But I Say…Divorce 1

Barry

You know, you probably heard the statistic that 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. And it’s one of those numbers that lie. Because, really what it comes down to, it’s not measuring the number of people who get married and if they get divorced, it’s measuring how many people get divorced. And the problem usually is, is there’s a lot of people who get married and divorced a lot.

And in our world today, it seems that that seems to be a common occurrence. The truth of the matter is that, Divorce is something that God has never wanted for his people. And today we’re going to look at one of the higher standards of Jesus when it comes to divorce. Why It Should Happen? Why It Shouldn’t Happen? Why it should ha why it should happen and why it shouldn’t happen.

And what Jesus tells us the principle about how we should make our marriages work. If you want to continue to follow us in a few moments, we’ll continue with that topic.

INTRO

John

In our verses that we’re looking at today in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus has spoken about how Our righteousness must exceed the righteousness that describes the Pharisees. And as the Pharisees were the, the lead of the day, if you would, religiously, they were, uh, by all accounts, people considered them to be the best of the best.

And yet Jesus is going to talk to them about the idea of divorce. (Matthew 5:31  “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’) And we look to verse number 31 of Matthew chapter 5. Jesus says, furthermore, now to know what he’s talking about, Jesus has been saying, you have heard that it was said, but I say to you. And here in this verse. He talks about whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.

What is that talking about?

Barry

You know, the previous verse I think is important because he was talking about adultery. And he was talking about that, you know, you’re cheating on your spouse.  And, the solution that they had come up with was, well, we had found someone better, right? We’d found a new wife or whatever.

But the least you can do is make sure to divorce your wife properly. Give her a certificate of divorce. You know, make it all legal and official. And that seems to be the philosophy that they had is divorce is okay as long as you treat the other person right. You make it a good divorce. And that’s kind of a modern thought today, right?

We, we say that about, well, you know, sometimes divorce happens. And as long as we, we just, you know, treat each other right, then it can split and that, that’s okay. But the problem with that is it’s considering that you’re the only two people involved. And marriage has always been something that is between a husband and wife, but involves God.

And that’s exactly what Jesus is talking about here, that God’s involvement in marriage.

John

You know it’s interesting when you think about marriage. God instituted that idea all the way back at the very beginning in Genesis chapter 2. (Genesis 2:24  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.) Whenever he made Adam and Eve and talked about how they were to become one flesh.

And of course, at the center of that union, as you were mentioning, is the idea of God. Without God being centered there, well then, we have what we have today. Divorce for any reason, divorce for any cause. Uh, I just don’t like them anymore, and so I’m gonna go find somebody new. Uh, and we see that day in and day out.

Uh, the Hollywood promotes it, uh, all over the place. We see this, and yet Jesus talks about the idea of giving a certificate of divorce, which really goes back to the law of Moses. But, uh, The idea of divorce really isn’t as hard to understand as some make it. It really isn’t accepting what Jesus has said.

And also, we have to withdraw our emotions from this idea.  Because of the standard of which God has set up, right? 

Barry

And, you know, in any relationship, you have a barrier of entry and exit, right? Um, you know, you, you’re an acquaintance with somebody, you have a relationship, there’s a point where you can say, Well, I don’t want to be with that person anymore.

You know, if it’s like a coworker, you just, you know, move your desk to the other side, you do something like that. And, in our world today, we’ve made those barriers small. You know, in an online world, you don’t want to be friends with somebody, you just log off, right? You just quit following them on the, On the feed, right?

And that’s okay. We just think, you know, just ghost them and move on.

And yet, when it comes to our personal relationship, there has to be a higher barrier. And when it comes to marriage, what God has joined, let no man separate. God has set an ultimate barrier. You know, what God has put together, let no man separate. And in fact, in this verse, he gives an exception for divorce.

And I think sometimes we get into the, the weeds of talking about that, but what we forget there is the reason he gives an exception is such a high standard. He’s basically saying, unless you have been unfaithful, you have, you know, done that, you, you work it out. You figure out a way to get through it. And I think that, that changes our mindset of it, is in saying, marriage is too important to let something other than this highest of betrayal to separate it.

John

Right, and I think a lot of that stems back to the idea of our concept of what love actually is. Because we think of love as this warm, ooey gooey feeling, and once it’s gone, it’s over. Uh, and yet, when you think about the idea of love that God stresses, it’s a love that is learned. And it’s a love that is active, and it also is a will of the mind.

Uh, meaning that we’re talking about falling out of love. Well, it’s not that you fell out of love. It’s just that your warm feeling went away. Now you have to really learn how to work through it. And so, as Barry mentioned, Jesus is going to talk about whoever divorces his wife for any reason, except for that sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery.

And that’s because of that betrayal, because in that moment, that relationship, that covenant that was made has been broken. That trust is gone.

Barry

You know, I think it’s interesting because you see. God and the metaphor that he uses for him and his people in the Old Testament over and over again. You think about the prophet Hosea, you think about Jeremiah.

They were unfaithful to me. You know, he uses that idea of when his people betray him, it’s much like a spouse that commits adultery on the other one. You know, and it’s to show us God’s heartbreak in our relationship. And I think that’s why we should realize this issue is important to God. A lot of people might make the mistake and say, well, God doesn’t really care, you know, God wants you to love whoever you love, you know.

No, God is expecting you to be faithful. That’s God’s line for us. And He expects us not just to be faithful to Him, but to others as well. And when we’re unfaithful, To others, it’s a reflection of our unfaithfulness to Him. You know, I said that earlier in the introduction about the divorce rate. You know, what they, what, the reason it’s not 50 percent is because people who get divorced once are more likely to do it two and three times.

In fact, every time you get divorced, it’s, it’s more likely to happen the next time. Because once you prove to be unfaithful, you’ll be unfaithful more.

And that skews the numbers. And I think that’s what Jesus is saying here with this, this commitment we have to have. You see that in Malachi. God compares the same thing when God, when He says God hates divorce, it’s because He said, If you do this to the person you love, what are you going to do to me?

You know, you do this to your spouse, what, are you going to abandon me when something else comes along? And that’s exactly why it’s such an important issue, I think, to Jesus in here, and why He’s so strong and what He teaches.

John

And, you know, when you think about marriage, marriage is a privilege. Uh, it’s not a right.

Uh, it is. Uh, not something that’s necessary for happiness, although we think it is. That’s why we do have that rampant divorce and remarriage in our society. Because we think, well, the next one will make me happy. The next one will make me happy. And yet, Jesus, here speaking about this idea of divorce, makes it very clear that when it comes down to it, as has already been mentioned, there is but one reason.

Uh, that you could divorce, and you don’t have to, actually, right?

Barry

Yeah, and, yeah, and I think that’s what he’s saying there, you know, because we see that with, with a God. If God abandoned us when we abandoned Him, we’d, we’d be, so there is a, there’s a precedent there. And I think it even speaks, you know, when we, you look at this in the bigger context of passage, every one of these passages we see Jesus saying, you’ve heard it said this, but I’ll tell you something, we’re a higher standard, and they’re all related to the heart.

And I think that’s what, it’s so important, because, you know, You know, we think of marriage as being an affair of the heart, right? You know, it’s a heart matter. But, our hearts are,  we tell them what to do, in essence.  And when we, we allow our, you know, our emotions to guide us, they don’t always lead us to the right place.

And that was what he was talking about with adultery. You know, if we let our eyes  drive us, then they drive us to the wrong place. There’s a time where you have to cut that off.  I think it even comes the same way with marriage. There’s a point where you have to say, I have to do this thing to make my marriage work.

And that’s where I think a lot of people make the mistake and they think of, there’s an Easy Exit?. It’s divorce. Let’s take that easy exit. And it’s a, it’s an exit. It’s a place that you don’t want to go into, because it leads you to a lot of bad, it limits your life in the future because you’re not going to have that option to just remarry again without causing an adulterous relationship.

John

Absolutely. And that’s (Matthew 5:32  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.)

what Jesus actually says here. He talks about, Uh, if you divorce for any reason except for sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery. Which that’s actually an interesting phrase which we don’t have a lot of time to get into today but we will eventually in another video. But the point though is this, he says whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

And so when it comes down to it. The idea of adultery, the idea of divorce, all boils back down to the heart, the mind. And because we have such a small view of what marriage actually is, most everybody that has ever been married has always made a promise, till death do us part.  And we wonder, does that mean anything today, or is that just something that we say?

Barry

Yeah, and you know you think about the rest of the vows you talk about in sickness and health and prosperity and They’ve gone, you know by the wayside because we think well, you know As long as it’s it’s not convenient for me get rid of it and we have to realize that (
God’s Higher Standard)God has a higher standard That higher standard is important and you know, it’s not just in this issue, but in every issue we must look at that higher standard that God gives us.

There’s a lot more things you can, we can learn and talk about this and I’m sure we’re gonna get, we have some resources that you can look at, some other videos that might be helpful if you have some questions or some, uh, some things that you want to learn more about this and we want to encourage you to click on those links and we also want to hear from you and there’s a lot of ways that we can do that. There’s our contacts page where you can go to our page, hit the contacts list, give us your information. Or if you have any questions or comments or something that you’d like us to discuss, there’s a phone number that’s there.

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Thank you for joining with us and God bless.