his determination to destroy his enemies as we
see in the book of Joshua. Often times men read these accounts
and they think it to be a terrible thing. It was terrible. I mean it was most assuredly
an awful situation to be in for those who had set themselves
against the people of God. And keep in mind that these nations
were not nations who were seeking after the Lord, but they were
those who were walking in pagan darkness in gladness. Even as Paul described in the
book of Romans, You know, that men, when they knew God, they
glorified him not as God, but they created gods unto themselves
as they desired, and they walked in that darkness gladly. Now,
you know, we see this kind of demonstrated whenever some murderer kills people in cold blood, and then he's brought before trial,
which usually takes two or three years to ever bring him to trial. And in that period of time, people
start feeling kind of sorry for the man, you know, because they
read about his childhood and they read about this and all
the different things that happened to him. And so the wrath of man
is easily turned aside. And you can go from one minute
of despising this person to having sympathy for him. But you see,
God is not like that. The scripture says that he hates
the workers of iniquity, that he will not at all acquit the
wicked. He will by no means clear the
guilty. Now, any man who's taught by
the Spirit of God to know what he is by nature will tremble
at such a consideration as that, because brethren, we have no
hope. in ourselves. There's no hope that God is going
to change his mind. But at one and the same time,
that's the most glorious thing that can be told to a sinner
who knows himself to be a sinner and who's given eyes to see the
Savior as the one who saves his people from their sin. Because
God will not change his mind. That's why Paul wrote, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. There's
none. Because God is determined to
justify his people. Now why did he love some people
in the earth and not others? That's a question that men think
they need to answer. I have no answer, except that
the Lord has loved his people in Christ from before the foundation
of the world. He set his love upon them. And
who can say any different? Paul said in the ninth chapter
of Romans, Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against
God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast
thou made me thus? Now, men will justify in their
minds their right to be angry with God for making such a separation,
but we have no grounds upon which to do so. And the Lord will indeed,
as he has determined, destroy his enemies, and he will bring
those whom he loves unto himself. Oh, what a glorious God he is.
Now, how do we know who those are? There's only one way that
the Lord has seen fit to manifest Himself unto His people, and
that is through the gift of faith. That causes a sinner to cry out,
O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. The man who is an enemy of God,
he'll never cry out for mercy. Oh, he might cry out for mercy
once the rocks are falling upon his head. I mean, I'm sure that
those people, when all of these calamities came upon them, many
of them were crying out, you know, in their trouble. But they
were not crying out because they understood themselves to be under
the just condemnation of God. crying out for mercy but they
were there because they feared they hated the troubles that
had come upon them. Not unusual for men to hate the
instances of trouble and problems that come upon them and in the
midst of those things as we've all heard about the foxhole religion
of many men in battle. You know when a man's there and
the shells are raining down on his head I mean he's probably
Thinking about, oh Lord, help me, deliver me out of this. But
then once the shells start falling, well he's fine then. It's like
the fellow that was sliding down the roof, had fallen up on the
roof and he's sliding down toward the edge and he cries out, oh
Lord, help me. And just as he gets to the edge
of the roof, there's a nail hanging out there, and catches his overalls
and stops him. And he says, okay, Lord, that's
good, thank you. I can take it from here. See,
that's the way men are. They have a temporary repentance,
but the repentance which is true is a repentance unto life. It's
not the repentance of Judas. but it's the repentance of Peter. Peter denied the Lord, but yet
the Lord loved Peter, and he brought Peter to a place of crushing
repentance. Peter knew that the one whom
he loved, he had denied. He had gone against him, and
his heart broke. By the grace of God, that's the
only way such a thing as that happens. And so, we're in Mark,
Mark chapter 10. And I'm only gonna read part
of this chapter, because we won't have time to go through the whole
thing. I think we will read through
27. And he arose from thence and
cometh unto the coast of Judea by the farther side of Jordan.
And the people resort unto him again, and as he was wont, he
taught them again. And the Pharisees came to him
and asked him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife, tempting
him? And he answered and said unto
them, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered
to write a bill of divorcement and put her away. And Jesus answered
and said unto them, for the hardness of your heart, he wrote this.
He wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of creation,
God made them male and female. Amazing. For this cause God shall
leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. And they
twain shall be one flesh. So then they are no more twain,
but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder. And in the house his disciples
asked him again of the same matter. And he said unto them, Whosoever
shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery
against her. And if a woman shall put away
her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
And they brought young children to him that he should touch them.
And his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus
saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them, suffer the
little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of
such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms,
put his hands upon them and blessed them. And when he was gone forth
into the way, there came one running and kneeled to him and
asked him, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, why
callest thou me good? There is none good, but one,
that is God. Thou knowest the commandments,
Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear
false witness, defraud not, honor thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto
him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding
him loved him and said unto him, one thing thou lackest, go thy
way, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor and thou
shall have treasure in heaven and come take up the cross and
follow me. And he was sad at that saying
and went away grieved for he had great possessions. And Jesus
looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. And
the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answered
again and saith unto them, children, how hard is it for them that
trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God? It is easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished
out of measure, saying among themselves, who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith,
with men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all
things are possible. Now we probably won't get to
all of those verses, but put this into context in which it's
given. Now this is a subject that the
Lord deals with here. that is much needful subject
in our day. We live in a day and an age when
divorce and remarriage is just considered a normal thing. It's just considered to be completely
acceptable. Nobody even thinks twice about
it. In fact, most people expect that
it's going to occur. And they plan on it ahead of
time. You know, they go ahead and make arrangements for what
they're going to do when the inevitable occurs. The Pharisees came to the Lord
and asked this question. Is it lawful for man to put away
his wife? Now they didn't really care what
he said. They didn't come to him because
they wanted to find out what the truth was. Because the scripture
says they were tempting him. They wanted to put him in a bind.
They thought they could get him to say something that then they
could say, aha, we got you. But such, of course, is not the
case because he's the one that made the law. He's the one that
made man and woman. He's the one that ordained marriage
for a purpose. Now anytime that we discuss marriage, men and women, it is needful
that we understand what the Lord, the primary reason that the Lord
instituted marriage. Now of course most people thinking
of it from man's perspective, they think that the Lord instituted
marriage for the benefit of men. And that's true. He did. He told
Adam he was going to give him a helpmeet. One that was suited
to him. And thus he did. But the purpose
of marriage that the Lord gave, according to what Paul writes
in the book of Ephesians, is to illustrate the relationship
that the Lord Jesus Christ has with His people from the beginning. And that's an inviolable relationship. It cannot be broken. It cannot
be destroyed. It cannot be gotten out of. It's
a final thing. And so he would teach us about
marriage from that perspective. Marriage is nowhere meant in
the scriptures. never intended to be a temporary
situation. Now in practically every wedding
that you go to, they will say these words, till death do us
part. I think that ought to be taken
out. But most weddings, God makes
everybody, makes many people liars. Because they don't really
intend to do that. They intend to stay as long as
it's suitable to them. And of course that's what the
great philosophers tell us today. You know, that marriage is fine
as long as you get along and everything's going great and
you're meeting one another's needs and you're happy. See,
that's the thing. We want to be happy. And as long
as you're happy, marriage is good. But if you're not happy,
I mean, you need to get out of that. You need to pursue your
own happiness because that's the thing that seems to be the
most important thing to men is be happy. Now, happiness and
marriage can go hand in hand. That might not. And I've never
met the happiest of marriages that didn't from time to time
have some unhappiness in it. I mean, you know, it's ridiculous
to think that two people are going to come together and somehow
or other just automatically forget themselves and think of the other
person above themselves. But see, that's what, there's
where the rub comes in, is it not? In marriage is thinking
of the other above ourselves. The Lord said that we in the
church are to esteem one another not equal with ourselves, but
above ourselves. Now that's a total impossibility.
It can't be done. In the flesh. You just aren't
wired that way. You're not going to do that.
Every person, by nature, is going to think of themselves. They can't help it. They're going
to do that. Now does that make it right?
No, it doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it good. but
it is what it is. And so the Lord, He comes speaking
about this thing that the Pharisees asked Him about from a little bit different perspective
than what they asked it. Of course, they didn't ask it
to want to know, but He was gonna tell them the truth whether they
wanted to hear it or not. And they said, Moses permitted,
suffered, to write a bill of divorcement and put away one's
wife. So they said, isn't it okay to
put away your wife? And he said, well, Moses did
say that. He says, I included that in the,
he didn't tell them that, but he said, Moses said, but he said,
the Lord, for the hardness of your heart is the reason that
this precept was put into the marriage, or put into the law. Because the Lord knew the wickedness
of men. And he knew that, you know, cases
would arise when men would not walk according to what the truth
of this thing is. And so he allowed divorce. But it wasn't a commandment.
It wasn't a thing that anybody should delight in. It wasn't
an out. See, that's what people look
at for divorce. Well, we can always get divorced. Well, you know, I can always
just leave. Well, you can. But you need to know this. If you do, it's just an illustration
of the hardness of your heart. Now that's what he said. I didn't
say that. He said that. If you don't like
that, take it up with him. That's what he said, okay? He
said, for the hardness of your heart, he wrote this precept.
Because he knew the wickedness of men. And so he made this allowance
because of the nature of men. Sometimes people just cannot
get along. Does the scriptures, does it
forbid divorce? No. You can be divorced without condemnation. If you follow what the scripture
says, there's no condemnation in it. there's no benefit in it either
because it would be like saying there is a benefit in sin because the Lord said don't do
it because here's the ideal now he said thou shalt not steal
that's ideal is it not now have you ever stolen anything I mean, even if you haven't,
you've thought about it. You've thought of ways that you
could even do it and get away with it. You've thought about
it, how you could justify it. But it's not right, is it? It's
not a good thing. And so the Lord said, For the
hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. But from the
beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. Now
that's a pretty simple statement right there that just confounds
our society in the present day. I would have never thought in
my lifetime I would ever see a day when such a thing as that
could be confused. I mean, God made them male and
female. He didn't, it wasn't to question. He didn't say God made them in
such a way they could decide if they were male or female.
He made them that way. Now, I'm not getting into all
the psychological issues with that, and you know, I'm not telling
people that, you know, I mean, if a grown person is gonna do
some crazy stuff, there's not a thing in the world I'm gonna
do to stop them, and I'm not gonna stand there and stand in
condemnation of them. I'm gonna tell them what God
said. I mean, it's pretty plain. what he said. He made them male
and female. And he said, because he made
them this way, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave
to his wife. Male and a female. Can't be a
man and a man. Can't be a woman and a woman.
Now such things as that exist in the minds of men because they're
in rebellion against God. Now they might not like for you
to describe it like that, but that's exactly what it is because
God said that it was to be marriage is between a male and a female. And I can't change that, you
can't either. It's just the way that it is.
You might not like it. It might not make you happy. It says, and for this cause shall
a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. Now when
a man is married to a woman, he's no longer taking sides with
his mother and father against his wife or vice versa. He's
gonna cleave to his wife. Right or wrong, you know, it
doesn't make any difference. He's one with her. That's the
way that the Lord intended for it to be. He shall leave his
father and mother cleaved to his wife. He's no longer under
his parents' jurisdiction, so to speak. Doesn't mean he doesn't
revere and honor his parents. That's not what he's saying.
He's just saying now, this is like a new creation here that's
taken place. It didn't exist before. Man and
woman come together and they dwell together as husband and
wife. And they twain shall be one flesh,
so that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore
God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. So it's
not up to men to change the order that God has arranged here. And
He's put a man and a woman together, and they are to cleave together
as one flesh in all things. let not man put asunder. Now,
in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter.
And he saith unto them, whosoever shall put away his wife and marry
another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall
put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery. Now, what does that mean? Well,
this is a more complex subject than we're able to get into here
in the short period of time that we've got. Now, if you'd like
to go into these things more in depth as to what my thoughts
are on them, I have written a paper some years ago that is available. on the subject of divorce and
remarriage. And I go into, you know, a lot
more detail than what I'm speaking about here. But when the Lord
said, whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth
adultery, what he has reference to primarily is that if a man
puts away his wife for the reason of marrying another, then he
has committed adultery. in the same way with a woman.
Now, unfortunately, usually the end of many marriages occurs
for that very reason. That a man, you know, gets to
looking at other women, and he decides, well, he'd rather have
that woman over there rather than the one he's got, and so
he divorces his wife so he can marry the other one. That's an
egregious thing before the face of God. you know it's one thing
that if two people uh... because of the hardness of their
heart they simply cannot continue in marriage and they get a divorce
and then some years later they marry someone else that's a little
bit different than what he's talking about here because what
the pharisees what they were trying to do was justify putting
away their wife in order that they could give them another
wife. And so divorce in itself is not
a condemnation. It's never a good thing. But
what is absolutely condemned in the scripture is when a man
takes another wife or a woman takes another husband or they
divorce their spouse for the purpose of taking another. And
I can find no I can find no place of acceptance with that. I mean,
it's just not acceptable in the scripture. I don't know what
you say about it, but I mean, God says that's not good. In
fact, the disciples said, well, in another place, I think it's
in the book of Matthew, where he said, speaking about this
same thing, they said, well then, Lord, it's good for a man not
to get married. No, the Lord gave marriage for
a good thing, but if that's the thing that you're planning to
do, yes, it's better that you never get married than if you
should be married and do such a thing as that. You'll never
be excused. You'll never be made right. It's
a thing that is not acceptable in the presence of Almighty God.
And so, there's a lot of things we could you know, say about
marriage. As I said, I've gone into more
depth of that. But the main thing that we need
to understand about the marriage bond is that it is the manifestation
of the union that there is between Christ and his spouse. And that's
a glorious union. Because you see, the Lord chose
his bride. He didn't just take whoever came
along, or somebody else did the choosing for him. But he chose
his people. Now when it says, when the scripture
says that he chose his people, it doesn't mean that he lined
up human race. And he says, I'll take that one,
and I'll take that one, and I'll take this one. No, before there
was ever any creation, He loved the people in Christ. Now this
is a mystery beyond our ability to comprehend. It's what some
of the old theologians called eternal vital union. But there
is a union between God and His people that pre-exists creation. Now, there again, some people,
they really take offense at this. But the Lord has always loved
His people. And He will always love His people.
And He will always manifest His people by giving them faith that
they may trust in Him. And so when we come preaching
the gospel, we're not preaching the gospel because we know who
the elect are, but we're preaching the gospel because we don't know
who they are. And you see, the Lord calls His people. He draws
them. He said, no man can come unto
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. But oh, He
does draw them. He gives them a heart and a mind
to seek Him, to desire Him. You know, even as a husband desires
his wife, even as a wife desires her husband. Because that's what
the Lord would show us. Is that he has loved his people
with an everlasting love. And he will not divorce them.
Now he gave Israel a bill of divorce. The nation of Israel,
carnal Israel. They've been given a bill of
divorce. But the Lord will never divorce that bride which is his,
that he chose from the fourth foundation of the world. Because
he used Israel to manifest as a type and a foreshadow of that
people which he loved. Oh, what a glorious marriage
there is in Christ. And oh, how much that we should be desiring that the Lord
would make our marriage to be a manifestation of that love
which Christ had for the church. Now that being the case, that
puts the great burden upon the man, does it not? I mean, you know, the man is
the one whom the scripture, as Paul writes, husbands love your
wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. by the lord give us a mind of
such and may we be a people that honor the teachings of Christ
in the marriage vow I mean you know it is a vow men make vows
I don't think most people consider much about it when they make
a vow the Lord said be better not to make a vow than to make
one and break it there's a There's nothing
that is worse than saying you're going to do something and then
not doing it. And so when a man makes a vow
in his marriage, he's not making a vow unto men, he's making a
vow unto God. May the Lord give us a mind and
a heart to continue in that as he would have