The Truth of the Matter - Dealing with Divorce

Introduction

Today, we are going to be continuing our study in the Gospel of Matthew and we are going to be picking up here in Matthew Chapter 19. Today, we are going to read down through Verse 12 at a message I’ve entitled “The Truth of the Matter is...- A Lesson on Dealing with Divorce.”

Now, I want to begin this morning by simply saying that the subject of divorce is always a touchy subject and one that is not often spoken upon in the Church today which could be the reason that it is so rampant in our society.

With that being said, there are grounds for Biblical divorce and my goal today is to lay those out before you to show you what God’s Word says about it.

If it was an important enough issue for Christ to deal with it publicly, then it must be important enough that we need to discuss it as well, Amen.

Now, before we get into the message, I want to set the stage for you really quickly.

For the last two chapters now, Jesus has been teaching the disciples in more of a private setting. The last time we seen the Pharisees was the beginning of Chapter 16 if you will remember when they asked Jesus for a sign from heaven.

Since then, Jesus has been transfigured before Peter, James and John. Healed the young kid taken by a demon, foretold of the Church, taught His disciples about priority and forgiveness and Church discipline.

The last few chapters were important teaching moments in the lives of the disciples!

But now, it’s back to reality and the first thing we see are these pesky Pharisees again.

I can only imagine that Jesus didn’t miss their questioning while He’d been away teaching privately.

But, never-the-less, He used the moment to seize the opportunity to set the record straight on a subject that had been misconstrued, taken out of context and flippantly disobeyed.

So, with no further ado, let’s take a look here at Matthew 19:1-12. If you have it, would you say, Amen.

The Query — (Vs. 1-3)

In order to understand the scene taking place here we need some understanding of the day and time in which this was taking place.

For help with that, we’re going to look at what John Phillips says about the situation.

Among the Jews, two voices were raised to interpret the Mosaic teaching on divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1): the voices of Shammai and Hillel. The school of Shammai heeded the prophet Malachi, who recorded God's voice ringing down the centuries, "I hate divorce."

Hillel's school, on the other hand, was liberal in the extreme, teaching that a man could divorce his wife for almost anything he found displeasing in her, while a woman had no rights at all. Jewish divorce laws, according to this interpretation, were one-sided and chauvinistic.

The Greeks expected a respectable woman to live in seclusion and never to appear on the streets unchaperoned or take part in social life. A Greek man demanded absolute moral purity in his wife, but he granted himself the utmost license to be as immoral as he pleased. He saw nothing wrong with visiting houses of ill-repute, nothing wrong with the employment of a thousand harlots as priestesses in the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth. If he wanted to divorce his wife for any reason, he simply had to dismiss her in the presence of a couple of witnesses and return her dowry.

The Romans started well. Their religion and society were originally founded on the home and the authority of the father in the home. For five centuries divorce was virtually unknown and harlots were viewed with contempt. Then Rome conquered Greece militarily, and Greece avenged herself by conquering Rome morally. Rome plunged into the quagmire of Greek moral pollution. The historian Lecky wrote of the "frantic depravity" that followed Roman contact with Greece. Among the Romans, marriage became "nothing more than an unfortunate necessity."

Sounds to me like the world in which they lived was much like our own does it not?

But you have two different factions here with two different Jewish views on divorce and they bring the matter to Jesus to get His opinion but don’t miss the hidden agenda here behind the questioning.

“They came unto Him, tempting Him.”

The word “tempting” here means “to test.” The Pharisees were testing Jesus.

Listen, can I ask you something this morning…how much sense does it make to test tester?

I mean, you’re trying to test the one who has all the answers?

I mean like, what outcome were they expecting to get from this query, ya know?

They ought to have known it wasn’t going to end well for them. Every time before they had tried to do this same thing it didn’t end well so what in the world made them think this time was going to be any different!

Nevertheless, they tested Jesus with a question about divorce...

“Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?”

Ya know, I feel sorry for the women of this day and time. They were treated like possessions instead of people. And from the question posed, it seems as if the men held the upper hand but it wasn’t meant to be that way from the beginning.

It was meant to be a partnership through a covenantal relationship which is what Jesus lets them know here in the next Verse.

Look with me at the Response of Jesus.

The Response — (Vs. 4-6)

“Have ye not read?”

Jesus don’t wait until the end for the knock-out punch, He begins with it!

Now, think about who He’s talking to here. He’s talking to the pious Pharisees right?

Those who pride themselves on knowing the law inside and out. Those who strive to live according to the law in all that they do!

And Jesus says here, “have you not read?”

“Do you not know the Word of God?”

I would have loved to be a bystander here to see their response wouldn’t you?

Now, I want you to see the significance here in Jesus response because He switches the question to get to the root of the issue.

The issue wasn’t divorce, the main issue was the marriage covenant. That’s the point He’s getting at here.

Matthew 19:4–6 KJV 1900

4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

If you’re not real careful here you’ll miss what Jesus is doing just like the Pharisees do.

Who were these 3 verses all about?

They were about God!

Who instituted marriage?

Who created the marriage covenant?

God did, Amen!

Marriage wasn’t man’s idea. It was God’s.

And so, if God instituted marriage and God created the marriage covenant, then who is man to disannul that sacred covenant?

Tony Evans — When someone goes before the judge downtown rather than the Judge uptown, they are giving the earthly judge the power to overrule God — yet God does not accept being overruled by man.

Listen, marriage is something that should be bathed in prayer, according to God’s will, according to God’s word, and approved of by God.

And when it is all of these things, it’s sure to be right, Amen!

Too many times today though, we flippantly act on feelings or emotions here below instead of seeking to ensure the marriage is sanctioned from above!

And when you take something that was sanctioned by God out of the hands of God, then you can only assume that the outcome will be an ungodly one, Amen!

They bring to Jesus divorce, He takes them back to marriage!

This answer wasn’t enough for them though. They try to take the heavenly and make it earthly as we often times do.

Notice their rebuttal.

The Rebuttal — (Vs. 7)

What the Pharisees were referring to here was...

Deuteronomy 24:1–2 KJV 1900

1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.

The reality of the situation though was that Moses gave this law as a protection for women so that they could be free from the bonds of marriage should their husbands put them away and then they could be married again.

But the point they were missing here is the fact that the only reason Moses even gave this as an option is because it was the lesser of two evils.

If there hadn’t of been an option for divorce then chances are men would have done 1 of 2 things…they wouldn’t have married at all and would have just had live-in’s which is the sin of fornication or they might have even went to the extreme of murdering their wives just to break the covenant of marriage.

With these two options in mind, divorce was a much better option.

But even then, it was to be done legally and publicly. A man had to give his wife a bill of divorcement which could only be obtained by bringing the matter before judge and making it public.

So, here they are and they think they have Jesus because of the law but then Jesus puts an end to it really quick with His next statement.

The Quelling — (Vs. 8-9)

“Moses because of the hardness of “your” hearts (suffered — allowed, permitted) you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”

Now, I want to point something out here.

They said that Moses “commanded” to give a writing of divorcement but Jesus says Moses “allowed” them a writing of divorcement.

Bro. Bobby what exactly are you saying here?

The Pharisees were trying to twist the word.

Divorce, even in Moses day, was the least favorite option. It was to be a last resort.

When all else failed and where reconciliation was not an option, then and only then should divorce be a viable option.

It was not ever intended to be the first option which is what it had become.

And Jesus tells them here that because of the hardness of their own hearts, was the only reason divorce even became an option.

“From the beginning it was not so!”

That means that God never intended on divorce to be an option.

If you look in Malachi 2:14-16

Malachi 2:14–16 NLT

14 You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. 15 Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. 16 “For I hate divorce!” says the Lord, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”

Marriages were originally intended to last forever.

Do you know when the first marriage took place?

In Genesis Chapter 2.

Do you know what took place in Genesis Chapter 3?

The fall of man.

This was the greatest divorce the world has ever seen. When man decided to step out on God.

He commited adultery with the world and a divorce was the outcome.

Genesis 2:17 KJV 1900

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Notice what God said here… “in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die!”

Did Adam and Even die right away?

No. But what did die?

The covenant did. The marriage covenant between Adam, Eve and God was annulled because Adam and Eve committed adultery with the world.

Man was cast out of the garden of Eden, death was instituted, and man has been falling ever since!

God’s original plan was a perfect union, a symbiotic relationship that was threefold…man, woman, God!

But when man stepped out on God that relationship was broken and it’s been broken ever since.

And the only way to restore that broken relationship is through God’s only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I’m here to tell you this morning that the only way you’re going to keep your marriage together and healthy is also through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Marriage isn’t easy. It takes time, it takes effort, and most importantly it takes God!

Jesus says, “from the beginning it was not so.”

And then He says, “and I say unto you”…one writer pointed out that in this very moment Christ was declaring Himself God because only God can institute a law.

“I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doeth commit adultery.”

Explain

Now, Paul adds to this is in...

1 Corinthians 7:10–15 KJV 1900

10 And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: 11 But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife. 12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. 13 And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. 15 But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.

The Instruction — (Vs. 10-12)

The Conclusion

Well, preacher I’ve been divorced and remarried, and some maybe even multiple times, what am I supposed to do?

Am I to go and get divorced from my now spouse?

Listen, you can’t undo something that’s already been done and if you did so, you would actually be causing more harm than good!

I would simply point you to the woman at the well in John Chapter 4. Here was a woman who had 5 husbands and the one she was now with wasn’t her husband. Jesus did not condemn her. But what He did do was change her life forever and I’d dare say she never had another one!

When the Pharisees brought the woman who was caught in an act of adultery before Jesus, what did He do and say to her?

He asked for whoever who had not sinned to cast the first stone and they all had sinned so they all left, right?

Then, He said to the woman, “where are thine accusers?”

“There are none Lord,” was her reply.

“Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more!”

Listen friend, we’ve all made mistakes and come short of the glory of God in our past.

The key is not to make the same mistake again.

If you divorced and remarried save for the sake of fornication on your spouses part, I would simply say talk to God about it and seek His wisdom on your situation.

If you feel convicted that you need to ask for forgiveness, simply ask Him for it!

He is kind, loving, gracious, and merciful God who’s mercies are new every morning and at the end of the day there is only one sin that is unforgivable and that is the sin of unbelief.

Short of that, the Bible says if we will confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness!