding,
but it's just like the gospel. God's speaking to through that
preacher. And God's presiding over the wedding. And God hears
the covenant vow they make. He's saying, do you vow this?
Do you make this covenant vow? And they agree, yes. Till death
do us part. And so, they too, before God,
are no more two. They're one flesh now. And they're
entered into an unbreakable marriage covenant before God. How do you
know that? Because that pictures Christ
and His bride. That's how God designed it. That's
how He purposed everything about it, to glorify Christ and His
bride. And that's what happened when Christ entered covenant,
into marriage covenant, before the foundation of the world.
That's what we saw this morning. Now listen to me carefully. The
law of the land may tell you you're divorced. Legally in the
land, you're divorced. But before God, the believer
is still married to that first husband or that first wife. That
does not change. Did you know that? It doesn't
change. It does not change. And so if
they marry again, I will get to that. But now let me say this
to you. Before you marry, or if you are married, Take the
Word of God and learn, first of all, learn Christ. Learn Christ. See how all of this gets its
glory from Christ. If you don't know Christ and
trust Christ, and He's not all your hope and all your salvation,
then you will only try to do this from a motive of law. You'll
do this from a motive of trying to be righteous before God. You'll
fail. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. But you see, those in Christ
are righteous even if we fail. We're righteous. But we're constrained
by love, not law. So that's what I'm saying. Learn
Christ first because that's how you're going to be constrained
to obey by Christ. He's going to get the glory for
that. You see. And that's a whole lot better
to learn Him and learn what He says about marriage and how it
all glorifies Christ before you get married. Before you get married. Have you ever noticed this? Usually,
Usually, even if it's believers, they don't get real serious about
what does God say about it until they get ready to get a divorce.
And the reason they get serious about it then, usually, not always,
but almost always, is so I can justify myself and my rebellion
and condemn the other one. Almost always. Wouldn't it be
better to learn this before we got married? It would be so much
better. So much better. Now look, the
Pharisees ask him another question, verse 7. They say to him, why
did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and
to put her away? He saith unto them, you see the
Pharisees are going to always appeal to the law. Here's the
law giver speaking, here's Christ speaking who we ought to heed,
but they go back running back to the law given at Mount Sinai.
Now listen. He said to them, if you do that,
you run to the law, I guarantee you what's going to happen. Christ's
going to condemn you. Every time. If you're His, He's
going to condemn you in grace and save you. If not, it'll be
in judgment day, but He'll condemn you. He'll condemn you. Watch
this. Moses, because of the hardness
of your hearts. Because you're a bunch of dead
rebels, that's why. He suffered you to put away your
wives, but from the beginning it was not so." Now hold your
place here. In eternity and in the garden,
God ordained that a husband and a wife will be united as one
flesh for life. Why? It glorifies Christ. It glorifies Christ and His bride.
Nothing, Scripture said, nothing shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. You get that? That's the only place God loves.
He don't love everybody. He loves His people in Christ,
and everybody He loves, He saves. Because He gets more glory that
way. God gets the glory. He gets all the glory. A man
gets none. He's going to save his people.
But Moses' day, in Moses' day, their hearts were so hard. If
you go and look in the Scriptures before Moses' day, you won't
find one single divorce. Not one. But in Moses' day, their
hearts were so hard. that in order to protect the
wife from the husband, he got upset with her for anything.
He'd beat her if he didn't like her, turn against her in contempt,
or worse, he'd murder her or have her murdered so he'd be
free from her and not break the law. You say, well, that sounds
mighty ridiculous. We crucified Christ, the Lord
of the Sabbath rest of every believer so we could get him
down off the cross and go back to observing a Sabbath day. Will we not murder somebody in
attempt to keep the law of God? That's how backwards we are.
That's how backwards we are. But God permitted that for the
protection of the bride. Now, if God suffered it to be
so in Moses' day, we ought to have compassion enough to suffer
it to be so in our day. It sometimes, in some cases,
is more safe for the wife to at least separate from the husband.
But now, if she does, we're told what to do. in case one does
divorce. Now look here, you stay there
in Matthew 19. Our text says, but if she departs,
if she divorces unjustly, that's what he's talking about, let
her remain unmarried. And the same goes for the husband.
Let her remain unmarried. Now look here at verse 9, Matthew
19, 9. Christ said this, He said, I say unto you, whosoever shall
put away his wife, Accept it be for fornication. You know
what that word is translated from the Greek word? Everybody
listen porn e Porn that's what it's translated from fornication
and he says Whosoever shall divorce his wife except it be for fornication
and shall marry another he Committed adultery Now listen to this,
"...and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."
Now Christ gives fornication, adultery, as the just reason
why a husband or a wife may divorce. He says they may divorce. Now
we saw this morning with Christ and His bride, that we did commit
adultery against Christ. When we sinned in Adam and we
failed in all our lives, He said, you're just a harlot, you've
committed whoredoms. Christ didn't divorce His people.
Christ came and saved His people, covered our sins, put our sins
away. And that's the better way, but He says, you made divorce,
because it's hard for us to get over that. He said, you made
divorce, but remember this, They don't break the marriage union
between one another. They don't break that union.
Because Christ and His bride's union is never broken. And that's
how it's patterned after. And the only other cause He gives
in Scripture is when an unbelieving spouse, sometimes a husband will
get married and the Lord will save him after he's married.
And now he's saved and his wife's unsaved. Well, if she leaves
him, divorces him, he's free to marry again. He's free to
marry again. That's the only other cause he
gives. But in either case, he says their brother or sister
is not an adulterer if they marry again. But if they divorce without
these causes and they remarry, then they're guilty of adultery.
Guilty of adultery. And not only that, the one who
marries them is guilty of adultery. Whoever marries them is guilty
of adultery. Now that pretty much makes you look at us in
our day. When you think about that, think
how often that happens. You see, that's what it was like
in that land that Hosea was told to go and take his bride from.
It was a land of whoredoms and all the children were illegitimate
because they were born of these illegitimate unions. Marrying
and divorce, marrying again, divorce and marrying again. It
doesn't just mean they were all down there practicing prostitution.
It means This is what they were doing. It's a picture of us.
It's a picture of where we live. It's for us, brethren. It's us.
Yet it didn't stop Christ from saving His people, did it? It
didn't stop Him. It's because that marriage, that
unbreakable, everlasting covenant of marriage between Christ and
His bride will never be broken. Never be broken. He said there,
what God has joined together between Christ and His bride,
no man shall put asunder. And He says to us concerning
our marriages, let no man put it asunder, because God has joined
that together too. He said in Malachi 2.16, the
Lord, the God of Israel, saith that He hateth putting away.
He hateth putting away. Now let me repeat it. When a
husband and wife vow to love one another until death parts
them, they do so before God. God says they're now in an unbreakable
marriage covenant, just like He does with Christ and His bride
in eternity. Before God, they're no more two
but one flesh, just like Christ and His bride from eternity.
Therefore, what God's joined together, let no man put asunder.
No man's going to divide Christ and His bride, ever. And so though
an earthly judge may say we're divorced, before God we're still
married. And so our first husband is still
our first husband, and the first wife is still your first wife.
And when we divorce a husband and marry again, he commits adultery,
and the same for the wife. When a husband divorces and marries
again, he commits adultery, so does the wife, and those who
marry them do. So he says, if she divorced unjustly,
let her remain unmarried. You see, if we'd have done that,
it wouldn't have been near as bad. If we broke the law in Adam,
But you see, we didn't just break the law and call for mercy and
say, Lord, save us. You know what we did? We were
all represented in one of two people, Adam or Christ. Adam
or Christ. We were all represented in Adam.
And when we sinned in Adam, what did Adam do? As soon as he sinned,
we all sinned. Romans 5.12 says, sin entered
in and death by sin. What did we all do when we sinned
in Adam? What did he do? He didn't turn
and call for mercy from God. You know what he did? He went
and joined himself with a harlot. How so? He went and made fig
leaves for himself and tried to cover his own nakedness. Self-righteous
religion. Works religion, right there in
the garden. And when God came looking for him and said, Adam!
He hid from God in the trees and wouldn't even answer him.
God's got to regenerate the heart and draw us out of those trees
to make us be stripped naked and say, I need Christ to save
me. You want Christ to have all the glory? Do you want God to
get all the glory? You're sitting there thinking,
I want to have a little bit of glory for some of my works. What
about me? I made my decision for Christ. You didn't if you're
God's child. God made your mind up for you.
My people will be willing in the day of my power, God said.
All right, lastly now, here's the last thing he said. First,
he says, don't divorce. And then secondly, he said, but
if you do, unjustly, he said, remain unmarried. Now, here's
the third thing. This is a better way. Here's
a better way. Go back to our text now. 1 Corinthians
7.11. He says, or be reconciled to
her husband. or be reconciled to her husband.
The same goes for the husband. Or be reconciled to your wife. Now turn over to 2 Corinthians
5. Now usually feelings are hurt, hearts are broken, words have
been spoken that are just hateful and mean and what have you, that
it's just almost impossible to be reconciled. You know what
we have to do sometimes? Sometimes we have to find a mediator
to mediate between a husband and a wife. To try to bring them
back into reconciliation. Somebody that can mediate, a
neutral party who can go between the two of them and mediate.
And that's our gospel. That's our gospel. When we left
Christ in the garden, in Adam, and in all our sins, all our
lives, we were sinning against Him. You know what God did? He sent Christ our husband to
be the mediator and bring us back into reconciliation with
the God who we offended. Look here in 2 Corinthians 5.18. All things are of God. You see that? Everything is of
God. If you have it, God gave it. I guarantee you. And that
is so in salvation. Everything is of God. If you
have faith, Faith is a gift of God. By grace are you saved.
You got repentance? He raised the Prince of Life
that He might grant repentance to His people. If you have love,
you don't have it until you're born of the God of love. And
He's given you a new heart. Everything's of God. If you've
got righteousness, Christ worked it out. Everything. Look here. All things are of God who hath
reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. and hath given to us
the ministry of reconciliation." That's what I preach. To wit,
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Well, see there, God reconciled
the whole world. If that means everybody in the
world, then everybody in the world is saved. Not a single
person will be lost. Because, you see, what Christ
did is He fulfilled the law. My Savior's victorious. He fulfilled
the law. We saw in Romans 7, if a wife's
married to a husband, she's bound to her husband as long as she
lives. That's the law. But if her husband's dead, she's
not bound to that law anymore so she can be married to another.
Why is that the law? Why did God give that law? to
show us what Christ did for His people. Christ, He says, therefore,
brethren, you become dead to the law by the body of Christ
that you might be married to another. We can lawfully... God's
people. He's so satisfied justice now
and declared God just so that now God can have mercy on His
people and it won't tarnish His law. It won't tarnish His justice
in any way. And so now He comes to His child
and He says, I've reconciled you. Now it's legal, it's lawful
for you to be married to me, Christ said. Why does it say
world here? Because His people are scattered
all over the world. And because at this time the
Jews thought it was only the Jews that were going to be saved.
God's got to elect people among Jew and Gentile. He's got people
in the four corners of the earth, He said. He's going to call them
out, He said, out of the four corners of the world. So you
see, He's saying here, But look here, the reason I said to you,
look at what it says and understand who it's talking to. It says,
He hath reconciled us. He did it. Now be honest with
me, is everybody saved? Is everybody calling on God?
You ever seen a person die of cussing God? You ever seen a
person that died? And not if you listen to preachers at funerals,
because everybody you hear at funerals all went to heaven.
But honestly, folks that never cared a thing about God ever,
never believed God, never trusted God, if they die and go to hell,
God didn't love them. Is there a hell? You think God's
loving the people there? You think He's just trying and
failed to save them? If He did, your God's a failure.
Mine's not. Isaiah 54 says, He shall not
fail. So He set judgment in the earth,
and He shall not fail. He didn't, and he never will.
What I'm saying to you, he has reconciled his people. Now, let
me ask you, if we had a judge in a court of law, and you come
before that judge, and witnesses come in, and the case is made,
and the lawyers have stated the case, and the jury rules now,
and they say, that man's not guilty. Now, according to the
law, you can't be tried for that again. But what if that judge, they
declared you not guilty and a few days later that judge called
you up and said, we're going to bring you back to under trial
and charge you for that same offense again. And this time
he's going to find you guilty. You know what you'd say? Get
that judge off the bench. Why? He's unjust. That's double
jeopardy. Listen to me. God is the just
judge of heaven and earth. That's the whole reason He sent
Christ, was to declare His righteousness. When Christ came, He so satisfied
the justice of God, He delivered His people from the offended
law of God, from the curse of the law of God, so that God says,
now, I know their sin no more. I will remember their sin no
more. I've blotted out their sin. I've cast them behind my
back. I've cast them as far as the
east is from the west. They're in the depth of the sea.
How many more analogies can he give to show us that Christ was
successful? When he had by himself purged
our sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. He entered
into the heavens of heavens having obtained eternal redemption for
us. Eternal means it'll never change. And so God says, I'll never charge
them, I'll never bring another sin up against them again. they're
just. And if God were to do so, God
forbid, because He's a just God, it would be double jeopardy just
like that unjust judge. You see what I'm saying? And
that's what it says here. God has reconciled His people to
Himself by Jesus Christ. Wherever they are in this world,
He's done it. There's some yet, and I'll tell
you this, the only reason we're here right now, and not with
him in glory, is because there's some that he's yet to reveal
this to. But he's going to, because they've
got to be brought to faith in Christ, and they shall. It's
not in our hands, brethren. If it was, have you ever succeeded
in doing anything? Be honest with me. Have we got
any honest people here? Have you ever been successful
at doing anything in your life that just eats you up inside
until you can tell somebody about it? and how you did it, how you
succeeded. Ever, have you ever? If you say
no, you're lying, lying as big as you can be. You see, that's
why we can't be saved by our works, because you know what
we're going to do? And that's glorying in ourselves, brethren.
Listen to religion speak. It's all about, you ask the average
man on the street, do this test tomorrow, ask him, what's your
hope of salvation? See if he don't start off the
sentence with, I. I, I did this, I did that, I blah, blah, blah.
You know what my hope is? Christ. What else? Christ. What else? Christ. Christ is all. He's all. Because He succeeded,
brethren. You see, that's not offensive
to being you who He saved because He's brought us from being on
that side where we've been going, well, I don't think that's fair
to being on the side where He's made you see You got nothing
to reply against God about. God can do with His own what
He will. Can't you? Can't you do with your own what
you will? So can God. And God's chosen to save a people
for Himself and pass by some so that He can show His people
what great mercy He's had on them. You want me to show you
that in Scripture? Turn to Romans 9. I'll show you that in Scripture. Romans 9. Verse 17, The Scripture saith
unto Pharaoh, For this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens. He didn't
have mercy on that Pharaoh he's speaking about there. He hardened
his heart so he couldn't believe. Why did he do that? Look at verse
21. Hath not the potter power over
the clay, over the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor
and another unto dishonor? Can a potter do that? Can't God
do that with us? What if God, willing to show
His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath who are meat for destruction, that He
might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy? who He aforeprepared unto glory,
even us whom He's called, not of the Jews also, but also of
the Gentiles." That's why God passes by some, so He can show
His people, magnify His grace to His people. You see, we're
not saying we're better than anybody. We're saying we're worse
than everybody else, and yet God still had mercy on us. Did
He have to? No. He wasn't obligated until
He entered covenant with Christ to do it. Then He was. And so
he won't lose one. You see, that gives God all the
glory. That doesn't give man any. That's what's offensive. Paul said, if I preached circumcision,
I preached the law, if I gave man just one thing to do, they
wouldn't be offended at me. Because I don't, they're offended.
They're offended. Now, let me get back to my text
here, verse 19. He's given us this ministry of
reconciliation to wit. Here's what we preach. God was
in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them. He never has and He never will.
That's what He's saying. He's committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ as though God was beseeching you by us. Are you
just hearing a man today? Are you saying, well, I just
really don't believe what Clay's saying? I don't care if you believe
me or not, but you better believe God, because that's who's speaking.
That's who's speaking. That's who's speaking. He says,
verse 21, For he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Now, either he
succeeded at that or he failed at that. You ready to stand before
God and say he failed? I'm not. I'm not. I'm going to say he succeeded.
He succeeded. Well, if you tell a sinner that,
then that sinner is just going to sin all he wants to. You can't
tell folks that. You can't tell folks that. Well,
let me see here. See if I can find it. Tell me somebody. Give me help
somebody. Show me where it says... I think it's right here, right
where I'm at, where it says we're constrained by His love. You see it there? Let me... I'm
in the wrong spot. I never find it where I'm at.
Hold on one second. 2 Corinthians... What is it? 5.14. Look here. 5.14. The love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge that if Christ died for all His people,
then all His people were dead. We were all dead. That's why
He died for us, to give us life, to save us. And now, we're alive
by Him. You see, Christ works in the
heart through this Good News, and He constrains you in love.
It's like what we saw this morning. Whenever Gomer was standing there
on that on that slave block. Nobody is bidding on her. And
yet, Hosea steps out. And even though she committed
adultery against him, he still carried oil and wine and wool
to her door. He then, by the Lord, he stripped
her. He brought her down. The Lord
brought her down. And there she stands on that slave block. And
he steps forward and he bid on her. And he bought her. He redeemed
her. Now, when he did that, do you
think that her heart was set so hard after that that she'd
say, now I'm going to leave him as soon as we get home? No, sir. She clinged to him for the rest
of her days. And I'll tell you this, when Christ does it, I
know without a doubt, He affectionately makes you cling to Him. You don't
want to sin against Him, and that's the case with His children. And somebody might say this,
well, they offended me so badly I can't be reconciled to them.
You get along. You're a believer. You get along.
And you think on how we committed fornication and adultery against
Christ our husband. You think about it a long time. And after you see what He did
for you and you see Him hanging on that bloody cross and you
see the redemption He's accomplished for you, If you can still be
so brazen and say, I don't care what he thinks, then you might
be better off not considering the truth about divorce and consider
the truth whether or not you know him or not. I'm dead serious. I'm dead serious. Go yet and love a woman, beloved
of a friend, yet an adulteress." That's what God told Hosea. And he said, I went, I redeemed
her, I made a covenant, whether you'll never leave me, I'll never
leave you. And God said, that was a picture
of my love toward all my people. Now let me ask you a question.
Have you tasted this grace? Have you tasted this grace that
God showed you, this grace, this mercy, this love that's unchanging,
unbending, unyielding? Let me tell you this. Believing
husbands and wives, don't depart from your spouse. Don't depart
from your spouse. Wives, submit to your husbands,
just like the church submits to Christ, because your husband
is the husband and Savior of the body, just like Christ is
the husband and Savior of the body. And husbands, as Scripture
says, love your wives just like Christ loved His church and gave
Himself for it. But, and if you divorce unjustly,
then remain unmarried. Isn't He gracious to us? Even
when His child is going against what He said, He says, okay then,
just remain unmarried. Isn't that gracious? He doesn't
say, all right now, that's it for you. You're cut off. No,
he says to his child, just remain unmarried. Your sins put away.
Just remain unmarried now. Because before God you still
are married. That's why. See, and when you're
not married, you're owning that. You're saying, I'm still married
to my husband. If anybody asks you, Willie, why don't you just
marry again? Law says you're not married to your husband.
You can tell them about Christ, can't you? Tell them what Christ
did for you. That's why. That's why he tells
them, stay unmarried. It might make an occasion for
you to preach Christ to somebody. And then better, he says, be
reconciled to that one that's offended you. Just be reconciled
to them. I know we get upset sideways.
I do. Boy, I get so upset sometimes.
I storm off and I'm thinking to myself, I'm going to do this,
I'm going to do that, you know. That woman don't know what a
good man she's got. And then God brings you down.
Reminds you what Christ did for you. And he says to you in your
heart, now you love her like I loved you. You forgive him
like I've forgiven you. Don't that melt your heart? Don't
that melt your heart? And so you go back and you reconcile. You reconcile. Now if you pass
that point, now listen to me, forget it. Forget it. I'm telling
you, forget it. Learn what he's saying here and
rejoice in what Christ's done for you. And forget the past.
That's what I'm saying. Forget it. But don't make the
mistake again. Don't make the same mistake again.
Reconciliation is so much better than living the rest of your
life alone, isn't it? And I'll tell you what, it's much more
glorifying to Christ who reconciled us to God. All right, brethren,
let's stand together. And we're going to sing a closing
hymn, and then I'm going to ask, if you're a visitor, you're free
to go if you want.