Sermon Tone Analysis

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Introduction

Good morning and welcome to FCC, where we worship God in Spirit and in Truth, on verse at a time, one Book at a time.

Praise God for the beautiful fall weather and the amazing colors in the trees that we are surrounded by.

The Lord is so, so good!

Amen!

He created all of this for us to enjoy!

So let’s enjoy the Word let’s open our Bibles to Matthew 5:31-32.

Read Matthew 5:31-32

Prayer

Lord Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word and how it gives us everything that pertains to life and godliness.

Lord as we approach a difficult and even painful subject for some of us here today and listening online, we would ask for grace upon grace to see us through this text.

We ask for those of us that have been divorced that you would bring healing and freedom and that all the marriages represented here would thrive.

And Lord when we finish with these verses, may we understand clearly what you teach on divorce and also help us to protect the sacredness of the marriage covenant.

Fill us with your Spirit and lead, guide, and direct us now.

In Jesus Name!

We Love you!

Amen! Amen!

Review

We are in the heart of the Sermon of the Mount which is not for the faint of heart church!

There are only two things that happen with the Word :

For you will either yes and amen the text and seek to apply it into your lives.

Or your will reject it or pick and chose what is palatable to you!

If your in the second category, I must let you know that the Word of God is not a Chinese buffet where you pick and chose what you want, but rather like a gourmet meal that has everything for life and godliness in it.

So this sermon, the best sermon ever preached by the greatest teacher/ preacher that ever lived is for those that are disciples of His, men and women who seek to please God in Word, thought, motive, and deed...

Last week we finished up verses 27-30 and we learned that if we struggle with a pet sin like lust, anger, addictions, coveting, spending or eat too much, and list the list goes on that we must eradicate the sin out of our lives as Jesus taught.

He said if your right eye and hand cause you to sin, pluck it out or cut it off.

Jesus said do something radical and we shared that there are three things we must do to deal with our pet sins:

Confess your sin to God!

Repent!

If you have tried this and are still struggling with a certain sin or pet sin, then invite someone into the situation to help hold you acceptable.

Because if true repentance is not there, you will go right back to what you know.

So we come to our text for today and as we read we see it is on divorce.

But what I must share with you first is that the word furthermore is not in the original manuscripts, but added later on only in the NKJV.

However, I like it here because furthermore means:

Furthermore- adverb- in addition; more importantly, besides (used to introduce a fresh consideration in an argument).

Although it is not in the original and in some of your translations, I think it helps the reader understand that what Jesus is saying here is a continuation of what Jesus said in the previous verses.

Here Jesus begins to give his listeners an example of causing someone to commit adultery and violate the 7th commandment which is thou shall not commit adultery.

It is important for us to remember that all six of this illustrations that Jesus is going to give us over the next few weeks that we cannot keep them apart from His enabling grace.

Nor in our flesh, but in the Spirit!!

So why is Jesus bringing up divorce?

It is because he was confronting an issue of the day.

If you think we have a lot of divorces, the Jews of the day had many, in fact too many, so Jesus corrected the misinterpretation of God’s law on divorce.

But before we go there, I wanted to share a few statistics on divorce:

Co-habitors in general have a 50-80% higher likelihood of divorce after marriage than non cohabiters.

Only 36% of college graduates who marry will ever divorce.

Coming from an intact family reduces divorce risk by 14%.

Having an overall annual household income of $50k means a 30% lower divorce risk.

Those with a strong common faith have a 35% lower risk of divorce.

Couples who attend church weekly are 47% less likely to divorce.

However, divorce rates among nominal Christians are equal to the general population.

Having one’s first child after marriage reduces divorce risk by a range of 24% – 66%.

Marriages in which the wife wants children, but the husband does not face a 50% higher risk of divorce.

Marriages with a significant age difference between partners – particularly younger husband or much older husband – have nearly a 50% greater likelihood of divorce than those of similar ages.

The more time people marry the higher the divorce rate goes.

12.  Almost 50 percent of all marriages in the United States will end in divorce or separation.

13.

Researchers estimate that 41 percent of all first marriages end in divorce.

14.  60 percent of second marriages end in divorce.

15.  73 percent of all third marriages end in divorce.

16.

The United States has the 6th highest divorce rate in the world.

17.

Every 42 seconds, there is one divorce in America, That equates to 86 divorces per hour, 2,046 divorces per day, 14,364 divorces per week, and 746,971 divorces per year

18.

Every 16 seconds, there is a marriage in the U.S.  That equates to 230 marriages per hour, 38,762 marriages per week and 2,015,603 per year.

19.

There are nearly 3 divorces in the time it takes for a couple to recite their wedding vows (2 minutes).

20.

430 divorces happen during the average wedding reception (5 hours).

21.

Over a 40 year period, 67 percent of first marriages terminate.

However, I would like to lay to rest the myth that there are as many divorces in the church as in the world, this is not true.

So while the 40-50% projected rate of divorce risk is true and reliable, there are important personal characteristics that put everyone at different risk, for good and bad.

Those with a number of these positive factors in their corner can be expected to have an overall divorce risk of zero!

That is very good news indeed

Church, it is clear that divorce is a problem in the US and the problem is sin.

Divorce happens church because of sin and Jesus here is teaching his readers that the teaching the heard was not completely true.

Here again, we see Jesus saying this what you heard, but this is what I tell you which is the whole truth and nothing but the truth...

Where did Jesus get this from??

The Rabbis had taken the liberty to draw from:

Church the Pharisees were basically divided into two camps: the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel.

Those who followed Shammai were very conservative, saying that on the basis of this text, divorce could be granted only in the case of uncleanness, which they interpreted to be sexual immorality or adultery.

The followers of Hillel were very liberal, saying uncleanness is much broader than simply adultery or immorality.

If a woman, for example, she put too much salt and pepper on her husband’s eggs, which made him lose his temper, she had made him sin, and therefore was unclean—a legitimate reason for divorce.

Or, if a man saw a woman who was more righteous or virtuous than his wife, he had the right to divorce her because she was now unclean by comparison.

The followers of Shammai said a written bill of divorce must be given.

The followers of Hillel said all that was required was for the husband to look at his wife and say, “I divorce you,” three times.

Consequently, not unlike today, divorce was occurring for the most frivolous reasons.

Latter in Matthew, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees on divorce, let’s pick up iN Matthew 19:1-5

Note you can see that the Pharisees utilizing Rabbi Hillel’s interpretation of Deut 24.

Two quick observations of this text:

God created marriage and in His Holy and Sacred Word he says that marriage church is between a man and a woman.

Not man to man, or woman to woman.

Notice that the Word (Jesus) interprets the Word.

Moses permitted divorce in Deut 24, he did not command divorce church.

And he only did this because of the hardness of the Israelites hearts.

Hardness of Heart- sklērokardia (sklay-rok-ar-dee'-ah)- hard-heartedness, i.e. (specially), destitution of (spiritual) perception:—hardness of heart.

Stubborn, dry, inflexible, rigid, stiff-necked.

If this is in a marriage, mercy, grace, love and forgiveness is not.

In fact, if this is not dealt with, divorce is sure to come...

The phrase because of the hardness of your heart underscores the truth that divorce is only a last resort response to hard-hearted sexual immorality… Porneia