Tag: divorce

ONE FLESH, PART I:

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, SermonLeave a comment

One Flesh A

The Pharisees came to Jesus with a question about divorce. He gave them an answer about marriage. This teaching of Jesus is difficult for many people, but it is right here in the bible, so we’ll try and understand what he said and apply it to our lives. This is part I on the text of Matthew 19:1-12.

 

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 65

 

Matthew #65. Matthew 19:1-12 Part I

This is one of those passages I would prefer not to teach on. However, I do my best to submit myself to the word of God, and so I will do my best to help us understand and apply this passage, no matter how hard it might be.

Actually, of course, this passage is not particularly difficult understand. What is difficult is that many Christians have either ignored it or disobeyed it at some point in their lives, and so simply to repeat what Jesus says here sounds, at first, very harsh judgmental. In fact, this can be a very sensitive subject, and someone like me runs the risk of offending a large number of people in preaching on it. Far too many preachers simply avoid the subject.

In addition, there are some Christians and churches who have applied this passage without also giving people the bigger context of God’s grace and forgiveness; and so they have erred in the opposite direction, making people feel condemned without hope.

This subject is so important, and so prone to misunderstanding, I want to take it slowly, so we’ll spend two weeks on Jesus’ words here. Just to make sure we know exactly what Jesus said, here it is:

1When Jesus had finished this instruction, He departed from Galilee and went to the region of Judea across the Jordan.2Large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.3Some Pharisees approached Him to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? ”

4“Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that He who created them in the beginning made them male and female,”5and He also said: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?6So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.”

7“Why then,” they asked Him, “did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? ”

8He told them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning.9And I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

10His disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it’s better not to marry! ”

11But He told them, “Not everyone can accept this saying, but only those it has been given to.12For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, there are eunuchs who were made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Matt 19:1-12, HCSB)

During the time of Jesus there was a debate among the Pharisees about how much latitude was allowed for divorce. One group held the you could get divorced for any reason, even if it was simply that you didn’t like your wife’s cooking. A smaller group of Pharisees believed that the only reason for divorce was sexual unfaithfulness. I think here the Pharisees are trying to place Jesus into their categories. They want to know which “camp” Jesus belongs to.

As he does so often, Jesus avoids their categories. Instead of talking about Moses’ command concerning divorce, he talks about the intention of God himself at creation (which of course was also the intention of Jesus, being God). This is a clear, definitive statement from Jesus about marriage; if you want to know what he thought about marriage here it is, in verses four through six. First, marriage was part of God’s original plan and intention at creation. To put it plainly: God created marriage. Second, marriage is made for “male and female.” If ever Jesus had the opportunity to affirm gay marriage here it was, but instead he affirms marriage is for “male and female,” and “man and wife.” If you don’t like it, don’t get angry at me – these are Jesus’ words, not mine. Third, Jesus says that in marriage, God somehow mystically joins the man and the woman into one entity. The book of Genesis calls this “one flesh,” and so does Jesus. Finally, Jesus says that since God created marriage, and somehow joins the man and woman together into this one-flesh entity, that human beings should not undo it.

Now, I want to unpack all this, but first we have to deal with the elephant in the room: divorce. The Pharisees came to Jesus with a question about divorce, and his answer was really more about marriage. Even so, of course he made statements about divorce as well.

Clearly, Jesus tells us that there is a very narrow set of circumstances where divorce followed by remarriage is no problem with God. In other words, in general, divorce is not what God wants for followers of Jesus. Some people from ultra-conservative backgrounds may have heard about the sin of divorce endlessly. I think more often, people are surprised to learn that Jesus generally calls it a sin, at least under most circumstances. Even so, divorce is no different than any other sin; it is no worse than anything I have ever done. It usually does have deep and long term consequences for those involved, but it is not, in any sense “the unforgivable sin.” In addition, I do not see anything here that tells us a person is sinning every day that they remain divorced from their first spouse. In other words, “the state of being divorced” is not one long ongoing sin. Like with any sin, we need to repent, receive forgiveness, and move on as we follow Jesus.

Jesus says that it is a sin to get remarried unless your spouse was sexually unfaithful to you (the word for “unfaithful” is specifically about sexual immorality). What if you have been divorced, got remarried, and you do not know that your first spouse was sexually unfaithful? It may indeed have been a sin initially to get remarried, but now that you are, I do not believe that you are sinning every day that you remain in your second marriage. In fact, I think if we would take Jesus seriously, we need to apply his words to whatever marriage we are in right now. If this is your second or third marriage, understand that today, this is your marriage. Don’t sin again by getting divorced a second or third or fourth time. Your present marriage is holy and special in God’s eyes. Make this one work.

What if you are divorced, but are presently single, and wish to get married to someone else someday? Can you get remarried even if your spouse has not been sexually unfaithful to you? It seems pretty clear to me that Jesus is saying here, “no.” God views marriage is something permanent, and he calls it “one flesh.” That one flesh entity is only broken by sexual unfaithfulness. However, even in the case of sexual unfaithfulness, it is possible for couples to reconcile and once more enter into a one flesh union; in other words, you do not have to get divorced if your spouse had an affair, but in that situation, if you would like to do so, and remarry, you are free to do so without sinning.

As a note, of course, if your spouse remarries, your one-flesh union is broken; I think the same would be true if your spouse has sex with someone else after your divorce.

I have known of several couples (friends of friends) who got divorced, but took the words of Jesus here seriously; both members of the couple remained single after their divorce. Over the years, as they sought personal healing for themselves, and continued to see each other regularly in the process of raising their kids between two separate homes, these couples eventually reconciled and married each other once more. That was only made possible because they took Jesus’ command seriously, and did not look for remarriage. That approach honors the way God sees marriage.

That is the ideal. However, we live in a broken world, and things do not always work out ideally. Perhaps you just cannot stand to be alone for the rest of your life, and you are absolutely opposed to reconciling with your spouse. You get remarried, even though you know Jesus said you are not free to do so. There is forgiveness for you anyway, grace in abundance. Pretty much anytime I sin, I know beforehand that what I am about to do is wrong, and yet I go ahead and do it anyway: that is the nature of sin. So if you happen to fail and sin in this matter of remarriage, you are not beyond redemption and forgiveness. You can receive God’s grace and move on, and know that his death at the cross was enough for that too; you can know, even if you do this with your eyes wide open, that his love for you will not change and you can receive his grace if you want it, and if you trust it. I am not suggesting that you do this. It would be a sin for you to do it. I am merely reiterating what Paul said in Romans 8:1

1Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,2because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.3What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering,4in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:1-4, HCSB)

No matter how weak your flesh is, his grace is stronger.

I want to say one more thing about this, not by way of condemnation but by way of advice. Whatever the situation was, if you are divorced, you need to walk through some kind of process of healing. No matter how bad your marriage was, its breakup will leave scars. And not only that, but no matter how bad your spouse was, you had at least some involvement in the falling apart of your marriage. If nothing else, you need to understand why you ever married such a horrible person in the first place, and get healing for the things that caused you to do so.

I am not saying this to assign blame, I’m only saying that divorce leaves people in a situation where emotional healing is important and necessary. If you do not walk through the sometimes-long and sometimes-difficult process of emotional healing after divorce, your next marriage will suffer greatly. We have all heard many times that the divorce rate is roughly 50%. In terms of strict numbers of marriages, this is true. However, the true divorce rate is much higher among second marriages and later. In other words, the divorce rate for second marriages is something like 75%, in large part, because people usually do not work through their issues before getting remarried. What I am about to say next is not a rule, and I’m not getting it from the bible, but practically speaking, I doubt you can really have new relationship that is truly healthy until at least a year after your divorce is final, and that would be only if you are making a conscious effort to seek healing and wholeness. If you don’t want your second marriage to end like your first, I strongly advise you to pay attention to this.

Now, the Pharisees were shocked by Jesus’ response, and they had an argument against it. Moses said they could do it, and Moses was inspired by God. Jesus’ response does two things: first, he is literally claiming that he knows better than Moses, which was a staggering claim for any Jew to make. It is one more place where he is subtly claiming to be God. Second, he lays out the reason for the divorce-regulation given by Moses: he said it was because they were hard-hearted. Both the Old and New Testaments talk about how some people are hard-hearted toward the Lord. The Pharaoh of Egypt during the time of Moses was one of those. No matter that God’s will was to set the people free, Pharaoh wasn’t having it. Some of the people of Israel became hard-hearted, and rejected God in the wilderness. Being hard-hearted means you are determined to go your own way and do what you want to do, regardless of what God wants for you.

So, some of the ancient Israelite men were hard-hearted in the matter of divorce. They were determined to divorce their wives, no matter what God said about marriage. Remember, Jesus quotes from Genesis chapters one and two in talking about God’s view of marriage – and the ancient Israelites had those scriptures also, at least orally; in fact they were probably first written down by Moses himself. So they knew how God felt about marriage, but they were hard-hearted.

In the surrounding cultures at the time of Moses, if a man didn’t want his wife, he would simply kick her out. In those cultures, there would be no place for such a woman in society. Her parents would not take her back, nor any of her family. She would become a beggar and a target for sexual abuse; she would have no provision nor protection in society. So, God said, “Look, if you are going to be hard-hearted about this, and dissolve your marriages, at least you must give your wife a certificate of divorce.” This certificate of divorce had the effect of giving a divorced woman standing in the community. She remained respectable. She was eligible to remarry. Her family could take her in with no dishonor. She could not be mistreated or turned into a prostitute. To put it another way, the Old Testament regulation about divorce protected women in a society where many men were determined to dissolve their marriages no matter what God thought. The intention was not to endorse divorce, but to protect vulnerable women when men were hard-hearted.

This is a statement of God’s great grace. He didn’t want them to divorce. They determined to do it anyway, so he said, “OK, this is how we can minimize the damage.”

As Jesus said, it was not God’s original intention. It is not his desire. But when it happens, he finds a way to bring some grace into the situation. Let him speak to you about that right now.

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

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MARRIAGE = GOD’S FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION

On By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

divorce

God offers grace to divorcees, like he does to each and every person. In the meantime, his plan is for those who are married to stay married.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 17

 

 

 

Matthew #17. Matthew 5:31-32

Let’s get some things out in the open right away: It’s an awkward thing to teach on the topic of divorce. To put it bluntly, the reason it is awkward is that the Bible quite clearly condemns it, and yet literally half the people who have been married in this country have also been divorced – Christians included. So I realize that what scripture teaches on this subject may offend some people, hurt others, and even tempt some people to feel condemned. I want to strongly encourage you to resist all those feelings (which are often understandable), and instead listen today to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Frankly, however, the divorce rate is what it is, in part because churches stopped teaching what the Bible really says about divorce. James 3:1 says that those of us who teach the scriptures will be judged more strictly, and so I believe I have a responsibility to teach clearly on this subject, even if I risk offending some people.

If you have been divorced, I want to plead with you to seriously consider what God says about it. I also want to assure you, on the basis of the Bible, that God certainly offers forgiveness to divorcees, exactly the same way he offers forgiveness to those who gossip and slander, to those who steal, lie, cheat, envy, lust, are selfish, or commit any other sin. Divorce has huge consequences on individuals and societies, but it is neither less nor more of a sin than any other sin. We have all sinned in various ways – not one of us is perfect, and we all deserve eternal punishment as a consequence. But the good news is, Jesus died to take the punishment for what we have done wrong, divorce included.

So please understand, when I teach on divorce, I am not singling anyone out, and I do not somehow think it is the most terrible thing anyone can do. But I have a serious responsibility to clearly explain what scripture says about it, just as I had to do with anger, and lust, and will have to do with everything else that Jesus said in the book of Matthew.

Let’s start with Jesus’ own words:

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31-32).

This is not the only place where Jesus talks about divorce. In Matthew 19:4, the Pharisees asked him if divorce was “ok.” He replied:

“Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

In other words, he is saying that human beings ought not to tamper with marriage, which is a union God has created and blessed. When the Pharisees asked him specifically why Moses allowed divorce, Jesus had this shocking reply:

“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:8-9)

Just in case there was any question about how God feels about this topic, read Malachi 2:16

“I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel.”

Please be very clear on this – God does not hate divorced people – he hates the practice of divorce, the sin. If you are divorced and you have any doubt about whether God still loves you, please consider the cross that Jesus died on. Whipped raw with blows that had killed many lesser men, Jesus hung on the cross and drowned in his own body fluid in slow, barbaric, tortuous death. He did it for you. He had the power to avoid that terrible death – the thing that kept him there all the way to death was his love for you. When you consider that, there should be no doubt in your mind that he loves you.

Let’s think about this topic a little bit differently. Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. There are many, wide-ranging and long-term health consequences to smoking. If you are presently a smoker, there’s no point beating yourself up because you got yourself hooked. Suppose you are suffering from the effects of smoking. The important thing is to figure out what to do now, and how to manage those health problems, now that you have them. Even if you recently got hooked, condemning yourself for the past won’t help you in the present.

On the other hand, it is vitally important to make sure that people who are not yet smokers understand that it is a really bad idea to start. Telling non-smokers to stay away from cigarettes is not the same thing as condemning those who smoke. And it is worthwhile to risk offending a few smokers in order to save others from the damage that smoking causes.

Teaching on divorce is kind of the same way. Divorce is a bad idea, most of the time. There are many, wide-ranging and long-term consequences to divorce. But if you’ve already done it, there’s no point in condemning yourself, or letting others condemn you. Acknowledge your mistake, receive the forgiveness of Jesus, and focus on what he wants to do in your life right now. And I think it is worthwhile to get the message out to others before they also experience some of the long-term problems caused by divorce.

Now that I have made people who both smoke and are divorced feel doubly bad, let’s move on. First, God views marriage as a permanent union. That’s why divorce is a sin. No matter what the laws of the government are, once two people are married, in God’s eyes they remain so until one of them dies. So if a couple divorces, and they remarry other people, in the eyes of God they are simply committing adultery. Now, I am aware that many of you reading this have already divorced and remarried. Please don’t compound the problem by divorcing again. That would only be to sin again. Do ask for forgiveness for your sinful action of divorce, and do thank the Lord for that forgiveness, and live in your new marriage as a forgiven person. The good news about Jesus is, he gives us a clean slate to work with. Jesus’ forgiveness is the answer; multiple divorces are not.

I think divorce breaks God’s heart. He created human beings to be in permanent community with each other. The means he gave to do this, is the family. And the foundation of family is marriage. When a marriage is torn apart, it destroys something God was creating. It does violence to our human need for permanent community based on love and relationship (in fact the Hebrew word for divorce is very closely related to the word for violence). It has now been proven that divorce usually has significant negative consequences on children of divorcees. In the early seventies, some ridiculous studies came out, claiming that divorce really doesn’t faze kids. Some kooky people claimed (and some still do) that divorce is actually better for the kids than a rocky marriage. But the longest most respectable study of the effect of divorce on children came out in the mid 1990s, and it showed that children of divorce struggle much more with long term depression, and they exhibit a whole host of emotional problems that stay with them well into adulthood. I think God weeps whenever divorce papers are signed. If you have had a part in putting your children in this situation, remember that God is available to them to bring them healing and wholeness. His grace and forgiveness covers this also. Commit your kids to him.

Now, many of you will have noticed that Jesus makes a sort of “exception.” He implies that when there has been “marital unfaithfulness,” it is not a sin for the partner who has not been unfaithful to divorce the other. Let’s make it clear that “marital unfaithfulness” in these passages, means simply and only, sexual activity outside the marriage. It doesn’t mean that Bob can divorce Sally because she hasn’t been “faithful” in meeting his needs for beer and backrubs. In fact the Greek word for “marital unfaithfulness” is porneia, and it means simply any sort of sexual activity with someone you are not married to. So when one partner commits adultery, the other is free to divorce. Even so, there is nothing in these passages to suggest that this person has to divorce his or her spouse, or even that he or she should – only that the spouse in this situation may do so without committing a sin. There are, of course many important factors in this sort of decision, and if there are children, they should be high on the list of considerations.

For those of you who are single, these teachings of Jesus ought to create very strong motivation for you to choose carefully when seeking a spouse. If God sees marriage as permanent, you had better start seeing it that way too. Divorce should never be “an option” for a Christian couple. This might also motivate you to do everything you can to help support the marriages of your married friends.

For those of you who are currently married, it is vital, if you haven’t already, to train yourself to see your marriage like God sees it – a permanent union until one of you passes away. When you have that viewpoint, it is possible to work through any difficulties, because you know that no one is going anywhere, that you have time a commitment on your side.

God doesn’t like divorce. It is a sin, and it breaks his heart. It violates the very way he created people to be. There is one instance where God allows it, though even then, reconciliation is God’s first choice. If you have committed the sin of divorce, be assured, it is not an unforgivable offense. But if you have never admitted to yourself and to God and to another person that it is a sin, I highly recommend that you do so right now, and ask God for forgiveness. And if you are married right now, please learn to view your marriage as absolutely permanent – the way God designed it to be.

Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you right now, and lead you.

Thanks again for making use of Clear Bible.

I want to remind you again that we are a listener-supported ministry, and that means, first and foremost, that we are supported by your prayers. We need and value your prayers for us.

Please pray that this ministry will continue to be a blessing to those who hear it. Ask God, if it is his will, to touch even more lives with these messages. Ask him to use this ministry in making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Please also pray for our finances. Pray for us to receive what we need. Please pray for us in this way before you give anything. And then, as you pray, if the Lord leads you to give us a gift, please go ahead and do that. But if he doesn’t want you to give to us, that is absolutely fine. We don’t want you to feel bad about it. We want you to follow Jesus in this matter. But do continue to pray for our finances.

If the Lord does lead you to give, just use the Paypal Donate button on the right hand side of the page. You don’t have to have a Paypal account – you can use a credit card, if you prefer. You can also set up a recurring donation through Paypal.

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THE PROBLEM WITH IGNORING GOD’S DESIGN

On By Pastor TomIn 2 Samuel, Christianity, Old Testament, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

kingdavidlion

 

One of the biggest failures of David was his failure to live out God’s design for marriage and family. The fact that he ignored what God said about marriage was devastating to his children and many people around them.

 

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

 

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 2

2 Samuel #2 . 2 Samuel 3:2-5;13-16

Second Samuel Chapters one through five give us the history of a half-hearted civil war between Saul’s family and David’s followers. But right in the middle, chapter three interrupts the war narrative to tell us briefly about the sons that David had during this time, and about his wives. There are some significant things to say about this interlude. I could have put it before or after the war discussion. Since I am writing this the week before father’s day (in the USA) I’ll cover it now, and we’ll get to the war next week.

Six sons of David are named in 3:2-5, and each one came from a different wife. The Old Testament does not offer many outright condemnations of polygamy. Yet it unflinchingly and consistently records the negative results of having more than one spouse. And there are passages that warn against it, even especially for kings.

Of David’s sons named in this passage, Chileab, Ithream and Shephatiah are mentioned only here in the history of Israel (though the same passage is repeated in 1 Chronicles 3). It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that they died in infancy or childhood; because of their absence in later genealogies it is virtually certain that they died before they themselves had children. David’s three surviving sons prove the brokenness that results from ignoring God’s intended plan for marriage and families.

The first survivor is Amnon. When he grew up he raped his half-sister Tamar, who was Absalom’s full sister. Absalom, the next one, had Amnon murdered for what he did. Later, he started a civil war with his father David, and made him flee for his life. Adonijah was a schemer who also tried to seize control of the kingdom when David was old and weak. He was ultimately executed by his half-brother Solomon.

There is one more note in chapter three concerning marriage. In verses 13-16 David demands that his wife Michal, Saul’s daughter, be returned to him. It is true that at one time, it seemed like David and Michal were in love (1 Samuel 18:20). But the marriage has been dissolved for a long time by this point, and David’s main motivation appears to be to unify the kingdom – joining the house of Saul and the house of David once more. He may have also been concerned that if Michal had any children, her second husband might claim them as rightful heirs of the throne of Israel. But her second husband loved her very much. He followed her all the way to the borders of David’s kingdom, weeping that he was losing her. This is an awful, tragic event.

It is a fact that David had many wives and many children by them. It is also a fact that the resulting family was full of greed, lust, hatred, murder, mayhem and grief. David was a man after God’s heart in many ways. But in his role as a husband and father, he failed spectacularly, as men of power and fame frequently do.

I did not plan out the texts this way, but I happen to be writing this just prior to Father’s day. So I want to point out a few things here that seem relevant to fatherhood. First, David’s failure as a father began with his failure as a husband. The strife in his family began with the fact that David ignored God’s plan for marriage, which is laid out clearly in Genesis 1 and 2 which describe marriage as the joining of one man and one woman for life. Once David ignored that, things went downhill. We might excuse him for marrying again after being separated from Michal. That divorce was beyond his control. But he continued to add wives like state-stickers on the back of a retired couple’s RV.

In those days, polygamy was a sign that the polygamist was rich and powerful. Many wives were a sign of status, sort of like a brand new Mercedes-Benz these days, only more expensive. It was expected that powerful men would have many wives. I believe that part of David’s motivation in marrying so many women was to gain respect in the eyes of his followers and in the eyes of foreign leaders. I’m sure he also wanted extra wives for other reasons, and the culture merely gave him an excuse. The truth is, David caved in to cultural pressure about marriage. And in doing so, he ignored a very clear warning from Moses that even kings were not to take many wives:

14 “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations around me,’ 15 you are to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses… …17 He must not acquire many wives for himself so that his heart won’t go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself. (Deut 17:14 & 17, HCSB)

There is a lot of cultural pressure on godly marriage these days also. Of course, there is the pressure to cave in and say that marriage is a joining of whoever wants to be joined, regardless of gender (or anything else). But I think the biggest cultural pressure on marriage these days is divorce. Divorce is just as much against God’s design for marriage as is polygamy. If you think it was wrong for David to have several wives, then biblically speaking, you’d better admit that divorce is wrong too. If you think gay marriage is not according to God’s plan, than you had better acknowledge that neither is divorce. The only difference is that our society accepts divorce, but not polygamy (at least not yet). It may soon accept gay marriage, or even stranger moralities concerning marriage, but we as Christians need to understand what the Bible says, and hold to it, regardless of what our culture does. There are loopholes in the law that allow unscrupulous people and companies to legally cheat and scam others. Does that mean it is OK for Christians to make money by doing those things? Of course not. Legality is not the same as morality. The law in Nevada says prostitution is legal there. Does that mean it is OK for a Christian woman to choose that for a career – as long as she lives in Nevada? Of course not. Government laws are not the same as God’s standards, and we can’t expect them to be. In the same way, it doesn’t matter what any human government says about marriage. What God says is the only relevant thing, and Jesus was sky-clear about marriage:

3 Some Pharisees approached [Jesus] to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? ”

4 “Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that He who created them in the beginning made them male and female,” 5 and He also said: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked Him, “did Moses command us to give divorce papers and to send her away? ”

8 He told them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning. 9 And I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

It would be nice if our legal system reflected our Christian morality. But there are already so many places in which it does not. If we make disciples and Jesus changes the hearts of people, they will do what is right, even if the law says it is OK to do wrong. If we all really followed Jesus and really let him use each of use to make disciples, gay marriage would not even be an issue. I wish Christians in America would quite fussing about gay marriage and instead let their hearts be broken in repentance over divorce, and over our failure to really submit to Jesus in all areas of our lives, especially marriage.

Now, what if you have already had a divorce and have remarried? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. These instructions are for you right now. What’s past is past. Live each present moment in step with the Holy Spirit. If you are married now, regardless of which number your marriage is, stay married to this one. Make it work, starting now. I think this principle is illustrated (in a negative way) by what David did to Michal. He tore her away from a man who deeply loved her. David destroyed another marriage and another family by trying to “undo” his divorce. The whole thing was a big disaster, as divorce always is. We’ll learn later that neither he nor Michal were happy about how it worked out after they were married again. So don’t try to undo your present marriage, whether it is your first or your fifth.

If your present marriage is truly intolerable (and often we exaggerate how bad it is) then it does appear that you can get divorced without sinning – as long as you never marry anyone but your present spouse again. In other words, for a Christian, divorce should lead to lifetime singleness, or reconciliation with your estranged spouse. The one exception where a person is free to get divorced and marry someone else is explained by Jesus – if your spouse (not you) commits adultery. Even there, Jesus does say that you must divorce – only that you may.

But before you decide that your marriage is intolerable, I want to suggest to you that marriage is a live thing. Things will get bad – for a while. They always do. They will also get better. If you stay with it, that is inevitable too. And then they will get rocky, and then better again. That’s life. Marriage is the most intimate relationship available to human beings. Two human beings relating that closely are bound to cause trouble for each other. But they can also be a source of incredible strength and joy to each other, if they stick with it. At its best, marriage gives us glimpses into the very nature of God. At its worst, it forces us to confront our own flaws and foibles, and maybe gives us a glimpse into the heartache that the Lord feels when we turn away from him. Either way, it’s a good thing. Notice I didn’t say easy but rather, good.

When David ignored God’s plan for marriage, it led to disaster for his children. Not only did his children suffer, but many around them suffered also. In other words, David’s disregard of God’s view of marriage was not merely a personal choice that affected only him – in his case it affected hundreds of people. In fact, his son Solomon followed in David’s polygamous footsteps and it destroyed and entire nation of people.

A huge amount of research has been done concerning children and divorce. Though children often seem to bounce back and handle things well at first, the long term consequences of divorce upon children are deep, troubling, and difficult to resolve. The struggles of children of divorce range from physical health problems to emotional trauma, depression and problems with future relationships. On this father’s day, I say to dads: If you are serious about being a good father, start by being a good and faithful husband to the mother of your children.

I’m sure David was under a lot of pressure. Everyone around accepted polygamy, especially for a man in his situation. But I believe that if David had been truly willing to follow the Lord in this area of his life, the Holy Spirit would have given him the strength to do so. I know the same is true for us. I think Kari and I have a great marriage. But trust me, we have our negative times like everyone else. But the grace of God is always available to us to help us in our struggles – all we have to do is submit to God’s design and reach out for that grace.