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Mark 10:1-11

• Divorce
• There is not a subject within Christianity that is more important and more divisive than this
• Before we start- we must agree- the Bible says what it says and we must allow it to speak what it speaks. My parents got divorced when I was 3. I hated divorce. Yes God has used it in my life, but that wasn’t his original design. His design was for my mom and dad to stay together.
• 40 years later, there is still sting. Its not my fault, but many of my emotional problems can be traced to the divorce of my parents and the abandonment of my father.
• Story of Crystal and I and our kids. God can redeem. It wasn’t God’s design, but he turns all things to Good. My experience doesn’t trump the Word of God. It doesn’t justify. It doesn’t validate.
• There is not a person in this room who hasn’t been affected by divorce in some way or fashion

• Either through your parents, yourself, or a friend that you have that has gone through it.
• As Christians, we have been fighting a moral war over marriage in the past few decades regarding gay marriage, and one argument that comes up is that Christians don’t eve respect marriage, so they have no moral standing to speak against gay marriage
• There Is a certain truth to that, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t live by God’s holy standard for marriage within our own lives and let the Bible speak what it speaks.
• You may have been divorced, or dealt with divorce, but this is why we go through the Bible. Allow yourself to be influenced by the scriptures today. Allow God’s word to reign supreme
• Groups we will talk about today:
• People who have been divorced God can forgive you. People who have remarried after divorce God can forgive you. People who are considering divorce if there is ANY other way- DON’T GET DIVORCDD People who are married DON’T GET DIVORCED People who are going to get married CHOOSE CORRECTLY- Find someone who hates divorce

• Different mindsets that people are going to have today

1. Was I wrong to get divorced- Maybe you were, but God can forgive you of it.
2. Can I get divorced- Maybe you can, but God doesn’t command it. God wants reconciliation

• READ Mark 10:1-10

Lets start by Talking about this scripture in Mark 10

1. Divorce was happening 3000 years ago

• Its interesting that the Pharisees came to Jesus and asked him about his views of Divorce. There must have been some sort of struggle within them, to want to hear what he said on the subject
• People were getting divorced back then.For whatever reason. Marriage is HARD- I’ve wanted out
• What was happening during this time was that they Pharisees were no longer allowing Scripture to influence their decision making- they were doing what the Rabbis of the time were telling them to do. Even today, people are getting divorced based on counselors and friends
• There was this famous Jewish Rabbi during the first Century named Hillel and many of the Pharisees followed his teachings, not the scriptures
• Hillel would allow divorce for any reason based on his interpretation of Deuteronomy 24
• READ Deuteronomy 24:1-4

• What is interesting about that verse is 24:1 isn’t a COMMAND it says “and it happens that” Moses never commanded divorce, he merely lays out what should happen “if it happens that” how it should be dealt with.
• If your hardened heart brings you to a point of divorce, and you divorce your wife, you can’t have her back is what Moses said
• This scripture is more about protecting the wife, than giving the man justification for divorce.
• If a man is dumb enough to divorce his wife, he can’t abuse her by welcoming her back after the fact. There’s no swinging door in this thing. It may happen, but there’s parameters
• Think about this- We don’t see a lot of divorce in the OT. Not over money, family, sex, jobs

• Adam blames God and Eve for his sin and takes no responsibility, but they work it out.
• Abraham: The father of our faith, 2 times passes his wife off as his sister and lets other men sleep with his wife. He sleeps with his slave to make a baby instead of trusting God. But work it out.
• Solomon- Probably the worst husband in the whole OT. 700 wifes and 300 conc. But no divorce
• The OT is full of stories of Bible characters who were horrible people, but they still stayed married to their spouse. Divorce wasn’t the norm for people in the Bible. They worked it out
• This was Moses standard for Divorce- If a man finds uncleaness in his wife, and divorces her, and she goes and marries another man, and gets divorced again, the original man can’t marry her again
• Hillel turned uncleanness into anything that he thought was unclean and divorce became rampant
• Whats really happening: Pharisees and modern day Christians were looking for loopholes to justify their desire to divorce. Trying to find whatever reasons they could to divorce.
• “fell out of love” “can’t get along” “drifted apart” “Incompatible” “Bored” Truth? Neglect

1. God’s heart towards Divorce

• Malachi 2:16 “For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one’s garment with violence,” Says the Lord of hosts. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously.”
• God hates divorce. Its not in his spirit and its not in his design. In any shape GOD HATES IT
• God’s design for Marriage has been, since the beginning of Time, one man, and one woman married for life. That’s the standard. Anything else is a deviation from the norm
• Here’s where God shows his heart in Jeremiah 3:6-14
• God symbolically talks about how he had divorced Israel, but because Israel was his wife, he begs her to return to her.
• His heart was that he wanted to forgive Israel and have Israel Repent and they would be back in relationship he never wanted to divorce her
• This is the heart of God and this shows what his intent and possibilities are with those who have his heart. To forgive always. To return always. To love always. To reconcile always.
• Love, forgiveness and repentance. That is the heart of God.

• Misunderstood scriptures
• Matthew 5:31-32 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.
• The truest explanation of this verse with the “exception clause” of Biblical divorce is that if a man divorces a wife without justification, he is immoral, and if anyone marries the immorally divorced wife, he also commits adultery
• Its not that a divorced person is unable to be remarried, it is that if you are going to get divorced, you better understand that you will be held accountable by whatever standards that you are divorced under either biblical or unbiblical. God does not turn a blind eye to divorce.

• Willy-nilly divorces are not acceptable within God’s eyes. Divorces of convenience
• God allows divorce when there has been adultery committed within the relationship, but he doesn’t COMMAND it. He ALLOWS it, but we see that even though Israel committed Adultery, God did not divorce her. (Friend who waited for 3 years for wife to come back…painful)
• Here’s the main issue- We have been forgiven, we should be forgiving other people
• Ephesians 4:32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you
• 2 Corinthians 5:18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
• Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
• Here’s the main issue- if you’re a Christian, you shouldn’t see divorce as an option, you should see divorce as a horrible end to a beautiful intent that God had. Reluctantly painful.

• READ 1 Cor 7:10-16
• What do we get from this? If a wife leaves (for unbiblical reasons implied) she must remain unmarried, or be reconciled
• Apparently God says the best idea is to be reconciled, but for whatever reason you want to leave- you can’t go and get remarried, you have to stay single
• A man is not to divorce his wife. But paul makes the “I am saying this not the Lord” Don’t divorce if your have a unbelieving spouse. You could, but you may be missing the opportunity for your spouse to get saved and your kids to not go to Hell.
• Again, an exception to staying married, but God’s design is always for people to stay married. He wants people to be saved and live together.
• What about abuse? What about emotional adultery? What about Laziness, annoyance, drug addiction, video game addiction, pornography, incarceration,
• I think all of these fall under the precept of “unbelieving spouse” a Christian can choose to endure under these conditions and glorify God in it. People will say things like “Can I divorce” or “does God want me to divorce”

• I can’t read about Paul being flogged in the jails of the early Mediterranean and in the same vein say to you “you don’t have to suffer through anything in this life”
• I’m not saying you are SUPPOSED to Suffer, I’m merely saying that suffering itself isn’t justification for divorce. Talk to a single person about suffering with no one ever.
• Mistake of recommending divorce with G now they have great marriage
• I would question an abusive addiction laden unrepentive person if they are truly saved, because if you are doing those things, are you really saved? And are you required to stay? No, but you better know without a doubt that you are operating biblically.
• The answer for a broken relationship is repentance and restoration and that’s a decision that you and God need to come to..
• I’ve seen redemption and restoration and I’ve seen dissolution. But when the dissolution happened, it wasn’t a celebration. It wasn’t a “I’ve been set free” it was a mournful sadness of the reality of the dissolution of marriage.

4.Forgiveness for divorce

• God can forgive Divorce, but if both in the marriage would forgive each other, you wouldn’t have to ask for forgiveness for divorce.
• God will forgive you for murdering someone as well, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
• 10 In the house His disciples also asked Him again about the same matter. 11 So He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
• This scripture doesn’t say “they will be in a continual state of adultery” it says that you have committed Adultery.

• God can forgive adultery in a marriage so that the marriage can stay intact and he can forgive the adulterous act of unbiblical divorce and be forgiven of that adultery as well
• The point isn’t to go around finding ways for God to forgive you, but to walk in the way that he designed for you..
• My wife and I are never getting divorced for any reason. We’ve talked it through. One caveat- on FF they always kill their spouse instead of divorcing them, I ask her to divorce me instead of burying me in the back year
• Here’s the thing about Divorce, if you have been part of a unbibical divorce, you need to recognize it, repent of it, and move forward.
• 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

• You can’t divorce your current spouse. You can’t go back to your old spouse. You need to ask for forgiveness and move on. Those who are married- It would be better to do that NOW
• Some people will say in their mind “I’ll just divorce them and ask for forgiveness later” and God very well may forgive you, but you will know what you really did. And you will be wrought with those thoughts the rest of your life.
• Every sin can be forgiven
• The sin of Adultery in the OT was punishable by death, in the NT, your punishment may be the dissolution of your marriage.