Would you turn to the book of
Malachi for just a moment? I would like to begin the message
by reading this scripture. I've entitled this message, Divorce.
And my goal is that I will be enabled to preach the gospel
in dealing with what the Bible has to say on this subject. Verse
13 of chapter 2, Malachi chapter 2, that's the last book of the
Old Testament. And this have you done again,
covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and
with crying out insomuch that he regardeth not the offering
anymore, or receiveth it with goodwill at your hand. Yet you
say, wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness
between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou
hast dealt treacherously. Yet is she thy companion and
the wife of thy covenant. And did he not make one? Yet
had he the residue of the Spirit, and wherefore one that he might
seek a godly seed Therefore, take heed to your spirit. Let
none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the
Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away. He hateth divorce. Now that's the scriptural commentary
on that. He hates divorce. And I'm so thankful that he hates
divorce. And I'm so thankful that he won't
divorce any of his people. Because I guarantee if there's
anyone had reason to divorce somebody, it would him being
divorced from me. My constant unfaithfulness, my
constant treachery, my constant sinfulness. If there was ever
someone that should be divorced, if you wanna look at it in that
light, begins right here. But thank God, he does not believe
in divorce. The Lord Jesus Christ does not
believe in divorce. He says to his people, I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee. And I dare say that the
great majority of people who have been divorced would also
say, I hate divorce. I just feel quite sure of that. I've read where life's two most
stressful events is divorce or the death of a loved one. And I've heard, I've not experienced
it, but I've heard that divorce is more difficult because you
never really get any closure the way you do in the death of
a loved one. Somebody's even said divorce
is never a solution. It's only an exchange of problems. And I would say everyone would
give agreement to that. God said, I hate divorce. And you think everybody in this
room is either divorced or have been affected by divorce. I mean, it happens in, from what
I understand, half the marriages of our day end up in divorce,
a full half. And the other half are greatly
affected by this thing of divorce. Think of how the children are
affected in such a negative way by And it just creates so many
problems. There's always negative things
about it. And in a marriage, a vow or commitment
is made. And when there is a divorce,
there is a breaking of that vow. Now I realize, listen real carefully,
I realize that there are situations where divorce is unavoidable. And there are situations where
I would never encourage someone to stay in a marriage. There
are scriptural reasons for that, and there are reasons I don't
want to take away from the reality of that and the pain people have
experienced in this thing of divorce. It's a horrible thing,
but usually, it could be avoided. usually, not
all the time, but usually it could be avoided. Now, honor your vows. And let me say this, if you are
divorced, may the Lord give you grace to move on. I'm not saying
that in a harsh way, but move on, get on with life. It happened. The Lord's in control of everything.
You have that Joy to know that no matter how painful or bad
the experience has been, may the Lord give you grace to move
on. It's already happened. That can't
be changed. And if you're not divorced, do
not be judgmental of those that are divorced. You don't know
the facts. It's always that way. You don't know the facts, you
don't know what they've been through, you don't know the causes,
and as far as that goes, we're forbidden to judge in the first
place, aren't we? We're forbidden to make a judgment regarding
that. Now I know we all have our convictions concerning marriage
and so on, but with regard to what somebody else has experienced,
don't judge. Now go back to our text in Mark
chapter 10. Verse one, and he arose from
thence, and cometh into the coast of Judea by the farther side
of Jordan, and the people resort unto him again. And as he was
wont, as he was accustomed, he taught them again. What a glorious
savior we have. Always teaching his slow disciples,
his slow students. He was wont, he taught them again. Verse two, and the Pharisees
came to him and asked him, is it lawful for a man to put away
his wife? Notice the next two words, tempting
him. Now this is one of five times
the Pharisees are said to tempt him. They had a bad motive in
asking this question. You remember when they asked
him for a sign, tempting him. They're saying by that, we don't
know that what you're saying is really true, so give us a
sign to prove who you are, so then maybe we can believe. They
were putting a question mark on everything he said. They asked,
about the necessity to pay taxes to Rome, trying to create trouble,
tempting him, trying to get him to say something that would get
him into trouble. And then they said, what is the
greatest commandment? Tempting him. They didn't care
what the greatest commandment was. They were looking for him
to say something in a way where they could accuse him and condemn
him and bring him down to their level. And everybody's familiar
with the story of the woman taken in adultery. They caught her
in the very act and they said, Moses said in the law of a stoner.
Now, what do you say? And they thought we've got him
entrapped. If he says stoner, we could say, where's your mercy?
If we say, if he says, let her go, we'd say, where's your respect
for God's law? The law says stoner. And then
here in this passage of scripture, they asked him what his view
on divorce was. tempting him, not because of
a desire to know what God really says, but they wanted somehow
to cast him in a bad light through this question. And you know,
isn't that true with regard to so many religious questions people
ask? There's not a good motive in it. They're just trying to
twist something. And that's what these people
were doing. Verse three, and he answered
and said unto them, and this is such a wise answer, of course
it's a wise answer, it's the Lord, but this is the way everything
is to be answered, what did Moses command you? Now, what does the
scripture say? That's the only way to answer
a question. What sayeth the scriptures? Well,
they had that ready. They had that ready. They had
it down. They had it memorized. Somehow they were going to try
to use this to attack the Lord. And they said in verse four,
and they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement
and to put her away. Now, Moses did do this. Turn
to Deuteronomy 24. Deuteronomy 24 verse one, when
a man hath taken a wife, this is the inspired scripture. When
a man had taken a wife and married her and had come to pass that
she find no favor in his eyes because he had found some uncleanness
in her. Doesn't tell what that is. Then
let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send
her out of his house. And when she's departed out of
the house, she may go and be another man's wife. She doesn't
have to be destitute. And if the latter husband hate
her and write her a bill of divorce, but gives it in her hand and
sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband die, which
took her to be his wife, her former husband would send her
away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she's
defiled, for that's an abomination before the Lord. Thou shalt not
cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee
for inheritance. So we see Moses did allow this thing of divorce. If you see some uncleanness in
her, something that you're not pleased with, Get rid of her. Now, that was going on rampantly
in that day. There was a lot more divorce
then than there is right now. I mean, it was just, you know,
people say these are the worst days we've ever lived in. No, they're
not. There's been worse as far as more immorality and more divorce
and more, there's always been worse days. Things are cyclical.
People get religious and self-righteous, and that's probably worse. Then
they're going to get back down into the really bad stuff and
really immoral and degraded. Then they're going to get sick
of that. I mean, it's just a circle. And you can see that historically.
It really is true. And at this time, men were divorcing their
wives for burning the dinners. There are recorded that. She
burned my meal. I'm getting rid of her. That
was actually happening. Divorce was so rampant at that
time. Now, look at the Lord's answer,
verse five. And Jesus answered and said unto
them, for the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. This was a law to accommodate
human sinfulness. What if a woman had a husband
who beat her constantly? Well, she ought to stay with
him. You're crazy. That's not true. I've actually heard people say
that. The only reason you can get divorced is adultery. Well,
what about abandonment? There's such cases spoken of
in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 15. What about physical abuse? Who knows? Who knows? But the
Lord knows that if there weren't divorce, there'd be people murdering
each other. and people mistreating each other
and being very hateful to each other and making life unbearable
for each other. That's why the Lord gave this commandment, you can
write her a bill of divorcement because of the misery that would
be in people's lives if they couldn't be separated. It's because
of the hardness of man's heart. It's because of human sinfulness.
I think of what Rolf Marner said so many years ago. Somebody said,
do you ever think about divorce? He said, not once. Murder, yes.
And I'm sure everybody's thought something like that before. Because of the hardness of your
heart. That is why there is divorce because of human sinfulness. Verse six, but from the beginning
of the creation, God made them male and female. Now, if you
want to know what God thinks of marriage and divorce, go to
the beginning. When God made them male and female,
for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave
to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, so that there no
more twain, but one flesh, what therefore God hath joined together. Let no man put asunder what God
has joined together. Let no man put asunder. Now,
I love, I preached on it six or eight weeks ago, the first
marriage in Genesis chapter two, and it's given to so beautifully
typify the gospel. The Lord put Adam to sleep and
he took a rib out of Adam, out of his side. And I love what
Matthew Henry said. I've heard this in many marriages,
but this comes from Matthew Henry, if you read his commentaries.
He didn't take Eve from his head to rule over him. He didn't take
Eve from his feet for him to trample on. He took her, the
rib, from his side to walk beside him as his equal. Don't miss
that. Aren't men superior to women?
No. If anything, it's the other,
you know, but it's their like. Their like. And from under his
heart. to love him, to love her, under
his arm for him to love her and take care of her. It's a beautiful
relationship. And the two, the Lord said, and
Paul tells us this is given to typify the gospel. Paul said,
this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and
the church. The two are given to picture the relationship between
Christ and His bride. That's the importance of marriage.
It's given to illustrate how the Lord Jesus Christ is my husband. He's my husband. What a husband
He is. and what a rotten bride I am,
and how thankful I am that he doesn't believe in divorce, and
how amazed I am that he can take somebody like me and you, whatever
our case is, and make us a beautiful bride. And he says in the Song
of Solomon to his bride, Thou art all fair, my love. Now he says that to every believer.
Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee, no
blemish. Perfect. He says, I'm ravished. Listen to the language. I am
ravished by you. That's what the Lord says to
every single one of His people. Isn't that amazing? What a husband
the Lord is and we're to cleave TO LEAVE, TO CLEAVE, AND THE
TWO ARE TO BECOME ONE FLESH, AND WHAT THAT IS TALKING ABOUT
IS UNION WITH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. THE TWO BECOMING ONE
FLESH. ONE. ONE. NOT JUST CLOSE TOGETHER,
BUT ONE. BOTH HE THAT SANCTIFIETH AND
THEY WHO ARE SANCTIFIED ARE ALL OF ONE. FOR THE WHICH CAUSE? HE'S NOT ASHAMED TO CALL THEM
BROTHERS. I LOVE THE SCRIPTURE IN I JOHN CHAPTER 4 VERSE 17,
AS HE IS. So are we in the world right
now. Now, the only way that can be
is union with himself. If he's righteous, all those
who are united to him are righteous, as he is, righteous, holy, perfect,
beautiful to God, altogether lovely, without sin, as he is. So are we in this world, present
tense, right now. Isn't that glorious? Oh, the
glory of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it says, therefore God hath joined
together, let no man put asunder. Now, that is why there's not
a good reason for divorce. Now, I realize there are reasons
and this scripture points out, turn with me to 1 Corinthians
7. Hold your finger there and mark
and learn first Corinthians chapter seven. Verse 15. But if the unbelieving
depart, you're abandoned, let him depart. A brother or sister
is not under bondage in such cases. Now that's what scripture
says. You don't have the bondage of
the law in such cases. Now somebody says, how many different
cases are there? I don't know. And if somebody acts like they
do, they don't. It just says such cases. So let's
just leave it where the Lord leaves it. There are situations,
but still God said, what God hath joined together, let no
man put asunder." Now, somebody says, well, what about adultery?
Well, the Lord did say for the cause of fornication, but isn't
it better to forgive? If you can, isn't it better to forgive?
Of course it is. I mean, you look at the way the
Lord forgives you. over and over and over again. Oh, the way we've sinned against
him, and he forgives over and over and over again. As far as that goes, one of the
keys to marriage is forgiveness. That's one of the keys, right,
Lynn? She knows all about it. That wasn't in my notes. What God has joined together,
of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom
and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. What God has
joined together, let no man put asunder. You see, what God does
is forever. What God does is forever. That's
why he will never divorce any of his bride. Now look in verse
10. And in the house, his disciples
asked him again of the same matter. You know, that always creates
interest. And I think the reason it creates interest in people,
they're thinking about so-and-so. That's what they're thinking.
And so they asked him again of the matter. And he said unto
them, now listen carefully, whosoever shall put away his wife and marry
another, commiteth adultery. against her. What's that mean? How many different ways are there
to look at it? It means exactly what it says. And if a woman
shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth
adultery. Now, does that mean that if I
have been divorced and remarried, I'm in an adulterous situation? You're forgiven. That doesn't
mean you need to divorce this wife and go back to, no, no.
I mean, all sin is forgiven sin. And you don't say, well, are
you living in adultery? Are you living in adultery right
now in your mind? I think so, but it's forgiven. I mean, the
point is, all sin is forgiven sin, but that's still what the
Lord says. And there's no getting around
that. Now, I would like for you to
turn to a passage in Romans Chapter 7. Romans Chapter 7. Know ye not, brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion
over man as long as he liveth. You can't throw off the law.
You can't say, doesn't have anything to do with me. As long as you're
alive, God's law has something to say to you. For the woman
which hath a husband, verse two, is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, She's
loose from the law of her husband. She no longer has to be faithful
to him. So then if while her husband liveth she be married
to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if
her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she's
no longer an adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ, that you should be married to another,
even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring
forth fruit unto God." Now, this is every believer's experience. I was married to the law. And the law was a rough husband.
All the law did was expose my sinfulness and my lack and my
inadequacy and my on and on, all the law could do. Ladies,
what if you were married to a man who all he did was point out
your faults? And you've never done enough.
You've never done enough. This wasn't done right. You need
to do that. The law, oh, what a horrible
husband the law was. You see, the law never produced
love in anybody. Did you know that? The law can't
produce love. The law is unable to produce
love. All it does is expose sinfulness
and show us how bad we are and point out our flaws and our faults.
And when that is done with us, we never in turn love. We become
resentful. Somebody that has a spouse like
that, that's always exposing their faults, they're gonna come
resentful of that person. It's not gonna say, oh boy, I
love him for showing me all my, no, it doesn't work that way.
Law never produces love. There's never a good marriage
in law, but thank God when Christ died, our husband died. And now we're free to be married
to another. And what a husband he is. He's
so infinitely better than the law. You see, our husband, the
Lord Jesus Christ, sees us as holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word
that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blame before him. Now, what a husband. He makes
me to where that really is the way I am. Now, I only know that
by faith, but I do know it by faith. Thou art all fair, my
love, there is no spot in thee. What a husband. Would you turn back to the book
of Hosea? Hosea, right after Daniel. Ezekiel,
Daniel, Hosea. Verse 2, chapter 1, verse 2, Hosea chapter
1, verse 2, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, go
and take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms. Now he literally says to do that.
You take a wife, that's a prostitute. And that is a wife of ill repute
in every way. Somebody says, would the Lord
have told him to do that? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And why? For the land has committed great
whoredom, departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer,
the daughter of Debalaim, which conceived and bear him a son.
He took this woman who was a prostitute in obedience to the Lord's command,
and he made her his wife. He was married to this woman.
Now look down in chapter two. You know, when I think of this wife
of whoredoms, I can't help but think of my whoredoms. My spiritual
adultery, my sin, my pride, my self-righteousness, my blindness
on a daily basis, my unfaithfulness to my husband. It's very real. It was real to her. It's real
to every believer. We know something about this. Chapter 2, He's speaking to her
children, Say ye unto your brethren, Am I unto your sister Ruhamah? Plead with your mother, plead!
For she's not my wife. Now, on a human level, don't
tell your kids to try to Do something with your spouse that you're
mad at. That's not a good idea. But it's giving us some spiritual
instruction here. And that's what he's doing. Don't
use your kids to try to communicate to your spouse if there's problems.
Don't do that. But here he tells Hosea to do
it. Plead with your mother, plead,
for she's not my wife, neither am I her husband. That's the
way he felt, he was so upset. Let her therefore put away her
whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her
breasts, lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that
she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like
a dry land, and slay her with thirst. And I'll not have mercy
upon her children, for they be the children of whoredoms. For
their mother hath played the harlot. She hath conceived them,
hath done shamefully. For she said, I'll go after my
lovers that give me my bread, my water, my wool, and my flax,
my oil, and my wine, and drink. Now did her lovers give her those
things? No, the Lord did. He points that out. But she's
saying, I got this pleasure from them. Verse six, Hosea says regarding
his wife, and this is a picture of the Lord, the church. Therefore,
behold, I will hedge up the way with thorns and make a wall that
she shall not find her paths. She shall follow after her lovers,
but she shall not overtake them. She shall seek them, but shall
not find them. Then shall she say, I will go and return to
my first husband. For then was it better with me
than now." What a blessing to find that out. For she didn't
know that I gave her corn and wine and oil, multiplied her
silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. She thought her lovers
were giving her all these things. I was doing it all along." Verse
9. Therefore will I return and take
away my corn, and the time thereof, and my wine, and the season thereof,
and will recover my wool and my flax, giving to cover nakedness. And now I will discover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers. None shall deliver her out of
my hand. She's going to see her nakedness and sinfulness and
no covering for her shame. "'I will cause all her mirth
to cease, her feast days, "'her new moons, her Sabbath days,
and her solemn feasts. "'I will destroy her vines and
her fig trees, "'whereof she has said, "'These are my rewards
that my lovers have given me. "'I'll make them a forest, "'and
the beets of the field shall eat them. "'And I will visit
upon her the days of Balaam, "'wherein she burned incense
to them, "'and she decked herself with earrings and her jewels,
"'trying to make herself beautiful. "'And she went after her lovers,
"'and forget me, saith the Lord. "'Therefore behold, I will allure
her.'" and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably
unto her." Now, that's our husband. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
Savior God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned. She
hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. And he says in verse 15, and
I will give her vineyards from thence in the Valley of Acre
for a door of hope. Well, as long as the Lord's on
the throne, there's always hope, isn't there? And I'm going to
give her a door of hope. And she shall sing there as in
the days of her youth, as in the days when she came up out
of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day,
saith the Lord, thou shalt call me Ishi, and shall not call me
no more Bailey. You're going to call me husband
instead of Lord and master. You're going to call me, he's
my husband, the one who loves me. For I will take away the
names of Balaam out of her mouth and they shall no more be remembered
by their name. In that day will I make a covenant
for them with the beasts of the field, with the fowls of heaven,
and with the creeping things of the ground. And I'll break
the bow and the sword in the battle out of the earth, and
I will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee
unto me forever. Yea, I will betroth thee unto
me in righteousness. Now this is, um, Jose is speaking
to Gomer, but this is the Lord speaking to his people. I will
betraw thee unto me forever, yea, I will betraw thee unto
me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in
mercies. I will even betraw thee unto me in faithfulness, and
thou shalt know the Lord. And it shall come to pass in
that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens,
and they shall hear the earth. And the earth shall hear the
corn, and on the wine the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel.
And I will sow her unto me in the earth, and I'll have mercy
upon her that hath not obtained mercy. And I'll say to them which
were not my people, Thou art my people. And they shall say,
Thou art my God. A few more verses. Then said
the Lord unto me, Go yet. love a woman, beloved her friend,
yet an adulteress." Evidently, she's still in this act. According to the love of the
Lord toward the children of Israel who look to other gods and love
flagons of wine. Now she's put on a blocked to be sold as a slave.
She's lost everything. So I bought her to me for 15
pieces of silver and for an omer of barley and a half an omer
of barley. This really happened. This actually
took place. And I said unto her, thou shalt
abide for me many days. Thou shalt not play the harlot
and thou shalt not be for another man. So will I also be for thee." Now, aren't you thankful that
Jesus Christ will not divorce his people for any reason? Christ said, I hate putting away. So many people have experienced
this awful thing of divorce. But Christ will not divorce his
unfaithful bride. As Hosea continued with Gomer,
what a love this man Hosea had for this woman, Gomer. And Christ says to his church,
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. And here's the amazing thing
about the Lord. He makes his bride to where he
doesn't have a reason to divorce her. She's perfect, holy, without
blame in his sight. How glorious is our bridegroom
Our husband who hates putting away. Let's pray. Lord, we. Are so thankful. That you hate
putting away. For Lord, we confess that in
and of ourselves we. are so continually sinful, so
continually unfaithful. We so continually and habitually
commit sin. But thy gospel causes us to be
beautiful in your sight. And you'll never divorce us. You'll never forsake us. and
you hate putting away. We thank you for your gospel.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.