message today from Matthew chapter
19, and I've entitled this message, Marriage, Mercy and the Love
of God. In this chapter, in the two chapters,
Matthew 18 and Matthew 19, All of us are included there.
You'll find your place, whether you are one of God's people or
not, there you will be found. And I want to point you to the
wonderful grace of God. in the Lord Jesus Christ through
these two chapters. I'm going to summarize for you
what Matthew 18 says and just reference it to you rather than
reading all of it. And then I also want to read
through the first 12 verses of Matthew 19. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we pray
that you would be with us and you would guide us, guide our
thoughts and open your word to us. And we sit as your children,
awaiting your instruction. And we pray, Lord, that as you
only can do, you would teach us in our heart and lift up the
Lord Jesus Christ in our eyes of faith. By Your Spirit, open
them, and give us hope in Him, and love for Him, and teach us
as husbands and wives, and as those who are not married, that
we pray, Lord, You would teach all of us the wonder of Your
eternal love for Your people. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Now I mentioned this chapter is including everybody in it
today because I'm going to give you a summary of what these two
chapters cover. In chapter 18, it speaks at the
beginning of the little ones that belong to the Lord Jesus
Christ. It says in the first verse, at
the same time came the disciples to Jesus saying, who is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child
to him and set him in the midst and said, verily I say to you,
except you be converted and become as little children, you shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And so he goes on in
verse four, whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this
little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and
whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name receives
me. So you see in the beginning of chapter 18, it's about little
children. And why does the Lord Jesus talk
about little children? Well, because they were dear
to Him. Because the Kingdom of Heaven is made up of those who
are in themselves little children by the grace of God. We're all
little children at one time in our lives, but we grow up. And
in that process, we usually gain an independence from our parents. And that's important because
we can't depend upon them our whole lives. They're not going
to live as long as we are. We're usually going to outlive
our parents and we've got to defend for ourselves. And we
have to get married and have our own children and train them
and so on. But as little children, we're
dependent. We don't know everything we need
to know. In fact, we know very little
compared to what we shall know. We don't have much strength.
We don't have money that we can use to support ourselves. We
need someone to provide for us and protect us and to teach us
and to do all these things for us. And we're happy as little
children to be that way. We're happy to depend upon our
parents. In the same way, those the Lord
saves are happy to depend on the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're
made small in their own esteem, in their own eyes, in their own
opinion of themselves because of the grace of God. In the Gospel,
He teaches us that we are small and the Lord Jesus Christ is
all-important. And so we're happy to have it
that way as little children. And so the kingdom of God is
made up of these. And so the first people mentioned
in Matthew 18 and 19 are little children. In fact, it goes on
all the way through down to verse 14. Look at verse 14. It says,
even so, it is not the will of your father which is in heaven
that one of these little ones should perish. So God's will
is that all who are the Lord Jesus' little children would
all be saved. Don't you want to be one of His
little children? And what do you think it would
be to you if you were someone that the Lord Jesus Himself entrusted
one of His children to, to take care of? How important would
it be to you to take care of them if they were His? And so
he tells us, first of all, the kingdom of God is like little
children, because all of the Lord's people are little children
in their own esteem and in His care for them. Then the second
thing that happens in Matthew 18, beginning at verse 15, is
there's a reference made to disputes among brethren in the church.
So in the church, when we talk about the church, we're talking
about believers. In our life, as we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, sometimes conflict arises between us. But the Lord Jesus
is instructing us how we are to deal with one another in love
and in forgiveness. And so he tells what we should
do. And he underscores the importance of us as believers to strive
and endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace, as it says in Ephesians, chapter 4. So God has joined
us to Christ as one. This is what marriage is about.
As the husband and the wife are in union in their physical bodies,
and God doesn't look any more at them as two, but as one, so
every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is one with Christ. We're joined to him and therefore
joined to one another. where one body, and you know
how your body is. Your toe and your finger are
all part of the same body. Your eye isn't separate. It doesn't
roll around by itself, does it? It can't just be a body on its
own. Your eye doesn't make any sense unless it's connected to
your body and working in the body. And so, God uses that description
of us, a body, as connected to one another, and especially connected
to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is called the head of the body.
And in that, we're to have the same faith, we're to have the
same love, not only for Christ, but for one another, and to act
towards one another with kindness, like we looked at last week in
1 Corinthians 13, patience, and kindness, not envying one another,
not being puffed up in ourselves or boasting in ourselves, not
seeking our own, but giving ourselves for the good of others because
God's grace towards us has given us good in spite of what we are
as sinners. And so he talks about this, and
in verse 22, Peter asked this question after Jesus said, this
is the way you deal with a dispute. He's in the church, he says,
Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin
against me and I forgive him? Till seven times. So Peter asked
Jesus after all this, hearing what he said about the church
and disputes, he said, well, how often should I forgive my
brother in the day? Seven times? I mean, that seems
like a generous amount. After seven times, you'd think
he would learn something. And Jesus said, in the next verse,
he said, verse 22, Jesus said, I say not until seven times,
but seventy times seven. That's 490 times. In other words,
you never stop forgiving your brother. Did God ever stop forgiving
you? That's the question. You see,
so in this first chapter, chapter 18, he talks about little children
and those who have been forgiven and therefore ought to forgive
because this is the kingdom of God. This is the kingdom of heaven.
It's made up of little children trusting Christ and forgiving
one another because as sinners God has forgiven us. And we're
to be patient with one another. Forgiving one another. Suffering
long. bearing one another, covering
a multitude of sins, enduring trouble and conflict between
us in patience because of love, because of God's love to us.
And then, at the end of chapter 18, he's talking about the example
of a man who owed 10,000 talents, and he had nothing to pay, so
the man he owed the money to was going to require him to sell
his wife, sell his children, and sell everything he had so
he could pay his debt. But he still wouldn't have paid
it. And so the servant came and fell down before this master
and he begged him, he said, have mercy. And his master had compassion
and he actually forgave him all of his debt. So he didn't have
to sell his wife or his children or anything he had. It was all
forgiven. And this is the way God has dealt
with his people. And so that's chapter 18. Now it's in that context, it's
in that teaching, in the very historical setting where the
Lord Jesus spoke about little children in the kingdom of God
forgiving one another in the church and living at unity because
of our union with Christ and giving the example of how much
we've been forgiven for our sins Now, we see in the next verse,
in chapter 19, the first two verses, how a multitude of people
came to Jesus. And a multitude is a large number.
Remember, there was a time when a multitude came to Jesus, and
there were 5,000 men plus the women and children, and Jesus
gave them all bread. and fish to eat from five loaves
and two fish. He broke it. He gave it to the
disciples. They gave it to the 5,000 men,
plus all the women and children, and there was 12 baskets left
over. That was a multitude. So this is a large number. And
notice what these people did. They came, it says, it came to
pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, because it's connecting
chapter 18 to 19, he departed from Galilee and came into the
coast of Judea beyond Jordan. This is way in the outskirts
of this land of Israel. And great multitudes followed
him, and notice what he says, and he healed them there. So
now we have not only little children that need to live at unity and
forgive one another because God has forgiven us, but now we see
this whole multitude of people who were sick and needing to
be healed and they came only to Jesus because only He could
heal them. And He healed them. He didn't
hold them on pins and needles. He healed them of their sicknesses.
And that's the way the Lord is. He has compassion on us and He
heals us. And the healing we need is what?
The healing of the plague of our heart. we do need to have
healing in our body from time to time, but that's not the real
sickness that we have. And so it says in Isaiah 53 and
in 1 Peter 2.24 that Jesus went to the cross and he bore our
stripes so that we could be healed. As a substitute, he bore the
beating And the sickness that our sins deserve from God and
by His, as a substitute, bearing our stripes, God heals us. So
the healing that Jesus gave to these people was because He would
bear their stripes and heal them from their sins. You see? So
now we have the little children and this multitude. The need
for forgiveness. We all have that. And the need
for healing and them coming to Jesus for that. And now we're
going to have another group of people here in verse 3. Now we
have the enemies of Christ. And you know how, as a child,
you like those stories that tell about a bad guy and a good guy
and how the good guy, it looks like he's going to lose, but
in the end he wins and the bad guy gets his due. You like those
kind of stories, don't you? The bad guy is strong. The good
guy doesn't seem as strong, but he comes out on top, he wins,
and you're cheering for the good guy, aren't you? We find those
kinds of stories very interesting. Think of David and Goliath. But
here the enemies of the Lord Jesus come. And they come where
these little children are. These who believe on the Lord
Jesus. They are the little children. God the Father will not have
any of them perish. Those who forgive one another
because they've been forgiven. Those who are like the sick multitude
who come to Jesus for healing. Now the Pharisees come. And what
do you think the Pharisees do? Well, the Pharisees were people
who thought they were important and righteous in themselves so
much they didn't need to be healed. They didn't need to be little
children. They didn't need to be forgiven because they kept
the law, they thought. And God was happy with them because
of what they did. And so when anyone would question
them, why do you think God is happy with you? They would always
say, well, because of all these things I do. I'm so important.
Like, look at this poor guy over here. He's nothing what he should
be. I'm everything I should be. Okay, maybe not everything, but
I'm good enough that God's going to accept me. See, that's what
the Pharisees were like. So they're the enemies because
of what they're going to do. Now, what do enemies do? Let's
say that you're in your home, and you're in your family, and
you have your mom and your dad there, and someone comes into
your house as an enemy. What's the enemy trying to do?
Well, you expect him to try to hurt you. But what's the worst
kind of hurt that an enemy can cause in a family? Well, it's
the kind of hurt that attacks the trust that a child has in
his mother and his father. Or the trust and love between
a husband and his wife. And that's what the Pharisees
are doing here. They're attacking the very core of the trust between
these people who were little children, the multitudes who
need healing, forgiveness. They were attacking that in order
to drive a wedge to divide and separate them and put them away
from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who was the one who would heal
their souls, who was the one who would care for them as little
children and bring them to the Father. out of their sin and
death against all their enemies. And so these enemies, the Pharisees,
are attacking the truth of Jesus. They figure if they can make
the people doubt Him and doubt His Word, they will be able to
separate them from Christ and bring those people back around
to them to give them honor and sin. So they were bad people,
weren't they, Pharisees? So we see the Pharisees. Look
at verse 3. The Pharisees also came to Him, to Jesus, tempting
Him. It tells us what they were doing.
They didn't have a good motive. They were tempting Him. And saying
to Him, they're going to ask Him a question. And there's a
reason for their question. Is it lawful for a man to put
away his wife for every cause? Now this was a question. It was
a test. And they thought, if they can ask Him a tricky question,
He will be forced to answer it in a way that's going to make
the people distrust him. This is what their motive was.
So, they referred to a place in the Law of Moses, and they
thought, if we can ask Jesus a question about this Law, and
He answers it, so that it makes it seem strict, that God's requirements
on us are so strict, that Jesus is saying, that we can't fulfill
them, then the people will get discouraged and they'll leave
Him. Or, if he says, well, no, don't worry about those requirements.
It's okay, you don't have to worry about that stuff. The law
isn't that important anymore. Then the people would doubt him
that he was even sent of God. Either way, the Pharisees figure
they've got him. They've got him trapped here.
They're going to instill doubt in the minds of the little children,
those who believe Jesus, and the multitudes who came for healing,
those who needed to have their sins forgiven and taken from
them. so they could escape the punishment their sins deserved
and to be brought to God. They thought if they could drive
this wedge between Jesus and His people by instilling doubt
in their minds that He was either too strict or did not respect
God's truth and His law, that they would have Him. And so their
motive for asking this question was an evil motive. They really
didn't want to know the answer. They didn't really think they
needed him to tell the answer. They thought they knew the answer.
In fact, in Deuteronomy 24, God actually gave Moses this law
that said, now if a man has a wife, And the wife doesn't please him.
He can write her what's called a bill of divorcement. He can
put her away. He can send her away from him
so that she's no more his wife. He divorces his wife. And so
they're asking him about divorce. And so they asked Jesus, did
Moses? Is it lawful? Did Moses say this
or not? Can a man put away his wife for
every cause? They thought, yeah, he can. Because
in Deuteronomy 24, God had given Moses that law to give to them.
But their motive here is evil. They don't want to know the answer.
But the Lord Jesus now, he's the one who's caring for the
children. He's the one who's instructing
them how to forgive and love one another in the kingdom of
God. He's the one who brings these who were sick and heals
them. And now he's going to address their enemies. And he's going
to answer their question in such a way that he's going to make
marriage and divorce both magnify God's grace towards his people.
And this is what we want to hear as little children, don't you?
Don't you want to know why did God, in his law, allow for divorce
if marriage is important? And if he didn't allow for divorce,
why do people get divorce? Aren't those questions that we
want to know the answers to? And so in verse 4, Jesus answered
and he said to them, now these are the enemies, He said to them,
Have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made
them male and female? And said, For this cause shall
a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife,
and listen carefully, and they too shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more two,
but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder. Now what is Jesus saying here? When a man and a woman become
married, it's because in the very beginning, from creation,
before Adam and Eve sinned, even before they sinned and before
God gave the law, God had already made marriage. And how did he
make the woman, by the way? that married Adam. Remember?
First God created Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils a breath of life. But how did he make the
woman, the wife of Adam? And who decided that Adam even
needed a wife anyway? Well, God did. He says it's not
good for the man to be alone. I will make him and help me for
him." And so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam,
remember? And God took one of his ribs
while he was asleep, and from that rib that was taken from
Adam, he made the woman, and then he brought Eve, the woman,
to the man. So it pleased God to bring a
woman from the man for the man, you see, and to give her to him. And so in the Proverbs it says
that he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtains favor
from the Lord. You see how blessed it is to
have a wife as a husband? And the woman, Eve, was made
from the side of Adam while he was asleep. But it also says,
remember what we read a couple weeks ago in Ephesians chapter
5, that in this marriage that God has given people, that he
has made the world from the very beginning. He created marriage
in the very beginning. It was to teach us as a living
picture or an illustration of God's about something that's
even more important than marriage. And what was that? What's more
important than the marriage between a man and a woman and their children? What's more important to God?
Well, it's the It's the joining of God's people to the Lord Jesus
Christ as their husband. They are like the wife, like
Eve, and he is like the husband, like Adam. And the children born
to Adam and Eve are part of that same church, the same household.
And they also are children of God, like these little children
here. And they live together. And they forgive one another.
They've all been forgiven sins by the same Lord Jesus and His
blood. So they live in this family.
And that's the way God intended it. That's why He created marriage. To point to this true marriage
between the Lord Jesus and His people. So God caused Adam to
sleep just as God ordained that the Lord Jesus Christ would die
on the cross. And because of His death on the
cross, remember, it was because of His death on the cross that
all of God's people are gathered to Him, brought to Him. Who brought
the woman to Adam? God did. And who brings God's
people from their condition of sin and unbelief to the Lord
Jesus Christ? God does. Because it's God's
purpose, it's His grace, it's His love. And when Adam saw Eve,
he said, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
And therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and shall
be joined to his wife, and they too shall be one flesh, no more
separated. And Jesus said here, do not put
asunder, do not divide, do not separate what God has joined
together. Do not let any man do that. Now
the Pharisees asked about separation, which is divorce. They asked
about a man putting away his wife. And so what is Jesus' answer? No. From the beginning, it was
not so. But what were the Pharisees using
to try to prove that it was okay for them to put away their wife?
They were using the Law of Moses. You see, the Pharisees didn't
believe Jesus. They trusted in keeping God's
Law. They lived under the conditions
of God's Law. They thought that God would accept
them because they kept the requirements that God had in His Law. And
so they live by the law. And so they referred to the law
and divorced. They said, see, it allows us
to do this. But Jesus said, no. From the
beginning, it was not so. And so what the Lord Jesus is
doing, He's saying, even before the law, in fact, before sin,
God had a purpose. And it was marriage to point
to the union, the joining of His people to His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, in our nature. Where He, in His death, would
wash away our sins and bring us, purify us, and bring us to
Himself. God bringing Eve to Adam and
bringing us to the Lord Jesus. And that was his purpose for
marriage. And so even before the law, there was an eternal
will of God revealed in this grace of God. And this grace
had no provision for divorce. Why? Why is it that God didn't
want there to be a separation between the man and the woman?
Well, He's the one who brought them together. They're no more
two, but one flesh. And in that union of that flesh,
what happens? That love of union. Children
are born. You see, there's no children
without this union. And this union is only holy,
in God's eyes, in marriage. And so, if we don't adhere to
the marriage that God has set up, and if we have this unclean
union, this fornication or adultery, then we're breaking the picture.
We're violating the picture God set up. The Lord Jesus only has
one wife. And he's faithful to her wife.
And she, we'll see, in her own self, has been unfaithful, but
she's made faithful by the grace of God. And so this is the way
God's children are born. It's through this union between
his people. And himself, the Lord Jesus,
and the preaching of the gospel, and they're brought to him. And
so from the beginning, there was no divorce, and so Jesus
says this. He says, right after that, the
Pharisees asked him, well then, if you say There's no such thing
as divorce. They think they have him now.
The enemies of God's people trying to drive this wedge between him
and them. They think they have him because
he's saying, no there's no such thing. From the beginning it
was not so. God never intended it. And now the people are wondering,
well then what do we do? What about this? I have this
wife and she's really bad and I don't like her and I want to
get rid of her and she doesn't please me anymore. And God's
law says I could get rid of her. Now you're telling me that you're
more strict than God's law. Is that what you're saying? Well, think about it. What would
it be if God did allow for divorce from the beginning? What would
that mean? Well, what does marriage point to? What does it mean?
What does it mean? Why did God create marriage?
It was to teach us about the eternal love and grace and union
of the Lord Jesus with His people, so that there are no more two,
but one in God's eyes, and by His Spirit from eternity. And
if there was such a thing as divorce, what would that mean?
Well, then the Lord Jesus would see something wrong with them
and say, you know, I knew you were a sinner, now you've proved
it, so away with you, and put them away. They're separated,
and there's no such thing as salvation anymore. If God allowed
for divorce between His Son and His people, then God changes.
His love isn't eternal, it's not faithful, and they're lost
and hopeless and helpless. So it's very important that God
doesn't allow for divorce. before sin and after sin entered
the world. But, he says, these enemies of
God who are trying to drive this wedge here, they ask this question
of Jesus, trying to pin him down. They say in verse 7, they say
to him, why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement
and to put her away? So they're asking him, okay,
you said that from the beginning this was not so, but Moses wrote
this in the law, why did God command him to put it in the
law then? They think they have him, because he seems to be disagreeing
with Moses. And Jesus said this, Moses, because
of the hardness of your hearts, allowed or suffered you to put
away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." So
what's Jesus saying? Look, because of your sin, Moses
gave you this law. That's the hardness of their
heart. Their hearts were hard, just like they were here. These
Pharisees' hearts were hard. They wanted to live under the
law. They tried to establish their own righteousness. They
would not submit themselves to the righteousness of God, which
is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so they lived by the law. And they trusted in their own
law-keeping. They thought they lived by the
law. They didn't. Because they trusted in their own law-keeping.
And the law says, no man shall be justified by the law. in the
sight of God. So they were actually breaking
the law, although they trusted in their law-keeping. You see? And so, they ask this question,
why did God allow them to put away their wife, if he put her
in the law? They're trusting in the law,
they're going to the law for their answer, and guess what the law
is saying? Okay, because of your sin, you can divorce your wives. Why would God do that? Why would
God allow them to divorce their wives if it wasn't God's will
from the beginning in the law? And here's the part I was trying
to allude to in the very beginning of the message, which was in
these two chapters we see everybody. We see the little children, the
sick multitude, we see the Lord Jesus, our Savior and our Lord,
and we see the enemies of Christ. We see the kingdom of God and
we see the kingdom of Satan. We see just like the devil in
the beginning tried to separate Eve from her husband Adam by
introducing doubt in her mind against God and not submitting
to her husband and causing her husband to come under this terrible
situation. where he either had to disobey
God and stay with his wife or leave his wife. And he was in
terrible trouble because of her lack of submission to him. And
so they were trying to drive this wedge. And Jesus, he says,
I'm going to answer you according to the law. You trust in the
law. You think you come to God by the law, so I'm going to answer
you according to the law. Because of the hardness of your
heart, God allowed a man to put away, to separate himself from
his wife and make her no more his wife. Now, you want to live
under the law? You're under that law then. And
what does that law allow? It allows a husband to divorce
his wife. And God said that the nation
of Israel, and all people really, were in a relationship to God
where he put them away for their sin. Because that's what the
law says. You see, so in the law of Moses,
God had allowed for divorce because of the sin of men. Because of
our sin. And so we look back in, I'll
show you a couple of places in scripture. Look back at Jeremiah
chapter 3. And this is where God speaks
to the nation of Israel in this way. Jeremiah chapter 3, he says
this. He refers back to the law that
they're talking about in Deuteronomy 24, but here it is in Jeremiah
3 and verse 1. They say, if a man put away his
wife and she go from him and become another man's, shall he
return to her again? Shall not that land be greatly
polluted? So, that was what the law said.
If you put away your wife, she's free from you. She can go be
another man's wife, but she cannot come back to you. Okay? She's done with you. And if you
bring that wife back to be your wife after that, you've polluted
the land. So he goes on, the Lord says,
you remember that? That's what they say. He says,
but thou, he's talking to this people, the people who lived
under the condition and the principle of law and coming to God on the
basis of their works. He says to them, but thou has
played the harlot with many lovers, yet return again to me, saith
the Lord. So the people he's talking to,
he says, you have acted like an unfaithful wife. And what
does it mean for a woman to be unfaithful to her husband? It's
called adultery. And he says that if you commit
adultery, that you people, you have committed adultery. And
so in what way were they committing adultery? In what way were the
people being unfaithful to God? They were trusting in the idols
that they made. They had set up these idols and
they looked to their idols to bless them. They worshipped their
idols because they thought that the idols were giving them the
good that they had and protecting them from their enemies and so
they lived their lives trusting their idols. And the idols, what
are idols? Have you ever seen an idol? Well,
it's what men create. It's the work of men's hands.
And so the idol represents our attempt to do what only God can
do in order to get blessings from God. In other words, living
under a principle of works and not grace is idolatry. It's coveting salvation unlawfully. It's trying to live outside the
marriage which is formed between God's people and the Lord Jesus
Christ on the basis of grace and His blood alone. And so the
Pharisees were saying, what does the law say? And Jesus says,
the law says you can divorce your wife. But from the beginning
it was not so. They wanted to live under the
law because in their hearts they worshipped their own works. They
were idolaters. They were unfaithful to God.
And this is a double sword. Because on the one hand it shows
that they trusted in their works as idolaters. But it also shows
this is why God separated them from Him and put them away. He
gave men over to their own heart's lust, as it says in Romans 1.
He turned them over. He no longer held them, but he
turned them over to their heart's lust to receive the punishment
for their sins. That's what the Pharisees were
asking about. And Jesus exposes them. You're under that law. You're the ones who are going
to be separated from God because you live by the law and God has
a legitimate right on the condition of that law to divorce you. You're
living under a principle of conditional blessings from God by your own
obedience, therefore you're going to be judged by your own obedience
and separated from God by your works. You trust your works,
you're going to die by your works. You see? And you go on and read
this in Jeremiah chapter 3, look at verse 8. He says, and I saw
when for All the causes whereby backsliding
Israel committed adultery, I had put her away. So God put away. He divorced this nation of Israel
as a people. I put her away and given her
a bill of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah
feared not, but went and played the harlot also. So both Israel
and Judah disobeyed God with idolatry. And God said, I'm going
to put you away. But now turn to Hosea, the book
of Hosea, which is right after Daniel, and look at Hosea. Because the book of Hosea was
written by a prophet whose name means God is salvation. Hosea
means Joshua or Jesus. So he's the one whose name means
Jehovah is salvation. In other words, Hosea is the
book that is spoken about our prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who married a woman. And Hosea had to, God said, go
marry this woman. But the woman was an adulteress. She was unfaithful to her husband. Because this woman that Hosea
married in the prophecy of this book, she represented all those
that God had married in the nation of Israel, who by their idolatry
were now going to be separated. Just like he said in Jeremiah.
But look at Hosea chapter 1. He said, The woman that Hosea married
had conceived one son. In verse 6 of chapter 1, she
conceived again and bear a daughter. And God said to Hosea, call her
name Loruhamma, for I will no more have mercy upon the house
of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. So God is saying
to this man who married this unfaithful woman called Gomer,
a harlot, He said, I want you to marry her, even though she's
a harlot, because if you marry her as a harlot, it will represent
what happened when I joined Israel to me as my people. He says,
I'm going to put them away. I'm not going to have mercy on
them anymore. I'm going to call them lo-ruhamah,
which means no mercy. And so you can imagine Hosea,
the father, calling out to his daughter, says, No mercy! Time for dinner. No mercy. Come home. You see all these
things? What a sad, sad name that was. No mercy. Because God
said to these people who were disobedient in their unbelief,
trusting their own works religion, He said, No mercy. And they all
were like that. But, he says, I will have mercy
on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God,
and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle,
by horses, nor by horsemen. God's gonna save another people.
He says, now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, the first child,
or the second child actually, the little girl, named Lo-Ruhamah,
no mercy, she conceived and bare a son. And God told Hosea, call
his name Lo-Ami. Lo means no, and ami means my
people. So he's saying, call this son
not my people. So he says that, for you are
not my people, and I will not be your God. So you see, what
the Pharisees were asking about this law of divorce was to show
that they were sinners, that God's law allowed God to separate
all from him who were under that legal law But living by their
own works, because it said in there, look, if a man has a wife
who's unfaithful, or whatever cause he wants to, he can separate
her from him. But, here, in Hosea chapter 1,
he goes on in verse 10, listen. Even though he says to the first
daughter, no mercy, and to the son, not my people. He's got
these two children now, they were probably born out of wedlock. They were born illegitimate children,
but they were his children. And he says to them in verse
10, Yet, yet, even though I said no mercy and not my people, yet,
Nevertheless, the number of the children of Israel shall be as
the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered. And
it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said to
them, you are not my people, there it shall be said to them,
you are the sons of the living God. And what was Jesus talking
about in Matthew 18? The little children. His children,
the sons of the living God. These were the ones that the
Lord Jesus had drawn to himself. God said, it's not my will that
they should perish. They were the multitudes who
came for healing. And these are, even though they deserve to be
divorced and separated from him, God has found a way in his grace
to make them his children and said, you're my sons. And then
he goes on in verse 11. Then shall the children of Judah
and the children of Israel be gathered together and appoint
themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land,
for great shall be the day of Jezreel. And the first verse
of the next chapter says, Say ye unto your brethren, Ami, which
means my people, and to your sister, Ruhamah, which means
you have obtained mercy. So now we see that there are
these enemies. of the Lord Jesus. And they're
asking about, can a man divorce his wife? And he says, no, no,
from the beginning it was not so. But then he says, well, under
the law it's allowed because of the sin of your heart. Because
God would divorce these people that were called outwardly by
his name, but then he would divorce them and separate them from him
and put them away. And then he would have a people
who were his people from the beginning, and they would be
brought to him in an everlasting union of love and grace. And
so what we do, what we learn in Matthew chapter 19 by Jesus'
answer to these Pharisees is that God never intended there
to be divorce. In fact, in Malachi chapter 2
and verse 15 and 16, he says God hates putting away. Because
God loved his people with an everlasting love in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's not going to put them away.
Not even for their sin, not even for their adultery, their idolatry. If God put us away because of
our sin and idolatry, we would have no hope. But He's not going
to put them away for those reasons, because they were eternally chosen,
eternally loved. They were redeemed by the blood
of the Lord Jesus, therefore they're not condemned. We were
singing earlier, how can God receive full payment from the
Lord Jesus and still demand a payment from me? Have you ever bought
something, you go to the store, you buy something, maybe you've
been saving up your money for it, it costs $10, you go there,
you pay the store $10 and they give it to you, don't they? What
would happen if you went and you gave them $10 and they said,
thanks, see ya? You would say, wait a minute,
I gave you the money, you're supposed to give me what I bought.
Isn't that what you would expect? I paid you, you took the money,
that means you had agreed to it and you took the money, where's
the thing I purchased? God didn't take the payment of
his own son's blood for his people and then not redeem them and
set them free from sin. No, He actually redeemed them
by His blood, and God actually justified and set them free.
And so, when God established marriage in the beginning, it
was forever. And the husband and wife are
together as long as they live, and never to be separated, because
that's the way God set up the picture of marriage from the
beginning. And even though in the law God
allowed for a divorce because of our sin, in the gospel which
started before the law, he promised eternal salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ for his people. And He says, like we read in
John 3.18, whoever believes on Him is not condemned. We're justified. All who believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ are His wife, His little children. The multitude who were
healed by His healing from their sin sick souls. Because He took
their place on the cross. And so you see here in this teaching
on marriage and divorce, in both cases we see God's people as
little children and those who were healed from their sickness
by his shed blood, those who were forgiven a great debt and
therefore forgive one another and maintain this unity in the
church, in the kingdom of God, and yet we see the enemies, the
kingdom of Satan, constantly trying to break that trust between
his people and himself. and separate them from Him. And
Jesus said, it can't happen. You're under the law. You live
by your works, and therefore you're going to be judged for
your works, and God's going to separate you from Him. But My
people, even though they were also under the law, and children
of wrath as others, God, for His great love wherewith He loved
them, has raised them up together and quicken them together with
Christ. And so this marriage union of a husband and wife allows
us, as husband and wife, to live our lives knowing we are living
out the picture of the reality of heaven, God's love to us,
and His grace to us, and His forgiveness, and the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see that? Now, look on. And
I'll try to finish this up quickly here. His disciples, in verse
10, said this. If the case of the man, because,
let me read verse 9. And I say to you, Jesus said,
whoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication
and shall marry another commits adultery, and whoever marries
her who is put away commits adultery. Fornication is allowed in our
marriage, but it's not allowed in God's marriage to his people.
And that's grace. Verse 10. His disciples said,
oh, by the way, let me just comment on verse 9 just a little bit
more. Here's a very important principle. If you want something
and you ask God for it, sometimes, maybe a lot of the times, you're
going to ask for it with the wrong motive in mind, aren't
you? And if you ask because you think
you're going to act in a way that's contrary to God's ways. This is your heart now. You're
thinking, I'm contrary to God's ways and I'm asking for something
that is opposed to God. Sometimes God will give you what
you ask for. But it's contrary to His ways.
And that gift to you of that thing you ask for that's contrary
to the Lord's ways is actually a judgment. And you see this
throughout scripture. So, for example, in Numbers chapter
22, Balaam, a prophet who was a soothsayer, he asked God if
he could go and curse Israel. And eventually God allowed him
to do that. He wanted to sell his gift to be able to curse
people, and they would be cursed, in order to get money. But his
motive was to curse God's people, and that was contrary to God's
ways. But he acted out that desire anyway, and God allowed him to
be condemned for his perversity. And so when God gave the people
in the law a way to divorce their wives, what's he doing? Go ahead. Was it God's way from the beginning?
No. Therefore, it's not his way now
either. So don't ask for it. Look at
Christ. See how he relates to his bride. And notice how he forgives her
an infinite debt and loves her though she is sinful. And then
build your case and go to the Lord. Remember how other people
prayed in scripture and they wanted things that were according
to God's ways, even though everything outside of them seemed that God
was not going to give that to them? Remember Abraham? God came
to him and he prayed for Lot. In the whole city of Sodom and
Gomorrah, God says, I'm going to destroy the city. And Abraham
said, Lord, if there be 50 righteous, won't you spare the city for
the 50? And he said, OK. I will. How about if there's
only 45? Okay, I'll spare it for 45. 40? 30? 20? How about
10? I'll spare it for 10. So Abraham
was praying. He was advocating for the whole
city. When God had said he's going
to destroy it. Because he knew God's ways. He knew God was merciful
and gracious to sinners. And so he prayed according to
what he knew God's heart was. And God actually spared Lot and
his two daughters. He saved them, but he ended up
destroying the city. And you can see this throughout
scripture. Remember Moses at the Mount of Sinai? Moses was on the Mount, the people
were down there, and they made this golden calf in Exodus 32,
and they said, We're going to worship this golden calf. This
is our God who brought us out of Egypt. And they were worshiping
the calf and God told Moses, you go back down there and take
care of those people, your people. And he didn't say it like that,
but Moses, he goes down and here the people are worshiping this
calf, this idol. And what did Moses do? God said
he's going to destroy the people. And Moses said, Lord, don't do
it. Don't do it. If the enemy hear about it, they'll
say you destroyed them because you couldn't save them. that
you were too weak, that you wouldn't keep your promises, and you weren't
faithful to your covenant. And so the Lord spared them.
Moses prayed to God according to God's ways and heart and His
mercy and grace for an elect people, and God spared those
people according to His will. Now you see these two things
in contrast? Balaam, Moses, Balaam and Abraham, and so many other
cases in scripture. It's important that we pray and
seek God's will according to His ways. And not according to
our own evil desire. And so God has said here, you
can put away your wife for adultery. But you know He didn't. Did He? So in verse 10, His disciples
said to Him, if the case of the man be so with his wife, it's
not good to marry. I can't get rid of her. I'm not
going to get married. But He said, All men cannot receive
this saying save they to whom it is given. Some are given the
grace to get married and live for the rest of their lives with
one woman. Because that pictures Christ and his people. Verse
12, For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their
mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made
eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive
it, let him receive it. A eunuch is someone who separates
himself from being married all of his life in order that he
might serve his master. that he might, in the kingdom
of God, that he might serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you think
of anyone in scripture who was like that? Anyone who didn't
get married and served the Lord Jesus Christ and served his wife,
the church? Well, I can think of a couple.
Remember John the Baptist? John the Baptist wasn't married.
And you know what he said? I'm not the Christ. I'm sent
to bear witness to him." When the Pharisees came and asked
him, he says, I'm the friend of the bridegroom. And when I
hear the bridegroom's voice, I'm very happy because he's my
friend. And I'm most happy when I see the bride brought to the
bridegroom and brought together Because I'm the friend of the
bridegroom, I stand by and I rejoice in that. He was like a man who
was not married. He was not married. But he was
a man who had a love for the bridegroom, the husband, the
Lord Jesus. And he had a love for his bride
to bring her to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he did. Look at
2 Corinthians chapter 11. There's another man who was like
this in scripture. And his name was Paul the Apostle. The Apostle Paul didn't get married
in 2 Corinthians 11. In verse 1 he says, he's talking
to the people of God here, the church. He says, Paul says to
the church, the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb, he says, with a godly jealousy, for I
have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ." This is the Apostle Paul. He was like a eunuch
who had devoted himself to the kingdom of God's sake to never
be married because his Lord and Master had saved him. And he
was so devoted to Christ and so in love with him and his people,
the one who's called the Virgin here, that he was giving them
the gospel in order that through the gospel they would be purified,
trusting Christ, and that they would be brought to him, conformed
to his image, and by the word they would be cleansed. By the
operation of the word they would be cleansed, just like it says
in Ephesians 5, verse 27. And so he says here in verse
3, But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ." And so the Apostle Paul didn't get married
in order that he might bring the wife of the Lord Jesus to
him. And that he tells her, he says,
look, I'm trying to present you, to prepare you as a chaste, a
faithful virgin to your husband. And what does he tell her? Don't
listen to the devil. Because the devil is trying to
drive a wedge of doubt between you and your husband. Look only
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't be an idolater. Look to
Christ only for all of your salvation. Don't trust your works. Don't
trust the philosophies and science of men. Trust the gospel. Look to Christ. This is the way
you will be a chaste virgin. And so he tells the entire church
this. He labors like John the Baptist.
He must increase, I must decrease. And Paul says, look at 2 Corinthians
11, verse 7. He says, Have I committed an
offense in abasing myself, that you might be exalted, because
I have preached to you the gospel freely? What did Paul say here
to the Church of God? I've lowered myself, I've humbled
myself in order that you might have the gospel freely. What's
he saying? This is love, isn't it? This
is love, he's giving himself. He abased himself, he humbled
himself and then he gave of himself. He gave of his labor and his
time, all his life Paul spent preaching the gospel for the
sake of God's people, the church. And look at chapter 12 and verse
15. The same man, Paul, speaks this
in his love for Christ's people. He says, and I will very gladly
spend. and be spent for you, though
the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." You see
what Paul's saying? He's going to give everything
he has. He's going to give himself because of the love he has for
Christ's church. That's love. That's what a husband
is supposed to have for his wife. That's what we're supposed to
have for one another. Wash one another's feet. Humble
yourself. The Master did. Peter was going
to deny Jesus, and he says, I'm going to wash your feet. You
bear one another's burdens. Consider yourself, lest you also
be tempted and fall. And so the eunuchs, the celibate
man, John the Baptist and Paul set the example for the unmarried
in the church. You are to serve Christ as these
did. So we have in these two chapters,
we have the little children, we have those who in the church
forgive one another because of God's grace towards them. We
have the multitude who are sick and come to Christ. We have the
enemies of Christ who try to separate his people with doubts,
driving them away from Christ back to the law. But then the
Lord Jesus opens the law up and He says, this is what it meant
to be. It's going to condemn those who trust it and it's going
to point us back to the Lord Jesus who from the beginning
loved His people and would not separate Himself from them. And
then it's going to show these men who were unmarried for the
rest of their lives so they might serve Christ's people and bring
them to Him. You see how tightly God has created
this picture of marriage and the whole function of the kingdom
of God in this world, so that he might save his people and
point them to the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that in these
things you can see yourself and pray that God would spare you
and save you from that perverse attitude like Balaam had, so
we wouldn't pray against God's ways and will, but we would pray
for the salvation of his people. and for the glory of His Son,
for this salvation. We would see ourselves the objects
of His eternal love, though we were sinners. He chose us and
said, you who were not my people are my people. You who had no
mercy are given mercy for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and
you will never be divorced because I received full payment from
Him. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank
you for your mercy and your grace to us in Christ our Savior, the
Savior of the body, the husband of his people, who from the beginning
set up in creation a picture of his love for his church in
Adam and Eve, laying his life down, creating the woman out
of his side, and bringing her to himself, saving her with an
eternal salvation, though we in ourselves were idolaters and
under the wrath of God even as others. Thank you for this mercy,
Lord. Teach us to live our lives as
husbands and wives, and as those who are not married, with this
picture in view, so that we might love our Savior, and serve Him
in love for His glory, and forgive one another, and live in the
Church as those who love one another, and preach the Gospel
that many children would be gathered to You, and Your Kingdom would
be established in this world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.