Marriage Truths from Malachi two part 2

00:03 I want to give glory to God for His goodness this morning, and let God's people say, "Amen." 00:08 Amen. 00:09 Amen. I invite you to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to Matthew chapter 10... excuse me, Mark chapter 10. And following up from last week's message on the covenant marriage, that is ours in Scripture that the Lord has blessed us with, 00:28 and the blessing of knowing that you can go through life with the security of knowing that your partner will not leave you and not forsake you, although that does happen at times, but you don't start out with that. You start out with a commitment to a covenant, a covenant. 00:47 And the Lord laid on my heart something from last Sunday that I want to just speak this morning with compassion. I want to speak with grace, with compassion to those who have experienced divorce in their background, in their family, in their own lives. 01:07 I want to speak with compassion for we do want to be a compassionate people. And sometimes in our passion for this subject, we may kind of tend to forget that. And so I do want to speak with compassion, but also want to speak with passion and conviction of the authority of God's Word. 01:27 And on the other hand, the flip side of the compassion side is we must also make sure that when we approach difficult subjects in Scripture, that we do so without emotionalism, without emotional baggage, and trying to figure out, 01:46 "Well, now how does this affect people that I know?" And that can certainly soon lead us into being caught up in emotionalism of relationships. And so if you can kind of study the Scriptures, start your study of the Scriptures with a blank sheet, as it were, you might say, without names attached to it, 02:06 and making sure that we're looking at the truth of God's Word and then applying that to various situations in life. 02:14 A lot of times when people come to this subject, they begin thinking about, "Well, what about this person or that person, the other person or this situation or that situation?" And they get clouded and they cannot see clearly then because of the emotional connection that comes when we know people that have been unfairly treated, especially. 02:35 So regardless of who that is close to us that may be in sin, we must look at what the Bible says. For the Bible, the authority of the Scriptures, the authority of the Word of God is that by which we will be judged. Now, one of the things we didn't talk much about last Sunday was about the aspect of the vow in marriage. 02:56 And we talked about that marriage is a vow. But let's look at what the Scripture has to say about vows. In Deuteronomy 23:21, "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord..." Now think about this in relationship to marriage. "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it. 03:17 For the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee, and it would be sin in thee. But if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee." In other words, if you don't make the vow, you can't sin by breaking the vow. But if you make the vow, you can sin by breaking it. "That which is gone out of thy lips, 03:36 thou shalt keep and perform, even a free will offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth." And so God takes our vows seriously. And especially in the marriage vow, then He takes that as a binding for life. Ecclesiastes 5:4-7, 03:57 familiar passage of Scripture but maybe not as familiar as it should be. "When thou vowest the vow unto God, defer not to pay it. For he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest not vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin. 04:18 Neither say thou before the angel that it was an error. Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands? 04:26 But fear thou, God." And so when we break our vows, the Bible says that God takes that so seriously that He would discipline and actually destroy the work of our hands because of being vow breakers. And so we wanted to just throw that in there this morning, that God takes our vows very, 04:46 very seriously as we should. Now, there are several things this morning that I want to address. And there's three things: common objections to the aspect of you of covenant, unending, undivided marriage as we defined it last week. 05:09 Those three have to do with the primary objections. Number one, what if a person was married before they were a believer? Does God recognize the marriages of unbelievers? The second has to do with abandonment in 1 Corinthians 7. 05:29 Does God recognize marriage if a marriage partner has been abandoned? 05:34 And that is also being used as an opportunity for people to say, "Well, I can get remarried because I was abandoned and I didn't want to be abandoned, but I was." And then the third one, which is the most insidious and probably the most difficult to deal with and also the most controversial, is the exception clause in the book of Matthew. 05:55 So I won't spend much time on the first two, but we'll spend more time on the last one. Now, let's look at the covenant of marriage. Just make this mention yet before we go any further that the covenant marriage is of utmost importance because it is the picture of the covenant-keeping Christ who has joined Himself inseparably to His church for all eternity. 06:17 Now, if we were to look at Ephesians 5 this morning, which we won't take time to do that, you're familiar with it. Christ and the church, husband and wife. Husband, love your wife and so on, and take care of them as Christ loved the church and provides for her. 06:32 Church, submit to your husband or wife, submit to your husband as Christ or as the church submits to Christ and take that role seriously and live accordingly. 06:42 And then at the end of that passage, He says, "Now I show you a mystery, for I speak as of Christ and the church." And so that whole thing of marriage is laid out as a type, as a picture of what happens in heaven with Christ and the church. 07:01 Just as the Old Testament was a picture of Christ, the New Testament ordinance of marriage is a picture of Christ. And I would say if you want to know what God thinks of His pictures, ask Moses. Ask Moses what God thinks of violating pictures, of violating types. 07:20 You remember the story, the account of Moses, how that he was told to strike the rock the first time and then he was told to speak to the rock the second time. And he struck the rock the first time. And instead of speaking to the rock the second time, he struck it again. And God said, "Because you were disobedient, I will forbid you from entering into the land of Canaan." What was going on there? 07:42 The whole message could be preached about that. But what was going on there was that rock was Christ. And the picture of that rock was that Christ is stricken once for the sins of the world. And out from that broken body and shed blood comes forth the life-giving water and salvation. And then after that, He's never stricken again. 08:03 He died for sin once. 08:04 And then after that, we speak to Him when we need water, when we need understanding, when we need transformation, when we need the Holy Spirit. We speak to Him. We ask. We don't strike Christ again. 08:18 And that was such a severe violation of God's pictures that Moses was not able to go into the land of Canaan. That which he lived for, that which he longed for, that which he led for, he was not able to go in. And you can say it wasn't fair. God, it wasn't fair that you didn't let Moses go in. 08:38 But yet nevertheless, Moses understood that he had violated a very important picture, even as with Christ and the church. The Bible says this is such an important picture that if a man does not deal with his wife according to knowledge and give honor to her as the weaker vessel, as heirs together the joint, 08:58 heirs together the grace of life, 1 Peter says, that his prayers can actually be hindered. The relationship that he has with God can be broken down because he violates the picture of Christ and the church in covenant marriage. And so that's what God thinks about His pictures, 09:17 about His types, is it can literally break a relationship with God and that individual. Now, another question we need to ask is you can ask John the Baptist what he thinks of remarriage. And this will get us into our first common objection. Ask John the Baptist what he thinks of remarriage. Does God recognize the marriage of unbelievers? 09:38 And John the Baptist would say, "Absolutely yes." Because you see, what he lost his head over was the fact that Herodias had divorced Herod's brother Philip. And you can read it in the text. You put the text, the Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels together. She had actually been divorced from Philip, 09:58 Herod's brother, and had remarried to Herod. And John the Baptist said, addressing someone outside of the covenant of the faith community, outside of the covenant of God's people, he's addressing the world. He's addressing unbelievers. And he says, 10:18 "It is not lawful for you to have her." Now, can you imagine if John the Baptist had led them to the Lord or they had come to Christ and somehow Jesus had encountered... they had encountered Christ as in our Sunday school lesson this morning, those who encountered Christ. And then John the Baptist and Jesus would have said, "Okay. Now you're a Christian. It's okay." I don't think so. 10:39 I don't think so. Because what we're talking about in the law, when we refer to the law, we're talking about the law of covenant marriage. Marriage is universal. It is universal. It is equally valid upon all the descendants of Adam. The law of universal marriage, 10:59 going back to Genesis 1 and 2, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." That is a covenant that is equally binding on the descendants of Adam. Otherwise, Cain wouldn't have had a wife. 11:18 He'd have just... what would God have called her? His woman, I guess. This is my woman. No, this is my wife. Cain went out and got a wife. Lamech, one of the descendants of Cain in that same early passages of Scripture, went out and found a wife. He said to his wife. Actually, 11:36 he had two of them, which is a whole nother subject, subject of polygamy. And then Abimelech, by the way, let me just say of polygamy, that there were things in the Old Testament that God did not approve of, but He overlooked. In fact, Acts 17 says that. In times past, God winked at or He overlooked some things, 11:57 but now commands all men everywhere to repent. And so He commands us to repent of things in the New Testament that may have been tolerated in the Old. So Abimelech had a wife. When Abraham lied to him and took Sarah, the Bible says that God had shut up the wombs of his household. 12:17 And when Abraham came clean and prayed for him, God opened the wombs and God had shut up the womb of his wife, Abimelech's wife. Potiphar had a wife. This is all before the Mosaic law. Moses had not given the law yet. So he had a wife. And Joseph said, "It will be unlawful for me. 12:35 It would be displeasing for me to to to commit fornication on his part, adultery on her part." Because she was married, he was single. It would be a sin against God to mess with Potiphar's wife. Daniel's accusers, Daniel's accusers, when they were thrown into the lion's den, 12:55 it was them and their wives and their households. And so they had wives. Pilate had a wife. Herod had a wife. As it was in the days of Noah, before Moses came on the scene, Noah, they were marrying and giving in marriage, marrying and giving in marriage. And I think that could refer to rampant divorce and remarriage, 13:17 similar to what we have today or worse. And so all of those men on that list were outside of the covenant community of faith. And yet God recognized their marriages. And they were still married, even though marriage finds its true and ultimate significance in Christ. 13:39 And we really come to understand the significance of marriage and the holiness of marriage and the ordinance of marriage in Christ in the New Testament. But it is given by the Creator for the benefit of all people, all the sons and daughters of Adam. By the way, 13:59 incidentally, when someone gets saved and they were married before they were saved, we don't require them to come back and get saved as Christians or get married as Christians. We recognize that they were married. They were married. 14:15 And so we also recognize the same word is used in the passages of Scripture that we'll look at this morning as is in the salvation passages. "Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14:34 Whosoever puts away his wife, causes her to divorce or to commit adultery. And whosoever marries her who is put away commits adultery." The whosoever is the whosoever. Amen? It's not the partial whosoevers. It's same words. Same words. Why? Because salvation is not for the pigs and the cattle and the animals. 14:55 It's for men and women. Marriage is not for the pigs and the cows and the animals and the canaries and the chickens. It's for men and women, descendants of Adam and Eve, who God gave a tremendous gift to, the gift of marriage. One man, one woman, one lifetime. 15:15 Now, we come to Mark 10. And I want to just go through very quickly here this morning some of the Scriptures that are very, very clear when it comes to marriage, divorce, and remarriage. But in order to set this in its context, let's look at Mark 10. 15:35 Begin verse reading at 2. "The Pharisees came and asked him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife, testing him?'" So this is a test. This is one of those shrewd, catch him in the act kind of tests. You know, catch him up in his words kind of tests. Let's make sure that... let's trick him into an answer. 15:53 And so they said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to dismiss her." Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart, He wrote you this precept. But... but from the beginning of the creation, 16:15 God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two. They are no longer two. 16:35 They are one." How would you ever get from being one back to two again? Well, God showed us last week the word join together. Let him join and cleave to his wife and they should be one flesh. Has the idea of being bonded together like glue. 16:55 You can't unjoin it. The only way that you can unjoin it is by death. But one flesh. "Therefore, what God has joined together," verse 9, "let not man separate." In the house, his disciples also asked him again about the same matter. "So he said to them, 17:15 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.'" Period. Clear, plain, simple. Can anybody argue with that verse? That is the clear command of Scripture. 17:38 That's not the only place it's found. Luke 16, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery. And whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband, commits adultery." Those are the clear, plain passages of Scripture in the Gospels. Now, that's not the only place we find this. 18:00 Romans 7, the Apostle Paul making the point about the law and about being in Christ and so on. He gives us a picture and a window into marriage when he says, "For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband." What law? The law of marriage, 18:21 equally valid upon all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. "Bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulterous. But if her husband dies, 18:43 she shall be free from that law so that she is no adulterous, though she has married another man." Brothers and sisters, I didn't say this. I didn't write this. This is what God's Word says. This is what the Apostle Paul taught, which is consistent with what Jesus taught, which is what consistent with the Father did, the Creator, at the beginning. 19:04 Then we go on to 1 Corinthians 7:11, "Now to the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And the husband is not to divorce his wife." Again, very clear. 19:23 There are situations where separation may be legitimate and may be needed. There are times as pastors, we have actually helped others some in difficult situations separate. But it's always been with the purpose of reconciliation. 19:43 And it's always been with the understanding that there is not room for remarriage. Sometimes it's for the safety of the family if there are situations that are dangerous to them. And so... but if they do separate, they should not remarry. And then 1 Corinthians 7:39, 20:02 "A wife is bound by law." And this is Paul writing, the Apostle of grace, the Apostle who helped us understand the grace of God saying, "A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives. 20:18 But if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 6:9 says, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, 20:39 nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor Sodomites." And there's a whole rest of a list that goes on, will inherit the kingdom of God. Hebrews says, "Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled. But fornicators and adulterers..." Notice he draws a distinction between fornicators and adulterers. 21:01 Fornicators, sexual sin outside of marriage. Adultery, sexual sin in marriage. And it's the same as in 1 Corinthians 6:9, "Neither fornicators..." And he separates that from adulterers. That's significant when we will come to Matthew and the so-called exception clause. 21:20 So one of the things that we have to do when we come to this passage... let's wrap up number one. Then back up. Wrap up number one, that God looks at marriage equally between believers and unbelievers. So we have established that. Now, we come to some unclear passages. 21:42 And here's what people want to do. It's not as hermeneutically, which is biblical interpretation... means biblical interpretation. It's hermeneutically ill-advised, unwise, illegitimate, whatever you want to call it. 21:58 Not a good idea and not logical to take the clear passages of Scripture and then interpret them through the unclear passages of Scripture. 22:14 Rather, in hermeneutics, you always take the unclear passage of Scripture and interpret it through the clear passage of Scripture. So if there is a clear passage of Scripture, in this case, there's numbers of them. And there's an unclear passage of Scripture, you don't reinterpret the clear to make it fit the unclear. 22:34 You reinterpret the unclear and make it fit with the clear. That's one of the basic principles of hermeneutics, of good biblical interpretation. So we should never use the unclear to reinterpret the clear. Also, let me just say this. 22:54 The time to study this is before one is tempted. The time to stand is when one is tempted. You stand when you're tempted. You study before you're tempted. And that gets a lot of people in trouble. 23:14 Because if we study when we're tempted, then the enemy has a way of weaving his deception around our hearts and our minds to get us to fall and to back away from that which we have known in the hour of faithfulness. 23:35 Wiese, commentary on Matthew. "In Jesus' eyes, marriage is indissoluble. Accordingly, he who dismisses his wife and thereby gives her the liberty to marry another man, causes her to commit adultery since her first marriage is still valid in the eyes of God." This is what we're saying, 23:57 confirmed in Wiese's commentary on Matthew. "Whoever marries a woman who has been dismissed, himself commits adultery since in God's eyes, she is still the wife of her former husband." Barnes, commentary on the New Testament, says this, "Our Savior brought marriage back to its original intention." We see that in Mark 9. 24:17 I mean, excuse me, Mark 10. "The original intention, this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, they shall be one flesh. They are no longer two." And so our Savior brought marriage back to its original intention. This is now the law of God. Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 24:37 but I say unto you." This is how Moses did it. "But I say unto you." And so we cannot look back to the Old Testament for our standard, except go back all the way to creation for our standard, not the Mosaic law. 24:58 Jesus reaffirmed creation. Jesus is now the authority. "And so nor has man or a set of men, any legislature or any court, civil or ecclesiastical, a right to interfere and declare that divorces may be granted for any other cause. 25:14 No earthly laws can trample down the laws of God or make that right which he has solemnly pronounced wrong." Now, 25:26 don't worry about that on the screen. We'll get there. Go to 1 Corinthians 7 and we'll deal with the second objection to covenant marriage. The second objection to covenant marriage has to do with 7:15. 25:50 In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is addressing a number of marriage questions that the Corinthians had written to him in a previous letter. It appears that they were asking him some questions about marriage. And so this is marriage questions about legitimacy of marriage. 26:11 Should one stay single? Should one get married? There's questions about singleness. There's question about marriage vows. There's question about widows. There's questions about how to deal with unmarried widows and those widows, are they free to remarry? And so on. And so he does a lot of question about answers about these questions. 26:34 So one of the questions that came to them is, if abandonment happens or if a married spouse departs from their spouse, what happens then? So begin reading at verse 10. "Now to the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband. 26:53 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest, I, not the Lord." Now, what does that mean? It means that he does not have a specific word from the Lord, historical word, as he did in verse 10. 27:14 He said, "Not I, but the Lord." The Lord has spoken to this. In verse 12, he says, "I don't have a word from the Lord historically." Jesus didn't specifically say this. "But as an apostle, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I'm teaching this." And so he separates that. But it's still authoritative. 27:34 Okay? It's still authoritative. Because he's an apostle and he's addressing this issue. "If any brother has a wife who does not believe and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her." So you have an unbelieving wife and a believing husband. And they want to stay married. 27:53 Let them stay married. "And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him." So this flip side is also true. You have a woman who's a believer, a husband who's not. They're content to dwell together. He wants to stay with her. Let them stay together. "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. 28:14 And the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband." That's an interesting statement right there that could take a whole message to unpack. "Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they're holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart." So you have this marriage of a believer to an unbeliever. 28:36 Maybe they were unequal... well, they're obviously unequally yoked. Probably one got saved and the other didn't. "And the unbeliever departs, let him depart." In other words, there's nothing you can do to force him to stay. Don't try to force him to stay. "A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. 28:57 But God has called us to peace." Now, what does that word under bondage mean? What just simply means you're not obligated to make that marriage work which the partner has declared they don't want to make work, the unbelieving partner. It does not... 29:19 again, taking this with the clear passage of Scripture, does not negate the marriage, does not negate the covenant, does not negate the vow. It does not make them two flesh again. They're still one flesh. It does not give them a legitimate reason to remarry. 29:38 It just simply means that you are not under an obligation to try to force something to work that the unbelieving partner does not want to make work. Because you cannot force them against their will. People will distort this passage, read into it what they want, and say, "Well, I was abandoned." And so this says, "I'm not under bondage. 29:58 So I'm free to get married again." That's not what he's saying. Because he takes the unclear passage of Scripture, you interpret it through the clear passages. And you have your answer of what Paul is actually saying. You're not released from the law of marriage. 30:15 You're released from the obligation to make marriage work and to stay together. So that's another common objection. Now, for the rest of our time here this morning, I'd like for you to turn to Matthew 19. 30:38 And we could look at Matthew 5:32. But Matthew 19 gives it a little bit larger context. There are parallel passages. Matthew 19. 30:53 "Again, the Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying to him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?' And he answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female?' And said, 'For this reason, 31:12 a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" We've given it all over all of that. "So then they are no longer two. No longer two. Not any more two. Never again two." It's an emphatic statement in the Greek. They are no longer two, 31:34 but one flesh. "Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate." Actually, the Living Bible gets it right when it says, "What God has joined together, no man may separate. No man may separate." "Then they said to him, 31:53 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?'" Notice he says a command. I don't think Moses was giving a command. He was giving a permission, not giving a command. "And he said, 'Because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives. 32:15 But from the beginning, it was not so.'" Interesting thing that I've discovered that from the beginning is a continuous action. From the beginning, ever since the beginning, it has not been so. The covenant law of marriage, covenant marriage has been in effect since the beginning. 32:35 "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife..." Now notice again, verse 90 says, "I'm saying this. You have heard that it has been said. But I say unto you, whoever..." There's that word again, divorces his wife, "except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. 32:55 And whoever marries her who is divorced, commits adultery. His disciples said to him, 'If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.'" Now, before we get into that exception clause, let me explain something here. 33:13 There were two primary schools of thought in the time of Jesus. There were two rabbinical schools of thought. One school of thought followed the Rabbi Hillel. And the other school of thought followed the Rabbi Shammai. Hillel and Shammai. 33:34 Now remember, Moses wrote a thousand years, actually 1,400 years before the time of Jesus. And so there was a lot of time for them to evolve in what does this mean and how does this get interpreted and how does this get applied and what does this mean and what does this mean and how do you apply. And to weave that all together, the rabbis would spend time, 33:55 the teachers of the law would spend time analyzing the law and then trying to find how to apply it to life. And then in their more sinister moments, they would find the loopholes so that they wouldn't have to obey the commandments, the clear commands. They could do what people do today and find the loopholes. 34:15 And one of the loopholes that they found in God's vision for covenant marriage was found by Hillel or promoted by Hillel, Rabbi Hillel. And that was basically what our world has today. And that is that divorce could happen for any reason at all. If she burned the potatoes, 34:34 if she didn't bring your coffee to you in bed in the morning or at night, if she didn't please you sexually, if she did anything that was contrary to what you were... if you were unpleased with her in any way and found any kind of displeasure in her, you could put her away and remarry. That was the school Hillel, very similar to what we have today out in the world. 34:58 Then Shammai comes along and says, "He has the school of thought that says, 'That's way too permissive. 35:05 We're more restrictive than this, that the only way that you could divorce and remarry is because of adultery or marital unfaithfulness.'" That sounds like much of the evangelical church today, does it not? All Jesus would have had to do is say, 35:25 "Well, I side with Hillel or I side with Shammai. And that's your answer to my question." But Jesus didn't do that. 35:34 He didn't say, "Well, Hillel says..." or he didn't say, "Rabbi Shammai says..." He said, "I say..." Because he's a higher authority than any of the laws, the lawyers and rabbis and teachers of the law. "I say..." And then he makes a statement in verse 9. 35:55 "And the statement blows the disciples away. In verse 10, his disciples said to him, 'If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.'" I mean, Jesus made this thing so restrictive that if you make the wrong move in marriage, there's no way out. That's what they're saying. 36:17 So if you judge by their response... They're taking a step back and say, "Jesus, this is radical. This is radical." So keep that in mind when we look at this exception, so-called exception clause. I'll call it the exception clause because that's what people call it. 36:36 That's what it's known as. But it's not really an exception clause. It's a clarification clause. 36:44 Careful research, Steele and Ryri say this. Careful research through the hundreds of manuscripts written by church leaders of the first five centuries has revealed that with only one exception, Ambrosiastor, a fourth-century Latin writer, 37:07 which, by the way, since then scholars have discovered was an imposter. He was not one of the church fathers. So we can't trust what he had to say. The church fathers were unanimous in their understanding that Christ and Paul taught that if one were to suffer the misfortune of divorce, 37:26 remarriage was not permitted regardless of the cause. 37:33 So we'll get to that exception clause in just a moment. But again, we're reestablishing the fact that Jesus put the prohibition way up here. And that was understood by the disciples of the disciples, by the students of the apostles, by the church leaders who studied under the church leaders. 37:54 And so if you really want to know what Jesus taught, look at what his disciples understood him to teach and what the disciples of the disciples understood him to teach. Now, it's true that the further down through church history you go, especially once you get to 300, 400 AD, that gets pretty convoluted. 38:16 But this was unanimous. And then on some of the more unclear peripheral things, there was not always agreement about church administration and things like that between the church fathers. But on this issue, they agreed with one another for 1,500 years. 38:37 1,500 years. What happened in 1,500 years? 38:41 Well, after 1,500 years, this remained the standard view of the church until the 16th century when Erasmus suggested a different idea that was taken over by Protestant theologians. 38:56 And that was basically this, that if there's marital unfaithfulness, it negates the marriage vow. And even the church can come in and give an annulment so that the party can be free to marry again. Why were they doing this? Well, number one, 39:16 the number one reason was because the common people had so little understanding of the gospel. They brought the requirements of the gospel. Luther did this too. He brought the requirements of the gospel down here for the common people because they assumed that the common people can't live to the high demands of Scripture. Luther actually, I think, said that. 39:36 It's not possible for the common people to live the high demands of Scripture. That's for the elite and for the the the the spiritual. But the common guys down here, they can't live up to this. So they brought the standards of the gospel down to meet the common man. 39:50 But there was another reason, an insidious reason why they wanted to find a loophole was because Henry VIII wanted a new wife. So they restudied the Scriptures. 40:05 "Oh, it would be better to find a loophole in here than to lose my head," which is what would have happened had they continued to force Henry VIII into a scriptural box. And so Erasmus and some of the... I forget who was the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time, 40:28 came up with this idea that because of marital unfaithfulness... So all you had to do is accuse your wife of being unfaithful or maybe even be unfaithful yourself, which I'm sure he was. And that negates the marriage vow. And you can get married again. 40:46 And by the way, that was so hotly contested that the Church of England broke away from the church in Rome. And we had not only the Roman Catholic Church, which maintained a traditional view of marriage, but you had the Anglican Church or the Church of England, which we still have today. That's how they separated. 41:08 So careful research. Now, where does the confusion come from? The confusion comes from the mistranslation of Greek words. Now, let me say this. Since none of us here in this room today, I'm assuming, read Greek, 41:29 understand Greek, or talk Greek, we're probably dependent upon other scholars to do the research for us. And that puts us in a vulnerable position because the scholars don't even agree on how this should be translated. 41:49 But I think we have some clues as to how it should be translated. There's two different words that are translated in this passage of Scripture, verse 8, verse 9. 42:01 "Whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery." There's two primary words in Greek that are translated fornication and adultery. The one is moikai... 42:19 See, I don't speak Greek. Moikia, which is the willful violation of the marriage covenant or an extramarital intercourse. That is the translation. That is the word behind the word adultery here in verse 9. "Whoever marries another, commits moikia, 42:41 adultery, the violation of the marriage covenant or by extramarital intercourse." The word for fornication, or in the New King James, it's called sexual immorality. In the footnote of your New King James, it does refer to it as fornication. 43:03 In some of your newer translations, it's also footnoted as fornication. But by and large, the Protestant view has crept into our translations. And that is that moikia is moikia. In other words, if you except for sexual immorality, 43:25 moikia, in other words, if there's immorality of the marriage, a violation of the marriage, 43:30 and if there's not that, then you marry, you're committing moikia. The problem is there's a different word here in that word, sexual immorality or fornication. King James captures it the best, except for fornication, because it's a different word than is usually used for adultery. 43:55 It's the word porneia, which means illicit sexual relationships between unmarried and premarital sex. Fornication. Yes, it includes sexual immorality, but it's the context. The question is, 44:14 when does this sexual immorality occur that would give justification for remarriage? Are you with me? Somebody shake their head or nod or something. Let me give you a little bit more information. Porneia. 44:31 Porneia has a broad view at times. It can be used a broad translation to mean immorality of any kind. So if you ever hear people say, "Well, it says porneia, but porneia means immorality of any kind." That's the broad definition. It's like saying there is a basket on the table. 44:50 But there is also a narrow interpretation, a narrow way of interpreting that word. And that is to mean premarital sexual intercourse. That would be like saying there is a basket of fruit on the table. It's more narrow. Not just a basket on the table. 45:11 There's a basket of fruit on the table. And then there is one more way of interpreting or translating, and that is the definitive where things are very defined, which means to distinguish something from another something. So this would be like saying, 45:31 not only is there a basket on the table, a basket of fruit on the table, but there is a basket on the table with apples and oranges and grapes and pineapple and that kind of fruit. It lists the fruit. 45:46 What the translators have done in modern translations have taken the broad approach, the broad interpretive translation point. 45:59 We would argue for the definitive because it is defining what type of sexual sin is referring to, not just sexual intercourse, premarital intercourse. So we would be arguing for that as well, but at least the narrow view, if not the definitive view. 46:21 Now, go to Matthew 15. Now, this is the same Matthew writing. Matthew 15, verse 19. 46:37 "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, 46:50 false witness, blasphemies, et cetera, et cetera." Notice he distinguishes between adulteries, moikia, and fornications, porneia. So don't let anybody tell you that porneia is always used in the broad sense. It's not. Otherwise, all he would have had to say was just porneia. 47:12 But he distinguishes fornication from adultery. Paul, in that passage in First Corinthians 6, which we had on the board on the screen earlier, made the same distinction that those who have fornicators and adulterers, porneia or its verb form, 47:31 noun form, verb form, different forms, and moikia, he distinguishes. And what we would argue for in Matthew chapter 5 and Matthew chapter 19 is the limited narrow use of the word porneia, 47:51 if not the definitive use of porneia. Does that make sense? 47:59 So again, this passage at best is unclear. It could go this. It could go that. So is it a loophole? 48:14 Or do we test our understanding of this exception or this qualifying statement through the clear passages of Scripture where the door is shut on remarriage and say, "Oh, by the way, out of character for Jesus and out of character for Paul, 48:34 there is this little window here, which, by the way, if we open, becomes a flood." Now, 48:43 doing the research on it, the use of the term porneia to contrast with moikia would give indication that these are two distinct things being spoken of. Modern translations use the broad definition. This gives rise to the innocent party. By the way, you don't find that term in Scripture. 49:04 You do not find the term innocent party. 49:10 There are covenant keepers and covenant breakers, covenant violators, but not innocent parties. We create that because we feel sorry for people. And it's created by the confusion on this exception clause because, after all, if they committed adultery, the other party, 49:31 "I'm innocent of that. 49:32 I didn't do that." So that makes me look good rather than having me learn how to forgive. What is the nature of the Lord's commands to us? It's forgiveness. It's suffering, suffering love, faithful love. 49:53 In Luke passages, there is no innocent party. Luke says whoever. Mark says whoever. King James uses the definitive one definition to distinguish between the two. Now, this is where I want to go. There was a 1981 conference which gave credibility to our position. 50:11 Not only are we within the framework of historic Christianity, but we are within the framework of good scholarship. Out of that 1981 conference, according to the Rebuilders Guide from the Institute of Basic Life Principles, these were six points that they drew from that conference. 50:31 This is a conference of scholars, that there are no scriptural grounds for divorce on the basis of adultery, that the exception clause does not refer to marital unfaithfulness. It refers to the limited narrow premarital sex and the definitive. 50:51 It does not refer to marital unfaithfulness. Number three, that the exception clause does refer to illegal marriages. So why is this in here, Brother Todd? 51:04 Illegal marriages. 51:05 You see, these people that Matthew was writing to were Jewish Christians and Jewish unbelievers. Everybody knows that the Gospel of Matthew, Mark was written to a Roman audience. Luke was written to a Greek audience. Matthew is written to a Jewish audience. 51:23 They understood the Old Testament. They understood the laws. They understood the creation. They understood illegal marriages. What's an illegal marriage? An illegal marriage would be an incestuous marriage, a man marrying his mother, 51:43 a mother marrying her son, a father marrying his daughter. Illegal. They're not one flesh relationships. They're prohibited in the law of marriage. If you had a mother and son who had been married or a father and daughter who had been married, 52:03 we would say that is not a one flesh relationship. It doesn't make any difference how many times you vowed to be faithful to each other. It's against God and God's order. You separate. It is a marriage that is null and void. Now, even specifically, one of the best illustrations for our day is homosexual relationships, same-sex marriages. 52:25 I even don't even like to call them marriages because they're not. I've wondered about this. If the vow is binding, what about if a man and a man make a vow or a woman and a woman make a vow? What do you do with that vow? That is an illegal relationship. 52:46 It is a legal vow. It is not recognized by God because it does not fit the parameters of a man and a woman in covenant, one flesh relationship. You cannot have two men in one flesh relationship. You cannot have two women in a one flesh relationship. God does not honor that. 53:06 And so let's say we had two homosexuals get married or homosexuals that were in some sort of union, legal union, and they came and they got saved and they say, "We want to follow Jesus Christ." We would say, "You must separate." Are they free to marry a woman? Absolutely. In the Lord. Absolutely. It's an illegal marriage. 53:28 And so that's what the exception clause is referring to according to this group of scholars who summarized their position. Number four, that the position of the exception clause syntactically does not allow remarriage under any condition while the other party is still living. Syntactically, how it appears in the sentence in the Greek. 53:50 Number five, that this view was accepted almost unanimously by the early church leaders who were much closer to Christ's time and teachings than we are today. And number six, that the view that divorce and remarriage are permissible for unfaithfulness in the marriage can be traced back to the 15th century humanist Erasmus. Excuse me. 54:09 Bringing this to a close. In our position and understanding, the exception clause refers to, number one, illegal marriages such as incest, polygamy. What do you do with polygamy? 54:24 Making a vow to two, three, four, five women. Only one one flesh relationship. First one. Only one one flesh relationship. 54:36 Number two, this exception clause refers to the Jewish betrothal period. Now, let's talk about that just a little bit. We got to bring this to a close. Jewish betrothal relationship. 54:49 It is fascinating to note that Jesus or that Matthew is speaking to a Jewish audience who understood the betrothal institution, that Mary and Joseph would be a classic example, one that he's probably referring to when he puts this in here. 55:08 They were married by covenant, by a covenant arrangement, a covenant agreement. You're aware of this. You know this. And it would take a divorce to separate that. But they had not yet come into a one flesh relationship. And so during that time, 55:28 if the woman, like I said last week about the onlookers of the tent on the marriage night, if the woman could not produce the fruits of her virginity and she came to the marriage bed and it became obvious that she was not a virgin, 55:49 the man could put her away, legally divorce her, and legitimately marry another woman. It's a very limited experience, very limited to the law, to the Jewish custom, and very well known to his readers. 56:09 And that's what we believe and what I believe that exception clause refers to. Porneia. Porneia. Not just premarital sexual intercourse, but the very specific things of illegal marriages and of the betrothal period unfaithfulness. One thing else. 56:29 By the way, I ran across in my files an article by John Piper back in the late 1980s. I think I may have got it from you, Brother Leon, years ago. It was in a file labeled under divorce and remarriage in my file, but I haven't looked at that file for years. 56:49 I pulled it out yesterday and I reread Piper's position on marriage and divorce. Piper has taken a step way back now. Is he still there today? I'm not sure. But it cost him enough that I would say that he'd think about it twice before he backed away from his position, which cost him so much. He took the Protestant view and said, 57:08 "We've been wrong." And he came back to our view. And I could give you that paper and it would be almost verbatim of what I've been teaching these last two Sundays with one exception. 57:23 And I can tell you that exception later if you want to talk to me about it. But Piper had an interesting observation. And I'll close with this. He said, "In Matthew chapter 1, Joseph is referred to as a just man. 57:42 And he was mindful to put away Mary privately and divorce her because of her perceived unfaithfulness." Now, 57:53 Jesus comes along in Mark and Luke and Paul in Romans and First Corinthians and takes the very narrow view of divorce as being sinful. 58:06 Yet you have Joseph here who has been pulled out as an example of being a just man and legitimate in what he would have done if he had followed his first impressions. And then you also have Jesus as being established as the Messiah. 58:23 And you have the Pharisees referring to him as a son born in fornication, not adultery, but fornication goes back to those two words. We be not born of fornication, implying that you are. Your mother was unfaithful before you were born. That produced you. 58:45 To summarize Piper's position, I'll just say it like this. Matthew's attempt to show the justness of Joseph as an example of a legitimate possibility completely compatible with the absolute statements of Mark and Luke. 59:01 In other words, to keep Joseph as a just man, Jesus as a holy man, and Jesus as accurate in what he says in Mark and Luke, 59:15 Matthew refers to this exception clause in that way to show that Joseph would not have been sinning had he put Mary away. He was a just man and would have still been just had he put Mary away. And so this, again, refers to the Jewish betrothal period. 59:36 Maybe a little bit difficult to understand. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining that position, but I wanted to put it out there this morning for you to consider. For this reason, someone has said, and I'll close with this, that the only way to negate a covenant is to institute another covenant. Wrong. I was on the internet the other night, 59:55 the other day watching some YouTube videos on a man from a man who really had a lot of good things to say and was backing up from the Protestant position. But he said this, "The only way to establish, to negate one covenant is to establish another covenant." And he used the old covenant and the new covenant as an example. I said, "Whoa, wait a minute. 01:00:14 Wrong. How could God legally establish a new covenant?" Hebrews says, "For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. 01:00:36 For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it." In other words, the only way God could negate the old covenant and marry the church in the new covenant is by death. Who died? Jesus. And that's the message of the Gospel. 01:00:58 Let's pray. 01:01:01 Lord, I know that I've thrown a lot of things out here this morning, and I fear that I have not done a good job of making it clear. 01:01:12 But Father, I pray that you will make it clear by your Holy Spirit, taking the things of Christ and his word and the truth and making them understandable to us. 01:01:27 Father, without names attached, personalities attached, family members attached, we want to know the truth. And we thank you that you have given us this light. Let us walk in the light as you are in the light and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. 01:01:48 Purify us for the day when our bridegroom returns and calls us away to be forever, eternally at your side, part of the church, a covenant keeping Christ who has made a covenant with us that will not break. In Jesus' name. Amen.