Home Ec: What Does God Say About Divorce and Remarriage?
Introduction
1. There are certain sermons that any preacher knows is a no-win sermon. Let me give you an example. Anytime you preach on giving in some ways you are in a no-win sermon, because there are always going to be people who are thinking, "All he wants is my money." Another no-win sermon is on homosexuality, because no matter how gently you say it or how lovingly you put it, some people are going to say, "You are homophobic or you are full of homosexual hatred."
2. Today is one of those no-win sermons. There is probably not a more sensitive topic in today's culture that a pastor will touch than the topic of divorce. Again, no matter how you put it, if you preach biblical truth concerning divorce some will call you judgmental and others will just say you are unrealistic.
3. I want to say at the outset anyone who really knows me knows that I am neither self-righteous, nor judgmental, nor condescending when it comes to those who are divorced.
4. If I were to die today and you were to come to my funeral, four of the men who will be my pallbearers and carry my casket to the grave are divorced and all four of those men are married to women who have also been divorced. Yet, those men are just like my brothers. I love divorced people just as much as I love non-divorced people. I don't see divorced people as second-class citizens inside the church or outside the church. We have divorced people serving in positions of service and leadership in this church.
5. That being said almost forty years ago, Alvin Tofler wrote a best-selling book called, Future Shock and he made this prediction. "Instead of wedding "Until death do us part," couples will enter matrimony knowing from the start that the relationship is short- lived. When the opportunity presents itself, they will marry again… and again… and again."[1]
6. I am sure you know that the United States now has the highest divorce rate in the world. Since 1960 the number of divorces in America has tripled. There are all kinds of figures thrown out about what percent of marriages end in divorce, but it is safe to say that the percentage is probably close to 30-40%, but to get a handle on how staggering that is consider that just a century ago, only 7% of all married couples divorced.[2] Forty-five percent of today's weddings involved at least one divorcee and more than 75% of all marriages are remarriages.[3]
7. Frankly, what is even more discouraging is even Christians are not immune from the curse of divorce. The rate of divorce inside the church is roughly the same as that outside the church. According to a survey conducted by George Barna, two-thirds of Christians saw divorce as a "reasonable solution to a problem marriage" and 45% stated that children alone should not be a reason to try and keep the family intact.[4]
8. I don't believe anyone honestly gets married believing that their love won't last and the marriage won't make it. The truth is a couple is going to end-up on one of three paths.
(1) Those who stick
(2) Those who are stuck
(3) Those who simply stop
9. Almost without fail whenever people come to me with marital problems either looking to get out of the marriage that they are in or into another marriage yet to be performed, they are always looking for that magic loophole. They are always trying to find a way that they can justify either their divorce or their remarriage and keep a clear conscience.
10. That is nothing unusual, because the Pharisees did exactly the same thing a couple of thousand years ago with Jesus. They were always trying to trap Jesus or trip Him up. They came to Him with a question as we read in verse three.
"Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?'" (Matthew 19:3, NASB)
In essence, this was the question they were asking, "Do you believe in no-fault divorce?" In that day there were basically two views of divorce. One view said that you could divorce a woman for any reason whatsoever and that included, literally, burning the biscuits. The other view said that you could divorce a woman for no reason whatsoever other than, maybe, sexual immorality. Obviously implied in the question of divorce is also the question of remarriage.
11. To Jesus' credit He doesn't stammer, stutter, or duck. He leaves no stone unturned and not only answers their question, but probably went beyond the answer they were looking for. In the process He teaches us how God sees marriage, divorce and remarriage.
12. You can basically summarize everything Jesus said in this sentence. Key Take Away: What is made one by God cannot be undone by man. As we think about this whole topic we need to look at it through the eyes of God and get His perspective. When we do here is what will happen -
I. We Must Focus On The Permanence Of Marriage
1. Remember the question that the Pharisees had just asked Jesus, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" Back in 1970, California became the first state to answer that question with a resounding, "Yes." For the first time in American history a fault did not have to be proven by either party in a divorce and so was created the "No-fault divorce." That simply means that today anybody for any reason or no reason can get a divorce if they want to. The question that the Pharisees raised is the question that everybody raises today about divorce.
2. They were simply doing what people do when it comes to this issue - they were looking for loopholes. The problem is they were asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, "How can a marriage be legally broken up?" They should have been asking, "How can a marriage be permanently held together?" In other words, instead of asking, "How can you get out of a marriage?" They should have been asking, "How can you stay in a marriage?"
3. After Jesus finished with them I am sure they wished they had never asked. Listen to this answer.
"And He answered and said, 'Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE', and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED 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 no man separate.'"
(Matthew 19:4-6, NASB)
Jesus goes all the way back to the first two chapters of the Bible for His answer. In case you are wondering, this is the norm, this is God's default position or if you are familiar with computers - this is God's homepage. The bottom line is what God builds is not to be broken. As we have already said, "What is made one by God cannot be undone by man."
4. Jesus makes it very plain that God built marriage with only one door; a front door to go into marriage. There is no backdoor to get out of marriage. What is killing marriage in America is not divorce at the end of the marriage, but the attitude that people have at the beginning of the marriage. Now in the back of the minds of basically every couple who gets married is this thought, "If it doesn't work out we can always get a divorce."
5. God never intended for anyone to go into marriage with that kind of thinking. From the beginning, God wanted a man to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Leaving your parents was to be done openly and publicly. Likewise, in a public ceremony the man was to be joined to the woman and thus become husband and wife.
6. It is important to realize who was doing the joining at this first marriage. It was non-other than God Himself. Men perform ceremonies, but God performs weddings. It was God who married the first man and the woman. It is God who will marry the last man and the woman and it is God who marries every man and woman. In a real sense, every marriage really is made in heaven.
7. Jesus said, "Those two are to become "one" flesh. When God looks at a husband and a wife He doesn't see two people; He sees one.
8. That union is to be permanent, because what God joins together no one is to separate. Now, Jesus gets to the crux of the matter. God is the glue that holds the marriage together. It is God that brings a couple together. It is God that bonds a couple together and it is God that binds a couple together. It is God that builds a couple together. This is key - Marriage in the eyes of God is not a contract that people can break. It is a covenant that only He can break.
9. There is a huge difference between a contract and a covenant. Proverbs 2:17 and Malachi 2:14 refers to marriage as a covenant. That is more than just a difference in words.
10. The word "covenant" comes from the Latin word "convenire" which means "to come together" or "to agree." Today, we use the word, "covenant" almost interchangeably with the word "contract", but there is as much difference between a covenant and a contract as there is between prostitution and marriage.
11. First of all, contracts involve promises. Covenants involve oaths. When you enter into a contract you make a promise to the seller that you will pay a certain amount for a good or a service and in response he makes a promise that he will give you the service or the product in return. The word that you pledge to each other is your name. That is why you "sign" your name to the contract.
12. Covenants are totally different. In a covenant you not only give your word you swear an oath by God Himself.
13. Many of you, like me, have been in court and you had to give testimony. I had to swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God." When you take that oath, whether or not you tell the truth is no longer just between you and the judge or you and jury or you and the plaintiff or you and the defendant. It is between you and God.
14. Why do you think we make doctors, police officers, military personnel and public officials take oaths of office? Because, we literally put our lives in their hands and we want them to swear to God that they will do their jobs. We want them to know that they answer to a higher authority.
15. The second big difference between a contract and a covenant is this - Contracts exchange property. Covenants exchange people.[5] In a contract one person says, "This money is yours and the other person says, "This product is yours". In a covenant one person says, "I am yours and the other person I am yours too!" In a contract you exchange something you have, but in a covenant you exchange who and what you are.
16. I wish marriage was a contract, because one man said, "I figured out how to cure the high divorce rate in this country. Have cell phone companies write the marriage contracts - you will never get out of them!"
17. Here is the point. Because God makes the covenant of marriage, only God can break the covenant of marriage. Marriage is always the work of God. Divorce is always the work of man and only God has the right to separate what God joins together. At this point, because of another question the Pharisees asked, Jesus takes us to the next level of how we need to see divorce and remarriage.
II. We Must Feel The Problem Of Divorce
1. The Pharisees take one make crack looking for one more loophole.
"They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND HER AWAY?'" (Matthew 19:7, NASB)
They really thought they had Jesus, because it is true in the Old Testament divorce was allowed. There were conditions laid down under which a man could divorce his wife.
2. Then Jesus dropped the first of two bombshells. The first one is found in verse
"He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way."
(Matthew 19:8, NASB)
Jesus points out that the root problem of divorce is sin. He says that divorce is a reality of life, because of the hardness of human hearts - that tells us something. Divorce is not primarily a legal matter; it is primarily a spiritual matter.
3. You can mark this down - every time a divorce takes place sin is always lurking in the shadows. It may be the sin of the husband. It may be the sin of the wife or it may be the sin of both, but invariably, incontrovertibly, and inevitably the root of all divorce is sin.
4. Listen again to what Jesus said,
"But it was not what God had originally intended." (Matthew 19:8, NLT)
Divorce was never a part of God's perfect plan for marriage. Marriage is a divine invention. Divorce is a human invention. Marriage was in God's vocabulary from the beginning. Divorce was not.
5. God doesn't leave any doubts as to how He feels about divorce and perhaps the strongest statement in all the Bible - Malachi 2:16 says,
"'For I hate divorce,' says the LORD." (Malachi 2:16, NASB)
I know why God hates divorce, because in a divorce there are no winners. There are only losers. I have never yet seen a divorce where anybody came out a winner - everybody looses. That may be, why after one year of divorce, 60% of divorce men and 73% of divorce women felt they had made a mistake. Divorce even sets off a chain reaction that continues to afflict families for generations. Adult children of divorced parents are four times more likely to get divorced than adult children of couples who don't divorce.[6]
6. There is something that I can say with one-hundred percent confidence and that is divorce is never in the perfect will of God. Since God is the one who performs a marriage, only God is the one that can end the marriage. That is why divorce can break a marriage legally and physically, but not actually and spiritually for this reason: Marriage belongs to God. That is why Jesus drops the second bombshell which reminds us -
III. We Must Face The Penalty Of Failure
1. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9, NASB)
Let me say this slowly so everybody hears it. Jesus said if you divorce for any reason other than sexual immorality on the part of your spouse and you remarry you commit adultery. The word for "adultery" is the Greek word "porneia" which gives us the word "pornography" and it refers basically to any type of sexual act outside of marriage whether it be adultery or homosexuality.
2. I understand there is a lot of debate over what constitutes a legal ground for divorce and whether or not remarriage is permitted. Jesus makes one thing as plain as John 3:16 and John MacArthur puts it best, "Divorce that does not result from adultery results in adultery if there is remarriage."[7]
3. As painful as it is, throw any reason you want to up on the wall - it won't stick. Incompatibility, mental cruelty, physical abuse, alcoholism, drugs, poor money management, gambling, or too much football are not grounds for divorce.
4. That is not to say there are not grounds for separation. Many times in my ministry I have counseled in bad situations that a legal separation take place, but I never have and never will counsel divorce.
5. Believe me, as a pastor I have seen and heard every excuse in the book. As I have studied the Bible, the only other potential reason for divorce is found in I Corinthians 7 where the Apostle Paul says that if two non-christians marry and one later becomes a Christian and the non-christian no longer wants to be married to the Christian, the Christian is not obligated to hold the marriage together and my understanding is free to remarry. You might say there are two potential reasons why someone can divorce and remarry -
(1) Adultery
(2) Abandonment
I don't think I've ever come across the abandonment reason in my ministry, so that really boils it down to one.
6. I know you are saying right know, "That is so strict it is simply unrealistic." Guess what? That is exactly what the disciples said.
"The disciples said to Him, "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry."
(Matthew 19:10, NASB)
They certainly understood what Jesus said, because notice His response to them.
"But He said to them, 'Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.'" (Matthew 19:11-12, NASB)
7. Let me ask you a question. How many Christians, (forget non-christians) do you think would get married if they knew going in there was absolutely no way out other than adultery? If they knew, that even if there was adultery, only the innocent party could remarry?
8. How many people do you think would get married if they knew that marriage was a life sentence without the possibility of parole? How many people would get married if they really knew there was absolutely no way out?
9. I can assure you there would have been a whole lot fewer people who got married last night that would have gotten married. Marriage is not a game you play; it is a covenant you keep and it is for keeps.
10. If you have been divorced or you currently are divorced, I want you to listen to everything else I've got to say - not only with an open ear, but with an open heart. There are several questions going through your mind right now and I am going to answer them. First of all, if you realize that you divorced for a non-biblical reason and you remarried, it doesn't mean that you are living in adultery right now. You committed adultery, the moment you got married, but you are not living in adultery.
11. Furthermore, it doesn't mean that God cannot bless your current marriage. In fact, He wants to bless your current marriage and you shouldn't think about trying to get out of this marriage. If anyone can make lemonade out of lemons, God can do it.
12. The question is: Is divorce a sin? The answer is: It is to someone, because sin is always involved someway, somehow.
13. Many of you who are divorced right now, but not remarried are asking the question, "Can I remarry?" The answer to that is it all depends. May I be very painfully honest? The vast majority of you cannot, because you are still married to the person from whom you divorced, because you divorced for an unbiblical reason. However, if you truly are the "innocent party" in an adulterous situation then you are free to remarry.
14. Let's suppose that you are divorced and you realize you committed a sin, both by the divorce and by committing adultery with a remarriage. What do you do? The good news for you is divorce (even un-biblical) and remarriage (even-unbiblical) is not an unpardonable sin. It is a sin, but it is imminently forgivable. If the truth be told, there are a lot of divorce people in church who suffer under a silent cloud of guilt everyday of their life for the very reason that they are divorced and did remarry knowing deep in their hearts this was not God's will for them. For a lot of you today, you will be glad that you came, because I am going to get you out from under that cloud of guilt permanently.
15. If you would like to really wipe your slate clean, put your divorce in the rear-view mirror, just simply do three things: (Put in OOS)
(1) Admit your sin
Just tell God right now I know I sinned when I got a divorce. I know it was unbiblical. I know it was wrong and I know it was wrong to remarry after that divorce and I admit it.
(2) Ask for forgiveness
Just simply right now ask the Lord to forgive you and He has already promised that He will.
(3) Accept His grace
The Bible is so clear that where sin abounds grace abounds even more.
16. To those of us who are married, but maybe it is a troubled marriage and maybe you are thinking divorce. Maybe you are contemplating taking the knife and cutting everything in half. This would be my advice to you. Whenever a captain was heading into battle, where surrender was not even to be contemplated he would order that the "colors" be nailed to the mast. Having the flags nailed up high there was no possibility of lowering them in the heat of the battle in order to raise a flag of surrender. When you go into battle knowing surrender is not an option,then your only motivation is to fix your mind on how you can best win that battle.
I encourage you to nail the flag of your marriage to the post of God's will for your life and always keep your mind focused, not on how you can get out of your marriage, but how you can hold your marriage together, because that is what brings glory and honor to God.
endnotes
[1] Cited by Angela Elwell Hunt, Shattered Generations: The Long Range Effects Of Divorce, Fundamentalist Journal, June 1985, p. 31
[2] Michael J. McManus, Marry Savers: Helping Your Friends and Family Stay Married (Grand Rapids, MI: Zonervan, 1993) p. 28
[3] William D. Watkins, The New Absolutes (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1996) p 93
[4] George Barna and Williams Paul McKay, Vital Signs: Emerging Social Trends in the Future of American Christianity (Westchester, IL, Crossway, 1984) p. 30
[5] www.Salvationhistory.com/online/intermediate/classone
[6] Policy Review, Summer 1995
[7] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Matthew 16-23 (Chicago:Moody Press, 1988), p. 171