Divorce & Remarriage

All right, quick review this morning. The verses that we've read from Matthew chapter
five have to be placed in the context of the wrong interpretation that the
Pharisees and the teachers of the law gave to the law of Moses. In typical fashion
they strained out the nap, they swallowed the camel, they neglected the spirit of
the law, but they concentrated on the letter of the law. And so their
interpretation of the teaching of Moses and Deuteronomy 24 about divorce and
remarriage was that not only was divorce permitted but it was mandated by God
under certain circumstances and then of course they allowed divorce for the
most frivolous of reasons and they concentrated on proper procedure. Make sure you
fill out the certificate of divorce and you do it the right way, totally ignoring
the consequences of sending your wife and your children away for frivolous
reasons. And Jesus comes along and he says it has been said but now I tell you
he comes to correct the wrong interpretation, takes him back to the spirit of the
law and his teaching can really be summed up in this way. Divorce was never God's
intention. It was only allowed as a concession in the Old Testament because of
people's hardness of heart and the only biblical ground for divorce and
remarriage is a thing that he called marital unfaithfulness. Whoever divorces his
wife except for marital unfaithfulness causes her to become an adulterous and
anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. Strong, strong words as I
said last week and words that have huge implications, all of this teaching,
huge implications not only for you and me individually but also for Christian
community in fact even for the laws of the land. So let's spend a little time
this morning then and talk about the practical implications of this
teaching of Jesus for each of us today. First of all the teaching of Jesus means
that we need to hold to a high view of marriage. Marriage contrary to what many
people espouse today is not merely a human social invention to deal with our
issues of loneliness or sex. No marriage Scripture is a divine institution.
Jesus puts it this way "haven't you heard that at the beginning the creator
made the male and female and said for this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh." You'll
recognize that perhaps as a quotation from Genesis chapter 2 verse 24. That story
goes back to the creation story and is repeated three times at least in the
New Testament always in the context of laying the foundation of a biblical
marriage. In Scripture if you want to understand how God wants things to
operate then one of the ways in which you do that is you go back to the beginning
how God put it together and you'll remember from the creation story that Adam
was created first discovered that he was lonely or alone God put him to sleep
made Eve out of one of his ribs bone of my bone flesh of my flesh and then
brought the two together and that's the beginning of marriage and the biblical
explanation why for all the conflict and the turmoil and the wars between the sexes
men and women continue to be drawn together to covenant these relationships it's
all about being one flesh one in spirit one in soul and one in body and out
of the security of that kind of relationship children can be born and raised
and how goes the home so goes the nation and as you've heard me say many times
I continue to be perplexed that in the light of all the evidence that we have
today our society and our governmental figures don't spend much more time
effort and energy assuring the well-being of the nuclear family every test has
proven that the stability of the next generation is locked in to the
security and the stability of this covenant relationship where people are
faithfully committed to each other and to the credit of our present federal
government at least some tax relief measures have been put in place trying to
fulfill election promises to to encourage the importance of the nuclear
family that's not to say there aren't going to be broken down families that
isn't to say that we ought not to be tremendously compassionate towards that
but remember an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure and
Christians of all people have a vested interest in the stability of
marital relationships now that being true we got to put our money where our
mouth is so to speak and so we need to be prepared to commit our resources to
it and committing resources not only means in a negative way fighting those
forces in today's culture that want to diminish the importance of the
marital relationship but also positively doing whatever we can so that
relationship start off on a solid foundation and have all of the resources they
need to prosper and to prosper well specifically then we need to first of all
prepare our youth for marriage the average age of marriage in the last number of
decades by the way has gone from about 25 or 26 to now 31 and up to 34 I think
it is for men and while some of our young people will be called perhaps to the
single life or choose otherwise not to marry fact of the matter is that many
of our youth will ultimately end up in a marital relationship and how well
that relationship functions will be very much a function of first of all
their own maturity their ability to do relationships and then secondly the
result of the choices they have made leading up to that now sex education in
the public high school system has always been contentious never more so than
today for Christians at least why because it's no longer simply a matter of
biology it's very much a matter of values and the values that are being
taught are often values that are distinctly at odds with that of Christian
community and scripture if you an example I was astonished a number of months
ago focus on the family did a little expose of a book that was in the final
preparation stages as I recall to be released into the Winnipeg public
school system and they had a link to this booklet on the web and I happened to
take a look at it and the purpose of this booklet was to help young people in
school settings come to grips with their gender identification and here's
what it taught 10% of the population they said is heterosexual 10% of the
population is homosexual and 80% of the population if truth be known are bisexual
now fascinating that's what they wanted to teach those kids and truth of the
matter is if you listen to young people today because of the gender confusion
that exists in our culture more and more are viewing themselves as bisexual why
because that way you can be friends with boys and you can be friends with girls
and nobody's gonna point their finger at you for being one or the other what
kind of fruit is that gonna bear in terms of long-term relationships
increasingly people are afraid to form long-term relationships because they
can't imagine that they could ever lie hast and so as a community in his
families we have a vested interest in in taking our youth by the hand and
teaching them not only biblical values of sexuality but biblical values of
relationship and that's why John and Juliette with their youth for the last
couple of weeks have been been working through issues of sexuality and issues
of relationship that's also why we have a marriage mentoring program where
young couples that come to us for marriage have to sit down with our marriage
mentoring people and try to walk through stuff can we guarantee that your
marriage is going to be good now but can we do what we can to make sure that we
try to establish a good foundation that's a value not only for individuals
well-being but also for whole community so we want to make sure as much as we
can that we're founded on the right kind of foundation and then of course
taking that a step further is we want to be able to provide as much help and
as many resources as we can to marriages that are in trouble number of years
ago the Vanier Institute published what they had discovered were the five top
reasons why marriages fail let me just quickly run you through them different
values and interests physical and emotional abuse alcohol and drugs in
fidelity and then career related conflict and if you look at each of these you
will see that they all represent a foundational failure of two separate
individuals becoming one flesh two individuals different backgrounds different
characteristics different personalities you bring them together if they don't
learn to become one they continue to go in separate directions and that will
lead to conflicts and values and interests it will lead to physical and
emotional abuse and lead to forms of addiction certainly will lead to
infidelity and it will certainly lead to career related conflict now
probably any marriage that's here will know the pressures of conflict at one
point or another and you know as well as I do that conflict doesn't generally
emerge full-blown you're not just happily sailing along and things are just
great and then all of a sudden your boat blows up out of the water now it starts
with little things you don't see me you don't hear me you don't respect me
your selfish you hurt me I'm angry you're angry I don't want to forgive you you
can't forgive me and so the spiral goes on and on and on until finally the
pain is simply so great that these two people cannot be in the same room
together and as a community we have a vested interest in stepping into those
situations together earlier rather than later because typically what happens
even in Christian community by the time even your friends discover that you
have a problem the problem has already gone so far that nobody can fix it I
had an elder in her church one time years ago first church I passed it on the
outside the marriage looked like the most wonderful and lovely marriage there
wasn't anybody including their best friends who had any understanding that this
marriage was hanging on by a thread and that it was about to blow up with a
massive affair that that man was going to enter into as a community as people
struggle we need to share those things with each other and we need to commit
resources it every way that we can and while not every marriage can be
salvaged there's enough marriages around here that have been at the end of the
road saved by the mercy and the grace of God to know that it's more than
worth a while because the tragedy that we can prevent that way and the hurt
that can be diminished is unspeakable for generations to come so we need to have
a high value of marriage scripture clearly teaches that if marriage is a high
value we have to put our money where our mouth is and then of course we need to
view divorce as a last resort is the war sometimes going to happen yes well it
happens sometimes in Christian community even to committed Christian people
tragically and unfortunately yes and scripture makes provision for it as we've
talked earlier because of hardness of heart that having been said it ought to
be a last resort let me show you some interesting divorce statistics in our
country if you're familiar with the divorce act in Canada then you will know
that prior to 1967 there was no federal divorce law marriages had to be
resolved as I understand it by an act of parliament then in 1967 1968 the
no-fault divorce law was introduced with a waiting period of three years and you
will notice that immediately there is a spike in divorces and that continued
until 1985 and 1986 when the divorce law was amended and the three-year
waiting period was diminished to one year and you will see there an immediate spike
in divorces over the next couple of years then leveling off the date here is
1995 if we were to continue that it in fact continues to go down and then
steadies out so that today we're back to essentially where we were back in
1985 with 230 some divorces per 100,000 population now why the decrease in the
divorce rate today that's almost counterintuitive considering how many
relationships are breaking up well one reason of course is that the number of
marriages is less than ever because more people live together and other
reason is that with a change in law there was a spike that caught up to the
people who were miserable together and wanted out of the relationship but
there's still another reason and that is that the more prevalent divorce has
become and the more people have gone through divorce the more we've begun to
understand the long-term consequences of divorce particularly as it relates
to our children for a long time people were saying well it's better to split up
them to be fighting and sometimes that can be true but we now know from studies
and surveys that where the children are vulnerable the effects of divorce do
not diminish as they get older but rather it gets worse their anger gets worse
their distrust becomes greater and their own ability to enter into relationships
is severely compromised and diminished and I want to read you a portion of an
email that one of the men in this congregation sent me after less than the
morning's message and I share it of course with his permission he says allow me
to make a comment and reference to your message from last Sunday perhaps you
will touch on it in your next message in the subject but I don't need to
remind you that children during and after the divorce are the innocent victims of
the marriage break-up I was once such a victim in 1939 my parents divorced
can you imagine a divorce in those days in the church to this day I'm still
haunted by it my father and mother should have never married in the first place
the chemistry was absolutely bad so I've been told but no adultery ever took
place that of course rested on a terrible lie a lie the church knew about now
here's the lie the lie is that in order to dissolve the marriage the church
counseled the wife to confess to adultery that she had in fact not committed
because it was the only way for everybody to say face my father's second
marriage was first was worse than the first how could God ever bless this
union especially the second one based as it was on a lie I was only seven
years old when this happened and not a clue what it was about my mother and
brother departed out of my life and I never saw them anymore for more than 20
years when I see early photographs of my mother I get emotional because I never
got to know her once she returned into my life she had turned into an angry
and bitter woman I never knew what she was like before the divorce my brother and
I are total strangers we have no contact there's much more to say but I just
don't want you to forget the children when father and mother decide to split
now it isn't that painful obviously for every child when a marriage fails but
I've talked enough to enough of them and so have you to know that it's no
minor matter and we need to understand that while scripture allows for
divorce and while there are situations where divorce is necessary it ought to
always be a last resort and so therefore if you're here and you're contemplating
separation or divorce are you have friends who contemplate separation or
divorce here are some very hard and difficult questions that we need to be
asking of ourselves and of each other first of all is the marriage redeemable
or not most of us when we find ourselves in a situation of pain and that has
gone on for a period and we want to throw in the towel we think it is beyond
redemption many times that is not the case and we've seen situations and
relationships in this congregation restored that literally and
humanly speaking didn't have a snowball's chance in you know where and God's
grace has prevailed that having been said there are relationships that are
redeemable people that don't want to look at their stuff can't look at their
stuff want to continue to blame don't want to work on the relationship when
that happens we we need to say God has called us to peace rather than to
conflict and we've got to let it go but that's a question we need to ask and
then we need to ask ourselves the question is my life or the life of my
children at risk there are situations of abuse whether emotional physical or
mental or sexual that are of such an nature that we cannot subject ourselves
much less our children to that kind of abuse I've heard in recent months more
than one horror story a father's who were emotionally or sexually abusing
their children with a mother's full knowledge where the mother turns a blind eye
because she cannot afford to incur the wrath of her husband and she sacrifices
her children on the altar of her own convenience I don't know about you but I
think that's criminal and I think people like that need to really get shook
up because of the damage that's done apart from God's grace well last for
generations and even with God's grace it's gonna take a lot of healing because
that betrayal runs so deep is the marriage irredeemable is life or limit
risk are there biblical grounds for divorce remember the one biblical ground is
marital unfaithfulness I think an other biblical ground closely toyed into it is
an unbelieving spouse who determines to leave the believing spouse because he
no longer or she no longer wants to be married is there marital unfaithfulness
I heard the story recently young woman if I were to give you her name some of
you would know her mother of a number of children played a significant
leadership role in her church lovely young woman passionately committed to
the Lord into his purposes got herself into one of these internet chat room
relationships got sucked in so deep she's left her family she's left her
children she's left her husband she's left the church to pursue this
relationship and I want to tell you something if men are prone to pornography and
endanger their sexuality that way women are equally prone to getting sucked
into intimate relationships of an emotional nature that are every bit as
threatening to the marital relationship so ask yourself the question has there
been marital unfaithfulness recognizing that that that while that may be
biblical grounds for divorce that doesn't mean you have to divorce because the
scriptures would much rather have us work on that than to simply throw in the
town and then here's the final question not only is it irredeemable is my
life at risk are the biblical grounds but here's a very practical question to
ask yourself can I live with a consequences see we live in a time now listen to
me carefully where when things go rough on our relationship because of the
pressures of society it's easy to bail on the relationship and a lot of times
if you share with your friends what's going on somebody will say to you why
don't you just leave him or why don't you just leave her take the kids and go
and yes there are times and there are places where you need to do that but long
before you do that ask yourself the question can I live with a consequences
can I live with the fact that economically this is going to turn my life upside
down can I live with the fact that relationally I'm going to have more
problems and difficulties than I've ever had before can I live with the fact
that I won't be able to explain to my children without setting them up in
opposition to the other parent about what the real issues are so my
prepared to live with a misunderstanding and the blame that's going to come my
way when they blame me for the breakup of the marriage because the other
spouse may not be as generous as you are can I live with a consequences and
sometimes you have to but don't just step into it and say well you know it's
what everybody else is doing and I can do it too it will incredibly complicate
your life and it ought only to be a very last resort when all other avenues have
been explored so we need a high view of marriage we need to commit resources to
it we need to understand that divorce really has to be a last resort and then we
need to be very careful about starting new relationships and there are two
areas in particular that that applies to and I want to talk about both of those
with you just briefly this wording the first is in that in-between stage where
we are separated but not yet legally divorced now here's a pattern that I've
seen develop over the last number of decades and it's becoming more and more
pronounced people confuse separation with legal divorce and they say well my
marriage has split up and I don't see any hope of reconciliation anyway and
so I'm free to carry on with my life and they begin to date sometimes sleep
around and otherwise begin to act as if they are unmarried or single now I
understand the loneliness after a miracle break up I understand the need and the
desire to try to prove to yourself and to everybody else that you're still
okay and still desire a law and I can understand the need the longing in the
desire to cut off the past and to get on with life but please understand
something when you're separated and you're not divorced you're still
legally married you're married before God and you're married before the law and
so any intimate relationship that you contract during that period of time in
biblical terms is still adultery it will complicate your life
immeasurably and will take you off the high road when it comes to contracting
new relationships that's one reason there's a second reason the minute you
introduce a third party in a struggling marital relationship the chances of
that struggling marital relationship reaching a resolution and a reconciliation
drops to almost zero instantly why bother trying to work this out when I've
got a new love in my life why put all the effort and the energy into trying to
come to an agreement in terms if I think I can just cut off the past and go on
with the rest of my life and again we complicate our lives so stay away wait
until things have run their course so before God and before community you can
take the high road so we need to be careful about new relationships not only
during that period when we're separated but not divorced but also after we're
divorced and we're considering marrying again about 70% of divorced people
end up marrying a second or a third time interestingly enough the rate of
divorce for those that have been married more than once goes up significantly
in fact it has increased threefold over the last three decades statistically in
this country why well in part because once you've crossed the bridge once for
some people it's that much easier to cross it a second time and while there
are situations and circumstances under which God clearly allows us to
remarry remarriage also has to be preceded I think with some serious thought and
serious prayer here are just a couple of the questions that we ought to be
asking ourselves is remaining single an option for me now it's interesting how
Jesus approaches this subject you'll notice here in Matthew chapter 19 he gives
us this teaching the disciples say to him if this is the situation between a
husband and a wife is it better not to marry a lot of people take that advice
today and they don't get married and just live together because they think
somehow or another this will get them around this issue of divorce and
remarriage in the sin that may be associated with that and they forget of
course that if you live together with that marriage you're in just as much
trouble before God as in any other way so just keep that in mind so this is what
the disciples had in mind and then Jesus says a very interesting thing he says
not everyone can accept this word but only those to whom it has been given he
knows us and he knows our human nature for some are unique that is to say men
that have been castrated because they were born that way others were made that
way by men and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of
heaven the one who can accept this should accept it in scripture there is a
certain category of people who have the gift of being single now that's not
very popular in our culture at least not being single in celibate because we
think it's everybody's right to give free sexual expression to their needs but
there are those who are called to be single and call to be celibate Jesus that
eventually called notwithstanding was single and celibate the Apostle Paul was
single and celibate other significant leaders in the history of the Christian
church have been single in celibate but it's a gift and if you don't have that
gift that's not part of the calling on your life and you can ask God in due
time will he provide for your needs in this area in legitimate ways but ask
yourself the question am I better off remaining single you're better off as a
happy well-adjusted single than a miserable unhappy person in an unhappy
marriage and we got to get away from this idea in the church that somehow people
who are single are not there's something wrong with them they're deficient and
if only we can get everybody married off then everybody will live happily ever
after come on there is a call on the single life difficult and challenging is
that maybe that can be tremendously honoring to God he's still with me here
second question to ask am I the quote unquote innocent party that is to say
is it my spouse who has committed adultery if not literally then in every
other way if so then technically speaking I am authorized by the words of
Jesus to remarry without having to worry about committing adultery but even
so it's very important to do some sober self evaluation before I step into my
next marriage have I dealt with my hurt my sense of betrayal my disappointment in
the choices that I've made or the way that I have been treated and even then it
doesn't hurt to ask myself the question even though technically I'm not the
one that's straight in this marriage have I in my own way been unfaithful to
our marital covenant that I withhold myself in ways that were inappropriate
that I do things that I say things that I try to run my life and his or her life
in ways that see it's so important listen to this it is so important to live
by the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law you can be a wife or a
husband who technically is not the one that committed adultery and who
technically can go around walking with your head stuck high saying well I can do
what I want to do because I'm not the guilty one but you know as what I do now
there are many levels of unfaithfulness and it isn't just the adulterer who
commits adultery in many relationships and situations very seldom will you find
somebody who is perfectly innocent and we all need God's grace and God's
forgiveness wouldn't you agree and then we've got to ask the really tough
question the one that I struggle with the most over the years am I the guilty
party what if I'm the one that ran around what if I'm the one who caused the
demise of this relationship and now I've come to know Jesus and I have
repented of my sin and I'd like to get on with my life in light of the words of
Jesus can I remarry do I have to stay stuck where I am is adultery the one
unpardonable sin is the grace of God in the New Testament less than the grace of
God in the Old Testament those are very real problems issues that I've had
to struggle with immensely over the years and issues that are church and other
churches have to struggle with here is how this church resolved this issue a
number of years ago when we put together a policy on divorce and remarriage let
me take you a few moments and read that divorce is clearly against God's will
nevertheless we live in a sinful world where divorce does occur where
singleness is not an option remarriage will be sanctioned by the church only
were all attempts at reconciliation have been made the sin of past relationship
has been dealt with no litigation is in progress particularly in terms of
the relationships appropriate marriage counsel has taken place and the
marriage will be in the Lord make a long story short we believe that the Lord
wants us to uphold a high standard of his word and not ever create a culture
where you can just walk out on each other and come back tomorrow with a new
husband or a bride in tall and that's all okay because it isn't because we don't
want to diminish the importance of scripture at the same time we don't want
to raise the bar and the standard so high that God's grace isn't big enough to
cover it and so even if you're the guilty party if we know that you have truly
repented have truly come to understand what the issues are and have been and are
emotionally and in every other way prepare to go on with your life we would
have come alongside you celebrate a new beginning and honor God in the
well-being of the Christian churches that always ideal no does God blessed we
have seen his blessing on it many many times because you see in some churches
where people want to observe the letter of the law and forget the spirit of the
law you're in fact better off killing your spouse going to jail doing time
coming back with a great conversion story and testimony because murderers
can be forgiven in some churches adulterers can want and you'd agree with me
would you not there's something wrong with that picture adultery is not the
one unpardonable scene but the Lord is trying to address here in this passage
is this legalistic notion of the Pharisees that I can get rid of you and the
consequences be damned and God will be in favor of it and he says listen let's
keep a thing in mind here God hates divorce he allows it to happen because of
hardness of heart but under all circumstances he wants that one flesh
relationship honored and revered and not only do he is individuals but we as a
church community have a vested interest in making marriages is good and a
strong and as powerful as they can be for the glory of God
and I will see you in the morning and I will learn to walk in the waves
step by step you leave me and I will follow you all my days
oh God you are my God and I will ever praise you oh God you are my God
and I will ever praise you I will see you in the morning and I will learn to
walk in your waves step by step you leave me and I will follow you all my days
and I will follow you all my days and I will follow you all my days
and step by step you leave me and I will follow you all my days