Divorce & Remarriage

SERMON: 2007-04-23--sm0721--divorce-remarriage SOURCE DURATION: 00:37:08.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 9 is the final segment of the theological/pastoral discussion (the sermon), immediately followed by Candidate 10, which begins singing hymn lyrics ('change my heart oh god...'), marking a clear transition to music. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:34:30.340-00:37:06.360 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, let me say at the outset this morning that there are few subjects that I have personally struggled with more, both theologically and practically, than the subject of divorce and remarriage. And the reason for that is really twofold. The first is that Jesus, throughout the Gospels, makes some incredibly strong statements, both about divorce and remarriage. I'll list it again to the verse that we just read a few moments ago, Matthew 5.32, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress. And anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery." Now in one form or another, Jesus repeats this statement a number of times throughout the Gospels. In fact, this is one of his milder statements. If you look at the parallel statement in both Luke and Mark's Gospel, then you discover that what he does is he leaves out what's known as the exception clause, except for marital unfaithfulness. Here is how he words it in Luke 16, verse 18, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." That's pretty strong language. So Jesus makes some strong statements, and then the second reason the subject is often giving me a struggle is because it represents, of course, a significant pastoral challenge. Strong as divorce might be in many instances from God's point of view, fact of the matter is we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world we have lots of relationships that fail. As a matter of fact, statistics in our country tell us that for every 10 marriages that take place in the course of a year, there are 3.7, maybe even a little bit more, marriages that end in divorce. That's where the figure of one out of two or one out of three comes from. It's a little misleading because that doesn't mean that one out of two or one out of three marriages in the country fails. It means that for a given number of marriages that take place in the course of a year, half to one-third end up in divorce. The statistic overall is actually much less, something like 2 or 3% of all marriages, although statistics also indicate that over a 30-year period, something like 37% of all marriages are thought to end in divorce. Very complicated figures, but you get the picture even in the church. Many of us here have gone through divorce, a number of us have been remarried as the years have gone by. And so you can see pastorally what an issue that is not only for pastors like myself but for churches as a whole. How do you uphold a high standard, the standard that Jesus appears to be teaching in the gospel? And how on the other hand do you deal pastorally in a sensitive and in a compassionate fashion with those who have struggled in their marriages, whose marriages have failed and who in many instances have chosen to remarry? That is the dilemma on the issue of divorce and remarriage. And I think the best way to try to grapple with that issue this morning together is to not only understand what it is that Jesus is saying here in the passage before us, but also why. And so let's begin then this morning taking a look at these verses that we have just read together. And I want to begin by making the observation that again the context is critical. Because the context you will recall is Jesus correcting a misinterpretation that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are giving to Old Testament teaching on this subject. That's why Jesus words it the way that he does. It has been said, he says, "Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you, anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery." Jesus is correcting the pharisaical interpretation of Old Testament teaching on divorce and remarriage. Now as you may or may not know, there's really only one passage in the Old Testament that talks in any significant way about divorce and remarriage, and that is Deuteronomy chapter 24, the first four verses. Let's read them together. "If a man marries a woman," these are the words of Moses to Israel as they're getting ready to go into the promised land, "If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house. And if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord." Three things in that passage I want us to note. The first is that it recognizes the reality of divorce, even among God's covenant people. If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her from his house, then these things are supposed to be happening. Not every marriage is made in heaven, and not every relationship manages to survive. Some people are incompatible. They don't have what it takes to do relationships. And so terrible as divorce may be in terms of its consequences and the great pain it might cause to both husband, wife, and certainly children. The fact is, even among Christians, marriages fail. As a matter of fact, a number of years ago, George Barna, who was a noted researcher, got himself into all kinds of hot water because his research indicated that the divorce rate, now listen to this, among conservative evangelical Christians was higher than that in the world. And that really threw people for a loop because you've heard the expression, "People who pray together stay together." Well, apparently that's not always the case. Moses in Deuteronomy 24 recognizes the reality of divorce. Secondly, he says divorce needs to be regulated in a legal fashion. He writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her from his house. Reason for that is that divorce, as well as marriage, is not simply a private individual thing. It has huge social implications. You need to know who's married and who's not married lest you inadvertently plant your seed in somebody else's garden or if you assume somebody is committing adultery when in fact they have been appropriately and properly divorced. So Moses recognizes the reality of divorce. He says divorce must be regulated. And then most interestingly enough, and this is the one that really throws you for a loop, he goes on to say that under no circumstances can a man, having gone through this divorce, remarry his first wife if she has been married a second time. Notice how it is worded. If after she leaves his house, she becomes the wife of another man and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce and gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. Interesting, isn't it? Now why is that? Well, listen really carefully because everything Jesus says in the New Testament about divorce and remarriage ties into this issue because from God's point of view, what happens in marriage is not just two people who start living together for whatever convenient reasons under the same roof. No, you have two people from two different walks of life becoming one flesh, one in spirit, one in soul, and one in body. That is a mystical union before the face of God. And when a man divorces his wife under those Old Testament provisions for frivolous reasons and we'll talk more about that in a few moments, and she ends up having to marry somebody else to look after her, that one flesh bond remains unbroken in the eyes of God. And so now when she marries the second man, she actually commits adultery and that bond defiles her. And that bond not only defiles her, it defiles the land because now if she goes back to her first husband, she aggravates the situation and everything becomes a mess. And I really understand the importance of what the Bible calls this one flesh relationship. So here you have Moses' Old Testament provision for dealing with the reality that not everybody can remain married. It recognizes the reality of divorce. It says divorce has to be regulated and it says you cannot remarry your first wife. And if you study up on religious Jewish divorce laws today, you will find that that is still in effect in Orthodox Jewish communities. Now what did the Pharisees do with this kind of Old Testament teaching on divorce and remarriage? You can guess what they did, can't you? What they did was they stuck to the letter of the law, as they always did conveniently, but they ignored the spirit of the law. And so here is how they interpreted this Old Testament law about divorce and remarriage. First of all, they said it justifies divorce. That is to say if you can't get along with each other, you get rid of each other because in fact they'll go further than that and they will say under certain situations you are commended to divorce and that's why we read in Matthew 19 verse 7 they come to Jesus and they say to him, "Why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" In fact if you look at Jewish divorce laws today, then you will discover that when one partner has committed adultery the other has to divorce even if he or she doesn't want to because that is their interpretation of the law of Moses. And they don't understand that what is happening here is that Moses is making provision as Jesus says later on for the hardness of heart. There are situations where you can't get along with each other and if you can't get along with each other rather than fighting all the time it's better to go your own separate ways but that is a long shot short of saying you must divorce because Jesus as we'll see in a few moments applies grace as opposed to the letter of the law. So they used it to justify divorce not only but they used it to justify divorce for frivolous reasons and you see that again in the question they asked Jesus in Matthew 19.3 where the Pharisees come to him and they say, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" See that goes back to Deuteronomy 24 where Moses says if a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her and he writes a certificate of divorce. The big question is what does it mean to find something indecent in your wife? And in the days of Jesus there were two schools of thought, there was a conservative school of thought and there was a liberal school of thought. And the conservative school of thought said the indecent thing of which Moses speaks in Deuteronomy chapter 24 is marital unfaithfulness understood in the context of somebody committing adultery. And they said if somebody commits adultery then yes you have legal and biblical grounds for divorcing yourself from that person. But there was a second school of thought that said that doesn't make sense because under the old covenant if you committed adultery it wasn't just a question of getting divorced it was a question of being stoned to death. And they said Moses meant that if you saw something in your wife that you did not like or if you were more attracted to a more recent model give her a certificate of divorce then you just tell her to get lost and divorce is alright. And so these Pharisees they're trying to trick Jesus of course and they're trying to put him in a situation where he has to contradict what Moses was teaching them and we'll talk about that in just a few moments. The net result was this, under a legalistic interpretation of the law the Pharisees made it very easy and very comfortable to divorce for frivolous reasons and even today again if you read up on Jewish divorce law you can divorce a woman for any reason or no reason. The Talmud specifically says that a man can divorce a woman because she spoiled his dinner. And that ends a few marriages or simply because he finds another woman more attractive. And the woman's consent to the divorce is not required. All the man has to do is write a bill of divorce. So they used it to justify divorce. They used it to justify divorce for frivolous reasons and then of course they were extremely self-righteous about this. As long as they did it the right way. And the Pharisees were masters at doing it the right way. And so even today Jewish divorce laws goes on to say to prevent husbands from divorcing their wives recklessly or without proper consideration what do the rabbis do? They created a system of complex rules regarding the process of writing the document the delivery and its acceptance. In other words they strain out the net they swallow the camel and they try to build in protection by doing the letter of the law. But what's the upshot of all of this? Well the upshot of all of this as you can imagine is that women and children were left if not completely without defense virtually without defense. It was up to the man if he didn't want her he got rid of her. As long as he followed proper procedure she had no recourse and so the net result is that often in situations like that a woman would be forced to take up with an other man because of course in that culture unless the woman was independently wealthy she had no means of support. And so that's what Jesus takes on here in Matthew 531 when he says it has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness causes her to become an adulteress and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. And so we can summarize the teaching of Jesus in this fashion. First of all he says divorce was never God's intention. He says in Matthew 19 haven't you read that at the beginning the creator made the male and female and said for this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh so they are no longer two but one therefore what God has joined together let not man separate. Now I got to tell you I love the King James let not man put asunder. And here you're back to this one union flesh this one flesh union. In marriage a man and a woman come together and they are joined in spirit and they're joined in soul and they're joined in body. And for a marriage to be successful and for a relationship to be successful and this is very helpful for young people to understand particularly as they contemplate marriage. God's order is you begin with a spiritual union you progress to an emotional union and you climax it with a physical union. That is to say first you make sure that you're on the same wavelength together. You're serving God. You're committed to his kingdom. The Bible talks in very negative terms about relationships that are unequally yoked why? Because if you have a wife that is trying to follow the Lord and a husband who is not trying to follow the Lord you're always going to be going in different directions everything will become an issue. Sunday morning rolls around you want to go to church. He wants to go fishing with his buddies. Saturday night rolls around you want to prepare for a Sunday maybe prepare for teaching a Sunday school class. He wants to go out and carouse with his friends and try as you might. The only reason unequally old marriages seem to work for a season is because one or the other is compromising their set of values. The more you grow in Christ and the more your other partner does not the more spiritually you're going to be mismatched and people sometimes say well you know the unbelieving partner will become a Christian through the witness of the believing partner and sometimes indeed that's what happens and when it does it is a wonderful gift of God's grace. But I've been around long enough to know that for every one time that happens out of ten nine times out of ten it goes the other way. And the person who started out being a committed Christian ends up in many instances compromising his or her values because otherwise it's to live in tension all the time. It begins with a spiritual union and then it progresses into an emotional union. There is a liking of each other a similarity of interests a comfortableness with each other a place where you can just really admire respect and love each other. And then as that relationship deepens and people enter into a covenant relationship biblically speaking the sexual aspect of that relationship becomes the capstone of that spiritual and emotional connectedness that's God's order and you don't have to be around the world for very long to know that the devil tries to reverse the order. He begins with a physical and if you begin with a physical you don't always get to the emotional and you certainly don't get to the spiritual and a lot of relationships never blend never get off on the right footing and they never mature they never progress because they're built upside down and backwards. Marriage is not just about sex it is about the sum total of two lives becoming intertwined very few people understand the full impact of that before God you become a one flesh relationship. That's why after you split up it's like a piece of you is missing that's why a lot of people when they go from one relationship into another into another relationship after a while they don't know who they are anymore because they have left pieces of themselves behind now that doesn't mean they can't be restored doesn't mean it can't be redeemed doesn't mean you end up living with that brokenness for the rest of your life but please hear me and understand me that there's a lot more happening when two bodies connect than sex it makes us one in spirit and once we are one in spirit we are infused into each other and that was God's original intention and so Jesus says God's original intention was not to make divorce mandatory even in cases of adultery but rather it's always been God's intention whatever else happens try to honor the one flesh relationship you see the difference between recognizing what God values and what we ought to be striving for and the pharisaical interpretation that says well you don't like each other get rid of each other and on with life you go so that's the first thing you've heard it said but I tell you the one flesh union is critical secondly he goes on to point out then that Moses what Moses teaches in Deuteronomy chapter 24 about divorce is only a concession geared to the hardness of heart remember that earlier conversation why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away and Jesus's answer he permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard but it was not this way from the beginning why did Moses allow for divorce because he recognized that divorce was a reality even among the people of Israel and why was it a reality because people's hearts were hardened see fact of the matter is that no matter how much God is committed to this one flesh relationship and no matter how much God wants us to stick it out until death do us part fact of the matter is some people can't do relationships some people are too broken some people are too wounded some people are too stubborn some people are too rebellious don't ever think just because a marriage falls apart that automatically means people are wicked and bad no it often means that people desperately want to make this work but the dynamics between the two of them is of such a nature that they don't have what it takes to overcome difficulties they can't humble themselves before each other little issues mount and mole hills become mountains and before you know it it cascades into rejection and recrimination and try as you might they end up going in different directions now when that happens you can do one of two things you can try to stay together fight it out for the rest of your lives and kill each other or moses says you can recognize listen this is not ideal we can't do this we're failing at it for the sake of peace let's separate that is the concession that moses makes for the hardness of heart there are some people that should never get married you know that and there are some people who should have never married each other why because they ain't got what it takes to do their relationship is that tragic yes is that a blight in the name of god yes especially when we're christians is it reality you bet your bottom dollar and even the apostle paul in the new testament talks about a believer and an unbeliever being married and there being nothing but conflict in that relationship but the unbelieving partner wants to leave and god says in that instance you let him go why because god has called you to peace so here's what jesus says divorce was never god's intention god has always been emphatic on the one flesh relationship rather it is only a concession geared to the hardness of heart and then says jesus and this is where it becomes really interesting the only biblical ground for divorce where you can legitimately enter into it is marital unfaithfulness in other words he sides with the conservative interpretation of the mosaic law that says you can send your wife away if you find in her some indecency now again walk this through with me because we need to understand why this is such a critical issue from a biblical point of view it goes back to the one flesh relationship remember god is obsessively concerned about this one flesh relationship between a man and a woman that ought not to be severed until death do you part now when you sow your seed in somebody else's garden when you commit adultery then by that act of adultery you are breaking that original one flesh commitment and the person who is quote unquote innocent in that relationship is then allowed by god not only to divorce but to remarry because the one flesh relationship has already been broken by the adultery that's why jesus says if you divorce your wife except for marital unfaithfulness you are committing adultery now raises all kinds of questions doesn't that what exactly comprises marital unfaithfulness is it just literal adultery what about the wife who refuses to ever give herself physically to her husband what about the husband who may not physically cross the line but who emotionally has his heart engaged someplace else what about the woman who nags her husband to death that makes life hell at what point is marital unfaithfulness a breaking of this one flesh bond and at what point is it then legitimate grounds for divorce because that has huge implications not only for divorce but also for remarriage so those are the issues the church has struggled with over the years those are also the issues our society has struggled with over the years and every time divorce laws are changed or have been changed that is the controversy that is at the root of what is really happening and in the middle of all of this how do you apply grace is adultery the unpardonable sin does it mean if i have committed adultery that i can never ever remarry with god's blessing do i always have to go around wearing a big a on my forehead because i have failed how do you uphold a high view of what scripture teaches about this one flesh relationship as jesus quoting moses has just spelled it out for us and how do you past really live in a real world where we live in real sin and real failure and need real forgiveness and real help well lord willing next in the morning we're going to come back to that and you need to give some thought in your own heart and in your own mind about what does scripture really teach how can we live in community where we can have a high view of scripture and yet where we can extend grace to one another in a way that makes life [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:34:30.340; remove through 00:37:08.000] honorable and noble in the sight of god change my heart oh god make it ever true change my heart oh god may i be like you change my heart oh god make it ever true change my heart oh god may i be like you you are the father and the son and the mother and the son and the son and the mother and the son and the father and the son and the son and the mother and the son and the father and the son and the mother and the son and the son and the mother and the son and the mother and the father [CUT] and the son and the son and the mother and the son and the son and the son and the [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:37:08.000; resume after this marked segment]