Mark 10:1-12, part 2

It was because of your hearts are hard that Moses wrote to you. This law, Jesus replied, but at the beginning of creation, God made them male, male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be United to his wife and they too will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate. When they were in the house.

Again, the disciples asked Jesus about this and he answered anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman, commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

Yeah, I don't know where he stood with the Lord, but he was right on here when he said that it is foolish and wrong to mourn the the men who died rather. Thank God that such man and I would add women lived and that's really what we thank God for that he and his providence raised up generations at each of the wars that came along to serve our country. Even to the ultimate sacrifice of their life and give their life for the protection of the freedoms that we now enjoy.

But it's not a memorial day sermon. We are working through the gospel of mark. We started in mark chapter 10 last week, these first 12 verses dealing with marriage and divorce. Such a difficult topic, such a challenging emotionally loaded topic that I, there was no way I could've done it all in one week. There's really no way you can do it in two weeks, but uh, we're going to give it this last week.

And, um, I understand that of all the things that we talk about in scripture, this hits so close to for so many of us, whether we are directly involved in divorce or have been divorced or indirectly involved in divorce. So again, we need the Holy Spirit to guide us through his word. And I would ask that you just pause with me and join with me as I pray for that. Father, I, I, um, I prayed the memory verse that you have me working on right now personally.

Collagen's one nine, that you would fill us with the knowledge of it, your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding through all the, the, the wisdom and understanding that your holy spirit gifts. Lord, we need to know what your will is about marriage and divorce because we live in a time and we live in families that are, are impacted by divorce. So we need to know what it is that you will and Lori to do that we need spiritual understanding.

We need the ability to first of all know what your words says, how to put that all together and then we need spiritual wisdom. We need that discernment for how does it apply and the difficult, complicated cases of our lives. Only you can do that. Lord, I pray that you administer even this morning to those who are hurting about this topic. And in some way, uh, even beyond any of my abilities, you would, you would give them hope and you would give them encouragement by your word and by the Gospel.

I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I said this last week, but I want to say it again. If this is a sensitive topic to to you, I want you to keep in mind who Jesus is speaking to in our text today and who is not speaking to. He is not speaking to people who've been wounded by divorce, all right? He's not speaking here to people who've experienced the painful effects of divorce. I do believe elsewhere in scripture, he does speak to those people.

If you want to write these down and look up at later, look at how he speaks to the woman in John Chapter four and the other woman in John Chapter Eight to women, I think, who were impacted by divorce. He speaks truth to them, but he speaks truth and grace and he offers them forgiveness and he offers them a relationship with him in a way that is healing and that is transforming.

This is a very different context here, so don't take his harsh words, his words to you directly if you are hurting or been hurt by divorce. He is speaking here to a group of farracies who we saw last week. They're trying to trap him. They're trying to put him in a position where he would politically be in danger, where he would even fall out of favor of the crowds.

And so even as we look at this text, we need to remember this is not the only part of the Bible that speaks to divorce and we need what's called the whole counsel of God. We need to look at all the scripture together, Old Testament and New Testament as it speaks about divorce. And even as we look at this particular passage, we need to let scripture interpret scripture.

We need to understand what it is that he's referring to here that points us back to the old testament that points us forward to other places in the New Testament. So let me just briefly recap from last week. We saw last week, these pharisees, they're focusing on the wrong question when they challenge him on divorce. And frankly that's many people today. Maybe that's some of you that that you know really they have the wrong question in view when they're asking, you know, how do you divorce?

That was consistent really with their bent and that culture. Probably the Pharisees led people in divorces. Divorce was at that point in the history of the nation of Israel. For a man, it was very easy to get, but Jesus wanted to look at a, the real question they should be asking, which points back to what did God design? What did God intend from the very beginning? So he takes them back and verse six from the beginning of creation, he takes them back before the fall.

He takes them back before men and women rebelled against God's will. He takes them back to when everything was perfect, where you see God's design and in all of the world, including in marriage, and that's the question that Jesus wants us to ask today is we wrestle with, with marriage and divorce. What is God's perfect design here? What is the design? What is the purpose that God intended? He tells us in verse six part of that design, God made them male and female.

He is quoting genesis one 27 there, God created mankind or humanity, human beings in his God's own image, in his image, male and female. God created them. So again, how did God originally designed humanity? He created human beings to be in his image, but he didn't create that, that image, that human image to be exclusively male or exclusively female. Really in a very simple way. Both of those make up one half of the image of God. So He created male and female.

These two distinct genders that in the coming together you see as much as we can see it on this side of heaven, you see the fullness of the image of God. So right in his design, that marriage we'd between be between one man and one woman. We see his design, his purpose. One man, one woman coming together in marriage gives us a picture, however dim of the image of God. Jesus also quotes Genesis two 24, uh, also another text that that God spoke before the fall and before sin entered the world.

Jesus quotes that in verses seven and eight. And what's he doing here? He's teaching that that marriage is designed to be the joining or the cleaving together of that one man and that one woman into one flesh. That's the design a man in a woman join. They're two distinct unique personalities. They don't become, they don't lose their personhood or their individuality, but they join those two distinct personalities together into one interdependent union. Uh, a team, a partnership.

They come together even in there. There are, they sacrifice their independence, but they come together interdependently to come to really in harmony function together. And in that, there that coming together, there is that one flushness which certainly has the sexual connotation. They, they literally become one flesh. But that simply is a picture of the two parts of the image of God coming together, reuniting together, uh, to give us a full picture of the image of God. That's the design.

That's the intention. And let me say, I will be the first one to admit my own marriage falls far short of living up to that design and that image. In fact, when I think of my marital experience, which I think is probably all your marital experience, if you are honest, it's it. The book title from Dave Harvey seems to fit when sinners say I do. Yeah. That's what happens at a wedding ceremony. The the two people who come together to say I do to each other there.

There are two centers coming together. Even if they're Christians, they're, they're, they're still saved centers. They're still centers where the flesh, Galatians five tells us this is at war with the spirit. And so when two people, a man and a woman come together and marriage, they bring their flushness, they bring their baggage, they bring their wounding together and no wonder that marriage is such a challenge, but the Gospel speaks even to to center saying, I do.

The Gospel says that is that man and that woman embraced Jesus and seek to follow him. He works by his Holy Spirit through even their challenges and their difficulties and their disappointments to form the image of Christ in them to merge their lives together in Christ. So going on from there, from quoting those, those genesis, those pre-fall scriptures, Jesus goes on in his own in verse nine to point out, maybe this is obvious, but he points it out.

The design of marriage is not to see it, and, and that's what he means in verse nine therefore what God has joined together, man, human beings must not separate whether or not it was a Christian marriage. When you entered into your marriage or not, God's design is it not be separated? I mean, let me just be very plain and very direct. Maybe you entered into your marriage before you knew Christ before you were following Christ. Maybe it gets worse than that.

Maybe you entered your marriage, you know, meeting your spouse in a drunken stupor at a bar, you know, or something like that where you can think, think of the worst circumstances that you can think of for a man and a woman coming together and marriage. Guess what? Still under the truth of God's Providence. He brought the two of you together and it is his will, what he has joined together. It is his will that that stays together.

So Jesus is saying here that that no man, no human being, no man or woman should think that they have the right to break apart what God has joined together and that's the design. That's the ideal. That is a, that's how God purposed it to be and and really we see here in verse nine Jesus is affirming that design as strongly as possible, but I need to go on and say this wild. Jesus upholds that design while he upholds and affirms the sacredness of marriage.

He does not deny that it is possible to break that marital bond and that's really where I want to go with the remaining time. This morning I'm going to be focusing on what Jesus says and what the rest of scripture says about how the bond of marriage can be broken. This is not a lesson and all the ways you can get out of your marriage. This is simply to acknowledge that while God's perfect design is that we stay together and marriage forever. God understands that was cin coming into the world.

Uh, we get put in situations where that becomes difficult if not impossible, and God has given concessions in those kinds of situations, which we're going to look at, which speak to, to, to people who are stuck in those kinds of situations. This is certainly what the Pharisees wanted to know when they came to Jesus. This is maybe what you want to know. So I have some clarity on we see the Pharisees asked this question, really getting down to this is what they want to know.

And mark 10 verse two and the parallel passage in Matthew 19 verse three when they say putting the two together, is it lawful for a man to his wife for any cause? Now that phrase for any cause is important for any cause has particular meaning in that Jewish culture at that time for any cause would be another way of saying without any grounds. Really what they're asking is, is there no fault divorce you, Jesus.

Do you believe that a man, if he's unhappy in his marriage, that he doesn't need to stay at any grounds, that he can simply divorce his wife and they're asking because they're pretty invested. That that is the case. Like I mentioned earlier, the Pharisees really led in divorces and easy divorces and a man in that culture, not a woman, but a man could easily divorce his wife simply by tiring of her and giving her a certificate of divorce.

That's where, that's not the Old Testament, but that's worth things had progressed to this point in the history of the Jewish nation when Jesus is speaking here. So as we saw last Sunday, this, this, any cause divorce, this groundless, no fault divorced, uh, it was, uh, it was based on how they, they kind of twisted one particular passage of scripture. It's the one that alluded to in mark 10 here, Deuteronomy 24 and particularly verse one, it's up on the screen.

If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he has found some indecency her in her. He made divorce her. He may give her a certificate of divorce. The majority of the rabbis took the first part of that phrase. If he becomes displeasing to her, if I, if I become displeased with my wife, they would say, I can be done with her if she no longer looks attractive to me.

If she speaks back to my mother, if she is disrespectful to me, if she burns the food, if she, uh, she spends too much of my money, I can, I can say without any other grounds that any real grounds the marriage is over and the woman had no recourse in that. However, there were other rabbis, probably a minority of rabbis who said, well, wait, wait a minute. You need to read that phrase and it's full context. What is the very next words go on to say it is not because she becomes displeasing to him.

It's because she becomes displeasing to him because he has found some indecency in her and that, that phrase, some indecency. It's, it's hard to get a handle on because it doesn't really appear very much in scripture, but it has a sexual connotation. It may well have included adultery, but it goes far wider than adultery. I think we could say it is any form of sexual immorality that violates the marriage so it is any form of of sexual unfaithfulness.

That is what the more conservative group of rabbis had to say and Jesus and answering the Pharisees as we saw last week. He clearly condemns them. The majority group, he clearly condemns any cause divorce, no grounds divorce, no fault divorce. In fact, he would say that divorce without any grounds leads to the sin of adultery in the eyes of God. If the man divorcing his wife without any grounds goes on and remarries.

That's what we see again in the companion passage, Matthew 19 nine I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits, adultery, you might've picked up that exception phrase there. That's again what Jesus is focusing on here except for sexual immorality. Jesus is reinforcing here what the conservative rabbis, the position that they took that a, even though God's design for marriage is that it'd be permanent.

There is a concession God makes when your spouse is sexually unfaithful to you. And because he uses this words of this sexual immorality that is not specific to adultery, that is wider, that is any kind of sexual conduct that violates the marriage. I don't have time to go into that today, but when we think about the applications in our culture and our life, we, we think about that all the ways that a person can be sexually unfaithful.

Jesus seems to be saying, you know, God makes a concession and those kinds of cases. So while God's design for marriage, was that marriage be permanent, he does provide the concession for divorce in cases of sexual unfaithfulness. Is that the only grounds? Is that the only grounds for divorce? Many would say so many would say so pointing here to mark chapter 10 or Matthew 19 because they would say that's all that God that Jesus seems to address his sexual unfaithfulness.

But remember the context. Jesus is speaking to a very specific challenge. He is not trying to give a wide teaching on divorce and so we need to look further than that. We need to see even what Jesus, how Jesus views the Old Testament law, what the Old Testament had to say about divorce because what do we know about Jesus in the law?

We know from the sermon on the mount, Matthew five 17 that Jesus and viewing God's law in the Old Testament said, I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Now, some of it he completely fulfilled at the cross. All the ceremonial law and the sacrifices he completed, those those are done at the cross.

Those pointed to the way he would save us from sin, but God's moral law, the 10 commandments and in and all the old testament law that flows out of the 10 Commandments, what we call God's moral law. Jesus didn't abolish that. Jesus in fact says, if you follow me, you'll live that out. You'll live that out. Actually, the deepest intentions of those, that's what the sermon on the mount is all about.

Jesus expounding what it really means to live out the 10 commandments and the rest of the law and so he doesn't abolish the law. He doesn't want us to put away the law, the law as it speaks to marriage and divorce in the old testament. He wants us to look at that. He wants us to live that out. How do we do that? How do we think about Old Testament law when we think about all of the law in the Old Testament, maybe this distinction will be helpful to you. That has been helpful to me.

I see the distinction between the details of the law and the principles of the law, the details of the law or how the the 10 commandments applied in the specific situation of the nation of Israel living in the first century. The principles of the law are the timeless truths that come out of the law, the way that the 10 commandments and the rest of the law applies in every culture and in every time. So what are the principles?

What are the universal timeless principles that we see in the Old Testament of God's law for marriage? I think we see a glimpse of that in how the vows were exchanged in Jewish marriages. I think there's a, there's a living picture of that and I think you'll see the relevance even into how we enter into marriage today. If you are Jewish man or Jewish woman coming into marriage at your wedding ceremony, you gave vows, you spoke vows and in those vows you promise three things. You promise.

First of all, to materially support your spouse. If you are a man that meant at that culture that you would provide food, you would provide clothing or the money to do so and you would provide shelter for your wife. If you are a woman in that culture that meant that you would, you would prepare the meals with that food you amend or make the clothes you would, you would keep the home, you would care for the children that you raised in the home.

You would materially support each other, but they also vow to love each other and don't read into that. Some of our, our modern subjective views of love by love, they meant that you would, you would give your husband, your wife, emotional affection and, and sexual affection. That that was part of what it meant to love each other and they also promised to be faithful to each other.

They promise to forego all forms of sexual immorality and be sexually faithful to each other and those of you who are married, if you think about the vows that you made when you were at the front of that church in front of your family and friends you said, or something very close to this, I promise to love and honor and cherish my wife, my husband. That's where this came from.

It came from these vows, love, honor and cherish are these vows of material support and emotional support, emotional affection and being sexually faithful. Well, the Old Testament law recognize these principles be underlying these vows and the old testament laws. It spoke to marriage sought to undergird them to even make sure that these principles would be lived out and there are many places in the Old Testament. I'm just going to point to one today.

Exodus 21 exodus chapter 21 is a situation where the law was accent was addressing sin that was happening in marriages and the the situation is this, this and address situations where a woman was married to a man and a without divorcing her. He took another wife. He was committing polygamy by exodus 21 speaking to a situation of polygamy. It's no way endorsing polygamy. It is.

It is God saying this wickedness happens and when it does, it is particularly difficult and painful and punitive to the wife. And so I'm going to regulate it. I'm going to give laws for how they should live in situations where a man has taken a second or third wife. Let me just read verses 10 and 11 if he marries, if the husband marries another woman, he must not deprive the first wife of her food, clothing and marital rights.

And if he does not provide her with these three things, she is free to go without the payment of money. Well, here we see the law addressing those three vows to provide material, support, food and clothing to provide emotional support and affection. These marital rights conjugal rights, and to be sexually faithful. We see, first of all, we see the vow of material support.

So the law here is saying that if a husband denies his first wife the food and clothing that she needs to survive, he'd be viewed under the law as having broken his vow to her and having broken his vow. She has the right if she wants it to leave, she has the right to divorce and divorcing him without any payment of money. She doesn't have to sacrifice the bride price that her father had to pay or put on deposit when she entered the marriage.

This law also addresses the vow of physical affection if this man and taking a second wife, if you refuse, with his first wife to bear children with her, if he denied her sexual rights, if he denied her emotional affection, he could be viewed under the law again as breaking his vow to her. And that provided her if she wanted it, that provided her the ability to leave the marriage to divorce him. So just bringing this all together very quickly.

Under the Old Testament law, there were three grounds for divorce. The neglect of material support, that food and clothing and shelter and protection, the neglect of physical affection, of conjugal rights, of emotional affection and the and sexual unfaithfulness. The the, the Old Testament speaks to these. Jesus did not abrogate these. He did not erase these. Now you may ask, you know, what about what about abuse? Does the law speak to abuse?

Well, when you think about abuse, really these same principles apply physical abuse. If a man beats his wife or a woman beats her husband, what is that? Physical abuse is an extreme form of material and neglect. Rather than providing what each other needs and protecting each other, they're doing the reverse of that. Think of emotional abuse, emotional abuse as an extreme form of neglect, of affection, rather doing than doing what they vowed. They're doing the exact opposite of what they vowed.

Sexual Abuse. Sexual abuse is an extreme form of sexual unfaithfulness when they vow to be sexually faithful and now they are twisting that and in in ways, I can't even speak here, they are doing 180 degrees of what they vowed. So even abuse falls under these grounds under God's moral law, which Jesus upholds, which Jesus actually, if anything adds to and gives added meaning to looking at even the motives of our heart under God's moral law. These are grounds for divorce. Why?

Because they break those marital vows and that's the way I believe that we should look at the difficult situations that we look at. What were the vous? How were the vows broken? Can there be repair of those? That leads to my next question. We need to ask where these grounds exist. One or more of these grounds exist in a marriage. Is divorce the only answer?

In other words, if your husband or your wife has violated one of these valves are more than one of these valves is divorced, commanded in these cases, and we have to come back to what Jesus said in Mark Ten five and Matthew 19 eight Moses permitted you to divorce. He didn't command you to divorce in the situation. God made a concession. So it is permitted, it is calm, it is not commanded. And here's the key phrase, the permitted you to divorce because of the hardness of heart.

Let me illustrate that. Let me illustrate that with breaking the vow of sexual faithfulness as a pastor, I have walked through a number of situations who are couples where one or the other spouse's has been sexually unfaithful in the marriage. And there've been some of those situations where the unfaithful partner has become broken by their sin and and being broken by their sin.

They have asked forgiveness and they have demonstrated repentance, not just at the moment, but ongoing, living out a life of repentance and the wounded spouse seeing that genuine contrition, seeing that that repentance demonstrated over time has been willing to forgive. And stay in the marriage and it takes time. Sometimes it takes years, but I've seen marriages like that become reconciled, but I've seen the opposite as well.

I've seen marriages where one has been sexually unfaithful and there's what Jesus calls here, the hardness of heart or the sexually unfaithful spouse says to his, his or her spouse, I don't care what you think. I'm going to keep doing this. I'm going to keep pursuing that person. I'm going to keep pursuing this kind of sexual fulfillment and you, you can't tell me what to do. No Pastor, no elder, no church can tell me what to do.

That represents the very opposite of repentance and contrition that represents what Jesus calls here a hardness of heart, and that really is what I think determines whether the breaking of any of these marriage vows will lead to reconciliation or divorce is their repentance because then there can be forgiveness and then there can be reconciliation or is their hardness of heart and persistent hardness of heart opens up the concession for divorce will.

Finally today I want to, I want to conclude with how the Apostle Paul takes these teachings of Jesus and he applies them to us. He applies them to Christians living in a no fault divorce culture. That's, that's uh, certainly what we live in. You don't need to have any grounds for divorce. You can divorce for irreconcilable differences are because you fallen out of love or whatever it is that you may want to say. That's the culture we live in.

And that was the culture that Paul was writing to in First Corinthian seven core into was under Roman law were divorced, was easy and if you are a man and, and uh, you wanted to divorce your wife calls, you had to tell her is pack your stuff, get out of the house. We're done. If you're a woman and you wanted to divorce your husband, all she had to do was was say a, I'm leaving, I'm packing. I am gone. And divorce under Roman law was that easy.

There was no legal need to stay any grounds for divorce. Sounds much like our situation today. The Apostle Paul, taking these teachings of Jesus speaks to followers of Jesus. He speaks to not just those in Corinth, but he speaks to you and me. How do you live in a no fault divorce culture? I can't do the whole passage, but very briefly. Let me give you three principles. One comes out of what he says to the, to the wife and the husband and verses 10 and 11 to the wife.

Verse 10 the wife should not leave her husband. Women, if you have no grounds, if there are no biblical grounds like we have just covered. Paul is saying, Jesus is saying, don't leave your husband. He says in verse 11 the husband should not send his wife away and he's indicating there than in that culture.

Usually it was the husband who owned the house and so it's a kicking her out of the house and he's saying, husband, if there are no grounds and you claim to follow Jesus, do not put your wife out. Do not send her away. And here's the principle that I would say that applies then and now do not initiate a groundless divorce. You've heard these grounds, this neglect material and neglect, this emotional, physical neglect and sexual unfaithfulness. Anything beyond that?

I don't care what nice legal term like irreconcilable differences we put on that Paul would say, do not initiate it. Do not initiate a divorce if there is a no grounds except in cases of hardhearted breaking of the marriage vows. Divorce is not an option for Christians. That's what Paul is saying here, but then he speaks to Christians made maybe some of you, I don't know. He speaks to Christians who've done that.

You've speaks to Christians who have walked out on their husband or wife without any biblical grounds and he says in verse 11 but if she does leave, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and I think the principal is, is if you find yourself as a believer in then one of those situations and there are no grounds and yet you've already stepped over that threshold. If you're separated, seek to be reconciled. Don't enter into another marriage.

If you enter into another marriage and other relationship, if, if, if your spouse, who you have left enters into another relationship, that door of reconciliation closes. But he says, if you find yourself in that situation, secret pentance seek reconciliation, seek the reconciliation of the marriage. And then finally he speaks to what if you are the spouse who's been left? What if you are of the spouse who your spouse has hard heartedly rejected you and it's rejecting reconciliation?

He speaks to that in verse 15 but if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so in such cases the brother or sister is not bound. In such cases, God has called you to peace. What is he saying there? He's saying what? Jesus recognizes that if you are the victim of a groundless divorce, most often you have nothing you can do to affect that. You can't change that person's heart. I can't change that person's heart. Only God can change that part of that person's heart.

And he's saying if there is that hardheartedness, you're not punished. You're not somehow now you have this mark upon you, you're not denied. The right to remarry. The principle is this, if you are divorced against your will, you're free to remain single, but you're also free to remarry. That is certainly not God's design, but God in His grace in this fallen world, recognizes that sin impacts a sin, wounds us and he makes this concession.

Let me just close very briefly with this in some ways I know I may have stirred up for some of you more questions than even you had at the beginning. And I would invite you, seek me out confidentially or one of our pastors or someone in our counseling department. Uh, it would be our privilege to wrestle through how these principles apply to the specifics of your situation, your challenging situation. And that's what we're here for. And that's what we want to do.

We want to help you follow the Gospel, follow Jesus even through these difficult, painful situations in your life. And then let me close with this. We can't stop looking at divorce without remembering the bigger context. Mark 10 Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He knows he's going to the cross. He knows he's only got days left with his disciples and what does he want them to see that you, you follow me. If you really are a follower of me, you give me everything.

You give me your lives, you give me your marriage, you give me your singleness, you give me your widowhood, all of that you sacrifice. You give to me as a follower of man, Jesus calls us to the same wherever you are and your marriage or in a divorce state or your singleness. Jesus says submitted to me, submitted to me. It's part of what it means to follow me and I will lead you through. I will give you the grace. I will lead you through. Let's pray.

Father, what a challenging, challenging topic because of the realities of our lives in this fallen world. We really are. As we come into marriage where two sinners just saying I do and all that sin and all the past and all the baggage and all the wounding Lord makes marriage that is supposed to be a picture of the image of you challenging and hard sometimes. So we need you, Lord, not only to forgive us for our sin, we need you to empower us. We need your spirit to live through us.

We need you to work out the Gospel in the midst of our marriages. We need you to work out the gospel even if we've really blown our marriages and our new relationships, Lord, in our singleness, we need the gospel. You need you to work out the gospel in our lives. Do this Lord, so that we are faithful followers of you. Do this Lord, so that beauty would rise out of the ashes and that you would be lifted up and glorified. We pray this Jesus in your name. Amen.