God's View on Marriage, part 1

This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. It's so good to see you here and always a blessing to be able to gather on the Lord's Day for worship.

So thankful for our church family and just the joy it is to be with you Sunday after Sunday. On a personal note, I want to thank those of you who were able to pray for me this past week.

I had the privilege of being at our Baptist Retirement Village and able to spend a number of days teaching on what we call the Doctrine of Christology. When you study Christology, you're talking about the Doctrine of Christ.

We did that from Colossians chapter 1. So thankful for the dear saints I got to spend time with this week and grateful to be able to teach God's Word with them and to be able to engage with them in some discussion and Q&A and conversation afterwards.

I was honored to be able to be there. Anytime I get to open God's Word and strive to teach is a joy. And I'm thankful for those of you who were able to pray for me in doing that.

Also, if the Lord brings this to your mind, I would appreciate your prayers for me in the days to come. As soon as we leave or finish this service, I'm going straight from here to the airport to fly to Los Angeles and will be at the Master's University and Seminary the next several days this week.

Pastor John MacArthur is starting him off with a week of prayer on teaching on spiritual disciplines. I'll come in in the morning and teach specifically on prayer.

That'll be at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. And then I'll be in the classroom in the afternoon. And then Tuesday, I'll be leading there at the university at 9 and 11 and I think again at 2.

I'll do some things in the evening as well. So it's going to be a full few days. Then I fly back for a wedding that I'll be doing here on Thursday. So as the Lord brings that to your mind, you can pray for me.

Just that I would be useful for the kingdom. I want to be a blessing to the students I'm preaching with and serving. And I want to represent you well and represent you faithfully as always. So as the Lord brings that to your mind, I would very much appreciate that.

If you would open with me here in Mark 10, we continue in our study of Mark's gospel. John mentioned a moment ago what I thought was a really insightful thing.

I wrote it down here. He said that from a seminary professor years ago, your view of God is the most important view you have. I agree with that completely.

What you know about God, what you believe about God, what comes to your mind when you think of God is the most important view you have. I want to add a second part to that.

Your view of God is the most important view you have. And God's view on anything is the most important view on that topic. What you know about God, what you believe about God is the most important thing for you.

And what God says about any topic is the single most important view on that topic. In fact, we could go even a step further. God's view on any topic is the only view that matters.

God's view on any topic is the only view on that topic. And I want you to understand that because what we're looking at today and next Lord's Day, Lord willing, is important that we believe that.

There's a lot of reasons why I believe in what we would call in preaching sequential exposition, meaning that we would preach through books of the Bible verse by verse and word by word.

There's a lot of reasons I believe in that. One of them is because it forces us to say what God said on everything. We don't skip the things that are hard.

If it's revealed in Scripture, it's for our good. Well, if you're familiar with the Gospel of Mark at all, or if you've looked ahead in it, you may know what's coming in chapter 10.

Chapter 10 follows chapter 9. Are you with me so far? Well, chapter 10, if you just look at your heading, is Jesus teaching about divorce.

Well, that didn't take long to make you uncomfortable, did it? It's a hard topic. It's a sensitive subject.

There's not a pastor in the world who woke up this morning and said, you know what, I've not prepared anything. What would just be fun to wing it on? Hey, I know. Let's talk about divorce. Why do we do it?

Here's one of the reasons. The last Sunday we were here in Mark, we finished chapter 9, verse 50. If I said to you today, let's go to Mark 10, verse 13, somebody should call me out.

If I skip the part that's hard, if I skip the part that's uncomfortable, I've robbed you.

Now, if you're new to our church, there are two things I hope that you will come to believe. If you've been around our church for a long time, there are two things I hope that you already do believe.

If you don't, it's my fault, not yours. But I hope what you would believe and what you would know is that I love you as a congregation dearly.

I love you more than you know. And I'm willing to speak the truth of whatever God's word says. I hope that you believe those two things.

If I were to say I love you and withhold truth from you, that would not be loving. If I were to speak truth to you but not truly love you and care about you, that's not being a faithful shepherd.

So what I hope that you know, and if you're new, what I hope you'll come to know is that I love this church dearly and I care for you with all of my heart. I want what's best for you.

I want God's best for you. And I'm willing to say things that are true in the word of God, even if hard to say and even if hard to hear.

But the Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. Both of these should fit together. We should be people of the truth, and we should be people who love each other.

Biblical preaching is not standing in front of a group and just bombarding them with truths of people you don't care about. You should care for them. At the same time, to say that you care for someone and withhold from them what the Holy Spirit has inspired for us to know would not be the work of a faithful shepherd.

So, what we're dealing with this Sunday and next Sunday is admittedly quite uncomfortable. It just is. This is a topic that impacts so many of us and can be very divisive, and I just want us to know what God's word says, to believe what God says about this subject, and to respond in faithfulness.

Now, the truth of the matter is that there's just too much that's important and essential for you to know and to understand in this passage far more than I can get done just this morning.

It would be impossible for me to adequately and rightly help you understand the background and the context that is so critical for you to understand for me to do it just this morning.

We would have to stay here for the whole afternoon for me to be able to do that. And I've got to get to the airport, so I can't keep you all afternoon. All right? You'll be glad to know. So what that means for us is this morning is going to be a bit of really a lengthy introduction, and next Sunday we'll get into more of the nuances of the text and the passage itself.

But I really think it will be helpful for you for me just to spend some extended time this morning helping you understand the background and the context and the foundation.

When this morning is over, I believe you'll understand exactly why that was so and why it's helpful for you. But next Sunday is really important for you to be back and to hear the details through this passage.

Let me just start with this foundation for us. I wanted to start with a few observations about divorce.

Number one, it's not an unforgivable sin. Divorce is not some unforgivable sin.

That term, unforgivable sin or unpardonable sin, gets used from time to time, and sometimes there's great confusion about it. The unpardonable sin comes from the Gospels where Jesus has performed miracles.

The religious leaders representing the nation look at Jesus and they say, we know what you do is supernatural. We can't even argue that. We refuse to believe that you're the Son of God, so we declare that you do your miracles by the power of Beelzebub.

Beelzebub was the name of the prince of the demons. In other words, the nation as a whole rejects Christ as their Messiah. That is the context behind the term of the unpardonable sin.

It's not that divorce is an unforgivable sin. It's a serious thing, and I hope by God's grace to gently and graciously and helpfully walk you through today and next Lord's Day why it's so significant that we understand it.

But, if you're divorced, as awkward as I know you probably feel right now, I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad you're here today, and if you're a part of our church, I'm glad you're here every Sunday. I want you to hear me say that. This is not a collection of perfect people.

This is not a collection of people who have everything all together, and everyone's life is perfect, and every family is perfect. We're a collection of sinners. All of us have sinned and fall short of God's glory.

And it may be that the sin we're talking about today is particularly difficult for you, and somebody else may feel above that because that's not been their issue.

But, I promise you, as we keep walking through the Scripture, there's a passage coming for every single one of us because we've all sinned. So, if you're divorced, I'm glad you're here today.

I'm glad you're a part of our church family. I want you to know that we love you. I want you to know that we care for you. And I want you to know that divorce is not an unforgivable sin.

Second, divorce is rampant in our society. And because it is, it creates some real challenges for us. It's pervasive.

It's a true pandemic in our society. And you may be tempted to think, well, why are we going to listen to what Jesus says about this? That was 2,000 years ago.

The world was so different then. Not really. In fact, as I show you the next two Sundays, what Jesus said about divorce, what He said in His day was as counter-cultural as it will sound to you when I say it.

What Jesus said was as unpopular in His day because of how rampant divorce was as it is in our day.

Third, divorce impacts all of us. the effects are complicated. They're far-reaching.

Many in this room have likely been divorced. Your parents may have been divorced. For some of you, your children have been divorced. Probably for all of us in this room, someone that we love and care about has had divorce in their family, and it impacts all of us.

It's not a strange thing in the sense of that it's something that just affects other people, that this is something that impacts all of us.

Now, not all divorce is the same. We'll look at that, the nuances of that next week, Lord willing. Not all divorce is the same. There are places in Scripture that we go to where the Lord shows us there are times where Scripture allows for divorce.

So, not every divorce is the same. Not every situation or circumstance is the same. We don't pretend that it is. But we do need to understand that God has a view on this topic.

And God's view on this topic really is the only view that matters. Marriage was His creation. It's His design. And so, what He says about it is the most important thing we can know.

I do want you to understand that I get that for many of you, even this moment, you're uncomfortable. I get that.

I know that. And I want you to know that I'm approaching today with a heart of grace and a heart of love and a heart of compassion. I also, though, need to say that God's Word is aimed at producing holiness, not protecting our feelings.

That's important. Last week, or last time we were in Mark two weeks ago, at the end of chapter 9, He was talking about how we fight sin. If your hand caused you to sin, cut it off.

If your foot caused you to sin, cut it off. If your eyes caused you to sin, pluck them out. This much we can say, Jesus takes sin seriously. And you may say, yes, my eyes look at things I shouldn't look at, but everybody does.

It's so rampant. It's everywhere. It's so common. Everybody sins by looking at images they shouldn't look at. But Jesus says, you ought to take seriously this issue and fight it.

It's just a continuation of that. This may be an issue that's rampant in our society. It may be very commonplace.

Yet, you need to know what God thinks about marriage and the reason for its permanency. You need to know what God's Word says about divorce.

And even though it may make us uncomfortable, just understand holiness is the goal. It's not feelings.

It's not, the most important thing is not how we feel about a topic or a truth. The most important thing is what does God say? That's always the most important question we can ask.

What does God's Word say? I do know, though, that this topic is not hypothetical. This is personal. This is deeply personal for many in this sanctuary.

I know that. I also know that one of the challenges of teaching on this topic is that everybody's mind immediately wants to go to the exceptions or wants to go to the what-ifs or wants to go to all the different nuances of things in their own life situation.

And I don't want us to be too quick to jump to the what-ifs. I'm going to try, by God's grace, next week to lead you pastorally through what the New Testament teaches about some of these difficult subjects and situations.

But I don't want us to be too quick to jump to the what-ifs and too quick to jump to the exceptions. I want us just to seek to say, what is God's view on marriage?

What does he think about it? In fact, I was talking to one of our staff members this week, and he asked a really good question. He asked if it made me nervous knowing that I would be teaching on a subject this Sunday that for so many people is so uncomfortable.

It's a good question. It's a fair question. Here's my honest, just heart-level, truthful answer to you. I am far more concerned with pleasing God than I am displeasing you.

I love you. I want you to know that I love you. I value our relationship we have as a congregation. But I do want you to know, on this subject and any subject, I am far more concerned that God is pleased that I cut it straight than I am what any person would say or think.

So I just want you to know my heart on that and to understand why we deal with this. Also, you have to understand this.

One of my favorite things I see every Sunday is to look out here and just see tons of teenagers. And I owe it to them, as well as our college students or other adults in our church who are single, who may one day get married, I owe it to them to say, this is God's ideal.

This is God's teaching on the subject. And how wrong would it be for me to say, I'm going to withhold from our teenagers what God says about marriage so that I, as the preacher, am not uncomfortable.

That's not pastoring. And so I just want you to understand where I'm coming from. Secondly, I want to just give a special word to some different categories of people who are here today and every Sunday.

One, I want to speak to those of you who are single. The Lord doesn't have for everyone to get married. I understand that. But for many of you that are single, you will one day be married.

And I really believe that this week and next week are two weeks that you just can't afford to miss because you need to know God's view on marriage.

More than you get it from a book, more than you can get it from a conference, more than you can get it from talking to someone who has been married 50 years, helpful as all those things are, the most important thing you can know is what does God's word teach me about marriage.

Second, I want to speak to those of you who are married today and you're happy about it. Okay? You're married and you're happy that you are. I want you to use these next two weeks to recommit yourself to honoring the Lord no matter what.

Let me tell you why I make that distinction. If you say, hey, I'll follow God's word. After all, I'm married and I'm happily married. I'm glad you are.

But what happens when life gets difficult and your marriage hits rocky times? What I want you to understand is if your marriage goes through a season of struggle, that should have no bearing on your agreement with the truth of God's word.

So if you're married and your marriage is strong and your marriage is doing well, I praise the Lord for that. But I just want to make sure you recommit yourself to say, no matter what happens in our life, no matter what season we go through, we are committed to believe the Bible.

Third, to those who are married and not real happy about it, you probably feel like coming to church, you're the only married couple who's got problems.

Trust me, you're not. You probably sit in the sanctuary with hundreds of people and see a big crowded parking lot and all these people in the hallways and think we're probably the only people here today whose marriage is struggling, whose marriage is on the rocks, whose marriage is teetering on the edge.

You're not. I promise you. And if that's you, I want to encourage you to look to God, seek to honor the Lord, and strive to get as close to the heart of God in your marriage as you possibly can.

Fourth, I want to speak to those directly who have been divorced. I know this passage can be particularly painful I know even talking about this subject can bring up memories that are hard and maybe even you recall conversations in your past that are difficult to even think about.

I want you to know that we love you. We care about you. Now, I want to be very honest with you. If as we walk through this passage, you feel some conviction from the Holy Spirit, I don't want to take that away.

That's true for any topic. If we're studying the Bible and the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin, I don't want to remove that. We all should feel conviction.

We all, as we read the Bible, should feel the weight of the Holy Spirit revealing sin to us. And it breaks us. And that's good. And that's how it should be. So, I don't want to relieve you of conviction of sin.

But I do want to, with grace, lead you through that and point you to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope in all things.

So, if you're married today, whether you've been married for six months or six years or 60 years, whether you've been married once or whether you're on your seventh marriage.

Okay? Hear me clear. Whoever you're married to today, that's it until death parts you. And you don't get to play a role in death parting you.

Okay? You don't get to say, hey, I committed until death parts us and it just so happened. No, no, no. You don't get to be involved in that part of it. Alright? Whether your life is exactly how you dreamed it, whether it's exactly according to God's ideal, or whether things have gone differently than God's best.

If you're married today, who you're married to right now, that's your spouse for life until death parts you.

And I want to try to help you and guide you and lead you to take right where you are today and say, look, I can't change past decisions I made.

I can't change past decisions somebody else made that affected me. What I can do is if there needs to be repentance, let's repent. repent. It's always the right thing to do.

We repent of our sin, all of us, whatever the sin. And then let's say, from this day forward, how do we best honor the Lord Jesus Christ?

Amen? That's how we want to live. We don't go through our life with guilt over our sin because we repent of it. We confess it. We turn from it.

We give it over to the Lord. We sincerely acknowledge our sin. We ask the Lord's forgiveness and mercy to wash over us. And then, as redeemed people, not by our works, but by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we seek to honor Him this day forward.

There is one last category I want to speak to directly, heart to heart, though. And that's those whose parents have been divorced. And this can be true for those of you who are adults and your parents have divorced.

But I am thinking particularly of our teenagers and even our children whose parents have been divorced. Okay? I want to encourage you to love your parents, to be gracious to your parents, and to not allow within your heart a spirit of resentment or bitterness to reign.

It may be that some decisions that were made that you have nothing to do with and no control over, it may be some things were done that were not right.

It may be some things were done that were not pleasing to God. That's absolutely possible. But I want you to be gracious to your parents.

Life is imperfect. Homes are imperfect. We are imperfect. And we all need grace.

The last thing I want our church to ever be is a group of people who affirm the truth, believe the truth, and preach the truth, but do so with harshness or a coldness or a sense of lacking compassion to people.

Yes, we believe the truth and yes, we're going to proclaim the truth, but let's remember that we are called to be gracious people. Our hope is in a gospel of grace that covers our sin.

And teenagers, children, if your family has been directly impacted by divorce, I know it's hard, I know it creates all kinds of issues, but I just want you to understand, be gracious to your parents, honor your parents, love your parents, don't be resentful and angry and bitter toward them, seek to live out with your parents the grace that is your hope and their hope.

We must be people of the truth, absolutely, but we must be a grace-filled, compassionate, loving people because that is the very gospel that we proclaim.

Now, when you come to Mark chapter 10, one of the things I need to help you with here is between the end of Mark 9 and the start of Mark 10 is the passage of about five months.

We don't see that if we just read continually. When we put all the scripture together is how we know that. So, Mark goes from chapter 9, verse 50, straight to chapter 10, verse 1.

But in that little bitty white space between chapter 9 and chapter 10 is about five months of time. That's actually a very significant thing to know.

It says in verse 1, He left there, that's Capernaum, and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and the crowds gathered to Him again, and again, as was His custom, He taught them.

And Pharisees came up in order to test Him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? And He answered them, What did Moses command you?

They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. And Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, He wrote you this commandment.

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. That whole conversation, that whole exchange, is after five months or so have passed from the end of chapter 9.

If you want to know what happened in those five months, you can read about it in the Gospel of John, chapters 7-11, and Luke, chapters 10-18.

Both of those Gospels fill in the gap of what happened in those five months. But let me just give you a quick overview to help you to know what's going on.

Okay? During those five months, Jesus is going to travel to the area of Jerusalem three times. The crucifixion is in the spring.

It's in November that Jesus, for the first time, is going to go leave at this point, in this in-between time in November, he goes into Jerusalem for what we call the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Booths.

Okay? The next month, in our December, he's going to go back again at the Feast of Dedication. Then, he's going to go a third time in the area, he's going to go specifically to a place called Bethany, which is just over the hill from Jerusalem.

And in February, he's going to raise Lazarus back to life. So Mark 9 ends, around November, crucifixion in April.

When you get to Mark 10, we're only two weeks from the crucifixion. In fact, if you just turn up the page one time to the right, chapter 11, you'll see Mark 11 is the triumphal entry.

Mark 11 starts the Passion Week. Mark 9 ends in November. Mark 10 picks up two weeks before the crucifixion, which takes place in April.

Now, here's what happens. Jesus raises Lazarus. He then goes to Ephraim, which is 13 miles north of Jerusalem.

When you come to Mark 10, he's heading back to Jerusalem for that Passion Week, the events leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection.

If he took a direct route, he's 13 miles away, but he does not take a direct route. Instead, what he does is he heads north from Ephraim back into the area of Galilee, crosses over the Jordan River on the east side, the non-Samaritan side, and from there joins with a large group of people who are on their way to Jerusalem for this feast.

He comes now as he's gone up, he's gone over, he's coming down to Jerusalem. He's come now, when you get to Mark 10, to an area known as Perea.

Perea. This is critically important. The person who is in charge of the area of Perea is a man named Herod Antipas.

He's the same Herod who had John the Baptist beheaded. Now, why was John the Baptist in prison?

Because he spoke out against the ungodly, immoral, marriage situation of Herod Antipas.

And it angered him so much that he had John the Baptist put in prison and eventually had his head cut off. So the Pharisees have purposefully waited until Jesus is in this region.

Because their interest is not in a conversation. Their interest is not in learning more about Jesus' views. Their interest is to discredit and to destroy Jesus.

If he condemns unbiblical divorce in Perea, word will get to Herod. Herod's already killed John the Baptist who spoke out against unbiblical divorce.

Their thinking is he did it to John, he'll do it to Jesus. And we can trick Jesus, set him up, ambush him, ask him pointed questions, and if he doesn't speak the truth, then he's a liar.

If he speaks the truth and it's consistent with what John the Baptist said, then the same Herod who arrested John will no doubt arrest Jesus and have him killed too and now we have gotten rid of Jesus and our hands are clean.

Are you with me? There's a very particular reason why they're approaching him now. The Bible tells at the end of verse 1 that he taught them.

That's important. Jesus is the teacher. We are the students. He speaks. We listen.

He instructs. We obey. Whether we like it, whether it makes us uncomfortable, he teaches.

He's the teacher. We obey. That is a purposefully very long introduction to help you understand what's going on as we get into the text.

I want to show you two things. One we'll introduce this week and the other, Lord willing, we'll get to next week. Number one, always start with the scripture and God's ideal.

Always start with the scripture and God's ideal. Number two, I'm going to show you the biblical foundations of marriage that come from this text.

The biblical foundations that come from this text. But first, we always start with scripture and God's ideal. Verse two, the Pharisees came up in order to test him.

This is an ambush. They've been sitting back thinking to themselves, John the Baptist was the forerunner for Jesus. John the Baptist spoke out on unbiblical divorce.

John the Baptist spoke out on immorality and Herod had him killed. Let's get Jesus in the same area, ask the same questions, let's hope we get the same result.

So they come up and ask him and it tells you exactly their motive. They came to test him, to bait him. They don't want to learn something, they want to try to trap him.

This is rejection disguised as questions. Now, when you share the gospel, and I hope that you do, I hope that you seek to have conversations with people about the gospel.

gospel, when you do, you have to know there are many people who are just going to bombard you with questions. You talk about sin, you talk about Jesus, you talk about the cross, you talk about the empty tomb, and they want to say, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, what about this?

What about the dinosaurs? And what about carbon dating? And what about Genesis? And all these things. Now, sometimes people just truly want to learn more.

Questions are not a bad thing at all. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 3, always be ready to give the answer for the hope within you. We want to explain our faith, we want to defend our faith, we want to be able to express what we believe.

Questions are not wrong. But you need to understand there are certain people that their problem is not lack of information. It's a refusal to repent.

And their tactic is just to load up with questions. Now, why would they do that? They do that because when you talk about the gospel, you're talking about their sin, their need to repent.

And arrogant, boastful, religious people don't like to think about their sin. So they deflect. You talk about sin, I'll bring up some random question.

You talk about the cross and the empty tomb, I'll bring up some strange video I watched on YouTube. You want to ask me about what I'm going to do one second after I die, I bring up some strange article I read about a fossil head they found in Montana.

Whatever. It goes on and on and on and on. And you just need to understand there are some people that their problem is not that they don't have information, it's that they refuse to repent and believe and their rejection of the gospel just comes disguised in the form of questions.

That's what's happening in verse 2. The Pharisees know who Jesus is, they know what he taught, they know what he's about. They refuse to repent of their sin and trust in him, so they just load up on these questions.

It's an ambush. Now, in the five months between Mark 9 and Mark 10, what you need to understand is there were some confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees.

Mark doesn't give them to us, he just goes straight to the ambush. The other gospels tell us some of the conflict that happens between Mark 9 and Mark 10, between Jesus and the Pharisees.

John 7, the Pharisees try to arrest Jesus at the Feast of Booths. John 8, they try to stone Jesus for blasphemy. Luke 11 and 12, there are these pronouncements of judgments that are given.

John 9, there's this big confrontation after Jesus heals a blind man. John 10, remember Jesus says the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, and he says that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, but you are nothing more than hirelings.

You don't love the people, you don't love God, you're just a hireling. Well, that was John 10, that's in between Mark 9 and Mark 10.

That conversation happens in those five months. you've got these four or five or six confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees and they've had it.

He keeps talking about sin, they've had it. Now they just wait. Let's wait until he comes through Perea and let's get him.

Now see if this sounds familiar. At the time of Jesus, there was a divide in the land. Some were very conservative, others were very liberal.

Can you relate to that? We tend to think that our world today is so different and so unique. No, it's not. People are people. The world Jesus is in is not that different from the world that you and I live in today in this respect.

Specifically, there were two schools of thought. There were two rabbis just before the time of Jesus, Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel. Rabbi Shammai said that according to the Old Testament, you could only divorce someone in the case of infidelity.

Rabbi Hillel was a liberal and he said, no, it's not just infidelity. You can divorce your wife for really any reason that you deem worth it.

Some specific examples we can read about in history is he taught you could divorce your wife if she burned your dinner. So you get a charred pop tart, she's gone.

He said if you found a woman who is prettier than her, you could cut her loose. You get the point.

In Jesus' day, there were some who said, no, no, no, we've got to say, what does the scripture, what does the Old Testament say? And others who said, we're just looking for loopholes. We're just looking for ways to do whatever we want to do and satisfy a guilty what we wanted to say.

Can you relate with that at any level? This is exactly the world you and I live in today. We tend to say, yeah, but I know Jesus said that, but that was such a different time.

It's not that different. In Jesus' day, there were religious people who were looking for loopholes. They weren't looking to be godly. They weren't looking to the who do you think most of the leaders sided with?

The guy who said you're in this to life and death until you die or the guy who said you went out of it there's a way out. Who do you think most of the leaders went with?

Same one as our world today. I'll follow the guy who tells what I want to hear. I'll follow the teacher who says what I want him to say.

And so Jesus is in effect saying to them you don't love the law you love loopholes. So the Pharisees came up in order to test him and asked him is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?

Here's the key for today verse three he answered them what did Moses command you? Moses wrote what we call the Pentateuch the first five books of the Old Testament this is Jesus saying to the people asking the questions what does the Bible say?

This is so important they want to argue they want to debate they want a loophole they're trying to test Jesus they're trying to catch him they're trying to get him in!

trouble trying to get him killed here's the answer Jesus gives you need to know what God says brothers and sisters not just in the area of marriage or divorce let me tell you in every area of your life that's what you need to know what does the Bible say right here Jesus is upholding the scripture as the word of God upholding scripture as our standard scripture as our authority Jesus defines the playing field and he says our playing field is the scripture what does the Bible say on and on and on in the gospels Jesus says what have you not read haven't you read the word haven't you read the scripture the most important view about you is your view of

God and the most important thing in any topic is God's view on that topic and so Jesus says to those men what does the Bible say what's the heart of God on this topic if you were to come to me or any of our pastors wanting help or counsel from scripture that's what you're going to hear from us what does the Bible say with whatever your situation there's some things we can encourage you with there's some things we can say to hopefully be a help for you there may be some experience that we've had that we might can draw from to serve you but there is nothing in and of ourselves that is your authority the question is always what does the

Bible say about your marriage what does the Bible say about how to raise kids what does the Bible say about how to handle your money what does the Bible say about what happens after you die what does the Bible say how do you handle conflict and anger what does the Bible say that must be the foundation not just on the topic of divorce on every single topic what does the Bible say and I'll tell you this there are some people who will not come talk to me or will not come talk to our pastors because they know our response is going to be what does the Bible say and sometimes they know what the Bible says and they just don't want to do it and they don't want to come hear us take 10 these men are looking for loopholes in the culture of the day

Jesus takes them to the scripture these men are trying to test Jesus he takes them to the scripture and this is so important because understand in the day in which Jesus speaks this you've got two schools of thought Rabbi Shammai Rabbi Hillel those two schools of thought they rule the day there are some who say you can get divorced for any reason you seem necessary that is the culture and the context of Jesus day and when they ask him can we divorce Jesus does not say what do the teacher say he doesn't say what does the culture say he doesn't say what is the pervasive trend of the day he doesn't even say what do the rabbis say here is his answer what did God say what did Moses say Moses as God's spokesman in fact we know this as we'll look at next week when

Jesus keeps speaking in verse 6 and 7 and 8 you know where he's quoting Genesis Genesis what human author penned Genesis Moses Jesus says go to Genesis know what God says and so before next week we get into the nuances of some of the struggle and the real hard issues which we will tackle head on you just got to understand this our answer as a church is the same answer Jesus gave what does God say and whether you are single or married divorced or not when you leave today all of us I pray will leave with this takeaway that this week in every circumstance in every situation in every temptation let this be your immediate response what does

God say what does God say of how I should speak what does God say of how I should handle my temper what does God say about how I should share the gospel what does God say I should do if I feel anger towards somebody else what does God say about grace and mercy and forgiveness understand Psalm 103 when we confess our sin he removes us and our sin as far as the east is from the west our hope is not in what we've done it's in what Christ has done that's our hope what does God say about grace and mercy and forgiveness and

I'll tell you what Jesus surely didn't say is I don't know how do you feel about it I don't know what do you want to do feelings are not our authority trends are not our authority the advice of our unbelieving friends are not our authority what does God say now I want you to hear me clear as we close this morning being married until you die to one spouse will not send you to heaven you need to know that divorce won't send you to hell the issue is what do you do with

Jesus what do you do with the gospel you can be married to the same woman for 70 years and if you haven't repented of your sin and Jesus Christ is not your Lord and Savior one second after you die judgment nobody gets to heaven because of how long they were married in the same way you may have some decisions you've made in the past that weren't right that affected your spouse that affected your family and those are serious things and if the spirit convicts you ought to repent and take it seriously but fidelity infidelity doesn't send you to heaven and infidelity doesn't send you to hell sin for all of us is the problem and here's the problem you may not have been ever involved in a divorce and your temptation is to put yourself up high and look down on those who have as if you're doing just fine hear me clear those of us who have never been divorced all of us have sinned all of us have fallen short of God's glory and our sin condemns us to hell and our only hope is grace and God's grace is available for those who would call upon his name what does God say well what does God say about how a person gets to heaven we acknowledge our sin we confess the Lord Jesus is God's son who lived a perfect life who went to a cross who took upon himself our sin and God's wrath was poured upon him and those who would believe in the name of Jesus the righteous of Christ is put in your account that's what God says the most important thing about you is what you do with Jesus and as we leave this morning the most important way we can live is to say what does God say that is admittedly and purposefully a very long runway to get into the nuance of this text but you need to know the culture in which this happens you need to know the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees that have happened you need to know why this conflict is happening now in Perea on purpose and you need to know that Jesus' response is go to the scripture and my prayer for this church is that we will always take people right where they are and love them and care for them and we would take broken homes and broken families and broken people and put our arms around them and cry with them and grieve with them and with compassion and grace say to them let's open our Bibles and let's just see what does God say and then walk with them and serve them and encourage them to follow the Lord

Jesus Christ that's what a faithful church does and that's the one question we must always ask what does God say we'll pick it up next week and I hope more than a dozen of you come back I trust you love God's word and those who love God's word long to hear what he says I'll seek to help you and walk you through this even more next week God still God still He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you He'll give you fathers He'll give you He'll give you